Vasanthan Ramakrishnan on Building an Immigration Business Through Trust

In this episode of Success Leaves Clues Podcast, host Pedro welcomes Vasanthan Ramakrishnan, founder and Principal Consultant of Ascend HSI Advisory Partners. After successfully navigating his own EB1A immigration journey when traditional legal paths fell short, Vasanthan built a fast-growing consultancy dedicated to helping highly skilled professionals achieve their U.S. immigration goals.

In this insightful conversation, Vasanthan shares how he transformed personal adversity into a thriving business, the lessons he learned while scaling to a global team, why empathy and trust matter more than speed, and how technology can enhance—not replace—the human experience. He also discusses pricing, leadership, company culture, referrals, and the importance of giving clients hope during one of the biggest decisions of their lives.


Connect with

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vasanthan-ramakrishnan/
Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm17859500/

Transcript

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 0:00

I think number one is really hearing them out, right? It's a pretty understated, what might seem pretty simple thing, but you know, a lot of times people don't do that. You know, they start with their opinion of, oh, this is not true and that is not true. And then they go on with like, okay, why they shouldn't be doing that. But for me, I just hear them out, like completely hear them out. Can you walk me through what you read? Can you let me know? And even ask the client, right? Ask the prospect, like, okay, hey, what do you think or how do you think this is going to affect you? And I'm being honest here, nine out of ten times they give me an explanation that doesn't make sense, or it's not nuanced enough. I have some folks who, you know, make sense, but it's not nuanced enough. And they'll be like, oh, you know what? No, my sister's husband went through this process and they said that this is the case. I get that. Probably for your sister's husband, that was the case, but that's not necessarily your case. Your case is unique, your case is different, you've lived a different life, you came in through a different time, you're working for a certain employer, you know, you have a certain background. That is not the same as another person.

Davis Nguyen 0:54

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues, the podcast where we interview business owners on how they built their businesses and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is David Swin, and I'm a business coach and the founder of Purple Circle, where we help business owners achieve their first six-figure, seven-figure, and eight-figure year, all without sacrificing their quality of life. Before becoming a business coach and before founding Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight-figure coaching businesses and have been a consultant at several businesses doing over $100 million each, including some that are publicly listed and doing over a billion dollars. In every episode of the podcast, you're gonna learn lessons that took our guests years to learn, and you'll be able to learn that in minutes. No matter if you're a new business owner or an established business owner, every episode is gonna give you the clues in order to elevate your business.

Pedro 1:38

Welcome to Success Leaves Clues Podcast. I'm Pedro, and today I'm joined by Vasanthan Ramakrishnan, who is the founder and principal consultant of Ascend HSI Advisory Partners, an immigration consultancy specializing in EB1A, EB2, and IW and O1A Visa Pathways for High Skilled Professionals. He founded Ascend in 2023 after successfully self-petitioning for his own EB1A visa when Lego Counsel had turned him down. He's also the founder of the Feminist Pen Foundation, an international human rights nonprofit and a USA national best-selling author of Success DNA mastering persistence in leadership and life. Welcome to the show, Vass. Thank you for the kind introduction, Pedro. I'm very excited. Excited to have you. Oh, okay. Let's rewind a bit. Because every coach has that moment where they look at their life and say, Yeah, I guess this is what I'm doing now, Rivez. So when was that for you?

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 2:45

Actually, for me, right? I know I've been wanting to coach and help out people. I'd say right after my graduation in 2020, but that's not gonna happen though. I just started as an manufacturing intern in 2020, you know, really new in the industry. I have a master's degree from a really good school, but other than that, I don't have a lot of experience in, you know, just started as an intern. But the real change happened after my nonprofit really took off and I was able to like really grow the nonprofit, uh, although it has nothing to do with coaching per se. But the growth that we experienced with the nonprofit, I think put us put me in a position where I had a lot of authority in the industry, even though from an age standpoint, I was just 26, 27 years old at that point. I was actually, you know, in front of a lot of people who are, you know, 15 years in the industry, 20 years in the industry asking me, hey, how did you do what you did? Right? That was, you know, kind of like my point, I would say. So basically what I'm trying to say is like it's not that I chased uh becoming a coach, right? It's not that, oh, you know what, I want to become an immigration coach. I want to become this, and then I went towards that. It kind of happened automatically for me. I found a pathway for me. I did that for myself after going through a lot of struggles, after uh seeing a lot of people who, you know, did not want to help me, or maybe they wanted to help me, but not in the right way, in the way that I wanted. And once I got that done, then I'm, you know, I'm really just reaching out and I'm being reached out. And, you know, a lot of people from LinkedIn, a lot of people from social media, a lot of people from Slack started asking me, hey, how did I do what I did? And it just really started there, right? That was my inspiration. And then after that, just work after working with some folks, I realized that it was no different than nonprofit. That you know, in a nonprofit, you don't have a, you know, like a for-profit or commercial goal. And for me, that started out the exact same way. I got in, I was not expecting anything in return. I just started answering people's questions, I started giving them clarity, I started uh, you know, helping them kind of understand what is it that they really wanted and what were their blockers. And as someone who's gone through that pathway, I was able to put myself in their shoes a whole lot easier than a lot of the people that they were working with. And that's kind of how things started for me, Pedro.

Pedro 4:51

Super interesting. Sounds like Baz, you're serving past Vaz that went through a lot to get to it with the immigration and all that. We mentioned that in the intro. But it's so cool that you're like, it's not like you wake up a day and like, I am going to be a coach, right? It's something that naturally progressed into what you do now, which is part of your story. Okay, so that is pretty cool to watch. Now, I'm curious about a couple things. And the first thing I'm curious about is like there is also like almost like a shift that happens from I'm helping people, I'm giving some advice here and there, people are reaching out to you, right? How did you do that? And asking you, and you start helping them, but eventually you realize okay, wait a minute, I'm actually building a real business around this, you know. So there that shift that happened for you, like, and I would love to understand when that clicked for you. Like, was it the first paying client? Was it the first invoice? When you realize, okay, I actually have a legit business that I'm building around this idea of this serving and helping people. So, how did that look like that for you?

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 5:52

Definitely that uh thing what you mentioned, it was definitely the first paying client. Because till then I was just talking to folks and it was just more conversations and more advice. But then, you know, when this first person comes in and be like, you know what, hey, I I love your advice, but I want to take this formal. I want to actually have you as my service provider, and you know, I need to be coached, I don't know what I'm doing, and you give out great advice, but I need it to be more structured. I want it, I want you to really basically get me off to the finish line, right? And that's how they started the conversation. And I'll be really honest by the way for that first client. I did not even know how to price them, I had no idea. To the point, it'll be funny because I actually asked the client, what are they willing to pay? Right. I mean, when I look back at it, it was three years ago. It is sounding funny, but I actually asked them that. They gave me a number and it was a good number, though. I mean, they didn't really try to snu me or anything like that, but that's really just how I started, right? My baseline price, not only for that person, but I think the first 10 paying clients, that was the baseline because I did not have anything. I didn't know how to structure it. I don't know, you know, what went into the actual coaching process, what went into you know how much of time would I be investing, etc. But the yeah, really that that's the funny thing. Yeah, the first paying client, they can they come in, they recommend me a price that, oh, this is realistic. I went with that price for the first 10 clients. But the interesting thing though is after the fourth paying client that comes with that same price, I quit my job. Because I was like, Yep, that makes perfect sense. I wasn't waiting multiple years though, and I didn't have anything in the plan. But the first client comes in, and then the fourth client comes in. I run my numbers and I'm like, nope, I think this is good. I'm already good, I'm gonna be taking monthly payments, but I know with these four clients I'm gonna be good for now. And then I started thinking about okay, what would I do if I were to scale? And then the story continued.

Pedro 7:35

Okay, I gotta jump on that boat, you know, the pricing thing. I have to because I'm looking at your background. You have a connection with nonprofits. Nonprofits usually are very passionate driven, and then you're looking at someone who is like basically you're helping past VAS, right? So it's hard to pinpoint a number or or even consider this a very transactional thing. So I get it where you're coming from, right? I don't even know how much to charge. So my question to you is in a way, is like when we're talking about immigration, right? Immigration coach, it's hard. I'm trying to wrap my head around it. Like, it's not a a bottom line, it's not profit because I'm thinking about a transformation, right? I'm thinking how much is it worth for someone to get that approval visa, right? So, where's the baseline for that, man? I'm I'm because that's value added, it's not price anchor, it's value anchor. It's like, how did you come up with a number on that? That's why you don't him you don't have to give me hard numbers, okay? I'm just trying to think about the mindset behind. Correct, correct, correct, correct. I think, yeah, for the first plant, like I said, right?

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 8:37

I mean, honestly, just going back three years, if theoretically that first client gave me a horrible number, let's assume they didn't, but if if let's say they gave me a horrible number, I would have probably gone with that, right? Because I don't have any baseline. I didn't know how much valuable my service would be. And because I didn't seek professional service for my own case, I had nothing because I hadn't spent anything on my case, really. I mean, it was just like me paying for you know the you know the agency and government fees, but other than that, I hadn't really spent anything, so it was definitely tricky. But for me, I think moving forward, I feel like the second and the third client, I'm being really honest by the way. The really the only way that I figured it out was actually presented that price to the second person, the third person, and the fourth person. And then I I was kind of just really gauging it off of their reactions. I think till the first 10 clients, even if my prices were wrong, I don't think I would have done anything, right? Because I didn't know, I didn't have a baseline. But after the 10th client, though, I was able to actually understand the amount of time I would dedicate into each case. You know, what amount of my hours are being spent on calls versus offline reviews versus you know, like letting them know of something, giving them homework, reviewing that. All of that only I really got after like 10 clients, but not in the first three or first four or first five. So, you know, that was part of it. But here's the here's the interesting thing, though. This unconventional pricing, you know, strategy that I had. It was not really a strategy per se, I get it, but you know, this unconventional pricing got me a lot of clients, right? It was easy for me to grow because right now, yes, we do a lot of marketing, we do a lot of socials, but at that time I didn't have a social media, I didn't have anything, and I was just my own LinkedIn. And why I was able to just like get a lot of clients without spending anything on it was because of that exact unconventional pricing. Because the first 10 clients, and I would say even like the first 25 clients, came in saying, Hey, I've heard that you, you know, you don't even publish your prices, you just you know have a conversation with the person, and then you kind of figure it out. And they were just like, that shows to me that you're genuine and you're not trying to like price gouge me, you're not trying to like just get a huge price out of me, but you are being genuine, and that helped my at least the initial branding, it helped a lot, Pedro. And then, you know, I think after that I kind of stabilized, I knew what I was doing, you know, the times, investments, etc. And then obviously I had to like, you know, put value on the time, but definitely the unconventional pricing go went in a completely different way and helped me with the growth, unintended, but it really helped me with the growth because I was actually more presentable, I was more genuine in front of the prospective client.

Pedro 11:03

I love how you figured that yourself out. You know, it's like I'm gonna go there and be of service, and eventually we get to a number that will make sense. I like that, man. That is like very simple, but so truthful, right? Now, I'm curious about another thing. Like, after you got rolling, right? That's three years ago. Eventually, we try to help everyone, right? But we get to a point, and I'm not sure if you got that, we tend to attract a certain type of people, you know? The ones you realize, okay, this these are my people, these are the people I can help best with. I mean, so my question to you is the evolution of who you serve back in the day, and who do you serve now?

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 11:43

Oh, that is a great question. Thank you. I think from a professional background standpoint, the populations I work with hasn't changed significantly. But from a personality standpoint, right? From a personality of like who these people are from a client standpoint, not not their degrees, where they work at, how much money they make, but more towards what kind of person are they, how do they, and this is the most important thing, how do they value another person's time? That is the most important difference from when we started and right now, when we started, it was more towards just, hey, you know what? If that person just wants a service to be done, it would be more about us, like you know, the service provider, figuring out how we can provide that service to them. And right now it's quite the opposite, because we we right now we've built a brand right now, we know what we do, and at this point in time, we want the person to really see the value of what we would offer. And if they're not seeing that value, even though that person might be a professional fit, we don't work with them, right? So that's something of a shift that we've had, and also something that we're able to afford after three years of growth and you know, all the uh revenue that we've had and all the growth we've had. But uh yeah, but in the start early, I think this is something that a lot of coaches can relate to, which is you know, if you know the numbers weren't there, if you weren't really starting, if let's say you pretend like you're a huge brand, you wouldn't take those clients. But you're only taking those clients because you're starting out and you know you want to like improve your economics, you want to get some testimonials, you want to get some, you know, hold of the industry because you're not really known in the industry. So I went through that as well. You know, I was not really known, you know, I I didn't have a brand then. It was just like me, just Vas and Vasanthan. But that slowly grew into ascend. Once it became a company, once it became an enterprise, then we really started looking into who's actually valuing our time, who's actually valuing our process, who's actually valuing our, you know, like just about everything that they would be getting, you know, how do they value that? And that was a transformational shift. And right now, 90 to 95% of the people who we're working with are people who actually value our time, who actually value the the you know, the the time and money of the effort that that goes into their process.

Pedro 13:44

But that was not how it was in the start. Love how the fit is not just about you, it's about them as well. They need to to value your time. Some people forget that. And sometimes I understand where they're coming from. Sometimes we have bills to pay, you know, there's scarcity mindset, they're afraid, they just want to close a client, but that will definitely bite you in the butt along the way, right? If you have a client from hell, you're like, oh my god, if we can avoid this, it's easier for everyone involved. That money's not worth it. That's basically what we're saying here. Okay, awesome. Exactly. Exactly. Now, Vass, I would love for us to do a game of pretend here, okay? Uh, well, that's not gonna be so hard. I'm in Brazil, right? So let's pretend I'm your avatar, right? I want to apply for a visa, I need an immigration coach. So, first of all, how would I be able to find you guys, right? Your business, marketing-wise.

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 14:37

I think that depending on, of course, you know, what social media platform you are most predominantly spending your time in, that is one consideration. But assuming you do spend a considerable amount of time on LinkedIn, where our brand is uh, you know, like the strongest, I would say. If you are just searching for immigration services, we might actually pop up in the first five at least. I don't want to say we're the number one. No, we're not, but we're gonna pop up in the top five on the service part. We do post a lot on social media, so you know it would be uncommon for someone to have not gone through our brand on social media, whether it be Instagram or YouTube or LinkedIn, right? So that's part of it. But I will also say there's another thing though, Pedro. This is where the important part is. I would say a good, I mean, so far, right? I mean, this might change in the future, and I'm gonna talk about that in the one to three-year growth. This might change here, but so far, even at three years, referrals are a pretty strong source of new clients for us, even now, even as a three-year-old company, even with 90 plus employees in four or five plus countries that we have, referrals are a pretty strong, you know, source of new clients and new revenue, right? So that's that's another thing to kind of keep in mind. I'd like to say that a good 60%, not 80, 90, but 60% of clients that are coming in right now who are signing with us, are in some form, right? I mean, it's not a direct referral of someone who worked with me, but it'll be like, oh, my friend and then his cousin and then his dad worked with you guys two years ago, something like that, right? So that's the common statement that I always hear. Uh, and or someone like, let's say, like they're from another country, but then we have either just done like a webinar or an event that is specific to that geography and we've talked about it, they might catch on on that and be like, okay, hey, this is where I saw you guys. I've heard of your brand, they come in. So a good 60-65% is some sort of a referral, right? Some sort of a referral on the brand, some sort of a referral on the person. Uh, I would say like it's the most common thing. But if you are someone like who's not linked to the brand at all, I would say your best pathway would be LinkedIn. LinkedIn's our strongest uh, you know, social media. We don't run a lot of ads by the way, we don't run a ton of ads or anything on social media, although we want to get into it. Organic is what's working for us so far.

Pedro 16:40

Yeah. Okay. So still in the game of pretend. I'm Pedro, I'm reaching out. Okay. I looked at your stuff on LinkedIn or even was referred to you guys. Like, you should talk with them, they're great. I did just made the outreach. I'm like, hey, how does it look like to work with you guys? We can speed up the sales process or not, really up to you. Okay. But we could say there is alignment. You guys see I'm I'm a good fit. I see you guys are a good fit. What I would love to understand, and for you to walk me through a little bit like a brief idea is how does it look like to work with you guys? Right? A little peek behind the curtain on the structure and uh the outcomes I can expect.

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 17:17

Right? Okay, okay, all right, I'll talk about that. So assume that we have had the fit already, and then like you know, we've sent in like a proposal, you know, the proposal really outlines the time, the price, you know, other contractual obligations that one needs to keep in mind and everything like that. And once everything is aligned, we sign a contract. After that, this is a common experience that I think a lot of clients go through, and I've gotten a lot of actual client conversations where this is highlighted, which is we want to make it super, super, and this is hard to do as a large organization, but we're still doing it. I don't know how long we're able to do it, but specifically and exclusively customized for that person, right? And that is something that's super important because even though we have a lot of clients that have common elements, I want to make sure, at least as they start their journey and then at least as they come towards the end, as far as possible, the better. We want to make sure that the person who we are working with is dealt with a customized care. It's not like, oh, we have a formula, we want to slap that formula on you, and we want you to just go do all this homework and come back to us. That is not what we want to present, that is not how we work. There is a whole lot of hands-on experience, and I know that hands-on experience has hurt us a little bit in business because we we don't really bring that under the proposal much, we don't really price it that much, but we get a lot hands-on, right? Like we get a lot hands-on compared to like a lot of our other competitors and coaching firms. But definitely that's something that you're going to notice. And also hand holding, you know. I, you know, super prioritize on hand holding because you know that is something that a lot of clients need. Particularly in immigration coaching, you are expected to not know a lot of stuff as a client, I'm saying. I think with wellness coaching and health and career coaching, you have some idea, but you're given more. But with immigration coaching, a good amount of clients that are coming in, they don't really know what they're doing, right? They have absolutely no idea. I have about 20% of clients who come in saying, I have absolutely no idea how this works. I want you to get me to the finish line however you think fit. And I will follow A, B, C, D of your saying, right? Even if it doesn't make sense to me, I'm gonna do it. Of course, we pride on giving them a lot of information about why they're doing what they're doing. A good 20% of clients are just happy just doing exactly what we say without even understanding why they're doing what they're doing. But we get them to the finish line. And then there's a 50% that is kind of like in between. They kind of know what they're doing, they have some information about the process, but they don't have the full picture yet. So with them, we're doing a lot of hand holding, but also explaining them why they're doing what they're doing, right? That that's another thing. And then a good 10 to 15% of clients that actually already know what the process is like and they know what their expectations are. They just need an expert to sign off on like A, B, C, D. And they just want to be sure of that, and then they're moving forward. But one thing though, uh, that I want to like really highlight here is we don't really pride on time, right? I mean, I know a lot of the competitors in my industry, they pride on time, right? They pride on how fast and early can we provide your service, right? How how fast can I get you out the door? For me personally, I will say that this has hurt my brand. I will be honest about that. This has hurt my brand and it's continuing to hurt my brand. But this is something that I don't want to, you know, like I don't want to change, which is I want that quality, right? I really want that quality, I really want that customization to be done in such a way that everything needs to be organic, everything needs to be done in the right way. And I don't want to rush any part of the process just so that we can get to the finish line faster. So that's one thing. Like I said, it hurt our brand, it is continuing to hurt our brand because competitors are doing it faster, competitors have shortcuts that they'll take, but we don't want to do that. We want to do it the classical way, we want to do it the slowest way because in the long run, if they were to be audited with the process that they went through, I don't want them to have to explain why they did what they did or why they took a certain shortcut. I I'm responsible for that, I want to take accountability for that. So that's one thing that you will see off the brand, which is not fast delivery, but precise delivery and outcomes. Okay.

Pedro 20:53

I'm trying to get into the ICP shoes still, okay? And uh I worked at banking and uh stock stock markets here in Brazil, and there is the external factor to it. There's also the external factor to it for the career coaching and all that, you know, layoffs, hiring or not, how's the market looking like? So for your situation, I'm trying to think about political situations, right? Political environment. Uh we're we're talking about immigration and all that. So, how do you navigate that? Let's say we're on the sales call, or even if I was on boarded and I'm starting panicking because I read some news here and there. Uh, we're not gonna get into political, obviously, but it plays a factor in your business, right? So, from my point of view of a client, right? How do you handle, how do you manage my expectations and my fears?

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 21:44

You know, I think number one is really hearing them out, right? As a pretty understated, what might seem pretty simple thing, but you know, a lot of times people don't do that. You know, they start with their opinion of oh, this is not true and that is not true, and then they go on with like, okay, why they shouldn't be doing that. But for me, I Just hear them out, like completely hear them out. Can you walk me through what you read? Can you let me know? And even ask the client, right? Ask the prospect, like, okay, hey, what do you think, or how do you think this is going to affect you? And I'm being honest here, nine out of ten times they give me an explanation that doesn't make sense, or it's not nuanced enough. I have some folks who you know make sense, but it's not nuanced enough. And they'll be like, Oh, you know what? No, my sister's husband went through this process and they said that this is the case. I get that. Probably for your sister's husband, that was the case, but that's not necessarily your case. Your case is unique, your case is different, you've lived a different life, you came in through a different time, you're working for a certain employer, you know, you have a certain background, that is not the same as another person. So, my point is always through logic. I talk them through the way that I get them out of fear is by logic, just talk them through hey, A, B, C, D is your fears. Let's talk through how each of these things apply to your personal and unique situation. And like I said, nine out of ten times it doesn't really apply, right? If you plan for the future, yes, there are things like you know, career changes, there are you know large immigration changes that can entirely affect the process. That happened to us in 2024 January, actually. You know, there was a huge change in one of the categories, the EB2 and RW that we spoke about. Uh at a at its nutshell, basically a lot of the industry applicants that were applying were then deemed to be not nationally important for that category. And until then, that was so easy to do. But then after that, it got a lot difficult, right? So, with that change, you know, with the navigation of that, it was really difficult with the folks who were existing, who are already existing clients, they've already signed, they're already industry folks, and they don't know how to get there. That's that. There had to be a complete transformational shift in how they built their profiles, how they got coached, and how they would prepare, which added like eight to nine months. And some for some folks, it added a whole year into the process. It was frustrating for them. I understand that. And then there were prospects at the time that hadn't started who wanted to just know, hey, how does this change my process? What do I do? Definitely, I'll be honest, a lot of those folks who came in at the time could not be admitted. Who would have been admitted maybe two months back, we could not admit because their background was not matching. But some folks who came in definitely went through a longer route that is there. I do set that expectation on the call, though, by the way. I don't want to give them like empty promises on, hey, we'll be able to do it, all good, everything by process. No, not really. I want to set the expectation that if there's a major change in the process that is outside of our control, know that at a minimum we're not going to let you go, but at a minimum, we're going to add a lot of time into your process. And that's something that you want to keep in mind. So if someone comes in with, oh, I want to get my process done in three months and four months, most likely that person's not going to be successful.

Pedro 24:30

Got it. I love Diana Sivaz. You're you're so open about the obstacles and uh the reality of things. So I'm curious about another thing. And here this is for the coaches listening, or even uh entrepreneurs listening. You know, you built a business in three years that you now you manage 90 employee staff, right? That's what you mentioned, and I'm listening to your story, and I and it's an inspirational story, right? You've been through it, nonprofit in the background, you you it's a customized experience. You know what I'm thinking? I'm thinking about one of the main challenges of what we call sometimes the founder strap, the ceiling, which is you got to a point because of who you are, and now you have to do the handoff, right? Because people sometimes are like, Hey, I want to talk to Vez. Here's the guy in the video, here's the guy, the face of the company, and all of that. You know, here's the cool guy. He's gonna went to a podcast. I listened to him, I want to talk to him. So, how do you navigate that handoff? So the business is not so reliable on you showing up. You know what I mean?

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 25:33

Got it, correct, correct. I I do think that if a coach is saying, hey, you know what, I'm completely off. I'm sitting in a an Airbnb in Bali and you know, I'm working two hours a week, and you know, you see these influencers, right? Most of them are probably wrong or either, you know, either wrong or maybe like, you know, they're just like, you know, just of course inflating a fact, right? For me, I will be honest. So even after three years now, 90 plus employees with all the framework standardized, with tech, with everything embedded, yes, the founder face is still very, very important. There are a lot of announcements, there are a lot of, you know, one-on-ones that you're still expected to show up for, yes. But I think the successful metric would be if let's say you are out, and this is how I see it also, by the way. This is like a mental experiment that I would like, you know, like coaches to try out. Let's say you take off of a week, right? One week, completely take off. You don't announce anything. Of course, you can put an email signature, like a vacation responder or something like that, that's completely fine. But if you take off one week, if your business goes to the ground, you're out, right? You're just an individual coach with a glorified team that's not really doing anything, but you are the one who's doing all the work, and that is not good. But with you gone a week, if your team, yes, your clients are still going to expect you, your clients are still going to ask for you, but if you're still you if you've built the team to at least manage the queries and kind of know what framework you've been using and then be able to apply that to the clients, I think you've found some success. I do think that in a lot of coaching, particularly in immigration coaching at least, you cannot completely come outside of the brand, right? That's something that you just cannot do. And that's what I I think, you know. I I also I don't think I can do it anytime soon. But for a lot of the administrative matters, a lot of the decision making, a lot of strategies are done by by the team members. You know, I've trained the team members. But one really important thing, Petro, that I feel like a lot of coaches are missing, right? You can teach frameworks to your employees, you can teach strategies, you can make up, you know, framework documents, you can make matrix documents, you can make you know long and detailed strategy documents, you can make FAQs, you can make anything that you want, right? For your employees to be able to answer like you. But I think the most important thing that I personally feel a lot of coaches, a lot of uh employees are also missing is clients are not only looking for your framework, they're not only looking for your strategy, they're actually, you know, yes, they're looking for you, but they're looking for how you deal with them, right? At a tonal standpoint, like how how is your tone with them? How's your personal relationship with them? That's really important. How are you as a person, right? Like for me personally, I'm a pretty empathetic person. You know, whenever I hear a story, I don't look at them as a client. I I don't look at them as a story, I look at them as a human being. They're a real human being going through a situation and you are there to help them get out of it, right? And I need my employees to understand that. If they do not understand that, any number of frameworks, any number of coaching templates, any number of, you know, meeting templates, notes, FAQs is not going to work. So you, you know, when you say like you separate from the brand, not only are you just separating your assets, right? Like the framework and the talks and all that, but you're also, from a personality standpoint, need to imbibe that to your team members. If they do not understand how you are as a person, of course, each person is an individual. I understand that you can't make your employees be a different person, but perhaps you're lucky and you find people who are like you for your team members, and they can exhibit the same amount of empathy, they can exhibit the same amount of understanding and tone with your clients, that's when you'd be successful. Because I've got a lot of, you know, like you know, videos, a lot of strategies and frameworks and blocks, etc. None of them work, by the way. What worked for me was when I actually started teaching my employees about how I am as a person, how do I take decisions, right? Who am I as a person? How do I see people? I don't see them as tickets, I don't see them as contracts, I see them as human beings, right? Sometimes in a conversation, you should not be quoting contracts according to section 1.1 in your agreement. You need to pay this amount. No, maybe your client is going through a personal financial crisis, they will maybe make the payment, but that is not what they want to hear. They want to be heard, they want you to see the problems they're going through and acknowledge. So that part, uh Pedro, I have been able to do. I'm still on the way, but I would say to any coach, any entrepreneur watching, that's very important. No, if not the most important.

Pedro 29:28

Yeah, I love that, man. It's it it it breaks it down to culture, right? The way you you do things, the way you think. It's not like you're transforming them into a different person, but they need to have somewhat of your your voice, the way you do things, the way you carry yourself, right? The values you have. So it's so important that. Great reminder. Okay. Now, I'm curious about where you're taking all this, man. You know, looking ahead. Where do you see the business going? Are you thinking about scaling, hiring even more? Or is there a next step you're excited about, Vaz?

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 29:56

Got it. I think for us, you know, for the at least the last three years was just more about, you know, I mean, last three years, not the next three years, right? Last three years so far, till now, has been more about just service growth and uh, you know, just expansion to like different locations. But I think in the next three years, so is going to be a bit more meaningful and aligned with where the industry is also going, which is embedding technology and scaling through technology, actual technology, right? We're not talking about just, you know, throwing in a CRM and then you know replacing your employees. That's not what I mean. But actual distillable advice that you know your technology can help distill much better. And you're able to actually rely on that technology to not replace you, but maybe make you more efficient and serve more clients, right? So for us, it's all about tech. You know, we have a legal tech company that is not replacing, but more like supplementing the work that we are doing so we're able to serve more people. You know, we we have about anywhere between 400 and 600 clients on contract at any point in time, and we want to be able to 10x that capacity in five years, and that's that's really where we're going. Yeah.

Pedro 30:54

Nice. Okay. And you know, whenever we're aiming towards something new in the next chapter, there's always something we're refining in the present. So, what are you currently trying to improve or even tighten up in your business right now?

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 31:07

Okay, I would say is uh, you know, it's back to what we spoke about, right? Like the culture part of things. I do think that that's super, super important. Because, you know, creating a culture in your company with staff around is a whole different ballgame, you know, against creating a culture in the org with technology, right? Because technology, how do you how do you create a culture with technology? That that's that's it's been a hard bit of pill that I've been going through, right? Because a lot of times I've read about a lot of coach stories, you know, where you know, when they were coaching, when they had the service side of things, you know, their business took off like crazy. Clients love them. And then when they replace technology, not even so much on the team members, but when they put in technology, it becomes about, wait, that's not that person anymore, right? I know a lot of tech companies are doing what is called like you know the digital twins and you know your AI coach, uh, you know, so and so, and you know, they basically create an AI agent to mimic you in conversations, etc. But that's not the direction I'm going, by the way. Not that I'm against it or support it. But to me, I do think that that's a definite challenge. We want to be able to both have the human nature of the business, the culture of the business, be properly mixed and aligned with the technology goals that we're having. So that's just probably going to be something that we need to work on to see how we can embed it. You know, clients are happy, team is happy, you know, you also want to make sure that you're also happy as a business owner. But that's something that we are figuring out, I think, how to do that. We're building the tech is super easy, by the way. Building the tech is super easy. It's just about money, it's just about the right team. But how do you put that into your business in such a way that what created the business and what made you special, right? What made us send, what made the company special, is not taken away.

Pedro 32:38

Absolutely. It's like I think one of the huge turnoffs from people as a client, as people, you know, in my position is like when I noticed I'm talking to with AI with a bot, and that's a huge turnoff. Like, people are like, uh, okay, I'm not gonna reply to that. So we need to humanize the conversation, right? In a way, and I've seen people even adding typos to posts, right? So people are like, Oh, okay, this is someone who is actually a real person, right? Because the first filter I have when I open up a message on my cell phone or even my, you know, LinkedIn, whatever, it's like, is this a bot? You know, that's my first exactly, and then the reaction changes, right?

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 33:17

But I mean, even for me, you know, when it's uh an automated bot message, it just does not feel genuine. You don't look into who sent the message, you're just looking at the content of the message and be like, okay, what are they trying to sell me right now, right?

Pedro 33:28

Exactly. Okay, I don't want that. Yeah. Now let's step in into sci-fi territory real quick, okay? Let's pretend, Baz, we have a time machine in front of us, and you can go back in time in between those three years you've been in the game for a cent, and you can select one point in time. And I understand it may have several, but one that is top of mind that you're you're like, this is why I started this, you know, that type of moment, that type of moment that you're like, ah, now this makes sense, a fulfilling moment that made everything you worked on actually, you know, meaningful, that paid off, and you know, that type of which moment would that be for you, Baz?

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 34:07

Actually, you know what? For me, that would be sometimes, you know, repetitive uh, you know, uh thanks and the appreciation I have here, but like one thing that I definitely, you know, really comes to mind, and you know, funnily so, if I were to like, you know, go back in time, it would definitely be a year back, but that conversation came back again when I spoke to that specific client, right? So it's it's kind of like, you know, hey, I can either go back one year or I can go back to just four days back when I had a, you know, when I was on the phone call with them. And then, you know, they said that one word that really struck me, right? Because it's it's been a minute since I spoke to them. You know, I've not been in in complete touch with them or anything. And they had a question about like something else, and that's why they got on the call, and then we were talking, but you know, and it's it's been a good long while since I've heard from them, and then they were saying that, hey, you know what, remember our time, right? Remember the time that I worked with you, and we just had to, and her and her husband said that, you know what, we didn't have to worry about anything. You know, when we were in your hands, we knew from the get-go that we were going to get our approval, we were going to get our green cards, we were going to like, you know, come out of the whole thing. And we've hit a lot of bumps and they've worked with like so many folks along the way, and you know, they've had bad experiences, and in their head, it's just concrete that whatever Vass says is right, I do it blindly. I don't worry about anything because he's going to take care of us. And it's been a long, long time that you know we've seen people like that, right? I in the early size of the business, when I was directly involved, I heard a lot of that. I heard a lot of those. Of course, as you scale, as you have a lot of team members, you cannot have your team members replicate that perfectly, right? Absolutely not. You just cannot do it. Otherwise, they'd be founders, they'd be coaches, they'd be having their own business. You just cannot do it. But you know, it takes me back to that time when they said that, and it's like, okay, it then tells me, okay, why I started, you know, what I started. I gave people hope. And that that's that's what I got out of it, right? Like process, approval, strategy, trust, yes, absolutely fine. But the main point that came back to me at that point was the hope that I gave to them. You know, they got on the call and they got hope. So hope is it's not a company value that you you would put out, obviously, it's not professional, but at a human level, that hope is the most important thing we were able to bring to people, and I hope to continue to always give that hope to people.

Pedro 36:11

Okay. Love that. Okay. Now, if someone listening wants to connect with you or follow your work fast, where can people find you and connect with you? And we're gonna have all the links in the description, but the best way for them to find you.

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 36:21

Got it. Absolutely, yes. If they, you know, if it if if the person is not sure how they would, you know, work with me either as a client or a partner or, you know, if they want to just like chat chat up with me, get on a coffee chat, which I do a lot by the way. I've traveled all over the country to just have coffee chats with folks without even, you know, having a proper introduction. But LinkedIn is definitely a good starting space. But if they know what they want though, and if they are in the immigration space, they can definitely go into my top mate. That's definitely a good place to just get started to book on a call, but that is with more intent. If the person actually knows that they want to have a call and get them assessed, sure. But if the person's not sure how they can connect with me, if they're just wanting to just be connected and maybe in the future we chat, definitely LinkedIn.

Pedro 37:02

Okay. You know, there were a few moments from this conversation, bad, that really stood out to me. Okay, I'm gonna highlight them real quick. And so, or back to the origin story, right? We're talking about a manufacturing turn that you had you were a non-profit, right? You grew the nonprofit, and you're like, okay, I can replicate this in my business. This is not like such a mystery. And then you started naturally and organically getting reach out from people, and you're like, hey, can I work with you, right? And and and that is not like you woke up a day and like, I am going to be a coach or anything like that, right? It's so organic. I love that fact, okay? And then we move to the pricing stuff. Like, you're then people are asking you, hey, and you're asking them actually, how much are you willing to pay, right? And uh, I love that because that is so honest, you know, so truthful, so open about your own stuff. I really, really like that and how you build your own practice through that strategy, right? Because at the end of the day, you were like very upfront about helping people that was it was not so transactional, and people pick up on that energy, you know. So that's one thing. Now, the other thing is like that I really liked it when I was being onboarded, and you were like, Okay, but wait a minute, how do they value another person's time? So, in in other words, be coachable, right? It's not like they're oh, you gotta do this, and I don't care, and I paid you and whatever, do your magic. It's not it doesn't really work like that. It's a done with you process, I imagine, right? And now talking about the process, it's like you said, not a cookie cutter product, it's a customized experience, right? A white glove treatment and how important that is for you so they can have not just a great experience, but the results they're expecting. If you if you place them into a cookie cookie cutter, that will be proven to be a challenge down the line because you know it's not gonna be so customized and results may vary. Now, this is just my long-winded way of saying that I appreciate what you do, Vaz, and I appreciate you being here and sharing so openly today with me. You know, it was great having you on.

Vasanthan Ramakrishnan 39:01

Yeah, thank you so much. And I also think that the honesty in the industry is needed. That's why I wasn't doing a whole corporate pitch. No, this is not. This is a honest conversation. I really enjoyed it.

Davis Nguyen 39:12

That's it for this episode. This episode, as well as this podcast, was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help business owners elevate their business through six, seven, and eight figure years all without burning out. If you're looking to grow your business as well as get the time freedom that you are looking for, visit us at join purplecircle.com and see what we can do to help you and your business.