553: Scaling Your Business with Randy Shaw
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Welcome to the How of Business with your host, Henry Lopez, the podcast that helps you start, run, and grow your small business. And now, here is your host. Welcome to this episode of the How of Business. This is Henry Lopez, and my guest today is Randy Shaw. Randy, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Henry. Glad to be here. Randy is with me today to share highlights from his very successful entrepreneurial journey, how he got to where he is today, and then how he has scaled the current business that he's focused on, BrightSight. We're going to explore what that business is a little bit and his recommendations, tips, insights on how to grow a small business.

You can find all of the Howa Business resources, including the show notes page for this episode, and learn more about my coaching programs by visiting thehowabusiness.com. I also invite you to please consider supporting this podcast through Patreon. And wherever you might be listening, please subscribe so you don't miss any new episodes.

So let me tell you briefly about Randy and then we'll get to learn more about him. Randy Shaw is a 25-year veteran, industry veteran in technology design and consulting for real estate and the design and construction industry. Randy currently leads sales, the sales efforts at BrightSight and BrightSight designs, procures and manages workplace technologies alongside with your design and construction experts.

And we'll dive into a little bit more about what that means. Randy lives where I used to live in the Dallas Fort Worth area. And so once again, Randy Shaw, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Henry. This is a great concept. I love the idea of sharing thoughts and lessons learned from other entrepreneurs and happy to contribute my part. Thank you. Thank you for doing so. Thank you for being willing to give back and share your experiences because that's how we all learn, not only to get the inspiration and courage to move forward if we're planning to start a business, but to learn that you had to go through some struggles and some challenges as well to get to where you are.

Absolutely. I think any entrepreneur who tells you otherwise may be fibbing a little bit. That's right. You know, and also, I think one of the reasons I started this podcast, Randy, is that, you know, I'm a big reader of books about business people and biographies and, of course, periodicals. And we read about all the success stories that seemingly happen overnight. But the truth is very different. And that doesn't get as publicized, right?

Absolutely. Right. How many cliches are there about the iceberg image, right? Or the duck on the surface. Everyone only sees the successes on display, rarely see the moments behind the curtain. That's right. That's right. I do want to take a quick moment to thank Lissette Garcia. Lissette is the one that connected with me with you. So thank you so much, Lissette. And I don't know if you knew this, but Lissette is my cousin. So we've known each other our entire lives. But

But she does great work in the area of marketing and PR. And so I thank you, Lisette, for connecting me with Randy. All right, let's start a little bit at the beginning. You studied, if I got it right, I think from your LinkedIn profile, psychology and pre-med at Yale University. I did. I was definitely on the medical track. I was going to be a surgeon.

Kind of a funny story whenever people ask me to kind of summarize that period of my life. It was actually, I'd gone through all of the pre-med requirements, took the MCAT, got into medical school, but it was actually some surgeons at a few internships I did in New York and London that gave me some data about the life of a doctor that

ultimately dissuaded me from pursuing it. Interesting. Interesting. And it was just the return on investment kind of side of the equation or the lifestyle or all of that, that just didn't connect with you at that point in time.

Mostly it was the return on investment. They were really the last generation of doctors where the extreme sacrifices that a human makes to become a doctor paid off. Especially a surgeon. Absolutely. You could practice medicine for 15 or 20 years and then be either fully or semi-retired. But now the skyrocketing cost of medical school combined with the skyrocketing cost of malpractice insurance and the cost of

practicing medicine, you got to work longer to make less, see more patients to make less that the brutal requirements and path when I crunched it all into the numbers and the equations. I think one doctor told me, hey, if you love medicine 100%, do it.

I calculated I loved it about 85% and came to that conclusion. That's probably a theme from me as an entrepreneur and probably many of your other guests is about following your passion, right? Agreed, agreed. So then what was getting your attention? What did you decide, I'm going to go do this instead? Well, I had the privilege of actually playing professional soccer for a couple of years overseas and domestically.

And then my first corporate job has an interesting story that really made an imprint of why I wanted to become an entrepreneur. So I worked for a Fortune 500, a subsidiary of a Fortune 500, and a decision was made to spin off all the subsidiaries and sell those, right? A decision made very up high, a strategic one. And so I helped the executive committee divest that company and sell it.

and then watched it be acquired by its biggest competitor, and then not watch that competitor take any of the best practices leading to superior market share or return, but just buy a name and kill it off, and just watch the lives that get impacted by decisions made several rungs above them. And I just thought,

I don't really want to drive this boat of life without my hand on the rudder. And just thought, I'd rather wake up with the pressure of making it on my own every day versus having that decision made by someone else. Yeah. Okay. So how long were you in the corporate world then when you, before you lead to starting your first business?

So I probably spent a good 15 years. So I was fortunate that fortune 500 company that I ended up at three different small companies and small by defined as under 25 employees. Okay. And small companies. Yeah. And then really helped them grow, diversify and grow. So I really fell into a niche as a growth engine person for companies and owners. What roles were you in?

Primarily sales, but sometimes operations, sometimes marketing. But always whatever I was kind of point pointed at and shot at whatever bottleneck needed to be fixed to grow the company. And what that afforded me, Henry, which is wonderful, was basically a front row seat into watching owners grow.

And how they decide to grow businesses, the risks they take, the calculations they make or don't make, the hunches they do versus data-backed decisions. And I got a front row seat into a lot of lessons learned. And I just kind of cherry-picked my own formula of what I liked that would work until it was my turn.

The fact that you were out there in the front lines, if you will, on those bottlenecks, those limiting factors, whatever you want to call it, that really exposed you to, like you said, those hard decisions that have to be made that the survivability of a business depends on. So an incredible lesson and opportunity to learn there, like you said, as to what those are.

Oh, for sure. And I think as a reader too, as you are, it's great to watch what you read in theory and then watch what gets executed or practice in reality. That is like a two-dimensional learning experience that you can piece together. I got to think then one of your strengths has got to be critical thinking skills, problem solving skills. Is that fair? Yes. Yeah.

borderline overthinker. So I've got to watch that now that I'm overanalyzing or okay. For sure. Yeah. Now that you, now that I run a company, you've got to learn, you know, the law of diminishing returns, right? And you've got to learn that there's going to be a certain point where no more data is going to improve the scenario planning or decision you make for an outcome so that, you know, that's where all that reading helps you, right? Cause otherwise you'd, you'd fall into your own tendencies and comfort level and

And, you know, there's other cliches, I'm sure other maybe more creative, daring entrepreneurs that have been on your show have probably extolled of, hey, it's better to start now and learn later than wait for the perfect timing. You know, there's a lot of anecdotes about, you know, throwing caution to the wind and going. Yeah. Start fast, fail fast, all that kind of stuff. Exactly. I tend to come more from the other side of don't overthink it. Don't try to map out every scenario that could happen.

Just get in there and then pivot from the decision tree and trust your instincts and the things you've learned. But you do believe that you do have to do some level of analysis, some level of planning nonetheless. Is that fair? Absolutely. I think anyone, that'd be a huge recommendation is scenario planning. I really live off of a bookends kind of approach.

you know, theme there, which is let's, let's scenario plan our best outcome. Let's scenario plan our worst outcome. If we can live with anything in between that, then we can go. And then we'll just pivot from there towards the best end of the spectrum. Yeah. Great takeaways there, especially that that's how I help. Sometimes people decide, well,

to move forward with starting a business, particularly their first business, which is it, what is that worst case scenario look like? If it means you're going to lose your house and the kids don't go to college, well, we probably need to adjust that plan, right?

Oh, yeah. That'll help with your go, no go. Exactly. But I want to come back to this point because it's so fascinating to me. I also have the tendency to overanalyze. That's one of the ways I've used my partners, in particular, David Begin, who I've partnered with often. He's more of a fire first, aim later. And so we balance each other. And I've had this conversation many times because it's so compelling to me. How do you determine I've done enough analysis? Yeah.

Normally, when the variance between the scenarios I'm planning start to get indistinguishable, right? The variance is so small that it won't move the needle one way or the other. And then the cost of delay is greater than the variance of that outcome. Okay, right. That makes sense. Okay, so what was the first business you started in?

So BrightSight is the first largest one that, and it is five years old now. Interesting. And I hope you're comfortable talking about this, but you right now take on the position of sales leadership, but you were a founder as well. Is that true? Yeah, I am the founder and I took on two business partners to help,

scale that. It was a classic for anyone who's seen, you know, the social network, the Mark Zuckerberg biography is, you know,

I'd rather have less than 100% of something much larger than 100% of something smaller. And so finding partners that compliment me and give me the resources and skills I need to scale towards our goals was what I decided. And it was absolutely the best decision. We're already in six US locations and one in Europe in just five years and have spent more years in COVID than not. So

Definitely a good decision when I look back on it. Yeah, yeah. And you, one of your superpowers obviously is the communication side of it, the sales side of it. And that's where you feel you can help best right now in your role at this business. Yeah, definitely. My superpower is the sales side, my psychology background. I think you'll hear that thematically today when I talk about

advice for entrepreneurs played a role in that. But honestly, if you're just empathetic and always have your customer in mind, you'll win more than you lose. And we'll probably get into that a little bit later. But I do definitely spearhead all of our growth. I've opened every market personally that we've scaled into from the sales perspective. That's wonderful.

Looking back on it, do you think you would have liked to have gone into business ownership earlier? Or was it just right for you? Tell me about that. Yeah, great question. Obviously, whenever you do something and it goes well, you naturally ask that question of, oh, should I have done it earlier? Personally, I don't think so. I just feel like the amount of time and knowledge I gained in that front row seat growing others

was perfect. This is probably similar to some of your other entrepreneurs, and I hope this will resonate for those considering it. You're probably more ready now than you think you are. So looking back, I probably could have done it five years earlier, but you've got to do it when you're ready. And then also personally with my kids, my youngest was old enough to where I was in that phase of life that

pouring myself into this didn't come at a high cost on the family front. So there's a lot of things that are going to matter to each personal entrepreneur on their timing. But for me, I really wouldn't change it. Yeah, no, thanks. Thanks for sharing that. Did you have entrepreneurial influences, people around you that had their own businesses growing up? No, most of my people were, most of my relatives and friends were, you know,

lower middle level of big company. I will share, I grew up in Rochester, New York, which for those history buffs, you know, Kodak was really a big staple. I would say one in three dads that I know worked there. And I never really liked the ebb and flow of the mood of

your whole community based on layoffs at Kodak. So I think that theme is now the second time I've mentioned, I really am not a big believer in leaving my fate in somebody else's hands. Yeah. And I think that's probably a strong trait of a lot of entrepreneurs. Agreed. And that has to have been one of those seeds that was in you as to, you were always suspect of that because you had seen what it can do or that, you know, the not so,

positive, the not so, you know, safety of that perceived safety net of working for somebody else. Correct. Nonetheless, I got to imagine it was a, maybe not for you, but certainly for your family, here you were, you were going to be a surgeon for goodness sakes, and then complete left turn there and went into corporate world. How did, how did you and your family deal with that? Was there, was there pushback on that? I'm curious.

Well, my mom originally wanted me to be a Supreme Court justice. Oh, I see. By being a surgeon. But, you know, I would joke with her that, you know, hopefully having a son who graduated from Yale and played professional sports, I'd check the boxes to get the pride from the parental units. But, you know, I think...

At the end of the day, also, you know, entrepreneurship, we talked about putting your fate in other people's hands. I also think, you know, one of my core values is passion and you got to be doing what you love and watching people work lower middle tier at huge companies that they didn't love was something I really didn't

find appealing. And so I've always been a person of, I want to, if I really want to do be great at something, I'm going to do something I love. And so I think they're always supportive that if I did something I loved, since I love the process of working hard, obviously with my academic and athletic accomplishments that I'd probably be successful at it if I loved it. And so they supported that. Yeah, that's wonderful. That's fantastic. For, are your kids at college age yet?

Yeah. So my oldest is now a year in the real world. She graduated, uh, shout out to her. She graduated, you know, three years with a 4.0 and has a big management consulting job. So very driven kid, you know, classic first child. Right. Um,

kind of persona. And then my middle one is a sophomore at the university of Arkansas. And my youngest is a sophomore in high school. So they're all, he's getting his driver's license next week. So they're all, you know, kind of becoming self-sufficient and I, I play a role of cheerleader and underwriter mostly. That's wonderful. How do you reconcile when you I'm suspecting tell them, I want you to focus on doing what you're passionate about, but you,

making sure that you can make a living at that passion? Oh, man, that is one of my favorite parenting topics, to be honest. So, you know, you already said my company is a consulting firm. So I'm actually I'm a consultant by nature. And that's really my persona as a parent. I'm really not dogmatic and authoritarian. I'm very consultative. I inform them. I give them data.

And let them make informed choices, but always counseling the ramifications of such, right? So, you know, you take from books and things like, you know, if you play now, you have to work hard later. If you work hard now, you get to play later. And then I always warn them, you know, the lifestyle we live now wasn't the lifestyle we lived when you were two years old. They don't know that, right? So when you're growing companies or climbing the corporate ladder, you have a different

more economic status than you do today. And so it's fun to educate them on, you're not going to get it for free. It's not going to come easy. You know, find your happy, but realize honoring the struggle and falling in love with the process of working hard is probably how you're going to have to get there no matter what you pick. Yeah. Well said. Well said. All right. Tell us, give us a little bit more about what is BrightSight. What do you all do? Who are your clients? Yeah, of course. So

The simplest way to explain BrightSight for anyone listening and even my family, 10 years later, simplify it. But any building you walk into, a sports stadium, a hospital, an office building, you know it's got sticks and bricks that were built and designed by an architect. Everybody knows that.

Well, we're the architect for all of the digital technology in those buildings that you interact with and pieces you don't even interact with. So think security cameras and card readers.

turnstiles and gates. Think about all the Wi-Fi, all those beautiful scoreboards or beautiful screens, the audio visual, the sound, all the wired and wireless connections that allow you to use your phone and connect and all of those things that bring a building to life. We are the designer of those systems for customers.

And then we design it and then we procure it in a competitive process to save them money and bring on the best partners. And then we manage those partners. So we're a third party kind of client advocate on this very confusing, ever-changing landscape of technology. And so you're in that capacity working with the engineers and architects for including, because you're the specialist in that particular area of it, yes? That's correct. So, you know,

Most of our customers are, you know, a lot of the Fortune 500 and their offices and campuses, but it's also small and medium businesses in certain markets. It's also sports stadiums and hospitals. Yes. So those end users tend to hire developers, architects, engineers, general contractors to design and build it. We're just one of those team members.

Do you then need to get brought in by the end client, the owner of the property usually, or do you have architects and others and contractors that bring you in?

We heavily rely on the channel. And the channel for us is architects, project management firms, general contractors. It's very rare for me to cold call a Fortune 500 company like Coca-Cola or Walmart and say, hey, I'd like to build your technology in your buildings. We're typically brought in because they've hired...

you know, a really large PM firm or architect firm. And those firms know us, like us, trust us. This is Henry Lopez with a brief break from this episode to tell you about our sponsor and friends at Federated Computer who are changing the way businesses buy software. We all need software to run our business, but the best business software doesn't have to cost thousands of dollars each month.

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This is the tricky thing with your sale is it's not a direct to the consumer. They don't know they need this. It's a channel sale into your working through the architects and contractors that bring you in on these projects. Am I getting it right? Absolutely. We are B2B and very often customers...

have never used a service like ours. They've delivered it another way. So there's an educational portion to our sales effort. And so you've mentioned, you know, like sporting venues and so forth. So the ideal project are those that have those higher levels of complexity or need for the technology side of things.

I think my answer is probably common with other business owners is everybody loves the big stadium, condo tower, office building, but those are fewer and far between than the everyday singles you can hit, right? Moving a 15,000 foot law firm from one building to another building. So for every one stadium you win, you're doing 60 of those smaller,

corporate clients that are just moving from A to B with their office. Got it. So love them all. Yeah, absolutely. And it's not just, of course, you have this, it's almost like this is becoming, if we make the analogy back to medicine, the specialization in medicine, right?

So you are the specialist here in this area that certainly an architect designer could do themselves, but you're bringing that next level of expertise and then the negotiating on the sourcing of it as well, if I got that right.

Yeah, that's probably one of the most fun things about what we do as a business. I always equate it to if you were to watch a YouTube video of an adult holding a donut in front of a child for the first time who's never had a donut.

And they're looking at it very skeptically and they're not sure they want to take a bite. And the adult says, no, trust me, you're going to love it. And then the child takes that first bite and then their eyes light up and they think this is the greatest thing. Where's this been my whole life? That's really what I get to do on a daily basis with BrightSight. I get in front of these customers or architects or PMs and say, I know how you've been doing it.

But can I just show you the bright side way, how much easier we're going to make your life, how much better the project outcome? And they they're a little skeptical. But then once they bite it, their eyes light up and then they just use us repeatedly for projects ongoing. And that is my joy is is converting them from that skeptic to believer to eventually a champion who then, you know, refers us around to other people.

So how did you end up in this segment? The companies you had worked for, were they in the construction industry, I'm assuming, in real estate industry? I have helped two other owners of this exact type of company grow. And so, you know, what finally came about and probably many of your previous speakers have said the same is,

You just get enough feedback from a lot of customers and channel partners who say, hey, we really like you. We like your belief system. We like what you're about. We like how you go about your business. We like how you make everybody feel in that. We like the outcomes you get. You know, if you ever did this on your own, you would be who we'd want to work with. Well, you know, I guess I heard that just enough times.

Right. To give you the confidence. And I know that was something you brought up is the entrepreneur who finally has the confidence to go out and do that. And I guess I heard it just enough times and things lined up just right in my life that it was time to make a go of it. Yeah, that's wonderful. So.

Tell me a little bit more about how you sell. You go into new markets. Do you have a team? Are you mostly obviously focused on developing these relationships? Like you said, it's a B2B sale. Just tell me a little bit more at a high level what that looks like. Yeah, it's fairly straightforward. So it's simple in concept, but it takes energy and it takes a lot of passion to do. But

You know, a lot of my channels are really large firms that have a national presence. And so- Large architecture, general contractor firms is who we're talking about? Yeah, and project management, real estate firms like CBRE, JLL, Cushman, Wakefield would know these are, you know, Fortune 500 sized entities. Got it. And so- That might be an example of what they might bring you in for the example you gave of the attorney's office who's moving from one place to the other.

And they'll bring you in for the expertise of the technology side of all of that. Correct. And so what I did is, you know, obviously we started in Dallas where I'm headquartered, but then with every market I wanted to open and we can get into that if you want to, what were the criteria of the markets I picked. Right. But once I did pick them, my first calls were to those leaders of those companies that I already worked with and said, Hey, I'm, I'm exploring opening up in Miami and,

or Tampa or Atlanta, can you connect me to the leadership in that market, in that office? And of course, they're glad to.

And then once you get- Because you were leveraging their knowledge of you, the trust that they have of you, they know you, is that what you're saying? Correct. And the work we'd already performed, right? The work you performed, got it. So they said, oh, we'd be happy. It'd be great if they used you. We feel spoiled that we get to use your firm. So if you're going to open one for them in Atlanta or Miami, they'll be even better. And so a simple introduction is made and then-

I come in and show them what we do, how we do it, the outcomes they'll get, the benefits them and their customer and the projects will get. That's the easier part. I mean, it takes effort, but again, if you love it, you love getting on a plane and you love telling your story as much as you can. And then really it's just convincing them to engage you on the first project. And then once they do that, it's pretty easy from there because as long as my team delivers what I promise,

We just become a trusted partner for them. Often though, is there an incumbent that you're trying to displace? Some markets surprisingly, no. Some are just using integrators who sell them the gear and install it.

But in some markets, there are a few, but they're built slightly different than us. And there are some advantages to how we're built and set up that quickly resonate with them that they tend to go our way. Okay. Okay. So expanding a little bit more, like when you entered a new market like Miami, what else? So what are some of those barriers to getting into a new market like that? Well, so obviously I'll take the first intros right from the big customer partners I have.

After that, it's actually pretty easy for me to identify because I simply have to research in town who are the biggest architecture firms, project management firms, and construction firms in town that do the type of work we want to do. Those are easily identifiable. And then, you know, it's getting a meeting with them and telling the story. So, you know, for me, it's surprising. For me to be successful in a market like Miami, I really only have to know

25 firms, right across architecture. Because they represent 80% of the business. Exactly. Right. That's always such a challenge, regardless of what you're selling, when you're trying to get into someone to just hear your pitch. So I'm hoping you can share just from a sales perspective, some, some tips there for others who are selling other things the same way.

you know, so hard to get that audience, especially again, if they've got somebody else or they don't know that they need this, but what can you share that you've learned in your successful career to get that meeting? Obviously it's great when you're able to leverage that they know who you are, but if they don't know who you are, what has worked for you that you would share to get that meeting? And let me ask this. Ideally you want to get in front of them face to face to present your

you're offering? Is that what you're trying to get done? Yes. And, uh, sometimes the first meetings are virtual presentation, which, you know, post COVID we all do, right. Or teams or Google meets where it translates very well to do a presentation that way. But I do like to get to them in person. Um, and I'll tell you why one of them is another superpower of mine is, um,

at least what people tell me back, and I think this is a practice I would recommend to any entrepreneur. Don't only ask for a debrief with a customer when you've lost. Get a debrief when you've won. I think that's a very important point. Go ask, why did you pick us? That is just as invaluable, maybe more valuable than why did we lose? Because you'll learn some really insightful things. And the most common answer that I get back is,

you're extremely genuine and we can feel your passion and energy. And I always find that very validating back, which is great. But the fact that it also translates into the success of the business. So what do we sell? We sell professional services. We sell time and expertise. We sell advisory. A lot of trust required in that, right? It's an intangible. You don't pick up a product, touch it, and it either works or it doesn't. So when you're selling a human service,

you know, passion, trust, whatever kind of characteristics they want to identify with are important. So, you know, for me, that is why getting in a room is very helpful because I think we all feel energy more in person than we do virtually.

So it makes a lot of sense to me. It's what I've observed in my sales career. Again, people buy from people, but more specifically, they buy from people that they trust. I learned in my success in sales that some of us have that, some of innately that trustworthiness, right? And then we, as we become consciously competent, we learn why is that important?

When you are teaching other salespeople to develop that, is there one or two things that you have them focus on or look for to develop that, that ability that they will also show up and people say, I bought because I trusted you? Yeah, I really do it in the interview phase. So this might be helpful to some of the

inner entrepreneurs listening is one of my favorite questions to ask in an interview is how do you like to spend your days? Like what activities do you like to do? That's very revealing. If you're going to have a salesperson and they don't say things like I love people, I love to connect, I want to please, they probably don't have the natural characteristics to be driven to go above and beyond without being asked, right?

There are some people whose perfect day is I want to talk to nobody. I want to crunch a bunch of numbers and I want to analyze some data. And that's great.

but not if it's in the wrong seat. Right. So getting people aligned with their strengths, everyone knows about strength finders and things like that, but just because it's a strength, maybe it not be something you want to do. Right. So people need to be doing what they like to do and are good at because then they'll do it on their own volition without really needing to be pushed. And you'll get better and better at it. Yep. Yep. Excellent. Thanks for sharing that. All right. Let's take a slight shift here.

When you look at what you've learned, again, like we said, when you were developing your expertise, helping others do it, now doing it for your own business, what would you say are some of those keys to success, to building a business and scaling it? What are some of those keys to success in your opinion? Yeah, I thought about this a little bit. And I know a lot of people like to spend time on your team and your employees and making sure that

They're all good in the line. I don't really focus there because I feel like if you can't even get that right, you probably shouldn't do it. Right. If you don't even have a team that believes in your cause and you haven't shared your vision clearly, you're not even ready to start. So you need those things baseline like you have. Those are those are prerequisites. I look at it this way. Like, again, I was a sports guy. Soccer was my sport.

Why would I talk about tactics and strategy and lineups to win a match if we don't have 11 players with the right gear, and they show up at the field at game time. Right. So, to me, like, don't even go to the stadium or the field of competition, because

if you don't even have a team and they're not properly equipped. And they don't have the right gear and you don't have all of those things. Yeah, I feel like so many people talk about that like the fifth step. And my personal opinion is that's step zero. It's a non-starter without it. So to me, that's table stakes. You should have a team with players in roles. They're motivated to the vision. You've communicated that and everyone knows what they're supposed to do. So where I like to focus is

It's probably the harder side, which is if you think about success, you have to get people who you don't control their thoughts and actions to want to give you money to do the things you want to do. That's a difficult task. And where I see the biggest advice I give, and it's amazing, I see this with even Fortune 500 companies still to date, is they missed the mark. And I want to give credit to...

Donald Miller, who one of the books building a story brand, he said it eloquently. I've always believed this, but he said it better was always make your customer the hero of the story. Right. I love that. And too many people go in. Here's how I would not sell BrightSight. I would not go into a customer and say, well, BrightSight's this big and does this. And here's why we're great. Nobody cares. Right.

So make sure your customer is Luke Skywalker and you're Yoda. And you're Yoda there to guide Luke Skywalker to become a Jedi and defeat the enemy and win the day. So make sure that the whole message is about your customer.

You're amazing. Here's what you do. I want to make you even better at it. So, you know, one of our bright side is our name. And, you know, one of our taglines is we're here to help you make a brighter tomorrow. So if you're a law firm, we want you to be the best law firm you can be. We're going to give you the digital workplace to do so. And so that's one and one thing I would tell entrepreneurs is I know you're excited about what you're doing and you want to tell your story. But when you get to a customer, it should be about them.

Agreed. And that then, going back to the conversation we had about sales, what in my experience, and you as well, what makes for a great salesperson is someone who will listen, actively listen, and make it about the client, not about themselves. Yeah. And pivot from that and go where they want to go. One of my favorite things to do in a presentation is say, hey, look, I have

put together what I think would matter to you. But if you want to hijack this meeting on slide two and take it wherever means most to you, let's do that. Excellent.

Excellent. All right. And building a story brand, I'm looking at the book right now. It's one of those key books that I think is a must read. But speaking of books, in addition to that one, is there a book that comes to mind? I know you're a big reader that you would recommend. Yeah. And everybody knows there's probably 50, but

The one I'm probably for an entrepreneur that I think could help the most entrepreneurs would be The Critical Chain. The Critical Chain. By Eliyahu Goldratt. It's dated. It's kind of an 80s mantra book. But it's brilliant because of a couple things I'd like to highlight for you is, one, every business is a factory. So this book is really about a manufacturing plant.

And it's all about bottlenecks, right? And solving the bottleneck. So if you've got a 50 step process to building a window or a door in your factory, you've got to solve the bottleneck. And I think when you start to look at your business from a bottleneck perspective, it helps you focus and prioritize because it makes no difference if you kill it at step three, five X, right?

but your bottleneck at step four limits you to X. It won't matter. I love that because if you're on a balance where sales and marketing is doing great, but ops is doing poorly or ops is doing great, but accounting is doing poorly. I love the holistic health check focus and prioritization on your bottleneck. So number one, it just always trains you to look for your bottleneck, which I think is a great thing. And the second, probably most important for the sanity of all you entrepreneurs is

is to realize there will always be a bottleneck. You never get rid of the bottleneck. It's like the horizon. You never get to the horizon. It's always out there. That helps you fight your own frustration of, oh, life will be so great when this is perfect.

there's no such thing. You're just going to move the bottleneck. Cause guess what? As soon as you optimize step five and it's perfect, guess what it's doing? It's pumping out 10 X production to step six. And now step six is your bottleneck because it was never optimized to handle 10 X. So it's just a great way to realize what that theory of the golden gate bridge being painted, right? Like as soon as they finish it, it takes so long that they start again on the other end. Like it's never done. I think if entrepreneurs realize it's a journey, it's,

There's really no finish line. Just keep moving the bottle like and optimizing. You have a healthier perspective. Agreed. Couldn't agree more. So much to unpack there that I'd like to for a moment. First of all, that last point I have come to believe, and this really kind of got highlighted for me as we went through COVID.

If you go into business thinking you're going to figure it all out and then things will run smoothly at some point and then that's it. I don't have any more crises or challenges. Then you probably are not cut out to be a business owner. This is a continuous thing. Yeah. That's probably one of my other. So back, it almost bridges what you asked me about my.

advisory role with my kids is I just want to make it a t-shirt like find your happy right like whatever there are eight billion people and we're all unique so our formula for happiness is unique to us so find your happy and what I tell an entrepreneur is

If you don't love the process of what you do, don't do it. Don't do it. Because you're only doing the process to get to an outcome. If you love the outcome and don't love the process, don't do it. Agreed. You know, I remember when I first started playing pro, a guy said it to eloquently. When you talk about how few people make it to that level.

The ones who do are the people who adore the process of training. They adore weightlifting. They adore running. They adore conditioning. They adore the repetition of the fundamentals. They love that as much as the game day. The guys who don't make it are the guys who only love game day.

So it's the same thing if you're going to start a business. If you only like cashing checks and making money and you tolerate the processes you're in, don't do it for a couple reasons. One, you'll never be happy. And number two, there's a guy like me who loves that process in your competitive space who's going to kick your butt. Agreed. Agreed.

But thanks for reminding me of this book because I actually have read this book. This was a highly influential book for me back in the 90s. And to your point, I really think it should still be read. It's still so relevant. I still think to this day, I call them constraints, but same thing, bottom line is constraints.

It influenced me so much. I still think that way where, when I look at a system or I help people start to develop their systems, quote unquote, that's what start where the bottlenecks are, that that's where you want to focus, right? Where's the friction, where's the friction or the bottleneck for a customer to buy from you, et cetera, et cetera. So thanks for reminding me about that book. It is a great book.

All right. Two great recommendations, building a story brand, the critical chain. We'll start to wrap it up here. First of all, if someone's interested in the services you offer through BrightSight, where do you want them to find out more? Yeah, great. Thanks. The website, BrightSight, and that's spelled B-R-Y-T-E.com.

S I G H T.com. Uh, is how you'll find us. Uh, we spelled it that way on purpose, a little bit of fun entrepreneurial is, um,

You know, the bright is spelled B-R-Y-T-E for two reasons. One is to play off of bytes, like bits and bytes of data, since we're in the technology space. The second is for your why. And we all know Simon Sinek and start with why and what is your why and our why every day and our purpose when we get up is a brighter tomorrow for our customers. So that was the genesis of our name. Love it. Love it.

What's one thing you want people to take away from this conversation that we've had today? Well, assuming the passion is there and you love what you do, make sure that your messaging to your customers is about them and that they're the hero in the story. And probably the last thing would be in the book, he says, which is great because you're going to get frustrated. It won't happen as fast as you want or as

in the same sequence you want is customers actually buy for internal drivers, not external drivers. External drivers are value, cost, et cetera, but really what people buy for internal drivers like risk, how it'll make them look, achievement, did you make their life easier? So make sure you're peeling that layer of your customer

And really honing in on that because those are the people that your customers remember. And they end up giving you the best compliment, which the best one I ever get is when people say, Randy never sells me anything. And I've got tons of invoices that say otherwise, but they don't feel like they're being sold. They feel like you're telling them a story and bringing them a solution. And I think if you can focus on those things, success can be yours. Agreed. Love it.

All right. If we want to learn more, again, we go to brightside, B-R-Y-T-E-S-I-D-H-T, brightside.com. I'll have a link to that on the show notes page for this episode at thehowabusiness.com. And that's the best place to connect with you as well, yes? Yes, it is.

Excellent. Well, Randy, a great conversation. Thanks so much for indulging all of my questions, sharing all these golden insights, really a lot of value, which is what I try to achieve on this podcast. So I appreciate you sharing and helping us with how to navigate, not just getting started in business, but scaling a business. Thanks for being with me today. Thank you, Henry. Love what you do. Glad to be a part of it. This is Henry Lopez. And thanks for joining me on this episode of The Howlwood Business. My guest today again is Randy Shaw.

I release new episodes every Monday morning, and you can find the show anywhere you listen to podcasts, including the Howa Business YouTube channel and at my website, thehowabusiness.com. Thanks again for listening. Thank you for listening to The How of Business. For more information about our coaching programs, online courses, show notes pages, links, and other resources, please visit thehowabusiness.com.