Hi, everyone, im j. J. Ramberg. Welcome to your business. Over the past five years, the business of body comes has grown significantly. And as weve seen in the news recently, body cams have played an Important Role for Police Forces around the country. Today, we meet the man behind wolfcom body cams, whos worked diligently with Law Enforcement to come up with products that help them do their jobs. Open the door when Los Angeles Based wolfcom entered the Police Body Camera space in 2011, the Little Known Company quickly became an industry leader. At the time, there was only two other competitors. We were the big three in the united states. The founder is the force behind the booming business. That built its reputation on technological innovations. Our phones were ringing off the hook. We did very little marketing. The other two competitors they had no gps. No night vision. We were the first to introduce a high quality video. Hands down. But four years after peter launched wolfcoms first camera, his world came to a crashing halt. One of our competitors decided how can we destroy this company . I was in a meeting when one of my employees walked in and said you need to look at the news. We have no more software. Our competitor just bought out the Software Company that were using. Software is critical to body cams for storing and managing videos. With no warning wolfcoms Software Partner was acquired for 13 million by the biggest player in the industry. Next thing you know, all our customers started calling us. There are rumors that wolfcom was done. Peter was blindsided by this devastating blow. At a complete loss for a viable solution. But the body cam industry had always been cutthroat. And building wolfcom had not been easy. Hands up. When peter came up with the concept for the third eye body camera, he was actually living out his 007 dream. Running a spy shop in hollywood. Happened officers frequently stopped by. This one particular officer kept coming back, almost every day, looking through every product we had. And he would always leave empty handed. The ever curious period had to ask, why . He says look at me. I have over 30 pounds of gear on myself. All over my body. If only you can just put a spy camera or put a camera into something that im already wearing, and thats when i took a look and i saw his mike. Two years later the wolfcom third eye built the market. We started putting a lot of ideas into this, including gps, night division, the ability to zoom in and out. Open the door, please. Shots fired. We came from that background of electronics, small cameras, thats how we were able to stay in the game. Keep your hands where i can see them in every time there was a Police Shooting we always noticed a spike in sales. But the 2014 Police Shooting of an unarmed teenager named Michael Brown in ferguson, missouri, became a game changer for the body cam industry. Suddenly everybody and their grandmother wanted in on this gold rush, on this gold mine. I knew that it would blow up to maybe a hundred competitors. This dramatic shift in the market, and the overnight saturation of other body cam startups was not good for wolfcom. Now, were competing with so many other competitors. Trying to push ourselves up to the front. It got a lot harder. There was also a major problem overseas. Wolfcom body cameras became targeted by counterfeiters. Peter had made the mistake of having one factory handle every part of the manufacturing and assembly. All it took was one untrustworthy employee, and the wolfcom winning formula was out there for every competitor to see. You get people who, they just have no morals, no conscience. I mean we lost huge deals in other countries. I spent over 100,000 just on attorneys chasing people. After learning that harsh lesson, peter went to the other extreme. Creating too many moving parts to the wolfcom manufacturing process. Next thing you know were dealing with up to 80 vendors, we have inventory problems. You have everything except one piece. And theres a twomonth delays, but youve got a customer who ordered 1,000 units. When i did it that way theres no copycat but it is a pain in the butt. Eventually peter fixed this, too. And by the time he lost his Software Partner in 2015, he had years of startup wisdom under his belt. His resilience pushing through tough times, and willingness to learn with every obstacle was about to pay off. I needed to evolve. I needed to go somewhere where i have never gone before. I need to step into the darkness. And turn it into light, so then i decided that wolfcom was going to evolve into a Software Company. And now today im proud to say, we are a hardware and a Software Company. The body camera business is now on track to become a billion dollar industry. Making the competition even more fierce. Some players have been accused of using unfair tactics to secure contracts. From cultivating close ties to Police Chiefs to splurging on Luxury Vacations for other Law Enforcement decision makers. Get yourself some cover. Am i doing something wrong . Yes, maam, you are now. And some Police Departments have also come under fire. Approving a nobid process, which allows a Single Company to secure a body cam deal without facing any competition along the way. Our model, for wolfcom, is actually honor, courage and integrity above all else. So well never stoop to that level. After 17 years of being in business, ive learned something. No matter what, im still here. You need to think of your life like an airplane. Always going forward. Never going back. You cant go backwards. Hands up hands to your side. How many times have you passed a homeless person on the street, and wished that you were doing more to help them . Well one los angeles woman decided to stop wishing, start a business, and dedicate herself to helping. Nbcs Morgan Radford has her story. Hope, strength, and words of encouragement stamped on keys and turned into jewelry. Each key made by someone who hopes to one day have a reason to use it. How many people have you helped transition out of homelessness . Weve gotten over 70plus people Job Opportunities here. Growing up in hollywood, Kaitlyn Crosby has worked as an actress, but was seeking a way to make a bigger impact. In 2009, after encountering a young homeless couple a light went off and she turned a simple jewelry idea into business with a big impact. I love that so much. Today, the giving keys factory in downtown l. A. Sits just a couple blocks from skid row, where some of l. A. s 46,000 homeless reside. I love. Here kaitlyn employs people trying to transition off the streets. And the keys they create are then sold under one condition. That the buyer gives their key to someone who needs it more. This isnt just about jewelry to wear because its cool. It really trains you to keep your eyes open to somebody whos going through a hard time. People, like Kelly Williams. Doing drugs. I stole. Ive done practically everything that you can think of. What was your ahha moment . What was the moment when you were at your lowest and you said, i cant live like this anymore . I went to prison. Like practically every two years. I wanted Something Better for my life. And, she found it. This is where the magic happens. At the giving keys kelly works alongside people who not only understand her pain, but also the power of redemption. Since youve been working here, youve been able to get other things, and kind of come in to transitioning to have your own place. Yeah. I did it in six months. Wait. Back up. Hold on. Hold on. So youre saying in six months of working here yeah, my life will never be the same. Just changed me. To just want to do good, man, for the rest of my life. Which is exactly what experts say the giving keys could be a model for the rest of the country. They are taking men and women that have no other option, teaching them a marketable skill, teaching them to work in a team, teaching them to be proud of a product and services being delivered, and oh, by the way, the giving keys is making money doing this. So theyre legit . Theyre legit. Giving people like Kelly Williams a second chance. If you can just make an impact on one person you know, that is the best feeling in the world. Perhaps even the key to happiness. Morgan radford, los angeles. Its one thing to sell your products to local consumers. It is another to sell to a major buyer with national distribution. Here are five ways to attract big buyers. One, use data to show traction. Buyers need to know that your product will sell. Use data like website visitors, order numbers, and press coverage to show how your product resonates with consumers. Two, always have a pitch ready. You never know when you may meet someone who could help you out. Keep your phone or tablet stocked with compelling images and charts. And have a fact sheet with all of your specs and Contact Information ready so that you can send it off at a moments notice. Three, attend trade shows or vendor days. These are great places to meet new buyers. Make the most out of them by sending your most knowledgeable and upbeat employees. And if you have a booth, avoid leaving it so theres always someone around to answer a question. Four, partner with a broker. Sales brokers already have relationships with big buyers and know how to get your products in front of the right people. But they also have reputations to protect. Like the buyers, before they partner with you, theyre going to want to make sure that your product will sell. Five, make sure your product is ready to ship. If you do build a relationship with a buyer, and then you cant fulfill it, that is going to lead to problems right then and later on. Now its time for our brain trust, and today were doing it from these amazing offices of warby parker here in new york city. Today we have neil blumenthal, who is the founder of warby parker now with more than 1300 employees and a valuation of more than 1 billion. And jana rich from Rich Talent Group who works with warby parker and airbnb and so many others to recruit top talent. So good to see you guys. Neil thank you so much for inviting us here. Thanks for having us. I want to talk to you guys about retention. You have 1300 employees here. I imagine youve had some turnover over the years. Is retention what we should be looking for as owners of companies . As people who run divisions of companies . What do you think . I think its really important to assess who you are losing, and where your company is in terms of growth. Very Fast Growing Companies who are morphing and changing dramatically are going to need different people. So i think we have to be careful, retaining the people weigh want to, and not losing those that we dont. Because people are always saying, you want high retention, right . It has been the mantra since the beginning of time of business. And its and i imagine the people you dont have your whole original team still working here. Two of your founders arent here. Yeah, you know, it i think its important to have sort of these cultural carriers, and these folks that really exemplify the values of the company. And those folks dont necessarily need to have been here since the beginning. But, i agree with jana completely that if you dont want 100 retention. You want some turnover. You want people coming in with fresh skill sets. Fresh perspective. And, i think, theres this idea that culture is static. And Companies Need to, you know, stay the same and everyones nostalgic for the past. At the end of the day, companies evolve and cultures evolve and change. And thats okay. Just like real cultures evolve and change. Right . America is different today than it was a generation ago. And these companies are, as well. So at what point do you look at your own company, your own division, and say, okay, i am losing people too quickly. First is, i am losing people at the right speed because the company or the division is changing. I think the reason why people are leaving, right, if people are leaving balls they dont see growth opportunities, if people are leaving because they feel like theyre not getting paid well, those are things to dig in to. If people are leaving because, you know, need to bring in somebody with more expertise, and thats actually changing their growth trajectory, thats okay. And hopefully theyll get a better opportunity elsewhere, and will support them in that, and thats fantastic. I think its also interesting to look at what pockets, and where this is happening. Meaning if all of a sudden youve got a lot of people leaving you marketing team, is there something wrong there . Meaning you have to look at the leadership of that team. Is something going wrong . Or if four or five members of a ten person Leadership Team are leaving that has a huge impact on how the outside world views your company. So those are two examples of where i think you have to stop at least and say wait a minute, whats happening. Okay, lets talk about that. The outside world. So when companies go through periods of change, oftentimes a lot of people leave. Either theyre laid off or they leave themselves. How do you deal with the perception of that, when youre doing it, because the companys actually moving forward from the outside it may look like its moving backwards. I mean at least what i would say about that is, its really interesting from our vantage point. We will start to get a lot of inbound calls from very Senior Executives when somethings not going right with a company. So i say were always an early indicator if retention is going to be an issue. Or if something is at least potentially wrong with the company. So if those are clients we work with, give them a heads up, well never say specific names of people, but you know, hey, theres a lot of people loose in your marketing team. It might be something you need to look at. So being able to have at least some sense of how thats being perceived externally, sometimes we can get in our own little bubbles as entrepreneurs, that like we know why, but the outside world doesnt know why. And as a ceo, by the time thats happening, youre in crisis mode. So the question is, whats your canary in the coal mine. And to our perspective, its feedback. Its our Performance Management system. So we do things called month in review. So rather than having performance reviews once every 12 months or once every six months, we actually do it every month, so that way there is that direct feedback from direct reports, and managers, but even more important than that we do an Anonymous Survey every six months and we call it an Employee Engagement survey. And, its anonymous. We can only drill down to groups of five to protect anonymity but we can cut the data by gender, by department, by tenure at the company, so we can really get a sense of whats going on, and its a commitment that we make to the team that were all going to try and make this place better and better and better. So if there are people that want to leave, hopefully the reasons for that start to emerge and we can address it. And is retention a metric that you look at . Is it an important metric, rather, that you look at . Its an important metric, but i never found anybody that defines it really clearly. And i know that sounds crazy. But what is retention . Is it cohorts of people that start on x date, for how long they should actually be here . So, were seven years old. And, were now up to 1300 employees, a majority of who have been hired in the past twelve months. So our retention would look really strange. We dont monitor it as closely as, hey, are we losing good people for bad reasons. All right, thanks both of you so much. Thank you. People, purpose, profits, and play. Those are the four principles that guide business at the Worlds Largest franchise gym. Anytime fitness locations are open to members 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The companys on the brink of having 4,000 locations in 30 countries, with revenue hovering right around a billion dollars. Cofounder chuck runyon tells us why business is always about people, and why we all need to play more in this learning from the pros. I love the quote that leaders dont build a business, leaders build people. And then people build the business. Sure you want to have a great idea. Then you have to hire the right people and power them to execute on the business. We place a great deal of emphasis on workplace culture. Right. How we behave. What values we have on working together. And so we really are very rigorous through the hiring process. We try to get out of the scripted interview process. We ask questions that really want to get into their skefl awareness. Some mistakes they made in the past. So we really want to break that down through a very lengthy interview process. We want them to maybe get on a white board and give us some of their strengths, weaknesses. We will ask them to videotape themselves, put a powerpoint together. Do a Youtube Video to show personality. To give people greater purpose, i mean, combining your heart power with your brain power, and they will go the extra mile. Theyll work a little bit harder. They know that theyre enriching people, or the planet beyond just the paycheck. I think you have to be very intentional about it. When were talking about strategy for the business, first of all, why are we trying to go there . And how does this benefit others . How are we improving stakeholders lives . And with anytime fitness, its the numbers. Right . Were getting them to a healthier place. Everyone must profit in this business. Of course, from a financial perspective. And were in the franchise business. So we have to make sure that our franchisees are set up to succeed. Typically in franchising, its a percentage. So the more a franchisee does in revenue,