Transcript
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Welcome back to another episode of B
Tob Growth. This is behind the curtain.
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I'm Kelsey Corps and today I'm here
with bill read our COO. How's
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it going today, bill? It's
going well, Kelsey. Thank you,
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awesome. So bill is actually here
with me today. We are going to
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talk about speed and rate of growth
within a company. Now I'm a little
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bit curious as to why I'm talking
to you bill, a Coeo, someone
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in operations, versus Logan over and
sales. Well, Kelsey, it's a
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good question. You would think normally
that you would, you're talking about growth,
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you would be talking with someone in
sales or maybe in marketing, but
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you certainly wouldn't think you'd be talking
to someone in operations. And here's the
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reality with regard to growth. It
really requires, in order to grow,
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help in a healthy way. It
requires a balance between what you just referred
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to as speed, so momentum,
the pace, the rate of movement.
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It really requires a balance between that
and some of the controls that are often
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lacking in a young business, and
that's where I see speed. We've talked
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before about the the fact that speed
can kill. This is where things get
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dangerous, is when it's grow at
all costs and some of the fundamental infrastructure
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kinds of considerations aren't addressed early in
the life of an organization, and so
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that's what I wanted to talk about
today. How do we grow in a
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healthy way and what role does operations
play in that scenario? Absolutely I think
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that's going to be a great topic. But let's rewind for just a second.
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So you have been with sweetfish for
about a year and operations, when
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you kind of walked in, was
an infrastructure that needed a little bit of
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guidance. So tell me a little
bit more about the two to three areas
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that lacked the most control and kind
of what you have done to help gain
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a little bit more control from that
speed sure. Well, those are those
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are fair questions and you phrase your
your question carefully and very kindly, because
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the reality is a year ago at
sweet fish, truth be known, there
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was not adequate infrastructure. Certainly there
was some infrastructure and some work had been
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done by some good people that had
been really helpful. But, Kelsey,
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here's the thing that I often see
in businesses, or what I would call
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early stage businesses. By the way, sweetfish is not a start up anymore.
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It is really what I would call
more an early emerging business this and
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and what I like to say at
the office is, you know, let's
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think like a startup. That's I
like that, but let's act like a
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grown up company. Right. So
let's let's approach this thing a little bit
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more, maybe I'd say a little
more formally and with a little bit more
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structure, because in the beginning,
sweet fish included, most organizations concentrate on
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growth and they concentrate on growing as
quickly as they can, and that's where
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things eventually if they're successful growing fast, they create another problem on opposite force,
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and that is lack of organization and
structure. Speaking of structure, let's
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talk a little bit more about infrastructures
that could be put in place to help
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gain more control if you are traveling
at a high rate of growth. Sure,
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well, some of this, Kelsey, is dictated just by the life
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cycle of the business is it's also
determined to a large part by what the
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business can handle financially. So in
a businesslike sweet fish, at the stage
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we were a year ago, you
typically find a founder or CEO who is
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also wearing other hats. Right,
that's not unusual, but what I found
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coming into sweet fish is that James, our founder, was not only playing
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the role of overall leader and and
CEO, but he also, to a
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large extent, had several other hats
on, one of those being operations.
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A lot of the human resources function
landed on James Initially, and just some
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of the other general foundational practices of
the business, that foundational disciplines rolled up
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to James. And while James is
very capable and has provided some great leadership,
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he really in order to make this
thing work, he needed to build
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a team, need to identify what
people's strengths were and, more importantly,
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he needed to identify what his strengths
were not and then he had to find
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good people to put in those places
so that while he and Logan were off
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selling and growing, he had people
back home building infrastructure and the areas of
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finance, operations, human resources technology. In our case, we don't have
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facility or property concerns because we're remote
team, but we do have lots of
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other concerns and Logan and James can
only be as effective on the girl's side
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as we are as a company.
On the structure side, it takes both
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and a balance of both to make
growth successful. Speaking of balance and gross
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what are some more tangible ways or
tangible experiences that you and James have had
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to tackle together as the company is
growing and as these infrastructures are being put
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in place? Well, I think
the biggest challenge, Kelsey, is there's
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a dance that we do. So
we're talking about balance, but you can
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also look at this kind of like
a dance, a dance between sales and
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marketing on one side and then operations
on the other, and there's a natural
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gap between those two, between let's
just call it, to keep the simple,
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between sales and operations. There's a
natural gap, or you can call
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it a wall a division. Because
what is sales want to do? They
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want to grow, right, they
want to sell. What is operations want
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to do? They want to be
able to to successfully produce and distribute what
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what comes to them, right.
So there's the natural tension. Is that
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the sales guys out there and man, he'll sell anything, right, and
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the people back in the Operations Group
are looking at this sin Oh my gosh,
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we don't have we don't have capacity
for this, or we don't have
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the expertise for this. So there's
a dance that goes on between those and
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really, ultimately, a negotiation that
goes on between those. What typically happens
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is that, because of the natural
tension, they become opposing forces and it's
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you know, it's kind of my
my thought that the organ station works much,
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much better if we turn those opposing
forces into courses that recognize in the
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end that we're really after the same
thing. The folks and operations want growth.
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They understand what growth brings to a
business, but they also have to
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follow through on the commitments sales makes
and if you ever been in that position
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you know it can be a frustrating
shuffle. And so the real key to
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success in growth is a balance between
the forward momentum, the forward movement,
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and then the folks who are responsible
for keeping the ship steady, if you
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will, kind of like trying to
find a positive tension, if you will.
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Yeah, so, as a business
owner is growing and trying to balance
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everything, how do they know when
to accelerate versus win to ride the break?
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That's a really good question, because
if you ask James when's the right
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time to take your foot off the
gas, he would say do what he
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wouldn't understand the question, because his
job is to go full steam ahead,
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right, and so we've had this
debate. Is, you know, is
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our job to pull back the reins
and of slow things down? I don't
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know, Kelsey, I don't know
if it is. I suppose, and
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in some cases that's the right choice. But, as I told our operations
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team, let's do this instead like
slet James and Logan and the others go
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sell. Let's empower them and bless
them to be as successful as possible,
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and then let's get our act together
and let's get out in front of them,
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right, because here's the scenario that
usually plays out in the young business
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sales. They go sell something,
everybody's excited. The operations are production team
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goes into into motion. And what
are they doing? They're trying to chase
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down sales, right, they're trying
to catch up. And what I'm saying
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to our group is let's take a
different approach. Let's empower our sales group
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but then, as an operations group, let's make sure that we are in
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the position where we can build something
out in front of our sales group,
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that we can anticipate some of that
and build something that they can actually move
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into instead of having to come behind
them and retrofit at all, which is
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more expensive and it's not near as
much fun to do it that way and,
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most importantly, it's not as successful
because ultimately what happens in that scenario
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is that the tension that we were
talking about, the tension that you want
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to be positive, turns negative and
there becomes a non productive tension when,
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as operations were constantly chasing down the
success people are having in sales and we're
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trying to build something to suit what
they sold. Again, the better option
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is to get out in front of
it, to anticipate the sales group and
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to be ready for when those opportunities
comes. It sounds like it's just a
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lot of very intricate checks and balances
between tensions and infrastrructure and growth. But
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I want to point out that you
said James Probably won't and shouldn't take his
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foot off the gas when it comes
to growth. So what are some ways
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to respond to control or infrastructure on
the operation side without James or any founder
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having to take their foot off the
gas? Yeah, so here's the thing.
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When you know, let's play out
a little bit more of this analogy
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about the picture of a vehicle,
right, of a car. When you
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get a car on a racetrack,
the point is to go as fast as
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you can possibly go and win the
race, right. But the reality is
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there are still rules, right,
there are still expectations, there are still
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limitations, there are still safety measures
put into place. So when I say
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that James is going to keep the
pedal to the metal and he's going to
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go as fast as he can go, it doesn't mean he doesn't have any
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rules, that he can go do
anything anywhere with anyone. So anything,
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if we've done our job well,
what we've done for our sales group,
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because we've defined our capabilities. We
defined our capacity, we've given them some
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parameters and some boundaries so that what
they sell fits within our ability to perform.
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And that's what I talked about when
I mean get out in front of
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the sales and marketing group, because
they're always going to want to push,
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they're always going to want to go
faster. But if you were on a
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you know we're James and I both
live in Orlando and we're not far from
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Daytona and you know, if you
have been to one of those races,
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really a race of any kind.
You see that there are some very,
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very specific guidelines and parameters within which
the drivers have to perform. So they're
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objective is to go fast, but
they also have checks and balances in place
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so that they can do so in
a safe way and at the end of
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the race they have the chance to
win. That is so true. And
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if anyone knows James, you know
that his ideal day doesn't start until noon
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and he's usually awake until two a
m and texting, probably you bill,
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about ideas that he has. So
we've covered a lot of good information here.
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But tell me what the bottom line
is. Well, you know,
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hearing you say that, Kelsey might
I think my bottom line is thank God
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for James Carberry and sweetish and his
role. I mean he is very clear.
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If there's any one of us here
at sweetfish who understands their role and
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opportunity, it's James, and that
is to grow this business. Why?
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Because he wants to provide more opportunity
and because he's really passionate about what he's
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got to say and how it can
help small businesses, really businesses of any
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kind, do exactly what we're trying
to do, and that is a grow
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the qualifier that I add to that, because it's just the hat I wear,
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is that that that growth has to
be managed. Growth. It has
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to be controlled growth, and the
better we are as a operations team and
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the stronger our infrastructure, the more
successful James and Logan and and Dan and
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everybody else who is thinking about building
this thing can be awesome. If anyone
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wants to connect with you, what's
the best way for them to do that?
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Sure the best way is always linkedin's. You can find me there or
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shoot me an email. I'm at
bill at Sweet Fish Mediacom. Love to
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hear from them. Great. Thanks
for hanging with US Today, Bill.
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Yep, you bet. Thank you, Kelsey. Is Your buyer a BBB
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marketer? If so, you should
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marketing decision makers. If it sounds
interesting, Sin Logan and email logan at
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sweetish Mediacom.