B2B Community Builder Show (formerly Chief Executive Connector)

118 | Understanding the RAM Engine of Business Growth w/ Sustainable Growth Evangelist, Kalim Aull (part 1 of 2)

June 21, 2021 Pablo Gonzalez / Kalim Aull Season 3 Episode 118
B2B Community Builder Show (formerly Chief Executive Connector)
118 | Understanding the RAM Engine of Business Growth w/ Sustainable Growth Evangelist, Kalim Aull (part 1 of 2)
Show Notes Transcript

This is part 1 of 2 from a value-packed conversation with Kalim Aull.

Kalim Aull is a simplifier at his core.  This makes him a valuable guy for anyone trying to grow a business.

His ability to break down business models through simple language and easy-to-understand graphics is possible only because of his ability to understand the best practices of marketing, sales, and customer success at a really high level.

He is an evangelist of Sustainable Growth: a methodology to grow a business explosively without destroying it.  He also deeply understands the value of community creation for growing a company.

For these reasons, I brought him on the show to teach us all about sustainable growth, what the RAM Engine is, AND help me simplify my business model into an easily understandable value proposition.

Connect with Kalim!

On his LinkedIn

We talk A LOT about the PEAK community we are both a member of.  If you want to join a super valuable community of CMOs, future CMOs, and Top 1% Marketers, go to PEAK and let them know you came because of this conversation between Kalim and I.

Connect with ME!

Also, I'd love it if you connected with me on LinkedIn or Instagram.

Or shoot me an email at youshould@connectwithpablo.com with the "Heard CEC's Charod" in subject.

This that's a genius email address?  Me too, but I didn't come up with it.  It was the idea of my good friend, and super talented web designer, Nathan Ruff.

If you want your website redone, updated, and managed with unlimited updates for just $250/month (CRAZY GOOD DEAL RIGHT??), go to Manage My Website and hookup with one of the smartest, most talented guys I've ever met- THE Nathan Ruff.

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Kalim Aul:

Hey guys, my name's Colleen, I'm a sustainable growth evangelist and I met Pablo through the peak community, a community for marketers who want to get 1% better every week. And the future of business development is community developed.

Pablo Gonzalez:

The chief executive connector podcast, I am Pablo Gonzalez, your host and chief executive connector. I'm super pumped for today's episode. got my new buddy, Colleen all with us who is a sustainable growth evangelist and designer of sustainable growth ops. Everybody, you know, I love sustainability, man. So like I love, I love that. That's the, that's the angle that you take things on. Cause I believe in sustainability and everything and clean, man, I, after talking to you it became really clear to me that a you're a super forward-thinking guy, as far as business models. And more importantly, you have this super power. To take ideas and simplify a man. So like this, this podcast, I want to showcase just exactly how smart you are and all the things that you believe, man. But it's going to be a little bit different and this is going to be like me on the couch and you'll be my therapist, bro. You ready for this? I love

Kalim Aul:

that. I love that. Thanks Pablo.

Pablo Gonzalez:

And happy to happy to have you on here, buddy. I'm happy we connect, man. So how did, why don't we, why don't we tell our, our friend that's, that's listening to us right now in her ear. What how, how, how did you and me connect?

Kalim Aul:

Yeah. So some of, some of you might know I'm part of a marketing community called peak. and that's for high-level marketers who want to get 1% better every week and grow in their career and make an impact. and you know, I, I started in this community a year ago. and recently the last couple of months Pablo came in, I'm not sure who invited you originally, who was that?

Pablo Gonzalez:

Did I came in from the. You hosted a category design call with Lochhead and mania and the category design guys. And as you know, I'm a category design kind of like nerd and fanatics. So that got my attention in the moment that I saw what was going on. I was like, I want it on this community. Yeah.

Kalim Aul:

That was a great event. Great event. yeah. So, I mean, immediately when you came in I could feel it immediately. I know, the kind of behaviors of somebody who's in there to get the value and give the value both right by giving. Right. and so yeah, I could see by the way you were engaging you're already setting up conversations and collaborations. Right. and so, you know, this is the game that allows you to get the most from peak. I even made a model of it. Right. As you do. Yes. Welcome inform, converse, collaborate, transform, and replicate. Right. So, you know, I saw you were doing those things and immediately when you got in there and I gravitate towards that type of thing.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah. And, and, and I, and, and I saw it in us. So one of the things I didn't say in the intro is this idea that you and I are both like really seeped in this idea of community creation for business development. And as kind of, you're like a formal host of the, of, of the peak community of which it was very clear to me that. What seeing you comment on every single post in there and like hit a like, and comment. I'm like, man, this guy kalemia is just showing up in such a great way. And it's such a low friction way to just pop into people's radar screens. Right? Like I extrapolate this to social media. It's just like he who hits he or she who hits the most likes and makes the most comments on people's on people's posts wins. Right? Because at the end of the day, men relationships are all about being top of mind and being present in people's lives. And, and these like digital communities, the social media game has made it really scalable to do and not really, even scalable, really frictionless to do, man. I would love to, I would love to hear from you kind of. Outside of obviously our relationship, but uh, outside of this man, what are kind of the things that you have gotten the most out of being part of the peak community and what are the things that you really love about being in there? Just as a let's give a little like soundbite here for, the team to hear, oh man.

Kalim Aul:

Oh man. I'm like speechless. When it comes to that question, you know, what has the peak community done for me? Well, I mean, let's just focus on it. I can focus on a lot of, you know, ROIs, but the main one that I would say is it allowed me to be the fly on the wall in candid behind the doors and marketing conversations. and that's exactly what I needed. To be able to develop a further understanding of how, you know, the average organization is operating these days. What are the words they use for things? I have my own way of thinking about things, but the peak community allowed me to really get so solid on the terminology, on the operations and the way things work on the struggles marketers are having all these things and that built confidence because I said, I'll wait. Oh yeah, I do. I do have the answers for some of these things. Right. and that level of competence of constantly having this type of support and respect from high level marketers changes the way you think about yourself,

Pablo Gonzalez:

really. Yeah. I couldn't agree with you more, man. So it's, it's funny. Cause I, I joined to receive that same benefit, right. Like I joined too, because I'm just like, man, I'm in this, I'm in this marketing game. I've, you know, I've, I'm 40 bro. I've, I've been, I've been in the workforce for 15 plus years, but really specializing in marketing for the last like three and the idea that I could come in and like you said, be a fly on the wall, gain from others through osmosis, with low friction and, and then be able to receive real-time feedback of validation on whether what I'm thinking is crazy or not. Right.

Kalim Aul:

Exactly. And you know, it's a couple things there's some level of validation and then there's some level of like, this is the confusion that the industry hats and I'm actually right about this. Do you understand? So I get to see both sides of that. I get to see, oh, where do the marketers really have it? Right. And then I get to see you out. Where are the marketers really confused? You know? And that kinda is a, is a healthy balance. I find in peak, so great

Pablo Gonzalez:

stuff. I love it, man. So that being said, you've been connecting with OB Gillian, marketers. You've been rapidly iterating through what you have, right. Where you have wrong, what they have, right. What they have wrong. talk to me about your, you have this sustainable growth ideology that has a couple of different like growth categories. can you talk me through that?

Kalim Aul:

Yeah. So I'm going to start just by comparing sustainable growth to it's. Less favorable counterparts, which is explosive growth. Okay. the difficult part about these two sustainable growth and explosive growth is they're kind of like a square and a rectangle, sustainable growth is explosive, but explosive growth is not necessarily sustainable. And that is difficult for people because they kind of look sort of like each other until it's too late. Yeah. Unless you know, the signs. Right. So, so, you know, w what, what is the real difference between explosive growth and sustainable growth? Well, one of those two heavily prioritizes turning strangers into new customers, the other one, which is sustainable growth. Heavily prioritizes creating multiplying value for your best existing clients. So one is an outside focus and one is a more interior focus. One of them says, no, we must take care of the family and the friends before we go running around with strangers, the other one says, oh, don't worry. Our family and our friends will never leave us. We can spend all our time with strangers. So the difficulty here is that when you get into this, I call it the acquisition trap, right? This explosive customer acquisition as your main method of revenue growth, right? What ends up happening is that you bring too many people who are not great fits into the community or the business. Too fast and nobody knows each other. You don't know your customers, you, you acquired too quickly. Yeah. And now that prevents you from providing multiplying value over time to your best customers. So explosive growth, blurs your vision because it throws a bunch of stuff at you and then says, ahhh filter through all this, right? So you need to think about growing at a pace where there's a sense of community in the business, people know each other, you know, your customers right now, obviously that gets harder and harder and harder as you get to businesses that have more and more scale. Right? I love my type of business because it's against scale. It's the opposite. It's big money, less people. Right? SAS, we deal with SAS all the time. In fact, I would say most of the people in our community are like SAS related, right. And those are high volume businesses. And so the struggles that they have, this, the traps even worse for them, it's even worse for them. it's all free trial, get a bunch of volume in and then start dealing with it. Right. so for those, for those businesses, it's really important that they have a way of marketing that slows things down, educates, qualifies, and creates expectations earlier. So that once you get past that initial conversion point, There isn't this miss this complete misalignment of expectations and you're getting less, you're accepting less poor quality or poor fit customers into your business. Right? So the idea is like, okay, if we, if we just make sure that we actually know who our best customers are, if we know that, and we know what their dangers opportunities and strengths are, it means we're doing a good job. It means we haven't acquired too fast. But if all of a sudden we're in this situation where it's like, oh, we don't actually know who our best customers are. And we don't know what their dangerous opportunities and strengths are. Well, you've been spending time acquiring. That's all you've been doing clearly. So that's, that's the essence of it, right?

Pablo Gonzalez:

This man on a, on a personal level, that makes a lot of sense, right? Like, as somebody who's obsessed with making friends. I have been at the, my best friend's bachelor party, where all of a sudden, I make friends with like three other dudes that one of the bars that we're at, and I'm hanging out with these three randos for three, four an hour, while like my seven best friends are over here doing something else. Right. Like I, and, and, and that have been like set aside, be like, dude, what the fuck are you doing? Right. So like, so, so I, I, I get that. I get that piece on a personal level. I can also imagine, you know, being a, being a, a, a funded company where what you're trying to do is reach a certain critical capacity of, of users so that you have this like adoption and lower CAC and, and you haven't even gotten to the LTV part of it. So you're just really trying to prove market fit. Do you have any examples of either tactics or people that have done this part? Well, that done the sustainable growth while had the discipline, instead of just chasing the explosive growth and kind of how they did it.

Kalim Aul:

Yes. But I just want to preface that with something the VC game destroys sustainable growth. The way they play destroys sustainable growth. So there's a reason why I can't, it's hard to source examples from big VC funded ventures, the sustainable growth examples are going to be flying under the radar growing sustainably. Right. It makes sense. and, and so there are so strategic coach, Dan Sullivan, strategic coach the best entrepreneurial coaching program in the world. In my opinion to me, they are one of the best examples of a sustainable growth company. They have their, they prioritize their team's capability. They know who their ideal client is. And they, they always acquire at a speed where they actually have a sense of community and people know each other, you know they, during recessions, they say, no, no, the executives don't get bonuses. Right. you know, we're not going to fire our people. We're going to cut our own salary this year. In fact, we're going to take no salary this year and we're going to retain every single team member. So when we come out of this thing, we are going to smash. You understand? Yeah. Everyone else is going to be re rehiring, retraining, rebuilding relationships because they don't understand sustainable growth. They don't understand that retention, that appreciation. Right? but let me talk about a public company, a VC company that's doing a great job battling and that's HubSpot. HubSpot is in a battle. They are on the on the, line between explosive and sustainable. And despite all that VC funding that IPO, which puts a ton of pressure, it did not play sustainable. They have done certain things that are very, very promising. One thing that you'll notice if you look at their revenue curve, is that the explosive segment, the most explosive segment, which is over the last four years, right? This has come not because they were just acquiring lots of new customers. That's the that's the distraction. That's a, that's, that's a byproduct of what they're actually playing. And what they're actually doing is providing multiplying value to their ideal client. So, what they did is they layered on to that first existing marketing software that they had. They turned it into a full CRM over time. They added a sales hub, a service hub integrations. And now they have a operations hub rep revenue, operations hub, right? So they moved from this single functional tool to create multiplying value to now you have this bigger tool and it's really designed for a specific type of person, right? So that's the part of their business that is pushing hard in the sustainable direction. They didn't just keep trying to go wide with the same solution. They said, no, we're going to make our product better for our existing customers. And new customers will also want that. So I would say strategic coach in the sustainable growth quadrant, and then we have HubSpot in the explosive, but on the verge, they're moving towards the sustainable growth quadrant.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Interesting man. As you described this, right, I'm thinking about, you know, my biggest client JWB, they, they sell turnkey rental income properties. Right. And th and this is right now, like the asset class to Zuora for investing, right? Like the wall street journal is talking about how, like, this is the, this is the rental property investing economy. They're crushing it. And the, the work that we're doing for them is really helping them capitalize. But as we're, as I'm trying to prove out my concept more and more, I'm pushing, you know, my clients to like hire more people, right? Like, Hey man, hire more, get more get more sales guys. And he keeps pushing back on me and finally sat me and my partner down. And he said, you know, man, In 2014, we started doing really, really well. And we hired a bunch of people and a couple of years later, we had to fire them and we never want to do that again. So we're, we're willing to give up a little bit of sales in order to. We know that the market is cyclical. We know that this, this like huge surge that we have of like money coming into this asset class, even though the asset class is still going to be viable. It's just not going to be that much better than every single other asset class as it is right now. And he sat us down and was just like the cost of us bringing in two more salespeople, knowing that in three years, we might have to lay them off for our culture. And for, and for our relationship with our clients is too much. We don't want to do it. We know that it's coming and it's irresponsible for us to do that. And the effect we're going to have on these people's lives. Right? So like, that's, that's where my head goes, which is, which blew my mind when he told me that ESR and I both our jaws dropped like, wow, man, this guy's up. He's a Saint. Like, you know, but, but at the end of the day, they have an unbelievable businessman. So, so I see, I see where you're going. So what is. When you're pushing sustainable growth and you are trying to serve your clients as well as possible in order to grow through them, what have you seen companies do well that allow for them to, to grow based on existing relationships based on funnels and acquisition.

Kalim Aul:

Okay. Yeah. So you know, this is newer. Yeah. This is not the way yet. Right. So we're talking about a very, very small percentage of the market. and the thing that I noticed about first, I want to talk about customer success. Then I'll talk about marketing please. So, first of all, you know, do you have a customer success system? that is a, you know, long transformational journey or is it a short, transactional journey? you get to choose that. Right. so, you know, when people sell something that's very transactional and they're like, why can't I retain people? It's like, well, because your, your product doesn't retain people. It's not meant to retain people like you didn't design a service. That was a ongoing thing. Right. so are you, putting out just a, a kind of short term result to the marketplace? Or are you saying no, we only work with clients who want, this, you know, amazing transformation over the next three years, five years. So my timelines, when I think of success, I think of three and five years, like Warren buffet measuring his stocks. because now you're setting up the story, right. For a, a long-term co you know, collaboration of some sort. Right. As opposed to some sort of a transactional thing where they just paid you for a

Pablo Gonzalez:

result. Okay. I guess what you're saying is that it starts in the product and then the experience, right? Like it starts in, am I looking to get you in and out? You know, like, so this, this works for a company that wants to align their goals. Long-term with their customer's goals and have a product to do that with such as, which I guess is why SAS is one of these, one of these types of places they want to stick around for a long time. It makes sense to me that my client has a turnkey rental income property provider. That's going to then manage the property for a long time sets up as way as well. I would imagine, I would imagine that a, a general contractor who wants to do repeat business with the developers and whatever that they're doing is probably going to think of it that way. I would imagine that. You know, it's not so much product it's mostly, it would be service companies that have some kind of incentive to, to, to do repeat business. This would be the way to go.

Kalim Aul:

You basically have to suggest, oh, I'm looking for a real relationship. You know, like I'm looking for a long-term real relationship. You can't market a short relationship and expect it, those ones on the back end to be long. Right. And that's kind of what happens a lot, you know? so I would say that first part is that product or service experience, is it transformational? And long-term the second part is do you have a, a a real methodology for, of success? So does your customer success team have a methodology that they take people through that actually helps them get achieved these results? Right. And then the third thing is, what is your marketing look like? Right. is your marketing persuasion, marketing, or is it facilitation marketing? Are you allowing people to buy into something or are you trying to sell something? are you facilitating community success? or are you just trying to let people know they have a problem that you think they have, right? because essentially right marketing, this is the, the the most misunderstood part about marketing is that marketing is a massive LTV function, a massive LTV function. It's primarily an LTV function in my view. And it's its secondary purpose is acquisition is acquisition or multiplication as I call it right, as a result of that core. Right? By-product so when it comes to marketing most businesses have a very different before and after. So your customer success team might be great. Your product might be great, yada, yada, yada, so on and so forth. All those things I said before. But if your marketing doesn't let people know exactly how we do this. This is the game we play. This is how we approach things. This is the way to succeed. Then when they get to this, they get to the actor. They're going to be confused. They're going to be like, wait, I thought this, this, this, this, this, and there's going to be dismiss alignment. That will inevitably cause churn, no matter what your customer success team does. And the worst part about that is because those negative results are surfacing later on customer success usually gets blamed, or at least it allows marketing and sales to relinquish themselves of any LTV responsibility. We just acquire. If someone turns that's customer successes fault, we don't have any influence on that. That's the confusion, right? In fact, you have the most influence on it because you pick the person. If you're gonna get married, the person who picks the person would have the most influence and sets the expectations. Yeah. That's how

Pablo Gonzalez:

it, right. So two on packet. Cause I think that there is a lot of, we've had these conversations, you know what you are. When you were, what you were pointing to right now is number one, the need for a customer success experience, department process like that, that needs to exist just as, just as important as accounting needs to exist, right? Like you need to be able to track and incentivize customer success. And in order to do that, marketing needs to be aligned with sales, which then needs to be aligned with the customer success. And there is a disconnect right now in the business world, in general, between marketing and sales, where marketing is just like, say whatever I can to get you in the door, sales is see whatever I can to get you to sleep with me. And customer success is the one that's got to raise the baby.

Kalim Aul:

Exactly, exactly. And so for me, when I look at it, I actually think that sales and marketing are much more aligned than they think I'm going to say that right now, sales and marketing are much more aligned than they think, because they're both caught up in the acquisition trap. they might be have arguments over, ah, this was a better version of the acquisition trap, and this was a worst version of the acquisition trap. But until they both align with customer success, it's going to be cookie. know? So I think the hardest part for modern organizations, I like to work with smaller companies and, and grow those seeds. I tend to not try to pick flowers. Right. but for these orgs, they come out of an era of sales where that, that sales was the way. You know, and that historical precedence plays itself out in the organizational structure. It plays itself out in who reports to who. Right? And so what ends up happening is that they basically are like, you know, marketing's like our little inferior brother who does the same thing as us, but not as good. Right. And it shows that they don't understand marketing at all. Second of all right. you know, marketing doesn't understand marketing because they're so they're so easily bullied and manipulated by the sales department. You know, how do we prove ourselves to sales? How are we going to prove ourselves to sales, screw sales, sorry, but this is how I feel, or this is how I feel because no, the truth is the truth. Enough is enough games up games up, you know, if you want three crappy sales teams keep doing what organizations are doing. Marketing the first crappy sales team, we try to get as many leads as possible crappy sales sales, the second crappy sales team, we try to persuade as many people to buy as possible. And then customer success, the third crappy sales team, we try to persuade people not to leave us. Please don't leave us now. That's success. Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, you're, you're describing an abusive relationship

Kalim Aul:

and it's, it's, it's a polyamorous three way abusive relationship. and for me, I seen no other alternative than to simplify that three down to two. Right. And have salespeople, the change, that name almost you understand. Cause it's, it's a broken name. The name is broken. The customer doesn't care about sales. The audience doesn't care about sales. They don't care that you're a salesperson. In fact, they don't like you. That you're a sales person. It turns them off immediately. Right? so the, the, the first thing that you have to do is change your marketing. I'm going to say that because with the right person, you will collaborate until you're successful. You will get through all those humps with the right relationship, those mediocre fit relationships are the ones where they're always going to ask you to prove something short for them, or else I'll leave you. Right. So this is if it's relationships, it's just relationships. And that's why I'm able to say all these things. Yeah. You know, without ever you know, having lots of experience in, in, in these big orgs. Right. But these relationships are just one-to-one at scale. Right. so yeah, I, I think, I think that the easiest way to change things if you're an org coming up, so not these big orgs, they're never going to change. So I don't, I don't attempt to do that. Right. But if you're a small bit smaller business and you still have this sense of flexibility and the sense of innovation, right? You still have the option to not have a sales team. You just have marketing and customer success, and you have people who have sales skills, but we don't call them salespeople. There's no sales department, they don't sell. Right. they build community. So that is the new sales. It is from sales development to community development. Right. when I see that you're you know, a community development representative, it feels different. It totally feels different and your behavior will match that, right? Because you could, you could change the name and do the same behavior. It won't work of course, but if you change the behavior as well you're going to get 10 X results over the next five years from the, from that small team of salespeople. Right.

Pablo Gonzalez:

it Makes perfect sense to me, man. And the way that you describe it again is, is the reason why I've been able to parachute into marketing. This is. Relationships at scale, man, right? Like this is, to me, this idea of, I think the, I think the terminology of community creation is the future of business development. Something I started getting really, really loud about early 2019. And before that for about two, three years, I was talking about value-driven business development. Right. Which at the end of the day is the way that you create relationships is by, is by driving value for people. and I, and I learned it by creating nonprofit young professional groups. Right? Like it was just very basic. How do you get people to do stuff that is not in their direct, like that isn't a direct payback without having any direct influence over them. Right? Just how do you set all that stuff up of just aligning beneficial values with each other to win long-term right.

Kalim Aul:

Yeah. You know, and I mean, I think that it's important for us to have these types of conversations where we really are not string off of the relationship line. You understand the whole conversation is built around relationship and we're like, no, this, this is the law we're going to talk within this boundary that we agree agreed upon. Right. so, you know, it's very, very, very interesting that our society has sort of separated the rules between relationships and business relationships are over here and then businesses. Other thing that we do over here, Right. And I think that's the problem. I think that the culture you know, in its adolescence has sort of put it in people's heads that there's this thing called business that isn't about relationships. It's about, you know, being smarter than people or being persuasive or no, it's not it's about creating value, that's it? That's it, you know, a hundred percent men. So

Pablo Gonzalez:

I couldn't agree more, man. I couldn't agree more. So then tell me about I've seen the graphics on the Ram engine that you talk about. can you describe it for me?

Kalim Aul:

Yeah. So basically. You know, let's talk about first, you know, this concept of the flywheel or the feedback loop, right? many people have used this over the years. Jim

Pablo Gonzalez:

Collins made that, common, common con

Kalim Aul:

a feedback loop, right. But HubSpot is the most recent one to, to use it and make their own model with it. Right. And I realized that business was all about relationships. And so I basically said, you know, this is a little bit complex, the sustainable growth thing it's describing these sustainable relationships at scale, it's a little complex to describe in a single feedback loop. So I had to make two flywheels. One of the flywheels describes your team's capability. The other flywheel describes. the retention appreciation and multiplication of your ideal client, right? so ideal client growth is the way I would put it. Right. And it's the connection between these two flywheels. That is the core of sustainable growth. And so what I, have done is I connect the two fly wheels with a traction belt, attraction belt, you'd see on a tractor, right. And to me, that's that relationship represents traction Retaining, appreciating, and multiplying your team's capability and then retaining thus retaining, appreciating, and multiplying your ideal client. So. The switch really is starting with retention retention, being your first priority

Pablo Gonzalez:

on both on client and employee acquisition,

Kalim Aul:

your matching retention and retention, retain capability, retain ideal client. Right? Appreciate the capability, appreciate your ideal client, multiply that capability, multiply your ideal client and provide multiplying value for them. Right? So this is like it's the core relationship of your business actually exists are right. But the problem that we have is that we either, either undervalue our team's capability or we undervalue our ideal client, all our clients at the same, right. and same with the team members, you, your team members, aren't all the same. You're going to have some game-changers in there and need to figure that out and set them up for that. Right. so I think, you know, the flywheel for you know, HubSpot's flywheel, for example, which is an inbound marketing model they've now sort of transitioned it into a you know, a rev ops alignment model, which I actually don't like that. I don't think it works well, but I like it as an inbound marketing model. and they start with attracting strangers. That's their starting point, attract strangers, engage prospects, delight customers. Right. That's good. That's good. there's a looseness to the flywheel. Right. So I like to, I like that. I like attracting strangers and engaging prospects. There's nothing wrong with that. However that model alone, because it's this outside in model it's not enough for it to be a focal point for sustainable growth. It will fall apart because it doesn't actually describe anything about your team's capability to provide value. it doesn't actually describe anything specific about out of all these strangers, who's a great fit. How do you do that? How do you find a great fit it's very general create, you know, kind of create value, which is great. Right. But the Ram engine it is. Is the, is the balance to that where it's the priority really? And then the flywheel's like the compliment is the way I would say it. so then, so your, your, your top priority is that internal engine, internal capability, ideal client, that's where the cash comes. That's where all the money is guys. and then, you know, the flywheel is that looser outside in kind of traction that's happening and good education and engagement. Right. But it's not a sustainable growth model. so understanding that you both have to grow outside in and inside out at the same time to grow sustainably. Yeah, man, I, I love it.

Pablo Gonzalez:

I love it. the first, the first place my, my head goes, when I hear you describe that, is that I think it's getting louder and louder that good corporate culture drives growth in a business. And I see that driver of growing a business in the corporate culture as that belt and the Ram engine, right? Like if you have this flywheel of talent development and you have this flywheel of, under promising and over delivering for clients, right? Like, like providing good client experiences, that thing that ties it together will lead towards that. You've

Kalim Aul:

made a breakthrough brother, you made a breakthrough, you know what? That traction belt, you can move, that belt can move everything. You w if you have one lever to pull on that belt, it moves both flywheels and starts the feedback loop. So that belt you've shown it to me is company culture. I will write it down. The Ram engine will be changed now. Thank you. There you go, man.

Pablo Gonzalez:

That's awesome, dude. I love it.

Kalim Aul:

Breakthrough right there. You understand? Yeah. Right. Cause what else is going to, what else is going to recreate that retention and appreciation besides culture?

Pablo Gonzalez:

Listen, man, I've, I've seen it, right? Like I, and again, I keep going back to JWB, right? My client. And it's just, you know, we've created a client acquisition flywheel for them and it's worked so well because they have that corporate culture that, the more that you are showcasing your network within your clientele, more that overlaps with. Your company, right? Like the inside and outside people. Yeah. That is a recipe to success directly in proportion to how good your corporate culture is to how well aligned you are with your mission, vision, and your values and how much you extol those virtues in every facet of your business. Because if those two things are aligned, if your client acquisition is aligned there and your talent acquisition is aligned and develop that way, then both things are going to feed each other into this beautiful marriage of coming

Kalim Aul:

beautifully said, quote, that.

Pablo Gonzalez:

All right, JP, give me that in a corporate jet. I appreciate that, buddy. Awesome. cool man. All right. Awesome. Wow. Well that is, that is an awesome breakthrough. Cool. I'm really glad you explained that to me. Cause I knew there was some magic in that REM engine and not just wasn't getting it. I needed you to explain it to me and now it makes perfect sense. And I guess it's a reticular activator, right? But I've just been seeing this whole how a good buddy of mine called me up. Two days ago and he's like, Hey man, are you speaking about corporate culture? Right? Cause like what you're doing of like showcasing clients and employees and, and networks and whatever you're doing as, as creating this, like bond that scale, shouldn't that be driving corporate culture. And isn't what you're doing, an enabler of working remotely and still being able to keep corporate culture. And I'm like, you know, you're right. It is man. I guess I just, it just hasn't been the, the tent that I've been pitching. Right? Like it it's just been, people care more about client acquisition and growth. So I sell it as a growth engine from client acquisition standpoint. But, you know, if, if you can position corporate culture as what drives that client acquisition, now companies are going to care about corporate culture. You know, what's interesting that years, here's

Kalim Aul:

a, here's the kind of the paradox I would say, or the, yeah, the, the difficulty is that you're going to get a better client by not selling them the acquisition. Perfect, but you're going to get way less clients and it going to be hard at the beginning. Correct. There's going to be this kind of starvation period. Not starvation, but difficult times. Right. that's what it takes sometimes to stand for the right thing. you know, the right makes sense label in this sense is what we're talking about. Right. it's like almost doing what doesn't get those transactional people. It eliminates them almost. I don't think those transactional people give a crap about culture. They'll never buy from you and you don't want them to buy from you. So cause they're going to churn and then they're going to leave you feeling drained. Right. so. I'm not saying you can't get transformational relationships through that, that position. Right? Of course, of course you can, but you have to do more qualifying. Yeah. It's not like a perfect match for that person who is going to be long-term transformational. Right. so yeah, we're getting kind of getting into labeling things now, labeling things, which is hard, very hard, very hard. and I, I also, I don't think it's wrong to include acquisition as one of the benefits of the culture thing. Right. But I, I liked the idea of, of, you know, really hammering the culture and not being afraid, not being like too worried about that, you know just kind of like stand for what you actually believe and what's, you know, this is the truth. So we have to stand for it.

Pablo Gonzalez:

and, and I, you know, when I, in my speaking points on networking and relationship building, I just call that being a bat signal for the things you want to attract. Right? Like, and, and, and it works on a relationship level. Like, like dude, if you use a lot of disposable plastic straws and drink out of a lot of styrofoam cups, you're not going to have a good time around me, man. Cause I'm a fanatical environmentalist. I really believe in sustainability. And every time I see you using I'm to be like, Ugh, God, you know, but, but what happens is most of my circle is sensitive to it to a certain extent. And I have more than one friend that has gone into like buying a reusable water bottle, just cause they're like, all right, dude, you're making a lot of sense. That's cool. Right? So there's no reason you can't do that as a business and to your point. At first it's painful, right? Like at first, but, but that is how a flywheel works, right? Like a flywheel at first, it's like, you're pushing real hard to get it around one time, but the second time you pull it around, it's easier. And the third time it's easier and the fourth time is easier. And by the hundredth turn, it's like spinning off the wheels and you're like generating electricity for a city with it, man.

Kalim Aul:

Yeah. Yeah. Totally, totally. yeah, I mean, I, I think, yeah, I think that it's very interesting. It's, it's just the price that it's the investment that you have to pay for a better engine. It's the investment you have to make for a better engine, right? A more sustainable engine with better mileage on it. yeah. I liked the metaphor of a car, you know, like at some point you have to get an engine with better gas mileage, you know, you can't, you can't keep driving forever. You talking about sustainability, we need, we need. Efficiency, right. Yeah.

Pablo Gonzalez:

And they talk about how Tesla has the lowest cost of ownership of cars. Right. Like even though it's a$60,000 car, life, life cycle, lowest cost of ownership. Right.

Kalim Aul:

Oh, wow. Yeah. I didn't even know that. That's very interesting. That's a great, that's a great position. That's a great position. yeah, so, so, you know, I thought maybe we would dig into, you know, your stuff at some point on this, on this and talk sort of about, we, we touched on it a little bit. We just started brushing it with the sales and the community stuff. Right. and we've talked a little bit about this before but just, maybe it'd be helpful for everyone listening.