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Episode 17: Access Sciences is Growing with Josh Flores

Julia:

Welcome to another episode of Access Answers. I’m your host, Julia Vergara, along with Angela O’Pry and today we’re introducing you all to a new member of Access Sciences’ Executive Leadership team.

Angela:

Welcome Josh, our new Vice President of Business Development. We’re so excited to have you on the team and your very first podcast.

Josh:

Oh, thank you very much. Glad to be here.

Angela:

So, you just joined. It’s probably been 25 days now, 30 days, if we’re looking at the calendar. Tell us about your first month with Access Sciences.

Josh:

Sure. So I started at October 1st, been meeting a lot of the new team members from Texas and from afar. Been getting to know our services and all the great things that we do around here and hoping to support those and help those grow.

Angela:

Yes, we look forward to all that you are here to accomplish and help to grow our company, especially in marketing, we are going to be very close best friends. So we look forward to partnering with you and working together in our endeavors. So before you join, tell us about your excursions right before your first stay with us.

Josh:

Sure. So, I would have started sooner than October 1st, but I had some plans.

Angela:

Just some important ones.

Josh:

Yeah. One of them was I decided to climb a mountain and I trained for almost two years to do that, took me five days to get to the top. And it was the hardest thing physically I’ve ever done before. I could not wait to get down. To give it some perspective, I burned roughly about 51,000 calories…

Angela:

Dang!

Josh:

…They equate that to running four half marathons, four days in a row. And then on top of that, we got caught in a hail storm and lightning storm. We were close to a base camp, which was about 12,500 feet. And we had to take cover because there was a couple of rock avalanches happening. And so that was great. So once I got that out of the way, I took a personal trip. And then I got engaged to the love of my life.

Angela:

Yay!

Julia:

Congratulations!

Josh:

Yeah.

Angela:

Good choice.

Josh:

Yeah. Thanks. That’s what she says too about herself, not me. Went to Ireland, had a very nice proposal on Slieve League Cliffs. I did it at sunset and then I rented the castle. So it was very romantic. That was why I could not start until October 1st. But happy to be here and definitely thanked all of our colleagues for letting me get through all that before I started.

Angela:

Which mountain did you climb?

Josh:

Mount Rainier in outside Seattle.

Angela:

Okay. Any sales lessons or anything for business development that would relate to climbing the mountain, you think?

Josh:

Sure. There’s no cutting corners. You can’t cheat the mountain. You can’t cheat sales, right?

Angela:

Yeah.

Josh:

You don’t get anything out of it which you don’t put into it. So hence the training and everything. I would get up at five in the morning, train for three or four hour hours a day and then knowing that mentally it was going to be a grind. Sales is a grind. Sales is a roller coaster. There’s peaks and valleys. And there’s an old quote for sales, it says, “If you go three out of 10, you’re a hall of famer.” So there’s a lot of failure involved, but also too, sales is about building relationships, about building rapport with your clients, becoming a trusted advisor, being honest with them, which is somewhat of a lost art in this day and age. And it’s not really that hard if you just treat people ethically and morally and then sell them what they need and be able to not try to win the million dollar deal, but sell themselves in that they want. So that’s basically my principles.

Angela:

So you mentioned waking up at 5:00 AM to work out and I’m sure that that was on a regimented schedule. How did you overcome the days when you woke up and you’re like, not today?

Josh:

I would say that I would think about me being on the mountain where I could have told myself, hey, I should have probably got those extra two days in or something. Whenever I would sit there and be like, oh, I’m going to hit snooze. I would think about that. Like, if I get up and workout, that’s just going to make me better prepared and not be as surprised. The elevation change was quite substantial on some days. And there was like one moment where I was basically on a stair master for six hours straight going through a Boulder Field. So, I mean, most people do 45 minutes on the stairs and that’s a great workout.

Angela:

Yeah.

Julia:

That’s me.

Josh:

I was going to do eight times that, and that was just like one day, so.

Angela:

That’s a no for me dog.

Josh:

Yeah. Those are things I’ve thought about, thinking of, okay, if I can’t get up for this, and even the days that we did climb, we were up at 3:00 AM most of the time.

Julia:

So, is that the most difficult climb you’ve ever done?

Josh:

Oh yeah. Hands down for sure. And I’m not like an expert by any means. I’ve only done a couple of others, but they were way easier than this, like way easier. So when people tell me they go hiking or climbing, I kind of like, okay, did you put the backpack behind you and just go sing to your iPod on the way up the mountain? Or were you like stressing out and tying off and doing a great five climb?

Julia:

Oh gosh, that’s making me feel bad about my climbing experience.

Angela:

So, what’s next? You going to have another mountain identified or not yet?

Josh:

Some people call it a mountain, some people call it a wedding. No mountains in my future. I promised my fiancée. I would take a little break from that for a little while.

Angela:

Yeah. I think I remember asking you during your interview about that life insurance policy, I’m sure she was real nervous.

Josh:

Yeah, no mountains in the near future. Like sometimes though some people may do an iron man, I think that’s much worse when I did, but mentally you’re like never again. And then like two months, three months later, it’s like, well, maybe so and so, but I haven’t gotten that far yet, but obviously I’ve got some other things I’m focusing on right now, but probably not in 2022, but maybe in 2023, I’ll find something.

Angela:

That’s a good, long-term goal. Let’s get through the wedding first, maybe. Yeah. Get you married.

Josh:

There you go.

Angela:

So, after the engagement, you did some golfing, right?

Josh:

I did. I played 12 rounds of golf in Ireland and Scotland. And it was something we’re supposed to do in 2020. And unfortunately COVID squashed that. So we re-planned everything and luckily we were able to get back on the same golf courses and it’s a different style of golf compared to here in the states or anywhere else in the world, you got wind, you got weather, there’s link style, there’s not many trees and it’s very narrow. And the rough is like three or four feet tall. So I definitely feel like I’m a better golfer coming back from that because the forgiveness of error there is much smaller than say here. Over there also too, they do not believe in golf carts. Oh. So I walked every round and there was three days we walked two rounds. So those days I walked like 16 or 17 miles and the rest of the days was about 10.

So yeah, it was a great experience. I learned a lot of things about my golf game and I was forced to do things that I normally wouldn’t think about doing. And it kind of brought it all together like, this is what golf is all about, forcing you to do things you’re uncomfortable or not comfortable with. But to know that I was in a golf clubhouse that was built in 1402 and then played next to a friary that was built in 1157, kind of put things in perspective.

Angela:

Amazing. Did they make you wear a kilt?

Josh:

Thankfully, no. Because would’ve been running away from me, but no kilts, lots of wind resistance and rain gear. I played golf course now by the name of Royal Portrush, which hosted the British open a couple years ago. And we were on the 13th hole and all of a sudden we saw these dark clouds and it started hailing on us. Oh my gosh. And there was no trees, nowhere to take cover. So, we basically opened up our umbrella and hid behind our little golf bag and have it.

Angela:

Seems like you’re really unlucky when it comes to hail behind you.

Josh:

So yeah, that part was not fun, but the rain gear was my version of the kilt, I guess.

Angela:

Did you eat lots of fish and chips? What was what’s the food like over there or shepherd’s pie I think is popular.

Josh:

Fish and chips were good. The burgers were actually pretty good and then lots of, oh, what was that name of that fish? Not Cod, but there was another one that was like a regular one over there, but yeah, fish is very much high on the list and then Guinness of course, but yeah. Fish and chips were a staple, and it was fried and didn’t really matter because I was burning a ton of calories per day, so I needed the extra energy.

Angela:

You earned that.

Josh:

Yeah, for sure.

Angela:

Well, I’m excited to host the GHP Golf Tournament in just a few weeks and sponsor a hole there that’ll be exciting. Julia and I were trying to figure out what women wear in November when it’s chilly outside, because I’m not wearing khaki pants, I can tell you that.

Josh:

It’ll probably be pretty warm here, but there’s all sorts of stuff that’s out there. Golf has definitely become a universal sport. It’s very inclusive now and women especially are included in that, which I think is great. You see that in the apparel, I think in one of the golf pro shops I went into, I mean it was almost like 50/50 divided down as far as apparel. Whereas 10 years ago there was like one little rack and everything else was, but now I just think that it’s, the game has come a long way and I think it’s a great testament for things that are going to happen, but I’ll make some recommendations for you for golf apparels, so you can have some swag out there.

Julia:

We appreciate it.

Angela:

Yeah. We’re both just more concerned about the aesthetic than learning how to play. We’re like we just need to look cute, that’s what matters.

Julia:

Angela, you’re exposing us.

Angela:

That’s true. I am spilling the tea. Yeah. Well that should be fun. I’m excited to get involved with GHP and also do some other golf tournaments next year. I think we have some plans, so.

Josh:

Yeah, I think, it’s a little bit different approach for the company than it’s been traditionally, but it’s a great networking opportunity. It’s a great marketing opportunity for us to get our branding out there and for us to educate people, what it is that we do. Like the whole sponsorship that we’re doing coming up, everybody’s got to stop by the hole and say hello to us. So it’s not like we have to go chase everybody down, like we normally would at a conference, right? And I think once people meet us and take some good swag that we’ll pick out for them, it’s definitely a great way to meet people and to get the conversation started. So, I hope that it’s successful.

Angela:

Yeah. I think it will be. My favorite are the little golf pencils that say who’s your caddy.

Josh:

Yeah, that’s right. Golf, there’s a lot of like funny stuff like that out there these days. There’s one t-shirt out there, it says I’m the greatest three putter in the world because if you three put on the grain, that means that you’ve ruined your hole. And if you’ve never won a three putt in golf and it’s just all these funny things, just like the pencil, that is great.

Angela:

So, we kind of skipped around and talked more about you personally and some of the things going on in your life lately, but tell us more about your experience in sales and your journey, your career path that led you to Access Sciences.

Josh:

Sure. I’ll start at the beginning personally then transitioning. I was born in Texas raised in Fort Worth. And then I began working when I was 12 years old for my family owned steel business. My mother was the president CEO of that business and I wanted a bicycle when I was 12, like all the other cool kids in the neighborhood. So my mother told me, you can get down to the shop and sweep the floors and pick up scrap metal and clean the bathrooms and things like that. And I’ll pay a dollar 15 an hour. So at 12 years old I was working like, I don’t know, like 20 hours a week. So 20, $30, man I thought I was rolling in it, right? Take me the whole summer to buy that bicycle. So, after that summer I worked for my parents until I was 26 years old.

And then I worked for a bunch of great companies during that time, like Bell Helicopter, Lockheed Martin was our number one client. So I was very familiar with the big type entities, but I wanted to go out and kind of start my own career outside of the family business. So I decided to work for a software company that allowed me to move to Houston. And so I was the first employee for that company in Houston, Texas. And then I worked there for about seven years and grew it. We had some great success with a bunch of oil and gas companies and then they were acquired and I decided to move on to another opportunity with another software firm and worked for there for a little while and then worked in consulting as well. And that side was basically around professional services around commercial, off the shelf software. So, helping companies do their requirements and build out enterprise systems for environmental health and safety, quality risk and things like that.

So, I kind of went from the product side to the services side since I’ve been in Houston and I very much enjoy the consulting side. I always gauge my success as I don’t want to do just one project and be over, I want to have like 10 or 15 clients that I’ve worked for, for like 15 years. And then look back and say that we’ve done it right. So got me really excited to come to Access Sciences was that I saw a great opportunity with a great company that I thought my attributes and my strengths would fit in nicely here with the culture and with the services that we had. And once I went through the interview process, I definitely thought that it was a good fit for me and my family. And also, hopefully for Access Sciences, which obviously so, but I think we have a lot of great things here and a lot of things that we do well, and I think we do things well that we don’t know we do well yet. And so, I hope to help make those shine and help educate us from my previous history

Angela:

Well, I think I mentioned before, we are very excited to have you on the sales and marketing team. And I don’t think we would’ve allowed anyone to join the team that didn’t have a dog because Julie and I are big dog people. So, we should introduce the other member of your family since you’ve told us about Stephanie the Aggie, tell us about Hudson.

Josh:

Yeah. So Hudson’s a 12 year old lab mix that I rescued, had him since he was about three or four months old. And he is the most spoiled dog on the face of the planet. He’s recovering right now from back surgery. Unfortunately, he had a ruptured disc, but he lives the life of most of us dream of, I drive to Wyoming every summer to take him to go run the rivers and the mountains with me during the day, if I didn’t have him, I would fly eye up there, but I take that for him and I take him on road trips.

I took him this weekend up to Fort Worth just so he could see my parents and stuff. So he is, he’s like a child to me. And he is somebody that I rescued. I’m a big believer in rescues. I believe that there’s so many good animals out there that need good homes. And I have this innate feeling that he knows that I rescued him. So he is very loyal and very appreciative of it. And I mean, he’s a great dog too. I mean, he’s very obedient. He’s very well-mannered in public and, but I love him to death. He’s like my child.

Julia:

We love our fur babies.

Josh:

Absolutely.

Angela:

So how does he do in the car ride to Wyoming? Because Julia and I were just talking about Benji going back and forth from Houston to Dallas.

Josh:

Yeah. So I have a large SUV, so I am able to put, I buy the largest dog bed, which is like memory foam, whatever. So it’s almost like a twin size mattress in the back.

Julia:

So, he is just relaxing back there, isn’t he?

Josh:

Yeah, he is. And I stop every three or four hours, especially when I get gasoline, I’ll stop for an extra amount of time and let him just kind of stretches his legs out and do whatever. But he sleeps most of the time, so. And then I stay at hotels that are very dog friendly. The one hotel I stay at, they bring him dog bowls, they have dog treats, they have his own dog bed in there. So like I said, he’s not hurting when he’s traveling. And then, if we were at home, he’d be sleeping anyway, so.

Angela:

So, Julia, it sounds like you need to get a big dog bed for Benji in the back.

Julia:

I know I have two comforters back there, but I was telling Angela earlier, he just does not want to get in the car anymore. He’s not for it. He knows he’s going to be in there for four hours. And he is not a happy, not a happy pup when I ask him to jump in, now.

Josh:

I got mine started early on, so I just make it kind of part of it. And then he used to have a brother. And so his name was Hogan. So we called him H and H.

Julia:

Aw, that’s cute.

Josh:

I would take them to one of the big dog parks here around Houston, every Saturday. So whenever they got in the truck and then we went to the dog park, they were like, oh, we’re going to the dog park. So mentally when they get in the car, they think they’re going the dog park.

Julia:

Is it the one downtown?

Josh:

It’s one on the far west side of town out by 99 and like west timer, the Millie Bush dog park, it’s huge. I don’t know how many acres it is, but it takes my dog’s like two minutes, if they run full speed all the way across.

Angela:

I told Julia to put, we just heard that Houston has 5k. I said, just put a little Fitbit on Benji. She has a German Shepherd. Just put the t-shirt and the Fitbit on him, he’ll run the 5k for you.

Josh:

There you go. Yeah.

Julia:

Let him out in the backyard, he’ll do it.

Angela:

Yep. Record time. Awesome. Well, we love dogs and so we can’t wait to see Hudson, Olivia’s here sleeping next to me just like a little sidekick.

Julia:

Yep. And since I run social media, he is bound to appear on Access pages at some point.

Angela:

So, I know you and I have talked a bit about ESG and kind of what we’re seeing in the marketplace. What’s your feeling on opportunity for that in the next six months to a year?

Josh:

Based upon my experience, I think that that is a huge opportunity that’s come to the forefront because of COVID. A lot of companies running skeletons crews and things like that of needing to be able to keep operations running, but also to minimize their risk. And it just added a whole new dimension to way that we report and do things. Obviously environmental is a big part of that right now, given the current state of everything. But if anything was associated with those three letters, with the major fortune 500 companies, they are looking to invest and try to grow that.

And I believe that it’s just the tip of the iceberg for where we’re going. And I think it’s going to be around for a while. ESG is something that has kind of been out there, but not really talked about until COVID. And then now it’s ever evolving. There’s not one clear definition. I do get that, but depending on what industry and what vertical you’re associating it with. But I think as it time progresses, it will definitely be more defined than what it is now. But I think it’s here to stay and I think it’s a lot of companies are valuing that as part of their future, for sure.

Angela:

Julia wrote two blogs about ESG, I think.

Julia:

Yeah, two. One about information’s role in ESG.

Angela:

Specifically, around the governance component, I believe. It seems like in order to even create an ESG report, a company or an organization has to have access to the data, the information, make sure it’s accurate, accessible, so how do you even gather in a large enterprise wide company, how do you gather all of that succinctly and what you put out and to the public, make sure that it’s a real representation? Seems like that’d be a challenge.

Julia:

There are a lot of opportunities from the information side that aren’t being met yet or fulfilled yet, but we have lots of roles to play in ESG, I think.

Josh:

Yeah. I think the bigger the company, my experience is the bigger the company, the more decentralized it is, there’s just so many business units and so much criteria. There’s so many ways that they report on it and they just try to consolidate it, but keep everything running. I think now, they’ve realized that they’ve got to not do that or make a concerted effort to try to know where all their information is so they can report on it because that’s at the end of the day is driving the shareholder price and that’s what’s another big driver of this entire thing. And then you’ll see companies that may have had 14 audit systems, ones in this division, one’s in that division, but that means they have 14 licenses and 14, at least 14 people trying to consolidate it to report into something. And I think that that’s going to be, I think, in the past here in about five to seven years.

Angela:

I agree. Well, I know we hope to get more content out about ESG in the future. That’s certainly one of our goals.

Josh:

Yeah. That would be great. And as it evolves, we’ll be right there, as Access Sciences is as a company, we are not a large corporation, but we can be very agile and very quick to market and then be able to do that to assist our clients. And I think as time rolls on we will get up to speed faster than other companies can because of only a lot of approvals.

Angela:

Yeah, exactly. Did you see any other trends, or have you picked up on anything in the last year and a half since COVID it in the way that businesses are shifting or changing priorities?

Josh:

I think there’s definitely some digital initiatives. I think everybody kind of thought that was like a conceptual idea, like five to 10 years ago. And it’s starting to be on the uptick more and more. And I think this just kind of, everything has to be digital. Everything has to be transparent, everything has to be easily accessible. How do you do that? You make things in the cloud. So, cloud solutions and lots of people spending money around software solutions that help them make informed decisions quickly versus biweekly meetings via of people consolidating off of certain databases.

I think one of the big things in my experience has been a lot of the organic systems that were custom built by companies in house that had IT departments are getting sunsetted right now. I would say if they didn’t have a system already, those types of companies have, I would say 75%, the ones I’ve interacted with, it’s like, oh yeah, we built this like 15 years ago, it’s just too much to maintain. But now this, we don’t have the developers, we don’t have this. And so the organic types systems that was used to manage data and record and report on. Those are going away at a very high rate.

Angela:

Yeah. It seems like they would be really clunky if you’re not continuing to put the R & D into it and continuous innovation. They can be outdated very quickly.

Josh:

Yeah. I mean, and everything we do today is very easily accessible, no matter what we’re doing in life is it’s probably on a mobile app and a lot of software companies have made it to where it’s out of the box and requirements and best practices are already built in. And before we’d have to sit down and basically construct the whole thing. Now you don’t have to do that. And I think companies are seeing that like, well, we don’t have to pay the IT department. We don’t have to use 30% of our IT budget every year. We just use this and pay a subscription. Voila, so.

Angela:

Yeah, I think security has also come a long way. So, some of the systems that were built 15 years ago, likely weren’t taking that into consideration.

Josh:

Very true. And that’s another, yeah. You hit the nail on the head, another big driver is like, well, how safe is my data going to be in the cloud? A lot of these solutions that are out there have been tested and tried so many times I knew of some real top fortune 100 companies that actually hired computer hackers to see if they could break into a system before they bought it from a vendor. I was like, what? But yeah. I mean, security is a huge thing, certificates and all those types of things are definitely available because that’s usually one of the top five questions. If somebody is interested in buying a solution or something around that where there’s confidential data that they do not want to get out there, how safe is my data.

Angela:

Well, and then we have the GDPR and the personal identifiable information, all of these regulations that are coming through about, you have to kind of know what you have and where it is when it comes to people’s personal data.

Josh:

Absolutely.

Angela:

Yeah. So what are some, if you look out into next year, we’re kind of doing some planning for 2022, which is wild to me. I feel like we’ve all lost two years of our, or maybe I’m the only one that’s lost two years of my life.

Josh:

Try climbing a mountain, you lose about five.

Angela:

That’s very true. So it’s wild to think that we’re planning 2022, but what are you looking at? What are some of your goals and initiatives? It could be personal or professional for next year.

Josh:

Well, next year, personal, I hope I get married.

Julia:

Well, you seem to be on a good track for that.

Angela:

Yeah. You and Julia, both y’all are the wedding crew y’all can talk shop.

Josh:

That’s right. Professionally, I want to add on to the value that’s been built at Access Sciences over the years already and help us uncover and kind of breakthrough a ceiling of enterprise opportunities and enterprise programs of work. I would like to help build upon the success that we’ve already had. We’ve had great success so far, but just add another layer onto that so we can have what I call predictable, sustainable revenue. That’s big chunks of what work with clients that know that they trust us and we can help them succeed, minimize their risk and have that long term relationship. And that’s kind of my goal. And there’s a lot of pieces in place already, and there’s a lot of areas where we already have that. So, I just hope to add to that and then find other ways to be creative with your help of course, to find other avenues, revenue for us, so we can sustain our growth and continue to be successful.

Angela:

Yeah. I think we have a great team.

Josh:

Minus Julia, but that’s okay.

Angela:

We just got to bring her back to Houston. We got to bring her back over to our side.

Josh:

I know.

Julia:

So, we have a few events coming up for the remainder of this year and even next year, where can tell us where people can find us at?

Josh:

Well, I know that we’re going to Texas state stuff, right? December 2nd and third.

Angela:

Yes, will be at State of the State and that should be a great event.

Josh:

Yeah. State of State. Sorry, I don’t know all the correct lingo yet, but from what I understand, the sponsorship sold out in minutes, right?

Angela:

Two minutes they were gone.

Josh:

Yeah. That’s crazy to me. I think that that’s going to be a great opportunity for us, looking at the overall history there, it’s been a nice, steady flow of revenue for us, but also too, lots of opportunities have come out of that realm of our business. So I hope to capitalize on that and get some other things going. We obviously have the golf outing here soon, and then we got some things going into early next year. I’m sorry, I’m going to deflect here and ask you-

Angela:

No, it’s okay.

Josh:

Angela, the CURT or the CII event?

Angela:

We’ll be back at the CURT-CII joint conference in February in Orlando. So looking forward to that, that’s a great group of… That’s a great crew.

Josh:

So, I would say that, from a marketing perspective, we’re being pretty active compared to the average company of our size. So that’s three events there, we’re averaging almost like one a month and then we have stuff planned for the spring. Hopefully it gets approved. Our good friend Star. We have another couple of things with the Houston Pipeliners Association that we could be a part of and then some other things as well. But yeah, I was pleasantly surprised to know that you guys are that active in the market and get to be in front of clients and prospects like that much. I think that’s a great thing. Most people don’t realize that companies are size. They do about like one or two events a year. And for us, I mean, I’m excited because of our case study output and knowing that this is part of the other realm of it. I think we’ll be able to continue our trends of upward success.

Angela:

And we’ll have a great little road trip to Baton Rouge or not road trip, we’re flying, but great little air trip to Baton Rouge.

Josh:

That’s right. I forgot about that too. So yeah. Being able to do those things is necessary right to get our branding out there and get things ready for us, going in 2022, because we’re going to definitely capture market share. And we do that by letting people know we’re out there. So, I’m excited to meet people, excited to get to know more about what we do, excited to hear clients give feedback and being on these trade shows, road shows, golf outings, whatever, that really helps.

Angela:

Yep. So, cheers to 2022 and welcome to the team.

Josh:

Thank you.