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Ron

Welcome to The Geek Freaks Podcast episode number 6 “Is Too Much Software Hurting Your Business.” Guests this week are Madison Bronkan and Kris Peck. Hello.

Madison

Hey Ron.

Kris

Hello.

Ron

Hi, how are ya?

Madison

Pretty good, how are you?

Ron

Good. Quick question Kris Peck, how many software…how many softwares?...Software.

Madison

Software. How much?

Kris

How many pieces of software?

Ron

How many pieces of software do you we use here at Omega?

Kris

Lots.

Ron

Jesus, that’s a….is softwares not a word?

Madison

No.

Ron

Alright that’s…it’s a word.

Kris

[Laughs] Um, I don’t know I think probably over 20 between all the departments.

Ron

20?

Kris

At least 20.

Ron

Do we count Adobe as separate entities?

Kris

I don’t think so because it is a suite of programs, but you can get them separately and one person might use one program.

Ron

BOOM.

Kris

One person might use another.

Ron

Marketing is using like a half-a-dozey themselves.

Kris

Exactly.

Madison

Yeah, I think marketing probably does have at least 10.

Ron

No.

Madison

Yeah.

Ron

Maybe.

Madison

Including webapps?

Kris

Yeah.

Ron

Always count those webapps…never count those webapps.

Kris

Always count them.

Ron

We’ve recently made a few changes to some of the software, that didn’t really mean we got rid of software. I mean we did I guess in some places, but we are also adding software. We got rid of Asana and went to…

Madison

Planner.

Ron

And tasks?

Madison

Yes.

Ron

Is tasks…tasks separate?

Kris

Tasks is separate from Planner.

Madison

But it’s also integrated.

Kris

Yeah.

Madison

You can have tasks in Planner.

Ron

To-Dos.

Madison

And then To-Dos is separate.

Ron

My to-dos are to-dones. Because I am official.

Madison

Hey, good for you.

Ron

No, I’m just kidding I probably have the most. Uh we went from Setmore to Microsoft Bookings.

Kris

Yup.

Madison

Yes.

Ron

Do we like Bookings? Did we talk about this?

Kris

It’s not bad.

Ron

Okay.

Kris

It’s a little buggy sometimes syncing with Outlook, but overall it works pretty well. Better than Setmore.

Ron

I don’t think you gotta say that like that. I like Setmore. Jazz, JazzHR, we got rid of because we made the common mistake that every company does, and we buy one piece of software to complement another and then that software does both.

Madison

Yeah, because we have Bamboo, so we really didn’t need JazzHR.

Ron

I don’t remember, I think we got them at the same time. I’m a be real I think we bought them at the same time or very close to the same time. We got Jazz because I was really bad at tracking candidates when they applied for jobs.

Madison

That makes sense. And then when you got me, we got rid of it. Because that is my job.

Ron

Okay.

Madison

I mean that makes sense.

Ron

That’s your only job?

Madison

No. That’s just part of my job.

Ron

Alright, well Madison’s only job is to track candidates in the system.

Madison

All day long.

Ron

We stopped using Harvest recently, right because that was not being used appropriately and you guys didn’t like it. And then we stopped using BrightGauge because the software that we are going to doesn’t support BrightGauge. Yeah, I think I said that right. So, I bet we probably have 25, if we count Adobe softwares…pieces of software that we use. I had to think about that one I was gonna say softwares again and just stick to it and ride it out.

Madison

Good job, you did good.

Ron

Thank you. But why do you…technically one employee has a piece of software, you know what I mean.

Kris

Mhm.

Ron

It’s just crazy to me to think about.

Kris

What? That one employee has the sole need for that software.

Ron

Yeah, like some of it makes sense. Like inventory it makes sense yazbamboo, JazzHR and Bamboo that makes sense for her job. But then we have marketing who has like 7 applications, the service desk probably has 10. It’s just crazy. Think about the way we connect to computers we can do it about 3 or 4 different ways with 3 or 4 different software.

Kris

Yeah and some of those are only specific to Windows or Mac.

Ron

So, do you think it would make sense for a small to medium sized business (SMB) like us to use like a less is more mindset.

Kris

I think particularly when you are growing a business it’s best to start with less because you don’t know exactly what you need and you just need the basics, but as you grow, and you start seeing more need for more departments like at first you might not see the need for a marketing department but then you grow into oh we need all this stuff to provide a marketing toolbox. As you grow you will need more and more, but just starting out you definitely need to go with just the essentials.

Ron

And it’s important for when people start to know how to use those tools.

Madison

Yeah, I think we could do a better job of training everyone on all of the software we use because a problem that we run into is that we bring people in and we do have 20+ softwares that…softwares…

Ron

You said it too.

Madison

I said it, no. Uh we do have 20+ software programs…

Ron

Pieces of software.

Madison

Um that people need to learn how to use, so that kind of a lot and we have got rid of some so it’s a little easier, but yeah, I still think it’s quite training intensive.

Ron

Still quite a bit though. Yeah, and I think the other downfall we have is that since we don’t really have training it’s more like here’s the manual and if you have questions ask the manual, ya know and we will talk to you in a couple weeks. You know what I mean? It’s just rough because then nothing ever fully gets integrated because we are not taking the time to fully integrate it and it turns into this half ass software that we use a little bit of.

Madison

Which is why we got rid of Asana.

Ron

I used Asana to the fullest.

Madison

No, no one did.

Ron

To the richest of its capabilities.

Madison

And we already had Planner in our…

Ron

We did, but we didn’t use it.

Madison

Right.

Ron

And I think that’s what a lot of small businesses do. Office 365 comes with all those applications and even ourselves who sells it, distributes it, didn’t use the stuff. So, like when I said let’s change and see what’s free, that’s kinda why that mindset was there because it’s really not free. We pay for it. Do you think the biggest issue is that companies fail to integrate new software, like fully? I mean think about how long you’ve worked here, you’ve been here coming up on a year. I guess we have integrated software in your time, but we’ve integrated a lot of software in the couple years you’ve been here.

Kris

Yeah, always trying something new.

Ron

And you’ve done a lot of them so maybe now this is going to be criticism on yourself that I’m asking you, but do you think we do the fullest job we could integrating software?

Kris

It depends I think on the software we’ve implemented. I think some we’ve done a pretty good job implementing them as much as we can. Um, but overall, I think there’s always that few bits of the software where it’s like we could utilize this, but we would need to spend how much time to actually utilize it and is it actually worth it to utilize it.

Madison

I think that’s a hard question to ask KP because KP when he gets a new software or when you ask him to look into new software, he dives headfirst and really looks into every possible aspect of that software. Where when we kind of implement it across the board not everyone does that.

Ron

Are you talking like the meeting we had Friday where nobody had any questions about the new software we were gonna roll out?

Madison

Yes.

Ron

Yeah.

Madison

But KP is up there like math teacher style like here’s this…

Ron

Well I mean it goes to think that’s probably the biggest issue that small to medium sized businesses have is that that happens, right. There’s one person that owns the project, that rolls it in, technically he’s not even supposed to be the one owning it right, one of our success teams are, but I gave it to him because he has done it enough for me.

Madison

He’s on that success team now.

Ron

You got moved?

Madison

He got switched over.

Kris

I randomly got moved to the technical success team.

Ron

Oh, okay well welcome to the technical success team.

Kris

Technically, it is still my job.

Ron

Alright, well hey there ya go.

Madison

I just made it his job.

Ron

But it goes like we had that whole meeting about changing a platform with the key stakeholders and they were like it looks good, let’s do it.

Kris

Yeah, no there was a few questions here and there about implementing stuff that we do currently, and can it be done in the new tool, but overall there wasn’t much beyond that.

Ron

Yeah and I guess that’s the biggest mistake companies do is where they overspend on hardware they never integrate or software, excuse me.

Kris

Yeah.

Ron

That they never integrate, it’s just mind-blowing to think that some people pay for a couple thousand dollars a month even for insurance platforms that they don’t fully understand, or use, or utilize to the fullest. So, if it’s a $1,000 a month then that’s $12,000 a year and it’s a three-year engagement, I can’t do math that quick that’s uh $36,000. That’s a person.

Madison

Well and I think to go back to what KP said to me last week, people get software sometimes to replace a person or that’s the hope, but then it doesn’t. You still need a person to run the software and that’s where it fails, I think.

Ron

Well yeah and I think it becomes a secondary task to someone trying to do their job and learning software is not the time or place.

Kris

Then it becomes kind of left behind because it’s not the core part of their job and it’s a secondary thing now, so now it’s even further behind even as if they had started it up normally.

Ron

Do you think that adoption to new software fails because people are stuck in their ways though? Like if we are going from one platform to the other, I mean we are small enough that we won’t have holdouts, but people make that mistake or have those issues where they are like we are going to do it this way and this is the way it’s going to be done.

Kris

Yeah of course. Change is…some people can be very resistant to change when it comes to their workflow because once you’ve established a workflow it’s very hard to move away from it.

Ron

And I think the complexity of modern-day applications are not doing us any good.

Kris

Yeah, with all their bells and whistles they can be a bit tough to break into.

Madison

Yeah, you may get a software to utilize one particular part of it, but there’s ten times the amount of things it can do that you don’t even use, but you are paying for, so I mean is the value of that one thing you are going to use it for worth it.

Ron

Well and I think from a business owners aspect it is very appealing to see like hey I can spend $1,000 a month on this CRM that does marketing blah blah blah, but you forget that somebody has to write the emails that you are going to send out to your prospects, somebody has to set it all up in the system…

Madison

Mhm.

Ron

…So, as you think it’s just going to replace somebody it’s ultimately more work for the person implementing it or trying to use it because that’s what we’ve just gone through because we are switching CRMs, switching service desk ticketing systems, like we are doing a bunch of stuff.

Madison

Yeah, we really are. But it needed to be done because people weren’t utilizing the other ones we had either, so condensing and changing to things that were more efficient was necessary.

Ron

Well and the way I looked at it too from a cost standpoint we are saving a little bit of cheese. We are getting things that we don’t currently have in the tool set….

Kris

Not really losing much in the toolset.

Ron

No, and I think it’s time. We’ve been on that platform for almost 7 years. 5 downtown, no 6 years and nothing has really changed that improved our lives other than the cost going up every year it seems like.

Kris

Yeah, we haven’t really implemented much in it. Like there’s not really been many changes in it that have been suggested to improve it overall.

Ron

Do you think that the new-shiny-toy-thing is like a thing? Like every time something new happens…

Kris

The flavor of the month?

Ron

Yeah, like Bill goes onto the new shiny thing. I get it, but do you think that’s really kind of an issue too is that we are vying for people’s attention in an already busy thing, like this program is now just one of six that you use and it’s cool right now, but in ten months or whatever it will just be like eh I will go back to the way I wanna do it.

Kris

Yeah, I think it certainly could be. I mean I think that happens to a lot of small businesses where they have this presentation they see this new shiny software and it could do all this and then 6 months later kind of like with Asana where we were like we are going to use this a lot and then 6 months later some people kind of used it, some people tried to revive it, like Madison did, and then we kind of gave up on it.

Ron

It’s near and dear to her heart. She’s happy that you…

Madison

Even I realized that it was time for it to go.

Ron

I think that we…It’s not a square peg round hole. Like we used the hell out of for what it was worth, I just don’t think it’s there to do what we needed it to do.

Madison

It was an afterthought to use it, even for most people including myself. It was easier to wrote something on a sticky note than it was to go in there and check my tasks and check the due dates and use all the features that it had.

Ron

The only time I would check is when it would send me an email.

Madison

Which was like Madison assigned you this task.

Ron

Or like consider updating your projects, consider updating your projects.

Madison

Yeah.

Ron

So, like just a couple reasons here in this article I read is that the biggest challenge people have is that it’s too complicated of software,so right. So, we are getting more bang for our buck, essentially, and we are not using half of it. Um using too much software. So, maybe redundancies in software sets that you’re using. Poor training, which we just spoke of and we will continue to speak of until we fix it. I know it’s something that the three of us have always wanted, not a lot of trying on my part, but you guys have tried like hell to get training done and taken care of. But then you look at the new tool we have, it has an academy and you can get certified in it and they have to do it, so that will be fantastic. Uh employees flat-out not wanting to adapt, which I think is the old dog new tricks type scenario. Because I know we’ve worked with agencies that have been on an agency management platform for like twenty years and then they switch and they have like the two or three CSR who have been there for ten years and they are like this new one sucks I don’t want to use it. I mean you have sat through that meeting with people before. Um competing for people’s attention, so again here’s your new Word or whatever the case is. Here’s your name agency management platform and blah blah blah. Difficulties in educating customers and bad support, so I guess more training issues.

Kris

Yeah.

Madison

Yeah. So, I think our biggest thing with the new software we are going to is that it’s going to pretty much be based around a CRM. Where right now we are based around our ticketing system and our knowledge-based system. Where I think the core of a customer service based managed services provider needs to be a CRM.

Ron

Oh, it has to be the sales aspect and the prospecting of it all.

Madison

Yeah, because we have our client’s information in like three different software programs that we use, and we need it to be in one centralized location that integrates well with everything.

Ron

So, before we go two questions. But, you’re right, sorry that I just stepped all over that thought. It does need to be the center of the focus of any organization. It needs to be that platform or whatever you are using, and I don’t know if that’s predominately been the issue because we…I have been using different platforms in the service desk, you use different platforms in the service desk, and the service desk they use well they use different platforms. I was going to say whatever they want, but that’s not true. Do you guys have an example of a software maybe here maybe elsewhere that we used for a little bit here or there and that’s stopped because of bad adaption.

Kris

Software we have used but stopped because of bad adaption?

Ron

Yup, like we installed software and we’re just like yeah not getting it, see ya. I guess we just did it with five or six of them.

Kris

Yeah, I mean that was…

Madison

KP Pagerduty. He could probably go on and on about that.

Ron

Along with Pagerduty.

Madison

R.I.P. Pagerduty.

Ron

Yeah long live. I’m bringing it back.

Madison

No.

Kris

That one was rough to try and implement.

Ron

Now was it rough because of the software or was it rough because of the users.

Kris

It was a mix. The software was very specific in how it wanted to work. But we wanted it to work one way and also it was kind of a user-problem of people not actually using Pagerduty the way it was supposed to.

Madison

Well it didn’t integrate two way did it? It was just one way.

Kris

I think we did get it to work where you could update one ticket, it would update the page, I think if you closed ticket it would close the page, but if you closed the page it wouldn’t close the ticket. It was kind of weird.

Madison

Okay, yeah.

Ron

That’s kind of weird.

Madison

That sounds complicated.

Ron

Super complicated. So, you’re sitting in a room I’ll give you a scenario, so you’re a consultant to a small business. This small business is a start-up what is the first software you are going to tell them they need to get and why?

Kris

What kind of start-up?

Ron

Um let’s say it’s an insurance company.

Kris

An insurance company?

Ron

Professional services. Accounting even. They are all kind of the same stack.

Madison

Can it be a package, a software package?

Ron

Sure.

Madison

Are you asking KP or me?

Ron

Both. I’m gonna tune in too, so the three of us are gonna give our takes. This is going to be the juicy takeaway from the podcast.

Madison

I would do just Office 365 Business Enterprise or whatever that is. The one that includes all of the Planner, Tasks, Bookings, what are the other ones, Flow.

Ron

Dynamic.

Kris

Sway.

Madison

Yeah, all of those.

Ron

Okay.

Kris

Office 365 is a pretty good one.

Ron

[Laughs]

Madison

Stole it.

Kris

Uh I don’t know. I think with the way we’re moving more and more towards cloud-based services; I think some of them are pretty good. I guess since we are doing it generically, man I don’t know.

Ron

Do you want me to go?

Kris

Yeah go.

Ron

Um so since we’ve done this, I’ve already started a company with Bill and we figured out what we needed I’m going to say a CRM, right. Like a basic CRM whether it’s FreshSales, HubSpot, something to keep track of the important information that you are probably going to forget when you right it down in your spiral bound notebook and then the toolset that you need to do the job, so if you have a CRM or maybe you buy a toolset or a package that has the CRM built into it. Something that can track all that client information that you are not going to keep track of.

Madison

Mhm. What about security though? Like Duo? Would that be pretty important?

Ron

No. I don’t think as a start-up as a small business we are trying to get in to like figuring out where you are trying to go, I don’t think software is something you worry about right now.

Kris

No.

Madison

Okay.

Ron

I mean technically you would just be strong passwords, all the good security hygiene you could possibly have.

Kris

Yeah, yeah.

Madison

Without a software. That makes sense.

Kris

Up to date, make sure you are not running like…

Ron

Windows ’98.

Kris

Yeah, stuff like that.

Ron

QuickBooks, cause you can use it online as a CRM now I think. That’s got all your customer information on it.

Kris

Yeah, I mean I guess the other thing would be something accounting-wise. QuickBooks, Sage, so that you can actually pay your employees.

Madison

Woo.

Kris

I think that’s probably decently important.

Ron

Well if you are a start-up you probably only have one buddy doing it, you know what I mean. You don’t have to worry about paying him. Yeah, but if you are a start-up maybe you are thinking bigger, eventually you are going to get there. It’s probably better to start off on a solid footing with that.

Ron

When Luis started, Bill used Sage Business...Peachtree.

Kris

Which eventually became Sage.

Ron

Yeah, so it was a monster of a software that we only used payroll and inventory out of it was crazy. But we’ve made all these mistakes. We are still making these mistakes.

Madison

Yeah.

Ron

I mean we are a small business that fortunately we have…we are agile enough to see the mistakes and move. Could you imagine if we didn’t.

Madison

No.

Ron

You know what I mean.

Madison

You wouldn’t be able to…

Ron

There’s a lot of companies that are like oh Asana works we are going to keep it. Harvest works we are gonna keep it. And then it correlates to jack shit.

Madison

But it’s expensive. I mean not expensive if you are using it, but it’s expensive if you’re not using it.

Kris

Yeah.

Ron

Yeah, but think about the two to three years we paid for it.

Madison

Yeah.

Ron

You weren’t using it to the fullest. And it was just kind of one of those things we had to do an audit on and just sat down and did an audit on the software. I started asking people are these reports that we are getting from Harvest worth it and they are not because individuals entering time are like yeah, I spent ten minutes on that. Ten minutes even, five minutes even, two minutes even, three minutes even. And you know life is just not like even numbers. So, the last crew that came through was born into, so it was easy it became second nature and then it’s not second nature anymore. It goes back to bad training. So, you had to really look at it, it was bad training, overuse of software, trying to do too much or not enough with each software, I guess. Because we could do time keeping in Zendesk, but we didn’t we chose to use Harvest because it integrated with our BI tool, which we just left because we don’t need a BI tool if we don’t have anything that integrates to it, so I think every small business should do an audit on the software they are using to see how much they are using them, to see if it even makes sense to keep paying for them because we’ve probably soaked up $10,000 in software we weren’t using.

Madison

Definitely.

Ron

So, anything else before we leave when it comes down to software…antivirus you need antivirus that’s software.

Madison

I don’t have anything else.

Ron

[Laughs] Well thanks for listening to the Geek Freaks Podcast. Mak sure to subscribe to our podcast on Spotify, Apple, Google and YouTube, and all other platforms. If you like this episode, please write a comment and review. Talk to ya next week.

Madison

See ya.

Ron

Don’t do it.

Madison

Say bye KP.

Ron

Don’t say it.

Madison

Or just shake your head.

[Creepy music]