Rolando Rosas 8:32
them. And, you know, for me, like I was saying, the empathy factor, or empathy as a word, you know, and in terms of how you work with others, whether that’s at work or working with folks. on the customer side, it’s never been a word that’s been championed. And I’m hearing that more, I think the pandemic is making us all realize that, you know, we’re all in very unique situations, you know, and you may have to deal with kids, and you have to take care of maybe a loved one that’s not that’s ill as a result of the last 1516 months. And so, empathy probably was there under the surface. And now it’s starting to me, it seems like it’s bubbling up a little bit more.
Aqeel Shahid 9:17
I agree. I
Rolando Rosas 9:18
would agree with that.
Aqeel Shahid 9:20
I 100%, I think, you know, a lot of us are running a mile a minute, right? We were all busy doing what we do on a daily basis for our careers or jobs, you know, our families, all that stuff that no one really had the time to stop, pause and think. And I think to your point, I think the pandemic definitely a lot of people to pause, but everyone had to change their environments change where they’re working from change how they’re working. Right. I think all that it has really brought this to the forefront and because empathy has always been the critical portion, but never really talked about as much as it is now. Because again, everyone is now living in a completely different environment. So I think it’s to your point think that that’s what’s driving this even more.
Dave Kelly 10:02
Yeah, for sure. And I think that also gives leaders and managers an opportunity to show that they can be empathetic. Because at the end of the day, now, we’re all kind of in world, all in this together, but we aren’t, we’re all in the same boat. We all understand that the environments are different. We can’t control some things. And there’s, we have so many different forces pulling us in other ways, but just having the opportunity to show the people that work for you. Hey, I understand. Maybe a lot of us didn’t have that opportunity before.
Aqeel Shahid 10:34
Yeah, I agree. I think the other point to keep in mind is obviously the talent pool, right? The the folks that are coming into the workplace, right, your millennials and younger generation that’s trying to come in some of their expectations of how they want to be led as a leader is also around empathy, right? If you’re trying to lead, you know, an individual without that component anymore, you’ve been at have that same talent pool, or folks that follow you the way you want them to be, to follow you moving forward. So I think that’s another component to consider as well.
Rolando Rosas 11:05
Let me ask you about the talent pool, because as you know, the world is literally changed in the last year. And because so many more people are working from home. I think if you didn’t have a global perspective about a talent pool, now you do, because a lot of folks that can do the job. Even sales, sales, can be outsourced to folks that can talk speak into some direct, obviously, there still needs to be some some human interface there. But a lot of job functions are being outsourced in a way that’s never been seen before. Because businesses are realizing that they can do the job of globally sourcing talent, rather than just in New York City, or Seattle, or Austin.
Aqeel Shahid 11:49
Yeah, and I think I think the fact that now you have access to this pool for organizations, it’s actually a key advantage, right? Because now, you can actually get a good talented individual sitting in a different part of the world, a different part of the country, and not just have to just source in your backyard anymore. Right. So I think it is definitely given organizations access to a talent pool that they never had before. And now more and more organizations have, you know, accepted that remote work is okay. Right. And that the organism that employees are just as productive, working from home, or wherever they want to work from, as they are in the office, right? There was a period there where a lot of the folks were like, No, I need to see you face to face, I need you to be in the office so I can touch you feel you talk to you. Right, that environment has now changed quite a bit, I think this last year and a half has really accelerated that to where now it is readily acceptable and large. And that obviously has helped with getting access to the folks that you want to get access to plus now, you know, that’s almost a demand now, for only 40 employees these days, right? They want you to give them that flexible work environment for them to work from versus having to show up the office like they used to, you know, even two, three years ago, right? It’s changing very rapidly.
Dave Kelly 13:05
You know, I watched something recently, they were talking about the human element. And the human element is still there, people still have that need to connect the technology that we’re using here. This is nothing new. I mean, yeah, there’s some new devices that do new things. But having the ability to connect over video and audio and live streaming, etc, it’s been there for quite a while, the Human Development sorry, the human, the human element is still very important. And now because people have adopted this, and they’ve come to just be comfortable using it, I think it’s really helpful for everybody.
Aqeel Shahid 13:44
No, I agree. And to your point, I think, you know, depending on which field you’re in, that human element doesn’t go away, especially in sales, right? You have to go see your customer, eyeball to eyeball, look at their environment, right? Those those lunches, those entertainment times that we have with our customers, right, none of that goes away. And I’m not saying that that will that will ever disappear. But the access to the actual talent now is far greater for organizations to take advantage of. And it’ll definitely improve innovation now, because now you’ve definitely increased your overall scope and your overall, you know, a pool of resources, you know, worldwide now, as opposed to, like I said, just locally.
Rolando Rosas 14:22
And I agree with that. I mean, I had a discussion with a friend of mine, a really good friend of mine, I had in New York City, medium sized business, they have about about 50 employees or so in Manhattan, when things started getting crazy. And prior to that I had been telling them, you know, you really got to look at getting some people outside of New York City because he was struggling to get good talent. I’m like, you have to look outside of New York City. There’s good people in New York City. Yes, but the world is your oyster. This was before COVID. And I said, you know, you got to look at outside of New York. You got employees all over the country all over the world. A world that could do the job. And, you know, there was a lot of resistance there because that that company had not done very much, hardly any remote working, although every one of their workers could literally sit at a computer and take their desk home and do the job from then. But now, that’s exactly what they’re doing. Because they have no other option, and they’re starting to see well now from from here on forward, like companies like Twitter, and others, you can be home remotely and working from home permanently. At least that’s what Twitter is doing. You know, they’re allowing workers to stay home and work as long as they want to until whenever they feel like come back to the office. Yeah, no, absolutely. Right. Well, you know, Aqeel, I want to also wrote one more thing to drive this empathy thing home if people think it’s a fluke. The first clip they saw that was that was Gary Vee several years ago. Now this is a more recent clip of him talking about empathy. And if you don’t know Gary Vee, sold his empathy called his wine company, empathy, wines. And then Constellation Brands. No little teeny small mom and pop operation went out and bought his whole operation just recently, and so here’s what he had to say about that. Well, I had already roll that footage.
Gary Vaynerchuk 16:18
The it makes me equally know why I’m liked it but the people that know me, with my audience, and most important and equally makes me realize why I knew that the internet was going to change my dad’s business. Why I knew to put my life’s savings at the time and to Facebook and Twitter why a new a YouTube show would matter why I knew that crypto punks would matter taking a risk they will see the is like ear to the ground. I believe that empathy is my ear to the ground. And to define what I mean by that is, I think I’m more like an a&r. In the music industry. I put in the work, aka, like the 1970s and 80s. I go to clubs, from 8pm to two in the morning, to listen to music. I grind it or go to a shitty club or go to a nice club. I listen, I listen, I listen. And then I pick. And I pick people that go on to build the biggest bands are the biggest singers of all time. That’s what I do for a living. And I think it’s empathy, believe it or not, that helps me because not only do I believe that I have empathy for one person, I feel like for some reason, my empathy deploys to masses.
Rolando Rosas 17:30
There you go. He, I don’t know how better much better to say than what he just said. And we’re trying to, you know, for me, like I said, this is a new thing from the standpoint of giving it a name. And maybe it was called and people may have said, No, the customer’s always right or treat others like you want to be treated. And if that’s empathy, then maybe you were already doing that as part of business as part of working with other people. But I think elevating the actual concept of empathy to be a business concept that can actually produce results and money. I think, to me, that’s still a fairly new idea that a lot of folks just don’t know about.
Aqeel Shahid 18:09
No, I agree. I think I think you’re right. I mean, a lot of people, you know, are still not very, I mean, they haven’t used it as much, they kind of have not really, but it’s definitely starting to become more mainstream. And I like what Gary said in regards to keeping his ear to the ground. And that has really helped him be successful. And it’s an interesting way to look at it. Because by being empathetic, when it really allows your employees, your customers, you know, to really open up your vendors to open up to you, right. And when you when you get that, that sharing of knowledge, or information that comes right back at you, that really allows you now as the business leader to go make those important business decisions as well. I mean, if your employees aren’t sharing feedback with you, they aren’t giving you the information you need, because they’re afraid of you are they’re afraid of you how you react to them. Right? It’s it is counterproductive to the success of what you’re trying to accomplish. So, now by obviously switching that around to being empathetic, like you mentioned, I think, that really allows for that communication channels to flow, which allows you to make those important decisions you need to make as an organization. So I love Allah, what do you have to say there?
Rolando Rosas 19:16
Well, and you know, the the other the other part about that was that there was a study that actually looked at this exact topic. And they took a look at what other managers are saying about this, and they basically found to be successful. I’m just going to read off the screen here. The be successful in the new environment managers must lead with empathy. In the 21. In the 2020 Gartner survey of nearly 5000 employees around the world, they said that only 47% of managers are prepared for this future role. So there’s still a lot more work to be done. And there’s still a lot more upside. I think, for companies that use this as So even if you were to, for selfish reasons, say let’s call this a tool, as a mechanism for building the culture within an organization, I think that if people deploy this properly, it has not just the effect of changing the corporate culture, but as the word Gary said, you know, produce outstanding results, where you’re on the map for other companies that want to name in his case, the acquisition,
Dave Kelly 20:27
the results. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, they’ve been teaching empathy for sales professionals for years, you know, we’re all the three of us were in a solutions based world, we’re trying to fix people’s problems, you’re not going to find out what people’s problems are until you put yourself in their shoes. That’s, in my opinion, that’s, that’s what I define empathy as you’re looking at it from their angle, in not a salesy way. It’s just how we learn about their challenges, what they need to accomplish, so that we can sell them, you know, the solution. But, but, you know, our sales, our sales leaders have always they’ve dumped us into these sales, training seminars, they talk about sales, selling cycles, and you know, everything from the cold call to the signing of the check at the end of it, but a lot of it in there, when you’re earning their trust, you’re putting yourself in their shoes. And I think it’s important for us as leaders to also say, hey, I need to take this on with the management style with my people, so that I can help them be successful.
Aqeel Shahid 21:32
Yeah, I agree. I think, you know, to your point, I, yeah, empathy, while there are classes that will teach you empathy comes from within, you almost have to have that personality too. And you have to be genuine about it. Right? If you’re basically just being empathetic, just to follow the guidelines that you went through a class on, it clearly shows right, you have to be genuinely, you know, wanting to help this person, genuinely feel their pain and want to go, you know, help solve that. for that. I think that is that takes you much further than just checking the box on an empathy card, because that’s what your manager or your HR trainer basically told you to go follow. Right?
Rolando Rosas 22:11
That right, and you hit on something here, helping others in terms of being able to create success around that and wanted you to share a story that you you have regarding how you’ve been able to overcome objections or, or use some of the some of the strategies that you’ve learned, and that you could share with our audience so that they could take away from this something that maybe they could use on with their businesses, with their employees, with their managers? Yeah, no,
Aqeel Shahid 22:49
you know, I’ve been obviously in this in the sales side of the house for some time in my career, right. And overhead bondage, obviously, that’s what we’re doing, we’re helping organizations really helps solve their challenges that they’re faced with on a day to day basis, especially as it comes to the communications and again, over this last year, year and a half as employees went home, right, being able to provide the means to communicate with not only their customers, but also with each other. So that that element of human element that we talked about, right, that’s continues to stay in place, you can still build that culture. So build the relationship, right. So you know, what I’ve done, and what has been successful for me is really, like I mentioned earlier, really get a sitting down and understanding the entire scope of the of the customer, right? Where are they trying to go as an organization, take yourself out of take that badge that you’re wearing the the organization representing off for a second, right? Make yourself an individual in the organization to really truly understand what they’re trying to accomplish? What challenges are they really faced faced with? And be that true? adviser to technology advisor that they’re expecting you to be right. And you know, the sale wall has come if you’re doing the right things, and you ask the right questions, and you’re helping them solve the right problems, the product that you’re representing is us is gonna automatically fit because you’re you’re really trying to help solve an issue, right? If you’re not if you’d like people to approach this with, Hey, let me see me I have a product Let me see how I can make it fit in our organization’s environment. That’s that’s never a good approach. Because you’re trying to fit sometimes a square peg in a round hole. It doesn’t necessarily fit. Right but if you’re, you know, keeping an open mind and you really asking the right questions, and you really going through all the different challenges. There’s a couple of things that happen one, obviously it really helps you build the credibility with the individual you’re speaking with, they trust you as an individual. That in itself removes the barriers that typically exist when you’re trying to work with the customer and where there are automatic putting up a you know, a guard against you because, hey, salesperson alert here, here’s the first sales guy to come with. Yeah, as you’re trying to sell me something I don’t want right and that’s that’s not the case. And again, if you really are able to do Ask the right questions, understand the environment, and then back into a solution. It always helps to make it easier if the customer is less likely to resist the solution at that point, because you now have a true solution for their problem. And you’re able to validate, and you’re able to quantify how to help the organization succeed. Right. And those are the areas that really I think has been extremely successful. So for any, any individual that’s out there working with business, I think that’s an approach you want to take, right? Don’t lead in with your product first, leading with their challenges first, and then your product will come behind it.
Dave Kelly 25:35
So, so I’m working with some of the folks at Vonage today Hey, a big shout out to Nick, Chris. And Chris, you know, being the chats, Vonage plays, you know, in this enterprise market, and the decision makers, they know that there’s a lot of money at stake, it’s a huge business move for them. There’s a lot of risk for that end user. What are some of the biggest objections that you’ve had to overcome? I think the biggest
Aqeel Shahid 26:03
objection, you know, has always been the fact that hey, you know, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I, my what I have today is working, it’s solving what I need to do today, right? And why do I need to go make the change? And again, it really, it’s a matter of us sitting down and really helping them map out where they’re trying to get to as an organization, and how our technologies can help them achieve it. Right? If it’s, for example, they’re using a, you know, an on premise hardware solution today for their telephony, right, showing them the advantages of the cloud. Why is this beneficial? And in fact, you know, when we first started selling our cloud based solutions, you know, several years ago, it was like, Why do I need help I telephony in the cloud? Well, in the last year and a half has improved why it’s so important. I don’t know, I don’t know where it will prove it. Right. It really allows organizations to continue to operate because of the technology that lives in the cloud, right? And obviously, now that adoption has severely accelerated because of it, right? So those are the kinds of things that we’re really helping them understand, right, using other technologies to really help not only enable their engagement with their customers, because you know, even from a consumer perspective, now, how consumers purchase a product, how they interact with your brand has changed, right? You know, one bad experience is going to get get that customer going the opposite direction, right? And you really think that engagement element is extremely important, your brand is extremely important. So we provide the appropriate tools that we are proud to provide the appropriate technologies to allow them to accomplish it. So again, when we when we run across customers, they go, Hey, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Well, yeah, if you want to continue to operate it today, but tomorrow, and day after and as the organization and business needs change, if you don’t evolve, you’ll be extinct as an organization. So those are two areas that I think we really have to help we work very closely with our customers to help them.
Dave Kelly 27:53
And I think right now, you know what there’s been, you don’t have to tell them, you don’t have to go very far to find an answer to the question. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. All you’d have to do, what did you do? What did you do at the beginning of 2020? What happened in March of 2020? With your on premise system? How did you do that? And they’ll say, Wow, what a mess. What a major headache. You could find a testimonial, just by looking at the first email in your inbox, you could find a customer, that’s a success story and say this is this is why you need to consider that this company here that I helped prior to 2020. Because they were in the cloud. There this they had different challenges, then then you did because you weren’t allowed. And I think yeah, success stories and testimonials, pretty easy. So much easier question to have. And it’s not like, well, what what would happen if my house burned down? It’s like, well, that’s not gonna happen. This is a different, this is a different story now.
Aqeel Shahid 28:56
Yeah, no, I agree. And in fact, you know, we have several customers that were kind of holding off and like, oh, we’ll do it, we’ll do it when you when we need you, you know, maybe two, three years from now. And you have those frantic customers reaching out to us when the pandemic you know, had and everyone was said, Hey, you gotta go work from home. Now. We help, we need help, we need to quickly mobilize our teams, we could need to quickly establish a solution. So you know, as an organization, you know, Vonage was able to, you know, basically help these organizations quickly. I mean, within days, we were basically taking 1000s of users that were working in an office and giving them access to tools to work remotely, right in sometimes within hours giving them especially in situations where you’re dealing with healthcare professionals that we’re now servicing patients, giving them the tools to allow them to now stay engaged with those patients, people patients frantically calling going, oh my god, I have coughing. Do I have COVID? Like what’s going on? Right? Being able to manage that volume of calls that were coming into these into these clinics and these organizations and being able to help calm their fears and Make sure that they were routed the right way and, and taken care of right. Those are the areas that we were really kind of, you know, engaged with over the last year and a half and helping these organizations. And you know, for those who have a lot of people that, you know, to your point, I think, video solutions have been around video conferencing, web conferencing solutions have been around for a very long time. But only over the last year and a half, I think people have more accepted and started using it more than they’ve ever used before. And it’s actually expanded beyond, you know, just the regular FaceTime. But friends and family members do not becoming the normal way of communicating in businesses. And even for organizations that are now you know, having to change their entire business environments to be able to provide video as the solution to communicate, you know, I’ll give you some examples, right, even healthcare, telemedicine has been around for some time, but over the last year and a half 2,000% growth, but because everyone is you know, basically, you know, you know, patients are reaching out to their providers and having consultation with their doctors, you know, over video and having that same conversation with them. And now security is critical, obviously, in the healthcare field, as you can imagine, right. So we as an organization, we’re able to provide a secure encrypted video solution for these doctors offices to communicate with their patients to you know, do do interact and make sure that they’re getting the health care that they need. But financial organizations, financial institutions, the same exact thing we saw there as well, where they were basically, you know, leveraging video as ways to communicate with their with their clients. So a lot of use cases, as far as how video is, it was used last year, and now that’s become the norm. So you just see that, that trend, continue to become more accepted and more mainstream moving forward.
Dave Kelly 31:39
Yeah. And I would think, Aqeel, that you and your team emotionally, a lot of successes, really being able to come through and help your clients. And then knowing that you had this up opportunity to show them why Vonage is like a true partner like that must have felt your team must have absolutely been loving it. I know when you have a big success, it just feels really good. High five in your teammates, you’re able to showcase the different members of your team and organization on how they can all align themselves and get somebody up and running quickly that just that must have felt great.
Aqeel Shahid 32:17
It does it actually did you know, and it really seen the sigh of relief on in these in these customers eyes. Oh my god. Thank you, thank you for helping us because, like, we were like concerned, like what are we going to do? Right? It definitely was very gratifying. And we were in we’re glad that we were we had the right technology, we had the right infrastructure, we had the right solutions in place to help these organizations right, and nothing bad. That was that was a definitely a great experience. And you know, and I’m excited, where, where things are going. And you know, and all the new solutions that are coming because of what we’ve gone through over the last year and a half.
Rolando Rosas 32:53
That’s what I wanted to ask you about was that you basically was in my head and you’re talking I wrote down several things brand engagement, the future, said engagement of several times and and humongous growth. With with now I don’t like using the new normal because things always change. So as we’re looking into the future, what should businesses be thinking about? I know there’s AI that’s getting a lot more traction? Obviously, we talked about video, but where should futures have an eye? Where should businesses have an eye on the future, which, you know, three months from now, six months from now, even a year from now, as things have been rapidly evolving? Where should the attention or resources be going to? Great question,
Aqeel Shahid 33:38
I think the big thing that organizations need to focus on is really making sure they have the right platform in place to give them the appropriate analytics they need. Unless their platform any you know, if you have the right CRM solution in place to track our right ERP electronic, you know, it’s a enterprise platform that will give you the visibility of your engagements with your customer, your employees engaged with each other, I think that’s critical because because data is going to be king, right? And you cannot make decisions without having the proper data. And with that data and having the right data, you can now do things like you mentioned AI, right, that is definitely an emerging technology we see more and more that’s becoming you know, you know, more accepted in the organizations and businesses. But video solutions are using a ton of AI to make like critical corrections to the video as you’re talking right. And in our in our side of the house. Right AI is being used a lot to provide engagements with customers, right? For example, if you call it organizations today, and you’re trying to do simple things like hey, I’m trying to check the status of an order, or I’m trying to reset a password or I want to place an order, right. All that would normally take a individually human being to accomplish can now all be done by an AI bot. Right where you’re now talking to live visual. We’re having an actual conversation with the system, where it’s how Having a natural conversation with you and the technology has come so far that you can’t, you can’t even tell the difference that you’re speaking with a human versus a machine. And it’ll basically go through the simple simple changes you’re trying to do, like, hey, I want to check the status from order. Great. Here’s your order status. What do you want to do next right, and be able to route you in the right in the right areas. I think that’s a critical component that customers are demanding, right? We’re all impatient. We’re all moving a mile a minute, we want to move quickly. No longer are people patient in episode on a phone call waiting for minutes before somebody answers when all I want to do is check the status motor, right? So those are the kinds of things where AI can really help can really gonna, you know, streamline that process, the other areas are not giving you intelligence. So if I’m a call center agent, and I’m having a conversation, let’s say I’m having a cold conversation with you, Dave, and you’re like, hey, I really liked that, that headset that you’re using, tell me more. Now I can, as a system provide real time, you know, information to the agent on their screen, hey, talk more about these specific elements they get from a knowledgebase article in me that suggestion on the on my screen, so I can have that conversation to have that information readily available. So those are the areas where we see a lot of AI being used in the other area we’re talking about, you know, we’re all talking about engagement, right? Again, it’s no longer just a singular mode of communication, right? We’re no longer just picking up the phone and calling people right, we’re texting, we’re emailing, we’re chatting, right? We’re certainly chat. Yeah, exactly. So that’s another big area that, you know, you’re seeing a lot of, you know, demand, right? We want to be able to provide multiple means for customers to communicate. And that’s where the engagement happens, right? You people want to communicate with you on the channels, they prefer not just you prefer both channels they prefer. So you need as an organization have the appropriate channels available to support their requirements. And that is where the engagement happens, right? Because if they can’t get in touch with you guess who would have called your competitor? Right? So you don’t want to lose your customer? Because you don’t have the right channels available. So those areas, like I said, where we can really help
Rolando Rosas 37:00
them? Well, you know, you have basically lit a fire under me, because engagement is one of those things that one of the words we use interior internally, a lot, because that really is kind of the road, I think, in my opinion, engagement is where you can drive customer demand as well, because you follow where the customers that somebody said, I think it was maybe Wayne Gretzky that you want to go to where the puck is going to be, not where it’s at, right. And that’s how he was able to be successful all those years. And companies have to keep an eye on those trends, like you said, in the trend is more omni channel more engagement. It’s social, definitely more social media related Omni, so the folks may be on YouTube or other channels or are on their mobile, and businesses that are engaging folks where they’re at will probably be more successful than those that are just relying 100% on that inbound call to come in. And no intelligence and data to inform them on where their customers are at today.
Aqeel Shahid 38:11
Exactly, no, you’re absolutely correct. And the other the other big area you’re probably seeing this a lot but those of you that shop on Amazon, you know how it works, right? They know you’re buying we have patterns, they know exactly what you like. And so you get these suggestions that pop up, hey, you may like this product because again, that’s the data that they’re collecting. They know you know exactly when to engage with you based on you know, you know where you are in a specific sector and again, all those areas are we you as an organization or customers that are out there, you’re they’re looking to evolve need to keep the eye on because if they don’t, you know, this is going to come very quickly and swiftly and you’ll be left behind.
Rolando Rosas 38:48
Agreed. Agreed. And it’s a it’s you’ve said it all Aqeel being left behind is certainly not where you want to be. And companies like Amazon are certainly leading the way to like they’re not slowing down. It wasn’t wasn’t Zuckerberg that said something like move fast break things and then pick things up. I don’t know exactly the same but something
Dave Kelly 39:12
I’m already doing that. Break things and then accidentally,
Rolando Rosas 39:20
yes. I you know what, I if I chopped it up, which I know I did, you know? You know, um, so I’m sure somebody will tweet it out and say this exactly what is Okorafor said, but it was something to that effect, where you move fast and you break things and then you know, fix it later. And I think I think the world is accelerating even more. And I don’t think we’re going back to anywhere near the pace, the culture, the interactions, the engagement levels that we had prior to COVID I think that people have had a taste of working from home. People are in unique situations, and managers have to be flexible. Organizations have to be flexible. I think as we come out of this, and the talent pool is going to be, I think stretched thin because those talented folks are going to, or they’re really high demand. Folks that are knowledge workers, I read something the other day where manufacturing jobs are under strain people to meet the demand. And so if you’re a really talented worker, whether you’re in manufacturing or some knowledge worker, you you are going to call the shots to some extent, and organizations that fit the profile you’re looking for, and the culture that you’re looking for. If they’re not there, you just go to the next better. This one varnish is doing it or this one’s doing it now I want I’m gonna go there. So good point. So all right. Well, Aqeel, we could talk for like at least two hours on managerial styles and leadership and all that. But we we just have limited time with you today. So I what I want to do is ask you some rapid fire questions that we ask all our guests who come on. There’s no right or wrong answer to any of these there your answers. We’re ready with those three. All right, let’s go ahead. So our first question is, oh, here we go. Your favorite musician or musical group.
Aqeel Shahid 41:24
So mine is Metallica. I’ve been a big Metallica fan this entire time. In fact, I still follow them very closely. So
Dave Kelly 41:33
will you walk around in public with a Metallica t shirt?
Aqeel Shahid 41:37
Absolutely. Absolutely. I’ve been to almost every Metallica concert that there is and I have rocked with them. It’s amazing. The best concerts ever.
Rolando Rosas 41:47
Wow. Metallica, you know what they that’s the first that we’re hearing on Metallica. Metallica fan here.
Dave Kelly 41:53
Nice to hear some metal fans for sure.
Rolando Rosas 41:58
Love it. Let me ask you this because this is probably related to where are you joining us from today? I feel
Aqeel Shahid 42:03
I’m actually in beautiful Arizona. So is 90 degrees so it’s not quite hot yet but it will be getting hot pretty quickly.
Rolando Rosas 42:13
And you then you absolutely dry. Oh, well. I don’t know where did you live there all your life and just moved there recently.
Aqeel Shahid 42:24
I actually originally born and raised in from Dubai. moved to Arizona to go to school. I went to Arizona State University’s I am a Sun Devil. You know 100 Go devils. And you know, my wife in college and I ended up staying. She’s a native Arizona and so I’ve been in Arizona now for 20 plus years.
Rolando Rosas 42:45
So they rock out to Metallica and at ASU probably me you probably heard even before ASU.
Aqeel Shahid 42:50
I did. Yeah. I grew up listening Metallica and my teens and I when I came here my first concert in America when I moved here was Metallica. So corn opened up for them. And it was amazing concert.
Rolando Rosas 43:03
Wow. Wow. There you go. Metallica. Well, I got another easy one for you. What’s your favorite app on your phone?
Aqeel Shahid 43:11
I gotta say Spotify. I love it. I use it quite a bit. You know, I’m a big music fan. And I listen to all sorts of music. So you know, it really gives me the ability on Spotify to choose the appropriate appropriate genre to basically get and I got the premium versions or no ads, which makes my life easy. And it’s my favorite app. I use it all the time. I’m not going to amount I use social media but Spotify
Rolando Rosas 43:35
is my favorite. But if I was your favorite I’m more of a Pandora guy.
Dave Kelly 43:38
I don’t know about you Dave Do you let’s let’s break this tie here match and mix and match is both spot you do both Spotify and pilot I’ll admit it man when so I’ve always done Pandora like back in the early 2000s When Pandora didn’t wasn’t popular enough to have ads. But I just kind of made the jump to Spotify when Joe Rogan went over
Rolando Rosas 43:59
there. No last Spotify fan I see I see and yeah, he’s he they make they threw a lot of money at him so he could be on Spotify. Apple but yeah. Let me ask you the next thing. What’s your favorite food? You’re in Arizona but maybe you have different palates than your typical Arizona. Yeah, you
Aqeel Shahid 44:20
know I like middle eastern food, Greek food quite a bit so you know the shawarmas and all that stuff that out there those are my favorite I could eat out every day if I could. So that you know and I grew up eating that when I was you know growing up in Dubai so I would say that is my favorite.
Rolando Rosas 44:36
Have you made been making it yourself since the pandemic are your restaurants that you have out there in Arizona been open through through this to get your favorite food or no
Aqeel Shahid 44:44
yeah you know we I can make it we make it at home quite a bit. You know it’s there are some restaurants here in Arizona that you know that have now opened up and allowed us to go get you know, get the food but you don’t yeah, for the most part we just make it at home.
Rolando Rosas 44:58
Home Home Cooking can’t be that And lastly, what is your there’s a multiple choice? What’s your preferred method of communication? Is it email, text, phone, instant message or DM?
Aqeel Shahid 45:13
So I’m old school I prefer the phone call right? Pick up a phone call me I do mail my, my kids are texting, you know, I’m like, just call me. You know, I can I can have this. I can literally reply to this in like a minute versus 20 texts, right? So just pick up the phone and call them. So I am old school, pick up the phone. Let’s have a phone call and have a conversation that way.
Rolando Rosas 45:35
I like the conversation if you if I were well, you see behind me. I’ve got I got a phone right here. There’s a phone, I have a phone that I don’t mind picking up the phone at all. It’s great. It’s, you know what, you can cut down the amount of emails with one phone call?
Aqeel Shahid 45:53
I agree. I absolutely agree.
Rolando Rosas 45:57
Well, Aqeel, you’ve been such a great sport today, we really want to thank you for coming on. And enlightening us sharing your story. Sharing the food that you like, we certainly love getting to know you a little bit better. So where can folks follow you if they want to, you know, follow your story and follow your progress work? And where can folks look for you?
Aqeel Shahid 46:19
I’m on LinkedIn. So certainly you can you can find me on LinkedIn. I also have I’m also on Instagram and Facebook. So please feel free to reach out, you know, you can find them ended up with my name and killshot here then love to love to hear from all of
Rolando Rosas 46:32
you. Awesome, awesome. Terrific. So let’s let’s get to the business of of, of closing this shop up here. But before we do that, we want to let folks know again, if you like this content, you like having folks like Mr. keel Shaheed from Vonage. On this program, we invite you to go ahead and like hit subscribe, hit all those buttons, hit all the bells and whistles. As we come up with some nuggets that you may not have seen on this podcast is a bunch of material here. We couldn’t get to because we’re running out of time. But stay tuned for more of that coming through if you subscribe and get notified. So let’s get to the answer to the trivia question. We’ll also let a keel in and see if he knows the answer to this one. So let’s throw that back up to Ori. We’ve got who who has the most streaming subscribers, Hulu, Amazon Prime Netflix, or Disney plus Aqeel who say you would say you when it comes to these four horsemen?
Aqeel Shahid 47:39
I say Netflix still I know Hulu is closely behind. But I personally think Netflix.
Rolando Rosas 47:46
All right. Let’s reveal it to our audience. It is Netflix, a buyer hunting country mile against Hulu. Netflix as of the date when we were able to get this information, Netflix had over 200 million subscribers who lose at almost 39 million subscribers. So so what is that? 40? So that’s almost like eight times is that right? Mm. 25. So you’re looking at a huge magnitude there have in terms of a difference between the two. And then you’ve got Amazon Prime actually at number two with about 150 million there. There look closer that that surprised me that Amazon Prime is that not that far away. And Disney plus they’ve you know, they’ve been out the least amount of time they have 87 million which is that that that was another thing that shocked me.
Dave Kelly 48:39
That was shocking that Amazon and Disney are catching up that quick. Yeah. flicks.
Rolando Rosas 48:46
I heard something. I don’t know if you know this. Aqeel, I heard recently that on any given day, Netflix consumes almost 70% of the internet traffic. Does that resonate with you? When you’re in your work guy? You would know a little bit more about that.
Aqeel Shahid 49:01
Yeah, I mean, it makes makes perfect. I think and Netflix was the most consumed app last year right? At home. That’s that’s what they were watching with watching Netflix, and they got some great content. And you know, I have a friend that’s a producer. And I think one one thing he said that really does that allows gives the producers the leeway to go produce what they want, right? He doesn’t really put as much restrictions on you. So they have some good content coming up, for sure. And yeah, it just surprised me Amazon was that posting that for some reason? I thought Hulu would be close but interesting.
Rolando Rosas 49:31
They’re both pouring tons of money into creating London so not surprised. So Kiel, any parting words as we wrap up here that you want to put out to our audience?
Aqeel Shahid 49:43
No, I think the only thing I’d say is, you know, if there’s anything we can do at Vonage to help you help your organizations you know, really leverage the technologies the right way. Please lean on us. We’re here to help you either way. Even if even if you have a question just you know, reach out and We’ll be happy to answer those questions for you. Right. No obligation. You don’t you know, we’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re just trying to help you. And, you know, I really appreciate the opportunity. We’re all doing Dave to have for having me on the show. And this was great. Love it. Yeah. Well, thank you. It’s
Rolando Rosas 50:14
great to have you. I know. I enjoyed it. We definitely want to have you back again. There’s so much more that I want to ask you for the for the next time. And if you love this content, we’d love to see you again on the next episode of What The Teck? Do you next time.
Outro 50:32
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