Manufacturing eCommerce Success – with Rob Howze

Damon Pistulka  00:06

Welcome to the other episode of the manufacturing ecommerce success. Yeah, I was just like, why? Because we were having so much fun before we got on. But I’m Damon Pistulka your co host of the manufacturing ecommerce success series, and I’m gonna turn it over to my friend, brother from another mother. Man on the other side of the US, Kurt Anderson take it away my friend.

Curt Anderson  00:31

Hey, thank you brother. So Damon’s over there I got that right finally so you guys both and exit strategy specialists from exit your way my main man Damon Pistulka Guys Happy Friday. This is such an honor man. This is a really special program. Yeah, fun. So guys, we have I don’t know, you know, our program here we talked about how do we help everybody stop being the best kept secret? Well, this guy is absolutely no secret whatsoever whatsoever. We have Rob house in a way and the house today. Rob Good afternoon. How are you my friend?

Rob Howze  01:02

Good afternoon. Good evening. Good morning somewhere. Right? It’s a good lonely startup with the word good with it just right we can do that.

Curt Anderson  01:13

So guys, so first off if you’re I’m shocked if anybody’s not connected with Rob you want to connect with Rob Absolutely. He’s the man with a plan he is just Mr. positivity. If you’re not familiar with him he’s in Rob. I’m a little biased here. I best singer on LinkedIn hands down. Best lyrics mapping dude, you like you haven’t gone on?

Rob Howze  01:33

Do I told my wife about that, that you said that? I said man that felt really good to hear that. That was a good lifter man.

Curt Anderson  01:43

And hope and hopefully she was like, you know, like, Hey, don’t encourage them, right. But anyway, so you are you just you bring a ball of energy. I’ve been following you for years. And so this is such an honor to finally connect. So you have a bunch of superpowers that we’re going to talk about today, man, we’re going to take a deep dive in a few things. So you are an automation expert. You’re a numerologist you’re a goodwill ambassador, you have all sorts of things going on. So first my first question for you today Rob. We’re gonna get really serious Okay. Dude, he asleep like how do you get everything done man like you’re just rocking and rolling just share a little bit about like your process. How does the other things work in the rap world?

Rob Howze  02:22

Well, I’ll tell you what, what one I sleep really well because I have to in I’ve been studying sleep for like last six years so I used to be a late late late late you just run run run run. But you know, it was I wasn’t as effective for them. Because I’m a YouTube University graduate. I learned some things right and so I learned how to schedule as myself and so I created my own little schedules called the chop and flow planner on over here you see all the to dues and there is a timeline when we get it all done and so nothing gets done done that I wrote down and said I’m going to do and so therefore things don’t cross over and I don’t get stressed out so that really is the secret sauce right knowing what I want to do right and down what I want to do and then here’s the one time lining when I’m going to do it yep

Curt Anderson  03:16

the alarm so that’s right that’s phenomenal and so Rob we’ve got some awesome people here we got Michael

Damon Pistulka  03:24

Michael Ray he’s out there he’s in here today we go Mike oh

Rob Howze  03:28

man another mother this guy

Damon Pistulka  03:32

we got we got Dan bigger to Dan profile picture look at this profile change that we got Gabe he’s on to good yeah mr. LinkedIn live game and Gary’s here with us today from from New York.

Curt Anderson  03:51

Oh Curtis this is awesome so guys, so again if you’re new to rob a couple of things so if you jump on Rob’s LinkedIn profile first off simply automate his his company strongly encourage you check out amazing website will your entire team carry you guys are absolutely crushing it at simply automate making everybody’s lives much easier. We’re going to take a deep dive into that. But you also you know your passion about social media, your humor, humor ologists LinkedIn influencer if you go down to his testimonials, Rob I’m like, it brings tears to your eyes of what people say about you. I just want to jump up it’s kindness. Generous. One person put Rob is an extraordinary man who makes me believe in humanity and kindness in the goodness of others, man Holy heck. He says I love him like a brother from another mother. So again, check it’s like an every testimonial is consistent. It’s positivity. Kindness generous. Rob. Let’s let’s go there for a second what like where did you get your inspiration man like how are you such a positive bring in such positivity to LinkedIn? How How are you able to do this?

Rob Howze  05:01

Oh my gosh, man, Kurt, that’s such a great question. And the answer comes so quick before you finished asking the question, the answer was already showing up. And I have to say, you know, yeah, yep. Parents, my, my family was a big part of who I am today. Like my mother and watching her put herself through law school watching her go through the things she went through. But watching always have love. Washington always have compassion. Even when she was scolding me, she was loving me. So that was really nice woman, right? I had a lot of nice people around me that I had great mentors. I gotta tell you had great mentors. Now my life was not peachy clean because I was shot right before I left Buffalo and almost killed, right, I was almost killed before I went to college. So it wasn’t always so great. But I had people around me, no matter what was happening, they would guide me. And then I found YouTube University a decade ago. And I just became obsessed with typing in exactly what I want to learn about, and then finding the person that wanted to listen to. And then I said, I’m not just gonna listen to one person on the subject. I’m gonna listen to multiple to get a broad perspective. Whoa. And so I just began to grow at an accelerated rate and answer your question. I just love people. I love life. So that just comes out naturally. I want to see people win. I want to see people moving to the next level in life. And if I can contribute, I’m going to be there. Okay with a bow heart.

Curt Anderson  06:29

Man. You’re absolutely in Vancouver just said Ron Higgs is in the house. Yeah. Now I want to back up a second Rob didn’t know I heard Did you say you got shot? Shot

Rob Howze  06:43

shot like literally shot like so. Right before I left for college, my friends and I we were going to the store. I came out of the store. They were in the car waiting for me with just my friend Rob. His name was Rob. My name is Rob. We both got Rob. Now fully then funny. Plenty now. Right? Yeah. So he’s in the car. I come out the store and there’s a guy by the car I think is a friend. Oh, it’s not afraid. It’s a robber. And he has a gun to my friend Rob tells me get in the car. I’m gonna rob you guys takes all our stuff. My friend Rob decides he doesn’t like it route. He wants to try and take the gun. Not a good idea. When the guy has a grip on it. The guy jumps out the car. And right here I’m in the passenger seat. Rob’s the driver’s seat and he lets up three shots. Pop, me and Rob jump back. This is before the matrix. Ladies and gentlemen before the matrix, we jump back in their seats. The bullet goes through my arm. Because oh here comes out here goes into Rob’s leg. Okay, it’s in Rob’s leg today because it was too deep. They couldn’t get it out. So he has trouble at the airport. Nevertheless. Yeah, but me. The whole was to hear what to hear. No pain, no pain at all. As matter of fact, it didn’t hit muscle didn’t hit bone. It was just the best bullet wound you can get. Yeah, watch this. When I got home. I have a Barry Sanders jersey that was wearing the Barry Sanders jersey was all bloody. Look at the shirt I was looking at. And I was holding the shirt up. And I saw I saw a hole here, here, here and here. And I’m asking myself, How was there a hole, my shirt. Then I realized that moment when I went back and a bullet went through here. It literally went through my shirt, missing my chest cavity by whatever that mathematical equation is in goes into Rob’s Lake, I must been holding that shirt for like six days. Like I don’t think I moved. I was just so and that was my awakening. Okay. That was like the beginning of it. Okay. I’m here for a reason about purpose. Let’s go to college. Let’s get out of Buffalo. Oh, I love Buffalo though. But I gotta had to go because it was just rough at that time where I was. Yeah. Wow. Good experience. So man, good experience. I mean, I learned so much. And it heightened my awareness man. Yeah, like, literally, I was probably you know, messed up for a while. You know, so yeah, but I love the awareness that he gave me though about life. Yeah, how old were you? I was 17 Oh my god. That was the thing.

Curt Anderson  09:01

This is officially the first time on our program somebody has either admitted or talked man. Dude, this is powerful, man. Yeah, you realize like, like a fraction of like centimeters. Yeah, of what how you’re luckier in your life is like just oh my god

Rob Howze  09:20

right there. It’s a gift. Yeah, good. Yes, it sure is. And everyday I said every day I’m grateful your gratitude will determine your attitude which will ultimately determine your altitude

Curt Anderson  09:32

to man my father says oh my god my father. Yes. What? So guys, man All right. Christina’s woman Nicole Donnelly’s yeah

Damon Pistulka  09:42

hey go you got an A call we got a slider and just How about how about a bigger story right

Curt Anderson  09:48

let’s give a little Oh my God. What’s a little motivation here? So I’m a little bit speed I’m a little Yeah, a little bit. I know it’s hard to believe I’m like little stumbling for words right bat that you threw me away. About that Rabbi but I didn’t see that one coming but okay. You said the word buffalo we’re talking motivation you said your parents really a big influence on you big inspiration. Now when you say the word buffalo, you know like, man, you’re getting in my corner of the world, right? So I’m going to just share something real quick with Daymond we talked a lot about manufacturing so you’re in New York you know you kind of like the Great Lake Region Rust Belt, if you will, you know, a lot of wonderful manufacturing in this in this part of the world. Right? So you know, Buffalo Rochester, my man Gary, Gary wood is here from Rochester. Dan bigger used to be in upstate or so you know, Cleveland Detroit. Well, you know, you work at a factory you work manufacturing during the week and then how do you blow off steam on the weekend? You have your local sports teams, right? Everybody’s got the right wrap. Yeah, yeah. When you’re in the corner of the world, man. It’s it’s the Buffalo Sabres, right? Yeah, I don’t know if there’s many hockey fans if you guys are hockey fans drop a comment. So when I was in college, you know, my dad had saved Brits had season tickets to the Sabres and so whenever I’d come home, we’d go to Sabre games and when I graduated from college my wife was going to school in Buffalo so my our cheap date imagine hockey was cheap back then, right?

Damon Pistulka  11:10

Yeah, yeah, not so much.

Curt Anderson  11:12

Tons and tons of of hockey games right. Now, I didn’t realize this at the time, but I but I want to show you there was a guy that was at these hockey games, who like reminds me of Rob. And like just he would just inspire the entire crowd. So Damon, I’m going to share real quick let’s do it. I’ve never done this before. I’m going to share you ready? Yeah. Okay, here we go. I’m sharing my screen talk to me. Let me know.

Damon Pistulka  11:37

As soon as you hit share, I gotta put it on. Here we go. Here we go. We’re sharing the screen now.

Curt Anderson  11:42

You guys can see that you see? Yeah. Okay, you’re ready for everybody sitting down you ready for this rocket? Listen so this guy watch this. So look at he’s doing the Peewee Herman Yes. This guy so Damon every single hockey game I would go to this guy would riot. You’re talking from Paul. Check this out here Aries he’s, he’s in a tuxedo for God’s sakes. This is this is the Earl of bud. So if anybody hears from Buffalo if anybody ever went to a Buffalo Bills game if anybody ever went to a Sabres game, I went to dozens of of hockey. That’s all that we did in Buffalo. So you go to Sabre games right? Little did I know so that was the beer guy right URL have been right. Uh huh. I was actually contributing funds to Rob’s college fund every time I went every time you name it. Who is URL of Bud

Rob Howze  12:56

URL but also known as URL house is Rob house dad. Can you guys believe that?

Damon Pistulka  13:06

Oh my god, this

Curt Anderson  13:08

father was dead and I can’t like I’m gonna be excited unless somebody unless you’ve gone to a saber game or a Buffalo Bills game. You’re maybe you won’t appreciate that. This guy would live in UP 20,000 People were screaming for the sky rap. I can’t tell you how many times I’d be sitting your dad was like right next to me and also the Pee Wee Herman sigh would break out and he’s in these

Damon Pistulka  13:34

Oh, God.

Curt Anderson  13:36

I just wanted i I’m here to tell you you didn’t know this when you went to Howard University. Your buddy Kurt and all of his buddies. We probably covered your freshmen from your dad’s days to come home loaded I see like Travis right. So I had a call yesterday and Merson are talking and he’s like hey you from Buffalo? I’m like I live in little Lakewood. I’m nearby was you ever go to Sabres game? I’m like, Oh my God. I went to Yeah. I last night. Rob. I told my wife I go I go Do you remember this guy? The Sabres game? She goes, Oh my God. Of course I do. That’s Earl fun. Interviewing his son

Rob Howze  14:15

tomorrow, so it’s gonna tell him.

Curt Anderson  14:18

Hey, alright, so let’s get well. Yeah, dad. So when Rob brings the heat and he brings us contagious enthusiasm to LinkedIn, and he’s affecting 1000s of people. Where did he get it from? You guys. You just saw it firsthand. His father was what 80,000 People go to build. He’s firing up 1000s of people. Rob, talk about your father for us, please.

Rob Howze  14:44

So I’m telling you when you when you talk about this is how important it is parents, you know to be in your children’s lives and let them see what you’re doing. Right. And just being connected to them. Because I watched him he’s also a firefighter and watching for 27 The year so he will leave the fire department working the full shift and then go over to the Sabres game or the bisons game. And he would work. And he would leave there and then go back to the firehouse. It was like a constant loop and I would see him. And when I saw him, We just hung out. And I will see people lit up around him. We were literally paying him. They were called appearances. It will pay him you know, X amount of dollars to come and party with a tuxedo on like that. That is really nice. And people are just feeling good. So seeing the kind of good energy that he brought, and seeing how much he looked forward to it. It’s like, oh, man, I like that. And my subconscious held on to it, didn’t it? Because, because clearly I stepped into some type of shoes like that. So I have my dad and I have my mom. My mom was the lawyer. She says the analytical mind. She’s the researcher, but that is at you, Taner. He’s the spokesperson. And he’s the he’s the people’s champ. Right? Yeah, combine them both. And here we are.

Curt Anderson  16:01

Oh, my God. But what is ration that you are? So I am so thrilled that we put that together? Man, that was yeah, what? What a blessing. So you know, and I feel I feel more proud of myself for all those cocktails that I purchased from a good cause it helped your education.

Rob Howze  16:19

To Mandy. Well,

Curt Anderson  16:21

that’s right. So God bless you, man. Thank you for putting that together. Thank you to your dad. What a great story. So I rob, let’s dig. That’s all about you now. So let’s come back to you. Let’s talk about automation. And how that yeah, let’s take a deep dive there. So simply automate, talk about simply automate what you guys do your superpowers, you were sharing some powerful stories with Daymond I before we went live, let’s let’s just plow right in there, what you offer to your clients.

Rob Howze  16:48

So let’s, let’s simplify this. Let’s really, really make it simple. So humans, we go to work, we go to work, and we in every job, we have processes, from end to end. And typically, a human is involved in that process, having to type in data, excerpt something, export something, something. And very often, it’s the same type of activity, activity, meaning is repetitive, meaning you’re just uploading. It’s important, but it’s repetitive. What we do is we take all of the repetitive work away, anything that’s repetitive, whether it doesn’t matter who’s doing it, how it’s being done, we find that then we automate it. And why is that important? Just imagine if you could automate 60 to 70% of your process. And this is what Gartner is saying, you can do the Gartner is the leader in understanding how all this technology works. They’re the spokesperson, they are saying between 60 and 70 70% of your stuff of your process can be automated. We’ve seen add in more. What does that mean? It just means that you can focus on more important things, you can focus on scaling the company. Now by while while things are being automated, you can take a look, Step Take a step back and analyze better. When you’re able to analyze, you can improve, you can improve when you’re constantly putting out fires and just trying to keep up with what you did wrong. You want to heighten your efficiency, get rid of all the errors and optimize your process with speed. And this is what business automation does when done correctly. So I will say educate before you automate. That’s the song to educate before you automate, I did that. Because I want people to understand, you’re not going to just come in and start trying to automate things. And technology can be your worst, or it can be your best. Right? We want to show you how it could be your best.

Curt Anderson  18:33

So Rob, so let’s go there. So you talked about RPA. That’s the term that you guys use frequently share with everybody if this is new to them. Yeah, man, this is like a game changing moment today for everybody. You’re here to make our lives easier, simpler. What is

Rob Howze  18:47

RPA? So RPA robotic process automation, robotic meaning anything that is repetitive, right, any sick any type of action that’s repetitive process is that process in automation is automating it. So now you know, RPA is robotic, Process automation, right. And, again, the reason why that’s important is for your data management, you know, you know, your inventory, your fulfillment, your customer service, you’re delivering everything that’s involved in your business, you want to optimize it, every department in the way you optimize it, you take as much labor intensive work away from humans. If you take that away from them, and let them think and be creative and move things forward. Take all the mundane actions away from them. You can use those people and that’s what we’ve been seeing. We’ve been seeing people who spend 2030 hours a week just kind of doing the same thing. Now, those same people are doing LinkedIn, they’re doing networking, they’re doing sales, they’re helping the company grow. They’re bringing more investors in able to have more investor meetings, because they have more time. So RPA robotic process automation infrastructure. process that’s redundant. You can automate.

Damon Pistulka  20:03

Yeah, that’s

Curt Anderson  20:04

perfect. So yesterday, so I was taking notes while I’m talking to rob, and I’ve got down giving proper work to Robert. And I’m like, Robert, I’m like, Who the heck is Robert, that robot? So it’s not Robert. So yeah. So. So Rob, let’s dive into that. And so man, and we’ve got a lot we got, oh, God,

Damon Pistulka  20:21

Chris said, Chris. Put this in there. And she’s right. I mean, just think of, you know, automating that much. We got a ton of other comments in here to that one just hit. You know, you can do this man. It’s crazy. Yeah.

Curt Anderson  20:33

Yeah. You and your gal if you guys aren’t connected. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Happy Friday. Yeah, yeah, you to definitely need to connect. So Rob, let’s keep this party rolling. Okay, so you’ve caught everybody’s attention, man, we’re really perking up, dude, I heard 80%. You’re making my life easier. We’re gonna automate. So this robotic thing. Okay, let’s take a deep dive for those of us that are new to this. Talk a little bit about AI? What are you pulling off of our plate? And how are you specifically making our lives better?

Rob Howze  21:01

You know, so AI, you know, artificial intelligence is our friend. Because, you know, there’s certain activities we have to do, as I was saying earlier, but not necessarily the certain activities that need to get done. But we don’t necessarily need to do it. Right. And so, when you find a way, the first thing you want to do, let’s talk about this, the first thing you want to do, is you want to standardize your process. That’s the first thing I mean, standardizing for those who are unfamiliar, meaning, your process needs to be the same. mean, doesn’t matter who showed up to who you hire, if someone got fired, or someone that hire nighttime data, it’s like it’s the same. There could be some errors in it, it’s fine, but you want to have a standardized process. So then when you have that, now, you can analyze that from end to end. And then by doing that, you can see exactly where we have a thing called the bot runner, and it makes it goes out, and is able to review all the work that’s being done, and then identifies where all those redundancies are. And then we’re able to get a report to show here’s your process you sent us. And here’s where all the automation can take place. Here’s your ROI for year one, year two, year three. And so artificial intelligence allows you to so robotic process automation is one element. Artificial intelligence allows you now to use that element to go across multiple processes, and then also analyze data and go even deeper, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to give him a firehose, but AI allows you to be very intelligent, more intelligent than you could ever be. Right? And if you do it the right way, oh, my goodness, I told you, we had a law firm, three employees, three of them. One is the lawyer. And we were able to save them 40 hours a week, in less than two weeks, 40 hours of manual labor a week we were able to say that, but then in two weeks time, and I’ll tell you how much they’re paying, because they got grandfathered in 500 bucks a month for that.

Curt Anderson  23:05

We want to say 40 hours a week, Damon, you’re on board for that, who wants to stay for so? So Rob, let’s go here. Are you do you see common culprits? Do you see like same patterns? Like what are some of the what are these bad habits that we’re picking up that we need to get here?

Rob Howze  23:19

Well, one of the bad habits is we’ll call it complacency. You know, complacency is, you know, does not allow you to have any growth. Right. And so a lot of people are just complacent with where they are. They are unfamiliar of what’s possible. So therefore, the doors kind of closed on it. But what I want to invite people to do is open the door to start understanding more about technology more specifically, business automation. Like it doesn’t it doesn’t even have to be through us. Educate. So you can automate. That’s our tagline. Because here’s the deal. Let me give you some fun facts and stats. So this is according to Gartner to and this has changed because this was posed. This was before COVID. So I know the numbers have changed, right? They’re saying that. Okay, so right now RPA robotic process automation is impacting more businesses across more industries than in any other software in the global technology industry. Okay, okay. That just means this RPA is impacting more businesses across more industries. Okay, great. But wait, there’s more. Right now. less than 2% of small and medium sized business owners even though this thing exists. Okay. It’s more. The trend says that it’s on a spike. And by 2025, over half of all business and I think it’s faster now because again, this this was posted before COVID Things have accelerated now. By 2025, I think 2023 Over half of all businesses will have this like a computer. It’ll be substandard. So we had a spike where we had this technology that spiking the beginning of the trend, nobody really knows about it. So now’s the time to get on board of knowing about it. Because it’s like Google before you knew Google. If you Google. No, you hurt Google. The first time a Google, what is a Google? What is that? This is the Google for businesses. This technology is literally the Google for businesses. So get to know Google Now. Okay, get familiar with RPA right now, just start spending 1520 minutes a day, just researching. Just let it drop in your mind. Get the subconscious, and then take some type of action.

Curt Anderson  25:46

Yeah, that is juicy. Right there. How Rob, how about this? How when, if this when this was new to you? How has this changed your life? Your processes, like when this first came on your radar? Were you like, man, what is this thing?

Rob Howze  25:59

Yeah, yeah, you know, it made me look at my life actually, you know, maybe look at because automation, you know, humans have a automation, where we actually we are automation creatures that, you know, 80 90% of the things we do we do every day, we don’t even know we’re doing it. That’s a habit. That’s called automatic. Yep. So it had me started looking at my own habits. And if I want to change something, that means I gotta intentionally I have 10% of my conscious mind to work with, I can intentionally make a decision. If I do that repetitively, then it starts to drip into my subconscious and becomes a habit. So I look at that the same way that the business made me look at my life that way. What some things that like, it actually is why I started walking more, and started walking 12,000 steps today, 10 to 10 to 12. Because I say that’s a good habit to build in. For this older, young, older young man here, I need to go ahead and do that. Right. And it’s been wonderful, my sleeping better my skin have been better. And so my point is, it’s had, it’s helped me to understand more about my own life. But it’s also helped me to see a little more because I’ve always been a business coach, too. I’ve been an entrepreneur my whole life. I’ve built multiple businesses, nonprofits, but I’ve never looked at business the way I look at it now. I go right in and I can find the the in the inefficiencies I can, I can see the redundancies very quickly, I can see where support can come. And I didn’t have that element until I was exposed to this RPA world.

Curt Anderson  27:23

Yeah, this is phenomenal. So let’s, and I believe you and your wife have built like you just said, a couple of nonprofits but I’m going to stick on automation for a little bit, then we’re going to dig into your nonprofit work, talk. Let’s talk about your company. So simply automate, our buddy Wilton is on a team, you have an all star team, Carrie, talk, let’s talk about when somebody connects with you. And again, encourage you guys check out simply automate, connect with Rob, if you’re not already connected here on LinkedIn, but talk about your this all star team that you guys have at simply automate.

Rob Howze  27:52

Oh, goodness, speaking and also our team. Dimitri, if you’re still on man, go and put our website in the chat right there. Dimitri, there is this guy, I just met the most incredible people, the most incredible human beings. And like, I just, it’s amazing. It’s the 21st century, we all should say thank you. 21st century Yeah, we should all just, you know, mean, just celebrate it because we couldn’t do this.

Damon Pistulka  28:19

Yes.

Rob Howze  28:20

It looked at us right now. But

Damon Pistulka  28:22

we couldn’t do this. We could. There’s so many things. We should be grateful for every minute. Right.

Rob Howze  28:27

And I am grateful for LinkedIn. Because LinkedIn has opened the door in the 21st century for me to run into people like Wilton. Three months, he had launched his business, it was three months, in that I was doing a 30 days video challenge. And that’s how I met him. And Dimitri, they did a challenge. And come to find out I was like, Okay, this brother is another brother from another mother, like me. I like what you’re doing. I don’t know what it is yet. I like the sound of it. Okay. I know what you’re talking about right now. But it sounds good. Because I didn’t know I didn’t know about RPA. I was, but I heard that stories. It’s the stories that gets you in the lives that are changing. So team, you know, everybody we’ve met here on LinkedIn. And everyone has a beautiful component that they bring, and like just elevates the whole ship when a rising tide lifts all ships, so it just lifts everything. So I couldn’t I couldn’t write this up. Right. I couldn’t I could not write it up. It hasn’t been all great now. Yeah, but that’s the beauty about the story, because we stayed with it.

Curt Anderson  29:28

Yeah, every story’s a little bit flawed. And so and again, I want to talk about well and what a man of integrity guys if you you know, go on simply automate connect with Rob connect with Dimitri connect with the team at simply automate. And what I love what you guys do, you mentioned the word a couple times Damon, we love that word edutainment. Boy, that’s absolutely perfect. So I know some In fact, I just received an email from you either yesterday or day before about you’re offering a webinar. So you do all sorts of information and you’re as you keep saying, educate, automate, educate. So just talk about how you You’re so intentional. And guys out, you know anybody out there is, you know, Dan bigger has a SASS company we have Kristina Harrington and Jennifer, they do an amazing job of educating them. So, you know, share a little bit about your, how you’re intentional of educating your customers and and share a little bit about the results and how they appreciate that education opportunity.

Rob Howze  30:20

Oh, yeah, absolutely. So thanks for asking that. And you, you hit it on the head. So webinars are podcasts, we have a podcast of the RPA show, or a show, you know, and that’s we interview a lot of our, some of our clients and even some of the industry leaders, you know, so people can, again, start to get more educated about what’s actually happening. So those webinars that those podcasts, these podcasts, this is a great entertaining platform, people will relax right here, we’re kicking back and just for sharing information, also that if you’re listening, I that you play it, it can really help you. So that’s kind of what edutainment is all about. Education is coming, but in an entertaining way. And that’s kind of my style with everything, you know, as entertainments going to be in there somewhere. Because it’s boring. If I don’t you know, so then I’m going to come across boring. And nobody really likes boring anyway, you know. And so the education aspect or also the content, the content is, is very educational, and entertaining, meaning you watch it, you look at it, just read it and see what’s happening. You can’t unsee it, right? If you see, you know, 1000 times ROI, this look at it more, right? Go more that go deeper, don’t just glance away because you’ll be happy. You’ll be happy you did. And I’ll tell you this education and application, you put those two together in a real bad situation. I should turn into a soft break down, Rob. Okay, that’s That’s it. What do you say education application? Yeah, that’s so true. Cuz we get educated and we sit and then it’s gone. It’s literally gone, guys. Yes. Like, what you learned you don’t write it down? It’s gone. Yeah. In your subconscious away from where you can do anything with it.

Damon Pistulka  32:15

Yeah, yeah.

Curt Anderson  32:16

Well, we got education. Plus application equals multiplication. profitability. How’s it much recruiting a jam right here that we are free edutainment Chris Harrington says, This is new for me. But I love the concept. And that’s in Rob. I love that. Damon that was a running joke. When we do our training. We’re like if we bring in other speakers and stuff are like hey, nothing personal. No death by PowerPoint, and the slide with a bunch of bullets. You get that? Yeah. frappe is how rewarding is first off, thank you, thank you for what a blessing you are and the contagious enthusiasm that you bring. And so how, what an awesome career that you have where you’re entering entertaining people, you’re making a huge difference. Talk a little bit about like, like the the aha moments or the just the smiles, the hugs, you know, the high fives that you receive. When people finally get it. They’re like, Oh, Rob, I finally understand it. That law firm, you know, share some of those those wins that you you experienced on a weekly basis.

Rob Howze  33:23

Oh, my goodness. So tears, tears, nice tears. I mean, when you don’t have to do 15 to 20 hours of the same boring stuff that you’ve been doing for years, the moment you find out, you don’t have to do that. It is just like, I’m an empath. So I can feel what other people feel like, it’s, it’s good. It’s good. And it’s bad. Because unfortunately, I got to feel everything. But I felt that I was like, wow. So you got that you got the law firm. You have people who now are going to go out of business, they were going to go out of business, because they just couldn’t meet the demands. They couldn’t meet it. But now scaling their business, how does one go from getting ready to go out of business and go outdoors? Now scaling? I’ll tell you how they use technology the right way? Mm hmm. Literally, our ROI overnight. The moment you put it in place, you got an ROI overnight. Right. And it doesn’t it? I know it sounds like far fetched. But just imagine what I don’t know. Cell phones sound like to people 1000 years ago, pretty far fetched, right? Yeah, we’re gonna be taught to do a black box. And he’s visible sound waves is how we’re going to capture the visualization. And I hate that guy. He’s crazy. He’s crazy. Yeah,

Damon Pistulka  34:41

yeah.

Rob Howze  34:42

It happened. But now technology is moving 100 times faster than it used to. Right. So now we’re able to do things that’s really mind blowing. So just come with me on that. We’re at the state where we can really do mind blowing things. If you implement the rights technology into your business. You will see Your business explode, and you don’t have to scale and become a big time, you can just have more time for yourself, you can just have better operations, better customer service, whatever you want, it’s gonna be better. Mm hmm. Man.

Damon Pistulka  35:13

Yeah, the the things that the things that technology is doing at a huge scale right now, and big data and finding details, all of that is filtering back to our everyday lives to allow us to simplify things that we never had the opportunity before. And, you know, we’ve, I’ve got a client that we just finished automating all of his ecommerce transactions back and forth between multiple platforms, so people don’t move spreadsheets or data anymore. And it it transformed his business. And it’s, it’s, you know, moving 1000s of transactions every day automatically. And it’s, you can you can run huge businesses with very few people if you do it, right.

Rob Howze  35:55

Yes, that’s the key. That’s the key. Yep. Oh, that’s good.

Curt Anderson  36:00

So without, so again, I want to be respectful of your time. But if if I’m dragging in the weeds push back. But just so Damon just mentioned e commerce when before we went live, you’re starting to give us some examples. So folks, we’re like, man, like Dan bigger says, I’m crying now even thinking about it. But as your you know, as you share some of these superpowers and some of these efficiencies, can you share a little bit? Are we talking invoicing e commerce? Let’s take a little deep dive there. That is as far as you’re comfortable sharing?

Rob Howze  36:29

Yeah. So let’s, let’s see. Yeah, really everything. It really everything you just said, e commerce, e commerce, invoice processing, data extraction, onboarding. offboarding. Like, honestly, this this list, would you supply chain, even a sales and marketing, your internal communications with the organization, right? I mean, this, this list will, what is going to continue to grow? Most important thing to know is that you’re increasing your efficiency, enhancing your accuracy, and you’re improving your analytics. Like, that’s the best thing, you know. You’re doing all those things, and you’re even it

Damon Pistulka  37:17

happens, and it happens. 24/7 that’s the other thing. I mean, when you look at, oh, we can’t staff people for this time of day, so not listen to I’m saying we can’t staff how many people say that? Well, if you can automate whatever that staff has to do, now, that’s all right. You can’t staff them at different times of the day. But now we can do it anyway. And increase your hours of service and the ability to do it. And when you look at that huge

Curt Anderson  37:46

battle rifle is go ahead, and we’re gonna say something.

Rob Howze  37:50

Now, we’re gonna say, you know, your customer satisfaction, analytics, overall benefits, improving your HR, improving compliance. Compliance is a big one. Big, big, big, big, so much money being lost, but necessarily, we had a company, oh, my gosh, $100,000 a year. And bare minimum. Wow. But bare minimum. They implemented RPA. What does our PA do remove every single error? Because it’s the error that you get dinged for? Mm hmm. Guess how much now? Man? If you do that, I’m like, but people don’t know about it. Right? They all know it’s like stem cells right now. No one knows.

Curt Anderson  38:40

But like Dimitri says, Man, work 24/7 365. So we need to stop being the best kept secret with this automation. So I want to be mindful of your time, Rob. So how, how can people reach out to you? LinkedIn we mentioned, Dimitri dropped your website, you when they contact you how What’s that process look like? Do you jump on a call? Do you take them through a little trial run? What’s it look like when people reach out to rob?

Rob Howze  39:11

First, we have a little discovery, call it 15 minutes or so just kind of maybe maybe 30 If it extends, but just to kind of get an understanding and feel out to hear what the pain points are, what the bottlenecks are, you know, have a nice dialogue. And then the next step, the next step will be for them to fill out, you know, questionnaire, and our questionnaire is designed to with all those specific fields, when they fill it out, then we’re able to understand what process they’re talking about. Then our our dev team puts together a nice diagram showing where all the automation is going to happen, right based off the information that they they given. And then we have this design, and we get on another call and we show them the design, we show where the automation is going to take place. We show what the ROI is going to be. And so essentially it’s a 15 minute call or a little longer just to you know, get to know And then you fill out the questionnaire. The questionnaire gives us gives us all the insight we need to then provide the layout you need to see where we’re going to take you out of the weeds.

Curt Anderson  40:08

Nice. Dude, that was like That’s another song right there. Right there. Songs by any chance do you have a song that you could share with us today? Very 10 is dying for a song. Do you have one? Yeah,

Rob Howze  40:22

I do. I do have one I you know, this is like, one of my favorite artists. I did a I did a cover. I did a cover of this and, you know, recipes. He just went away last year and so it’s Oh, it’s an oldie but goodie. And I decided to remix it my son who is does the editing he did all the editing for this. So this is like a father son collaboration project. And also there’s a little cameo by my friend on a state real big fan of honesty. Big big, big, big, big, big wasn’t just getting rid of slavery was some other stuff too. I loved it. Love his mindset. I love where you failed and kept coming. And I love his quotes. One of his quotes was if you give me six hours to chop down a tree I spend the first four sharpening my axe really freaking good eight. So he made the video and he’s in here. I have it here. Should I share my screen? Yeah, and share your screen there. So this is a lien on me. Okay, no, I think I think a lot of us heard that song before because we all need somebody to lean on every now and then. We all need somebody to lean on every now and then. Right?

Damon Pistulka  41:36

So it’s not sure yet I can’t see it yet go

Rob Howze  41:39

how’s that?

Damon Pistulka  41:41

Oh, got it. We got it

Rob Howze  41:45

all right here Everybody needs somebody in there somebody everybody we know that you at least one rapping

Damon Pistulka  43:50

might be buffering a little bit on us.

Rob Howze  43:52

Okay. That was the that was the revenue component but yeah so late lean on me, you know? Yeah, we all need somebody to lean on it. We all need somebody every now and then. You know,

Damon Pistulka  44:05

now it’s coming back. Good. You see. I tell you I was cracking up at your daughter. She looked at you one time like Oh,

Curt Anderson  44:14

I know. I know we’re here gonna hurt our children right?

Damon Pistulka  44:22

We’re not there to embarrass we’re not doing our job.

Curt Anderson  44:27

What’s funny my daughter had a chorus concert at school last night guess what one of their songs was Rab lien at me dude. So that was perfect. Wow. So that was that was awesome man. Oh my god. Was this a great program guys drop it. Drop a note to rob in the chat box. Just tell him how awesome he is. This

Rob Howze  44:45

was Oh man. This is great, man.

Curt Anderson  44:49

Rob, let’s a couple quick things before we let you go. You and your wife have a nonprofit I believe. Can you just share what’s what’s going on with this nonprofit? What it is Am I such an overachiever?

Rob Howze  45:02

Man, I tell you what, you know, I just, I am like, I’ve been blessed. As you know, as you, I told you some of the stories, you know, I’m blessing, I just want to, you know, I want to give, you know, it makes me feel good. And so we started an organization, you know, for young people in 2006, seven, called worldwide community with the idea of helping young people would like to have an after school program with summer camp where they could come and be introduced to things like goal setting, like nutrition, you know, like entrepreneurship, and we’d have different speakers and presenters come out and expose them to that, and have them set goals, write goals, you know, prepare for college prepared and launch their business, you know, learn new, new, healthy recipes, and then take the recipe home with the family and cook it and come back and talk about it. And so we did that. And the goal was, again, just to be a source where young people could be inspired and families could be inspired and encouraged. We put on like community fairs and invite the community out and have special vendors with special representations about what they do mind body spiritual stuff. It was good man. It’s just it a pandemic slows things down. But it just slows things down to speed it back up. Because yeah, that’s what it did. So here we are.

Curt Anderson  46:17

Ultimate optimist. And so last question for you. I believe you have a 30 day video challenge coming up. Is that correct?

Rob Howze  46:23

Oh, yep. Just, I just put it on my page today. There’s plenty days of videos, man. So four years ago, I started this. And I just started to do my own videos, because I was trying to challenge myself, you know, LinkedIn was new videos, new here. Next thing I know, everyone else said I want to do it too. I’m in route. I said, Okay, I guess this is a group thing, because I didn’t know. So I made it a group thing. And so it’s been great. We have several people every year now. And the goal is for 30 days. Make a video. Put it out there. Talk about your brand, talk about yourself. Talk about what you love, you know, talk about your why. And just do make videos and connect with people make videos that connect with people. It’s literally what makes the world go round. Why? Because making videos allows people to see you and connect with you. And networking allows you to grow. And if you support others while you’re doing that, you’re putting yourself out there, you’re networking and you’re nurturing. I would drop this mic, but I paid a lot for it. So yeah,

Curt Anderson  47:23

dude, I’m dropping mine. It’s just I’m just throwing it you know, so, man, this was so good. So let’s take it home brother. Let’s take it home. So man, this was a blockbuster. We had a lot of firsts today, Damon so we have dead Earl of Bud Jr. His house right here. Can’t believe that that’s your dead so that made my oh my god you made my month. Oh, man. Appreciate you. Alright guys, so what we want to do, we’re gonna close it. We’re gonna take it home, Rob in. We’re gonna jump. We’re gonna chat. You’re gonna have to Mike one more time. Okay, Mike, one more time. First off, I just want to share first off, thank you. Thank you for your positivity. Thank you for your contagious enthusiasm. Thank you for setting the bar high for everybody else on LinkedIn and be like, Hey, let’s be like Rob man. You know, this ain’t This isn’t Facebook. Let’s keep it fun. Let’s keep it professional edutainment. If it ain’t fun, Rob’s not doing it right that’s it. Alright, so take it home your closing thoughts people out there maybe you know challenge struggling new entrepreneurs meet we need some motivation man give us some words of wisdom from Rob take us home words of motivation for the rest of 2022

Rob Howze  48:33

Oh my goodness, let me tell you right now. This is the the easiest thing to think about. And if you can work on mastering this thing, your life will be great in every area, sports, your community, your job, you do these two things and you just work on these two things. Just be mindful of these two things. One, love yourself. Loving yourself means that you appreciate yourself you’re grateful for who you are. Right You’re grateful for everything that you currently have. You’re grateful than loving yourself you can look at yourself and self in the mirror and you can say that and you believe that and you care about you. So love yourself that’s gonna make you a better person by the way Okay, make you a better person number two love others love other people meaning how do you do that? You know through giving to support through listening to others, right? You love yourself and love others repeat everybody worked on that just loving themselves more which making make them make them a better person to be around anyway and then work on loving others like we will be a good shape because it’s helped me and even when I thought it was such a great guy I always thought was a great guy because I had a good heart but that’s just you know egos big egos. He’s made me think you have no flaws. Nope. introspect to see how you can love yourself more how you can love others more.

Damon Pistulka  49:53

Yeah. Boom, moment of silence. Time to stop After it’s over.

Curt Anderson  50:03

Savor it. Just let’s just savor that. Take a moment of silence Yeah. Rob, everybody, please. Let’s give a standing ovation for hours. Thank you. God bless you, brother. And I, oh my gosh, you blew it away today I had such I had such a you this whole URL, but took it to a whole different level. You took it to a different level today. And guys, there is awesome. If you’re with us earlier, if you missed it, go back and watch it. And you’re gonna everybody. Thank you for joining us today. But his father was entertaining 1000s of people. Is it any surprise in his mother’s an attorney law degree? Is it any surprise that his wonderful parents didn’t produce just this man of high integrity? Just you know, family man, just putting out positivity to all of us here on LinkedIn. Rob, you are a blessing. Gift. We thank you. We salute you. We applaud you, Damon, take it away, brother. Ah,

Damon Pistulka  51:12

and again. Thanks, Rob, so much for being here today. Thanks everyone else all in the comments, man. The comments were hot today. I know we missed people. But we appreciate every single one of you. And yes, we are grateful, extremely grateful that somebody comes to listen to the amount of evil I’ve just saw so much appreciation and so much appreciation for people like Rob and Rob for sharing today. You so much for being here. We will be back again next week. Same time, same place, and we’re going to try to do it all over again.

Rob Howze  51:49

Thank you so much, everyone, Damon, Kurt. Thank you.

Curt Anderson  51:52

God bless you guys. Have an awesome weekend.

Damon Pistulka  51:55

Have a great weekend. Hang on right