Episode 4 Transcript:

Scott Billows (00:01.772)
Matt, here we are, episode four. We're just laying down tracks here like crazy and this is evolving into something fun. So welcome to the latest pod and wanted to bat around a few ideas with you today that I've been thinking about as it pertains to customers who have gone through a Salesforce implementation. And again, maybe just a bit of context.

Matt Hui (00:30.218)
Sure.

Scott Billows (00:30.797)
We help organizations get Salesforce implemented. Many of these organizations, many of our past customers, we get to the end of a project and they make the decision that they want to go off and maintain the system on their own. And that's actually a preference that we have had in the past where we enable these organizations to go off and do this on their own.

It's been interesting just in thinking about, you know, our past customers, but every other customer that has implemented Salesforce that we've never had any contact with in these organizations. There seems to be an uptick in organizations reaching out and talking to us about helping them maintain Salesforce and keep things moving forward with

the implementation that they've had. I wanted to just kind of talk through that today and hopefully if anybody out there is wanting to understand what does good look like after you've completed a project and how do you keep a system up and running? Hopefully there's a few things, a few little nuggets they can get out of this conversation today. So maybe I'll pose the question and you can unpack this.

Matt Hui (01:48.65)
.

Scott Billows (01:57.589)
Every project has a start, every project has a finish. It's what happens after that finish that oftentimes really matters in the life of that organization and the investment that they've made in Salesforce. What are some ideas that if you were sitting across the table from a customer that was just about to go live and take the reins back and start managing that implementation, that system?

What are some ideas that you'd share with them in terms of what good looks like, how they can set themselves up for success?

Matt Hui (02:34.44)
Yeah, I mean, you brought up something interesting there and I will acknowledge I've heard it from countless clients looking for, we've got something live already, we need help, we need help on an ongoing basis. And I think it really goes back to two things, partnership and efficiency. I think if you have got a great partnership with a client in which we have great partnerships with our clients, it's not, hey, we built something, you're on your own, see you later.

It's being able to offer a conduit to continue to support them. Now, of course, there's the efficiency aspect of it. There's the cost efficiency aspect, but what does good look like for a customer? I think being able to take care of the basic ongoing day-to-day administrative tasks to continue to drive adoption, adoption being you've got your organization using the technology that's been built out.

in the way that it's intended to be built out, driving the outcomes that you're hoping to drive from it. So I think there's that element, they're taking that piece on, but for the things that may warrant them needing to bring somebody with that expertise, I mean, for lot of our clients, that is a cost that they can't take on. So I think that's why they've been reaching out to us. A lot of clients, be it our existing clients or other prospective clients saying, hey, can you help us out? Because it's an efficiency perspective. You can either have somebody who's done this

Scott Billows (03:30.029)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Hui (03:59.178)
time and time again, spent countless hours, weekends, just building up that knowledge set. And they can probably do this significantly more efficiently in which when you compare cost, but you also compare time savings and ensuring you're getting it right. That's why a lot of customers reach out to us for what we call managed services or hyper care extend in our language. But I think it really boils down to partnership and efficiency. But in terms of what does good look like.

I think there shouldn't be a massive dependency on any consultancy or consulting firm. I think as long as you're building towards can there be self-sufficiency, but knowing that if there's something that is going to perhaps change the foundation or architecturally or things that you just don't have the capacity for, being able to have a trusted partner that can actually help you out. And I think that's what I've seen.

It's crazy that it didn't come up as much maybe five years ago, 10 years ago, but I think we've seen a big kind of uptick in this. And I would equate that uptick to there's been a lot of adoption of new technology. Certainly over the last three, four years. I mean, during COVID there was a lot of organization that had to go virtual. So now you've got all this technology, this great technology, this powerful technology, but it's not giving you the results that you were hoping for, the adoption that you were hoping for. And that's when you would come to an expert like ourselves.

Scott Billows (05:25.477)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. No, I mean, I totally agree with that. And it's interesting. I've been having some conversations with customers recently and some of the challenges that they've highlighted to me have been just their, and I'm speaking of a particular cohort of customers that we work with.

Matt Hui (05:25.546)
No.

Scott Billows (05:46.147)
which are charitable organizations and, you know, they will attract a certain type of individual into that organization that's very mission driven, very excited about the mission of that organization and what they're doing. And that individual will build up a certain skill set, which is tied to Salesforce. and, and their ability to retain that individual long-term is really constrained by

cost and just frankly the opportunity that exists in the market for that individual. So I've had a few conversations in recent weeks that have gone something like that and just talking to leaders in these organizations trying to strategize with them on how do they best maintain this investment that they've made and more importantly, how do they extract more value out of it? And I think that is an idea

that I'd like to talk about next, is just around this investment in Salesforce is not a one-time investment. It is an ongoing investment, just like your employees, you your ongoing investment in your employees, in employee culture, you know, in the benefits that you provide to an employee. The technology that's used specifically Salesforce, there needs to be thinking about, you know, that ongoing

investment, but also what that return is coming back for that investment that's being made. so I'd love to hear kind of an idea on, you know, put yourself in the shoes of an executive director or, know, maybe it's a CIO, maybe it's chief operating officer, maybe it's a, you know, a director within that organization. And they're thinking about this

how they themselves sell this idea of ongoing investment in a technology that maybe they haven't been getting as much value out of, but that value is there, they just haven't been able to unlock.

Matt Hui (07:57.246)
Yeah, a couple episodes ago I made a working out analogy. I think that's perhaps relevant in this case as well. I think of it like going to the gym. Do you go to the gym once and hope to instantly transform or drive the results you're looking for? Or is it a constant kind of an investment to be able to maintain those, you're hoping for? I think the same applies to technology. I think there's ways to do it tactfully to drive appetite or buy in for ongoing.

ongoing investment, but I think when we think about investment, it's not just cost investment, it's time investment. And I think that is in every sense, where I've seen it successfully, is when it's being led straight from the top. That investment in wanting to learn, wanting to stay on top of this. The reality is technology as an industry, technology is rapidly changing. So if there's a specific point in time in which you've done some sort of implementation.

You've solved the needs at that time and hopefully you've thought ahead a little bit, but if you don't ongoing invest into that, be it in a learning capacity, time capacity, and even in cost capacity, I mean it's no different than the system that you just came off of. You've just copied and pasted this problem and you just kicked that can down the road for maybe five years. I think that's the difference with Salesforce though, and I'll tie it back to Salesforce because I think they've got a really robust framework for ongoing and they take care of A, their customers, but B,

Scott Billows (09:11.719)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Matt Hui (09:24.148)
the technology and the product. They're always coming up with new products. And I think that should be a model for a lot of organizations. If you are not innovating on your product, I mean, you're gonna fall behind. There's industry standards change, best practices change. And as those change, you as an organization ultimately need to be aware of that and adapt as well. that's what I've seen successfully from ongoing investment. What have you seen? And how would you, if you were...

Scott Billows (09:26.131)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Hui (09:53.78)
talking to a board and trying to convince them to, let's just say, consider three, five, 10 years from now, what does that talk track look like for you?

Scott Billows (10:02.321)
Yeah, I think a good way, Matt, to answer that is just even in how we have as an organization just developed our go-to-market strategy and that communication to a prospective customer on, listen, there's this initial investment that you're going to need to make. That investment is both financial capital, but it's also human capital that you need to invest in the implementation of this technology that

is going to go and address a particular challenge that you're trying to overcome within the organization. Beyond that, it's educating the leaders and then preparing their board for just the ongoing maintenance of that system. I mean, I don't know if we've met an organization yet whose business is so static that they don't need to adapt and change

to the environment or to what's going on around them. you know, thinking about that from the very beginning of when you're making that initial investment is really important because I think if you're not thinking about that, you're really setting yourself up for some form of failure because the system, when it's delivered at the end of the project, is not improving itself. It's not self-improving. It's, you know, features and

you know, we'll call it out of box capabilities are evolving. Those are provided by Salesforce, but in terms of it, continuing to self adapt to the business needs, obviously that's not happening within the tool, at least as of yet. so, you know, having that mindset of ongoing investment is going to be critical. Now, how do you go about doing that? Well, we've already talked about bringing people in house, delivering that work within your own team.

That's certainly a way there are pros and cons, there's challenges that come with that. One of the challenges, and we've certainly seen this from customers that have come to us to have us help them with a future project is the technical debt that might exist within that implementation. And that's not always the result of the internal team. Sometimes that was a poor implementation from...

Scott Billows (12:29.826)
the get-go. But if the system is not maintained in a, we'll call it a best practice way, the ability to adapt and scale that system over time can be constrained. so we see that as a challenge. number one was maintain it internally with your own internal team. Number two is go the opposite direction, maintain it with a completely outsourced model, working with a partner, maybe you're working with

some freelance contractors, but it's external to the organization. I think the best approach, the one that we see the customer succeed the most is in some form of a hybrid. We, as an external consulting organization, we don't know the inner workings of your organization. We know the technology. And if we're given the information, we can adapt the technology to meet those needs.

But it's that back and forth, that give and take where we can bring the best of what we have to offer while that organization brings the best of what they have to offer. So that certainly is an approach that I would say it works the best. We have many customers today that have adopted that and work with us to essentially be an extension of their team. we see those customers moving the needle and advancing.

the quickest when it comes to their use and their adoption of Salesforce.

Matt Hui (14:03.496)
Yeah. So I guess just on that, on that adoption front, you kind of brought up a question that comes to mind that I think would be helpful for you to unpack. Adopt. mean, that's, that's happy path. Everything's going well, but I mean, we've had, certainly had prickly scenarios in which let's just say not everybody is as bought in. So what have you found as a successful strategy? Because when you're talking ongoing implementation, ongoing maintenance and six ongoing success.

Scott Billows (14:16.646)
Sure, of course.

Matt Hui (14:31.87)
Well, what about that first entrance point? How do you drive buy-in or get buy-in, especially in a perhaps scenario in which not everybody's on board?

Scott Billows (14:42.331)
Yeah. Well, I guess it depends on what that entry point. So, I mean, if we're talking to an organization that is currently evaluating Salesforce, they haven't made that decision. Well, I mean, it's incumbent upon us to inform them and educate them that that is a very important consideration that they need to be planning for. That's a luxury in many cases. That's not always what we're dealt. know, existing customers that

Maybe they've had an implementation years ago and they're up against the wall. They face some challenges that they need to overcome. One way to do that is to have an organization come in and really just is to help take a snapshot of what's going on and put together a a roadmap for how they can execute on accomplishing those objectives going forward.

I guess our ideal scenario, if we're not afforded the opportunity to influence and educate the customer before they make their initial buying decision is that we're stepping into an environment where things aren't on fire and we have the luxury of time on our side where we're not having to make rash decisions and just to fix broken things, but we can work together with them.

to establish a plan for how they can support the technology themselves with help from us. And really what we're doing in a case like that is we're looking at the internal capabilities that they have, the internal capabilities that they may want to develop in the future. And that may be an increase in capability, but it may also be a reduction in their internal capability.

but understanding what that framework would look like and then where we can come in and augment to support. it's a really important factor in the ongoing success of that organization. Actually, I had a call with somebody earlier today who told me that they had moved away from Salesforce.

Scott Billows (17:07.915)
because it came to the annual renewal and they'd been on Salesforce for a number of years, but they were coming up on the annual renewal and the cost to renew was just a pill that was too big for them to swallow based on the perceived value that they were getting. And so they made the decision to move away from Salesforce in the direction of another tool. And when they got onto that new tool, they realized very quickly that they

regretted the decision of moving and the grass wasn't greener. you know, we don't see this a lot. don't see people leaving Salesforce to go onto another platform. what struck me was they weren't getting value. At least they weren't able to measure the value that they were getting from the investment that they had made. And after they left, they were able to see what value Salesforce had brought to them, despite the pain that they

Matt Hui (17:57.162)
Thank

Scott Billows (18:06.105)
they were living with at that time. it's a story that we've seen over and over again. We do our best to try to come alongside these organizations and help them avoid that first of all. But if they are finding themselves in that situation, well, let's come up with a plan. Let's help you navigate through that. And ultimately, let's ensure that you are getting value from that investment. I guess those are a few ideas in terms of what

organizations can be thinking about.

Matt Hui (18:38.506)
Yeah, love it. think I would agree with every single thing that you said there and something I think I've seen during implementation. So we talked about the entrance point. We also talked about how do you maintain buy-in? Because I think buy-in, I mean, it's similar to ongoing investment. It's something you got to keep, you got to maintain that buy-in as well. And once you've lost it, think of it as trust, trust between an organization and the people who are going to be using the system.

It requires ongoing maintenance and ongoing nurturing, if you will. Things that I've seen successful to maintain buy-in, I think it's really being able to reflect back as be it leaders or individuals who are perhaps sponsors of a project. It's being able to relay back the, what I call the whiffum, the what's in it for me. Which that is different for everybody and that may change throughout, but if you can clearly articulate what the...

the net benefit is going to be of this new technology solution or this new change. I mean, then buy-in becomes a piece of cake. If you've not articulated that well, I mean, you're going to get people being forced to use a system that, I mean, it's only so sustainable when you feel like you're, we've all had systems that we didn't have a choice and you've had to use before. I mean, think of that experience. So you're able to just maintain the buy-in and turn that buy-in into a champion.

in the future in which kind of back to our previous episodes, we talked about company culture. You can't just be one person driving this change. It's got to be widespread. It's got to be baked into the culture. And that's how you really maximize the return on investment of technology. And I think it's often forgotten that buy-in is not one and done. You got to maintain the buy-in. You got to maintain the trust.

Scott Billows (20:13.271)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt Hui (20:32.35)
means involving people, that means having that one extra conversation, that means allowing people to play around, be curious, and even potentially try to break things and see how it would actually function in the day to day. I think that's what I've seen very successful as it pertains to buying as well.

Scott Billows (20:49.729)
Yeah, yeah, awesome. Okay, well listen, a couple of nuggets that we uncovered there. hope that those that listen get some value from this and I think we'll wrap on that and we'll pick up on the next episode on some new ideas. So thanks, Matt. Amen, bye.

Matt Hui (21:07.754)
Thanks Scott