Going Remote w/ Brad Sousa - CTO at AVI Systems

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:01) Here we go. This is the Modern CTO Podcast. Brett. Hey, Joel. How are you, man?

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:16) Dude, your studio has a major upgrade. This looks unbelievable.

(Brad at 00:00:22) Crazy, right? So do you know the story as to why I'm where I am or any of that?

(Joel Beasley at 00:00:28) No. Share the story.

(Brad at 00:00:30) So the story basically goes like this. Last week, my daughter, my youngest daughter, gave birth to our grandson. And so my wife and I packed it up and headed to Las Vegas. It was before we had any of the stay-in-place kind of stuff in California. And so we've been hanging out with our daughter and her husband, our son-in-law, and this happens to be his studio.

(Brad at 00:00:54) Because he's a creative developer for a very large ad agency here in Las Vegas. So I get to hang out in the studio and come live with you from here, man.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:04) That is amazing. Wait. What does he do? Let's give him a shout out.

(Brad at 00:01:08) Yeah. So, John Mediana, he has a couple of podcasts that he does, and he's also a creative developer and leader for R&R Partners, a super large agency in Vegas. If you know the slogan, "What happens in Vegas..."

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:24) Stays in Vegas?

(Brad at 00:01:25) Yeah. It's them. That's those guys. So...

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:27) What? That's like a globally recognized saying.

(Brad at 00:01:32) Right. And brand. Yeah. And so he happens to work the account there that supports the Las Vegas Visitors and Convention Authority. And so he's out here in Vegas. We came out here to spend some time with our new grandson.

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:46) So are you tracking studio time on a spreadsheet, or have you gotten the LCD monitors outside?

(Brad at 00:01:52) Got it all working outside. We're clocking it down right now. Gotta be on the "on air" light going. So...

(Joel Beasley at 00:01:59) So, healthy new one, though? Healthy new addition to your family?

(Brad at 00:02:03) Super cute little guy. And, yeah, mom and baby and daddy are all doing well, so it's good. They're getting adjusted too. As I know you've had to learn, they're getting adjusted to what it's like to sleep two hours at a time. So...

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:16) Yeah. They're pretty good now, but last night was a—they were up a lot last night. But, yeah, they're around like three and just turned one, and it's, yeah. I'm really excited, though. Right when this whole thing happened, you know, because we were planning on being out there this week, and I also talked to Mike from Telium. But when this whole thing happened, I was like, you know what? Who should we have on and talk about this? And I thought, I really like your view on leadership in general, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for you. And...

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:51) We were supposed to be—I was supposed to be out there this past week anyway. So I was like, you know what?

(Brad at 00:02:52) Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:02:52) This would be a great way for us to connect. And I was actually looking at your past show notes right before the call about what we talked about. And we were talking about, like, managing change within teams and things like that. And I was like, wow. Right now, we're experiencing a lot of change. I just kind of want to hear from you. What are you experiencing?

(Brad at 00:03:11) Yeah. So it's interesting. The business that we're in, right, this whole collaboration visual communications kind of tech business—parts of it are down, and other parts of it are exploding as you can imagine. And so we're living this life right now of helping our organization focus on those customers that are essential services. So Defense Department, Department of Energy, a lot of federal agencies, Homeland Security, all of that kind of stuff, as well as state and local government.

(Brad at 00:03:45) A lot of our personnel are currently managing the emergency operation centers, so they're on staff at the centers. They're supporting the press conferences, things like that. So that's one part of our business. And the other part of the business is just helping people today understand what it's going to be like to work from home. And a couple examples kind of put it in our head is, I have a—we're talking to a teacher, let's say, and they're used to teaching from the front of a class, and now they're teaching from the kitchen table. How do you get that done? How do you, as an executive, get all-hands meetings put together and virtual town halls? Because the demand in a situation like this for constant communication and really strong, steady leadership goes way high, as you know. So helping people communicate and connect with their people in their organization, that's really what it's about right now.

(Joel Beasley at 00:04:41) Yeah. And I noticed that, you know, the most simple things still need to be said over. There's almost some comfort to hearing those things over and over. I actually—this is kind of a side, but I noticed that when I was going through people's marketing campaigns, when they use the same value prop over and over and over, that made me feel more comfortable than clicking on one graphic with, like, one phrase. And it'd be the same value prop but phrased differently. But when the text all matches, like, there's a sense of comfort going to the sales channel. And I noticed the same thing over here—the fluid of the consistent, like, "this is what..." Even if you're just stating what you're going to be doing, I noticed it's tremendously helpful.

(Brad at 00:05:25) Yeah. And in these times, there's comfort in just having conversation. There's really comfort in having that human connection, not just that worker connection. And so I had an all-hands meeting I hosted on Friday with our VP of Sales. And I explained to him, my meetings today—my meetings all start with two minutes of, "So how's it going?" And then just listening and reacting. Right? Because a lot of people are very anxious, and they're not used to being separated from their coworkers or their family or whatever it is. And so just having a conversation, "So how's it going?" and listening, it's surprising how much that helps.

(Joel Beasley at 00:06:16) So how's sales doing? One thing I've heard—I like the sales team. One thing I've heard a lot from different CTOs as we reached out is that their part of the organization tends to be doing pretty well because they're familiar with remote work or it's not something that's incredibly foreign. But we've also heard a lot of the CTOs or executives are being pulled over to help other parts of the company learn how to do remote well. Is that happening with you?

(Brad at 00:06:40) Absolutely. So not so much inside our organization because we consume this so much. It's our business, and so we live it and consume it so much. But, certainly, with our customers. And I'll say to you that when we saw this start to develop a couple of weeks ago, AVI was hosting a pretty large tech conference in San Diego. And I happened to have all of my practice managers there, and I sat down with them and with our VP of Sales, VP of Marketing, and said, "So what do we think the demand on Monday from our customers is going to be? What do we think their pain points and problems they're going to try and solve? And can we put together in a week some offers that we can take to market and prep our sellers so that they can go serve customers in their place of need?" And, really proud of the team. They went from that day to a week later. They had constructed four specific offers, figured out how to put the marketing language together, figured out how to operationalize it so we could deliver it, figured out what our day two support model was going to be so that it could be sustained, and developed these offers to customers who are really trying to figure out how to survive and not just survive, but do well in this kind of environment.

(Joel Beasley at 00:08:12) I haven't heard that, like, "day two support" offer. Can you tell me what that is?

(Brad at 00:08:17) Yeah. So in our world, we look at it as day zero, which is kind of design and sales and customer engagement. Day one is what do we do to get the solution deployed, delivered, operational? And then day two is after it's operational, what do we do to create adoption? How do we make sure that it's continuing to constantly realign and align up against what the user's expectations are?

(Brad at 00:08:48) Because as well as we design—and we're pretty awesome at it, quote unquote—the point is is that it never really satisfies all the users' expectations. And so day two is really around how do you maintain it, sustain it, optimize it, and really drive it to a place where it's easy to be used and consumed.

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:06) Yeah. Because, like, you know, in business, that's just something I guess we do over and over and over. It's like we had this vision for the product operating this way and the offer being interpreted this way. And it doesn't matter if you spent a month or eight months inside. The moment you put that out, you get this crowd feedback, and you have to revisit it and make adjustments and decide, okay, like, what part of—how did the market respond? And then let's find the part of the market that we like the most, that works financially the most, that we want to spend the most time in, and then let's focus on that.

(Brad at 00:09:39) Yeah. Can I give you an example of what that looks like for us, like, in this moment?

(Joel Beasley at 00:09:43) Yeah.

(Brad at 00:09:44) So one of the things we realized was that a lot of teachers are now going to have to deliver their curriculum and class daily lesson plan virtually. And so how do you do that? Do you do that like a stream over the internet? Do you use Facebook Live? Do you do some sort of podcast? How do you get that done? And just the concept of actually creating a podcast or a stream for a teacher who's focused on teaching the Pythagorean theorem or is focused on US history or whatever it is, that concept is totally foreign.

(Brad at 00:10:23) And so we came up with an offer, and we basically break it down into three segments. The first is there's a pain point that we have to meet, and we've got to flip a switch. Like, today, I am in need. Tomorrow, it's got to be operational. And that requires building a website, doing all sorts of branding and stuff on that, defining how people are going to find it, how are your students going to interact, do you need a password or not. The team was crazy good at it, figured out how to get it online in a day. And then the day two support is now that you're consuming it, how do we help you really figure out how to optimize it? So we said, "Here's what we're going to do to flip the switch. Here's what we're going to do two weeks from now to help you continue to kind of master the skill." And then what does it look like when you get back to your classroom? Do you abandon this? Do you integrate it now into your lesson plan? What do we want to do with it? Right? And so that's kind of the idea that we're working with today.

(Joel Beasley at 00:11:29) That is pretty interesting. I think a lot of people will be more open to, like, one day or, like, once a week or, like—I think there's a large—we're kind of biased in the tech market because, I mean, I've spent the majority of my fifteen year career working remote. And so it's just totally normal. But at the same time, I was watching my wife at the kitchen counter try to take her biology class for being a veterinarian, and the guy was stumbling through. I could hear her listening to the class. He's just YouTube streamed it and then sent them a link. He's like, "I don't really know what I'm doing, but I hope you guys can see the screen and hear where I'm going to try to teach this class." Because they have no need to—especially the teachers, they have no experience in joining a webinar or doing these things because they're just in a classroom teaching.

(Brad at 00:12:18) Right. All the things that you and I would take for granted, or Jake would take for granted, that you understand how to plug in a mic or what to do with lighting or, you know, all of that kind of stuff—or not maybe even nothing that sophisticated, just the idea of connecting to a stream. And one of the things we really encourage is when we do our design, we just start backwards. We start with, how do you want—what's the user look like, and how do you want them to consume it? And then you work back to how you create the stream. But, intuitively, we want to start with the stream, and we forget all the other stuff that you have to do to make it actually functional. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:12:57) Since we're talking about product development and leadership, I might as well give you an update on Leaderbits.

(Brad at 00:13:02) Yeah, man. Hit it. Love it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:03) So we are definitely wrong at first. Right? Like, we had this idea—I guess it's like the product thing we were just talking about. It's not necessarily wrong. We had this envision that, okay, we're going to put this out and people are going to want to constantly improve every week. And we got early feedback, and we sold licenses, and it worked, and we were generating revenue. But then after the first year came, right, when it came time to do business again...

(Brad at 00:13:28) Right. There are no...

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:29) It was problematic because we found out that the way that they're purchasing these products is they'll purchase a workshop, but it's from, like, character A with methodology A. And then the next year, they'll get a different character B in methodology. So it's not this persistent—they don't stick with the same provider over and over and over.

(Brad at 00:13:46) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:13:46) And so we noticed that, and we noticed how people consume it too. People go in these waves of, like, wanting to improve and not wanting to improve. So what we did was we took a step back. We looked at our best customers, who's having the most success, because we've had, like, some people have ridiculous amounts of success, and then they're really positive on what it is. And then we look at their data and we see their usage patterns, and we ask them, you know, like, how is this being delivered internally and what's it used for?

(Joel Beasley at 00:14:12) And so the result of everything was that we found that we're really good at saying, like, here are the values and principles of what it means to be a manager here or a director here. And then we're essentially the training program for that. Right? So you get new people promoted, like, they're a first time manager, and then they'll go through the AVI leadership program, and that is a series of, like, six weeks of challenges. And then they have the option to continue with maintenance. Right? And then they'll get, like, one challenge a month. You know? And so you still get that continuous aspect, but the ask is different. It didn't really change our product features at all or engineering. It's just how we packaged it.

(Brad at 00:14:55) Yeah. It changes the way that you align it to the customer's expectation. Because quite honestly, I mean, just even as a consumer of your product or your offer on my own, as I consume it, I change.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:10) Yeah.

(Brad at 00:15:10) And, therefore, the need that I have changes. And that's actually the way that you want it. Right? But if there's not a way to really identify that as it's happening, there could be a gap that's created as a result of that. Right? A little bit of technical debt will creep in because it's not actually delivering on what you expect it to deliver on.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:29) Yeah. It's interesting how it's like this life and this business and all these things that we're doing, they're—it's like this fluid movement of life, and you can't really hack it. Like, you can...

(Brad at 00:15:42) Right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:43) You just have to put in the work, listen, and then continuously monitor it, and bring value. And there's no other way around it. Like, that's it. That's all you can do.

(Brad at 00:15:54) Yeah. That's exactly right. That's actually the fun part to me.

(Joel Beasley at 00:15:58) It is. Well, that's the beautiful part is once you get used to doing that and you get to see the reaction in your customers, and like, "Oh, this is amazing. Now I can take this off of my plate." And then it was interesting because, like, our innovations still carried over. Like, we made a bunch of—because I remember when we talked, when we were going through, like, our sales process, you had some of—like you went through it in a very relaxed, methodical way, and you really made us think.

(Joel Beasley at 00:16:24) And yeah, and some of your assumptions were definitely right. And it's just been doing this together, figuring out how it works to get that. For me, I never thought business was like this. I was always the engineer with, "Oh, achieve this outcome," and I would achieve it in the business. My business partners would be the ones interfacing with the customers, and they would come back and give me information. So to be on this other side, I'm like, this is a lot of fun.

(Brad at 00:16:55) Yeah. I'm super encouraged by that, because I think the companies that thrive are those that don't just create something new, but understand how to connect it to people. And if you can connect it to people, then it's consumed. And if it's consumed, then it's great. Right?

(Brad at 00:17:18) That's the big deal there.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:19) Yeah. The other one that I learned that was very true that you just reminded me of is people don't buy what they need. They buy what they want.

(Brad at 00:17:31) Yep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:17:32) And that's a tough one when you're super pumped about your product, and you're like, "I know if they just..." You're like, but they—you really have to merge—they're two different worlds, and you kind of have to bring them together. And for me, I guess, it's just awareness of my growth in business and realizing that it's totally worth the work. It just is. You just keep unlocking these new areas, and then I'm just blessed to be around people like you. And then I was talking with Mike from Telium, and I didn't know you guys knew each other. But he was like, "Brad's awesome."

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:06) I was like, "Oh, dude. This is great. This is really great."

(Brad at 00:18:09) So after my podcast with you, my first one with you, I reached out to him because I listened to his. That was at your recommendation. I listened to his, and I reached out to him. And yeah, we've been connecting online.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:21) Have you gotten to meet him in person yet? Because you guys are close.

(Brad at 00:18:24) Not yet. Yeah. We're super close to each other. I haven't just because I've been so busy on the road and just working with customers so much.

(Joel Beasley at 00:18:33) How are your new offices?

(Brad at 00:18:36) The new office is killer. It's such a different space. And again, the space is designed to connect people together and to really reinforce collaboration. And the result of that is that it's just really got a good vibe to it. It's got a lot of energy to it and very inviting.

(Brad at 00:18:58) We'll find that customers and vendors will come to the office just to get a cup of coffee and get out the laptop and do some work. And I'll walk out in the lobby, and people are—the lobby is a big kitchen now, right? And like a family table. And people are hanging out there, and I'm just like, "Wow."

(Brad at 00:19:17) Didn't know you're coming in for a meeting today. "Oh, I'm not. I just came in because I wanted to hang out and just work here." So...

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:24) Dude, that's pretty cool.

(Brad at 00:19:25) Yeah. Happy to have them.

(Joel Beasley at 00:19:28) So we've got a lot of different levels of CTOs, a lot of different levels of engineering managers, things like that. And one of the things that Fabiana was talking with us about this morning is mindset and how do you stay positive when the media that you're consuming is mostly negative. And so I was just hoping for some words of wisdom on that.

(Brad at 00:19:51) Yeah. So I guess I would share a couple of things. So first, I'll share a little bit about me personally, and then I'll share how that applies to the workplace or my role as CTO. So as somebody who is a man of faith, I realized that there's certain things that I can do to influence the outcome, and then there's certain things that I can't do to influence the outcome. And so I try and apply my energy to the things that I can influence and trust for the things that I can't influence.

(Brad at 00:20:32) And by doing that, it gives me the capacity to actually apply my energy towards those things that I can really make a change or influence on. Otherwise, I'll waste all sorts of time applying energy against things that I can't actually affect an outcome with. So that's the first thing, and I think that comes from my faith. The second thing I'd share with you is that I'm really reinforcing to our team that so many people are waiting for something to happen. Tell me what's going to happen next. What if this happens next? And I'm really encouraging us as a company to not wait till something happens, but to go make something happen. And because we're so connected to essential services and we're so connected to how organizations communicate, there's always, always, always a need for that. So let's go help customers make something happen on their own. And so we sat down and defined four very specific customer personas, actually, up to six customer personas that we think are in a place of need at this moment in time, and we mobilized the sales force not to go get deals done, but to go help people.

(Brad at 00:21:47) And as a result of that, some of the ways we're going to help people, we're not going to make any money on. It's going to be free licenses, free cloud services. We'll turn it up for you for free. We're absolutely okay with that. And other offers that we have—there's an opportunity for us to help somebody and make some money in the meantime, but it's really focused on what can we do to make something happen.

(Brad at 00:22:10) I don't know. Is that kind of where you're headed with it?

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:12) No. I love it. And by the way, when you generate revenue, that gives you more resources to then continue to help other people.

(Brad at 00:22:20) Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And so one of the things that we realize is that this is going—eventually, there's going to be another side to this, and we're going to need an economy to help us get through it. And so whatever we can do to drive that economy in the current stage and in the future state is going to be super helpful to all of us because that's how we as a community work together. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:47) Yeah. I mean, no, I love it. You're giving me ideas. We should make a—that's good. Like a remote leadership or something from the best of...

(Brad at 00:22:55) You're absolutely right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:22:56) And push that out there for people.

(Brad at 00:22:58) Yeah. Because I think a lot of leaders kind of view their ability to lead based upon what resources they have at hand. And I know that that's true, but that's not the whole story. Our ability to lead is based upon how well we can influence others. And sometimes that's just having a conversation and listening to people.

(Brad at 00:23:23) Sometimes it's providing some encouragement and a little bit of empathy. And other times, it's really around this idea of, "You know, here's a specific resource I have in my hands that I can apply to help you." And a lot of leaders are struggling with how to stay positive and deliver a positive message. But I think it's something that we can do if we really commit to doing it.

(Joel Beasley at 00:23:47) I like that. No. We should make—we'll make a special course and to, just thinking off the top of my head, do some remote leadership with some staying positive. You know, maybe throw in some outcome-based approach in there too, like how you guys...

(Brad at 00:24:01) Sure.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:01) Yeah. And then we could probably push that out to a lot of people, and then just be like, you know, the coaching part costs money. But we have the videos, we have the platform, and we could help with a small course. I guess that's the thing I was really looking at doing. I was getting all these emails from all the CEOs, but, you know, "We'll make sure to wash your hands, and we're here to—in your thoughts." And I'm like, what can I do? And that's what's prompted this, you know, this special podcast. I was like, what could we do that's not a "Hey, we're thinking about you, wash your hands" email. And that's okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:24:35) Well, we bring value through getting experts who we respect on the show to share what they're going through, so let's definitely do that. And then now you just came up with—that I inspired that idea. So we're going to come up with something like that. I think it'd be good.

(Brad at 00:24:49) Yeah. I'd love to participate in that. And yeah, at this point in time, I don't think there's any shortage of need to lead. And if all we're doing is waiting for somebody else to make a decision so that I can react to it, that's not leadership in good times or in bad. And so trying to define what we can do so that others can react to it, I think that's the basis of leadership in times like this.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:22) No. I love it. And you bring up a good point. So when that shake-up happens, even if you're the one to normally lead, you get—it's like getting caught off guard in a match or something. You have to take a step back and then you get caught up in this chaos of watching news like—it's like, wait. I'm not the type of person that watches the news like this. I'm not the type of person that freaks out. I'm the type of person that analyzes, assesses, and then takes action on a situation and then moves everything forward. But sometimes you just need a little tap on the shoulder, be like, "Hey. Remember who you are."

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:54) Right.

(Brad at 00:25:55) That's exactly right. Yep.

(Joel Beasley at 00:25:56) Boom. I love it. Brad, you are the best. I always get so energized when I talk with you.

(Brad at 00:26:04) Well, you're very kind. Thanks, Joel.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:06) This is great. Anything else that we didn't cover here?

(Brad at 00:26:12) I would say the other thing is that because there's a lot of anxiety that everybody's feeling right now, that it's a good time to apply a double dose of grace. Just being considerate and kind with people and, you know, maybe not responding to what they say, but responding to what they mean and kind of getting past the snarkiness that people will sometimes exhibit just because, you know, their bucket is full and they've got a lot of anxiety. And so they're not maybe being as thoughtful about how they should communicate. So I'm just reinforcing with our team just a lot of grace, and that goes a long way.

(Joel Beasley at 00:26:52) No. You're right. A lot of people, they will want to be heard, but they're not exactly sure what to say, but they want that communication. And again, we're human. Right?

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:06) We aren't prepared to handle situations that come out of nowhere all the time and definitely perfectly. Right? We just do the best we can and then move forward one step at a time.

(Brad at 00:27:20) Yeah. So I'm glad to talk with you. It sounds like you're doing well. Family's doing well, it sounds like. You guys are going through okay.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:28) Yeah. Family's doing well. Wife is still doing the vet school thing, and she's growing a lot as an individual. We're growing a lot as a family. Aria's putting together three-word sentences.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:46) So she's now...

(Brad at 00:27:47) There you go. Yeah. The world will forever change now.

(Joel Beasley at 00:27:51) I know. Now she's like, "Up, please, dada." And she wants to get me—oh, she takes me over to the pantry or something. Yeah. Yeah.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:00) And so I'll tell you what. That's a whole part of the world that is—you know, it's interesting. I used to, up until—I didn't have kids until 28. But up until then, I was sort of measuring life about, "Okay, I'm here. This many users have used my technology, or I've made this much money," and I was—and I can just imagine the exponential growth forward on that. I'm like, right. That's one storyline of existence, but then this is a different one. And to have it going forward is actually—it's painful, difficult, and rewarding. I think everything in life worth having is pretty difficult.

(Brad at 00:28:42) Yeah. Yeah. Your kids teach you a lot about yourself, don't they? So...

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:47) Yes. And then you're...

(Brad at 00:28:48) Forced to decide what I'm going to do with what I just learned about myself.

(Joel Beasley at 00:28:53) Oh, yeah. Oh, you know, you definitely have to—you realize that you can tell them nothing. They will just copy you. So then you have to look in the mirror and say, "Okay. If I want them to be good, I have to change my behavior because they don't use words. They just copy me."

(Brad at 00:29:09) Right. That's exactly right.

(Joel Beasley at 00:29:11) Yeah.

(Brad at 00:29:12) Well, my friend, I would just encourage you also just to keep sending out messages of hope because people need it right at this moment. So...

(Joel Beasley at 00:29:20) We're doing it, and you're doing it. We're doing it together, Brad.

(Brad at 00:29:22) That's right. Thanks, buddy. Be well. Glad to hear things are doing well.

(Joel Beasley at 00:29:27) Thank you so much. Talk soon, Brad. Bye. Bye.