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Will Basta

Building Trust with Will Basta

Will Basta

[00:00:00] Miriam: I am excited to have with me Will Basta and we are gonna be hitting all sorts of conversations. You’re the first person I know who is doing this passive income kind of revenue stream. And it sounds like from reading some of your bios and things that you have just a diverse background.

[00:00:17] So why don’t we start with just a little bit of how did you get where you are today? I mean, you mentioned you’re in Denmark, right?

[00:00:25] Different Paths

[00:00:25] Will: Yeah. , I mean, how I, how I got here is, is, might be a little bit different to the story , but, ok. We , but I can, I can give some cliff notes on all that. First of all, thanks for having me.

[00:00:38] Yeah, I grew up in a small town in upstate New York. So I’m, I’m from the Catskills, from Woodstock. I went to school in Arizona. I actually wanted to be initially clinical in healthcare. Then I realized quickly in college that it’s not what I wanted to do, and then I just went down the path.

[00:00:56] I’ve been traveling my whole life and big on traveling. It’s just sort of in my blood. I went down the path of just learning about, you know, international governments and international studies through college, and then when I got out I wanted to marry what I was good at and then still go back into healthcare, which was communication.

[00:01:13] Working with people knew, you know, you can be in healthcare and not be a doctor. So my goal was to get into that actual industry in general. And so I got a position with DaVita, very large dialysis company. I worked on a, a startup within them, sort of a technology startup that was doing sort of innovative stuff for DaVita as a company.

[00:01:34] And I got to learn about the broken healthcare system that we have, that most people are well aware of, and a lot of things about what we’re lacking. Not just in the arena of nephrology and dialysis, but it opened my eyes to a lot of different things.

Healthcare Industry

[00:01:49] And then from there, I wanted to, you know, I liked the idea of working for startups.

[00:01:52] So for me it was very intriguing to work for companies that were doing innovative things in healthcare, that were at an early stage that I could be an integral part of their growth and make an impact somewhere in our, in our healthcare system. So. Worked for a few different companies, built out their, their, you know, you wear a lot of hats in startups.

[00:02:10] So what was intriguing about that is, which I draw a lot of lines to sort of entrepreneurialism, is you don’t know what’s around the corner. And so I think that sort of led me into to being an entrepreneur, but working in startups now, what’s coming from left field this time? What’s happening today? Your role might be this, but you’re, you’re doing a thousand things and that kept a job exciting.

[00:02:28] And the work exciting. And so, you know, I worked for some companies in mental health, et cetera, and that was actually the last company I worked for was in, in mental health mental health tech. And while I was working for them I was involving myself in different investments when I, where I had the extra money, you know, involving myself in e-commerce, trying to start different brands, having, having a lot of failures here and there, and just really trying to get out, out of the scope of just, oh, this is my one position.

Working Remote

[00:02:55] It was remote, which was great. So I always could travel still. I’ve worked remotely my entire life wasn’t just a pandemic thing. So I’ve had that freedom, which I’m very fortunate of. But during that period of time, I was able to get involved. Sort of the back end of Amazon and, and really just learn a little bit more about the digital space and how to make money online a little bit.

[00:03:16] Started a marketing agency that did okay and that kind of stuff. Digital marketing. And point is, I was just having my hand putting my hands on a lot of different random investments here and there. And that actually led to my business partner and I we actually met, cuz we were invested in a, I guess you can call them the competitor of.

[00:03:37] I wouldn’t really say that. Now, given, I’ll talk more about who we are as a company later, and we’re very different than this company, but on the surface, they run what you call an automation service for clients in e-commerce. So automation as in. Building and operating an Amazon business for people who want to get involved in Amazon and doing it all for them, and then doing a profit split.

[00:03:57] So it sounds beautiful, right? You know, they’re, that company’s incentivized to grow a business for you and you can sit back and just bring in your capital and they can grow an Amazon business for you. We got involved in that and we realized that all of these companies out there, it was really booming at the time.

Business Infrastructure

[00:04:15] Honestly, every single company we came across had so many different inefficiencies. Inefficiencies, and we’re just really not executing properly. A great business model, just poorly. And that really, you know, we just realized, hey, we can do this ourselves better. We can bring ethics into this industry, which we don’t see anywhere.

[00:04:33] We can bring a real infrastructure, which we don’t see anywhere, . Yeah. And we can bring serious experience and a real company. We can build out of this with this business model and improve upon it, refine it, Legitimize the term automation. And try to flip the switch on what people think about it in terms of, you know, what you read online.

[00:04:53] because there’s a lot of horror stories out there from companies just not doing what they say they’re gonna do for clients and just poorly executing a lot of things. I can go on and on about that, but that’s where ascend com sort of spawned, and that was about two and a half years ago. At a small scale.

[00:05:10] Let’s prove out our model first before we go big with this. And we realized we had something special. We had a lot of organic growth. We were, people resonated with the fact that we were transparent in our business practices because we were at a digital age.

E-Commerce

[00:05:23] We were bringing a digital product doesn’t mean you need to hide behind a screen the whole time. So there’s always, we’ve always had an open door policy can always come visit us. Still to this day at our warehouse, at our office in Los Angeles. So cut two, you know, I’d say two years and, and eight months later, you know, we’ve got almost 500 clients, two warehouse facilities in Dallas.

[00:05:43] An office in Venice Beach, California and you know, millions of revenue for our clients and a business that is growing pretty rapidly. But we still have head on straight and we have not all lost our mor We have not lost our moral compass, and that’s why we have became a leader in the industry, I believe.

[00:06:04] I’m pretty sure that’s, that’s why not only just the operational aspect and how we produce the business and, and how we do business operations, but really leading with a good, strong, ethical approach. In how we, we do things. And, and that’s where we are today. We build Amazon businesses for investors Walmart businesses as well.

[00:06:20] And we, we turn those into passive income opportunities and appreciate digital assets for people who wanna get involved in the industry.

[00:06:26] And right now I’m in, I’m in Denmark ,

Entrepreneur Lessons

[00:06:29] Miriam: and right now you’re in Denmark. Okay, so let me interrupt for a minute and let’s, let’s take a couple rabbit trails off to the side.

[00:06:35] I mean, you’ve given Yeah, in, in those few minutes, enough fodder that we could talk about this for a couple hours. Yeah. Oh my word. I’m trying to decide where I wanna go with this. , I wanna talk about the ethics piece, but I also wanna talk about the, the piece where you were trying so many different things and maybe they were just barely working or sort of working.

[00:06:58] It doesn’t matter if you’re an entrepreneur or not. Everybody deals with this space of, Oh, I tried it. It didn’t go anywhere. And I think the entrepreneur folks do a lot better at saying, Okay, well I, I failed early. Moving on, iterating. I think a lot of the regular folks out there are like, Well, that didn’t work.

[00:07:18] Learning From Failures

[00:07:18] Miriam: I guess I’m a failure. And they, they just stop. So I think my question is how did you work? Space in you that was able to say, Hey, it’s okay. It didn’t work. I’m trying again.

[00:07:31] Will: Yeah. I’d say it’s really looking at it as I, I looked at my failures as education. you know, this is educational. Yeah. I might have invested in this like training program or something here to learn about.

[00:07:43] How to do this here and how to build this here, et cetera. And maybe it wasn’t successful, because maybe I’m not meant to do that. But now I know that system and I can put the pieces together down the line and eventually it turned into me being knowledgeable about the industry as a whole. I’m not the person who actually does the research on our client’s stores, right?

[00:08:02] We have teams that do that, but I still, I learned about it. I wouldn’t say I’d be the best person to build an Amazon store person. , personally but I cuz but I learned, I went through courses on how to do it I didn’t do well myself, but I learned the actual what’s under the hood, which is important, right? You have to look at failures as education.

Learning Moment

[00:08:24] Everything is a learning moment. You gotta take that and use that as building blocks and, and I don’t know if I’d be giving the same why advice four years ago, . It’s easier to say once I’ve gotten to where I am. Right? For sure. There was plenty of times. That mindset cuz I, I never looked at myself as an entrepreneur, ever.

[00:08:41] You know, I, I, now I know I’ve always had it sort of in me, when I look back on my history of doing things, I realized it was actually sort of always there in a little bit and I was showing signs of it throughout the last, you know, couple decades.

[00:08:54] Miriam: Yeah. During that tell tell us what some of the signs were.

[00:08:57] Don’t Give Up

[00:08:57] Miriam: What were some of the signs?

[00:08:59] Will: I think, you know, just, just that in general, you know, not, not giving up on certain things. When I was failing on certain things and also knowing that like, I don’t know, I think I had a lot of positivity in, I always knew that I was getting to a point where I was gonna be working for myself to some extent.

[00:09:18] At some point I was positive about, this is gonna work out, this is gonna work out. It’s not always easy to do it because you go, you get knocked down a bunch of times and, and I think the traveling, I think there’s a lot of parallels. And again, you can run parallels with a lot of different things, but for me, the parallels of entrepreneurial.

[00:09:34] Also run into the travel aspect of my life. Like I ever since the first dollar I made my first job in Woodstock was, I think I was working on the golf course, like raking sand traps, and then I was selling shoes at the local shoe store. All that money I always saved up and I put that towards going away on a trip.

Uncomfortable Situations

[00:09:55] First trip, honestly was 15 years old. And I don’t know how my parents, our parents let us go alone somewhere, but we went to Puerto Rico alone, 15 and 16 year olds. And then I skipped prom when I was in high school, which is a huge thing in the us right? I skipped that and backpacked Central America. Those experiences while I was away.

[00:10:13] Putting myself in extremely uncomfortable situations, whether it’s not knowing the language, whether it’s sleeping in the jungle when I’m 16, with crazy sounds that are so loud you can’t even sleep. Whether it’s just literally going through just, I’m not talking, staying at resorts, I’m talking like really going deep in Guatemala and stuff like that.

[00:10:29] And even if you are going somewhere, it could be domestic too, and it could just be a regular travel, it could be anywhere. Putting yourself in a culture in a situation you’re not used to is uncomfortable. But I always use that uncomfortable like that, that feeling of being uncomfortable as a learning experience.

[00:10:44] Be a Good Listener

[00:10:44] Will: And it became sort of addicting and it, it helped me in my business life to interact with people in a different way. To be able to be a, a listener and not only just projecting what they wanna say while the other person’s talking, just most of the time people are waiting, Okay, when am I gonna be able to say what I, what I’d say?

[00:11:03] I became a really good listener. And I attribute that to, to traveling, because when you’re traveling, you really do have to listen to people because most people aren’t speaking the same language and you don’t know where the hell you are or what you’re doing, and it, it, it trains you to be a good listener.

[00:11:16] And all of these things sort of attribute to, to, I think being in not just business, but also. Running a company, . Yeah. You know, with hundreds of employees and doing it the right way.

[00:11:28] Miriam: Talk a little bit about the uncomfortable space. Most people back away from discomfort and somewhere along the lines you had a choice to push into your discomfort or to back away, and you made the choice to push into it and you learned something about yourself from that.

[00:11:46] Talk a little bit about that.

[00:11:48] Lean into Discomfort

[00:11:48] Will: Yeah. I mean, . There’s, there’s, there’s been a long road to get where I am right now, and there’s a long road ahead still. Right? And so in terms of me putting myself in situations that are uncomfortable in the business sense, you know, there, that’s, that’s a tough question to answer.

[00:12:05] I, I think, I think I’ve evolved, like I said before, I said this five minutes ago in terms of where I, how I would answer these questions five years ago or even a year ago, are so, Right. I’ve matured so much by running a company and not knowing what I’m doing. in the beginning, in hyper growth mode, you know, and trying to figure things out of that go, but also make sure that.

[00:12:26] Don’t Be Blinded by Success

[00:12:26] Will: You know, things are, are, you know, you’re still, you have to make sure that you’re not blinded by the success. Right, right, right. And, and I know I’m sort of going off topic slightly on that question, but it just brings up my thoughts of, of a lot of things that happen to when people are, are an entrepreneur and why I believe that some people do fail or they, they, they go off track.

[00:12:48] They may not fail necessarily, but when you become very successful, when you’re an entrepreneur, When I’m saying an entrepreneur, in terms of having employees below you and, and a lot of clients and all this kinda stuff, people can be blinded by the money that’s coming in. They can be blinded by everything that’s happening.

[00:13:02] And they also could be blinded by thinking that, Oh, it’s their baby. They have to do every single thing.

[00:13:06] Mm-hmm. , and I think both Jeremy and myself have learned a lot in being in, in terms of trusting your employees and hiring people. You’re hiring them for the, for a reason to put ’em in a position cuz you trust them in that position.

[00:13:21] So you should trust. Right, Right. You should micromanage them. You should try to do everyone’s position. I think that’s a huge issue with entrepreneurs is you try to do every single thing at once, right? And then you start busting outta the seams and then the quality control goes down and then that has a negative effect on your, on your employees.

Trust Others

[00:13:41] That trickles down to the clients. And I think overall it starts to stay in the company in general. And we’ve done a very good job at trusting the people that we hire. And when they come across issues, we’re there to support and help, but we don’t step in and take and do the job for them. Yeah. And as difficult as that might be sometimes, but I think that’s a skill that we acquired early as being people who just started a company and it’s a first time running an organization I think pretty prematurely.

[00:14:09] We realized that early on, and I think that’s helped us.

[00:14:13] Miriam: Sure. I appreciate that you say you acquired the skill because a lot of people say, Oh, I have trust issues, I have issues with trust. And it’s like, well, A, it’s a skill. And B, you don’t go into it blind.

[00:14:25] I’m gonna circle back and ask the question again because I think there’s some gold here with Yeah.

Trust Your Gut

[00:14:32] The uncomfortableness, whether it’s in traveling or whether it’s in business, there is a kind of uncomfortable that makes you grow and there’s a kind of uncomfortable that is actually foolish and puts you in harm’s way, and I think part of figuring that. Space out is having a couple trial and errors where you try Oh yeah.

[00:14:51] And you there like people always say trust your gut. And I believe, I mean I have a therapist background, so there is something to that. However, there is garbage in your background that makes your gut ping and the correct action is to move forward. Then there is like the hair on the back of your neck that is telling you you’re in danger.

[00:15:15] And the correct action is to move backwards.

[00:15:18] Wisdom

[00:15:18] Miriam: Yeah. And so where I wanna go with this question is the failure space and the learning space. How did you differentiate between wisdom means going back or wisdom means going forward?

[00:15:32] Will: Yeah, I think if I answer that question in, in terms of our organization in the last couple years, I, I.

[00:15:42] Having Jeremy and I, I think he can say the same for me, given our personalities are very similar but also very, very different. I think we’ve been able to bounce off each other in terms of energy on when, when certain things are a certain way and when to not overstep. Cuz sometimes one of us wants to do something like just like you just mentioned.

[00:16:03] And knowing that balance in between of when is the right time to step back, when is the right time to push forward.

[00:16:08] Sometimes him and I are on completely different push forward and step back. But when we have a conversation about it, I’m not saying there’s a right or wrong, but technically like there sort of is in a way, and the person who who, who sort of is in the wrong sort of realizes it and we have that conversation and then learns from that.

[00:16:26] And then when there’s a similar thing that comes up, I’m not saying it might still be the same result but my point is if I come into a situation. And I’m the one who’s saying push forward and he’s saying step back and we have a conversation about it. I understand why it’s stepped back at that point.

Understand Different Perspectives

[00:16:44] And then I, I take that in, like I said before. I use that for the next time a similar situation comes up and I approach it with that knowledge that I gain from that. And I might still step forward. I’m not saying I’m gonna be perfect moving forward from then, but it adds to my knowledge base based on the experience.

[00:17:03] And I only would’ve done that with. I think there’s a lot of yin yang with him and I, and I think he can say the same on his side. And there are times, and I think, I think that comes up again and, and we both agree on push on, on holding back on the next time around. Sure. Because we’ve learned from how he thinks about the situation because everyone thinks about something a little bit differently.

[00:17:23] They have a different approach and perspective. Yeah.

[00:17:25] But understanding diverse perspectives really widens you. And helps you really have a good balance on when to push forward, when to step back and when, when it’s the right time to do something, when it’s not. And of course, you’re never gonna be perfect in that sense no matter what, but you know, there’s only, I mean, that’s why, that’s why we’re here.

[00:17:42] It’s always to improve upon yourself and what you do and, and, and, and, you know, do a little bit better the next time around. And I think that’s, that attributes a lot to.

[00:17:51] Communication is Integral

[00:17:51] Miriam: Yeah, so I heard you say a whole bunch of stuff in that I heard you say communication is fundamental. Well, even before communication, humility to say, Hey, I don’t know everything.

[00:18:04] I might not have this entirely right. This is the way I wanna go and this is why. Communication is integral. Then even just having someone to communicate to having a business partner or a mentor or a travel partner, or having other people to get you outside of your head and to be able to process the problem and say, Okay, how do we wanna move forward?

[00:18:26] Or how do I wanna move forward with this information?

[00:18:29] I mean, all of that feels huge.

Step Out of the Box

[00:18:32] Will: Stepping out of the box, right? Yes. It’s huge. I think it’s a huge thing in, in all forms of everything. It’s just everything’s going by so fast. Right, right. You know, life day, daily routine, whatever, whatever it is. Just to be able to, whether it’s some, some people who are meditating in a, at a certain point or could just be, just have a mindset.

[00:18:51] Be like, Hey, once a while, just have a a, an aha moment. Not the day. I’m like, All right, take a deep breath, , and hold onto that for a moment. You know what I mean? You’re going a thousand miles an hour right now. It’s not doing anyone any good. Yeah. So realize what you’re doing.

[00:19:09] Just like my mom was, mother was used to telling me like, Realize you’re eating will.

[00:19:13] Stop eating so fast. Chew your food, , chew your food. Understood. Enjoy. Enjoy your meal. I know you’re really hungry, but enjoy. Realize your, be grateful. That plate in front of you, you know? Yeah. I think that’s Apple do a lot of things. Yeah. Yeah. So what a good mom.

[00:19:33] Ethical Framework

[00:19:33] Miriam: So this is a perfect segue into the ethics space.

[00:19:37] Talk a little bit about maybe your ethical framework, how it was tested in business some of the spaces you struggled, like gimme, gimme some words on ethics.

[00:19:51] Will: Yeah, I mean, I, this is gonna be going on and on about this. I’m gonna start with healthcare. Yeah. The people that I worked with were great and I, I don’t need to name out the specifics of, of, of everything that I saw and, and the inefficiencies that I saw, but as a whole, when I got to learn the healthcare system and the industry in general and.

[00:20:16] Tying that into the food industry and then dialysis and all the stuff that’s sort of happening and, and, and how some physicians not painting a brush to all physicians at all, but how some physicians do their job was very, very difficult for me. When I first started working for DaVita, some of the doctors that I met were so transactional.

[00:20:36] It was just hard. Very, very difficult to like experience and have my hands be sort of tied in the situation. Yeah. Cause they were also getting, I mean, it’s also how our system’s set up- it’s like the pay per stitch model. It’s like the more you see a patient, the more you’re getting paid kind of thing. No quality incentive programs.

Ethics in Healthcare

[00:20:53] And then the doctor just has a mindset of like, that patient has a dollar sign, you know, and if you have kidney disease, there’s no cure. And then there’s the, the end of the road, you have five stages and then it’s E S R D and then unfortunately, like there’s no light at the end tunnel with that. So it’s a very.

[00:21:08] Dark disease, having kidney disease and, and, and having, you know, that that kind of part of healthcare is very tough. And then there’s also the lack of, of mental health support. You know, they have social workers in some of the centers, but they had no real emphasis on having true talk therapy for these, these, you know, these patients who are coming in four days a week.

[00:21:28] You know, three days a week, four hours a day, all that kinda stuff was very difficult to just watch. I’m just watching it happen. You know what I mean? Like it is like no one will listen to me. This is just like the rat race in healthcare and there’s not really healthcare.

[00:21:40] You know what I mean? So that, that was tough and that’s why I like to, that’s why I enjoy going into working for smaller companies. I worked for a company called Blueprint where we, we pretty much took. You know, you know, measuring based care, which has been around for a while, you’re probably familiar with, with your background.

Being Efficient

[00:21:57] You know, those like a p you know, those, essentially those assessments that you give clients when you see them, you know, GAD seven or whatever it may be. And we just digitized it so you can also, a client can do it outside of their session too. It was a very simple technology. put something that really wasn’t leveraged that much.

[00:22:17] But we worked, I worked for a small company, got to really speak to therapists about. What’s inefficient in their office and how we can improve things. And that, that was awesome to see. So the, the, that was tough being, being tied up with DaVita on that. But I found my path in healthcare where I felt like I could make a difference with smaller companies and having a larger impact on that.

[00:22:40] Cuz DaVita’s pretty corporate. So I realized I had to get out of the corporate scene to feel like I was really doing something on that side. Going into where we are in our industry, our company. Our industry is filled with a lot of organizations where people just care about the money aspect on the top.

[00:23:00] They lie, they , they say they’re gonna do this and they don’t do it. The fire happens, you know, and they don’t, they don’t, they run away from it. When it comes down to an issue with a client’s store, and that’s why these companies are falling apart, they’re not lasting.

Transparency

[00:23:15] Because they don’t, there’s not real partnerships. People invest money and they leave out the truth of what’s allowed on Amazon or not. Whether it’s like a model that is against Amazon terms of service and then their business gets shut down for the client and then they just don’t do anything about it kind of thing.

[00:23:31] Like that kind of stuff is still happening to this day. So the way that we approach, we’re not perfect. Right. When we have issues with clients, we are ex and they’re all start hiding. Like I mentioned before, they’re not transparent, can’t shake anyone’s hand. You don’t know where their office is. It’s almost like everyone’s hiding behind a screen.

[00:23:47] Mm-hmm. and they’re doing shady stuff. And so that really drove us to start our company as well and do it with a full, transparent, open door, ethically sound approach, which is highly respected by all of our. And they can accept where we are, where we do have issues because we’re honest about them. And when we do run into problems with clients’ businesses, which happens here and there, we will, We’ll, you know, we’ll face it head on and we will come to, we’ll rectify the situation, we’ll find a solution.

[00:24:20] And it’s as simple as that. It should be that difficult. Yeah. But , that’s how you should run a business. You shouldn’t beat around the bush and mess with people’s money. Right. And. We’ve ran our company like that since day one. We treat our employees really well, and that also has a trickle down effect of how they interact with their clients.

Positive Energy

[00:24:38] And I think there’s just a positive energy in our company in general. And so my point is, is, is, is we wanted to make sure that, that the stain in this industry know we can, we can do our best to, you know, at least prove that there are good organizations out there that not just are gonna bring success financially to.

[00:24:58] But you’re gonna wanna work with them in a true partnership because you actually trust them. And that’s a huge part of who we are. And that’s, I think that’s why we’ve gotten gotten to where we are too. That’s a huge part of it. Yeah.

[00:25:09] Miriam: How did you come about your ideas about trust? In terms of what, what, What do you mean?

[00:25:15] Like Idea. It’s obviously important to you. You know, it’s a deeply held value that you should be trustworthy, and it sounds like you wanna hang out with people who are also trustworthy. I think so many times, yeah. In business there’s this sense that it’s pretty slimy or that it’s all about the money.

Motivated to Make a Difference

[00:25:35] And I think for a huge percentage of people, that’s true. For some people it’s about the game. For other people, they really are motivat. To help. They wanna make a difference. You’ve used that phrase quite a few times to make a difference. Yeah. And you know, this idea of having impact. Yeah. But this notion of trust, you’ve mentioned quite a few times, so it seems to me that it’s very integral to you.

[00:26:01] And I was curious. How that came about. You know? Was there a space where you were just burned so badly and you’re like, Well, this is not okay? Or were you raised in such a way that, Your word is your word or I, Where did you come by? The ideas about trust.

[00:26:19] Relying on Trust

[00:26:19] Will: I just think it’s so important. I think without trust, whether it’s a relationship, friendship, business, transaction.

[00:26:29] Like even the person who’s bringing you up to, to go bungee jumping and, and, and just tie you in, Like what, whatever it may, may be, it could be anything. It’s, it is such, it’s the foundation of, of, of true human interaction, I think. And so I think it’s extremely important and. It needs to be, you know, put to the top of

[00:26:51] You know, in terms of what people think about when, you know, I, I, it’s something that naturally, I think, I don’t wanna say everyone should just naturally trust everyone. I don’t wanna be too much of like an optimist like that. I just sort of think it’s, I think humans are inherently good and we should trust each other, Right?

[00:27:06] And when you, But the second there’s a hint of no trust, that’s very hard to get back. The second something happens where you don’t trust something or someone. Gaining that trust again, I think is such an uphill battle. And so that’s why I think it’s such an important thing is, is trusting. It’s not just trusting people with your money, but it’s like, yeah, business.

[00:27:28] You’re right. There’s people like obviously we, we all want to make a little like money. It’s good to have money, right? But all that money means nothing if you do it in a distrustful manner. And I, you’re not bringing value to, to people, the world, the people around you. It’s just paper, right?

Putting Trust in Others

[00:27:47] I just think that it’s, it’s worthless. I mean, you think there’s history so much history of rich millionaires who’ve just done slimy things. I just think, yeah, to me it just grosses me out and it’s just not how we do things.

[00:28:00] and, yeah, I don’t even know where it comes from. I, you know, I, my, my mom is a very, very, very good person. She was always like, your word is your bond. Or anything like that. Like that’s never really been the thing that’s just inherently just sort of been part of my familial upbringing. The people that I, I was friends with when I grew up with people I surround myself with.

[00:28:21] And yeah, people, you know, you could be a very trustworthy person. Everyone makes mistakes. I’m not saying that anyone’s perfect, but it’s also a huge thing when it comes down to why people, I’ve heard this so many times, why they invest with us when they’ve been shopping. We trust you guys. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:28:40] Miriam: So I mean, you have the luxury of having been exposed to quite a few different kinds of corporations and quite a few different kinds of people in your travels, all sorts of cultures. What are things, give our listeners like some ideas of hints of that person or that organization shouldn’t be trustworthy beyond, you know, Of course on the internet, you know, can you, is there a real address?

[00:29:09] Looking for Red Flags

[00:29:09] Miriam: Is there a real person or whatever, But like in interactions? Yeah. What is something that tells you, Mm. Take pause. Hang on.

[00:29:19] Will: Yeah. I think, and this is something that probably is pretty obvious for a lot of people when, when companies talk about how much money you can, It’s the biggest red flag ever. And they’re selling, they’re pushing.

[00:29:33] You can make this and you can do that, da, da, da. Like, all this too good to be true. Kind of talk, all this flashy talk. It’s like the simple kind of, I use car salesman, stay away kind of thing. We never talk about unless client asks, we never talk about true. It’s like we’re talking about the partnership and what, what, being involved in e-commerce.

[00:29:55] And why it’s an important asset to add to your portfolio or to start your portfolio with, or the importance of being involved in something that’s a massive growth at it in general and why you wanna partner with a certain company that has this, this, and this. Right. We don’t talk about, Hey, by month three you’re gonna make this da da.

Business Vision

[00:30:13] Like all of that is just fluff . Yeah. Cause everyone knows you can make money online. Right? Right. Now it’s the same thing with healthcare too. Honestly. Like we, when I was working for David, We had a program that we were giving to, to physicians that could help them consolidate, taking digital notes with clients both in the dialysis center and at their private practice in the one, And that was the one benefit we had cuz we were devita, but our program was subpar in general to nephrologists, which are kidney doctors.

[00:30:44] There’s a lot better programs out there. But when I, when I was working for the sales part of that organization, I was never talking about the features of what it was. I was talking. As healthcare revolves down the line, and as your practice grows and as technology advances and as things change, who do you really want to be partnered with?

[00:31:06] Do you wanna be partnered with a company that works with cardiologists and you know, all different kinds of specialties and really doesn’t just focus on kidney care and, and or do you wanna be partnered with a company that is strictly focusing on advancing technology and kidney care down the line?

[00:31:24] Because that’s your specialty. And we work in the niche aspect of that. And I sold the vision. Really it was the vision and who you wanna partner with, not the product. Product they knew was subpar, but that gets outweighed. Down the line if you really think about the future of things and, and who you wanna be working with.

[00:31:42] Inherent Sense of Trust

[00:31:42] Miriam: Yeah. Okay. So talk about the same thing, trust or untrustworthiness, just in relationships in like when you were traveling, just in people in general. What set off your spy sense like, maybe not .

[00:31:59] Will: Oh, I think that’s sort of a tough one because a lot, I’m a good judge of character when I meet someone specifically and, and I see them mm-hmm.

[00:32:06] and so it’s hard to put into words like, Oh, I don’t trust that person. Cause I just feel something. It’s more an inherent feeling that I get when I think some someone’s a little off or something’s a little off about a situation. I think that’s more of a street sense in general. And you’re not always right.

[00:32:26] Right. There’s people I’ve judged early and they end up being like, really great trustworthy people down the line. You know what I mean? And so I don’t know necessarily how to answer that because I think a lot of it for me is just, it’s the energy that I get when I meet someone or when I’m in a certain room or what it is.

Sensing Trust

[00:32:41] It’s more of an energy feeling than like certain of like that sense to me, you know? Then they did this kinda thing. Yeah.

[00:32:47] Miriam: No, that makes sense to me because our. Deep centers in our brain are really programmed to pick up on, am I safe? Am I not safe? Yeah. And it’s a lot of subliminal stuff. It’s behavioral stuff, and most of the time people don’t know why they don’t trust someone.

[00:33:05] They just know that they don’t. Yeah. You know, so that’s, That rings true to me, .

[00:33:11] Will: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You get those feelings, you’re like, Ah, something. This doesn’t feel. That’s simple. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

[00:33:17] Miriam: Well we’re coming to the end of our time together. This has been great and I would love to pursue you maybe for a second interview down the road.

[00:33:25] Donations

[00:33:25] Miriam: Lots of good, good topics. I had mentioned before we started that we like to gift you with a donation in your name and the, the charity you chose was Best Friend’s Animal Sanctuary. Because you said you yourself rescued a dog from the shelter. Tell me about your dog just a little bit.

[00:33:43] Will: Oh, Buster Buster’s the man I, I’ve, I was, there’s a company called Angel City Pit Bulls in Los Angeles.

[00:33:52] Mm-hmm. I was fostering for them. So I had two different foster dogs two weeks at a time. And I went, I go to Europe every summer and I spent, four years ago I went to, had two dogs and then they were great and amazing and then they got adopted and then I went to Europe and I came back and the next dog they gave me was Buster.

Buster

[00:34:10] And I was super sad cause after two weeks the volunteer picked them up to bring me to an event. And I called him right after they picked him up. I was like, I made a mistake. They’re like, We. Bring him back. Now, if he’s not adopted by three, we can bring him back, but you’ll have to adopt him. And that’s all she wrote right there.

[00:34:24] So Buster’s a bulldog pit mix and he’s the biggest sweetheart ever. Doesn’t bark. He’s about seven years old. Loves being on the beach. He was found on the streets in like east la biggest sweetheart ever. He is friends with everyone except for squirrels. Yeah. And I miss him. I haven’t seen him in like two and a half months, so I see him Saturday.

[00:34:44] Miriam: I love that. It’s a, he’s a foster fail. Good on you. Yeah, thanks. Thanks for adopting him. I’ve done a lot of fostering too, and it’s always hard when they go away.

[00:34:54] How to Find Will

[00:34:54] Miriam: So why don’t you tell our listeners how they can find you?

[00:34:58] Will: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So our website for our company is www.ascendecom.Com.

[00:35:05] On that you can find about what we do, how we do our businesses, and e-commerce. You can book a call with us, et cetera. And then we have my personal Instagram, which is at wsta Wba S t a and our business Instagram which is at ascent underscore e-com, A S C E N. Underscore E C Om, and we obviously have our YouTube channel and stuff like that, but we, we post regularly about educational stuff, about the industry in general.

[00:35:29] Probably clips of this podcast will be on, on those Instagrams as well. And.

[00:35:34] Miriam: Very good and we’ll, we’ll put, we’ll put all this information in your show notes or in my show notes and this has been really fun. Thank you. Just for your time. Absolutely. Good.

[00:35:45] It’s been awesome. I, I look forward to, to hopefully jumping on with you again in the future.

[00:35:48] We can catch up, but yeah, I appreciate you having me. I’d love to.

End Credits

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Music by Tom Sherlock.

head shot Miriam Gunn

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