An AV and integration-focused podcast broadcast weekly

This week's episode of Automation Unplugged features Hally Patel, CFO and Business Development lead at RDB Energy, a turnkey low-voltage solutions powerhouse based in Orlando, Florida. Specializing in high-stakes commercial projects—particularly Multi-Dwelling Units (MDUs)—Hally and her team deliver everything from AV and network infrastructure to life safety and fire alarm systems.

Hally’s entry into the industry is a "only in America" story; a chance banking encounter eight years ago led to an offer to work for free, a leap of faith that transformed her from a banker into a construction leader. Today, she is a dynamic voice in the industry, known for her passion for complex projects and her commitment to revolutionary partnerships.

In this episode, Hally and I discussed:

• The power of peer groups and why her V11 group in ProSource has become her most valuable business asset for vulnerability and growth.
• How she saved a client over $120,000 by re-engineering a high-voltage lighting hurdle into a low-voltage solution.
• And the AI revolution in integration and her journey from "just an email helper" to using Claude for site readiness analysis and meeting accountability.

Hally brings a "yes to everything new" attitude that is infectious. Whether she's talking about the complexity of a 1,000-unit project or her mission to visit 40 countries before she's 40, you're going to find plenty of inspiration here.

So settle in and enjoy my conversation with Hally Patel. Let’s get started!

SEE ALSO: #355: From Pro Golf to Pro Integration with Jeremey Jeansonne

 Transcript

Ron:

Hello, hello there. Ron Callis here with another episode of Automation Unplugged. We are, , we're here in early summer and, , hope y'all have, , some fun summer plans scheduled, , to spend time with family and friends. I know here in the Callis household, we have a, a very busy summer scheduled. Very busy, , schedule ahead. , our show today is brought to you, , as always by, , the work I do, I get to do, I'm fortunate enough to, to do every day at One Firefly. And, , the team at One Firefly works really hard, , to help our industry grow and to help our, our clients grow their businesses, and that is inclusive of the team at Amplify People, our hiring team that's helping many integrators around the country, , with their hiring needs. So that team is, is... They're busy bees. They're working hard, and, , that provides me the opportunity, the time, and the window to do this, , which is Automation Unplugged, to interview all of the fun and interesting and talented and experienced people that make up, , the DNA of our industry. And, , I've a, a fun one for you today. And, , I, I met this, , lovely woman, , actually recently a- in Nashville at the, , Pro Source event, , when Firefly made our, our official debut back in Pro Source. , we were in Pro Source, and then we were out, and now we are officially back in, and, , we're very happy and excited to be back in the group. And, , as I w- was networking, , I got to meet Hallie Patel, and that's who we're gonna be talking with today. So Hallie is the co-owner, , operations manager, and, and word has it she wears a lot of other hats inside of her business, RDB Energy Solutions. So she's a, a co-owner of the business, and, , we're gonna learn all about the work they're doing. They're based there in Orlando, and they are doing commercial work in high-rises, , around the Orlando market and around the state, and she just brings a, a really fresh, dynamic voice, , and industry perspective. And I'm, I'm confident that you guys and gals will enjoy hearing about and learning from Hallie. So without further ado, let me go ahead and bring her in and, , let's say hello to Hallie. How are you? Hi, Ron. I'm fantastic. How are you? I am super-duper. , well, let's first of all start with where are you coming to us from? Just so everyone understands kind of- Your, your geographic positioning, and then we'll, we'll dive into kinda a little bit about RDB Energy

Hally:

We're located in Orlando, Florida. So just outside of, , Winter Park here is, , this is home base.

Ron:

Awesome. And what, what is RDB Energy? I know I gave a very brief description there on the intro, but what's... How would you describe who you guys are and what you do? We

Hally:

are the ultimate turnkey solution for builders and developers. Okay. In all things low voltage. And, and, and turnkey

Ron:

solutions, all things low voltage?

Hally:

All things low voltage. Okay. What would- Whether it be fire alarm, DAS systems, audio, video. All things low voltage.

Ron:

What's a typical type of project that you guys take on? I- if there is such a thing. Is there a typical type of job that you guys do? , I

Hally:

don't know that typical is a word that we like to throw around here. , custom is the word of the... It's the name of the game. , but if you... if I were to break it down into an industry, let's say, , MDUs and assisted living facilities. And for those who might not know the, the, the terminology, MDUs is multi-dwelling units, mostly apartment complexes. , so we do different kinds of apartments, whether it be HUD apartments, as well as ultra high-end, and then everything in between.

Ron:

Okay. And, , do you primarily work on those projects in Central Florida? Are you doing them around the state? Are you doing them around the country? , we're doing them around the state. Around the state. Okay. And what are some of the, the common... I, I always like to help our audience kinda become familiar with some of maybe the brands that you're working with. , you know, you mentioned audio, video, fire, , maybe you said access control. Like- Yes ... some of the categories you're in. Like, what are some of the bigger brands that you guys are, are behind? , well, audio, there's...

Hally:

For us, our business, , specifically since we are in the MDU space, , we don't get to do a whole lot of high-end audio like some of our friends in the residential side, , unfortunately, so we don't get to play with as many of those, , those fun things, because I would love, love- Many of the, the fun, expensive speakers

Ron:

yeah.

Hally:

Absolutely. I would love to have a Focal showroom, and I'd love to throw up a Focal soundbar every opportunity I got. But, , our space is more geared towards and friendly with our friends over at Origin Acoustics.

Ron:

Okay. So you do a lot of Origin. , what about, , , l- do you guys do lighting, lighting control? Or, or do you guys get into those types- Yes ... of applications in the MDUs?

Hally:

We do. , we do a ton of lighting control actually, and Vantage has been our preferred brand, , thus far. And you and I kinda touched on this backstage, but, , we are looking to make a switch, so I'm very much considering Savant for all of our lighting needs as well as our control system.

Ron:

We will keep that a secret. No one's gonna know that you are investigating brand A over brand B. But, , I think that's what any astute business owner should always be doing, right? Is evaluating what do they offer and what should they be offering based on their- ... you know, market needs. A-

Hally:

absolutely. And we're in technology. It's constantly evolving. We should be doing this constantly.

Ron:

Okay. I understand a little bit. What about in the fire space? , what, what is... I know a lot of residential technology contractors probably don't do much it- with fire, so maybe just super brief, break it down for me, like in the fifth grade here, fifth grade level. What, what's typical fire type solution you guys are doing?

Hally:

Potter is our preferred solution, and we also work with Honeywell.

Ron:

Potter. And what, what is a typical solution composed of? Like, what, what are the... What does it mean to deliver a fire solution into a building? , I would- Very rudimentary. N- n- no, no trick questions here.

Hally:

If I were to put it in the fourth grade level, that means that any time there is a fire, there's these sirens, and they go boo, boo, boo, and you're supposed to leave the building.

Ron:

Okay. Got it. Yeah. We keep that advice. You, you guys do a, you guys do a bunch of that as well? -h. Yes, sir. Okay. You and I met in, , Nashville at ProSource. , what, what, what play or, or the role that you feel, , buying groups like ProSource play for your business? And keeping in mind there's probably a lot of people listening that aren't in any group, aren't in a buying group.

Hally:

I have a lot of great things to say about ProSource. , I think ProSource really truly puts the business owner in the forefront of how they approach the world in general. , the most important thing that I get from ProSource isn't the DFIs, it's not the rebates, it's not going to, , Nashville. The most important thing that I get from ProSource is my V11 group.

Ron:

Hmm. Tell me more.

Hally:

So V11, for those who aren't familiar, it's meant to be 11 people, 10 business owners and the moderator, which typically is the regional manager. , and for us in the southeast, that's Steve. , he moderates our group of 10 business owners. We're spread out throughout the US. , some in, like, Texas and North Carolina- Me obviously in Florida. I've got another one Florida, , down south. , and we get together once a month for a two and a half hour call, and then we have an in-person, , mandatory in-person once a year, which I actually just came from about two weeks ago in Golden, Colorado. , and it's ... It consists of being vulnerable and having the ability to learn from others. So we talk about best practices. We look at each other's marketing materials. We look at proposals. We look at the day-to-day, how are we running things and what can we learn from each other this month, next month, and it also gives you a sounding board when you run into something that you can't really talk about with someone who's outside of the industry because they just don't understand the specifics. , so it's a great sounding board of 10 other people who have varying degrees of experiences, who've been around, some of them, since car audio. Some of them, like me, are much newer. We've, we're an eight-year-old company, , so I've, I've got a lot to learn from those who have been in business for 20 plus years. , and that's, that's where I find the most value as my V11 group in ProSource.

Ron:

Do you... And so you're in person once a year, and you're, you do it virtual, just, you know, jp into a video conference for the, the other months? Yes. That's awesome. And does that, do you find that it's, , d- does it work virtually? Is there pluses or minuses to that? It does work,

Hally:

but I have noticed that... So I've been in this group for almost two years now, and what I noticed early on is early on people were kind of surface level, and then the first time we met in person and spent two days together, it just started clicking, the personalities that could click offline and have a drink and just get to know each other and know what your stories are, and all of a sudden these people are so much more interesting than they were online. , but after our in-person, I would say our group has grown much, much closer together. , it gives us the ability to banter, and there's inside jokes, and those are the things that really truly allow you to build the relationship that makes you comfortable to call someone at 10:30 and say, "Hey, man, I'm having a problem. Do you think you can help me?"

Ron:

Yeah. No, I, I've personally been a big advocate and beneficiary of masterminds and, and peer groups, and I, I love that when Jim, you know, stepped into that leadership role at ProSource, he instituted the V11s. I think it's, , when well executed, , and when the people participating truly lean in and participate, it's priceless as a entrepreneur to have that sort of council of your peers. Yeah, I

Hally:

would agree. I would agree. And ProSource, , is not shying away from having that difficult conversation with people, and I appreciate that a lot because unless there is a moderator- who's pushing the boundaries, you're never really going to do anything.

Ron:

Yeah. No, I, I completely agree. So let's take a step back, Hallie. Help us understand your background. You said you guys started this eight years ago. , you can go back as far as you're, you're comfortable, but help us understand your background. You're now in this leadership role of this, this commercial operation in Orlando. Where did you come from? Oh, Ron, I was never supposed

Hally:

to be here.

Ron:

Okay.

Hally:

I'm, I'm just a girl from a village in India. , my family migrated here in 1998, and it's a crazy story. We, my family won a lottery visa out of East Africa. My mother is Zambian, and that's how my family ended up in this country. Was never supposed to be here. Wow.

Ron:

That's amazing. Tell me more.

Hally:

It's, it's crazy, man. My, my f- , grandfather was, , a Air Force fighter. He was a Royal Air Force, , fight- a jet, , plane fighter- Mm-hmm ... in World War II who was captured as a prisoner of war for nearly two years, and when he was released, he walked, I think just over a month. At that point, we don't even know how far or how long he was walking because he was so delirious and he was so out of it that he walked for almost a month, , of what we know, through the jungles of Africa to find the nearest post. And he was allowed to stay in Africa, Zambia being a colony at the time, and that's where my mother was born and her five siblings, , along with her. And crazy story. Then, you know, when Zambia earned its freedom, they ended up going back to India, and my mother was never an Indian citizen. She remained an African citizen, and in 1998 we won the lottery visa.

Ron:

That's amazing. So I- And your family said, "I'm packing it up, I'm heading to the States"?

Hally:

That's exactly what they did. That's exactly what they did. At 55 years old, my father quit his career as a high school principal and decided to move us across the world to here, where we spoke- Wow ... no languages. I mean, English was my third language, and I spoke not a lick of it. , so I'm not really sure where I came from, Ron, but God, we are here somehow.

Ron:

That's extraordinary. So all right. So what, what, what, , but how did you end up landing here? What was that trajectory for you? It's

Hally:

another crazy story. , I was a banker, and business banking was my sweet spot, and our founder, Rob Jones, , walked into my bank one day and said, "Hey, I'm about to establish a business. What do I need to do to open my account?" And I said, "Well, when you get that established, why don't you come back by and see me?" And he did. - Several weeks of guiding him through the early stages of banking as a business owner, he says, "Listen, Hallie, I'm an engineer. Money, it's not my thing. I solve problems. But money seems to be your thing. And as you can clearly tell from the bank account that this, of this business, we don't have any money." "So I can't pay you. But if you'd like to work for me for free, maybe you'd consider helping, helping me out, you know? And we'll figure something out as time goes on." And I was crazy enough to say yes.

Ron:

What was it about this opportunity that, that, that sparked it, you know, curiosity from you, enough to, to jump in and do it?

Hally:

Ron, you know, every once in a while you meet someone that is so genuine that the genuine just oozes out of them, right? Mm-hmm. , Rob is probably one of the best human beings I've ever had the pleasure of knowing. And early on, I don't know what made me say yes, but all I knew is that I believed in his vision, and his vision was a truly turnkey solution. Rob has an engineering in background, a background in engineering. Um, he used to build wafers for Bell Labs, right? True professional. , and the way he spoke about his vision and what he c- thought that our industry could be-

Hally:

I bought Rob Jones-

Hally:

cause his vision was on point, and I believed it. I believed everything that he wanted to see, and I wanted to help him make that happen.

Ron:

That's amazing. So what's, what has the eight-year journey been like? It's

Hally:

been a ton of fun. I went from banking to construction, and not just any construction, commercial construction. We're talking 500 units, 300 units, 200 units, 1,000 units. The latest project we're on is 1,000 units, 1,000 heads in beds- Wow ... that we get to be, we get to be a part of their journey in accomplishing that. And it's also, , a HUD, it's a joint HUD venture. So not only do we get to... , I think sometimes in the high-end luxury market, we forget where we come from. And me, personally, I came from a village in India, so I, I like to, I like to give back when we can, and I like to enhance people's lives whenever given the opportunity. And to be able to be a part of something that's gonna be an institution in Orlando that's going to impact so many lives over the course of the project, which is a 100-year lease, so- I can't even imagine how many people are gonna walk through that property, and we get the privilege of designing how they interface with that property.

Ron:

Hmm. Over the last eight years, has it just been straight up and to the right? Has it been a jagged- Absolutely ... climb of, of growth? What, what- 100% ... tell us more about that journey.

Hally:

I mean, there's been so many fun adventures. All the failures, all the successes, , but none of this is possible without the RDB teams. I would like to argue we have one of the best teams in the industry. Our team is educated, highly trained, and they truly bleed blue. They teach me something new every day.

Hally:

Every day one of them will come to me and tell me something I didn't know yesterday, and it's my teams that give me the passion because ultimately our goal here is to make the lives of those we interface with, whether they be clients, whether they be maintenance engineers, whether they be property managers, homeowners, our employees, our community in general, our passion is to be able to say that people are better for knowing us, and somehow we've enhanced their lives in one way, shape, or form or another. And our teams here at RDB truly help us do that. , we... It's the little things, right, Ron? It's, it's making sure that the ADA access is just right, that they're able to reach, you know, whoever they're trying to go and meet today. , or that their medication has been able to be delivered in a timely fashion because we set 'em up with the right codes and they were easy to use even for 83-year-old grandma. , those are the things that we take pleasure in, but that journey has been... It's been the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It's been the 1:00 AM wake-ups that nobody else wants to talk about, right? It's the 3:00 AMs in bed going, "Oh my God, how am I gonna make payroll next week?" , and then it's the celebrating your first 700 units that you wired this summer, and did it simultaneously in two different towns. It's being invited to 40-year anniversary parties of local leaders that recognize that you are an upcoming leader. , so those are the highs. The lows, well, those are low. But sometimes, you know, it, it all evens out. Any, any entrepreneur

Ron:

listening can appreciate that, that there, you know, entrepreneurship can be pretty lonely, and, , the hard stuff can be pretty damn hard. But- Yep ... you know, the highs make up for it. So you gotta have the lows- Absolutely ... so you can appreciate the highs. Absolutely. Absolutely , if we look back, just out of curiosity, and, and you're really i- impacted by the, you know, the commercial scale of these projects, , , , what is the last year, 2025, and now that we're middle of 2026, kind of what was last year like for you guys, and, and now what does 2026 look like it's gonna be for you guys? Is it like a, are you up? Are you flat? Are you down? Like, what's the... I know the politics is crazy. We're heading into midterms here in the fall. , economics, tariffs, there's all sorts of noise. AI disrupting the world. I know we'll talk about AI. , what, what's been, what's your truth? What's been happening in, for your business and, and in your market?

Hally:

, Orlando, I would say 2025 was... I don't wanna gauge our year off of what the market was, 'cause for us, 2025 was a monumental year. We got to do projects and scales that we haven't done before. Mm. Um, we were able to execute things simultaneously that were never meant to be executed simultaneously, so we were able to overcome a lot of logistical challenges, and staffing challenges, , and execution challenges as far as the skillsets are concerned. , so in that, in that way, we had a fantastic year. We got to grow our skillsets, we got to grow, , our offerings, we got to grow our employees. , as far as 2026 is concerned, for me, it's a flat year. Mm-hmm. There's the, as you mentioned, there's a lot of uncertainty with the war, there's a lot of uncertainty with interest rates, and interest rates directly i- impact construction. Mm. Construction directly impacts everything that we're able to do. , and I think our friends that focus a lot more on residential are not seeing so much of that slowdown. , however, on the commercial side, we are definitely seeing it slow down.

Ron:

So I just, I'm gonna state what I believe that means. Lower interest rates, it means the, the builder or the developer can get their construction loans at lower interest, so they're more likely to, to launch their projects or expand their projects?

Hally:

Absolutely. Just, it, the interest rate, it determines their affordability and what their valuations will pencil against- Okay ... , as far as the cost to build and what they are building. , so at this point in time, the interest rates are too high for that cost to make sense for the bank to finance.

Ron:

Got it. I, I haven't followed this. What, what is, , not that you have the answer, or I know I don't have the answer, is there a feeling that interest rates might be going down, or, or staying the same, or going up? Like, what, whatever indicators you're consuming, what, what's your prediction about what's, what's ahead in terms of interest rates?

Hally:

Well, as of right now, I'm sitting at this wood desk knocking on it, - Yeah, I'll knock on my table too ... because I'm expecting an announcement. I'm expecting an announcement on the 15th of the new Fed chair. So- Okay.

Ron:

Warsh?

Hally:

Yes, I believe that is his name. , so I, I hope to see some positivity in the market.

Ron:

Okay. All right. Well, your mouth to God's ears, and we'll see if that, if that comes true. There's a lot of people watching those numbers pretty closely. When... I, I just randomly, but when you and I were together in Nashville, I remember you were telling me a story of the way that you solved a problem for a client, and I'd just love it if you would do that for me here. I think it was related to a project, and there was a lighting fixture, and the lighting fixture came, and it was wired incorrectly. It had high voltage wires. And- Oh,

Hally:

that's right ...

Ron:

I, I, I enjoyed that story. Do you... It just, I think it really spoke to the way your, you and your team think about doing whatever it takes to take care of the customer. Do, do you mind sharing that?

Hally:

Not at all. , so over the summer, one of our projects, , had a scope gap, and this is a dear client. He's a very good friend. And we're just sitting on a Friday afternoon having a drink, and he goes, "Hallie, I think I have a problem." And I'm like, "What happened?" And he goes, "Well, there's a very clear scope gap with the electrician because everyone forgot about the unit lights," and they were meant to be hardwired high voltage unit lights. You know when you go to someone's home and there's a little light there with the numbers, tells you which apartment number you're at? And he said, "I sent out an RFI or an, , RFP to the electrician, and the numbers are coming back so high because they've already wired these units, so for them to redeploy all of their teams in order to accommodate this one wire per unit, it's going to cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars." And I said, "Matt, , what's the fixture?" And he sends me the cut sheet of the fixture. And I said, "Okay, give me till Monday afternoon. Let me see. I've got an idea. Let me see what I can do." So I call up the manufacturer, and I say, "Hey, , I've got this cut sheet here for this high voltage fixture, but it's a custom fixture, so can you make it low voltage?" And the very nice man on the other end of the phone just happens to be the owner of the company, and he says, "You know, no one's asked me about that, but I don't see why not. Give me a couple hours. Let me talk to our factories in China, and I'll get back to you." So I call up Matt and I said, "Hey, I think I'm working on something. I think I may have a solution for you. Just hang tight. Don't do anything." So the owner gets back to me the very next day, and as it turns out, he said, "No one's ever asked me for this, but since you're asking, yes, absolutely, we can make them low voltage." So the next day we got the mock-ups. Their engineering team gave us the UL listing of what products they were gonna use in order to make it low voltage. We paid them for a sample and got the sample moving from China. Now two and a half weeks later, it finally shows up at my door. We get the accoutrements necessary. We wire it up. My whole team is standing around this tiny plug trying to see if we've done it right, if our hypothesis is correct. Mm-hmm. Well, we plug it in and it works. So three weeks into this we have a solution that is no longer requiring an electrician, no longer requiring any more Romex to be run. No, no necessities for adding additional anything. We're gonna run a low voltage wire, we're gonna run it back to the panel, and there you go. Now you've got lights.

Ron:

And that's how we resolved that. How, how much money did you save the client?

Hally:

Just under $120,000.

Ron:

Oh my goodness. Did they at least send you a thank you card after the end of the project? He brought me bourbon. He brought you a bourbon. Yep. That's, that's amazing. All right. I'm gonna, , switch gears here, and we're gonna go to a, a fun topic, and that is AI. 'Cause I know you, you... , maybe we'll start with the, the manufacturing, the, the, the dealer manufacturing perspective first. And that is you, you were mentioning, I'll let you name drop who you wanna name drop, but you were talking to some manufacturers or a manufacturer that was integrating AI into their products in some regard, and that really caught your eye. , maybe we, we could start there in terms of, , control brands or lighting brands or kinda what your thoughts were and, and maybe why it matters, why you were curious.

Hally:

Ron, I'm a rebel, so I'm gonna name drop.

Ron:

You do it. You, you do you. I'm not gonna do it- ... but you, you can do you.

Hally:

, I'm looking at Savant. Savant is one of the first manufacturers within our industry, so to speak, that outwardly, if I can say... I don't know what everybody else is doing behind closed doors. I don't... I'm sure there are announcements coming at CEDIA this year. But outwardly, from what I can tell, Savant is embracing AI. Savant is embracing what I think is going to be the revolution that catches us all- By surprise because I think it's going to happen so quickly. So I'm happy to see Savant has taken an early step, , to embrace the technology that, that is going to be... I think change... It's, it's... I can't even expand on the magnitude at which it's going to impact our lives on a day-to-day basis.

Ron:

Mm-hmm.

Hally:

Because I can't imagine it. I think it's going to be so large.

Ron:

What, what was it, , if you can share, what was it about what Savant was doing that inspired you or that caught your, y- you know, intrigued you if you will? Is it how the consumer will interact with the, their, their system?

Hally:

Yes. So s- , they are in the testing phases of, , their interactive AI, and I had the opportunity actually to play around with it yesterday. , and it's great because i- and I don't... Since I've name-dropped, I'm gonna bring in another name. Josh AI has been on the forefront of this, , from the get go, where you can give it a, a language command, not just a, "Hey, Siri," but a, "Josh, do this, this, and this." So I, I would say they're there. But Savant has the advantage of the larger footprint across not just the brands alone, but they have an interactive portfolio of lighting, lighting control, power, power backup. , and their, their, their, , relationship with GE and all of the automation that you can do on such small scales to help a client in one room or two rooms or, you know, grandma just needs lights on here. , so I... That's what I like about Savant, is that it's an inclusive picture and you can deploy smaller or larger solutions. , but it gives them the same ability. So yeah, I'm interested. It's caught my eye. , I like that they're embracing technology, and I think anyone that's not embracing it at this point in time is going to fall behind.

Ron:

What's your vision of maybe even your own, , say your lifestyle, but your customers as well in, in interacting with these technology systems? You know, audio, video, lighting, shading, , you know, access control, security in terms of voice. Do you... Is it your pre- personal prediction that that's gonna continue to accelerate the voice as a medium of the, a, a, a medium of interface for the systems?

Hally:

Yes, absolutely. , I try to look at the market as a consumer, and I look at the things that I do on a day-to-day basis, right? When I'm in the car, I'm not picking up my phone to text anybody. I just hit respond in the car. I speak, it t- Voice to text, and then I send the text. When I'm interacting with my own AIs, right, I'm using voice to text. , so I, I find that to be convenient for my lifestyle 'cause I'm always on the go, and as Americans, most of us are always on the go. , and I think the world is catching up to our lifestyle so that statement is going to very quickly span the globe. And for people that are on the go- Yeah ... it's less of a distraction. You're not taking your eyes off the road to text. You're not disengaged when you're talking to your child. You can simply speak a command and go back to the thing that you were engaged in.

Ron:

You mentioned even in your use of AI, do you use, , the microphone within, you know, your ChatGPT, your Claude, or do you use another piece of software like a Whisperflow?

Hally:

, I am using another piece of software, but I'm not currently using it to do- interact with my AI. I'm using it to provide my AI information.

Ron:

All right, you have to tell me more. What do you mean? What are you doing? Well, you were

Hally:

talking about Claude at, - Oh, you're using Claude ... a course. Okay. Yes. So, , I'm using my Claude to give information to my AI. Yes. But now that you mention it, I'll look at that.

Ron:

Yes. Yeah, and, and for me, , I, I, I converted... I actually had a, a mastermind with some marketing agency owners, and one of those marketing agency owners, maybe about a year ago, started to talk to us, the rest of us in the group, about how he no longer types his commands or interactions with his AI. And we're all looking at him like a skeptical, like, "What are you talking about?" "You're crazy. Of course we, we chat with our AI." And he mentioned Whisperflow. And, , now, , and, and for those that might be looking it up, I'm gonna get the exact na- spelling. W-I-S-P-R flow, Whisperflow. And so that's, that's the brand of, , AI that I use for that. And yeah, I, I use Whisperflow on my phone. I use it on my desktop. I use it if I'm leaving a Slack message for a message, you know, to my team. I don't type anymore. I just activate Whisperflow and talk the command. I speak, I can speak, , about three to four times faster than I can type. Mm-hmm. So just for speed and efficiency, , I'm-- Someone's gonna get a lot more context from me in detail and accuracy if I speak it than if I try to type it. I'm not a very fast typer, so by default it's gonna be very minimalist and maybe sparse on details if I'm typing an answer. , so yeah, speaking, , it, you know, there's all sorts of- , references to this, but I mean, it, it is a very fast-growing form of communication. Josh AI, you know, Alex and team would probably say, "We told you so," , 'cause they, they've been at it for, , like, a decade or so. , but it is- Well, they were right. And they were right. They, they saw it in advance They were right. , now most power users I know of, I'll just say of AI, meaning you're interacting with your, your co-work or your, your chat of some type. You're, you're, you're chatting that dialogue, that back and forth versus, , typing. So- I'm happy to chat on that call with you ... that'd be some- something for you to explore.

Hally:

I just looked up

Ron:

Whisper. I'm ready. You're, you're ready. You're ready. Well, let, let, let's just go there out of curiosity. AI is all the, , rage these days. How, how are you, , it sounds you're using Plaud, so maybe we'll start there. You're using Plaud. You've, you've just discovered that. How are you- Yes ... using Plaud maybe in your day-to-day these days? , mostly to

Hally: Ron:

Which has gotta be shocking to everyone in the meeting. They're like, "How in the world is Hallie doing this?"

Hally:

Yeah.

Ron:

Superwoman. All right, so- Sure. I'll take

Hally:

the credit.

Ron:

All right, take the credit. All right, so, , AI, what, what, what are you doing in your, you know, maybe just your, your day-to-day workflows? Are you using, , Chat or Claude or Perplexity? What, what are you using? So I like to think that I just

Hally:

graduated to Claude, , from ChatGPT, and I say I graduated because I... When I started using Claude, I realized how rudimentary ChatGPT was, , and the, the perplexities that you can really get into with Claude. And mind you, I've only been using it for the last couple weeks, so I've got a lot of learning to do. , but once you discover skills in Claude and start teaching skills, it's, it's a game changer.

Ron:

Do, do you have an example of maybe one skill you've developed or, or programmed or configured that's helping you in some way?

Hally:

That's a great question. , yeah. I gave it our, our sales process, if you will. , and not so much the sales proces- process, but more of a site readiness process. So I'll input information and say, "This is what site readiness looks like for us," you know, for example, in a commercial setting. "Hey, we're ready for the rack." "Cool. Are the floors cleaned? Does the room lock? Where are we at? Do we have power? Do you have permanent power, something I can plug into? I know you say you're ready, but are you ready?" So I gave it the site readiness, , skill, and what I started doing was referencing our projects and going, "Hey, okay, we've got a site readiness email. What does the project look like? So let's look at the pictures that our teams have taken in the last several weeks of when they've been there, and what are the notes?" And I'll dump those notes in and say, "Hey, based on this, do you think that the site is ready?" And now instead of reading through five, six, 10 end-of-day reports to get to a picture or a comment that somebody left from my team, I can dump it all into one place, compare it against my site readiness checklist, and see what we are missing. So on Tuesday, you know, XYZ said, "Oh, we see the floors are ready, but there's no permanent power." Maybe ask them if there's permanent power. , so it kinda gives me a quick overview of- Here are all the things we know are at site readiness, and here are the things we are missing. So immediately I can turn around a quick email and say, "Hey, we noticed last week that the floors were ready. That looks excellent. , what... where are we at with, , permanent power? Or where are we at with the door locks? Who do I get the key from?" And it kind of gives me something to go off of that doesn't require a lot of research on my part, but it's something I can answer back to the client rather quickly.

Ron:

How, how well, , proliferated is AI on your team? N- not well.

Hally:

We are, we're dipping our toes in very lightly.

Ron:

Now, before you and I started recording, you said, "But Ron, I wanna ask you questions about AI." Yeah. So I don't know if you have anything scripted. So the audience knows I have not been given any scripted questions, but I, I... You said, "I've got questions." , do you- I have so many questions, Ron. I came prepared with- You have so many questions. All right. Well, let- I c- ... let's try to... Let's see how this goes.

Hally:

We- we'll live, , loose here. , what, what question do you have? I think you are leading our industry, , based on your knowledge of the manufacturers, based on your knowledge of working with individual integrators. I think you have a full picture of what's happening in our industry. And your, , talk at Pro Source, it ... I had to come up to you and thank you for giving the industry the tool set because I truly feel that what you did up there by building a GPT with the whole room several times that day, I, I think that was You handed us an entire toolkit that we had no idea existed. , and- Yeah ... I'm sure some of, , there's some folks in there that did, , but I, personally speaking for myself, wasn't as well-versed in creating GPTs. But then I saw you do it on stage, and you made it look easy. You made it look palatable, and it's something that we could consume and actually understand. And from that point, it was, it was a free-for-all. I wanted to know everything. Yeah. I wanted to know what I could automate, how I could do it. And that's, that's no scripts. , I, I didn't think I would get to ask you questions today- Yeah ... , so I wasn't prepared for that. But I'd love to hear what your thoughts are on how our industry moves forward with AI.

Ron:

I think when you're incorporating a, a new technology, or just change, in this, in this case it's a new technology, into a business, , rule number one is it has to be led from the top. , if, if it's a mandate for the business, th- where they want this change to be successful and- , designed or deployed in some particular way. Now, if you're just looking to have inspired team members doing things, you could argue that doesn't need to be led from the top, and you could have people doing things. But if you truly believe that internal processes... I mean, if you think about an integrator, if you think about sales and marketing, project management, system design, procurement, programming, service and support, , I'm sure, , HR, , finance, all the disciplines of running a business. And if you look-- Once you truly know what's possible... I'm not talking about dropping, , into ChatGPT and say, "Help me write this email." Mm-hmm. Yes.

Ron:

that's, that's level one on a, a 10-step, you know, scale. But when you're truly trying to... I, I'll just... I'm, I'm gonna just randomly describe, what if I was able to activate a tool and supply that tool with my proposal and then supply it with all my real-time, , , ordering data and labor data, and it would do real-time, , cost analysis to help me understand what did I sell and then what's true and where was I off? And then if you did that across a library of your projects, you could get, in a matter of minutes, better financial analysis than you probably would have if you tried to stare at those things for days or weeks. Mm-hmm. But just a random example. But if you, , you realize if business owners and members of any team out there listening, if you realize, , right now we're all limited by our creativity and our imagination to know how to best deploy these tools because it's so new. Like, we aren't, we don't think about having these tools in our life, and therefore, we think about the way things have always been and the way we've always done things. And I think the businesses that understand what's possible and then are willing to deconstruct processes and reconstruct it, thinking about where-what's the best work that the humans on our team could do and what's the best busy work that the AI or the automation can do, so that I get the very best out of my humans, and I get the very best out of the machine. And when I combine them, the human plus machine is always going to be far more productive than the human alone. And so for the humans that are the teams that are only gonna operate the way they've always done it because they don't believe they need to change or wanna change, I think initially, slowly, and then soon quickly, they'll be surpassed by the businesses that do embrace these technologies. And so it's... Y- Like, you can be scared. I'm scared. But you can also be excited about what's possible and just embrace the excitement and accept everyone on planet Earth is equally scared. So it's, you know, it's okay to be a little fearful, but you have to take action. So the leaders that take action and lead from the top I think will be the leaders of the future.

Hally:

I love that. So- , I'd love for you to dive into how you started using AI and how somehow you became the champion of this industry and AI very early on. I, I mean, earlier backstage you were mentioning that you do this with your son, so tell me more.

Ron:

Yeah. I would... , so it's a two-part. One is, , when ChatGPT came out in Q1, well came out in Q4 of 2022, I started to... I heard rumblings in December, but by January it was an earthquake. I run a marketing business, and that marketing, you know, we're in the category of knowledge work, and, , quickly we all realized knowledge work was ripe for disruption with this new technology. And so, and by the way, that's the same for accounting firms, the same for financial management firms, the same for law firms, same for consulting firms, right? I, I... And that's just the businesses, and then within every business there's elements of knowledge work that's happening.

Ron:

And so I saw that very early, and so, , the only thing to do is to jump in. I see a burning house, I run in, and, , you run towards the fire. So I started running towards the fire and started using it. And, , initially within One Firefly I would say, , very poorly communicating the urgency of addressing this need to change and adapt. And, , over time, over the years, I think we've, I, you know, learned from those mistakes and I think we do it much better today. Our team is very well adapted and is still adapting. , but that's, that's how it initially happened. Now you say, well why did... How and why did I and, and One Firefly take a leadership position? So there's a, a mechanism in marketing called thought leadership marketing. There's a, a mechanism in business to be the thought leader on a subject. So if you are the subject thought leader, then you have people looking to you for answers, that you have to be willing to take on that mantle of doing the work so in fact you have solid advice and sound advice and counsel to give people. But while it was shocking the world in 2023, circled up with our marketing team and made the decision, it was very vocal and, and, , by design, we're gonna lead. So we're gonna lead- Love it ... and everything we learn we're gonna go teach. So as we learn it, we're gonna teach it. -

Hally:

I absolutely love that about you, Ron, and, like, you can see the passion that you have for teaching Because it comes across very clearly on stage, and that's what really attracted me to you is, oh my God, this man is passionate about this, and not just about the technology, but you're so passionate about helping our industry as a whole. And y- you building GPTs in a, in the middle of a summit, that told me everything I needed to know about you, and that's, I, that's why I was so interested is, "Oh my God, I must get to know this person," because you're a leader, and you lead in such a positive, approachable manner. Because knowledge isn't always easy to approach. , which leads me to my next question. Sure. How do you keep up?

Ron:

I don't. '

Ron:

but I do my best, and I tell myself, a- as long as I do my best, I'm allowed to sleep at night just fine. And so it's very much by design. I do my best, and so my best is that I personally consume podcasts. , I have, you know, three or four AI-focused po- pos- problem is I have lots of hobbies too. So I like to listen to all my content across all my subjects. So it's, I'm not gonna lie, AI has put a, a, , a wrench in some of my other content that I, I enjoy consuming. , but I, I listen to podcasts. I also, , , thoroughly enjoy... I don't, I listen to all of my content, but I do watch one podcast. I, I enjoy, I watch it on Saturdays with my son, , the Moonshots podcast. , so I watch it on YouTube, and it's got, , Peter Diamandis, the man behind the XPRIZE and Singularity University, , and he's got a, a, a, a, a couple, three other... He's got a resident genius. He's got a professor, s- computer science professor from MIT, and another, , just well-respected global thought leader on futurism and technology. So I, I watch that every Saturday morning with my son. It's usually a two-hour episode. We watch it, and we talk about it, 'cause I'm realizing we're casting our kids into this future, and they need to be mindful of where we're at and where we're going and how they're gonna play a role in helping us figure this all out. So I'm doing my part by making sure at least he has his feet under him before he heads off to college, and then he'll go off and find his own way, , you know, and make his dent- attempt to make his dent in the universe if that's what he chooses to do. , but so it's just a matter of learning and, , and then hands-on. , this is a case with this particular technology, for everyone listening, you can't sit on the sideline. You have to get your hands dirty. , you just have to. It's non-negotiable. You can't delegate it. You have to get... I'm not saying you won't have people on your team building. Absolutely have people on your team building. You also need to be getting in, getting your hands dirty, learning about... ChatGPT is a very approachable place to start. Learning how to build custom GPTs, very easy me- method or, or mechanism. , learning how to utilize projects. , I'll share a use case just really quickly here. I'm mindful of time, and I'm doing more talking than usual. But, like, so we're hiring for a senior role on our team, and I wanted to unify, , the people in HR at One Firefly and myself as we moved people through, candidates through the stages of that hiring process. And I wanted a, a process fol- , followed very meticulously. Gate one, gate two, gate three, and scoring and rubrics. , human scoring and AI scoring across every gate. And so I built a project that had all of the hiring instructions and all of the rubrics for scoring, and at every stage, the human is always making the decision about whether a candidate moves forward, but the AI is providing analysis and counsel. So you have the humans participating, the AI counsel and analysis, and then ultimately I'm deciding whether they move forward for this particular role. I wouldn't normally do that for all roles at One Firefly. And, , it is awesome because I now have members of my HR team sharing the project that I share. We all can see the data and analysis on every single candidate. So as a candidate, if I'm getting ready to go into an interview and I wanna read the entire from resume to phone screen to video screen to top grading to focus interview to EMT review, , to Kolbe scoring. If I wanna see all of that, I can just go and read the entire history for every single candidate, but then so can all of my other members of my team. It's real time. So that's just an example of a tool I deployed about, at this point, about four weeks ago. , it did-- It, because I built it from scratch, took about 5 to 10 hours to build it. But now that I built it, I could duplicate it and, and, and refine it for other roles pretty easily. In fact, we're about to, I'm about to refine it for a sales role hire. So that's just an example, building a tool that makes us a little bit better. I didn't have that tool before. So this is not, I was not trying to replace humans by building AI. No, I wanted the humans to do better work and to have more consistent output, so we built a tool. So the humans plus the tool are delivering a consistently much higher quality process, a consistent process, which at the end should give us a higher probability of the right hire in this particular example

Hally:

Right. From where I'm standing, I'm seeing a lot of the AI's capability of anal- analysis is so great. And like you said earlier, from resume to phone call to screen, it gives you one document that not just documents your candidate, but also your team members and what their thought processes were and what their evaluations were. And you can see it all in one place, which makes it an even better tool because you're not relying on... Say you're running into a meeting, you've got 10 minutes, you're not relying on every single person being available for you to have a two-second or a two-minute conversation with to get to your analysis, right? And you can do that anytime now, anywhere.

Ron:

That's exactly right. I think what happens, , what happens as you, you, the person that starts to get your hands dirty in building something, you start to quickly realize what's possible. And then you have this Cambrian explosion of ideas, of possibilities, and then you have to now re- bring that back to focus. Great, you can build everything, but you can't build everything. What are you building next, and why? What are you building next, and why? What are you building next, and why? And, and, , it's, it's still chaos, right? The, the universe tends towards entropy, right? You know, unless- Mm-hmm ... you inject energy to fight towards organization. So the... It's still hard. Which platform do you use? They're leapfrogging each other, , right? ChatGPT was here, then Claude was all the rage the last four months, and then ChatGPT came out with 5.5 and image generation, and now it's a little bit better. And then so they're, they're just, they're gonna keep leapfrogging. , and you just gotta accept it's gonna be noisy, right? Mm-hmm. That it's gonna be noisy for the foreseeable future until there's, ... I, I don't even know until what, but it's gonna be noisy in the, the immediate, you know, quarters and years probably, and I, I would think or theorize on the other side of that maybe there's some clarity of standout winners. , but I, I would strongly, , recommend everyone to just start. It's why I stood up on stage and taught that class, is, like, just start building and, , see where your imagination goes. It... Really, when you empower your team, see where your team goes with this. Yes. 'Cause you've so many talented people on your team that are likely and willing to lean in. Some will be scared and intimidated, but, you know, the right ones will lean in, and those are the ones you want to embrace.

Hally:

Yeah, absolutely. And as a, as someone who's starting to build, , my team has... Some of my members are much younger and much nerdier, self-described, if you will. , they've already explored different thought processes that may not e- that had nothing to do with work. One of them likes to build video games because he just does. , and he was telling me how he was building- This game that he likes to wire things, so electronically he's wiring spaceships. And, , the next day it could be, you know, a jet engine. Like it- just whatever comes to his imagination, he likes to electronically wire it in a game. Yeah. , and the thought process started to lead me to, "Oh, well, how could we, how could we implement that in our business?" We're in the wiring business, so how do we implement this in a way that maybe a newcomer, it's really easy for them to play this game for a couple of hours and realize how things are done on site? Could we create a clubhouse or a residence within this game and let our guys wire it and maybe see where their mistakes are? Maybe what would help them do better out in the field by simply interacting with scenarios that n- in a normal day-to-day life you'd have to wait for that scenario to happen in order to address or train against it. Whereas now you can simulate these scenarios any time and help teach these new team members a new skill or a n- a new thought process or a new way of doing something. , so they're going to give you input based on what they're using it for, and if you can see the gaps in how you might be able to implement it into your business, or there's just one skill that Claude is able to do, may have so many other implications. So I, I think the builders on your team, they're gonna give you ideas that you couldn't have imagined.

Ron:

Amen. Well, the future is bright. Haley, we are at time. I'm mindful of your schedule and, and where you need to be. , I've enjoyed the conversation. I pr- I appreciate the questions and the opportunity to share, , some of my, I guess, immediate thoughts on, on AI. But for those that wanna get in touch with you, where can we send them?

Hally:

You can send them to therdbsolution.com. , or my personal cell is listed on the bottom of, , the screen. Feel free to text, email, call. Anyway-

Ron:

Let's read that number out for our listeners that are on their morning walk or their morning drive to the job site. They're not, they're not watching us, they're listening. - , that

Hally:

Ron:

 

Haley, I have enjoyed getting to know you, and I've enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you for joining me here on Automation Unplugged.

Hally:

Ron, what a wonderful opportunity. Thank you so much, and thank you for allowing me to ask you some questions today. I know that's not your typical format- We- ... so I appreciate you rolling with the punches

Ron:

We broke the rules, but we broke them for you, Hallie. So it's, - I'm happy to do it. I, I enjoyed it. That was a lot of fun. Thank you very much, Ron

 

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Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.

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Resources and links from the interview:

• Website: https://www.therdbsolution.com/