May 5, 2026 – Selling Senses Armen Avanessian and Greatest Hits Faisal Hoque

Intro 1 0:04
Broadcasting from am and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration award winning school for startups radio where we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now here is your host, the guy that believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk or passion. Jim Beach,

Jim Beach 0:26
hello everyone. Welcome to another exciting edition of School for startups radio. I hope you’re having a great day out there being an entrepreneur or dreaming of being an entrepreneur. We are going to help all of you. We’re going to keep you motivated to get out there and make the hard decisions and get up early and stay up late and work on the weekends instead of going and golfing or watching that TV show that you wanted. We’re going to give you that motivation. If you follow along every day, we’ll be here to keep you motivated to find a path that’s going to be successful. And on top of that, we’re going to give you the tips, the tricks, the techniques to be successful, so that you know how to do it correctly. That’s one of the cool things about entrepreneurship. In the last 20 years or so, a set of best practices has emerged. We know the formula now, and here on the show, we certainly talk about that. We take it a step further than most people do, though, especially with the passion. But there is certainly a formula out there start small test, you know, go into it and see if you can find an early sale before you spend 5000 million dollars and double mortgage the house. You know, the all of these rules, the start fast, and all of this stuff has become a formula for best practices. And we interview a lot of those people here. We’re going to have one coming up here in a few weeks. We have Eric Reese coming up, one of the most famous entrepreneurial thinkers out there. And then you add that on top of AI, and you can do so much these days with so little work, and it’s so little time. If you go into any of the AI and says, Here’s what I want to do, and it will give you back a formula considering the world’s best practices. And so it’s just absolutely a great time to be an entrepreneur, and I am excited to be a part of it, and hopefully this show will give you the tips and the interviews that you need to be successful. We’re always trying to find great guests of all varieties and introduce them. Our first guest today is Armin avanessien. He is talking about his new book, selling senses, and is also going to introduce us to his business, a very interesting conversation. We go on for a lot longer than I thought we would, because he was so interesting. And we have a quick 10 in there as well. Armin plays the quick 10. And then after that, we have a greatest hits. Faisal Hoke, Wall Street Journal and New York Times, best selling author is with us to this is a greatest hits. By the way, we had a server that went down, or the company went out of business after 10 years, and so we had to move everything, and we were slowly getting our greatest hits back by playing them for you, because for you, it’s new, right? This is an older interview, but information is still just as relevant. So anyway, Faisal Hoke is with us in the second part of the show. Thanks for being with us. We will get started in just second.

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Jim Beach 4:20
We are back and again. Thank you so very much for being with us. Very excited to introduce my first guest today. Please welcome Arman avanessian to the show. He is an award winning FinTech and payment sales leader with more than 20 years of experience. He has been building his career and is currently working at a company called ant International. That’s a cool name, where he is head of sales and partnerships. He has also just released a new book called selling senses, unlocking the power of sensory sales and inner wisdom. Armen, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Armen Avanessian 4:58
Hey, Jim, fantastic. Thank. For having me on and listeners. Good morning to you all excited to be on. To share the story.

Jim Beach 5:05
Tell me about ant International, cool day. What does it do? Tell me about it.

Armen Avanessian 5:10
Yeah, absolutely. So we’re definitely a global organization that’s focused on payments. So whether you’re a mid sized business or a well known brand. Our goal is to help you accept payments from customers around the world, and my job there is leading the head of sales and partnerships for ant International.

Jim Beach 5:31
Okay, who’s the target audience for that? Is it big companies or individual users?

Armen Avanessian 5:37
So it would be both mid market and what we call key accounts. So think about your larger organizations, well known brands that we’re all familiar with.

Jim Beach 5:49
Okay? And how is ant different from some of the other competitors out there that move money also?

Armen Avanessian 5:54
Yeah, and that’s a great question. So our reach is global, and so one of our strengths is being able to provide the businesses that we work with reach to over 50 countries and 300 different payment types that they can accept from their customers from their various different websites. So the biggest strategic advantage that we have is that we allow these businesses to not just expand here in the US, but globally. So we are very much a global entity focused on global payments.

Jim Beach 6:29
Okay? And so this is for a website to collect a global payment. Then so provide like a service website or a product website. Is it for it like, do I put this on my website as the, you know, the builder, the sales person here, and then, now I’m able to collect payments from Spain and France and Germany for my careers, from my customers?

Armen Avanessian 6:56
Yes, and you’re articulating it correctly, right? So at the end of day, think of it as you had Jim’s, shoe website, and you’re currently focused on selling the shoes on the website in the US, and you reach out to us and say, I’m looking to expand in Asia and Europe, and so we will be able to provide you with the solutions to be able to accept payments in those Various countries and their payment method types, so essentially helping you grow your bottom line, your revenue by having a much wider reach than your traditional, us focused market.

Jim Beach 7:29
Okay.

Jim Beach 7:30
How

Jim Beach 7:30
old is the company and how long have you been there?

Armen Avanessian 7:33
Wow, so International has quite the history. So I’m sure the listeners may be familiar with the name of Jack Ma, who developed Ali Ali Baba and Ali pay. And so ant International is an offshoot from Alibaba. And so we actually our entity name here in the US is antum, which stands for ant to merchant. But antum is part of the ant international organization, so well known, well established, global leader in the payment space.

Jim Beach 8:03
Very interesting. Okay, if there’s Alipay, why does it need another company to that does sort of the same thing? Doesn’t Alipay do the similar things?

Armen Avanessian 8:18
So think of Alipay as a mobile wallet, just like we would be using global, I’m sorry, Google Pay and Apple Pay here. So with this Alipay solution, though, it gives you global access to multiple different payment types, versus just with Google Pay or Apple Pay, you’re just using us cards to make payments. So you have a much wider reach when you’re leveraging Alipay, it’s, I believe, the largest mobile wallet in the world, actually,

Jim Beach 8:46
yes, well, everyone in China has to use it

Armen Avanessian 8:50
or in the APAC,

Jim Beach 8:52
yes, all right. Well, great idea. And what you joined the company about a year ago?

Armen Avanessian 8:59
Yes, I just actually celebrated my one year anniversary at the end of March, actually. So really

Jim Beach 9:05
excited.

Armen Avanessian 9:06
Thanks so

Jim Beach 9:07
much. Your role there.

Armen Avanessian 9:09
So I’m currently the head of sales for our offline payments channel. So we’re in the midst of actually launching our offline payments channel here in the US. So our current strategic focus has predominantly been online, online merchants. And so in the next quarter or so, we’ll be launching our offline solution targeting small businesses in the community, so personal care service providers, auto repair service providers, and so we want to again expand our reach and provide more solutions, but again, support the community and the small businesses that we interact with on a daily basis.

Jim Beach 9:46
And you do, you go after particular targeted industries. You just mentioned auto repair, that seems like a very targeted industry,

Armen Avanessian 9:54
right? So initially, our core two verticals are going to be in the personal care service for. Wider space. So think about your nail salons and spas and then auto repair services. And so what we’re looking to do is to serve the underserved merchants in our communities with our solution. And so we’ll be starting off with our payments plus terminal solution. So excited to bring that to the marketplace in the next couple of months here.

Jim Beach 10:19
And how will you market that? Will you go to every individual car repair shop? What is the marketing plan?

Armen Avanessian 10:28
Yeah, so from our perspective, we’ll have both a strategic field business development team as well as grassroots marketing. So whether it’s through our website or through different marketing channels, we’ll strategically target those core verticals and share our story and essentially work with them to bring our solution to the market.

Jim Beach 10:50
Yeah, one of the things I love about that is that you can buy a list of every auto repair shop in the United States and then call every one of them. You know, it’s a well defined marketplace,

Armen Avanessian 11:01
and not just that, you have the opportunity to join very strategic associations, right? So there’s auto repairs associations, there’s car collision association. So you can have a very targeted approach. And so we’re very excited to bring that solution to the market.

Jim Beach 11:18
How did you choose those two particular niches?

Armen Avanessian 11:21
So what we wanted to do again is because of our story, right? So Ali, pay and antum, we wanted to focus on markets where our story would make the most sense, so underserved merchants that would be predominantly in the Asian, American owned business segment. So we’re looking to help those merchants to essentially, at the end of the day, grow their business with our solution. And then our competitive advantage being bringing that Alipay plus solution as another form of payment in addition to our traditional payment method types like Visa, MasterCard, American, Express and Discover,

Jim Beach 12:00
right? Makes a lot of sense. I like it. Harbin, let’s change topics. Let’s switch to your new book, selling senses, unlocking the power of sensory sales and inner wisdom. Very powerful title. I love this idea of sensory sales. Tell me about that, please.

Armen Avanessian 12:19
Yeah, absolutely. And this goes back to Professor zoltman from from Harvard University. His research found that 95% of purchasing decisions happen in the subconscious mind. And so what selling sense is about bringing a holistic approach to how we approach marketing and sales. I think just being in the sales and marketing space for over 25 plus years, what we traditionally experience is a secular perspective, or a worldly perspective on how we approach sales and marketing. And so what selling senses does is gives you a different point of view. And so that point of view is leveraging not just the secular perspective of sales, but also the spiritual perspective of sales. So the book is broken up into thirds. The first third essentially delves into the basics of sales, and more specifically, around consultative selling. The middle book starts to focus on engaging the five senses that we’re all accustomed to, whether it’s taste or feeling or smelling or seeing, it’s essentially understanding how powerful the senses are and knowing that as human beings, that we’ve been created. We’ve been created to experience things in multiple arenas. So when we think about it, we have two eyes, we got two ears, two nostrils, two lip, that’s actually two lips that comprise and two hands. So we were created to experience things as part of that sales process and just life in general. And in the back half of the book is introduces a concept, again, that’s very familiar in the sales space. It’s, you know, spiritual intuition and spiritual intelligence. And so it’s a perspective of, it’s okay to bring your faith, it’s okay to bring your spiritual self to your work, to bring the best version of yourself. And so in the book, I introduced something called the sensory alignment pyramid. And I think Jim, you’ve heard of, you know IQ and EQ before, right? We’re all familiar with that, but rarely do we ever touch on SQ spiritual intelligence and so to drive a more holistic, balanced approach, to give your customers and prospect clients the best experience possible, a memorable experience, at the top of the pyramid sits SQ spiritual intelligence, and in the bottom corners of the pyramid sits IQ and EQ. And for you to drive the best outcomes, I believe all of those key components need to play in the arena that we operate in

Jim Beach 14:58
what we’re on the other corners, EQ. An IQ,

Armen Avanessian 15:01
right? So it’s, it’s, it’s our natural intelligence rights and the intelligence quotient, and then you have emotional intelligence. And then at the top of the pyramid is spiritual intelligence,

Jim Beach 15:12
all right, so spiritual intelligence, knowing how religious, I don’t what is it? So when we talk about emotional intelligence, it’s about knowing ourselves and knowing how we impact others through our actions and things like that. Does that relate to spiritual intelligence? So how well I know my own spiritual nature and how my spiritual life interacts other people

Armen Avanessian 15:38
exactly? And it’s basically making focus on ensuring that you’re working on your spiritual being as and spiritual self, as much as you’re working on your intelligent self and emotional, intelligent self, right? And so whether, again, for me, being of the Christian faith, it would be, you know, having those elements of whether it’s prayer or a devotional or scripture to start the day, right? So it’s ensuring that you’re embedding that and that you have your integrity, your morals, all of those key components as part of your core self, which are the foundations of building trust. And so those then will essentially help develop your emotional intelligence. And so that’s why I put SQ at the top of the pyramid, is because that’s the starting point. So once you got your why, once you understand your morals and and you have that foundation, then you can start to really put yourself in the shoes of someone else, or in the buyer’s position, and start to think about what they’re thinking about and bring a more real experience to those individuals that are that you’re working with on a daily basis.

Jim Beach 16:48
All right? Is this something that I talk about and share with others, or is this an internal journey only?

Armen Avanessian 16:56
So, you know, that’s something that you would have to choose to do as the person, right? So for me, it’s very much part of my everyday life. So I’ll give you the example. So when I wake up, just even this morning, I started the day off with reading Bible, promises, scriptures, and then started off the day with prayer. Took a walk without my phone, just to center myself and to be prepared for the day in and of itself. Now if in my daily interaction, it’s about helping people right, putting their best interests at the forefront of what I’m doing right, connecting with them on a level that shows that it’s beyond the sale that I care about them as a person, as a human being, right, and whether it’s through active listening or engaging them in all the different senses that are available. And so it’s very much interactive, but it’s up to you to shape it in your daily sales activities and marketing activities.

Jim Beach 17:53
I don’t know. You know if you were to make a

Jim Beach 18:00
sale religious. I don’t know how the people would feel about that. So how do you ever interject this without it being awkward and uncomfortable for people?

Armen Avanessian 18:09
Yeah, it’s a great question, and I agree with you. So it’s not like I’ll sit there and, you know, quote Bibles, verses and so forth, but it’s implementing those things that you learn into your daily activities, right? Whether it’s, you know, whatever Bible Promise that you may take with yourself, it’s embedding it into your activities. It’s not sitting there to share a religious perspective, or, you know, try to convert someone during the sales process. It’s just making sure that you’re maintaining your morals, your ethics, and, you know, your questions are geared towards making sure you’re helping the customer and not just about the sale. So it’s about driving integrity in the sales process more than it is about, you know, sharing your spiritual perspective in the sales prospect. And I appreciate you actually clarifying that, because I think that’s an important thing to clarify. It’s bringing your best version of yourself to what you’re doing each and every day. And in order to do that, you want to be grounded in some form of spiritual foundation. And so as you feed yourself that spiritual foundation, you go live it in life with purpose.

Jim Beach 19:17
Armen, I’m glad you came in today so that I could sell you this big widget that I have. I just want you to know that I’m a Christian, and so I am very concerned about honesty and integrity. And I just wanted to let you know that not only do I worry about my emotional intelligence, but I also worry about my spiritual intelligence, and I just want you to know that this entire negotiation sales process is going to include my honesty as a Christian. Would you make of that?

Armen Avanessian 19:49
So that framing of it right wouldn’t be necessarily the framing that I would bring to it. It would be I’m here in front of you Jim today, and I want to make sure that I give you my full attention. One, and that I’m actively listening to your pain points and the concerns that you have around operating your business, and I want to ensure that I recommend the most appropriate solutions and products that are really, truly going to meet your needs and drive value to your bottom line and help you to grow your business. And I’m looking to build a lifeline partnership and relationship with you, not a one time transaction, but looking to build with you as your business grows.

Jim Beach 20:27
So you’re not going to mention the spiritual piece at all.

Armen Avanessian 20:31
No, it’s just who you are. Right at the end of the day,

Jim Beach 20:36
what if you know they’re a Christian.

Armen Avanessian 20:39
So for me at the end of the day. It’s about loving everybody. And so that’s the core of what Christianity is, right? So embrace and love all right? Love God and love people right at the end of the day. And so that’s what I’m about, is going out there to serve with purpose, with, you know, God being the foundation of who I am. And then ultimately, at the end of the day, I’m a servant, so I am out there to help people through service, and that service happens to be through financial solutions and products.

Jim Beach 21:09
Go back to the middle part of the book about senses and yes, the title as well. What senses are we referring to? There? Help me with that part?

Armen Avanessian 21:21
Yeah, absolutely. So when we talk about the senses, we’re talking about sight, sound, taste, feeling, it’s all the traditional five senses that we are all familiar with. And so, you know, studies have shown the more senses that are engaged in the sales process, the greater the likelihood of increasing your sales. And so there are guys to the least listeners. So there’s studies out there Jim that show that brands that engage at least three or more of the customer senses drive significantly higher recall and emotional impact.

Jim Beach 22:00
Is that why department stores pump smells in?

Armen Avanessian 22:03
Yes, and I’m not even kidding you, the hotel that I’m at today,

Jim Beach 22:08
you can even buy the scent now in the store,

Armen Avanessian 22:13
absolutely. And so it’s very much important that you have a multi sensory experience. And that’s what the core of the five senses in the middle of the book are is. And it’s again, Jim, it’s not about checking off a checklist and saying to yourself, oh my gosh, in this sale, Did I check off all every single five cents. It’s just in the sales process, you want to drive as many of the senses as you can to create multi sensory experiences. And when you think about it, statistics show when you do that, you can increase memory retention by up to 70% and people remember only 10% of what they hear, but up to 80% of what they experience, and then going back to the emotions driving 95% of the purchasing decisions. And so that’s what the core of the book also focuses on, is how you as a marketer or a salesperson, business owner, startup, can engage your customers or prospect clients senses to drive a more memorable experience that drives that branding recall and drives the sale and drives long term retention and relationship.

Jim Beach 23:24
All right, so what does this mean? In practicality, you don’t really want me to start pumping in a smell into my office, do you

Armen Avanessian 23:31
that wouldn’t be nice? No, it means that as you or have your prospects, your customers, in front of you, you want to do your best to create an experience that’s memorable and for them interactive and something that helps them to remember you as they go forward, to drive repeat transactions and loyalty to your business. And so it’s much about creating an environment so that the buyer feels comfortable, engaged and a part of the decision making process, but leveraging their senses, their eyes, their ears, their hands, their taste.

Jim Beach 24:13
Okay, very interesting. Do the smells connect with the spiritual intelligence in any way? If I smell something, does it bring me back to a memory of being in church or cathedral?

Armen Avanessian 24:31
Yeah? I mean, yeah, I can give you, like, for example, my own wedding, right? So in some churches, you burn candles or there’s like that, what they call it. There’s that incense thing that burns, that lives, that aroma of frankincense, I believe it’s called, and so very much so. But you know, in that sense of like that, you can definitely have triggers that can bring that spiritual moment to you. And when you think about some of the. Um, sense that you will smell at, let’s say colognes or incense, whatever may be the case, that may very well, you know, trigger that nostalgia for Mary,

Jim Beach 25:13
very interesting. And what about the other senses, sight, touch, taste. How do they get involved

Armen Avanessian 25:24
Absolutely? So give you a specific example. So as a payments expert, when you’re going out to speak with the small business owner, you’re scheduling and you’re meeting with them in person, right? So they get to see you. They get to make eye contact with you. They get to hear your tone. They get to see the body language. So that’s the sight, that’s the sound. And while you’re in that meeting, you know what we traditionally do is we bring our demo devices into those meetings, a terminal, for example, and we demonstrate how that terminal can help them grow their business, and you put that terminal in their hands, and you allow them to experience the features and the functions for themselves, right? And so very much engaging many of the senses, as you are in an in person meeting with a small business owner, right? And so in that sales process itself, you have a greater likelihood of closing the sale. I think there’s a concept called, don’t recall it off the top of my head. But once you put something in someone’s hands that graded the likelihood that they are to buy from it, because it starts to create an emotional connection with that product or solution.

Jim Beach 26:39
Sure that makes sense. Armen, great stuff. Really learned a lot from you. Thank you so much. How do we find out more? Get in touch. Follow you online, buy some payment solutions, all that. Please

Armen Avanessian 26:49
absolutely so for selling senses, you can visit ww.sellingcenses.com that’s sellingcenses.com. You can definitely grab a copy of the book on your traditional purchasing sites like Amazon and Google and Barnes and Noble. And it relates to the payment space, you can reach out to me at Armen dot A vincent@group.com or reach out to me via LinkedIn with my first and last name, but Jim, before we go, I wanted to know if you’re open for the quick 10.

Jim Beach 27:26
Always, always yes. I’m required by state law to ask, Are you currently sober?

Jim Beach 27:37
Yes. Do

Jim Beach 27:38
you accept the standard wager?

Armen Avanessian 27:41
What is the standard way to Jen

Jim Beach 27:43
the bet that everyone else made?

Armen Avanessian 27:45
I will take that bet.

Jim Beach 27:48
All right. Number one, your favorite creativity hack,

Armen Avanessian 27:52
I mentioned this earlier. It’s silence with movement. So take a walk. No phones, no distractions. Focus on the mind. Focus on yourself. Focus on the heart. Spend some time with yourself.

Jim Beach 28:05
Number two, favorite bootstrapping trick,

Armen Avanessian 28:08
you have to be pre selling before you’re building your business. That’s what I’m learning now with the books, you got to pre sale before you build.

Jim Beach 28:17
Number three, name your top passions,

Armen Avanessian 28:19
all right, for sure. Building, I love to build things from the ground up, sales psychology, for sure, as you can see from the book human connection, because of who I am, at the core personal growth, because we never stop learning and the great outdoors go experience all of creation with all of our senses.

Jim Beach 28:38
Number four, the first three steps in starting a business are.

Armen Avanessian 28:43
Number one, I would say, is make sure that there’s demand. So validate demand. Sell you sell your product before you try to perfect it. And solve one problem and be good at solving that one problem.

Jim Beach 28:58
Number five, the best way to get your first real customer is

Armen Avanessian 29:03
direct outreach. Is the best way to get your very first client.

Jim Beach 29:08
Number six, your dreamiest technology is,

Armen Avanessian 29:11
man, if we can come up with some kind of AI that enhances your intuition but not replaces it, I think that would be that would work for me.

Jim Beach 29:20
Number seven, best entrepreneurial advice.

Armen Avanessian 29:22
I’ve learned this in all of my journeys. Speed wins, whether it’s speed the market or speed the solution, speed wins. But perfection can kill momentum, so don’t get too focused on perfection.

Jim Beach 29:34
Number eight, worst entrepreneurial mistake.

Armen Avanessian 29:38
Build something nobody asked for at the end of the day,

Jim Beach 29:43
number nine, favorite entrepreneur. And why?

Armen Avanessian 29:45
Favorite entrepreneur? And why I would have to say Steve Jobs, I think I would have to say him, obsessed with experience.

Jim Beach 29:56
Number 10, favorite superhero.

Armen Avanessian 29:59
It’s going to be. Believe people are probably going to question me on this. I’m gonna say Batman, because he didn’t have any superpowers, really. He just was really disciplined, focused on strategy and relentless execution.

Jim Beach 30:11
Excellent answers while we calculate your score, tell us your URLs one more time.

Armen Avanessian 30:15
It’s www, dot selling census.com, or you can reach me about payments@armen.of an SCN at ant group.com,

Jim Beach 30:25
all right, I’m calculating. Oh, Armen, I am so upset for you. You got a 94 which is an excellent score, but you have to have a 95 to win the wager. So unfortunately, you owe us a Tesla. We always play for a Tesla. So I’ll look forward to that soon.

Armen Avanessian 30:41
I’m contacting Elon Musk as we speak. Jim, excellent,

Jim Beach 30:44
excellent. No white I’ve already got some white ones. Send me a non white. Tesla, please.

Armen Avanessian 30:50
You got it? You got it,

Jim Beach 30:53
and we will be right back. You.

Jim Beach 31:13
Well, that’s a wonderful question. Actually, oh

Intro 2 31:16
my gosh, I love the opportunity to do this. Thank you, Jim,

Intro 2 31:19
wow, that’s, that’s, that’s a great one. You know, that is a phenomenal question. That’s a great question. And I don’t have a great answer, great question. Oh, that is such a loaded question. And that’s actually a really good question.

Intro 1 31:33
School for startups radio,

Jim Beach 31:36
welcome back to school for startups radio. I hope you’re having a great day to day, and using today to make yourself a better person, someone more likely to go out there and solve the problems of the world. I am very excited to introduce you to my next guest. He is someone doing just that, trying to solve the problems of the world. He left Bangladesh at 17, but has had one of the careers that you just read about. He was with General Electric and went out on his own and has been writing for Fast Company, Huffington Post, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, a whole bunch of fantastic places. He’s just published a new book called everything connects. And if you go online, you will see that not only is it selling well, but some of the people who gave him quotes, blurbs, recommendations about the book were unbelievable, including Nobel Peace Prize winner, the man who started Grom and bank, just unbelievable accolades. He is also running three companies, and we will find out about those. I’m very excited to introduce Faisal Hoke Hawk to the show. Faisal, welcome. How are you?

Faisal Hoque 32:46
Thank you for having me. I’m doing well. Thank you.

Jim Beach 32:49
Well, I’m very excited to learn about all that you’re doing. You’re a busy man.

Faisal Hoque 32:54
I am indeed a busy man. Yes, I’m trying to do a lot of different things.

Jim Beach 32:58
All right. Well, let’s start off with the most important thing your new book. It was just published by McGraw Hill, my publisher as well. Everything connects. What is the thesis of this book? Faisal,

Faisal Hoque 33:12
well, you know, when you want to first have to kind of show yourself the sense that you have to find what is it that you want to do and what satisfy you. And once you figure that out, then you can figure out what is it that you want to do for others, and how to motivate and recruit other people for your ideas. And once you have yourself and new people that supports you, then you can go into creating whatever that that is that you want to create. That creation could be a financial gain. A creation could be that you want to change the world, whatever the case may be, unless you know and connect with yourself and connect with other people, you cannot certainly connect with your creation and the creation that

Faisal Hoque 34:00
actually creates value. So that’s basically the thesis of the book.

Jim Beach 34:03
Okay, is this have anything to do with, say, emotional intelligence or anything like that?

Faisal Hoque 34:11
A great deal. Because, you know, I mean, if you really talk about how do you find your calling or find your passion you have to, you know, very much get in tune with your soul and your mind. And you know, we use this term mindfulness, which has been around three, 400,000 years, in many ways. And so we use this notion of being very much aware of your thought process and your emotions and mindfulness, and that’s that we drive that concept all the way how you create a new innovation so mindfulness and emotional intelligence, you know, relentless devotion. Into your craft. Those are underlining,

Jim Beach 35:04
okay, well, I certainly believe in all of those. So that’s easy to do. I i 100% agree. What do you mean by the phrase that we are now living in the age of creativity, innovation and sustainability?

Faisal Hoque 35:20
Well, I mean, if you look at what’s going on to today’s world, I mean, we have much better access to technology than ever, so that’s driving huge portion of innovation. Even most disadvantaged locations now have access to a cell phone as an example. So and then that that allowed us for creative in the sense how we come up with ideas by collaborating with others, and how we take those ideas and distribute those ideas, all that changing a different kind of social behavior that we never had before. So and when we can bring that together that allows us to be, have a hope, to be more sustainable, personally, professionally and as a as as a result, socially, is

Jim Beach 36:20
innovation and creativity changing?

Faisal Hoque 36:25
Yes, it’s definitely changing. I mean, take a very simple, mundane example, like, you know, you mentioned very early on in the interview that I originally come from Bangladesh. I mean, you know, farmers now use mobile devices to understand the weather, weather pattern, which they were not able to do even 510, years ago. And as a result, now they can figure out how to deal with their farming activities and where to take that product they’re creating, meaning the, you know, the crops they’re creating and where to distribute and getting better prices and whatnot. So those are not very sophisticated application or uses, meaning you’re not launching a new rocket ship, or you’re not controlling some drone from your cell phone. You’re talking about very basic human functionality. So I get excited about those basic human functionality, and that’s what I mean by creativity. And you know, and and that creative activities can be noted by a farmer, a artist, author, an entrepreneur, or somebody who’s sitting in MIT Media Lab and try to come up with next generation technology.

Jim Beach 37:44
All right, I know that in the book, you talk about how the roles of a group are changing, and you come up with four types of personality, I guess, four different roles that are in a proper organization. Can you tell us about that

Faisal Hoque 38:02
sure, you almost have to understand how people work, right? So the best and brightest necessarily does not work inside one organization anymore. We are forced to collaborate with many different type of people around the literally around the globe. So if you look at from that point of view, we almost have to think about how to get better organized so that we can take advantage of the motivation, the intrinsic motivation that drives people’s activity towards creation and innovation. So from that point of view, you know, you can almost look at like, you know, I love movies. I’m sure most of your audience love movies and and if you look at movie creation, or if you look at music, I mean, when people create a band, or you come up with a symphony, many different people place different role based on the movie and the role and what they’re trying to accomplish in the part of that movie. So from that point of view, you know, what we’ve done is that we looked at, well, you know, when you talk about creation and innovation, you’re talking about somebody who comes up with idea, somebody who then takes that idea and try to build that idea. And then, you know, some, some somebody who takes a product or something that you have created, tries to take that out in the market. And then somebody tries to, you know, expand the footprint of the market. So if you start looking at from those kind of roles, and we use those four roles as a, as a, you know, skeleton structure. You can expand it many different ways. You can start looking into people’s expertise and apply those people different ways in different projects, versus the traditional role of you’re a finance guy, you’re a marketing guy. You are a you know you are. You’re a graphics person, and you are a developed software developer, and that’s your role for rest of your life that doesn’t really allows us extract best talent each of us possess within us and contribute to creating a new and different things,

Jim Beach 40:22
all right, that’s really powerful, because I’ve always thought of myself as a marketing guy, or one of those phrases, and you’re saying we need to redo that and rethink it all together,

Faisal Hoque 40:33
absolutely, because, I mean, get your own career, right? So you’re a marketing guy, wrote a book, and now you’re running it, radio show teach entrepreneurs how to become better entrepreneurs, right? So look at all the different things you already done. Yet you’re saying you’re a marketing person, right? So that it’s actually limiting thought process. Put a label around somebody. Obviously we need to focus, and that’s where the mindfulness comes in which we talk about to accomplish a one task at a time. But that one task at a time does not define what who we are and what we can accomplish in our lifetime, and we’re constantly transitioning from one stage to another stage, and that applies in life as well as their business.

Jim Beach 41:21
All right, how can I now, and how can the entrepreneurs listening take this information and use it to our benefit?

Faisal Hoque 41:31
I would say that you know, this is very fundamental in the sense that you have to really cultivate your your desire and your passion, and what is it that you want to do? And even though you want to do many different things, you have to kind of have a focused thought process. What is it that you want to do that particular moment in time, and take that moment and time, goals and aspiration, and then manifest that into a product or service that creates value for yourself or whatever value you want to carry for others, by recruiting what I call the right traveling partners that can help you to execute what you want to do. So in a very high level, you know these three part approach, meaning figuring out you know how you connect yourself, and then figuring out how to connect with other people at an emotional level so that you can motivate and inspire them. Because entrepreneur job, first and foremost, aside from knowing what they want to do, is really inspire other people. And the third is that you know, once you get that your traveling partner and your and your calling, then create the ideas and the platform and the value that you want to put on that to take it out of the market. So these three part plan is what we try to outline in the book so that anybody can take advantage of it.

Jim Beach 43:10
All right? Well, that’s fantastic. I love that, and I love the three step process. It just makes it a lot easier for us. Let me ask you this, can you give us a big, big business example of where this philosophy has been true? Can we see this at any of the Fortune 500 companies? And look at an example?

Faisal Hoque 43:33
I would say that, you know, I have seen bits and pieces of this throughout my career, small and large corporations, as well as, you know, some of the public sector organizations that some of my companies have served. But the key is that whether you’re small or large, you know, it is, you know, this is really a individualistic way of manifesting your organization, and you mentioned emotional intelligence right up front in the beginning. I mean emotional intelligence starts with a person who then becomes a leader, and the leader’s reflection becomes a culture of an organization. And I can’t pinpoint one example that says, Okay, here’s GE or he is Pepsi, or he is not program that practice is true and true, and my argument, or theory, or whatever you want to call it that, unless and until we do that, we’re not going to create long term value. And can see that example when you look at, you know, when companies comes to an end. I mean, you know, I’ve gone through that myself, but I’ve also seen in that in large organization, where, if you look at daos. Listening today on original Dao listing the companies that were there, most you know, FSM, G no longer. No one is there, so that, since it all came to an end, so unless and until we take a holistic look about how we look at ourselves and how we want to translate that into our organization and culture to create value. You know, it’s really put us as a disadvantage.

Jim Beach 45:29
Can you talk to us about what you see the differences between qualitative and quantitative?

Faisal Hoque 45:36
Sure. So, I mean, you know, the qualitative is, you know, if you can look at it from a financial point of view, you can look at it impact point of view, right? So as a society, we have been very much vined with this idea of, you know, what is, what’s the output of the next quarter? What is the output of the next quarter? So what happens is that even though we may meet numbers or we make a sales goal, or we sell a particular unit of product or service that you want to sell. Excuse me. You know, that’s a very much of a short term view. That’s what you mean by quantitative outlook. The qualitative outlook is that when you say, Look, if we came up with this product or service, this is going to have this type of human impact on a long term basis, and we’re going to do the right thing so that it does have the ability to make an impact. So when you look at that long, deep of quality, your impact, not the social impact, but your financial impact, also increases a great deal, and you constantly are able to reinvent yourself with that kind of value system versus, hey, I’m going to create a company, you know, talking like, you know, talking from an entrepreneurial point of view. I want to create a company. I’m going to run it for a couple of years, and then when I’m going to exit out of it, and then whatever happens, whatever happens that company, right? So we’ve seen those kind of bubble centric mentality doing.com and we’ve seen seen this in oh eight and oh nine. We’re in the financial industry, and I’m sure that was not only you know, we’ll see it again, but when you look at those kind of short term impacts, forget about value creation actually do more harm than doing any good for society in general.

Jim Beach 47:27
That’s true. That makes a lot of sense. Can you talk to us about Leonardo da Vinci and how he embodies all of this in your mind?

Faisal Hoque 47:37
Well, I mean, you know, obviously you know, da Vincent was, was a renaissance man, and he was lot of different things, just like we talked about, he didn’t have one role. He had many roles, and he has lot of different passion, painter. He was a sculptor, you know, he created sculpture. He was an engineer. He also was an entrepreneur, because for each of his projects, he had to actually go get funding and speed economic model that will allow him to create what he wanted to create. So but he was also but if you really analyze how he looked at things and how he created things, he was very in tune with with himself and nature and how he observed thing. I mean, he used to walk around near the beach, and he would analyze a shell, look at how the shells are, you know, crafted, and then he will take those learning and apply to the things that he was creating, so as an example, in his blueprints or in his diary, he had all these diagrams and hand sketches that we all know about. He would look at life. When he would observe life, he would not look at how the light works, but rather our eyes works to translate that light, you know, from an image translation point of view, right? So that’s a very different way of looking at it. It’s a way of being in tune. What is it that you’re looking at, but also what is happening around you? It’s this awareness inside and outside that allowed him such a prolific person with everything that he did,

Jim Beach 49:28
right? Well, it’s certainly I love that. I love that analogy too. It makes it really clear to me, I think that’s the best way to understand it, simply because of all the variety and the things that he was doing. We are about to run out of time, unbelievably, and we haven’t talked about your businesses yet. I’d love to learn about them. Tell me about shidoka.

Faisal Hoque 49:50
So my company is a venture company. I’m incubating and creating new ventures I’ve got so. Just started this about six, eight months ago, and we already have two, three portfolio company. One of them is a company that focus on providing a software platform that that focus on education and learning and research data collection. We just rolled this out to the third largest Indian tribe called Choctaw tribe. You know, over 10,000 people are using this platform to learn the program that will actually help them to improve their lifestyle, from education, healthcare, etc, etc. Point of view, I’ve got another company that, well, a bit of foresight, which is focused on providing a platform to analyze entrepreneurial opportunities, and how do you manage those entrepreneurial opportunities from a long term value creation point of view? So it has analytical and a learning component to it allows you to kind of analyze potential of the opportunity or ideas that you’re evaluating. So these are some of the things that I’m working on. So I moved away from your classic large enterprise software business that I was for many, many years. And because I’m an entrepreneur, and I love the education aspect of life more, and for more and more, being focused on those kind of areas.

Jim Beach 51:21
Well, it makes sense, and it certainly seems to fit in overall, with what you’re doing. So makes a lot of sense altogether. What’s in your future now? What are you going to be doing next?

Faisal Hoque 51:35
Well, you know, I mean, I have, you know, as a venture. My role is to create new companies. So I’m going to look into create new, newer companies and work with other entrepreneurs and other investor pools and but also I’ve developed writing as a passion. So obviously, there are more books in the call, you know, in the future. So I’ll be doing what I do almost I look at this stage as a next stage, or next phase of my life. You know, as I said in the book and during this conversation, I mean, we are constantly transforming and reinventing. And let’s talk about reinvention and transformation of others and companies, I have come to believe that reinvention process starts with yourself. You can’t reinvent a industry or a company or a area that you focus on unless, until you reinvent yourself. So I think I’ll be reinventing myself as I go through,

Jim Beach 52:41
I love it. I love it, all right. Well, we are now officially out of time. How can people follow you circle? You get in touch with you and buy your book.

Faisal Hoque 52:51
Well, I mean, the book is available everywhere. I mean, get it from Amazon or van der Noel or 800 C or read or anywhere as far as finding me. I mean, you can go to my website, faisalhag.com, or you can find me on Twitter, which is Faisal underscore Hawk, or just Google my name. It should show off so it’s easy to find me and easy to connect with.

Jim Beach 53:16
Well, that’s because everything is connected.

Faisal Hoque 53:18
That’s exactly right.

Jim Beach 53:20
That was stupid anyway. Faisal, thank you so much for being with us today. Best of success with the book. Hope it sells tremendously, and I hope you’ll come back soon, when you publish again.

Faisal Hoque 53:32
Thank you so much. Thanks for having me.

Jim Beach 53:34
Thanks for being with us. Everyone. Tell your friends, send your neighbors, make your kids listen. Have a great day and go be an entrepreneur. Go make a million dollars by now.