Without Boundaries

Matt Perez (00:08):

Hi, my name is Matt Perez. I'm missing my partner, Jose Leal, who's on vacation some more in Europe. And I'm here with Mr. Guiding and I am, I have to confess, I had a hard time not calling you greeting <laugh>. But I finally got okay, skiing. He's skiing, but anyways, and that's it. So, we'll be going to a… we're going to go through his background and company and stuff like that for a few minutes, and then we'll talk more about the top down of the lack of top-down management and see how that fits with what we like to talk about, which is co-ownership, which is a scary thing. And seeing the current system that we live in, which we call fiat, is like fish in the water. We don't see it, but in this case, we like to make it visible. So, and, and the model, I'm, haven't done this before, but I'm going to do it here. The model is that you have glasses on, and everything looks okay, and then you flip it and you go, holy, there's a lot, there's a lot of work for the world than I expected. So, and with that, I'll, I'll pass the baton to Preston and let him talk about his background, how to get into this, and his business is a really, really interesting business.

Preston Geeting (01:44):

Yeah, I appreciate it, Matt. Thanks for the intro. And, and if you, if you said greeting, you'd be like everybody else, so I'm just so used to it by now. I rarely even correct it. But glad, glad to be on the podcast. I appreciate it. And then, the rose-colored glasses are a perfect segue, right? So, come from the packaging industry. I spent my entire career in college as an intern and then post-college working there for 18 years in the industry at a public business. And you're right, you put those, those rose-colored glasses on and you see things a certain way mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And that's just the way it's always been done. Never going to change. It's an old industry. We do things in a very traditional way. When I arrived to work, you know, I'm not that old, but when I arrived to work as an intern, they still had, a paper system that would move paper throughout the office.

Preston Geeting (02:32):

And, I mean, we're talking about the days now of email, and this old industry would still move paperwork throughout an office on a belt. And then and then, you know, that led the way to faxes, which I think is still the way it's done today in traditional space, <laugh>, but yeah, I know it's, it's wild. But that's the industry. It's just a very old industry. So, you're in it, I'm in it, and it's just the way everybody does it, and it's never going to change. And that's what it is. And I'm the one pushing technology, being, being the, on the younger side at the time. And at a certain point after x amount of years and being at the top end of that business, I thought, it's time for me to take a leap and I'm going to, I'm going to start a business with my co-founder, Phil, and do a real technology-heavy approach. So, when you lift those lenses of the glasses up and you see how things can operate, the speed, the cost, all of it, and then you figure out how to, how to shape an industry or reshape it, it's pretty exciting. And then in addition to that, we reshaped kind of the culture, how the business operates, people working remotely or in buildings and all this sort of stuff, right? Just led to the model that we have today.

Matt Perez (03:32):

Right. And so, your team is partly in Australia and partly here. How, how does that work?

Preston Geeting (03:41):

Yeah, right. Re requires a bit of explanation. So my co-founder Phil Weinman, is a serial entrepreneur… for Phil, you know, for me, this is my first startup after having been in the public business for a long time. Phil, this is his 18th startup. And first one was a computer business back in the eighties, which did unbelievably well. And he's figured out that model of how can I disrupt traditional industries with technology and scale them very quickly. He sells 'em or takes some public, he's done that with a couple of 'em. So when he and I met at a conference for packaging, he was speaking about what he does for a living, which is disruption, and entrepreneurship. And that's when it just clicked. And I thought, okay, this guy's interesting. He has a really interesting background.

Preston Geeting (04:25):

He knows how to do it. So what if we take that background and experience, and put it into the packaging space? He's on one side of the world, and I'm on the other, but that doesn't mean we can't build a global business on a very quick scale. So we did that, and we, we this was back in 2018. We scaled very quickly. You know, we have a lot of back-office development tech in Australia. The sales are predominantly out of the US and since we started, now we're operating we counted just a week ago, and we had to operate in 14 different countries for different functions of the business. If it's development or, you know, back in admin or finance or whatever it is, we employ the right people regardless of geography, and we build the tech so they can be successful in their area without that traditional top-down management approach where everyone has to show up, you have a leadership team, they're in a building, they have meetings. We're, we're a much different model in the business that we built.

Matt Perez (05:21):

So how does that work? Say more about the part about not the top-down and stuff like that.

Preston Geeting (05:28):

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the top-down approach. I, I live in that world. I was in that world, I did that for a lot of years. And you have an executive team, that is not on the day-to-day details of the business. They're not in it, right? And they're looking at five-year plans and how do we grow the business and how do we scale? But they're not actually doing, the daily grind of the work. So, we reversed it. So the, in our, in our structure, the, the management, and there's a couple of us, we're at the bottom right, and the people that are at the top are the ones doing the work. And we give them the latitude and the flexibility to make decisions. And everybody in our business really operates in their own lane. So, you can go as fast as you want in that lane and get things done and keep, keep moving or go at a good steady pace. But empowering people to make decisions and shape the business rather than reporting through a traditional management structure makes it so that we can scale this thing at hyper speed, which is, which is pretty exciting. So we build the right tech so that there, there can't be any, you know, devastating effects of the business. We have, you know, we have buffers if you will. But it's exciting to watch people take ownership of their part of the business and be able to make great things happen.

Matt Perez (06:40):

So when, when you say, Elaine, what does that mean?

Preston Geeting (06:44):

Elaine? Yeah. So if you're a finance person, you, you might be in the accounts payable lane responsible for this, and you're able, I mean, that's your world start to finish. You control every aspect of that in our, in our model. And you're not reporting to a line manager that tells you what to do and when to do it, that sort of stuff. There, there, there's an area of responsibility, and the people all of the folks in our, in our ecosystem, have that, that ownership of that lane, and they're able to take that and run with it at the speed that works best for them.

Matt Perez (07:18):

Do they do people participate in the process or how, or what does that look like? What does it look like from the financial side? Yeah,

Preston Geeting (07:30):

I mean, our folks are, are salary base and there's bonus structures and all that sort of stuff. So there, there are rewards in the business as there would be in any, but I, I think the biggest motivator is that, is that flexibility, right? There's, there's so much work that needs to get done in a day. And rather than leave your house, strive to work, punch a clock, be there for eight hours, punch a clock, drive home, and finish it, in our world, you know, the work needs to get done. Some are very much during a business day, but you can, you can have a lot of flexibility to that. So, if you want to start early, take a break, go to the gym, come back, resume the work, get it done, it's, it's fine. And we're not, we're not counting, you know, hours and minutes every day to make sure that you reach that eight hours. As long as the work gets done, we're pretty happy with it. So, it allows the folks that are on our team to have a pretty balanced life. They can, they get the work done, but they can also enjoy the time with their families.

Matt Perez (08:24):

So, in terms of the salespeople, they have their own lanes or other…

Preston Geeting (08:28):

Yeah, well the salespeople are easy, right? Because they, they're easier because they, they have a, a book of business, they're clients and that's, that's their lifeblood, right? So, they, and like any good salesperson, make sure that everything is done. And, you know, all the time and sales are a 24 7 job. That's just kind of the nature of it. But they're on the share of the profit side with those clients, which works out really well. So, they're just motivated to do, do great work for the clients, and be always accessible. But because our system runs on a computer or a cell phone, you could be anywhere in the world. You know, no one is doing management reports and all this sort of stuff on the salespeople. So, the admin side usually just drives them bonkers. And the traditional world, they, that that's released relinquished our system. It's all automated tech, that sort of stuff. Nothing makes me happier than when our salespeople are, are balancing out, the long workdays by going to do something fun and they can still take care of the work if they need…

Matt Perez (09:25):

To. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, the, the, the admin part is usually problem. The thing that turns people off.

Preston Geeting (09:37):

In my past life, the admin for salespeople, it was 80% of their time, maybe higher. Some, some other businesses where we've had salespeople come in, it's even 90%. So 90% of their day is spent filling out spreadsheets and doing writeups for management and this, as opposed to seeing the clients who are the ones that are supporting the business. Yeah. So ours, we, we reverse it. So the admin is 20% or less. And we even have folks that are admin assistants for the salespeople because, we want the salespeople to see their customers taking care of business, not sitting behind a computer or filling out spreadsheets. So as much time as we can give them back in their day to do what they do best, it's great for them, it's great for us. We're happy to support it.

Matt Perez (10:19):

So why did you think, why do you think it's not happening more, that more people are not realizing that what we have done this as opposed to investing customers?

Preston Geeting (10:34):

Yeah. Well in my, in my humble opinion, I think it's management control, right? It's, if, if you, if you don't have all these details and things, because you don't have the technology built, you really don't understand what's going on. So, therefore, you want your salespeople to tell you what's going on. So you feel like you have a good pulse of the business. Now to solve that, we built the tech so we, we understand that all of its visible, transparent, you know, we, we have a really good handle on every quote, order, detail, delivery, all that stuff is built out in the technology that we have. And, it doesn't have to be manually redone so that there's knowledge of it or accountability or any of that sort of stuff. So ultimately it comes down to technology and, and I just, I'll never understand why more don't adopt what's available.

Matt Perez (11:20):

Yeah, I don't either. I was asking with a smile on my face, <laugh>. I don't get it either. So…

Preston Geeting (11:29):

You gave me a soft pitch on that one. That was easy. <Laugh>.

Matt Perez (11:33):

Yeah, there's a person who thinks that people are not, not adapting technology more readily except, in the old ways of technology. You know, let's have a module for this, a module for that. How about freeing people up? And this gives me a chance to now try to frame what you said in terms of what I like to talk about, which is the system that we live in, and what you call top-down management is what is called FIAT management. FIAT means, “…because I say so.” You know, you have to do these things because they say so. And it's the threat of FIAT in force. The fear that arises and then eventually paints a forest if you don't behave. And pain force these days is not I'll kill you. Yeah. So we're hooked on that.

Matt Perez (12:35):

We're like fish and water, it's like water. No, we don't talk about water. It's the stuff, the place we live in. And it's so, so systemic that people don't see it. So that's one of the big interests is getting people to see that in different ways. In your case, it's more of why we should have people doing spreadsheets as opposed to meeting customers. That's one way of realizing how the system works against you. Yeah. And in my way, the fee system is business hostile. It works against the role of the business and, try to try to make that more available to people. The other thing we like to talk about is ownership, but we leave that aside. When you said profit sharing that your people are very involved in pro sharing the profits, profit sharing, <inaudible>, and what does that, how to do, what does that look like?

Preston Geeting (13:38):

Yeah, I mean, for the salespeople it'…their income is derived from a share of the profits. So it gives a, a real partnership in our business. So they, they, they go from working for somebody. And then in our model that we have, they're, they're their own business. They own their own business. But what we provide is all the backend support, the admin, the finance, all that stuff, the credit. So they don't have to put a, a penny of their own money in, but they're, they're operating as business owners. So for me, having, having worked for a company for so long and doing all the, the fiat management, all that stuff, you know, that's the world you live in to then become an entrepreneur where you work for yourself, there's nothing better. So, we wanted to duplicate that on the sales side because it just motivates people so much more than, being employees on the sales side.

Matt Perez (14:28):

Yeah. So, what did you do in the public company that you worked for?

Preston Geeting (14:33):

Yeah, I mean I started as an intern, so working in all departments, I learned the whole, the whole business or a good chunk of it even going with delivery drivers and I really want to understand how every, every part worked. And then I spent the, the majority of my career in, in the sales side. So, I jumped in, it was a hundred percent commission industry or business. And when I started, I had nothing, right? So, you start from zero, you build up the business, the nine out of 10 people didn't make it. And they were essentially let go within the first two years. And that's pretty normal for the packaging industry. I was the one that did and just worked my way up to the top of the food chain. Once I did that, I wanted to see, okay, what else is out there? This, this works, I understand how to do it. I'm making a good living, but I want to make it better. I want to make the business better. And I want to propel things. So, I retained the sales responsibilities but moved into the executive side because I thought I can really shape and change this business. And then you know, figured out that it's just, it's, that's not meant to be if you want to shape and adjust a business, go start your own. So, which is what I, what I Yeah,

Matt Perez (15:33):

Unfortunately, that's the way it's so how, how did they see that they see it as a youth trader? You go in the way and stuff like that, or they support you or what, how did they see it?

Preston Geeting (15:49):

Unfortunately the former and that, boy, that's a, that's the, the topic for a, for a longer discussion. But yeah, it did, you know, I, I understand there are emotions and all that sort of stuff, but when I did leave, I was very upfront about it that I'm starting a business. You know, we're small, I'm leaving a public company that's big, but my intent is, to grow this thing. And within less than a week I was sued, chased, all that sort of stuff. And it was, it was a very odd nine months, to say the least. But, you know, I learned a lot from it. We countersued it was dropped because there's no, it's a non-compete state. I'm in California, it's all nonsense trying to tie you up and, and drain you with, you know, as best as they can. And you know, at the end of the day, it was just nonsense. So, when we finally were able to get going, we hit the gas and we built up a nice business in a pretty short time.

Matt Perez (16:38):

So it didn't pick as well.

Preston Geeting (16:40):

Nope. <laugh>.

Matt Perez (16:44):

Yeah, there's a lot of but we pay you so well and we treat you so well. And I got a quote here that I think came from one of your backgrounds or something. It says your salary's surprise they give you to forget your dreams.

Preston Geeting (17:00):

A hundred percent. Yeah.

Matt Perez (17:02):

Yeah. And sometimes you don't even know what your dreams are because you're so caught up in, in this, the only way it is, you know, I drive for an hour and I work and I drive for an hour back and I feel like and I drink beer. And yeah, that's not, that's not a very healthy way of living. That's what, not a

Preston Geeting (17:29):

Problem. And so that's me, my kind of mission when I get the biggest satisfaction out of what I'm doing is getting people from where I was. Because you're right, I made a great living on, paper, everything was fantastic except that I didn't feel fulfilled. So my mission is to bring people into our environment where they can feel fulfilled, have a really good balance in their life, see their families, you know, an appropriate amount, work, get the work done, make a good living. It can all happen. It doesn't have to be, you sacrifice everything to do a job. It's just, it doesn't need to be that way.

Matt Perez (18:00):

Yeah. But, but most people, that's the way it goes for most, most people. Yeah. you know, you go work at McDonald's because you have a kid and you're a single mom and, and you fool yourself into thinking that, oh, I'm going to save and study, and it never happens. And you get caught in that. Or you know, salespeople, I had the experience of salespeople were selling imaginary things when I came into this company and I finally told them, we're not going to pick admissions for imaginary things. Let's all those Yeah. And that wasn't taken well, but it worked.

Preston Geeting (18:41):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It worked.

Matt Perez (18:43):

So anyways, so I'm going to, I want to put a bug in your ear and the bug in your ear is that besides what you're doing for salespeople, they're really, they have their own business and by the way, you're providing the background platform and the stuff underneath the same thing can be done for finance and everything else. Sure. They can be in the wrong business and you provide the platform and that would be, that would be fantastic. You can do something like that.

Preston Geeting (19:18):

Well, and, and make no mistake we're in the packaging industry because that's where I come, came from, right? Yeah. Phil is a technology wizard. He can build technology for anything and he has across many different industries travel being the one prior to us. Same model, same disruption, different industry. So, our platform, what we built is a buy-and-sell model. So it's doing packaging right now, but it can buy and sell anything. We built the tech to do it. You bring in the supply chain, you bring in the customers, the technology works, and anything with a cost and a cell, it does beautifully. So we're I'm with you a hundred percent.

Matt Perez (19:53):

Yeah. And, the thing is, washing your closing takes 30 days, it should be closed every night. Yeah. And with a system like that, you should be able to close every night. Even if you have accounts that have not paid or whatever, you should take that into account and close. Yeah. But anyways so, so you gimme a little bit of your background of how you got here and you were an intern and stuff like that. But it's, it's hard to get how you went from regular American business to a more, “…hell let's try this weird stuff”. And by the way, you ARE a young man, so I was going to say are you at your young tender age, what makes you make that change? And, I mean, it takes a lot of guts.

Preston Geeting (20:54):

Yeah, no, it, it did. And our model is for those with courage, right? That are willing to step out and go on their own for the rest that followed after me, it's, you know, they're not paving the path the first time, but it's, it's not the easiest ever. Right. But I've always, I've always been more on the entrepreneurial side, even as a kid doing the lemonade stands and mowing lawns, and that I, you know, if I wanted something I'd go out, start a business, or do whatever work, save up the money, and then, and then get what I wanted. And for me, I think I got lucky with the internship in the industry I was in, with the business I was in because it promoted 100% commission sales, which is hard. And that's a really good way for the entrepreneurial-minded to, start in that industry without you know, without needing a bunch of cash to start a business and do that. So, I got really fortunate in that it taught me a lot about becoming an entrepreneur. And for me, it was, you know, because I've just, it's just in me to want to do things better. I'm really motivated by the quality of my work. And when I see that the quality isn't the best that I think can be produced, then my decision was, to do it on my own. And yeah. So, I stepped out and with my family's support, we did it and, you know, we figured it out.

Matt Perez (22:06):

Yeah. You said, you said the key thing, which is we're just family support because it, it does the, make it strain your family as well.

Preston Geeting (22:13):

Yeah, yeah. A hundred percent

Matt Perez (22:15):

From having that steady paycheck, which takes you away from your dreams, but it's a steady paycheck and, and not knowing what's going to happen next. I mean, you, you have ideas, ideas in your head, but, and you have will these hopes you have and yeah. The platform [INAUDIBLE] but will people take the chance, yeah. Do you have people in the US or all over the place or…

Preston Geeting (22:47):

For sales, it's almost completely out of the United States for the business. We're operating all around the world, for a lot of the backend stuff.

Matt Perez (22:56):

Okay. But the sales are being done from the US Yeah. Okay. Why is that

Preston Geeting (23:04):

Market's huge in the United States. It's just, you know, Australia in the packaging space is, there's really two big players and in the United States, there's just hundreds of thousands of, of different competitors and companies and all that. It's just a massive market. So, right. You know, kind of looking at the opportunity as, as well as we've done in, in really four short years of, of running this business. We're just the tiny spec in a sea of opportunity. So we, we've got plenty to keep us busy for a long time.

Matt Perez (23:32):

So you've only been operating for four years?

Preston Geeting (23:36):

Yeah. Yeah. So we started right at the end of 18, lawsuit counter suit. That paused us for nine months, which was, honestly, it was really beneficial because it allowed us nine months to really develop our tech and perfect it before we opened the floodgates and went. And also it gave us a great story. It's a David and Goliath story, right? I mean, we're this Yeah, yeah. This tiny little nothing getting sued by the behemoth and counters-suing, and at the end of the day we didn't, we didn't back down. So it gave us a great story to tell and once we were ready to really go, people were pretty excited. It was, it was pretty neat to see what we were doing.

Matt Perez (24:11):

That's that, that is a great story. So I have something in my mind, but it's <inaudible>. So it's age <laugh> and I think at this point I get to plug the, I raise the right hand. So I get to plug the book and the book is called Radical Companies Without Bosses or Employees. And the whole idea behind the book, and by the way you find can find it a Kindle and this, so I did the blog and everybody's happy with me. And the idea behind the book is I founded a company and co-founded a company with a partner, right? Roberto Martinez. He lives down the street here. And from the beginning, and then we read this book by Ricardo Similar, he's a Brazilian, a German, a child of Brazilian Germans in Brazil. And he ended up with what we call a co-managed company.

Matt Perez (25:23):

You hear self-management, it's the same idea, but I don't like this self because that puts the company in the center and there's more co-managed company if we co-manage his space. Yeah. There's no company per se. And so, we read the book and got excited, and our company was co-managed from day one. So they say there's like hundred people or 900 people, I don't know what is anymore. But no man, no managers, no hierarchy, no nothing. But there were owners, it was my partner and myself were co-owners. And then a third age and a third belonged to everybody else. But, you know, we were, the owners we're the biggest when it came to property. And so, I certainly think about ownership as part of, or ownership is part of management, being seen as management, being seen as different.

Matt Perez (26:33):

And besides ownership can always tell the top manager, the CEO, or whatever, “…we don't like you anymore, we're going to fire you. We're going to hire a guy that's more along the lines of what we feel like”. And so the book is about a company that has co-ownership. Because my idea is ownership is so good for a few of us, it would be good for all of us. Right? Yeah. And so how to spread that poverty amongst people is, is not, it's actually very simple, but it's been complicated by the fact that there, there's been no technology to help with. It's been, we have somebody that makes the decisions and s boss and he's very benign. He's sitting up on the mountain with a free cross and all that stuff. But everybody, if you're a human, you have a bias that's all their story.

Matt Perez (27:36):

And so, we have an app, a very simple app that allows everybody to say, “…oh, that's the contribution. This's the contribution. That's the contribution”. So we all give you recognize the contributions and you as part of the bigger team recognize my contributions or not and like that, right? And that will solve the, technically that will solve the ownership problem. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, but it's still a big challenge. It's still a big a, a big hack, a big hairy audacious gold. So was struggling with that, but that's, that's what the book is about. Interesting. That's interesting. And you're, you're closer to that than most people are. More people, more people are like the old companies that he left. Yeah. And you are going to, how can we make people own their business and own their, their brand and all this stuff, and then we provide the back, the backend and there's still a lot of money to bring for that.

Preston Geeting (28:53):

Infinite amounts. Yeah. Just from my experience in the corporate world, it's brutal. And I got out when I was still up and coming and climbing and doing all that sort of stuff, but you know, the, I've seen too many of my friends where they eventually just get let go, laid off, fired, whatever, too expensive, whatever the reason is. And they, you know, they invested their lives into a business to be dismissed after 20 years. Yeah. Or the ones that never make retirement, you know, life short. So that's where I just with the, you know, again, with my family support just came to the decision that if I'm, I'm ever going to do it, I got to do it. Eventually, there's a leap in life and you need to, you just need to go for it and trust in yourself, you know? But fortune favors the bold, which is one of my favorite quotes, and you just have to be bold sometimes. And we've built this platform to let others that have that same itch and believe in themselves to have that same leap and we'll, we'll be there to hold their hand as they, as they jump off. But yeah, it's worked pretty well.

Matt Perez (29:50):

But that's the thing I like about your business, that you're helping people who want to make the leap. Yeah. And maybe afraid of, oh, I don't have the capital, I don't have this, I don't have that but I have the skills and I can talk. And, you know, and you're helping those people as well. And maybe those people will continue and do other things once people lose fear or something. Yeah. It's pretty amazing what they can do, but what we can do. But it's that initial fear that keeps you in that box. Yeah. And terrible, I mean, it ends up killing you in the end, so. Sure.

Preston Geeting (30:32):

Yeah. And I love it when, especially for our salespeople, when, you know, someone's looking for their manager or something and calls and says, oh, you know, the salesperson, I want to, are you, are you his or her manager? I'm not his… I'm not their manager. They're their own boss. They own their own business. Yeah. They…

Matt Perez (30:47):

Support

Preston Geeting (30:47):

Him. And then, you know, nothing as opposed to the traditional top-down approach where you want to talk to a boss and they're over 'em and they do this. No, no, no, no. The people in our system, they, they're their own bosses and nothing's better now. I'm going to help them handle business if they need it, but they report to themselves.

Matt Perez (31:03):

Yeah. And that, that's, that's a huge step from where we're at to the fee system that we live in today. That's a step away from and we need to get away from it. I mean, a lot of the bad decisions in the world are based on the fact that if a few elected people that started, you know, 400 years ago and have a business and blah, blah, blah are making decisions today that they should have. Like, like you were saying, the management wants to know what the people next to the customers who were doing what, what don't they talk to customers?

Preston Geeting (31:45):

Yeah.

Matt Perez (31:45):

Just because it’s a phone talk to the customer. And but no, no, no. I got to read it in the report that this guy writes. Even if he takes 90% of his time away from him getting the information and getting that knowledge that's the terrible thing. Okay. I'm being, I'm being proud to announce next week's guest and let, that is Luz Iglesias, VP of People and Culture at Raise. And she's going to be talking about do-it-yourself versus ready-made systems. And she's a really cool lady and really dynamic and can sit in any one place I know for a while, a little while. And a really interesting person, so. Well, thank you. Thank you very much, Preston, and I was going to call you at this one, and this one, Greeting….

Preston Geeting (32:46):

<Laugh> <laugh>.

Matt Perez (32:48):

And thanks for your time and thanks for your, you know, putting timing to this and thought to appreciate it.

Preston Geeting (32:56):

Yeah, my pleasure. Matt. And I, I love the topic and I think this is, I agree with you. This is where the world needs to go. Yeah. And just it…it'll get there. So, one step at a time.

Matt Perez (33:06):

All right.

Preston Geeting (33:07):

All right. Cheers.

Matt Perez (33:08):

Thank you.