Jim Bramlett Podcast Transcript
Jim Bramlett joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of the Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Jim Bramlett. Jim Bramlett is a seasoned entrepreneur, business strategist, and executive coach with over 40 years of experience across multiple industries. As a serial entrepreneur, he has founded and scaled several companies, including 5 String Solutions, where he focused on bridging the gap between service providers and customers through real time information and customer centric solutions.
In his role as a Vistage Chair and Executive Coach, Jim works with leaders from diverse sectors, helping them leverage modern leadership techniques while optimizing processes, people, and products. His coaching fosters organic growth, innovation, and sustainable business practices. Jim shares his insights in his books, The Unconventional Thinking of Dominant Companies and Stop the Hassle, where he outlines a proven formula for success, emphasizing customer value, leadership, and strategic alignment.
Well, good afternoon, Jim. Welcome to the show.
Jim Bramlett: Thanks, Brian. It is great to be here.
Brian Thomas: Awesome. I appreciate that really do because I’ve traversed the globe, 50 plus countries and counting, and I don’t rarely come back to my hometown, Kansas city, and that’s where you’re at today. So I appreciate that. We’re just down the street, Jim, I’m going to jump right into your first question with over 40 years of experience as an entrepreneur and strategist.
What are the most significant changes you’ve seen in business leadership and strategy over the decades?
Jim Bramlett: I think there have been transformative changes driven by technology and conditions. I think there’s a huge change with the adoption of the Internet and everybody getting used to that, that kind of technology change.
So many businesses, the way you engage customers, the development of eCommerce, and I think leaders had to adapt. So I think adaptability is key for leaders. Then we had it and that created circumstances that nobody had ever experienced before, I think. And survival and, you know, working remotely and zoom and so adaptability was key and now we’re into the AI revolution and I do think it’s very transformative and the leaders of today have to adopt technology.
To stay up with their competitors who have the right infrastructure, but not overdo it. I don’t want to suggest that anybody should take the personalization out of their business. You know, I like talking to bots when I need customer service. And then I also think we’re on the forefront of some new regulations that may be transformative.
Those are yet to be determined, but leaders today have to adapt. And my final thought is, Today, more than anything, leaders are having to work with a multi generational workforce who have different values. They’ve got to be able to adapt because there’s a shortage of qualified workers for many businesses, and so you have to be able to adapt to that to lead and make things work.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. And you highlighted some great points there. You and I both have seen quite a bit of change in the last 20, 30 years in the workforce, of course. But we saw some things really change, really accelerate when it comes to the workforce. COVID, you highlighted, and of course, Now AI is really just leapfrogging.
I’m in fact, I’m more efficient in what I do every day now because of AI. It’s a total game changer. So thank you for highlighting that. And Jim, 5 String Solutions focuses on bridging the gap between service providers and customers. Can you share the inspiration behind founding the company and how it revolutionized customer centric solutions?
Jim Bramlett: So, uh, back 10 years ago or so, obviously, everybody saw what was happening with the development of e commerce and it was exploding and everybody decided, boy, I like shopping from home and it was working well, especially, you know, if you’re in the buying. Products that can fit in small packages, UPS and FedEx and the post office.
But what I knew was there was no equivalent of a FedEx, UPS or a post office when you’re dealing in large and bulky items. So if you’re ordering fitness equipment, furniture, appliances, any of that kind of thing, I knew it was a very highly fragmented. World of delivery options out there. You have no one provider who could blanket the country.
In fact, there are thousands still are there are thousands of small companies who deal in that final mile delivery of large items and. When Amazon really became prevalent, they were really, really strong at the data and information that the buyer got. They saw when the product shipped, when it was on its way, when it was out for delivery, when it got delivered, and they liked that.
The problem is, and the problem was, not everybody was big enough and strong enough to have their own blue trucks. Running around neighborhoods, so being able to control that data is easy for Amazon, very difficult for anybody else in today’s world. If, let’s say, you were in the fitness equipment business, and you wanted to blanket the country and have home delivery was set up.
It might require you to assemble a network of 30 some providers and I knew that everybody enjoyed that information on their orders and their deliveries and when it was coming. And so without a simple and easy way to provide that information to the buyer, I decided to set up 5 string solutions as a SAS platform so that shipping parties through a single integration point.
An API with us, we could take orders, we can normalize that data, parse it out to the right carrier, ship it out to them, telling them, oh, you’ve got a treadmill coming your way that you need to deliver to Brian Thomas. And then once you get that order, we need to pull back status updates because Brian wants to know where his treadmill is, when it’s going to be delivered, even down to a window.
And then we would like that from the carrier and push it back to that shipping party. And so it enabled large and bulky shippers to at least compete on an information level basis with Amazon. So that was the inspiration behind, behind 5String to make things simpler, easier with a better experience for those who didn’t have the scale of an Amazon.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And for you to have the vision to see that and see where there was a gap and create a solution for that problem was awesome. And I really appreciate your inspiration behind it and the hard work. We’re seeing the new big Amazon competitor right now is I think Temu, T E M U. And, uh, they’re just.
Blowing things up now as well. So a Chinese competitor, of course, but I appreciate that. Jim, your books, the unconventional thinking of dominant companies and stop the hassle emphasize customer value and strategic alignment. What key lessons from these books resonate most with today’s business leaders?
Jim Bramlett: And they don’t like to hear this business isn’t like this, but my message is, it’s not about you. It’s about them, your customers. And I went about researching why companies like Amazon, Bluepast, Walmart. Well, how did Netflix put Blockbuster out of business? And then how did Uber just decimate the cab industry?
And I found a common formula and it’s really all about paying attention and serving what Customers want what buyers want. And so my first book, the unconventional thing in dominant companies was really chronicling those three big companies. And I threw in a couple smaller companies that dominate their space.
And I believe they have a common formula. They pay attention to the customer. They understand what customers want. And that is they want convenience. They want to save time effort. They want simple. They want easy. They don’t want more complexity. They want competitive and transparent pricing. Buyers like to know in advance what they’re going to spend before they make a purchase.
They want a great user experience. They want to be treated like they’re the only customer, but Even though they might be thousands or millions of customers, and then they want to trust and sellers going to deliver to their expectation or to their brand promise. They want guarantees and returns and warranties and they want testimonials and they want to know how long you’ve been in business, et cetera.
And when you can hit all 4 of those. The buyer doesn’t have much of an excuse not to buy from you, so it’s not them, the buyer. And I love, I’m a big fan of Jeff Bezos. He understood, and his number one leadership principle was, we put the customer at the center of the universe, and we engineer everything backward to meet the needs of that customer.
And we obsess over those customers. Now in my book, stop The Hassle, I have a chapter on value proposition, and it’s amazing to me yet how many companies and leaders confuse value proposition with feature proposition. A feature proposition’s gonna say, well, we do this and we do that, and I do this and I do that, and I’m great.
Where a value proposition, it’s all about what the customers need. Customers and buyers are mildly interested in what it is you do. They’re all about what they need, what their problem is and how to solve that. And so you need to be able to convey that to the customer. So that’s the message I constantly give.
To leaders and companies, it’s all about the customer. It’s not about you.
Brian Thomas: I really like that. And really that message, it’s all about the customer. It’s not about you. There was a thread there through, through your whole answer about the customer being the focal point. You know, you talked about the value prop versus the feature prop.
You highlighted Jeff Bezos, which again, I. Certainly have a lot of respect for him, for what he’s done and his focus on the customer. So I appreciate your insights, Jim and Jim, the last question of the evening, looking ahead, what do you think will be the biggest opportunities and challenges for entrepreneurs and business leaders in the next decade?
And how can they prepare for them?
Jim Bramlett: Well, I think there’s going to be a lot of challenges. Uh, I’ve read that, you know, the birth rates are declining. Death rates are accelerating and in roughly 2038, those two lines are going to cross. So we’re still in this era of fairly low unemployment. The demand for qualified workers is going to stay steady.
And so the leader’s ability to attract and retain that up high quality worker is going to be top of mind. Now, at the same time, We have AI coming to be in focus and agentic AI is going to be able to take some jobs away and make companies much more efficient, especially jobs that are related to providing information.
Those are the ones where AI agents are going to have the most impact. So leaders are going to have to balance, okay, you know, how much human capital do I need? How much? You know, technology capital do I deploy and I caution, I caution everyone in a leadership position. Don’t overcook it. And by that, I mean, we consumers, we buyers still like a personalized experience.
I really don’t want to chat with a bot if I’ve got. A pretty tough question. I’ll talk to somebody who can answer my question and I get very frustrated with a box. I don’t really like packing myself out all the time. There’s times I do, but other times I don’t. And so I urge companies don’t. Over commit to technology that eliminates the personalization of the experience, but you also have to realize your competitors are going to be deploying technology, be it robots, be it AI agents to help them control costs and understanding that, you know, the workforce is declining in numbers.
So it’s going to be a balancing period.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. And, uh, I’ve seen a lot of data around that, actually. And, you know, not just Elon that’s highlighted some of that in some of his talks and interviews, but we’re seeing that over in China a bit now where they had the one, one baby rule, as you know, since, gosh, was it the, uh, Late 70s, early 80s.
And, uh, now they just relax that, but I can see certainly going to be a challenge at some point. And we’re going to really need to do something a little bit different. So again, appreciate your insights, Jim and Jim. It was such a pleasure to have you on today. And I look forward to speaking with you real soon, right?
Jim Bramlett: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it and wish you the best and glad you’re a neighbor.
Brian Thomas: Thank you very much.
Bye for now.
Jim Bramlett Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s Podcast Page.
