Closing the Tech Gap: Sreedhar Kaluva on People-First Leadership and the AAA Formula

Welcome to The Behavioral Profit, the show where

business meets behavior. I'm your host, Debbie

Longo, executive behavioral coach. And each week

we dive into the mindset shifts, leadership strategies

and cultural behaviors that drive higher performance

and greater profits. Whether you're leading a

team or building a business, this is your space

to learn how human behavior fuels business success.

Today's guest Sri is a founder and CEO of my

work belt comes in more than 25 years of experience

delivering from enterprise scale software solutions.

for Fortune 500 companies in small businesses

applying information technology on their business.

Sri founded unique solutions of advanced technologies

and later my work belt to equip small businesses.

He is helping small business apply the same information

technology firepower that large companies use

to achieve profitability and sustainability guided

by principles from the Gita, he leads with a

behavior -driven approach that fuses people -centric

culture with practical and reliable IT solutions.

Let's open with the origin story. Thank you very

much, Debbie. That's a great introduction. Certainly,

as you mentioned, your audience can hear my voice

or they can see me. I am born and raised in India,

and being a Hindu -dominated society over there,

and I am from Hindu religion as well. But that's

nothing to do with the business. Certainly, the

guiding principles that I follow are the spiritual

principles that are given to me by my ancestors

in developing the business. So that's rooted

in my culture and rooted in my heart. And I follow

the same. Thank you very much. That was very

good. So there's a few questions here that are

divided into topics. When you left enterprise

consulting, what specific gap did you see in

the small business market that convinced you

to launch my work belt? And how did that insight

shape every subsequent strategy choice you've

made? It is whether we believe it or not, it

is very true that large corporations have deeper

pockets and they can invest time, money, energy

into developing information technology and any

other technology tools for that matter. But why

do they do that? And one fundamental principle

I learned that is to remove the chaos in their

business. And what does it do? It simply improves

the efficiency. And once the efficiency, it removes

the rupture, it removes the friction within the

organization. Now, once the efficiency is improved,

the business will automatically thrive and will

go in a higher profitability mode. Now, why do

you want to do that? Once you are in a higher

profitability mode, you have the ability to make

decisions without having constraints, and you

have the ability to adapt more and advance the

technology to further move on your market expansion

or profitability and thus sustainability. Now,

when I came into the small business environment,

I found the gap clear gap of information technology

or technology usage between large corporations

and the small businesses. And I wanted to fill

that gap. And thus, the small businesses can

compete with the large corporations with the

same firepower that they have. Now, one thing

that I also noticed that small businesses, they

always think using technology needs a deeper

pocket. But that's a thing of the past. lot of

technology tools are available at a very, very

affordable and economical position. Now just

they have to be open minded on using these technologies.

And that is where I bring value to the table

for the small businesses. So for me, there's

a lot of things that you said that I resonate

with and I agree with, and I can really identify

with the information technology. referring to

businesses, all different types of businesses.

There's a lot of issues because I work with businesses

and I'm very familiar with this in all different

types of ways. So there's a lot of businesses

that I am familiar with that don't have the time.

Yes, they don't want to take the time out. They

think that it's too expensive. They don't know

where to go. They don't know who to trust. Correct.

I think people are just going to take their money

or they don't want to be bothered. Or they say,

why should I go through this? I'm just going

to use the conventional way of advertising and

marketing like I've always done. But here's the

thing, though. Hindsight is twenty twenty. So

what they don't know that they don't know, they

don't know. So maybe. What if they do this? What

if they ask their neighbor or their friend that's

in the same industry as them and see what they're

doing? Because most likely there's a very good

chance that they might be using information technology

and all these things that you're offering that

they're not using. And then they could say, wow,

how's your bottom line? How's your profits doing?

How's your sales doing? And most likely they'll

say very well. So this is the whole thing. And

I work with a lot of marketing people that have

to do with the field that you're in and stuff.

And they advertise a lot. And that's really I

mean a lot. That's really how they get their

business, because people are not familiar. See,

it's not just simply the bottom line. We also

have to recognize the small businesses. are unique.

They are different from large corporations. Now,

large corporations, there is business managers

and operations managers, whoever they are, they

behave in a way the labor market. They will have

their paid vacation. They will be taking a break

and going, doing what they needed to do to attend

their family needs. Whereas small business owners,

they don't have that luxury. Everybody thinks

small business owner, they can do whatever they

want, but that's not the case. But my observation

is small business owners, they work twice harder

than any employee. They sacrifice their life.

They don't go on vacations as employees go. They

are very, very frugal and they operate on very

tight schedules. The reason why they do it is

because they are worried. If they make a small

mistake in running their business, it's not only

their life on the line, but whatever the 5, 10,

15, 20 families depending on them is also in

trouble. So that is in the back of mind of a

small business owner continuously, not once,

twice. It's continuously. And in some cases,

for the small businesses, there are employees

who are working 15, 20, 30 years. It's devastating

for a small business owner to make a mistake

and create a chaos in their employee's life.

So they don't. Not only profitability, when the

technology is applied properly on the business,

and when you remove the friction within the organization

and create a seamless operation, it also gives

the time back into the hands of a small business

owner. They can catch a breath, they can spend

time with their family, or they can even go for

a vacation. That is even more valuable than just

simply profitability. There are three things

that we are looking at. One, profitability. And

two, sustainability, the organization can continue

on. And three, the business owners and employees

are all empowered together. That is where the

technology helps a lot. And this is what having

a challenge for a lot of small businesses to

recognize. Yes, that was very good. Thank you.

The next question is your leadership philosophy

draws heavily on Gita. In concrete terms, which

verse or principle guides your day -to -day decisions,

and how does that spiritual lens translate into

measurable business strategy inside a tech services

firm? That's a wonderful question. I don't have

a problem to claim that I am a spiritual practitioner.

I do practice spirituality. I believe in God.

And Bhagavad Gita is not necessarily kind of

a spiritual book, but it is given by Lord Krishna,

who all Hindus worship dearly. gave the Bhagavad

Gita as a way of living. This is the way you

should live your life. This is the way you should

do your business. This is the way you need to

eat, how you take care of your family, how you

take care of yourself, what you need to eat,

what you should not be eating. All these guided

principles are given for a human being to lead

their life. Now, one verse particularly that

I am very, very passionate about it and it instilled

in my mind, I'm not going to go through the worst,

but I will give you the meaning of it. So what

he says is, you do what you have to do without

being a greedy on the outcome. Leave the outcome

to me and the universe, it will give you what

the outcome you desire and you deserve. So if

I am helping somebody, I have to keep the help.

on the focus opposed to how much profit am I

making out of them. So when I do that, my sincere

effort will come through to give this a sincere

results for my customers or for our subscribers

in my work belt. And that naturally gives us

positive energy back. So that is what we use.

Not only me, all my team, everybody follows the

same principle. Yes, that's very good. And that's

the main way that I coach and I communicate with

my clients and stuff that the bottom line is

whatever I do or say or they do or how they respond

is really dictated by the universe. Correct.

It's not really dictated by what we really say,

although sometimes we might want to think that

we do that as far as I know in the United States

is what I'm familiar with. But what you're talking

about is a higher level. And this is very good

that with the interesting that it would where

bringing it into technology. We're talking about

this because this is taking us to a completely

different level and a completely different understanding

on this, because I think a lot of people think

technology is you turn on a computer and you

figure it out or you hire somebody right to do

it. But you don't know what you're doing and

you don't know really what's happening. But somebody

told you to do it. We're talking about something

here on a higher level, which is a very, very

interesting topic. See, technology is no different

than anything else in the in the world. If you

really think about it, technology is created

by the human being and technology is used by

the human being. Now, a lot of people think that

technology is replacing the human being. But

not really. Unless the technology complements

the human being, technology doesn't have a value.

That is a fundamental principle. It has to complement

the human being. It has to make the life easy

for the human being. It has to make the comfort

for the human being. Otherwise, technology doesn't

have any value or meaning. At the end of the

day, we have to recognize that the human being

is in control of it. Next question. Describe

a typical Monday at my work belt. What behaviors

do you personally model that signal behavior

driven leadership to the team? And how do you

confirm rather than assume that those behaviors

echo through every department? We all at my work

belt follow simple principles. What you do is

the best. Put your best effort in doing what

you're doing. So typical Mondays, we generally

huddle up and we talk about what do we have?

in the week ahead of us? What do we need to achieve

the goal? And what did we learn from the last

week's experience? We might have received a call

from a customer that they needed help with. Or

we might have gotten a feedback from a subscriber

that, hey, there is a feature that you are missing

and we needed it. Or sometimes our subscribers,

being small businesses, they need a handholding.

And in some cases, some of our subscribers, they

hired a new employee and the new employee need

a training because our promise to our subscribers

is the personal training unlimited. So if somebody

hired a new employee, we train them. Business

owners don't have to worry about that. That's

one other thing we remove off of the plate. That's

how we are bringing value to the small businesses.

So we go through all these things. We divide

who is best at doing what. What are the different

tasks on our hands? Sometimes we have to do the

research and development. What can we do to improve

our own technology that makes life easier for

our subscribers? So we will go through all those

things. And that's good. Thank you for that,

because you are focusing on the people, the subscribers,

your clients, rather than you focusing on how

can you get your money? How can you make the

most profit? How can you charge more? or what

are you going to benefit from rather than what

the client is going to benefit? Because I can

tell you, as a coach, just from my experience,

the companies who make the most money focus more

on what on their clients. They don't focus on

on how much money they can make. And they're

not interested in whether the client is going

to be happy or not or what value they're giving.

A lot of business owners don't realize that they

just take they have a little thing, service or

whatever that they're selling. They make a lot

of money. They just want to increase the price

and increasing rather than. And then eventually

there's no value in that. And that doesn't work.

And then there's a good chance that they might

go down or they're going to lose profit. Exactly.

They get into trouble. See, at the end of the

day, as a founder and CEO of my work belt. I

have two people that I need to be really, really

careful, besides my family. One is my customer

subscribers, who are small business owners. And

two is the employees who are supporting these

small businesses. Now, in case of large companies,

when there is an employee customer support technician,

and they will have the ability to get away not

supporting. their customers. There is opportunity

for them to get away from it. But in our case,

our customers are small business owners and small

businesses. We don't have that luxury. We cannot

because when we don't do what we are supposed

to do, that reflects in the business, which reflects

directly on the employees of that business. So

this is something I teach to all my team members,

all my employees. They carry the torch. And they

carry that forward with me. Next question is

founders often claim they value emotional intelligence,

but still default on blunt directives under pressure.

Which frameworks or routines do you use to keep

EQ front and center during product sprints and

client crises? And how have you adapted those

tools for a lean organization? Oh, we are certainly

a lean organization. There is no way. we could

offer what we are offering for that price if

we don't have a conscious of lean organization.

No doubt about that. But one principle I certainly

preach to all my team members, all my employees,

when there is a chaos, that is when you actually

have to pause. When there is a chaos and conflict

erupts in any situation, that is where you need

to pause. It requires a great deal of courage

to pause for a minute. take a deep breath before

you make any decision because it requires that

courage, nobody do that. So it is a practice.

So we continuously practice on how to take a

pause, how to take a breath and ask the right

questions before you make a decision in a chaotic

circumstances, in a conflict. As I go back to

my original statement, the small businesses they

require handholding. And sometimes the small

businesses, they are themselves in chaos. Our

job is to lift them up and move them away from

the chaos. That's our job. So these are the simple

principles that we follow in order to help our

subscribers. And giving these tools, giving this

coaching to employees and allowing them to practice

is what makes us a winning team. and helping

us to be lean operation. Yeah, that was good.

And the key word that you said was coaching,

because you're not in it just to make a product

and benefit how you can benefit for it. I know

a lot of marketing people, like I had said, and

people in this field. And that's really what

their drive is, is just to make money, make money

and make more money. And their clients are basically

like They see them, they do a few things for

them, and that's it. And then they just move

on. But they don't keep those clients. So they

have to keep advertising to keep getting more

clients. And in a way, because every business

advertises. But what is the sole reason that

you're doing it? Why is the reason? Is it just

to keep turning over clients, right, and just

trying to make more money? Or do you have a process?

Do you have a framework? What does that look

like? Is it behavior driven? All of these different

things is what I help businesses do. This is

the reason why I coach businesses because it

takes a little bit of thinking. Business owners,

not a robot and also small business owners. They

I know a lot of them. They just make a paycheck.

They literally do not make any money at all.

The only money they make is they give themselves

up. Do you believe it? Because it used to be

this was a long time ago that small businesses

made a lot of money, but they don't anymore only

because of the cost of everything. Their bills

and bills are just so much. They can only charge

a certain amount. I mean, this pizza place that

I know and everybody buys pizza. And pizza, it's

a fairly decent price, even for a slice or a

pie or whatever. But these business owners, I

know a few pizza places, the business business

owners, and they spend money. They advertise.

They have to buy all the ingredients and stuff

for the pizza. And they just make a paycheck.

That's very unfortunate, Debbie. That is why

my mission is like that. I want to help small

businesses streamline their operation, make it

as efficient as possible so they can make money.

Most importantly, they can take a break and catch

a breath and spend some time with the family.

See, there is a huge challenge in our society.

A lot of people, they are running after money,

business, career growth, all these things. But

the foundation for your happy life that you are

leading is the family. And you don't have time

to work with the family or work with building

the family together. You may not be seeing the

challenge today, but 10 years, 20 years, 15 years

down the road, you're in a chaos, internal chaos.

That is very important for small businesses,

business owners to take a break and let's spend

family together, build the values. and build

our next generation. See, it is fully responsible

for small businesses to build the next generation,

not just simply themselves. At least that's what

I believe in it. Yes, that was very good. Thank

you. The next question is resource constrained

owners sometimes see advanced IT as a nice to

have. Walk us through how you perspired a skeptical

founder to invest before they feel ready and

cite an example. where the first step delivered

a faster return than a traditional hire or marketing

spends. This business case that I'm going to

share with you is extremely valuable. See, one

of our customers, one of our subscribers, we

call them, they were using old software and a

lot of work they were doing in their business

is all manually written. And it's a small business,

a dozen employees together. Now they were all

going through a lot of challenges because their

manual operation and legacy system that was not

suitable for the current business needs and the

software that was they are using it way old.

So they end up going and doing the work on Excel

files and the business owner doesn't want to

invest in the technology until nearly 50 % of

the employees barge in the door literally and

asking him hard questions. And once they started

asking questions, hard questions, then he started

realizing, why is this chaos happening in my

office? And then he recognized it. Okay, this

is old technology, which is giving them wrong

data and turning them into stressful situations.

So they investigated, they inquired with five

different software packages. They were all very

expensive. We are talking about the Microsoft

and all other softwares that they have looked

into for running their business. And then finally,

they stumbled upon, literally they stumbled upon

my work belt because we don't have a huge marketing

budget either. They stumbled on my work belt

and they said, this is a no -brainer for us because

you are only one third of the cheapest option

in the market. And my owner doesn't have any

problem. So I was talking to Jerry, who is the

business manager, and he said it is so easy for

us to make a decision and the software is self

-taught. We don't need a training, although you're

offering the training, because it is so user

friendly. So business owners have to be open

-minded on continuously look after what options

are available in the market. And they definitely

had a budget constraint that stopped them from

being able to use the technology. Now, once we

relieve that budget constraint from their challenge,

it's a flip of a switch. they were able to use

it. And within one month, they reap the rewards

of it. I know a lot of business owners that have

a clientele, a certain type of customer, and

they focus on that. And that's their bread and

butter. And the technology that they have suits

for that, specifically for that. And they're

able to make that money. But the question is

this, and I have a hundred examples of this,

what happens when that clientele, that certain

client or customer goes away? Now they're left

with nothing. Why? Because they didn't have the

technology. They didn't have any updated software

to go beyond that certain clientele that they

had that made all of their money. And this has

been going on for a very long time. I haven't

been in this business for like 25 years. And

I've done life coaching and helping small businesses,

all these different things, individual families.

And this has been going on for a very because

in the past, there was no like technology is

going very fast now. It wasn't really like this.

I mean, it was, but not to this extent. So in

the past, it used to be like the small business

would rely on literally one or two clients. Maybe

they were like an executive in like a company

or something. And they would get all their business

from that. And then when that was done, the Maybe

the executive said, we don't need you anymore

for whatever reason. Then the company goes out

of business, but they don't, that doesn't have

to happen now. It used to happen a lot, but it

doesn't have to happen now because we have the

technology. We have companies like you that are

focusing on how can we, and like me, right? That

are focusing on how can we increase the sales?

But like you said, what is the future of the

company to make the future to make a future for

the company. They think we don't even know if

there's going to be a future. How do we even

know, right? If there's going to be a tomorrow.

To me, that's not running a business. No, that's

just the very kindergarten way of running a business.

If you are a business owner and you are relying

on one or two customers to run your business,

I mean, for that matter, if you have a customer

that is contributing more than 30 percent of

your business, you have to pick up and start

running, bringing more business. Because you

want to make that one customer below 20%, if

not 25 % max. But if there is one customer giving

you more than 30 % of the business, it is a responsibility

of the business owner to look for an option to

bring that down. Not that you want to get rid

of the rest of the customers, that's not a good

option. But you wanted to bring in more customers

or you wanted to work around how do you make

your business sustainable. That's a simple trigger.

The next question is, once the tech is live,

how do you tie its performance to hard outcomes,

productivity, revenue lift, employee retention,

so the leadership team can't dismiss the project

as just another IT experiment? That is one of

the reasons, a key feature we have, one of the

key features we have in my work belt is budget

versus actuals. Report. So any project that you

are doing as a business owner, you will be able

to budget that project. What is my labor cost?

What is my material cost? What is my equipment

cost? What is the miscellaneous cost? How much

am I paying for my subcontractors, whatnot? All

those budget items you create and plan for that

project. As the project continues on, you continuously

update what is being consumed to deliver that

project, to deliver that commitment. At any given

point of time, you run a budget versus actuals

report that will tell you what kind of a profitability

are you on the project. Now, that gives us two

things. One, it will enable us to see what are

the kinds of projects that are giving us profits

and what are the kinds of projects that are giving

us opportunity to improve the business process.

They may not be giving profit right now, but

then that is raising a question. Why are they

not giving us profit? Because we thought they

are all giving us profit. In some cases, you

will identify the projects that are lost. And

that gives you a greater strength in making a

decision to say no to some of the projects that

are giving you loss. So there are a wide variety

of cases that you can see in the business. And

like I said, within a month, you will see a no

-brainer why we have not done this before. It

is my work belt or it is any other software technology

or any other technology for that matter. You

should have these kind of parameters that you

can look for and justify the implementation of

it. To me, this is a lot of kind of brings in

a lot of what we have just been talking about.

But to me, a coach is good also for this type

of thing like you and I are. And also, I don't

know if a small company can really afford this,

but a lot of companies have a tech team where

they have in -house And they do all the work

advertising, whatever it is that the company

needs in order to survive. And they had a whole

marketing team. They had like a basement and

it was like filled with people. So the idea for

me is if you're a small business, try to take

the leap and try not to be too scared and too

frugal. Just to say. My company is doing good

now. I don't have to do this now. Try to take

a little gamble, dip into it a little bit and

see it can really do for you. So just a little

bit of trusting. I want to share with you something.

It is not they are doing gambling. I wanted to

make sure everybody is understand. You have been

investing in your business all through the life

of your business. Using technology is equally

important as you invest in buying a machinery,

buying an equipment in your business. Only because

software technologies that you cannot touch and

feel, that doesn't mean they don't bring value

in running your business. IT is extremely important

for any business, for any size. Take the case,

you're a coach, Debbie. You are coaching your

clients, and if they don't give you the data

for the questions that you're asking them, how

can you coach them? You cannot coach them. In

order for them to give you a data, it is the

owner's choice whether they spend one hour in

a snap, bring the data, or they spend two days

and to work through all Excel files and depend

on their own assistant to consolidate the data

and give it to you. That is their choice. So

what if there is a technology? you are investing

in get the time that you will be spending otherwise.

So look at the application of technology as an

investment standpoint, not as a gambling. That's

very true. Thank you for that. Next question

is listeners love real world turnaround stories.

Recount the moment you helped an employee who

had lost almost everything rebuilt his life.

What precise actions did you take and what ripple

effects, positive or negative, did you track

in morale and output? What a wonderful question.

Actually, this brings tears to my eyes. I really,

really went through this challenge with one of

my employees. This has been a long time, not

today, but at least 10 years ago. Mark was, I'm

not giving the last name here for our privacy

purposes. He lost everything. His wife left him

and he lost his job and he lost his children

and ultimately he lost his house. He became a

homeless and he went into depression. Nobody

could reach him. He did not want to talk to anybody.

He did not want to reach anybody and my ex -colleague

he was. Then I end up calling him. Literally,

I have to search for him and bring him back to

my business and This is what I did. I did not

give him simply money to go buy food. When I

brought him into my office, I personally went

and bought a bunch of groceries. I gave it to

him and I told him that you are working now.

No matter what, you are doing something productive.

You are a productive person. I know you very

well. It doesn't matter. And then slowly, I gave

him money. for having him do something productive,

not necessarily we don't have any count of how

many hours or what is exactly you're doing or

not. But why I did that, it's not because I want

to simply give him the money. I want to build

his confidence, self -esteem. Now, within a year,

he ended up finding a job that is far better

than what I could offer him because of his seniority,

because of his intellect. And then off you go.

It is... The moment that I have to make a decision,

am I just simply give him a hundred dollars or

a thousand dollars and off you go, do whatever

you want it to do? Or do I want to bring him

in and help him to gain his self -confidence

and be able to get on back on his feet? I made

a choice of doing, helping him to gain the self

-confidence and self -esteem. That's a very touching.

story that really definitely resonates with me

and probably a lot of other business owners.

And it has a lot to do with what we were just

talking about. So two more questions. Your AAA

formula of accept, acknowledge, appreciate, sounds

deceptively simple. Give us a case where applying

it moved the hard metric and detail the numbers

so our data minded listeners can judge its real

impact. This is the formula that can be applied

anywhere in life. It's not just simply in business.

But of course, it gives you a lot more value

when you do in the business. Take the case you

have an employee. When you have employees, new

employees come on board. They come from different

cultures. They come from their own family background.

They come from their own childhood experiences.

They have their own preconceived notions when

they are walking in the door. we cannot expect

them to adapt our culture in a snap or we cannot

expect them to blend with us immediately. No

matter whether they are 10 years or 15 years

old or they are 50 years old, it doesn't matter.

So, the first step we need to do is we need to

accept them as they are. And when they say something,

when they do something, you acknowledge it. Hey,

I see that you're doing a good job. Guess what?

Their comfort Goes through the roof because they

are timid they're intimidated by the new environment

Although they may put a big face of brave face,

but subconsciously they do have that so once

you accept them the way they are and that relieves

a stress for them and then the acknowledgement

once you acknowledge what they're doing and that

gives them another door to open and be comfortable

with it. So this AAA formula has a great deal

of value and you can apply the same thing in

your own home, in your own personal life. Let's

say you are in a college environment. You are

a group of 10 friends. You are five friends for

that matter. You are enjoying the life and a

new friend comes in. Accept that new friend as

that person could be coming from a different

country altogether. So that's why I always encourage

people to use this AAA formula. It's good that

you have a formula because it just shows structure.

And I think that's a good thing that most likely

will attract business owners or potential clients.

It does sound very similar. It's all about how

you explain it. It's all about the presentation

because something can be similar, easy or complicated

or simple. But if. they don't understand it,

then most likely nothing's going to happen. No,

as a coach for business owners or for life for

the people, I'm sure you will understand the

value of these kind of simple formulas more than

anybody else. And I'm sure you have a bunch of

formulas that you are teaching to your clientele

already. Definitely. So the last question is,

finally, if the audience acts on only one idea

from today's conversation. to blend right size

IT with stronger leadership behavior, what single

move should they take this week? And why will

that action create outsized returns compared

with every other option on their list? There

are so many tasks that you will be performing

in the business. Now step back for a minute and

think which of these tasks that repeatedly doing.

What is this task that I'm repeatedly doing?

An example, I'm repeatedly picking up this part

and putting it on another way, or I'm repeatedly

entering this data into this form. Oh, inquiry

forms. People are coming on the window and they're

writing on the piece of paper, and I am entering

that data into the computers repeatedly every

day. task that is repeatedly happening in your

organization, in your life within that business

process. That is a wonderful business case to

adapt technology and make automated. And once

you do that, then you will be more appreciating

the technology. You will see an instant reward

of it and that you can pave the path for adapting

better technology for complementing to your business

and improving the efficiency. So if I have an

idea or I am curious about something or I want

to spend money on something, what am I going

to get out of that? What is the value that I'm

going to get out of that? Well, to me, that depends

on what I'm thinking and how I think, because

I could say I could spend. 10 ,000 and say to

myself, well, I'm probably not going to get that

much out of this and what's going to happen.

I'm not going to get that much out of it. So

it doesn't only depend on how much money am I

spending, right? It's 10 ,000 on advertising

just because it's more money. Am I going to get

more out of that? That's not necessarily true.

And again, this is all stuff that I teach. that

I explain when I coach, because a lot of people

don't a lot of business owners and stuff. They

don't really understand what the core of this

concept is and what it really means. So this

is the thing. So that's why it's good that we

combine this leadership behavior right with the

right sized I .T. because to me, this is what

right sized is. And this is the whole thing that

we've been talking about. This is a very good

thing, not only to take away, but for them to

really understand what this is really about and

to open their minds. There's something beyond

what they're thinking. There's something beyond

what my vision is, what my idea is. of my business,

of what IT is, right? And how I can expand my

business from the technology world. Thank you

very much, Debbie. That wraps up our deep dive

with Sri, founder and CEO of My Work Belt. If

today's conversation showed anything, it's that

world -class technology and people -first leadership

are not luxuries for giants. They are the growth

engines small businesses can't afford to ignore.

You heard how a single right -sized tool can

outpace another hire, why handwritten notes still

drive retention in a digital world, and how the

AAA formula of accept, acknowledge, appreciate

moves hard numbers when applied with intent.

The real question is whether you'll treat these

ideas as inspiration or execution. Pick one takeaway,

maybe the first tech upgrade you've been postponing.

or that thank you note for you keep meaning to

write and act on it before the week is out. Sri,

thank you for sharing both your strategy and

the human touch behind your success. Listeners,

if you found value in this episode, subscribe

to your favorite platform, leave a quick review,

and share the show with someone who's ready to

lead smarter. All links to Sri's resources. are

in the show's notes at behavioralprofit .com.

I'm Debbie Longo. This is Behavioral Profit,

where better behavior meets better business.

Until next time, lead boldly, leverage technology

wisely, and keep turning behavior into profit.

Thank you, Sri, for being on the show. Thank

you very much for allowing me to be on the show

and share my thoughts with your audience. Greatly

appreciate it, and I'm honored.