Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 15:38
Yeah. I mean, obviously you have a lot of different skill sets. So I’m curious, when you go into someone like Thinglink or anywhere, where do you start? What do you do first? Because there’s so much you can tackle.
Paul Burani: 15:50
Well, I mean, I start with the problem at hand, right? And I want a clear articulation of the problem at hand. Eventually I might give my own version of it. But I think that every business is really just in the business of solving problems. And if the founders and the sea levels who bring me in need help articulating that problem, I can help.
But really, you know, it’s not long before I start getting into the data. If the data exists and it needs packaging in order to be decipherable, that’s one that’s one set of problems I’ve encountered. Sometimes the data is not sufficient. Sometimes we don’t know about our customers. Even if we’ve been in business a decade or longer.
There are blind spots. Right. And I look at those, you know, blind spots are always perceived as obstacles. Everyone has them. But I see them as opportunities to unlock insight.
And it goes back to the very start of my career, as you pointed out, you know, at the top of the conversation, right? Just picking apart data, finding those nuggets of insight, putting the story back together, kind of like Humpty Dumpty, right? And then delivering it and saying, you know, we can go out and get some additional data points, understand our customer better, understand our competition, our market, whatever it may be. Data is a really good way to de-risk what is really a very uncertain world in 2025.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 17:18
What’s an example of that? Like, are they handing like, hey Paul, here’s our customer data. We need you to figure out, you know, who our best customers are. Like what are they asking you? Or and what are they handing to you?
Paul Burani: 17:34
Well, actually, I mean, since we’re talking about Thinglink, There’s a good example right there. You know what we wanted to do since we were concurrently breaking into the enterprise segment and also looking to, as a European headquartered company, look to get more of a foothold in the United States. You know, really the question was, okay, so what are our buyers thinking? So once we defined our buyer, we go out and just ask them point blank via, you know, a number of different kind of research mechanisms going out and basically saying, okay, what are your priorities. What products do you use?
What do you want from those products and of those desires? Which ones have been delivered on and which ones leave you wanting more? We’ll ask about who’s involved in the purchase process. And this is you know, it serves two purposes. It’s self-serving in that we want to learn.
Right. But it’s also intelligence that, when aggregated, can be played right back to the marketplace because people that buy corporate training software, they want to know what their competitors are thinking. They want to know what the industry is thinking and what direction it’s moving. And so we’re in the process of creating a really interesting thought piece around the state of corporate L and D, and you know, how technology weaves in and out of that.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:01
Yeah. No, that’s helpful because really understanding the buyer is I don’t know, it’s everything. But it helps with almost everything I imagine.
Paul Burani: 19:13
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, if you’re truly a customer-centric organization, at some point every decision comes back to, is this right for our customers?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 19:24
Yeah. Talk about how did you name the company Mission Flywheel?
Paul Burani: 19:30
Yeah. So the idea it’s really two parts. The flywheel concept. For those that aren’t familiar, it’s a mechanical device that you find in, you know, under the hood of your car. You’ll find it in, you know, trains, jet engines, what have you.
And basically what it does is it captures and distributes momentum. So, as you know, if you’re stopped at a red light and you have no momentum, it’s harder to get moving and get up to 55 miles an hour from zero than it is to get there from 45. Right? And that’s just basic physics 101. You don’t even have to be a physics student to understand that conceptually.
But the metaphor for business is, I think, very apropos, because especially in a growth stage business, you know, it’s not a steady uphill climb. It’s jagged, right? You hit speed bumps, you, you hit, you know, some grooves where you can accelerate and then you get stuck behind a Sunday driver. I’m going deep with the auto metaphors here. And so as you navigate those twists and turns right.
It also, you know, internally, I mean you could lose a big client, you could lose a valued team member. Like all of that is disruption. And if your goal is to power through it 24 over seven, you need a flywheel. You need some perpetual motion. And I believe that buried within the revenue organization is the opportunity to set an agenda for the organization.
So if you think about the functions that sit under a Chro, you create demand in the marketing department, hand it off to sales where they capture that demand, get the signature, move it on to the customer success organization. That’s where they nurture the demand. And that three-part flow is more or less how revenue organizations work traditionally. But there’s a fourth piece which really is revenue operations. It’s knocking down the silos using data to get these different organizations talking to one another, sharing, enabling one another.
And so what’s really cool is when it’s done right, revenue operations actually turns a funnel into a loop. And I think we all need to move away from a funnel centric ideology and think about a loop powered by data, which is just getting more output from less. Everything, everywhere you look, right? Everyone’s doing more with less. Everyone’s focused on efficiencies.
And so the flywheel is so important for that. And then I thought, well, to what end is that flywheel mantra, you know, achieving something. And I thought, you know, I like working with businesses that are really in touch with their why. Right? We are in business.
We have a mission. We have vision and values. This isn’t just HR speak. For some it is, but a lot of people take that seriously. And those are always my favorite clients, the ones who really understand why they do what they do. So put it together. Mission flywheel and domain was available, so I went for it.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 22:39
That’s part of the battle too. Yeah. You know, we’re talking about causes, and these are some of the things I imagine types of companies you want to work with. Talk about this piece. You often don’t see a causes, you know, page on someone’s website.
Paul Burani: 22:57
Yeah. You know, it doesn’t necessarily apply to every single client engagement. You know, mission driven might just mean I’m a good employer. I take care of my people. I created a psychologically safe environment where they can all be their best.
That’s perfectly good. But, you know, a lot of clients I’ve worked with, you know, have, you know, really made big commitments to solving social problems. I worked with a company called Vitalite. Actually, it was their Pan-African company, but I worked with their subsidiary in Malawi. And they had a very interesting challenge.
Right. So what did they want to do at the highest level? They’re contributing to the growth of renewable energy across the globe. One country at a time. And in this case, you know, what they’re trying to do is get residential solar installations in rural areas, because everyone in Africa is focused on the urban areas.
Infrastructure is oftentimes, you know, a daunting challenge there. Their strategy is to go into rural areas through a network of resellers. So they have about 250 people. And the big question is, are these people, are they following the playbook? Do they even have a playbook?
Right. Are they representing the brand the right way? Are they cutting side deals? Right. There’s a lot of question marks.
And so I came in and worked with the team to create a performance framework, which basically brought in data not only from, you know, the revenue side, but also from their call center. Just to understand how effective they were in working with Customer Success reps, how like the quality and quantity of interactions that they were creating, and to just create a very objective scorecard of who is out there really hustling on behalf of the company and then combining that with some training methodology to say, all right, just a refresher. We’re going to do this every three months. Here’s who we are. Here’s what we stand for.
Here’s why we’re different. Here’s why the customer needs to buy today. And so the whole goal of that project was to hit some sales targets and qualify for a world Bank grant. And we nailed it, even in spite of the fact that a lot of our project was diluted. It wasn’t supposed to be a pun, but it is a pun.
It was diluted by the monsoon season. We didn’t achieve the impact that we wanted during those months, but we made up for it in the other months, nailed our targets, and now they got fresh funding to keep pursuing their mission. So that’s just an example, right? I mean, the cause is climate. We know what that means.
There’s a million paths to the finish line. And, you know, I love working with companies that have an appetite to solve those big problems.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 25:43
You know, you’ve had an interesting journey here and specifically to getting to Google. Talk about that for a second. And your journey to Google.
Paul Burani: 25:58
Good question. Very different from my time at Google. I spent about six years at Google, and I spent longer than that trying to get in early on in the early days of the internet, right when I was coming out of school. I was kind of an internet geek fanboy, really interested. I remember having an email address when I had no one.
I didn’t know anyone to email. So I always knew that that was the place for me because I said, this company is doing amazing things. I’m just going to make it my single minded focus to get in there. And it took me about seven years and about 30 interviews. But I eventually, you know, sort of I didn’t have the traditional profile for what I was aiming for, but eventually I got there.
Lesson learned. Sometimes you just keep hammering away until you get it. And really what it came down to was, you know, using my experience in research, talking sort of coherently about how data informs business decisions, combining that with agency experience, you know, entering the ad sales organization, a lot of that business goes through agencies. And so effectively, I was Google’s customer before I was Google’s employee. And, you know, a lot of that, a lot of that, you know, helped to sort of propel me in.
It also takes a little bit of luck because it was and still is a hard organization to get into. So I’m not going to say I didn’t also get a little lucky.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 27:28
Yeah. Well, there’s a formula for luck, right? I forgot what it is. It’s hard work plus persistence or something like that. Plus, you know, a little dab of, you know, fate or, you know, timing in there.
Paul Burani: 27:49
You know, and there’s a, there’s a quote that I think adds an extra bit of icing to what you just said, which is I don’t know who said it, but the adage goes, chance favors the prepared, the prepared mind. In other words, luck is luck. There’s always going to be some arbitrary nature to whether you, you know, flip heads or flip tails. But there are things you can do to improve your probability. So it’s not a coin toss, right?
And putting yourself in the firing line of those strokes of good fortune, I think it’s not that’s not wishful thinking and that’s not, you know, fluff.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 28:26
That’s real talk about some of the learnings at Google. Obviously, it was important for you and you spent a lot of time and energy because you knew it would be. It’s just an amazing company and you want to work there. What were some of the learnings once you got there?
Paul Burani: 28:49
One of them was I was completely unprepared to manage exceptionally high performers. Prior to Google, I had certainly had, you know, the joy of managing great team members. But at Google, there is such a high proportion of individuals who have always been the best at what they did. You know, took a pay cut or a prestige cut to get a job at Google. Right.
And there’s a level of hustle there. I wrote this in my goodbye note. I said, you know, for all the amazing leaders, for all the incredible clients, products, all of that. It was the peers that really made it what it was. And managing those people, making sure that I wasn’t a roadblock to their success, but actually an enabler of their success.
Really, you know, kept me on my toes. Another thing that I will say, learning how to function in a big company blew my mind. And the more time I spent at Google, the more I realized I didn’t know. Having been an entrepreneur and, you know, managing, you know, managing partner at a small agency prior to that, small companies, right. The way you navigate a monster corporation and the way that trickles down to your relationships, your personal brand, your commitment to learning in the workplace and sort of the how to how to play the influence game without getting sucked into politics.
Those are lessons I’ll take with me forever.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 30:32
Talk about the managing high performers for a second. And what are some of the things that you did? I mean, you mentioned one thing which is like not being a roadblock for people. Sometimes I maybe find I don’t realize that I’m being a roadblock or not for someone consciously. What were some of the things you did as you learned from a managing high performers standpoint that worked?
Paul Burani: 31:02
Tried a little bit of everything. A lot of things worked, but a lot of those didn’t work all the time. Right. One thing that I think did work all the time. I took a fantastic week-long course on the art and science of coaching.
And, you know, if I boil it down, Jeremy, like, I just learned how to ask good questions, when to ask them, why to ask them. And the value of asking good questions so that you help people find solutions from within rather than, you know, versus resisting the temptation to say, hey, I’ve been around the block. I think I know what you know, the medicine is for this. What ails you? But no, if you’re making a long-term investment in someone, you’re much better off taking the time to help them get there.
And so I think that, you know, it’s a gift to be able to do that with incredibly independent, resourceful people who start to get it pretty quickly. If you know how to ask good questions, it’ll click into place pretty quickly.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:14
Yeah, I love that. Thanks for sharing that. I know one of the things that you think about a lot. I do too, actually is setting a good example for your kids. I’d love to hear what you learn.
It could be a Google, it could be just in business. And you know how that affects your parenting. What you’ve learned from the business side.
Paul Burani: 32:39
Yeah. I’ll be honest, I actually try to unlearn things more from my work when it comes to parenting.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 32:47
Like what?
Paul Burani: 32:49
And there are, you know, there are some things that I probably could also model better. You know, I’m a very, very imperfect when it comes to parenting. But what I would say is, you know, kids have they see things very literally and they see things through their lens. They haven’t yet necessarily honed the skills of, you know, appreciating the value of other perspectives. And so one of the things that I caught on to right in the middle of the pandemic was their awareness of the amount of time that we spent at work, right?
I mean, you know, what? What used to be dropping them off at daycare or kindergarten or whatever, saying goodbye and then coming back and it’s already dark and it’s time for dinner. Became something much more textured because now there’s a closed door and a muffled voice behind the door and, you know, different sort of cadence to the day. I’ve always wanted my kids to understand there’s a reason why I go into, you know, a sort of a black hole as far as they can tell. Right.
And, you know, right before we hopped on this call, I told you I was like, hold on a second. I got to go tell my kids, make sure they’re quiet because they’re right in the next room. I want them to have a healthy relationship with work. I want them to understand, you know, just the same way. Math homework might be a little annoying now.
Or, you know, going to the teacher’s office hours doesn’t really measure up compared to hanging out in the playground. But I want them to understand that, like, it doesn’t have to be a binary outcome where there’s work and there’s play. Work can be play and play sometimes is work. Right? And so a healthy appreciation for what lies in the middle in that gray area, I think is, is maybe not a key to happiness, because I won’t pretend like I have keys to happiness, but it’s something I want to leave them.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 34:54
What were you thinking, Paul? You’re at University of Michigan, right? You’re studying communication. What did you at that point think you wanted to do?
Paul Burani: 35:06
Coming out of school?
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 35:07
Yeah.
Paul Burani: 35:10
Man, I had no clue. No clue, to be honest. And, you know, I had a few false starts in my career where, you know, a little bit of planning might have done me some good. My senior year of college, I branched out in a big way. I made more friends, you know, in the tail end of school than the other years put together. I was, you know, involved in a lot of a lot of stuff. I had a radio show.
I had, you know, all kinds of clubs and projects, and I enjoyed it. I went abroad, I had a little brother, like, through, you know, the, the local sort of Big Brother program. And I just started to realize like, oh my God, the world, the world is there’s so much richness out there. I just want to explore. And yeah, that’s cool.
Everyone loves to explore, but not the best like mindset to be in when it’s time to hunker down for your first step in your career. So what did I want to do? I didn’t really know where it would take me, but I always had a pretty. I always thought it would be a pretty safe bet that if I worked with numbers and I worked with people, some combination of those two would work out okay for me.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 36:28
Yeah, because you always seem that you were into tech, so I wasn’t sure if you had your heart set on Google from the get go, but you kind of just that windy pathway took you there eventually. Talk about Google and specifically what you did with the automotive piece.
Paul Burani: 36:49
Yeah. So the whole time I was there, I was working on automotive clients and I touched a little bit of everything. So, you know, the manufacturers, the resellers, the after sales. Right. Like the Goodyear tires and the, you know, the autozone’s of the world.
I’ve always been an enthusiast of the automotive business and, you know, just a lover of cars since I probably since I couldn’t even walk. And so it was pretty awesome to sort of blend my passion for technology, my passion for automobiles, and then also to get to do it as my job and get paid for. It was pretty cool. I would say I reached the apex when I was in charge of vertical strategy for global automotive, so we had a $1 billion business. There were about 300 people just pure ad sales and then countless internal partners that were working on that business.
And there was a great diversity to that business. So you might have like the team in Detroit, that’s 14 people that only talk to Ford. And then there’s the guy in New Zealand who does auto travel and finance altogether. And all of those were sort of like our team’s clients. Right.
Because they all needed a sort of a strategy to lift all boats. And so really our team’s mandate was we’re going to raise the floor in the emerging markets. We’re going to raise the ceiling in the mature markets. And, you know, that billion dollars had to grow 25% while we were there. So it was a lot of relationships, a lot of partnerships at a at a senior level, working with the different business leaders internally to make sure they had what they needed, working in some cases in a client facing capacity, not as much as like my pure sales roles, but more for executive engagements, you know, try to inspire them a little bit.
I gave a presentation to the CMO for Eastern Europe at Porsche once, which, you know, afterwards he shook my hand and he said, I’ve gotten a lot of great presentations from Google, but yours was my favorite because I walk out of here knowing actually what I can do about all this. Right. So yeah, I mean, we had to lean in and find ways to, to grow that business very ambitiously and to the earlier Your discussion, right? I was also lucky enough to have really smart people that, you know, were hungry to join that cause.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 39:19
Paul, I have one last question for you. First of all, thanks for sharing your stories, your journey in. I think it’s really instructive on some of the things and how you think about things and companies. My last question is mentors. Who were some of your mentors in your professional life, and maybe a piece of advice that they had given you along the way?
Paul Burani: 39:49
There have been a lot and, you know, I’ve been the recipient of so much good advice. You know, I would say probably the one that comes to mind the most and has been the most Persistent and consistent mentor for me is my father. My father, you know, pretty much came from nothing. He grew up in post-war Italy, you know, bombed to bits from World War Two. And, you know, he set a real example for me because as I grew up and I started to learn his story, he was a 1 in 1,000,000 case.
His trajectory was a very standard path, which was going to lead him, I think, in his mind, to a very average life, mediocre even. But he was a good student. He always worked hard. And when somebody marched into his school offering a scholarship to go study in the US for his senior year of high school, he seized that opportunity with everything he had. He ignored the pleas from his family, even extended family, saying, why on earth would you go to a faraway place when everything you have is here?
But you know, one example that he set was that you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, right? You. Those opportunities don’t just appear. They’re not your birthright. They show up.
And if you’re ready to go for it, you go for it. And he believed in himself and his father. My grandfather really was his hero. He never went against anything that my grandfather told him, but he was motivated and he said, I got to do this. And one of my favorite moments was decades later when I was too young when this happened.
But I learned about it later. They came to visit and my grandfather told him, he said, you know, all those years ago, I said, you were making a mistake. I said I was going to support you. And now I realize I’m glad I did because I was wrong and you were right. And so I always think about that.
Opportunities don’t grow on trees, right? Like that’s something that, you know, they’re precious few of them where you can really seize a moment that can change your life. And I think my dad is living evidence of that.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 42:20
Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. There’s something about an immigrant mentality of hard work and grit, I think, too.
Paul Burani: 42:29
Yep. Absolutely.
Dr. Jeremy Weisz: 42:31
Paul, I want to be the first one to thank you. Everyone should check out missionflywheel.com to learn more and check out more episodes of the podcast and we’ll see everyone next time. Paul, thanks so much.
Paul Burani: 42:45
It’s been a pleasure. Thank you Jeremy.
