The Power of a 10X Vision: Interview with Avi Siegel, CEO of Vital Signs

In this episode, we talk with Avi Siegel, the dynamic CEO of Vital Signs, who entered a family business that his mother-in-law founded as an administrative assistant, but she had ideas that he would become her succession plan. Avi's story exudes passion and unwavering dedication, as he built legitimacy along with the growing company an industry that could easily consider him an outsider. We learn how Avi fell in love with ASL, and made it his own mission to continue his mother-in-law's legacy to increase accessibility for the Deaf community and people who are heard of hearing.

Like every generational family business, at Vital Signs, there has been a push and pull between tradition and innovation. Avi opens up about the complexities of transitioning leadership in Vital Signs, where ethics are prized above profit. He shares the art of aligning interpreters with assignments that resonate with their expertise, cultivating trust and value in every client interaction. Avi discusses his venture into consulting, seeking to amplify his impact by aiding others in sales and client acquisition.

The finale of our episode brings a delightful twist as we hear from Avi's son Pace and Meghan's son, Henry. Henry interviews Pace to learn whether he might be a third generation leader of Vital Signs, and what the most challenging parts of spending time in a family business might be. (It's not what you might think!) Henry and Pace's conversation reminds us that the legacy of family enterprise is as much about the journey as it is about the destination.

Learn more about ASL interpretation and transcription from Vital Signs

Connect with Avi Siegel on LinkedIn

Creators & Guests

Host

Henry Lynch

Co-host of Building Unbreakable Brands

Host

Meghan Lynch

Co-founder and CEO of Six-Point

What is Building Unbreakable Brands?

The podcast for family business leaders with a generational mindset. Meghan Lynch and her 8-year-old son Henry interview the stewards of enduring brands to uncover what makes the difference between fleeting success and a lasting legacy.

0:00:01 - Meghan Lynch
No matter what, it is tough to be an in-law marrying into a family business, but can you imagine taking over that business from your mother-in-law? On this episode we'll hear how one family made that transition happen and how it has started them on a track for 10x growth. Plus, Henry will get to interview a potential third-generation successor about his plans to maybe take the reins one day.

0:00:39 - Henry Lynch
I know things better than you, Mom. I'm kind of an expert, okay.

0:00:42 - Meghan Lynch
Welcome to Building Unbreakable Brands, the podcast where we talk to leaders growing businesses with a generational mindset. I'm Meghan Lynch. I'm an advisor to family businesses and founder of Six-Point, a brand strategy agency that helps generational brands honor their past while evolving for the future. Today we'll be talking to Avi Siegel, CEO of Vital Signs, a second-generation business that provides sign language interpretation and transcription services. Avi is also the owner of Siegel Business Consulting and specializes in teaching consultants the art of sales and client acquisition. Avi, welcome, thank you.

0:01:21 - Avi Siegel
Meghan, it's great to be here. Appreciate it.

0:01:23 - Meghan Lynch
Welcome. I would love to just have you start us off by talking about your story at Vital Signs, because this is a pretty niche business. Vital Signs specializes in sign language interpretation and transcription, and it was started by Joyce Dworski, who's your mother-in-law, but you are not an ASL interpreter, so what made you want to jump in and get involved in this family business?

0:01:51 - Avi Siegel
Yeah, great question, Meghan. Believe it or not, you're actually the second person to ask me that today.

0:01:55 - Meghan Lynch
Oh really, Everyone wants to know.

0:02:00 - Avi Siegel
Everybody wants to know. It's really interesting because in this field the agencies are all either owned by interpreters or people who are Deaf themselves. And that's not my background. My background is business. I was I'll take you back even years and years and years. I was business from birth.

Everybody knew that Avi was going into business, I think. Um, I just heard the CEO of Zumba speak the other day. He had like a mirroring story. We both, at like age six or seven, started our first like quote unquote business. Like he was, he was selling, I think, time with his watch and I was like buying and selling trading cards. It's a really funny story, but anyway. So I was just always going to go into business.

And so Vital Signs was started in 1987 by Joyce. Joyce really organically grew this beautiful business and she was looking into next generations and she has two kids and none of them chose the business route. None of them chose the interpreting route, and so seemingly there was no continuity. And then, once I married Brenah, my wife, Joyce said why don't you come interview as like an administrative assistant position? And I was like, okay. Joyce said why don't you come interview as like an administrative assistant position? And I was like, okay, administrative assistant, but there's, you know, there's growth, right, I'll go ahead and I'll interview as the administrative assistant. And so I interviewed, got the job. I was nervous. I'm pretty sure Joyce knew exactly what she was doing. She was planning for the future in way, shape or form, if it worked out. But I interviewed and that was probably about 12 years ago now maybe and I got the job and I basically spent the next seven years holding every position within the company, until 2019, I want to say, when I took over as CEO.

0:04:12 - Meghan Lynch
Wow.

0:04:12 - Avi Siegel
So that was the whole journey. I had no Deaf experience, but I did fall in love with it. I remember when I was dating Brenah, we would go to different trainings and conferences and workshops, and I'm a very visual learner. So I saw this language and I was like I got to have it, Like that is me, like I got to learn that, and so I was just super drawn to it and I just learned slowly over the years and then, even not having that experience growing up, I started to speak the language.

I took classes at Gallaudet University. I took let's see, I placed out of ASL one, I took ASL two, three, four, and then I continued to be able to practice with my Deaf friends, which is nice, although I'm pretty sure they humor me a lot and they just lip read versus actually watching my signing. But yeah, I start doing that. And then I, to this day, actually still have a private tutor that teaches me sign language. So I feel like I need to always continue to get better at it.

I won't be an interpreter that's not my thing, that's not my calling, that's not my thing, that's not my calling, that's not my profession but I will continuously get better and better at it. So that's the long and short of it. I had no background going into it and then had the business background, worked really well with my mother-in-law for all of these years, even to this date. We even worked out of the same office for a good couple of years where I would go to her office and we would work together and the joke in the family was that I was the favorite child out of me and the two blood relatives the two actual children. But it just worked out beautifully.

0:06:04 - Meghan Lynch
So is that a big way of how you built trust and legitimacy within the company was really like holding each position within the company and learning it and just people starting to buy in to say, oh, this guy does know what he's doing, or what did that look like?

0:06:23 - Avi Siegel
That's a great question. I should set you up with some of my staff to interview him to find the real deepness behind that question. To me, holding all the positions helped because I wasn't just somebody at the top barking orders, I didn't just take the quick route to the top. I knew what happened at every layer of the company. I wasn't always great at every layer. I should say, like, don't put me in front of a scheduling system and ask me to schedule interpreters. It is an absolute failure. I think that's when I really figured out that I am way more the visionary type than anything else. But to get back to your question here, I think that helped me understand the landscape and understand what each person did in each role of their position. But um, I maybe that helped build the trust and rapport, but I think really I never looked at it like a son-in-law.

Everything that I did I was always focused on making my own path and really just putting my best forward in everything that I did. And that's the story of my whole life. Anytime I got involved in something, I was always just putting my best foot forward, putting all the effort in. There was no phony hitting or anything like that. The effort in. There was no phony hidden or anything like that. And so I remember we worked with an HR company. It was CSI Capital Services, fantastic HR company, and they did an audit and they did a 360 interview for me and the person who was doing the interviewing, she was bringing me the results and she was like, "I'm shocked. And I was like oh, what are you shocked about? And she was like guess, and I was like I have no idea and she said nobody mentioned anything about like your relationship, oh, and I was like oh, that's cool, interesting. I didn't think about it. I don't think like that, but I just feel like I always put my best foot forward and just worked as hard as possible.

0:08:41 - Meghan Lynch
Because I do think that that fear of entitlement, either that people that there's going to be a perception of entitlement, or that, even if you don't intend to, that thing could sort of put that forward into the business, which, yeah, would not be a healthy thing.

Knowing that you know you didn't come from this business, this world, how did you build credibility with clients with kind of more of the external stakeholders within the company?

0:09:19 - Avi Siegel
Yeah, it's also a very good question. I think I built that credibility as Vital Signs as a whole built that credibility. We were continuously building the credibility I would say. So Vital Signs, we would never let an assignment go unfilled, and that was the core of us and our values and we were always kind of true to ourselves in that sense.

And so when other companies were shifting interpreters around because they can make more profit off an assignment so let's say there was a one hour assignment or an eight hour assignment right, the eight hour assignment is obviously way more profitable for the agency.

And so we would get complaints all the time that, like other agencies were switching interpreters at the last minute and they would leave this other assignment high and dry. And we were like I remember conversations with Ashley, our director of ops we will never do that, no matter how much of a profit or loss or whatever it is. You know we're going to view each assignment as there's a person there that wants the interpreting services for equal access communication. This one person is no better or worse than the eight hour assignment person, and so I think that always lent us credibility and I really followed suit in. This is generally who I am, right? Like I genuinely care about the work we do, and I think when you show that to people and you just show your genuine self and obviously you have these values and characteristics that match, I think that it really just builds a lot of trust and rapport really easily.

0:11:04 - Meghan Lynch
Yeah, I love that and I do think that, at the end of the day, you know people do want to be treated and you know there's that saying of, you know, people do business with people, right, not with businesses. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense and makes sense that that would be a source of not only credibility for you but continued credibility for the brand as well.

0:11:31 - Avi Siegel
Absolutely. I can't tell you how many times we get these amazing glowing emails from our clients, like we couldn't have done it without you, like you know so-and-so. This person is like the most amazing because they've sat there and they've taken the time and the customer service to understand the client's needs and to be there for them in every way, shape or form. I had an interpreter tell me, probably a couple of weeks ago, that Vital Signs was its number one agency that it worked for.

So for everybody out there who doesn't know the industry, we work a lot off freelancers and independent contractors. And so this one interpreter said you guys just know my preferences, and by preferences I'll define it. You know, if somebody has a scientific background, you don't necessarily want to put them in a high level law assignment, right. Or if someone has a high level law, you don't necessarily want to put them in like advanced physics kind of world. And so this person said you just, you always know, you remember, you don't try to put me in an assignment that I'm not qualified for. And it's just that connection, at the end of the day, and that level of customer service that is just so important to us.

0:12:55 - Meghan Lynch
I love that. I love that and I think it's such a great reminder for what happens when you put individuals in their own place of genius, in the place where they're going to shine, and how much people feel that and want more of that time, and that they really bring them not only their best selves to it, but they're also just going to create so much more value at that time.

0:13:21 - Avi Siegel
Yeah, it's definitely how we bring people closer, and people want to be around us more and take assignments from us more, and clients want to work with us more, and it's really nice.

0:13:32 - Meghan Lynch
You're listening to Building Unbreakable Brands, the podcast all about brand stewardship and crafting an enduring legacy.

I'm here with my guest, Avi Siegel, CEO of Vital Signs, a generational family business that helps businesses and organizations bridge the communication gap with sign language interpretation, captioning and transcription services. So, Avi, we were talking a bit about the people part of the business, because your company is so focused on people and the who behind what's happening. But it's not easy to make a transition from a founder-led business to a second-generation business and often there's a big drop-off between companies. The companies don't often survive that transition because oftentimes there's something that a founder is bringing that becomes really hard to keep in the business or replace in the business and the founder that you're trying to replace is your mother-in-law and I can't probably see and I'm sure listeners at home are thinking that there's not really a move that's much more emotionally high stakes than that. So I'm just curious how you guys approach that transition and were there things about Joyce in the company that you felt like you had to try to replace, or was there something missing that you felt like you could bring?

0:15:02 - Avi Siegel
Yeah, wow, yeah, absolutely. The transition itself actually started happening way before either Joyce or I knew it. I think that it was just going on in the background and it was looming and people felt it and were aware that it was coming, even probably before Joyce and I knew that it was coming or were aware that it was coming. I should say yeah, so the the we didn't really have any resources for family-owned businesses when we were making this transition. We were just flying by the seat of our pants and so, looking back, we definitely could have done things way differently, way better, but we were incredibly fortunate with how it happened and I think Joyce was very intentional about it, more than I understood what was going on. But she was really clear that, you know, she was growing the business to a certain point and then it was at a point where she wanted somebody else to take the reins and continue to grow it. And she really created this company, naturally and organically, by being the first vendor, let's say on a contract, and then them saying, hey, bring more. And so then she brought more and brought more and an agency began, and so her purpose wasn't to like grow a multi, multi-million dollar, you know tens of million dollar company. And then you know whatever it was. Her goal was to grow a company to a nice size to support all the people that it supported, you know, financially, for salaries and whatever it was. And so it got to the point where perhaps maybe she just had this epiphany where she was like it's time, you know, like this is not necessarily my comfort zone, this is not necessarily where I want to be, and so she really just passed it off to me and I will say that she did an amazing job of stepping back.

So many times we hear about these transitions where then the founder is kind of like still there but still not, but still there but not supposed to be there. And Joyce is not, you know, gone by any way, shape or form. She's still active and she still helps with a lot of things and she has her role. But she was really good at at releasing the, I'm going to call it the CEO reins, which helped me really to grab them and step up Right. So there wasn't this kind of like push-pull where it's like "they're yours but like I really still want to be involved, like she knew that she wanted to pass it off.

But there were very different leadership style and so there was a big transition. She is more of an operational, detail-oriented, you know operator, so to speak, and I'm more of the visionary you know operator, so to speak, and I'm more of the visionary. And so there was a part where we had to figure out okay, well, how do we make this transition smooth? Because I'm not the guy who's going to be watching all of the operations to make sure everything is going smoothly. I'm the guy who's going to be whiteboarding with here's our 10X vision, here's where we're going, here are the crazy partnerships that we can provide and now that we can establish, and now let's go out and attack them.

And so, really, the pivotal moment was for me was and I'm going to have to send this to Ashley was Ashley stepping up from I believe it was a GM or service manager into the director of operations role? When she stepped up into that directive operations role, it gave me the ability to say I am going to stop being the operational bottleneck. I am going to work in my unique ability. That really gave me the ability to step out of the operations and to perform in my visionary role. But that was the void that Joyce left. Joyce was really good at being, like the COO, the head of the operations, and that was not my role, so, Ashley, so we were able to really, you know, bring Ashley up and she filled that gap that, let's say, Joyce, you know, left behind, so to speak.

0:19:36 - Meghan Lynch
I think that that's such an important moment to just kind of spend a little bit of time thinking about because, for a lot of, either founders letting go to the next generation or entrepreneurs who are trying to let go and grow, to let go and grow, finding those few people who you really recognize as having skills that are complementary to what you do but are fundamentally different from what you do and that you admire, but that you don't want to do what they do and they don't want to do what they do and they don't want to do what you do.

And so finding those moments of those perfect compliments I'm sure it sounds like Joyce found that in you of somebody who was complimentary to what she did but not trying to kind of step on her toes or not trying to be the new Joyce, you're trying to just be yourself. And it sounds like you found that in Ashley. Have there been other moments in the business where you found certain people who have just really made a difference in your ability to accomplish something big or let go of something that was holding you back or let go of something that was holding you back?

0:21:03 - Avi Siegel
Yeah, definitely that's also,

I feel like we could probably talk all day about this one question here.

I think one of the really big pivotal moments that allowed me to step back and this is kind of related to Ashley going into the director of ops role was recognizing an official leadership team within the business, and so now there's four of us in the leadership team, but I know that I could step out and the other three of them are going to solve anything that comes up right, so I don't get involved in so much of the decision-making and so much of the problem solving that I used to, let's say, three, four years ago.

But now, with this leadership team, there are people in place who want the best for vital science truly in their heart, and so that gives me a lot of trust and faith that they will do the right thing when it comes to problem solving or whatever it is, and so having them come up as the leadership team has allowed me to let go of even more, so the we'll call them more on the ground decisions or troubleshooting, and I can continue then to now be in my role as a visionary even more by working on the 10X vision by working on how we're going to make the most impact, and that has been instrumental to just our growth at Vital Signs, really.

0:22:41 - Meghan Lynch
Yeah, I think that is so critical to just surround yourself with those people who you just have that core trust that, even if they don't solve the problem exactly how you would solve it, that you know that at the end of the day, you're going to be aligned in terms of how you're thinking about it and how you're making decisions. And so that piece of trust, I think, is just such a huge component that does allow businesses to continue to grow and stay stable, even through leadership changes or flux within a market or a company.

0:23:07 - Avi Siegel
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

0:23:10 - Meghan Lynch
I'm curious, you know you mentioned a couple of times about you know, thinking bigger, about Vital Signs and kind of 10x vision and really pushing the company forward. How has Vital Signs changed from when Joyce founded it in the 80s to now, what the opportunities exist for the company, both right now and then as you look into the future?

0:23:33 - Avi Siegel
Yeah, wow. So I was just talking with one of our employees today, Jessica, who is celebrating her 10 years at Vital Signs and we were kind of reminiscing on where it was back then and she said we've made like a 10-year leap, like we just completely skyrocketed in probably the last like three years, I want to say, just in terms of our systems, our processes. We've upgraded everything multiple times and we've looked internally at our structure. Actually, when I took over as CEO in 2019, I had no idea we were about to go down a global pandemic. No idea. But the first thing I did when I got in is I said we're going to look internally, we're going to look structurally and we're going to strengthen ourselves from the inside out before looking at anything external, before looking at our growth models, our 10x. Now I look at the 10x. In 2019, it was we need to really strengthen our core before we can look at the 10x, and so that's what we did, which turned out to be the best possible thing we could have done throughout COVID, and that's what everybody needed to do, whether they figured that out right away or not to the point, actually, where we were able to create a like little loan program for all of our service providers, all of our admin and Typewell transcribers, CART providers, sign language interpreters, where we said like hey, we recognize that you may have spouses that have been laid off or partners that have been laid off, or anything like that.

So we designed a program where we were able to give a little bit to a lot of people and so we helped financially offset some of their struggles. We designed a program where we were able to give a little bit to a lot of people and so we helped financially offset some of their struggles. And that came literally at the same time as an email from one of the other agencies cutting everybody's rates. Like they were like we can't sustain it, so we have to cut everybody by X amount of dollars per hour for their hourly rate. And I was just thinking like this shows who we are, right. Like this is a vital sign. So, first of all, we're a family business, right? Like that is important to us. The connection, the work, family, how we treat each other, like that is important.

And so we decided we got to do something for our service providers. We have to be there for them, even if we can't be there on some grand scale. We decided, instead of being on the grand scale, we want to do something small for as many people as possible. And so then we went ahead and we rolled it out. So our systems have changed 100 times. Our processes have become more and more formalized, more and more just organized and just run way better. And so we're not the company that just had kind of like mom and pop systems anymore. We now have just systems that are good for us now and growth. And so we're literally right now implementing a new system, scheduling system, operations system which will allow our interpreters and transcribers easier way into the platform accepting jobs, invoicing, all of that and at the same time allow our clients an easier way to go in and seamlessly request assignment, request interpreters, request transcribers, um, and so we're just pivoting into this new system, which will be with us for as long as it serves us, and then we'll move to the next thing that will serve us better. So we have that, and then we're also looking at creating an internship, apprenticeship program.

And so, for all those again who are not necessarily experts in the industry of interpreting and transcribing, covid hit and everybody all of a sudden knew about accessibility. Everybody wanted sign language interpreters, and so the demand skyrocketed, but the supply of service providers did not skyrocket at that same level, and so we began to see this huge gap spread of increased demand and not enough supply to handle the demand increased demand. And so one of the things that we're doing is we're in our plans for later in 2024, we're going to create an internship, apprenticeship program, and that'll help to bridge that gap in the industry itself. So we're looking at, like, even on the micro level and maybe this isn't micro for some people, but on the micro level of how we can serve our clients better, how we can serve our service providers better, a new system we can bring in. We're looking at the industry as a whole, how do we help solve a problem of the industry itself? And then, at the same time, we're also bringing on new service offerings.

We just brought on a new service that is an on-demand service, and so within 10 to 15 seconds, you can pull up a sign language interpreter. And that is amazing. The technology is amazing, and that really came to us because we had all of these small and mid-sized businesses saying, hey, we don't have a connection to Deaf, we don't have any deaf employees. We don't necessarily do this big blast of accessibility, but we also understand that there are ADA laws and if anybody comes to our doorstep and tries to communicate with us and can't, that puts us at a huge risk of a lawsuit, and these lawsuits could be hundreds of thousands of dollars.

And so what we did was we created this new service of an on-demand service. It's a membership model service where you can have access to the system and, if you ever need it, within 10 to 15 seconds you've got your interpreter. And so now all the risk mitigation is there and there's no risk for an ADA lawsuit when it comes to someone who's deaf and hard of hearing anymore. So that was just a way we listened to the customers, heard what they were saying and created a new line of service. So, yeah, so there's a ton of expansion on the horizon and we're just doing it. We've brought on a couple of new staff members this year and we're looking forward to 2024 and 2034, because that's my 10x, 10-year brain right there.

0:30:06 - Meghan Lynch
Love it, love it. I think that there's a lot of good things here, to just kind of unpack a little bit. So one thing that I hear you saying and this is, I just want to call attention to it because it's something that I hear the opposite of a lot is people talking about pressures within their industry as problems that they can't solve. So, you know, if they're in health care, if they're in construction, and they talk about labor shortages or issues getting, you know, trained workforce or having enough people with the right skills, I hear you having those same problems and pressures, but actually looking at it as an opportunity for business innovation and growth, of saying, well, you know, we don't have a magic wand, we can't change the market, but what could we do from our sphere of influence to start to put together a training? You know, if the industry problem is labor shortage, how do we become part of the solution? How do we put together training? How do we create an internship program? How do we create the people who we need?

And I just love that mindset need. You know, when we go back to what separates a generational mindset or a generational business, it's having the ability to kind of step back and see some of those long tail problems, and it's not that you need to completely solve it, but you at least need a sense of agency of I can influence this. This isn't something that I have to just live with. And so, yeah, I love, I love hearing that from you and I love hearing how, how you've done that in small ways in terms of like helping your, you know, your team and your contractors through COVID, and then in big ways, like this internship program. I think that's super exciting.

0:32:00 - Avi Siegel
Yeah, I think the difference for me and I only speak for myself and I only speak for my industry is that if you want to be the best in the entire world at what you do, you need to be looking at those problems. When we were smaller and not thinking at that level of scale, we weren't thinking about it. We were quote unquote victims. Right, like, I'm sorry there's no interpreter for today. You know, whatever I mean, that would never happen to us. But, like, that's what people were saying. Right, like, you know, they just had no control over it. But we're going to be the best in the entire world at sign language interpreting and transcribing, and there's no doubt, and we're already probably one of the best, if not the best, here in our area, in this region, and so we're not looking at one assignment at a time anymore.

Now we're looking at how can we, you know quote unquote take over the world? Right, like, how can we be the best at of the best? And now we're thinking in bigger moves. Right, we're thinking about all right, how do we solve industry-wide problems? We can solve the industry-wide problem. You know, first and foremost, we're doing this for a reason. Right, this is accessibility, for this is, you know, Deaf and hard of hearing. This is, this is what we were put on the world to do, right? So if we can solve the industry, we can service more people, and that means that more individuals can have all the services they want at their disposal. At the same time also, we will be, we will have that recognition and we will grow and we will be, you know, we're already the best, but we're not the largest, right? So we want to be the largest and we

0:33:44 - Meghan Lynch
I love that, and I think having that, that vision, something to pull towards, it does give you a perspective that takes you beyond the day-to-day headaches of, you know, it's not about this one, you know, one issue or one staffing challenge, but it's how do we start to take a bigger approach to it and think longer term and think broader and think more creatively, and I think that it's just such an important mindset that then clearly has ripple effects in the business and your ability to grow. And I think that is super exciting, and its clear that you're also thinking about Vital Signs in terms of yes, understanding the industry, but also understanding some of the bigger forces at play that, you know, any industry is going to have to deal with. Anyone who's providing services right now is going to have to both, you know, have very similar challenges and opportunities.

0:34:50 - Avi Siegel
Yeah, absolutely.

0:34:51 - Meghan Lynch
I know that we haven't touched on your other side of your life. You also have a consulting business on top of the work that you're doing with Vital Signs, and I'm curious how you knew when you were ready to start something new, because it sounds like you know you're an entrepreneur from an early age. You have this bug to start businesses, to grow businesses, but that could easily leave you with a whole bunch of things that you're not doing particularly well and just busyness and not effectiveness. And so how did you know when you were ready to start something new and also not hurt the team at Vital Signs and what you were building there?

0:35:37 - Avi Siegel
Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I don't think that I knew the time is now. I don't think I thought that constructively. I just I dive into things and then I just I just go and I don't accept no for an answer, and I don't accept failure. And, so before even creating this consultancy, I was always mentoring as many business owners and executives that I thought would benefit from my knowledge and experience. And so, after doing that for about five years, it just felt like it was time to do that on a much larger scale.

And so you know, fun fact, I probably consume about 30 to 40 books a year on Audible and everything that I've done, all the business ventures, even if they weren't my own, if I got in there, I ended up running it or running some segment of it, and so I just felt like I always had this experience and this knowledge that could help people, and so I just wanted to help more people. And so it got to a point where I said if I really want to look at this on the 10x scale, right, I need to create this new business, this new venture, and give it a real shot. And so that's what I did. I just I created it, I gave it a real shot and then, ironically, the funny thing is, within probably about two, two and a half months of launching, I was completely full, my calendar was completely full. I was turning down clients. I had no more room to bring on anybody else and that's kind of how I decided oh okay, client acquisition, that is a sweet spot and I need to now teach that to other consultants so that they can do and build and you know, just build what I built.

And you know I saw this need these consultants that they were either taking one of three paths, I'll say. Either they decided, you know, they wanted to go out on their own. Let's say they were a marketer right, they were a CMO. Or let's say they were a director of marketing at some really high level corporate company and they decided I want to go out on my own. They went out on their own and either they couldn't figure out how to do client acquisition, they went right back to W2. Or they figured it out at some mid-level range which wasn't really satisfying their income levels, it wasn't really making them happy. Or they figured out the client acquisition and they created an amazing consultancy and then they can go ahead and bring in some of their children Some of my clients are bringing in their kids and showing them the beauty of business, which is like a double whammy right Like I'm getting to teach people how to create really good livings for themselves and for their family, and for a lot of them it's financial freedom and generational wealth.

0:38:47 - Meghan Lynch
Yeah, I love that and I think that is a great segue to our last segment, because we are going to give that very thing a test here on Building Unbreakable Brands. This is the podcast for leaders with a generational mindset, and I'm here with Avi Siegel, who's both an entrepreneur and business coach for consultants, and in our last segment we are going to turn the mic over to this next generation. My eight-year-old son, Henry is going to interview your son Pace, who's also in second grade, so we can hear what's on their minds. So I guess we just turn it over to them and see what happens.

0:39:27 - Avi Siegel
See how it goes, fingers crossed.

0:39:44 - Henry Lynch
Hi Pace, welcome to Building Unbreakable Brands, thank you. What is the hardest thing about being a part of a family business?

0:39:54 - Pace Siegel
Shredding paper.

0:40:00 - Henry Lynch
What kind of thing, like what papers, do you specifically shred?

0:40:03 - Pace Siegel
Um, like notes.

0:40:08 - Henry Lynch
mm-hmm, so like junk mail.

0:40:11 - Pace Siegel
Yeah.

0:40:12 - Henry Lynch
Do you think you're ever going to want to work at Vital Signs?

0:40:20 - Pace Siegel
No, so I'm going to play football when I grow up, or I'll be a doctor.

0:40:29 - Henry Lynch
Nice. Sounds like a good career. Do you have any advice for your dad, so like, do you think you could teach him something?

0:40:39 - Pace Siegel
I don't think so, because he taught me everything.

0:40:43 - Henry Lynch
Yeah, like he's the one with the business on stuff you know um. Do you have a favorite joke?

0:40:51 - Pace Siegel
Why can't you play hide and seek with Pikachu?

0:40:54 - Henry Lynch
I don't know.

0:40:56 - Pace Siegel
Because he always peeks at you.

0:41:01 - Henry Lynch
Oh, oh yeah, I heard that one. Yeah, yeah, that's a really good one. That was great. Thanks so much, pace. It was fun talking to you, thank you.

0:41:13 - Meghan Lynch
I just loved hearing Pace and Henry chat. That was so fun to hear the next generation really start to get their voices heard so early. I hope that you were able to take away some energy and ideas from Avi's vision to 10x Vital Signs. I love that he's developing solutions for industry issues and using that as a catalyst for exponential growth. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe to the podcast and don't forget to leave us a review.

0:41:58 - Henry Lynch
Thank you for listening to Building Unbreakable Brands, or BUB as we like to call it.