Sean Sullivan (17s):
Welcome to Converge Coffee with Sean Sullivan I'm here with Adam Gulla. He is the Business Development Manager at Briljent a professional services consulting firm with clients across the nation, including fortune 500 companies, as well as state local and federal government agencies. Adam has built and led new business lines and divisions from the ground up. His career highlights include generating over 31 million in revenue and maintaining 111 one one, one, one, 1% average year over year revenue growth. In addition to his day job in side hustles Adam as a writer who pens a bit of everything, including fiction poetry, screenplays and nonfiction, Adam is focused on continuous growth improvement and making a difference.

Sean Sullivan (1m 2s):
Adam thanks for being on the show. How are you? Thank you so much, Sean. Really appreciate being here in I'm doing well. I'm looking forward to in the holidays and also just trying to keep up with everything at the holidays. Brand yes. And for the backdrop from a low, for a lot of people, we actually, our families would know each other since we were, Oh my gosh. A grade school, elementary school, which has been really funny. Your mom was my mom and my grandmother's hairstylists for, for years. And when I say years like decades, so, well, I'm not going to say that cause your mom's out that old, so she's not, so Sorry sorry to me, but you know, it's kind of interesting because I always got my a haircut and she would always talk about you and your brothers.

Sean Sullivan (1m 48s):
And she always talked about your writing skills and I actually read some of it and I was, I was floored. And so when we were in the listener's here, this of like, Oh, BizDev, you know, person, but he has a writing background. So my first question, it kind of going into this and I know you've got a good story behind this is, you know, why did you start in business development when your passions we're in writing? And then my kind of follow up to that to is, you know, are there any parallels that you have seen with business development and writing? Yeah, absolutely. So thank you. I think those are excellent questions and I think it's a bit of an unconventional path, which I think makes this a really interesting question.

Adam Gulla (2m 31s):
And it's been a little bit unconventional for me to, and ah, there is a story behind it. There are parallels with writing and business development and business in general that I think are really helpful for people to be aware of and being mindful of, especially on all of my fellow English, Meijer's out there that I think this story really begins during my time, many years ago in college. So I went to ball state university. I majored in creative writing. I mitered in marketing and film, But you know, writing was, was a main passion and interest of mine. But I knew when I came time to where I was going to graduate, if it needed to make a living, he was going to be really difficult to just, just write and even make a living.

Adam Gulla (3m 15s):
Like I, I knew that and ever since I was young, I've always worked all different kinds of jobs and even kind of did my own things, whether it was going door to door and seeing if I could shovel people's DRS for, you know, like 20 bucks, like that has always been a part of my life. So it was driven to have a day job to support me while I continued riding as, as a passion. So that was an interest of mine, but I was really interested in figuring out what is the kind of job that could blend what I learned in writing and apply that in a way that adds value. And I, I was drawn to marketing because marketing felt like the application of everything that I learned through writing in a business context.

Adam Gulla (3m 59s):
So with that, as my focus, I actually was able to get on a business to business sales internship during my time at school in Muncie. And so what it was, was it the student targeted coupon books with advertisements and promotions, and then that local businesses would include there. And I actually used it a lot as a student and that felt like a product I could stand behind. And so it was a business to business sales internship, working with business owners in the local area to create ads, to draw students into their businesses. And it created joint value is created value for students' getting, you know, additional deals and it created value for business owners bringing in more student traffic in their, and so this was a door to door business, a business sales cold walking in to businesses trying to meet with owner's on the spot, off the cuff and make that work.

Adam Gulla (4m 56s):
So you can imagine it was extremely difficult and you want to talk about rejection they're there is nothing more humbling than face-to-face rejection over and over and over again, until you finally get one of those satisfying things, which is you make some progress that way. And so what was interesting about this to me was, you know, my focus was writing, but I went on a limb and really went outside of my comfort zone way outside my comfort zone and dabbled in sales and marketing face-to-face. And I found that, you know, there were a lot of elements that I liked about it.

Adam Gulla (5m 37s):
It, it started to click and I started to have a, a passion and kind of got a foothold in it and built momentum in that, with that internship. And then I did another immersive marketing internship with a health campus in Muncie that continued that. So when the time came after school, for me to find my first job, I was really in sales and marketing based on those experiences. And, you know, I sent it out many resumes in and I really wasn't getting anywhere in. I took some the lessons I learned from business to business sales and just the importance of when possible to meet face to face. And I attended an American marketing association, a networking session in Indianapolis, and I went face to face and connected with everybody there.

Adam Gulla (6m 23s):
And one thing led to another and long story short through that. I was able to get an entry level position out of a local company where I was able to work under the way they were under the leadership of the company in our consultant to build a new business development division from the ground up. And I learned a lot. It clicked, I mean, I dove in head first again, I got pushed way past my comfort zone, but riding applied in all of those experiences. But the, the main thing that I wanted to get across first was I think a lot of times we box ourselves in and let others box us in. Like, for example, you might think, Oh, I'm just, you know, we might tell ourselves, Oh, and just as a sales guy or just an operations guy, or, Oh, I'm just a writer.

Adam Gulla (7m 10s):
And we box ourselves in and don't allow ourselves that self-discovery, that I think is really important. So I, I just think there's a lot of them value professionally personally, as a human being, giving yourself license and permission to explore any of that and everything under the sun that you think you had a little bit of an interest in, or even if you just want to try it. And I think really continuing to push outside of your comfort zone in going on that path of self-discovery allows you to find interests that you may be, you didn't even know you had and things that click on that you didn't know you had a capability for and they all build on each other.

Adam Gulla (7m 50s):
So riding back to the parallels with writing a business develop, well, I feel like me personally, so in writing builds on business development and Were writing applies in business development. It is, I think from a storytelling perspective when a So, you know, I feel like, I feel like Business Development is really a blend of sales and marketing at one of the most important aspects of that. It's being able to tell the story of your brand. And some of the stories I've always found the most interesting when it comes to business are the stories of how the company was founded and what was the founder's journey in building that company from where it was and where is it going?

Adam Gulla (8m 30s):
And I'm just being able to communicate that through your brand, but also to you're telling a story with your products and services you were providing for clients in this sense of what's the value of those services are providing for clients. You're telling that story of what you've done for clients before, what you're doing for clients now, what you going to continue to be doing for clients. And it's really important to be able to communicate the value that you're bringing to the table to be able to share your company story, your personal story, because at the end of the day, we all connect around stories and that's something that writing is completely based off of. So, you know, I'll stop, I'll stop there.

Adam Gulla (9m 11s):
And if you had any follow up on that,

Sean Sullivan (9m 14s):
You know, it's a really, really good, and you hit on some really good nuggets there about being boxed in going out of your comfort zone, connecting with stories. I feel like there's a big movement right now, especially with storytelling that we're getting back to less automated, less technical, and going back to the human elements, which is always going to be like humans or going to connect with humans. And you already kind of hit on my second question. So we're going to say it was the passion for writing fi you know, how does it foster stronger sales relationships? And you've already talked about that with, you know, the founders of, you know, the founders journey.

Sean Sullivan (9m 54s):
You said it was perfectly and also telling the value. So I'm going to move to the next question here. And it is, you know, what are some lessons you've learned this year? Obviously it's 2020 I'm with sales in the public sector. And if you can kind of intertwine also, I'm kind of the value propositions and the founder's journey and, and, and other nuances that you've learned in writing and biz dev this year that has, that has helped you, or how have you seen that from other companies that they probably should have done better?

Adam Gulla (10m 26s):
Yeah, yeah, sure. So again, we, I work for a Briljent. We do a lot of work in the public sector for state local and federal government agencies. And that's a little, a little bit different than the private sector in terms of the process that you go through and the cycles that you built through. But there, I think fundamentally in terms of business development, in terms of providing value in services for customers, the, the fundamentals still remain the same across all different businesses. And so 2020 is definitely impacted all businesses. Us included, government agencies had been impacted. Agencies have been, you know, budgets had been cut and they're having to shift to a different projects in different priorities.

Adam Gulla (11m 10s):
But I think one of the number one lessons that I've learned is just continuing to be flexible, nimble, and adapt as an organization. So we've had plenty of customers that we were doing onsite training, for example, and obviously COVID has come in and were practicing social distancing, and taken that very seriously to, to continue to provide value for customers. We were able to convert a lot of the on-site training into online deliveries. So it's still being able to maintain those services for our clients, but just in a different format in a way that really works for them. And I think with that is being able to pivot in times change.

Adam Gulla (11m 54s):
And I mean, I think we're seeing that at a rapid scale right now, but for us, we've had to pivot, we've had some different projects that at the funding is just been cut and They in States have understandably had to pause it. These projects are totally canceled them. Ah, but what we continue to see is when one door closes another door opens and being able to be mindful of those changes, how they're affecting your customers in really thinking about, okay, my customer's needs are changing. Their circumstances are changing. Can I change my services to account for those changing needs for them? And you might have to go really outside the comfort zone and outside of the box to make that happen.

Adam Gulla (12m 36s):
Like for example, we have started to provide services and additional areas through a support and help by engaging with subject matter experts, for example, the behavioral health field. So we've got, you know, before we had not necessarily had a clinical psychologist on staff or helping us, but we were able to secure some subject matter experts in that field to combine with our main delivery offering, to then provide additional support for agencies and blend the best of both worlds. So I use that as, as an example of just being able to pivot and maybe even create a new service offering with the help of a partner or somebody else, or being able to change in those ways and respond in those ways, but to add value for your clients at the end of the day, it's, it's really just paying attention to your clients needs and really listening to them.

Adam Gulla (13m 27s):
And, and everything is about delivering a great customer experience and exceptional customer service and making a difference for them in their customers. And everybody that's impacted by that down the line. And, and just being able to pivot in those times of change, I think has been critical in a 2020. So those are some key high level things that I've noticed.

Sean Sullivan (13m 52s):
I like it. I like that. I like the high level, but there's some, there's some offering a detail to have looking beyond your customers, but looking at your customer's customers that are being impacted. So, you know, no more grilling questions here. You kind of want to, you know, go into more of an offline background. If you want to kind of talk about any successes, pivots, anything that you kinda want to mention. That probably be a little nuggets of information for Pete, for our listeners out there that are either in the public or private sectors that you, you, you just kind of want to share from, from your experiences.

Adam Gulla (14m 25s):
Yeah. Yeah. So being in business development in sales and marketing, I'm constantly reminded, you know, I have a college professor, you know, at ball state that had, had said business is his numbers and relationships, and yes, numbers are important, but I'm continuously reminded of the importance of relationships and that those are built on mutual understanding, empathy, honesty, just building genuine relationships is that becomes marketing in of itself. Because if people know that, Hey, you know, I can count on Adam or whoever they're dealing with and I can count on them to really pay attention to what I'm looking for, what I need.

Adam Gulla (15m 11s):
I mean, that's, that's some of that, some of the best brand building and marketing in of itself, because they're dealing with somebody, they trust that they're dealing with a company they trust and they can count on to be able to meet their needs, or if their not the right fit that can help them find the, the vendor or the solution that is the right fit. So just time and time, again, especially during 2021, everybody is impacted in many different ways and we're all in this together. And just constantly reminded of the important that, you know, people do business with people. And that was another thing that I learned from my mentor at a The company. I worked for a fine line in printing grip, just The the importance of relationships is just so important and its marketing and of itself.

Adam Gulla (15m 55s):
And I just think to continue to stay in front of clients. And, and as a matter of listening, it's a matter of engaging in a dialogue and a discussion and trying to uncover where they're at in the market. What, what are the pain points? What are you experiencing and ah, trying to calibrate, if you have services that can add value, trying to show where you can add that value and just having transparent discussions. And like, like I said before, I know everybody has been impacted during these challenging times. I just, just reiterate the importance of keeping an eye on the market in really being creative with your service offering and, and the things that you are doing.

Adam Gulla (16m 36s):
There are opportunities to grow in different areas then you thought of before and be comfortable with being uncomfortable and exploring those and just continue to be open-minded. I think that has, that has helped me engage in some successful projects we hadn't done before. It was being able to branch out in, in partner and be open to partnering with other vendors. If you have a gap in, in subject matter expertise or, or so on and so forth, don't be afraid to look for help with the partners who can help add value, that you can leverage the best of both worlds. So those are, I think, some key insights that have really I've found a lot of value and in 2020,

Sean Sullivan (17m 20s):
I like it Adam, it, it, it hits it on the Head with, you know, the best, you know, brand building a marketing is, you know, helping the customer. And, you know, I mean, you named off a myriad of things to a mutual understanding, you know, honesty trust, which I mean, what you are huge. And I think that a lot of people miss misconstrued, you know, marketing as fluffy design it's, it's not living and what it is. And then they also confuse sales with, you know, why this person hound me rather than an actual relationship. You know, you, you do business with people, you do business with people that you like. And I think more so you noticed it, I mean, in the B2B world is that more brands are pushing more emotion.

Sean Sullivan (18m 4s):
They're being more authentic there breaking out of this Like stodgy button down shirts, you know, or a pencil skirt. If you wanna be a woman in that kind of stuff, it was just one of those things that it was like the generic, like this is how you should dress up that kind of things. So, you know, thanks for kind of, you kind of pointed that out in a sense of, you know, being different. So this is part of the episode is about you, Adam in the sense of, you know, why do you do what you do? Why do you get up in the morning? And what's kind of the first thing you comes to mind of. Why, why business development with almost a, a business development with a marketing passion behind driven behind it?

Adam Gulla (18m 47s):
Oh yeah. So I, this is really personally important to me about my work with Briljent and what I'd done so far, and I'm really grateful to be able to do the work that I'm doing, because the projects that we are working on with government agencies is for social services is for health and human services is for example, a Medicaid, Medicare. We do work in health information technology, all these different programs are supporting some of the most vulnerable parts of our population. I mean, for example, opioid the opioid issues that are going on. I mean, we, we are helping in so many different areas to improve the lives, have an impact, the lives of people that most need our support and to be able to get up every day and even just have a small impact on that.

Adam Gulla (19m 34s):
And hopefully being able to improve the value that's being provided for those people in need. That is incredibly important to me and I, I, that is personally important to me. And I'm very happy and grateful that the business development and marketing work that I can do it can help support that. And it goes back to, you know, I just have a personal commitment just trying to make a difference in the world if I can, where I can. And I'm grateful that my main job allows me to do that. So that makes it really easy for me to get up and, you know, hit the ground running and try to do the best I can. It's just, it's very fulfilling to know that the impact that I'm helping make helps make a difference in the lives of those that are most need our support.

Adam Gulla (20m 20s):
So I'm really grateful for that. There is a personal fulfillment though, to just prefer a personal and professional growth. I love pushing past my comfort zone in all ways and not just business develop. And this is just one of the ways that I am able to grow. Mmm. So much just stepping outside my comfort zone and continue doing work for those opportunities to, to do that. So they're is a personal and professional passion behind that as well, that both feed off of each other and fulfill it. So those things make it easy to, you know, the main pursuit

Sean Sullivan (20m 57s):
I like that you mentioned it several times of getting out of your comfort zone. So my next question is, is it more about your hobby I'm with, I mean, obviously you say writing, but can you kind of, you kind of talk more about, even with your trying to in your mastery, in your passion for writing and that kind of stuff. How has business development helped you get out of your comfort zone, even with your hobby and any, what are their other hobbies do you have to, besides writing?

Adam Gulla (21m 24s):
Yeah. Yeah. I have many hobbies and like I mentioned before, I'm interested in my life for the rest of my life, pushing the limits on everything, trying, you know, anything and everything that I'm interested in. It seemed where it all we're at all can go. So, you know, I've got a passion of writing for the longest time I was involved with martial arts. I haven't been as much just because of life. I have a passion for that, and I'm hoping I can get back into that. I have a, I'm a car enthusiast as well. I, I, you know, and I live right by the motor Speedway. I, I would maybe be interested in dabbling and, and maybe a little bit of racing if it makes sense as well. I mean, if I, I want to push the limits as much as I can, but business development has fed a lot of other hobbies and passions, and I know it's vice versa to, and just from the center of one of the things that I've really appreciated it with my experience in business development is it really got me comfortable with being uncomfortable in ways that nothing else has nothing else has, you know, required me to necessarily go door to door, a business, a business called walk into businesses and connect with the owner's on the spot, or go to conferences where I've been to conferences.

Adam Gulla (22m 37s):
When I first started Were I was the youngest by far, you didn't know anything at all about the industry had to learn as I went in and, and it happened and be able to be comfortable with being uncomfortable was one of the greatest things I think that was developed from business development and being able to build the airplane as you're flying it. So to speak, not just with business development, but with anything that you're doing, you don't have to have every last thing of everything you're doing figured out. And in fact, you're probably not going to do it. And so there's a comfort level of, of putting a plan together and that's great, but also moving forward and knowing 99% of what you plan for is going to change and you'll have to adapt and overcome.

Adam Gulla (23m 23s):
And that's part of the fun of the journey. I think, as a spontaneity and the serendipity have some of the things that come up out of that. So also a creativity has been forged, an additional creativity. You'll have to come up with creative solutions for clients. And it's helped me to think outside the box in different ways for some of that different hobbies and just consistency as well, with business development and sales and marketing, you have to be consistent. You have to show up, you have to keep going at it. And that just reinforces that with anything else that you try. So those are all, I think, some key ways of those kinds of feed off each other. And like I said, likewise, the other hobbies, a feed into a business development as well.

Sean Sullivan (24m 7s):
I like it. So, so what do you do health wise? So, yeah, I mean, you've kind of hinted on hit on some things that martial arts and a few other things, and you have a great mindset when you kind of have gone into things, but if you want to kind of talk to, I mean, generally health, or if you want to talk, you know, what you kind of do, like it could be even mental, physical, whatever, you know, if you want to share that with the listeners.

Adam Gulla (24m 27s):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I'm definitely trying to do a better job. I'm not doing as good as I, as I can or should be, but I'm trying to make effort. And every year I made a list of all different kinds of tools that I have to hold myself accountable with crap and health is always one of those. One thing I have been doing lately that I think has been really helpful is sometimes with a day, you know, I've got a son, he is, he's two years old, I've got a family, I've got a job and things I'm doing on the side. And, and trying to just keep everything balanced and consistent is really difficult, at least for me right now. And one of those things is just eating right consistently trying to do that for as many meals as you can. And that's just difficult for me personally, right now, one way I've been able to fill that gap is I have been taking raw organic greens, fruits, different supplements with things that maybe not necessarily getting a full amount in my diet and, you know, whole foods, organic certified, best of all the supplements that I can get in term of the powder or whatever.

Adam Gulla (25m 29s):
And I try to make that into a raw organic health food move the, at the very beginning of my morning, you know, like a chia, all different kinds of seeds, all kinds of healthy, organic greens, all of that stuff blended in one health smoothing in the morning to try to get as much nutrients, much daily nutrients as I can in the morning when it seems it, I find that a lot easier for me to maintain consistency, then trying to, you know, try to cook the meal every single time I try to bulk prep meals when I can, as well, both prep, healthy meals in terms of, of, you know, exercise. I haven't been as consistent as I would like to be, but What one of the things that I'm trying to do is start small and keep it consistent.

Adam Gulla (26m 15s):
So there is a, there is an app, I think it was from Johnson and Johnson. It's a high intensity interval training. And I think it was designed for a co corporate people, its like a smart seven minute workout and it's an app you can download, there's a million others, but it's a high intensity interval training that you're supposed to get a pretty good workout within seven minutes. The idea is you go all out and you get as, or a good percentage of the daily recommended exercise levels at you can in that setting again, it's probably not as good as a 30 minute workout, but I'm finding small little hacks like that to build the consistency and then starting to scale that as you get more consistent, okay, now maybe I can upgrade to more exercise levels.

Adam Gulla (27m 4s):
You know, I have weights as well. I try to work out when I can. I also use habit trackers, some different, I've tried some different ones to try to keep be consistent. And I find checking those in daily helps promote the consistency. And I know we're seeing a lot of trending with, you know, mindfulness and meditation. I try to stay consistent with that as much as I can. There is, there is a really cool tool that I use. It's called the shift. S H I F T. It's a, it's a mindfulness meditation necklace. And so when it is its kind of like a strong looking pendant a little bit and it helps focus your breathing.

Adam Gulla (27m 48s):
And so you do this for an extended period of time and it's just supposed to help you in the meditating process in to help you perfect the breathing because it's not necessarily a simple as one would think it is. And it actually, it does have an effect when you are doing it for the recommended a matter of time and the recommended breaths. I find it slowing my system down to actually track my heart rate when I do it, see what the difference was making. And I find that has, that's made it a lot easier for me to be consistent with meditation and mindfulness. And I I'm always trying to be as present as I can in the present moment. I find that to be an important lesson this year as well.

Adam Gulla (28m 30s):
Yeah. I'm not always perfect at it, but when I'm present in the moment, I find a way, I just feel like I'm, I'm, I'm making the most out of that moment right now. So that's something else that I've been using as well. Like it, a lot of, a lot of different

Sean Sullivan (28m 45s):
And hacks like it Adam Adam, you know, thanks for being on this episode and you know, talking about the business development and writing in the, kind of the combinations between your backstory of how you got into business development, where you are with Briljent and what the great work you're doing. They're and a lot of your passions of kind of what you're, why did you do what you do for work? You know, a lot of your hobbies and what you're constantly working at it and constantly dabbling in and kind of being a kind of a Renaissance man of kind of figuring things out as well as, you know, what are some of that quick hacks and what you do, you know, ask for help. So I think a lot of listeners will really appreciate kinda going through and even from a different perspective of kind of being out of your comfort zone of being comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Sean Sullivan (29m 28s):
So Adam thanks for being on the show.

Adam Gulla (29m 31s):
Yeah. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And so all of the Converge Coffee drinkers out there. That's right.

0 (29m 36s):
Got it.