Nancy ([00:02]):

So I just introduced you Ramin to everybody listening, but I am going to let you talk a little bit about your business. Tell us about rhino network solutions.

Ramin ([00:19]):

Thank you. First of all, thanks for having me on, on the show. This is great. I appreciate the the opportunity to come and speak to your audience. We are, rhino is a full service. It consulting firm. We’re based in the middle of Silicon Valley. We’ve been here jeez, 20 years now. And we specialize really in in addition to why doesn’t my printer work. We specialize in helping customers achieve their strategic objectives by helping them choose the technology. That makes sense for them based on who they are, what they do for a living, why they do it the way they do it, and any industry specific government compliancy requirements around their organization. So it’s just, it’s a constant set of updates that we need to do with customers. We’re constantly having conversations. We are not a vendor. If you know, I tell people, if you’re looking for a vendor, I’m not your guy.

Ramin ([01:15]):

If you’re looking for somebody who will be your advocate we’ll help you push things through to make sure things are done in your favor, then that then we’re your guys. We’re here to take care of you and make sure that you do the job you set out to do. If, if you’re running a company of any size, really, and you’re struggling with technology and you need somebody, you can rely on just like you would in any other organization, right? Is if you’re, if, if you’re a company and you need you know, accounting help or bookkeeping help the question that some point somebody needs to be able to answer the question, who do I call? Right? You need to have somebody you can rely on. And that’s really what we want to be. We want to be your resources. You want to be a resource. We want to be a partner. We want to help you move your tech, your company forward using technology. That makes the best sense for you and your people.

Nancy ([02:02]):

So when you say you’re not a vendor, that makes perfect sense. You’re part of the team. You’re, you’re just as valuable as the accountant and the attorney and people need to get you on board. And then when they have problems, they can call you because you know, their entire system. And if they want to make changes, they can call you.

Ramin ([02:24]):

Yes. And that’s, that’s exactly it. I want to be the resource. I want to be the phone call that has made that says, Hey, I’m thinking of doing this. What do you think about it? And how does that affect me from a technology and finance and financial perspective? We get a lot of of CFOs and CTOs that come to us and ask us for guidance basically to help them sort of navigate the shifting sands of technology. So a lot of marketing out there, but then there are things that actually work and work really well and have done so for years. And that’s the kind of stuff we tend to aim our customers towards a lot of standardization. We like to standardize with our customers, you know, and it doesn’t matter what organism, what industry you’re in. Whether you’re, you know, if you’re a hospital, a doctor’s office, if you’re an autobody shop, or if you like, say like you and I discussed that at some point, if you own own apartment buildings, it’s like, there needs to be a standardization so that, you know, from property to property, what you’re dealing with, right?

Nancy ([03:22]):

It shouldn’t be the wild, wild West every time you step onto a new property. Exactly. And having you part of the team is so valuable. I know that from personal experience you and I met, how what’s it been 15, 20 years ago.We met in BNI, which is business network international, which is a networking group. And shortly thereafter, I remember hiring you to do my it work for my law office when I was practicing law. And you came in and you did everything from a to Z. And when I would have an internet issue or a crash or any other thing, forget my password. How do I sign into this? I could call you. And you were right there. And your, your team is absolutely amazing. And we worked together in my law office until I retired in 2013. And even since then, you know, I know I can always call you and, and ask you things. And so , it’s valuable to have you as part of the team.

Ramin ([04:33]):

It is, it is for me, the most important thing especially in the business that I’m in, because it is a trust business because you’re giving somebody, literally giving somebody the keys to the kingdom. It’s about that relationship, right? Somebody needs to be able to trust you and know that you will take good care of them and that you’re you have there. I don’t think their individual best interests at heart, but their individual best business, best interests at heart, right? It’s a, I need to, we need to make sure our job is to make sure you keep moving forward and that we help you sidestep things that could cause you problems. Oh, and I think that trust aspect is critical because nowadays, especially since COVID, everything is online, everything, and you need to trust that that person not only has your best interest at heart, but knows how to set things up for, for your organization and can work with you. And that you can trust will do what you want them to do and be there when you need them.

Ramin ([05:37]):

You have to be able to, I don’t care what product or service you provide. If you’re, if you’re not willing to answer the phone, it’s worthless. In my estimation, in my humble opinion, you know, cause it’s a, there are many people and, and this has become a thing nowadays where everything has to be automated. And then they, you know, everybody thinks that the more automated you make customer service, the better it is. I wholeheartedly disagree. People want to know, people want to be to pick up the phone and go, man, this is what I ran into. What do you, what do you think? Should I, should I not? You know,

Nancy ([06:10]):

You know, whenever I have a question, I just text you and, Oh man, sometimes it’s 10 minutes or less. I get a text back, Hey Nancy, what do you need? Or let’s hop on a call. Or, you know, if it’s not, you, it’s somebody on your team that says, Hey, Ramin said he got this text from you. I’m here to help. What can I do? And Oh, I just absolutely love that customer service. And I rarely buy, . I rarely find companies that have as good a customer service as you.

Ramin ([06:44]):

Thank you. Appreciate that. It’s it’s the one thing that it’s the customer service customer service customer service. When the joke in rhino is where a customer service organization who happens to do it pretty well.

Nancy ([06:54]):

So true. So true. Sort of like real estate is location, location, location. What you do is customer support, customer support, customer support.

Ramin ([07:03]):

Customer support, and really there’s nothing else, right? It, and it doesn’t matter who you are, whether you’re one person on their laptop trying to just get a home-based business rolling. Or if you have an office for 300 people in it, you know, a network is a network and there are some basic fundamental rules and best practices that you should follow so that you’re not spending money. You don’t need to.

Nancy ([07:27]):

Right. Right. Now you indicated you’re in the Silicon Valley, but you handle customers nationwide.

Ramin ([07:35]):

Yes we do. We have customers that have offices here in the Valley. We have a customers that have offices here in the Valley all over the United States and some of them have offices internationally. And we do take care of the international offices on a remote basis. And around the country, we actually have, you know, a lot of folks that we have been working with for, for decade, for the two decades we’ve been in business. And we can, I can make a phone call and have boots on the ground pretty much anywhere in the world.

Nancy ([08:03]):

I was going to ask you how that works because a lot of times people have to have hardware installed,

Ramin ([08:07]):

Correct? Yes. And that not everything is a button on my keyboard. Sometimes you do need a physical human being to slide that thing into the rack and plug it in. Exactly. You know, and that’s, that’s just, you know, but, but even that you need to, I need to have people I can trust that I’ve worked with for years that, you know, I can call up and say, here’s my customer. Here’s I need, I need you to go there and do this and then call me from the site. Right. And that’s, it’s really about my con. One of the things that a lot of it companies do is they outsource, outsourcing is okay if you do it to people you trust, but they also, once they outsource, they’re like, I’m done, you know, they’re handling it. And they know the responsibility remains until the completion of the project. Right. I had a, I had a gentleman asked me from a bandwidth provider, we do a lot of work with bandwidth providers because they sell the bandwidth into customer sites. And then go, here you go, Mr. Customer, here’s your ethernet. And the customer goes what do I do with that?

Nancy ([09:05]):

That would be me. What is this? What is this?

Ramin ([09:12]):

it’s absolutely essential that even at that point, either the customer or the bandwidth provider has someone they can call that they can trust that can come in and go, I got you to handle that. I’ll take care of it for you. Right. And it, it, it is something that we pride ourselves on. It’s about making it better than it was. You know, and we, we do everything from standardizing network security policies to standardizing HR onboarding and offboarding policies, equipment, procurement, software, procurement, rollouts, you know, standardizing, antivirus, all that kind of stuff. It’s about making it. So that it’s the same in all of your sites. If you have a, multi-site kind of a world,

Nancy ([09:55]):

Well, you know, this is important for what I’m doing now, because since I retired, I got into real estate syndication. Correct. which is where we’re putting investors into multifamily apartment complexes. Right. And we have those in numerous States, you know, all over the country and you and I were talking a little bit offline about that. And so how, how would that work for what I do?

Ramin ([10:22]):

So, I mean, fundamentally it would be, let’s say you have multiple properties that you’re managing, right. And you want to manage them, maintain them on a long-term basis. You and I would talk about what technology is existence in each of your sites. Right. And then say, okay, does it make sense? Are you paying for things you shouldn’t be paying for? Are you not paying for things you maybe should be paying for? I have a, I think I mentioned it to you when we were having an offline discussion, I have a client who has an apartment complex here in Menlo park. And the, they brought me in because they couldn’t get something working in the, and I was looking in their, in their main network room and there were literally 12 Comcast modems in a row. And I said, okay, well, what’s that for? And the front office person said, I don’t know, and called the building manager.

Ramin ([11:14]):

And who said, I don’t know. And we called over to the accounting people who said we just pay the bills. And I’m like, it’s two to $300 per month per modem. Times 12. Oh. And nobody knows why. Right. It’s that, there’s no plan. There’s no plan. It is always a networking is always that afterthought. Which is why it’s so important. If you’re going to set up a building and manage multiple sites, you should be able to have a means of visibility into those networks because you can hire a you know, a, an office, a building manager and fire them. Right. And if the, if the building manager is the one who created that world and leaves without leaving you passwords, now you’re in a world of hurt. Right.

Nancy ([12:01]):

And that’s the wrong time to call you,

Ramin ([12:03]):

It, it makes it imminently more difficult.

Nancy ([12:07]):

So there we have one building. So you can come in, you can look at the network room, figure out what needs to be there, what I’m paying for that I shouldn’t be paying for what I missing. And then you can hook that up to all of my vendors. Like if I want to bring cable in for all of my tenants or anything like that, you can set all that up for me in that moment,

Ramin ([12:32]):

Set all that up. But design the networks and manage the projects for you until they are complete. We do the rollouts. If we need to help your tenants, get, if you want to bring in bandwidth for your tenants, we can help them connect to that bandwidth and set your network up, such that it’s, it’s an easy connection. And we can just route the, you see what I’m saying? It’s, it’s really about a, it’s not just about paying a bill to the bandwidth provider every month. It’s, it’s about designing the network, such that it’s an easy rollout.

Nancy ([13:02]):

Now, what about when I, you know, let’s say I have one building in Louisiana, and then I buy another building in Florida, how would my internet services networking services?

Ramin ([13:16]):

So you would, the way we would do it would be that we would make sure that you have if possible, because there are regional differences in bandwidth providers, but if possible, we try and get you so that all your sites have bandwidth from one provider. So you have one bill to play, pay for all your sites. And then we can, we can then make sure that that is managed. And we set up networks and firewalls such that if you want it to, you could visibly see what’s going on at any site. You could be in California and look at the network in Florida and see who’s connected to what using what equipment, all that kind of stuff. It’s not that hard to set that up, but it does require a little bit of planning and forethought. And it’s, if you’re stepping into a new piece of property that has been owned by somebody else before likelihood, they never did that.

Ramin ([14:09]):

So we need to aid, do the figure out. What’s not working first. What do we need to take out? What are we, you know, and also what, where are we from in terms of contracts? Sometimes people get themselves into contract. So you take over the building, but the contract is another two years now. And so now the question is, do you pay that off or do you just live with it for two years? And what is the, and basically begin to put a plan in place such that, you know, going forward for the next hour, many months, these things are going to happen in all your sites, right? Or one site at a time, however, you, you know, and that’s all budget, obviously that determines everything, but it’s about having a plan and somebody to go over that plan. So that, you know, and can update if you need to and make modifications. Ultimately though it should be that someone like me who is a service provider, should be able to pull up basically a dashboard and see what’s happening in all your buildings.

Nancy ([15:06]):

So let me give you a scenario that I’ve seen happen. You know, I buy an apartment building, I’m looking for a local property management company that can handle my building and they come in, then they say, Oh, we have all of our network structure in place. We have our billing service. We have this structure for marketing to tenants. We have this system for paying the rents, et cetera. Right. And they want to force me into their system,

Ramin ([15:38]):

Into their little world. And then the question is, why are they making money on you taking over that? And you know, what’s that, and maybe it’s, maybe it’s a good deal. . But it, it there’s, there should be an analysis done. Does it make business sense for you to participate in that? And is there a better way

Nancy ([15:56]):

The downsides, if I jump on their network, if they lock you into a, into a contract for two year two or three-year contract, and you realize two weeks in that this ain’t going to work for me, that’s a problem. Companies usually will require that you book with them for six months, something like that, because they’re trying to lease up your building. But then after that it’s, you know, 30 days or 60 days that you can terminate.

Ramin ([16:25]):

Okay. So then we need to do the analysis of the systems and determine how they all work together. Or do they all work together? Sometimes it’s just been cobbled. It’s a series of separate disparate systems that are, that have been cobbled together to get a certain workflow accomplished. But then the question is, does that make sense for you?

Nancy ([16:42]):

Well, and the thing that scares me is if I have to fire that property manager, because they’re not doing a good job, I lose access to all those systems.

Ramin ([16:52]):

Correct. And all, and then the question is, how do we get your data out, right?

Nancy ([16:57]):

Is there a way to piggyback systems so that if that, if they want to collect rent through their system or do record keeping through their system, are there systems that I can have on my side where that information is just fed to my systems?

Ramin ([17:15]):

The answer to that is it depends on what they’re using as a system and what its capabilities are from, from the, from a data dissemination perspective. But until we do the, a deep dive due diligence, you, you won’t know, you won’t know what you can tie in. That’s the thing. So it it’s, and this, I do this with a lot of my, you know, the tech clients, as well as theirs before you make large moves, there’s a little bit of due diligence and homework to be done before you sign leases. And before you signed contracts, right. But then again, it’s, it’s, it’s a function of we sit together and go over stuff and go, okay, does this make sense for you from a business perspective, from a technical perspective, from a strategic perspective and everything you do from building to building to building should really be driven by your strategic objectives longterm, right? Everything else is fire firefighting. So we don’t want to burn a lot of time and energy on firefighting. If we set up everything from a strategic perspective, the amount of firefighting goes down.

Nancy ([18:16]):

What kind of things should syndicators look out for? You know, I’m if there’s a syndicator that’s new to the business just getting their first apartment building, what kind of things should they keep in mind with regard to it?

Ramin ([18:37]):

They should determine who’s bringing in bandwidth, right. To that building because every, every management office has its bandwidth and its phone system. Who are the providers? Is there a security camera system? Does it work? I’ve been in buildings where they’re like, , we have camera systems and you go into the server room and it’s just dark. The cameras are not working

Nancy ([19:01]):

Well, there are actually some operators that put fake cameras in, just so people think they’re being watched, but they don’t want to pay the man.

Ramin ([19:10]):

And it, and it’s just a question of, you know, what is it that, what is it that you, when you’re, as you are taking over this building, what is it that you, what do they, what do they spend, what are they spending money on, on a monthly basis? And does it make sense for you to take that on? Is there a better, more effective way to do that? Right. It’s a, and as part of that whole due diligence thing, but it’s, you know, bandwidth phone systems, camera systems, cabling cabling. I get apartment complexes that come to me and go, we need, we need a camera’s on the other end of the building on the other end of the complex. And I’m like, okay, where’s the nearest point of contact to your network. What’s back way back there that the main office. And I’m like, well, then we need to run somehow run fiber between right.

Ramin ([19:53]):

Because no provision was made initially for such an expansion. Right? And so at some point that’s, this is where you need to step back a minute and say, okay, I know what I’m buying. I know what it looks like now, what do I want, right. Where do I, where do I want this whole thing to go? Do I want a camera system at every entrance? And then the cameras on the corners of every building, do I want wifi and all the corridors in the apartment complex, and these are all questions that you need to then say, okay, what’s it going to cost to? If it’s an already built building, what’s it cost to retrofit. And is that a thing you do your budget for over the next few quarters a couple of years, you know, what, what is the process? But again, the idea is to put a plan in place so that we can just keep moving you forward. In that regard. Ideally we end up with a system where you have a syndicator who has multiple properties, all of whom are fundamentally the same from a network and infrastructure perspective.

Nancy ([20:55]):

So if somebody contacts you, what do you do? You just sit down with them, you talk about what they have, what they want to do. You make recommendations, and then you put together a proposal.

Ramin ([21:07]):

It’s, it’s a, and if I need to, then I do, I also do site walks with them. I, you know, crawl through attic spaces, whatever road trip, road trip. Right. Exactly. I had a, I had a bandwidth vendor the other day who said you know, I have, I have customers that I sell to in LA. I’m like, okay, I can jump on an airplane. That’s not a problem. It’s not going to be there. And you know, a couple of hours, it’s 90 bucks a ticket. It’s not a question of, you know, can I get there? Of course I can get there. There’s the question of what are we trying to accomplish? And what is your, what are your goals? You know that, yes. You’re looking at buying a property. All right. That’s great. Is that one? Is that your first one is that one of many is there, if it’s one of many, do we want to make them all at some point the same, you know, the, the more you standardize your world from a technology basis, the easier it is to keep track of your costs, keep track of, make sure that you have reduced downtime and provide more value to the people who are your tenants.

Nancy ([22:03]):

This is just fantastic information. And I’m so glad that you’re on this show. Come back whenever you want me to. That would be great. So let’s skip to a few other things. So what’s a great book. We should be reading

Ramin ([22:19]):

For me, the bid, the best good book I’ve read recently was the E-Myth. It’s a fabulous, fabulous book. And in fact, if you’re a syndicator read the E-Myth, this is, this is about, you have to think differently. You know, Tony Robbins, the great motivational speaker said that the measure of a company or an organization’s success is entirely dependent on the psychology of the owner.

Nancy ([22:46]):

And that book is great because it talks about systems, how to put them in place. And then there are so many different eBooks now for different industries,

Ramin ([22:58]):

Right? Systematize, everything, it’s doable, it’s doable. And what’s nice given current technology, it’s doable for a fraction of what it used to cost, right? So you can do it. It’s just, but you can’t, if you’re not, if that’s not your world, you really have to have somebody you can ask and say, okay, why would I choose that versus that? Right. Cause there are a lot of competitors out there. But yes systematize everything. That’s, that’s, that’s the mantra. Cause the more you standardize it, the easier it is. And you know, the joke is, you know, we, we, we like to systematize everything for all of our customers. Not because not just because it makes our lives easier and the customer understands what they’re paying for every month. But you know, if the joke is in case we all get at rhino, get hit by a bus collectively, it’s easy to go hear a new person. Here’s all the stuff.

Nancy ([23:49]):

Exactly. Everything is not in your mind, but documented

Ramin ([23:53]):

Or on a sticky note underneath somebody’s keyboard. Right.

Nancy ([23:56]):

And I remember way back with my law office, you put together a binder for me. . That had everything in it. So that, I mean, now I guess it would be online. Yes. But you know, we could look it up, we could look everything up and how it was set up. And that was just invaluable.

Ramin ([24:14]):

it’s essential. It’s essential. And now with, with network security and understanding, having people understand that you know, if you’re going to hire people to work for, you do manage your properties, there needs to be a information security standardization across your organization. There your employees sort of, there needs to be a an acceptable use document. They sign when they’re onboarded by HR, right. That says, I will not use my company owned equipment for this, this and this. And you know, and it also talks about, if you get an email that looks suspicious, don’t click on it just don’t right. And, but if you don’t train your people, right. And I find that, that, that a lot of times we walk into properties and it’s the approach has been buy the property and get a warm body in that front office. And let me suggest that’s a bad idea because they’re just, they’re just there to collect a paycheck, right?

Ramin ([25:15]):

They’re not really there to help you move your organization forward. And there’s no, they have no knowledge of the underlying infrastructure they’re working on. As long as the email keeps popping up, they’re happy. Right. one of my customers has just took over a property in Burlingame up here. And the previous people just sort of took off. They took the money and ran basically. And so they have multiple buildings on the property each of which has its own at and T fiber connection. And they’re not sure what they’re paying. And again, it’s the same, it’s the same thing. Right? they, they had a bunch of, they have a bunch of networking gear in there that is literally not being used. It, they paid for it, but it’s not being used. I’m like, you have all this wonderful gear here. Can we not? You know?

Ramin ([26:05]):

And so this is the, they, they want to talk to me about standardized because I have multiple properties and they want to say, can we just do it in a way that I can see from the main office, I can log into any company and see what’s happening any property and see what’s happening. And that’s, that’s the thing, but it takes some planning. It takes some design work, right. And it’s not, it’s not horribly difficult stuff. It really isn’t. It’s just, you need to pull back from the, from the, you know, the, the fisticuffs all the way you pull up to about 10,000 feet and really look at things on a, on a much bigger picture perspective.

Nancy ([26:35]):

All right. Ramin, what’s the weirdest or funniest thing that’s happened to you this past week,

Ramin ([26:41]):

This past week. Hmm, wow.

Nancy ([26:44]):

When ever, whatever works.

Ramin ([26:48]):

we get a lot of strange stuff and it’s, it’s, some of it is just, you know, giggle, inducing. It’s for us, a lot of times, it’s, it’s just a function of you know, somebody’s, somebody’s not understanding the technology they’ve paid for. So that’s, that’s the amusing part is it’s like, okay, you do realize that you paid for a thing that does that, that other thing. Oh, really? . And so it’s, it’s, it’s funny. But personally, I think the, the thing that I’ve, that I’ve had the most fun with in the past few weeks has been just because we’ve, we’re always locked up, is some of the behavior my dogs do. They’re just goofy. And, and it’s, that’s, that’s the, that’s the thing that, you know, the levity that helps us maintain sanity. Is there, the dogs don’t care. They’re just happy you’re here.

Nancy ([27:33]):

And what was it? A politician or somebody that had a catwalk across there, a zoom screen in the middle of a hearing of some sort,

Ramin ([27:43]):

There, there was a politician who, I guess somebody in his household that turn on the, the, that snap snap cam thing that puts like, you know, golf balls on the cat, the cat’s face. So it tracks your eyes, right? So no matter which way you move the cat face move All right. So we’re going to wrap up. Ramin tell people how they can get ahold of you.

Ramin ([28:11]):

You can get ahold of us very easily at www.rhinonetworksolutions.com. There’s links to everything on that website. I can be reached at (650) 421-7280. I’m here all the time and it’s on my desk and on my phone. So everywhere I go, you go with me

Nancy ([28:38]):

And I am here to tell everybody listening that you will never make a better phone call, than the one to Ramin.

Ramin ([28:47]):

Thank you so much. . Looking forward to helping anybody out. If you have questions, please use us as a resource. We’ve been doing this a long time.

Nancy ([28:55]):

Great. Thanks so much. Ramin for being on the program.

Ramin ([28:59]):

It’s been a pleasure.