Gabriela Pulidio

Gabriel Flores  0:00  

Morning in progress. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the shades of entrepreneurship. This is your host, Mr. Gabriel Flores. Today I'm here with the founder of Scout tau. Gabriella, how are we doing?

Gabriela Pulidio  0:14  

So Gabrielle great, how are you? Good.

Gabriel Flores  0:17  

I'm excited. We were talking a little bit about the the company. Now, the reason I'm excited about this one in particular is it really focuses a lot on some Latino communities. In fact, you have a lot of Latino employees. We're talking a little bit about your background. But first, let's introduce go ahead and introduce the audience who is Gabriella, give them some background education career.

Gabriela Pulidio  0:39  

So I'm a serial entrepreneur, mother of four, I have a background in engineering, and I started my company. I started my first company in 2004, with branding agency, and was set off to build after management consulting and engineering background, I started off saying, okay, the brand is important is relevant. Now, we started developing like strong brands, and Venezuela, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and the US. And it came to a point where coming from developing and sourcing or trying to figure out what the value of the brand I came across. As soon as I migrated to the US, which is five years ago, fast forward, I decided that things are the brand can importantly play an important role in terms of leveraging growth companies. And I created Scotto just because I actually, I truly believe that you can solve for creative sort of scaling problems creatively with the branding and communication side. So yes, it's Hispanics from the essence and born and raised in Venezuela, but I studied in New York at Columbia, engineering. And then also, what we do is more on how to solve for problems in terms of scaling from companies, the US and Latin America. And going back and forth is also that's important aspect of it.

Gabriel Flores  2:07  

Nice. So you mentioned that you actually migrated here to the United States about five years ago. So let's kind of how has it? What are some difficulties as a migrant, trying to start your own business? Are there some, you know, red tape that you had a run through that you found that you had to go through that maybe some other folks might be aware of, or might be unaware?

Gabriela Pulidio  2:28  

So yeah, so my first company had already businesses in New York and Dubai, Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, which I exited, like, right before COVID hit, which is March 1, I exited my company, and then I started scalped on March 31 2000, I decided not to delay it, just because we didn't know what COVID was tape was going to do with it, the impact of it, but I said, I do have a clarity as to what my goal was my my vision was, in terms of how can companies scale and what it was it was different. Definitely Gabrielle it was different in terms of scaling companies on the normal side with scaling companies on on on restrictive, restrictive pattern, it was tough. So that that, for me was a key point of learning, understanding, listening, what was happening, other differences were in terms of market and who my ideal customer was, my dear client, there are different needs different targets different even if you speak Spanish, or Arabic, English, or just speaking from York, if you speak English from the UK, and there's different backgrounds, it's not the same, everybody speaks Spanish. So it's called differently and it's addressed differently, once more formal might either be more a bit more outgoing. When I came into the Miami, just as they we call this, like, the city of Latin or the capital of Latin America, we hear people speaking Spanish from all over the place is then I came here, like what is it? That's really the problem. So one of the key problems that they will come up to me is like companies from seconds, already second, third generation, trying to build it or bring it into the business. And this father came to me is like, I don't know how to get my son involved and getting into the business. And they don't want it. They want nothing to do with this. So I said, Okay, let's figure it out. And and why don't we devise a strategy? And what's the devices that Where are you heading? What do you want? What do you see this company going? And why don't we bring them in in terms of opportunities? And then what's your brand doing? The brand was outdated was this and that's like, why don't we put them and get them excited? So these millennials are these generations. The next generations were more on the purpose driven. Okay, why don't we get that into that narrative? And it got it excited. And it was for me it was an important aha moment where company and families are were struggling to stay on and to burrow farther from the second or third generation, just because people are not in or the kids were not interested, how can you change that. And then that's dry strike as this is an important angle. It was that it was a school that wanted to completely change the landscape of Duro and Florida, or even a wealth management firm that was integrated in flooring. So there are different instances where how can the brand actually push and move towards the next? They take people companies to the next level?

Gabriel Flores  5:43  

How does a company how does a company scale? What are some tactics that you kind of help companies use to one either determine if they're ready to scale? And then to scale it?

Gabriela Pulidio  5:56  

So we That's a great question. So we do actually scalability assessment at the beginning. And we what we look for is what's your vision? What's your net? Where are you think, Where do you think you're heading? And we provoke like different angles? Maybe this is not, this is just trying to go with the flow. Now why don't we challenge this? Well, how might you think differently, what's going on? So we provoke different ideas or aspects I'm bringing creativity in. And if you see the growth options differently, trying to push three steps ahead and start with having that tunnel vision tunnel, look laterally, what's happening. And the next was okay, from that strategy. What is your narrative? So in my business, what you don't communicate is not known. But if you communicate something wrong, it's also against you. So why don't we devise the right strategy, the right communication, the right concept? And from then see the branding? And what the brand is doing? And after use the device? Okay, this is a strategy, this is your narrative, then how is your experience your device? What's your customer journey? What are the touch points? Where are the pain points where they're struggling? So they want not like to be in a bank where they spend hours and the horses? They're in line? No, they want to do something differently. And those are the things that for a company or an entrepreneur or or a small, early stage startup, think about your strategy, think about what's your narrative? What's your story, put it in that he simply put it in and be recent and frequently and consistent in the execution and then devise your experience that you'd like. So that's in a nutshell, that's what we call our blueprint. Scouter blueprint. And in essence, that's, it can be simple, in a way. So the first one go about determining your Why. Why is it that you exist, and there's a great super admired Simon Sinek approach where you have your golden circle, define it, define it, where you're going, what do you think your unique, where do you think you're in? And you can say, like, why do you exist? How are you different than that? What you do, degenerate or you produce? And from then the branding side? I hesitated a bit in terms of the whole automated AI, logo generators, because your competition is also doing the same. Yep, sure. You need to figure out how are you unique? And if everybody's using those type of generators, how might you differentiate and not confuse your your consumer also? That those are the key things? I don't know. Gabrielle, if that answers your question,

Gabriel Flores  8:55  

oh, that perfect. In fact, one of the things you mentioned was, you know, differentiation, differentiating yourself from your customers. How did you because you're starting a business, you know, during the pandemic, how did you mark it and brand yourself to differentiate your company scelto and other what other other companies are doing?

Gabriela Pulidio  9:14  

So what we did is define a niche. The typical niche, the riches are in the niches where we did we are, we are attending or generating solutions for service based companies, b2b companies, small and mid sized ones and we're also doing specializing in fintechs and financial services just because Miami the whole Miami tech scene is really it's real. Yeah. So you see a lot of you see a lot of wealth management financial advisors and and one on a happening. So we we need to enter that and then it came to a point is listening, what was happening what was in their mind so in one essence was how can I get back to selling When we're coming out of COVID, or within that in the midst of COVID, how can I get my back? So how can I get back excited about that? So we're pulling the branding and the communication aspect for not only externally but also internally to the, to the their collaborators, their their team members, everybody that gets them excited. And that's what we did. And the other thing that worked out really well for us is that we productized our offer. So in a way, we started saying, Okay, this is our blueprint, this is our product, this is what we're doing, and this is what not doing. So we're not designing agency, we're consultancy that we're doing this and trying to figure out how to now or streamline what you do and systematize it as much as you can.

Gabriel Flores  10:52  

Nice, know what, what kind of motivates you what keeps you going, you mentioned you sold your old or you you decided to step away from the other business before the pandemic started this business, what continues to motivate you.

Gabriela Pulidio  11:04  

So I'm super curious, I like to learn, I like to see I like a challenge. I like to provoke when I saw myself working for my previous company, which I was happy about it generating the brands and generating everything. It's like, okay, you know, what, Gabby, this is the agency model, I think it's it's stepping is getting to a point where it needs to pivot. And it's to pivot to towards a do it yourself model as opposed to do everything for the client, and how might you shift? And how might I be successful at it, I found a great partner. And I have my partners, which I am super proud of they challenged me and they said, when I come up with ideas, I'm more like a visionary in terms of what I like what I think and the challenges. And this time around, I said, Okay, this is this is something that I want I want to pursue that make things happen differently. That's what I've been doing in terms of the typical consultancy approach is more or the consultants working and doing everything for the client and delivering it. I like to work with the client, or even though the client does work, and we we give feedback, or we actually help them grow. Like to learn like, super curious. And also, I'm impressed and things of an awe that that I see in the market. I see. Even what I've seen in Miami tech scene, I never thought that would be possible or feasible. And they say okay, is it real? It's like, yes, it's real. It's not only the Bitcoin and the NF T's and whatnot. It's, it's the environment that's happening here. That it's exciting. It's it's great to be in a thriving community. And coming from where I was coming, I was coming from Venezuela, which was, which is struggling and maybe politically in many different aspects. So here, I'm growing.

Gabriel Flores  13:07  

Yeah. And I gotta admit, you know, I actually read an article like two, three years ago, in the Wall Street Journal talking about how Miami is going to become the next Silicon Valley. And it's coming to fruition slowly, you know, they're probably not at the scale of silicon, certainly, but they're getting there. It seems like a lot of tech industries, a lot of a lot of great innovation is starting to come out of the Miami area. Now,

Gabriela Pulidio  13:30  

Roger Horowitz is moving is to Miami Beach, that we just heard of this morning. So that's that's an important thing.

Gabriel Flores  13:36  

Yeah, that's very true. Yep. Now what, as a business owner, what are some things that keep you up at night?

Gabriela Pulidio  13:46  

And that's a very good question. As a business owner, as an entrepreneur, myself, I went to through an exercise, which I thought was incredible. It's like, okay, what can I get myself fired out of? Because I was might might be doing maybe too micromanaging. Or maybe I was doing too much of spreading myself myself too thin, and not thinking about the long term and growing. So I told my partner said, You know what, I'm fired myself from this job, you are completely empowered and entitled and perfectly capable of doing it, we're ready and we set off so that he takes care of that side of the business. So what keeps me up at night, trying to stay honest with my capacity to grow and look for growth opportunities. The other thing is, is when when you draw the line when this is not interested in interesting for me, or maybe this is too cumbersome. It's like try to figure out who is the right person for the job that you don't, you're not excited about you're not passionate about but it needs to happen to the then your business. So that's also getting the right talent, for me is something that I do pay particular attention.

Gabriel Flores  15:10  

You know, you you've actually your team in particular currently worked with a lot of clients, I was looking on your website, you've worked with a lot of teams already. How do you continue to get new clients? Especially, you know, like you mentioned start in the pandemic era. How did you continue to grow? How do you continue to scale?

Gabriela Pulidio  15:29  

So the basic aspect is that we have a roster of and you asked at the beginning, how is it different South America or Venezuela from Miami, and just I didn't go, I didn't need to go to sell in Venezuela, because that was like the number one and number two in the market. So here come here is like, Okay, how do you get that ball rolling? And, and get the ball rolling between your clients, your current clients, it's the number one, it's everybody says it, it's it's true, go further, your current clients go through your past clients. And that's what we did. We also did some lead generation with LinkedIn, which is our figure out where it where's your connected connecting platform, and for us, this was LinkedIn, for others is Facebook, for others as Instagram, even this NFT platform, it's that we're doing the business there more in this quarter Twitter. So I what I actually got my, my strategy, got my messaging, and then I got to the right channels. And that's what I did, I did a campaign. And I'm also part of a digital mastermind group, a group of business owners just like me. And we're also constantly feeding new ideas and new things that have the works also. And within that group, one of the things aspects that was a highlight, for me was the EOS system, I don't know if you're aware of it, the enterprise operating system. And for me, it's just like a big, it was a big, I know how balanced scorecard I have done business process redesign, I've done all these other business strategy or business management protocols. But this one was simple. This one was just for us. And we try to manage our business for that. So then keep it clear as to where you want to go get the systems, right, and then measure them. So that's what EOS is working for us.

Gabriel Flores  17:32  

So let's, for the listeners at home, can you give them a little background? What is EOS?

Gabriela Pulidio  17:37  

So EOS is for is a is an operating system like massive Mac has an operating system within. So it's how you should manage your business to cover most the most bases of it. So you're clever, and you have clarity as to where you're heading. How are you doing? And how are you managing, so it's more, and I'm not an EOS implementer, I just implemented in my company a year and a half ago, which is great. Because you have your vision, you have the people that it says have the the right people in the right seats, which is great, and have accountability charts, and then have what you have your processes, have your resources aligned to it and then have the data that you can cover and you can figure out where you're doing. And it has a structure where it has a rhythm, where you set what the issues are. But then you solve for those issues. It's not a long long list of to do, which I dread is something that it's actually you see traction, you see things moving, and you can have your dashboard have everything done. You can have super simple get the book, it's called Traction and read it from from the EOS team. But that's in however you want to manage your business you need to have it needs to be run, you need to know the numbers. So those numbers need to be clear and needs to be on the top of your head if you're the business owner and you're at this intrapreneur I come like for instance I do a lot of mentorship for endeavor. Enterprises endeavor companies, which their early stage startups and what I advise them to and more on the marketing on the branding side of it. So what is your strategy? What is your essence and from then everything should follow.

Gabriel Flores  19:36  

Now, what are you you mentioned you've worked in a lot of clients before you you very experienced you've been doing this in multiple countries. Now, what are some common mistakes you have seen entrepreneurs or business leaders, owners founders? What are some of the common mistakes they have made with trying to scale their business to quickly?

Gabriela Pulidio  19:59  

The OS is over, over promise, or under promise both. And equally impactful and over promise is that you promised something and you can't fulfill. So your operation is not working towards it. So your client, your consumer, your client is not happy with what you're producing. So that that's one of the things that works and starts with your fulfillment with your operations. And what it is that you can generate. And from them, you you have, once you have your clarity is where you're heading, and you start your business. And then you say, Okay, it's this is not working, and you can't scale what's what's what's broken. So you have to figure out where the where the bottlenecks are, where the where the things are broken, and figure out the in terms of fulfillment, how you can streamline that customer journey. So thinking about the process where you're taking your client, throughout your point of contact, what is happening, and the issues that I think is more relevant is people or companies over promising and then the experience of your clients, this is like, upsetting. And when you have an upsetting client or upset client, you have negative reviews, you have all this boils down to your reputation and your hurts.

Gabriel Flores  21:25  

So like, what if a client now let's let's kind of flip it, the client has gone through the processes, they've determined that they are able to scale, what all goes into a growth strategy.

Gabriela Pulidio  21:38  

What all goes and has, once you're ready, and you have your systems and your you, you are consistently thinking and executing towards what you and reviewing what you've done, you're gonna think okay, my are my growth options are my growth opportunities that I'm pursuing are those the ones that are helping me pivot, or help me scale. And that's where you see the big moment where you have been consistent for some time, it might be three months, it might be three years, whatever it is in your line of business, but the consistency plays a heavy role in terms of the customer wants to, they want to know what to expect they want they want to be you're sure they want to be satisfied with what you're producing. Once you have that, that is like a snowball effect and goes upward. I don't like snowball, I'd like more on this S curve that can take you upper work.

Gabriel Flores  22:42  

Now one of the things your organization does I noticed online, is you work with your you know, external clients, and you go through these kinds of processes, you help them with their growth strategy, you help with branding. And then you get to the activation piece. Can you kind of explain a little bit? What what does it take to get to that spot? And where do you what does that look like.

Gabriela Pulidio  23:04  

So once you have your narrative, you have your content pillars you have what your you're communicating, and how is your experience, we activate what we call the marketing engine. So you have now your core. And then you want to activate that. And that marketing engine needs to work seamlessly. And either if you're activating email campaigns, you're activating social media, you're activating podcast outreach, you're activating different elements of the engine that you have, you need to be consistent. So you need to have the content, pillars, and then your calendar what you're doing and, and the trick is and being consistent. And like I said before, being frequently in the mind of your consumer and recently, so whenever they're going to figure out they need you, they're going to call you because you're there they know your your awareness is up and consistent with what you want to become. So what I do, like about our processes that we generate the corporate they also go hand in hand with our clients going for the marketing engine, activating it for for a year or for nine months so that they can have that working in terms of it gets to a point where I hate it when you deliver this like great a great deck or a great files and beautiful files and then they are all in the shell their bookshelf, and I hit it, I hit it. It's like no, no, this needs to be activeness to work. And that's what I do with our our team. So currently we have a team working for the marketing engines, which is a different profile than the team working with the core projects for our clients.

Gabriel Flores  24:57  

Nice. Now what advice would you have for some of the listeners at home that are thinking of maybe it's just entrepreneur starting a business? Or maybe the thinking of scaling their business. What What advice would you have for an inspiring entrepreneur?

Gabriela Pulidio  25:12  

For inspired? Is this is this actually what you really love? This is what actually what you have that question be true to yourself. Because being an entrepreneur, everybody has this romantic idea that you have your own your time and you do this. It's hard work. And you need to love it, you need to understand that it is a major move change and it comes with some flows, it comes with the challenges. And for my advice is like think through what it is that you want to become think through what what do you feel passionate about? And once you're there, start getting the vision or the or the your ambition, super clear, write it and go, in essence, go go and, and why is it and why and why that exercises? Take some time to do that first. Maybe I've seen many entrepreneurs come to me as like, they have like the back of an envelope, I have this app, I want to create this and okay, what are you solving for? What what is it that you're? What is it that you're changing? What is it that you make want to make better? And having that discussion and the questions that you have? Like what keeps you up at night? Yeah, yeah. So before, like that is that is when you when you see the spark and the person's eyes, it's like, okay, there you have it. And be true to that. And you're gonna first See, you're gonna see many challenges, you're gonna see inflation, you're gonna see recession, you're gonna see different aspects of different realities in life. But I, if you truly believe what you want to generate, I think it can be done.

Gabriel Flores  27:05  

Yes. You know, one thing you mentioned earlier was the riches are the niches, you know, find a problem. Even if it's a problem that you think it's a niche problem to you. There's a likelihood if you have enough people that are like you, that you can scale that into a business. So identify some problems, even if it's a niche problem. Now, Gabriella, how do folks find you how they find more information about the business if clients might be interested? Where can they find you on the internet?

Gabriela Pulidio  27:34  

So I would love for them to call they can actually go at sculptor or website scalto.com. There is a whatsapp channel there is emails or contacts, and however we can address and we can help them. We love to do that. And we like different channel challenges. So it's not the typical where we have challengers from companies coming from South America to the US from the west coast to the Hispanics market, from Germany and to Miami, or even within Miami, so even within us so it's not it's something that we like to do. It's something that we we think you're and we absolutely are passionate about is getting into your why and executed seamlessly.

Gabriel Flores  28:29  

Nice. Gabriella Pulido, then I get their brand say yes, five. Perfect, perfect. All right. So he is the founder of scout. Oh, thank you so much for joining me today. For those listening at home. Please follow me on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and you can sign up for the newsletter. Thank you again and have a great night.