[00:00:00] Speaker A: It's gotta be a better mousetrap than anybody else out there.
[00:00:03] Speaker B: We would go live and we would sell through social media.
[00:00:05] Speaker C: Now with the algorithm, it's really focused on interest.
[00:00:08] Speaker D: I'm Richard Gearhart.
[00:00:10] Speaker E: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart. You just heard some snippets from our show. We had amazing people on. Listen for the rest of it.
[00:00:18] Speaker F: Ramping up your business.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: The time is near.
[00:00:21] Speaker F: You've given it hart. Now get it in Gear.
It's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:00:28] Speaker D: I'm Richard Gearhart, founder of Gearhart Law, a full service intellectual property law firm specializing in patents, trademarks and copyrights.
[00:00:36] Speaker E: And I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, not an attorney, but I do marketing for Gearhart Law. And I am the founder of Gear Media Studios, a content creation studio with the focus on podcasting.
[00:00:46] Speaker D: Welcome to Passage to Profit, the road to Entrepreneurship, where we talk with entrepreneurs and celebrities about their business journeys. We have an amazing guest, Arthur Kapoor, a visionary entrepreneur who's reshaping healthcare authority. One bold idea and probably a few sleepless nights at a time. He's got the brains, the heart, and just enough caffeine to power a small startup nation. And we look forward to speaking with him.
[00:01:11] Speaker E: And then we have two great guests. Sherry Dindall is the powerhouse behind Wholesome Hippie, a viral natural skincare brand, and she has so many followers because she is also a comedian. So really, I just gotta get it.
[00:01:24] Speaker D: You're ready to laugh?
[00:01:24] Speaker E: Yeah. And then we have Jim Barut. We've known Jim for many years. He's a leading voice in the east coast innovation system, Founder of Innovation plus host of the podcast A Few Things and really helps keep everybody in New Jersey up to date on what's coming down the pike.
[00:01:39] Speaker D: Just about what's going on. Absolutely. But before we get to our distinguished guests, it's time for your new business journey. Two in five Americans are business owners or thinking about starting a new business. So we're going to ask our panel a question. And the question today is how would you handle the suggestion of a new employee or entrepreneur who where you know the suggestion is wrong. So let's start with our guest, Arthur. Welcome to the show. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:02:07] Speaker A: I think the best thing to do is listen to these people because when they come to you, they have an idea.
Maybe some of them might not appear to be very good initially, but some of them can turn out to be good later on. So if you have already experienced that it's not going to work, I would Say you should just kind of hear them out and then point them to factors as to why a business like this will not do well. And that's very easy to show.
[00:02:35] Speaker D: I think that's a really great advice.
[00:02:37] Speaker B: Sherry I completely agree. I think anybody that has ideas, you know, a lot of times the ideas just start off as that, just an idea. And so it doesn't mean that it won't become something viable. So you don't want to kill that passion. So instead it's just really drawing into, you know, let's troubleshoot it. Let's, let's look at the stress points, what would work, what wouldn't work, and so that they have something they can take away from that of like, okay, here's why these things maybe won't work. And maybe consider, give them some other things to consider so you don't kill their dreams, because a lot of dreams just start as just that, just a simple idea.
[00:03:06] Speaker C: Jim yeah, I would just add that it would be a good opportunity for them to talk to other experts to get perspectives that they can bring back to the company. So have them build on their idea, flesh it out more. It may still be a bad idea, but at least they hear it from other folks, other experts outside the organization or company.
[00:03:25] Speaker D: I guess the takeaway from this is then really make sure you hear out people who have ideas because you don't want to, you don't want to discourage them. So now we're onto our main guest interview. He's Arthur Kapoor, a bold entrepreneur who once walked away from a thriving corporate career to prove the health industry could and should do better. His unfiltered approach to innovation has sparked both admiration and controversy and shaked up the entrenched systems along the way. So, Arthur, let me ask, you've taken some bold risks in your career. What is one that people thought was crazy but paid off?
[00:03:58] Speaker A: One of them was that somebody asked me that, what do you know about healthcare? When I got into healthcare, and I said, I think I'm just following the scent of money. And they said, how do you follow scent of money? I said, well, if there are 500 people make a living out of that business, whichever business we're looking at, I think it's good enough for me to follow through. And I said, but I will not follow it the way other people are following it. I, I want to follow the way, where does the money trail end up at? So I want to be that source which will control that money flow.
[00:04:32] Speaker D: So how does that philosophy, outlook work itself into a business Strategy.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: Typically when I entered or I was kind of looking for my next venture, I had sold a company which was in furniture. And next thing I was looking and I was looking at people billing from home that there would be ads in the newspaper and saying you can build from home and make hundreds and $100,000, $200,000. I said, that's a pretty good business. So I went and attended all those shows where, you know, where people would come and talk about it. And then I would have asked them a question, where do you send these? So they said you would go to a doctor's office, pick up the super bills and come back and build it on the computer and then you send it to the clearinghouse and the clearinghouse will send it on to the insurance companies for it to be paid. So instead of paper claims, now these are electronic claims, Right? That was the business.
So for me at that point, issue was I didn't want to be another guy and going, picking up super bills from a doctor's office.
I said, let me find out, where do these claims go to? So there was one clearinghouse which was a national clearinghouse. I went to them and I said, how do I submit claims to you? They said, well, these are our formats and you can submit to us. Well, that was just an idea. I eventually became a competitor to that clearinghouse and we became probably one of the largest clearinghouses on the eastern seaboard. So I competed with that.
[00:05:58] Speaker E: How did you grow so fast? Did you improve the processes? Did you use?
[00:06:02] Speaker A: Yeah, so our biggest thing at that point was everybody used to do an old fashioned way.
We came up with a technology where if you could send a paper claim to be printed on a dot matrix printer. I'm talking about now going back.
So there was no laser, it was dot matrix. You had to put the spool in and all if you could take it. So we put a low TSR software which would capture the entire image of the claim from that printer, bring it into the database and lay it out and exactly. The entire claim would be on a kind of a software. And that software was built by us. And now we could edit those claims and then submit them electronically. So nobody had ever done anything being taken from a printer to be put into the system. So we were ahead of OCR. I'm talking about way back in 89.
[00:07:02] Speaker D: So what gave you the courage to jump from office furniture to medical billing when you didn't have any experience in that?
[00:07:12] Speaker A: One of the things I've, I've always seen is that industry, you have to look at industry. If there's an industry which is always very profitable and there's a lot of chaos. Any industry you want to get into or what you want to make money, there has to be chaos. If there's no chaos and everything is very copacetic, then nothing you can do. If there's chaos, get into it because you can always come up with an idea to make money.
[00:07:37] Speaker E: So are there any industries right now that you would consider very chaotic?
[00:07:40] Speaker D: Just about all of them.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Right?
[00:07:42] Speaker A: I think everything is chaotic. I think healthcare is very chaotic, always has been. I personally think banking has been chaotic. There are many other ways to leverage other things to make more efficient, but I think there are other industries, last mile deliveries that are very chaotic. So there's a lot of things that are going on, especially now with AI coming in, it's going to be much more chaotic than you can think of.
[00:08:08] Speaker D: So what made you take an entrepreneurial route as opposed to stay on the corporate side? I mean, were you attracted to entrepreneurism? Because you could have been probably very successful just climbing the corporate ladder, right?
[00:08:20] Speaker A: I'm not an, I'm not a guy who can work in a corporation. I have to, I have to make decisions and I can't be told, okay, this is not the policy. We have to do it. Because if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, according to what I've seen, you really need to go way beyond what people can imagine to be. And you have to, A, work hard, B, got to come up with something. It's got to be a better mousetrap than anybody else out there. Now, can you come up with a mousetrap every time? No, but you can come up with a mousetrap sometimes.
[00:08:51] Speaker D: But in terms of, okay, so there's always this debate, right? Is it the idea or is it the team or the individual? What do you think is the most important factor there?
[00:09:01] Speaker A: I think it's an idea. But team is very important because if you don't have the right team which doesn't think or is in sync with you, you can never build a company. So building a company needs a good team and that team is the key.
[00:09:18] Speaker D: And what kind of culture did you strive to create with the companies that you built?
[00:09:22] Speaker A: Culture is always one of the things that, you know. You asked that question about people. People would come to me and they had crazy ideas.
I would always listen to them and I would say, there is always one thing that you can find in every thought process.
And I learned my lesson. There was one person who came to me one time and he said that was a great idea. And I told him, I said, I don't think this is going to work. Well, the guy resigned two days later and he set up a shop later on and he became successful. So I've learned my lesson that don't shut people down because you got to be open to them because they have ideas that maybe, maybe worth it to take a look at it.
[00:10:02] Speaker E: You're very innovative, but these industries you're working in are highly regulated. Like if you try to do innovations in the medical industry, try to do innovations in the financial industry.
How do you marry innovation to regulation?
[00:10:15] Speaker A: I think there's a fine balance. Regulation is when people talk about healthcare, they say, oh, your data has to be protected. And you know, it's gotta be hipaa, this, that. Now those are basic things that you cannot do anything without. So you gotta work with the premise that you have HIPAA as, you know, part of the whole thing. But what you should always realize is every time you try to innovate, you have to come up with a better way of doing things. Like, for example, I'll tell you today, people are saying to me that you've done this. Why can't you help these states bring the cost down of healthcare? So what do I do? I will tell them for every state, I would tell them, their governors and their staff.
How do you bring the cost down? And I'll do it free of cost because I want to tell them that that's where the problem is. But I do say, if you feel that I will save you X amount of dollars, then I do need my percentage from that. So.
[00:11:13] Speaker D: And how do they react to that? Are they open?
[00:11:15] Speaker A: They're very open to it. Because listen, you go to a state and you save them $400 million, no governor is going to come back and tell you, I'm sorry, that's not a good idea.
[00:11:25] Speaker E: I do want it.
[00:11:26] Speaker D: Well, there might be some. But you know, I do want to.
[00:11:28] Speaker E: Go back to HIPAA for a minute because as I, you and I had talked about before the show, I heard a radiologist speaking about how they're using AI and people's data is getting fed to these AI engines sometimes. And hopefully they're not putting your name with like your cancer screening or whatever that's going into an AI database. How does is that even possible with hipaa to have everybody's medical data going into AI and into databases?
[00:11:52] Speaker A: You know, again, I think we're using the word AI very loosely. So, you know, when you talk about especially factors about diagnosis. You talk about conditions and you talk about. Then you connect it to the name Social Security.
A lot of those things are all encrypted. So even engine of AI has to take the data, decrypt it and then lay it out. So listen, there will always be people who will try to break. You know, we have seen this in cyberspace. People have come in and they've broken down the companies they've gotten in. There'll always be people doing it. But I think overall what I'm seeing now, healthcare companies are becoming very proficient in saving their own data because they have learned that it was easy to leave some doors open and people used to come in. So to answer your question, radiology is one example where a lot of those things are still very because images and that kind of stuff. But to connect an image to a person and to the Social Security, it's going to be not that simple. So what they do is they can maintain different file systems for different things. So it's only one layer where it'll all come out clear. So if you decrypt it, yes, you can cause damage, but if you encrypt it, you're okay.
[00:13:13] Speaker D: So healthcare is a big topic right now. Everybody is concerned about the cost of healthcare, but we all want good health care. What types of things would you do to improve the delivery of health care and reduce the cost, make it more affordable?
[00:13:30] Speaker A: The first thing is that you have to really look at decision support, which is to make the life of a physician better, which is to give him or her the support that they can make decisions on you, which as a patient so that you can take benefit from what they might have missed out. So AI will come in and help physicians from that perspective. But how do you control the cost? The healthcare system today is a high expensive item because people have not been watching the dollars. You know, states give major contracts to companies who are just kind of building a of old product and that product needs a lot of band aids and they keep spending more money on it. So the way to do it is you have to make it lean and mean, deploy the best of the latest technologies and make sure that people who are using it are benefiting from it and the patient at the end of it, just like us, we take advantage of what AI will bring to it.
[00:14:35] Speaker D: Do you think more regulation is the answer?
[00:14:37] Speaker A: No, less regulation. Because what you need to do is right now everything is regulated to the point that you cannot even breathe anymore. So what they have to do is they have to loosen the guidelines, but make it such that physicians care about the quality more than the money that they're making. So it's a fine balance right now. States are not thinking like that. States are only thinking about how do I manage my balance, my budget. But there might be a different way to look at it, which could be that if I'm spending $1.8 billion, I'm just saying, on healthcare today, maybe I can bring it down to $1.2 billion. Just, just humor me on that. If that 600 million can be saved in implementing things which were not required before and now it can implement.
[00:15:24] Speaker D: So can you give an example of that?
[00:15:26] Speaker A: Yeah. So you might be taking statin, but statins could end up making it such that you mess up your kidneys. And if that happens, were you watching out for esrd, which is an early stage renal disease, or no. And if you didn't, maybe there'll be a problem later on. So, you know, I'm just giving example that it could be anything like this. So if you follow a guideline, a clinical guideline, sometimes you got to go beyond it and say, let me do something different.
[00:15:57] Speaker D: Arthur Kapoor, visionary entrepreneur. We have to take a commercial break. I just want to mention that you can experience the Passage to Profit show by subscribing to us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. Or you can subscribe to our podcast anywhere that you get your podcast. Just look for the Passage to Profit show on any podcast platform. Back with more from Arthur right after this.
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[00:18:18] Speaker F: Now back to passage to profit.
[00:18:21] Speaker E: Once again, Richard and Elizabeth and our special guest, Arthur Kapoor. We've been having a great discussion and we're going to continue it now.
[00:18:29] Speaker D: Arthur, during the break, we were talking about sort of how you got an early start and some of the challenges that you faced as a young man making his way in the business world. Tell us a little bit about what happened when you first left school, Richard.
[00:18:43] Speaker A: This was very interesting because I left school and I thought I'm going to be good for the corporate market. And I go in the corporate market. And everybody kind of took my resume and said, oh, either you're overqualified or under qualified. So I never got a job. So I was trying to make my ends meet. I was trying to write some business plans for sba, sbdc. You know, I used to get paid based on writing a business plan.
And in one of those business plans, there was a client who had a issue with their profits being taken away. And, you know, the revenue was pretty high. But so I ended up writing a business plan for this client.
And in that process, one day my director called me and she said that they are here to meet with you. And I'm like, what happened? Did I do something wrong? So it was one of those things that I met with the folks and they said, well, we want you to come and implement this business plan. And I said, I really have no idea how, you know, office furniture is. So they said, well, if you wrote the business plan, you should know this. So I ended up working there.
I was a consultant kind of. They brought me in. I had no idea. I was very young. And then only to find out that I got down to the bare brass tacks and found out where the problems were.
Everybody was happy.
And there were three other business salespeople who were leaving that company and they asked me to join them as a partner. I had no money, so I said, I don't have money to invest. They said, well you know, your sweat capital is good.
And that's when I left that company and I embarked on my journey as an entrepreneur. That was my first business and I was only 26 years old then.
So I was like, I guess I was like, okay, I'm going to take the risk.
[00:20:40] Speaker D: Were your parents entrepreneurs? Did you have entrepreneurs in your family?
[00:20:43] Speaker A: No, none.
None of my family. My father was a scientist, so he never, you know, he was only. So I was only. I think I'm the black sheep in the family.
[00:20:55] Speaker D: Well, I mean we were talking on the phone during our pre call and I kind of grew up in the generation where a successful career was climbing your way to the top of a corporate ladder.
And you know, being an entrepreneur is like, well what's that? You know, and what do you do?
And you know, it turned out that going entrepreneurial was really one of the best decisions that I ever made. I have to thank my wife Elizabeth for encouraging me and supporting me on that. But it really does change your perspective on business. And I feel like I've grown a lot as an entrepreneur. I've had to acquire a lot of new skills and develop capabilities that I don't think I would have ever gotten in the corporate world. And I'm the same way. I mean I can follow direction, but if it's stupid direction, then it just frustrates me to no end. So I think I'm probably better off.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: On my own Also. You have to remember as an entrepreneur, you are responsible for the success of the company or the failure of the company. So it's a very big risk that you take.
But if you do have inbuilt asset, which is about how do I recognize how to make profit or how do I recognize that I can make this idea hum and this idea make much more money. You should be an entrepreneur because otherwise you work in a corporate life, you'll get a bonus check and that'll be the end of it. Now as an entrepreneur, your ability to make money is a lot more and you should also be on, you know, every two weeks you need to be worried about how you make your payroll. So you know there comes with the pluses and minuses. But listen, at the end of the day, if you're an entrepreneur, you are master of your own universe, you set your own clock.
[00:22:44] Speaker D: Well, we Talk about the freedoms that entrepreneurs have. You get to associate with the people that you want to associate with. You have freedom of income. You have freedom to decide how you want to spend your time, and you have freedom to pursue the projects that are important or meaningful to you. But the freedom comes at a cost. I mean, there are times when things just really stunk, you know, and it was a real struggle to keep things going. And there were times that our backs were against the wall, and somehow, some way, we managed to, you know, to figure it out and keep the ship going, you know, and it really.
I mean, let me ask you, in your companies, have you ever felt, like, entirely comfortable that the company was going to continue on, or did you ever have a concern that something might change at any moment and that you would have to react to it?
[00:23:38] Speaker A: Well, you know, if you're an entrepreneur, Richard, you should be always prepared that something can change, anything can happen.
It's never the same. You know, you could be humming along pretty good, you're doing very well, and suddenly one of your client calls you and says, okay, we're ending the contract because we found another vendor or we don't have the money or whatever it might be. So you can never underestimate that things can go wrong. So things can always go wrong. But as an entrepreneur, your biggest thing is you have the ability to pivot and be quicker, because if you can't do that, you won't be an entrepreneur. So if you can pivot and find a way, okay, this is my downtime. This is what has happened to me. Can I come out of it? How do I come out of it? Those are the things that you always think about.
[00:24:29] Speaker D: Yeah, well, I think having a positive attitude is important, too.
[00:24:33] Speaker E: I do, too. So you jumped into brand new industries that you really hadn't worked in. Do you think people need to work in the industry to learn it before they jump in as an entrepreneur? Or do you think you can just learn it on the job, so to speak?
[00:24:48] Speaker A: So there are two traits of an entrepreneur. One is a trait of an entrepreneur who is very good at what they do. They have learned it, and then they want to start a business that's different. There's another trait of entrepreneur, which is gutsy entrepreneur who gets into something but makes a better mousetrap than anybody else. So there are two types. So you have to always remember the one, the gutsy one, is the one who says, I'm not happy with what I have right now. I want to make it better. And they review the whole Marketplace, they look at your competition, they do everything. They say, let me make something which is better than all my competition and people will come to me. And that is true. If they make a product or a platform where people will come, they're ahead of the game and that's what happens.
[00:25:33] Speaker D: That's great. So we're going to wind up this segment. Arthur, where can people find you if they want to contact you?
[00:25:38] Speaker A: They can look at www.eleganthealth.com.
it's a company which is doing all care management for many states now and they're working on it.
[00:25:48] Speaker D: Well, congratulations. We know it's going to be successful. You've got a great website and certainly anybody who is interested in improving their understanding of their hospital's data should definitely reach out and investigate. So now it's time for IP in the news. And today we have a really kind of current subject and that is Lululemon has sued Costco for patent infringement.
[00:26:17] Speaker E: Yes, I know you've shopped at Costco because I've made you go there, but.
[00:26:21] Speaker D: I don't think you've ever been those long lines waiting to get out.
[00:26:24] Speaker E: I don't know that you've ever been to Lululemon, but Lululemon has the reputation of a really high end athletic apparel store and lifestyle brand too.
And the clothes are little pricey, not out of reach, but a little higher end of the price scale, but really nice. And the one at the mall near us, Short Hills Mall, there's always a line.
[00:26:44] Speaker D: Yeah. Just to give an example. So in the article we read, Lululemon hoodie would cost 120 bucks. And you can get something similar at Costco for 20 bucks. So that's a big difference.
[00:26:58] Speaker E: So. But they have patents too, which makes their case so much stronger. Yeah, right. So most people that are suing over this copycat stuff are using copyright or maybe trademark, but they actually have patents on some of the stuff they do. So.
[00:27:12] Speaker D: Which is unusual for an apparel company, by the way.
[00:27:14] Speaker E: Right, right. So I don't know that most people would that know fashion, let's say, would confuse Costco with Lululemon. Honestly, I remember when we lived in Atlanta, down in Georgia, bought a dress at Costco and went down to the pool at our subdivision.
Hey, she's wearing your dress.
So.
And it was pretty obvious it was a Costco dress. But that was way back when.
But by the same token, I mean they put a lot of money into designing this stuff and they are fashion trendsetters. So should Costco be able to just copy It. I mean, what.
[00:27:52] Speaker D: That's what the lawsuit is all about, right?
[00:27:54] Speaker E: What would you think if you developed a really high end, nice product that was really soft and pretty and everything, and there was a cheaper knockoff?
I mean, I don't think Costco should be allowed to do that.
[00:28:05] Speaker D: Of course, as an intellectual property attorney, I'm going to say, well, you know, you have to protect your brand and everything. But the fashion industry is a little bit different than other industries. Sort of traditional for the top design houses to get knocked off by everybody below them. They sort of set the trends and then everybody else sort of copies it.
And people weren't using patents to protect clothing in the past, but Lululemon decided to do this, and we're going to see what happens here. I think that on the one hand you have sort of the industry custom. On the other hand, you have the intellectual property that Lululemon invested in. And I guess we're going to see what the court has to say about it. But before we talk about that, I want to hear what Jim Brood has to say about it. So, Jim, what do you think about this stuff?
[00:28:50] Speaker C: Well, I think if it's a design, just the colors or the patterns, that might be tough. But if it's the actual fabric, where they have patent pending or patents on it, replicates it really closely, they can have a stronger case. But we were just talking about it on the way here with my daughter. She wants to go to Canal street and get some nice Gucci bag or whatever.
And, you know, I was trying to explain to her that the investment in that brand, they have a right to try to stop those knockoffs, you know, and so it's a similar. But they've taken it to court. And Costco is a established company which sells brands as well. I bought clothes there before, you know, you know. Oh, good.
[00:29:35] Speaker E: I'm not the only one.
[00:29:36] Speaker C: No. And so they do sell branded things, so it's a little, little different. But, you know, I think it's. It definitely is a dilemma. It'll be a close call, I think.
[00:29:47] Speaker D: Yeah. I mean, isn't that sort of Costco's business model, though, to kind of sell knockoffs of other stuff for cheaper? I mean, I go into Costco, I haven't seen like a huge number of brand names, I guess more on the grocery store side. But you know, you get those huge bottles of ketchup that have their own zip code. Right. You know, and that's Heinz ketchup. But there's also a lot of stuff that they Sell that's off brand. That kind of looks like it's on brand. Right. And so I think that's part of their marketing strategy is to, you know, find those kind of gray areas. So anyway, Sheri, what do you think?
[00:30:20] Speaker B: Well, I mean, as somebody who owns a boutique and has sold a lot of clothes, I find it fascinating that they were able to patent, which is. Again, I'm with you. If it's the fabric specifically, that makes sense to me. The design of the leggings or their sweatshirts or. I mean, I just am curious how you patent like that, because there. There's not a lot of variation in the fashion world. Everything kind of looks the same, cuts the similar. It's soft in the name. I can see if somebody's trying to knock off, you know, their name or whatever that. But. But this is interesting. Again, fabric fabrication. Yes. I can see if you had like something really special about the. The brush of the fabric, the cut, not. Not the cut of the fabric, but like the feel or the way it's manufactured. It is interesting to me that they. To do that with the cuts of the clothes.
[00:31:07] Speaker D: Yeah. Well, I mean, you can file something called a design patent, and it doesn't really protect the function of the article, but it protects the way it looks. And so if they have an especially unique cut or unique shape, it's possible to get a.
[00:31:22] Speaker B: That's what I'm curious about, because my kids own Lululemon leggings because they are not cheap. You know, they look like all the other pair of leggings I have in my house. So that's where I'm like, yeah, they just look. I mean, they're Lululemon. That's all the kids care about is that it has that name on it. But that is. I mean, they just look like another pair of leggings. That's why I find it interesting that it's like, oh, there must be something unique about the way they sew it or the way they cut it. Like, you said that.
Yeah, I don't know. I mean, as far as I shop at Costco and I see a lot of brand stuff like you on the. On the non grocery side, you know, they're selling a lot of electronics and different brands of, you know, products and clothing is one of them, you know, that typically you'll see their Costco brand, but they do sell a lot branded clothes. So it'll be interesting to see. I mean, I think that in the generic space, you know, the knockoffs are. I could see like a Gucci bag. You're trying to sell a Gucci as, like a fake Gucci. I don't know. Is Costco trying to sell it as Lululemon? And it's not.
[00:32:16] Speaker D: I think that's all under their own brand, the Kirkland brand.
[00:32:19] Speaker E: But what they saying here is people might assume that it's Lululemon because they do have name brand manufacturers that produce things for them under the Kirkland name.
So they might make that assumption that, oh, this is really Lululemon. They're just selling well.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: And Lululemon has partnerships with other brands. For example, Peloton, you know, has a. Has a Lululemon partnerships. But usually their name, they still put their name on it.
[00:32:41] Speaker D: Well, in any case, Lululemon's, like, made $10 billion last year. Costco made 250 billion last year. So they're doing okay. You know, we hope they're doing poorly. I hope they work this out.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: This could set up a new trend of how IP protection is going to work in the future.
Because this is.
I have never heard of it. And I think this is. You know, you could go into software and say, okay, the lines of code were written and you can say, okay, this does the same. So there's a way to do that. But I don't know. Clothing is. Is hard. I mean, I just saw something which was very different, that Prada just unveiled a new type of sandals, and they're selling it for like 1500 dollars for those sandals. And they. They're like a knockoff of a design.
Were from India, where those sandals were. They sell for like $2.
So are you telling me identical? So I'm looking at. And this is at their ramp show, and I'm like, okay, this is pretty good. So if this would stand or if there's a way that this case will come to some kind of decision.
[00:33:55] Speaker D: It's interesting. Legal theories and designer fashion houses have wanted a special copyright type of protection for some of their designs, but it never made it through Congress.
Design patents, they take about 18 months to get. So by the time you get the patent filed and issued, the design has to have some longevity. It just can't be like a seasonal thing. But, yeah, I think this is actually pretty new because normally when clients approach us and they want to get patent protection on their clothing designs, we have to work really hard to get something through the patent office. So I think you're right, Arthur. This could be a. We'll see. We'll be watching this carefully. And it could be just the tip of an iceberg. And speaking of patents, if you have an idea or invention that you want to protect, contact us at Gearhart Law. We work with entrepreneurs worldwide to help them through the entire process of obtaining patents, trademarks and copyrights. You can visit learnmoreaboutpatents.com or learn more about trademarks and sign up for a free consultation with a Gerhart Law attorney. Or you can also download a white paper on patents or trademarks, the Entrepreneur's Guide. And you'll learn lots of really good stuff. So stay tuned. We have to take a commercial break. We have secrets of the entrepreneurial mind coming up soon. Stay tuned.
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[00:37:14] Speaker F: Passage to profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart.
[00:37:18] Speaker D: Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show heard in 38 markets across the United States.
And our podcast is ranked in the top 3% of podcasts globally. And we've also been recently selected by Feedspot Podcasters database as a top 10 entrepreneur interview podcast. And that's for the second year in a row. So subscribe to Passage to Profit show on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and on the iHeart app and you can hear all of our episodes. We'd like to do a shout out to our listeners hearing us in the Chicago Kankakee market. Courtesy of WKAN 1320am and 101.3 FM. Thanks for listening, Elizabeth. It's time for your spotlight. So what have you been up to?
[00:38:07] Speaker E: Well, the studio is up and running and I've actually gotten paid yay.
Like maybe 0.001% of what we've invested in it so far.
I'm hoping to catch up with that. And I'm doing the consulting too. I think the consulting is almost more important than the studio itself. But I'm rebranded kind to a content creation studio because people are coming for different reasons.
And the way that we have the three cameras set up and the really nice mics and everything, people like walking into that and being able to just record something. And then some people just want the straight files. So if it's a video, it's an mp4 file. If it's audio, it's an mp3 file. And some people want editing. So I have a great editor and we've been able. I've been gotten different styles from her that I'm able to show people that come into the studio and they can tell me what they want. And different people want different things.
I really am enjoying this a lot.
[00:39:02] Speaker D: Yeah, you are coming home every night with a smile on your face.
[00:39:06] Speaker E: Well, when I can get in. I had to close the studio this week because they ripped up the road in front of it and nobody can get there. But other than that, it was something that I never would have imagined ever doing in my life.
[00:39:18] Speaker D: Right.
[00:39:19] Speaker E: And.
[00:39:19] Speaker D: And like Arthur said, you were started, you found a market need. Right?
[00:39:22] Speaker E: Right. Well, I, a lot of people want to start podcasts and want to have podcasts, but they don't know how to get over the hump. And my next target customer, my ideal client really is going to be a marketing agency who has a client who wants a podcast for their business because Podcasts are getting so important for business now. Not just for. What does Google call it? They call it the eeat. Expertise and authority and trust to position yourself as a leader. As Jim has a podcast he knows. But also it's important for that amongst the society and the people you work with. But it's also important for all the search engines on Google that you be all over the Internet, everywhere. And video is the most important thing you could be doing right now for search engines to find you and promote you to people.
[00:40:09] Speaker D: So it's podcast studio, but we really do mostly video.
[00:40:12] Speaker E: It's going strong and we're having meetups. I'm having a lot of fun. So that is that. And now for the second half of my little time, I am going to do the medical minute. A woman in Texas has died from a rare brain infection after flushing her nose with water that had been stored in the tank of a recreational vehicle.
[00:40:33] Speaker D: You gotta be kidding me.
[00:40:35] Speaker E: No. So she was only 71 years old.
[00:40:37] Speaker D: Did the water come out of the tank and into, like, the faucet? Is that how it came?
[00:40:41] Speaker E: No, she. I think she had one of those neti pots or something.
So it was an amoeba. And they didn't find it in there, but they found that it wasn't disinfected well enough. The water wasn't disinfected well enough. So, anyway, the moral of the story is if you're gonna flush your nose out, use distilled water or boil the water first and let it cool.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: And when in doubt, Google is your friend.
[00:41:00] Speaker E: Yes.
[00:41:00] Speaker B: Google it.
[00:41:01] Speaker E: This is a great segue because Sherry Dindall is next and she's a comedian, but she also has this really great natural skincare brand called Wholesome Hippies. So, Sheri, we definitely want to hear from you and we want you to keep being funny, too.
[00:41:15] Speaker B: I mean, I can't. I told you I was going to behave myself. I can't help it. It just happens. It's got me in trouble a lot in my life. So now I don't get in trouble for it as much because I'm just. Comedian is a very new title for me. It's not even. Not even six, eight, maybe nine months old. That's a new title for me. So I never considered myself to be that funny. But, yes, I do own a company. I own a couple of companies, but Wholesome Hippie is my big baby.
And it. Yeah, all natural wellness and beauty brand that we manufacture in the state of Georgia. It's all. All natural, no synthetics. No parabens, all clean ingredients. And we've been in business for a little over five years now. We actually launched right before COVID hit, not on purpose, so we already had been in the works and we managed to survive because we make products that help people and so that's why we do it again. We make wellness products to help people with pain and anxiety and stress. And so we just make things to help people attack pain and anxiety and stress and sleep, just sleep issues and stuff naturally without any of those side effects.
[00:42:12] Speaker E: What are you doing to promote your products?
[00:42:14] Speaker B: I've been a live seller for years, so it's really. We started with Wholesome Hippie as a brand that we wanted to have just exclusively for my boutique because we would go live and we would sell through social media. So I've been doing that for over almost 10 years now. We do a lot of live shows, but we've been around long enough that we have established ourselves pretty well in the e commerce space.
We have an app and people can shop through our app or they shop through the website. And so. And I also have a very large social media presence, so I use that as well to help promote my business. We just use everything at our disposal, basically.
[00:42:46] Speaker E: What social media platform works best for.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: You, I would probably say to date has been TikTok. I mean, I've been on Facebook for many, many years selling, you know, through Facebook. But TikTok just has this unique algorithm that you can just randomly go viral for no reason, you know, not no reason. The algorithm does what it does, just has this ability to take brands that nobody's ever heard of before and put them on the map. And so that's, that's what it did for us two years ago. We, we had a product, our magnesium infused products that went viral on TikTok and the rest is kind of history. My advice would be to anybody that's getting into selling a product or even if you're not new in the business, you have something that, you know, people need or that people would want is put yourself on all the platforms. It's very competitive out there. The, the social media space is highly competitive. You have TikTok shop that everybody wants to compete with now and TikTok shop wants to compete with Amazon and you've got Instagram and Facebook or Meta who is like, we want part of that market share back. So they're doing things to make their algorithm more dialed in and more competitive. And so I would say get on all of them. Don't pigeonhole yourself or don't, don't put all your eggs in one basket because all of social media has very high highs and very low lows. And it is, it will knock yourself like you just. It can make you, you feel great today and you feel like a loser tomorrow. And so you can't put all of your eggs in one basket because it's better to diversify. When I created the brand, it was out of my own needs. I own sensitive skin, my own desire for cleaner products. I really resonate and drive our business towards people that want clean ingredients, that want stuff they feel safe putting on their family, they feel safe putting on their kids. They don't have to worry about, you know, dyes and parabens and sulfates and fake synthetic ingredients.
[00:44:33] Speaker D: So how do you build that trust, though, with the customer, that what you're.
[00:44:36] Speaker B: Providing them really is safe, transparency, authenticity, creating a relationship. That's what social media is about. Like, people think social media is just pure, like marketing. Marketing is finding out that there's a disconnect there, and that's because they melt. They lack the relatability, they lack building that trust through relationships. And so that's what social media really is about. Today. People want something that isn't perfectly curated. They want somebody that says it like it is. I don't sugarcoat. I like to just say it like it is. And so people relate to that. They want real. And so it's really talking about allowing people to have the opportunity to ask questions. That's what makes the live aspect of what I do so unique and special, is it allows you to have a live audience where people can ask questions, you can interact with them. It's about, again, authenticity and transparency. And I think that's what a lot of people have a desire for. And that's what I connect with, is people not knocking any large brands that are out there. But transparency just has become something that is not really there for the consumer.
[00:45:34] Speaker D: Can you share a story about your entrepreneurial journey with us? Like maybe when you were first starting out?
[00:45:39] Speaker B: Sure. So I spent my most of my life in the corporate world. 26 years I spent the corporate world, quit my job with no plan. I had always had a lot of great ideas through my career in corporate like that. I thought, you know, I'd love to start my own business. Had no idea how to do that. When I finally got burnt out and decided to quit, I quit with no plan. It was scary to quit my job without any idea of what I was going to do. No plan, no roadmap. I didn't know how to be anything but an investigator, which is what I had been for so long. And so it was, you know, I spent a lot of time doubting myself. My advice to people in my story would be, don't doubt yourself, because it might have took me 10 years to get here, but 10 years later, I have multiple successful businesses, large social media platform that I would have never imagined, and a new title called Comedian, which is wild to me. But for me, my story is that I didn't give up, you know, that I didn't believe that I was not good at anything. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out what you're good at.
[00:46:35] Speaker E: Well, and sometimes it takes a while for you to get noticed and to get built up. So when we started the radio show, we're like, well, we hope we can do this. And now it's been seven years. And that went so fast. And Jim was on one of our early episodes. We'll talk with him. And now we're like top 3% globally. And it's part of the reason is because we've been doing it so long.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: Here's the thing, though. You wouldn't be doing it this long if you weren't good at what you're doing. And so that's the thing, is that, is that sometimes you can be good, but there's a difference between being good enough. Right good and good enough. And so you've obviously been doing something right and continue to grow and work on being great or even better than you were so that you still are relevant today, seven years later, and you.
[00:47:15] Speaker E: Have to keep up with the changes. Like you said with the social media, it was very interesting what you said, because our Facebook did great in May and in June, it was terrible. And then our Instagram did okay in May and took off in June, and it's like. But they're owned by the same company.
[00:47:33] Speaker B: That's part of it right there. Different algorithm. Some advice would be to keep up with what meta does, because they do. Although they're owned by the same company, they do play against each other. So I have a very large presence on both. Almost about 2 million on Facebook, 1.6 million on Instagram.
TikTok's like 1.7. And. And the difference, and this is your Instagram audience versus your Facebook audience is a much greater value.
And those two both combined are even greater than any Tick Tock value. So for every one TikTok follower you have or every 10 tick tock followers, it's like one Instagram. So that's kind of the ratio of value there.
[00:48:10] Speaker D: So in building your social media, which has obviously just been amazing, did you have a strategy or did you just decide I'm going to be me? And this is, that's it right there.
[00:48:19] Speaker B: Just, I was, I'm just going to be me. I think social is going to change tremendously. AI is going to, I mean we're in the era now like the next five to 10 years, your next big trillionaires, billionaires and celebrities are going to come out of AI There already is content creation that is strictly AI generated.
[00:48:37] Speaker E: How do people find you to buy your skincare products?
[00:48:40] Speaker B: You can Visit us at wholesomehippie.com that's wholesomehipy. H I P P Y wholesomehipy.com and all of our products are there and yeah, we're, we're not hard to find.
[00:48:51] Speaker E: And you're doing a tour right now?
[00:48:53] Speaker B: I am. I love that you asked me that. So yes, I told you. Comedian's a new title for me.
So I'm on tour with some other content creators and we are traveling all over doing comedy slash variety show shout out to all the Gen Xers in the world. It's called the Gen X Takeover and you can find information on genxtakeover.com about where we're playing and where they can come see us. And yeah, we're, we're already gearing up for 2026 and have lots of shows booked for 2025. So who knew?
Gen X has always been told to be quiet and we were the forgotten and now it's, it's our time to shine. So that's what we're doing.
[00:49:30] Speaker E: Okay.
[00:49:31] Speaker D: So with that start a baby boomer comedy.
[00:49:33] Speaker B: You guys should baby, it would be hilarious.
[00:49:37] Speaker C: What's this? I want to go to see one of those. It's a variety so just explain that a little more for the audience.
[00:49:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So it starts off so all four of us will be on stage doing our own little comedy bit. Right. And then we all come together after that and do a little bit more of a variety show. We get the crowd on their feet and they, we sing, we do sing along stuff with some old throwbacks to the 80s.
And yeah, it's just, it's a good time that we have for some people stick around for meet and greet and stuff like that. But no, it's, it just continues. Well we got a guy on stage with us now that's a one man band that plays music and he has a keyboard and guitar and I don't know what 2026 is going to look like. It might look really wild, but it's a great time. The show is a couple of hours. The feedback so far has just been phenomenal. We went from back in September last year, Labor Day. We started off playing 100 seater in Nashville and we just played St. Louis June 1st to a 2000 people.
So less than a year.
[00:50:32] Speaker E: I wonder, do you have a. Yeah. Do you have a garden? Because you know how to grow things.
[00:50:37] Speaker B: I don't have time to actually grow anything at home, but I do like to garden. I mean, I'm at the age now where bird watching is coming into my.
It's coming into my realm.
[00:50:47] Speaker D: How much excitement can you take?
[00:50:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
Who knew?
[00:50:50] Speaker E: Sherry Dindall, what is your handle on social?
[00:50:53] Speaker B: People can find me under the real slim, Sherry.
[00:50:56] Speaker E: And do you have any events coming up in the New York area?
[00:51:00] Speaker B: We actually do. New York is like our number one city. All four of us that are on tour together. Number one New York. So that we knew we had to do the Northeast. So we're playing Newark at the NJPAC on August 23rd.
[00:51:13] Speaker E: Okay.
[00:51:13] Speaker B: Gen X takeover. Newark in New York. We're coming for you. It's gonna be a great show. Yeah. Mark your. Yeah, for sure. It's gonna be an awesome show. The venue is beautiful. It's gonna be the biggest venue we've played so far.
[00:51:25] Speaker E: We have to have you back on so we could do more of this.
[00:51:28] Speaker D: Passage to profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gerhardt.
[00:51:30] Speaker E: I'm gonna switch over to Jim now. So Jim Barood has been a fixture in the New Jersey entrepreneurial community ever since I lived there 20 years.
[00:51:40] Speaker D: I remember when we went to his first meetups 20 years ago, remember? At Fairleigh Dickinson University.
[00:51:46] Speaker E: Yeah. And he just has his finger on the pulse. And what's interesting about Jim, I just want to bring up is he's doing events again, really good events and he gets of people there. And post Covid, it's been kind of hard to get people coming back to events. So I want to pick his brain on that and I want to hear what he has to say about AI. So you choose Jim. Do you want to continue the AI conversation? You want to talk about your events?
[00:52:05] Speaker C: Well, I'll talk about AI for a little bit and entrepreneurship because this has been such a great discussion and some great entrepreneurs next to me. And as you said about the social media, now you really have to. Even though you have an amazing audience, I mean you're like the top 0.01% of people have audiences that big. But now with the algorithm, it's really focused on interest, right? So if you do really interesting content, the algorithm will find it and serve it up to hundreds, thousands, millions, whatever, and then they'll go viral, Right, and that's what you really want. But. So the good thing is you've got a great audience. The good thing for new people, though, if you do some really good content, you might be able to go viral and become as successful as you. But then some of the sort of best practices you probably know is once you go viral is to capture that audience and make an email list, right. And serve them up a weekly, monthly, whatever, newsletter of what you're selling. Because then you own that audience and you're not victim to the platforms if they change their algorithm or don't like you anymore for any reason.
[00:53:11] Speaker B: That's why I said diversify. If you only have a TikTok audience, nobody knows what the future of TikTok is. It could go away tomorrow.
[00:53:17] Speaker C: Exactly.
[00:53:17] Speaker E: It's not though, because too many people are making money from it.
[00:53:20] Speaker B: No, no, no doubt. But they keep continuing to hold that. And the truth is that it could, I mean, one day it could just go away.
[00:53:25] Speaker C: Yeah. And you've been part of this big mega trend about live selling for a long time before it's become really, you know, the next generation.
[00:53:33] Speaker D: So what does live selling tell our audience?
[00:53:35] Speaker C: Well, it's going on the platform and sure, you can talk about it, you know, going on the platform and talking to your audience and selling live streaming. Live streaming.
[00:53:43] Speaker B: It's live streaming kind of QVC style almost, if you think about it, people just demonstrating and showing the product. Kind of like you would watch qvc but you're the person that they're connecting with.
[00:53:53] Speaker C: Or it could be part of a comedy scam or something where you just can sell something on the side or it'll show up and you can click on it.
[00:54:00] Speaker B: These days, literally some people aren't even there and face isn't in the frame. It's just their hands with a camera and they're like opening stuff and showing you how it works and people are just buying it. It's just wild.
[00:54:09] Speaker A: Live selling was also very common. I'm talking many years ago when at night, after 11 o', clock, when TV channels didn't have anything, they would be selling all these products, you know, for 999. Right. That's what it was, life selling.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: Well now people lay in bed with their phone and they watch it while they are getting Ready to sleep. Instead of watching tv, a lot of people are watching live shows live, selling and buying from their pajamas.
[00:54:33] Speaker C: And you know, what times people are actually buying. You can track that.
[00:54:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:54:37] Speaker C: You know, when is the optimal time?
[00:54:40] Speaker E: So, Jim, pull out your crystal ball. What do you think AI is going to do to us in the next couple of years?
Or for us? I shouldn't say to us.
[00:54:50] Speaker D: I should say that's a pretty open question.
[00:54:51] Speaker C: We will become its pets.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: I can't wait.
[00:54:55] Speaker C: Well, speaking of AI, I should say that there's also this resurgence of humanity. Right. Sherry just mentioned people are coming to our shows. You just mentioned people are coming to my event.
There's sort of this re engagement where people are tired of screens. There's sort of fatigue, as there should be, because we're on them all day and all night and buying things left and right. And so there's that reality too. Right. And I think there's. And that's a great thing. Right. People are really trying to sort of reconnect in person. And that's a great development. And hopefully that continues. Right. Especially for our young people who don't know how to talk to each other because they're on devices all day. And that's one of the downsides now they're going to have AI girlfriends and boyfriends or friends. And sometimes that's good. If it's a therapist that's helpful. Of course a real life therapist is better, but for people who can't access those things, that's better than nothing. And so that's the. One of the scary features is our kids or the young people, old people too are going to have many friends, many AI friends.
[00:55:57] Speaker E: Fake friends.
[00:55:58] Speaker C: Fake friends.
And we're gonna have to live with that reality. Wow. And you already hear stories about people marrying AI.
And then. But then there's the dark side of AIs. You know, these smart AIs are, you know, being a little mischievous. Right.
On the other hand, it's us humans which are more mischievous and using AI to cheat people out of thousands, millions, in some cases of dollars, and doing really negative things with deep fakes, extortion and things like that, or just regular extortion.
[00:56:33] Speaker D: I just have to say, AI, it does scare me. I mean, I find it amazing and wonderful. We use it a lot. But when people start exposing their innermost emotions to these computers and they're recording this information and synthesizing it, it does give the AI database basis to start becoming more human. Right.
To the point where it's. It's you know, it's indistinguishable, I would think. And you know, that, that scares me because there's, there's good and bad in human beings. Right. It's just, it's, it's. And you know who's thinking through this. And we're glad you are.
[00:57:15] Speaker E: Yeah. So you have, you have salons, you have places where people are gathering and kind of talking about how do humans handle AI and what's coming at us.
[00:57:26] Speaker C: Yes. So it's changing every day. Right. So it's really, it is hard to keep up. And I do hold events all the time on this, just trying to explore these topics. Right. How to use them in your business. Right. How to use them in your personal life. You know, how to plan ahead, how to survive, how to thrive. Right. And so there are so many positives from it, but there are these negatives. Right. It will be disruptive. People will lose jobs over time and hopefully at the end of this disruptive period, however long it lasts, five years, 10 years, that there will be more jobs just like we have in the past, there will be more equal number of jobs after this disruptive phase of this all powerful technology. And I try to be hopeful that some days I'm not so hopeful. But on the other hand, everyone should be learning how to use it. I think that's the sort of the same refrain we hear over and over. You will lose your job to someone who knows how to use it. Not to an AI, but someone who knows how to leverage AI. And so just, I always recommend play with it two or three hours a week if you can. In fact, again, they're getting better every day. Today's AI is the worst AI you will ever encounter. It's just getting on the way here.
My daughter and I were Talking to the ChatGPT about a number of things. We're talking about careers because she's going into her senior year and she has some questions about how to make a lot of money because young people want to make a lot of money.
And while I was grimacing because that's not what I want her to focus on, I wanted to focus on something a little bit more meaningful. It was replying to her about how to get from here to there and what classes and majors to take. And then we were talking about some travel and it was wonderful. So there's just so many use cases and I think it's just a matter of balance using those, learning it, keeping up with it, but not letting it consume you too much. Right. Just like Social media can be so consuming. These digital cocoons we're in, all of us.
You really have to break yourself out and go to live events like Sherry's Genetics Live or Gen X Experience.
And that's important to realize that.
[00:59:30] Speaker E: And I do ask this of people. Maybe I don't know all the time, but I think the term agentic AI and AI agents, a lot of people haven't heard that yet, maybe, but it's becoming more and more common. Can you explain agentic AI?
[00:59:44] Speaker C: I will try to, but again, it's changing so fast, but essentially it's leveraging an AI or a program to do a number of tasks strung together. Right? Essentially, go make a reservation for me or be an agent, a customer service agent. Essentially a really high powered chatbot that can really solve a problem for a customer, gaining knowledge and data from past experiences and then be able to do something for you or plan for you, or make an appointment or reservation for you or think for you. It's become very, very trendy and it's a new buzzword. So it is something that is getting very, very popular and talked about. But time will tell how these. Because they're still hallucinating, right? There are still issues, it's still not perfect, and we still have to sort of be skeptical and be careful and hopefully there are guardrails. But what we can do ourselves is sort of just be as knowledgeable as possible about these changes.
[01:00:46] Speaker E: And I do want to say one word of caution for that because I do know someone who's traveling overseas. And I said to him, I said, first of all, beware of pickpockets, because you're gonna be in really crowded areas. So, like, wear your wallet under your shirt.
But, and I know you guys have heard this before, have a code word. So if somebody steals your voice with AI and calls us or someone that you know and says, hey, I'm in jail, I need $10,000, or somebody got sick, we need $10,000, wire it to us right away. You can ask them, what's the code word? And we're not telling you the code word, Richard, because you gave it away on the radio last time and we.
[01:01:20] Speaker B: Had to change it.
[01:01:21] Speaker D: I was just gonna say, last time we talked about this, I gave up the co. Code word on the radio. So they had to come up with a new code word.
[01:01:26] Speaker E: But we do. But, but that's because AI can imitate.
[01:01:29] Speaker C: People in five seconds. In five seconds. They could take.
[01:01:32] Speaker A: I mean, those chatbots, those people are real. I mean, they copy you.
[01:01:36] Speaker B: They're like, you know, my, my. One of the guys I'm on tour with literally had somebody. Somebody made a video of him talking to one of his fans. They were trying to scam them, obviously. And that video got circulated back to him and we were. And it was wild to look at how I could tell it was AI just by watching the movement in his mouth. But it was. The voice was spot on. You couldn't tell the voice at all. And the look was there. It looked just like him, but it was not him. It was completely AI generated.
[01:02:06] Speaker C: Yeah. And six months from now, it's going to be.
[01:02:08] Speaker B: And that's on social media. People sending that to somebody in a DM going, hey, it's me. Send me X. I get people constantly. They're like, is this you messaging me? I'm getting dms asking me for money? And I'm like, no. It's so many scams out there.
[01:02:22] Speaker E: I have a question about that, Jim. Do you think there will be a cottage industry that grows up around detecting AI in communications?
[01:02:30] Speaker C: There already is. There's a lot of companies working on it to sort of watermark, you know, so make sure it's, you know. But let me just respond to the. The study about, you know, us getting dumber because especially young people, they can't critical think because they're. And, you know, I know people, including my own kids, who use this probably too much.
So the study wasn't perfect, but it is a reality. On the other hand, the advent of AI tutors should. The promise is that will bring everyone up. You know, custom personalized education will bring everyone up to speed at their own pace, very effectively. So I'm hopeful for that vision and not us losing our critical thinking capabilities. The best we can do is just try to teach our kids or teach everyone, you know, how to think critically. And there are some strategies to that, but it's a challenge when there's shortcuts everywhere.
[01:03:19] Speaker E: So what do you think about this? I was at a presentation and the guy that's the head of technology for Summit Schools said they have classes now teaching the kids in high school how to craft queries for these large language models. They're teaching them how to interact with large language models.
[01:03:37] Speaker C: Yes, I agree. You're going to have to integrate it into the education system because they're going to use it to cheat no matter what. And there is no detector out there right now that can detect it. It's as simple as that. But also how to leverage it to do great outputs, to really be more effective because they're going to need those skills when they go into the workplace.
[01:04:00] Speaker B: I think it's just like when cell phones or iPad technology came out or computers, whatever. It's the same thing. Some people are quick to adapt, others are very slow. But the ultimate, the reality is, is that everybody will have to eventually adapt because it's not going to go away.
[01:04:14] Speaker C: Right?
[01:04:14] Speaker E: Right. Yeah. It's like we all had to learn how to type. Right.
Jim, do you have any events in August or September coming up?
[01:04:21] Speaker C: Stay tuned for our Quantum. We have a Quantum one lining up because Quantum is the next thing after AI, which will sort of turbocharge AI even more.
So that's probably in August, but maybe a few things in between them.
[01:04:34] Speaker E: But so how do people find you and find your events then?
[01:04:37] Speaker C: Well, I think LinkedIn is probably the best. James Barood, there's only one and it's.
[01:04:42] Speaker E: B A R R O O D, right?
[01:04:44] Speaker C: Correct.
[01:04:45] Speaker E: Yeah. Really, people, if you want to hear what's coming next, these meetings that Jim has are really great. Richard's been to some of them, too.
[01:04:52] Speaker D: Oh, absolutely.
[01:04:52] Speaker E: Listeners, you are listening to the Passage to Prophet show with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart and our special guest today, Arthur Kapoor. And we have just had fabulous discussions about many different topics and ended with AI as always, it seems.
We'll be right back.
[01:05:09] Speaker F: I am a non attorney spokesperson representing a team of lawyers who help people that have been injured or wronged. If you've been involved in a serious car, truck or motorcycle accident or injured at work, you have rights and you may be entitled to money for your suffering. Don't accept an offer you get from an insurance company until you talk to a lawyer. And we represent some of the best personal injury lawyers you can find. Tough lawyers that will fight to win your case. And they're so good, they stake their reputation on it by only getting paid if you win. So if you've been in a serious car, truck or motorcycle accident or hurt on the job, find out today for free what kind of compromise compensation you may be entitled to. Call the legal helpline right now.
[01:05:54] Speaker G: 8004-9270-1480-0492-7014, 800-492-7014. That's 800-492-7014.
[01:06:09] Speaker F: It's Passage to Profit.
[01:06:10] Speaker D: Alicia Morrissey is our programming director at Passage to Profit and she's also a fantastic jazz vocalist. You can scroll to the bottom of the passageprophetshow.com website and check out her album.
[01:06:25] Speaker E: And now it is time for Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind. So, Arthur Kapoor, what is a secret you can share with our audience?
[01:06:33] Speaker A: You need to understand the people that you're talking to or that you're presenting to or you're in a meeting with.
So you should be able to look around in a room and you should be able to see who is the person who's thinking like you, who is the person who's agreeing with you. And you will always find that there will be two or three people in that room who will never agree with you, no matter what it is. So what you need to do is figure it out, the objection of those two people to what you're talking about, and somehow fine tune your speech in such a way or your presentation in such a way that they are also they get the answers to what they're looking for. You have to read the room. This is one of the biggest things of an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur always is. It's not about just you go out and build a product. It is also about that you go in meetings and you talk to clients and you convince them to use or buy your product. And that's where you need to know how to read the room. Because in that room you'll have some people who will never agree with you. So you need to figure out how to break that.
[01:07:42] Speaker E: That's a really good one. So the real slim, Sherry, Sherry Dindal, what is your secret?
[01:07:47] Speaker B: I think I said it earlier, it's not really a secret, but I think more people need to be authentic, not only for you, but for whoever your customer is. Be authentic, because authenticity builds loyalty faster than any strategy. And that is the world I think, that we are currently living in. And where the future is, is building that trust. If you want to build something, be authentic, be genuine. And that is the fastest path, I think, to building a brand today.
[01:08:12] Speaker E: Excellent. Thank you. James Barood.
[01:08:14] Speaker C: Oh, my God. I want to just build on that real quick before I build on Arthur's. Authenticity and reputation and brand will be the distinguishing factors in the world of AI. So important. And so we have a great example here. And I just want to build on what Arthur said. One thing to help read the room is to meet everyone before that meeting and engage them somehow, charm them too, especially those detractors that might be there. That's sort of a secret just to sort of set yourself up for more success during any type of presentation, meeting, pitch meeting, sales meeting, anything.
[01:08:49] Speaker E: Excellent.
[01:08:50] Speaker D: So there's plenty of room for humanity right in this world of AI, because those are human attributes.
[01:08:56] Speaker E: It seems like there's always a pendulum swinging and every once in a while it goes through the perfect balance point, but then it gets knocked off again and we're swing. It's swinging back wildly now, back and forth. Richard Gearhart, what is your secret?
[01:09:09] Speaker D: My secret is work, even when you feel like crap. I was just thinking like today, no, I feel pretty good today.
[01:09:17] Speaker E: I don't.
[01:09:17] Speaker D: But yesterday was not such a good day.
But obviously just getting in there and working sometimes makes you feel better, sometimes it doesn't. But delivering on your goals consistently is really important for entrepreneurship, and I don't think you can afford to be too moody. Right. If you have a to do list, whether you're feeling good or bad, I think you need to attack it and do the best you can.
[01:09:39] Speaker E: So mine is going to be eat. So what is eat? It's expertise, experience, authority, and trust. And the reason that's my four words actually, is that that's what Google's looking for when it looks at your online presence. Podcasts help with that. Of course I help people start podcasts. Of course. That's kind of the lens I look through. But they're not just looking at your website, they're looking at Google, at your whole online presence when they're looking where to put your website when people go searching, or when to offer you up as an answer when people go searching. We've said we had this show for seven years and it's really helped us in that regard, I think, because Richard has been the answer to people looking for a patent attorney on ChatGPT three times now in the last month or two. So when you're thinking about your company and promoting your business, it's social media, it's your website, it's your podcast, it's everything you do online. And video. Of course, Google bought YouTube, so video is huge now because in Google's favoring video now because that's its business. That's my secret.
[01:10:44] Speaker D: That's great. Passage to Profit is a nationally syndicated radio show appearing in 38 markets across the United States. In addition, Passage to Profit has also been recently selected by Feedspot Podcasters Database as a top 10 entrepreneur interview podcast. Thank you to the P2P team, our producer Noah Fleishman and our program coordinator Alicia Morrissey, our studio assistant Rishiket Bussari, and our social media powerhouse Carolina Tabares. Look for our podcast tomorrow anywhere you get your podcasts. Our podcast is ranked in the top 3% globally. You can also find us on Facebook, Instagram X and on our YouTube channel. And remember, while the information on this program is believed to be correct, never take a legal step without checking with your legal professional first. Gearhart Law is here for your patent, trademark and copyright needs. You can find
[email protected] and contact us for a free consultation. Take care everybody. Thanks for listening and we'll be back next week.
[01:11:50] Speaker E: It.
