PBBP audio Jan 12 Robby Prochnow [00:00:00] Welcome to the Phoenix Business Brief Podcast. I'm Brian Hyde. Today I'm joined by Robert Proc. Now, although Robbie has ex expressed in an interest that I don't call him Robert, unless of course I'm mad, but I'm not mad, I'm glad you're here with me today. For folks who are meeting you for the first time, um, let's first get a little bit of background on you. Tell us about who you are and what you do, and then we'll talk about, uh, about your company. Yeah, I'm, I'm Robbie at the moment until I get in trouble. Uh, I am a father. I have two wonderful children, ages two and six. Uh, I married my high school sweetheart. Uh, we're still together today. Somehow she tolerates me, so I don't think that'll change anytime soon. Uh, but I've am also the founder of Zen. Just I started that a couple years ago, uh, after a, a four year battle with cancer. Uh, that motivated me to. Stay off the man upstairs, bad list and, you know, say, Hey, am I doing everything I can possible with a second chance at life to make an impact for, uh, [00:01:00] business owners? Uh, I worked in the Fortune 100 space for a long time, a long time where I acquired a lot of awesome skills that I share with, you know, the little guy per se, you know, small, medium business owners, uh, just looking for that competitive edge to, to compete with those big guys. So I saw that as my opportunity to really make a bigger impact with a second chance. And that's. You know what inspired me to found Zen Aegis. I appreciate that. Tell us a little bit about, uh, what Zen Aegis does. Yeah, it's uh, it's a lot of things. Uh. So after my battle with cancer, I was trying to figure out what to do with my life. And I, I think this is the best way to, to explain it for anybody listening in, uh, a chronological step of, you know, really evolution. So, uh, in previous roles I had done market research, interviews, stuff like that, and. Being indecisive after the, the four years I went through, I was like, why don't I just let people tell me what they want me to do? Uh, so I decided to do market research [00:02:00] and figured, Hey, why don't I try to double dip here and, and do it for free for nonprofits, luckily for me, uh, a lot of the nonprofits I spoke to wanted to understand how to improve relationships with. Businesses. Um, it was a huge area that they saw of opportunity, especially philanthropic minded ones. Uh, so I started off on, you know, my venture of completing this market research, uh, reaching out to nonprofit leaders and really, um, to fast forward, gathered a lot of information from them about how they wanted to, you know, interact with these nonprofits. I shared that, and whenever you offer to do something for free, people are always happy to ask for more. Um, so when I would, you know, synthesize those results and publish a study, the, the people I spoke to were like, well, what does this mean? What should I do next? So I slowly kind of pulled back by that onion designing, you know, helping them together, strategies, learning where they had fallen short, or how they had been wronged. And essentially I saw this gap between. [00:03:00] Uh, you know, kind of consultants, agencies, coaches, um, and one of my mentors at the time said, well, not everybody's lucky enough to have a Robbie with them. Um, and it kind of all came together for me, one plus one plus one slowly. Um, I slowly put together the puzzle of a. Hey, these nonprofit leaders, small business owners, various walks of people, they don't have a Robbie and they're missing a lot of 'em, a partner, they're so busy being busy doing things that really aren't, as I like to say, their superpower. Um, so essentially what Zenni just does is we partner with business owners, founders, uh, medium sized companies to own specific growth initiatives. And we act as that partner for them. They don't give us equity. We don't ask for a full-time salary. We use our expertise, advanced infrastructure that we built being lucky enough to be, you know, in this AI era to go give them that advantage that they've never had. And, and really, you know, as I [00:04:00] finished my battle with cancer, give them that hope that they've lost that feeling of stuck feeling that they can't compete. Restore that hope and faith in what they do. So we do that through fractional leadership, uh, where we will run marketing or sales or operations or tech, uh, initiatives for them to really help them grow and scale. Now, this, this opens up so many possibilities that it's hard to, to narrow down, okay, which line of questioning do we follow? But since you mentioned ai. Um, let's take a moment to just kind of set the stage here for, um, for people who have been either slow to pay attention or maybe are deliberately ignoring AI because it seems complicated and new and they don't wanna be troubled with it. It's a fact of life. Talk to me about how much things have changed even in just the last couple of years, thanks to the, the advent to, and the regular use of artificial intelligence. Ooh, well that's a, that, that could open a huge can of worms. I, I'd say for the, the basic everyday li listener, I put in this [00:05:00] sense, I, I covered the Dell business a couple years ago and. Ultimately Michael Dell, I got to see speak and he, he said, I want to be the company that puts us outta business in two years. I don't want that other company that puts us outta business. And, and if Michael Dell is scared of it, that some AI startup's gonna take him out, we, I'm not saying we should be scared, we should jump on and try to be that company 'cause he knows that's a possibility. That's really the best way I can say, and, and it evolves every day. Uh, what happened and failed yesterday, tomorrow could succeed. Uh, so you kind of have to constantly be on top of it. And, and what AI has done for me is as I have, you know, I, I'm, I'm, I, I lead with my heart. Uh, it's on my sleeves, you know, people can use that or abuse it, but AI allows me to be scalable so that I can manage many customers at once. Still help execute the tactical, stay accountable, accountable to what I commit to and help more people. And I [00:06:00] look at it that as it's not meant to replace somebody, you know, I specifically talk in my engagements like, Hey, when we use ai, our job is to not put people out of a job. Our job is to maximize their output and happiness. 'cause AI is there, they can feel they can go take a vacation or they can work faster and be with their families more. Uh, so there's so many great. Sayings and tools that, you know, it's not meant to replace people. It's, it's meant to help us be better. And the way I look at it from a very foundational level that might help people is say, how can I use AI today to gimme more time with my wife and family? Um, and if that is ultimately the solution I use to help my business, and that's the outcome I get, you know, that's why we all come to work, have. Families, we have, you know, personal goals. We work to achieve those outcomes. And if AI can help us do that, achieve that four day work week or 20 hours a week, whatever you're looking for, so you get that time in return, that to me is what it's all about. And, and you can only do so much to stay on top, you know, don't get overwhelmed. You know, as you're [00:07:00] doom scrolling through Instagram doom, scroll on a different platform and look at the latest things. I, I'm a big fan of TikTok and I, I actually find a lot of great content. They're like, oh, hey, brand new shiny object. Take five minutes, check it out and move on. If it's not good, just file it away for later. If. I really appreciate your explanation, Robbie, because, uh, I think you've taken a lot of the fear out of ai. Oh, it's gonna take over everything. Everybody's gonna lose their jobs. But you are showing, and I think your company demonstrates that, uh, used properly. It becomes a, a force multiplier that allows you to, to carry a much bigger workload without actually sacrificing the quality of the work that you're doing. Absolutely. Uh, well, well said. It's a, you know, it's a gift and it's a, it's another hammer, right. Um, you know, it's a, it's a tool to create with and achieve that outcome for everybody. And that's, you know, a lot of what I focus on when I go in is provide that leadership because, you know, I use this example and maybe, maybe people will be offended by it, but I'll, I'll go to, I'll go to [00:08:00] basketball since not everybody loves my golf analogy, but, you know, if you were to train a robot to play basketball, I'm pretty good. I'm not Michael Jordan. If Michael Jordan trains the robot how to play basketball, he's gonna be infinitely better than the robot I trained. He'll have a lot of heart. I'll give him that. He's not gonna quit, but he'll still get worked by Michael Jordan's robot. And that's the thing where, you know, I feel I come in handy, is helping those leaders to say, how do I harness this power? To help my business and my people and my team, because it is foreignness. I'm still, and it can be scary. And that's really where I try to focus, you know, not just on my own business and how I use it, but empowering others too. That it's not this thing, like I just want a hoard. I want to teach people as far as my engagements go, and when I finish them, it's. Hey, they're sustainable to go hire somebody full-time or they know how to manage this themselves. I'm not, you know, they can keep me on forever in, in some capacity if they choose, but my goal is to kind of graduate people out of my, my program and the need for [00:09:00] me. Um, and, you know, it's a bittersweet thing, but hopefully that, you know, it's about doing the right thing. I'm gonna paraphrase what I just heard from you, and you correct me if, if I'm hearing this wrong, but it sounds like you, you're taking the approach of, um, good leadership is not about creating the maximum number of followers, it's about creating more leaders who can go out there and lead and, and teach others. Absolutely. And, and I think going back to my comment about being a partner, right? Um, you know, I, I was talking to another owner about this, uh, the other day and I said, when you have a bad day, who do you go to? Um, you know, do you go to your wife? Do you go to a friend? You know, a lot of those people lack, similar to ai, they lack context. Uh, you know, not having somebody to lean on and go to, you know, where you feel you have to solve every problem alone and do everything. Sometimes the impact that I have in just. 30 days is just that people don't feel alone. And, and I think that we're, a lot of people are afraid to have that vulnerable moment and say, Hey, I do need help with somebody who knows what's going on [00:10:00] and, and more importantly knows what's going on, and then can help me go resolve that thing because so many things get left unfinished and then they pile up. So let's, let's talk specifically to the business owner who is wondering, okay, what can Zen Aegis do for me? Give me, give me some examples of ways that you can step forward and, and help. Yeah, absolutely. I, I mean there's a few different avenues there. Uh, you know, one thing that I focus on, you know, to simplify it, because again, as you mentioned, there's so many different ways we could slice this. I think to me it's about that, that outcome that you want to see, you want to get unstuck. Uh, do you feel that, hey, my business is stagnated. We're not growing, we're not differentiating ourselves. I'm worried about being competitive in the future. Um, you know, that's a great candidate for us to, to come in and help and say, Hey, we do a full audit. We tell you, hey, here's your current state. And here's, you know, where we want to take you. The other piece of that is really just differentiating the [00:11:00] business. Um, whether that's AI or building a, you know, sales or marketing or ops practice internally. Um, you know, I find that it's not always a bad thing or not always just stuck and need help. That differentiation point shows up as that growth initiative. What's that one thing, two things that you haven't been able to get yourself out of? Working in the business and on it to take that next step and say, Hey, this is a growth bet that we want to see, but nobody on our team can really have bandwidth to go at it or have the expertise like unlocking ai. Who do we need to come in here and help us get to that next level? Because we're just not at that point yet for that full-time hire. We're really truly investing in somebody that we're not sure of. You know, a lot of people, again, that fear of ai, it's about, you know, kind of alleviating that and having somebody to lead that with the expertise for them. And ultimately those are really what I, I look for and how I can help people. And I think that third pillar a little bit is that that partner, [00:12:00] so many people are afraid they've been burned, they've had these bad experiences, you know, let us come in and help. The model that we have is all about ROI for our clients. Um, you know, we have, we do get paid for our time, but we only get market rate as if we deliver what we say we're gonna do. Turning around a website as a sales prospect, if that's takes a year, you know, and that's not what we committed to. That's tied to our, our package. And you know, that was something I, I developed during kind of the research phase, is I really wanted to have this heightened focus on those I. Results being achieved and very easily, whoever makes this investment can go say, okay, wow, I see this impact here, and they didn't get paid till I got paid. You know, they're not asking me to make this investment because they set up a call. They're asking me to pay this because you know, I made a hundred dollars and I'm giving them 10. I, you know, they'll take that bet every day. And that's, that's really where I, I see, you know, different customer states, obviously you can break it down to saying, Hey, you know, do you wanna [00:13:00] improve your scalability, your profitability, get more revenue? Those are all kind of broad to me. I like to focus on that owner or executive and what they're kind of, that emotional feeling that they have, that something is missing. Because, you know, we have stories around, you know, how we added a ton of cash flow for customers, how we've added new customers when they couldn't do it for years before, how we save people 30 hours plus a week, just revamping processes and you know, stuff like that. So it really depends on that person. But I would say I look at it emotionally 'cause I think we make emotional decisions as. As buyers, you know, fueled by logic, but we make those emotionally, are they feeling those ways? And I think those are where then the conversation begins and we can really scope out and, and discover what that true need is. Talk to me about the difference between what you do and say what a, what a consultant normally does there. It seems there there's a world of difference between your approach and the consultant who, you know, here's your report, I'm outta here. Yeah. It's, [00:14:00] uh, you know, and just, just through the consultant. Population as a whole. I do not have anything bad to say about consultants. I just wanna make that clear so I don't get get attacked anyway. Uh, where I see the gap is that, you know, like I said, there's a few of those practices that the best way I can say for most people is kind of consulting coach and agency. Really. A consultant comes in and they're that specialist, right? I want to deploy Salesforce. I want to. Uh, do some kind of training around our onboarding, whatever it might be. That consultant, you know, is very focused in, and they're a specialist. They're coming in to solve that problem. They want to get Salesforce deployed, functional, listen to your inputs, but that consultant is as good as the inputs you give it. Say, you know, I'm a nonprofit founder, and I was a. Construction GC for 10 years and you know, I had, you know, my son passed away and I started this nonprofit. If I'm working with that [00:15:00] consultant. And I'm trying to direct him on what I need Salesforce to do. It's only as good as I can really regurgitate and explain to that consultant and, and that's not bad. He's not gonna get this terrible outcome. But where I differ is that I'm gonna be in the trenches with them. I'm gonna be in the day-to-day and I'm gonna truly understand. And I'm not that, I mean, I wish my wife wishes I was handy in some way other than technology, but. I'm in the trenches with them and I can translate to that consultant or somebody on my team that's helping with that deployment and, and execution exactly what they needed, that it's truly purpose built, has that domain knowledge completely and not just something, you know. And, and there's always this gap too, of. Here's what the owner, founder, executive team knows, and here's what the day-to-day team knows. And there's usually a gap in there. And some consultants will, will kind of cross that borderline and some won't. Hey, the, the CEO is writing my check. I'm making that guy [00:16:00] happy, right? And, and I'm, and he's not wrong. But that's where I differ a lot, is I understand both and the trenches, the team's view and the executive team's view. And then when I'm working on deploying that solution, I can factor in both. And I'm not just focused on Salesforce, for example. I have a responsibility for the whole ecosystem. I can say, Hey, if I design Salesforce this way, does it help maybe another initiative we're working on, or can we use it to tie in different aspects? So that's where we differ a little bit, where, you know, again, not saying anything bad about consultants. My, my approach takes time and, and effort. Um, not that they're not willing to do that, but it's a little bit different of an approach. Uh, so, you know, it's a lot more holistic from that view. Again, not bashing consultants in any way. That's just how I see those gaps to create. And then they show up later in the business with a lot of the people I talk to. Okay. So I know you, you kinda spelled this out before, but Robbie, I I want to ask you just as we wrap things up here, um, talk to me about how [00:17:00] you define success. So, so Suce success to me is a, a few different levels, and I, I think that a lot of people look at it emotionally. Do I feel better? Do I feel like I have that time back? And that's why I start with that because the emotional side of it is important. Uh, at least in, in, in my view. Do you feel better? Right? Because a lot of people will see numbers on a board, but they won't feel that impact. I think feeling is one of them. Do you feel that you've grown, that you've experienced that change? And you know what I tell people at my hardest day is, the thing that keeps me going is to see that, that smile, that light bulb, that light restoring people. And that's not something that, you know, is on the scoreboard. That's a, a, a transformationally, emotionally and as a person. So that's how I look at success a lot. I I start there. Does that person feel different? Of course success. Defining those, those OKRs, um, objectives and key results that we march towards and say, do we see that needle truly [00:18:00] moving in a meaningful way? Whether that's profitability, time, back revenue, whatever it might be, measuring those results and saying, again, is that feeding that transformation? 'cause did you grow 10%? And you know, it, it wasn't worth it enough for me. So understanding what that looks like and then breaking that down week by week. I look at it quite a bit from that view to say, Hey, here's the key things we want to do each week and progress there, because those OKRs you set could be for a year, and they get really scary, really fast. Um, I know you asked me the, the pronunciation of my team, but a lot of people ask me, what, why is that Aegis, why, why did you pick that name? Uh, a lot of people would tell me that, Hey, you're, you're, you know, tell me how calm I am that I wasn't rattled very easily. And so I came up with Zen and then Aegis, when I first started with nonprofits was a lot of 'em felt I'd stand up for 'em and and protect them. And ultimately for goals, those are really in success. That's really important that hey, they feel that sense of calm, [00:19:00] that they're protected in that way. When you try to bite off and chew that, it really shakes you up. It gets you nervous, you make some bad decisions, and you know, when you get emotional you lose. So those success factors I think are really in that area. And, and the final one, I'll stay before I know we're at time. But it's about the people to me, um, when I started this and, and created the company, like I said, AI isn't there to put people outta jobs. I'm not there to put people outta jobs. And where that, you know, you asked about consultants earlier, that gap of some third party person telling me what to do that doesn't understand my business. And what I do is hard for people, and I saw those initiatives fail because of that. Do the people seem happier? Do they understand the, why do they feel involved in this? So it's not just about the executive team, it's not just about the goals, but I think that third pillar, which is the people, um, are the people happier? Do they feel the impact and the confidence in where the company's going? Once again, we've been visiting with Robbie Proc. Now [00:20:00] he is the founder of Zen Aegis. Um, Robbie, great to visit with you. Um, one final quick question. I know this goes back to after, after your four year battle with cancer. You, you kind of came away with a, with an attitude of, of, uh, you know, waiting for the perfect moment is, is not the, the smart way to do stuff. Talk to me just briefly about, uh, you know, the, the wisdom you gained from, from your experience. Yeah, absolutely. The perseverance, I think was, was one of the big things when one founder I'm working with told me the other day is like, you know, I trust you 'cause nothing's gonna take you out, nothing's gonna stop me. But to me a lot of that story is, is one, I think that that mission that you have, I talk to a lot of organizations about redefining that mission while they're redefining their go to market. Because people buy, as I said, on emotion. And my mission was the same every day that cancer wasn't gonna overtake my life. And you know, for the most part, I won that mission and I'm, I'm here today because of that. And that mission was [00:21:00] strong enough to drive me through. Every battle that I had when it first started, when it came back, um, when I spent 30 days in the hospital, that mission was the same. I got up, I worked out in the morning, um, and then I went about my day doing, you know, different habits and rituals that I have. I never let it stop me. Uh, the the second piece is really just that, that framework and that plan, people are so discombobulated. Every day. I said, Hey, these are my habits. This is what I'm sticking to, and saying, Hey, I'm gonna tackle this one by one. You know, we talked about success every day. It was, Hey, just do my 30 minutes of workout, do my 20 minutes of journaling, start my workday and my workday here, have that family time, and just piecing it apart so that you had that plan and that goal. Um, and I think when you have that mission, when you have that framework to keep you honest, keep you accountable, uh, really anything is possible that you know, and then again, it doesn't hurt that, you know, when you have a family and that really strong, powerful, [00:22:00] personal reason to stick through it. Um, you know, a lot of what I said is people, when you give up mentally, it tells your body to give up. I don't know the science behind that. My wife translated everything, uh, during my diagnosis and procedure 'cause she's a nurse and I was lucky enough to have that. But your, your mind will tell your body what to do. Just like the leadership of an organization will dictate where the company goes. If you have, if you're rooted in that why and that mission strong enough. I, I mean, anything's possible and, and being willing to ask for help my community and friends and. Family, you know, played such a huge role. Whether I wanted to admit it at the time, you know, nobody does anything great alone. Um, even me battling cancer or a company that, you know, does 10 million overnight, um, there's always multiple people involved. Robbie Proc now, thank you so much for being our guest on the Phoenix Business Brief Podcast. Thanks for having me.