Katie: You're listening to the BusinessMakers Overtime Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com/overtime. I'm Katie Laird here with a very exciting guest. A gal named Chris Portillo who's the senior marketing communications specialist at a company called Safety Vision.

Chris: Thanks, Katie.

Katie: It's so good to have you here and I know a little bit about Safety Vision, but can you give our listeners a rundown on what is Safety Vision.

Chris: Well, we supply the entire suite of mobile video cameras. Anytime you're driving behind a FedEx van and you see a back-up camera up at the top of the van, that's our camera. The cameras that are on school buses recording bullies stealing lunch money and what not –

Katie: Booooo.

Chris: – and police car cameras. Ya' know the kind that are catching bad boy shenanigans.

Katie: Absolutely.

Chris: Those are our cameras. And we're on transit buses as well.

Katie: Oh wow.

Chris: If it's on wheels, we can put a camera on it.

Katie: Fantastic. That's pretty cool. So I know you guys have been around since 1993. What is kind of the start-up story 'cause you guys, that's quite a feat. This is quite awhile to be in the industry. Where did all of this camera stuff come from?

Chris: It is a neat story. It's not a rags to riches. It's a local boy made good story that I like to tell. Our president and founder, Bruce Smith, was a salesman for a major electronics company at the time. He was at a trade show, legend has it, and saw some early back-up cameras displayed and he thought, 'Wow, there's really a market for that.' I think at the time they were only being used in college and heavy equipment construction type industries.

Katie: Uh huh.

Chris: But I think something clicked in Bruce's mind and he thought if mining truck needs the back-up camera, why wouldn't a delivery truck need a back-up camera, a beer distribution truck need a back-up camera. So, years and years ago he just saw a major market for it and pursued that market and we're now pursuing that market around the globe.

Katie: Oh wow. Talk about a visionary there because now I can't even imagine so many things on wheels not having camera equipment like that. That's pretty impressive. Go Bruce.

Chris: It was a very humble operation at the start. As I've heard him tell it, he was a one man operation working out of a two-bedroom apartment. I think he said his pantry was his first product storage warehouse.

Katie: Oh my gosh.

Chris: So now we're here in the tech corridor and we're on a seven-acre campus with a free standing three-tier warehouse. So we've come a long way.

Katie: Just a slight difference. That's very exciting. So a lot of the businesses that we talk to are just these brand new, just fresh face just jumping into the industry businesses and a lot of those business owners and entrepreneurs are completely obsessed with keeping their finger on the pulse of the industry. So how is Safety Vision able to keep up with all of this new technology coming out or what do you really work on as far as keeping up with the new stuff and all the new innovations?

Chris: Well one thing that really sets us apart, Katie, is the fact that we have an on-site in-house engineering department.

Katie: Oh wow.

Chris: And these are some of the industry's best and brightest. We've also got onsite QC facilities, testing labs. We've really got our arms around the whole process. We're always looking to the future. This is a very high tech industry that we're working in and if we lag we're lost. We've just always got to be looking one step ahead of the curve, which technology is on the horizon. One way we do that is our senior management travels abroad quite frequently. A lot of this technology and product development that's happening overseas in China and Korea and elsewhere, they're not afraid to hop a flight and get over there and mix it up and see what's new on the market and bring it back, introduce it to the customers. Does this look like something you'd like to see in our next evolution. We really keep a close dialogue going with the customers from their lips to the engineers ears and then from us to our suppliers overseas. We maintain real open and real frank and real brisk lines of communication so that the communication never stops.

Katie: Now how do you go about keeping those open lines of communication with your customers?

Chris: Well, that's kind of evolving recently. In our marketing efforts, for example, we're pursuing some of the newer social media channels.

Katie: Oh.

Chris: We were heavily focused on paid print advertising in the B to B market, business to business type publications. We had a web site, just like everybody else. There was a little bit of interactive play on it. We had the contact form that people could send in, but it was pretty much Web 1.0. Now over the past year or so we've really taken a hard look at the expenditure of paid advertising and thought lack luster results, tight economic times and we kind of decided to put that on the shelf for awhile and instead focus on online marketing efforts. For example, we're doing a little bit of – and there is some expensive involved, but it's drastically different from the more expensive print to advertising. We've been dabbling in e-mail marketing. We are toying with client surveys just to get that real honest feedback from people who might not be willing or ready yet to talk to us in more open forums like on our blog. That's another thing. Here's where I get excited and I'll probably start talking faster, but I'm the chief blogger for the company. Now that's the title I'd love to go by. I'm the chief blogger and blog not as often as I'd like, but trying to increase the frequency, just try to put content out there that informs and entertains our customers and our perspective customers and gets them wanting to talk back to us or learning more about us or seeing our face. I think the most recent picture I posted on our blog was of one of our employees' husbands wearing a balloon hat. That kind of makes you want to look.

Katie: It does.

Chris: Oh, that's who Safety Vision is. They wear balloon hats. You gotta love it.

Katie: Exactly. Give me a camera. Those guys are in balloon hats.

Chris: And in addition to that, we've got outposts on all kinds of the new social media scene. We're on LinkedIn. We're getting quite active on Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo, YouTube.

Katie: How completely perfect for a business like yours that is so passionate about innovation in the offline world looking at these physical products you can hold in your hand. It's just so perfect that you would be out there pushing the envelope as it were, with your communications efforts. That's exciting.

Chris: Yeah, it is. It really is a lot of fun. In addition to being passionate about social media, I really am passionate about safety and saving lives and I think, Katie, I had told you that my family calls me the safety officer. I'm one of these people that my kids, once they started driving, they probably –

Katie: Uh oh.

Chris: -- heard from me as often as 'I love you. Buckle up.'

Katie: Exactly. Never over 30 miles an hour. So I guess the real question is how many cameras have you installed in your teenagers' cars? That's what I really want to know.

Chris: Ya' know what's crazy is I haven't. I've got one in mine. I have one that was included from the factory.

Katie: Okay.

Chris: We do have a new product though that's come out. Our focus has been the commercial fleet market, public and private sector, but we really have not chased the consumer market. We are not selling cameras to moms and dads that are keeping their eye on the teen drivers.

Katie: Okay.

Chris: But our latest product very well could do that.

Katie: Oh wow.

Chris: It's a windshield mounted DVR that in a single housing incorporates two cameras. One is taking video of what's going on in front of the windshield. One is taking video of what's going on inside the vehicle's cab so if there is an incident, whether it's an accident or a company suspects a driver of poor driving practices, unsafe driving practices, they can reconstruct the accident after the fact. Just like with teenage driving cameras and there are products on the market that do that. Mom and dad can buy a camera to keep track of little Timmy when he gets his license.

Katie: Oh my gosh. The 16-year olds everywhere are quaking in their boots right now.

Chris: But commercial drivers, they respond to the same stimuli that okay, well now there's a camera on me. I can't drive with my knees while I eat a bowl of cereal –

Katie: Imagine that.

Chris: And we have actually seen video of a professional driver doing just that.

Katie: Ohh.

Chris: Ya' know I used to tell my kids when they were first driving, here it's back to the kids again, when they'd leave the house I'd say, 'Assume everyone out there's an idiot.' Then with the profusion of cell phone use you saw everybody and his mother on their cell phone in the car, right.

Katie: Right.

Chris: So I would remind them, 'Assume that when you're driving, assume every other driver's on their cell phone so you need to be the alert one on the road.'

Katie: Exactly.

Chris: And now I have to be telling them, 'Assume every other driver is texting.'

Katie: Uh.

Chris: And that's just crazy because I read the figures on how much more likely it becomes that you're involved in an accident if you're texting. That's so much more time that your eyes are away from the road, rather than –

Katie: Exactly.

Chris: -- at least if you're on a cell phone call you're just chattin'. You're still distracted. You're not in the moment, but –

Katie: But you're lookin'.

Chris: -- at least your eyes are facing forward.

Katie: Exactly. So for all those road warriors out there –

Chris: So anyway, that's my latest rant.

Katie: Oh my gosh. Yeah; it's scary. So, just to wrap things up, given the growth, the tremendous growth of Safety Vision from good old Bruce, the one-man shop guy pullin' wares out of his pantry to truly a phenomenal success story today, is there anything, any knowledge that you've come by or experiences that might lend themselves for budding entrepreneurs or businesses of different sizes doing business out there?

Chris: You've got to keep in constant motion. You've got to keep an ear to the ground. You've got to listen to your customer. You can't be caught by surprise. I think complacency is a killer in this industry or any other high tech industry that you think okay, we've cornered the market, our customers love us, let's sit back and rest on our laurels. Well we have never done that. We've always been seeking and looking ahead and operate at a very fast pace. I tease Bruce that his favorite incentive is hurry, hurry, hurry and the emphasis on hurry, right. He keeps a very fast pace. We keep a very sharp eye in what's going on among our competition. We listen to the frustration of our customers. We try to foresee their coming needs and again, that goes back to that concept of always looking around the bend. Never look down at your feet or the world's going to pass you by.

Katie: Absolutely. That's fantastic advice. So, long story short, be like Safety Vision, a visionary. I love it. Well Chris, thank you so much –

Chris: And like a rolling stone, gather no moss.

Katie: Well Chris, thank you so much for being on the Overtime Show today. It was great hearing your story and definitely pickin' up on some driving tips, too.

Chris: Don't text and drive.

Katie: That's right. Don't text and drive.

Chris: Well, I was happy to be your guest, Katie.

Katie: Thank you. You've been listening to Chris Portillo from Safety Vision on another great interview with the BusinessMakers Overtime Show heard here and online at thebusinessmakers.com. Now it's time for Carl Kleimann of Odyssey One Source with another business survival tip.

Carl: Hello business owners this is Carl Kleimann with another Business Survival Tip from Odyssey One Source. You may be considering making changes to your group medical plan for the coming year. This task has become increasingly complex with so many options for you to consider. Remember the days when the only decision we had to make was the deductible amount and co-insurance percentage? Today, we have High Deductible Health Plans coupled with Health Savings Accounts, different deductibles for outpatient surgery and emergency room visits, countless prescription drug plans, and the list goes on.

As an employer, you want to provide quality benefits to your employees while at the same time, maintaining our budget; however, it is equally important that you offer a plan that is affordable for your employees. For example, you may opt for a "Cadillac" plan in which you pay 100 percent of the premium for employee coverage. If the cost of dependent coverage is unaffordable for your employees, your generosity will have done them a great disservice. They will likely be much happier with a less expensive plan that costs you and them less money.

It is also important to consider how various plan designs will affect your employees. For example, plans that have high deductibles and significant out-of-pocket maximums may reduce premiums but at the same time, may create a financial hardship for low wage employees. An employee making $12 an hour is not likely to be in a position to cough up a $3,000 deductible plus 20% co-insurance in the event that he or a family member is suddenly hospitalized. A plan that offers a lower out-of-pocket maximum in exchange for higher prescription co-pays and a more restrictive provider network would likely be a more viable solution.

Finding the right medical plan requires that you communicate with your employees. Find out what is most important to them. You can almost bet that younger, healthier employees will opt for lower cost plans with fewer bells and whistles while older employees and employees with families will opt for higher premiums and more features.

I am Carl Kleimann and this has been another Business Survival Tip by Odyssey One Source, ranked as the number one Professional Employer Organization two years running by the Black Book of Outsourcing. For more information on this and other issues affecting employers, please visit www.odysseyonesource.com.

Katie: Stay tuned for Segment Three. In our special features we'll be talking about handy ways that you can monitor your business' growth.