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Just kind of summarizing that farm non farm payroll data. The good news was for the month of February came in better than expected. The two hundred and seventy five thousand jobs at IT consensus was two hundred thousand, So good headline print. There kind of a little bit of the downside here is a big negative revision for the prior month. The prior month was revised down from a gain of three hundred fifty three thousand to two hundred and twenty nine. Claudia Asam from them Group said, don't
worry about it, it's just noise. Taking it in, take everything on like a three month basis, rolling basis, and basically the payroll market's pretty strong. Jony Biley joins US chief workforce analysts at employ Bridge, reportedly on Zoom from Pompano Beach, Florida.
What are we doing here?
Jealous?
Right?
Yeah, why not? But I'm going out to the mountains Sunday, summer, right, Joni, what did you make of this jobs report number today? A lot of moving parts, as we've been saying, Yeah, you.
Know, you really have to break it down because there is a lot of data in this report, and there's some good news and there's some bad news.
So to your point you were talking about, you know, the revisions that were made to the prior months. We did see some pretty big revisions.
Downward to January and then also some revisions in December. So you know, the previous month's reports weren't really as strong as we thought they were. But however, if you look at the overall job growth, you know, the US is adding jobs to the economy, mostly in the healthcare sector. We did see growth in the retail sector. Construction added over twenty thousand jobs, so you know, there is some good news and we continue to see wages also moving up in the report as well.
But jo Johnny, do you care that the wages were moving up less?
Yeah, we're definitely seeing a slow down.
I think with you know, wage growth has been so strong over the past few years, so I expect them to flatten. I do think you know, wages will kind of soften, but I was surprised actually to see that we're still having some decent, you know, decent wage growth.
So the one go ahead.
Well, the one thing I was going to say that concern me the most about this Job's report was actually the household survey, and that's where you saw unemployment, you know, tick up to three point nine percent. And when you look at the data and kind of break that down, we see that the population is growing, the size of the labor forces growing, but we actually have over three hundred and thirty thousand more people on unemployment, and.
That concerns me.
So, you know, we have these two surveys, and so when you look at you know, the establishment survey, the headline number of you know, two hundred and seventy five thousand jobs being created looks great, but that household survey is really concerning that we're seeing more people on unemployment.
So, Jony, I think when you listen to earnings conference calls from companies and just about every industry, they say it's still really hard to attract and retain a good talent and labor. Are you still seeing that? Is it as a cute today as it was maybe you know, a year or two ago.
Yeah, it's definitely softened a bit.
The job market, you know, was much stronger last year and the prior year, you know, even coming out of the pandemic, we just had robust growth.
It was a very competitive market.
People were quitting their jobs going somewhere else the grass was.
Greener, making more money.
Now we're starting to see, you know, the quits rate is coming down. It is still though, a very tight job market to your point, you know, we have eight point nine million job openings, about six point four million unemployed workers, so more jobs than there are people. But it depends on the sector you know that you're in. We've seen a slowdown in some of the professional and
business service sector. Healthcare though continues to remain strong. Leisure and hospitality, you know, it is very hard to find people in that industry.
So we've seen wages.
Really start to increase, and employers are focused on that, you know, employee retention strategies to keep their workforce engaged and keep them with them.
So to that point, the market is pricing in now one hundred basis points of cuts. This year really starts to kick off in June. Is this an economy that needs that. Like, if we do get those cuts, is there now penned up demand with companies so it actually make the job market tighter.
Well, I do think if we get those cuts, you know, even if it's in the second, you know, half of the year, that will help many companies feel better about investing and start hiring again. Because what we see at employee Bridge is employers are talking about hiring. They say they have the demand, but they do seem a bit cautious. They're not adding, you know, to their payrolls as quickly as they have before, and I think they have to
be careful with their cash position. And certainly you know, their their debt and the interest rates being high, you know, of course it's impacting companies with making those investments. So if we start to see those rates, you know, begin to ease, I would certainly feel better about companies starting to add to their permanent payrolls again.
JNY last night was the State of the Union address and one of the key issues was immigration issues at the border. How does immigration with it's legal or illegal, how has it been impacting Have you seen it anywhere in the labor market? What are your clients saying, because I was speaking to a buddy mine who owns a restaurant just yesterday, and he was saying, for the first time in three years, he actually has everybody he needs
for all his shifts. And these are you know, bus boys and waiting staff and dishwashers and things like that. Has it shown up in your work.
Yeah, so we're we I think it's still too soon to tell. To be honest with you, it definitely will have an impact. When you look at the numbers of people that are coming into the country. You know, obviously that's adding, you know, to the population, and many of them are unskilled workers, you know, so they will really you know, if obviously getting their green cards are being able to work in the United States, they will impact the lower level, lower level.
Jobs, you know, looking for talent more in those unskilled positions. And we see that we haven't really seen.
The big impact in the workforce yet, but it certainly would impact the workforce in the future.
What do you look for next then, so if there's some good interest in bad it's like a Worsheck test, right when it comes to the jobs data, what's going to be the next data point that you're really paying attention to in the jobs numbers.
Well, I think there's a couple of things that'll that we need to continue to watch.
One thing is labor participation.
You know, if you look at the overall workforce, we're at about sixty two point five percent labor participation, and that if you break that down, you know, men over twenty years old we're up at seventy percent, which is a pretty good number. Women for over twenty years old are We're at fifty nine percent. So when I look at the overall job market, I'm also looking not only where is the job growth and who's adding what's happening with ages, but are we getting people back to work
in the United States? And are we seeing that labor participation start to tick up? And that's a very important indicator that I certainly watch. It's still at a very very low rate, and we have some work to do I think in encouraging people that it is a.
Good job market.
There are opportunities out there, there's training opportunities out there, and certainly need to get that number up. I'll also be watching for revisions next month, you know, are the numbers getting continually revised downward? The temporary help sector is interesting to follow. Usually, if we're losing jobs in the temporary help services sector, that's not a good sign for the economy because companies will lay off temporary workers first, and unfortunately.
That has been declining for many months, which could show us that, you.
Know, we're not at this yet, Johnny, there are definitely some softening Johnny.
We appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Jony Biley, she is employee Bridge, Chief Workforced Analyst, joining us there. We very much appreciate your time.
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Happy Friday to everyone we made at the end of the week. You're listening to Bloomberg Intelligence. I'm Bloomberg Radio. You can also check us out on YouTube. We are live in the interactive at Broker Studio right here at headquarters in New York. I'm Alex Steel, Paul Sweeney as well. So we have thousands of analysts hundreds. It's good. With hundreds hundred of analysts that cover two thousand companies and one hundred and thirty industries around the world, they are
truly the best of the best. And one of the headliners here is Gina Martin Adams. She is the chief equity strategist at Bloomberg Intelligence and she joined us now from the Golden State. Gina, I'm looking at the market, and I've been skeptical of the rally for a long time. But then I get things like the Rustle two thousand up the most and hitting its highest level since March
of twenty twenty two. Then I get things like you have the equal Weighted Index sitting at a record high, you have industrials doing really well, and it's not just uber. Is it time for me to stop being skeptical?
Yeah, I dare say, Alex, we should have convinced you a little while ago to stop being skeptical. But frankly, I do think that what is happening in the market, You're not alone. There are a lot of people that are very skeptical to in the market, and that is what makes what makes the wall of worry that stocks tend to climb right and I do think though that when you look at the bulk of the evidence, you
see fundamentals starting to turn a corner. For the vast majority of the S and P five hundred and prices are reflecting that corner that fundamentals are turning over the course of twenty twenty three. Of course, the big argument against stuff is that this market was really just driven by the biggest names, but that argument has been diminished considerably over the last three months. So we're starting to
see breakouts across the board. As a matter of fact, more than half of industrials companies are making new all time highs over the last three months, so you are starting to see much broader gains emerge. Small caps starting to show some signs of life as well, breaking across key resistance levels just this week. So we're starting to see more participation, more capitalization, participation, more sectors, more stocks really getting on board this full market.
So I guess, just in the back Gina on the jobs number today, it seems like the bond market is pricing in, you know, pretty confidently.
A rate cut in.
June gave us just kind of what you're fed outlook is for kind of the remainder this year, and how important that is to kind of just the overall fundament of the movement of the markets.
Yeah, so luckily, paul I, that's one thing I don't have to set is a FED outlook. But I will say that what the equity market is pricing is generally we're starting to adopt the thesis that earnings are improving. I do think that what's really driving the equity market
more than anything is not what's happening in rates. As a matter of fact, we see some very clear evidence that equities are detaching from the rates landscape, and we're not necessarily as closely correlated on a daily basis, monthly basis with watchab what's happening with rates and the bond market, speculation about the FED, and instead we're looking at much stronger than expected earnings and cash flow growth that has emerged for the S and P five hundred, and the
anticipation that maybe earnings actually will prove to be much stronger than the market was forecasting over the course of this year. I do think that that's the most important driver of stocks. That said, you can't completely ignore the FED. If the FED is going to even just modestly reduce interest rates because inflation risks has diminished. That could be very supportive of equities as well and certainly contribute to valuations. I think the most dangerous condition for stocks right now
is one of two things happen. First and foremost, the biggest sort of not predicted component of the market outlook is this idea that maybe inflation is stickier than anticipated. If inflation reaccelerates, that is obviously very bad for stocks because it could compress profit margins.
On the other end of the.
Spectrum, if the FED is easing policy because growth is breaking down, that's also not great for stocks. We need this middle zone of sort of stable policy, stable inflation, and modest improvement and earnings growth to really support the equity market right now.
That is a Goldilocks word there for Gina. Okay, But here's my question is that if we do get the cuts, let's say they start in June, and neither of those negative scenarios imply like there's no sticky inflation and there's no disastrous economy, the risk of the cuts is that we actually fuel more investment into an economy that doesn't need it, and then that kind of sets us up for a rougher twenty twenty five.
I think that's a really good point, is how much can they cut before they ultimately the ultimate result is another bout of inflation into twenty twenty five, And we won't know this until we get to mid twenty twenty four when they do start cutting. If they do, but the Fed does have to threat a pretty fine needle if we're at a point where growth is relatively stable and inflation is simply decelerating, I think the arguments for
those cuts are relatively deminimus. So if we do get to that point and the Fed does start cutting, you could indeed see the markets start to think about, well, what does this really mean for inflation prospects in twenty twenty five? Is it justified to see these growth this sort of outlook from the Fed? Will we see much more volatile inflation conditions emerging? What will that mean for
profit margins? That of course comes in the middle landscape of we do have the election coming later this year, We've gone I have a lot of other potential moving parts to contend with in the economy, but it's certainly one factor to consider.
Geet, I'm glad you brought the election because we'd had this State of the Union last night, So it just feels like that's kicking off what's going to be a very long campaign here in a very long process. Historically speaking, How do markets perform in a presidential election year?
Yeah, I think Paul I tend to dismiss a lot of those sort of the statistical evidence about election years because you get very different results if you talk about how seasonality and political cycles play out over the last twenty years versus the last fifty years versus the last one hundred years. So you can kind of pick your narrative.
Yep.
I think that things that are most important, of course to drive stocks really are what's happening with growth and inflation. That said, as we move closer to the election, I do think that there are two major macro issues to consider with respect to the twenty twenty five outlook, and they will matter depending upon who ultimately becomes the US president, and that is really tax and trade. And trade are the two issues that could have very meaningful impacts on
the outlook for earnings growth. Both of these presidents do tend to have fight bipolar policies with respect to especially taxation, but also trade policies and a sort of international framework of relationships. So I think we want to pay pretty close attention to those two issues as we get closer to the election because they could have meaningful outcomes for equities going into twenty twenty five.
So before we get there, I just want to before we let you go enjoy the weekend, I want to get your take on what's happening with certain areas of tech. So if you have Tesla, if you have Apple, if you have maybe Alphabet starting to really break down, yep, but yet you still have an Aazak one hundred at a record high. How long do you think that that divergence can last?
Yeah, I think this is super interesting, Alex And something we've been actually exploring over the course of the last two weeks as well is what's happening in the market is quite interesting. Beneath that headline, what we see is actually tech stops relative performance, failing to make new so tech appears to be consolidating, even communications, as you noted, with Alphabet sort of breaking down, communication stocks have been
in a bit of a downtrend. At the same time the broader markets are moving higher and that's because we're seeing greater participation outside tech really push those markets higher. Within the Nasdaq, for instance, you've started to see breakouts in healthcare. Healthcare of courses is horrible laggard in twenty twenty three. If you get momentum games in the rest of the market and tech just stalls or even starts to break down a little bit, you can see stocks work.
And the last week and a half or so has proves some evidence of that case. We do need to see, though, participation continue to emerge in the rest of the market if tech is indeed going into a stall state.
All right, Gina, thanks so much for joining us, as always appreciate it.
Geina.
Martin Adams, chief equity strategist for Bloomberg Intelligence, joining us from zoom from NJ.
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Let's get broader market. I want to pick up on where John Tucker sort of left off there, which is the Russell. It's at a highest level since twenty twenty two, and again the signs of the broadening part of the rally and all of that significant as certain parts of tech really start to underperform. So joining us now is Grace Lee, senior portfolio manager for Columbia Thread Needle. She is standing by for us. Is this the moment for value and is it going to last?
That's a great question, and thanks for having me on today. I think we're getting closer to a tipping point for value. I think you know, last year our value was certainly hit with a double whammy of rates rising, hurting a lot of the defensive sectors, and then you had the AI trade where our value really doesn't play very obviously
in the first round. But I think right now what you're seeing is is people are looking for other other opportunities and even other ways to play the AI trade, and we're seeing rate cuts on the horizon, and I think that's that's also going to be you know, a it's going to drive a return to some of these underperforming sectors from last year.
Grace, how do you find define value?
I like this, Well, we look at value in a number of ways. I think you know, we do look to the Rustle one thousand. Value is as sort of the you know, the broader index, but but it also involves just looking for undervalued opportunities and and so you know, I think one thing that has been overlooked is that
a lot of companies are going through transformations. And and you know, as much as people think that that, you know, equities are are valued or something, but there's there's always pockets, and we look for those pockets.
You know.
I think City Group is actually a really interesting example where the company is going through a significant transformation, simplifying the business, really driving better accountability, and you know that that stock still trades a maybe seventy percent of book value, and we think that that one's very interesting. So we look for those types of opportunities where even in a very strong market, you know, you look under the covers and there's always something there that looks interesting.
What gives you confidence at this time will be different? I mean I feel like value, specifically small caps go there had their chance their moment last year, it didn't last for very long.
What do you think, Well, I think it does feel like it's always one step forward, two steps back for value. And I think you know, to a certain extent you can you can certainly extend that to small caps. But I think over the long term there is mean reversion, and it's it's always hard to pinpoint exactly what will drive that and when that will happen. But you know, AI is not going to eat the world. It's it's certainly growing very fast, and we have very high optimism
on on what it can accomplish. But but there are other sectors and and things have to sort of normalize a bit.
So are there sectors per se that that you like here or do you kind of go stock by stock? How do you guys screen for value?
So there are some sectors that that are interesting, you know, I think healthcare which was mentioned earlier, there's a lot of interesting value names there. AD buys or I would call out is the stock is the stock dividend is actually higher than any of its A rated bonds right now, which which is an interesting setup, and they've been emphatic in terms of saying that they will support that dividend.
So I think that one's interesting. So aside from healthcare, I think there are also very uh company specific opportunities, you know, and we we've looked at the AI trade and AI is not value, but there are certainly uh opportunities for for AI participation amongst value names, and I think that's probably one of the most the most interesting things within our space right now. So I think I think old tech is actually seeing a bit of a
renaissance driven by AI. Where people used to think that that servers and storage were kind of low growth, may be dead for a while because everyone's moving to the cloud and they need less hardware. But you know, as we're we're seeing now that is not the case, and there's there's AI servers that's driving a lot of growth, you know both. So I think we saw that specifically with Dell, which were actually involved in and and you know that company. It was not initially a an AI
play for us. It was really that PCs are going to see a refresh cycle. Servers and storage will certainly pick up and they might gain a little bit from AI. It looks like the market thinks are going to gain a lot more from that. Yeah, And then you've got old companies like IBM, which I think again has has really transformed itself over the last couple of years and become more of a software and services company, which is not how you think of the traditional IBM.
Yeah, and that's exactly what we pointed out. And Paul in particular, after earnings for Dell, like that stock just like shooting up. It's like, oh right, right, Dell is still around. They do stuff. You also like some utilities, why.
So what what AI is going to do. It's going to drive a lot of power demand. And there are some and they're they're probably not they're in the utility category, but they're the independent power producers and they're the ones
that will benefit directly from higher power prices. There are some that own nuclear assets where clean energy, clean clean power is actually going to be very much in demand by the large hyper scale cloud providers as they want to balance their environmental goals with this this massive demand for AI power. So so I think there's there's opportunities there, and I think companies that own power producing assets, and especially nuclear assets, are very well positioned.
All right, Grace, thanks lot, We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining. Grace Lee, Senior portfolio manager for Columbia thread Needle.
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Let's talk about the real economy front real world. Yeah, let's talk about the real world here. So Arcadus is a company based in Amsterdam, but the bulk of their revenue really now comes from the US and Canada. And they do things like sustainable design, engineering, consultancy, solutions for assets, they build stuff, and just to make Paul happy, they are also working on the Hudson Tunnel project.
Thank you.
That's going to get about twelve billion dollars in federal funding. It includes two four and a half mile long tracks and tunneling. It's a big deal. So I always love checking on these companies because they're the people who are putting your shovels in the ground, right, And that's what we really want to understand. And we're lucky now to join Virginie Duperrat. She is CFO of Arcadis. She's in town joining us. It's so wonderful to have you here. Thank you for joining us.
Thank you Alex, and thank you Paul, and very happy to be with you tomorrow this morning.
So in Amsterdam over in Europe, I should say, right, a fifty two week high for the stock earning is super good. You got a strong story. I just want to get your take on kind of what how's it going like, how what demand is like? Where in the world are you seeing the most demand and for what stuff?
Thank you, Alex. I think that we are in a very buoyant moment. Frankly, it is not started yesterday already, I think you know, just after COVID we started to see some changes, but definitely there is quite an ask at the moment for more sustainable things and quite a change. Also we see a lot of traction in the sustainability space boss in Europe and on the US continent, and that happens in very different areas such as climate adaptation.
Obviously if you think about out some of the storms that are increasing, but also the rainfalls that now you can get, you know, the volume of a month within an hour.
And then in New York we definitely feel that. God So to that point though, I hear you, and politically as well, you get the Chips Act here, the Infrastructure Act and the IRA, and there's so much money to be deployed so quickly. But I'm seeing a disconnect, particularly in industrials, about backlog and projects versus actually getting money, like people actually poining up the cash. Are you guys noticing that right now too?
If we are honest, we need to admit, you know that all these similar packages in some respect of creating some sort of a pose because suddenly, you know, people are saying, I could get a bunch of money, so then you know I should wait to make my decisions. We've been some people hesitating between the stimulus in Europe versus the stimidius in the US, but what we can see is that traction is now coming. We are already
have a first project. For example, we work on the Nano Research Center in New York Albany, which is funded by stimulus package money, and we still have other projects coming in. We also have the same thing in Europe with a very large semiconductor factory in Germany one mile per one mile or a very large thing. And definitely there is the need for more of these elements. And then this is going to happen, but probably H two will be showing us more of.
That so I would think for your business, those projects that you work on are just some multi year projects. What kind of visibility do you have into your business going forward?
We have quite a long term visibility. Our way of freakenting backlog whatever is very conservative and then our backlog at any moment is not more than ten months. Is but if we consider our entire pipeline, quite a number of our project like the asentannel, you are referring to several years projects, so we have visibility in what's going
to happen. We recently signed a strong project in Europe with Shell about gas extraction cleaning to get the rebigation of the soil and convert that, you know, potentially either back into farmland the one it's theremediated or into a different sort of compression storage for example for energy. So this type of project gives you a ten year of
visibility on some of those different things. We have also large frameworks with some clients you know that also want us to accompany on the long time and very long lasting relationship here in the US with more seventy years with some clients.
Yeah, and I know that at least in my world, I do energy transition stuff. A lot of businesses are just like they're staying in the queue for stuff even if they don't need it or they don't have the money right now, because it just takes so long to get on a line. And if it's like companies like yours, at the end of the day, I'm interested in terms of how you're managing costs, like where are you still seeing inflation, where are you seeing deflation? And where do you feel like prices are sticky?
So I think we've been over the worst phase of inflation, obviously, But at the end of the day, when we talk about, you know, such a large project like the Santanel or other project we are in, the share of course that we represent is super small. So I wouldn't be honest if I'm not admitting, you know that pushing inflation in
our revenue has not been really a key question. That's been something you know that the way we organize, the way we work and what we deliver you know, for our clients has been something quite smooth, and the operating performance of the last few years have shown that.
So what type of specific consulting services do you provide? You focus just trying to get a sense of how what role you guys play in these different projects.
So Arcadis would be able to intervene around any natural or built asset from the very beginning conception thinking and such down to remediation and potentially dismantling. So that's where we operate, and in that space we will never take any construction. This is not where we operate, but we are really an advisor, a consultant that will be able to give environmental permitting for example, or design construction. Architecture
also thinks about the fifth Avenue. We've been recently refurbishing the Tiffany store.
But you know, towards you guys, yes, okay, okay, all right, yeah right, So what is the hardest part of your business right now?
Like what keeps you up at night? As CFO, what.
Keeps me upset night? My kid is more than my job.
I really get that. Yeah, for sure, I'm just curious as to what the hardest part of your job is.
This is a very fragmented portfolio. So you know, you need to have a view on everything, and you need to admit also that you can't have a view on everything at the same time. So it's the way you are organized, the way you make people, you know, have the information that they need to make the relevant decision at any moment. And part of our new strategic cycle is really around that there's more project outside that project
that we can see. So then what do we do internally to make sure that our salesforce has a capability to make the right decision and not work on a first and first mode?
You know, I see they have about thirty five thousand employees. Is it hard to attract and retain employees in your business?
There are some difficult elements, but obviously we've worked a lot on that. Maybe one you hand a half ago we were above fourteen percent attrition rate, which was quite high just after COVID, So we worked a lot into that trying to understand what's happening in terms of engagement score. Now we close the year of fifty two, which puts US in the highest quartile of our industry, and our nutrition is down, you know, just above eleven percent.
Are you backed in Amsterdam? Are you back to office hybrid? What are you doing?
We are hybrid. We've reduced our office print by thirty five percent, you know.
As the last yes, So what is your policy?
How does it work for you? Guys. So in Amsterdam, for example, Well.
I would not talk about the head quarter, you know, because this is not where it is buoyant and where you have a life of the company. But in a normal office where we operate for project and for client number one, you potentially have people with the client on mix site working on the project from time to time
if we can do it. We love, you know, having those teams in our offices because that's you know, quite attractive and stimulate everyone, and we we encourage them to come in the office two to three days a week. But we have, you know, broken our capabilities in terms of open spaces and search to create more collaborative spaces where a team would gather and go into a specific meeting that they have prepared and where they want to collaborate on.
Okay, right, Virginie, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time. It was really wonderful to get that perspective. Virginie du Parachi joins us Arcadus chief financial Officer. You're jealous of the work, Yeah, yes, you want the remote radio working. That's part of things it works.
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Let's get the sort of innovation startups, how do you get it done? How do you start a business? What does it mean? How do you do it in the world of AI. Also, and there's a great person to talk to you about this, Sunny Bonell. She's co founder and CEO of Mato, which is a global brand strategy and design firm focused on brand transformations for innovative tech companies. So let's get more on all of this and what it means and how hard it is to start a business.
I certainly don't want to do that, by the way, Sonny joins us. Now, Sonny, first of all, what is Mato.
Well, we are a brand strategy and design agency and we work on brand transformations for innovative tech companies. As you said there, we typically join forces with visionary leadership teams executive teams at very pivotal inflection points in their business to help them sort of define what's new and
what's next. And we really are known as this kind of big idea company, So we work with leadership teams to kind of find what is that big idea worth ratling around, how do we make it famous for them, how do we areticulate it within the company and without the company in terms of external and how do we get people really excited to champion and build that future
with them. So that's kind of us working with all sorts of brands like Minnesota, Vikings, Google, Hershey's, Virgin and a lot of challenger startups as well.
So, Sonny, what's I guess some of the types of work you're doing now with clients and maybe how's that changed over the years.
Well, I think a.
Lot of teams in particular, are you know, navigating a very tricky landscape, and so a lot of our work
is really focused on leadership alignment. Many teams, with the advance of AI, with the way the world is evolving and changing so quickly, they need to adapt and be very agile, and so what we're often doing is we're coming in and working with visionary leadership teams to sort of help them align around what is it that they're fighting for, what is it that they're fighting against, what future are they trying to move the organization towards and how do we get everybody to adopt that and really
buy into that future And and most importantly, you know, really not just not just anticipate it, but really be proactive and trying to move their businesses to that future so they can remain relevant and achieve resonance in this wild landscape that we're all in.
Do you feel like companies Paul and I were in Newark at nj T earlier in the week, do you feel like companies and the c suite really understand the role of AI and their business and like, have the right vocabulary, have the right strategy, have the right outward facing stuff.
Yes, and no, I think that we're leadership teams need to understand that AI is now part of the dominant conversation and it is important to not only mobilize your team and understand the technology to become really fluent in the in the technology, but to adopt that technology company wide.
But I think it even goes higher up right with visionary leadership, which is what I really speak about and am an expert in, which is you know, how do visionary leaders help their teams not only see that future, but continue using these tools to sort of amplify it, to make efficiency greater, to just help them transform, to to stay relevant and meet that new future.
Sonny, it used to be back in the day. If you want to build a brand, you just bought a thirty second spot on you know, network television. Those days, I believe are over. What are some successful ways or strategies that you've used with some of your clients.
Well, I think a lot of it is positioning, you know, making sure that you have a very clear.
Point of view, what do you stand for, what do you stand against? And more importantly, how do you get everybody, both your audience and your internal team aligned to that? And then what is that sort of core story that you're trying to tell and to remain that to build that authenticity within the company. So you're trying to sort of have something to say, not just something to sell, and that's extraordinarily difficult when things are very competitive, when you have a lot of people in many.
Businesses doing the same thing as you.
What is going to define your competitive advantage? What is that cutting edge thing that you bring to the table, and how do you get people really excited about it? And how do you make it in a way that it's clear, it's compelling, it's articulate, and people want to be part.
Of that dialogue.
And so a lot of our work is really helping teams and organizations just define that what is that big idea? What is that thing that you want people to rally around, and then how do we ultimately, uh, you know, build that into the brand and into the mechanisms, into our ecosystem, into our language, into our into our brands, you know system essentially to get people really excited about that.
How did you get into this business? And like, how did you start your own company? Like what was that journey?
Like, well, I was on track to be a veterinarian no candidate college. Yeah, so my partner and I dropped out of college in our early twenties to start Motto and we had been moonlighting as designers on the side and just kind of fell in love with it and started to be hired for it. And so that was two thousand and five. This is eighteen years later, and now we've worked with some of the biggest brands on Earth and it's it's it's a labor of love because it's taught us like how to evolve with times.
When we started, it was yellow pages and digital at you know, basically like yeah.
Like printed materials, you know, whereas now everything's digital and everything's you know, much much more diverse. But back then, you know, you had to really continue adapting, you know, every so couple of years. And then also seeing organizations that you're working with also have to be agile on a day app and your strategies and the way that you move teams forward is some of it remains the same. You know, values and authenticity will always be at the heart.
I think of every organization. You have to know what you stand for and what you don't and and ultimately again what is your competitive difference? Is what is your point of view? And everything? And so as brands become more demanding of not only people, demanding of you know, how do they what do they feel about political issues? What do they feel about the issues of our time, you find organizations having to be and called upon to speak about these things, to really sort of plant their flags.
And so that's why we call the company motto is because what is your flag?
What is what flags are you planting so that people can understand who you are? As a rallying call for who you are.
We only have like twenty seconds. But do you think if you had started this business today, you would have been able to do it? Like has environment has changed this much?
It has changed, but I think that but that would not have been I think. I think visionary leaders are driven by two things, innovation and progress.
And I believe that if I had to start this business today.
I would absolutely be able, we would be able to do it because I think that if you are a visionary leader, you're able to understand and follow kind of move towards the trends and move your business towards that new future.
So absolutely, all right, Sonny, I mean really, starting my own business seems like the hardest, scariest thing in the world. All right, Sonny Banilla co founder and CEO at Mina, We super appreciate it. Kudos to you. That is quite a journey. Thank you for all of that part.
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