Growing a Tech-Centric, Hybrid Workforce with James Neely, SVP of KUDUCOM™

Announcer: Coming to you from the Sunshine State, this is Create Brand NV, a podcast dedicated to entrepreneurs and business owners, discussing business, marketing, leadership, and best practices in this ever-changing business landscape. Every week, we'll introduce you to a different business leader who has taken their company to new heights, despite the odds. Learn, engage, and thrive. This is Create Brand NV. And now your host, President and CEO of Brand NV, Nicole Alicea.

Nicole Alicea: Today's guest is James Neely, SVP of KUDUCOM™, a Tampa-based communication solutions provider with over 25 years of B2B experience. KUDUCOM™ provides business voice, internet, and WebEx by Cisco services. Prior to this, James was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Resident Interface for almost 19 years, where he built, managed, and oversaw a team of up to 60 people, some of whom were on-site, hybrid, and remote.

Today, James Neely and I will discuss best practices for adapting, scaling, and successfully growing your company in a tech-centric environment with a remote and hybrid workforce. We’ll cover all the emotional and technical considerations that come with it. Now, on to today's interview.

Nicole Alicea: Thank you so much, James, for being here with me today. It's such an honor.

James Neely: Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. It's nice to be able to sit down and talk about something that's not only impacted me significantly personally but is also central to what my business works on every day.

Nicole Alicea: I believe the pandemic popularized the concept of working remotely. I know because I turned my company remote many years before the pandemic, and it was the internet and all the available technology that made remote work possible. To me, it was always a given. I guess you could say I was ahead of my time in that sense. When I spoke to other businesses and business owners about how they felt about remote work, I often heard a lot of emotional concerns. They had emotional hiccups with letting people work remotely.

But once the pandemic forced us to work in that capacity, I think the general culture changed a bit. People started to accept that remote work can function and isn't as scary as they thought. However, there are still many things that change in the remote environment, and I think that's what we're going to dig into today.

James Neely: I think the pandemic did one significant thing. In my prior employment, we had already looked into remote work. We had about a dozen people working remotely, so we had our toe in the water, trying it out. It had its successes and failures. But the pandemic forced us to jump in completely. Overnight, everyone was working from home to survive. At the time, we expected production and outcomes to decrease, so we factored that into our budget, anticipating a 20 to 30 percent drop. Ironically, the opposite happened. Some workers were more productive at home, producing 130 to 140 percent of what they were doing on-site. Of course, some struggled with distractions, but overall, we were more productive in that work-from-home environment.

The pandemic was different because everyone was working from home, so there were things more acceptable from clients, customers, and peers that may not be as acceptable today. It forced us to take a hard look at ourselves and question whether our resistance to remote work was due to internal bias or actual reality because reality was telling us something very different.

Nicole Alicea: I like that. It's funny how you said internal bias, and I call it emotional issues. I think it's the same thing, just different terms. Can you define the difference between a remote worker, a hybrid worker, and an in-office worker so we're all on the same page?

James Neely: Sure. An in-office worker is someone who works in a traditional office setting, which we were used to before the pandemic. Remote workers operate outside the traditional office setting, which can take many forms. A hybrid worker is a mix between the two—sometimes working one day out of the office, sometimes four days. For example, my son works remotely in Tallahassee for an organization based in San Diego. He's technically hybrid because he spends two weeks a year out of the office, but overall, he works remotely most of the time.

Nicole Alicea: I heard my brother just got a job with a company in Seattle, and he's working from home here in Tampa, Florida. I think that's the new reality moving forward for many companies. For a business owner listening who has been toying with this idea for a while, what would be your best practices from both a technical perspective and the emotional or bias aspect of organizing your team and making that transition? If you've always been in-office, how does that transition take place, and what does it mean for the technology of your company? You now have all this commercial space that you’re not fully utilizing, and there are security concerns. Are you sending employees home with their own laptops? Do you reimburse them for Wi-Fi? Do you set up a VPN? How does the office change, both physically and virtually, when you send some or all of your workforce to be remote?

James Neely: That's a great question, and it has a lengthy answer with many layers. I think the best place to start is that remote and hybrid work is here, whether we like it or not as business owners. You don’t get to choose that anymore. About a year ago, I was on a panel where we discussed recruiting top talent. You’re no longer looking for talent just in the Tampa Bay area. Now, I can recruit talent from California, New York, or anywhere. Conversely, when hiring, I'm competing with employers nationwide. A talented salesperson down the street might also consider jobs in New York or Seattle. So, I have to be competitive, and hybrid or remote work is now part of that recruiting process. It's a filter that top talent uses in their search for their next employer. As owners, recruiters, and hiring managers, we have to account for that. Whether we like it or not, it's part of every day of recruiting and managing top talent.

Recruiting and working with remote or hybrid employees brings its own challenges and benefits. One challenge I’ve experienced, especially during the pandemic, is the difficulty of learning through mentoring and observation in a remote or hybrid environment. Sitting beside someone and watching them work is different when you're doing it over video. You don’t get to see all the nuances and distractions. In a hybrid environment, coordinating the schedules of those two individuals to be in the office at the same time for mentoring can be challenging. Another challenge is finding motivation when you're sitting alone in a room. Some people thrive in that environment with no distractions, but others, like myself, can get lost in their own thoughts. Forcing collaboration in a remote environment can be difficult.

Socializing outside of work content is another challenge. In an office setting, the first 10 minutes before a meeting and the 15 minutes after are often spent socializing and building rapport. This interaction is crucial for team dynamics but is harder to replicate remotely. You have to deliberately create opportunities for social interaction. And finally, everything needs to be deliberate. Things that happened naturally in the office, like socialization, now need to be planned and included in the remote workday.

However, remote and hybrid work also offer significant benefits. Work-life balance is one of the most notable. During the pandemic, many employees found they had more time with their families—sometimes an additional three or four hours a day. When we returned to normal work routines, they didn't want to give that up. Remote work allows employees to maintain that balance, and it's hard to ask them to give it up once they’ve experienced it. Time is a limited resource, and asking an employee to sacrifice it is difficult.

Remote work also minimizes distractions. When two people work together over video, they can focus more on the task at hand without the interruptions that often happen in an office. I encourage using video in remote meetings because so much can be lost in body language and tone if you only communicate with words. Sharing video helps maintain focus and minimizes distractions.

Another significant advantage of remote and hybrid work is the flexibility it offers. For example, if an employee needs to meet an AC repair person at home, they don't have to take hours off work. They can step away for 15 minutes and then return to their tasks. Similarly, if they need to pick up their kids from school, they can do so without losing an entire afternoon of work. This flexibility has helped me retain top talent on my team, allowing them to balance personal responsibilities while still being productive.

That was a long-winded answer, but it’s a complex topic with many layers.

Nicole Alicea: Absolutely, there are so many layers to this. It's funny because, as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking of so many points I could discuss, but I'll start with the first one that comes to mind. I agree that there’s a loss of all those intangible things that people learn from observing others, from casual conversations, and from asking for advice spontaneously. These things don’t happen as naturally or organically in a remote setting.

You mentioned the chit-chat before meetings. I've had my team running remotely well before the pandemic. I don't even remember the exact year—maybe it was around 2015 or 2016 when we went fully remote. It’s been a long time. I remember realizing that we were going to have to create opportunities for informal conversations intentionally. We had to make it happen on purpose.

Back in the day, anyone who knew me would tell you I was very much straight to business with no small talk. I used to get so irritated when someone would come to my cubicle and start chatting because I was busy, focused on work. One of the benefits I found when we went remote was that I had zero distractions. I could focus and get a lot more done.

When it came to collaborating with clients or team members, being able to share my screen remotely was great. It eliminated the awkwardness of sitting next to each other or projecting something onto the wall. There’s something beautifully efficient about saying, “Let me just share my screen and show you.” With all the technology available now, like recording a quick Loom video to explain something, remote work offers so many opportunities.

One of the things we've implemented on our team is a monthly social meeting. We pre-order Panera, sending coffee and a treat to everyone’s home, and then we get together at 10 o'clock for our meeting. We spend time just talking about personal stuff. I, as the leader, might give a quick update on how we’re doing, highlight someone’s achievements, or refocus the team on something important. It’s like our version of a happy hour, where we create those opportunities for socialization and connection among team members.

James Neely: Yes, you do. That’s something we learned a lot about during the pandemic. One skill I developed and honed was creating icebreakers. In every meeting I had with my employees, I would always start with an icebreaker. It gets everyone engaged and involved right from the start. At this point, I think I’ve done every icebreaker in existence over the past four years.

Nicole Alicea: What are your top three favorite icebreakers?

James Neely: Oh, wow. You’re hitting me with the tough questions today! Let me think... Today, I asked, “What personal skill are you currently working on developing, and how are you working on it?” I’ve also asked, “What’s your favorite show right now?” and “What’s your next vacation? Where are you going, and how are you preparing for it?” Those are three go-to icebreakers, but I think I have a list of about a thousand by now.

Nicole Alicea: Those are topics everyone loves talking about! Speaking of connections, I remember you got connected to KUDUCOM™ through Jim Sandler, who was one of our guests in a previous episode.

James Neely: Yes, Jim Marshall introduced me to KUDUCOM™ initially, when it was called PBX Exchange at the time. It wasn’t even introduced as a job opportunity. Jim knew I was managing a call center—not directly, but the sales and marketing side—and thought PBX Exchange might be a good vendor for us. I got to know the founders, Martine, Muli, and Ryan Yaldor. It’s a family-owned local business, originally from South Africa, but they’ve been in the U.S. for over 30 years and in business for more than 25 years. He knew we were looking for contact center software and he had recently put a bid out, so he made that introduction for me. I just got along so well with the family and I was really drawn to the culture. Honestly, how good of people they were.

They were looking for an executive to help scale their business and grow it to a level where the founders could eventually retire. After eight months of conversations and building a friendship, they decided to bring me on board as a partner. It’s been a great journey since then, over two years now.

Nicole Alicea: That’s awesome! You guys started out as PBX-Change?

James Neely: Yes, initially, over 25 years ago, they started by repairing office equipment. Soon after, they became Tampa Bay DSL, one of the first business DSL providers—back in the day when DSL was faster than dial-up. They served many businesses in Tampa Bay for years. As DSL became outdated, they transitioned into providing phone services about 20 years ago. Around seven or eight years ago, one of our clients had issues with their internet service, which was affecting their phones. Our CTO, Ryan Yaldor, the brains of the operation on the technical side, set out to solve that problem. He invested in wireless speed internet technology called millimeter wave, offering up to 10-gig speed. He learned how to deliver that, purchased it for the client, and eventually, we acquired a full fiber ring around Tampa Bay and St. Pete, and a primary provider in Dade City. Today, we’re one of the primary fiber providers in the area, with over 100 business clients.

Nicole Alicea: Jorge, who’s here in the studio, explained something fascinating to me about the fiber lines being buried many years ago. When you said you purchased those lines, is that what he was talking about?

James Neely: Yes, fiber itself in the ground is optic cable and is lit up by the devices on each end. Purchasing the fiber itself doesn’t do anything. We take the signal that goes across that fiber and connect it to the internet, Amazon Web Services, and other streaming services that people use today. We’re part of the same fiber ring as the top dozen providers in the area, but we connect off of it. While many providers are in the same conduit—the piping that carries the fiber around the city—we offer a unique service to our clients. We purchase that ring and it’s been great since. We have a pretty large footprint today and able to provide it in a manner that clients might not be used to. The way I describe it, when someone has fiber…a 75 mph speed limit on the highway is 75 mph no matter what, but some highways are full of cars and some are not. We have 100 clients spanning that highway, so when we’re delivering 10-gig wireless internet, we deliver it thinking that’s what they have, where others may not be able to. It’s been a fun journey.

Nicole Alicea: I’m going to ask a heavy-handed question: How does the internet work?

James Neely: Can I phone a friend? We have a data center where all our fiber goes into, and that data center has another cable that connects out. Where that cable connects to the internet, you have other providers, like Spectrum and Frontier, connected to the same spot. There are a lot of other providers that connect to the internet through the same cables that we do. But we take all of that data around Tampa, St Pete, and Pasco, and we pipe it into that cable to connect out to the internet.

Nicole Alicea: So you have more bandwidth because you have less traffic, is that correct?

James Neely: Yes, that’s right. We have the same bandwidth, but less traffic on it. We don’t sell directly to residences, except for some multi-dwelling unit properties and low-income housing with the Tampa Housing Authority. We provide fiber to these clients at a very low cost, but we don’t deal with millions of customers—only about 2,000. This allows us to offer a more consistent service to our customers.

Nicole Alicea: So your ideal client is a business owner, a developer?

James Neely: So our ideal client, I'll say, on the internet side, is any customer where the speed and reliability of their connection is extremely important. If you're running an office of five people and if your internet goes down for a couple of hours, it's not really a big deal. I probably would not use my service. But if you're running an office with 20 seats, and if your internet goes down for a couple of hours, you could almost, to the penny, tell how much that's going to cost your business. We are a good provider to use because we provide what's called "four nines." Though Ryan and I argue a little bit, he's willing to do five nines, but four nines means we're up 99.99% of the time. That equates to less than one hour of downtime per year.

Nicole Alicea: Circling back to the remote worker topic, since we've covered this technical aspect of remote work as possible because of the internet, and you guys are an internet service provider with experience managing remote teams successfully, what does that mean for a business owner or leader who needs to make this transition? What are some of those technical considerations?

James Neely: Technical considerations. We're an internet service provider, but we're also a phone service provider. We’re a Cisco house, and one of the tools we have is Cisco WebEx, which is phone services over the internet, voice over IP. We're not the only provider—there are a lot of phenomenal providers out there. I promise I won't use this as a pitch for why you should use Cisco WebEx, but having a tool that provides voice services over the internet is really important. Communication is key. As a business owner transitioning to a hybrid or remote workforce, you don't want other employees or customers treating Johnny differently, whether he's working in the office or from home. You want seamless coverage for that seat, no matter where that person is working. To the customer or another employee of the company, it should all be the same—they should never notice a difference. Technology today has advanced to the point where it even reduces background noise. I joke with my team that when the landscaper comes by with the blower and mower, it's so loud in my office, but no one on the phone can hear any of that because of the noise reduction. That background noise reduction is amazing with many different software options, making it truly seamless for the customer if you've created that environment for your employee.

The other thing, and I know I mentioned this before, is I always encourage video for all meetings. Communication really comes down to body language, tone, and the word, the text. If we eliminate body language, which is about 55% of all communication, we're losing a lot of how we interact as people. So one of those tools I find super important is having that video, especially in one-on-one connections. I can't tell you how many times I've had a one-on-one meeting with a direct report remotely over video and picked up on a subtle body language nuance that caused me to ask, "Hey, I know we have this going on, but are you okay? Is everything all right?" That often leads to a two-hour discussion on something that was extremely distracting to them, something I could only pick up because I had that video connection. It's something we take for granted when we're sitting in an office right beside someone, right? We pick up on it instantly. But when we're working remotely and trying to gauge that from tone of voice or chosen words, it's very hard to do. So video is an important tool not just for meetings with clients but for everyday interactions with employees. Keep those videos on, keep looking at each other, and communicate not just with words but also with body language.

As a business owner, we're driving outcomes. Most of us are here to achieve revenue goals so we can keep growing our business and hopefully hire and generate more income for more individuals. But it's harder to keep tabs on that with people working remotely. So as a business owner, I have to be cognizant and aware of the behaviors and outcomes I expect from each employee. I need to ensure that if I've defined those business outcomes, those behaviors, and those levers, I'm tracking them. Do I have visibility? Is that data being pushed to me? Reports are useless if you're not using them. If a report is being pushed to me, am I looking at it? If I'm looking at the report and see something, am I taking action on it? These are things you have to consider even more when working with people remotely. I talked to Jorge on the way here today, and he mentioned that when someone's working in their home office and they're on a video meeting with a client, you don't get a chance to see what they're wearing. It's a big deal—it's our personal presence, right? In the office, you see what they're wearing because they walked in the door. So being aware of those things and utilizing all these tools as a business leader allows you to work seamlessly. I know I've used this word before and I'm probably overusing it, but you have to be deliberate. You have to check on a regular basis, look at those outcomes, those behaviors, pay attention to those reports, and connect visually with your employees at least once a day to make sure they know you're there. Something we take for granted in the office because it happens naturally, we have to take deliberate actions when working with people remotely. There are probably many other things I could talk about relative to technology, but those are some of the biggest that come to mind.

Nicole Alicea: When you review a report and realize that someone’s falling short, how do you call it to their attention in a remote environment? Anything different you would do than in person?

James Neely: It’s funny you say that because working with remote and hybrid teams has caused me to re-examine all of that and how I look at it today. Now that they've made those changes, they apply to in-office teams as well, sometimes even more so. As a leader, when I'm looking at metrics or KPIs for the organization, one of the things that's important to me is if I'm looking at it, I need to make sure the employee can see it easier than I can. Any metric that's important to me, I want to ensure they have visibility to it on a regular basis. They shouldn't be learning about falling behind on A or exceeding on B from me—they should see it the moment they log into their desktop every day. That’s something I've put a lot of energy into.

Nicole Alicea: Like a dashboard?

James Neely: Like a dashboard. There's a lot of wonderful software out there that does that.

Nicole Alicea: Can you recommend a couple?

James Neely: Sure. For me, back to Cisco WebEx, we do a lot of contact center work. We have many contact center clients doing high volumes of inbound and outbound calls to customers. We put a lot of analytics around that to push data to the individual. It will show, for example, if you had any missed calls today and whether you returned those calls before your shift ended. That’s a pretty big metric, especially since everyone wants what they want when they want it. When a customer calls your business, they need something, and they don't want to hear from you tomorrow or the next day—they want to hear from you right now. Having a metric that shows a missed call and allows the agent to quickly get back to the customer is a key feature on our dashboards. We also track how much time our agents are in an available status—whether they are ready to receive calls or are speaking to customers. A lot of these metrics are specific to contact centers and call center environments, which is a significant part of our phone services clientele. We try to create and display these metrics to agents in real-time so they can see where they stand. We also display them to supervisors in real-time so they can address any agents who might not be meeting expectations. That’s an example I would give.

Nicole Alicea: Is this a service that you guys offer?

James Neely: It is. WebEx not only has voice services, but they also have call center and contact center solutions. We build full-size dashboards for the contact centers that give visibility to all the supervisors and what their agents are doing. It can get down to the micromanagement level, but it's not really about micromanagement. It's about paying attention to those levers, those behaviors that you know are revenue impacting.

Nicole Alicea: For these contact centers, I'm imagining you're calling it contact centers, but I'm thinking call centers. Is it the same thing?

James Neely: Yeah, I think that as an industry, we're trying to get away from the term "call" because contact center is more than phone. In our contact center that we provide today—there are many wonderful contact centers, but I’m biased to WebEx—contact center is about phone, text, email, web chat, and the term we probably overuse today, "Omni-Channel." So it's more than just calling in and getting help. It's about taking all of those channels and funneling them to people who can answer those questions for the customers and getting back to those customers in a somewhat instantaneous form.

Nicole Alicea: I can think of a million clients that would love to have that. I think that's one of the many challenges I've seen in some of the clients and the businesses we work with. Even when we do their websites, right? We're like, "Oh, yeah, we can do a pop-up chat feature." But then it’s like, "Yeah, but there really isn’t anybody in the office we could make responsible for responding." So these are call centers. These are your clients, right? Or are you talking about your own? It sounds like you have your own contact center, and then you're also talking about clients that are contact centers. Correct? Am I confused?

James Neely: No, you're not confused at all. We utilize our own product because why would we sell it if we don't utilize it? So we use the contact center as well, but many of the contact centers are our clients. One example is we work with Hillsborough County property appraisers. We're their voice provider. They use the WebEx contact center solution. I know they've appreciated that because they've been able to get back to their voters quickly when someone needs help with any appraisal-type questions. I actually called into the service myself recently because I did not know that if I buy a new home, I can move my homestead exemption over to the new home and carry some of that tax liability over too. So I'm learning a lot from my customers as well. They use that contact center solution for Omni-Channel, and I know they're excited to deploy things like web chat so they can reach more people who have those questions.

Nicole Alicea: How does that work? It sounds like this is a product that you sell, though it's called WebEx Contact Center. So let's pretend I buy it for my agency. Pretend my agency is the right size for you. Sounds great.

Nicole Alicea: So I purchase it. And then who answers the calls? Does it have to be from my team?

James Neely: So we create what's called a call flow with you, and we'll work with you to work out the details of that. Some organizations have internal people that handle it. So what would happen in that scenario? Let's say someone goes onto the web and has a question. They click open the web chat and say, "What are you interested in?" and you type, "I want to know more about marketing." The web chat might have a bot that responds, "What do you mean about marketing? Which of these areas?" You respond with, "I want to know more about video advertising." Right there, the call flow will connect them with an agent. So that chat would pop up to an agent that you've set as a specialist in video advertising.

Nicole Alicea: But that specialist is an employee of my company?

James Neely: It would be an employee of your company, but I'll get to that in a moment. Your employee will interact back and forth with that customer, and that interaction will be saved in that customer journey. So if that customer calls tomorrow, that interaction would also be in that customer journey. The interaction with that individual who inquired about your services—voice, text, email, web chat—will be saved in one interface, so you can see all interactions with that customer.

Nicole Alicea: So is this kind of like a CRM?

James Neely: Not really a CRM, but it’s integrated with many different CRMs, yes.

Nicole Alicea: So it just keeps a history of all interactions and all client contact?

James Neely: Yeah, it does. And to your earlier question, does your team have to handle it? Not necessarily. Some of our call flows for clients forward the number to a different location after hours. So they have an after-hours service that will take and field those calls as well. With the majority of our clients, it's a mix of internal staff, external staff, and call centers that might handle some of their after-hours operations.

Nicole Alicea: And that after-hours service, is that offered by you or is that a third party?

James Neely: It's a third party, but like all things, I have individuals that I've worked with. We like to be a one-stop shop for our clients, so we usually recommend a couple of people that other clients have used successfully.

Nicole Alicea: We kind of got off topic. But circling back, I think I'd asked you about the technical considerations. I think I even opened by pointing out, what does that mean? Do you use a VPN? From a technical aspect, let's pretend I have my brick-and-mortar agency, and all of my team members and I decide to get rid of the office or downsize and make it hybrid so people can rotate and sit in shared cubicles. When I send people home, do I tell them, "Oh, and by the way, here’s your laptop" or "Take your company laptop with you"? Do I buy it? What other software and considerations should I factor in for the people I'm sending home?

James Neely: There are a lot of layers to that question. I'll try to handle them individually. The first one is, what is the employer responsible for purchasing? At a bare minimum, we all agree that the computer equipment you use in your home office should be purchased by the employer because it’s business equipment, and you want to ensure that business data is handled on that device. But beyond that, I think it depends on the company and the culture you have. I have customers who pay for their employees' internet because then they can guarantee a certain quality of internet in the home. I have clients who buy desks and chairs. But there has to be a line you draw because how expensive do you allow them to buy the chair, or if they want a special desk or a special color? So I think individually, with each company, you have to decide where you're willing to draw that line and what you're willing to do. But that’s just the equipment.

Nicole Alicea: Just real quick before you continue, I have a client that sells office furniture. In the contact center category, they shared that some contact centers have employees leave their phones and personal belongings in a locker when they arrive because the data being exchanged is so sensitive. They don’t want employees to be able to access that data. When it comes to data sensitivity, are there any considerations when you're sending an employee home?

James Neely: There are, and there’s a reason some jobs can't go home. I was employed by a call center on the sales and marketing side for many years, and we had a no-cell-phone policy on the floor because we had social security numbers, credit card numbers, and other sensitive information. Even the smallest breach can have a wide impact. We want to lock that down as much as we can. We can’t lock all that down for all roles within the home. I can lock down what you can see on your computer when you're working remotely, but I can't lock down who is now viewing that information in the home. I don’t know who else is looking at your screen. A lot of information today, when stored in systems and CRMs, like social security numbers and credit card numbers, isn’t even shown visually to the agent anymore. Much of that information is encrypted in a database and saved at the time of usage, and never saved unencrypted anywhere else. So visually, there is no access to a lot of that personally identifying or private information. But as organizations, we have to be aware of what data will be shared when someone is working from home and decide if this can be a work-at-home position.

Another consideration you brought up is what else should the owner consider when moving their team remotely. Internet access is a big deal. In a work environment, we use the term DIA, dedicated internet access. I use the term "four nines" or "five nines" for reliability. None of that applies to residential internet. When someone is working from home, they can get a DIA connection, but I don’t think many people want to pay $1,000 a month for their internet at home, and it might not even be available to a residence. We have to take into account that the work-at-home individual will have downtime. So you have to plan for what they do when they’re down. Do they have additional work they can do? Is there a point when they need to get in the car and come into the office?

James Neely: Have you identified other areas, co-op spaces that they could work from if they're down for an extended period of time? I think those are all things that you need to consider when you're working from home. Internet is our lifeblood today—being able to connect to our cloud-based CRM, being able to connect to our phone system. So when our internet goes down at home, it could be very, very dangerous to our business.

Nicole Alicea: Right now, the studio that we're recording in is called Cres Community, and it's in my neighborhood. I'm a member here. I rarely come here, except if I'm recording a podcast, or if my internet went down. Or, sorry, a third reason—if my husband is on one of his off days or when he was working from home at his previous job. I love my husband, but talk about distractions. He'll come up and talk to me about stuff, and I'm like, "I am actually working." So I just pack up and come over. But yes, having a backup place, like a remote work environment or a co-working space that they can go to as a backup, is certainly important.

James Neely: It's a great example. I think that's something most employers don't think about, but to me, it's extremely important in any plan when someone's working remote.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah. And you're talking about the extreme case of it going down. I deal more frequently with it just being slow. Sometimes I try to upload files, and it says it's going to be 19 hours to upload, and I'm like, "But why?" I have no idea. It's pretty random. It’s just, you know, like you said with the traffic analogy, which I'm sure is exactly what it is. It’s just a peak time or something, and then other times I upload, and it goes up in like three seconds.

James Neely: Yeah, and that's the real concern when someone's working with residential internet—that it will impact the business. But if you have a good plan, like you do with having a local co-op that you can go to with a dedicated connection, you're safeguarding yourself from that internet being down or slow, impacting your business. It’s important. A lot of the information we utilize today is in the cloud—CRMs in the cloud, voice services I offer are in the cloud, our contact centers are in the cloud. So if you don't have access to the internet, you don't have access to the tools to do your job.

Nicole Alicea: This is a bit of a loaded question because it has many variables, but would you say it's more or less expensive to have employees at home versus in the office?

James Neely: I think it can be a little bit of both, right? On the more expensive side, having someone in the office means you have to have full-time space for them. You have to pay for electricity and all the utilities for them in the office. At home, you also need almost real-time tech support for them. So I think at home, there are additional considerations that you might not have in the office. Full remote positions are something I don't deal with often. I think most people are hybrid, but hybrid creates its own challenges because you have expenses from both ends. When they're in the office, I have to have a place for them to work, and when they're remote, I have to support them in building up their home office space. I also have to provide tech support if they're having difficulties at home, and I have to work with them on finding a co-op space if they can't get internet access at home. So there is no clear line on which is cheaper or more expensive. They come with their own set of challenges depending on where you're working from, and those challenges are unique to every business. I know clients I've talked to about moving their workforce remotely now have to buy additional software. Maybe they had on-premises phones, and now they’ve moved to the cloud so their phone system can work seamlessly from home to the office. That might be an additional expense, whereas company B already has that in place, making working from home completely seamless.

Nicole Alicea: Right. What about shared drives?

James Neely: I think that the world of shared drives, data, and saving files has gotten to a place where very few of us save those on our local laptop or desktop. Employers and employees are generally trying to keep shared drives and information in the cloud for many reasons—both for availability because you can access it on the road, and for security because you can only control the security on that person's individual device to some extent. The IT team or the main service provider team manages the security on the shared drive, which takes security to the next level when it comes to keeping your data secure and encrypted.

Nicole Alicea: I didn't realize that you guys offered that Cisco service you talked about earlier, where it covers text messaging and email communication and all that. What other services do you guys offer that are tech-forward?

James Neely: If I talk about services from KUDUCOM™ in general, we’ve spent the last 20 years in the voice services industry and the contact center industry, so any type of communication—phone, text—is over the same type of service, as well as messaging for internal and external teams, file storage, and shared spaces. That's all in the Cisco WebEx universe. But there’s also equipment—the phones you use, conference center equipment, the fancy room bar with two cameras that auto-zoom in and out on individuals speaking in the meeting, and the device you control from the conference room table, as well as the apps you use to connect your phone services from your tablet or cell phone, whether iOS or Android. Those are the types of services we offer on the voice services side. On the internet side, I’ve talked about fiber in the ground and how we connect fiber. But what I didn’t share is that the majority of our clients utilize wireless millimeter wave. For example, we have a client, Feeding Tampa Bay, who built a new facility in East Tampa. They don't have many providers that can offer fiber services there, so what we’re doing is providing a 10-gig connection wirelessly from downtown Tampa to that facility, about a two-mile stretch. It has low latency like physical fiber, but they didn’t have to pay to build out that fiber from where it is today to their facility. That’s an example of millimeter wave technology we’re using for one of our clients today. We probably have over 100 clients using that type of technology now.

Nicole Alicea: All right, so I'm going to repeat it back with a little bit of knowledge I got from Jorge when we met for coffee. So instead of, so East Tampa—for those who aren't familiar, and please correct me if I'm wrong—would I be wrong in saying it’s an impoverished area?

James Neely: I would say East Tampa is more of an industrial area.

Nicole Alicea: And residential?

James Neely: Not a lot of residential in the area where we’re providing some of those services, yes.

Nicole Alicea: And so you're saying that there isn’t cable in the ground in those areas for that building.

James Neely: Yeah, a lot of the buildings being built out there might be a half-mile from the main stretch of road, right? So, for a provider today to get fiber to them, they have to run those physical cables and conduit beside the road or maybe over the road using poles to that new location. A lot of companies use the term "the last mile." Fiber’s almost there, but you’ve got another mile where there’s no fiber in the ground to the facility itself. What we can do is send that signal wirelessly over that last mile at the speed they have today using physical fiber with low latency and low jitter.

Nicole Alicea: So, in your terms, it means you're having internet as fast as you can get it without the need to pay for that expensive buildout to the building itself. Because we were always taught, or it teaches us, you know, that fiber is the fastest, you know, yada yada. It's the only way. And we know from using Bluetooth, right, that it's great, but there's always that little bit of a delay if something's coming wirelessly. So this technology is a nice, solid... I mean, I guess we need an engineer in the room to really explain it. It just sends the signal, so there's like this, I guess, a tube from the ground with the sender—I'm talking, I'll try to explain it, but...

James Neely: I'll try to explain it better for you. So what it is, we have physical fiber that connects to our radio.

Nicole Alicea: Got it.

James Neely: And the radio—old school, you'd have this huge three-foot dish, right? Today that's not what it is. You have something that's about the size of a dinner plate. And it's going to send a signal to another device that's about the size of a dinner plate that's going to catch that signal. Believe it or not, that signal can go up to about 16 miles if you have a line of sight. It can send a signal up to 10 gig. And when I say low latency, it means there is no delay. So your delay on that is the same as you would have if you had that physical fiber connected to that original location. Back in the day—and I say back in the day, five to seven years ago—heavy weather, hurricanes, stuff like that could impact that signal. But the technology today has grown to the level that I could have torrential rain, I could have a hurricane coming through, and as long as I have power to both of those nodes, those radios, the signal will stay solid the entire time.

Nicole Alicea: And I'm assuming those have backup batteries?

James Neely: They do. It depends on how we build it out, but more times than not, they do have backup. But as an example, if I'm sending a signal to a business and I have that radio, and it has backup power, your internet's going to be up. But if every device in your building has gone down, it's not really useful to anyone. So usually that radio is attached to the same type of backup power that the computers or the servers might have for that location.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah, I know. That's great. Thank you for explaining it like I'm eight because that's not my expertise.

James Neely: There was a period of time not too long ago when I had to learn that myself because I had those questions: How will weather impact it? How will wind impact it? How far can we go? And what does line of sight or line of near sight mean? But technology is getting better and faster every day. So, as I explain it to you and some of your listeners today, give it a couple of years, and you could probably add a zero to the speeds and all that, and you're going to be able to see that. Every day it's getting better.

Nicole Alicea: A little random question. When somebody's working remote, we're always talking about them in the context of working from home, but they could also go to a cafe or any public place. I've heard that if you're dealing with sensitive data, don't go on the Wi-Fi because somebody could hack and access your computer. Can you explain a little bit of that and debunk some myths or explain how that works or how I can protect myself if I'm in a public Wi-Fi setting?

James Neely: I try to be an expert on what I'm an expert on and not on what I'm not. I will not claim to be a security expert, but I can share what we've been told by some of our partners in the industry who specialize in that. They said you need to make sure when you're working from your laptop that you're logging into a secure network, but you're also always connecting to your VPN for encryption. And make sure you're working with your IT professional who has created that connection, ensuring it's at a level where you can work from that cafe. So I think before your employees do that, you need to ensure whoever set up that network and is managing the security of your data understands not only how you're connecting and where you're connecting and has given the thumbs up to say that’s an approved way to work with the organization. I'm not an expert, but I would always be careful with anything I'm putting over any public network that is not encrypted.

Nicole Alicea: What is the job? Because when we talk about VPN, I think, okay, well, that's the IT guy, which I know is such a broad statement. So what's the role of that person in charge of setting up a secure network for an organization? Can you explain a little bit more about that?

James Neely: So, yeah, we partner with a lot of MSPs, which are managed service providers, and their specialty is anything tech-related for a business. Part of what they'll set up is when you're working remotely, or if you have internal IT staff that understands the impact, we'll say, when someone's working remotely, this is how they connect to our business network. And that connection provides a level of security so the data is going through your internet and not through another board. Again, I don't want to speak in an area that I'm not an expert in, but I know that utilizing that VPN, for us, if we're working remotely, we must connect to our VPN to connect to any of our actual software that has to be a network software. If I'm working remotely from my laptop, and I just want to connect real quick and check my email, for example, I don't have access. My laptop is set in a way that I can't even get access to the majority of our systems until I connect through that VPN.

And it was set up that way so a public network would not have access to that data.

Nicole Alicea: And that's called managed service providers? Managed service providers.

James Neely: Yeah, because we would all love to be 1,000-employee companies, right, and have a full-scale IT team internally. That's not reality. So I think there are plenty of experts out there. I know DiversaCom is one of our wonderful partners here in the Tampa market, and I have many others that do an amazing job as well. But their job is to make sure you're making good security decisions with your data and how you're managing those individuals. We always bring someone in. I will say, though, when we're brought in for either voice services or internet, there’s usually always a managed service provider that's already in place or an IT professional that's an employee of the company that we're working with. And they've already gone through all those answers because they're treating security as probably their number one priority.

Nicole Alicea: Are you guys only local to this market, or do you serve clients nationwide?

James Neely: That's a great question. So KUDUCOM™ on the internet side, we provide locally. We have customers throughout St. Petersburg, Pinellas County, Hillsborough County, Pasco County, but nowhere else on the internet side. On the phone services side or the contact center side, we have clients all over the U.S. I'll give you an example. We have a very large client in Ybor that runs a 100-person contact center. That same client has a contact center in Seattle. We provide services to both of those locations, and we connect them through the network as well. We provide that contact center solution to both locations.

Nicole Alicea: If somebody is listening and they're like, "Oh, that sounds amazing, I had never heard of this company before I met Jorge," what's the best way to reach you guys and have a talented rep, just like Jorge—ask for Jorge—get in touch and do a consultation?

James Neely: The best way to reach us, in all honesty, is to go to our website, KUDUCOM™ dot com.

Nicole Alicea: How do you spell it?

James Neely: K-U-D-U-C-O-M. Usually, you'll hear back from us within a couple of minutes; it's not something you're going to have to wait days or weeks to hear back on.

Nicole Alicea: And then from a branding perspective, the company used to be called...

James Neely: Before, our company name for many years was Y-Tech Solutions, then became Tampa Bay DSL, and later PBX-Change. PBX-Change was our company name for many, many years. We rebranded on January 1st, 2023, as KUDUCOM™. The name KUDUCOM™ comes from the South African kudu, an animal known for its speed, alertness, and listening. We thought it was a fitting symbol for our organization, tying back to the roots of our founders in South Africa and representing the qualities we value. We’ve loved it ever since. It was also a way to not be attached to a piece of equipment that over time would be outdated.

Nicole Alicea: Right. That's something very important when a company is starting to form, that they do not attach themselves to the specific tech or the specific thing they’re delivering. In a lot of the marketing strategy work that we do with our clients when we first bring them on, we discuss their vision and mission. We clarify the fact that, for example, Clear Channel Radio, which is how I met Fingers—I remember Dan Diloreto, the regional manager—saying, "We are not in the radio industry; we are in the entertainment industry." That was the first time I was exposed to the idea that a company isn't limited to the industry you think they're in. By elevating the vision and setting the sights higher, the company can stay true to the mission and adapt as technology changes. As technology advances, as long as we're focused on the objective and the high-level mission, we can adapt. So that’s brilliant.

James Neely: And I think the story with our brand is important. It’s a beautiful animal, and if you’re going to be tied to this logo for a long time, make sure it’s one you love. Not only do we love the animal itself and the symbol, but having those roots tied back to the founders is a big deal. It’s hard to succeed in business today, so having a business that’s been around for over 25 years, you don’t want to lose how you got here. How we got here today was Muli and Martine Yaldor deciding to start their own company. Because they did that, I’m able to sit here today and talk to you about wonderful things like contact center and voice services. It’s because of their hard work and all the challenges they went through initially to start this company many decades ago.

Nicole Alicea: Yeah. That’s why this podcast celebrates and encourages entrepreneurship. I’ve always been in love with business ownership and just starting your own thing. It’s a difficult endeavor with not a lot of guidance or reference, especially if you’re starting something new or innovative. I love using this platform to share these stories so others can learn, get inspired, and get ideas. One of the beautiful things about being successful as an entrepreneur and business owner is the jobs and opportunities you create for the people who join you—a way for them to feed their families and feel professionally fulfilled. If you’re creating a product or service that is truly needed in the market, it’s going to positively impact many people. Not only do you create jobs, but the product or service your team offers is better than previous alternatives. I think there’s nothing better than starting a company and making it successful. I’m so grateful you came on today to share everything you’ve learned about remote working. I think you made a good case that, while people are emotionally hesitant because they worry about managing it and losing certain things, on the other hand, you gain top talent, better work-life balance for your team, and improved performance. Sure, you have to make some adjustments, but it’s worth it. Like you said, it’s here to stay, and it sounds like you guys provide a lot of support to companies that want to go this route.

James Neely: Yeah, and I think that, you know, not only is everything you’re saying correct, but if I look at my team today and the top performers, if I didn’t have a hybrid solution available, they wouldn’t work for me. It’s not because they wouldn’t want to; they just wouldn’t have the work-life balance they grew to love through the pandemic. Being able to offer that has allowed me to keep some very talented people and provide the service we do today. But one thing to call out, relative to our service and how we are a little different, is that you are part of our family when you are our client. Not only are all of our employees part of the family, but all of our clients and employees’ voices matter in our business. You get the best of both worlds when you work with us. Cisco has been around since the internet began. They’re a large, multi-billion-dollar company, and by working with a company like KUDUCOM™, you get our level of service, which means we’re there for you when you need us, combined with the cutting-edge technology created by one of the biggest names in the industry. You get that instant response, that family feel, with industry-leading technology.

Nicole Alicea: Anytime one of my clients has an issue with a company like Spectrum or another giant, it’s frustrating. Even for myself, whenever I have to call these companies, it feels like I’d almost rather get a root canal because it’s so frustrating.

James Neely: It’s a different model, right? They grew their companies in a way that was very successful for them, and I can’t fault them for that. I won’t say bad things about any of my competitors for obvious reasons, but they found success in doing it their way. Our way is different. For us to find success, especially in the greater Tampa Bay Area, we have to take care of every client like they’re important to us. It doesn’t matter if you’re a five-person office or a thousand-person contact center, you’re equally important to us, even though your revenue lines are different. Each one gets that instant response, each one develops a relationship with their tech support specialists, and everyone can work with Jorge or Ryan Sumner, our two salespeople here. You get to know your agents, and they become part of your extended family. I know today, when we sign up a client, their IT team, especially if they have in-house staff, wants to know all the details about managing their system themselves—how to do this, how to do that—because they’re used to doing it on their own. But after working with us for a month or even a week, they find all they need to do is give us a call or send us a quick email, and they can focus on something else. We’ll make the changes they need as part of our solution package. Hopefully, this sets us apart from our competitors—not necessarily as better, but as different and hopefully a little more personal.

Nicole Alicea: Definitely. These other companies outsource a lot of their tech. Even if they don’t, they handle a high volume of calls. With a lot of volume, you go through several layers before you reach someone who really knows the technical side. All we employ is the technical side. So the first person you talk to from our standpoint understands our system and all the services we provide and, honestly, understands you as a customer and knows what you mean to our business.

Nicole Alicea: That’s the frustrating part of calling customer support—explaining the situation, talking to someone for a long time before they transfer you to somebody else. Then you have to re-explain yourself, and they might transfer you again, or they realize it's not their department, so you have to go to another one. Then the call drops, and your blood pressure goes up. It’s bad all around. Can I ask a sensitive question? From a business-minded perspective, it sounds like these other companies or competitors work off volume, right? High volume, lower pricing, because they make their margins on the volume. It sounds like you guys are low volume. Does that mean you have higher pricing? There’s no question you’re offering value.

James Neely: Yeah, no, I would say from a pricing standpoint on both sides—on the contact center side, the voice side, or the internet side—we're comparable to our competition. How are we able to do that? We don't have as much overhead and as many layers in the business, right? So we're able to be very competitive on price.

Nicole Alicea: Do you have low overhead because your workforce is mostly remote? Or why do you say you don't have high overhead?

James Neely: I'm not running a 15,000-employee business. That’s really what it comes down to. The more people you have, the more layers of management you need. But I think there’s more to it as well. We're able to offer prices where we are because we feel we have to offer those prices to stay competitive in the industry. We don’t pick a price based on how much money we need to make. We pick a price because this is what the market's asking for, and we find a way to run our business efficiently and effectively at that price margin. So when you come to us, don’t expect to save a lot of money. We’re not going to reduce the amount of money per seat. We probably won’t reduce the amount of money you have for internet, though there are some caveats to that. But you’ll get what you get today price-wise with a much better service model. That’s really our pride.

It goes back to that attrition. For us to grow—and we actually had this conversation as an executive team today—we have to take care of all of our clients. We want to keep our attrition very low. Some of the bigger names in the industry have very high attrition and have to maintain a high sales cycle to keep up with that. That’s just not our path. It doesn’t mean ours is better; it just means that’s not the path we want to work on.

Nicole Alicea: When you said all that, all I could think of is value in terms of what the company values. I think if it’s a restaurant and their internet goes down or their phone system goes down, yeah, it sucks, but it’s a small restaurant. People are still coming in and out. But when it’s an organization, like you mentioned earlier, that depends on the internet, and if their internet is down for 30 minutes, they can calculate how much it’s going to cost them—those are the clients where you’re the quality choice. And I would say that’s very accurate, especially compared to some of the top competition out there.

Nicole Alicea: I mean, this has been amazing. Is there anything else you wanted to share?

James Neely: I appreciate the opportunity to come on the podcast today. I'm going to say the branding advice you gave on the name—where were you 25 years ago? Because that would have helped when we initially named the company, right? Making sure you're not attached to that equipment. But I think the light shining at the end of the tunnel that I like to bring up is you don’t have to be on the West Coast to be a leader in tech. We’re bringing a lot of technology to Tampa here. Your podcast talks about a lot of it, but there are many technology companies moving to the greater Tampa Bay Area. There are a lot of technology companies growing in the Tampa Bay Area. We have an unbelievable thriving market, and if you’re looking for something in technology—whether it’s internet service, voice services, or any other type of technology—you do not have to look outside of this area. There are companies here that provide equal to or better technology than what you get with some of the national providers. Just look. We’re not here to say these are the five reasons we’re better—just invite us to the conversation, and you make the decision on who’s better for you.

Nicole Alicea: Cool. Sounds great. Thank you so much, James. I appreciate it.

James Neely: Appreciate it.

Nicole Alicea: Make sure you hit subscribe so you can be notified of new episodes where we discuss business, marketing, and peek under the hood of successful companies to understand the leadership behind the organization and best practices for today’s challenges. I’m your host, Nicole Alicea, founder and president of Brand NV, an integrated global marketing communications firm based in sunny Tampa Bay. Learn more at CreateBrandNV.com.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to Create Brand NV. Be sure to subscribe wherever you heard this podcast so you never miss a future episode. Brand NV is an integrated marketing and advertising agency that helps brands innovate while maintaining their focus and identity. To learn more or to get in touch with Nicole, visit CreateBrandNV.com. That’s “create brand” and the letters N-V dot com. We’ll see you next time.