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351- How to create raving end users that champion your IT department · You've Been Heard

• 0:00
  Speaker A: So what I'm seeing here especially is as we put prototypes or starting projects out in front of people and they start to see what's possible, they can.
• 0:08
  Speaker B: Very quickly start asking for more and meaningful more. Right.
• 0:12
  Speaker A: Not just move this field over there.
• 0:14
  Speaker B: That field over there, but literally better.
• 0:16
  Speaker A: Ways to capture data with the understanding of how it would be reported out on later.
• 0:24
  Speaker C: All right, welcome everyone. Back to dissecting popular IT nerds today. A little interesting start to the day. We're all very busy. We're speaking with Dennis Zesh from waso. Am I doing this right again? I screwed that up. Okay. Wahsau.
• 0:38
  Speaker A: Wausau.
• 0:39
  Speaker C: Wausau. I screwed up again for the second time. Wausau supply company. Really cool stuff, man, you guys are doing over there. I mean, it's from like a, like a building supply stuff. So if anyone likes, you know, if people like going to like, if you want, you know, Home Depot on steroids and you want all that type of stuff, then that's your company. But let's. How do you get into the. I mean, you really are kind of like a visionary. I mean, I, I just from talking with you and seeing what you guys are doing over there, you're really are. Have a seat at the executive roundtable as we, you know, so to speak, and really are a part of the visionary leadership of taking your company into the, you know, digital future. But let's go back in time first. How did you even get into this thing called technology? What was your first computer?
• 1:30
  Speaker A: My first computer.
• 1:31
  Speaker B: That's funny.
• 1:32
  Speaker A: Gateway 2000.
• 1:33
  Speaker C: Same. I don't know if that was my first computer. That was my third computer. But was it a Pentium or 486 or what?
• 1:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, I think it was.
• 1:41
  Speaker B: No, I think it was a Pentium at that time, actually.
• 1:43
  Speaker C: Pentium. Pentium one. So. Okay. And did that have anything. Did technology have any part in your childhood growing up, or is it. I just ended up in it due to anything, you know.
• 1:53
  Speaker B: Right.
• 1:54
  Speaker A: Made, you know, made full, full disclosure. So known, I don't think growing up. I mean, things like video game systems like Nintendo's and Ataris and all that stuff.
• 2:05
  Speaker B: Right.
• 2:05
  Speaker A: But how did I end up in it? It was the mid-90s, graduated college and there was two jobs for everybody basically.
• 2:13
  Speaker B: Right.
• 2:13
  Speaker A: The recruiters were everywhere. I kind of bounced around a little bit in different majors, but had an interest in business. And the school I went to had a management information systems major. And the combination of technology with business.
• 2:30
  Speaker B: Was interesting to me at least.
• 2:32
  Speaker A: Right. I definitely had that interest in Business. But building technology solutions was interesting and that has held true for the last 27 years.
• 2:41
  Speaker C: Is there a certain role that. It's interesting because I would say 90% of the people that come on this show that are in some sort of IT leadership role, unless you're really young and kind of a savant when it comes to this type of stuff, which, which we do have a few, most of them, their story is like that because there was no school there. It was the school of kind of hard knocks where we came together. And then, you know, because this role, this IT leadership role was, has really been defined and is being defined right now. How, moving forward, do you believe that? How. How do you think this role of technology leadership should be defined? And it should something that you go to school with or can you even go to school about it? Should we just throw people in a room and break a bunch of stuff and be like, hey, here's how you fix it?
• 3:25
  Speaker A: Yeah. So project based work has always been my thing, right. I've never reported out on keeping the lights on. You know, I know the place has to run and the place has to.
• 3:37
  Speaker B: Be secure and reliable.
• 3:38
  Speaker A: But the value add from the IT role perspective in a big way comes from people that can initiate, drive change.
• 3:48
  Speaker B: Take on whatever role is required in.
• 3:51
  Speaker A: A team that is doing a transformational project, right? It, because it sits somewhere in the middle, it seems like it's a chance to work with all different business stakeholders, all different business disciplines. So you end up in a. You have an opportunity to bring all those people and those things together to kind of more quickly and more effectively drive change. I think it's kind of just what we do, right?
• 4:19
  Speaker B: Our whole life, our whole career is.
• 4:21
  Speaker A: About changing things for the better. Or like you said, maybe breaking it down, but building it back up more efficiently, more effectively. So back to the question about how do you teach it? I think it's gotta be a lot.
• 4:35
  Speaker B: Of project based stuff, right? I mean, you have to know theory and you have to know definitions and.
• 4:40
  Speaker A: That sort of thing. But then you really have to know how to work with multidiscipline teams, cross functional teams.
• 4:46
  Speaker C: No, absolutely. Because the very annoying and almost insulting thing is to call the IT guy that. The guy that keeps the blinky lights on, or it's just the guy that keeps the systems running, or he's the guy that implements all the systems for us, when in reality it should be the guy that has a vision into how do we. When you say a project, like, I mean, why would we be in A project to begin with. Right. What is the purpose of the project which would be to either serve some level of customer or to raise a, a some KPI and some, you know, particular, maybe a customer experience score or how do we make more money here doing this?
• 5:21
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 5:21
  Speaker A: A really good example from, from my past is how do we sustain growth?
• 5:26
  Speaker B: Right.
• 5:26
  Speaker A: And how do, how then with a. And this isn't from Walsa Supply, but.
• 5:30
  Speaker B: It, you know, it holds true at many manufacturing companies.
• 5:33
  Speaker A: We were in a situation where we were over capacity.
• 5:38
  Speaker B: Right. The whole, the industry had changed, capacity had changed.
• 5:41
  Speaker A: So we had more work than we knew what to do with. So we really needed to have a good tool to provide visibility of our schedule to understand how to make good decisions on what jobs to take based on margin.
• 5:53
  Speaker B: Right.
• 5:53
  Speaker A: And when I first got to this company, the, the system was kind of just an electronic notebook.
• 5:59
  Speaker B: Right.
• 5:59
  Speaker A: So schedule changes would happen. The schedulers would scramble to try to.
• 6:03
  Speaker B: Maybe make some adjustments on just the mainline machines out a week.
• 6:07
  Speaker A: We, we put in a system that a schedule change would get blown across the entire time horizon and across all.
• 6:14
  Speaker B: Of the manufacturing operations.
• 6:16
  Speaker A: And it ultimately provided the visibility that allowed us to double the company's revenue over the course of five years. Where you couldn't have sustained that otherwise unless you added a ton of staff. But even then, I don't think you could have sustained or supported that without that type of system.
• 6:31
  Speaker C: Okay, so we'll get back to that. Let's take a fun question. In the meantime, all your C level executives die in a flaming inferno. Okay. And you have to single handedly save the company. What would you do to drive efficiency and become a filthy rich tycoon? This could be an imaginary company. It doesn't have to be your particular. It doesn't have to be your like, hey, everything's working fine right now. We're already doing.
• 6:54
  Speaker A: Made me a little sick to my.
• 6:55
  Speaker B: Stomach with that question.
• 6:56
  Speaker C: No, no, we're trying to brainstorm other questions that would make the show more fun. So, so that's one of them. You need to take that one. Or we have. I have a, I have a follow up question. You can pass on that one if you'd like. The second question.
• 7:06
  Speaker A: You know, I could take a stab.
• 7:07
  Speaker B: At answering that one though.
• 7:08
  Speaker A: But it really starts with. Right, it starts with bringing people together, right. If there's good succession planning going on and I think there is, and people.
• 7:17
  Speaker B: Are prepared for a next man up situation.
• 7:20
  Speaker A: Back to it being that, you know, I hate to use buzzword cliche terms but that glue that, that conduit that brings all the different disciplines together. I think an IT person, a good.
• 7:34
  Speaker B: IT leader, could step up in that.
• 7:36
  Speaker A: Situation and help develop a plan and.
• 7:39
  Speaker B: Help bring the right people together to keep things moving forward.
• 7:42
  Speaker C: Well, you brought up a good point. You said you have to always have those people that are ready to replace you in your role. And I remember I always had, I had one, I don't know, your boss or whatever you want to call him back in the day, he always said he's like, yes, you're ready to be promoted, but you can't be promoted until you have the guy that's going to replace you.
• 7:58
  Speaker B: Right, Right.
• 7:59
  Speaker C: So basically like a good, a good leader or a good whatever manager or something, whatever position you're in in the company, like if people want to grow or be promoted or, you know, which I think most people would want to if they're in a career of some sort, should always be really teaching and leveling up the people that are below them because then that, that actually tells you that you're ready for like kind of like the next piece.
• 8:21
  Speaker A: Yeah. Which really.
• 8:22
  Speaker B: Right.
• 8:23
  Speaker A: You have to trust.
• 8:24
  Speaker B: You have to let people go so.
• 8:26
  Speaker A: Far and potentially even fail a little bit because that's where the learning happens. Right? I mean try this. Give guidance, but also trust and let people do their jobs.
• 8:38
  Speaker B: If you want to even call it.
• 8:39
  Speaker A: That, or not just their current job, let them do, give them opportunities to do that, the tasks that would be required of that leveled up position, Reddit, and let them get so far before maybe sometimes you have to jump in and help, but oftentimes it pays off.
• 8:59
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• 9:50
  Speaker C: Let them let him fail and be uncomfortable on the first 50% of the task for 50% of the time and then help fill in and then let them take 75% and then let them take 90 or 100%.
• 10:01
  Speaker A: Definitely.
• 10:02
  Speaker C: We're just making stuff up off the top of our head. See, this should be like a whole methodology now, right?
• 10:06
  Speaker B: Somebody should be writing it down.
• 10:08
  Speaker C: You know, call this. I know we're going to call this, but it's going to the Howard Zesh tech something. I don't know. Okay, next question. We go to World War 3. It's made up of security attacks and drones. Or Skynet is real. Skydone is real, right? Like, you know, or, you know, how would you fight this battle? Or how would you protect. How would you protect, you know, like your. Your fellow man from cyber attacks and. And, you know, crazy drones attacking. As an IT guy, you're put in charge. I got to get every. The smoke clears and it's like, you. You're staying there. Like, hey, we need you. You're the leader. You're the guy with the most technology knowledge. What would you do?
• 10:45
  Speaker B: It would start first.
• 10:47
  Speaker A: This is no lie. It's funny.
• 10:48
  Speaker B: And this is what comes right to mind.
• 10:50
  Speaker A: I said this to you in a different conversation. I love working on the business side.
• 10:54
  Speaker B: But, man, I love meeting up with.
• 10:56
  Speaker A: The technical specialists that are passionate about what they do, and that's what they want to do, right? So you need those people on your team, and then you need to give them a tool. Like, I think of some MDR solutions that I've come across where you got network sensors, you got endpoint sensors and agents, other logging mechanisms, all reporting to the same central database. But then you have feeds coming from.
• 11:20
  Speaker B: In the wild type attacks and that sort of thing that you can correlate.
• 11:23
  Speaker A: Then to say, oh, wow, if this.
• 11:24
  Speaker B: Is going on here now I'm starting.
• 11:26
  Speaker A: To see patterns of activity in my own company to get out ahead of those things. So you need the tool, but you absolutely need the people that are passionate about it. So how would I help? It all goes back to bringing the right people and tools together to solve that problem.
• 11:42
  Speaker C: I think it does. It's. It's actually when people said they're scared of, like, AI and they're scared of the new thing. I'm not. I'm kind of like a glass half old guy. So I see it as like, you know, I'm like a glass half full guy. But I actually did get kind of scared the other day when my wife came to me and she's like, did you see this the other day? That guy that was on, like, whatever. And I looked at it And I was like. I was like, this is fake. I was like, I was just like, honey. I was like, this is like, this is clearly AI. Like, this is fake.
• 12:08
  Speaker A: Yeah, right.
• 12:09
  Speaker C: She's like, no, it's not. It's real. I'm like, no, it's fake. I, I, trust me, it's fake. And it took, like, a good 15 minutes of convincing and, like, looking up and showing other stuff to eventually get to the point was like, see, it's a parody. And. And she's not a. She's not dumb. So I was like, if you can be. I was like, if you can be, you know, like, spoofed or whatever, think of, like, the rest of. Think of the rest of, like, you know, just general end users or just think of, you know, I think of my father, who's going to be 90 in a month or something. You know, this. It's going to just be very believable and able to just kind of like, put whatever you want to put in front of someone's eyes.
• 12:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, as long as you say it confidently with what looks like a little bit of rationale.
• 12:58
  Speaker B: Plus, we said we're all busy, right?
• 13:00
  Speaker A: People are too busy to take a.
• 13:02
  Speaker B: Second and think about what they're seeing.
• 13:03
  Speaker A: At times as well. So, yeah, that is a little bit.
• 13:05
  Speaker C: Worrisome as far as ongoing development for yourself or stuff that's like, in the tech world that just, like, you really love, like, do you have any. Do you have a YouTube channel or an Instagram person that you follow that you just love? Like, you love when this person posts or a new or a new video comes up or something? Like, what's your favorite YouTube channel or, like, Instagram thing? Like, for me, it's like, unfortunately, it's like, it's like Kook fails or something. It's a surfing thing. And I just love seeing people just, like, you know, get trashed on waves and everything. And I just, like, it's one of those things that if I get caught in that stream, I'll waste, you know, five, ten minutes watching surfing videos. But. But what is it for you in the tech world?
• 13:44
  Speaker A: It's. Well, yeah, in the tech world, I don't. I mean, I'm. I'm on LinkedIn a lot. I do, but. But so much of my feed is now personal development within leadership roles, basically. So I, I do enjoy reading about that. How do you. How do you interact with your team? How, you know, how do you build trust? How do you get people excited? And I don't know that I even need to read that. I might be able to write some of that stuff. But the whole idea of how do you get excited about what you're doing when you're.
• 14:12
  Speaker B: Especially on the application side of it.
• 14:15
  Speaker A: Right.
• 14:15
  Speaker C: Sweet. Give us something, man. How do we get people excited? Help me out. I want to get excited.
• 14:21
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 14:21
  Speaker A: I mean, at the end of the day, a lot of what I do with my team is really just build.
• 14:26
  Speaker B: Efficient ways to collect data.
• 14:28
  Speaker A: But not for the sake of collecting data.
• 14:29
  Speaker B: Right. What are we going to turn around and do with that data?
• 14:32
  Speaker A: It's going to make a salesperson's life.
• 14:33
  Speaker B: Easier because when they wake up on.
• 14:35
  Speaker A: Monday morning, they can look at everything.
• 14:37
  Speaker B: They did last week, what appointments, what.
• 14:39
  Speaker A: Opportunities do I have, and essentially have.
• 14:42
  Speaker B: Somebody telling them, here's what you should be working on to start your week.
• 14:45
  Speaker A: Right.
• 14:47
  Speaker B: Pricing, analysis, things.
• 14:49
  Speaker C: You know that that's actually pretty sweet. Like, have you ever given a sales guy something and he's like, dude, I love it. Because usually they're completely two separate roles. Usually the salespeople don't even know who it is.
• 15:00
  Speaker A: No, I know it. So, yeah, at this company, it's really.
• 15:04
  Speaker B: Becoming a great partnership with sales and marketing.
• 15:07
  Speaker A: And we recently went live with a lead to opportunity CRM process. And a lot of what we saw as we were rolling it out is once people saw ideas on what could be possible. Oh, I can do that. Well, if I can do that, here's what the way I really need to be able to capture that so I can see it. So we can have better conversations with.
• 15:30
  Speaker B: Our customers at the end of the.
• 15:31
  Speaker A: Year in terms of better partnerships and that sort of thing. So what I'm seeing here especially is as we put prototypes or starting projects out in front of people and they start to see what's possible, they very quickly start asking for more and meaningful more.
• 15:48
  Speaker B: Right.
• 15:49
  Speaker A: Not just move this field over there, that field over there, but literally better ways to capture data with the understanding.
• 15:56
  Speaker B: Of how it would be reported out on later.
• 15:58
  Speaker C: That's actually really deep. I don't think you really, I don't think you realize how deep that is. What you really. That's actually really deep. And what, and what I mean by that is this could be the biggest learning actually from this show, which is how do you get, how do you get your end users, your customers, like whatever we want to call them, we don't want to call them end users. We call. Everyone knows end user. It's not an end user, but like, you know, we shouldn't use that term because some people refer to them as end losers, which is the bad way. Which is the bad term. But it's so funny I can't help but say it. But how do you get. Well, first of all, the fact that how do you get sales and the best relationship is sales and it. Are you kidding me? That's like a, that's like, that's like an oxymoron or something. I don't know what that is. That's like, it shouldn't be. But like, how do you get your people, your end users, your sales people, your marketing people and your C level executives to ask you for more? Like I want more. You got to spend more. Spend more. Sure. You can have more. Yeah, sure. Have you seen that, have you seen that budget where it is only a 3% on the entire line item or it is a 3, a 3% line item. That's actually pretty deep. You get. How do you get, how do you get people excited about it and asking for more, especially the salespeople? Because I've come from a, I come from a background of. I worked at Starbucks then that was it. That was 20 years ago. Then I worked for a Cisco startup and I was in entry level sales and worked my way up to inside sales, sales manager, sales training, blah blah, blah, all that stuff until I left and then went on to consulting and everything. But you know the CRM and in SQL they used just to call SQL like that, you know, you got to enter these numbers into sequel. You know, it was like, it was always that and it always felt like an, like no, there was no value in the CRM. There was no value in the CRM and there was no value in the reporting other than it was going to be upper management micromanaging you. It was real Michael Scott. It was real Michael Scott, the office type stuff, you know, it was really just like pointless crap. So you've killed that, you've slayed that.
• 18:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, definitely made huge progress. But so I'll to add to that though, because I don't want to take all the credit, right? Really you have to have the right executive sponsor, right. The right sales leader that, that knows how to kind of instill that excitement. Like one of the things that I've heard is, man, when I was selling.
• 18:22
  Speaker B: I would have loved to have been.
• 18:23
  Speaker A: Able to go to one screen to check out open orders, check out currently.
• 18:27
  Speaker B: Active quotes that maybe could be closing this month.
• 18:30
  Speaker A: So as I'm going into a sales.
• 18:32
  Speaker B: Call, we can talk about that. What are the open support cases? Maybe Warranty claim cases and that sort of thing.
• 18:38
  Speaker A: Like really, really quickly in the tool that's in my hand, even if it's on a phone.
• 18:43
  Speaker B: Great. Right.
• 18:44
  Speaker A: Really be able to quickly get the whole picture of what's going on with that customer without having to run around asking that IT guy to run a.
• 18:53
  Speaker B: SQL for you and then compile that.
• 18:55
  Speaker A: And then go through hard copies of things on your desk. That idea that you can get a really quick look at how that customer might be feeling is a big deal.
• 19:05
  Speaker B: So back to the.
• 19:06
  Speaker A: It's, you know, it's not.
• 19:07
  Speaker B: There's management level visibility there that can.
• 19:09
  Speaker A: Help in a big way.
• 19:10
  Speaker B: Right. Are people.
• 19:12
  Speaker A: We're busy.
• 19:12
  Speaker B: Right.
• 19:13
  Speaker A: So we don't have all the time in the world. So we have to be working on the highest, the opportunities with the biggest revenue potential, the customers that makes sense.
• 19:23
  Speaker B: To be working with. Right.
• 19:25
  Speaker A: We just, we, we just can't. We have to make good decisions on where to prioritize our time. And that data at a management level helps, but also at the individual salesperson level, it helps as well.
• 19:36
  Speaker C: Is there a particular CRM that you love over others?
• 19:39
  Speaker A: There isn't there?
• 19:41
  Speaker B: Right.
• 19:41
  Speaker A: I mean the one I'm working in, it's.
• 19:43
  Speaker B: That's a great question too.
• 19:45
  Speaker A: But if we just go back to.
• 19:46
  Speaker B: Me for a second, what I'm doing right now is my favorite thing, right. Like what tool am I working in?
• 19:52
  Speaker A: What project do I have going? I think it's been said in my.
• 19:56
  Speaker B: Career that the ability to really focus.
• 19:58
  Speaker A: And get transformational things done was a strength.
• 20:02
  Speaker B: Right.
• 20:03
  Speaker A: The whole idea of ah, we're not.
• 20:04
  Speaker B: Just running around keeping the lights on.
• 20:06
  Speaker A: We're. We've identified a great opportunity and we're.
• 20:10
  Speaker B: Going to attack it and we're going to get it done.
• 20:11
  Speaker A: My team operates the same way. So yeah, no, no real brand alliance, no specific tool alliance. We're using D365CRM right now.
• 20:21
  Speaker C: Okay, cool. There's a. That we could do a whole series on that alone.
• 20:28
  Speaker B: Right?
• 20:29
  Speaker C: You know, you really could. I'd love to. I would love to. I would love to go full, full on Microsoft just for the podcast.
• 20:37
  Speaker A: Yes, that would be interesting.
• 20:39
  Speaker C: It probably wouldn't make sense from like a monetary standpoint because I, you know, I want like, you know, power bi. I want all these boards. I want like, I want like everything, you know, and they're like, oh yeah, sure, nothing for. You can have that for 20 grand a month for your little rinky dink small team, you know. So instead I've Got to have like, you know, 20 to 30 apps and you know, hire a guy just to, to put those all together for the podcast.
• 20:59
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 21:00
  Speaker C: The what's. What about your, your methodology is there like do you guys, are you guys like, do you have all these Kanban boards going on and waterfall stuff and scrub. Scrub masters and stuff like that, or Scrum masters? I mean, how, how do you organize? Do you like, do you have like, do you have daily meetings? Weekly meetings? Is there like two week sprints? Like what's your, like what doing the most? Yeah, what, what's the, what's the, what do we say? Like you, you get into kind of like this like rhythm, you know what I mean? Like, how do you find that? What's the right rhythm for your team and how do you find that?
• 21:32
  Speaker A: So it depends on the project for sure.
• 21:34
  Speaker B: Right. But it, it is funny.
• 21:36
  Speaker A: So in the time I've been here, we've gotten into this feeling of five month projects, right.
• 21:41
  Speaker B: And they resemble waterfall, but they're a little, they're all, they're also very hybrid.
• 21:45
  Speaker A: Like, so we do get into the two week sprint. Why is that? We got into one project, my team.
• 21:52
  Speaker B: And I, and, and it became very.
• 21:54
  Speaker A: Necessary to say, all right, let's only plan for the next week, right? Let's, let's say, here's what is of the utmost importance to get this thing going to establish some momentum and then we'll come back, we'll talk about what.
• 22:06
  Speaker B: We did last week and what we're.
• 22:08
  Speaker A: Going to do for the next week.
• 22:09
  Speaker B: We did that for like four weeks.
• 22:10
  Speaker A: This is on a project that was struggling a little bit now the team.
• 22:14
  Speaker B: Was in a groove.
• 22:15
  Speaker A: Momentum, momentum was established and now all.
• 22:18
  Speaker B: Of a sudden it became, all right.
• 22:19
  Speaker A: Now we got some longer running things.
• 22:21
  Speaker B: That have to get done over the.
• 22:23
  Speaker A: Next three months, let's say. But we also got to do, we.
• 22:26
  Speaker B: Got to keep sprinting this thing out.
• 22:27
  Speaker A: That became more two week. So all of a sudden we were in a, we got a two week sprint going on, but also maybe data preparation for deliverables that are going to.
• 22:36
  Speaker C: Be like, how are you guys communicating then when are you having official meetings? Like, how does it, how does it look? Because I like, I love this idea of creating momentum.
• 22:43
  Speaker B: Yes. So weekly meetings for sure.
• 22:45
  Speaker A: Because if you don't have at least weekly.
• 22:48
  Speaker C: Monday, Tuesday, Monday morning, Tuesday afternoon. What's like, what's the.
• 22:52
  Speaker A: Yeah, that's funny. So there was a lot of Thursday mornings for the status type meeting on this one, but then there was breakout.
• 22:59
  Speaker B: Sessions Specific to topic.
• 23:01
  Speaker A: Almost daily, I would say. Right. And then even two IT people in.
• 23:05
  Speaker B: A working session in a room daily as well.
• 23:08
  Speaker A: Another project, though, we did. We literally did every morning meetings and.
• 23:13
  Speaker B: Then a weekly status report out with some of the more higher level project people.
• 23:18
  Speaker C: Were they working meetings or was it like 15 minutes? Who's doing this, who's doing that? Go.
• 23:22
  Speaker A: There was. They were a split between who's doing what, who's assigned to what, but then also working sessions. So they were about an hour and there.
• 23:31
  Speaker B: There were pretty big teams in there.
• 23:32
  Speaker A: But there was user acceptance testing going on, which was more. Which is less official than maybe what I just made it sound like.
• 23:40
  Speaker B: Right.
• 23:40
  Speaker A: It's more rapid prototyping, I would say. All right, we need to see if this scenario works. The right people are on the call and go through the testing to see.
• 23:50
  Speaker B: What the result was.
• 23:52
  Speaker A: So a lot of working sessions as well. Not just who's doing what. Did you get it done yesterday and.
• 23:59
  Speaker B: What are you doing going into tomorrow?
• 24:01
  Speaker A: There was working sessions as well.
• 24:03
  Speaker C: In person. Zoom teams.
• 24:05
  Speaker A: What were you guys? One project was a lot of in.
• 24:08
  Speaker B: Person because it was more of an internal team.
• 24:10
  Speaker A: But then we use teams mostly internally especially. But even on that, this other project that I'm describing, that was teams, a bunch of people in a number of people in a room. But then on that had a lot of external developers and external resources as well.
• 24:26
  Speaker C: Awesome. Sorry, I'm just. I think this, the details of all this is fascinating. And as far as communicating to the C suite and stuff like that, are you communicating to them and giving updates or do they even care? Like what's kind of the. What's the. Hey, I'm making sure that this is, this is the type of communication that they want or this is what's necessary. And do you map all this out and put this stuff out or you just know to do it kind of naturally?
• 24:52
  Speaker A: Yes, I've been doing this stuff for a long time. Right. And communicating to executives for a long time. So I know what to do. But we're in the process as an IT department where we're mapping it out.
• 25:05
  Speaker B: And making it more formal, but not in a bureaucratic, not in a slow. Anything down kind of a way.
• 25:10
  Speaker A: Just in a more organized. Really in a more organized way that.
• 25:14
  Speaker B: Makes it more sustainable.
• 25:15
  Speaker C: Love it. Okay, last couple questions here. Top. You get. You get your choice here. Top three security vendors or worst sales experience ever. I'm practicing with different things. We're trying to break up. We're trying to. You Know, we're trying to break up this podcast so that it's not just this one long monotone stream of just talking the whole time, which I can do is great, but I don't think people love listening. You know, we gotta break this thing up a little bit. So we need top three security vendors or worst sales experience ever.
• 25:43
  Speaker A: So let's go.
• 25:44
  Speaker B: Worst sales experience ever.
• 25:46
  Speaker C: Yes. How's that?
• 25:49
  Speaker A: And I think, and I don't even.
• 25:50
  Speaker B: Know if it was me getting sold.
• 25:52
  Speaker A: I kind of came into a situation where I think the sales experience for the decision makers prior to me was bad. And it was related to an ERP system and the idea that a relationship.
• 26:05
  Speaker B: Was going to be established to develop.
• 26:09
  Speaker A: That system to meet the company's needs. Exactly right. So I think the expectation of what could be done in a short amount of time from a software development perspective was.
• 26:21
  Speaker B: Was skewed.
• 26:22
  Speaker A: Now, I don't know.
• 26:23
  Speaker C: In other words, it was way over promised and vastly way underdelivered.
• 26:27
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 26:28
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 26:28
  Speaker A: Now, but. But was it because the decision makers were hearing what they wanted to hear.
• 26:33
  Speaker B: Or was it because they were being told that.
• 26:35
  Speaker A: I guess, maybe. I don't know. So I'm not sure.
• 26:37
  Speaker B: It was a bad sales experience overall.
• 26:39
  Speaker A: But I'm not sure where all of the responsibility lied.
• 26:42
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 26:43
  Speaker A: Just miscommunication across the board, I think was the problem.
• 26:46
  Speaker C: So it's basically like we're going to build this custom ERP for you. For you.
• 26:51
  Speaker A: And it wasn't at this company, by the way. Yeah.
• 26:53
  Speaker C: And full disclosure and the. So we're going to build this custom ERP for you and it's going to do everything that you ever wanted to and it's going to be a dream come true. And it's going to take two months.
• 27:04
  Speaker A: Yeah. Maybe a little bit more than two months, but pretty close to that.
• 27:06
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 27:06
  Speaker A: Non disruptive, easy to use.
• 27:09
  Speaker C: Okay. And. And everyone like, was there a POC or how. Is there some kind of demonstration of proof of concept that this is actually.
• 27:19
  Speaker A: Yeah. No, it was X's on a requirements list.
• 27:23
  Speaker C: Wow. Okay. So then what happens?
• 27:25
  Speaker A: So, yeah, now I don't know how.
• 27:27
  Speaker B: Full it can go, but it didn't work, put it that way.
• 27:29
  Speaker C: So nothing happened. It was a complete failure and we had to go to a different erp.
• 27:34
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 27:35
  Speaker C: I'm sorry, I'm sorry. The ERP things can be really miserable. I happen to know a few people right now that are just really going through it. It's like, it's just. It can be really, really bad. Can be really bad because it's so, there's so many moving parts. Whatever ended up happening at the end, were they like, hey, sorry, like too bad, you know, like, I guess we're just going to part ways or separate ways.
• 27:57
  Speaker A: Yep, that's what happened. And that's about all I probably can say on that.
• 28:01
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 28:01
  Speaker A: Now, I was part of an ERP implementation 13 years ago at a yet.
• 28:05
  Speaker B: A different company that went great and.
• 28:07
  Speaker A: That was across four manufacturing facilities, a major distribution center. So it was a big deal. And it, it, it got live, there was definitely learning curve, productivity dips, but got built back and became really strong quickly.
• 28:23
  Speaker C: So. So when choosing an erp, what should be the right, what should be the right sales process? Should there be some kind of like some kind of proof of concept or should there be some kind of verification of you can do what you say you're going to do type of thing?
• 28:36
  Speaker A: I think so.
• 28:37
  Speaker B: But is it practical? Right.
• 28:39
  Speaker A: It, you know, well, some projects are.
• 28:40
  Speaker C: So big it's almost impossible to like from a software development standpoint, like how do you pick a good soft software developer?
• 28:45
  Speaker B: Right. And should you even be picking a developer when you're talking ERP or.
• 28:49
  Speaker C: Right, right, exactly. Or should be or product that needs to be like, you know, custom fit to you or something.
• 28:56
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 28:56
  Speaker A: Or, or it's with a realization that it is only going to get you.
• 29:00
  Speaker B: 80% there and you're going to have.
• 29:02
  Speaker A: To find, you got to put the right people on the team and convince.
• 29:05
  Speaker B: Them that hey, we're going to use.
• 29:06
  Speaker A: This thing as designed and then maybe staff appropriately. Not that that's practical either, but knowing that there's going to be learning curve and a productivity dip, how do you protect yourself against that? Especially if you're trying to go away from antiquated on premise to, you know, more modern cloud based for other reasons.
• 29:27
  Speaker B: Right.
• 29:27
  Speaker A: Not just for efficiencies, but for better integration capabilities so that you can put more state of the art bolt on.
• 29:34
  Speaker B: Products in place more easily. Right.
• 29:36
  Speaker A: So you're not limited. Maybe that's the real benefit versus just getting to the system in the first place.
• 29:43
  Speaker C: Yeah, I think this idea of coming to terms with the fact just in general, as a general concept across the world, this idea that a software product can be Perfect is what 90% of the people think can happen, but in reality it can never happen.
• 30:01
  Speaker B: Right.
• 30:02
  Speaker C: It never happened. So it's like, it's like coming to terms with the fact that you will always be in some level of imperfection and chaos when it comes to Your systems and technology.
• 30:13
  Speaker B: Exactly. That's exactly right.
• 30:15
  Speaker A: Everything's a starting point, something to build off of.
• 30:18
  Speaker B: Right.
• 30:19
  Speaker A: And then you solve or you deliver on an opportunity, and that spawns 10 more.
• 30:24
  Speaker B: Right.
• 30:25
  Speaker A: And now you got to make a good decision on which way to go next. And.
• 30:27
  Speaker C: And. And this is the reason why people live off the grid in a zer is eventually. This is why they. They eventually realized that I'm going to revert back to. I don't know, I'm just gonna have 40 chickens live in a zert and a couple cows running around in milk, and I'm gonna, you know, have a greenhouse and screw this.
• 30:47
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 30:47
  Speaker B: I hear. I hear that type of conversation more and more.
• 30:50
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not saying it yet, but I hear it.
• 30:54
  Speaker C: I might be somewhere.
• 30:55
  Speaker A: I know.
• 30:55
  Speaker C: I think you might be in another. In another realm somewhere. Okay. Do you have any top. Do you have any really favorite vendors? Do you have, like, if you. If you think in your head right now, what's your. What's your most favorite vendors? Because I'm going to. Because I want to go after these people and ask them to sponsor the show. That's why I'm asking these questions selfishly all the time. What is your absolute favorite venue? Like, these guys just knock it out of the park every day, all day.
• 31:18
  Speaker A: Yeah. So I.
• 31:20
  Speaker C: You can say. You can say I'm biased, but, I mean, there's. There must be someone that you love, and it might be. It might actually be the rep, not the company, you know, because sometimes. Because people buy from people that they like. Right. People buy from people they don't buy from an app, and then, you know, but I guess they do sometimes.
• 31:38
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm.
• 31:39
  Speaker B: I don't.
• 31:39
  Speaker A: Yeah. Maybe I won't throw any names out there if that's. If that's all right.
• 31:43
  Speaker C: Okay. No problem. Yeah. That tells me that you're a secure company and ready for World War III and people coming off and attacking. But it has been a pleasure having you on the show. Is there anything, Any one thing that you wanted, you know, if you had one message to. To deliver out to the. Your colleagues and other IT leaders out there? Is there something that you learned along the way that is, you know, profound or something that you fell upon that you never quite realized or something. Or any message that you'd like to deliver?
• 32:09
  Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
• 32:11
  Speaker B: I'll say this.
• 32:12
  Speaker A: In my career, I think persistence is.
• 32:15
  Speaker B: Is everything.
• 32:16
  Speaker A: Right. Stay with it. You get live on something. Know right away that the next round of improvements is coming. The next big project is now clear because you just got that one done. But it really comes back to, you can get through it, but you have.
• 32:31
  Speaker B: To stay with it.
• 32:32
  Speaker A: You have to have a high sense.
• 32:33
  Speaker B: Of urgency in the right moment.
• 32:35
  Speaker A: But otherwise it is. And I know people talk about it.
• 32:37
  Speaker B: Being a marathon or a long game.
• 32:39
  Speaker A: But you got to drift in and.
• 32:40
  Speaker B: Out of that at the appropriate times, both with yourself and with your teams.
• 32:44
  Speaker A: So just staying with it in persistence, perseverance, whatever the word is, will help.
• 32:49
  Speaker B: You do a lot of great things.
• 32:51
  Speaker C: That. That's actually really spot on. I can relate with that a lot. You know, being able to be. Have a sense of urgency when you need it and. But also at the same time, go to bed when you need to and realize that you're gonna, you're gonna feel a lot better the next morning. Like you. There's some points where you just got so much burnout and so much eye strain and you're like, man, exhausted. And then you wake up the next day and you're ready to go again.
• 33:17
  Speaker A: Members of my team and I left on a Friday in a hopeless situation. And by 10 o'clock the following Monday, we had everything figured out. Right. It's crazy. And that's.
• 33:26
  Speaker B: That's a recent story.
• 33:27
  Speaker C: I love that. I actually love that we left. We left in a hopeless situation, went to bed, woke up, and we were like, yeah, it's not that bad.
• 33:35
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 33:36
  Speaker C: Thank you so much for being on Dissecting Popularity. Nerd. It's been a pleasure, actually. Some, some very good mind blowing moments here.
• 33:42
  Speaker A: All right, thank.