Detailed Notes
A strong ERP implementation strategy can make or break your project.
In this episode of the Building Better Developers podcast, we continue the conversation with Dustin Domerese—focusing on what actually works when implementing ERP and CRM systems.
Instead of theory, we dive into practical strategies that help teams succeed: • Why you must start with outcomes, not tools • How to align teams before implementation • The power of 90-day delivery cycles • How to drive adoption and reduce resistance • The role of AI in modern ERP planning
If you’re leading or planning an ERP or CRM implementation, this episode gives you a clear path forward.
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Chapters
00:00 Intro 01:20 Start with the problem, not the software 05:10 Aligning teams and stakeholders 09:30 Building the right implementation team 13:40 Why 90-day cycles work 17:50 Driving adoption and momentum 21:10 AI in ERP and CRM planning 25:30 Final thoughts
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Call to Action
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Transcript Text
Hello and welcome back. We are continuing our season. We are getting unstuck. We're moving forward. We're getting momentum. All of those good things that are moving us off our butt and into the new year. getting more productive, getting products out there and all of that kind of stuff. This is the building better developers podcast, developer podcast. I am Rob Brighthead, one of the founders of developer. Also one of the people that is not stuck right now because we're about to dive into part two of our conversation with Dustin. Uh we're going to talk ERPs, we're going to talk CRM, we're going to talk AI, we're going to talk a lot of letters and we're going to put them all together and we're going to have a great time doing so. Before doing that, uh, also I happen to be the founder of RB Consulting where we help you with a technology reality check. It's so much what we're talking about this episode is sometimes you really need to understand where you are before you get off, you know, jump in your car and go off on vacation. If you don't have your bags packed and you start going, you're going to have some issues with that. Good thing and bad thing. Good thing is I am after a long winter, spring is here. I have got like I'm seeing nice weather. I've seen the sun. Uh it has been like sometimes the seasonal stuff is just you really got to have that kind of season. You know, sometimes it's like we do it in work, we do it in, you know, life. Uh it is sometimes very nice to be moving on to that next season. Uh the bad point, uh a bad thing that I've been running into lately is um geez, I'm going to I'll just I'll just go there. The world is falling apart. like news just just you should come listen to this more often because I go to these other places and I hear news and it's just depressing people out there like just we need more happy people. We need less angry at people. We need more like love, less hate. I know it's all fufu and all that kind of stuff. It's not going to be one of those kind of podcasts. You'll find out very soon because Michael's quite the hater that we're about to talk to here, but I kid. Um yeah, it's just like I'm I'm seasons. I'm ready for a new season there as well. I'm also ready for my season of introduction to be done and Michael to introduce himself. >> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malash, one of the co-founders of developer, building better developers. I'm also the founder of Envision QA where we build and test custom software that eliminates your bottlenecks. That way your business can run smoother and grow faster. Uh good thing, bad thing, uh we are getting into better seasons here in Tennessee. The weather's getting better. starting to get out again and starting to enjoy the outside more after being cooked up for months on end. Uh literally couldn't leave the house for two weeks due to ice. So yes, it weather is finally nice. We're able to get back out in the world and enjoy things. Bad thing. Agree with you, Rob. I'm back on the news fast. I am trying to avoid anything negative out there right now. The world is just a crazy place and I'd rather just go outside, watch the birds and enjoy the sunshine and enjoy talking to our guests here. >> And you know that is like that is a cure for all that ails you is just come here on a regular basis, hang out with us. We're going to have some fun. We're going to Yes, we are going to complain a little bit. We're going to show some bad stuff that is like projects gone bad and stuff like that, but it's not near as bad as what it could be. And we're going to help you find ways through it. uh which is where we're going to go with this conversation is uh Dustin's got some great really he drops a lot of really good you know points through last episode and this one about how to tackle what honestly is one of the like bigger challenges businesses face these days. I don't know how many times uh ERM ERP u ERP solutions have been a huge problem for a company that has cost them way more than it's supposed to. um you know, it's just it's it has not been successful and it really is a solvable problem. And that's part of what we're talking about here and how to make sure that if you're part of one that you can do your best to uh get your ducks in a row and ensure or at least very much improve the odds for your success. So, let's just pick up right where we left off and here we are back with Dustin. So, you've already kind of touched on using AI for smaller businesses and even the larger companies with the legacy mindset. What are some of the things that you would recommend to help them get their ducks in order before looking at these bigger systems, the CRM, the ERPs to figure out their data? You know, how would you get started to even understand this? because you know if you're a startup, you're an entrepreneur, you might be a tech guy, you might be a sales guy, but you don't have all the pieces to put the business together. What are some of the things that um that would do you recommend to these people to get started? >> Number one is assessing what the problem you're trying to solve is. You know, the old saying, people don't go to the store to buy a drill bit. They go to the store to buy a hole. and the drill bit is just the way that you get the hole. Like understanding what problems we're actually trying to solve and making sure those are documented and that you have complete alignment across your organization on what problem you're trying to solve. We want to increase our customer retention by 20% this year. Like that's a real outcome. That didn't have anything to do with software, but software, technology, adopting some of these tools can absolutely be the driver for why you can increase your customer retention rates. So, understanding what the problem is and making sure that the entire organization has alignment on what that is. To me, that's really number one. And number two, building a great team internally that will be supportive of that kind of education and creative thinking. Um, you don't want to build a team internally that is responsible for technology initiatives, but they're adverse to the new technology. Like, what why would we why would we want to build an entire team of of technologists that are scared that AI is going to take their job as a developer? I mean, that that seems silly to me. they should be embracing and understanding how that affects their organization and really starting to put processes and things in place to do things like vibe coding. Um, I mean that that's an entirely different subject, but you got individuals now that are literally vibe coding apps that solve business problems and technologists are resisting that. Why? Like we've got to be embracing of those kinds of things and creating processes and procedures that enhance the user's ability to do it. So making sure you've got teams with the right mentality in my mind is key. And the third thing is never let a project go more than 90 days. I think you should live in a 90-day world. And this is something Rob, you mentioned it earlier, but like ERP projects are notorious for taking years to complete. And here's the bad part about that. Can you imagine a business having the exact same goals for multiple years? >> All have different like every quarter you've got a reset of what their plans are as an organization, what their strategic initiatives are and the software never can get done because the business is constantly changing and evolving. Um, not only that, but you know ERP systems are known as the CFO killer for a reason. like most CFOs don't survive an ERP implementation. I don't think it's because they're doing anything wrong. I just think it's because ERP systems take so long to implement. You're hitting people's career um you know their their longevity at a company anyway. And so if that's one or two years and ERP systems take one or two years, well, statistics say that they just won't be around. Um so I I I kind of combat that a little bit like, oh, it's the reason why CFOs are getting fired. I don't think that's true. I just think that they take so long. So, living in this 90-day world, there's something mental that happens to our goals after 90 days. They get stale. Priorities shift, business changes, you know, economies change every 90 days. Like, there's different cycles that we get in uh every 90 days. And so, I just think making sure you've got smaller chunks of new technology initiatives that can be delivered in a 90-day window is so important. Like if you can't deliver it in 90 days, it's too big. So break it up, do something smaller, get adoption, and get the ball rolling internally is so important. Yeah, I'm a big fan of that being why I feel like that's a lot of why agile was embraced to the level it was is because it really forced stuff into smaller bite-sized chunks. >> Yeah. >> And yeah, it's that that is a perfect example. I don't know how many times I've been in these these ERP projects that like they start out okay and you get like second quarter, third quarter into it and now you're referring back to stuff you're like why did we decide that that way? It's like oh yeah because the business was different then. I don't know how many times I've been in I was in one that went long enough it went through three different consulting companies that were part of it along the way and every time they almost had to reset because they would go back and have to rein people because processes had changed, people had changed. It's it's a moving target. So you have to get something to just say okay let's you can't get it all in one bite. Let's get a you know draw a line in the sand. Let's aim for that. get that, you know, declare success even if it's moderate success and then move on to the next step. So at least you've got something to build on instead of like, you know, constantly resetting >> it because it's momentum too, right? I mean, it's just >> Yeah, >> absolutely does. >> That's like Yeah, that's our theme. this this CISA that's like a perfect one is it it is it really it really is one of those things that you get that win and especially I think and I'm going to ask you I wonder your thoughts on this as well because especially CRM but then more so like we get into ERPs and that where it touches everybody it touches their daily job almost across the board and doesn't it feel more like just getting any win helps the internal resistance a little bit because now people like it builds a little bit of trust for the ERP Absolutely it does. I mean that that kind of confidence building. I mean people hate change. >> Um people hate change. It's just it's human nature. Like we like, you know, we like our stuff where it was yesterday where we left it. Um my my children are notorious for this. I've got a couple of uh teenage sons that never can. And I I like it cuz they like tools and they like to to go do um crafts. And you know, my son the other day was out, you know, building a a ramp and and doing some other things that he likes to do, but the tools never go back in the same place where they were before. And I can never find a screwdriver when I need it. That is frustrating for me. Is that a big deal? No, it's not a big deal, but it's one of the most frustrating things in my life because I don't like change. I don't like stuff not being where I put it. Um, and so I think there's just that that part, especially CRM, because you're dealing with a different kind of personality. Most of your users of CRM systems are sales and marketing um, and customer service to a certain extent, and most of your ERP users are accounting and warehouse and and back office staff. And so there's different personality traits that come along with that. And man, I just think the sales and marketing personalities specifically are resistant to system change. Um, it's it's in their DNA to be able to be more creative and be more structured in the way that they do things and they just like to get in and do their job. Um, and without someone moving their cheese, so to speak. So, I think change is is a part of it. We got to make these things exciting, too. like throw a party. Um like do some go live events doing doing some excitement around these projects are key and pulling everybody in making them feel involved as a part of this. Um, you know, as an example, like throughout the project, issue a project newsletter that puts photos of people working in a conference room together and the the the video calls that we're all on designing something on a virtual whiteboard, like whatever you can pull together, screenshots of the new system that they're going to get and how it's going to improve their life. I I think we miss the marketing angle of software internally as well making it exciting and trying to break down that resistance to to the systems. Uh we got to bring got to bring people along for the ride and make them feel involved as a part of these projects. I think that helps with the training side of it as well because then you're sort of like that's again you're sort of peacemealing it along the way. So now people have a little bit better idea of what what to expect when it it hits their desktop and they start using like oh yeah I saw saw that on the newsletter last week or the you know the little training session we had or the brown bag session we had. So I I 100% think that that marketing and it's it really I guess that is what it is but it's also like training and it's also just due diligence making sure that the people are going to use it know how to use what it is you're building. Now, you mentioned earlier and I wanted to swing back around AI. One of the things that um haven't actually asked here yet u any of our other uh guests is one of the things I'm seeing is with AI uh RFPs and project proposals and things like that are starting to I'm starting to see uh entrepreneurs and business owners use AI to build to basically say I want to build X or I want to solve problem Y and they go to AI and say well how do I do this and it gives them a nice little laundry list of like here's all the things you should do. Now, I think you probably we all know, especially all those people in the the audience that are technologists, is you'll get stuff that's like, you know, go build this app out of HTML and this CSS and, you know, this language when it's like, well, no, that's not really what it was supposed to be, but the the guts of it are there a little bit. Are you seeing that that's starting to spill over into some of these CRM and ERP conversations a little more where you're you're almost getting uh like an AI question effect? So you're to me I would think it's you're getting better interviews upfront because now it's sort it is essentially educating the people that are involved a little bit more about what they're getting into. >> It absolutely is getting better. I mean, I can remember responding to RFPs um as soon as 2 years ago where you would see silly requirements like, you know, we want a a userfriendly interface for creating good customer experience. Like what how am I supposed to implement system or tell you what that's going to cost? Um every one of us have a different perspective of what userfriendly and great customer experience means. Um, and literally that would be requirements listed because someone's trying to think of what they want and they're trying to write it down. Now we're seeing real requirements that come out. I think there's a a danger the other direction because of course people are using LLMs to to write some of these requirements and they're much better because of it. I think um, you know, letting the systems help us design systems is a is a very good thing. I think we can go the other direction, too, though, where people aren't even reading or validating what the artificial intelligence is saying. They're just dropping it into an RFP. Um, it was funny. We seen one the other day where where literally they were asking for a module. They didn't know it was a module, but it was an SAP module that they listed in the RFP. Well, this was a Microsoft RFP. And so, we went back and we questioned the procurement desk cuz they don't know, right? I mean, a lot of these decisions are being run by procurement departments and based on requirements that they downloaded or chatgpted into some template. Um, and so we asked him, we're like, did you mean that you wanted to implement an SAP module with a Microsoft ERP? Like that's possible, but why would you do that? Um, and the response back was, actually, no. That that was a mistake. We shouldn't have we shouldn't have put that in the the RFP as a requirement. we all know exactly what happened there. They there was a you know a hallucination in in the the uh chat GPT and it went and found some HR module and plugged it in and and thought that that would be a great solution when of course it wasn't a part of the overall business strategy. So there is context that these tools have to have and I think that's where to drive it back to to something that I mentioned earlier. Knowing what your outcomes are as a business is the most important thing to have. LLMs now can absolutely build a great RFP or great set of requirements as long as it knows what your outcome is. But if you don't even know what your outcome is or every stakeholder in the company does is different in what their outcome they're expecting from the tool is, then the requirements are going to be just as bad as they've always been. Only now they're going to be confidently bad and that may be worse than uh unconfidently bad the way it used to be. Yeah, I'll ran into one the other day which is another this is like a I guess a word to the warning to the wise. uh it was somebody that had obviously had built you know from the start they had obviously built this whole RFP out and they had towards the end they had some questions that were um assessment questions for people that were responding they wanted to be able to assess like the level of the people were going that were being uh you know that were going to be respond the respondents but the the problem is and they were great questions they were overly detailed uh questions and things like that so it's like this is a bit much for an RFP it's almost you're almost making me give you the solution as part of the RFP. But the funny thing was is that they forgot to they like pasted copy and pasted a little bit too much. And then right beneath that was the same questions and said this is what you should expect. This is what they need to make sure they touch on in the answers. And I'm like you gave everybody the answer key. That's not really going to help you too much. >> And then of course everyone used uh chat GBT or another LLM to respond to those questions which yeah, not sure how much value this is all going to add. There is some of that that those are actually interesting. I've I've had those conversations u myself where I'll like get an email that is obviously AI and I'll respond in an AI and then it'll go back and forth a couple times and I'm at one point I'm like when do we become like just useless and we'll just let the AI talk to each other and they'll just they'll go figure their stuff out and say yeah this is what we need to do. But um you know it is >> time in Portugal is what it sounds like. >> I'm I'm not I am not against that. Um, but I think that gets to it really gets to your point and something we bring out a lot is understanding your why. Understanding what it is you're actually trying to do. And I think you get I think this is where it it sort of comes back to circle full circle to where we started is that you get people that are they understand their business. They understand that they've got some problems but they don't really fully understand it. they need somebody, you know, they like they don't understand sales sales enough or HR enough or it enough or finance enough or some of these pieces and they just aren't able to put all the pieces in place and AI doesn't fix that. If you ask it questions and you don't tell it, by the way, this is Microsoft, you know, instead of an SAP, it's going to give you, you know, it'll hallucinate, but basically just give you whatever it pulls off the top of the deck. It's not going to go vet that. So, I think those are just a lot of excellent points there. This was really uh it's really neat. It's sort of a timely topic to have something that's so complex, but it also I think more people can relate to it these days down on the ai level because we've all done some you know simple write an email or something like that and seen it go off the rails and I think it's becoming more I think we're all learning a little bit to become more sensitive to the details of how to define a problem and and where to go from that. Um, and sort of in the last sort of as a and because we're we're running out of time now, but it's sort of as a a closing it up based on you know how you've seen things progress is where do you see this going uh as we step forward in the years ahead. One of the things as an example I saw somebody's like SAS may disappear because all these vibe coders will be able to just custom code everything. So do you see maybe that we are switching the pendulum is swimming swinging back to more of a like much more people doing their own custom thing as opposed to the SAS uh apocass apocalypse basically that we've had for the last 10 to 15 years. >> I think that's very possible um because it is easier now than it has ever been um to release a new piece of software that that solves a very specific business problem. Um I think the challenge with a lot of that is going to be you know integrations between systems are still it's it's not as easy to vibe code those kind of solutions as it will be in in 2 to 3 years I'm sure uh maybe sooner but the integrations between the products get more complex the more bespoke solutions you start launching and so I think there's a there's a challenge there that that comes as a part of this that someone needs to solve and and maybe there's some people smarter than me that are already working on, you know, that kind of integration technology where you could vibe code um system integrations between software products that it may not have any idea what the two endpoints have um have any any mirroring of them. It's it can determine what the right mappings and write the data transfers and some of those other things. So, I'm I'm positive that that's coming. I think what's more likely in the short term is we're going to see a lot of people that are moving into bespoke add-ons for core platforms. So you're going to get lots of people vibe coding their own Microsoft Business Central, FNO, SAP, Oracle Netswuite, like all of those products are all have their, you know, their app store. we're going to see a lot of vibecoded apps that start coming out for these platforms. And so I think it's going to be hard for somebody to to get to the point where they're vibe coding an entire accounting system. Um, not impossible, but it it's it's going to be difficult to get to the point where you're going to go sell a CFO that they should use this, you know, this company that just started last month um because they've got this cool vibecoded thing, even if it's just as good. I I don't want to minimize um the quality. I think the quality could be there, but I think confidence level, it's going to be really hard to get adoption and somebody to sign off on putting that as the backbone of business operations um yet. So, I think having add-ons that are created by AI and vibecoded add-ons that fit into a core product and solve a very specific vertical need um but still using, you know, your big four players as the the backbone of the ERP and CRM systems. I I think that's absolutely going to happen. It probably already is happening with a lot of these that we don't even know about. Uh I want to thank you for your time and for just like diving in with all of this. Um we have failed to mention that you have uh you've got a book called Reboot uh an executive playbook for rescuing ERP CRM and digital transformation projects from disaster which I think everybody in the audience has run into one of those in one way form or fashion. Um what is the best way for people to get a hold of you if they're now like this sounds like a guy that I want to learn more about or you know check out the book? Yeah, you can get the book on Amazon. Um, and I would encourage everybody to take a look at dynamicconultantsgroup.com, which is the the company that I founded 12 years ago, specifically doing this type of thing for organizations. There's actually a a health assessment that we do on our website. You can find a link at dynamic consultantsgroup.com. Um, and it it gives people the ability to walk through a free health assessment of their CRM and ERP platform to be able to find out where they're benchmarking against their peers. So, it's a pretty cool tool. You can also reach out to us directly on that form as well to be able to get in contact with somebody um to do a deeper analysis. Um, or if you're looking to explore a brand new project, certainly would be willing to have some conversations and help out in any way that we can. >> Excellent. Well, thank you so much for your time. We're going to let everybody else uh pencils down. You can stop taking notes and uh we will be back uh with continuing uh yes and our we we're now doing our weekly challenges. You'll have that. But then right after that, we will be back into yet another interview and just continuing challenge uh like striding our way through the season and trying to get some forward momentum going and trying to make sure that we start the year on the right foot. As always, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. Now, for the bonus um sort of this our after the show bonus stuff, we we do a weekly challenge these days that we try to like every day like just you're thinking like developers and entrepreneurs is a challenge for them to do in the next seven days, something related to what we've just talked about. And so I was wondering if you got something and I'll I'll give you either an either or. Uh if you've got something you're like this is something that I think every business owner or even side hustler that you should do that would be a great challenge for them. Or if you've got something that's just a not even a challenge but just a like a lesson learned that you think you would like that would be awesome to pass on to everybody. Uh I'm going to put you on the hot seat for a little bit and let you share that. >> I love it. We mentioned the surveillance performance excellence and automation before. So the we call it spear um surveillance performance excellence automation leading you to the right road map or the results from your project. So spear I would encourage everybody to write down your top five business processes. We hire people. We ship products. We sell widgets. We build widgets. And we purchase components for the widgets. Whatever your top five processes are in your business and list out where you currently are. Are you just in performance? Can you just do you not even have the data to know where you're at with that core process? Do you actually have um your your performance? So you have surveillance performance. Are you at excellence? In other words, everybody's doing it the exact same way every time. Or are you all the way to automation? It's fully automated. Nobody even the company even really has to to worry about that core process. Where are you at today? And where do you want to go in the next 90 days? I want to move us from surveillance to performance. And the way I'm going to do that is by making sure I have all of the data that I need in the same place. It could just be an Excel spreadsheet for now. just get the data and make sure it's being updated every week. You know, those kinds of things. Where are you at today with the C top five processes and where do you hope to be in the next 90 days? I think that'll really shed a lot of light for organizations to be able to assess where they where they're at in their digital transformation journey. >> Yeah, that and that touches on something I've said many times that sometimes the technology you need to solve your problem is just like pencil and paper. You just need to like start. Sometimes you're not you're not ready to you're not ready to run. you need to be able to just get yourself onto the bike without falling over on your on your side at this point. So, appreciate that's a that's an excellent um that's an excellent challenge out there, an excellent task. I love that. I think it's a a great way I think all of us regardless of what our business is or where we're at that we can we can think through that. And honestly, even if we work for somebody else, I think that's a great thing to think about like what is what is my organization at? Do we what do I know about my organization and and where they live and uh and their maturity? So, thank you so much for your time. I'll let you get back to your day and enjoy your your Kansas City weather there and u hopefully it will get better and it will it'll be hotter than you can stand I'm sure within another couple of months because that's how it is there. >> Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Rob, Mike, it was really good to meet you today. We appreciate everything. >> Yeah. Thanks a lot. If there's anything we can do to help you out, let us know. And have a good one. We'll talk to you again soon. Okay. >> Thanks, guys. Yeah. Bye. >> Thank you.
Transcript Segments
Hello and welcome back. We are
continuing our season. We are getting
unstuck. We're moving forward. We're
getting momentum. All of those good
things that are moving us off our butt
and into the new year. getting more
productive, getting products out there
and all of that kind of stuff. This is
the building better developers podcast,
developer podcast. I am Rob Brighthead,
one of the founders of developer. Also
one of the people that is not stuck
right now because we're about to dive
into part two of our conversation with
Dustin. Uh we're going to talk ERPs,
we're going to talk CRM, we're going to
talk AI, we're going to talk a lot of
letters and we're going to put them all
together and we're going to have a great
time doing so. Before doing that, uh,
also I happen to be the founder of RB
Consulting where we help you with a
technology reality check. It's so much
what we're talking about this episode is
sometimes you really need to understand
where you are before you get off, you
know, jump in your car and go off on
vacation. If you don't have your bags
packed and you start going, you're going
to have some issues with that.
Good thing and bad thing. Good thing is
I am after a long winter, spring is
here. I have got like I'm seeing nice
weather. I've seen the sun. Uh it has
been like sometimes the seasonal stuff
is just you really got to have that kind
of season. You know, sometimes it's like
we do it in work, we do it in, you know,
life. Uh it is sometimes very nice to be
moving on to that next season. Uh the
bad point, uh a bad thing that I've been
running into lately is um geez, I'm
going to I'll just I'll just go there.
The world is falling apart. like news
just just you should come listen to this
more often because I go to these other
places and I hear news and it's just
depressing people out there like just we
need more happy people. We need less
angry at people. We need more like love,
less hate. I know it's all fufu and all
that kind of stuff. It's not going to be
one of those kind of podcasts. You'll
find out very soon because Michael's
quite the hater that we're about to talk
to here, but I kid. Um yeah, it's just
like I'm I'm seasons. I'm ready for a
new season there as well. I'm also ready
for my season of introduction to be done
and Michael to introduce himself.
>> Hey everyone, my name is Michael Malash,
one of the co-founders of developer,
building better developers. I'm also the
founder of Envision QA where we build
and test custom software that eliminates
your bottlenecks. That way your business
can run smoother and grow faster. Uh
good thing, bad thing, uh we are getting
into better seasons here in Tennessee.
The weather's getting better. starting
to get out again and starting to enjoy
the outside more after being cooked up
for months on end. Uh literally couldn't
leave the house for two weeks due to
ice. So yes, it weather is finally nice.
We're able to get back out in the world
and enjoy things. Bad thing. Agree with
you, Rob. I'm back on the news fast. I
am trying to avoid anything negative out
there right now. The world is just a
crazy place and I'd rather just go
outside, watch the birds and enjoy the
sunshine and enjoy talking to our guests
here.
>> And you know that is like that is a cure
for all that ails you is just come here
on a regular basis, hang out with us.
We're going to have some fun. We're
going to Yes, we are going to complain a
little bit. We're going to show some bad
stuff that is like projects gone bad and
stuff like that, but it's not near as
bad as what it could be. And we're going
to help you find ways through it. uh
which is where we're going to go with
this conversation is uh Dustin's got
some great really he drops a lot of
really good you know points
through last episode and this one about
how to tackle what honestly is one of
the like bigger challenges businesses
face these days. I don't know how many
times uh ERM ERP u ERP solutions have
been a huge problem for a company that
has cost them way more than it's
supposed to. um you know, it's just it's
it has not been successful and it really
is a solvable problem. And that's part
of what we're talking about here and how
to make sure that if you're part of one
that you can do your best to uh get your
ducks in a row and ensure or at least
very much improve the odds for your
success.
So, let's just pick up right where we
left off and here we are back with
Dustin.
So, you've already kind of touched on
using AI for smaller businesses and even
the larger companies with the legacy
mindset. What are some of the things
that you would recommend to help them
get their ducks in order before looking
at these bigger systems, the CRM, the
ERPs to
figure out their data? You know, how
would you get started to even understand
this? because you know if you're a
startup, you're an entrepreneur, you
might be a tech guy, you might be a
sales guy, but you don't have all the
pieces to put the business together.
What are some of the things that um that
would do you recommend to these people
to get started?
>> Number one is assessing what the problem
you're trying to solve is. You know, the
old saying, people don't go to the store
to buy a drill bit. They go to the store
to buy a hole. and the drill bit is just
the way that you get the hole. Like
understanding what problems we're
actually trying to solve and making sure
those are documented and that you have
complete alignment across your
organization on what problem you're
trying to solve. We want to increase our
customer retention by 20% this year.
Like that's a real outcome. That didn't
have anything to do with software, but
software, technology, adopting some of
these tools can absolutely be the driver
for why you can increase your customer
retention rates. So, understanding what
the problem is and making sure that the
entire organization has alignment on
what that is. To me, that's really
number one. And number two, building a
great team internally that will be
supportive of that kind of education and
creative thinking. Um, you don't want to
build a team internally that is
responsible for technology initiatives,
but they're adverse to the new
technology. Like, what why would we why
would we want to build an entire team of
of technologists that are scared that AI
is going to take their job as a
developer? I mean, that that seems silly
to me. they should be embracing and
understanding how that affects their
organization and really starting to put
processes and things in place to do
things like vibe coding. Um, I mean that
that's an entirely different subject,
but you got individuals now that are
literally vibe coding apps that solve
business problems and technologists are
resisting that. Why? Like we've got to
be embracing of those kinds of things
and creating processes and procedures
that enhance the user's ability to do
it. So making sure you've got teams with
the right mentality in my mind is key.
And the third thing is never let a
project go more than 90 days. I think
you should live in a 90-day world. And
this is something Rob, you mentioned it
earlier, but like ERP projects are
notorious for taking years to complete.
And here's the bad part about that. Can
you imagine a business having the exact
same goals for multiple years?
>> All have different like every quarter
you've got a reset of what their plans
are as an organization, what their
strategic initiatives are and the
software never can get done because the
business is constantly changing and
evolving. Um, not only that, but you
know ERP systems are known as the CFO
killer for a reason. like most CFOs
don't survive an ERP implementation. I
don't think it's because they're doing
anything wrong. I just think it's
because ERP systems take so long to
implement. You're hitting people's
career um you know their their longevity
at a company anyway. And so if that's
one or two years and ERP systems take
one or two years, well, statistics say
that they just won't be around. Um so I
I I kind of combat that a little bit
like, oh, it's the reason why CFOs are
getting fired. I don't think that's
true. I just think that they take so
long. So, living in this 90-day world,
there's something mental that happens to
our goals after 90 days. They get stale.
Priorities shift, business changes, you
know, economies change every 90 days.
Like, there's different cycles that we
get in uh every 90 days. And so, I just
think making sure you've got smaller
chunks of new technology initiatives
that can be delivered in a 90-day window
is so important. Like if you can't
deliver it in 90 days, it's too big. So
break it up, do something smaller, get
adoption, and get the ball rolling
internally is so important.
Yeah, I'm a big fan of that being why I
feel like that's a lot of why agile was
embraced to the level it was is because
it really forced stuff into smaller
bite-sized chunks.
>> Yeah.
>> And yeah, it's
that that is a perfect example. I don't
know how many times I've been in these
these ERP projects that like they start
out okay and you get like second
quarter, third quarter into it and now
you're referring back to stuff you're
like why did we decide that that way?
It's like oh yeah because the business
was different then. I don't know how
many times I've been in I was in one
that went long enough it went through
three different consulting companies
that were part of it along the way and
every time they almost had to reset
because they would go back and have to
rein people because processes had
changed, people had changed. It's it's a
moving target. So you have to get
something to just say okay let's you
can't get it all in one bite. Let's get
a you know draw a line in the sand.
Let's aim for that. get that, you know,
declare success even if it's moderate
success and then move on to the next
step. So at least you've got something
to build on instead of like, you know,
constantly resetting
>> it because it's momentum too, right? I
mean, it's just
>> Yeah,
>> absolutely does.
>> That's like Yeah, that's our theme. this
this CISA that's like a perfect one is
it it is it really it really is one of
those things that you get that win and
especially I think and I'm going to ask
you I wonder your thoughts on this as
well because especially CRM but then
more so like we get into ERPs and that
where it touches everybody it touches
their daily job almost across the board
and doesn't it feel more like just
getting any win helps the internal
resistance a little bit because now
people like it builds a little bit of
trust for the ERP
Absolutely it does. I mean that that
kind of confidence building. I mean
people hate change.
>> Um people hate change. It's just it's
human nature. Like we like, you know, we
like our stuff where it was yesterday
where we left it. Um my my children are
notorious for this. I've got a couple of
uh teenage sons that never can. And I I
like it cuz they like tools and they
like to to go do um crafts. And you
know, my son the other day was out, you
know, building a a ramp and and doing
some other things that he likes to do,
but the tools never go back in the same
place where they were before. And I can
never find a screwdriver when I need it.
That is frustrating for me. Is that a
big deal? No, it's not a big deal, but
it's one of the most frustrating things
in my life because I don't like change.
I don't like stuff not being where I put
it. Um, and so I think there's just that
that part, especially CRM, because
you're dealing with a different kind of
personality. Most of your users of CRM
systems are sales and marketing um, and
customer service to a certain extent,
and most of your ERP users are
accounting and warehouse and and back
office staff. And so there's different
personality traits that come along with
that. And man, I just think the sales
and marketing personalities specifically
are resistant to system change. Um, it's
it's in their DNA to be able to be more
creative and be more structured in the
way that they do things and they just
like to get in and do their job. Um, and
without someone moving their cheese, so
to speak. So, I think change is is a
part of it. We got to make these things
exciting, too. like throw a party. Um
like do some go live events doing doing
some excitement around these projects
are key and pulling everybody in making
them feel involved as a part of this.
Um, you know, as an example, like
throughout the project, issue a project
newsletter that puts photos of people
working in a conference room together
and the the the video calls that we're
all on designing something on a virtual
whiteboard, like whatever you can pull
together, screenshots of the new system
that they're going to get and how it's
going to improve their life. I I think
we miss the marketing angle of software
internally as well making it exciting
and trying to break down that resistance
to to the systems. Uh we got to bring
got to bring people along for the ride
and make them feel involved as a part of
these projects.
I think that helps with the training
side of it as well because then you're
sort of like that's again you're sort of
peacemealing it along the way. So now
people have a little bit better idea of
what what to expect when it it hits
their desktop and they start using like
oh yeah I saw saw that on the newsletter
last week or the you know the little
training session we had or the brown bag
session we had. So I I 100% think that
that marketing and it's it really I
guess that is what it is but it's also
like training and it's also just due
diligence making sure that the people
are going to use it know how to use what
it is you're building.
Now, you mentioned earlier and I wanted
to swing back around AI. One of the
things that um haven't actually asked
here yet u any of our other uh guests is
one of the things I'm seeing is with AI
uh RFPs and project proposals and things
like that are starting to I'm starting
to see uh entrepreneurs and business
owners use AI to build to basically say
I want to build X or I want to solve
problem Y and they go to AI and say well
how do I do this and it gives them a
nice little laundry list of like here's
all the things you should do. Now, I
think you probably we all know,
especially all those people in the the
audience that are technologists, is
you'll get stuff that's like, you know,
go build this app out of HTML and this
CSS and, you know, this language when
it's like, well, no, that's not really
what it was supposed to be, but the the
guts of it are there a little bit. Are
you seeing that that's starting to spill
over into some of these CRM and ERP
conversations a little more where you're
you're almost getting uh like an AI
question effect? So you're to me I would
think it's you're getting better
interviews upfront because now it's sort
it is essentially educating the people
that are involved a little bit more
about what they're getting into.
>> It absolutely is getting better. I mean,
I can remember responding to RFPs um as
soon as 2 years ago where you would see
silly requirements like, you know, we
want a a userfriendly interface for
creating good customer experience. Like
what how am I supposed to implement
system or tell you what that's going to
cost? Um every one of us have a
different perspective of what
userfriendly and great customer
experience means. Um, and literally that
would be requirements listed because
someone's trying to think of what they
want and they're trying to write it
down. Now we're seeing real requirements
that come out. I think there's a a
danger the other direction because of
course people are using LLMs to to write
some of these requirements and they're
much better because of it. I think um,
you know, letting the systems help us
design systems is a is a very good
thing. I think we can go the other
direction, too, though, where people
aren't even reading or validating what
the artificial intelligence is saying.
They're just dropping it into an RFP.
Um, it was funny. We seen one the other
day where where literally they were
asking for a module. They didn't know it
was a module, but it was an SAP module
that they listed in the RFP. Well, this
was a Microsoft RFP. And so, we went
back and we questioned the procurement
desk cuz they don't know, right? I mean,
a lot of these decisions are being run
by procurement departments and based on
requirements that they downloaded or
chatgpted into some template. Um, and so
we asked him, we're like, did you mean
that you wanted to implement an SAP
module with a Microsoft ERP? Like that's
possible, but why would you do that? Um,
and the response back was, actually, no.
That that was a mistake. We shouldn't
have we shouldn't have put that in the
the RFP as a requirement. we all know
exactly what happened there. They there
was a you know a hallucination in in the
the uh chat GPT and it went and found
some HR module and plugged it in and and
thought that that would be a great
solution when of course it wasn't a part
of the overall business strategy. So
there is context that these tools have
to have and I think that's where to
drive it back to to something that I
mentioned earlier. Knowing what your
outcomes are as a business is the most
important thing to have. LLMs now can
absolutely build a great RFP or great
set of requirements as long as it knows
what your outcome is. But if you don't
even know what your outcome is or every
stakeholder in the company does is
different in what their outcome they're
expecting from the tool is, then the
requirements are going to be just as bad
as they've always been. Only now they're
going to be confidently bad and that may
be worse than uh unconfidently bad the
way it used to be.
Yeah, I'll ran into one the other day
which is another this is like a I guess
a word to the warning to the wise. uh it
was somebody that had obviously had
built you know from the start they had
obviously built this whole RFP out and
they had towards the end they had some
questions that were um assessment
questions for people that were
responding they wanted to be able to
assess like the level of the people were
going that were being uh you know that
were going to be respond the respondents
but the the problem is and they were
great questions they were overly
detailed uh questions and things like
that so it's like this is a bit much for
an RFP it's almost you're almost making
me give you the solution as part of the
RFP. But the funny thing was is that
they forgot to they like pasted copy and
pasted a little bit too much. And then
right beneath that was the same
questions and said this is what you
should expect. This is what they need to
make sure they touch on in the answers.
And I'm like you gave everybody the
answer key. That's not really going to
help you too much.
>> And then of course everyone used uh chat
GBT or another LLM to respond to those
questions which yeah, not sure how much
value this is all going to add. There is
some of that that those are actually
interesting. I've I've had those
conversations u myself where I'll like
get an email that is obviously AI and
I'll respond in an AI and then it'll go
back and forth a couple times and I'm at
one point I'm like when do we become
like just useless and we'll just let the
AI talk to each other and they'll just
they'll go figure their stuff out and
say yeah this is what we need to do. But
um you know it is
>> time in Portugal is what it sounds like.
>> I'm I'm not I am not against that. Um,
but I think that gets to it really gets
to your point and something we bring out
a lot is understanding your why.
Understanding what it is you're actually
trying to do. And I think you get
I think this is where it it sort of
comes back to circle full circle to
where we started is that you get people
that are they understand their business.
They understand that they've got some
problems but they don't really fully
understand it. they need somebody, you
know, they like they don't understand
sales sales enough or HR enough or it
enough or finance enough or some of
these pieces and they just aren't able
to put all the pieces in place and AI
doesn't fix that. If you ask it
questions and you don't tell it, by the
way, this is Microsoft, you know,
instead of an SAP, it's going to give
you, you know, it'll hallucinate, but
basically just give you whatever it
pulls off the top of the deck. It's not
going to go vet that. So, I think those
are just a lot of excellent points
there. This was really uh it's really
neat. It's sort of a timely topic to
have something that's so complex, but it
also I think more people can relate to
it these days down on the ai level
because we've all done some you know
simple write an email or something like
that and seen it go off the rails and I
think it's becoming more I think we're
all learning a little bit to become more
sensitive to the details of how to
define a problem and and where to go
from that. Um, and sort of in the last
sort of as a and because we're we're
running out of time now, but it's sort
of as a a closing it up
based on you know how you've seen things
progress is where do you see this going
uh as we step forward in the years
ahead. One of the things as an example I
saw somebody's like SAS may disappear
because all these vibe coders will be
able to just custom code everything. So
do you see maybe that we are switching
the pendulum is swimming swinging back
to more of a like much more people doing
their own custom thing as opposed to the
SAS uh apocass apocalypse basically that
we've had for the last 10 to 15 years.
>> I think that's very possible um because
it is easier now than it has ever been
um to release a new piece of software
that that solves a very specific
business problem. Um I think the
challenge with a lot of that is going to
be you know integrations between systems
are still
it's it's not as easy to vibe code those
kind of solutions as it will be in in 2
to 3 years I'm sure uh maybe sooner but
the integrations between the products
get more complex the more bespoke
solutions you start launching and so I
think there's a there's a challenge
there that that comes as a part of this
that someone needs to solve and and
maybe there's some people smarter than
me that are already working on, you
know, that kind of integration
technology where you could vibe code um
system integrations between software
products that it may not have any idea
what the two endpoints have um have any
any mirroring of them. It's it can
determine what the right mappings and
write the data transfers and some of
those other things. So, I'm I'm positive
that that's coming. I think what's more
likely in the short term is we're going
to see a lot of people that are moving
into bespoke add-ons for core platforms.
So you're going to get lots of people
vibe coding their own Microsoft Business
Central, FNO, SAP, Oracle Netswuite,
like all of those products are all have
their, you know, their app store. we're
going to see a lot of vibecoded apps
that start coming out for these
platforms. And so I think it's going to
be hard for somebody to to get to the
point where they're vibe coding an
entire accounting system. Um, not
impossible, but it it's it's going to be
difficult to get to the point where
you're going to go sell a CFO that they
should use this, you know, this company
that just started last month um because
they've got this cool vibecoded thing,
even if it's just as good. I I don't
want to minimize um the quality. I think
the quality could be there, but I think
confidence level, it's going to be
really hard to get adoption and somebody
to sign off on putting that as the
backbone of business operations um yet.
So, I think having add-ons that are
created by AI and vibecoded add-ons that
fit into a core product and solve a very
specific vertical need um but still
using, you know, your big four players
as the the backbone of the ERP and CRM
systems. I I think that's absolutely
going to happen. It probably already is
happening with a lot of these that we
don't even know about.
Uh I want to thank you for your time and
for just like diving in with all of
this. Um we have failed to mention that
you have uh you've got a book called
Reboot uh an executive playbook for
rescuing ERP CRM and digital
transformation projects from disaster
which I think everybody in the audience
has run into one of those in one way
form or fashion. Um what is the best way
for people to get a hold of you if
they're now like this sounds like a guy
that I want to learn more about or you
know check out the book? Yeah, you can
get the book on Amazon. Um, and I would
encourage everybody to take a look at
dynamicconultantsgroup.com,
which is the the company that I founded
12 years ago, specifically doing this
type of thing for organizations. There's
actually a a health assessment that we
do on our website. You can find a link
at dynamic consultantsgroup.com.
Um, and it it gives people the ability
to walk through a free health assessment
of their CRM and ERP platform to be able
to find out where they're benchmarking
against their peers. So, it's a pretty
cool tool. You can also reach out to us
directly on that form as well to be able
to get in contact with somebody um to do
a deeper analysis. Um, or if you're
looking to explore a brand new project,
certainly would be willing to have some
conversations and help out in any way
that we can.
>> Excellent. Well, thank you so much for
your time. We're going to let everybody
else uh pencils down. You can stop
taking notes and uh we will be back uh
with continuing uh yes and our we we're
now doing our weekly challenges. You'll
have that. But then right after that, we
will be back into yet another interview
and just continuing challenge uh like
striding our way through the season and
trying to get some forward momentum
going and trying to make sure that we
start the year on the right foot. As
always, go out there and have yourself a
great day, a great week, and we will
talk to you next time.
Now, for the bonus um sort of this our
after the show bonus stuff, we we do a
weekly challenge these days that we try
to like every day like just you're
thinking like developers and
entrepreneurs is a challenge for them to
do in the next seven days, something
related to what we've just talked about.
And so I was wondering if you got
something and I'll I'll give you either
an either or. Uh if you've got something
you're like this is something that I
think every business owner or even side
hustler that you should do that would be
a great challenge for them. Or if you've
got something that's just a not even a
challenge but just a like a lesson
learned that you think you would like
that would be awesome to pass on to
everybody. Uh I'm going to put you on
the hot seat for a little bit and let
you share that.
>> I love it. We mentioned the surveillance
performance excellence and automation
before. So the we call it spear um
surveillance performance excellence
automation leading you to the right road
map or the results from your project. So
spear I would encourage everybody to
write down your top five business
processes. We hire people. We ship
products. We sell widgets. We build
widgets. And we purchase components for
the widgets. Whatever your top five
processes are in your business and list
out where you currently are. Are you
just in performance? Can you just do you
not even have the data to know where
you're at with that core process? Do you
actually have um your your
performance? So you have surveillance
performance. Are you at excellence? In
other words, everybody's doing it the
exact same way every time. Or are you
all the way to automation? It's fully
automated. Nobody even the company even
really has to to worry about that core
process. Where are you at today? And
where do you want to go in the next 90
days? I want to move us from
surveillance to performance. And the way
I'm going to do that is by making sure I
have all of the data that I need in the
same place. It could just be an Excel
spreadsheet for now. just get the data
and make sure it's being updated every
week. You know, those kinds of things.
Where are you at today with the C top
five processes and where do you hope to
be in the next 90 days? I think that'll
really shed a lot of light for
organizations to be able to assess where
they where they're at in their digital
transformation journey.
>> Yeah, that and that touches on something
I've said many times that sometimes the
technology you need to solve your
problem is just like pencil and paper.
You just need to like start. Sometimes
you're not you're not ready to you're
not ready to run. you need to be able to
just get yourself onto the bike without
falling over on your on your side at
this point. So, appreciate that's a
that's an excellent um that's an
excellent challenge out there, an
excellent task. I love that. I think
it's a a great way I think all of us
regardless of what our business is or
where we're at that we can we can think
through that. And honestly, even if we
work for somebody else, I think that's a
great thing to think about like what is
what is my organization at? Do we what
do I know about my organization and and
where they live and uh and their
maturity? So, thank you so much for your
time. I'll let you get back to your day
and enjoy your your Kansas City weather
there and u hopefully it will get better
and it will it'll be hotter than you can
stand I'm sure within another couple of
months because that's how it is there.
>> Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Rob, Mike, it
was really good to meet you today. We
appreciate everything.
>> Yeah. Thanks a lot. If there's anything
we can do to help you out, let us know.
And have a good one. We'll talk to you
again soon. Okay.
>> Thanks, guys. Yeah. Bye.
>> Thank you.