There’s Big Money All Over the Place

[Music] hello everyone welcome to the 21 hats podcast I'm your host Lauren Feldman this week Sean busy tells Jay GS and Sarah seagull that he sees all kinds of opportunities for small businesses including his own in the coming wave of climate related government spending and tax credits count Jay among the convinced he's got four buildings five Vans a trucks and sprinters and a parking lot where you could put a charging station if there's government money available for upgrades he asks why wouldn't I do that plus Jay explains how he's rethinking his search for an HR person and Sarah tells us she's ready to meet in the metaverse even in Good Times owning and running a business can be a lonely Pursuit our hope is that these weekly conversations will let owners know they are not alone in facing challenges same thing with our daily newsletter the 21 hats Morning Report which Nick magazine recently named the best newsletter for business owners and which you can subscribe to at 21h hats.com where you can also find transcripts of our podcast episodes and lots of other articles and interviews joining me this week on the podcast are regulars Sean busy CEO of Kinesis which is based in Portland Oregon and works with small businesses on marketing culture and strategy Jay goz whose companies in Chicago include a picture frame business artist frame service and a home furnishing store Jason Hol and Sarah seagull who is founder and CEO of seagull Communications a public relations firm based in San Francisco the episode is titled there's big money all over the place welcome Shan Jay and Zarah great to have you all here Sean you've been open with us about the fact that the pandemic kind of threw off your marketing game and that you've been struggling a bit to figure out how what to do going forward but we talked earlier this week and I gather you've got kind of a a new idea uh a new opportunity that you see can you tell us about that yeah I I mean it's it's actually an idea that my team brought to me a while back um before uh any kind of legislation was passed but they were they were really interested in getting into um sustainability and the green economy and and bringing more businesses in that were in that space you know I was I'm intrigued by that I kind of fascinated by a lot of the the Science and Technology but then I started looking into the recent in it's it's called the inflation reduction act which is kind of funny but it's a lot of money I mean it's like $700 billion over 10 years and of that almost 370 billion is really kind of dedicated to the energy and green economy and and I've just I've been researching I've been looking into like this is going to have this really profound impact on our society and our economy and especially at a time when there's a lot of uncertainty about you know how's the economy doing you know the government's going to be pushing money into the sector and I just started looking at our client base and I realized that some of our very very best clients are already working in this space I just hadn't really kind of put the connected the dots so good example I have an automation engineering client that's just fantastic they did this really amazing um high altitude wind project a while back um this is long before any kind of money was in it this is private money not government money I have a client that's doing stuff with wave energy on the Oregon coast I have clients that are in the hbac space um I have clients that are in the kind of building science space how would it affect in a company in the hdac space What are you thinking yeah so so like the vast majority of our buildings are terrible from an energy use and consumption perspective and so you're going to see just this massive overhaul of how those buildings work you know from uh heating cooling uh energy consumption electrification and so if you're in the HVAC space you're going to want to get on The Cutting Edge of that stuff you're going to want to get to where you understand really the advanced technology that's going to need to go into these buildings so as somebody who provides support for those types of businesses I mean we have a lot of clients that are in the HVAC space we have a lot of clients that are Engineers that work with buildings the technology is changing super super fast and if you can adapt to that technology as a business there's a lot of money that's going to be out there and a lot of demand that's going to be created and so you know I've never really gone into a niche you know because I I really enjoy diversity I'm kind of like Sarah you know she's got her dut client and she's got these Tech clients I really like that and my team likes that but I I see a thread between I'd say probably half of our customers are already touching this space and I I see just this massive opportunity coming down the road and super excited about it I I think there's there's a lot of room there it intrigues me that you see half of your clients touched by this it doesn't sound like all your clients are in technology or some uh green related feel you know uh energy related sort of well they could be touched by it like me as I'm listening which I knew nothing about this I've got four buildings so I've got major heating air conditioning issues and if there's money to go ahead and upgrade this to you know I bought this building I'm sitting in 22 years ago I'm sure the technolog is old when I put the boiler in back then if there's money available to upgrade that and save some some money yeah why wouldn't I do that yeah and like Jay you're going to see such an opportunity because like I was looking into the EV tax credits as an example so they are extending the EV tax credits which all of them had expired or were expiring so that's great but on the fleet level on the business Fleet level there's massive money so the I was just looking into it this morning I was looking into if you uh are a fleet owner you own vehicles for your business there's a tax credit for vehicles that weigh under 14,000 lb so think about like a little Chevy bolt driving around picking up stuff small stuff but the real big one are the 14,000lb vehicles and Above So Think like a van a bigger vehicle they have a $40,000 up to $40,000 tax credit and and then the charging stations themselves you can now put them in as a building owner and get this 30% tax credit and it's not capped like it was before you can get up to like $100,000 so there's folks like me like the service providers who want to help businesses that you know are in this space you know I want to help the electrical company that's not very good at marketing that's not very good at positioning and branding and culture but they can get in front of this stuff and go to guys like you Jay and be like all right Jay we can modernize your building we can put EV Chargers in you can buy these vans that now are going to reduce your ongoing maintenance costs because they're electric instead of gas which is or diesel no I've got five Vans I got a 815 Foot Truck I've got I've got some sprinters and yeah that's very and I've got a parking lot would I could put a charger in yeah Sean two questions first is are you applying these kind of changes to your own personal existence like do you have solar panels do you have other green things in your existence like is this something that you're passionate about yeah so I'm building a house and an art studio right now and this couldn't have come at a better time because I'm basically running all the conduit so that I can have an EV charger that I can run solar off the roof because all this stuff's going to get way cheaper in the coming years the tax credits were expiring on a lot of this stuff they're just expanding everything so on a on a consumer level there's awesome opportunities too uh what is your source for like business owners say Jay decides that yeah he really wants to go for the lighter lighter lighter load trucks to to cut cost and get those tax credits where are you finding the resources for like the average person to take a look at in terms of their own business yeah so there this stuff is everywhere out there I mean like I did a quick search you know because I knew I knew it was out there I was like what what is what are the exact numbers so I typed in like EV Fleet tax credit or EV Fleet uh inflation reduction act and there's tons of information both put out by the federal government they've got some nice one pagers as well as you know Forbes Inc all the business Publications have done um pretty good reporting on this stuff yeah I mean this this stuff applies to a lot of different Industries we worked with a client uh named uh Karma and what they were working on was reducing emissions um for uh computer traffic by incentivizing people to drive at different time and different routes it's a pilot project that just got renewed as a real project in the Dallas Fort Worth area but they have received some of those dollars um and it's been a really big um source of of Revenue that's enabling them to apply it to different cities it's really interesting to watch yeah so is that Karma with a c no with a c with a c go Karma yeah I think this is a great example of how municipalities and especially utilities are going to really start changing the way we behave and operate it's so funny you know folks are like oh gosh the government is forcing us into electric vehicles actually that's not true the the market is forcing us into electric vehicles GM and Ford and all these major car companies are like we're going to Electrify our entire fleet they're just going to do it because they've seen what Tesla did and they're like that's where the money is and it's not going to be linear it's it's going to be geometric in growth so do you think that the accounting firms are going to end up being a major source of getting the news out there to their clients let's just say I haven't received any communication from my accounting firm on any of this stuff and I you know they're terrible they're terrible marketers they're terrible communicators I don't know that this is marketing I kind of feel like the accounting firms if you're with a bigger one should have the responsibility to let their clients know here are some it's it's taxation here are some tax benefits here are some I would think but then I think the bigger ones will and when I say marketing I just mean Communications right like getting things out being proactive you know letting folks know here's an opportunity because most accounting firms are reactive they they process your tax return and tell you oh you owe this money as opposed to being proactive so I think that's why I wanted to get the word out today about this for for anybody listening to this there's big money all over the place Sean you said that as many as half of your clients uh will be touched by this do you have any sense what percentage of your clients are aware of that that's a really good question um I think it's pretty low at this point because when I say touched by it you know the guys doing work on the coast with the wave generated power they've already been doing that like they didn't need the government to kind of be excited about this space but I'm guessing this could probably help and it'll make a difference to them oh yeah definitely yeah I I think there's a lack of awareness on this so what's the opportunity for you how are you going to try to take advantage of this well for me you know as I look at our client base and I look at like who are the really great clients it's kind of funny but a lot of them are engineer and Engineering related businesses so think about you know creating Ro robots think about um Engineering Building Systems and the reason those customers are really good for us is that they are great at their work they're really theyve struggle at like communicating why is relevant for their customers so they're they're just not really good communicators from a you know how are we different what's remarkable about what we do they they're just really good makers they're really good at building things so we're a great fit for those types of customers why they're also a good fit for us is that our process is very much a hold their hand help them understand marketing and walk them through it in a very prescriptive educational way so we take marketing and break it down into component parts as opposed to we're the Wizards and we have a black box of magic and we're going to do stuff and then you're going to love it you know so we help them understand it and they appreciate that right you know essentially what what I've learned is that these businesses that sell something kind of complex that's hard to understand are a good fit for us cuz we can help them communicate that and they know how to make money so like they have margin they can actually invest in the kind of stuff that we do and so they're great clients but they're underserved they're not sexy they're not shoe companies you know they're not the type of clients that most consultancies are excited to work with and we are so it's it's a great fit so I think Lauren you're going to have to change the name of this to 22 hats because this is another hat for an entrepreneur to have that Sean you bring up an excellent point you can't count on your counting firm to do this this money's out there it didn't used to be out there and this is one more hat we have to wear of looking for government programs that will be useful for us that we should keep our eyes open for yeah actually Jay you don't have to wear another hat you just have to subscribe to 21 hats and Sarah do you see a PR opportunity here um is there an opportunity for the early adopters to to brag about their green credentials and make hay out of that oh that's green washing at 100% like and people are already doing that it's like the equivalent of pink washing for October like you know most people will see right through it you know I'm not I'm not a big fan of green Washings but if they're doing it and it's just a natural part of the values of their business like 100% if that's what you believe but if you're like a makeup brand that uses animals to test their products and then like go say oh well but we're going to deliver them with zero admission Vehicles like you're you're not saying and doing you're you're just talking it you know and so I think most people will do it because of the economics of it if it's going to save you money or gain you tax credits or what have you that's what's going to incentivize with most business owners most business owners you know they have good intentions and they want to be green and they want to do well for the environment but as you know Jay said we're keeping adding hats to our responsibility like you know I personally would love to have like a new office with as you know all green and sustainable and this and that but like there's a huge investment that goes into creating that which uh I can't personally afford right now so this probably falls under the finance hat or the accounting hat or as Lauren as you said if it is legitimately an authentic green thing and you're not greenwashing it is legitimate it could also fall into the marketing hat if you've done something that is legitimate and not just made up to you know try to get publicity well and it also it falls under the business strategy category right so like where are you going to position your business in the future that can potentially overlap in this space regardless of whether people are doing it for altruistic reasons or as Sarah's saying they're doing it for financial reasons I think that for owners to start thinking about where is it possible for our business to overlap in this space regardless of your politics or regardless of whether you think oh my God I never want to give up my diesel truck um I just think about it I'm a I'm a I'm an old school pragmatist I was you know I was born and raised in the rural part of Oregon and I like I just believe that how do you meet people where they're at and I think like you know you think about like a business like Jay's it's like it's a no-brainer for him to start thinking about how to Electrify his Fleet you know the maintenance costs on those on those internal combustion engines you know the this the cost of filling them with fuel is crazy yeah I just put $100 in my car and my car doesn't have a gigantic tank it's it's substantial I've got I think 12 Vehicles my gas bill every month is thousands of dollars so there's no question that something it's worth looking into where I first kind of like queued into this as a business opportunity I had a client number of years ago and they were doing lighting retrofits so they would go into a factory that was dim and dingy and kind of hard to see things and they would replace all these these uh you know High Bay lights that were super energy Hogs and they would get the government to basically subsidize a huge chunk of that swap out and they would just basically build a spreadsheet and sh show the owner you know this investment it will pay for itself within 2 years and then after that it's like printing money and so they just they built a massive business just basically going and swapping stuff out this is before the inflation reduction act stuff wait wait wait was that the government or was it the utilities like ComEd and Illinois gives you a credit it was often a combination so it would it would be like you know combination of uh utilities coming together and forming a pool of money or Andor the government providing tax credits on the regional um level so so like the state governments would provide some of the money so it was like a combination of things I mean the guy built one of the fastest growing companies in the region huge profitability I mean he just dominated with this new business model and it like that was all strategic play did it run out of gas after everybody did their no no I mean it's it's not as easy as it used to be I'm sure because a lot of those incentives expired but I suspect now he's looking at this at this new legislation going okay how am I going to slot into this thank you Sean I feel like I'm making money just listening to you that's what I'm here for all right first I want to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor we'll be right back I'm here with Rob Levan co-founder of work better now which provides top remote Talent from Latin America and the Caribbean Rob have you found that the labor shortage has uh prompted more interest in your service it's a great question Lauren demand really started picking up in about late 20120 as businesses became more comfortable with remote work and the pace really hasn't led up one bit what has changed is what businesses are looking for up to about a year ago owners were looking for assistance as they needed to stop doing administrative work so they can focus on Big Picture items like increasing Revenue recently though half of our hires have been for roles such as project and account management marketing bookkeeping and customer service for many companies the recruiting process can take months uh these days and that can leave your important roles unfilled how quickly can wbn help you know what's really cool about this is our clients can have a matched assistant who is perfect for your needs within about 2 weeks and there are no contracts what does using wbn cost for $1,900 a month you get a full-time dedicated work better now assistant and and if you mention 21 hats when you have your consult you get $150 off the first 3 months and that's for each assistant that you hire where can we learn more workb better now.com thanks Rob and we're back next topic Jay we've talked a few times on the podcast about your challenges trying to replace your head of HR uh who left uh any updates how's it going okay so I just want to give my philosophy which I'm sticking with which is I believe believe if you're careful who you hire and you only want to hire great people you're probably going to get a 100 resumés of which you're going to interview five or 10 and out of that one's going to be the person so this round I haven't gotten 100 rums I'm probably up to 60 you've been frustrated by that I won't use the word frustrated because I'm kind of going with the flow here I knew it wasn't going to be simple so I'm I'm going through it and I went from going for someone who was in charge of a to I took an somebody who's been with me for 30 years she's going to take it over because she knows the company she's not going anywhere and she's very good at this stuff and we're going to hire her a coordinator a human resource coordinator which will cost less and take a lot of the work off her plate so we feel good about that transition so you initially was looking for an HR Director right and now you're looking for a more Junior person I'm going to tell you what the problem is companies smaller than me don't have hrp like most HR people just by definition are working at bigger companies where there's growth potential and there's more assistance and I'm kind of I'm a big little company so I don't know that this is a plum job for a lot of people who are looking for an HR job whereas an HR um coordinator or that's a much easier thing to hire for so we Chang the ad I rewrote the ad I put in there you know a company that's known for their customer service and dedication to both the customer and the employees and you know been in business 43 years was featured on the front cover in magazine I mean I put good stuff in there and we're getting some applicants not as many as I thought and but here's I'm just going to give you a flavor for what I'm getting there's one question on the application from through indeed I'm using both indeed and zip recruiter and there's one place that says um why is this position of interest to you okay I think that's an important one I want to see if they read the ad and whether they're engaged one said I'm helping them achieve their goals and aspirations for employment okay here's another one I'd like to be in an HR role since it's what I went to school for okay not real inspiring think it would be a great fit okay here's one this person is looking for $126,000 a year and they wrote down it that's it it now I'm starting to think people are using this to go to sleep and they start typing these things out and she just she fell asleep after she got it I think she was going to go it sounds like it but she just went to sleep um I got one that said H and I didn't pick out the funny this is what I'm getting this isn't like I got almost no good ones that that took a little time like can you give me like 30 seconds to act like you read the ad and said something like your company sounds like the kind of whatever okay here's one lifelong learner committed to improving the workplace for underrepresented individuals all right so I say to myself sounds like they're a little Mission driven which is what I need what I like so we scheduled the interview for yesterday at 9:00 a.m. which I try to avoid cuz hard to get here with the rush hour and she canceled an hour before she was supposed to be there so we're still getting resumés in now I've interviewed three people one of them we liked she she didn't go to college but she's clawed her way up she's working in a company doing their recruiting and and she's doing their HR and we thought for what she was looking for 90,000 which we thought was a lot of money for her background and her experience so we said no but she called us back a couple days ago and said I saw your new ad would you consider me for this absolutely so she's coming in again and she might be a perfect fit for that we have to decide is she going to be happy with the money difference was she throwing you know darts in the air at the 90 I don't know that's a possibility but the moral of the story in the big picture is I'm not going to hire somebody till the right person shows up do you require any of your applicants like when you get down to the final do you require them to do any like sample um work for you um we do that I haven't probably not a bad idea the joke is just this application they're so bad at filling this out that most of them I mean the one that said um she went to school for this she left the L off of school really yeah so they they've screened some of them screen thems out just in the application but that's probably not a bad idea we make our um applicants do like a a sample campaign where we say here is one of our clients they are coming out with a new diamond donut truck EV I don't know whatever it is this is the date that it's going to lo How would you how would you go about publicizing this and write me a pitch um and kind of put together what that calendar looks like and it's and it's a it's a madeup um opportunity but it's reflective of stuff that stuff that we actually do and some of them knock it out of the park and some of it uh some of them can't write right we have to have people that know how to write no it's a problem that people graduate college and I mean like if you don't know how to spell with computers is there an excuse left for why you're sending out M grammarly everybody should have grammarly like I buy it and I provide it to every one of my employees so you know they're very good writers and they're very good spelling and all that kind of stuff but sometimes you miss stuff and you drop it into that it helps double check it and you're good to go but nothing can go to a client that has a typo I haven't gotten to that level yet because no one's gotten through the first screen I mean well Jay you I mean Sarah's describing a bottom of funnel solution and you've got a top of funnel problem right absolutely I'm curious what are you doing about the top of funnel for employee recruitment I'm still getting one or two a day and I'm just uh waiting till the right one shows up I no but what are you doing like you're describing what's happening to you but what are you doing what I did was I changed the job description I CH I put the money thing in there now I didn't used to the money thing meaning a salary range I tell them the salary range I think that's great now for sure and I didn't used to but I put that in there I'm I'm pretty confident that we're going to find somebody in the next two three weeks have you asked your own um staffers like if they have any like do you do um uh referral fees for your staffers like where they may know somebody who's an HR that wants to change roles and would be excited to work with them I I I'm just going through in my head of my employees it's either I've got ones that are I just don't know that that's the circles they run in I I certainly can ask we don't do that but there are a lot of companies that will say Hey you send us a good employee we're going to put a little bonus on your check I just this is the of job that is unlike any of the people that work here so I don't know that any I certainly can try that but I don't think it's the kind of thing oh I've got a friend who I don't know I got friends that are doctors and you know I don't you know it's not not in my world people know people neighbors I mean I like Sarah's Sarah's idea I I'm very hesitant to put money onto it because I've not honestly I've heard of folks doing that I've not heard of anybody saying it's awesome I used to do it in the factory and it does backfire sometimes now all of a sudden you have to answer to them as to why your their friend that you brought in didn't work out now all of a sudden you're answering to them well they and now you're tell it's like that of business I mean it's It's Tricky yeah I want the I want the incentive to be I want to work with great people I don't want the incentive to be I want to make a few bucks and that so that's where I worry about the financial incentive Sean do you have a suggestion for the for Jay's top of funnel problem yeah I mean I I think it's worth how many employees do you have Jay 130 yeah so like do you have any kind of employee communications platform like an ongoing newsletter or anything like that no so I consider starting that um which your HR person should be in probably be in charge of your people leader but like to have an ongoing communication saying hey this is what we're looking for you know you may not know somebody in your direct Circle but maybe you could talk to your friends and you know like that that that kind of thing that certainly is worth doing and the person that I put in charge of it she's good at that stuff I'll have her do that for sure that that's where I would start I'm going to find someone in the next few weeks I'm absolutely confident that it's just a matter of time I mean it's not like it dried up I'm getting I'm getting one or two a day so it's just a numbers game as far as I'm concerned yeah the other thing I found that that's been a good strategy and this is a little bit mercenary of me and I feel a little bad is I figured out a long time ago that there's a point in every nonprofit employees life where they realize that they're tired of not making any money and nonprofit folks can make really amazing employees because they tend to have a sense of purpose and meaning is what motivates them and so if you can come and find where do those folks congregate and you know basically give them an option I agree with Sean I have one of my best and favorite and most wonderful recent hires she was a producer and worked in you know for public television for years and then moved into nonprofits and managing programs for them and she is like just smart and capable and driven and it's a good resource I don't think I've ever had heard you say anything Sean that I could disagree with more than that I think that that could be true but I think that there's plenty of people working at nonprofits that could never survive in the for-profit world it's just different and I I'm not saying all are nothing but I don't think that those are the ones those are usually not the ones who leave it so so what I'm saying is like the high performers say some you didn't say you said most you said they they it's not most of them some of them I would go with okay I can buy that some of them figure out they need to make more money but I don't know that it's most of them I mean it's the same way PR firms have figured out they can poach from journalism right you know journalism doesn't pay very well and yet it demands a lot of you and and so yeah you know like ex journalists are often really great in the BR space because they work hard they're not accustomed to getting paid a lot of money so when you pay them a reasonable salary they're it's like wow and then they never go back and then we destroy journalism in America so no problem so do you think I should be hanging out in like vegetarian restaurants and stuff for example in Portland there's a job board for nonprofits and we advertise on it when we open up a position and it's been great for us we've gotten some of our best employees from there it's amazing that might be the difference between Portland and Chicago um I bet there's some nonprofits in Chicago I think you should try it clearly no I for I'll try anything I'm open to try it report back I guess one other thing I would add is that I think we have somewhat moved from the from the era of just put a job out there and you'll get people to you actually have to strategically go after people and and that needs to become the HR people Champions job is building relationships before you need to hire a hire for the role it's kind of a recruiting job recruiters all they do is they find people with similar qualifications that are a level below what you want to hire for um and reach out to them on LinkedIn and say Hey you want to get promoted this is a great opportunity no no that might be my next step I don't disagree with that at all I'm thinking that I'm just going to leave the hook in the water a little bit longer before I move on to that but um I'm just surprised that people that are in HR how little energy they put into this application like I'm just I'm talking about just put one sense in there instead of it literally it's a dysfunctional field the problem the problem is is that for years HR was underpaid underappreciated and positioned as the enemy of of the employees so you've got a lot of that Legacy in there that I like your I really like your I'm going to hire a junior person because then your senior person can train them to behave in the ways you want them to behave yes absolutely this wasn't a desperation move I feel real good about this strategy yeah I like it and and I'll tell you something else which is a problem lately this whole pandemic thing you know I used to go to my Factory every Friday and have a meeting every Friday I haven't been there in I mean I'm there occasionally but I haven't had a meeting there in two years there's people over there they don't even know who I am I mean why aren't you doing it because of the pandemic nobody's people are still wearing masks I'm wearing a mask sometimes I I um we're getting close but but why can't you do it go over there and have meetings again yeah everybody's wearing masks anyway well they're not they're um it's not foolproof and there's still people that are very nervous about it like like we still have two cafeterias we set up so they're not sitting close to each other contrary to belief it's not completely over yet and I just assume wait a little bit longer I didn't mean to suggest that it was but oh it is in California like you you wouldn't know that the pandemic was even a thing like everybody's over it oh I can tell you go to some places most people have mask on wow I went to a conference yesterday I saw one person with a mask on and there was like 600 people there wow that's surprising I have not had the covid yet another as anybody in my family so knock on wood Sarah tell us about that conference what kind of conference did you go to oh I don't know that you want to know about my conference oh I do I do um I I I haven't been to a conference for a while but I went with a a client of mine um who is a journalist that's very interested in the metaverse and is a conference put on by The Economist um and very well attended um basically you know heads of startups um to people that are working in divisions of like Ernst and Young um on trying to figure out how the metaverse is going to impact their you know their businesses and their clients but it was really cool just to see what it was about um and what where where it is we're still in like the the nent stages of of what it could be um but how familiar is everybody here with with what the metaverse is tell us like we're fiveyear olds Sarah okay or or 85 year olds or 66 year olds yeah okay so um I'm sure you guys have seen the kids like put on these VR headsets and play like things like Roblox right where you get to kind of move through a a gaming experience right the technical definition is a highly immersive visual world where people gather socialize play and work that's how it's defined but there's a lot of non-gaming applications that are in the works that are super interesting where it can be applied to um medicine it can be applied to um even just how people interact like my company with we just started having our our meetings with clients in the metaverse where we go into what's called a workroom and you put on your VR headset you don't actually have to have a VR heads up to do it um because you can join through Google meet but it brings you into what looks like kind of an office you can change the look and feel of it it can be on the beach it can be in a condo kind of feeling like whatever it is but you're there and it what's really cool about having calls on on this space is that you really are part of it like the three-dimensionality of it like I I'm looking at my client and they're an avatar but the Avatar they they dressed themselves and created an avatar that looked like themselves you get over that really really quickly because you're so excited to have that kind of like you can almost feel like you touch and feel them and have that conversation also you're wearing these headsets that where you can't hear there's no distraction so I'm not my email isn't going off in the background my dog isn't barking in the background I'm literally just focused on the conversation one of my staffers told me after the call she was like she's like my cheeks hurt from smiling the whole time to the extent we know anything about the metaverse we know what we just heard that I think probably simultaneously to you being at this conference Facebook was announcing or meta was announcing that it had lost $20 billion or something uh on its meta investment but the same day that that happened uh was the official distribution of their new VR headset and now everybody's excited about that so so they almost strategically said okay we're our numbers aren't looking good let's release something cool that everybody's going to be excited about and they did that tell me this Sarah do you see the metaverse playing a role in the way you run your business anytime in the near future well you know we I think people are still trying to figure that out but we've started um having all of our pitch calls in person pitch um presentations in person again because uh it was recommended on this podcast that I do that and I think we're two for two for two now it's helped yeah it's helped right short of that you know couldn't you meet in the metaverse instead um because right now everybody in the metaverse they look like a cartoon right but I don't think that that that's the permanent we're not all going to look like cartoon at some point they're going to figure out how to do a 3D scan of what I look like put me in the metaverse where I can talk and speak to people like I was there in real life and and not look like a cartoon but there were cool things like we we uh we did a a test drive with this company um haptic and they make these gloves where you put these gigantic gloves on they're you know still working on make everybody's trying to make everything smaller slowly but surely that where forced air pressurized air gets pushed into your hands but you can actually pick things up and touch things and feel them things that don't exist in real life but only exist in the metaverse so think about the applications for that in terms of medicine so somebody needs surgery in a third world country we have a surgeon in Boston who's very good at whatever this is theoretically you know 10 years from now or even sooner they can put on these gloves they can put on goggles they can conduct the surgery without actually going to the third world country that is the kind of application that everybody was kind of talking about will Jay be able to frame a picture in another country without going there how many people were talking about picture framing at this no Jay so here you go you do um you can offer the service of we will help you measure your space and lay out where your photographs want to be hung on your on your picture wall by joining us in the metaverse you can say hey um I want you to build um a 21 hats um building where people can just drop in and uh talk about business problems where you know it's not just Jay Lauren Sean and I it's like you can go in the 21 hats space in the in the metaverse and speak to like-minded people like V vistage you can have groups there how do we know you were actually there and you just have an imagine now that you were there cuz it was so immersive and you didn't leave your house how do I know today they're actually doing a second day where it's all in the metaverse wow so like I can rejoin and and walk through they've set up a whole virtual um stage wait you could do that by going there or from your home or office from my home they've created a main stage where you can join via your Oculus um and sit in the in the audience and watch the interviews with thought leaders in the space so let me let me ask you this question um since you're using an Oculus does that mean wait for the for the impaired at home can we talk about what an Oculus is is that big white thing you put on your face have you seen that you've probably seen commercial I've seen it goggles okay got it so am I doing business with Facebook by using this device do I have to go through Facebook no there are a lot of there are like 36 different worlds quote unquote I'm still learning about it I am not an expert okay but Facebook owns a certain you know certain worlds and certain experiences and stuff but it's they're they just rebranded themselves and people are kind of they create good products you know they the Oculus works and it works well I would challenge that a little bit I think they buy good products well that might happen too but I don't think they actually their Innovation track record is really shitty like their their online dating their currency like anything they try to create on their own has been mediocre at best well isn't their Mantra like um work quickly like make and break things yeah move fast and break things like democracy um but anyway I guess the thing that I my my number one concern here is I think there's a tremendous opportunity especially around augmented reality like to to your idea with Jay you know somebody to be able to like show Jay here's my living room I want to create a gallery wall here's the art I have and then for Jay's designers to organize and frame that in Virtual would be an amazing business opportunity for him I just want to clue you into something there are certainly people that are all over that and they've all hemorrhaged tens and tens of millions of dollars and I don't think that it's a huge problem at the moment so you know it's early but there's companies that are hemorrhaging a zillion dollars and everyone's not going oh my God I can finally hang some pictures on my not really not keeping a lot of people up at night so well cuz they're the mistake those companies are making is they're trying to own the market as opposed to where I think your future lies Jay is you wait until these Technologies become cheap and easy for you to use and then you ad expression the second mouse gets the cheese you're not in the early adopter space like you don't need that but um there are other places that are need to be your like uh early adopters like um ernston young needs to be early adopters they can't service their clients if they're not clued into the potential of it like Architects love this stuff that's a huge opportunity that's really interesting because like I'm like using Google SketchUp right now to visualize the building I'm building but it's really imperfect you know and and the ability to actually feel like wow I'm in this space and I get a sense of the space that's pretty awesome Realtors Realtors you can actually go and visit a house that's for sale you know you get the 360 um imagery but then you can actually go in and feel how the space feels like yeah it's cartoonish now but it's not going to be cartoonish in 5 to 10 years it's gonna feel like it all right Lauren bring it back home bring it back to reality will you Jay's like I'm done with this we have to move from the West Coast you two to like the middle here and now we got to go east coast to hit some harsh reality Lauren you're on so Jay what's your metaverse strategy my metaverse strategy is to go to lunch when we're done and um see real people see some real people Jay C can you borrow an Oculus from some teenager that you know and U Lauren you to and Sean and meet me in the metaverse I'll send you an invite I want you to see what it's like for anyone listening to this who feels as though they might have gotten lost in the metaverse yes this is the 21 hats podcast and yes next week we will probably be back on planet Earth I think my thanks to Shan busy Jay gz and Sarah seagull uh and to our sponsor work better now thanks for sharing guys wait wait don't leave yet if you have a question or a comment that you'd like the 21 hats owners to address send it to me by replying to your Morning Report or by email email at Lauren 21h hats.com that's L ren21 hats.com do it now before you forget and don't be afraid to tell Jay what you really think he can take it and if you got something out of this conversation help us reach more business owners tell a friend subscribe and review us wherever you get your podcasts follow us on Twitter subscribe to the morning report at 21h hats.com this episode was produced by Jess thubron founder of blank word Productions okay now you can leave thanks for listening everyone