IAM2507 – CEO Helps Small Business Owners Looking to Grow to The Next Level

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Rob Braiman Teaser 00:00

So we took a complex issues of business, we distilled them down into the profit platform and really from the very beginning conversation we have with our clients and inside sales to the deliverable we implement.

And make durable on behalf of our clients is predicated on the use of that profit platform. Every business has its problem, challenges and concerns.

Intro 00:23

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:50

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Rob Braiman of Cogent Analytics. Rob, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Rob Braiman 01:00

Gresh, thank you for having me today.

Gresham Harkless 01:03

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Rob so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing.

And Rob is the CEO and managing member of Cogent Analytics, a business management consulting firm.

Since 2005, he has personally engaged with over 1,800 small to medium-sized businesses, and an entrepreneur himself, he knows firsthand the challenges of the journey.

And his passion is to help others achieve success and long-term profitability that also results in enhancing quality of life.

A business analyst by trade, he founded Cogent Analytics in 2014 to provide solutions for small business owners.

In five years, he has helped many small businesses achieve their goals and in the process has grown Cogent Analytics from six people to over 120, and has ranked on the Inc. 500 and Inc. 5000 fastest growing companies in the country two years in a row and is on deck for the third.

Rob, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Rob Braiman 02:01

Absolutely, Gresh. And again, thanks for having me. I was listening to you read my bio and it's pretty humbling first and foremost.

And I probably have to correct, I personally represented somewhere between, and I lost count on the number.

It's between 1500 and 1800 clients that I personally visited with going back to 2002, three, somewhere in there.

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And that was prior to, and I don't add Cogent Analytics clients that we currently have represented over the last five years to that number.

So I come from personal experience in representing small and mid-sized businesses.

And that was really the energy that caused me to want to start Cogent Analytics as its own entity.

Gresham Harkless 02:48

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I mean, that's a perfect segue because I want to hear a little bit more of like, what was the thing that got you going?

What was the thing that got you started? Like, what did you see or not see that said, hey, I want to actually start this business?

Rob Braiman 03:02

And apologize for my ifs and uhs and thuhs. Small business.

Gresham Harkless 03:09

Mine too. Please apologize for mine too.

Rob Braiman 03:12

The more casual I get with you, Gresh, the more comfortable I will start I will start saying if does and ums, so I apologize for that.

But, coaching analytics was what its birth was really from passion. I had worked for another firm for 10 and a half, 11 years.

And, I try to explain to people that if you're going to be part of the small business entrepreneur community, it has to be more than about the billable hour.

And I felt like the firm that I worked for, really drove the build our more than they drove the result.

And although I spent many years there, fundamentally doing it aligned with my own belief system, I was never going to be able to change that institution from from within.

So I always tell the story, I quit twice, the first time was in 2010, and they were able to bring me back.

And I left finally in 2013, under the understanding that I could never, if they were not gonna change their approach to market, I couldn't participate there.

Hence the birth of Cogent Analytics. Now our firm is, I have a very personal code. It's honor, courage, wisdom, faith, perseverance, and loyalty. And it's the tenets of strength, power, and character.

And for anything I do in my life, whether it's raising my kids, or working with a client or running this firm on behalf of my employees, those tenets of strength, power, and character mean everything in the world to me.

And I try to guide and lead based on those core values. And that I think is what drives our company the way it does today. We've been very successful.

I always say that the Cogent Analytics in today's version is not because Rob Braiman is some savant.

It's because others have taken that vision, made it their own and fundamentally made it better.

So, you know, I think the greatness of this organization, the successes that we've enjoyed is really through the efforts of people who have come to make this family their own.

And I think our clients are positively affected by that energy and that value system and that belief that we start with every day, which is their success.

Gresham Harkless 05:35

Nice. And I absolutely love that. And it kind of makes sense because a lot of times I've always felt like the most successful businesses.

And that is not necessarily from a revenue generating standpoint, have a really strong mission and sounds like those core values that you have that you live your life through you brought into your business.

And then it's allowed, you know, the team members and everybody to be successful as well.

Rob Braiman 05:56

Absolutely. And the net beneficiary, I think, the better we get at building this, we like to say this is a family that acts like a business from time to time.

Our organic growth has because good people have embraced that value structure.

And at the end of the day, I think the greatest impact is to the clients that we represent.

So hopefully that gives you a little insight into Rob Braiman, coaching analytics and the respective team that makes this place so awesome.

Gresham Harkless 06:26

Yeah, absolutely. And the family, that acts like a business from time to time.

I absolutely love that. And, I wanted to drill down a little bit deeper and hear, what kind of services, what things are you doing to kind of help support these clients that you're working with?

Rob Braiman 06:39

So we have developed, and this is something that I wrote on a whiteboard probably 10 or 15 years ago, but it is the Cogent profit platform.

And, I, if I would direct your listeners to our website, the profit platform, is taking really complex business problems and challenges and distill it down into the four pillars of business, which really is business development.

That is how we go to market, how we sell our goods, how we represent the brand that we're building.

Business development is both sales and marketing. It's how we drive revenue.

Organizational engineering, we put a block out there and we just wrote people on it because when you use words like organizational engineering, drives a deeper conversation.

Process or process engineering, really, we labeled as operations. That's how we perform what we do every day as business owners.

And then lastly, KPIs or measurement is what we call that block, which is key performance indicators, both operational and financial.

So it incorporates your financial statements, your balance sheet, your cash flow, how your business is performing relative to wealth creation, which is the spirit of every business owner, right?

They didn't go in it to practice. Most business owners started their business because they were technicians and wanted to build a better mousetrap.

And we ultimately distill their challenges down into four key areas that both contribute and detract from profitability when not done so well. So we took a complex issues of business.

We distilled them down into the profit platform and really from the very beginning conversation we have with our clients and inside sales to the deliverable we implement and make durable on behalf of our clients is predicated on the use of that profit platform.

Every business has its problem, challenges and concerns, but you would find that every listener today, if they're a business owner, those problems and challenges, concerns, resides in those four blocks.

And they would all tell you the story of profitability to its planned maximum or minimum mandatory standard, or they will tell you how they have not hit that number or they're under-performing to profitability.

And I would challenge everybody, much like a SWOT analysis, break your business down into those four pillars and ask yourself if your profit is not where it's supposed to be, Look for efficiencies in your organization and your process.

How do you measure behaviors and performance? How are you driving and pricing the market? How are you developing that brand you call your own?

And there's one thing they won't see on the website, which is the big circle that goes around it, and that's for another discussion, Gresh.

It really is the element of strategic planning and the exercise that we take our clients through to be able to engineer a profitable, cash-prudent business that it gives security, not just to them and their family.

But to the employees and their families, which is really why I think most presidents in owning a business, you'll find that it's a very selfless behavior.

Most presidents really run their business and their people become part of that long-term family. It's a very personal connection for small business owners to their people, and not just their people.

But their people and their families, if that gives you a much clearer understanding of the theory of the coaching analytics profit platform and what we're trying to accomplish on behalf of our clients. I think that's helpful.

Gresham Harkless 10:20

Yeah, it's definitely helpful. And I think that it helps out, any entrepreneur and business owner, because I think sometimes you can become so overwhelmed.

But to me, it kind of synthesizes things down to the overall kind of goal of business, which is to generate that profit.

But it talks about each of the different aspects, those four pillars that you talked about, where if there is the lack of or maybe not to the goal that we want to have of that profit.

We can look and see like how each of those things are kind of playing in, in order to increase that or potentially can detract from that.

So I love that you broke that down. And is that what you would consider like your secret sauce or what you feel kind of distinguishes you or your organization?

Rob Braiman 11:03

I've never thought that there was a secret sauce, but sure, I will say yes, that is Cogent Analytics secret sauce.

But, if I were to take it one step, one step distilled farther down from there, every business has to generate a revenue.

Every business has to hire good people. Every business has to get those people to follow a process.

And there must be a measurement of performance in place where you cannot manage it.

So if you don't have measurements in place, financial operation, you're never going to get a group of people to embrace the process to success.

And there's no way you could sell a profitable product without the other three existing.

So you can see that it's more of a pie than a destination. All things in the organization must exist to their fullest for a successful business to occur.

Gresham Harkless 11:52

So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack.

And this might be an Apple book or a habit that you guys have, but something that makes you more effective and efficient.

Rob Braiman 12:03

So we do continuing education internally. It's an effort that every one of our directors, every one of our department heads, every intermediate manager.

One of the things that I think is our secret sauce, so to speak, you asked that question before, is we challenge the group to come up with continuing education or learning as it directly relates to the people in their subordinate.

So they read the initiative because I want their, I don't believe we needed to cast the die.

I think there are a lot of really smart people in this world that offer good, solid perspective to the practice called business.

And I can think of a lot of great books out there. Dr. Nangar did one about leadership. There is the e-myth, obviously, that you referred to.

There are different selling systems that are available in the marketplace instead of see-to-the-pants selling.

There are selling systems that I would recommend to any business owner to adopt a sales system.

And I'm not talking about a CRM. I'm talking about a philosophical approach to sales that can be managed. Hopefully that's helpful.

Gresham Harkless 13:13

Yeah, no, it's definitely helpful. And I think it's so important that the continuing education never really ends as well.

So you're always trying to learn more and more and more. So I appreciate you. for sharing those books and that information with us.

And also the quote as well too, because I'm a big believer in energy.

And if you put out that energy, then it comes back, whether it be your clients or employees or whatever, whoever's on your team.

It's important to kind of put that out because not only does it help support them, it also helps support you as well.

So I appreciate you for sharing that with us. And now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget.

And this is a word of wisdom or piece of advice, or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?

Rob Braiman 13:52

I think the one common thread that I have been able to pull out of all of my life experience, whether building companies of my own.

I think in my bio, this is my fourth company I've built, or representing others to the point of successful business, I keep coming back to building the right team around yourself.

Most often, and I'll speak about myself, throughout my career, I've hired people.If I have Achilles heel, it's I love everybody. I think that,  people even in their oddities are great. So I like human nature.

Gresham Harkless 14:32

Now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO.

We're hoping to have different quote unquote CEOs on the show. So Rob, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Rob Braiman 14:43

Chief Executive Officer is the leader, he is the true visionary, and I have to be fair, I take that back, she or he is the true visionary of any organization.

The CEO is the developer, he or she is the visionary, he or she is the governance that occurs within the organization.

The CEO is responsible for the health and welfare, financially and operationally, of that organization.

Gresham Harkless 15:11

Absolutely. No, that's a definitely a great reminder. And, I appreciate you for taking some time out.

What I wanted to do was pass you the mic just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know.

And then how best they can find out about all the awesome things that you're doing.

Rob Braiman 15:25

My greatest hope we, we do a discovery process and that's not binding people to consulting.

But I haven't basically rolled out a discovery process that is a two to five day event, depending on the size and scope of the company that we do between 12 and $2,400 on behalf of our clients.

So it's an amazing investment. And that's my selfish plug about Cogent Analytics, www.cogentanalytics.com.

Gresham Harkless 15:52

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Rob. I appreciate that. I appreciate you for pulling us out of our forest a little bit today. And, I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Rob Braiman 16:03

Gresh, I greatly appreciate taking me, having me on your show today and taking me through this journey with you. So thank you very kindly.

Outro 16:10

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNation.co. Also, check out our I Am CEO Facebook group. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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