A Discussion with Rich Bulger, CEO of RecirQ

Pamela Rucker: Hi, I'm Pamela Rucker, an instructor for Harvard Professional Development. I focus on coaching executives in the areas of leadership, strategy and innovation.

Welcome to Leading With Passion, a series honoring innovative small business leaders using their unique capabilities to improve people's lives. Today, I'm joined by Rich Bulger, CEO of RecirQ, a leading sustainability company, delivering reverse logistics capabilities for used mobile devices. Rich is changing the way our world runs sustainability practices by helping them recognize the rewards of recirculating their products and moving them to their next life. Rich, welcome to the program.

Rich Bulger: Good morning, Pamela. How are you?

Pamela: I'm doing well. So, tell me about RecirQ, how the company was formed, and how you came to join them.

Rich: So, RecirQ is a sustainability company. We have a global vision with a sustainable mission to reuse first, recycle last and never waste. RecirQ, R-E-C-I-R-Q, is short for a word I started to use in my corporate life.

Pamela: Okay.

Rich: Recirculate. To help convince people that there's no stigma with reusing something. And sustainability is now becoming such a large part of corporate missions, part of our daily lives. To promote reuse. So, the RecirQ brand was designed to go through and take the stigma away from reusing. I actually fell into this whole circular economy when I was a recovering marketing director serving for Verizon, for North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee. I had a $6 billion region with 10 million subscribers. And my goal of marketing was to get more customers and keep the customers that we had. And part of that was through using promotions and incentives.

Pamela: MM-hmm.

Rich: In 2010, Verizon was sunsetting a program that we had called New Every Two, which was a retention credit. When someone went from their old contract to their new contract, we gave them $100.

And when smartphones came out, the pressure on how much devices cost grew.And I was asked to go through and remove that discount from our sales toolkit. I went to my regional president and I said, we've got 62% market share.

Pamela: Wow.

Rich: If we remove this credit, I train customers how to use this credit and to expect it, our competition's going to respond. T-Mobile was doing the un-carrier promotion. And they were aggressively going after our customers.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: So, my boss, Jerry Fontaine, who's one of the most brilliant people I've ever worked for, said, "Rich, I appreciate the problem. You're probably right. But what I would appreciate more is three solutions to the problem." So, that's when I found a company that was trying to go through and buy used mobile devices. The problem was they weren't involved with the conversation when a customer was more likely to sell their old device. If you think of your home, highly valuable, highly durable thing. When you are selling your house, you're looking to buy a new place. When you're looking to buy a new car and you have an old car, you're looking to find value for it. Highly valuable, highly durable good. Cell phones started falling into that mix.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: And the device longevity exceeded the U.S. consumer's desire to keep the device. And those things still had value. So, I got into buying phones to go through and put money in the customer's pocket to help them go through and upgrade or switch over to Verizon. And what I learned was not only was that a great way to keep customers, it was a new revenue stream that Verizon didn't have, even though people thought I was crazy at the time.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: We don't buy phones. We sell phones.

Pamela: Yeah, yeah.

Rich: Why are you thinking about doing that? You should be focused on selling accessories. And what happened was the two districts that I was able to trial the program wound up being the top two districts of 15 in our region in all sales performance categories. And I knew we were onto something when we had a regional review. Dr. No, our finance associate director, was to the left of the regional president. I was the marketing person on the right. And the two district managers were number one, number two in all categories. And the other 13 district managers complained that they did not have that program. That's when my boss said, "All right, put it in all stores."

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: And then, we had our regional review and we produced our results. We learned that we were making more money by going through and asking one question, what are you doing with your old thing? Than we were by qualifying all the different accessories that we had. Light bulbs that changed colors. 47 different types of Bluetooth speakers.

Pamela: Right.

Rich: Just by asking the simple question, what are you doing with your old device? And as long as we made it simple to go through and assess the value and easy to get back, the customers ran towards it the same way that they would in an auto dealership when you're looking to go through and sell your car, finding value for your old car.

Pamela: Yeah. It's so interesting to me that this idea of you being involved in sustainability and reverse logistics came, because you were a recovering marketing executive. That you were trying to keep the customer happy. Because we always talk about this idea of if you increase the customer's level of happiness, if you do things they care about, their willingness to pay you will go up. And so, clearly, you guys had figured that out. But the point would be, what do you do with the things that they have left? And so, the idea that I wanna make sustainable... Sustainability, part of what I do in my organization is something that was driven more by monetizing that issue than it was by trying to do the right thing in the world at the time. Is that fair?

Rich: That's totally fair. And once you went through and you understood the economic benefit of being able to apply value, and I was thinking about just upgrading. And then, when I learned that there was a second, a third, a fourth market for this equipment…

Pamela: Right.

Rich: … that could be used on the Verizon network, that could subscribe to iTunes, that you could develop warranties, and other things that we were promoting and selling, this whole concept of getting the product from the hands of the first customer into the hands of the second customer, became a discipline that no other company that I saw really had mastered. All are talking about doing it, but few know how to harness it. And that's where I think RecirQ can help. We build strategies for customer two, customer three, customer four, across a variety of different product categories.

Pamela: This is amazing to me too though, because we spend so much time thinking about our brand for customer one, our strategy for customer one. And a lot of companies don't get that right. And but you're thinking about customer two, three, four and the next life associated with that product, because there are some people who make a practice of not buying new.

Rich: Right.

Pamela: Or maybe they're locked out of the market and they can't buy new. And the only thing they can do is buy what might be the second or third or fourth life version of that product. And so, the idea that you might be able to tap into that from a customer satisfaction and a monetization standpoint is outstanding, because this is part of the reason you might wanna go green. Green is good for the business, not just because of its sustainability impact, but because it also is good for your bottom line.

Rich: That's exactly right. And when we were able to go through and drive revenue off of the sale of the used equipment, we were able to drive revenue off the software and services with the new equipment. We were able to build warranty programs for used products. The way in the used car business, there's different finance models for a used car than a new car. There's different warranty models for a new car than a used car. You can make money on all of them. But what's happened with mobility and because products are going up in expense every year. And they're also being built better.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: The average U.S. consumers keeping their devices for three or more years before they go through an upgrade. The corporate executives that I work with had a lot of experience in domestic sales. Not even thinking that in different parts of the world, the most expensive thing a person can buy is not a house like it is here in the U.S. It's not a car like it is in the U.S.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: Sometimes, the most expensive things that people can afford are the devices that they use. And if you look at the business through the lens of what you would want as a U.S. consumer, you miss the perspective of what the world market looks like. And technology has made it so easy now to match used supply with used demand. At RecirQ, we sell devices all over the world. In addition to helping product find their way from the hands of one customer to another customer through e-commerce channels, through marketplaces.

Pamela: Yeah. I can see how the ability that you had to go and work overseas, work in other countries, see what their life is like, helped you to change your perspective on what was important and what might have value. Did something happen to make you say, wait, there's an opportunity here for us in the marketplace, so that you could recognize it. Maybe the way that U.S. customers buy isn't necessarily what the rest of the world would do.

Rich: Yeah. When I started doing the trade-in type of programs with the mindset of getting our customer from one product into the next new thing and there was value, I was really targeting my marketing mission, which was customer retention.

Pamela: Yep.

Rich: That became a new revenue stream. And then, when Verizon asked my family and I to move to Texas, I ran Verizon's reverse logistics. I got to process 15 million devices a year. I got to use world class robotics and automation. And the final two years, I was in charge of selling the used devices. The time that I took over that program, we had just broke a billion dollars in revenue off of devices that one customer decided that they didn't want anymore.

Pamela: Wow.

Rich: So again, some learnings that really help in today's world in starting companies and things like that because when you have a young company, you kind of make do, you do everything, right?

Pamela: Wow.

Rich: And I was tasked with growing the business by 300 million in 12 months. In two years, we grew the billion-dollar revenue stream...

Pamela: Wow.

Rich: …to a $1.6 billion revenue stream. When I was in that role, I started meeting the people in the companies that were buying these products.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: And there's one in particular that stood out. It was a mobile service provider in Aruba. And he showed me an image of a store. It was a drone footage that had people lined up out the door and down the block.

Pamela: Wow.

Rich: It looked like "American Idol" auditions in Aruba. And he was launching an iPhone device on the island for the first time. And at that point, it was the iPhone 4s that he was launching.

Pamela: Wow.

Rich: Now, the thing is, the model that year that was launching in the U.S. was the iPhone 7. Apple had no one on that island, because no one was gonna buy the 7. It was priced too high. But a hundred percent of those customers had to go through and get iTunes in order to make it work.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: And Apple makes revenue off of every thing that you buy on their platform. So, they started growing their subscriber base. In addition to that, demand for the 4s went up. 'Cause Aruba wasn't the only place that was doing that. It's done all over the world. As demand for the 4s went up, the cost that I was able to sell, the price I was able to sell it to also went up.

Pamela: Wow.

Rich: The higher the price, the higher I was able to raise my catalog value to put more money in the hands of the customer that was upgrading from this 4 to the 6 or the 6 to the 7. And the more money that the customer had in their pockets, the more my sales team was able to go through and pull through, talking them into a higher category phone, talking them into more accessories and other things that were legacy core products. And what I learned from that experience was not only is there a demand that you have to look differently than we look here…

Pamela: Yes.

Rich: … but done right, some of these primo brands, Cisco being one of them, could go through and leverage their used equipment that we're strong in now that people are upgrading now, to go through and fight competitor equipment in the second tier markets where their competitors are strong. So, fight your competitors where they're strong with your used products to protect your customer base and your core markets, and expand your customer pool.

Pamela: I love the approach that you're taking to this, because to me, this seems like it's not a one and done. You can do this same thing over and over and over again. Whether it's with electronics or clothing or shoes or anything like that. This is not just something that's true for phones in the United States versus everywhere else. Have you found that to be true for other product industries as well?

Rich: Absolutely. When I had a chance to retire from Verizon after 17 years, they did a voluntary retirement option.

Pamela: Yeah.

**Rich: **There wasn't many people that had experience going through running reverse logistics at scale. And Verizon advertised that they were doing the layoffs. So, my phone blew up with opportunities. Cisco was not the highest paying job offer that I had.

Pamela: Okay.

Rich: But it was, to me, the hardest job offer that I had. It challenged me to get outta mobility and to see if it would work in networking and computing. It challenged me to go through and learn international reverse logistics instead of domestic reverse logistics. And I really wanted to see if what was true in mobility could be true in networking and computing. 'Cause if it was, and it could be true in home goods, which is the second most return product category in the world.

Pamela: Yes.

Rich: It could be true in apparel, which is the number one return product category. And it's true. Everything has a value, everything has a velocity, everything has a cost to reuse. Everything has a blended benefit. And if you can reuse something at a profit, unless there's a corporate objective, a sustainability reason, you should. So, economic, check. Company, financially beneficial strategy, check. Customer benefit, check. Employee satisfaction, 'cause a lot of the newer generation is really passionate about doing what's right.

Pamela: Yes.

Rich: And I found that recruiting people to my team with a clear mission and a strategy was not only easy, but also inspiring. I loved going to work every day.

Pamela: Yeah. I love this for two reasons. One is that you really give people a reason to care about what their customers do with their trash or what they would think would be trash. Because if I go back to your example about the phones, it used to be that when you finish with the phone, it just became a brick.

Rich: Right.

Pamela: And I would toss it, and then I have to have e-waste issues and how do I deal with that? And now, you've turned that into something where the customer recognizes, wait, this thing that I have has value. I might be able to get something for it. And what we see is not only that they might turn it back in or they pass it down to their children or they try to sell it or they... They recognize that this idea of recirculating is important and has value. And I see that the societal thoughts about that are changing as well. We say it like it's something that's a norm right now, but it wasn't the norm always that people did that.

Rich: Yeah. Totally right. I remember a very specific customer experience I had when I did a store visit when we were launching the trade-in program. And one of the sales reps was not willing to go through and ask the customer what he was doing with his old phone. That this guy will not want to trade in his device.

Pamela: Mm-hmm.

Rich: So, I talked to him. So, I walked over, introduced myself, shook his hand. And I said, let me ask you a question. What are you gonna do with your old phone? He goes, "Well, I wanna keep it. I'm gonna put it in my drawer just in case I need it." I'm like, how many phones do you have in your drawer? He said, "I've got about 10."

Pamela: Whoa.

Rich: I said, what about the ones that don't work? "Well, eventually, I'm gonna throw 'em away." So, let me ask you a question. Your phone is worth $50. If there was $50 in your drawer, if there was a $50 bill, would you pick up that dollar and put it in your wallet? He goes, "Absolutely." I'm like, why don't you let me give you $50 for your old phone? And he's like, "You know what? You're right." But it was introducing the prospect of reusing in mobility when no one was ready to do that yet.

Pamela: Yeah, yeah. And this speaks directly to those two things I talked about. One is the idea of customer delight, that the customer has to be delighted when you say, let me take that brick, which I think has no value.

Rich: Right.

Pamela: Because even if you keep it and think you're going to use it later, technology changes so much that it really doesn't become valuable to you anymore. Just sits there. And how many of us went through that cycle early on where we have these old devices in our drawer, we have this junk drawer, and we just go through that every now and then. So, there's the idea of customer delight that I've given you money for it, but there's also the idea of employee delight. That there have to be people who love working for you, because you are doing something great for the planet. And we are seeing more and more people come into power that care about this now, that care about the fact that you're working in sustainable ways and you're doing the things that you said you're going to do to help the world be a better place. Do you see people coming to your company excited to work for you because of what you do?

Rich: Yeah. Well, and I would flip that. I'm excited to work for them. I work for them more than they work for me. But we have a joint passion around it.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: So, by me working for them and making their job easy and developing tools that simplify it and add value. At my company's headquarters, we just moved into a new building back in October. It's bright. It's clean. We're using energy-efficient light bulbs. We're using aluminum bottles and water fountains. There is a mission. We rebranded the company from the ARA Global Group. The ARA was the first initial of the three people that founded it. But ARA Global didn't speak to what we were really doing. So, we underwent a entire brand strategy to pick the name RecirQ, to pick the color blue that I'm wearing and the color green that you are wearing. Blue is the color of technology. Green is the color of sustainability. And develop this brand that really promotes what we do. Reuse over recycling whenever possible, never wasting. And employees are always finding creative ways to go through and either add value or conserve resources. And there is a charter school that it goes from kindergarten through high school that is on the same street that we moved our facility to.

Pamela: Wow.

Rich: So, as soon as we moved to that facility, we had the high school students knocking on our door asking if we were hiring. And we were able to go through and solve a staffing issue of a day shift by bringing in a night shift of high school students that are passionate about this, that love coming to work every day. And we all have a purpose. We have a business purpose, we have a sense of accomplishment purpose that helps when people want to want to work with us and I want to work with them.

Pamela: I love the idea that you've figured out not only how to tap what people want from a customer perspective, but from an employee perspective and now a community perspective. All of this makes sense to me. All of this works for me and partly because as an academic, these are the things we teach people in school. These are the management theories we teach people. Did you have any classical management training when you first started this? The idea that I'm solving a job to be done, that I'm recognizing how to make money and break down barriers and go into market that might be locked out. Did any of that play into this?

Rich: Well, I'm a kid from Missouri. I barely graduated high school. I had my mom for high school chemistry senior year. And I got a D minus in her class. My friend's like, "I can't believe your mom gave you a D minus."

Pamela: Must have been tough at home.

Rich: I was like, I can't believe she gave me a D minus either. I'm pretty sure I failed that class. But I joined the army at 17, got out when I was 20. I went in for college money, but I got my two-year degree in my late 20s. I got my four-year degree from an online college in my early 30s. I'm two classes away from finishing my master's degree.

Pamela: Congratulations.

Rich: But I did college, because it became a requirement to get hired and I didn't want my self or my leadership team to have to look people in the eye to say, they weren't qualified for a job that we wouldn't be qualified for. I attribute what I learned to great people that I've met. At 18, 19 years old, I won six Soldier of the Month, Soldier of the Quarter boards. And by 18, I was driving the third highest ranking officer in the 101st Airborne Division. So, I was walking the halls or generals at a very young age. Jerry Fontaine, the regional president that I had, was one of the best leaders of people I'd ever met. Ericka Pollack, my VP of supply chain that brought me in to reverse logistics, took the marketing guy and said, "Hey, you need to run the return program." Promoted me into the job that she had. Ericka to this date, is the smartest person I have ever worked for. And one of the toughest, but she was fair, she was right. She put numbers together very well.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: And things made sense. And if there is a compelling mission that makes sense, I've always had a passion to go through and not climb a corporate ladder, but just do a good job. Do what's right for our employees. Do right for what our customers are. And when this trade-in program came about and Verizon didn't wanna do it, I called the person who introduced me to the company. I'm like, I wanna make sure that I understand this. Keep in mind I drove trucks in the military.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: But you mean to tell me that I can get a system that can tell me what a phone is worth and if it's worth $50, we can sell it for more than $50 and I can use that $50 to help the customer stay in contract? They're gonna love that. The company's gonna love that. And I was surprised how hard they fought me on that.

Pamela: So, wait a minute, because it seemed to me this is a good idea. This is a great opportunity for market expansion, market penetration, all of those things we talk about in business school that you said you had not learned, but you found along the way were working for you. Why would anybody fight you on that?

Rich: Well, circular economy and reverse logistics, there's two challenges. Number one is the leaders of the company got there typically by being able to sell product one and get the customer to go from the first product to the next product.

Pamela: That's such a good point.

Rich: That's how the industry was built.

Pamela: Yes.

Rich: Returns have always been considered a necessary evil. They're accounted for in different ways. If you write things down to zero and you think everything is trash or free, you don't value it the way that you should. So, there wasn't corporate leadership that knew how to go through and do this.

And the biggest fear that they had was not only were the processes and systems set up to sell things, not return things, the accounting was set up to sell things and not return things. And the people that were making those decisions were six-figure people that didn't personally want, nor would they ever want to buy a used thing. So, they didn't have that perspective. So, I had to talk recirculate, I had to show. I had to prove, I had to do business cases.

And…

Pamela: It's... I'm sorry. It's interesting that you say this though, because a lot of what you're saying is really resonating with me, because you're dealing with people who their entire being is about using things for that one time and then they go away.

Rich: Right.

Pamela: There is no idea that I'm going to bring it back. There is no idea that there's value after their end of life or what they think is end of life. And so, to your point, they don't even have the perspective where they can see the value in this thing once it's old. Where did your perspective for that come from?

Rich: I look for simple words whenever I'm trying an initiative. When I hear people say these to me, I know I'm on the right path. Those words are, "Well, that makes sense." When I said, you mean to tell me that I can buy something back from a customer, put money in their pocket, that customer will buy more things. And when I send it where it's supposed to go, you'll pay me more money to do it that we don't have before? That makes sense.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: So, once you get to the point that you should do that, the how becomes important. So, what I've always trained my team, and the way that I always think is, instead of going through and picking out what is wrong with things, pick out what is right. Don't talk about why we can, talk about... You make the decision. Is it right for the business or is it not? And if it's right, if it makes sense, then you need to figure out how.

I've been a serial intrapreneur in Fortune 50 companies for most of my entire adult life, until I took over RecirQ as the CEO. And a best practice becomes a policy and that policy becomes a roadblock. So, I had to become really good at breaking down rules that were set in the past. Some of which I set up myself.

And when I was confronted with destroying things that I had built, it was scary. But if it made sense, then you should. And then, figuring out how you can, instead of why you can't, to me has always been the next level thinking.

Pamela: Talk to me about what happened in your life to make you say, yes, I can do that. Or yes, I can use something that might be used and see value in it, or yes, I can recover from something that might seem like it was a failure. Where do you get that from? What happened in your life to make you like that?

Rich: Well, yeah. I'm a child of divorce. My parents got divorced when I was in the third grade. And I had a rough life growing up. I remember the power being shut off once a month. I remember middle school, I got beat up all the time. And high school, I started doing martial arts and I started learning that I was capable of doing things that I didn't think I could.

Martial arts gave me confidence for the military. The military gave me the leadership that I needed to go through. And I learned in the Army that I can outwork just about anyone. In the military, I saw people approach things with a negative point of view. I'm not getting paid enough. The Army won't give me any more money if I max up my PT test or if I just pass it, so why would I try?

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: I don't have to spit shine my boots. All I have to do is pass inspection. And I saw people just take a look at a scenario and pick out what was wrong. My mindset was always, well, try to find the good. Because in my life, if I didn't find the good, there's points in times that I could have just been pulled away with the current.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: So, I worked out hard, because I loved the people around me. I wanted to be strong enough for me, but for them. I learned if there was enough space inside, I could go outside. And then, that just translated to when I was challenged with business problems, there was always a way, there was always something that you could do. In Verizon, we had a CEO that said, there's always a next higher gear, is just figuring out how to go through and do that. And I saw a lot of people get comfortable.

What got them there today won't get them to the next level. But if you're good now, that being good now is a barrier for growth. And I've always just been able to go through and redefine myself with this whole recirculate mantra, this whole finding value for things that people no longer want. As a child of divorce, I love finding value for things that people no longer want. Because I love when I teach martial arts now, talking to some of the young kids that are going through some similar things.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: You're tougher than you think you are. You have more value than you think you have. Use your head to figure out what's good in life, not what's wrong with life. And nothing can stop you if you're challenging yourself.

Pamela: Yeah. I love the way that you're weaving your story together, whether you know you're doing it or not. Number one, you talk about the military and you-

Rich: But you're also really good at leading this conversation, by the way.

Pamela: But think about it though, the idea that I'm in the military and I'm having to conform to these ideals they have for me. And there are people who say, I don't wanna do that. And you're saying, no, I'm gonna do what I need to do. And thank you for your service, by the way.

Rich: Pleasure.

Pamela: The idea that if I rewind, you're taking martial arts, because you were beat up as a kid in school and you're bullied. Rewind even further, you're dealing with a home where you don't have power and you're having to figure out how to find value in things that other people don't have value in. I'm supposing, because in order to make your life better, in order for you to survive as you go through that process. This is one of the biggest reasons I think diversity is so important in organizations, because it's not just about how we look, but where we've come from. Because what you have gone through in your life creates a path of life that makes your perspective very different. So, you said earlier that there were devices that the people in your organization would never even consider buying used. That wasn't a problem for you, was it? It wasn't a problem for you to see something used as having value.

Rich: Oh, and there was points in my life where what people didn't want was better than anything we could afford.

Pamela: Oh, say more about that.

Rich: At that point in time. The families that had money that were going through new cars or the kids were wearing clothes that were new that I couldn't afford. I've had to shop at Goodwill and that's not a stigma. That's just sometimes part of life. So, if you go through and you are surrounded by that and you know what things are worth, well then, you can do different things. You're not stuck in a paradigm.

Pamela: Yes.

Rich: And I've been able to go through and claw my way from different socioeconomic statuses to where I'm at now. I hope my kids don't go through what I went through, but I want them to have the perspective. So, we volunteer and we do other things to try to go through and teach. But I love what you said about diversity.

I actually brought a picture that I have on my desk. And I've had this picture on my desk now for the last 13 years.

Pamela: And who's this?

Rich: This was my associate director of finance. I called him Mr. No, when I got promoted to a retail director. Finance is risk management. Marketing is risk.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: There's a natural tension between the two of them.because they have competing business objectives. Save money, save costs. Spend money, grow the business. And we had so many disagreements that I started calling him Dr. No. I gave him a PhD in No. But even though he had a different perspective and we disagreed, part of our culture was constructive dissent.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: And then, rallying around the agreed upon action with your full support, with ideas living and dying by their merits as opposed to where they were created. And even though we disagreed, it was never disrespectful. And the constructed dissent around different solutions to the same situation allowed us to build better things.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: So, one of my biggest challenges launching the trading program was getting the finance team to agree to do it.

Pamela: Getting past Dr. No.

Rich: Getting past Dr. No.

Pamela: Can I stop you there though? Because one of the things that we talk about in class is this idea of productive friction. That you can have friction, but you wanted to produce something that's good.

Rich: That's right.

Pamela: And so, Dr. Linda Hill calls it creative abrasion, where the sparks that we create are sparking off of each other, but it's okay, because we're determining what we can do and what we can use and how we can be innovative. And that's gonna help you be successful. Obviously, you figured out how to do that. Now, sometimes, you might have failure when you do that. It's okay though, because I always tell people, building a failure resume just tells me what you were trying to do that was going to be great.

Rich: Yeah.

Pamela: What was that great thing you were trying to achieve? Sometimes you might have dissent, sometimes you might have disagreement, but I always respect who you are and what you bring to the table. I cannot do that if you and I are exactly the same.

Rich: That's right.

Pamela: If we think the same, if we've come from the same positions, if we've done the same things, we're going to think exactly alike. I cannot do that if I'm risk averse, if I'm not willing to fail. Have you seen that as well?

Rich: Yeah. And one of the, the catalysts of those conversations with Dr. No was I was forced to do business cases. I was forced to forecast and know cause and effect and be accountable for the actions that I was taking. And those were all great things.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: Those disagreements helped us build a better product. And I've had his picture on my desk and I use it as an interview illustration to ask people to tell me about a time you disagreed with a coworker. 'Cause I wanna see are they, is the mindset designed around productive conversation or antagonistic conversation?

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: Randy has worked with me. He actually wound up running my monetization team. So, he helped me grow the billion-dollar revenue stream to a billion and six.

Pamela: Wow.

Rich: When I went to Cisco, Randy came to Cisco and helped me build the foundation of the circular economy programs that I built. So, I've surrounded myself-

Pamela: Wait, that same Dr. No?

Rich: The same Dr. No.

Pamela: You brought him with you.

Rich: Brought him with me into running the sales team at Verizon even though he fought hard against the program.

Pamela: Wow.

Rich: Once he saw the value, he was my best cheerleader.

Pamela: Wow.

Rich: I'm a dominant, aggressive type A personality who wants what I want and I want it quick. There's strength to that. You get things done fast. But there's also danger in that, because you can leave a wake if you're not intentional. So, I used Randy's picture as an illustration to go through and say, hey, I want people that think different.

I don't need people that will tell me what they think I want to hear. I need what's real. And that's totally okay. And your question about failures. In front of that picture, 'cause I stole that picture off of his desk.

Pamela: Okay.

Rich: And I've used it. I have little mementos and souvenirs. I call it my shrine to the finance gods. Of every major mistake I've made in business.

Pamela: Oh.

Rich: And if we're on a WebEx call, you'll see that I've got probably 15, 20 different illustrations. This is the time that I spent $100,000 ordering lime green shirts, because I had a regional president that wanted a specific color. I had a sales director that wanted a very specific color.

Pamela: I love it.

Rich: I had Dr. No wanting a very specific price. And I was trying to do an initiative where we were teaching people how to self-serve. So, you put all those things together. I ordered them from overseas. I didn't know about Chinese New Year, which delayed receiving the product by three months. And by the time that the shirts arrived, we had already simplified the tool to where we didn't need the people and the visibility that we had, so…

Pamela: Money's down the drain.

Rich: Money's down the drain. There's a lot of people that still to this day, give me a hard time about the lime green shirts that I bought. But I had these mistakes on my desk for two reasons. Number one, to encourage me to make more mistakes. Every time I've made a mistake, I've also built a billion-dollar program. So, I encourage myself to delight in my failures, because the only way not to fail is not to try.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: And that's not an option. If you're gonna fail, fail fast. And the other reason I have these souvenirs is to keep me from making the same mistake twice.

Pamela: Mm. Great point. This not only encourages you to take the risk, and then to also remind yourself not to make the mistake again, but it has to encourage the people that you are around to take risks as well.

Rich: That's right. When I do my interviews and I'm interviewing new team members, I ask, and I use those illustrations as part of the interview process. Here's a guy I disagree with. Tell me about someone that you disagree with.

Pamela: Yep, yep.

Rich: Here's a mistake that I made. Tell me about a mistake that you made. 'Cause I'm looking to see are people courageous enough to make mistakes?

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: I'm looking to see, are they willing to go through and change? And then, I ask them, well, tell me the thing that you're the proudest of.

Pamela: Yeah.

Rich: So, I can see if they have passion and energy around something.

Pamela: Oh my god, Rich, I could stay here and talk to you all day. We are out of time, but not out of conversation. I love your story of resilience. I love your story of reinvention and now recirculation.

Rich: Yes.

Pamela: Thank you so much for joining us.

Rich: Yeah. Well, it's been a pleasure.