203: How To Be A Fast Growth Company in 2024 With Mike Powrie and Kevin Bees, Profit Maximisation Expert

Mike Powrie has 25 years of experience in delivering complex unified communications and contact center solutions from leading tier-one vendors and, more recently, as CEO of CloudWave. CloudWave is an Australian-based, cloud-first organisation with strong core expertise and specialty in the Amazon, Twilio, Google and Serenova platforms. Mike is a Cloud contact center and SAAS expert, passionate about customer service, post-sales support, and long-term customer relationships. In today's episode Mike Powrie shares: - Mike's journey from his first computer (a commodore 16) to Deloitte Fast 50 - Australia's fastest growing companies list. - How he got interested in writing basic code, computer logic and then moving into IT - What is happening in the rapidly evolving world of cloud computing - The gap he saw in the experience given by large contact centers and the negative impact that has on customers, employees, and organizational results - Why existing contact centers/call centers are expensive, have no integration, and don't work effectively, and how and why cloud solution is the way forward:  1. With open API, businesses can plug in Lego blocks and build what they want. 2. Cloud gives powerful data benefits eg can monitor conversational keywords. 3. It can detect how the call center agent feels day to day, moment to moment, and route calls accordingly. 4. It can provide real-time help for the team - giving them answers and next steps, knowledge bases, etc. 5. There is unlimited scale 6. Given technology, data is secure with backups, disaster recovery solutions, and more. - What Mike has learned about hiring, on his journey to 50 team members including:  1. Why getting the right technical skills are important but it is more essential to have a team member who is a 'cultural fit' 2. What are the most important values of CloudWave (which the team is recruited against): Respect Ownership Accountability Referenceability - ie making sure every customer has a 100% success rate His Life-Changing Questions -  How am I going to be remembered?  - When someone asks about CloudWave, what will they say? - His tips for having close to 100% client retention rate - And much more... Resources mentioned today: Mikes Powries Website:  www.neonnow.ioMike's Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-powrie-683198162/ If you would like more insights on profit maximization for your business, visit www.ProfitHive.com.au