Problem Solved: The IISE Podcast

Welcome to Problem Solved.

On this episode,

we're exploring the intersection

of industrial engineering

and entrepreneurship.

Before we begin,

I'd like to introduce

today's host and panelists.

Taking over the mic is Cassandra Sotos,

an industrial engineer,

internationally

touring violinist, and CEO of AmpRX

a music products company.

And joining Cassandra

are Domonique Townsend,

CEO and managing partner

of We Optimize Work.

She's an industrial engineer

and Lean Six Sigma

Master Blackbelt

with two decades of experience

helping organizations

solve complex business challenges.

And Brock Anderson, founder and principal

ergonomist of Ergo-ology,

who combines ergonomics

engineering and Lean Six Sigma

to help organizations

improve workplace safety and performance.

Together,

they'll explore

how their engineering backgrounds

have shaped

their entrepreneurial journeys,

the risks

they've taken and the lessons

they've learned along the way.

Here's Cassandra.

Hello, my name is Cassandra Sotos,

and I am honored

to be the guest host of Problem

Solved today.

We're going to have

a great conversation today

about industrial engineers

and entrepreneurship.

And I am joined

with, Domonique and Brock here.

Could you guys tell us a little bit

about yourself, your company,

how you ended up in entrepreneurship,

the wild world of entrepreneurship, and,

your background?

Okay. I'm Domonique Townsend.

I am the managing partner and CEO of We

Optimize Work.

And our motto is to make work feel good.

I have two decades of experience

as an industrial engineer

and lean Six Sigma master black belt.

The journey to entrepreneurship.

I've always wanted to be a consultant

to help

people solve problems on a larger scale.

So, with the journey to entrepreneurship,

just being able to see common gaps

throughout my career led me to entrepreneurship

so that I can have a bigger impact

and how people were able

to solve problems,

particularly frontline employees,

all the way to the leadership levels

and getting them together

to solve problems cross-functionally

and helping people improve

how they can see themselves relevant

to a change in the workplace.

So that's what

led me and inspired my journey

to entrepreneurship today.

So Brock Anderson,

I'm the founder of Ergo-ology.

So we are,

lean and

engineering and ergonomics

based consulting firm.

Been around since, 2015.

Really

The moment that I realized

I was going to do

this, my, my corporate job at Coca-Cola,

was dissolving the

the whole global department was being,

kind of let go.

So we were sitting there or,

you know, talking at the dinner

table, and I was like,

all right, well, I'm

going to start throwing

my name out there to some big companies,

I guess, and, and get back on board.

And my wife's like,

this is the prime time to do

what you've always been talking about.

And I was like, well right, now? Like,

we got a little kids and,

you know, brand new family.

Like, are you sure

we're going to dive into

to start a whole, you know,

a whole business

and the whole platform and she goes,

you know,

what do you love to do more than,

anything else?

And I was like, well, create, innovate.

Like figure out

where mega problems are

and how do we solve those,

you know, worldly problems

or company based problem.

And she's like, all right,

there you go right there.

You're not going to go introduce

you on the other jobs. You’re gonna create it.

So and I was like, wow,

this is we're going to do this, I guess.

The following day on the back deck,

the big windows,

I had a dry erase marker

and started scribbling.

How are we going to do this? Right.

So one thing led to another.

You know, 12 years later,

we're rocking and rolling.

Wow, that's really fantastic.

I love I love that story of that moment

when you the dinner table moment

when you realized to make the pivot

and both of you were

like traditional eyes

before traditional eyes.

Yes.

And it's the same saying similar.

Entrepreneurship was always the goal.

Now when it was supposed to

happen was by divine innovation.

But I was also a part of a relief.

And the

the restructuring of the organization

led to the layoff of my role.

And it was

it was one of those it makes sense,

but it doesn't make sense

because we were a family of six.

My children were four children,

nine and under

and health insurance,

all of the things that,

you stay in a role to keep your,

your safety and security,

all of those things were

were on the table, as Brock was saying,

leading into entrepreneurship.

It was the the ability

to solve the very problem

that I was laid off for.

And it was like people are not seeing

they're determining

what value is based off

of a surface level assumption,

versus really taking the time to engage

with people

seeing what their performance is

beyond what a manager

reports, beyond what

what they are able to see.

And, one of those gaps

was not seeing how people were relevant

for a change,

how they were communicating,

what was an improvement,

how they were driving solutions

that just wasn't visible.

I want to help solve this problem

so people can see

what they're letting go of.

I want to solve this problem,

on a bigger scale

because it's happened to me personally,

but it's also happening

in how people make decisions

is the gap in how they determine

what's value,

who's including

and shaping those decisions

and how they're solving problems.

And that,

definitely was one of those

for children out and under.

And it was one of those things

that I wanted them to see.

How can you

have this vision and make it come true?

It was one of those things

where it was like it made more sense to

to pursue this.

This journey

than it did

to go back into corporate America

because of the gaps that were

that were happening.

You know,

I really a lot of what you said

has resonated

with me already,

just five minutes

into this conversation,

feel that we're aligned on the idea that

wherever you put your energy,

your intentionality

can become a success, right?

You know, it's like,

not that there's anything,

quote unquote,

wrong with the corporate job

or the corporate career

or the traditionally

the nontraditional

I it's just, you know,

where your energetic efforts

can bring the most impact

actually at that time.

So, you know, I have

I have a question here

that I was going to ask,

and I should have known not to word it

this way,

because this is not the case for me.

The question is, actually

looking back, was entrepreneurship

always the goal

or did it happen by accident?

What it sounds like to me is

and what my

my answer to that question is,

is that it was always the goal

and it happened by accident.

I can't even say that I had an interest

in being an entrepreneur

like as a kid, college

kid, high school kid,

because I was just doing things

entrepreneurial.

I went to Penn State,

I'm a Penn State I

and then I became

I went into the corporate world

for a couple of years,

but I left totally,

and I was a touring musician

for over ten years.

So I, you know, I'm a violinist.

I toured,

I toured for

internationally for,

12 years and then by accident

got back into business.

I'm in the music products business

and my,

my partner and I, who's

also a musician after the after,

the touring world shut down,

we went through a bunch of

different changes in business,

and then we found out

about an opportunity to buy a business.

And here we are

in manufacturing

power supplies for guitar amplifiers.

It's a longer story than that, of course,

but I think one of the things

that made me successful as a musician,

as a touring musician,

is looking at my work

from an entrepreneurial standpoint.

I had never felt like I was just quote

unquote, just a violinist or just,

a band member or whatever it was.

I was running my own business.

I happened to be the product.

My services happened to be the product,

but it made me really successful in the.

I live in Nashville

in the Nashville market.

So that cumulative skill

set, I think, especially as,

people with IE

backgrounds, is really valuable

in entrepreneurship

and in the world in general.

Leadership.

And that leads me to my next question

that I want to ask about the IE

advantage, which I think we all have.

I know we all have.

I believe greatly,

strongly in what we learn

and bring to the table as I use.

But the question is,

has your engineering

background made you more willing

or less willing to take risks?

So, you know,

I've built my my career off of,

stepping off the ledge

into the great unknown

saying, yes, people always like to say,

there's power and no.

And I've always said that

there's power and.

Yes. So,

what do you

what are your thoughts on that?

The risk taking, the risk

taking aspect of it.

Because I know you can

calculate the risks.

Yeah, I know what I think of that.

I love the power of yes,

I want to take a pause.

But that that was that's really good.

It is a power of yes.

I mean, as an engineer,

I think we are naturally solution is

and there's always a possibility

for something to work.

It's

it's in our ability

to figure out what that problem is.

And for me

it's made me more willing to take risks

because I can easily identify

or reiterate.

So it's the caveat to that.

It's good that we can reiterate

so quickly, but it's also it leaves us,

you think continue to reiterate,

before we're bringing out

a solution to the market.

But that's neither here nor there.

So with engineering, like,

for me, my background

and just knowing that

I will always be able

to identify the problem

and connect the dots

and apply systems

thinking to it

allows me to be more confident

in taking risks,

because how to solve a problem

follows the same set of principles

that are proven to

be effective in

whatever problem

we're seeking to solve as engineers.

Traditionally.

And for me,

that background has led me

to be more willing to take risks.

Brock, what do you think?

It's a great question.

I have a seesaw answer.

I think that, as engineers,

you're trying to eliminate risk.

But as leaders, where we learn

which risk or we're taking.

So kind of looking at it from a problem

solving standpoint,

I think that's what the engineering

type background and mentality,

allow you to do,

systems thinking, meaning thinking.

But I think that it has to be met

like that.

Technical background has to be met

with some soft skills.

A lot of soft skills,

around the leadership space

so that so that you can decipher again,

what problems

are you willing to kind of step into

without knowing all the answers?

But it would be very calculated.

And over time, you

you see that success,

you see that growth.

The technical engineer, the the the the,

the non-autistic who might go,

hey, man, we got this.

Let's, let's move forward.

Because, you know,

you're a leader in this space

and there's no reason

not to create some

kind of a seesaw answer for me on that.

I answer this by saying

it makes me more willing,

because of that

systematic, I

call it systematic

dismantling of of problems.

You know, like, I feel like,

I can look at anything,

figure out what the worst case scenario

is, understand that it's not as bad as,

you might emotionally think.

And then

systematically dismantle

it and figure out how to solve it.

I think for me, entrepreneurship

as a whole

has taught me that

the biggest risk is not taking one.

We have to be calculated,

we get better with that,

with experience and age

and all of our tools and resources.

But I think the big difference

what I see

with some of my employees

or some of my peers in the world is,

is you get two facts, all right?

You get two to into the weeds of

I have to make the perfect decision.

That has to be so calculated

that I never actually make the decision.

And a lot of times, those

are the guys that are saying,

you're so talented,

you should just still

run your own business or like, heck

no, there's no way

I'm not going to take that risk.

And I'm like,

you know, believe in yourself.

Like I believe in you.

And they're like, I believe in myself.

But, no, now that's not me.

I'm good. Right.

So there's there's a balance

that constantly is going on. You know.

This is taking an interesting turn.

Now, this is this is not on script.

So I just want to take a quick detour

to ask you guys both this.

And then we'll get back to the script.

But I,

I didn't know what IE was

when I went to school.

I didn't start in that.

Did you know about it? What?

How did you end up in the IE program?

I had my initial interest

I did for years and,

in architectural engineering,

concentration at Tennessee

State University.

One of my first internships was in a role

that was under

someone who was an industrial engineer.

And so the assignments

that I was given

required to go out to the floor, engage

with the people.

And so for me, it was like,

well, what is this? I really like this.

I get to engage with people

and I love engaging with people.

I love helping them solve problems.

And for me,

I asked the

the my mentor at the time

who I was under,

what is what type of engineering is this?

And and they mentioned

industrial engineering

and I went back to school.

I still did another year

of architectural engineering.

And I met someone

and his name was the Wayne Allen,

and he is an industrial engineer.

He graduated from Tennessee

Tech University.

When he spoke about his career

and he shared what he did,

it really inspired me

to take it more seriously in transferring

and really completing that.

The matriculation

and I e

but again,

I did not hear about

industrial engineering and

and so I was deep into college already.

Right. Very interesting.

So mine I'm

completely opposite side of, of the,

the earth.

Okay.

So,

I didn't study any engineering undergrad,

studying physics and geology.

Like I mentioned earlier,

I was all wrapped up in the baseball

playing in college.

All about human fitness.

You know, you name. Right.

So this undergrad went

and played

a little bit of professional ball,

got caught and said,

what am I going to do with my life?

I'm no longer a baseball player.

I found myself going back to Auburn.

Like nobody saw me like, hey,

you gotta let me in.

I know that look like whatever it is.

Like I'm sleeping in my truck

until you let me in.

In the program, in the parking lot.

Like this is what's going to happen.

Two weeks

later is still sleeping in my truck.

She finally was like,

all right, well,

let's see in the fall semester, like,

that's fine.

Like, come on.

So I was still studying

what we call biomechanics, right.

That's the path

that I thought I was going to head.

Had you still touched

in the engineering space

at all of my masters

in body mechanics, biomechanics,

mostly dealing with sports. Right.

I'm still working with the baseball team

and over an internship as a strength

and conditioning coach

for the Auburn football team.

So I'm in there at like 3:30 a.m.

trying to work these athletes out.

They got attitudes.

They don't care that I'm determined.

Like, I'm all ticked off.

I'm like, look,

I got no sleep last night.

I'm here for you.

I know, I know, you're an athlete.

I used to be one, but you're a punk. I'm.

I'm there with athletics.

I'm never. I'm done.

So I remember

I went straight into my professors

office and look,

what can I do with all of my background?

That has nothing to do

with athletics ever again.

She's like, what do you know?

That's not me.

You're still going to dabble?

I said, okay,

80, 20,

80%, something

else, 20%, maybe Athletics.

She goes,

well, the,

the engineering department

had something called ergonomics going on.

You should go check it out.

And I literally heard her say, aura.

And I was like,

sorry.

I was like, paper birds.

She's like, no, no. No, man.

Like ergonomics.

It's an engineering discipline.

And, literally within like two to,

credit hours, I was obsessed.

I was like,

this is still body

mechanics and ergonomics,

but it's totally my mentality

of picking apart things and being like,

how do we get systems better?

It started to get the wheels flow,

and I was free from sports

all of a sudden.

And it was a it was a good space to be a

wow.

Now that's a story I love that

I really love. You know what?

I think we need better marketing.

I had never heard of

industrial engineering

before, before I got surgery to,

to Penn State as well.

I, you know, I was

truth be told, I wanted

to I wanted to be a musician, and I had

I knew that I wanted

to, like, be in business.

I wanted to be a musician.

I didn't

I didn't see a path for me

in the music program.

But I,

I got a scholarship

to the engineering school,

so I had to be in the engineering school.

Yeah.

And so I was like, well,

I started out in bioengineering

because just

I just freshman year,

you pick something

that I got paired with a senior

as just part of,

like a orientation program.

And I was like, what?

You know, she's telling me what she does.

And I'm like,

well, I'm really interested in business,

but I don't want to go

to the business school.

I don't know, like, what should I

what should I really be doing here?

And she told me what she did.

She was an industrial engineer.

And I was like,

so you're telling me

that, like, I could work

in the environmental industry with that?

And she's like, yes,

and I can design

new products with that, just like, yeah,

you can

and I can work

in music products.

She's like, yeah, you

anything where something's made

the answer is yes.

Whatever you're about to ask me,

pretty much the answer is yes.

And I was like,

this is awesome.

She and the way that she that

she described it to me

was the liaison

between the business world

and the technical world.

And that was

like, that was it for me.

I was like,

I like to see things happen in real life.

I like to see the idea.

I like to then make it happen,

and then I like to make it better.

But yeah, like I said,

I think we need some better marketing.

And you know,

everybody knows

about mechanical engineers Aero.

And you know, I. Mean like we design.

And then you find out

that there's more CEOs

that are industrial engineers

than any other background.

And you're like, how are we nice.

Why is the flag not being flown?

So on that topic, what do you think

in your in your experience as, business

owners, entrepreneurs or even, you know,

in the corporate world?

Like,

what part of your education or background

do you use almost every day

that you didn't fully appreciate

while you were in school

or in the corporate world,

or has been the most surprising

facet to your current day business?

We're going to get

the marketing soundbite right now.

Yeah, right. Right.

The calls for station identification.

So I think for me it had to

do with this

evolution of IE leading me to lean.

So I also got a lean Six Sigma

black belt through the,

the Institute

of Industrial Systems Engineer.

IISE

that in and of itself

really transform

not just work life, but personal life.

I mean, I've always kind of

put my time under a microscope.

I've always been very careful with

what does my daily routine look like,

so I can maximize

efficiencies and get rid of waste.

Maybe at the household

that that tool or that skill set

is not like this.

Much like when I go into the pantry

and start going,

hey, first and foremost, now, like,

none of this isn't going to work.

Well, you know.

My wife’s like no...I'm just picturing it.

I am picturing it right now.

No wife's like, no, no, no,

that's Thursday's dinner.

I'm like, okay, well I'm just saying

I apply a lot of that same stuff

to work, too.

I, you know, talking with,

with the team and saying,

you know, where do we feel like

we're, we're missing

as far as wasted time or wasted energy or

or wasted customers?

Like, who are we spending time on that

we really don't get a return on,

that we have to let go and

and feeling

confident in the ability to let go of

what is a paycheck in order to go

maximize a paycheck somewhere else.

Right.

We're all we did in that time.

I fired energy back

every week, every day.

So, you know,

I even have those conversations of,

you know, where's where's the,

the juice and the squeeze, right.

How hard are we having to work

for that dollar versus,

you know, can we go over here,

show our skill sets, maximize our value,

and it's a better partnership

all the way around.

So,

I would have to say my short

answer would be lean.

I think just the tools that come in

the lean space

is something that's

surprising to me,

that I never really

found myself gravitating on a continuous,

cerebral forefront of those types of,

concepts.

That great perspective.

I love that.

And, I do agree like you do.

Take it home.

I know

when I go into stores,

I cannot go into any store right now

without thinking of how could this

be more efficient,

this, the merchandise

and all of those things.

For me, the most surprising advantage,

with industrial engineering

is being able to easily

see how one part of an ecosystem impacts

the other.

I did not realize how many people do

not think cross-functionally that,

we do as industrial

engineers because we're trained that way.

And, you can go as far as saying

that people who consider

industrial engineering,

are wired

that way

and thinking

cross-functionally,

how does one impact the other?

So I would say that

that would be the biggest,

advantage, especially now

with the pace of change

and transformation,

job roles are becoming obsolete,

but the skill sets or not.

And so when people

are thinking in job roles,

they're thinking in silos of,

of this department

versus this department.

But as transformation is

the pace of it is rapidly changing,

you can see how those skills

can be transferable.

And being able to see,

well, if you're making this solution,

this impacts these other functions.

That's an advantage that we have

that not there's not a lot of people who,

like approach work

in that sense

of cross-functionally versus silo,

especially in the space

of corporate America.

So for me,

I will say this, the surprising advantage

that I thought that even went, thought,

like I said, that when,

when they approach solving problems.

That's really interesting.

One of the things that

I wanted to talk to you both about

is when it comes to leadership,

I look at it as there

are

Visionary,

there's like visionary leadership

and operational leadership.

And how do you lead?

Tell me what your thoughts are on that.

I found myself,

even with an IE background,

excelling more in the visionary aspect

and the strategic overall

aspect of our business.

Not as operational as my professors

would have liked me to have become.

And,

it's interesting because my partner,

we we run the business,

we're co-founders,

we run the business together.

He is he's not the IE, but he's the IE.

So he's kind of in the CEO role.

He's really like

things much more operationally.

And I find myself being more visionary.

I think that my visions are informed

by the operational side of me.

But I'm curious to hear from you.

If you identify

more as a visionary leader

or an operational leader.

I hear a lot of operations

from both of you.

I'm a visionary,

but I like to stay in the lab.

So, which I didn't realize

I like to create and so.

Well, in the creation of it is

how can we make this,

this problem better?

How can we have new ideas?

How can I create it

so I can introduce it into the world?

But it's all a part of this big vision.

But I

definitely look at myself

being more operational

in how I approach things,

the iterations of it,

and to refine it

being in this,

this lab creating

and then bringing it out,

to meet the bigger vision.

So I lean towards

more towards

being operational in my habits.

But my

I'm definitely visionary

in my mindset approach.

So it's this big vision.

I have all these things,

but then I go right back into

looking at the the,

you know, being in the lab

versus staying in the visionary, realm.

When it gets to how I look at,

how I even apply industries

to engineering and even entrepreneurship.

Brock, what are your thoughts?

It's a good question.

It's a great question.

I think the the the sweet sauce,

is living in the,

like, the intersection of both vision

and execution.

So if you're only visionary,

nothing gets done.

If you're only operational,

nothing changes.

So if you think about that,

it has to be this balance, this balancing

act to my mind of when to be visionary,

either forced, forced visionary, like,

I'm going to go have quiet time

and I'm to, I'm going to whiteboard

or write on windows like,

how are we going,

what where we want to go

and how are we going to get there. Right.

And what is it

going to take to get us there?

And then what is it

going to take to get us there?

A lot of times

drops back into more of the operational,

the operational side.

So there's a there's a time, resources

and what

type of funding are we going to need

to do that.

So again

know like if if you're only visionary

nothing gets done.

So we have to have

some boots on the ground.

But if you're only operational

I think the bigger risk is

if you're only operational,

nothing changes.

And we live in this world of

ever evolving

and dealing with it right now

with, with, our tools in an AI world.

Right.

So I think it's no surprise

a lot of people, companies are or,

trying to reduce headcount

and go to more AI driven

platforms and

coaching customers, educating

customers, deciding

if we're going to go

in a different route, is both visionary,

because I don't want to

just stay in operations

mode on a hamster wheel,

and all of a sudden,

you know, we get left in the dust.

So,

you know,

I think you got to have the windshield

and the engine, right?

The windshield is our vision.

We are the engine.

That's how we're going to get it.

It's good.

To have you.

Either of you felt

that you've

become unbalanced

between those two aspects of yourself?

And what did you do to rebalance

or create space for

one side or the other?

I found myself being unbalanced

in the beginning of the entrepreneurship

journey and,

being more operational,

just having that one vision

and going back and operational

and how to work with clients

in particular.

Over time, as was being more intentional

in providing that space.

So now I have developed habits.

I have an approach of how what like what

I was saying

and having the operational side

of things of

we need to space, look at time,

study and trends.

We need to look at the data.

What is the feedback

telling us to make informed decisions?

If the vision that we have

or are we in alignment?

So for me was unbalanced at first,

and then it got into being balanced

when I started to see like this

vision cannot be executed

if you don't have the

the operational

habits are the way the systems

in place for people

to be successful in doing it,

and then also is making

sure you're reminding people

this is the vision that you're

working towards,

so they won't be so into trying

to make this work without assessing.

Is it the right direction to take?

When do you flip a switch

so you can reassess?

The vision to reassess

how, your,

your systems drive,

the way that you reach the vision?

I have a lot of

commonalities with my answer.

I would

say at one point, to,

to kind of go

right back to your question at one point,

got a little,

too operational, heavy,

not so visionary heavy.

And really, my soul for that is,

I went home and I said, honey,

I think I need to go to Hawaii

for a month

to get very visionary on things again.

That she didn't go for it.

So out of fear of.

And I. Anticipated it.

I'm listening like something, and.

I'm like, I need to meet this lady.

You know?

No, I,

you know, honestly,

again, it's being able.

I feel like to have the ability

to see a clear forecast.

So, like,

what is coming for your business

and how do I prepare myself

either operationally or shifting,

you know, our mindset or our vision

based on what's coming?

I think

really good

entrepreneurs have a pulse

on two steps forward versus

like waiting for that to happen

and then reacting.

So I think the real challenge

is for a leaders

balancing the two worlds.

Right?

Vision without execution really

just becomes

a collection of great ideas

that never create value. Right.

And that's what

I was pitching for Hawaii.

But, you know,

probably a good thing that of

and then I think the execution

without vision can lead to this

incremental improvements,

but not really have meaningful growth.

Right.

So I can stay in operational mode

and go

day to day to day to day

to day, an invoice, English

invoice, invoice, invoice.

But ultimately,

if I'm not developing a new program

or a new type of training or a new tool,

the current customers are

eventually going to get tired of of,

number seven on the dinner menu.

They're going to say, hey, tonight

I want to try a little something

different, right.

And that's

where that growth

and innovation comes into play.

And I'll expand on this

when I think a little bit,

because I sit in this space a lot,

early on,

deeply involved in the building process,

delivering programs, developing

programs, the content

within the solving day to day problems.

How do we market this company?

Some sidebar story, like how do I so

how do I sell myself?

How am I so much services

like I'm a technical resident,

you know,

at every corporation

that I was a technical resident.

So if I said jump, let go. Okay. Cool.

So, now all of a sudden, I'm telling

I remember it was Clorox.

I was like, hey, you need me?

Because I've done some data digging.

And the lady literally was like, no, no.

No. It's like.

All right, have a good day.

But, you know, like,

look at what a terrible salesman like.

Those are terrible.

So, so,

but those are operational growing pains

that had to take place. Right.

And, you know,

I think

now my role is, is helping

my team understand

where we are, where we're headed,

why it matters.

What's a bigger impact

for the for the client.

So I don't think the best leaders

are purely visionary, purely operators.

I think you have to maintain

that balance.

Everything that you said

really resonates with me.

And I think that part of

being the entrepreneur,

especially in the early stages,

until you are able to grow a staff

and I'm not sure how many employees

either of you guys have,

but it is wearing all of those hats.

I mean,

you know, every hat,

like literally every hat

sales, marketing,

making the website, the janitor, the,

you know.

Staff psychologist, psychologist,

accounting.

Okay, I'm the I'm QuickBooks clean.

Now, I finally got rid of

somebody else on the QuickBooks.

How many screams

have come out of my office

because of QuickBooks?

Anyways?

I just

I think that one of the advantages

that I've had throughout

this is, is being able to manage

all of those things at once, you know, I

which I've been able to do at varying,

you know, levels of success.

It's obviously

like I mean,

it's it's been very, very challenging

at times, but,

you know,

identifying where to spend my time,

how to spend my time, how to view it

all as a system,

how to view your entire business

as a system.

I think that's why we end up

so many people in the CEO chair,

because you can see that

cross functionality.

You can see,

that you have maybe

an operational weakness

in sales, for example,

which is something that that

we struggle with as well.

I want to

ask some questions,

some specific questions

about lessons and advice.

What is one lesson

that entrepreneurship has taught you?

That engineering school did not

I’d say

Engineering school

it taught me how to solve problems.

Entrepreneurship propelled me

to solve the right problems. So

There are several ways

that we as industrial

engineers can solve problems

because we're trained that way.

So just

being able to narrow it in

on solving the right problem

and then identifying

what companies algin with

that would market aligns with that

and being

okay with it,

even though that urgency is

you want to save the world is like,

what is that one thing?

And then how can you establish

those relationships?

But we do know how to solve a problem.

We do know how to follow the methodology

that we are taught and how to apply it.

But it's all about narrowly,

narrowing in the end,

when you get into the entrepreneurship

so you won't have to,

you won't feel the need to be the problem

solver of the world.

But you're the problem solver.

That one thing that you like, the,

that that really compels

you to want to keep solving

and learn more about and expand upon.

I'm going to

you gave me a second to think about this one.

So I'm going to answer

from both a operational response

and then a visionary response. Right. So,

operational,

I think that,

just engineering tools in general

or going through those, those classes

teach you how to seek certainty.

Then I'll expand on that.

But entrepreneurship taught me

how to lead through uncertainty.

All right.

So I think

most problems have constraints.

They have data.

We have a logical path to a solution.

Right.

So engineering class mentality

if you work hard enough

you most of the time

to bergdoll yourself to the right answer

versus entrepreneurship

or outside of those engineering

type classes,

you're having to make decisions

with incomplete information,

with limited resources,

and then really no guarantee

that your assumptions are correct, right?

So,

what I mean by that is, I guess, on the,

on the outside of engineering

classes side,

well,

how do you navigate

through the uncertainty,

when you don't have data

or you don't have forecasts

and sales leads or you don't have,

line of sight

to really what that customer

is asking you to quote,

you're like,

going back for the 12th time on the email

or the phone call and you're like,

so great answer.

I need you to expand

a little bit, please.

Like a little bit of details,

maybe some bullet points, you know,

what are your goals?

Maybe you have one of those in there

because you know, the one sentence,

I just need something that works here

that doesn't really give

me a lot to go off of. Right?

So that's that's my operational answer.

The visionary answer.

All the soft skills stuff

you just talked about, we spend,

three hours a month.

That's a given day that we all pick.

It's almost a half day

where the whole team gets together.

We go through a leadership topic.

It can be some type of,

leadership philosophy,

like the Three M's to motivation or

any anything that's grooming or polishing

the team around

soft skills and leadership.

Active listening,

no military body language,

knowing when to not push, knowing

when to push.

It's the grit and the grind.

I think that even though,

you know, engineering

classes were tough

and you have to study

what McGinty by any means,

you know, when you start

for the 120 hour weeks

trying to get a business off the ground,

I don't know if if school

in and of itself taught me enough

to actually be able to do that.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, definitely.

It's interesting

because it's probably one of the best

backgrounds that you can have,

but it's still

it still doesn't show

you everything that you need to know.

You know there's still just some mystery,

of challenges

of side quests, of learning that

that happen after the fact.

But I still I still believe that we have

one of the best foundations

to start the journey with.

For sure. Yeah, absolutely.

What is something that you believed

about entrepreneurship

that turned out to be completely wrong?

Oh.

I can start on that one.

Yeah.

I think one of the things

about entrepreneurship that I,

they turn out

to be completely wrong

is that

everyone is not your target market,

and it goes right back to the background.

We know how to solve problems.

You give us a problem,

we can help solve it, or we can tell you

if you're solving the wrong problem.

The caveat with

that is you can solve problems

but at a broader scale.

And what,

the thing that I had completely wrong

about entrepreneurship

is that everyone was the target market.

So just finding companies

and just identifying the problem

and saying,

I know that

this is what you're experiencing

because based on my experience

with this industry,

this is what's happening.

And then I go to another company

and do the same thing.

And I had it completely wrong,

because it disqualified

how I was able to make sure

that my values were at the top.

So my values were people.

Is this company people centered?

Are they aspiring to be people centered?

Do they intentionally engage,

cross-functionally in

how they are using frontline employees

all the way

up to the executive level

in solving business challenges?

And for that, it limited it.

It started to narrow down

which companies aligned

with my target market.

And so completely wrong was thinking

I can solve every company's problem

and convincing them of the value

it is in having

cross-functional collaboration.

So not all companies are ready to

understand how to be collaborative,

and how they’re reaching business challenges,

how they address and business challenges.

Rather, it

let me know

if I have to convince them

of the value of this, the sustainability

after even if if, I'm done

consulting with them

or we completed a project with them

that it won't sustain,

that was the one thing

I had completely wrong.

Is still feeling

the need to convince people

of the value of,

solving problems,

cross-functionally of value,

and of letting the data tell a story

and and engaging people

to see how they're relevant to the role.

And, and if you have to convince them,

then the likelihood of them

sustaining that improvement is very low.

Those are great I'll tell you the story

that I really,

I really thought would make it

successful

early on with it

you know, revenue in the company.

So, I remember like, we were

we were at a point now

where like the web pages rolling,

you know,

a few clients are starting to trickle.

And I think

I just put on my old school, like,

I don't know if it's the the athlete

mentality or what,

but push harder, push harder,

push harder.

You know, more more is better.

And I just remember this one time I,

just got off the phone with this guy.

I thought

we were going to close the business.

He said, I need to think about it

a little bit longer.

So I said, okay, yeah, no problem.

In about 95 minutes

later, I call you back and asked you

if you had time to think about it.

Well, you're.

And he's like, I remember

like quote unquote,

bruh, I'll reach out to you

when I'm ready.

And I was like, okay, sounds good.

So tomorrow I'll call you again.

Like, no, maybe,

I kid you not, just

that was my mentality going into

it is run

hard, cover some ground persistence.

Like maybe they'll say yes

just because they're tired of me

being a woodpecker.

I don't know, but, literally

that whole mentality

of, of pushing harder,

was not

that's not

that's not what leads to success. Right?

When you push harder at the wrong things,

it really comes from being able

to push harder,

use that passion and use that fuel,

use that energy, that grit,

whatever you want to call it.

But don't let it out of its cage

until you find the right vector

for it to go right and push for it.

The right things

more is not always better.

We've heard that quote, right.

I think the more is better,

as long as it's,

channeled in the right direction.

Right.

So,

effort and effectiveness,

they're they're totally different.

And when I do a lot of my,

my entrepreneurship talks or,

you know, talking

with, with young adults or whatever

it might be,

I use a term called compounding effort.

All right.

So very similar to compounding interest.

The sooner you put the money

in, the longer

it sits there,

the more you have it in the

the same with same with effort.

But you also have to have

the wins of effectiveness.

So the earlier in your career

you can find that that grit and grind.

Second gear,

be a visionary,

be operational, start

putting all those pieces together.

I think

compounding way over

the course of your career,

your efficiency and your

your yield will always be exponential.

Right?

But you can't just go at it

from an effort standpoint.

You also have to bring

in that effectiveness.

Long hours

doesn't automatically create

better results.

That has been a challenge

for me over the course

of owning our business too,

is that it's it's

looking back and saying,

I put a lot of energy into that and.

Yes man lessons.

So yeah.

And it's like,

not, it's never for not, it's like just

you've always learned something from it,

even if it's just that you shouldn't

be putting so much effort into that.

You might not have

needed to put effort into that vector.

You know, as you put it,

you know, being the person who is

in charge of deciding

also brings a lot of weight

to the equation,

a lot of that responsibility and the,

you know, corporate world or whatever's

people complain

about how there's 18

layers of red tape, but,

you know,

there's 18 people

that are weighing in on that decision,

and then it's annoying.

But then whenever you have to be

the one person who decides

to pull the trigger or not,

it's it's freeing

and also crushing at times.

And,

it can be a lot,

but there's always a lot to learn.

If an industrial engineering student

listening today

is considering entrepreneurship,

what's one piece of advice

you hope they remember

from this conversation

five years from now?

Oh.

I would say don't let timeline

be your strategy.

So I know I've always

expressed an interest

in being a consultant

and owning a consulting firm.

And people tell you

work for 15 to 20 years

and then you'll have

the expertise to do it.

And when I look back, it wasn't

like the

time that I started in a consulting firm,

even though it’s divine intervention

it was really understanding

what is that

problem that I want to solve?

And then looking at

what are the frustrations,

what are the experiences

that I personally have experienced?

What are the experiences

that that others

that their peers are experiencing

and then seeing?

What is that common now with you?

And how does this support

that problem and strength

and how you,

study to solve that problem

is, is my biggest thing.

So if you're considering

entrepreneurship, identify

the specific problem and hone in on that.

Brings a greater value

than focusing on

just gaining experience

in a broader spectrum.

You're actually like assessing

as you are experiencing

different challenges.

If you're going to internships or co-ops,

if you go into corporate America,

just start paying attention to how

what frustrations there are

and then narrowing it down

to that

one specific problem,

like if

if you feel like this is the one problem,

if we solve this,

this can help change A, B, and C.

Like all of these experiences,

it seemed like I was going

through the same challenges and gaps

in each company that I worked with,

as if it was.

It was like, you got to be kidding me.

Same exact gaps.

So it was like,

this is the type of problem

I need to solve.

The gap is in

how people are being engaged

and who's involved to shape

these decisions.

And so that's

yeah, that'll be the, the, the one slash.

Two things

that I encourage people

to consider

if they're looking

at considering

entrepreneurship as an idea.

So don't let timeline be your strategy.

Yes. Yes.

Get clear on your values.

Your values are Sara.

Let's say me.

Should I tell a love story?

No. Oh.

You have good.

Stories.

Maybe my advice.

The answer.

Students will be

become a good storyteller

because people remember stories, right?

People like doing business with people

they like. Yes.

All right.

I don't want to underplay my

technical skills.

I don't want to underplay,

any of my team's technical skills.

But I can tell you right now,

even if we're overpriced by 50% to the

next competitor,

if it's a customer

that likes doing business with us,

we will get to the right,

kind of goes hand in hand

with this philosophy, right?

Like,

don't let your job become your identity.

Right.

I remember sitting in that seat as a,

as a, a grad student.

And in fact,

the whole reason I didn't finish

my PhD is

I got a job offer, and I took it.

I took an internship job

offer at Gulfstream Aerospace.

Was on my path.

I think I had another year or so

to go to to finish all the doctorate.

And I was like, heck no, man,

I got a job.

Let's go. I'm going to McVay.

This is going to be amazing.

Meanwhile driving you know a

little little bitty car and like

oh man's got an old saying that's needed.

This is not good.

You know you should stay in school.

But don't let's don't focus on the job,

okay?

Don't focus on doing all this stuff

so that you get that job,

build your skills,

build your character,

build relationships.

Those are going to outlast,

outlast any title

that you're going to ever have, right?

People like doing business with people

they like,

whether you know,

whether you do take that

corporate America

job is still the same thing.

Like you're going to get promoted

based on two things technical

technical ability and likeness.

And I would say more times

than not, it's the like

and also the technical ability

and especially

a lot of different sectors.

So but I think over time

you realize that,

careers change much

faster than character does.

Like this.

That's the supreme bull, right?

Careers change much faster

than your character does.

So as a student, focus on you.

Focus on yourself as an asset.

And if you do become an entrepreneur,

you will actually

have all the preparation built upon

you were in you to handle

what your title is.

When the time comes.

I like.

That, yeah.

If they say hey I, he ain't got the hang.

I mean seriously because you're spending

whenever you're touring.

This is just to illustrate

how applicable this is in the world,

not just in owning a business,

being an IE or whatever.

You're a touring musician,

you play guitar for so and so.

You spend

when you're on the road 24 hours a day

with these people for weeks on end.

If you don't have the hang, forget it.

You're done.

There's somebody else that can do it

that has the hang.

Now, of course,

you have to be able to perform

at some level,

but the hang is a lot of times

more important

than the actual performance.

As long as you're

performing at a base level.

So that's just such a great point

at our company, up our,

we sell a product called the Brown Box.

We deal with voltage.

I, I make a joke,

sometimes I say that I'm going

to get an honorary MBA from Harvard

in marketing for making voltage funny.

And but what people say, they say,

what do you like about AmpRX?

And they say,

oh, they make great products,

but those are they're just great people.

They're just great people to work with.

Cool.

You know,

and so I just really echo

your point, Brock.

We've just covered so many great topics.

Are there any other things

that you'd like to add

that you think

that we missed, that we didn't cover,

that would be important to our listeners?

I would say if you see yourself

providing a solution

that solves a problem,

you are fully capable

of bringing it to fruition.

Many times

people try

to qualify us through the lenses

that they

determine as ready or as capable

or as fit,

meaning, fitting in a box or whatnot.

And

I encourage people who are listening

to be okay, owning

what they believe about themselves

and how they see themselves

solving a problem,

how they see themselves

bringing a solution. It's not easy.

And sometimes you have to remind yourself

of who's you are.

I even have to do the same thing.

But oftentimes

we forget that we can remind ourselves

of who we are,

but we can define who we are,

in the process.

And that can be enough,

to move forward in what we need to do

and just be anchored

in what you believe about you,

being that person solving that problem.

Not not anything.

While for me, I think in closing,

it's important to remember that success

really kind of comes from a single

great idea

or a single breakthrough moment.

It kind of comes from having this vision

to see what other people can't see.

Discipline

to execute consistently.

I think you have to have some resilience

to keep moving forward

when results are not immediate.

I think as a leader, you kind of have to

polish those soft skills

to inspire people.

Ultimately,

not being liked or being able to hang,

not the hand.

I was actually in Nashville last weekend,

so I totally get what the hand means.

And I was a dangerous.

That was a dude.

It was. Hey. All right. Also.

All right.

Well,

we're we're

we're going to talk about that

after we stop right

off the record button. Yes.

Please do.

It.

We're hanging, very systematically.

Hanging. Very.

Oh, I know, I know how to do that.

Well,

if you can balance

the vision with the execution.

Grit with.

Oh, man, I'm

getting to philosophical here.

But, like,

grit with the ability to adapt.

Adaptability doesn't have to mean soft,

right?

You've got to give yourself

the opportunity to build something

meaningful. Right.

Like that was my whole

thing is

I don't want to look back over a career

and see myself on a hamster wheel,

see myself

going back to the same office,

seeing myself

doing

relatively the same things

over and over year over year.

Still getting paid

with three 5% payments.

But ultimately my value,

stays on a flat line versus

an exponential curve. Right?

So I think when you think in those terms,

the long term,

even if the results aren't

there, all the grit growing, humility,

that's kind of what I would leave

you guys with.

That's what it's going to take on the,

on the entrepreneur side.

What I would like to say in response

to all of that, to our listeners,

is that everything that you all have

said, everything that we've said,

this applies to anyone.

This is not excluding anyone.

All of these things

that we've discussed as what you need

to bring to the table or what

you should try to bring

to the table as an entrepreneur.

These things are available to you.

This is we're not like nobody's

superhuman here.

There's not any unique positioning

about who we are, where we've come from

that has made us more or less able

to accomplish

the things that we've accomplished.

Many people might look at my story

and say, I had no business

taking over the business

that I took over.

I had no business

becoming a full time musician

like you could make a lot of excuses

as to

why or why not,

but I don't think any of

them are applicable.

And all of these things are within reach,

especially to a person

who probably came across this podcast.

If you have

a industrial

or an industrial engineering background,

which, you know, we

I'm sure we have some listeners

who are maybe considering

this path educationally,

maybe they're not there yet.

You have already a great foundation

to start,

to start from,

if you want to go on

the entrepreneurial path.

Something that I learned every day

is that I don't

I don't know what I'm doing,

and neither does anybody else.

And that can be a great advantage.

I always just try to figure out the next

best thing to do.

It's not because I have some superhuman

divine intervention of what

how to do things.

It's just us figuring out what to do.

And sometimes it's right

and sometimes it's wrong.

And if it's wrong, you don't do it again

or you try not to.

One of my missions is to help people

stop saying, I could never do that again.

I don't I don't want to hear that from,

you know, from anybody,

especially people

who I know who I believe

are more than qualified to

start this past, start

this journey, and everyone

is qualified to

design and live a life they love.

That's what I would like to

to leave everyone with.

Thank you so much

for sharing your stories and your advice

is there a way that,

that we can reach you,

that listeners can reach you guys

afterwards if they want to?

I'm mainly on, LinkedIn.

So, Domonique,

D o m o n i q u e

last name is Townsend, and you can type

in L s s m b b for lean six sigma

master black

belt is the acronym for Visit Me on

We Optimize Work .com

We're definitely on LinkedIn.

I love to connect with you.

Yeah.

Likewise, LinkedIn.

Brock Anderson,

you'll be able to find us.

You can see

Ergo-ology on LinkedIn as well.

That'll have

all of our contact information.

Ergo dash ology .com

And that's the web page.

Thank you guys

so much for joining us again.

My name is Cassandra Sotos.

It's an honor

to be a

guest host for Problem Solved with IISE

I'm also on LinkedIn.

That's a great place to find me.

I'm on Instagram.

Anywhere you find guitar players,

you probably find me.

I'm a violinist.

I banished myself to the world

of talking to guitar players every day.

My partner's a bass player.

I'm a violinist.

I'm like,

sometimes we look at each other

and we say, what have we done to do it?

We're talking to guitar players

all day long and baroque.

You know what I'm talking about?

Because you're just

in Nashville, Domonique.

You know, because you're in Nashville.

Yes. Born and raised.

So, thank you guys again for joining us.

And,

I hope we all stay in touch.

Thank you.

Because yes, I.

Thank you guys. Take care.

Thank you.

A big thank.

You to Cassandra Sotos, Domonique Townsend

and Brock Anderson

for sharing their experiences

and insights.

And thank you for listening

to Problem Solved.