Leading with Data in Marketing

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1. 0:00
   Wes Mathews

   This is the unfiltered truth about entrepreneurship. Raw, no BS, no sugarcoating. Welcome to Entrepreneur Intel. I'm your host, Wes Mathews. Each episode, we'll learn from experienced founders and uncover the top 5 percent learnings that led to their success in all things personal, family, and business.

   This show is sponsored by Stealth Consulting, delivering clear marketing strategies, ROI, and no surprises.

   So I am super excited for today's guest. Uh, he has 20 years experience as an entrepreneur, give or take a little more. Main focus on computer software for large enterprise clients. He currently is helping fill the gap between IT teams and their business counterparts. By using technology as a tool to solve business problems.

   He is the principal at KIS solutions. Welcome Ben Quintana.

2. Ben Quintana

   Well, thanks, Wes. Super happy to be here.

3. 1:00
   Wes Mathews

   Uh, thanks so much. I know I'm in Detroit, you're in Washington. We've been trying to do this for a while, so I'm really excited to dive in, but I have to ask you, I ask everybody that's on the podcast, first and foremost, you have a headcount of over a hundred team members. Um, and you've been an entrepreneur for give or take 20 years.

   What's one of the most important lessons you've learned thus far?

4. Ben Quintana

   Yeah, um, it's hard to grow a business, I think. So, you know, the story is it grew from one. I was employee number one and now it's sort of well over a hundred. And that that's hard to do. And one of the hardest things to do while you're growing a business, in my experience, is holding on to your roots. It's hard to hold on to your roots while you grow. You know, any business that has a growth curve like that, there is something that made them good. There's a reason why people bought the product. In our case, our product is computer software. You know, we go into these big enterprises, we talk about what they need to build, and we consistently build a good product.

   The consistency is the hard part though. You know, it's hard to hold on to that. It's hard to hold on to what made you special as you grow.

5. Wes Mathews

   So going back, I have to make some assumptions and I want you to clarify. You were really good at computer software yourself. Somehow, some way, and you did something and you've amazingly grew this company to over a hundred. So I really want to dive into this. How do you keep that consistency as you were the first pioneer, but go back, back, back, like before you started all this, did you like know you're going to be an entrepreneur?

   One day, or like, how did you even become an entrepreneur?

6. Ben Quintana

   Probably not. I thought I was going to be a scientist. So I went to school, and I have a degree in physics, and I thought I wanted to go out there and solve the, uh, the mysteries of the universe. So I went to school for physics, did a bunch of research science, uh, getting my college degree. But, you know, through happy coincidence, Um, I happen to do a fair amount of computer programming.

   So the only thing I learned getting out of college was I didn't want to do what I went to college for. I think a lot of people have that experience. So then you graduate and you're now like, okay, what am I going to do now? And I kind of fell into computer programming. It was something I had an aptitude for, had experience with it, with the physics degree, and I really liked it. And I think that's another important thing too. You know, my mother told me this, you know, my mother gave me a lot of wisdom growing up. She said, if you can find something that you love doing, you're going to be happy doing it forever. And I feel so blessed in that way. Like I love what I do. I still love building software. the other thing is if you're going to build a business, You get farther and farther away from what you love. That's another thing too. You know, I don't get to build software anymore. I'm managing a business now. I'm not a business manager. What I am is I'm a software writer. I don't get to write too much software anymore. But that's just how it goes. you grow something, you get farther from what you were good at, and you got to lean into things that aren't your core strengths, you know, like doing sales, managing people, managing performance, all that stuff's kind of bland, you know, what I wish I could do every day is write software, but I don't get to do that too much anymore.

7. Wes Mathews

   So what, what year did you start KIS?

8. Ben Quintana

   Let's see, we're 12 years old now. So 2017, 2018, something like that.

9. Wes Mathews

   So going back, right. So, you know, with your degrees, right. Yeah. I mean, taking, taking a dip in, in becoming an entrepreneur, how did you first start the company? Was it, you got an opportunity to, to write some really cool computer software and you needed to hire, like, walk me through that path. Like it was, was that how you started?

10. 5:00
    Ben Quintana

    Yeah, pretty much. I mean, It started out with a skill, like I had the skill, and it's not just that pure software writing skill. A lot of people can write code, but the real valuable part, you kind of said it in the beginning, I don't remember the exact words you used, but people that write software often have a really bad reputation with business people. Because we're super unapproachable, we speak in our own language, we're just not relevant to people that want to solve business problems. We come in and speak this language and they're talking about revenue and margin and profit share and driving value and we're talking about encryption protocols and, you know, newest data security stuff and it's just like, you know, we're talking past each other. So one of the core skills was that ability to be that man in the middle. in and think and talk like a business person, understand the business objectives, and then translate that into a technical solution. So I had that skill after doing it for 20 years. I mean, I started the business after having about 20 years of experience.

    So you just, you got to get good at something. And I was pretty good at that. So, you know, then I came in and I was lucky to land a pretty large client through a personal network. That's the other thing, you know, like it's more important who you know, than what, you know, that's just another fact of life. So first big client, I got through personal contact and I went in there and just started doing good work going back to the earlier comment, holding onto your roots, like that was the roots just doing like an outstanding job. the name of the company, KIS, stands for Keep It Simple. Can't be more simple than that. Get in and do a good job. Like, that's the fundamental thing. If you get in and do a good job, people will like you and you will stay forever. And that's how it started. You know, I did a very good job as an individual contributor and eventually the client wanted to grow.

    They're like, Hey Ben, you are doing a pretty good job. It wasn't really a company at that point. It was one person. were doing a good job. Can you bring somebody else? So I brought a few more people and we continued to do a good job. And then it grew, you know, two people, 12 people, 20 people. It's easy to maintain those standards, those standards of just outstanding delivery.

    No question about the product, just head and shoulders above everybody else. You know, somebody has got to have standards like that. That's how it started. But as you grow it, it's hard to maintain that.

11. 7:00
    Wes Mathews

    It's awesome that you define that. You know, I, I have a lot of experience working with developers, PHP developers, and you kind of hit on it a little earlier, like, you know, whether they're unapproachable or they just kind of like to be behind the scenes and, and get the work done. They don't like dealing with customers.

    My experience was they were kind of terrified of like CEOs and visionaries. Like they just didn't wanna look at me. They just wanted to put their head down and do the work. But like, you have, you know, you're like a unicorn in that space because like, when did you realize that? Huh? It's how you've probably been able to grow to over a hundred of, if you're the whisperer, right, and kind of live in that middle to translate.

    At what point did you realize that, huh? Like I've, I've got something here that's, that's unique. How many years into the business?

12. 8:00
    Ben Quintana

    Hmm. Well, I think that realization came. Before I started this business, like I had an idea for what the secret sauce was. The secret sauce is that mix of business and technical. Because, you know, right before I started the company, I had a VP role at a large enterprise. I was managing about a third of a IT organization of a big multi multinational billion dollar plus enterprise.

    And I noticed that, you know, that thing that everybody sees. Tech guys are always kind of black sheep in any kind of business setting. You know, they're always kind of a bit apart. They don't partner well with their business people. And I was like, how ridiculous is this? How am I supposed to drive business value using technology?

    If I cannot speak and live and know what the business is about. So that was pretty obvious to me. And that became one of the founding principles of the business, like focus on the business. That's one of those roots I was talking about earlier. And so that's been core to our hiring. So when we're hiring people, I'm not hiring people that are just purely technical.

    I don't want propeller heads. I don't want nerds. I want people that can think and speak and act like business people, but also develop computer software. So it's a little bit of a unicorn thing, but focus on your roots. Look for people like that. Look for people that can carry your values. And as you're growing, as you're going from, you know, 1, Oh my gosh, it's a hundred people. It's hard to get a hundred people that carry those values. It's hard to have a hundred people that can focus on the business and do technology. But that's where the pivot goes as an entrepreneur. So now you got to go to, how can I get the rest of the organization to remember what made us great and take us back to our roots and focus on those roots?

13. Wes Mathews

    What, what, what helped you do that? Right? Like you're a really smart guy, but did you implement anything like, uh, a business framework for scale like that and, and to invest in culture and your methodology, like EOS, or did, did you just sort of do that on your own doing?

14. 10:00
    Ben Quintana

    Well, I heard you use the culture word. That's a buzzword in corporations, but it's important. I'm using roots, but that's another way to say culture. That's exactly right. You got to know what makes you special and you got to hold on to your culture, like, because it really matters. And one of the, one of the things that I'm probably proudest of is when our employees talk about our company, that's what they mentioned.

    They're like, the number one thing they like about the company is they love the culture. So

15. Wes Mathews

    In my,

16. Ben Quintana

    one of those HR buzzword things, but it really, really matters. Like you really have to have your own values. You have to know what you believe in and you can't ever let go of it.

17. Wes Mathews

    in my experience and correct me if I'm wrong, just, this is based on my own experience. So I had a website design development, organic optimization company for many, many years. Let's just put people in the tech bucket. I felt that when you had the right person that came on to the organization, they were some of the most loyal team members.

    Like being honest and upfront and helping them understand their core values. My experience was if that was all true, they don't like a lot of change. And as long as the things were moving, I mean, we retained all of our tech employees and our team members, because I was very forthcoming, like, here's who we are, here's what we do, and they just wanted to do good work.

    And I felt that our tech team was always the most stable. Most loyal people within our organization.

18. Ben Quintana

    Yeah. We've been able to retain a lot of people through that, right? So if you give people something to believe in, something they can feel a part of, something bigger than themselves, it's easier to retain people. You know, it's hard in technology. You know, we, we, we lose some people. We've had some people go and it's tough.

    It's a real competitive market. You know, it's just the way it works. But like you said, culture helps with retention, with employee retention, employee satisfaction, and it helps with customer satisfaction because your roots, your culture, it's what makes you a good employer, but it's also what makes you good to your clients.

19. 12:00
    Wes Mathews

    So being in the computer software world, we're in 2024 when you first started your first project with that personal referral, I'm, I'm really curious as what this world looks like today and what's coming down the pipeline with AI. And, you know, when I was in web in like 2006, started my company. There wasn't a lot that existed in the cloud.

    I mean, the cloud wasn't even talked about, but now I look at the marketplace and you want to talk about a CRM, you have every option under the sun, email marketing, like a lot of this technology, there's single solutions, right? You can go to a website or computer software and it's 50 bucks a month, or this is a hundred bucks a month.

    And then there's a lot of companies that cobble a lot of those together on their own solution and sell it for a discount. What do you see in the marketplace today as like the next evolution or, you know, what, what's, what's like the most interesting thing that you're working on now with some of these large enterprise clients?

20. 13:00
    Ben Quintana

    Well, we're software builders, but we're also integrators. So you talked about those custom solutions. There is a lot more software now that's just off the shelf than there was 30 some years ago when I started my career. You know, I used to have to write everything. nowadays, you can buy something, but if you buy it You still need someone that understands it, that can install it, that can integrate it with the other systems. I think that work is going to remain for a long, long time. there's always a trade off when you're buying something, they're building it. You know, we recently released a project for one of our clients where they had a product recommendation engine and they were spending like big bucks, big bucks maintaining these enterprise software packages. there's a big difference between what the large companies are doing and what the smaller companies are doing in terms of software licensing. You know, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions of dollars a year to maintain some of these off the shelf products. If you have a team that can build it, it's not going to cost you nearly that much to build it yourself and then maintain and run it. Companies are often afraid to do that, though, because development firms don't have a flawless track record. Almost everybody has seen a software project that fails. it's a lot easier to make that decision. I'll just buy this thing off the shelf and I'll pay this hefty support fee to run it because it's a safer bet than doing it myself. if you have a partner that can build software and has a true proven track record doing it, like that will remain too. And it's oftentimes a lot cheaper to build it yourself than it is to pay those hefty fees. And then in terms of the market, I mean, like I always get the AI question. So I'm sure everyone want to talk about AI, but in terms of what's exciting, like that is for sure the most exciting thing I've seen in my career.

    Like. We can talk about that for as long as you like, but it's one of these very interesting things where it's hard to read. There's all the buzz out there. This is the third time I've seen this in my career. You know, I'm old enough to have seen the internet boom. That was incredible. I'm old enough to see the smartphone boom. This is literally the third time. This is going to be revolutionary, and you know, we haven't even began to peel back the onion on this one, but it's going to be pretty amazing what's going to happen here.

21. 15:00
    Wes Mathews

    So it bring up a lot of great points, um, that I want to touch on. So just, just speaking on AI, most, most recently, like a lot of people I know, they think AI is like ChatGPT, but like, how do you take, you know, and again, you work with a lot of enterprise companies, but if you're a small business or you're an entrepreneur, do you have any recommendations on how to start evaluating AI or some of these bots or how you can start incorporating AI for processes and system.

    Like where, where do people go to take baby steps into, into AI? Cause I feel like it's just, it's a fire hose.

22. 16:00
    Ben Quintana

    Yeah, it is a firehose. In fact, I mean, I'm happy to sit down and talk to you about it specifically. I'm sure there's a dozen ideas we could have about how we could bring AI into your business. But I think it would start with, you have to understand the nature of the tool. A lot of people right now, they're thinking of it like this science fiction thing, where it's this thing that can do everything.

    It's not that. Maybe it'll be that eventually, but even in the state of the tool right now, it is already a tool that can add value to any business. You know, can, even something as simple as just summarizing meeting notes after a meeting. Like I'm always on my guys, like don't have a meeting unless you take meeting notes. Well, like, heck AI can just do that. It can listen to your whole conversation and just do the meeting notes for you. You know, crafting text, you know, helping with any, any sort of textual production. Like that's a done deal now. I use it myself all the time. And code writing, know, it does write pretty good code.

    It should make any software developer faster. And there's no reason to run away from these tools. So I think it starts with, you just got to understand. What the thing can do, and how you might be able to bring that thing, AI, into your business, because there's no business out there right now that couldn't benefit from AI in some way, shape, or form, but it starts with a little bit of education.

    You have to educate yourself on what it can actually do, and then compare that to what the things are that you're solving day to day in your business.

23. Wes Mathews

    Yeah. Your comment around the zoom summary link, like you just click on it. Right. And now what's funny is I have a zoom meeting and if there's like four people, it seems like there's AI's trying to get into the room and, and listen in. And, but what I've been noticing is. You know, I, I gave some feedback.

    Somebody had asked me to like help them out with something. And I just, I did it just out of, Hey, I'll give you the time. And I recorded it and I uploaded it to the cloud. And then I got, Zoom will give you the video back with all the text. And I literally cut all the texts and plopped it in ChatGPT and said, how do you think this went?

    And I have my bots, right? So it knows who I am and my company and everything. So. The GPT or whatever. And it said, Oh, it's great. Blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, how much, if I were to charge for consulting, what do you think of fair prices? And it gave me some feedback and I said, Oh, but like, that's not enough.

    Like, how can I double that? And it literally gave me things to look at, to work on. Um, it said, I speak too much. I should, you know, listen. And it was just, I look at it as really good training wheels or like a really good administrative support, you know? Um, but I think that's one way that people can start.

    Thinking about how it could, how it could improve. And it's just a button on zoom and nobody even knows. I mean, you have to assume nowadays that somebody's AI ing you on some type of video or like your emails, like you just have to assume that. Um,

24. 19:00
    Ben Quintana

    Yeah, I agree. It's catching up. It's You know, last year was just one of those seminal moments where like the world woke up, you know, I kind of caught wind of this in 2016, but the world, the world woke up last year with, uh, with ChatGPT that everyone was like, holy cow, look at what this thing can do. Um, that analysis use case you mentioned is a good one.

    We did a POC with a sales client where they have a team of salespeople. They're out in the field trying to sell their product. And then we took the transcripts of the sales calls for them. And then we gave very explicit guidance to the AI. And we said, rank these sales conversations on these axes, right? And it does exactly what you do, what you tell it. The thing that you have to remember though, it's kind of like talking to a person, right? So, the more guidance and the more explicit you can be, the better the output is going to be. But that goes back to that earlier comment about educating yourself. I know when ChatGPT first came out, my wife would She called, she called me talking to my girlfriend.

    She's like, Oh, you're talking to your girlfriend again. talked to that thing for hours. Literally. I would just like, Oh, let me see how it does at this. Let me see how it does at that. And I was just playing around to see what it would be good at and what it wouldn't. the reasoning aspect, which is what you, which is kind of what I would summarize what you said, like you were asking it to reason, how did I do and another reasoning job you asked it is how could I make more money? okay. Not great at reasoning, but it does do some fairly good reasoning, but again, it takes a guidance. That's that whole prompt engineering buzz where they talk about, like, I know it had gotten the thing a little bit,

25. Wes Mathews

    but what's crazy to me is like, I'm going to go ahead and make up a statistic, but when I think of ChatGPT or this technology, I would say it's at 1 percent of what the capabilities are.

26. Ben Quintana

    a hundred percent agree with

27. Wes Mathews

    So I feel like what it was able to do to me in this, in this example, like, where is this tech going to be in three to five years?

    Right. Um, and I'm, I'm on this quest of how to, how to empower small businesses because it's coming ready or not. Right. Um, and, and that's kind of why

28. Ben Quintana

    my,

29. 21:00
    Wes Mathews

    got out of like, you know, I was big into website design, SEO, and. I, my, my crystal ball I rubbed said run for the hills because I used to tell people way back in the day when I first started my company in 2006, I said, you don't, cause a lot of business owners would say, Oh, my sister's cousin's brother's daughter manages our website.

    And I would say, you don't want that person in 2006 doing that. Well, the challenge is today in 2024, your sister's cousin's brother's friend's girlfriend's daughter, she could do a really good job, uh, with what's available out there. You know, you, you can build some pretty amazing stuff. Uh, and just the way that advertising and marketing is shifting is it's so different than it was five years ago.

    I'm kind of terrified to see what's going to be in the next five years.

30. Ben Quintana

    I think I'm terrified and excited. Right. So, yeah. And I think that's how everybody should feel. I think you're a hundred percent right. Like if you're not thinking about this, you're missing the boat. Everybody needs to be challenging themselves. Like what's this going to do to my business, my industry, or how could I use this in my business or my industry?

    Cause if you're not somebody else is, and they're going to eat your lunch. So

31. Wes Mathews

    So going back to like you, you, you kind of being self aware saying, Hey, I have this unique ability to like write really good software, but I can also communicate with these enterprise level clients and, and be the root and support my team. What would you say to somebody sitting in your, in your position of, Hey, I.

    You know, I'm pretty good at writing code and doing software. I think I can lead a team. Did you have to change anything you were doing? Did you invest in like books or did you just, how did you manage through that? Or did you just do it?

32. 23:00
    Ben Quintana

    a big in a learning by doing kind of guy. Yeah. I think if you have this skill, first thing I'd say is you have a marketable skill for sure. The next thing you got to do is figure out like how you can sell it to someone, cause that is the skill. The brain that being that bridge is the skill, you know, the biggest thing that has been. A challenge here is more people to have that skill, going back to the roots thing. So now, you know, most of my day in day out is I'm trying to grow new leaders in the company. Cause going back to your initial question, like what did you learn or what was the struggle? What was the number one thing you learned? You can only scale an operation so big unless you have good leaders under the, under the initial leader, right? Sole proprietor business started as one person. you know, now we're over a hundred, but it's not going to grow anymore unless I have more people carrying the flag. So what the job becomes is it becomes bring more people along with you that can carry that flag.

    This is what we believe in. This is what makes us great. Oh, this is how we coach and guide more people and bring more people along with us, or the business doesn't grow. You know,

33. Wes Mathews

    Now, how do you, how

34. Ben Quintana

    go ahead.

35. 24:00
    Wes Mathews

    do you, like, how do you allocate that time? Or like, what would you say to somebody on, Hey, I have leaders. I want to scale, like, how do I invest that time? Is it. Sending them to leadership seminars. Is it reading leadership books? Is it you just spending that one to one time? Or did you develop a program or what, what works best for you to grow leaders?

36. Ben Quintana

    Well, we talked in the beginning about how you get farther and farther from what you're good at and what you enjoy. I enjoy writing code. I am not a natural leadership coach, but now that's what I find I have to do for the business. If the business is going to grow, I have to grow leaders. it's a lot of trial and error.

    It's a lot of test and learn. You know, we paid for a bunch of leadership training summits. We've given reading material, we've done our own training material. It's really hard. It's hard. So it's like, try something. Oh, that didn't work. Try something else. Try something. Oh, that didn't work. Try something else. the focus right now is a lot of one on one coaching. You just have, you know, first identify the talent. Who are the folks in the organization that, you know, really look like they can get there. And then it's spending time, spending time and having quality conversations. You know, don't forget about this.

    Tell me how you did that. What did you do in this situation? You know, this is what's important to us. How did you drive that message? You know, It's just a lot of, a lot of time coaching. That's, that's what's working for me. I don't know what it'll work for you. Some people get a lot from books, but it's been just a lot of, a lot of one on one coaching. And I feel like I'm making progress. I feel like I'm making progress.

37. Wes Mathews

    So your main target customer enterprise level businesses, how do you, as a computer software company, stand out in the noise of, there's a lot of computer software companies out there, take a lot of these big enterprise companies, My assumption would be that some of them might be large enough to have their own internal staff.

38. Ben Quintana

    Oh

39. Wes Mathews

    How do you stand out being a non sales guy? Yeah, you have over 100 employees and you must be doing very good work. How do you, how do you stand out and make these connections and get in these opportunities?

40. 26:00
    Ben Quintana

    That's the tricky part. Someone asked me once, you know, what was the hardest thing in getting it started? It's hard to get them to believe you, right? Now there's a track record, so that's getting a little easier. So, I'm mixing up answers here a couple different ways. So, I guess, going back to the earlier conversation, everyone's had that experience of the unapproachable developer.

    Everyone's had that experience of a tech team that makes big promises and doesn't deliver. And that's the key differentiator. That's what makes us different. come in, we speak your language, and we do what we say we're going to do. We keep our promises. And then going back to the roots, this is, now I feel like I'm having a coaching conversation with someone. We have to keep our promises. That's what makes us special.

41. Wes Mathews

    That's the secret sauce.

42. 27:00
    Ben Quintana

    other, every other big tech company, you bring in every services company, you bring in, they're going to break your heart. They're going to break your promises because that's just part and parcel with the industry. So a lot of software service companies tell you, think, tell you they're going to do things they can't do. We don't do that. I tell you what we're going to do. And that is what we do. Your promises are sacrosanct. So anyway, you have to stand out. You have to have an opportunity to shine. And then once you get that opportunity, you have to shine. So if they just give you a shot, then you can come in and show them.

    But the only way to get them to believe you is to show them. You got to show them. So, You know, it's a lot of talk about the track record, talk about the success stories, get someone to believe you, and then once they believe you, don't miss that opportunity. You gotta shine.

43. 28:00
    Wes Mathews

    Deliver. Because I feel like in computer software, and, and correct me if I'm, if I'm way off here, but It's not just building the software is the hard part. It's the 90 percent of the strategic planning, the development, like all the stuff that nobody really thinks about when you think about building software, like people think about, Oh, I want to build this widget.

    Right. And it does this, this, and that. But the reality is it's, it's the bulk of the hours are the planning. The building's probably the easy part, I would say. Not easy, but it's all the other stuff. So you're, to find the people to do that is really difficult,

44. 29:00
    Ben Quintana

    It's funny. It's like, it's like you're, it's like you're reading from my playbook. So the, the buzzword we use around the office is software is easy. Software is easy. it's not easy, you should consider another job. If you're struggling with the software part, you're struggling with the wrong part. Everything around the software is the hard part. So it starts with the definition. What do you want to build? That is incredibly hard. Then it comes into the quality. How do you define that you're building a good product? Quality is very, very hard. How about maintainability? How do you build something that's going to run 24 7, 365 and never have an issue?

    That is very hard. Anybody can slap the software together and get it out there and get it to work once or twice. No, it has to work every day perfectly. running software is hard. Monitoring software is hard. Quality is hard. Definition is hard. Change management is hard. I've had a couple times where we've made a very, very good product, but we couldn't bring the users, we couldn't bring the organization along with us. Oh, I don't want to use your new tool. I like doing it the old way. Change management is very hard. Software is easy. Everything else is hard. Now, finding kids that just spent, you know, Oh, man, I just spent four or eight years learning computer science at college. You're telling me this thing's not important.

    It's easy. Yes, it is. That's the easy part. Now get ready for the hard part. So again,

45. Wes Mathews

    don't want to do the hard part. I want to do the easy part.

46. 30:00
    Ben Quintana

    Okay, then maybe you want to go somewhere else. But actually, seriously though, first it's how about I help you do the hard part.

47. Wes Mathews

    Yeah.

48. Ben Quintana

    How about I train you on how to do the hard part. How about I train the trainer, that goes back to that coaching thing.

    So now I'm trying to train people to train them on how to focus on the hard part. That's connecting the dot to the prior conversation. not everybody wants to do it. Some people want to focus on their propeller head tasks, their nerd tasks, but that's the easy part. That's the boring part. Focus on the hard stuff.

49. Wes Mathews

    Like how many projects are you guys typically juggling at any given time with a, with a hundred employees

50. Ben Quintana

    we're running 32 active projects right now.

51. Wes Mathews

    now? Are you overseeing, like how, how you said you like you're farther away from what you started to do in the business, but I mean, how, how do you manage a business at that scale where you have a hundred team members, 32 Matt, you know, different size scale projects. Have you built infrastructure for yourself to kind of, you know, how things are going or how do you effectively manage that?

52. 31:00
    Ben Quintana

    Well, it's a lot of trial and error again. I'm a trial and error guy, right? So, they talk about in management, like people making that transition from doing to managing, right? So you're a guy with your hands on keyboard or whatever. You're the guy stamping out the widgets and you did a really good job stamping out the widgets. So now you're managing guys that are stamping out the widgets. struggle with that. Um, but for me, that one was relatively easy. It's that next managerial step, which is the one you're talking about. Now you're no longer managing the people that are doing things. You're managing the people that are managing people doing things. It's even harder to have proper oversight in that because now you're not actually overseeing the work.

    You're overseeing the people, overseeing the people doing the work. So you really got to flex your, you got to flex the level you go. You can't stay too high level or there can be a mess under here that you don't know about. You can't go too low level or you're going to spend all your time in the weeds. that is really, that's, that's, is a trick that is hard to master. So, you know, you gotta look for certain warning signs, you gotta have it clear in your head like what are the things I want to look at to see if this, this, if this project in the 30 is going well or not. I have that warning sign list.

    Oh, something smells a little bit here. You know, I, I talked to my managers about it. This is a little bit of a indelicate way to put it, but I call it sniffing for shit. Sorry for the, sorry for the, sorry for the language.

53. Wes Mathews

    way to put it.

54. Ben Quintana

    to sniff around for shit. And if you smell any shit, you got to go a little deeper, step in the shit, but you got to know how got to look around for something a little funky.

    And when you smell something funky, you got to go a little deeper on that one. then help the manager figure out what's a little funky. it's hard to describe cause you can't go to, you can't be too high level. You can't be too low level and you got to train your manager to watch it the way you want it to be watched.

55. Wes Mathews

    So let me ask you a question then, like you being the original computer software developer, when you're looking at these projects, you're running into challenges, you see a problem. Do you want to jump in and just fix it? Have you, have you stopped yourself from doing that? And you strictly go to your managers?

    Like, or do you, cause I think that's a big scale piece, right. Of my counterparts, a software developer as well. So like, he'll, he'll kind of just be like, let me just go in for two minutes and fix this. Versus going down all the chains of command. How do you, how do you manage through that? When you don't, when you see

56. Ben Quintana

    Well,

57. Wes Mathews

    shit,

58. 34:00
    Ben Quintana

    I tell my young managers, it's a trap. Because, yes, I believe you, it would be faster if you jumped in and fixed it yourself, you know. I feel the same way. It'd be faster if I jumped in there and wrote the code too. But, you will never be able to do bigger and bigger things if you stay stuck in that trap. You will always be being pulled in. You will always be fixing the next fire. You know, putting out the next fire. Fixing the next issue. So you have to Train somebody else on how to fix it, even though it might take a little longer, even though it might be a little slower, even though it might be a little bit more frustrating. You have to teach them to fish or else you'll be fishing all the time. Now, that being said, there are times when I get involved. Like, there has to be. Like, if there's a serious fire, I'm in there with a fire hose just like everybody else. That's just how it is. You know, and that's the other thing. That's judgment.

    You know, to be a good leader, you gotta have judgment. So you gotta know when is this fire big enough for me to put in, you know, to get the fire hose out, or when do I have the luxury to work with someone else to show him how to put out his own fire. So,

59. 35:00
    Wes Mathews

    when, when did you have that realization that you have to invest in your leaders or managers and not, and not do everything? I think that's a, that's a really big self awareness, a big pivotal point in an entrepreneurial journey. What was the catalyst that triggered that for you? Do you remember?

60. Ben Quintana

    I do remember actually, it was a Groundhog Day thing, because I have like this checklist of questions that I asked, kind of like that thing we talked about before, like it's the list of things I ask so I know whether or not, One of the 30 projects is going well. Like, how did you do on that? Did you do this thing?

    Did you do that thing? Did you do, Oh, you forgot step 36, know? And again, we're not this massive enterprise where that's all routinized. It's just, it started with 20 years of experience in delivering projects. 20 years of messing some things up and learning from learning from mistakes. So, you know, before I started the business, I've got 20 years of learning.

    So I learned some stuff. So, but I was having this Groundhog Day experience where I was like, I've had this conversation with Bob and I've had this conversation with Mary and I've had this conversation with Sally. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I got to pump the brakes here. I got to get this organized and I have to try and get to all of them.

    So I'm not playing whack a mole doing it onesie twosie. And then I'm like, wait a minute. I need to train them on how to do this job and be better leaders. And the company will be better organized and managed. You know, it's not rocket science any, if you read any of the books, you're talking about books, people talk about this all the time.

    This is well described, you know, at some point your leadership transitions into growing other leaders, you know, your, your management transitions to coaching. do I make managers better at managing? You know, and if you can't do that, you're going to stay a certain size. This is what it is.

61. Wes Mathews

    I love.

62. Ben Quintana

    A lot of businesses struggle with that.

63. Wes Mathews

    Yeah. I love that you say that right. Coming with your scientist background, that it's not rocket science. It's kind of one plus one is one, but I think, you know, every entrepreneur has to, things have to happen for that, for them to become self aware on. Hey, at what point do I stop playing whack a mole?

    Um, it's a hard thing to do, right? Cause you're the entrepreneur, it's your vision and you started it. Nobody can do it better than you, but I'm a big believer that it takes that realization that you invest in people grow and scale. Otherwise. It's a lifestyle business, right? You can, you can scale up as much until you can.

    You hit a wall, you know, it's just, you can't scale beyond yourself. Um,

64. 38:00
    Ben Quintana

    Yeah. And, and, and not only that, like, it depends on what you want. If you want to sell a proprietor business, then maybe you can manage everything yourself. But my personal goal here is, you know, I want to build something that outlasts me, which means it's got to work without me there. Well, I started the thing. How is it going to work without me there? Unless I train people to make it work without me. That's another managerial maximum. Like a good manager makes himself replaceable. I haven't done that yet, but I'm working on it. It is the hardest thing I've ever done though. I got to say, I used to say college was the hardest thing ever did.

    Cause that physics degree was really hard, in all honesty, this is the hardest thing I've ever done. I'm trying to make myself replaceable in the business I started. not succeeding at it yet, but that's what I'm trying to do. That's what I'm trying.

65. Wes Mathews

    what's next for you? What's the next big milestone for KIS solutions? Is it a revenue? Is it team members? Is it certain amount of work? Like what, what's that big thing for you?

66. Ben Quintana

    It really is what I just said, like, I want to be able to walk away from my business and leave it in capable hands. That is what I want more than anything. In fact, I said that openly in our company meeting for the first time ever. I've been sort of quietly thinking about this for a while. But now it's, it's now it's, it's out there.

    Now it's a discussion point. It's an open discussion point. In order for me to back away, I'm trying to be very prescriptive about, well, I need to, when you start a business yourself, you wear a lot of hats. So, okay, what are the hats I got to take off? What's the first hat? What's the second hat? What's the third hat?

    So now I'm being very prescriptive about the hats. What are all the roles and activities that still are only with me? And how do I get other people there to wear those hats? So that I can let this thing live without me. That's the goal right now.

67. Wes Mathews

    Well, that's a, that's a, that's a pretty awesome goal. I have no doubt you'll definitely, uh, get there. Uh, super excited for you. I had a lot of fun talking to you. I think, uh, you brought a wealth of information. Some really cool stuff, but KIS solutions. You guys provide some really great solutions. If there's anybody listening that wants to get in contact with you, your company to scope out a project or just chat, uh, what's the easiest way for people to get in contact with you guys?

68. Ben Quintana

    Probably just the website, you know, kisssolutions. tech. Does it contact us form there? do super awesome work. Keep it simple. That's

69. Wes Mathews

    Yeah, no,

70. Ben Quintana

    do it right.

71. Wes Mathews

    I love it, Ben. Thanks so much for coming on. Learned a ton. I really appreciate it.

72. Ben Quintana

    I enjoyed the conversation also. Thank

73. Wes Mathews

    Awesome. Thanks, Ben.

    This has been another episode of Entrepreneur Intel. Thank you for joining us. For show notes or other episodes, please visit us at entrepreneurintel.com. Until next time.