Intro: [00:00:00] From Silicon Valley, the heart of startup land. It's Getting2Alpha the show about creating innovative, compelling experiences that people love. And now here's your host, game designer, entrepreneur, and startup coach, Amy Jo Kim.
Amy: Here's part two of my wide ranging interview with Bob Moesta, CEO of the rewired group and a jobs-to-be-done expert practitioner.
Here, we dig deeper into the nature of innovation, what role an MVP should play for a product team and strangely enough, how soul cycle has supplanted religion as a form of confession for hard charging millennials. Seriously, we went there. You got to hear it. We also went deep into the role of teamwork in job satisfaction, a theme that's echoed in all of my conversations with senior design leaders.
Bob: So I have a, what I call a no asshole rule now, which is like, we've all [00:01:00] worked for assholes. And at some point in time, I don't want to work for another one ever again. And so the aspect of who's on the team and how the team works is extremely important to me. And so I'd rather work with a great team on home building products than work on an asshole team at, you know, some, uh, digital imaging, cutting edge technology place.
It's just, it just doesn't work for me. So to me, it's really about the team and the and to be honest, this is how I figured out I was a teacher because it's really more about being able to pass the skill on and pass the experience and you know what to do. And I'd rather I think I'll have more impact by helping people help themselves.
Then creating great products by myself or on the team. And like, it's not about the money. It's about now passing it on.
Amy: Listen in and learn about the key qualities and market dynamics that can lead a high performing team towards success.[00:02:00]
So looking back on everything you've learned, working at big companies, working in Japan, working with startups. What do you know now about successful innovation? And also looking at not just your own projects, but like what actually hit the market versus what fell by the wayside? Cause most innovation doesn't reach the mainstream.
It's very rare that it does. So looking at in your own experiences. The innovations that did reach the mainstream, what do you know now that you wish you had known 10, 15 years ago?
Bob: So the first thing is, is that, so I think of innovation versus invention is very different. Invention is creating a new technology that's unique and patentable and that kind of stuff.
Innovation is about actually bringing products to the masses who make their lives better. And so to me, the biggest thing that I would say is that, to be honest, if I could have a do over, it would be the number [00:03:00] of projects that I've done where I know there's a struggling moment. I know that actually what we call non consumption.
People are trying to make progress, but they can't. And that I can just make a product that's better than nothing. Because the reality is that's where innovation actually harvests. I mean, it's at that moment is where disruption begins. And so most people are either going after and trying to go into a very crowded market.
People aren't struggling. There's all these other things, but the reality is like, so to me, if I, if I, if I do the jobs and you start to realize that here's the job, somebody is trying to get done and they're doing it fairly well. And the fact is, is like, you know, and you're trying to get into it. I'd say don't go after that job.
Go after the one where people can't do it, or do it with one where they're dissatisfied. Like, again, think of healthcare, right? The minute clinic walks in and starts just eating people's lunch because it's, it's just the fact that people can get in and out fast. It's not that they have a wait time.
Amy: Systems dynamics.
Bob: Yep, it's all that. And in the end, it's seeing where those struggles are and understanding the emotional, social, [00:04:00] and functional energy of what people are willing to spend to overcome it. So, to me, currency is not money. Currency is a combination of money, time, and knowledge. And then what I'm willing to do is, is how much emotional, social and functional energy do I have to spend to actually make the progress?
So, as weird as it sounds, for me, it's an engineering boundary problem. It's always about moving from A to B. Where's the place where I have the most people who are in A who want to go to B but can't? And how do I actually figure out the minimum viable product that can actually enable people to in some cases not go to B, but maybe go to A, A between B.
So a half step. I was always taught to engineer the product the best it could be. And what I've learned is a kick ass half is better than a half ass whole.
Amy: There you go. Yeah. That's quotable.
Bob: Let's be clear. That's Jason Fried. That's a, he's a friend of mine. He says that all the time.
Amy: Great. I love it. And that's MVP.
That's right. And you know what? Game designers call that Finding the fun. They're masters at iterative, iterative [00:05:00] prototyping from the inside out.
Bob: Right. I think that's actually at the core of what, what I've been struggling with pretty much my whole life is that marketers or, or the people in the consumer research, I would say, well, we just need to make it fun, but as an engineer, you have to cause fun and causing fun is a bitch and fun has a very big dynamic to it because doing it over and over and over again, doesn't make it fun.
And so there's rules around how to create and cause fun. And so as much as it's the, the research world thinks they're done when the consumer says fun, the reality is like, that's no, that's just the beginning. Cause now I actually have to have like milliseconds, microsite, like all this understanding of how to cause fun.
And by the way, it's fun place to be, but very few people wander into that depth and that swamp.
Amy: Take that idea and just replace fun with core value on day 21. And then you've got. The translation from what game designers do to what everybody does, which is find that core bit of [00:06:00] product value that's going to draw people back.
And as you said again and again, it's iterative, do the first thing, do the MVP, but to do a good MVP, you really have to understand how to deliver value in a minimal way.
Bob: So here's where my gift comes in. My, one of my gifts is that I'm dyslexic, right? And as a dyslexic, look, I never get an A, never get an A.
The only way I'm going to actually go from an F to a D or an E from a D is the Israelis as reps. So where everybody else is thinking about stuff, I'm literally doing stuff. And so I, I, what, what I would say I pride myself on and my magic is the fact that as I'm not smarter, I just, I, I iterate the crap out of it.
And I'm not afraid to be wrong. Like, I think this is part of the problem with our schools is they're breeding these kids that come out of school and they can't even start because they don't know, they want to know where wrong is. And the fact that this is an innovation, like I have no idea where wrong is.[00:07:00]
I have no idea where right is. And so the fact is, is trying to help people innovate is this notion of, you literally have to be okay enough to say that, well, that was stupid, but you have to be able to get back up and move and do another one and say, what did I learn from that? And you're not intentionally making things wrong.
You're taking your best guess, right. And moving forward the way big corporate does, does innovation is actually ridiculous. Think about it, like I've got a two year project and I'm going to literally plan it out when I'm the absolute stupidest about the project and I'm going to build a budget that I'm going to go do and what happens is, is all of a sudden like 90 days into it, I'm learning, okay, this is wrong and that's wrong and that's wrong, but there's some manager looking over me and looking and say like, well, no, you said you're going to do this and if you change them, you know, you're not hitting your goals.
It's like, yeah, but it's not the right thing to do. So we end up managing ourselves to the stupidity of the insanity we created in the beginning. And we can't change it and it's, it's just insane. So that's why I've, I've literally tried to make everything about very small steps [00:08:00] fast. And to be honest, if I can, I can do learning cycles or prototyping cycles in a week to no more than 90 days, but I think base camp uses what six weeks on and two weeks off as their prototyping cycles.
And it's just, there's a, there's a natural rhythm to be able to figure that out, but they don't have a 24-month goal. Right. It's the church of finance that tells us we have to have a 24-month goal.
Amy: Yeah. So I think, uh, you just described your superpower.
Bob: Which is what?
Amy: It's related to your struggles, it's being dyslexic and not being afraid to be wrong and iterating like crazy and knowing that's how you innovate.
And that describes a lot of. To me, what I've learned about successful innovation is it's that combination of things, and it's also exactly what's wrong with our school system. And again, this is a thread that runs through this whole podcast. We've got a bunch of educational game designers, educators who are doing [00:09:00] things.
Other than training people to get the right answer.
Bob: Right. To think how to think, right? That, I mean, if you talk about what I did in Japan, it was, it was scary. It was hard. I couldn't speak the language, but the reality is, is like, I just learned how to think unbelievable. So I think the other thing that I have as a part of the super power is patterns.
Is that because I can't, so, so the way my mom taught me to read. Was is I could see words that were seven letters or larger. So the first way she realized I'd read was I just memorized. So if you read it to me, I could literally read it back to you. I just figured that hack out. That was easy, but the reality is if I had to read it out on my own, what would happen is she would say, all right, we're going to circle this, you know, this, the 10 largest words on the page.
And they'd be, they'd be all over the page and she said, all right, what's the paragraph about? And she'd just teach me how to pattern recognize. And so the fact is, is I don't need actually a lot of data, I need very little data to actually figure out how to infer, not extrapolate, but to [00:10:00] infer based on the context, where they are, where, where they are, how close the big words are together versus how far apart the big words are together.
That's how I learned how to read.
Amy: Wow. That will train your brain.
Bob: So the, the scariest part to me is, is when I was, I think I, my mom basically told me that I could never really tell anybody I was dyslexic because people would treat me differently. So I, I hid it for a long time. And there was a point in my life where I just couldn't really do it anymore.
So I had to reveal that I was dyslexic. And the craziest part is the doctors who basically then would do brain scans. They do all that. And they're like, we, I think there's some, a procedure we can take you through that will help make you normal. And I just looked at him. I'm like, what are you talking about?
Normal? Like, I don't want that. And they couldn't understand how I would make this decision to say like, no, no, we can help you read. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I read fine. I read like, I, like, no, I see things that nobody else can see faster because of this. Is it a hundred percent right? No, but look, I can be 90 percent right.
Good [00:11:00] enough. Iterate again.
Amy: Well, and innovation is a team sport. You can have teammates who can read. So that's the other part of it. And there's a whole thing about education and individuals versus teams.
Bob: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the best part is, so my business partner, I talked about earlier, he's the exact opposite of me.
And what, what you found is that I used to hang out with people who were like me, not people who were not like me. But the reality is, is the moment that we were able to figure out, uh, and build a level of trust as the exact opposites, we do more to get, like we had six months where we, we separated and went to different businesses.
And it was miserable for both of us that we, after that, we came back and said, look, no matter what happens, we're never going to not work together. Like we're always going to work together to death.
Amy: Well, that's a, that's co op. That's like whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Bob: And we at least know it. Yep.
Amy: Oh, that's beautiful. So what are the kind of projects that light you up the most?
Bob: It's changed early on. It was all [00:12:00] about like really cool. Like problems or technology or like something that was like on the edge of of where people knew nothing about it. But it's changed to really, to be honest, projects were, to be honest, they're great people.
So I have a what I call a no asshole rule now Which is like we've all worked for assholes And at some point in time, I don't want to work for another one ever again And so the aspect of who's on the team and how the team works is extremely important to me. And so I'd rather work with a great team on home building products than work on an asshole team at, you know, some, uh, digital imaging, cutting edge technology place.
It's just, It just doesn't work for me. So to me, it's really about the team. And to be honest, this is how I figured out I was a teacher, because it's really more about being able to pass the skill on and pass the experience and, you know, what to do. And I'd rather, I think I'll have more impact by helping people help [00:13:00] themselves.
Then creating great products by myself or on the team. And like, it's not about the money. It's about now passing it on.
Amy: That's awesome. So as you move toward that stage of your multi stage career, what are some of the key differences between corporations and startups? You've mentioned that a couple of times.
You mentioned you work for Ford and that you've also worked with startups, including your own. What are those key differences and how will you think about imparting those at, because, you know, the students you teach will probably go work in both.
Bob: Yeah. I'd actually want to look at the common elements. So this is, again, I, I'm going to counter the question, which is it's not really the difference between a big company, a small company.
It's what is it that, that either a big company or a startup that is successful versus a startup or a big company that's unsuccessful. So to me, it's more about what are the common elements amongst them? And what I would say is a kick ass [00:14:00] autonomous team with a very well defined objective in terms of, or business goal in terms of what to go do.
The problem they're there to solve, not the solution they're there to make. Whether it's a big corporate or whether it's a startup. My belief is they'll be successful. The fact is if they're told what they have to make and then go find the market for it, my belief is it doesn't matter. If so, the, the entrepreneurs who fall in love with their solution and they're just trying to find the problem they can solve with it, or the big corporation who has all this infrastructure and they're trying to innovate to find new places that people can use their product.
My thing is, is those are few and far between successful. And that's, that's why I think we see innovation being so hard is cause most people are working from the supply side to the demand side, as opposed to truly starting from the demand side and realizing where to focus. Um, so they're literally trying to sell one more pack of gum.
They're trying to sell one more pen refill. They're trying to sell one more laptop as opposed to figuring out how do I actually help people who want to make [00:15:00] progress, make progress, and that laptops can help them do that.
Amy: Right. So digging into your team idea, you probably meet a lot of teams, right?
Okay. What are the signals that you look for and that you spark to when you're first meeting a team and thinking about, do I want to work with these people? What is it that pulls you in?
Bob: Yeah. So I think, I think it's a couple of things. One is the intensity of the team. I prefer a team that is in some cases. So think of a system that there might be a lot of conflict in it.
I, that doesn't bother me. Uh, the, uh, it's like, you know, love and hate are not the opposite. It's the opposite is really apathy, you know, where you don't care at all. And so to me, first of all, the team has to have energy and they have to have a, a problem that they're trying to solve and whether the problem is framed right.
And they have to be open enough that that if they have a solution that they're willing to abandon the solution. And so part of this is, is you're talking, you know, it's, and to be honest, it's getting people to admit they don't know. [00:16:00] So when the team basically will say, yeah, but we, you know, we haven't done this and we're trying to do that, but versus like, yeah, we have no idea about that.
Like the, uh, the maturity of a team. So, uh, Ryan Singer at Basecamp has been working on something called the Hill chart. And the hill chart is like in the beginning of a project, you really should be spending the time on the number of unknowns that you don't, that you have to answer, not executing. And so it's that aspect of being able to get a team to realize that they have unknowns.
I can do that. If they think they have all the answers already, I'm not sure I can help them. And to be honest, I'm not sure they're successful. Cause they're, they're, they're usually a, a technology in search of a job.
Amy: And so when people come to you with a technology in search of a job, what industries are they coming from?
Like, who are those people?
Bob: Everywhere, every, every, like there are people who like they built something and they've got 10 million into it. And it hasn't worked a thousand, you know, in a thousand different places. It's like, what do we go do? And I'm like, and to be honest, I can look at something and say, all right, What are the fundamental things around it and look at it and say, all right, I'm going to go look [00:17:00] at, because what happens is they, they, for example, they think they're in one industry and we'll go look in three other industries for the same problem and then bring that technology to a different industry.
And so it's kind of like, you know, taking an automotive technology that they're having a hard time doing and saying, well, what if we brought it to the home and all of a sudden you realize the problems that can solve in the home are way different. The econ, economics are way different. The channels are way different, but the reality is, is like it actually has legs.
And so trying to push it through one channel, it doesn't work, but looking at people's lives and saying, how can this fit in it, you can actually see a completely different way in which to build a value proposition. And so typically they're, they're literally trying to hone and refine because they're just jamming it down the wrong hole and you just find another place for them to go with it.
But they're so committed to their solution that a lot of times we'll say, all right, look, We'll find another place for it. You have to decide whether you want it. Cause it might be that you have to abandon, you know, five of the 10 million and spend another 4 million to basically get it. But we know where the, we know where the struggling moment is.
We know what the real competitive set is. And [00:18:00] to be honest. All you got to do is be better than nothing. It's like, Oh, and so all of a sudden it just changes the realm. And so a lot of times to be honest, we'll go find jobs and then we'll go back through, you know, big corporates inventory of old projects that failed.
And then we'll just tweak them. And we've been able to kind of like re recycle out of the garbage bin. what I would say are projects that were dismal that put a lot of money into and recycle them and generate revenue for them very, very quickly.
Amy: That's awesome. So on the flip side, um, that's what you look for when you're evaluating a team.
On the flip side, if you're starting to work with people, What are the red flags either when you're considering it or first starting to work that you've learned in your experience where you go and you look back and you're like, yep, that was a red flag. That didn't go well. Like, what are the red flags where you go?
This might not go well.
Bob: Those are actually pretty easy. I actually have a I bought one of those, uh, Harry Potter magic [00:19:00] wands, right? And usually I take it to the first meeting because it's one of those things where when they start to describe the project and starts to feel like everything, including the kitchen sink, you're just like, okay, wait a second.
Like, how was this conceived? Where, where, where's this coming from? Like, what, what, what's the, where are the, uh, the underlying data that you've got to know that this is what you should be doing or the, the objective and when they have no trade offs. When they like, I have to do all this, I have to do it in this, like when, when everything is so rigid, the reality is, is it will never work.
Like, you know, I appreciate having a rigid launch date, but then I need flexibility and kind of how I'm going to run the milestones and the budget that I'm going to have to have. And the people that I have to have in the parallel work I have to do. But if you're saying I can only have these people and I've only had this budget and I got to have this timeline, it's like, you know, 10 pounds of shit and a five pound bag doesn't work.
Amy: Didn't you say earlier, everything is a problem of variation.
Bob: Exactly. But see what I would say is, so this different, I need adaptability. [00:20:00] I need to actually be flexible enough. Right? So I believe that robustness comes from being flexible and robustness is actually the ability to minimize variation. So pick what you don't want to vary, pick the budget.
Then give me the time, pick the time, give me the budget. Like, what's the thing you're going to lock and then I got to hit, but then you got to give me variation on the other side to actually hit it.
Amy: I love it. Yeah. It's very system like.
Bob: Oh, yeah. Well, so, so, uh, Francis Frye, who was a professor at the Harvard business school, she talks about this notion of like, you know, uh, money, quality of performance and, and, and time.
You know, you, you can have any two, but you can never have all three. And so anywhere you look and everything you have to do, you have to understand whether it's a project, whether it's a product, whether it's a market, you have to have some flexibility. If you want to hit one, you have to have flexibility in the other two.
If you want it done fast, then you can't ask me for quality and you can't ask me for, for, for the dollars. I can get it [00:21:00] done. But if you want a certain budget, then you got to give me flexibility in timing and quality. And if you want timing quality, then you, if you want quality and time, then the dollars are going to be this.
They're all, it's, it's the interdependence of them. It's not the dependence of them.
Amy: Right. So. You're a pretty inspiring guy.
Bob: To be honest, I'm a dyslexic, illiterate kid from Detroit is how I always say it.
Amy: I like it.
Bob: I'm not sure I'm that inspiring.
Amy: Well...
Bob: Lucky to be where I'm at.
Amy: Awesome. What's inspiring you these days?
What are you seeing that is feeding into your work?
Bob: This is a, it's a, it's a double edged sword on this one. So the interesting part to me is what's inspiring me is the combination of interviews that I do every week and just watching people in daily life. Like I I'm, I'm to the point where I can see struggling moments and say like, all right, we have to figure that out.
It's the thing where it's like, I see so much more potential in what we do. Somebody asked me the other day, what's [00:22:00] the job of jobs-to-be-done? And upon reflection is like, to be honest, it's to help customers, consumers be better and make progress and enable companies. To actually figure out how to build better products.
So we don't have to consume so much because half the stuff we consume is the wrong thing for the job. And so, so I have a book coming out. It's called the, uh, right now the working title is choosing college. And we just got, we just picked the publisher, but it's, it's literally going like, what are the jobs of why people, why do students hire colleges and universities?
What causes you to say today's the day I'm going to go back? And you have to realize that the majority of college has been designed for the 18 year old, but the people who are going back and the amount of consumption and the number of people who want to go back to school and can't, or the number of people who want to go back to school and don't know what to do.
It's, it's this aspect of how do we actually design better education and what you realize, and you already know this, but the fact is, is people don't want four years. [00:23:00] Some cases, people don't want a degree. They want to learn a skill. They want to learn. Basically, they want to learn to be an entrepreneur.
They want to basically go get a better job. And so what happens is somehow we've got fooled into this aspect of if I get a diploma, that's going to help me get my job. And we know that that's kind of failing pretty fast. And so part of this is realizing where are you? You know what? What context are you in?
What outcome are you really seeking? And then what is the best alternatives for you to basically make progress in that area? And so part of this is being able to help both students, parents, and institutions redesign themselves to fit the market better. The, the, the best example of this is, uh, Paul LeBlanc from, uh, SNHU, Southern New Hampshire University.
He basically, 2010 heard Clay and I speak and he talked, he basically realized he had some online learners. He had about 500 and he realized that they were very different. And he realized that their job was actually fundamentally different from the 18 year olds who were coming to campus. And that they were [00:24:00] older and they were, uh, usually married or had children and that they either failed out of school or they were trying to, you know, better themselves and get either a better career, better get out of the job they had or advancing the job they wanted to get to from a, from a career perspective.
And so one of the jobs that we have is called step it up, which is it's, you know, I I've been in this one job. It's I now have kids and I have responsibility, help me step it up. And so he realized that, um, he had to change the way that he delivered online education. So first thing he attacked was the, uh, admissions office.
Nine months. It takes to, to get to admissions nine months. Like from when I put an application to when you just, you get learned that you're in the school nine months. So he goes to him and says, look, we got to do this in a day. And the admission office, it goes like, laughs at him and says like, you kidding me, but we can, we can maybe go from nine months to eight months.
He's like, fine, goes and puts a little small team out there and they figure out how to do it in a week. But the notion is, is you're interested in going to school, we'll, we'll go get your transcripts. We'll figure out what, what, what, uh, um, uh, [00:25:00] classes were transfer. We're here to help you get your degree and find the next job.
And so building that system, he's gone from 500 online students to 60, 000 students. So this is a not for profit public university that's gone from 88 million to 450 million in six years.
Amy: What are they training students to do?
Bob: That's the best part. It's like they have, like, so for example, he has the best online MBA program, bar none.
And so what he's done is he said, look, if you've got time to go to Harvard or Yale or Northwestern or any of those, Stanford, any of those schools, that's great. You can pay the money. But for the rest of the world who has to keep working and has to do these things, I'm going to build the best online MBA possible.
And I'm going to go get the, I'm going to go find the best professors and literally just have them create the material I'm going to basically make this the best place and it's going to be it and we're going to, and it would be continuous. The whole aspect is, is it's, it's literally the MBA for everybody else.
Amy: So when you say best bar none, [00:26:00] how are you measuring that? Or are you just saying you like it?
Bob: So from the, from the content perspective, from the ability for it's, it's, think of it this way, as most schools don't teach by adult learning styles, adult learners learn differently than 18-year-old learning styles.
And so they're literally being able to actually design the, the whole experience to be very, very different. than anything else most adults have had the ability to interact with. They're, they're, they're absolutely phenomenal at it. And so they're, they're looking at the entire experience and they're responsive in their minds.
They're responsible for helping them make the progress. They're not there to make the progress for consumers. They're there to actually enable consumers to make the progress, the students to make the progress. It's a great organization.
Amy: Great. Well, we'll be sure to link to that in the show notes. While we're on that topic, where can we find you online?
Bob: The rewiredgroup.com. I'm in the midst of kind of redesigning it, but the it's, it's really about kind of, we are more or less innovation coaches. And [00:27:00] so we help big corporate either, uh, make their innovation work better. Um, help them with very specific projects. Uh, we help, uh, entrepreneurs and startups basically, um, guide them through the, the, our innovation process.
And then we help not for profit. So I, I do work in, uh, religious, uh, all different types. And so I have a thing I'm doing now is like the job that God does, which is why do people switch religions? And it's, it's talking to people who have literally abandoned one religion to move to another. And it's, it's all different religions.
So somebody went from, uh, you know, Catholic to Judaism or, or, you know, uh, You know, Muslim to Buddhists or like just, and say, what, what, what are people seeking when they switch religions and not focusing on any one religion, but more what's the human spirit seeking as they switch. And so I do that work too.
Amy: Oh my, well, wait, wait, wait, before you go on. Yeah. That's fascinating. What's the punchline?
Bob: Oh, the punchline is the greatest competitor between, uh, 18 and [00:28:00] 35 to organized religion, whether it's the Catholic church, Judaism, or, or. you know, Methodist or any of those is CrossFit because If you really start to think about the job the church does, a sense of purpose, gives me a bigger sense of being part of something bigger, makes a stronger me, helps me give back to my community, people who are like me and have same values, all of a sudden you start to realize of the 10, 12 important things around church, they actually hit me.
Seven of them. And they do them very well that people would be rather go to CrossFit than go to church.
Amy: Isn't CrossFit on the decline at this point? I thought it was a big hit, but then declining.
Bob: It's, I, I, I don't know. But the fact is, is what I would say is that, that it could be declining because it doesn't have the other aspects of what churches, but this aspect of being better and, and, you know, it's not, if you talk to anybody who's in, cause it's not a gym, they're insulted.
If you call it a gym, it's a community people who are outside looking in, call it a cult. It's the craziest thing [00:29:00] that you start to look at. It's, it's just very, very interesting. It's missing, it's remiss, missing a religious and kind of, you know, uh, faith based understanding, but for the most part, it literally does a lot of the jobs.
That that church used to do soul cycle is the same soul cycle is actually, uh, it's the same in one sense, but it actually competes with confession a lot. It's the notion of being able to be a sense of community. But the aspect is, is it digs so deep that people feel like we've had people will actually tell us it's like.
Yeah, I felt like I went to confession. So I'm like, so you do this once they go, no, I do this every day or three times a week. And it's like, well, how long did you go to confession? I go to confession once a year. It's like, okay. So you realize like, that's, that's what's happening.
Amy: What about it made it feel like confession to them?
Bob: Oh, the interesting part is the, how do I say when you build up to a certain point and they're exhausted and you, and you're so close together and you, it's all that anxiety wrapped around you. And then they ask you the question and it's like the fact is, is what don't you believe in yourself kind of thing, or, you know, what do you need?[00:30:00]
And the notion that it just digs into the deepest part of your soul to basically say, yep, this is what I have to admit. It's what confession does. It's the same mechanism.
Amy: Wow. Well, that's fascinating. Are you writing a book on that too?
Bob: No, no, no. I'm just, uh, that's just, I don't know. I think it'll be part of the religious book, to be honest, that I'm working on.
So I have a education book, a religion book. The other thing I'm working on right now is a sales book. Look in the, in the top business schools in the country. Thank you. There are no sales professors, zero. So you learn how to do finance and spreadsheets, you know, about marketing and features and benefits.
And, you know, but operations and management controls and all, but like the hardest thing in any business, anybody who's an entrepreneur will tell you this, but most, most corporate people say selling is the hardest thing of all. And somehow we've forgot, we, we literally have the lawyers teaching negotiations and the HR people teaching them how to do, you know, compensation systems for sales management.
That's just [00:31:00] bad. And so to me, the, the clay and I had talked about the fact that there's, there's no sales theory. There's no. Underlying premise of how people can talk about sales. And so I'm writing a book that basically says flipping the lens on sales, helping people buy. And so if I can actually understand the process by helping people make progress and using that as the underlying theory for sales, now what's the process I have to lay on top of it.
To actually enable people to buy. And so that's, that's the other thing I'm working on.
Amy: These all sound great. I can't wait to read them.
Bob: Well, the education book will be out probably in, uh, I think we're shooting for like March of 19. Um, I'm not starting the religion book until actually January. So it'll probably be out a year after that.
And then the sales theory book. Um, I'm, I'm halfway through kind of building it and, um, I don't have a publisher for it yet. So we're, I have some people I'm collaborating with on it. So I'm just trying to figure out the right form for it.
Amy: It sounds like you may have more time to write some in the future when [00:32:00] you become a professor.
Bob: Well, so I, I, again, dyslexic, I can't write a thing. So part of it is, is I have people I can collaborate with now who are writers, who are very, very articulate people. And that I can, we can talk so I can actually draw everything as a picture and then articulate the articulate that into by speaking it but I can't actually write.
And so that's the so I have to always have a partner on right but I will have more time to flesh out what's in my head for sure I have, I realized there's a lot to get out of there. There's a lot of places where I have pictures and no words.
Amy: Well, thank you so much for sharing your gifts with us and your wisdom and these fabulous stories.
It's just been a pleasure.
Bob: Thank you. Thank you for taking the time.
Outro: Thanks for listening to Getting2Alpha with Amy Jo Kim, the shows that help you innovate faster and smarter. Get smarter. Be sure to check out our website, getting2alpha.com. That's getting2alpha.com for [00:33:00] more great resources and podcast episodes.