Adaptability: The Lifeline of ICT Success

Adaptability isn't just a buzzword in the ICT industry—it's the essential quality separating thriving companies from those merely surviving. In this episode, Brad Everett, General Manager of UCL Americas, takes us behind the scenes of their strategic acquisition of Accurate Connections, revealing how two complementary businesses became something greater than the sum of their parts.

Brad shares the fascinating journey that began four years before the acquisition was finalized, explaining why UCL looked beyond financial spreadsheets to focus on people, processes, and cultural compatibility first. "What we did was very consistent with our existing go-to-market strategy," he explains, highlighting how the merger expanded their ability to serve customers through domestic manufacturing capabilities that allow for nimbleness in a rapidly changing market.

The conversation explores how this strategic partnership opened new revenue streams in wind energy and data centers by combining UCL's splice-on connectivity expertise with Accurate's assembly capabilities. For companies considering similar moves, Brad offers pragmatic advice: "Don't underinvest. Be prepared for the long haul and allocate resources as needed."

Perhaps most valuable are Brad's insights for professionals at every career stage. He recommends continuous learning through industry publications, engaging deeply at trade shows like Bixie, and using analytical frameworks like Blue Ocean Strategy and the PL CREST method to identify untapped opportunities. His advice bridges generations—reminding seasoned veterans to remain open to new ideas while encouraging newcomers to learn from industry history.

Whether you're a field technician, project manager, or business owner, this episode delivers actionable strategies for evolving alongside our industry's constant changes. Subscribe, leave a review, and join our Wednesday night live streams at 6pm Eastern to continue the conversation about building adaptability into your professional DNA.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome to Let's Talk Cabling
• 2:19 Adaptability in the ICT Industry
• 4:57 UCL Swift's Strategic Acquisition
• 10:14 Finding the Right Cultural Fit
• 23:20 New Revenue Streams and Solutions
• 28:42 Advice for ICT Professionals
• 33:58 Identifying Growth Opportunities

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey Wiremonkeys, welcome to another episode of let's Talk Cabling. In an industry where yesterday's innovation is today's standard and tomorrow's obsolescence, the only thing that separates the thriving companies, the thriving field techs, from surviving is adaptability.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Welcome to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low voltage industry connects. Hosted by Chuck Bowser, rcdd. We're here to empower installers, designers and industry pros with the tips, stories and best practices you need to stay ahead. From copper to fiber, standards to innovation, this is the show that keeps you plugged into success. So grab your tools, turn up the volume and let's talk cabling.

Speaker 1: 0:55

Welcome to the show where we tackle the tough questions submitted by installers, estimators, project managers, customers, even IT personnel. We are connecting at the human level so that we can connect the world. If you're watching this show on YouTube, would you mind hitting the subscribe button and the bell button to be notified when new content is being produced? If you're listening to us on one of the audio podcast platforms, would you mind leaving us a five-star rating? Those simple little steps helps us take on the algorithm so we can educate, encourage and enrich the lives of people in the ICT industry. Wednesday night, 6 pm Eastern Standard Time. What are you doing? You know I do a live stream on pretty much every possible social media platform. I can broadcast to where you get to ask your favorite, your favorite RCDD and you know that's me questions on installation, certification, design, project management, even career path questions, but I can't help but joke. I'm driving my truck at 6 pm on Wednesdays. I don't want to get into an accident. I record them and you can watch them at your convenience. And finally, while this show is free and will always remain free, if you find value in this content, would you click on that QR code right there? You can buy me a cup of coffee. You can schedule a 15-minute one-on-one call with me after hours. Of course, you can even buy WireMonkey let's Talk Cabling t-shirts on Amazon Just ways to help support the show.

Speaker 1: 2:19

So today we're talking about a word that's more than just a buzzword. It is the lifeline for every successful business in the ICT industry. And what is that word? Adaptability. So to help us unpack this, I'm joined by a company that's not only known for talking the talk but walking the walk UCL Swift. I can remember, not too long ago, when they first came on board and nobody really knew who they were. But now look at them. Now they are known for innovation and fusion splicing. But what drove that bold move? What lessons can you learn with your company, or you learn with your career? And, most importantly, how can you, as a technician or project manager, leverage that ability to secure your spot in the future of ICT? So let's dive into this. Welcome back to the show, mr Brad. How are you doing, my friend?

Speaker 4: 3:11

Doing well, chuck, good to see you. Thanks for having us on.

Speaker 1: 3:15

Yeah, always glad to have you on. You seem to be on a production floor. What are you guys making?

Speaker 4: 3:20

Oh, behind me out here is the manufacturing facility. My office is in use right now, so I'm sitting outside. Yeah, the full line and full operation of.

Speaker 1: 3:29

UCL. Very cool man. For the people who may not know you or who UCL Swift is, can you give us the 30-second, 50,000-foot view of who you are and who's UCL Swift?

Speaker 4: 3:41

Absolutely. Yeah, my name's Brad Everett. Again, I'm the general manager for UCL Americas. We're calling it these days because that now consists of UCL Swift and UCL Connections Swift side, of course, being those fiber optic splicers, splice-on connectors that have become very popular across the enterprise and broadband spaces. The addition of UCL Connections last fall, which again is the primary topic here, the addition of that last fall now breaks us into things like more assemblies and more contract work and just kind of expands our product portfolio so we can be a little more of a resource to our clientele.

Speaker 1: 4:23

Carrollton, texas. Gotta love that place. I used to live in Plano, not too far from Carrollton, not too far from Carrollton and yep Accurate Connections was in Plano.

Speaker 4: 4:34

We relocated them over to a common facility with Swift in Carrollton. My surprise, it's past Herbert.

Speaker 1: 4:44

It sounds like a production floor. It sounds like when I go back to my corporate, exact same thing Sounds the same, sounds the same. That's it it does. So let me ask you this what motivated your recent acquisition of Accurate Connections?

Speaker 4: 4:57

What truly motivated the acquisition of Accurate Connections and bringing it into UCL was really about us expanding our resource portfolio to be able to serve our customers better. We were very solid in splice-on connectivity. We're very solid in splicers Growing in the cable world. The addition of Accurate really allowed us to bring those two things together. I mean, the definition of value add is cable assemblies right, it's cables, connectors, and then when you put that together in the assembly business, that's what Accurate brought. And for us to rebrand that under UCL Connections and be able to add that into the product portfolio that's really needed as a top-tier company. To be able to expand that product portfolio and to be able to be supportive in more markets is very key for UCL and that's part of our strategy. And the ability to do more domestic manufacturing. Of course, that was always a goal.

Speaker 1: 6:08

You know because I talked to a lot of young technicians, project managers, people just starting up. You know their own business and stuff and I understand this because I'm always doing this with my career, with my podcast. I'm always looking for ways to expand and diversify. A lot of people think it's just, oh, you just do it and you know willy-nilly, you know you're done. What challenges or opportunities in the IC industry pushed UCL Swift to expand and to diversify its offerings?

Speaker 4: 6:34

So bottom line is the customers really drove us to the decisions that we needed to make. And, as we've seen over the years and, chuck, I know you have too is customers aren't just looking for suppliers. They're not just looking for catalogs and part numbers and that kind of thing. Customers are looking for partners and money to help them to solve their own issues in their own day-to-day operations. And that's what the acquisition really did for us. Being able to bring in UCL connections into the portfolio just gave us a little more in the repertoire, if you would, to be able to help with that, to be again more of a partner.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Right, you know it's about listening to the customer, listening to the customer needs, and sometimes the customer doesn't know what they need, so sometimes you've got to be able to be a fortune teller in between the lines, right?

Speaker 4: 7:29

You're solving it together, right.

Speaker 1: 7:31

Exactly Because I tell this to people all the time. It's a relationship between you and the customer and the minute one of you doesn't treat it like a mutually beneficial relationship, why are you still engaged in having business with that particular company? You know it's just. You can't fire customers. A lot of younger people don't know that when you're just starting off their companies, they're so hungry to get work coming in the door. I'm like, and they talk about this one particular customer and how it's. You know how they're really treating them bad. I'm like fire them, fire them. It is okay to fire a customer. Obviously you want to try to do everything you can to save it first, but if the customer just doesn't want to, it doesn't want to and that kind of. I guess it ties in with adaptability, right? In your opinion? Why is adaptability such a crucial skill for companies and professionals in this industry?

Speaker 4: 8:24

Well, again I think I go back to that same partnership thing. I think it's still about partnership. I think what customers need to see is that you are continually improving, that you're bringing more to the relationship as you said, you used the word relationship that you're bringing more to the relationship than just the profit. So I think that really becomes a critical issue in the whole ICT world right now.

Speaker 1: 8:54

Yeah, one thing about our industry and I've been in the industry for over four decades and the constant of this industry is change. You can look at our acronyms and just see that how our acronyms have changed. Names for things have changed. Technologies is changed. You can look at our acronyms and just see that how our acronyms have changed. Names for things have changed, technologies have changed. I mean, I remember when I first got in this industry we were just pulling pots cabling. It wasn't even category-ready cable, and now you know it. Just the rapid technological advancement and the shifts from the clients really impact our industries, right?

Speaker 3: 9:24

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Speaker 1: 10:19

So how do you think the rapid technology advancements and shifts in clients' demands impact the industry?

Speaker 4: 10:26

So the first thing, chuck, I think it makes us leaner. I think it definitely makes us leaner. We also have to have more manufacturing and customization capabilities. Long-term lead times with long and complex logistics are very difficult. So I think that the ability to adapt, not just to market stuff but even based on orders and that kind of stuff, so to have that adaptability and to be nimble I like the word nimble when talking about manufacturing, and that's what domestic manufacturing gets for you is that ability to be nimble where you don't have a long logistics pipeline, um, or you where you're, the transportation of your product doesn't become a hindrance to you, uh.

Speaker 4: 11:14

So I think those, uh, those things are definitely key. Um, I mean, you can have a, you have a full technology shift in the middle of um, in the middle of importing product, if you're not careful. The other thing, of course, is your sales and marketing people. Your sales people. There was a time your sales guys were about numbers, about reaching goals and those things. Now your sales guys, they're more business managers for their territories, they're handling, you know, it's not just sales, but they're channel managers, they're technical support, they're applications engineers and they're having to do more of that stuff, and so I think more is demanded from every individual in the organization, as well as an organization.

Speaker 1: 12:04

You know. A lot of what you were just saying just kind of reminds me. I read a book once yeah, just once. No, actually I've read lots of books A book called the Toyota Way. Are you familiar with that book? No, ah, a lot of what you're talking is right along that. I highly recommend you read it.

Speaker 1: 12:23

There's 14 principles in the Toyota way and one is continuous improvement processes and stuff like that and how to use a pull system. You know just in time where stuff comes into the production field, just in time, so it's not sitting on the shelf somewhere. A lot of business owners where they mess up young business owners when I say young I don't mean age, I mean years that they own the business. They don't realize that they go out and do a project and when you estimate you always have a little bit of extra in that sitting in your warehouse. That's money. That's money that could be in your bank earning interest, and yet it's sitting in your warehouse. So they have this whole pull system where you order just what you need just in time. So a lot of what you're saying kind of almost sounds a lot like that. It really truly does.

Speaker 4: 13:10

And the closer your manufacturing is to your customer, the more benefit you get out of that.

Speaker 1: 13:16

Oh, absolutely so. Let's talk about. You know UCL's adaptability and their success. What strategies, without giving away any super secret corporate? You know information. What strategies did you use to integrate accurate connections within your business? Because you're talking about two different companies. You know they got their way of doing things, you got your way of doing things and you got to somehow meld those two together.

Speaker 4: 13:42

You know it was really an easy fit. It truly was. When you looked at the two companies, the paper fit, the strategic fit was spot on. The two companies were almost exact opposites and truly complemented each other so well from a lot of different points. But you said again, that made that part easy.

Speaker 4: 14:03

But I think I think this more specific strategy was it started long before we ever really started talking about acquisition is we were looking deep into their organization. For at the people, we were looking deep into that. If every acquisition always starts with a big financial analysis, somebody's looking at ROI, they're looking at balance sheets, cash flows, income savings, so they're looking at all of that stuff. But where we started that whole discussion, we looked at production processes, we looked at their production equipment, their procedures, we looked at all of the ISO 9000 capabilities. We looked at all of their operational requirements, their QA culture and just as important and probably the most important was we looked at the people.

Speaker 4: 14:55

So we really wanted to make sure that there was a good people fit and so as soon as the two companies came together, it was like an immediate family atmosphere where we were able to pull everybody together, everybody's kind of working toward a common goal and it made it a lot easier to integrate the two companies when we knew there was going to be a good culture fit. And again, you and I have been in this industry for 30 plus years each, and over that time I mean, you see examples of a culture bad fit. And if you can see that from the beginning and let that be part of your due diligence, as opposed to just a financial analysis, you're going to find a much better integration.

Speaker 1: 15:46

See, that message resonates not just with you know the business owners or companies buying other companies, but it also resonates with you know that guy who just put their resume up on Indeedcom, right, and you got to do that interview. You know how many times and I got to admit I've been guilty of this too before. I kind of learned and was taught in Metro to be better but how many times. As people come in for a job interview and you know you sit there and you ask that you ask the potential new candidate a bunch of questions and they answer them and you say, do you have any questions for me? And they just look at you with that blank stare.

Speaker 1: 16:20

That's your opportunity because you know again, like you said, it's got to be a good culture fit. It does Ask your questions there. Don't be shy to ask because you know you're not an employee yet. It's just, you know, ask them hey, what is the company culture like? Hey, what would somebody in this position who's successful look like six months from now? There's just somebody within the company who has a similar position that I can talk to. I mean, these are all great points, so they work well with the person who's looking to get into a company and also companies buying companies. I love that example. Let me ask you this so how long ago did you guys buy Accurate Connections? We closed in August.

Speaker 4: 17:02

We closed in August. That was about a four-year. Sorry, I got some new matters going on down there. We closed on things in August, but the actual project started about four years ago, wow. So it was a long process and there were a couple of other acquisition things that we explored and this was the first one to really work explored and this was the first one to really work. But yeah, we closed in August and we moved in together in October and here we are like six, eight months later and it's been a. It's been really good.

Speaker 1: 17:32

I couldn't even imagine all the moving parts behind all that. I mean, there was my wife being a paralegal. I got half my brains thinking about all the legal stuff, like the NDAs and and then, like you said, you know, company colleges, and then the engineer side of me is like, okay, well, what's their processes for? If somebody turns bad product, you know, is it go search the root cause? Or we just say, okay, well, it must have just been made on a Friday. I mean it just drives my mind crazy of all this stuff. Kudos to you guys, because that's four years.

Speaker 4: 18:02

That was good Now, granted, we we're. You know we're talking about a smaller acquisition. It's not exactly we're not exactly talking about a billion dollar transaction that's going to require sec approval, right? Well, yeah, that's definitely. It had the the feeling more of a of a family merger from the beginning than, right, uh, than than something on that kind of scale that you, you know something. I'll go back to something.

Speaker 4: 18:25

Chuck, you were, you were talking about those young people and people looking for for new opportunities and stuff. I had a had a young person, probably a 20, early twenties, was asking me about a year or so ago. They were asking about about that job, like how do we, you know, how do I find this? Or, you know, I've got this degree and I've got this, this set of credentials and you know how do I, how do I approach a company, what do I do? And I and my answer, I kind of set it off the cup. But then later on I thought you know what.

Speaker 4: 18:52

That makes a lot of sense. Don't, don't worry too much about about your, your specific like, fit with it, you know. Don't look at maximizing your fit into into that company. Instead, find a company with a vision that you share. Yes, find a company with a vision that you share, because if you have that and your culture is going to fit. And then when you get in the door, show, make sure they know everything you can do, make sure they know every capability. You might've been a math major, but you might find yourself as the best customer service guy in the industry. And weaknesses.

Speaker 1: 19:32

Don't hide your weaknesses. That's it, because when I first came on board for my day job 14 years ago, 12 years ago, I don't know a long time ago now I told my boss right out of the gate when he hired me. I said look, hey, I've done project management, I've done installation, I've done copper certification, I've done some fiber. I said, but I am not a fiber guru. He says we can train you that. I'm not worried about that. Be honest, be straightforward. They can create a development plan to get you where they want you to be.

Speaker 4: 20:03

I always ask that question as part of an interview what is it that you do worst? And it always shocks people. That's a great question. Well, they're shocked from it. And then, of course, the assumption is okay, I'm asking them to badmouth themselves. They're thinking, oh my goodness, this person is looking for a way to not hire me. But then afterwards I explained to him. I said, look, this is a partnership, this is. You know, I'm not asking. Well, the reason I'm asking that question is there's something the company is going to have to provide to you, right, and what is that? So where is it that you need help and how are we going to help you grow? And the only way to do that is to bring this stuff out.

Speaker 1: 20:46

There's back to that word relationship, right? I mean when you ever get into a relationship with a person, a customer or a company. You want to know the weaknesses so you know how to address them. That plain and simple.

Speaker 4: 20:57

Yep, and you may ask me this what are the resources they're going to need? Going to need Because, like in your example, I mean, if you came into a position and you knew you didn't know fiber, well, if they didn't have that ability to fill that hole for you, then that's going to be a weakness for both of you.

Speaker 1: 21:14

I got asked just the other day I was talking to Patrick McLaughlin from Cable Installation and Management Magazine. We were talking about potential show topics and stuff like that. And he says to me he goes, you know, I'm ashamed to admit this but what's your expertise? I just kind of laughed at him. I said I'm the general practitioner. You come, you know when you go to your doctor because, like I told you, I broke my finger on my vacation. Well, I'm going to have to go get it looked at by an orthopedics, right? Well, I don't go straight to it. I got to go to the GP, first the general practitioner, and then they're going to say, okay, well, you need to go talk to this guy. I'm that guy. I'm the guy who says I know I've done a lot of installation, I've done project management estimation, but I know my weaknesses, but I know a lot of people in the industry so I can go to the right person to get the information I need. So I'm a good general practitioner and I don't even know where I was even going withirrel.

Speaker 4: 22:12

What's the score now? Two to three, I think it's three and two.

Speaker 1: 22:14

There you go. I'm probably not even going to edit this one out either, because you know what People need to know. Even Chuck makes mistakes.

Speaker 3: 22:22

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Speaker 1: 23:07

So can you share a real world example of how your partnership with with Aggregate Connections has opened up some revenue streams for you or maybe even solved a pain for you, for a customer?

Speaker 4: 23:20

It's definitely helped us in the product portfolio to be able to bring, to be able to bring those the value add, the assembly piece, back to some of the Swift customers as well as introduce some of the accurate customers to splicing technology. Sometimes, instead of another assembly, you just need to splice a connector on the field where you can splice that assembly back and be up and going. So there's been a lot of places where the Swift and Connections technologies have kind of helped each other. But it's also helped us in being able to reach some new markets, because we're finding now, as SWIFT, we're finding opportunities in wind energy, where that was a Connections thing, and so now we're finding opportunities for that on this side on the SWIFT side of the business. We're finding opportunities for that on this side of on the SWIFT side of the business.

Speaker 4: 24:12

Same thing within the SWIFT customer base, like in data centers. Well, having, you know, having LC connectors and splicers, that's great and we do, we've done very well in the data center side of that. But being able to provide those trunk assemblies for that customer base, that's a huge benefit. So it definitely is one of those opportunities where two plus two was equal to a little more than four, and it's definitely been just the consolidation of the two together has created a lot of opportunities. Revenue streams, yes, but again to be able to bring more solutions to each other's customers.

Speaker 1: 24:54

It's been good. I used to work for Hengist McCoy many, many years ago for the Network Solutions Division, and H&M was really known for the outside plant division. There was a lot of times where, just because a wind energy farm, because they used to do wind energy too, those customers didn't realize that we also did network cabling for their office and stuff. And just only because we would have those conversations with them and talk to them and say, look, we're more than just the linemen You're out there pulling stuff, we can also come in there and do the fiber optic cabling and the Cat 5E, cat 6 inside of your building.

Speaker 4: 25:32

Again, don't be afraid to communicate Exactly Well and again, that's part of that partnership and that relationship with the customer Right and most of the time your customer will tell you what to do.

Speaker 1: 25:48

They'll tell you what to do? Just in their own actions. Just got to learn to listen, not hear. Listen Exactly, you got to hear. So how do you balance the risk and rewards of diversification? And then let's follow that up with what would you say to a company or to an ICT professional who are hesitant to adapt or evolve?

Speaker 4: 26:09

Risk and reward. What we did really wasn't a huge risk. It was very much a progression of our company. What we did was really bring in a value add and do something that was kind of already qualified between the two companies. It's not like we added a new product line or added a new market where there was going to be a lot of strategic change. What we did was very consistent with our existing go-to-market strategy, as opposed to something that was more risky. But my message to any company who's considering any level of that is just don't underinvest, don't underinvest in it, don't cut those corners. If you're going to go into something like this, like we did, be prepared for the long haul, get into it. Allocate resources as they're needed, allocate resources as they're needed and just go into it with the image in your own mind of what your customer needs, of what your customer needs from you, gotcha.

Speaker 1: 27:22

That's great, that's great advice there let's take a short break.

Speaker 3: 27:25

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Speaker 1: 28:11

Today let's shift the conversation and talk about some advice to ICT professionals and you know again, because a large part of my audience are people who just came out of the field to start their own business. So let's talk about some advice for diversifying and thriving For the technicians or the field professionals. What skills or certifications do you recommend they focus on to remain valuable in the ICT industry.

Speaker 4: 28:38

See, I mean, my advice to any of those folks is just keep up, keep up with the technology, keep up with the people. You were talking earlier about CINM. Cinm is a tremendous resource and make sure you get the online edition so you're not just waiting for the print every month. Do the do the trade shows. Last time you and I saw each other was at Bixie. Go to Bixie and don't just walk around, don't just go to the floor. They do have some good food out there. Enjoy the food. But go into the booth. Go into the booth and find the sales guys, find the product managers who are there and can really tell you not just about the product but why it was developed. Why was that thing developed? Because I guarantee you it had a customer need attached to it, and if that's the case, you understand that, because that becomes your next application support, and so really that would be my biggest advice to anybody in the installer world.

Speaker 1: 29:31

Well, you say, like it's easy. You know, keep up At the speed our industry changes. I'm telling you, as a 40-plus year veteran, I have a hard time staying current in this industry and that's why I tell people all the time I am not an expert. I am not an expert. I am not an expert. I'm just somebody who is willing to go, do the research, do the education. Takes a class, talk to the person, like you said, you know to find out the answer. As I said, dad always said your smartness isn't by what degrees you have, it's by the people you surround yourself with. That's interesting.

Speaker 4: 30:06

I always refer to the industry in this like educating yourself. I always refer to it like a train, right, it's like it's going to keep moving. It's going to keep moving. You're jumping on it at some point down the line. I jumped on it 10 years after you did. But you jump onto the train and you're always watching where it's going and what it's doing and all that. But look out the back too. You got up the whole time you're there. Make sure you don't forget that past. Now did we get here? You mentioned POTS lines before category. There was a reason for that and some of those POTS lines the way they were installed that found its way into category five before the standards were really completed. So there's definitely a history there. Be sure you get that history while you're. You're learning that where you are and where you're going.

Speaker 1: 30:56

Yeah, that's cause you know the, the younger people in our industry, yep, we as older people not you, but I'm going to say we, I mean like as old boomers we tend to look down on them and stuff, because they think differently, act differently, learn differently, and we're not comfortable with that. Most boomers I'm not.

Speaker 4: 31:15

Most boomers.

Speaker 1: 31:17

You're on TikTok, chuck, so you're better than most. I'm an early adopter. But my point is, though. My point is, though, to those people is two points One for the boomers, one for the younger generation. The boomers could be that crudgy old man, get off my grass. That's the way we've always done it. Have an open mind, listen to what they said, because they may come to you with something that could be game-changing. And, on the flip side of that, to the younger audience don't just look for change just for change's sake.

Speaker 1: 31:51

Ask first, Say hey, I'm thinking about this, this and this. Ask that person who's got the experience, who may have lived through that experience, and they might tell you look, yeah, we did that, and here's what we found when we did that. Here's the negative consequences, here's why we don't want to do it again. You know, we tend to kind of categorize people into their own little groups, and we don't want to listen to each other. And I could wax poetic as to why that is, but I'm not. Just remember to the boomers you used to be a young person once too, who wanted to climb that ladder. And to the young people one day you're going to be that old person with gray hair or balding head that the young people are going to look at and say why is he still in this industry? He needs to make room for somebody new.

Speaker 4: 32:35

Just there's room for everybody, and you know the thing that I would say to young people too, young people getting into the industry. All of us, old dudes, we're looking for young people. We're looking for young people right now, especially where we are as an industry. We need those young people to come in and to and to, to take on that, that protege role, um to you know, to accept that, uh, to be the pad one if you're a, if you're a star Wars guy, um, but to I mean just that, that learning and um cause, because this, this older group, is probably within 10 or 15 years of retirement. We're all looking for that next generation and it's, it's there for the taking for young people.

Speaker 1: 33:22

Yeah, yeah, 10 or 15 years. I'm not looking 10 or 15 years for retirement, but I'm looking for a little bit sooner. I was being kind, just saying I say here's another piece of advice for everybody, right, because you did your whole train analogy, right? Don't be the guy looking down the tunnel, looking at that light, wondering what that light is. Either learn to get out of the way or learn to adapt and go on it, right? So there you go. Let me ask you this what advice would you have for the person running that small connectivity company pulling in cave and stuff like that, on how to identify opportunities and diversify their services?

Speaker 4: 34:03

Now you're asking for some secret sauce. There's a few things that I've used over the years that I've always found to be very beneficial. Um one is a is a book you mentioned the Toyota way earlier. Um, one, that uh, one that I've really enjoyed and I've reread it and I have it on um, I have it on audible and I I listened to it periodically. Is the blue ocean strategy into it periodically. Is the blue ocean strategy? Um, blue ocean strategy is don't don't read it while you're driving because it it'll might put you to sleep and they'll be dangerous. But it's um, it's very uh, it's very good at helping you to identify um, identify strategies, product sets, paths to market those things. It helps you to identify those things where competition is least, when you're able to find those places where you can contribute most and, again, the areas where you're able to contribute the most. That's where your value lies. So I find that to be very good and it's one of those things that if you dust it off once or twice a year just to reread it, something will click with what you do every day and you'll find a new path. So that's a big one.

Speaker 4: 35:18

Another one is a little analysis I learned from. When I was in college, a professor of mine gave me the PL crest method. So every company is always looking at their uh, their strengths and weaknesses. Everybody's looking at their strengths and weaknesses and then, as they start thinking about opportunities and threats and what goes on in the in the world, it's sometimes it's hard to, sometimes it's hard to look outside of your own company in an organized way. Well, that PL crest. It stands for political, legal, competitive, regulatory, economic, social and technological your market. If you can find, you will. If you look those up, you will find more things that just pop up and things that may be legal and regulatory, things that may be social and economic, things that may be competitive and technological. So there's so many of those things that I find helpful in just navigating and in there you're going to find more and more of those opportunities. You can also find the things that are about to bite you, but definitely the opportunities that you find through that kind of analysis, I find them to be very valuable.

Speaker 1: 36:43

There's so much resources out there that a lot of people just either don't know about or just don't take advantage of it. Because you know we've already mentioned several of them. You know Toyota way and Blue Oceans, oh, and also the Peel Crest. Well, I'm going to look. I should start do one show.

Speaker 4: 36:59

I have Googled that before and never found it. There was this one professor I had, who, who instilled that in me. And here I am, 35 years later, still using it.

Speaker 1: 37:10

I will find it, I'm going to find it. That's my challenge. And then you got me thinking maybe I need to do one show a month on a business book and breaking it down to its core concepts. Because there's another book too, and I mentioned it in a pre-passed podcast, good to Great and Good to Great. One of the main concepts I think they got several, the flywheel effect and stuff like that but the one I really liked is you know, it's not about just you're talking about hiring people for your company. It's not about just putting people on the bus, it's putting people on the right seat on the bus. Yeah, true, it's a great, great resource there, seth. So, brad, thank you for coming on. Sir, thank you for sharing the journey with the adaptability, with y'all's new venture. I wish you all the best of luck.

Speaker 4: 37:57

Good Hope that helped and thanks for having us on Chuck. We appreciate it.

Speaker 2: 38:01

Thanks for listening to let's Talk Cabling, the award-winning podcast where knowledge is power and the low-voltage industry connects. Where knowledge is power and the low voltage industry connects. If you enjoyed today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with your crew. Got questions or ideas for the show? Chuck wants to hear from you. Stay connected, stay informed and always aim for excellence. Until next time, keep those cables clean, your standards high and your future bright. No-transcript.