In this episode of "Hello Chaos," I had the pleasure of speaking with Guillermo Avila, founder of 365 Digital Technologies. Guillermo shared his entrepreneurial journey, which began with a unique birthday gift from a friend—a free LLC. This gesture of faith inspired him to start his own consulting business, driven by a desire to address ethical issues he observed in the consulting industry. Throughout our conversation, Guillermo highlighted the importance of providing value-added services to clients and maintaining ethical standards. He shared the rewarding aspects of his work, particularly the satisfaction of turning around struggling projects for his clients. We delved into the challenges of being a business owner, including the common misconception that entrepreneurs can take unlimited time off. Guillermo emphasized the heavy responsibility of ensuring his team is well-supported and the business continues to thrive, even when he's not directly involved. One of Guillermo's significant insights was the importance of hiring for cultural fit over technical skills. He learned the hard way that technical proficiency alone isn't enough if an employee doesn't mesh well with the team or clients. This shift in hiring strategy has been crucial for maintaining a positive and productive work environment. Guillermo also discussed his plans for the future, including reducing his direct consulting work to focus more on his role as CEO. This transition is part of a broader strategy to scale his business and take on larger projects, including federal contracts through the 8a certification program. We also touched on the value of the Minority Business Accelerator (MBA) program, which Guillermo found incredibly beneficial. The program provided him with valuable insights into financial management and pricing strategies, boosting his confidence to compete with larger firms. Overall, this episode was a deep dive into the realities of entrepreneurship, the importance of ethical consulting, and the strategies for scaling a business while maintaining a strong company culture. Guillermo's journey is a testament to the power of faith, perseverance, and continuous learning in the entrepreneurial world.
Jennifer Sutton: I love our jingle. Welcome to Hello Chaos, a weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic minds and lives of founders, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Every week, we talk to founders from different industries at different company stages. levels, sizes, you know, the gambit. We run the gambit of those founder stories and we hear all the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's why our mantra is where aha meets oh shit. We drop new episodes every Sunday. Founders tune in to us for tips, insights, and strategies on growing their own business or really ways to be better owners and leaders. HelloCast is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That's OrangeWIP, W-I-P for work in progress. OrangeWIP is a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities. We've designed hyper-local media platforms that inform, inspire, and create connections to help founders succeed. Our hyperlocal media platforms are an all-in-one content hub with fresh and engaging stories, curated local calendars, and local dynamic roadmaps to help founders navigate their local entrepreneurial ecosystem. We've done all the hard work for founders, so they only need to go to one trusted place to find the local information they need. We're in three markets today in South Carolina, moving to expand into other cities. Every city needs an OrangeWIP to help be the connective tissue of that entrepreneurial ecosystem. My name is Jennifer Sutton. My friends and family call me JJ. I'm the founder of OrangeWIP and will be your host today. And I'm excited to have Guillermo Avila. with 365 Digital Technologies. And Guillermo, if I butchered your last name, please correct me. But you're welcome. Did I? OK, but you say it. You say it with the with the lovely accents that you love. Guillermo Avila. There you go.
Guillermo Avila: Good job.
Jennifer Sutton: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I should be better. My sister-in-law is Chilean. If she heard this, she'd be like, Jennifer, you know better. But welcome to Hello Chaos and to the chaos. We're excited that you're joining us today. So just start us out. We'll just like, you know, hit us with your entrepreneurial journey. How did you become a founder of your own business?
Guillermo Avila: So, you know, I was just thinking about it this week because there's, um, I was making some updates to some literature we had and, There's the story that I remember. And then there's the way it actually started. And that is, I had someone who had enough faith in me to offer me, he's an attorney friend of mine, who for my birthday offered me a free LLC. That was his gift certificate. He said, and I got it hanging on my wall. And he says, on the gift certificate, I have faith in you. And that's how it started. And so my birthday was in March. And in May of that same year, just a couple months after I took the plunge and said, you know, there's all of these things that I've always wanted to fix in consulting. And I was doing it for everyone else. And I wanted to do it on my own. And so because of that, that certificate he gave me and some faith that I borrowed from him, I started the journey.
Jennifer Sutton: It's been 365 digital technologies from the start or did you have to pivot, do other things?
Guillermo Avila: No, it has been 365 digital technologies the entire time.
Jennifer Sutton: Fantastic. You said that you saw the gap in the marketplace. What was the gap that you saw that you're like, I see a fit for me, I can do things better? What was the problem you were solving?
Guillermo Avila: You know, when I, when I looked in the consulting channels, and I work for a lot of large consulting companies, part of the, part of what I was having a problem with was the ethics part of it. And so there were a lot of times when there wasn't enough work to do for a client. And your, your manager, their manager, two levels up is saying, figure out work to do and get a build. And so now you're coming up with work that's not value-added to the client. They don't need it done. You're, you're just making up things in order to, to build. And you're not providing a value service. And in a sense, it's unethical what you're doing, because it's not even work that the client really needs done. Right.
Jennifer Sutton: It's not moving their business forward.
Guillermo Avila: Right? Absolutely not. And I started to look at that model saying, I think if I came out of that, and I took a different approach, I think we could actually make a value-added for the client in the end. And that's what we decided to do.
Jennifer Sutton: What's been the most rewarding aspect of your journey and starting your business?
Guillermo Avila: I totally, for me, it's, it's when we take a client who has, their projects are upside down. And we walk in, and within a few months, we're able to get them back on track. That's That's like the high of the business.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. Yeah. I tell people that all the time. I'm like, you know, with the, on the bright marketing is our, you know, is our sister company. And when people ask me the same thing, I'm like, Oh, no, it's, we're solving a problem where we put calm, it's like, we put calm to the chaos. Because, you know, we work in, in the complexities and how do we simplify that? So I love that. What's the, what do you think now that you, so how long have you been running your business?
Guillermo Avila: So this May was five years for us.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh, big milestone. Did you, did you do a celebration? I think as founders, we forget, we forget to celebrate these little wins.
Guillermo Avila: We forget to celebrate. And it's funny because my, my wife, who's a huge part of our business came into my office. And she's like, five years. She goes, Did you know that most businesses fail like in the first couple of years? And I was like, Yeah, I didn't know that. And I'm like, I thought you knew that. She's like, I probably would have like been kind of worried had I known that, right? Because it is tough. It is a tough couple of years. And a lot of people talk about starting their own business. But until you actually get in there and do it, You start to realize that sink or swim.
Jennifer Sutton: It's a whole different ballgame. And I'm going to ask you a question. I'm going to see if you've got a good opinion on this, but it's also, it's not just about starting your business for like getting you a gig, right? Just filling, you know, replacing us like a paid salary with something, but to actually start a business where you're taking risks, not on yourself, but you're bringing other people on board. So you're taking risk on other people and then developing the team and the culture and really building a brand and a company. It's a completely different mindset.
Guillermo Avila: And it is way and the burden is heavy. know, when you're working for a company, your whole mindset is, you know, even if things slow down, they're always going to keep me right. You know, that's kind of your mindset. And that's not always the case. And then when you become a business owner, you realize, you know, I've got eight, nine people who are, they're relying on me to help pay their mortgage to put their kids through school. But it's a, when you start to realize the the, the amount of faith that those employees have in you, too, that to succeed, you start to realize that it's not so much of a burden, but it's, it's a way that we get to complement our team by being able to provide a living that they do a great job in. And it's something that we get to add back to our client.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. So what do you think is the biggest misconception people have or a myth about being a founder or a business owner? And how would you debunk it?
Guillermo Avila: The biggest one, and Jennifer, I'm sure you've heard this one. You're a business owner and people who have never had a business are like, you can take all the time off that you want. you want to go on vacation for four weeks, go on vacation." And, you know, it's like, listen, if I'm not working, we're not billing. Like, someone has to pay for a lot of these things that we have as a company. And while the plan is that I don't have to consult as much, the reality is, I'm still in it. I'm in the weeds. You know, and I think that's one of the things I hear a lot is, oh, you can make your own schedule, you make your own time. And you can take as much time off as you want. And I'm always like, you know, my customer sets my time. So if I've got a customer in California, guess what? I'm working, you know, till eight, nine o'clock that night. Right now, I've got a customer in Germany, we got to wake up at four or five in the morning to get them taken care of. So it's, it's a really big misconception in terms of being able to have such a lax schedule when you're a business
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, I was just like, the reason I was pointing over at Chandler, our producer, because he, we were just talking about this, was it yesterday or the day before? Because I'm going to see my niece in San Francisco on Friday. She's graduating from high school and I'm representing my family, you know, to help go see my brother. But I'm working remotely. But, you know, and I'm trying to coordinate going, I've got to reschedule this, reschedule that. And Chandler's like, I bet this is a big, like, this is a conversation you have on the podcast with other founders of, it is that big myth of, you can just take off. And it's like, no, you, you've got to, you still have to align your, like, I could work remotely, but I'm still working. Like, I still got to take the meetings, I've got to work around my schedule. And if I, if I have that travel time of that four or five hours where I'm off, that's got to be made up somewhere right. I mean like it's not like I mean yes it's important to like take that time to kind of dial out but yeah I mean when your workload is full and you and you I think you and I are probably in the same boat of where we're running a business but we also wear functional I call functional lead hats where we're still work, doing part of the work, not as much. They're either team members, but we're still performing some work. That somebody's like, I don't want to be a bottleneck to somebody else. I don't want to hold anybody else up. I need to make sure our clients are getting what they need. And, and, you know, you get, you know, if I'm out for four or five hours, that time's gonna, it's gonna come at night or on the weekend.
Guillermo Avila: Oh, absolutely. And you know, the funny thing is, and I'm sure you run into this too, Jennifer, is you let client A, B and C know you're going on vacation. And their response generally is, Oh, that's great. You need it, but you're accessible, right? So I can get ahold of you if I need you, right? Like that's usually how it's followed by. And that's why I think people don't understand that while I do everything I can to protect my people's PTO, That's just being a business owner is accessible to keep moving the company forward.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. And I get it more of like, I'm still accessible to the team too, because a lot of, you know, a lot of my, um, I think focus too, is not helping to make sure that the clients are, are getting the work, but I'm trying to work in behind the scenes. and coaching, providing kind of direction, good feedback to go, how do we keep the projects moving, but also how are we keeping our people moving forward, which is, to me, that's one of the most rewarding parts, but, you know, to see young people or, and blossom and start to learn and love the same the same, I guess, industry? Yeah, yeah.
Guillermo Avila: That's awesome. You know, and something else that we, that we run into when it comes to this misperception, and it's just, I think it's, it's part of the attitude that you have to be as an entrepreneur and running a small business is, we, and I'm sure, Jennifer, this doesn't happen with you at all, is we kind of have control issues. So, you know, the idea that I got to have, I got to have my hand in everything. And we have these control issues, because there's so much at stake when it runs to our business. When it comes to it, we just want to make sure everything is going to be fine when we leave. And we do have control issues, because Without that control, we feel like it's going to slip away. And so I think our first tendency is to always want to have control, even though we've got great people in place that can go ahead and run that.
Jennifer Sutton: Well, it's interesting you say that. So that's, and I'm gonna ask you, you're one of your aha moments. But over my journey, it was about, I was what, I just hit my 10-year for Bright. And one of my breakthrough moments was, I did delegate and empower people on the team and let Like I said, here's our service, here's our macro level of prospect, here's the expectation of delivery. But I did not micro down those SOPs and those processes and play oversight enough where I let people have too much control. Or I would say, I let go too much and trusted too much and I got burned, burned, burned, burned. But it also taught me, I was like, okay, for me to be able to scale and grow, I got to put the full processes in place down from macro to micro. But I have to put guardrails up that protect the company. and protect the clients from people that just, literally these were, it wasn't anything nefarious, it was just lack of professionalism and a little bit of capacity of knowledge. But we didn't put enough, I think, those guardrails in place to protect everybody. And it hurt the company. But you rebuild, you pivot, you learn, and you move on. I've been in the dip, and you're coming out of it. But now I have more control issues. Now I'm like, Whoa, OK, let's think about this. I don't want, because I don't want to go back into what we, the mistakes that we made, you know. So now I am having a bit of a control issue. But it's, it's more of like, let's think through the, let's do the thinking up front. So when we release, it's good. But we put a little bit more, I call them guardrails, but they're, maybe they're control protections in the early stages of, of any, any process or any kind of kickoff. And, and, but yeah, it's helped. And, and things are working. We're able to identify friction way earlier and then course-correct, whether it's education, educating people or, or creating a process that fills that gap, which has been amazing in my opinion. But yeah, that was my, that was one of my ahas. What's one of your biggest like breakthrough moments that really made a significant impact on your business?
Guillermo Avila: So it's actually the, the opposite of yours. So for me, it's not giving up enough trust to the people that I've got on my team. And I just feel like I've got to be in the weeds with everything. And I've got some incredible talent on my team. And I just needed to start letting them run some things because they, they've got the experience. they've got the talent. I think one of the things that I learned through this process was, you'll never be able to hire another version of you at 100%. But you can hire people that are 70 to 80% of the way there. And that's what I learned. And so I need to, I can fill in the gap of that 20%. But I need to, I needed to be able to trust my folks to run at the 70-80% that they could be trusted with. And That took time. But when I've done it, they've done fantastic. But there are, like what you said, there are those guardrails. There are conversations that I don't want them to have without me. I do all the quotes for the company. That's something that I won't release to somebody else, right? I, I still have guardrails of what I think I need to manage in the company.
Jennifer Sutton: But
Guillermo Avila: I'd let my people do what they do best, but I also have that protected where I'm still involved and I know exactly what's going on within their project.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. And, you know, and as, as, as we grow the businesses and stuff, there's, there's software and dashboards and other things and like the, the checks that allow you to kind of step away more and more and more. So, you know, I'm excited for your growth and your growth journey. So how did you deal or how do you deal with stress and big challenges? Okay, you're like, oh my God, did you lose people because you weren't trusting them? I mean, like, how was your, what was that aha moment? Like, how did you know I've got to do something different? Was it big, just overload stress on yourself? Or did you have turnover of your people? And that was like, crap, I'm losing good people.
Guillermo Avila: So the, the defining moment, which was kind of cool, there was, I didn't have any turnover. And it was, one of my junior consultants and one of my seniors ended up coming in for me. But my, my wife and I had planned a trip to France and Italy for a year. And we had to move our go-live date of a project that landed on the week that we were in Europe, right? And so I'm like, OK, I can't, I can't spend 3 days in Europe. My wife would kill me. So I, I leaned in on my No. 2 and on one of the junior guys to stand in for me while we went live. I would dial in every once in a while just to hear how the calls were, and I realized everything was fine. my No. 2, who, who stands in for me quite a bit, and great senior consultant. He had control of everything. And I didn't need to worry about it. And there was, everything went over fantastic. There were no issues. And it was a flawless delivery. And we went live. And I didn't need to insert myself to make that happen. So the team just kind of prodded me a little bit to say, You see,
Jennifer Sutton: We got it. We got your back, dude. We're OK.
Guillermo Avila: Yeah, we got it. And they would remind me, Listen, we're OK. Like, just, just let us run with it. And, and, you know, go enjoy your vacation. And we did. And my team was able to take over for all of the stuff that we had for this project.
Jennifer Sutton: That's fantastic. Now it's just like, it's baby steps. We got to crawl, then we got to walk before we can run, right? So Kay, on the flip side, what was your biggest like, oh, shit moment? What have I done?
Guillermo Avila: Have you had one of those yet? Oh, yes. And I think part of that is, you know, I think when you're, when you're starting a business, and you're starting to get more business, part of what you realize is, Okay, I need more bodies. I can't do this by myself. And so you have to kind of shift your thinking and what I learned was you need to hire to culture before you hire to talent. That was a big one. And I can teach you all the things you may not know about project consulting, but I really can't teach you how to get along with people.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right.
Guillermo Avila: So part of what I learned with the hard way is, you know, there are some great senior project managers that we could bring in on the team who had, um, they sandpaper.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh, yes, absolutely. They're sandpaper.
Guillermo Avila: They were sandpaper. And, and you would simply say, listen, this isn't working out like you're on your technically, you are proficient at what you do, but you can't talk to people the way that you do when you're in a room. Our job is to really listen. And so, We ended up shifting gears where early on, I was looking at bodies to fill for projects. And now what we've done is it slows our hiring process. But I want to make sure you're going to fit in with the culture that we're trying to build here. And even if you're not at 100% of what I need, I can train that into you. But I need to make sure that you're going to get along with my clients. you're going to get along with the team, you're going to get along with me, that we're going to have, we're going to be cohesive as a team. And it's not going to be divisive. And I don't want anyone on my team to stress each other out. So that's where we had the shift, because early on, you're just finding bodies.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. And so important. I mean, I cannot I cannot stress this enough. And I talk to founders about this all the time and I've experienced it. I mean, that's what that was some of my lowest of the low of we were you know, we were hiring based on resumes and skills. And it's like they you know, we thought they would work out because, yeah, they were kind on the surface. But when you really put people under, I call it the heat lamp or, you know, a client pressure, it's amazing what to, to see how people react when pressure is on. And that really brings out the true, you know, the true personality of, are they going to fit? Are there, you know, we say we don't need EECA. I mean, so we had to like, we had a big turnover. right after COVID and kept having, because we were like, we were hiring too fast. We were just trying to fill bodies and not thinking and not like going, who do we, these people are damaging our culture. And, you know, we said, if like, look, if they're toxic and sandpaper in, you know, and our team feels it, guarantee it's going to bleed out to our client. in some way. So yeah, I, you know, and I've talked to founders like we're really in the people business, especially kind of businesses like our where we're, you know, we're service based businesses. We're in the people business to help kind of uncover and listen to clients and their needs. And, and a part of that is the psychology of like managing expectations. But then the team side of, you know, you're, you're, like you said, you're trying to hire people to go look, I can teach on skillset. I cannot teach people to be a natural listener and a natural giver and, and be a team player and a collaborator. Absolutely.
Guillermo Avila: And one thing, I think, on top of that, too, Jennifer, and for other founders out there, you know, this is really important for you is I think the lessons learned for me is understanding that you need to look at your employees and understand those guys are walking billboards of your brand.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. They've got to represent. I was just going to say that to you, like when you were talking about, are they going to get along with our team? Are they going to fit with our clients? I was like, they're representing you. They're representing your company. And it's got, it's got to be the right fit both sides. And, and yeah, we slowed down our, just like you, we slowed down our hiring process. We hire so slow. We put in all these, just more steps to get to uncover, have conversations with people to really get to know them, for them to get to know us. Because what I also don't want to have, and I'm sure you don't either, people come onto your team and then they get a surprise of like 30 days in of, this is what this job is? And it's like, did I not describe it? You saw the job description. And, but yeah, I think what we've learned is we've got to be more storytelling and give people examples of what, what should they expect. Is that right? It shows like, I'm going to look to channel, because He's been through the onboarding of, he's like, No, I'm glad that you said some things. Now I see why you're saying things, of why you said it during the interview process, of, it's all kind of, it's, it's coming 360 for him. But that's, you know, that's part of our job of hiring the right people, building a culture, building a team. And, and it's, you know, running a business is not just about being great at your craft.
Guillermo Avila: Yeah, I mean, there's a whole people component in there. I mean, for especially for our business, it's, it's a heated, stressful environment. And about probably 90% of our business are all what we call rescue projects. And yeah, so by the time we get involved, our some of our clients could have already lost millions. We're coming into a very stressful, you're in a fix it, you're in. We are, we are. And you know, we, one of the first things that we train up, you know, any newer consultants who aren't seasoned, we say, you know, when, when you have a CFO or a CEO, who is in a heated discussion with you, remember, don't take it personal. They're not mad at you. They're mad at the situation that got them there. And, you know, now we're at the point, we've had to come in to fix this. And, you know, they're, they're out a countless amount of money. And so it's heated. And so we need to have a certain temperament for our folks coming in. And that temperament is calm, cool, collective.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. And you're kind of like, I'm assuming you're kind of taking the client's hand and kind of like, hey, we're walking with you. Because I'm also sure the CEO or the CFO, yeah, they're mad because they're out, you know, money. It's hard dollars. And, and it's also technical, which gives people anxiety anyway, because it's not, it's difficult to kind of look under the hood to know what you're looking at, how to connect the dot, how to do a diagnose, you know, the diagnostics. And, and they're probably mad at themselves, too, a little bit. They don't want to admit it, but they're probably a lot of that anger. is they're taking it out on you guys because it's truly, they're mad at themselves for getting them the company and the situation they did, whether it was a bad hire internally or they outsourced it to the wrong people.
Guillermo Avila: That's exactly right. And in some cases, Jennifer, one of the things that they have to start looking inward, which is tough for them, is when we end up doing our audits and we uncover you guys had the opportunity to do some things differently. But you chose to do it on the cheap side.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah.
Guillermo Avila: And that cheapness of what could have saved you millions of dollars by bringing in a separate consultant. You know, maybe it's 150,000 for the cost of that person. Now it's cost you millions by not bringing that person on because you wanted to save a few
Jennifer Sutton: Right.
Guillermo Avila: That's a lot of what we find.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. Those are. So how have you handled some of those uncomfortable? Do you have any, like, magic tips of the secret sauce of, like, how do you calm somebody as you're giving them those, that kind of news?
Guillermo Avila: You know, it's, it's funny, because when, when I've had to sit in front of the C-level suite, I don't, I don't linger on the bad news. Instead, I go straight to this is the action plan. And so generally when we bring the news, and I tell any, we've got some interns that work for us, and one of the things we tell them is, you don't ever deliver bad news without having an action plan.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh, yeah.
Guillermo Avila: You go in there and you deliver bad news. They say, OK, so how do we get out of this? I don't know.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh, that's the worst. We tell them, we tell that with just our employees of like, don't come to me with, you know, hey, I found this problem where I'm in a wall. You better be backing that up with. And here's what I suggest that we do. I mean, I think that's just good teaching. anything for anybody in any role and seat in a company. I'm going to ask you, what do you think I'd be the most surprised, our listeners, what do you think we'd be most surprised to find out about you that's not on LinkedIn, it's not on your bio or anything, but something that people would be surprised to learn about you?
Guillermo Avila: I don't know that I have anything people would be, the one thing that usually takes the air out of the room is when we introduce ourselves to my wife and I will, you know, meet maybe a new couple and we're going out and they're like, Hey, we got two kids. And we're like, we have six, five girls and one boy. And they're like, Oh, like, you know, it's like, how do you survive? And we're like, well, my hair before all the kids was jet black. And This is the remnants of that now. You know, and I think it's just, I think, I think folks have a hard time trying to figure out how in the world you manage 6 kids under one roof. But that's how we got into project management was because of what the effort was to raise 6 kids.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. You're just dealing with logistics on a daily basis. That's it. I've got four kids. Now my kids are a little spread out. I've got, I call it, I've got two and two. So I took a long hiatus while thinking, we're done after the first two. And then it was like, oh crap, I got pregnant again. This third one, he's kind of hanging out here by himself. He needs to have a friend. So that's kind of how our four came about. But what are, what are the age span of your kids?
Guillermo Avila: So I, you would ask me that. So it's, it's 27 all the way down to 19, I think, with 2 years in between.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh, my gosh. So you like, boom, boom. Any twins?
Guillermo Avila: No, no. But this is what's so crazy, though, is my daughter has twins. So, you know, I don't know where those came from. But yeah, we, we had them spaced out two years in between.
Jennifer Sutton: And, and you just knocked that out. Yeah, we did. Mine are 23 to 13. That's my, that's my span. But, uh, But yes, when you have to do carpool at the time, you know, or like picking up from school and you're doing, we were at like four different drop-offs at one time. I mean, like massive project management or, I call it calendaring. I put all six of us on one calendar when they were all under the roof. Doctor's appointments, whatever, the school calendars, and then working, you know, all the client stuff. You just become a master of organization and structure.
Guillermo Avila: Oh yeah. And then when you start throwing in everything with the sports programs, forget it.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. That's what I'm saying. It's like all that was like on one calendar, just trying to manage all that. Um, six kids. That's well, congratulations. It looks like, it's like they're almost all out of the house though. Right?
Guillermo Avila: Almost. We're close.
Jennifer Sutton: We got the payroll. Get them off the payroll.
Guillermo Avila: That's right. That's right.
Jennifer Sutton: OK, if you could pick two things to change about your business today, what would you choose to change and why?
Guillermo Avila: Well, the first one, I know we have to change, and it's something that we're making good progress on, is the first thing is I can't be the sole person to go out and find new business. And so one of the things that we're looking on is onboarding a business development person. We're, we're, we're very close to being able to get 8a certified so we can start bidding on federal contracts. And so we need someone to be able to help us facilitate a a lot of those meetings with the federal agencies and drive a lot.
Jennifer Sutton: That's a lot of work. So for listeners that don't understand what, so describe what 8a certification is, because it's one, it's complex and it's difficult to get to, but you have to be really strategic When you get because it's only a limited time, right? It's like is it three years seven years? What is it that you get and so you've got to take advantage of that time frame?
Guillermo Avila: And be but the floodgates can open but but explain what a day is for for listeners you bet so the a day program is is basically a program that the federal government uses that allows agencies to uh to set aside a certain amount of money that they that generally would go to very large construction companies, very large consulting companies. And they said, we're going to set money aside for small minority owned businesses who can't penetrate this kind of market. You know, so you've got maybe some small builders out there who can't compete against, you know, a floor, right. And so now what the government says is we're going to give, you know, maybe 10%, 15%, which doesn't sound like a whole lot. But when you're talking billions of dollars, suddenly, that's generation of revenue there. So we've been at this thing, it's very complicated. I want to say that we've, it's almost been a year process for us, where from the time you finish your application, it keeps going back and forth. Add this, add this, add this, can you edit this line? I mean, it is, we're at the tail end of that process now. But what we're hoping to do is get into some agencies where we we can start getting some other larger programs on track. I wrote a LinkedIn article about this a week or so ago, where we talked about one of the big debacles in project management on the tech side was when the healthcare site was spun up and didn't work. You look at all these different agencies couldn't collaborate with each other. And so, we wanna be able to bring a lot more success on those type of programs. So we're trying to get in you know, we're at the tail end of that now. And so I'm really hopeful. And that's one of the first things we knew. We knew we were going to have to bring someone in to focus on developing those relationships. So I could continue to try to bring in more talent, grow the commercial side. But we needed someone that would focus on, on the government side.
Jennifer Sutton: That's fantastic. What's the other thing you would choose to change?
Guillermo Avila: I've got to get out of consulting 100%. You know, I got to limit myself to maybe 20% with maybe more high profile, maybe more emergency type cases, but I need to stop consulting at 100% and become a CEO. And I need to start leading from the front instead of being in the weeds and consulting with everyone else. And that's the I've got a five-year plan to do that. And so I'm getting into that, beginning part of that. But it's, it's, it's tough, because I enjoy getting in there. And it's, you know, I had to make a decision of, you know, do I, do I consult and not be a CEO? Or do I become a CEO and consult less? And that's the path I'm trying to go down.
Jennifer Sutton: So what was the, when you asked yourself that question, which is by the way, every founder, or if you think you want to start a business and you're kind of working in your craft solo, you know, solopreneur, that is a question you need to ask yourself early on of where, what's my vision for this business? Is this a lifestyle, you know, or is this something I'm trying to grow and scale to either exit give to you know a legacy you know my kids or You know what or do I grow it enough just to sell it to my employees But you know to do that you've got to ask her like am I in the weeds or am I gonna be a CEO? what was like what went through your head of like the criteria or the factors of I think I want to be a CEO what was What was that, I don't know, decision process for you?
Guillermo Avila: I think for me, it's, I want to grow this company. And we're already consulting on a national level. And I want to continue to grow and add a lot more consultants. But one of the realities that I have a coach with, with the chamber, I'm doing a program called MBA, which is Minority Business Accelerator. And one of the things that my coaches said that I had to really take to heart was, it's okay, Guillermo, for you to want to be in the weeds. And you can do that. And there's nothing wrong with that. You can continue to consult, but your business will max out, you'll never be able to grow it past that because there's only so many hours in the day. Now, if you're going to act like a CEO, what you're going to do is you're going to hire 10 versions of yourself. And you're going to maximize their time maximize your revenues because you're going to be directed towards getting new business, hiring people, growth, be strategic. I can't do all those things if I'm always in the weeds. That five-year plan is every year trying to take that percentage off of me consulting and simply giving it to another person I need to bring on board to another existing consultant.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, because as you find, as you start scaling that, you're going to be really not consulting directly to the clients. You're going to be coaching your people and nurturing them. So it's just a, you know, a shift in your, in the time and energy of and where you're putting it. But I think that's fantastic. What, I mean, I know that you did the Minority Business Accelerator and that program. Has that been a valuable resource? What has been your like biggest lesson, your aha moments from that program?
Guillermo Avila: Oh, man. I didn't know what to expect, really, when I walked into the program. And I thought, you know, maybe we'll get some foundational things and maybe it's very generic. Honestly, Jennifer, I I say this in all honesty that this, the MBA program that the chamber puts together is probably better than any of the classes I took for grad school. Absolutely incredible. They put you in with coaches who have your best interest at heart. They want you to succeed. They want you to do better. I would say the biggest thing that I would probably add as an aha moment that came out of the the, the MBA class for, with the chamber is understanding how to read my books the proper way. And that's one of the things I think all of us that are going through the program, like we, you know, we wanted to make it very simplistic. And what our coaches would say is there are some key indicators of the growth of your business. And there are things that you need to give yourself some credit on. And though that was huge for us, it was a, it was a huge eye-opener for all of us as business owners to say, You're probably undercharging and you need to charge more. You have a skill set. And I'll tell you, I mean, honestly, Jennifer, this has been like for the past month or so, a big one for me is my competitors bill at twice the rate that I do. And I lost a bid because I didn't bill, I wasn't asking enough.
Jennifer Sutton: Like I was, so they were like, Oh, you're too low. Something must be wrong.
Guillermo Avila: Something must be wrong. And so I remember going to class that Monday, and I said, I lost a bid because I didn't my bid was too low. And the guy who won was one of the largest. That's what you and that's. And I remember my coach saying, you're thinking like a small guy, you have the expertise of all the large players out there. Now go out and feel like they do. And so we adjusted our pricing scale. And now we're, we're going to start putting in bids with our new with our new pricing scheme. And you know, part of that is having enough faith that my group knows exactly what they need to do when we go into these rescues. And it's usually for the firms that are charging twice the amount that we are. And we're coming in rescuing those guys. And so we need to come in with that level of confidence that our price target is fair. But it's with a level of confidence that we can fix the problem and don't underbid just to have the business because we
Jennifer Sutton: We're not begging for business. That's right. That's right. You provide a value. I think that's, you know, those, the MBA, and I was a, you know, I was a graduate of that, that program in 2018. And I think that's what it gave me was just a level of confidence of, um, the, the lens and the introspection, um, that the program forces you to have on your own business, but then teaching you some of the, the, just the fundamental, the basics that, Nobody teaches you that in any kind of grad school because it's, you're getting an MBA on your business. Like you're opening, I call it, you're opening all the crevices and you're going, how do I, you know, all these eyeballs on your business. But, but it tells us like, man, I'm doing a lot of stuff right, but here's 20 or 30 percent I really need to do better. to be able to scale with, with, I think, more ease and more confidence and, and think bigger, which is, which I, you know, any of those type of programs, but I think the MBA, the chamber, because of the way they've structured it with the coaches. And, and I think the, you guys are in like little CEO peer groups too, the community. Those, those, those networking and those relationships are invaluable. Like, crazy. I mean, I still tap into the community all the time.
Guillermo Avila: It is huge. I mean, if any of the listeners have never looked at a program like that, I would highly encourage you to do it. It is well worth your time. And it will teach you things about your business that if you're simply just, if you're deciding to cowboy the whole thing on your own, you're going to have some eye-opening experiences when you realize there's some things in your business that you haven't ever looked at, and you need to. It's going to be critical to your growth. And that's the one thing I think I've learned for myself is there were some things that we didn't look at because we didn't know to look at it.
Jennifer Sutton: Right, right.
Guillermo Avila: Now that our coaches have coached us to do that, it's part of what we do every month now.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. So good. Valuable, valuable advice. All right. So one last or a couple last questions. What advice were you given? I mean, I know you've given some fantastic tips and tricks throughout this conversation, but is there anything that you received or heard from another founder or a coach that you were like, you immediately incorporated into your business? And whether it was like a business tip or it could have been more of a, you know, leadership tip, coaching, but is there anything else you'd, you know, you really took in?
Guillermo Avila: Yeah, I think the one that that's happened here recently is don't feel afraid or ashamed to carry yourself like a CEO. You know, I think when you walk into a room and you're a small business owner and you're rubbing elbows with CEOs of firms that are huge, the tendency is to go in there and go, I can't compete with these guys. And I think what one of the things that my coaches have been like, Nope, you're just on par with these guys. You may be a smaller company, but you have every bit of skill set. So when you walk in, you walk in with a level of confidence of being a CEO.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh, my gosh, that's amazing advice. I need to take that to heart. I need to do that. But you're right. I think a lot of times because we're we're smaller businesses trying to scale, we sometimes walk in the room and feel and feel small. And it's just that we need to have the confidence of we're just small today. We're not going to be small tomorrow.
Guillermo Avila: Absolutely. And, you know, when I think about the kind of rooms I'm walking into and I need to have that level of confidence is that I'm going in rescuing sizable projects that some of these consulting firms have caused the problems for.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, they've already cost them millions. Right.
Guillermo Avila: So when I walk in, I'm a CEO that's, I'll tell you the biggest compliment I've gotten so far, and I, I, I'm not making this up. It's one of the biggest compliments that I've ever gotten. I got on a call with, with a software company. And I had rescued one of their projects, one of their clients projects that use their product. And I'm on a call with them. And they were looking at using my team to help them with a different rescue, not knowing I've done these other rescues. And as we were talking, the guy who's really high up says, Oh, wait a minute, you're that guy. And I realized, I am that guy. I'm the guy who helped save some of their clients and, and was able to get them to use their product in a great way. And so when I'm able to make a name like that for myself, I can walk in high on any of these conferences that I go to and not worry that I'm a small business owner. I'm a CEO.
Jennifer Sutton: And you're that, and you're that guy.
Guillermo Avila: And I'm that guy. And when I think about that, I always have to remind myself, and my wife will remind me, you're that guy. You're that guy. Don't forget, you're that guy. And they recognized you as that guy.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. Oh, I hope you, again, that's a, that's a little mini win. You need to celebrate that. Make t-shirts for your team. Like, we're that guy. We're it. That's right. All right, last question, and it's my favorite one. If you had to sum up your entire founder journey in just one word, what would that word be and why?
Guillermo Avila: It's the only word I can think of because I use it in sentences, but it's the one word I'll stick with is crazy.
Jennifer Sutton: Crazy. Why crazy?
Guillermo Avila: I think when I look at my background in terms of, you know, growing up in a, in a, in a very poor home, the background of, you know, just personally that I grew up with, on paper, I should not be the CEO of a company that I started five years ago. It's been a crazy journey. And it's been a journey of understanding that I have the capabilities, And I have a team who backs me up and a team that wants us to succeed. And so when I think of all those things, I think crazy, because it seems like this should really happen to someone else. It shouldn't be happening to us.
Jennifer Sutton: And it's crazy in a great way. That is. Well, congratulations to you. I love that word. So I asked this word of, you know, we've asked 100, you know, and more, and we get a different answer, a different word. And I just love it. I love it. OK, I'm going to give you a little, so, Guillermo, you had your 5-year. I hope that you get your team together, if you haven't already. And you guys need to do a little celebration and tell the stories of that guy. You need to tell them that your word is crazy and why. And you guys just need to, like, pop some champagne or something and do a little, like, we're it. Let's go to the next. Let's go to the next five years. Let's go to, you know, hit that next milestone. I think it's a great plan.
Guillermo Avila: We have our team meeting next week, and I'll definitely do that.
Jennifer Sutton: You need to share both of those stories. You know, I think your team will love it and get to know you better, but also just, you know, to have that, like, man, you're right. We are kicking some butt out here.
Guillermo Avila: Absolutely, we are, yes.
Jennifer Sutton: I work for that guy. Yeah, like none of that. That's right. All right. Well, I appreciated your time. I love this discussion. I hope we can continue it, you know, as we're part of the same community. I'm always amazed at how fast this goes. Like, I'm like, this will be 30 minutes and then we're almost an hour. That's right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Before we leave though, where can people connect with you, get a hold of you? How do you want people to reach out?
Guillermo Avila: Yeah, I think the easiest thing just go to our website, go to 365digitaltech.com and all of our information is on there and how to get a hold of me and I'd love to chat with you.
Jennifer Sutton: Perfect. We will also make sure that we tag that in this episode. So thank you for hanging out and chatting with me. For everyone listening and watching us live, thank you for joining us. This podcast episode will be published this coming Sunday and available on all podcast platforms. So please subscribe to Hello Chaos, like, comment, and share this great content and help us grow and build a more connected entrepreneurial community. HelloCast is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That is OrangeWIP, W-I-P, for work in progress. We are a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities. We are in three markets in South Carolina, looking to expand to other cities, and we are 100% free. We are supported by our sponsors that you will hear from in another cast. Just an email to join our community, One Stop Content Hub for Founders, and we're here for you. If you'd like to be a guest on our podcast or support us, send us an email to hello at orangewhip.com. And y'all, thank you for tuning in to Hello Chaos. It's where aha meets oh shit. I am your host, Jennifer Sutton. JJ, we will see you again next week.