Small Business Management Tips from Marilyn Weinstein, Vivo CEO

Greetings folks and welcome to the small business show@businessshow.co this is episode 36 for the week of Monday, October 12th, 2016. And here as always in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And I'm Shannon Jean, coming to you from Concord, California. How goes it, Dave?

It goes. How goes it with you, my friend?

Good, good. It's lovely out here. And today I'm joined by Marilyn Weinstein from Vivo. Is Vivo Inc. Just Vivo? Just Vivo. Okay, well, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, I know it's been, we've been juggling schedules, getting everything together and it's. That's always a good sign because when you running the business, you'll be like, no, I have all the time in the world when you want to get together.

Exactly. How's every day?

Yeah, it's good to be busy. Right.

So I always say it's better than the alternative. I have yet to experience the alternative of being busy, so I don't actually know if that's true, but it sounds good.

Well, you kind of run around like crazy and look back and you get little pieces of it once in a while. That's right. Sometime. So today we're going to talk about Vevo, Marilyn, your experience, your background and stuff. So give us a little background on Vivo, what you guys do and maybe how you got started.

All right, we'll try that. So we've been in business for nine years. Right now we're just starting our 10th year. And Vevo is a IT staffing and consulting company. Majority of our business is in Silicon Valley, but we also have clients all over the country. We specialize in mid to senior level IT resources and basically anybody who has IT is probably needing something we have.

And so these companies don't want or don't have the opportunity to hire these people. It's better to have you folks come in and manage that. How does it work?

That's a good question. So it works in a variety of ways. Usually they have a big project coming up and it makes more sense to go out for outside talent than it does to tax their existing staff or perhaps they're doing a major initiative. And other times it's the need for talent. As you know, we're in a talent shortage right now and so it's just easier to bring in a contractor or a long term consultant sometimes than it is to make a full time hire.

Got it. And do you have folks on your staff that then help manage? Like I can imagine the integration, bringing in a team Or a single person. Are these folks all programmers doing software stuff?

Actually there are a variety, but for the most part they tend to be in the functional space a little bit more. So project managers, business analysts, the network architects, all throughout the infrastructure space. Also a lot of developers as well. Usually in the biz app space though, your SFDC, salesforce.com or SAP.

I know what none of those mean really.

Okay, so love it.

I do know. Okay, good a little bit.

But welcome to Silicon Valley.

Are most of your clients in Silicon Valley? Are these jobs in person placements or do you do some virtual stuff too?

We do some virtual, but for the most part I would say we're about 80% Northern California at this point and sometimes that varies. We have a nice presence in Detroit right now as well. And usually the way we pick our geographies is very scientific. A client says to us, hey, can you come out here and help us? So typical scientific method that we use.

Follow the money, right?

I mean if they build it, we will come is how we usually say it. Yeah, that's great.

So how did you get started in this? What was the concept of, okay, now we're going to go out and offer these services and it seems very timely, you know that and maybe that's part of it.

So I worked at a company before this and fell in love with business. I had been actually a practicing attorney before my last company and they were doing it staffing and I helped them sell and my old business partner and I just looked at each other one day and said, wow, we could totally do that. That's easy, right? And famous last word. We did put actually that much thought into it. And while I'm glad that nine years later it had legs, I would highly recommend people be a little bit more thoughtful about the process than we were.

That seems to be the theme around here. You know, it's like we've had guys as a business plan, you know, we tried it, that didn't go, you know, whatever. We tore it up and. Or we just kind of ran with it. So. So you didn't sit down and lay everything out and try to plan it for a decade?

No, and probably the worst, the worst that comes to us from not having one of those organized, well thought out business plan is otter all hands. When an employee raises his or her hand and says what's our five year vision? And I just look at them and say, right, let's write it, let's do it together.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's, I been there doing that. That's for sure. So, okay, so you're working for the company. So one of the things that we hear from a lot of people that that is the hardest part. It's like you're at the edge of the cliff is making that transition from employee to employer. Can you talk to that for a minute? And how that, how you did it and it sounds like you did it with a partner. I don't know if that was easier or better, but, but give us some feedback on that.

So I think I need to come back to the partner thing because that's probably where I would also suggest people think long and hard what you think you know about somebody and whether or not you should partner together. I could write books on that one. To answer specifically going from an employer to an employee, employee to an employer, that is much more difficult than people warn you about. When I was an employee spending my old employer's money, I was a brilliant manager. I made great hires, I made great decisions. And once it honestly became the food that would have gone to my kids or not. And once the money, you know, to invest in each employee is your money, it. I went from being the best manager to the worst manager the day I opened doors.

And it. Is that a, Is that a. We used, actually one of our interviewees used this term last week.

It.

Was that a fear based decision? I mean, is that, is it just the fear of it's your money now that changed that for you?

Or was.

Has to be. If I, if I could put my finger on the one thing that changes the most, it has to be fear based. You don't have the confidence that somebody else's money gives you. You know, and I was, and I was frugal and I was, I was, you know, loyal and you know, it wasn't wasteful or anything like that, but I still had, I could look in my boss's eyes and say to him, I'm going to make this person successful. And I don't have anybody to say that to. So I just, I don't have that ability to know which one's going to be a hundred thousand dollars later.

Yeah.

And still bad. And which one's going to be a couple tens of thousands invest in this person more and they're going to succeed. So that's been the biggest struggle over nine years that I really had to spend time developing a skill set that had been, I thought, pretty much perfected when I worked for someone else.

Yeah, that's really, I think, insightful because it's almost like there's Kind of a little room, wiggle room in there at working for someone else where things don't work out quite right. You can, well, we're going to pivot, we're going to do this. But when it's, when you're writing the check and you have to deal with it and if you don't get the.

Results, you know, it's, it's quite different.

Yes.

So how do we as business owners pretend like we're using somebody else's money when it, when it's convenient for us? That's the trick.

It's a good question. I would say if you have the luxury of not under capitalizing your business and putting a layer of management in from day one, you're going to have an easier time. Now that I have an amazing layer of management, the problem is just not mine as much. And I now have the ability to bounce off somebody else and have the good decision discussions and say, okay, is that a good investment? Is that person a good investment? But you know, most of us open doors and we, you know, we just don't have the luxury or we're really smart or really scrappy. So we do four people's worth of jobs. But again, the one that we're not doing well is people management at a guess.

And how long do you think it took you to get that layer of management?

So I'm nine years in. Nine years.

Eight years.

Yesterday. Yeah, uh, no, probably this year. This year was a pinnacle or turning, turning point for us for sure. On a lot of things clicked. We did, we are doing really well. And I do think we finally saw that we could invest instead of feeling so fear based. I mean, I do like that phrase. Has to be.

It's true. I would totally agree with that because the bank is, I mean, every day when I come in the first hour I'm looking at cash, you know, where's this and where's that and all that stuff. And I think your point that, you know, getting to rise above that feeling is, and I think it's something we've not identified here but till today, that really can be empowering for you, however long it takes, you know, and, and, and I think that's probably a reason why a lot of small business owners don't want to hire their first employee and they become, they stay as kind of self employed, right?

Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, I would think so. So when you were talking about partnerships, and I want to go back to that a little bit, did you have any kind of partnership agreement when you sat down to Work something out.

I did. And so that's one of the things when I'm advising anybody who's going to go into business with somebody else, you can't have the crystal ball that would have let you know whether it'll be a perfect relationship or not. So do not skip any steps. Make sure you have all of your legal paperwork so that if it doesn't work out, you can gracefully get out of it without losing everything you put in and being able to walk away and having a thriving business afterwards.

And is that how you would phrase it? Graceful? When you get. I don't put you on the spot because I've been there.

Yeah. Yes. That's. I actually remember. So I've been married 15 years. I've never been divorced. I would say that breaking up from a business partner has got to be just as difficult as a divorce must be. That's the way it felt. So I always say.

I always say with a partnership agreement, you're planning for divorce. You're planning for the possibility of divorce. Right. I mean, it's the prenup, and you've got to know how it's going to unwind.

Yeah, you are. And in a prenup, you might not want to do that because, you know, oh, that's not a great way to walk down the aisle.

Right, right.

In business, please walk down that business aisle trying to be ready to break up. You have to go into it that way. So.

And I think for me, for a long time, it was always also, you mentioned having that confidence for having a partner helped me be more confident because I felt like, okay, well, if I really screw up, you know, this guy, this person's going to have my back or whatever. And it's a whole. It's another step away from, you know, having you being the one that's. Backstops everything.

Well, yeah, it. In your head, you're. Then you're not the only person that you can blame for a bad decision.

That's right.

I mean, really. Yeah. When I bought my partner out of Backbeat Media, I got less confident. And we had, you know, we'd been running the business together for nine years like it was. Things were going great. Why should I care?

Right?

Right.

Sure enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you need ghostwriters for that book, by the way, on. On partnerships, Shannon and I are right there for you.

So, okay, maybe. Maybe that's our next business we could be talking about. I will say, for better or worse, I wouldn't have opened a business without a partner. So, you know, when you. That's why I was smiling at you when you said confidence, absolute. Did not have the confidence to do it myself. And I didn't. I don't necessarily. I didn't set out to be a sole business owner either. I wanted to do it with somebody else. I wanted to have that equal partner bouncing ideas off of them. Also having equal skin in the game, of course.

Yeah.

So I. I think anybody who can weather that storm and be a, you know, sole business owner has some other war wounds to share.

Yeah, I think the. For me, to your point, you know, the collaboration, you had nobody else to talk to. It was just you and this other person trying to get. And you pump each other up and you help each other through tough times and all that kind of thing. So it is. It is challenging, but it's also brings another level of flexibility and freedom to you when you're doing it on your own.

Absolutely.

So, okay, so let's talk about marketing and how, obviously you've been very successful and done a great job. What's been the most effective way to market your business?

Word of mouth and brand loyalty has been the absolute biggest reason for our growth. We sell services. So if you sell a widget, you walk in with your demo, and your widget's either better, faster, cheaper, available more quickly, latest, greatest, you can't do that in services. So people will sometimes say to me, what's your unique value proposition? And if I'm with a salesperson, I'm not allowed to say this because they'll kick me, but I say, not a damn thing. Yeah, not a damn thing. It comes down to, with services, you need to be able to trust the person that you're buying from and value what they bring to the table. And it's an art. And so the biggest piece of marketing we have is people talking about us. So doing a really good job by our consultants, you know, having them regularly say, hey, you should come in here, we need some more people. Or you should talk to my employer. They treat me really well. They'll be sitting at the lunch table at one of the big Silicon Valley companies and finding out that one of the consultants not from our company doesn't like how he or she's being treated. So, you know, that kind of word of mouth of how well we treat people and how easy we are to work with for our clients makes them keep coming back because, you know, staffing is a necessary evil. But you don't get out of bed in the morning and think, gosh, I hope I have A failing project that needs four people, you know, it's. It's.

Yeah, that's true. So it sounds like, you know, when you say the word of mouth, it's really multifaceted, because my first thought was, okay, word of mouth from customer to customer, which is what we all want. But also the people that work are. I don't know how you refer to them in your business, but the people that are working for you, that you're. You're placing.

Right, the consultant.

Yeah. The consultants, they're doing the word of mouth for you as well?

Absolutely.

Either to the company they're working for or even actually recruiting other consultants that are not doing that well. So.

Absolutely.

That's interesting.

And on the flip side, though, we can make no mistakes. So again, if your widget's the best and the fastest and the cheapest, you can make a couple of mistakes along the way because somebody needs the product or doesn't need the product. We can, we can't make mistakes. We can't treat people poorly. We have no choice but to stick to a very specific value proposition, which for us is how we treat people and how easy we are to work with. So we make sure everybody's trained up well on that.

Yeah. All the alphabets. Now, do you find that when you, like, if you bring in a group of people, is it. You say you have to be perfect, Is it easier? Or do you sometimes see the. Maybe if there's a problem with the project or thinking, you know, the blame maybe gets shift around to the, to the consultants because they're not employees.

Oh, absolutely. So let me describe having to be perfect. When I say perfect, I mean perfect in how we treat people. But we make, we make more mistakes on a day. I mean, we are working with humans.

Yeah.

So somebody might not show up for an interview or for their first day of work. I mean, humans are not a predictable species. So those amount of mistakes are daily. But accountability then becomes first and foremost and we have to just stay right in it, be accountable and make it better.

Yeah, that makes sense. That's great. So you're talking about stories, and I imagine you have a lot of them, good, good and bad. And we love stories here because we think, you know, it connects really well and gets a point across. Do you have a favorite? And it could be a horror story, it could be a great success. And, you know, this one always puts our interviews on the spot, but, you know, something you could share with us, that's.

So most of our best stories are about humans being human.

Yeah.

And a little on the maybe shady, dicey side. What I like to tell everybody is on the subject of not being perfect. We had a consultant interview. He was supposed to be interviewing our candidate in an interview from Houston, flew in to take the job. And I went. I met him at the door of my client the first day, and this guy didn't speak a lick of English. And I said, oh, where did you drive in from? And he was supposed to have moved to Fremont over the weekend. And he said, you know, something like Texas or something. I said, okay. So he. He and I weren't understanding each other, and I drove back to the office. So what I should have done was say, are you really the same guy? Like, I don't think you're the candidate who interviewed. I should pull. Put a stop on this, Pull the plug right now. So what I did instead, which is what any mature business owner would do, I beat feet. So I got into my car as quickly as I can, I drove away. I didn't even wait for the manager to come out. And a couple of weeks later, the manager called and said, get this guy out of here. I don't think it's even the same person who interviewed. That was my first deal with this client, and it's now one of my largest clients. I mean, the nice thing is you have to keep your sense of humor, you know, and admit what you did instead of saying, no, it was him. It was totally him. Oh, yeah, that was him. You know, the only thing I should have done better, though, was to have trusted my instinct at the time. But, you know, I drove back across the bridge the whole time thinking that didn't happen. No, he was just nervous, you know, he. That must have been him.

So that's interesting. So that. That's. And I never would even have thought that. So you had. You have experiences where the person that you think might be that person turns out to actually be someone else.

They have somebody else do the phone interview for them sometimes. And the information on people's res. Oh, yeah, this is.

This is good. So you could. We're all in the. Well, Dave's in the. In the service business, so. But I'm in the widget. The widget business. And I was like, okay. So I could see, you know, that that could be a real problem.

Yeah, yeah. And again, because it is going to happen. Like, it's not whether it would happen.

Sure.

You know, the. This guy passed the interview. He. You know, we saw him on video conference interviewing, too. So, you know, there was no Nothing else we really could have done to have stopped it on the front. And so how you respond to it and how accountable you are and how gracious you are and whether you can keep your sense of humor really separates you from others because, you know, the instinct beyond, the instinct to drive across the bridge and run as fast as you can. The other instinct.

Yes.

Okay, not my finest moment, but the other instinct is to lie. And if you do that, you'll never do business. So you have to just come clean and say, I'm sorry I. We messed that one up.

Messed up. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, it's, you know, every business is the customer service business. And in yours, perhaps more so, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. I could just imagine the support structure you must have in place to keep all these. I mean, it's like a big juggling act. If you don't mind, how many consultants are you typically have out there at once that you're dealing with?

Right? About 100.

Yeah. That's incredible.

And we have amazing engagement managers who work with them every day to make sure everybody has what they need. We have very low attrition, which helps because if you can imagine being a busy manager for a fast moving company, you have a consultant, you finally got this person up to speed and they quit because they weren't being treated well at their company. That could tank your entire project.

Sure.

So we're very sensitive to those kind of needs as well.

That's cool. Yeah, I could imagine stress levels could be very high. And it seems, and I follow you guys on Facebook and I see your pictures and all the stuff you guys have going. It seems like you put a lot of effort into making it an enjoyable space for all your employees to hang out and connect with each other.

Yeah, we're a little crazy. We're definitely a little bit nuts. We're super violent. We play hard.

Super violent. I like that. Wow.

Can we rewind on that? What does that mean?

We'll play any game we play. We go all in. So there was this time with Photo Assassin and somebody said the CEO of the company had dove under the table and captured her prey. But I. I don't know. I have a scar. So maybe that did happen.

Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Well, that's good. Yeah. Because you got to. You got to keep everybody happy.

Yeah.

You're juggling everything. Right. And you made it to that point where you have this level of management. But now, you know, you're charged with keeping everybody happy. You know, your clients, your consultants and your employees that Come in and support you every single day.

I think the other thing to really keep in mind is people will never be happy, and so you should be happy.

Why will people never be happy?

That's just society people. I mean, they need something to complain about. We actually wouldn't have Facebook if people didn't need something to complain about.

So I think that's a really good point. And I think as. As business owners, we often spend a lot of time trying to make people happy, either with perks, money, you know, the culture, whatever it is. Give me an example. Or have you gotten to a point where you see someone and you're like, you know, we're just not going to be able to make this person happy?

Oh, absolutely. We. We do a lot with culture, but at the end of the day, we do the things that make us happy, and we're very transparent during the interview process. So if you don't like it, we didn't bait and switch. You talked about perks. Every person there can work out at the gym. I like. It's a local.

You like? Yeah, that's good.

It's a local small gym. Everybody can go. They can go for free. There's an unlimited number of passes. But, you know, I'm not going to research five perks that some other company has to make their employees happy. This was made known to you before you joined. You're very welcome to come. It's a really fun place. We play games and we have happy hours and we do a lot together and. But we're probably not going to keep researching for the latest and greatest that makes some other group of people that aren't us happy, because happy is relative and people just want to be unhappy.

Yeah, I agree with you, and I love the comment about, you know, your gym. And I've tried to do the same thing where you try to make your life better and then enrich everybody around you. And I think what you have to do as a business owner is give everyone the opportunity to be happy.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's a good point. That's my responsibility. And said after I've given them the opportunity.

Because you'll. You'll just drive yourself nuts. I mean, and you'll go down the rabbit hole trying to go things away. And we have the same issues at my business where you. Okay, guys, let's come up with this program. I know you want to do this or do this, and oftentimes you just. It doesn't. Not much comes back to you where some folks are waiting for you to Lay it all out for them and run it for them. So I think that's a really important thing, you know, you cannot make them happy.

I think that's wisdom I got from being a parent, though. Ever drive down to Disneyland? Ever get out of the car at Disneyland and start yelling at your kids? We're having fun, damn it. We're having fun.

That's true. Yeah. Yeah. You get that experience. They're like little employees. Right.

Christmas, Christmas morning, and you spent all the money on the present. They were happier with a box.

That's right.

You know, yeah.

Your kids are like employees, Shannon, except you can't fire them, nor can you even threaten to do so.

Yeah, you're right. That's it. That's where it ends right there.

That's right. Yeah, that's where it ends. Yeah, that's right. So they are good training for you to be a loyal employer if you want to go down there.

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Juggling everything. So. So we. We're big fans of mistakes here, you know, I've made more than them, you know, in my business, and I can count. What's the best mistake you've ever made? I mean, what. What really taught you the most in your business experience?

I think the best mistake I made was going into business with a partner who I hadn't done enough research to see if we were going to be aligned. So because the process of extricating from that relationship forced, finally, a business plan that was super sound. It forced a reinvention of the brand. It forced me to prioritize it. Really. It was the best mistake I've ever made. I would not have the appreciation for what I do now had I not had I started it alone. And, you know, I probably would have had. We talked about confidence before, but if I had had the confidence to open it all by myself, perhaps I would have missed every learning lesson that was coming my way because my ego might have been unstoppable.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And you may never have left.

Right.

You not had that person. I totally get it. So what surprised you the most about running your own company?

I think it surprised me that it wasn't as easy as I had made my mind up that it would be. I had had such success as an executive at my last company, and I felt like I knew every facet of the business. I really thought this was going to be a cakewalk.

That's pretty. That's interesting. Yeah. And having been so long since I worked for someone else, I could see how you get this? Oh, well, this is the way it happens. And you're judging the business from your perception of it. And there's probably a whole side of it, certainly a whole side of it that you're not involved in that now you have to deal with, right?

Absolutely.

Yeah. That's cool. So one of the things that, you know, now that we're wisened, you know, decade old, you know, business owners, if you could go back and give yourself one piece of advice that you know now or something that, that you really, you know, that's powerful for you, what would you tell yourself when you were ready to take that step?

I would definitely try to figure out a way to bring in that management level or sooner earlier on and figure out how to finance that. But, you know, pay before you have it. You know, I've always done that. I'll build it and then they'll come type of model. But I would have rather. Or they're coming so I will build it as they go is a better way to say it. I would have, I would have done better with the infrastructure in place that I have now. I mean, with that said, hindsight, you.

Know, of course, it's, it's totally hindsight.

Who knows if I would have learned the right lessons if I had done it correctly.

Yeah, that's right. Things happen for a reason, right? That connect the dots thing. And now that you have that layer, I mean, you just find you have more and maybe freedom isn't the word, but more opportunity to be the visionary, to kind of pull the company forward. I mean, I know I look at your website and I see you guys do lots of things that I didn't know you did and lots of, you know, cloud stuff and infrastructure things. And I can, reading some of the data, I could see that someone's certainly pushing in certain directions out there.

Absolutely. There was just no ability to do that while I was, you know, being just the failed salesperson and the failing manager and the, you know, person over here and the person over there. So if I had just kind of brought on a few more heads right from the start who were at the management level.

Yeah.

It's funny though, you look at other people's business models when they do that, and sometimes you'll meet somebody who has five managers or executives, no revenue, and you think, man, you know, it would.

Be nice if you didn't have to be accountable. We talked about that last week. We had a Brian Frisson from a company called Digistore, and he's right. In Silicon Valley, where everybody's. A lot of his friends are working for venture backed companies that profits are not required. At a certain point he's like, yeah, it's really difficult for me to see all this and to talk to them and hear, oh, we just brought on X and this and without that. And I would say same thing. You know, it's an awesome. I mean it's not a luxury. At some point it becomes a necessity to have that layer. But it's expensive and you know.

Yeah, you have to have a lot. That's where you need to know where you're going and that you want to go there. It, you know, if it's a grow or die spot and you have to decide which one's better for you. And sometimes it's better to, okay, no, you know what? I don't want to be an employer. I just want to, you know, be working for myself.

Yeah.

If it, if you want to grow, no backseats grow, you have, you have to just do it in or out. There is no halfway.

Yeah, that's pretty good. So, so what's next?

Easier said than done, but it is that easy. I mean, it's the fear that makes it difficult to do. But you're totally right. You just have to do it and it's, it's much easier once you get past the fear.

Yeah. The decision I think is, yeah, yeah. Once you've made the decision and you've got the buy in and you just, okay, this is it. But it's hard, you know, getting to that point. What's next for you guys? What's the future for Vivo?

We have a couple of areas. We're expanding geographic and we're probably going to do some inorganic growth coming up too. So 2016 looks like it's going to be very promising as well. Again, very blessed that our clients have helped us grow in 2015 and 14 and excited.

And with that growth, does your life get more complicated or are you able to delegate enough with these awesome, of course. These awesome managers you found over the years?

It's a good question. It's different complications. So I'm doing what I love right now. When I get to the strategic and I'm doing operations, that's when I'm in my comfort zone and just in my sweet spot. When my client calls and says that somebody no showed or isn't who he said he was, they at least don't call me and they don't call. And so, you know, so it's a different complication. It's more Using my brain again and getting back to my creative. You know, I call it smoking the idea crack pipe. But yeah, that's what I like to do.

Yeah, no, that's good. And I think that's a great thing to, you know, talk about especially with new, you know, small business owners is that hey, it gets better. You know, those formative years can be just, you know, brutal. Just it. But you just have to slough through it and get surround yourself with a good team and get it to that level to where you can take the afternoon and come on the small business show and do an interview and you're not like looking at your clock, you know, watch. Oh, I gotta get, I gotta do this, I gotta do that. You have a little bit, you kind of breathe a little bit more.

Absolutely. And if you don't have a business partner, make the world your business partner. I mean find a bunch, find people you trust, ask them questions you don't have to open your books and show them everything about you to ask something like, hey, struggling with this sales issue right now. Have you ever done that in your company? Make everybody an advisor? If you are doing it alone.

Yeah. That's really good advice. I like that. Well, so how do people find you?

So if you'd like to find us, I'm sure you're welcome to go to our website. It's vivo inc.com cool. But the, the truth is we welcome you to come hang out on our Facebook page as well. Life at Vevo on Instagram is also other places where you can see how woefully inappropriate we are at all times. And yeah, word of mouth, call, email. Yeah, give us a call.

And do you think that the social media, is it effective for you connecting with your customers? Is it more just making your employees, I mean what's the big benefit? Because your B2B business. Right. So who's looking at that?

So our typical 35 to 45 year old manager or director is looking and tomorrow he or she may be a consultant or candidate.

Yeah.

And next week he or she may be looking for a job themselves so that the crossover for the identities is right there at. Who is on social media. I think a mistake people make in the social media space is looking to that get better ROI and data than that and you're not going to get it. You're going to be at a cocktail party where somebody says is that true what you said last week? And that's the first time you found out because he or she didn't feel like clicking on it. Because we keep our public. We keep our Vivo Inc. Facebook page set to public. So maybe they don't want to click. Yes, I know. You know that resume mistake.

Sure.

Because maybe their boss would see it. Why are they thinking about resume?

Oh, yeah.

But they're still looking at it and interacting with us.

Yeah.

But if you need the ROI and you're a number Z analytical, it's not a good. You're going to lose your mind again. Free is in the budget, though, so.

That's right.

You know, you have to. You have to really rethink why it's stressing you out so much.

Yeah. And it just seems like you guys are constantly recruiting. It's all around every day. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's great. Well, Dave, you have any additional questions or comments? No.

This has been fantastic.

Yeah.

Yeah. Tons of great quotes. I love what you just said. Free is in the budget. I mean.

Yeah, we're writing these all about this. We steal all these good quotes for us. This is really what this show's all about. Good, good information. So thanks for coming. Yeah. Thanks for coming on. We really enjoyed having you.

Super fun.

It's great. I mean, the. Getting the insight from a different sort of thing, the service business, which just, you know, scares the heck out of me. I, you know, dealing with all these people.

Yeah. I'm gonna sell widgets in my next life.

I can tell you. That's. That's. We can talk about that. Every.

Everybody that comes on says that. Right? Like, oh, as soon as I.

It's actually greener.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. It keeps you going. Right. It's like, okay, well, when I do this, you know, so that's great. So if you have questions or, you know, comments, you know, for Maryland or Vivo, you can reach us@feedbackusinessshow.co. you can jump on the Facebook page, of course, because we have one of those, too. Or. Or on Twitter. And thanks, everybody, for joining us today.

Thank you.