From NFL to CEO: How Rick Elmore Built Simply Noted with Systems, CRM, and Handwritten Notes

In this episode of Small Business Pivots, host Michael D. Morrison sits down with former NFL linebacker and now founder & CEO of Simply Noted, Rick Elmore. Rick went from growing up in a lower-middle-class family, to leading the Pac-10 in sacks, to a short NFL career, to top-1% medical sales rep…and then pivoted again into building a software, automation, and robotics company that sends genuine handwritten notes at scale. 

Rick shares how a throwaway comment in an MBA marketing class about handwritten notes getting sky-high open rates sparked the idea for Simply Noted, and how he validated the concept by sending 500 letters that produced nearly six figures in additional sales in just a few weeks. Industry data backs him up: personalized handwritten mail is reported to reach open rates as high as 90–99%, dramatically outperforming typical email campaigns. 

From there, Rick walks through the unglamorous middle: eight years of grinding, building custom handwriting robots, securing patents, hiring and training a lean team, and learning to run a data-driven business using CRMs, automations, and—more recently—AI agents that now work 24/7 on his laptop. 

If you’ve ever compared yourself to other founders, battled imposter syndrome, or wondered why your business still hasn’t passed that elusive million-dollar mark (less than ~10% of small businesses ever do), this conversation will feel like oxygen. 

You’ll hear:

• How Rick turned grief, sports, and “chip-on-the-shoulder” energy into fuel to keep going in business
• What really happens after the NFL and why his first “real money” came from corporate sales, not football
• The exact experiment that proved handwritten notes could outperform every other sales activity he tried
• Why a CRM is non-negotiable if you want to grow, and how to start using automations even as a small team
• How he used 14 “phase zero” proposals to de-risk a huge engineering investment and avoid emotional decisions
• The mental game of entrepreneurship: imposter syndrome, comparison, and choosing not to quit
• How Rick uses AI agents today to take repetitive work off his plate—and what that means for small business owners in the next 3–5 years

Whether you’re in Oklahoma City or halfway across the world, if you’re a small business owner stuck working in your business instead of on it, this episode will help you rethink systems, leverage technology, and rediscover your “why” so you can keep climbing your own mountain.

Transcript

Meet Rick Elmore And Simply Noted

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, welcome to another Small Business Pivots where we have business professionals, leaders, and entrepreneurs from around the world. And I know if you've listened to the show before, no one can introduce their name and their business like the business owner. So, my friend, I let you do that. Tell us a little bit about you and maybe a brief journey of your upbringing.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

Sure. Yeah, my name is Rick Almore. I'm the owner and founder of a company called Simply Noted. And what Simply Noted is it is a platform that helps companies integrate, automate, and scale, sending genuine handwritten mail. And this is something that has just evolved over a decade of working on it. But, you know, my background is in athletics, and I've ended up founding a software industrial automation and engineering company. But, you know, what got me here, you know, has been a journey of nothing but pivots. And I'm happy to go back to the beginning if that makes sense to really kind of open up and kind of conceptualize, you know, what got us here, if that works.

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Absolutely. Because a lot of us we grew up in different beginnings, different seasons, different families, cultures, et cetera. So yeah, we'd love to hear that story, get us caught up a little bit.

Humble Roots And Early Loss

Football As Outlet And Breakout

College Grind To NFL Reality

Identity Crash And Corporate Pivot

Sales Success Through Athletic Grit

MBA Awakening And The Spark

Handwritten Notes As A Growth Lever

Proving Demand And Going All In

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Sure. Sure. So um, you know, I come from uh a very humble beginnings, um, my I would say lower middle class family. Both of my parents were solo entrepreneurs. You know, my mom was a medical biller. She just would go to like uh physical therapy offices and help me do the medical billing. Um, and then my stepdad, um, I guess my my my real dad passed, or he passed away when I was seven years old. So I kind of had that early childhood trauma. But then my stepdad came into my life. He was my football coach at nine when I was nine, and he was a roofing contractor. So that's how I earned money growing up. I would go up and down the ladder. I was his muscle. I would carry up the shingles, the paper, you know, take all the trash off the roof. But um, yeah, I I grew, I grew up in a very like humble family. Um, my parents were never gonna hand anything down to me. If I was ever gonna make anything of myself, I was gonna have to go out there and do it for myself. But I did have the love and support, which, you know, every time I talk about it, like it gives me like, you know, um goosebumps because I couldn't have asked for a better foundation. Um, having that support from my parents really like instilled the belief that if I wanted something, I could do it and they were gonna be there to support me. But um I found like early in my my life that you know, I'm a big guy, I'm six foot five. Um, I was always a big kid and like I just gravitated towards sports. And I think there was like an inner anger in me because my dad passed away, so I kind of fell in love with football. You know, I was able to hit people without getting in trouble. So I was like able to get some of that like internal angst out. But it wasn't until I was about 15 years old, you know, my my freshman year in high school. I had, you know, I was a bigger guy, but I had this like phenomenal freshman year. And I was still just playing because I had fun playing. But like my coaches like shook me. He was like, Rick, like you're good at this, like you need to chase this. Um, I ended up getting like, I don't know if any listeners are football fans, but I was I got like 28 sacks, and this was back in 2002, um, and set like a California record. And like I was at like my sports like end of the year banquet, and I was getting all these like CIF like you know awards, and they just kept saying it. And my coaches were like, you have no clue what like what just happened. Like, and but anyways, had uh had an affinity to football, um, got a scholarship to play at the University of Arizona. That was the only way I was gonna go to college. My parents couldn't pay for it, so I had to like, if I was gonna go, um, I was gonna have to earn it. And I was terrible at school. Um, I was terrible. I always wanted to be outside playing sports, I wanted to skateboard, I wanted to ride my bike, I wanted to be hanging out with my friends. And I had to like redo classes as a senior just to become eligible to go to college. So, like the journey was tough from the beginning. And then when I got to college, I red shirt in my freshman year, and then I played for four different coaches um in my college career. So I had to start over and reprove myself every single year. Um, there was no like, oh, we know this guy. Um, a new coach came in and I had to reprove myself. Ended up having a pretty good college career. My junior and senior year, I led the Pac-10 back then. It was 2009, 2010 season, um, in core or in quarterback sacks. So, like, you know, I was like pretty proud of that because like a major conference, major division to lead in the stack category. I was all Pac-10 my junior and senior year. Um, it then allowed me to get drafted into the the NFL, but I was a sixth-round draft pick. I got no money. Um the NFL is the only professional sport where money's not guaranteed. So the NBA, the MLB, the contract you sign, uh, the majority of that, that first contract is guaranteed. At least that's what it was when I was playing. And I only got the paycheck to what I like showed up that day. So like I didn't make a lot of money in the NFL. Um, I actually made more money in the first three years of my corporate career than I ever made in the NFL. So like I didn't have like a big nest egg to go invest into anything. Um, I actually used all the money I made and saved to buy a house. So like um, if anything, like that's what I use it on. I didn't take it and go invest it in some startup company. But I played in the NFL for three years. Um, the NFL stands for not for long for a reason. You know, like there's always younger, um, cheaper, healthier talent coming in every single year. And I thought I had like the ability to play 10 years, but you know, life had a different, a different route or a different path for me to take. And when I got out, I was completely lost. I mean, I was like literally, I remember um I got cut from Green Bay and Green, I lived in California at the time. I literally, when I got cut, I just got in the car and I drove right back right to California. I think it was like a 36-hour drive. I think I stopped for like two hours. I was just like in a like like so zoned out, like my life's over. I can't do anything. But you know, after I after I got through that little period of my life, you know, that little period of time, I kind of just kind of woke up and said, hey, you know, it's not gonna work, but it's not gonna work. I got to do something else. So I just kind of looked at what other people did when they made the transition. And everybody got into corporate medical sales. You know, 15 years ago, that was like a big place to go and like kind of transfer, you know, from athletics to like sales. And um, I just took everything that made me successful as an athlete, you know, all the intangibles. It has nothing to do, you know. I had to earn it. I didn't know anybody at Stryker. There was no manager that gave me a job. I just had to show them, you know, what made me successful as an athlete. I was gonna transfer it over to my corporate career. You know, that was the hard work, that was the grit, that was the perseverance, that was outworking anybody, showing up first, uh, being the last one to leave. And it ended up working out for me. Um, I had a lot of success in my corporate career. Um, first year I was an associate rep, but the four years I carried a bag, I was either top 1% or top five sales rep in my company. And that wasn't from anything but hard work and effort. Um, and just like not stopping until like I accomplished that goal. But I saw, you know, like where my life was going if I stayed in corporate and I didn't want to like work the corporate ladder. Like, and I'm sure a lot of entrepreneurs out there running their business, they had this like wake up moment where they're like, I meant to do something else. And I just always felt that internally. And again, I was bad at school. I was like horrible at school. Um, I just did whatever I could to get by. Like, I literally like just talking about like my my undergrad, I want to like rip my skin off. It was so like uncomfortable. So going back and doing my MBA in 2017 was like it scared me because I was like, why am I doing this? Like, why am I putting myself through this? But what I realized when I went back into my MBA was when I was actually interested in what I was learning, I became obsessed with it. I was I wanted to be a business owner eventually. I knew I couldn't do corporate forever. I wanted to learn business. And going into my MBA, I kind of fell in love with learning. And I was a year into my MBA, and I was doing a marketing class. And this is what's so important about just like trying new things and trying to listen to people's stories because you never know where inspiration is going to find you. And I was in a marketing class, about a year into my program, we did two three and a half hour classes every Wednesday. So it was seven hours every Wednesday, three to 10:30. And this marketing professor is going through the success rates in marketing, and everything's nominal. It's like 1%, 8%, you know, 14%, super low, super low success rates. And I don't know if he was joking or, you know, he's just trying to be funny, but he ends his lecture saying, hey guys, you know what works better now, if not better than ever, is a good old-fashioned handwritten note. Like they get open 99% of the time. You know, people are inundated with all this digital noise. Back then it was like the software boom. Now we're in the AI boom. Mailboxes are empty, people appreciate it. Um, they're rare, you know. So don't forget to send your handwritten notes to the people that you care about. And I was like, man, like that was like the light bulb. I was like, man, that's a good idea. Like, that's a good point, but like, who has the time to do it? Like, nobody has the time to do it. To sit down and write a note, like that takes five minutes, 10 minutes. I have 200 clients. That's gonna take me a week. I used to do my all we would do Christmas cards. I would just put a Christmas card in the envelope and write the address. That would take days to do. Like, it literally took forever. So I thought, I was like, hey, if there's a way to scale this or automate this, there has to be a business. So again, no technical background, no software, no engineering, no co-founder who is a tech guy. I just start, I just got to Googling. I was just like, this is a good idea. Like, how do I figure this out? And at that time, there was only companies doing it like B2C, like the wedding market, or like sending denkey cards to your neighbors. And I was like, those are terrible ideas. Those are terrible markets. Like they're like a wedding, like that's a one-time client. It's like a hurry up and wait. Budgets are terrible. Like, why isn't anybody doing this for business? And you know, hindsight's 2020, you know, like what we built here. If I knew what we what was going to take to build this, I probably like it would have like, you know, paralyzed me because it's become so complicated. But we've been able to accomplish this because we just took it one day at a time. But um, yeah, I just got to work. Um, I found a pen plotter in China. It's a little three-access robot. Um, built it at my house. It took me like a month because I had no experience doing any of this stuff. I just got to Google, watched YouTube videos, was obsessed with trying to figure out this product. And I sent out 500 handwritten notes. You know, it took me about a month to get done. And the response rate was amazing. I had doctors calling me, and as a sales rep, when your client's calling you, like that's that's exciting. You're like, oh my God, a client's calling me, they want to buy. But I sent out 500. My monthly quota at the time was about$50,000 a month as a sales rep. In about six weeks, I sold just under$300,000 in product. And it was all from handwritten mail. These doctors were getting it. They were calling me and they're saying, hey, Rick, like, thanks for the note. I got it. So 99% open rate, right? Um, this is awesome. Nobody does this. Like, hey, schedule a lunch and learn with my my front desk and let's talk about this. And like that was when the entrepreneurial seizure like went into full seizure mode. I was like, oh my God, like concept is proven, like this works. My corporate career is going on autopilot, and now I'm gonna start focusing on this. And um, that's like the genesis. But then, like the last eight years of building this business is a whole nother story because we built this amazing, you know, engineering and software business. We have nine patents. Again, I'm a football player, sales guy who's built a software engineering and robotics business. And it's come from just grit, you know, not taking no for an answer, failing, learning, reiterating, pivoting, and just, you know, even if I have bad days, I just wake up the next day and I just try to take another step forward. And that compounding interest has, you know, built a multi-seven-figure business. We're in a 12,000 square foot space. We have 11 employees. Um, and there's no reason I ever should have been here outside of just wanting it so bad and making it happen.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

So you grew up humble but beginnings. Yeah, to say the least.

Building A Patented Robotics Platform

SPEAKER_01 12:35

I you know what? Like I loved how we grew up. Like my my stepdad drove like a a beat-down truck for his work truck, and I loved beating in it. It was like one of those single road, you know, one of those trucks with no back seat. We just had a bench seat in the front. He had to pump the gas pedal, he had to wait, had to see if it would turn on. I never thought anything of it. I was like, this is such a cool car. Like, and um, I mean, my parents, they they um I love my parents. They um they provided a very safe and uh supportive um home. And I am so thankful for that. And um I feel like I owe it to my family and I owe it to those who've supported me in my journey to maximize my potential. And through my journey, I can help those around me to um live up to their full potential by inspiring them through overcoming the challenges of my life.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

That's amazing. And we were talking earlier because a lot of entrepreneurs compare themselves to other entrepreneurs and wonder if they're doing something wrong because someone else is succeeding more than making more than they are. And just like you mentioned, we all have a different journey of how we got here. Some people come from wealth. So a lot of these companies that just take off, they they may have had some funding on the back end from family, or maybe they have some private investors. Uh, there's all kinds of things. And and then there's other people like yourself. You love your family. There's a lot of people that they don't want to see their family ever again, broken families, broken neighborhoods, cultures. Uh so there's a lot of different factors that I want to encourage entrepreneurs to never compare yourself to another entrepreneur, even if they're in your same space, because we just don't know where those beginnings start.

Comparison Traps And Imposter Syndrome

Discipline, Why, And Daily Drive

SPEAKER_01 14:31

I I feel like I have like a perfect little tidbit of information. I want to respond to that. In the beginning, you're gonna have imposter syndrome. You're not gonna be like, oh, I can't do this. Oh, that guy's better than me, right? Um, what's really important is that most people never get started because of an analysis paralysis. They look, I I'm a big hiker, I'm a big outdoorsman. You know, most people stand at the bottom of that mountain and look at the top, and they just go into paralyzation mode. Like, oh my God, that's gonna take forever. I don't know what obstacles I'm gonna run into. Like, I don't think I can do this. But what's really important is to just get started. Um, who you are and where you are at month one or six months in, or year one, or year two, it's gonna constantly evolve. And just like hiking up that mountain, you're not gonna get to the top unless you're taking steps towards the top. And you don't get there unless you're just consistently taking steps and working towards it. And when you're comparing yourself to everybody, all you're doing is slowing yourself down. And what you need to do is understand that 90% of people won't even won't even try. Like 90, nine out of 10 people won't even try. And out of that 10% of people that actually try, probably 90% of them are gonna quit. They're gonna get like a mile in, two miles in, a year in, two years in, they're gonna be like, oh, this is too hard. And then once you realize that 99% of people, like you're really only competing with like 1%. And then, like, then you realize like, I don't even have to focus on that 1%. All I need to do is focus on myself and pay attention to what I'm doing and focus on my journey. And if I do that day after day, month after month, year after year, I'm gonna get to that top. And then I'm gonna turn around and be like, oh, the other 99.9% of people are still on their own journey. And it doesn't come about what it everybody else is doing, it comes about what I'm doing. And you have to train yourself to not look at what that person's doing on social media, YouTube, podcasts, and say, oh, I just turned$10,000 into this$10 million business because all that all they're doing is they're self-promoting, and you also don't know their journey. You don't know their beginnings, you don't know their funding, and you also don't know their journey. You know, some of these people may have been working on something for 10 years that gave them the technical skills to take that$10,000 and turn it into$100,000 or turn it into$10 million, but they won't tell you that. They're gonna say, hey, look how good I am, look at what I've done, and they're probably gonna try to sell you a course and profit off of it. So, really what you need to do is know where you want to go, at least have like a guiding North Star, focus on your own journey, put out blinders to these people that are just, you know, trying to, you know, self-promote themselves and really just focus on yourself. And if you can do that every single day, and I feel like this is my superpower is that no matter how bad yesterday was, and there's a lot of those days as an entrepreneur, no matter how bad yesterday is, I wake up literally wanting to run out of my bed. And that's I feel like you got to focus on. Like is you got to find your why, you got to find your motivation, and figure out how to find that. And if you have that, you're gonna attack every day and you're gonna solve problems every day. And before you know it, that compound interest over time is gonna build something awesome.

Pivots, Systems, And Hiring Smart

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Those are all great points. And for a lot of entrepreneurs, they see things different in different people. So we always see people like yourself getting those awards, those accolades, you know, all the tackles, and and it's like, well, they just must be wired that way. How do you self-motivate for those that don't?

Time, Health, And Sustainable Habits

SPEAKER_01 18:10

I think it comes down to finding your why. Um, and I know that's like a very like um you know, cliche thing to say, but I know why I'm doing this. Um, I have two children now, the six and eight. I want to take everything my parents did for me and make sure um it's not wasted. I want to take and use that as like a sounding board or bouncing board to go to the next level. Um, and I'm very driven to be a person of value. Um, through me improving and becoming a better version of myself every single day. And some days I don't get better because you know, some days are just really bad days. But I want to be somebody that my kids look up to, my team looks up to, um, my tight community, I've really kind of brought my community tighter to kind of get a ride the noise because there's a lot of noise out there. I want to be a person that when somebody says, hey, Rick Almort, it's a positive thing. Like that person overcomes challenges, that person gets things done, that person does things with integrity, that person has morals, character. Um, and I take that very personal. So I think you really got to dial it down to the most basic fundamentals of why you're doing it. It can't be because you don't want a job, can't be because you don't want to be corporate. It can't be because you want to control your time. Because as an entrepreneur, you're gonna go through years of hell before you create something that gets remotely close to what you're envisioning at day one. Um, we're eight years in and we're just like getting there. And it's been eight years of hell. Like it's it's hell. Um, but I literally like I want to solve that problem. And you have to figure out a way at your most basic uh wiring to instill that type of process of mindset. Like, I just want to wake up and I'm gonna keep trying. I want to get better, I want to build, I want to overcome, I want to persevere. And and I think if you're rooted there, no problem's gonna stop you. You may be slow, you may be slowed down, but you have to become unstoppable somehow figure way.

SPEAKER_00 20:14

Most businesses don't hit the million dollar mark. In fact, I think less than 7% of small businesses ever do that. So that's a pretty amazing feat that you've accomplished. What would you say are some pivots that you made along the way, or did it just happen by accident that you got into the million, just that continued persistence? What were some of those pivots you made early on in the business?

Engineering Without A Tech Background

SPEAKER_01 20:38

Sure. I think um just like life, everything's an evolution. Who you are at 15 is different at 20, who you are at 20 is different at 25, who you are at 100 or$10,000 a month is being different than at$50,000 a month or$100,000 or$200. But what you have to do is you have to learn to um, and this is like we were talking about books before this, but I've read all the books, the tractions, eMyth. I've been a part of Chamber of Commerce, B and I, uh Vistage, EO. Um, but you have to know like what got you here won't get you there. Who you were, you know, then, and it got you to like that point, like you're gonna have to evolve and become a per different person to get to the next level. And I always quote EMyth, you know, you got to get out of your business, you gotta work on your business. But there's gonna be years where you just have to be in your business because you don't have the revenue. But through that, through that pain, through that hell, when you're working in your business, you still gotta work on your business. And that's building systems, that's building um, you know, training people. You know, I've leveraged virtual assistants for like most of my eight years. I would build build a standard operating procedure and have them execute that for me every single day. You know, some of these people, you know, in the Philippines, um uh India, they'll they'll work, you know, for four, four dollars an hour, six dollars an hour. Like you got to find these resources, these tools, um, and leverage all these, you know. Different avenues that you have access to to help you, you know, get out of working on your business in your business so you can work on it. So I think we're kind of entering a an interesting phase now where AI and automation can really, if you, I mean, I would I would recommend anybody to really dive deep into the AI and automation space because it's evolving like every single day. But you have to build systems. And if you talk to other entrepreneurs, we talk to other business owners who've scale their business, they have systems in place that allow them to, you know, focus on other things that they need to focus on. So um, I would say get out of your business, you know, even if you're in that stage of grinding through your business, you still got to figure out ways to leverage systems, leverage virtual assistants, leverage tools to help you be more efficient.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

A lot of business owners that we work with will consistently say, I don't have time. Right? I'm putting out fires, I'm having to man a machine because somebody didn't show up today. How did you get past the I don't have enough time?

Bullets Before Cannonballs Decision Model

SPEAKER_01 23:04

That's the you know, the 90% of people who won't even try it, that's where the 90% of the 10 people or 10% fail. Um, it's an excuse. Like when your brain, your brain is gonna tell you your your brain's gonna play scenarios, go to worst-case scenario, you know, it's gonna tell you you're tired. You gotta have like the mental toughness to push through that. Um the people who are successful find a way. And um, there is no nine to five. It's not nine to five. Like when you make the jump from you know having a W-2 job to now having to pay payroll and being the W-2 provider of your employees, it's not nine to five, it's 24-7. Um, I literally, eight years in, I still have vivid dreams of things that I'm doing in my business. Like, you know, emails that are coming in, like I'm thinking about that, like I have dreams about it. It's just like you're wired differently. But you know, that's caused a lot of problems too. You know, this isn't talked of talked about a lot in the entrepreneur space, but like how stress is going to affect your health. Um, it has affected my health, and I've had to, you know, it became such an issue where I had to like pay more attention to it, but then I had to build systems around making sure that my health is good. You know, you know, I'm now now more involved with physical therapy and stretching, and I go to a naturopath, do blood work, I have supplementation, I have a stricter diet. Um, I'm putting my phone away at a certain time every night. Like, um, when there's problems in your life, like they're gonna pop up and you're gonna have to solve those problems so they don't become perpetual problems. Perpetual problems are gonna slow down your progress. So if an issue is sticking around, it's for a couple of reasons. You haven't solved it or you haven't learned from it. So if a problem pops up, pay attention to it. And you have to look at it, like, all right, step back from it. Why is this a problem? Where is it starting? What can I do to improve it? What system can I put in place to solve it? And then write it down and then have somebody help you execute it, or have a workflow, you know, an NAM zap or make.com help automate something, or get a virtual assistant, you know, for two hours a day, eight bucks a day, 10 bucks a day to have them execute something for you. But you really have to just productize or systematize like everything in your life. Like, but there is no work-life balance as an entrepreneur. Um maybe there is. I don't know. I haven't really truly found it. I try to like step away from it when I'm with my kids and family, but it's still always on my mind. Like, but you have to be okay with that.

Hiring For Trust Then Training Skills

SPEAKER_00 25:26

I like to say it's more of an integration than a work-life balance. Yeah. You know, because you have to learn how to yeah. Make make them both work and with not following a schedule like a nine to five or eight to five has.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

I think that's a perfect analogy. You have to learn how to integrate your entrepreneurial life into your life. Like you can't let it run your life, but that makes sense. Yeah, that's that's a good point.

SPEAKER_00 25:51

So, what is one of the challenges you've had? You you're dealing with software, you're dealing with people, you're dealing dealing with technology. What are some of the challenges you've had and how did you overcome those? Because those are not cheap, yeah, those areas of the business.

CRMs, Data, And Automation Stack

AI Agents And The Next Five Years

SPEAKER_01 26:10

Well, we've had to so we've had to engineer and build our own handwriting technologies. So, you know, how I did that was basically I went through 14 phase zeros with 14 different engineering companies. I have no technical background, no software, no engineering background. So all I did was go to an engineering company, told them about the problem that we're trying to solve in the product that we sell, and I had them basically come up with a plan. And I took that person's plan, just removed the pricing and the logo of their company, and took it to another engineering company. And then said, Hey, this is how they want to solve it. How would you do it and how would you quote it? And I did that 14 times. And by the time I got to that, I got this really nice, you know, very clear path for work. And then we chose the person that we felt most comfortable with and the pricing that made the most sense. So, like a lot of the times as an entrepreneur, I always forget the guy's, I think it's Jim Collins, but he uses the bullets and bowling balls um um metaphor, where it's like as an entrepreneur, especially self-funded, you have no funding, like you only have a certain amount of revenue in your account, you can't waste it all. So, what you got to do is you gotta do a if you're on a pirate ship and you have one cannonball, you know, you got to aim that, you got to figure out a way to do test shots with bullets that aren't gonna cost you much. And then when you have it perfectly aligned and you know it's gonna hit and you have one bowling ball left, it's gonna save your, your, your ship, then you shoot it. So the 14 phase zeros was our 14 test shots with bullets. And then we had one bowling ball of cash to invest. So, like I knew like by the time I was gonna make that decision, I did everything in my power before moving forward and paying that money that I was gonna have like the best chance of being successful. I think a lot of people make emotional-based decisions as entrepreneurs. They get tired, they get stressed out, they just want a problem solved, and they make an emotional decision. When you make an emotional decision, it's not good. Like you got to step back when you're feeling stressed out. If you have to step away from it, come back to it, have some clarity, do whatever you need to do to kind of get your mind right. You know, what I'll do is I'll go for a run and then I'll jump in the ice bath. Going for a run, I work through things in my head, I get like physically, I let it release physically, and then I go in the ice bath and I come back and I'm refreshed. So like that's something I've figured out over time. But it's just really important, you know, like that's a system for me. Like test, test, test. If I'm stressed out, I step back, I go exercise, I jump in the ice bath, and then I come back to it with some more clarity. But then yeah, people's that's a whole different, that's a whole different um, you know, animal or beast to tackle. Hiring, training, you know, it's a whole different system, you know, getting people onboarded, making sure it's the right person. Um, so systems, you gotta have things written down. You gotta have um, you gotta hire for character and trust, in my opinion, especially in the early days, and then train on skills. Um, you got to know if that person that you hire is gonna be someone you can like depend on, um, because like so much depends on them. And if they are not gonna show up to work every day, if they're not gonna do their job, you know, um, you know, it doesn't matter how how skilled they are. So at least in my opinion, this may be different. You know, in that first zero to a million, you gotta hire people that you trust and you can count on. You know, one million to three million, now you start structuring a little bit more middle management, you have more revenue to play with. And then three million over, in my opinion, just for me, like all the podcasts I listen to, you got to have like real executive talent, people to come in here and really run divisions. But yeah, that zero to a million trust is like monumental for sure.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

You've talked a lot about systems, and I agree. SOPs, systems, processes, all that good stuff is it's key to scaling a business, but there's a million different ways to do it. So, what did you find was uh that worked for you? Were they simple, kind of five to seven steps? Were they uh long? I mean, what what how much work did you put into them and how did you find those to be effective?

Simply Noted’s Platform And Tracking

Connect With Rick And Resources

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Um well, I'm very sales and marketing minded. Um, so data means everything to me. Um having a like a central hub to store all your data, you know, we use PubSpot and go high level. You need to have a you need to have a CRM. It is amazing, you know, going through all those like entrepreneur networks that I went through. How many people don't even have a CRM? Like, how can you run your business if you don't have all your data stored, organized, tracked? If you don't even have that, you're gonna have an impossible time scaling. And then once you have a CRM, everything's set up, you need to learn how to use it. You need to learn how to set up like sequences, workflows, automations from with whatever CRM you're using to automate some of the mundane repetitive tasks. So, um, you know, for example, when leads come in from like Google Ads, they get entered into a workflow, they get, you know, a workflow for email and text messaging, a task is created for a sales rep. Um, you know, every time they've revisit our website, we track that. They get ranked, they get lead scored. Um, that help us make more intelligent um like actions, you know, so we're not just like blindly running through our business of like, hey, this person's engaged our business the most. They've been on our website a lot, they booked a meeting, they requested a demo, they get scored higher, so we follow up with them sooner, right? Or we follow up with them more. So I've learned this over eight years of just like literally like engulfing myself, but it can be anything for your business. You know, some people may want to hyper focus on product and sell the best product, so they're gonna, you know, you know, dial in there. Some people are gonna do more social media, they just want to have a massive social media presence that drives traffic. But if you don't have a CRM, you know, like you can't even get started. But again, I would dive into a lot of the automation, you know, a lot of these no-code tools, NADEN, Zapier, uh, make.com, AI agents, and really try to stay ahead of the times. Um, if you're not using technology and automation tools in your business, it's gonna be really hard. Um, and there's lots of people out there that can help you learn how to do it. YouTube's a great resource. You know, in the early days, a lot of sweat equity. You know, you're gonna have to spend time learning this, but you're gonna be so thankful you did. Um, I always tell people the eight years as an entrepreneur I've been in this journey, it's like four, uh, three or four 40-year careers in corporate America of like the knowledge that I have in my brain now because of just everything I've had to dig through and learn on my own. But I wouldn't take any, there's no shortcuts as an entrepreneur. You can't take shortcuts. Um, there's no shortcuts to success as an athlete either. Like the guys who become professional athletes, it takes 15 years. Um and don't don't judge yourself. Some people's journeys take 20 years. Um, some people's take two. And it goes back to what we were saying earlier. Like you never know how if someone starts. So really just hyper focus on your own personal development and growth journey.

Universal Advice: Know Your Why

SPEAKER_00 33:05

We talked about automation and we try to keep small business pivots focused enough to on the subjects that they have at shelf life. In other words, not talk about what technology does today, but what it can do for you moving forward. You mentioned automation. AI is a big thing. This is Q1 of 2026 when we're recording. Can you kind of share? I think we're, I think we're past the ask it a question. The the chat, the you know, the the prompt, if you will. I think most people have gotten there. If you haven't, I highly suggest you at least start there, get familiar with it. But how do you think it's gonna help help businesses moving forward if if they don't start learning it now? And I and I don't want to hype it up to where if you don't do this in two years you'll be out of business. I not nothing like that. Just what are the benefits of it? And what how do you think it's gonna help business owners relieve them of so much stress?

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Sure. So um I'm obsessed with this space. Um actually I have I don't know if this is a I have like literally, I don't know if you can see this, but I I have nine AI agents running on my laptop that do work for me 24-7. And there's a software that was just released called um OpenClaw three weeks ago. Um, that allows you to have agents. So let me back up. How AI worked in the past was very prompt-based. So you would have to tell to do something, and then it would give you an output. The input was your prompt, the output was whatever it did for you. Um, which was great because like it can help you rewrite emails, it can help you debug code, it can help you accomplish a lot of tasks. What it wasn't doing was actually taking action. It wasn't like um um how they call us. I'm trying to make it very easy to understand. These agents can now live on a computer, they have access to a computer, they can run your browsers, they can integrate into your CRM, they can send emails, they can send text messages when data comes back. Um, they can intelligently respond. Um, they can book appointments, they have integrations into uh like Nana Banana and these like like video generation tools. I mean, it's literally gonna revolutionize the world. Um, I honestly genuinely believe like within the next five years, AI agents is gonna be a part of every business. It can automate and do most tasks for most businesses. So if it's done on software, done on a computer, sales rep, marketing, PR, um, CRM management, like middle management, like sales manager managing your sales reps, like you can have an AI agent sales manager managing SDR AI agents. So um I it's really important to at least have awareness of it because every business in the next five years, like mark my words, it just had its iPhone moment, you know. Um, and I cover this stuff and I watch this stuff every single day. But you're gonna have to figure out a way. And this goes back, it's great. This is actually a huge opportunity. This shouldn't stress anybody out. You just need to be aware of it. Like a lot of these things that you get stuck doing in your business will be automated by agents. You just need to have the awareness to know, like, oh, this is a problem that I'm living in. It's done on my computer, it's done with software. I can automate this. I just have to implement it. And you got to reach out to people who can help you do it until you get the domain expertise, like the you know, conceptualization of how it works to do it yourself.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Fantastic. We haven't talked much about your business other than it handwrites notes, which are important. I write uh a handful or so every week to clients and prospects. Tell us a little bit about that, and then we'll uh wrap up.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Sure. Yeah. Um the easiest way to understand what we do, I I try to position as like the constant contact of handwritten notes. So if you think of like email marketing, you know what constant contact does, it helps you like you know create a campaign, design, copy, send it, track it, email clicks, re-enter them into automations. Um, that's what we've done here at Simply Noted. We make sending genuine handwritten notes. And I think you said we're on a video for this. But we send authentic, like personalized handwritten notes in your handwriting that is integratable and as automatable as email and trackable. So we track it to the mailbox, we track when people engage on your letters, we can set up API integrations and webhooks. So when a note is delivered, the post office updates our system, we update your dashboard, and we can automate sending a text message saying, Hey, John, hope you got my note. We know we got it because we tracked it in the mailbox. You can automate a text message, you can update your CRM. So we've taken something that in the past was just incredibly difficult to do. You know, sit down and send something, like a handwritten note, and we've made it incredibly simple through automation and technology.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

That that's amazing. I encourage everybody to check it out. I'm looking at the website again. It's it's amazing technology. And you're right, notes go a long way. I'm sure there's a lot of listeners probably want to learn more, maybe follow you. What's the best way to do that?

SPEAKER_01 38:27

Yeah, so I'm very active on LinkedIn. Um, it's like my main social channel. So just Rick Elmore, simply noted. Um, and then if anybody wants to learn about the technology, they can go to our website and just request like a sample kit. And we we send a really nice, like big like folio to show you the quality and the technology. But yeah, those are the probably the two best mediums to get in contact.

SPEAKER_00 38:49

Any blogs, YouTube channels, anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 38:53

I consult through Full Stack Closer and I have like a school community where people can go and like follow me to learn about AI and implementing AI under their business. But that's like a small project I do on the side. But um, yeah, fullstack closer.ai, if anybody's interested in learning about AI, um, I literally help small business owners implement AI agents, AI automations uh for sales, marketing, and PR. Um, but that's more like a side hobby for me right now because I'm just so fascinated with the technology. And by me helping people integrate it into their businesses, it really just keeps extending my knowledge on how these tools can be used for anybody.

SPEAKER_00 39:29

Absolutely. Well, I always wrap up with kind of one last question. If you were in front of an audience of small business owners, different seasons of business, different industries, different amounts of employees, what is one thing that could be applicable to all of them? It could be a book, a quote, life lesson, anything.

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SPEAKER_01 39:49

Um that's a very broad question. Um I want to go back to what I was talking about early on. Um you really have to, you got to get out of the noise and the chaos that you you deal with every single day. We all have it. And you got to go down to the most basic fundamentals of who you are and why you're doing what you're doing and focused on that. You got to shift the mind as like, oh, I want to make a lot of money, oh, I want to be my own business owner, oh, whatever, like the like the however it's drawn up, and you got to figure out why you're doing it. Um, is it because you're just born to be an entrepreneur? Is it because you are born to be a problem solver? Is it because you are born to, you know, change the direction of your family, whatever it is, like you got to figure out that most basic fundamental and and start there. And if that isn't figured out, you're gonna have no chance of being successful because every time it gets hard, it's gonna be miserable. Instead of every time it gets hard, you're like, oh, here's a new challenge. Let's figure it out. I'm gonna overcome it and I'm gonna become better. And if you can figure out why you're doing it and you're rooted in that, solving every problem is gonna be, I'm not gonna say easy because it's still gonna be hard, but you're gonna enjoy the process. You just gotta learn to enjoy the process instead of you know, you know, making it look how it is on social media, because it's definitely isn't how it is on social media. Every day is hard as an entrepreneur.

SPEAKER_00 41:11

Absolutely. Well, you've been a blessing to many. Appreciate your time and insights and wish you continued success. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you for listening to Small Business Pivots. This podcast is created and produced by my company, Boss. Our business is growing yours. Boss offers flexible business loans with business coaching support. Apply in minutes and get approved and funded in as little as 24 to 48 hours at business ownership simplified.com. If you're enjoying this podcast, don't forget to hit the subscribe button and share it as well. If you need help growing your business, email me at Michael at michaeldemorson.com. We'll see you next time on Small Business Pivot.