Looking to add a personal touch to your business?
In this episode, Rick Elmore, founder of Simply Noted, a company that uses artificial intelligence and automated machines to put pen to paper and write notes. Through handwritten communication, they are helping businesses to stand out and create connections with their client base.
As a former football player, Rick also reflects on his journey and how he is taking his competitive side to entrepreneurship. He discusses building a scalable and sellable business and getting the right partner and team to be successful.
[00:01 - 04:27] From Athlete to Entrepreneur
- Get to know Rick and his background
- Taking a leap of faith, starting his company, and achieving 300% growth
[04:28 - 09:34] The Power of A Handwritten Note
- Bringing personalization to business
- Higher response rates and ROI with handwritten notes
- How a handwritten note can help you get noticed
- What businesses should avoid when reaching out to clients
- It’s all about relationships
[09:35 - 18:17] How to Run the Business Without You
- Building a company with no debt financing, no investors, no money raised
- Why Rick is working to “kill the king”
- Finding the right people for his team
- The hurdles they faced as they scale
- What’s next for Rick and Simply Noted
[18:18 - 19:11] Closing Segment
- Reach out to Rick!
- Links Below
- Final Words
Tweetable Quotes
“It's just about standing out. That handwritten note, when it lands on that desk versus the million emails and Twitter notifications and all of these platforms… Grab their attention with that handwritten note.” - Rick Elmore
“It's relationship first, relationship second, relationship third. The ROI will come no matter what. It'll actually 10x 'cause you're going to have a loyal client. They're going to refer more clients.” - Rick Elmore
“Your business becomes a lot more valuable, a lot more scalable because there's standard operating procedures or systems in place that allow your business to grow without you.” - Rick Elmore
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Connect with Rick and Simply Noted on LinkedIn. Head over to their website and request a free sample kit now!
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Want to read the full show notes of the episode? Check it out below:
[00:00:00] Rick Elmore: it's just about standing out and you know, that handwritten note, when it lands on that desk, you know, versus the million emails and Twitter notifications and Facebook and LinkedIn and all these platforms that people are using now to grow their business. Grab that attention, right, with that handwritten note really, like, literally stands up on your desk, you know, because these are folded cards and they have a shelf life.
[00:00:34] Sam Wilson: Rick Elmore is an entrepreneur, sales and marketing expert, and former college and professional football player. Following his football career, rick translated his competitive drive to sales and entrepreneurship by founding Simply Noted an automated handwriting letter or handwritten letter company. Rick, I can't even speak today, but either way, welcome to the show.
[00:00:51] Rick Elmore: Thanks for having today. This is awesome.
[00:00:52] Sam Wilson: Hey man, pleasure's mine. There are three questions. I ask every guest who comes to the show: in 90 seconds or less, can you tell me where did you start? Where are you now? And how did you get there?
[00:01:00] Rick Elmore: Yeah, so my background's in athletics. I have a twin brother who went to the University of Arizona, played football. I was in the NFL for three years. After that, I still had that competitive drive and got into medical sales, did that for about seven years. First year as an associate sales rep and then six years straight. I was a President's Club Award winner, then went back and did my MBA in 2017 and really got the idea to start a company that can automate and scale sending real handwritten notes. And since January, 2019, I've been doing this full time, grown over 300% a year, going to qualify for the Inc. 5000 this year and are launching some pretty cool and exciting features this year as well.
[00:01:36] Sam Wilson: Man, that's a lot of moving pieces. How do you go from medical device sales to, oh, I know we should scale the handwritten note business?
[00:01:44] Rick Elmore: Yeah, no, that's a great question. So both of my parents are, were small business owners. Their schedule was awesome. They were able to, you know, be highly involved parents. That was something I always wanted to do. And being in corporate medical device sales, the more successful you were, the busier you got, the more you moved around the country and I just never wanted to do that. And always kind of had the bug to want to be an entrepreneur, so 2017, when I went back to do my MBA, that was kind of like the catalyst to get it going, kind of see what I can do, see what I can learn.
[00:02:13] Rick Elmore: And always kind of had the idea, you know, handwritten notes were a good idea, but they just took too much time. You know, we did Christmas cards one year and I had 400 clients and it took us two weeks just to write the envelope in pen and stuff a printed card. I mean, it just, nobody has the time to do that.
[00:02:30] Rick Elmore: So, there was a company that's no longer around doing this, you know, focusing in the wedding industry they were called Bond and I always just thought, man, this would be so much better in, like, sales and marketing, 'cause like, you know, relationships matter, you know, standing out amongst the noise of all the digital, you know, things that are interrupting our day, every single day, you know, knocking on doors, you know.
[00:02:50] Rick Elmore: Really truly be different and send a handwritten note. And it really just started out as a project for school, talked to some, you know, people I respected, some mentors, and they thought it was a really good idea. I was really excited about it. And yeah, fast forward, you know, almost four years. You know, I have 11 full-time employees, 30, if you count like contractors, part-time employees, quality control, you know, all my engineers and everybody. Yeah, we're going to hit the Inc. 5000 this year, super excited.
[00:03:13] Rick Elmore: Done this with no debt, no debt financing, no investors. Started this on a $10,000, 0% interest credit card. We've been cash flow positive since month three. So basically I took everything that I was good at in the past, being hypercompetitive, super driven, super motivated, self-starter, you know, athlete, you know, what I learned in sales of the medical devices at Stryker and Straumann, and really just put it to work here. And it's worked out pretty well.
[00:03:39] Sam Wilson: Man, that's awesome. In order to be cash flow positive, you have to have sales. I mean, at what point in time did you say, okay, I've got a prototype, it works, and now we can go out and find clients?
[00:03:51] Rick Elmore: Yeah. So I started researching this in 2017, really started messing around with some stuff in 2018. But you know, with my background, how driven I was, you know, when I took that leap of faith, January, Of 2019, you know, I have a family, I have kids, you know, failure was not an option. So, you know, getting creative and finding ways to fill that bucket every single month and make sure that we had money to pair bills and grow, that was the only option.
[00:04:16] Rick Elmore: And I think when you, you know, bring your boats and you don't have anybody there to, you know, have a backup plan and, you know, support you, you figure it out. And I was the type of guy that was going to figure it out. And yeah.
[00:04:26] Sam Wilson: Man. That's awesome. Very, very cool. Let's talk a little bit about, you know, kind of the use cases for sending handwritten letters. I mean, there are, I can imagine anywhere in real estate, even in commercial real estate, there are reasons to send handwritten letters. What are some use cases you guys are seeing right now in the CRE space?
[00:04:43] Rick Elmore: Yeah. So, you know what? We really work full, you know, fully across the board with, like, every industry, but, you know, real estate, mortgage, real estate investors. It's really been a pretty consistent niche for us. It just makes sense, 'cause you know, relationships truly do matter in this industry. Really when we're working with, like, the agency or the agent in the agency level, you know, they're just automating sending like thank you cards or anniversary cards or birthday cards, asking for a referral, so usually, the agency will touch them three or four times a year and all that's usually automated. Like a Zapier integration and Integromat and API integration into, like, the agency software, or even just agents go on our website and just send a few cards. But unlike the investor side, man, we've seen some pretty creative lists that people pulled.
[00:05:26] Rick Elmore: I think it's called PropStream, yeah, PropStream and PropertyRadar. They go on there, find these lists, absentee, divorce, expired listings. I mean, there's tons and tons and tons of lists on there that you can build, bankruptcy, probate. But I mean, we know it works because our clients that they've been working with us for, you know, three, four years.
[00:05:45] Rick Elmore: And the response rates on handwritten notes are just 7, 8, 9 times higher than printed mail. The ROI on a handwritten mail campaign versus a print postcard campaign, usually, again is, you know, 78 or nine times higher as well. So, you know, it's just a lot more personable. You know, our technology is unique. It's patent pending. We have robots that hold real pens. We've developed this ourselves in-house. They write real handwritten notes, completely personalized, you know? I can talk all day on, you know, how people can use this, but, yeah, that's just like a quick high-level overview.
[00:06:18] Sam Wilson: Right. I wonder, you know, there's, like you said, on the agency side, like thinking more, you know, thank you notes, birthday cards. They're kind of the more, more simple stuff. But I wonder when it comes to, especially, you know, for us as investors acquiring off-market leads, not just, not on the residential side, but on the commercial side, like, do you see people using this in mass, even on the commercial side, when they are, you know, bringing a list to you and saying, Hey man, we want to...
[00:06:41] Rick Elmore: Yeah. So it was hard like during COVID 'cause a lot of our investors didn't think that they were in office, but you know, since like the COVID thing kind of slowed down, we've seen a lot of our commercial agents pick it back up, but really it's just about standing out and you know, that handwritten note, when it lands on that desk, you know, versus the million emails and Twitter notifications and Facebook and LinkedIn and all these platforms that people are using now to grow their business.
[00:07:07] Rick Elmore: Grab that attention, right, with that handwritten note really, like, literally stands up on your desk, you know, because these are folded cards and they have a shelf life, right? Like, people are going to read them, they're going to leave them there. They're going to last sometimes for days, weeks, or even months. We have some pretty cool use cases in the, like, the home service industry.
[00:07:24] Rick Elmore: But I know it's completely different, but literally, like we've seen customers have clients who, like, put these up, like, on their bookshelf or a fridge and come back a few months later and it's still there. So it's just a cool, you know, impactful and powerful, you know, marketing tool that, you know, gets the job done.
[00:07:41] Sam Wilson: Right. What are some mistakes that you see people doing when it comes to direct mail?
[00:07:47] Rick Elmore: So we have people like, I'm literally working with a real estate investor in New York right now. They want to do a, we recommend, like, shorter is better, you know, get to the point, you know, 30, 40, 50 words, right? Make an introduction, you know, call to action, make an ask who you are, what you can do, ask them to lunch or give me a call or something very straightforward, you know, because people's attention spans are so short nowadays. And we're working with an investor right now. And maybe they know something we don't know, but he wants to write a 250-word, you know, message.
[00:08:16] Rick Elmore: And it's just, like, this person you don't know, do you think they're going to sit down and spend five minutes reading, like, this card. You know, it's more expensive to write longer too. It's just like, Nope, this is what we want. Just do it. And we're just like, all right, fine. We'll do it.
[00:08:30] Rick Elmore: But yeah. I think mistakes really is, you know, inundating your client with too much information. Really, it's building that relationship, earning their trust, you know, just standing out, and being different is usually what we recommend. But yeah, try not to be too sales-y. Don't make this, you know, crazy card design with all these different, you know, advertisements on it and then stuff a different additional flyer with information.
[00:08:53] Rick Elmore: It's really just about the relationship and relationships go back, you know, since the beginning and time of business, you know, the deeper, the stronger, the more loyal the relationship, the more your business is going to grow. And that's what we preach over here. It's relationship first, relationship second, relationship third, like, that's your main priority.
[00:09:10] Rick Elmore: The ROI will come no matter what. It'll actually 10x 'cause you're going to have a loyal client. They're going to refer more clients. Like, they're going to do more business with you. Get you more business. So that's what we're preaching over here all the time.
[00:09:22] Sam Wilson: Man, yeah, that's really good. I like that. I like your keep it, what'd you say, 40 words.
[00:09:26] Rick Elmore: 40 words. Yeah. Short and sweet. Yeah. Yeah. 40, 50 words, you know, keep it short and sweet, you know, respect their time, right?
[00:09:32] Sam Wilson: Right, man. That's cool. I love that. Let's talk a little bit about your business itself. You know, we talked about a book, here back on my shelf here before we kick this off, called Built to Sell by John Warrillow. I think let's say you pronounce his name. Maybe I butchered it. Not quite sure, but either way it was an impactful, impactful book for me, gosh, going on 11 years ago, when I sold a business and we started talking about some of the nuances in that book, tell me, what's it been like scaling your business, you know, in-house? What are some things you've done right? What are some things maybe you've done wrong? And then how can we learn from you on that?
[00:10:05] Rick Elmore: Yeah, so I mean, one of the things I'm incredibly proud of is we built this company with no debt financing, no investors, no money raised. And I'm a marketing and sales guy, and I've started an industrial automation technology, robotics company. Being able to do that and be growing and hitting, you know, the list that we're hitting this year, I'm incredibly proud of, but something, you know, a big takeaway that, I mean, I recommend anybody who's in business regardless being an entrepreneur because even if like you're in sales, you're kind of running your own territory, your own business. That book Built to Sell is great because, for me, my big takeaway was you got to get out of working in your business, you know, the day-to-day stuff, the day-to-day grind and start, you know, working on your business. And there's a good quote in there that he talks about basically as an entrepreneur before you sell your business, they call it, kill the king.
[00:10:51] Rick Elmore: Because the entrepreneur usually is the business, right? He's has all the relationships, does all the sales, does everything, knows everything. And if you can kill the king or get rid of the, you know, the me in the business, your business becomes a lot more valuable, a lot more scalable because I'm a lot more hands-off, there's systems, standard operating procedures or systems in place that allow your business to grow without you.
[00:11:10] Rick Elmore: So, I mean, that's really been something I've been focused on in the last year is working on the business and killing the king. Like, how can I get rid of myself and have other people run this business 'cause that's how I'm going to sell this business.
[00:11:21] Sam Wilson: And is that the end goal with your company?
[00:11:23] Rick Elmore: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I just, I think for the things that I've done in my life, you know, I was the first person to go to college, you know, professional athlete, had success in corporate medical device, and to be an entrepreneur, and grow a business, and sell it. I think that's kind of like the icing or the cherry on top of my career.
[00:11:40] Sam Wilson: Who was the first hire you brought on?
[00:11:42] Rick Elmore: So I had a buddy of mine, I mean, I'm sure everybody hires a friend early on, but I had a friend that I played football with for 10 years in like Peewee high school. And he's our like chief operations officer. So I'm like, I'm super high energy, like, worry about everything, paranoid. Like I don't know if a lot of entrepreneurs like that, I think you have to be, but he's super cool, calm, never gets worked up, you know, very opposite of me. So I do all the, you know, business and marketing and growth and you know, everything customer facing and he's behind the scenes and it's worked out great. He's been here since day one.
[00:12:16] Sam Wilson: Right. That's really cool. And I guess what was the moment when you said, gosh, if I want to grow this business, I'm going to have to bring other people on. How did you, I guess, as a solo entrepreneur go about bringing people on, how did you, how did you structure that?
[00:12:28] Rick Elmore: Yeah. So hiring is a massive headache because in the early days, like you're basically building like the four pillars, like those first four or five hires, like it has to be right, because if you hire the wrong person, it can kill your business because it takes 4, 5, 6 months to get someone ramped up.
[00:12:44] Rick Elmore: And if you make the wrong decision, you're going to basically waste a year, and you can't waste time in a startup that's self-funded, that needs money today. So basically it was people I can trust, high character, you know, people that, you know, wanted to learn, like, played sports in the past that had, like, the mindset of being on a team. But it wasn't about, you know, buying business or bringing on somebody for a $200,000 a year salary that had experience, it was more about trust, reliability. And yeah.
[00:13:12] Sam Wilson: Did you structure that, and I'm sorry to dig into the nuance of this.
[00:13:15] Rick Elmore: No, you're good.
[00:13:16] Sam Wilson: This is a common question that people have when they're growing their business, especially in the early days and you go, okay, I need to bring on and commercial real estate's a very partnership, more focused industry than it is necessarily, you know, a business where you can bring on employees. But you know, when you set this up, did you have to give away equity to your buddy?
[00:13:35] Rick Elmore: No.
[00:13:35] Sam Wilson: Did you just say, Hey man, come on as an employee.
[00:13:37] Rick Elmore: Nope. So I own a hundred percent. I mean, without really getting too much into the weeds, I'm a highly driven person that, you know, I would say, I mean, I'm a highly driven person that gets things done. I call myself a Jack of all trades and a master of getting things done. I don't think I'm a master of anything but II know how to do a lot, and I know how to get a job done. And I don't really rely on people, you know, to get anything done for me, huge self-starter, that was one of the things that both of my prior managers loved. They didn't have to micromanage me. They asked me to do something. I get that done. I had foresight. I can conceptualize problems of the future because I was always thinking about the future. So I would think about things before they became problems and start working on them. So to kind of mitigate. So my buddy understood that and he's a huge team player, incredibly selfless, and he knew that I had his best interest in mind as well.
[00:14:32] Rick Elmore: So I think it's really important when you start a business, and I think a lot of people who start businesses, I've heard these horror stories, you know, people who start, there's one super, incredibly motivated, get done type of person. And then there's another guy on the side who knows how to talk the big game, but is more of like a leech. And he kind of attaches himself to the wagon of the other person. And I think that happens more often than not.
[00:14:57] Sam Wilson: Right. Yeah. And it's certainly something to look out for. I can't remember what they called that in biology. What was that? A symbiotic and then, oh, symbiotic and parasitic relationship.
[00:15:06] Rick Elmore: Yeah.
[00:15:07] Sam Wilson: You know, you certainly, certainly have to look for those. What's a hurdle, when you think about your business and you say, okay, we've made it to, you know, to this point and you should be really proud of where you guys have taken it to this, you know, to today, but what's the next major hurdle for you and how will you know when you've gotten there?
[00:15:21] Rick Elmore: Yeah. So one of the best things and the worst things about our business is that people don't even know that things like what we do exist, which is great for our clients because it protects the authenticity of our product. But for us to go out there and grow, you know, people are like, you use robots to write handwritten notes? Like, it's so foreign, like, you can automate sending personalized handwritten notes through software? What?
[00:15:49] Rick Elmore: Like people kind of, like, are confused about it. So, I think we're in the hardest genre of a business. It's a new product, a new technology, a new idea with a new client, you know, versus, you know, medical where it's like, you know, you have current clients where you can cross-sell or upsell products and, you know, it's like not a new idea.
[00:16:09] Rick Elmore: You're basically are, like, already in the sales process, sales mind with these clients. So yeah, the first three years were not for, you know, somebody who has a, you know, the faint of heart who has a weak stomach because this was not an easy business to build. You know, you can use like three access pen plotters or auto pens, but the barrier of entry, the cost of entry, you know, it's just incredibly expensive and incredibly hard.
[00:16:33] Sam Wilson: Right, right. So what's, so I guess, what is the next hurdle for you guys? When you say, Hey...
[00:16:37] Rick Elmore: So our next hurdle is really figuring out how to scale into the millions of handwritten notes per month because that's a lot of capital, that's a lot of space. You know, we've had discussions with, you know, large companies who want to send hundreds of thousands of pieces a month, but that needs to be on contracts 'cause we need to scale capital, scale employees, work, you know, three, eight-hour shifts. So getting that figured out is going to be a big problem for us. Also, you know, I'm building my fourth website, you know, every time you build a website, you learn what you did wrong on the last website. And, every developer has, like, the perfect solution. And then you build it, you're like crap, like, this isn't what I want, you know? Like, it needs to do this. So it's like, and that's like part of the fun of being an entrepreneur. There's so much growth and I tell anybody I've, you know, who asked me about what it's like to run a business, you know, if you're an entrepreneur for five years, you're going to learn and grow more than in a 20-year career, because they're not going to challenge you. They're not going to force you to problem solve. They're not going to force you to find money and build deep relationship. They're not going to force you to do that. They're going to force you to do the job. They're not going to force you to build the business.
[00:17:43] Sam Wilson: That's about right, man. And just to know, you're in good company, I think all of us experience that with our website. It's like, you get it all done. You finally get everything. And then you're like, I really want to just start over.
[00:17:54] Rick Elmore: Yeah. Yeah. And it's not always the best thing.
[00:17:58] Sam Wilson: You said it though, you said, and I think that's gold, which is like, I'm not the master of none. I'm just the master of get it done.
[00:18:03] Rick Elmore: Yeah.
[00:18:04] Sam Wilson: Where it's like, that is better than perfect. I think.
[00:18:06] Rick Elmore: Yeah. I love that quote. I hear it in one of what is, there's a song that says right now and I always talk to my wife, like, I feel like I am a Jack of all trades and a master of getting it done. And she just laughs 'cause she agrees.
[00:18:17] Sam Wilson: That's awesome. Rick, if our listeners want to learn more about you, Simply Noted, and what it is that you do, how do they do that?
[00:18:23] Rick Elmore: Yeah, so our website's just SimplyNoted.com. You can go and request a free sample kit. We send like a really nice, you know, sample kit with a bunch of stuff in it, but yeah, SimplyNoted.com. We're on LinkedIn, on LinkedIn all day. It's one of our, you know, most used tools, but yeah, SimplyNoted.com. Just go to the business page. You can, we'll send you a free sample kit or just reach out to me on LinkedIn.
[00:18:42] Sam Wilson: Awesome. Rick, thank you for your time today. I do appreciate it.
[00:18:45] Rick Elmore: Thanks for having me.
