He Sent 500 Handwritten Notes and Made $280K in 6 Weeks | Rick Elmore, Simply Noted

Music

Good afternoon everybody, this is Robin and you from the Localization Fire site chat

And welcome to another conversation, welcome to another episode

I think this one would be 192 episode on this channel

And today I have a very genuinely fascinating guest

Rick Elmore is a former NFL athlete who turned inventor entrepreneur

I don't know how that works, we go from an athlete to an inventor and entrepreneur

We'll get to know that

He's a founder and CEO of Simply Noted

The world's leading hand written male automation

When I first read that I said wow, you still do that?

But apparently they found a way to automate it

And I can't wait to discover this platform with Rick and talk a little bit more about this one

We are talking here about real pen, real ink, real paper delivered at scale

Through proprietary robotics and nine patents, five to nine patents

No outside funding, no engineering background, just grit as I understand from the research

And very sharp sales instinct

Rick, welcome to the show, welcome to the conversation, good to have you

Thanks for having me, it's a pleasure to be here Robin, looking forward to this

I really appreciate it

As we say on this channel, Rick, everybody's got a story, what's your story?

So that's a kind of hard to share in a short 30 minutes

But yeah, very interesting background, I grew up playing sports

I had my childhood trauma at a very young age, my father passed away at seven

My mom did a phenomenal job

I'm a family of all boys, had two brothers, family of three boys

And my mom just got us really busy and kept us busy and got us into sports

And it was probably the best thing that she ever did

I played all the sports growing up, I found, I'm a big guy, I'm six foot five

I'm a tall guy, but I found an early attraction to football

And I always joke that I love football because I can hit people, not get in trouble

You know, you can go and be physical

But yeah, I started playing football when I was nine years old

I wasn't very good, I came from playing soccer

So I went from a non-contact sport to a contact sport

And my coach was always like, you're such a big guy, you should be better

They were patient with me and stuck with me

But you know, it wasn't until I was about a freshman in high school

So it took me about a couple years, but when I was a freshman in high school

I set the California state record for SACS

I had like 26 or 27 SACS, which like a quarterback SAC

Is like, you know, you go attack them when they're trying to throw the ball

And my coach like shook me, he was like, Rick, like you have something here

And you have a talent, like you should pay attention to this

So it was probably around 14, 15 years old where I really started taking it serious

I had a really good high school career, got like 30 plus division 1 scholarship opportunities

It was going to be my only opportunity to go to college

It was like the vehicle, I was the first person in my family to go to college

And I ended up going to the University of Arizona with my twin brother

So it was really important for me to go somewhere with my twin brother

And I had a good college career as well

Led the PAC-10, which is no longer around

In quarterback SACS, my junior and senior year

And then was a late round draft pick into the NFL

I wasn't like a physically gifted guy outside of my height

You know, these guys who play professional sports, they're like aliens

They're not of this world, like their bodies are like genetically freakish

And I wasn't like that, I was just like an effort guy, try hard guys

I remember my first year in the NFL, I had like a relationship with somebody

Who worked in like the business side of the office for the Cleveland Browns

And I probably shouldn't say his name because I don't want to give him trouble

But he like showed me my draft profile

The coach is not your like overachiever plays above his like constantly plays above his potential

Wins with effort and I was just like back then I took it personal

But like now being 38, I was like hey, I'd rather be known for being a guy who tries hard

And wins because of effort than just like hoping to win because of talent

You know, because I do truly believe hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard

And a lot of people don't work hard so I'm happy to kind of like die on that sword

But yeah, you know football was who I was for a long time

But like every athlete, it comes doing in

And that's when I had like my identity crisis

My entire life, I was Rick Elmore the athlete, you know, the guy who played football

And then when I was 25 that stopped, you know, one day I just woke up

It was like it's over. What do I do now?

And like I used to just go to the gym and train and recover and take care of my body

And now it's like I can't make money with that anymore. I have to go use my brain

Like and do business stuff. So I got into the corporate medical device world

I just saw what other athletes did when they transitioned. They just got in the sales

And I jumped over to Striker, which was like an orthopedic like medical sales job

And had a lot of success there. And I think this is what most athletes fail to do in their transition

Is just really take those transferable skills that made them successful as an athlete

You know, the competition, you know, the working hard, perseverance, dealing with failure

You know, the things they've been like working on for 15 years already

They just like for whatever reason it doesn't click

But it just always clicked with me. I just took what made me successful and took it into business

And had a successful career. I was like rookie of the year my first year

Again, because of effort, I just worked really hard. And then I was either a top 1% or top 5 sales rep in the in the company

Again, I just worked really hard and I know a lot of people are probably rolling their eyes hearing this because like

Who wants to like just

Well, it's just like who just wants to be known for out working every or anybody, you know, but that's what I know

I know it's a foreign gossip no days working hard for some people

Well, it's just like you know, it's just there's so much technology now to like I can go down that talking path too

It's just like you know all these social media gurus they make it sound so simple

But most people don't realize like when you see these people online

They've been working for 10, 15, 20, 30 years to become that guru, right? So like they had a horrific growth decade

That they don't tell you about and they want to tell you oh, it's easy come pay for my $3,000 course

And I will show you how easy it is, but they're just like you know, they're monetizing their knowledge like that is like an information arbitrage

But yeah, I was successful in business, but I wanted more I didn't want to be like a corporate work the corporate ladder

I went back into my MBA in 2017. This is where my life changed. Is this a video podcast or a audio podcast?

Both of them it would be both

Okay, so I need to do this visually so it makes sense

So as an athlete especially in like college and NFL

But in college when I got recruited and like first day my coach always said hey schools number one

And then football is number two, right?

At the end

Yeah, it's exactly it's the opposite so

School is never a priority because it was just like I just did it because I had to do it to play football

But when I went back into my MBA it changed I was done playing football education was something that was going to help me get better

But I was also interested in business like I wanted to learn everything about business as a sales rep they keep you on a box

So they're like hey just you know go sell don't worry about anything else and they'll always drove me nuts

I was like if I knew better if I knew how all this work it would make me better

So about a year into my program and this was every Wednesday I did a full-time MBA it was every Wednesday for seven and a half hours

We're there from 3 p.m. until like 10 30 11 o'clock at night

At a marketing professor say something that completely changed my life

This is really important this is why I love podcasts you can listen to a 30 minute 40 minute an hour long podcast and there can be like

Ten seconds that changes your life. There's this one sentence that changed my life that like launched my entrepreneurial journey

He was going over all the success rates and marketing email check mail cold calling all the normal stuff

All that was like single digit success rates 8% or low double digit 12% 15%

And he says hey guys you know what works better now if not better than ever is a good old-fashioned handwritten note

They get open 99% of the time they're rare nobody gets them anymore and the mailboxes are empty

Because this is back in 2017 we're going you know still going through like the internet rush the software rush

Everybody was trying to compete digitally with ads meta all this stuff. I was like man that makes so much sense

I grew up in the 90s before cell phones as the internet was starting

I wrote handwritten notes to my friends. There's some nostalgia there

But I was like there's no easy way to do it. There's just no easy way to do it

Like it takes so much time right and like that's the perception behind it

Like if you received a handwritten note somebody sat down and sent you that they took the time to do it

But I was like if there was a way to scale it like or a way to automate it for businesses

I'm sure there is like a business opportunity there

So I just started googling I had my computer in class and I saw a company like doing handwritten notes for weddings

And I was like that is such a horrible business model like one-time customers hopefully right

Bride Zoas right that are hyper controlling everything has to be perfect

It's hurry up and wait right and then like lists are always changing

I was like why is anybody doing this for business like lead generation marketing client relationships

So I got a pen plotter I was I literally googled like drawing robot writing robot

And I found a pen plotter out of China and got this machine from China

I had no idea what to do with it. I just started talking to my friends. I'm like hey

Do you know anybody who knows how to deal with robots?

You know anybody who knows how to deal with software

And I got a couple of people that like helped me put together this writing robot from China

And they helped me with like software plugins they helped me with like dealing with like ink scape these like weird things

I never heard of and I got it to write like really bad handwritten notes

And it took about a month because there's no paper feed so I had to be done manually you put a piece of paper down

Hit a button in the machine would go and move and write and I tested it like within like my medical sales job at the time

I had I pulled a list offline of like you know people I haven't worked with and I sent them a handwritten note

And we saw big packages like 30 to 60 thousand dollar packages so I was like if this even gets one it's going to be a win

But I just got so many responses and these doctors when we sent it out they would call me and like they were not they weren't like crying but they were just so shocked

Like Rick this is really cool like no one sends us a handwritten note

The normal thing is to email them or go bother them at their front door. I was like hey like they're like hey this is cool like let's set up a lunch or hey let's go grab dinner

We're drinking let's talk about this and my monthly quota at the time was $50,000 a month

I ended up selling just under $300,000 in in six weeks and like my whole entire company was going nuts

So like Rick what are you doing like you just hit half your quota in one month like how are you doing this?

And that was like right when I had like that entrepreneurial seizure

And anybody who started the business or who's like validated an idea like they know what I'm talking about

Like you're you just get this like you know adrenaline rush and dolphin rush like your body is just like like it's called entrepreneurial seizure

And that was like the genesis but fast for eight years I had no idea what I was doing or what I was I bid off way more than I can chew

I didn't know I was going to have to start this like software engineering industry automation business

Yeah I told I got a buddy from California to come out and like help me get started I was like yeah one year we'll be a million dollar business

Like I guarantee it and it took us like five years or four or five years to get to a million bucks

But yeah I mean it's been wild you know we now are the largest provider of this service at least in the United States I'm aware of

225 custom built handwriting robots they're all completely automated

We use like like computer vision to run the robots like all scanners for retracting and automation printing automation mailing automation robotic automation

Yeah and again I have no technical background and I didn't do this like I call myself like I think I have like a PhD in problem solving

Like I just know how to like our problem and I think that's like an entrepreneur like that's ultimately what you are

But I just ended up finding people to help me solve my problems and if you just continue doing that day after day after day after day

You know fast-forward seven and a half eight years like you're going to look back and like oh my god look how far we've come

Handwritten notes I mean you're right it's a classic you're right it is not done anymore

Most people are still competing for that digital short span of attention people see something on digital media

They basically retain it for less than half a second and they move on just something else

But when they see something physical they receive something physical in their hands in the mail etc they tend to stick with them

And it sort of rises to the top in terms of let's say I'm dealing with 20 people and somebody sends me something physical handwritten note or whatever the case may be

That person is not equal to everybody else in my attention span right now so he's he ranks higher on my attention span

If it was an inbox it would be at the top of my inbox basically

Yep yep I think what you just said is another key concept it's how are you being different and when you receive something especially in the mailbox

Like think of that mailbox experience right you go through the mailbox as you rebuilds you know junk right and then when you see something when you hand

You put that yeah you put it to the side yeah flyers right but when you see that handwritten envelope it gets your attention right and then there's curiosity

Right so now you're getting brain space that you normally don't get what you're normal touch points in business

Right doesn't matter if it's building a relationship and saying thank you to a customer

A thank you card versus a thank you email what do you think it's gonna win asking for a meeting on paper versus asking for a meeting in your inbox with your email

As 200 plus emails a day who do you think it's gonna win and the hard thing with like this industry that there's been no way to like really track it

And that's like the problem that we've solved is like we track notes or handwritten notes with like a real forever stamp to the mailbox

So now you can track it just like you track an email we also do trackable QR codes like within an email someone clicks like this has been around forever

You can track that click for us we have trackable QR code so if someone scans that QR code we can track when they scanned it and who scanned it

And set up automations based off that scan so I like to tell people like when they're trying to think about how to like understand our business

Like you think a constant contact or email marketing like where it's trackable to the inbox trackable to the click and then you can set up like flow is based off their actions

It's the same thing for us but we're making it an attainable physical product

So it's just a different tool you know I've been running a business for eight years we use our product to sell but we still do everything else

We still do email we still do ads we still do like social when we do podcasting we do PR

Just like another tool that you should have in your tool about and there's there's gold sitting under your nose that every business like ignores is like you have a clientless

How are you nurturing that clientless are you just putting them on your newsletter blast and hoping to God that they sit there and read it or are you doing something different to keep those past clients current clients engage

For like larger ticket items you know like home service nonprofit political fundraising that type of stuff for like you know average tickets or five thousand ten thousand dollars

It's a great like direct mail tool but every business has customers and I feel like every business should be you know having like a CX client experience relationship building budget

In most businesses a lot of our business comes in the holidays like holiday cards you know or new years right it's just like a no brain or touch point

You know the success of like the new year campaigns to keep those clients engaged for the upcoming year I've seen a lot of success but also at the end of the year

You know hey thanks for the great year we're so fortunate to work with you because if you don't have your clients you don't have a business if your clients don't pay their invoices you can't pay your bills right so it's like you got to treat those clients like gold but like how are you doing it and most businesses you know like they don't know

And most businesses probably and I've you know I'm you know when you are working depends on the depends on the business rights small young entrepreneurs such as yourself still value that relationship with the customer no large companies you know I'm talking about multi multi billion dollar companies

They probably think of customers in in a spreadsheet form you know what I mean by that so they the customers are ranked by the number of dollars that they spend with this particular company and they're 80 20 rules right so the 80% of revenue come from the come from the top 20 customers

And the rest of the smaller customers they basically the tail end of that spreadsheet and then you can deduct from that the attention that you would give to customers obviously you're going to spend your attention at the top 20 revenue generating customers and less attention at the bottom 80%

which I completely disagree I've been screaming from the top of my lungs all my career I completely disagree with that theory at all I think all your customers are very important it doesn't matter if they spend a dollar or a million dollar I know I know people that are going to listen to this conversation are going to say Robin you crazy I'm not crazy here's why because your customers are advocates for you if one dollar customer spends one dollar for you and they happen to come across somebody and they speak negatively about your about you as a company

yes they got a bad service from you guess what's going to happen you're not getting the next million dollar opportunity I can guarantee you that yep yep and like you just said most businesses like I mean I think about it too like I know who are our best customers are so I'm always like hyper focused on them right I need to make sure that they're happy and they stay on board but like how can you engage every client and give them like that like that one-to-one approach that they deserve because every customer does matter you know somebody who spends ten dollars with your company

you know they can refer a hundred thousand dollar contract or a hundred thousand dollar business so what are you doing to make sure that everyone your customers feels appreciated

true like seriously it's like a loaded question most businesses are like like I don't know we give them discounts on their next purchase like oh thanks you know true true

and most businesses just don't have that that answer and you know a lot of times I've seen it before like many businesses are using many gimmicks many tricks

I've seen people sending gifts to customers were you know with a specific URL like when you receive the gift it's a physical gift when you receive the gift there's a specific URL you have to go in and claim something bigger and then the tracking and the engagement begins from there

but a handwritten note I mean you're the good testimony for this you've written five hundred as you mentioned earlier five hundred written notes

and you got a close to two hundred eighty three hundred thousand dollars sales a month from that that's a sort of like an aha moment in the entire genesis of the idea that you came up with

from there like could you at least from from for those who don't know how this whole thing works so what is the sir is it a service or is it a product that you're selling

is it a franchise is it white labeling what is it yeah we do a service right now you know we do have some plans sometimes the future I don't know in but since we like

manufacture and build and have like patented technology we've thought about like just selling a robot so people can like do it for themselves

but to do this at scale like you need a lot of equipment you need a printer you need a mailing insert or you need stamp affixers if you want to look authentic right in scalable

but right now it's just a service you know people come to our website they can send one or thousands most people you mean

analyst tricky because there's a lot that goes into mail you got to have like a list right but starting at your list you got to make sure

it's a good list like where am I going to get my list like well we always say you have a list it's your client base like oh well we have

emails like well we can get you their home addresses based off their emails there's way to do that then we got to verify

addresses right so I mean there's a lot that goes into it from mailing list to card design to copy to tracking but like that's when we come in and help you build out that

campaign but most people you know they come to us with like a CSV file or an excel sheet to say hey I want to send out

a couple thousand pieces to our client base and we help them do that if you want to get more like technical we help you integrate

with like an API integration or a web hook or like an integration into your software to automate it so like when someone pays an invoice

you send a thinking card if someone hasn't made a purchase in six months you follow up with them and off from a discount if someone

leaves a bad review you can reach out to them and apologize and try to get it removed so there's a bunch of different

use cases but we try to help people either scale it feel like a spreadsheet we also have like list building tools

natively built onto our website so if like you don't have addresses like you can build a list on our website based off of like certain

demographics but there's a lot that goes into it but I mean mail if it's executed correctly it's a phenomenal

phenomenal revenue channel and marketing channel that I mean most businesses don't don't get involved in

which creates a bigger opportunity for you like it does like if your competitors aren't doing it it's a way for you to

stand out within your business and with like opportunities and new clients or your past clients but yeah right now we're just a

service when we help people scale it or integrate it and somehow automate it through whatever software that they use

we want to be a platform that makes it easy to use from wherever you you want to use it so

I can get into the technical stuff I just I know most people aren't like Zapier and NADN and make and workflows

and automation and webhooks and stuff but I mean that's really what we are like scale it or automate it

through some type of automation so you can integrate without our automation platforms and make it a step of the

process is that what I'm hearing anything so let's say let's say customers work full

processes I'm going to do 90% of my steps in a digital format but one of those steps I'm going to kick it

out to a physical note to be sent to somebody that can be integrated into your and you probably built

APIs and all that integration tools exactly exactly so if you think of like your customer journey

you know like we have like anytime we have like a new like opportunity or lead we have like seriously

it's like a 32 step opportunity and we're updating you know our CRM you know we're notifying sales

reps we're creating tasks we're doing follow-ups like we send them a handwritten note we send them a demo

and then like 10 days later we're sending them a follow-up handwritten note but that's all automated

right so they're getting all these touches and it's a part of that sequence and that either helps

the closing it helps with retention it helps with referrals by adding that physical you know

genuine personalized handwritten notes touchpoint and for the audience if you want to find out more

about the servers that Rick is talking about and we're discussing this afternoon you can head over

to simplynoted.com that's www.simplynoted.com as I'm pronouncing it there's no tricks to how you

spell that it's exactly that simply noted.com and you can find out a little bit more about that one

I have a question Rick regarding your services who buys these services business to business

business to consumer marketing companies who are the audience for you. Yeah I always say service-based

businesses or relational types of businesses so like real estate financial you know dental those

are like our like easy no-brainers but like our bigger clients are usually like B2B sass businesses

nonprofit political you know people who have been like operating in this game for a long time

they understand direct mail but I always say like if you have a relationship driven business which

most businesses are because customers have choices and there's always a different option for your

service there's a use case for this it's just understanding what your use case is am I going to

use it for building relationship like client retention getting referrals are I going to use it for

direct mail and growing my business so if like you're you know a real estate agent you know it

may make sense for you to play on both sides because you know I want to retain my clients they call

it your sphere of influence or I want to use it for like mining off market opportunities and they'll

just go do like hey we just sold a house in your neighborhood let us know if you're interested

right because those commissions on like homes are in the tens of thousands of dollars so if they get

one new opportunity I mean the ROI and the mailing is insane so you just really got to understand

like your business and what's the best use case you know if I would say if your commission or your

average selling price is under five thousand dollars it's a great relationship building tool

but if you're in a business where like the lifetime value of your client or like the sale you know

price is over five thousand dollars like within 12 months like it's a great direct mail tool because

the open rate so high and it's like a great trackable marketing tool so like you can track engagement

you can track deliverability you can set it up within a workflows have these automations once some

but you know a handwritten node gets delivered it gets notified in your system you can set up

notification to a sales rep like hey John Smith's handwritten node was just delivered today give him

a call like you can set up that notification or hey John Smith just scan the QR code sales rep gets

notified you pick up the phone and you call and speed the lead matters so I just think it's a really

powerful marketing tool but also a phenomenal relationship building tool and are you partnering

with because some of those relationships that you're describing are not you know one-to-one

relationships probably they are coming through another agency for instance a marketing agency right

so let's say I'm a dental office as you mentioned earlier or a real estate agent I probably have

some sort of a local marketing agency I'm dealing with could they go through the marketing agency

or the third party to you or do they have to go through you directly or do you do any of this stuff

they can yeah yeah we have resellers so we have like marketing agencies who like reseller

service and like do like affiliate like programs but you primarily like work like directly with

the user yeah primarily it's just you know we're not we work with like the full spectrum you know

so like the the resellers are usually like large business like large resellers like

$50 million a year businesses who are reselling down to their clients those have been like our

most successful reseller partnerships you know the three-person agency who wants to reseller

service usually isn't a good like partnership because they're just like trying to survive every

single month and it's the businesses who have like proven product market fit proven client base

they're trying to add now an additional resource or additional product to their portfolio to add

more value to their clients and drive more revenue those are like the types of partnerships that

like are like great for us have systems have people who like take ownership over that type of

you know channel but yeah it's usually like just direct we'll talk directly to the user the owner

of the buyer and then help them set it up it's a lot simpler than you think it is it's just like

hey we these are the two use cases help us set it up and then it just runs so in the physical

male world so I'm assuming you're only operating the U.S. right so you don't operate outside the U.S.

and how do you handle the postage part we do we do operate we do we uh so when we work at Canada

or you know like the UK but they want like handwritten mail we'll do it we just drop ship it to

them so it has a local postmark that's the heartbeat it's like shipping from like U.S. to Canada

you're gonna have a U.S. postmark on it but like if we're working with businesses like they're used

to doing like big mail drops so it's like we work with their mailhouse we just set it up like hey

who's your local mailhouse or do you just want us to ship it to you like if you want us to ship

it to you they just take us straight to their post office if it's their mailhouse like we just call

them like hey like what do you need we just so fulfill our service we just do it within the

requirements of your guys is you know local post office and then we just drop ship it straight to

them so we get we get really creative I mean for larger projects that's easier for the one-offs

that use case won't work because you're triggering one card every three days like we can't track

that you're not ship that but like hey we want to drop like 2500 pieces not a problem yeah how do you

handle inserts for those mail pieces I mean as long as it fits in the envelope it's not a problem

so what does the customer provide it to you or you make it um we you know we just did a job for a

I don't even know what kind of business was but we put a white glove or we folded a white

glove and put it inside the envelope because like their pitch was like hey white glove service

so I mean we can source it they can drop ship it to us we have a full print house on it you know

if you flyers and be added business cars need to be added and we have a full print house here so

the part of the onboarding we'll kind of figure out like what the best way to handle that is

logistically but I mean as long as it fits in the envelope and it's under the weight requirement

we can add it it just can't be like too puffy because all these mail pieces go through mail sorting

machines so if like it gets too puffy the envelope may get destroyed or it won't be able to get

sorted in these machines no maybe maybe I should have asked this question early when it comes

through handwriting every individual writes differently do you try to map the handwriting of the

individual do you have like a standard font that's what I use this is like a powerful part we can

actually use your handwriting so we can convert your handwriting and actually like send them in your

handwriting but we have like 900 handwriting styles we have like 35 publicly available on the website

but it's just an added cost you know if we work with like people of influence like politicians

presidents CEOs who really want their handwriting in case he ends up online we can convert yours and

that's a fun project and it's always cool to see like our users like no way like that's that looks

like I wrote it so it's it's always fun it's like nine times out of 10 you know it's just like they're

just technology behind it to try to scan redraw and get the technology to capture this style is

this like proprietary stuff or is there a process for yeah absolutely I mean that's one of our

patents but we use a basic OCR optical like OSCR it's like optical scanning like character recognition

so like we have you write it down and then we have to like import it into like a font designing software

but like how the machines write as an algorithm we don't we don't do like randomization of

lift characters the robots actually write like humanized so like when the robots write they actually

know what they're writing so like like how the pen drags at the end of like the like with like the

ease so like that evil look different than versus like an e inside the word like Nebraska or

something so like it's actually like a trained handwriting style versus like a font conversion

if that makes sense so I mean we've had to over engineer everything about this business

that's been like one of the most challenging things about scaling this business is like once we

solve a problem it just opens a new door to a new challenge and it's like when is it when are we

gonna stop focusing on like the solving problems and just scaling this business it's just like

it's wild we're gonna you know 12,000 growth facility you know with hundreds of handwriting robots

you know like new projects coming in like how are we gonna solve this how are we gonna scale this

it's just it's been it's been fun but challenging a lot of personal growth a lot of professional growth

who's gone through so the audience of this channel Rick our translation and language professionals

and global in nature so where does the language factor fits into your model like do you do anything

other than English first that's a basic question oh yeah every language yeah every language yeah

I think we've we've done Spanish we've done French we've done German I mean 99% of ours is in

English most of our businesses from North America we do stuff in UK we've done some stuff in Australia

I mean I don't know we've been doing this for eight years I'm sure we've done another we have

four four sales reps I've kind of like been out of sales for a few years I know we we ship

go we our drop ship is wild every single day I mean I just see the drop ship packages you know by

the door for the post office to pick up so yeah I mean if there's a project in mind you know like

we can help support it if you if it's global it's usually like bigger projects you know 200 pieces

or more 300 pieces or more because we'll just drop ship it to you for the one-offs we try to stay

within like the United States just because like there's no we could just use it forever stamp and

just send it and we don't have to worry about it so we just try to like be like a consultant like

hey how do you want to connect with your audience more personally you want to use it for thank you

cards you know reminders you know marketing and then we help you build out your handwritten

mail campaign no when we started the conversation you mentioned that you've been on so many podcasts

earlier let's talk a little bit about this one well how many podcasts you've been on for the

audience and and and why why podcasting sure so been on well over 300 podcasts you know

since I started the business I think it was a book by there's a book called content-based

networking and it was basically like written off like of like the Oprah Winfrey like what's

made her so successful she has like an audience she has a platform and she brings people on

and she shares their story and that's like what helped like blow her up I guess in like the

early 2000s I mean she's had a phenomenal career but when you're when you're getting with other

people and you're networking and you're creating content not not only are you you know learning

something or sharing something but you're also leveraging each other's audiences to grow I mean

that's if you read the book that's what it's about but it's been a great resource for our business

you know there's a lot of SEO in AGO or AGO benefits from it so like when people when you share

this and it mentioned simply noted Rick Elmore now that's being added to Google that's being

added to these AI LLMs and you're staying like current you know versus like the traditional SEO

which is like blogging and backlinking now you're just adding another element to it social proof

right it's great to get out there and like when people look you up and they see you on podcasts

like it helps build up your social proof so there's a lot of benefits to it but also you meet great

people you know for example when I went back to MNBA like you never know when you're listening to

somebody like where one or two sentences or one or two minutes may change your life and you can

learn from other people's mistakes they've been where you are you know other people who've been in

business for 30 years like like you can learn from them like you know that's a sign of like being

smart or like genius like not having to fail before you learn actually being able to learn from

other people's mistakes like that's a sign of being like smart so it's really hard you know

it's really hard to go out there and do it on your own and there's tools like this like podcasts

that help you get out there and learn and and accelerate you know your progress if you leverage them

correctly so it's just it's up to you you know not everybody you know you can lead a horse to water

you can't make a drink right and I'm not everybody's going to leverage that or be able to pull

what they need out of it but the resources is there it's up to us individually to make sure that

we get what we need out of it you know you can have a podcast on not really be paying attention right

absolutely so it's like it's really up to the user or the consumer to get the most out of it but

also it's up to us individually to put ourselves out there to create opportunity and that's like

what podcasting is what did it do to the pipeline that perhaps ads or paid ads didn't do or can't do

so back to what I was saying earlier it's like another tool in the tool belt so like handwritten

nails a tool yeah because like when one's not doing well hopefully something else picks up for

the slack and that's just what I've seen over the last five years of really like doing a full court

press and all this like it all evens out over time like when ads aren't doing well cold email

do good you know when cold email and ads aren't doing good like we have cold calling you know

then we have social like outbound and we have retargeting in meta and podcasting in SEO

in organic inbound so it's like you've got to basically play in every field and have a strategy

in every field in order to scale business and I think of like scale like I want to get to tens

of millions of dollars in revenue and how do you do that like you've got to be able to have your

acts sharpened in every place and that that acts you know every single day you're swinging it

it's going to get dull right and you got to figure out a way to keep sharpening it and no what got

you to a million dollars won't get you to three million dollars and what got you to three

million dollars won't get you to ten million dollars so it's like a constant learning journey

like and that's why you should be listening to podcasts and reading books and doing this research

because again what got you here won't get you there yeah I mean I'm telling you I'm living

through it right now I'm trying to like get to the next level we've kind of been stuck the last

couple years and like I'm hiring consultants you know I'm listening to podcasts I'm reading new

books you know I literally had I had a consultant in here yesterday like trying to help us improve

our our funnel in like conversion rates like we have tons of leads but like our conversion

percentage has not increased for the last two years I'm like if we don't we don't need more leads

we need to either target better and get the same amount of leads or we need to take these leads

and convert them better right so it's like it's a it's a new recipe that has to be figured out

but like I feel like that's why I've been successful I obsess and this goes back to what I was

saying at the beginning of this is like I just I work really hard and I will figure out the problem

but I have to be aware of the problem and find the right people the right tools or the right systems

that helped me solve that problem so that's why entrepreneurship's awesome like it's interesting it's

new it's challenging every single day like year one doesn't matter if it's year one or year 20

it's like it's a new challenge it keeps you like on the edge of your seat yeah absolutely no you

know we talk a lot about this about this on this channel and I do actually have a networking event

on Fridays tomorrow at nine o'clock every Friday and we talk a lot about AI and the networking

event is called AI exchange a bunch of entrepreneurs they get together and we talk about how AI is

impacting their world and talk about some use cases etc where does AI fit in what you're building

and it's sort of an irony isn't it here we're talking about high-tech robots producing

low-tech emotional experience how do you think about that tension if you will so I actually

can sold on AI's I'm I'm 100% sold on AI I think if you pay attention to like just where the world

is going like you pay attention to and I hate talking about influencer like you pay attention

like these major businesses the video open AI yeah Alex Ramozi like these guys who are out there

like leading the charge on like scaling businesses um you have to have an AI strategy if you don't

have an AI strategy it's like for an example like you know there's some law firms out there that's

still facts like documents right yeah those companies so exist right so like that will be around

because like 20 years ago that's how they did it they just didn't want to evolve but these law

offices who evolved until all these digital different forms of marketing are crushing those law

firms that are are so faxing because they just didn't want to evolve it's the same thing there's

going to be companies that never evolve and add AI right because it's too new it's uncomfortable

and they don't want to change those companies will still like they just they'll still exist but the

companies that evolve and use AI are going to absolutely crush the companies right so it's like

think about it like Google ads like in the early 90s like their ad clicks are like pennies right

and the people who are early adopters like just reaped all the benefits and there's people that

still don't do ads because they just is too frustrating they don't know how to do it right it um

the companies who just evolve at the times learn how to use it learn how to implement it like we have an

AI SDR sales aboutment rep agent that literally lives on a local MacBook Pro that we have in our office

and we have three SDR agents an SDR you know it's usually like 55 to 75 thousand dollars a year

I have three of them that run for nine dollars a month and electricity and all they do is to follow

up with leads and book appointments for my account executives I'm saving myself a hundred and 80

thousand dollars a year or more and I mean for a hundred dollars a year I'm doing it for an SDR

agent right and we're leveraging leveraging local LLMs so we're not having to use Anthropic

or open AI we're using open sourced email platforms that are free it's just like people who evolve

you're gonna leave everybody else behind but it's like learning's hard as you get older like when

you're not five or your brain's just like absorbing everything but like change scares people

but it's really important that you like lean on people who are are doing these things to help you

do it like you don't have to do it on your own you just have to be open to implementing it but

yeah I mean AI's I mean I don't want to say like we're not at age eyes so like you know general

intelligence where it's like thinking on its own but you know I think AI kind of had like an

iPhone moment a few months ago with the release of OpenClaw I mean the video just released

NemoClaw which is a more secure version of OpenClaw which OpenClaw allows you to run AI

agents locally on like a desktop and it can take actions and run your entire computer versus what

AI has been in the past which is really prompt based so like you ask it a question it gives you

an output so there was an input for an output but now it's like hey it's running a computer

has access to an entire system it can use a browser it can access files and it can take actions

without you having to prompt it so you set it up give it a brain give it an engine give it a memory

give it a soul I mean it's kind of wild and then you just let it go do the work but like I this is

the other thing like if they're you're not to get anything out of this podcast please pay attention

AI like I promise you I promise you like like please pay attention to it and find how it can

affect yeah I can help your business find one thing in your business that you want AI to do

and have somebody help you implement it doesn't matter if it's customer success now there's

this is the year 2026 is the year of voice AI so like you're gonna have people can call your

business and talk to a voice AI and they're not gonna know that they're talking to a voice AI

they talk long enough but that's not the purpose of the voice AI the voice AI is to handle the

phone call and route it to the right person not to sit there and talk for 20 minutes right so

like please everybody pay attention to it doesn't matter if it's managing your inbox doing your ads

doing your marketing doing your sales like it's going to be in every part of your business

I promise you absolutely and for the audience we do talk about OpenClaw and if you other thing

actually in fact we ran a training on OpenClaw and how to deploy it that was two weeks ago now

and so we are going to well I guess right now in my company I networks that's a different company

that I founded in 2025 toward the end of the year in November we are specialized in OpenClaw

automation so we have few customers that we're currently working with if anybody's interesting

and finding out more want to learn more and just let me just let me know one of my I guess

closing question for you Rick if you don't mind what's next before simply noted I mean

my goal right now in 2026 is to get as much AI into our business as possible it's the most

efficient way to scale this business you know someday I'd like to sell simply noted you know I

feel like I've taken this so much further this is going to need like a big hundred million dollar

company to take it to the next next next level but I know this has been like my my entrepreneurship

work baby you know I have a lot of blood sweat and tears into this a lot has gone into it but

I think we really want to focus on making the easiest tool to use for this type of product and

we're trying to niche down you know being a self-funded business like we've had to work with

everybody I think we need a niche down to continue to scale up solve you know five problems for a

very specific group of people instead of like solving a problem for everybody that's not scalable so

yeah we're we saw a lot of work to do but my main focus right now is like getting as much AI

in here as possible I actually have one of my software engineers using California but we fly them

on everyone so he's like in our office right now hoping to get all this stuff that's uh oh yeah

I'd love to have I'd love to invite you to the networking event if you're interested we talk

actually when the largest open claw group in Phoenix Arizona we host the right yeah I do so it's called

the same coffee Nick yeah and we we host what we call build a claw where we have people come in and

we can get an invite or something I don't know yeah yeah yeah I mean I'll send you the info but

we like we have people come on to our warehouse we show them like all our automation stuff and then

we help them like get their agent just launched you know and then I have my two software guys if

they want custom like built solutions my two software guys will like that's your next venture right

the next venture is I don't know I don't know I just I feel like this is what AI is did you ever see

that movie deep impact and like the right okay so you remember at the end of the movie when like

the comment hits the ocean and that girl and her dad are just standing there on the beach remember

that yeah I see my wave yeah yeah yeah yeah and it just annihilates them yeah like I feel like

that's what AI is for 2026 the wave is building up it's just it's coming so fast and it's just

it's not slowing down and people are just gonna are just gonna be consumed by it so like you have

to have a strategy to be ready for it and yeah it's just this massive AI wave I mean and it's

it's not a it's not like a you know a little lump of water it is a massive wave that is evolving

every day every single I can't even go on YouTube anymore because it's like new update new launch new

AI technology I'm like oh my god yeah it's like every day absolutely so and how you get around

that is you focus on one thing you put on blinders right and don't get shiny object syndrome and

just get really good on one thing so you don't want to be a mile wide minute inch deep and

something you want to be an inch wide and a mile deep like that's how you get get really good at

something correct correct so pick it pick your lane yeah pick your lane implement it and keep

improving on it and yeah it will better I want to thank you for a lovely conversation Rick I

really appreciate it and thanks for indulging me in coming on the podcast I really appreciate the

audience will have fun with this conversation yeah it's great being here that was nice chatting

thank you probably thank you it's been a great conversation with Rick and I want to thank the

audience for listening into this conversation if you're coming on YouTube thanks for watching us

if you're coming on the podcast on the audio channels thanks for listening in and I'll see you