Episode Transcript
Glenn Harper [: 00:00:00
Hello everyone. Welcome to another edition, the Empowering Entrepreneurs podcast. I’m Glenn Harper.
Julie Smith [: 00:00:04
Julie Smith.
Glenn Harper [: 00:00:04
What’s going on, Ju?
Julie Smith [: 00:00:05
You know, just burning all the lights at the ends of everything and living on caffeine.
Glenn Harper [: 00:00:10
Is there any other way to roll?
Julie Smith [: 00:00:12
I don’t think so.
Glenn Harper [: 00:00:13
That doesn’t appear to be the case. Well, we’re excited today. We’ve got a amazing guest. I’ve got this little bio here I kind of put together. So Steve, be patient. It’s going to be a bit. All right. I’d like to introduce Stephen Gelly, entrepreneur extraordinaire.
Glenn Harper [: 00:00:28
He has mastered being an owner operator and an owner invest. He has never met an exit he didn’t plan for and he has executed all, all of his expectations. He’s the CEO of Blueprint Ventures, Managing partner of Open Ventures, Open Access ventures and probably 25 other companies that the IRS knows about. In his spare time he hosts his own podcast, Next Exit. When one has a, has a great team and has an undesirable desire, understandable desire to play six rounds of golf per week is, is with great delegation. Forward thinking that has established enabled him to start scale and exit his companies as well with consult with other entrepreneurs to help them achieve their dream of a seven to nine figure exit. A fellow bean counter who jumped in the tax and accounting meat grinder, he knew very quickly that there had to be a better way to deliver the compliance and advice his clients wanted and needed. After many battle scars, he elevated his acum and changed the way his accounting and tax company practices in the CPA space.
Glenn Harper [: 00:01:25
Even though he doesn’t practice tax and accounting work today, he still has his hooks in the industry with the desire to make a cataclysmic impact. Living the dream life while playing hard, working hard and being a husband and father. He still has the passion to do more than is necessary. As he is drinking the Kool Aid that he is producing, Steve makes working look fun as he navigates the venture capital space bringing solutions to his select clientele. Thanks Steve for being on our show.
Steve Gelley [: 00:01:49
My pleasure. Happy to be here.
Julie Smith [: 00:01:50
How do you rate that intro? Good.
Steve Gelley [: 00:01:53
I was going to say we could bring everybody to my house and tell my family that too. That makes that. That’s great. I’m going to carry that around.
Glenn Harper [: 00:01:58
I feel like they just need to know, right? That’s what it’s all about. Well, you know, I like to stalk our guests for some interesting things and then, and sometimes the Internet gets it right and sometimes it’s wrong. But I’m going to go on a whim here. And it, it says that you grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, and you’re a big Red Sox fan. I’m totally kidding. I think you grew up. I think you grew up on Long Island, New York, and went to Half Hollow Hills High School and where you shared the principal duties with the principal, because that’s the kind of guy you are. And what was it like growing up on Long Island?
Steve Gelley [: 00:02:32
Long island, it was good. It was fun. You know, you’re close enough to the city to get the city life, and you’re far enough away to get some of the quietness. It was great. Yeah.
Glenn Harper [: 00:02:40
It’s hard living in the Midwest, in Columbus, Ohio, to comprehend. We think of New York as this, just New York City, but it’s really. There’s like normal suburbs and normal people living out on the island. And we think of Long island as being this, you know, a vacation place, but it’s really not. It’s a big community.
Steve Gelley [: 00:02:58
No, no, no. It’s. It’s heavily residential and a lot of people from the city moving out there. When I grew up, it completely changed.
Glenn Harper [: 00:03:07
Now, did you ever, you know, explore Shelter island at all? See all the crazy people or.
Steve Gelley [: 00:03:12
We’ve gone. Yeah, we’ve done once or twice. You know, when you live there, I like, I went to the Statue of Liberty once. You know, it’s. And I know. I don’t even remember it. When you live there, you never really take it in. Like, when people come into town, that’s really the only time where you actually experience it.
Glenn Harper [: 00:03:26
Great. Well, we, you know, does your, you know, you have this entrepreneurial bug that somehow got fostered? Did that start. Was one of your parents an entrepreneur? Or is it something that you just decided you wanted to do? Who was your influence?
Julie Smith [: 00:03:38
I feel like Steve sold painted rocks growing up, for sure.
Steve Gelley [: 00:03:41
Probably Kikra. I. I have a family of accountants, actually. Grandfather and father, both accountants. And when I was going through, you know, the decision making of what am I going to do? My dad was like, if you don’t know what you want to do and you want to run your own business one day, just be an accountant. Because everybody needs a backbone of financial in your business, so whatever it is, it will end up turning out for you, just go do accounting. And I was like, okay, that sounds like a plan, so I’ll go into accounting. And that’s where I started.
Julie Smith [: 00:04:13
Growing up, did you feel like you had that bug in you? Like, something was like, I can’t work for someone.
Steve Gelley [: 00:04:20
I’ve gotten fired. From like every job I’ve gotten thrown out of schools. It’s, it’s that that entrepreneur, founder mindset doesn’t really work well with a lot of aspects of life. It just doesn’t fit and doesn’t click in. So, yeah, the school. No good jobs disasters.
Julie Smith [: 00:04:39
And tell us a good, Tell us a good story.
Glenn Harper [: 00:04:41
Nobody puts Steve in a corner.
Steve Gelley [: 00:04:46
I’ll go college Whenever, Whenever’s a good one. The dean of the business school called me into his office and basically said that he would never trust me to do his accounting work. He’s going to make sure he does everything he can for me to never get a degree from that college and never be an accountant. So. Well, I naturally went out and built one of the largest, you know, firms that I could just. Out of.
Julie Smith [: 00:05:09
Did you send him some marketing material, too? Just so he knew.
Steve Gelley [: 00:05:12
My, My father, when I got, When I, when they took me out of, When I left that school or got thrown out of that school, they, My father told me that, go do what you want to do. Go be a cpa, Pass the CPA exam just out of spite, and we’ll, we’ll fly you up there in a helicopter, land on the football field there and, and let him know what happened.
Glenn Harper [:00:05:33
I mean, were you, like, never did it? Were you, like, running a Ponzi scheme in college? Why? I mean, that’s a. To get on the dean’s list is hard.
Steve Gelley [: 00:05:40
This list, I, I don’t like even from that age and even earlier than that, you know, I’ve always understood and saw business, like to go into business. I, I saw what was going on at that school. They were trying to build up the enrollment. They were, they were preventing people from taking courses that they needed to graduate. They were forcing me to spend an extra year at school solely to boost up their enrollment numbers. And I just saw through the BS and I guess, you know, you’re not supposed to speak about it or say something about it. I went into his office and was a kid. I wasn’t happy.
Steve Gelley [: 00:06:12
So that’s awesome. That’s.
Glenn Harper [: 00:06:14
That’s ballsy, right?
Steve Gelley [: 00:06:16
Yeah, I guess. Or stupid. But was wrong. You know what, What? The business side of a lot of things that shouldn’t really be business oriented that impact people’s career. You know, I just wanted to get out there and start working. So if you’re going to impact my career and delay me by a year over your own enrollment issues, it’s not. Right.
Glenn Harper [: 00:06:34
Unacceptable. Well, you know, it says here that you went to the State University of New York. In New York, in New Paltz, in the breathtaking Minnewaska State Park. Is that where you ended up?
Steve Gelley [: 00:06:47
I don’t remember Minnewaska, but I was definitely a New Paltz.
Glenn Harper [: 00:06:51
It seemed like on the map, it was right next to it, so. And then how did you pick that school? I mean, what did. Is it just like they were the one that accepted you, or you’re just like, I just need to get out of Long Island. Am I going the woods more or what? What made you do that?
Steve Gelley [: 00:07:02
It’s probably I. School was never my thing. Obviously, as you could tell, the. I just delayed, didn’t do applications. I wanted to get out there and work and do something and work. And I just delayed, didn’t do any applications. Last minute, I started throwing in some applications. There were some sports that were able to open the doors, and I.
Steve Gelley [: 00:07:21
And I got into New Paltz. It was the closest school, really, to where I. Where I lived and grew up. And it was. It was a perfect situation, and it was great. I still have a ton of friends there. We have a.14 of us go on a golf trip every single year, all from that school. We’re all really close.
Steve Gelley [: 00:07:38
We all stay close, connected, and I’m glad I made the decision.
Glenn Harper [: 00:07:41
Was it more. You went there for that, you said, the athletics that let you in there, or how did you pick?
Julie Smith [: 00:07:47
Well, it wasn’t his gpa.
Steve Gelley [: 00:07:49
Yeah. It was basically like, where can I go with a borderline C? You know, C gpa? No, I. I went there just because I needed to go somewhere. I needed to continue to progress. And I’m not really a big, like, education person. I’m not big on schools unless you’re going to, you know, some top 10 schools. And it’s more about networking when you get out there, the true value of it. Like, same thing with your mba, right? The mba, real values.
Steve Gelley [: 00:08:15
You learn a lot there, but you’re also building a really solid network. It’s the same concept. So for school, if I wasn’t going anywhere, that was going to impact my future, like, I’ll just go anywhere.
Glenn Harper [: 00:08:25
You can speak to that NBA piece. That’s true, right?
Steve Gelley [: 00:08:27
Yeah.
Julie Smith [: 00:08:28
No, I mean, I totally agree with that.
Glenn Harper [: 00:08:29
Well, then you’re there, and then all of a sudden you’re like, you know, the dean’s kicking me out. I got to move somewhere else. You need to send a Long Island University. Was that the branch on Long island or in Manhattan?
Steve Gelley [: 00:08:40
That was the Long island one. The Long island branch.
Glenn Harper [: 00:08:42
They moved back kind of.
Steve Gelley [: 00:08:43
It was A great deal. You know, you go and you get like the more expensive degree and you only spend one year there. And you know, on paper, if you want to talk about value. Yeah, I spent four or five years in New Paltz and then I go down to the, to the better school and, and that’s what my, my degree says.
Glenn Harper [: 00:08:58
Now, did you have a better experience at that school? Did that help keep you on track more?
Steve Gelley [: 00:09:03
I was, I was just like transient. I didn’t even, I wasn’t living there. I was at home just driving there, working and just doing what I had to do to get that piece of paper.
Julie Smith [: 00:09:12
So what did you do while you were in school working?
Steve Gelley [: 00:09:17
We were, you know, I would basically go to the course, you know, go to school, leave work. I was working in some accounting firms at the time.
Julie Smith [: 00:09:25
So you were an employee at.
Steve Gelley [: 00:09:28
Not at the school, but at an accounting firm? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Julie Smith [: 00:09:32
And you managed to keep that?
Steve Gelley [: 00:09:34
Yeah, well, they, they fired me.
Julie Smith [: 00:09:39
I really thought they were. I was like, well look, this is positive.
Glenn Harper [: 00:09:42
Yeah, you know what, it is so funny. I, you know, myself, I just remember as a young age and I’m, I was kind of mostly self employed and I got my, you know, like quote real job where I had to go work at a Hardee’s restaurant and they’re trying to tell me how to load up somebody’s fries and I’m like, well, I’m not going to pay that much money for this half empty bag of fries. I’m filling that up. Well, when I did that, then they made me scrape bacon pans with a razor blade as punishment. I’m like, well this isn’t going to work out for me at all. Like, I just couldn’t understand their mentality about those things. As an employee.
Steve Gelley [: 00:10:15
Right. That’s what it is. It’s the, it’s mentality of certain individuals that get into a role of power and they just run wild with it. And sometimes, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t work. But I’m big on culture. I think that shaped my career about building culture and building the right environment for my teams and everything like that. So I again wouldn’t change anything because we are where we are today, right?
Glenn Harper [: 00:10:38
So you know, you have the technical skill, the accounting and tax side. But, but where did you get the, the, the skill set to build the team and understand the business AC Understanding systems and processes and culture. You know, that’s anti accountant, right? That’s not how we think generally. Where did that come from for you?
Steve Gelley [: 00:10:59
I learned it, you know, I just, I learned it over the, over the time. Obviously, we’re touching a ton of businesses now. Starting my career, I was young. I. I was 29 years old and bought my first business and then bought four or five more, you know, between 29 and 32, 33. So always on, like, the younger side, figuring it out as I go. That’s how I learn also is I can’t sit and I can’t sit and listen. I need to actually experience it for myself.
Steve Gelley [: 00:11:26
That’s my learning style. So experiencing it for yourself, throwing yourself into the fire. I think you learn really quickly and you’re forced to learn really quickly and make some poor decisions and make some good decisions and figure it out as you go. That seemed to be the formula for me.
Julie Smith [: 00:11:41
So from the time you graduated till you buy your first business at the age of 29, what. What was going on in between that, that time frame?
Steve Gelley [: 00:11:51
Trying to pass the CPA exam for.
Glenn Harper [: 00:11:53
Brutal, isn’t it?
Steve Gelley [: 00:11:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was, I was not. I, I did. So I was working, obviously, studying for the CPA exam and having fun. I was still a kid, right. And at 29, really 28 is when I realized it’s time. Like, it’s. I.
Steve Gelley [: 00:12:15
I’m not going to keep on jumping around from company to company, and I want to do something more impactful, and I wanted to do it before I was 30 and I wanted to be, you know, done working by the time I was 40 or be able to be done working by the time I was 40. And I just felt like it was go time and time to take that level of risk and take that next step and, and see what happened.
Julie Smith [: 00:12:36
Do you feel like you had any mentors along the way that really supported you or shaped how you kind of think or gave you the confidence to just be like, I’m just going to jump off this cliff right now and let’s see what happens.
Steve Gelley [: 00:12:50
No mentors, because it’s a lonely space. Like when you’re building companies, the entrepreneur side, it’s a very lonely space to be in. You’re not. A lot of people think like you. And then the entrepreneur community is so divided, where you have, like, entrepreneurs and then entrepreneurs and then founders and then CEOs. And it’s a very fragmented level of what is considered an entrepreneur. So it’s very difficult to find people with your own mindset that get it and understand it. So, no, I didn’t.
Steve Gelley [: 00:13:23
There was no real mentors. I think there was motivating factors along the way. I like to motivate off of people saying something’s impossible or you can’t do it. So I would self motivate a lot and try and fight through by self motivating and finding good solid teams around me that I could then collaborate with and, and get that harmony that you really need to be able to build these businesses like we build them.
Julie Smith [: 00:13:47
So was your first business that you bought a CPA firm?
Steve Gelley [: 00:13:50
Yeah, I bought a, I bought a CPA firm was the first business.
Glenn Harper [: 00:13:54
You know, it’s funny entrepreneurs that usually it’s, it’s two flavors. One is generally they are just destined from a young age. They’re not scared, they just go and they’ll figure it out. And then there’s the other entrepreneur that it’s lurking somewhere in the back of their head. They feel this calling, but they’re scared, they’re nervous, they got too many responsibilities ready, it’s hard to make the jump and they kind of got to put the toe in the water and slowly go into. Seems like once you get in the pool though, oh my God, we’re all the same in here. Right? But it’s that getting in there quick for our listeners. Like again, you got to just recognize sometimes this is just what you’re going to do and it doesn’t really matter.
Glenn Harper [: 00:14:35
You’re going to jump in and other times it’s terrifying. But once you get in the water and you get acclimated to it, it’s not that bad. I mean, it’s horrible, but you know what I mean, right?
Steve Gelley [: 00:14:45
Yeah, it’s risk. You have to be really comfortable being uncomfortable throughout your entire journey and being comfortable taking risks and playing around with money to some extent and understanding the value of money and the impacts of what the wrong decision could make and very methodical, very planned out. It’s a great, it’s a game, it’s a great game. It’s a fun game to play and it’s my favorite game to play.
Julie Smith [: 00:15:09
So we talk a lot about peaks and valleys and the, you know, in the journey of being an entrepreneur, is there a specific valley that you can remember going through that really perpetuated your journey?
Steve Gelley [: 00:15:23
There’s a ton of value. It’s, it’s non stop. So momentum is the biggest thing inside building every single business and fighting hard when the momentum is shifting down just to try and keep level and hold stable and that momentum is more down than it is up. Like very rarely are we waking up out of bed and a million dollars check is coming into our business and we’re all like, this is great. The world is. No, like, you have to fight like heck to get there. So if you’re fighting hard through the times where nothing can really go right, then you could capitalize on the times when nothing could go wrong. And you need to make sure that that rubber band effect kicks in and you’re just like slingshotting yourself to that next level and then try and hold, hold the fort down and not allow momentum to push you down even further.Julie Smith [:
I was looking for like a, you know, like a story of like, man, I really made this terrible decision this one time. It put me in this. But without that valley, I never would have been able to go here. If, if there’s anything that you can kind of think of that our listeners can relate to, I think it’s, it’s.Steve Gelley [:
All, it’s all the small stuff, right? You know, I, the, the first company that I bought, I had an issue with an employee and we termed the employee, and then that ended up having an issue with the partner who had a relationship with that employee of some of some sort. And looking back at it, like maybe assessing the whole picture of the risk reward, is it worth paying somebody 60 grand a year to make a half a million dollars of revenue happy in your business? You know, you could, you could assess it differently. You don’t really know how fragile certain things are. And that could be one of the areas that it was like, like, like awful dealing with. But then once you understand it, deal it with it, overcome it, you just prevent it. And there’s probably 100 of those little decisions where you get through it and you say, oops, probably, probably could have done something else there, but you learn from it. I tell everybody I’ve never made a decision. I’ve never made a mistake in business because I’ve learned from it.
Steve Gelley [: 00:17:34
I applied it, and then it gets me to the next level. And we’re not going to be perfect. We’re not going to run businesses flawlessly and perfect. We’re going to plan for it. We’re going to do everything we can to get there. There will be issues that pop up that are unforeseen and we learn from them. So we’re supposed to make mistakes and we problem solve for a living.Julie Smith [:
Well, we say that we never fail. We just pivot, right? Like, we just learn that, like, that’s not going to work. We’re going to go over here.
Glenn Harper [: 00:17:56
But I think one thing you said, Steve, I think is, is resonates well, is that you got to make the decision, like, I think that’s the hardest part, where we have so many things bombarding us as an entrepreneur that it’s. You get paralyzed. You just can’t make another decision. But if you can make the decision swift and decisive, at least you’re going in a direction. Right. And you can work with that. If you just sit there and not sure what to do as an entrepreneur, you’re dead in the water, completely.
Steve Gelley [: 00:18:24
Make the decision, go with it. Is the biggest failure that we find founders that come to us make is they are scared to make the decision. And we rather you make five wrong decisions than not make any.
Glenn Harper [: 00:18:38
Is that the darndest thing? Like, you’re. You cannot move forward unless you make bad decisions, because that’s only way you can learn. It’s not just, oh, everything’s perfect and puppy dog tails and, you know, pig. It just can’t get there.
Julie Smith [: 00:18:50
I mean, maybe 5% of the time.
Glenn Harper [: 00:18:52
Yeah, every now. Every now and again. Right, Great. Well, you have a couple little.
Julie Smith [: 00:18:57
So, Steve, I think, you know, if you could speak about some of the businesses that you’ve been able to kind of take and scale with, you know, and then allude to, like, without losing your mind. Right. Because taking and scaling a business to any entrepreneur sounds so daunting. So if you could think about how.
Glenn Harper [: 00:19:20
So I think what we’re trying, there’s a. There’s a solopreneur, an entrepreneur that is an owner, you know, doer. Like, they’re actually doing the work. Right. They’re doing all the operations, and then there’s the owner investor who sets up the systems and just kind of, you know, at a high level, has this company growing and you. You successfully mastered that. So I think the question that you’re asking is like, how do you get to that transition? Right.
Julie Smith [: 00:19:46
I mean, that’s not what I was asking, but we can definitely go with that. And then we’ll. Then we’ll dovetail to what I was actually asking.
Glenn Harper [: 00:19:51
Sorry, I thought that’s what you’re asking. The.Steve Gelley [:
I started writing checks after I sold my second business. We started writing checks into companies to fund them. Right. I felt like I made my career and my. My financial situation from the startup world. Let’s go ahead and pay it back and invest in the startup community and bolster the startup community and help these founders that were in my situation, where you’re not living in a tier A market, you can’t knock on a door down in Silicon Valley and somebody dropped funding on the door, and you actually have to Work and build these businesses in a lean, efficient manner. We were writing, we wrote checks. We started chasing our money.
Steve Gelley [: 00:20:31
I say we. It was, you know, it was a company that was formed to basically so that I could invest, invest capital into. And you start chasing the money, you start finding yourself being very type A and preventing the founders from making catastrophic mistakes. Don’t hire that marketing company. Your dev costs are way too inflated. You should go look over here. Your unit economics are not going to work in this. We’ve experienced what your cost to acquire a customer truly looks like in this market.
Steve Gelley [: 00:21:02
And you’re way out of whack and you’re going to be losing money for every customer that you bring in. All these things you’re starting to run and chase until it got to the point where I said, instead of just writing a check, why don’t I just build a team and then deploy that team in alongside the check to protect the money, so to speak. And that’s what we’ve done. And what, what’s rewarding about it, and what I’m learning too is we could, we could make impacts and we could start turning founders into CEOs, which is really what the entrepreneur community needs. Entrepreneurs need to graduate into a founder. The graduation step is taking that first risk, calculated risk. Don’t mortgage your house for everything you have and try and do something and don’t be misled. But if you take that calculated risk and you start to go in and build something and start something and get off that starting line, I now consider you a founder.Steve Gelley [:
And if you’re building something substantial and significant and you’re building your team and you’re starting to really craft, curate this business and grow this business, you’re stepping into that CEO role. And we need to be able to graduate more entrepreneurs to founders and more founders to CEOs throughout our entire country.
Glenn Harper [: 00:22:09
Wow.
Julie Smith [: 00:22:10
So how do you, how do you see that happening though? How, how does someone go and be able to, you know, have enough awareness to be like, okay, I am here, I want to go here, and then whoever’s here to go here.
Steve Gelley [: 00:22:22
Yeah. First step is you can’t fake it. Right. You’re not just going to be able to tolerate risk because there’s risk when you’re, there’s more risk going from entrepreneur to founder. But here’s what I see. An entrepreneur is typically somebody who wants to get there, doesn’t want to work a 9 to 5, but will do consulting and, you know, certain roles to try and get that next dollar to get them de Risk so they could take the next step. And that’s kind of where I feel like everybody starts their career and then to actually jump into something big. And by the way, that entrepreneur might turn into a large consulting agency, which is now their next step in the journey of being the founder and CEO.
Steve Gelley [: 00:23:04
Or they might even bypass the founder and title and go right to CEO because you’re building something significant and substantial. So just taking those small steps. But you can’t fake it. There are certain people who just don’t have the risk tolerance. Right. You could sit down and bring them to a casino and you could legitimately understand who can do it and who can’t do it. And you don’t want the ones that are just shoving all in or max betting the table because that’s a recipe for disaster. But you could almost watch and see who has the ability to manage money, take calculated risks, and excel in the business world by watching them in certain sports, watching them play poker, you could legitimately understand who’s got that ability to do it and who doesn’t.
Glenn Harper [: 00:23:49
It’s crazy. You know, it’s funny. Like, this isn’t like we’re just going to throw money at this problem to solve it. Like some entrepreneurs, they have the money, they just don’t know what to do. They don’t have a team. They don’t know what the turnkey solution is. So is, are you saying that that’s something you provide for entrepreneurs, is that turnkey solution? Right?
Steve Gelley [: 00:24:12
Yeah. We opened up Open Access University. We’ve had meetings with 70 or 80 venture capital firms now throughout the country in these tier B markets. We’ve gotten, you know, South Carolina, Arizona, Miami, Wyoming, all, all these tier B markets, Tier B, Tier C markets of where capital is coming from. And everybody has the same issue. It’s the expectations. And not education, as in school education, but awareness of, of the founder. They’re jaded.
Steve Gelley [: 00:24:47
We are all reading headlines of companies that are getting funded for hundreds of millions of dollars. And all we’re seeing is the headlines. We’re not seeing the 90% of the failure rates. We’re not seeing all the other things that go along with failing businesses. Running businesses, relationships, breaking up, suicide rates, mental health issues that you’re not seeing any of that because all we see as an industry is what’s being pumped out there, which is a success story.
Glenn Harper [: 00:25:14
So how does you know as a, as an entrepreneur that’s looking to make that step? You know, they’re, they’re sitting over here going, where do I find this Talent. Where do I find these people? Like I, I don’t even know how to do this. How do you acquire that talent on your team where you have that turnkey solution? What’s your secret if you don’t mind sharing it of where do you go and how do you find the people that help you execute on that promise that you’ve trying to give your clients or fractionalize.
Steve Gelley [: 00:25:42
So you got to get the high level resources at a fractionalized cost. So and now like this day and age, there’s so many resources out there that are available and there’s just going to be more and more. Right. No matter what your business is, you could find these fractionalized resources to come in. You could get the value of paying 300 grand a year for somebody to come in and provide you, you know, a large level of experience, knowledge and build the foundation so that you could then go ahead and build, build off of it. And you don’t need to pay that 300, 350 a year which is what it would cost to bring them in full time. So fractionalizing is, is huge. And key test trial runs is all that we do.
Steve Gelley [: 00:26:25
Think about the, the I think we have 50 or 60 people that are working inside the open access organization. It’s tough to find the right fit who can, who could work on what industries, where do you deploy them, how do you put them? Test runs, trial runs are amazing. Bring somebody in, make sure they’re a good culture fit, hire for culture, make sure that they get it wanted habit and run a 30 day trial to see how you work together and then move quickly. If it’s not the right fit, move on. A lot of times I see organizations scared to free up somebody’s future. If it’s not a fit for you, it’s probably not a fit for them. And we should all be working together to make sure that everyone’s in the right position and is the right fit.
Glenn Harper [: 00:27:06
You know I got this, this theory and it, you know, it’s in tax and accounting and you know, accounting is accounting and taxes, tax leadership is leadership systems and processes, it’s all the same thing. There’s certain industry things that you have to know a little bit more or less on. But to your team, if they’re going in, they’re grabbing, they’re going to be a fraction of 10 companies. They’re effectively have to understand 10 different markets and 10 different things. That’s not something you just, you go find on a LinkedIn post or something like that’s Something you’re going to have to develop through a lot of experience. Right. Is that something you mentor your folks for, or do you have a team that mentors them?
Steve Gelley [: 00:27:45
We provide it so we have the resources. So our model is simple. We want to control the resources because we know that our resources have done it before. They’ve worked together, they’re fast, they’re efficient, they’re effective. So our whole model is completely different. We’re legitimately running these businesses alongside the founder, with our resources, deploying them, making sure that they’re in there working and providing value. But if you don’t have access to an ecosystem like that, you’re in the industry, no matter what industry it is. If you’re a plumber, then go find and talk to your industry, your network, your peers, who’s the winner in that space, who’s doing really well, and see if you could fractionalize and hire somebody on the side to help you.
Steve Gelley [: 00:28:31
Five hours a week, ten hours a week, whatever it ends up being. I think there’s a lot of ways that we could be resourceful, and that’s the biggest factor. You have to be resourceful. We will operate a fund that is meant to spend money, but we operate it like we’re a bootstrap lean startup. It’s just, it’s the culture that we instill. And if we’re going to train founders to be resourceful lean startup CEOs, we have to actually do it ourself. And that’s our entire model here. We’re, we’ll bid out, we’ll make sure we’re getting the right price.
Steve Gelley [: 00:29:01
We’re not just going to frivolously spend money, and we’re going to continue to run every business like it’s a less dollar in our bank account, because that seems to make everybody make better decisions, be more effective, and really think out the game plan.
Glenn Harper [: 00:29:15
So if, if, if we’re entrepreneurs that are listening to this podcast and, and in general, you know, it’s terrifying to admit that you don’t know something. Right. It’s very humbling experience to say, I just don’t know how to do this. Then it comes like, well, now I got to invest in this. When they hire you, is it something where they can expect to pay fee for service, or is this something that are going to pay a fee, but you’re going to take a piece of the company, but they’re never going to get there on their own? And if they partner with you versus just hire you, is that the better path for an entrepreneur or is it something where you just rather do a fee for service for them?
Steve Gelley [: 00:29:52
We, so we won’t charge. We, we invest. So we’ll write a check for 100 grand in and then we, we raise a round of funding and then we’ll go ahead and find the resources and source the resources and leverage some of our team like we, we have. It’s easier for me to hold somebody full time and then us fractionalize them out. It’s cheaper for them for me to just hire full time and fractionalize them out than for them to go out on their own and try and find somebody. So we write $100,000 checks. We typically will raise and help them raise a $350,000 bridge round and then we force and mandate that 35,000amonth get spent on growth related impactful resources and spend whether we’re providing them or whether we find them and help them source them. That’s the entire business model that we’ve built out.
Glenn Harper [: 00:30:41
And for that the entrepreneur gives up some source of ownership then or of other company. As an entrepreneur, is it something they would say I got to give up 50% of my company, 20% of my company. What’s a, what could one expect one of our listeners to say, man, I got a partner with a Steve guy. What does that look like? Is it something they’re going to give up 5%, 10%, 50?
Steve Gelley [: 00:31:02
Yeah. It depends on the size of the company where they’re at. Typically the investment converts with whatever their market value is of their company. Right. Which could be 3 million, could be 10 million. Whatever their value is of their company. The, the investment converts and then we typically will try and look at milestones to earn up. We’ve taken 20% equity positions in some and we’ve taken 3% equity positions in others.
Steve Gelley [: 00:31:27
It depends on the size of where they’re at and how they’re structured and how they’re working. And it’s all milestone based. So our model is legitimately go in, tell you that we’re going to drive your business to certain value ranges and if we could help you drive the business there, we should be awarded a little bit of equity for coming alongside and doing it. Because we don’t make any money. Right. We’re, we’re spending money, we’re not making money. It’s kind of like a weird business model. But we, we need these companies to succeed and grow and scale.Steve Gelley [:
So we’re, we’re taking some equity for doing that work and helping them through that journey to either build them bigger or help them get sold.
Glenn Harper [: 00:32:04
It sounds totally reasonable. It’s again, the. That mindset. For a typical entrepreneur that’s used to just doing work and grinding out whatever that product or service that they do to go and do this other level, it is. I mean, that’s night and day difference. Like, when does one need to call you again? For our listeners that, you know, are they at that point where, like, I just can’t take it anymore. I gotta partner with somebody because I’m incapable of doing this on my own? When does that usually happen in an entrepreneur’s journey? When do you see that?Steve Gelley [:
Unfortunately, too late. And that’s. That’s why we’re spending so much time. That’s why the Next Exit podcast is out there, to just continue to try and push and educate. Because they’ll come to us after they spent a hundred. I’ve had somebody come to us after they spent 400,000 of their own money, and they’re just like, hey, I built this company. I was like, all right, what do you have? They’re like, unfortunately, nothing. Like, nothing, nothing.
Steve Gelley [: 00:32:56
Like, they half built technology that didn’t work, that all got thrown away and lost and everybody. If you have that founder mindset that you could make that step from entrepreneur to founder, you are. You are now taking that mindset that you’re betting on yourself and you have the ability to do it. And it’s a very difficult balance because you don’t get there. It’s like a professional athlete, right? You don’t get there without having a certain mindset and a certain level of mindset. So if that’s the case, they believe in themselves so much that they’re going to go until they fail, but they should pull back a little bit, reassess the playbooks, look at the game plan a little bit better and understand the times. This is not how things were 10 years ago. There’s a lot more resourceful, a lot more fractionalization is available.
Steve Gelley [: 00:33:45
There’s so many more resources available to these founders as they’re taking that step. They just need to step back a little bit and understand there’s more than what they currently see and what they’ve currently experienced.
Glenn Harper [: 00:33:57
It seems like the entrepreneur is so used to not being told what to do that the fact that they’re going to have a partner that’s going to kind of tell them what to do or sharing that is probably terrifying for a lot of entrepreneurs. And so I think is it. It’s one of those things where once they can Pull their head out of the sand and go, hey, there’s something bigger out there. I want to do this versus, oh, man, this is terrible. I don’t want to give this up. And they’re just going to Waller again making that decision that we talked about earlier. Right. That’s the key.
Glenn Harper [: 00:34:24
Right?
Steve Gelley [: 00:34:25
Yeah. Holding on to 100% of nothing is, you know, not the winning formula either. I understand it. I was. I was in their shoes. There’s a reason why I didn’t last at any company that I ever worked for. Right. You’re.
Steve Gelley [: 00:34:39
You have too much. Too much creativity, too much vision, too much, probably type A and maybe expressing yourself the wrong way because you don’t have the ability to express your value. Same thing with them. They’re making that jump. Do they want to make that jump and then lean on somebody else to feel like they’re telling them what to do? It’s got to be a good fit for everybody. And you have to do it hopefully before you get punched in the stomach, because it’s hard to recover when it’s too late.
Julie Smith [: 00:35:09
I’m going to make a quick pivot here. Unless you have one last.
Glenn Harper [: 00:35:12
I got other stuff.
Julie Smith [: 00:35:13
So I think as people grow and scale business, I think one of the opportunities or the things that people just hate as an entrepreneur are people and hiring people and being able to build the team that you speak of. So if you could speak in terms of just like, what do you think has really set you apart and being able to build those teams, especially as you know, I think we read and hear a lot about all the different generations and how they work and what motivates them and how we get the best. I just think building that team and being able to do it effectively and efficiently is something you’ve probably been able to do and, you know, you’ve probably pivoted a lot. But what could you tell our listeners in regards to they’re at a point where they need to build this team around them in order to scale. What advice could you give them?
Steve Gelley [: 00:36:03
Positioning this the right way so it doesn’t come off wrong. You can’t hire people that you like and only because you like them, because what ends up happening is us as humans will gravitate to similarity. Right. So if. If I’m very similar to Julie, then Julie and I are going to have the same holes, and we’re going to either be high execution or high vision, or we’re going to be lacking something. And a lot of times people will click when you’re interviewing them. Hiring them. And countless times I’ve heard people say, you know how that interview go.Steve Gelley [:
I really like them. Right. Isn’t that, like, typically, like, the number one thing that they say, I really like them? The. I’m not saying hire people that you don’t like and despise, but you have to balance out your weaknesses. You have to be aware of your weaknesses. I am not. I am a very high execution person, but vision is there, and without the level of detail, I will not succeed. So I need to hire a team that is filled with a bunch of detail that will not let anything slip through the cracks so that we could actually flawlessly execute the game plan.
Steve Gelley [: 00:37:08
Instead of going down this path of, we’re going to build this mountain over here, and we’re building the mountain, but nobody’s there to set the foundation or figure out how do we even get up the mountain and where are we at? And next thing you know, you’re lost. Right. A lot of times you’re building the plane in the air as it’s flying, and you need to make sure that you maintain balance and interview for that balance. You truly need to understand yourself. You have to be real with yourself. It’s not a negative. You’re not going to be amazing at every single role in your organization. So find somebody who is to balance you out, and you will butt heads with them.
Steve Gelley [: 00:37:40
I butt heads with my extreme detail people all the time. When I send something out and they’re like, hey, you know this. To me, it’s. It’s high lift, high effort, tedious work that I feel like I’m doing to them. It’s natural, quick, and efficient. So for me to jump back in and fix this little minute level of detail drives me nuts, but it holds me accountable and forces me to balance myself out.Glenn Harper [:
Wow.
Julie Smith [: 00:38:08
So how do you feel about all the generations that are in the workforce right now and being able to kind of balance, you know, take the emotion out of it, liking someone. How are. How. How are you able to be able to hire across all generations to be successful?
Steve Gelley [: 00:38:26
I did not know the age of three of our core, core team members until very recently. I.
Julie Smith [: 00:38:34
And HR loves one of them.
Glenn Harper [: 00:38:36
That sounds horrible.
Julie Smith [: 00:38:38
I said, HR loves you.
Steve Gelley [: 00:38:39
Yeah, yeah.
Glenn Harper [: 00:38:40
You don’t ask the question.
Steve Gelley [: 00:38:41
What I hired put them into roles. They’re in leadership roles in our organization, and then all of a sudden turned around and somehow it came out in a random zoom meeting where somebody asked one of the people that are working with me, like, hey, how old are you? And he was like I’m 23 and I was like you’re 23. And I had no clue at all of the age factor and he’s legitimately running and successful. But I experience ageism like when, when I, when I’m buying businesses in my twenties, you’re, I experience it so I just naturally don’t go there. I’m looking at more than just that age and to me, experience, quality, resource, resourcefulness, culture is so much more important that it just kind of blends out. So I, I don’t look at or notice age. You do, you do notice the, the trends. And I don’t know if it’s bucketed based off of age or just like mindset or their culture.
Steve Gelley [: 00:39:39
But you do notice some trends. Some people like being remote more, some people are craving to get in in person. But even that, I have 23, 24 year olds that are working with us that would love in person and I have 40 year olds that would love remote and typically it would be flip flop. But it’s hard to really like pinpoint it now. Everything’s becoming a big blur with what can and can’t be done.
Glenn Harper [: 00:40:07
It’s so bizarre to, you know, as I talk to all clients that I have and we and colleagues and whatnot, like the number one thing is how to find people and how to find people. And here you are, you’re able to identify them. It’s so frustrating for the average business owner. Like, how do we go? Is it because they don’t know what they’re looking for? Is it because they don’t have the skill set for the interview, they’ve not defined it properly, they’re not going to the right place to get the employees or what. Do you see that in your world that is the major, you know, hurdle for an entrepreneur trying to hire that talent.
Julie Smith [: 00:40:43
Well, they definitely don’t have you in the interview.
Glenn Harper [: 00:40:45
I’m very good with hr. I ask all the important questions. I mean you got to know these things.
Julie Smith [: 00:40:51
Talk about lawsuits. Yeah.
Steve Gelley [: 00:40:55
Let me think that’s actually interesting. So why are they not successful? I think, think I’m jaded a little bit because of my career. When, when you, it’s easier for me to hire now than ever before because I, I, I could be googled, so to speak. I do see a difference also in the credibility factor where I’ll have team members who come on board with us that never were successful in recruiting and all of a sudden they become part of the brand that we built and, and we’re able to recruit more I think recruiting and hiring is another aspect of marketing and branding your business. And I think that a lot of people tend to look towards marketing and brands for customers, but you should be marketing and branding your culture internally for staff and reach out. We worked with one of our companies in the in blueprint, the private equity side. We work with them extensively because they needed to hire and they weren’t having a. They weren’t having a easy time hiring.
Steve Gelley [: 00:42:01
And we extensively looked at just rebuilding the culture internally so you actually have something in a place where people want to be. And it took us two years to start to revamp that. We ran a whole social media campaign having nothing to do with customers, but just highlighting the work, the culture and internal. And you’re marketing, you’re selling somebody or persuading somebody to do something, whether it’s a client or whether it’s a team member, it’s the same exact thing. You still need to provide value propositions.
Glenn Harper [: 00:42:34
Listen, I’m willing to learn on all this.
Julie Smith [: 00:42:36
Steve, can I record that and just play that every time he questions something?
Glenn Harper [: 00:42:40
It’s just a funny thing. Again, the mindset of a doer versus somebody who’s going to be a leader, it’s just so different. And everybody struggles with that in making that decision. I mean, that’s just a real thing. Do you find with your clients that hire you and partner with you, do you find that they come to you more of a concept, a dream, a vision, or are they coming to you for. They want the cash, they want the money. Which ones do you feel are more successful that you work with?
Steve Gelley [: 00:43:17
The founders that have vision and acknowledge that the execution isn’t there and they need help with specific resources is the most successful. Everybody comes like 90% is coming because they want 100 grand from us. That’s what it is. We’re going to invest $100,000 into 80 companies. That’s what our model is. And we’re here to impact 80 businesses and see what it does to the ecosystem. But what we’re starting to find over our journey is the ones that have been punched in the face or kicked in the stomach a little bit are a little bit more understandable. They’ve gone through it.
Steve Gelley [: 00:43:55
It’s experience. Right? If you’re starting today, you’re not going to start and being like, well, I’m going to fail, but we’re going to go do this anyway and I’m going to run right into that wall. You’re not thinking that mindset. You think you’re getting through that wall. So you need to bounce off, you need to fall and you need to understand, okay, there’s something else here. It’s not that easy. If it was easy, 90% of people wouldn’t fail. Like, that’s the reality of it.
Steve Gelley [: 00:44:17
And that’s every business, every business owner. 90% of businesses fail. It’s not that easy to do. We’re all Ms. 90% of us are missing something. That’s really the true reality of what it is.
Glenn Harper [: 00:44:29
And to further is it, do you find your clients, they’re chasing the dollar or they’re chasing this idea of what they want to build, which they’re chasing a vision.
Steve Gelley [: 00:44:41
They’re chasing the idea of what they want to build. They think that money is the only thing that they need. They. We ask them flat out, what’s your biggest hurdle money? What would you do with $5 million in your bank account today? And then you watch them stutter and stumble and, and not be able to clearly articulate what they’re going to do. We tell them, if I give you a million dollars in marketing budget tomorrow, where would you spend it? Well, we would test, test, test, test, test. You don’t test with a million dollars. Right. So all, all of this mindset needs to be educated, needs to be shifted.
Steve Gelley [: 00:45:11
It’s legitimately the only reason why we opened Open Access University is to provide the insights, educate, reshift the mindset, stop reading the big headlines that are just getting clicks for people to think that the economy is booming and the world is great and startup community and VCs are amazing. They’re not, you know, a lot of them are predatory. The VC space isn’t the greatest space. It’s not a fit for everybody. It’s not what you’re reading, it’s not the headlines. I could tell you countless stories of founders who raised $50 million and got thrown out of their company. It’s not, it’s not what it appears on paper. Because if you think about the marketing component, right, we need to, we need to, we need to convince and offer opportunity to our team and to our clients.
Steve Gelley [: 00:45:58
Well, so do the VCs and so does private equity. So at end, everybody needs to make a business model work behind it. So how much that’s going on out there is really what you’re reading and how much isn’t. I’ve seen behind the curtains. I run two funds, I built businesses as a founder side, I understand the entire game that’s being played. And it’s not the most favorable game to founders where we’re not really. The industry is doing a disservice more than anything.
Glenn Harper [: 00:46:26
But I think to your point, though, is your track record. You can literally show a new, potential new client. This is what you can expect because you’ve done this. And this is how your culture and your team and your partners and all your vc, this is what they’re expecting. And you can say that pretty definitively. That probably gives them a lot of comfort, your new customers. Right?
Steve Gelley [: 00:46:47
Yep. And the diligence report that we provide, when we. When we go through diligence, we provide them a whole bunch of negatives on their business. We’re identifying where we see the challenges. What are the roadblocks? What’s the P0 issues? That if we can’t overcome this, your business will not be successful. We’re not sitting here positioning false expectations. We’re legitimately there to tell them the honest truth of what we see and how we’re going to overcome it and what problems we need to solve and make sure that they’re fully understanding and aware of the journey that they’re about to go on. Because, again, it’s not a easy journey and you really need to understand what you’re getting into.
Julie Smith [: 00:47:27
Well, I have a question, but it goes hand in hand with one of our questions. But, Steve, what is your superpower? Because I believe you’ve said it no less than ten times throughout this. But I’m just curious if you are.
Steve Gelley [: 00:47:43
Aware, can you tell me what it is? I think you have to say, well, I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know if there’s a superpower. I think my team is a superpower. I think putting together the right team and building the right culture is a superpower. Every organization that I have, if I look back at my career, I read good to great after I sold my second business. You start to look back and apply certain things and understand it. But I will say that getting lucky and picking the right people to run and build an organization with, if you call it a superpower, that’s a superpower.
Steve Gelley [: 00:48:25
If it’s luck, it’s luck. But I’ll take. I’ll take either one.
Julie Smith [: 00:48:27
No, I think your superpower is being able to build a team. And I think you probably empower and give confidence to people that you don’t even know that you do. That you gave that example of the recruiter who can’t recruit but comes to your team and can recruit. So you’ve been able to build a team and culture that allows everyone Everybody to succeed even if they couldn’t before, that’s a superpower because not everybody can do that. Not everybody understands how to do that. The fact that you have a 23 year old in a leadership position doing whatever he’s doing, you instilled that you gave that opportunity, but you did so much more for him to be able to succeed. And so I think it’s, you’re really good at that.
Steve Gelley [: 00:49:06
Thank you. I’ve never looked at it and it’s, it’s, it’s fun looking back at the journey sometimes. A lot of times we’re so caught up in the next and next and the next thing that it’s, it’s so difficult to look back at the journey and really dissect it. So thank you. This is great to point that out and great to hear. And I could look back at that and reflect and, and see what else I could share from that aspect to help other people do the same.
Julie Smith [: 00:49:34
Yeah, I think you could.
Glenn Harper [: 00:49:35
I nailed that superpower. Nailed.
Steve Gelley [: 00:49:38
Yeah.
Julie Smith [: 00:49:39
That’s all I got. It’s the mic drop moment, so that’s all I got.
Glenn Harper [: 00:49:43
We do a 10 key adding signal when it’s a really. Mic drop moment.
Julie Smith [: 00:49:48
Actually, that’s, that’s still out for survey. I can’t put that.
Glenn Harper [: 00:49:50
I think it’s got to be in here. Well, I think, you know, think Julie usually has one more big question at the end.
Julie Smith [: 00:49:57
That was my big question. Oh, well, I think, I guess I know the answer.
Glenn Harper [: 00:50:02
We know the answer, but we got to ask it because it’s a thing.
Julie Smith [: 00:50:05
So now that you know your superpower, what is your end game?
Steve Gelley [: 00:50:10
What’s my end game?
Julie Smith [: 00:50:11
Yeah. Because in the beginning you said you were going to stop working at 40 and I didn’t Google your age because I don’t do HR, but I’m pretty.
Steve Gelley [: 00:50:17
Sure I’m 44 now and I did, I stopped working for six months. Yeah. I’ll tell you this, and it might go back to the team concept and, and how I like to try and build culture. I’ve gone, I’ve gone through the journey of the, the founder entrepreneur role. You know, you go through your ups and downs and you figure it out. There’s a little bit of that. You come out the other side as one of the 1% that come out that way or maybe 1 1/2% that come out that way. And it’s a disservice to throw it away.
Steve Gelley [: 00:51:02
So for me to just throw it away when I could bring in teams and then start to share that and elevate. I never had that stepping stone. Obviously, you know, grew up on Long Island. There’s some level of privilege, privilege that sits with that and lies with that. And I could get a bank loan when other people can’t get bank loans. So I’ve had, I’ve had the journey that allowed it, but I’ve never had the easy button pushed or somebody to just come into. And you had to fight for it and grind to it. So can we take other people that are similar that are going through the journey that just didn’t get lucky and hit the luck factor and bring on there to succeed? That’s probably.
Steve Gelley [: 00:51:39
That’s what the end game is. That’s why open access exists, that’s why blueprint exists, and that’s why pretty much every company that we build out of the private equity side exists. It’s for the, the people that we’re going to work with and not really myself.
Julie Smith [: 00:51:53
So isn’t that funny that your superpower is your end game?
Steve Gelley [: 00:51:57
Yeah. Yeah.
Julie Smith [: 00:51:59
But there also is no end game for you.
Glenn Harper [: 00:52:00
No.
Julie Smith [: 00:52:01
Because you can’t. You see the impact that you can make and you can’t stop. And I think that’s a lot of entrepreneurs. Right. As soon as they can even just have that awareness to know the impact, acknowledge your superpower, you’re going to leverage that. Because you can’t sit on the couch and eat and do nothing. You can’t retire.
Glenn Harper [: 00:52:20
It’s not the money anymore. It’s helping others. There’s a, a different responsibility. It’s a higher calling. And most entrepreneurs are successful. They. They don’t. They can’t quit cold turkey because they know too much.
Glenn Harper [: 00:52:32
So if you can help somebody else achieve a dream, how satisfying is that? Then you’ve been able to do that at young age.
Steve Gelley [: 00:52:38
Rewarding.
Glenn Harper [: 00:52:38
Yeah.
Steve Gelley [: 00:52:39
When we sold to ReMax, the checks that I gave my staff were worth more than the wire that hit my account. Like, that’s really, that’s really where you kind of realize it. Watching them having somebody be able to pay off their mortgage or whatever the situation was, it’s a lot more impactful and it’s rewarding.
Glenn Harper [: 00:52:59
High five. That’s awesome. That’s what it’s all about. Well, Steve, can you. You want to give a quick little plug of how anybody can. Might be able to get a hold of you and do what they need. Do the thing.
Steve Gelley [: 00:53:09
Yeah, they could go to. So the easiest way, because we have all these things going on, is sgelly.com, you could just get to open access. You could get the blueprint, you get the next exit, and anything that you need, that’s, that’s the route. That’s the funnel to get everywhere I touch. Too many things right now, that might.
Glenn Harper [: 00:53:26
Be the easiest way to get a hold of somebody I’ve ever heard.
Julie Smith [: 00:53:29
Yeah, maybe we should try that.
Glenn Harper [: 00:53:31
Well, Steve, really appreciate you taking the time. I know you’re a busy guy and appreciate you spending some time with us. I think our listeners are going to have a lot of actionable items, a lot of things to think about, and I think it was very helpful. So I appreciate your time.
Steve Gelley [: 00:53:42
Thank you. Thanks for having me. This was great.
Glenn Harper [: 00:53:44
Well, I’m another edition of Empowering Entrepreneurs Podcast. I’m Glenn Harper.
Julie Smith [: 00:53:47
Julie Smith.
