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The IT Matters Podcast is about IT matters and matters pertaining to IT.In this episode of IT Matters, host Aaron Bock interviews Jim Marascio, Principal & Chief Executive Officer of Equals 11.Conversation Highlights: How attending a coding camp in fourth grade led Jim to a career in IT (0:43)What the organizational structure of a company reveals about their IT department (05:31)Jim explains what Equals 11 is and how they help businesses with CRM (8:45)What CRM means to a company and...
The IT Matters Podcast is about IT matters and matters pertaining to IT.
In this episode of IT Matters, host Aaron Bock interviews Jim Marascio, Principal & Chief Executive Officer of Equals 11.
Conversation Highlights:
Resources Mentioned:
About Jim Marascio:
Jim Marascio is the Principal and CEO at Equals 11, a certified Salesforce Consulting Partner. Prior to launching Equals 11, Jim served as the Chief Delivery Officer for Accelerance, a global software advisory and consulting firm, Chief Technology Officer at both DART Innovation, a retail technology company, and 11Giraffes, a globally deployed SaaS company in the digital signage space, and CIO at Portrait Innovations, a national retailer.
Jim’s career has been built around the software engineering space, particularly in SaaS platforms generating and processing large volumes of data, as well as systems integration, and global software outsourcing. He loves to build software products, and to help other companies to build and manage software engineering teams
In his free time, Jim loves to travel and explore. He spends a lot of time volunteering on advisory and charity boards. He is an avid sports fan, especially of college football and NHL hockey.
Welcome to the Opkalla IT Matters Podcast, where we discuss the important matters within IT as well as the importance of IT across different industries and responsibilities.
About Opkalla:
Opkalla helps their clients navigate the confusion in the technology marketplace and choose the technology solutions that are right for their business. They work alongside IT teams to design, procure, implement and support the most complex IT solutions without an agenda or technology bias. Opkalla was founded around the belief that IT professionals deserve better, and is guided by their core values: trust, transparency and speed. For more information, visit https://opkalla.com/ or follow them on LinkedIn.
Narrator: Welcome to the IT
Matters podcast, where we
explore why it matters and
matters pertaining to it. Here's
your host, Aaron Bach.
Aaron Bock: Welcome all to the
IT Matters podcast. I'm your
host Aaron Bock, as you heard.
We were very excited for this
episode of the IT Matters
podcast, we have the principal
and CEO of equals 11, Jim
Marascio to joining us, Jim, how
you doing today?
Jim Marascio: I'm doing
fabulous. How are you doing?
Aaron Bock: I'm doing fantastic.
I've known Jim for a while
excited to get him here today on
the podcast to share some of the
knowledge he has with you. Jim,
why don't you share with the
listeners a little bit about
your background, in IT and
around IT and all things in
between your family, etc.
Jim Marascio: Sure, sure.
Without being too boring, I'll
try to brush through it. So I
grew up at a time when PCs were
becoming popular, which
basically says I'm old. And I
was really fortunate. when
personal computers were starting
to become personal to be good to
go to a coding camp as a fourth
grader and start a computer club
and in junior high and really
just kind of grew up in the 80s
as things were happening and
becoming more accessible to
everybody. So when I went away
to college, was really a natural
fit to become a Computer
Information Systems major, loved
having hands on keyboard,
started writing some software,
and graduated and wrote some
code wasn't probably the best
coder out there. But really
enjoyed being in and around that
space. So I was fortunate to
start in a large organization
with a lot of opportunity for
personal and professional growth
and pretty quickly moved into a
management role. Got to lead
software engineering, and at a
time at the really turn of the
century. Again, I'm pretty old.
Aaron Bock: Well give you some
more credit.
Jim Marascio: Yeah, when there
were some really interesting
things happening in the audio
space. If you go back to the
late 90s, early 2000s. When
Napster and mp3.com are all over
the news, and everybody was
suing everybody in the music
royalty space. I happened to be
at a large media company that
was doing the legal things
correct. And was fortunate to
kind of work myself into a role
where I get to lead the
transformation of the
organization, a global
organization.
Aaron Bock: You know, all people
don't understand how, when you
were using the Napster bear
share Limewire days, you
download a song on DSL, and
you'd wait like 10 minutes just
to find out it's a horrible
version or not the ravers
actually one of the worst
feelings in life
Jim Marascio: Exactly More often
than not, it wasn't what you
thought it was.
Aaron Bock: Yeah. And it was it
had a virus along with it. And
then your computer. Yeah,
apparently.
Jim Marascio: Yes. So I was kind
of coming of age, career wise at
that time in a media company.
And I got to be very
intrapreneurial, which kind of
influenced where my career went
from there. So I didn't realize
I was being entrepreneurial, but
in a large business. I
effectively sat down with a VP I
reported to and said, ignore all
the stuff they're doing illegal.
We need to do what they're
doing. And the comment back was,
well, they're getting sued and
we can I said no, we're already
doing that stuff, legally. And,
you know, one conversation led
to another and before he knew
it, I had a large budget and I
was building out effectively a
new division of the company,
kind of wild west digitizing
literally millions of songs with
college students hand entering
all the data for months and
months and months. And we we
ripped more than 2 million songs
and built a content management
system before CMS was a term and
built the content delivery
network before CDN was a term
and just didn't know I was being
entrepreneurial but was doing
some really cool stuff in the
software space built a media
player before an iPod was a
thing or an iPhone was even
pondered and learned a lot doing
that building software and that
led me to go to a startup. My
first real startup in the the
digital signage space
transferring a lot of what I was
doing with audio, and doing with
video lead again a software team
and I built some really cool
things there and one thing led
to another so my entire career
has kind of progressed through
the IT space have worn a lot of
hats CIO CTO, COO chief delivery
officer, but I've always had
this component of software
engineering that I was
responsible for. And it all
started out with fourth grade
going to a to a camp and trying
to write something in logo which
probably won't mean anything to
most the people listening to
this but But it all started
there. And it's been a fun ride
along the way. And as you
mentioned, we've got a company
now a software company that
plays in the in the Salesforce
space and we focus purely there
developing software and
configuring Salesforce to help
optimize it for best use for
existing clients.
Aaron Bock: Yeah, and before we
get into equals 11, and what
you're doing today, like you
said, you've been in a big
organization with a large IT
budget, you were in some
startups and you had bounced
around CIO, CTO, etc. We talk a
lot about on this podcast and
different industries. What is IT
to people? Why it how is IT
viewed? You've seen it from all
perspectives and big and small
organizations? What do you see
in it, where companies are doing
it? Well, and what do you see
where they're not doing it?
Well, what are some of the
common traits and common flaws?
Jim Marascio: Yeah, so the first
thing I'll start with is you can
tell a lot about how IT is
viewed within an organization,
by the reporting structure. If
IT reports, if you got a VP of
IT, or CIO, or whatever the the
highest IT title is, and that
person reports to the CFO, more
than not, it's considered an
expense. It's kind of a
necessary evil, if you will,
within the business. And in
generally, they're focused on
the infrastructure and not
necessarily advancing the
business forward, but kind of
holding the fort what needs to
be done, make sure the phones
work and the network works, and
that laptops work in those types
of things. If you start seeing
an IT organization that either
reports directly to the CEO or
the COO, all of a sudden,
there's more of an opportunity
for it to be strategic, in my
opinion, the best IT
organizations are the ones that
are there expressly with the
purpose of advancing whatever it
is that that business does. So
to me is I work with other
companies or when I've looked at
going to work for other
companies, it's always been
really important to understand
kind of the reporting structure,
and how they look at it. If it
gets to interact with the entire
business, and sits down as a
strategic partner, and says,
Well, what is it that HR needs
to do to be successful? What is
it that the product or service
side of the business needs to do
be successful? What is it that
financer, the support team needs
to do to be successful, then
those are generally really fun
IT organizations to be in,
because they're part of the
business, they're not kind of
regulated to just, again,
supporting the infrastructure
and the, you know, the wires and
power and phones and that type
of thing.
Aaron Bock: Do you think that So
you mentioned that where you see
companies reporting structure
tells a lot in the in the
organization, whether the CIO or
CTO is reporting up through the
CEO or CFO? Do you typically on
the on the stereotypical bell
curve of like, behind or ahead?
Do you typically see those
organizations more on the front
of the bell curve versus the
back? Is that typically the
breakdown?
Jim Marascio: I think it is more
likely to be on the front. I
wouldn't necessarily put in that
way, because a lot of it depends
on what's the culture of the
organization, where where does
the board or the leadership
team, depending on the size of
the organization want the
organization to go? Are they
acting strategically to advance
the organization? Are they in a
difficult position where they're
trying to control costs and the
steps to think so it certainly
helps to be structured in a way
that I prefer, but how they they
are or where they are in the
bell curve is really more
indicative of the leadership of
the organization. And are they
moving something forward, trying
to create and build that
advance? Or are they trying to
salvage and restore and hold
before?
Aaron Bock: Yeah, so let's get
to where you're at now. So
equals 11. You are the CEO of
equals 11. Tell our listeners,
you mentioned there already
Salesforce development and
custom Salesforce development,
share 30 seconds to a minute on
what you guys do what you
specialize in, and maybe the why
behind it.
Jim Marascio: Sure, sure. So
I'll step back and say I knew I
wanted to build a software
company. As you mentioned
earlier, I've been involved with
a couple startups I've come in
as employee for a couple times
and helped other people kind of
build their vision and their
dream and it's been a lot of
fun. And I got to this point
where I said, I want to lead the
effort. I want to do this. I'm
not getting younger and and I'm
gonna regret if I don't take a
swing at this at some point. In
my life, I don't do it soon. So
when I knew I wanted to build a
software company, the first
thing was okay, what are we
going to do? And right out of
the gate, having been in and
around and worked with a lot of
software companies. I knew I
just didn't want to be and
there's nothing wrong with them
but more of a generalist company
that does a lot of fun and web
app and a lot of mobile app, and
that type of thing. I really
wanted to be specialized. I
think it helps to articulate
what it is you do and resonate
with people and figure out if
there's a fit or not if you've
got some specialty. So we looked
at a lot of different platforms,
if you will, CRMs ERPs or
whatnot, from SAP and Oracle to
people soft, the Adobe
Experience Manager HubSpot, you
know, tons of them, and
ultimately settled on Salesforce
for a lot of reasons. Number one
CRM in the in the world plays
really well from really tiny
businesses up through enormous
fortune 50 enterprises. But it
plays really well in the mid
market space. And we said, as
we're building out a business,
that was really where we wanted
to operate was in that mid
market, say 25 million to a
billion dollars, you know,
companies that have a budget and
have vision and can work on
something, but aren't so large
that they're either moving
exceptionally slow or, or
candidly, they're not going to
talk to a really small early
stage business, because because
of their size. So we we made a
lot of decisions around how to
position that. And then even
within the Salesforce ecosystem,
if you're not familiar with it,
Salesforce started as a as a
CRM, it's still known as a CRM,
it still is, however, it's built
out an entirely broad platform
suite of products and services,
and tools that really extend
from marketing technology to
service to everything in
between, and obviously, the CRM
and sales component of it. And
so we said, Well, where are we
going to play in there? And how
we're going to do it, we've
ruled out some things pretty
quickly. I know, I'm way beyond
my 30 seconds here. But where we
focus is on the, what I refer to
as is post implementation
optimization. So what does that
mean? In that mid market space,
we try to work with customers
that are existing Salesforce
users, they have some kind of
pain, again, kind of stepping
back to that IT kind of a
conversation at the beginning of
this recording. When you look at
an implementation, it tends to
be more of a change management
exercise or more of a people and
almost management consulting
exercise, not as much of a
technology thing, because you're
trying to, to change how the
organization works by
implementing a new tool with it.
So we said that we're really
more techies. So not to say we
won't do some of that. And we
aren't, we are actually doing a
little bit of that right now.
But where we're trying to play
is in this space where we come
in, and there's a business
that's using Salesforce, they're
feeling some pain at some level,
and they need to optimize it
through things like integration
with other business systems
reporting and dashboarding,
custom workflows that align with
their workflow, automation, a
lot of other other things like
that. But hopefully that gives
you a little bit of a sense.
Aaron Bock: Yeah, and I think
something you said about for
anyone out there who's thinking
of, I don't want to say starting
just a software company, but you
said, we picked Salesforce, and
I feel like specializing is
better, you know, and at
Opkalla, we see a lot of
companies who sometimes they
specialize, and they do really
well. Sometimes they try to do
everything, and they don't do it
really well. And it's very
common for folks to kind of get
in over their skis, say they do
all these things. And then it's
hard to know all these different
systems, especially Salesforce,
the behemoth that is in the in
the space, there's so many
things that they keep adding
that they're doing, it's it's
hard to be a specialist in more
than one. So I applaud you for
that. Let's take a step back in
the whole market. So Salesforce,
I think everyone, hopefully
everyone has heard of it. If you
haven't, it's CRM, customer
relationship management, if you
don't know what that software
stands for, that's where
companies are tracking their
leads, that's where they're
tracking their customers, their
their prospects, it's all of
their customer data. And in this
customer centric world we live
in especially, you know, post
COVID, it's even more important
to have a good customer
management. It's kind of
shocking some of the stats about
CRM, I thought, you know,
everyone's got it just like any
ERP, which is an enterprise
resource planning tool for your
your organization. It's your
it's your core system. I assumed
when I started looking into
this, everyone had it. But Jim,
you might be able to share some
statistics. But I have a couple
here. One of the ones that was
shocking to me was it said that
in the next five years, there
will be 12% CRM adoption growth,
which for those listening 12%
may not seem like a lot, but to
me, I was like, Man, I didn't
even know there was 12% of
customers out there that are
companies out there that didn't
use a CRM. So Jim, maybe you can
share some stats with us. Why do
you think this adoption is
taking place? What's going to
happen in the next five to 10
years in the CRM space?
Jim Marascio: Sure. So for
starters, the number doesn't
surprise me at all. It's
probably leaning more towards
smaller businesses than large
enterprises. large enterprises
have been using CRM is an
extension of ERPs for 25 years,
but when you get into the mid
market and smaller, especially
SMBs you know, they're still
operating on a spreadsheet. One
of the areas that we see a lot
of opportunity and a lot of
challenge is effectively siloed
data. And what that means is,
they're storing whatever, you
know, they've got different
business processes for different
departments within a business.
And they're all storing that
data somewhere else. So, to your
point, businesses are then
saying, Okay, we've got a
spreadsheet here, and we've got
some contact manager here,
that's not really a CRM, but
it's acting as a CRM. And then
I've got a bunch of people over
here that all have their own
individual things that are built
into Outlook, or Gmail, or
whatever that is their contact
managing. And they're siloing
data throughout the business.
And in by bringing in a new
tool, the expectation is, oh,
we're gonna solve all the
problems. By implementing this
new tool, we're going to
centralize all the data into one
place. And that poses some other
challenges we can get into. But
that percentage doesn't shock me
at all. Just because I'm
encountering it every day with
small businesses.
Aaron Bock: Why Salesforce? Like
why do companies pick Salesforce
over another? And maybe the
caveat here is, I know, you work
with Salesforce, we're not
saying that there's any other
systems that are not great.
They're probably just just as
good. It's just, you know, why
did why does a company pick
Salesforce over another?
Jim Marascio: I think, first and
foremost, it's the market
leader, it has a proven track
record over decades of evolving
into what it is today. And it's,
it's, you know, I wouldn't say
the de facto standard, there's
some really good alternatives
out there, Microsoft and SAP,
and what you'll find is some of
the bigger ones, are built and
designed to run in large
enterprises. And very large
enterprises, you know, billion
dollar plus companies. And most
of the businesses in the world
aren't billion dollar
businesses. And so bringing a
tool that's designed to work in
an organization like that, down
into a smaller midsize business
is sometimes incredibly
expensive, overkill, more
complex than it needs to be. And
so Salesforce has built a really
solid platform that works and
kind of grows with you. So it's
so there are fortune 50
companies, in fact, probably
most fortune 50 companies use
Salesforce, but you'll find that
most $3 million companies that
are using a CRM use Salesforce
is well. So it's the it's the
market leader. It's designed and
built in such a way that it
integrates very well, with other
systems, there are a ton of out
of the box tools to connect it
to other platforms, which is
really important. If you're
sending an email from Outlook,
you're sending an email from
Gmail, and you want to make sure
that that gets recorded. And in
your database. You know, it's an
out of the box plugin. And so
there's little things like that,
that they've done a really good
job building the platform. With
integrations and APIs in mind,
there's the current version of
Salesforce is called lightning.
And the lightning version was
built as an API first tool. So
it was designed with everything
in the data being able to go in
or out through some very simple
tools. The other big benefit of
Salesforce is it was really
designed as a low code, no code
tool, meaning that you don't
necessarily need a software
developer, to configure it or to
integrate it with other systems.
Much of it can be done by an
administrator who's trained
properly. Now the result of that
is it's highly complex, because
there are so many ways to
configure it. But it doesn't
necessarily require a software
engineer to do that. And when
you do want to do things beyond
what can be done through
standard, no code or low code
configurations, there's API's,
again, that application
programming interfaces that
allow data to be exchanged, with
other systems bidirectionally so
data flowing in or out that you
can bring in Salesforce
developers that can then work to
make sure that that all works.
So they built a really flexible
platform that scales
exceptionally well.
Aaron Bock: Yeah, there's a
great book called beyond the
clouds by Marc Benioff, the
founder of Salesforce, if if the
listeners out there have not
heard it, I would recommend it
for more than just understanding
Salesforce. He's a very, the
words leaving me but he donates
a lot of money to charity, and
he's very big on giving. And I
think that's how Salesforce
started. So it's a really cool
story. Before we get too far
into Salesforce, you mentioned
you know, the small businesses
is where you see the 12% growth.
For let's start with those small
businesses who may not be using
a CRM today, whether it's
Salesforce or like you said,
Microsoft or another one, why
would you tell someone to use
what's the importance of using a
CRM if you were talking to a
business owner who didn't?
Jim Marascio: Sure How I think
the first thing I touched on
earlier, which is siloed data,
it's important to have all of
your data in one place, so that
you can react and respond to
your clients in the market
needs. So that you can make
decisions through reporting and
dashboards that allow you to
really understand what's
happening within your business.
And if you've got disparate
information all around the
organization that isn't, that
can't be aggregated into one
place, and then reported on it's
very difficult to not only just
manage kind of the day to day,
but really see insights that are
going to help you move forward.
So I think that's first and
foremost is kind of centralizing
your data, so that everybody's
going to one place, or maybe not
going to one place, but they're
accessing the data ultimately
from one place because of
integration. So as an example,
if your salespeople are
collecting certain data during
the sales process, and pre sales
process, and then you close a
deal, very often that customer
data is needed to service with
either a product or a service to
provide whatever it is your
business is doing that a lot of
that same data is needed.
Likewise, you if you're a
service related business,
there's probably some support
element to what you're doing.
And that data carries through.
So what you'll find is a lot of
data kind of flows back and
forth through the business, then
it goes to finance because
invoices need to be paid. And
then somebody doesn't pay an
invoice, you need to know who to
contact or connect to to collect
from, and whatnot. So you'll
start seeing that there's a lot
of common data that especially
with smaller businesses, is
replicated throughout the
organization, then somebody
changes in your client's
business, and you don't have an
accurate record throughout your
business. So you don't know who
to contact when there's a
support issue, or the client
calls you and you don't have any
idea who they are, even though
somebody else in your business
does know who you are. And that
ends up creating a poor customer
service experience for your
client. And so it's really
important to centralize that
data and provide access and in
the Salesforce proliance, they,
they talk about a 360 degree
customer view. And so it's
really important for all of you
every area of your business, to
have that same 360 view of the
customer so that you can service
them. And hopefully, for
business owners grow those
businesses,
Aaron Bock: You mentioned, you
know, the customer experience.
And we'll get back to that
because that's a theme. I mean,
we talk with a lot of companies
all across the country. And one
thing we hear a lot is, I want
to be able to give the Domino's
oven pizza oven experience to my
customers in whatever industry,
meaning, if you guys have ever
ordered a Domino's Pizza out
there, you can order it, you can
track it on the app. But while
it's cool to you that you can
see your pizza go in, and
there's a cartoon of the guy
making it etc. They're tracking
your information all along the
way. They see your history of
ordering pizzas, they know you
like pepperoni pizza on
Wednesday night, and so they can
send targeted ads. So there's a
lot behind the scenes. Jim, a
stat that I read it was on, I
think it was on crm.org or
something like that, as of 2011,
the ROI for every dollar spent
on a CRM was 560%. So $5.60 On
$1, you would earn more by
investing in a CRM, they're
saying that the number now is
like $8.71 is can be up up to 30
to one meaning you're gonna
make, you know, $30 for every $1
you spend on CRM, and I think
that goes back to the point you
mentioned around data, like
knowing your data, understanding
your data, having your data in
one one place. So let's kind of
get into Salesforce from those
stats. So sure, you know, like,
when you talk about, you know,
custom development and the
importance of data. What is a
trend that you see that is
starting to happen in CRM within
Salesforce? It's a trend or it's
something you're seeing more of,
and besides just you know, the
importance of data, what is the
trend out there that you're
seeing it that you think we'll
see more of in the coming years?
Jim Marascio: Yeah, it was
really interesting report, and I
can share it if you want to post
the link to it later. Literally
last Friday. So we're talking
this thing's a couple of days
old. Pulse and Salesforce did a
survey of 500 CIOs globally, of
businesses with more than 1000
employees. So good size
businesses, not necessarily
gargantuan businesses, but good
sized businesses, and around the
globe. So this isn't
representative of a certain
region of the United States or
even the United States. It's a
global thing. And one of the
things that they saw change is
related to the great
resignation. So we've all been
hearing about people leaving
businesses and what's going on
and it's created this enormous
challenge for businesses because
when people leave the
information in their minds
leaves, and so trying to
automate workflows to do more
with less because we can't hire.
Because there's staffing
shortages, especially in the
tech space, and trying to
utilize data better to make
decisions so that when people
leave the knowledge that's in
their minds doesn't go with
that. I mean, it goes with them,
but it's still within the
business has become a huge
priority. And that was one of
the things one of the trends
that was new this year, compared
to the same survey a year ago.
So that's just one example that
some other things that came out
of it, but that one was one that
really jumped out at me, because
I've heard so much of quiet,
quitting, and great resignation
and whatnot over the last 90
days, it really made a ton of
sense.
Aaron Bock: Gotcha. What about I
guess, maybe on the trend, but
maybe in your experience, or
from things you've read, like,
what are some examples of really
unique use cases that you're
seeing for Salesforce that maybe
weren't seen five to 10 years
ago, or use cases that people
are now starting to solve for
with CRM and Salesforce that
they weren't, you know, however
many years ago?
Jim Marascio: Sure, I think it
comes back to the data. And it's
not necessarily a Salesforce
thing. Salesforce is one of the
tools but it comes back to the
data, Experian data quality, did
a survey of 1200 organizations a
few months ago, and found that
22%, of contact records included
bad data. So when I needed to
reach out to Aaron, the phone
number was wrong, or the email
was wrong, or Aaron wasn't the
person there anymore. And so
huge trend there around bad
data. And what we're seeing when
we're talking to clients, and
when we're talking to
prospective clients, is
discussions about how do we
improve our data, so we can
create a better customer
experience. So we can make it
easier for our employees to do
whatever it is we're doing as a
business. And so that we just
better understand the market
there, likewise, and another
survey was done of IT leaders.
And there's been a lot of for, I
don't know, five years, there's
been a ton of conversation
around digital transformation,
probably longer than five years.
But nine out of 10, IT leaders
pointed to what I was talking
about earlier, which is data
silos. So data being disparate
throughout the organization. And
nine out of ten, IT leaders said
that data silos were the biggest
obstacle to performing digital
transformation because their
data isn't in one place, they
can't advance the organization.
So the first challenge they have
to do is say, how do we organize
all this data in one place so
that it can be accurately and
adequately shared with various
areas of the business that need
it, and so that we better
understand what we're doing and
how we're doing it. So we can
manage it, there was another
recent stat that I saw from Bain
and Company that said, a five,
if you could increase your
customer retention by 5%, it
would increase your profits by
25%. So it goes back to the
whole adage that it costs less
to grow a client and save a
client than it does to find it
or than the cost of acquiring a
new client or customer. And so
back to the CRM aspect, if you
want good customer retention,
you need to know who that
customer is, you know, how
they're interacting with your
business, and provide the right
tools to your customer service
team, and to your account
managers and whatnot. So it's
really touching all areas of the
business. And if regardless of
what CRM you're using, it's just
important to have good data and
good beta practices. So as we're
again talking with, with
customers, it's as much around
how do we get data from other
business systems into
Salesforce? Or how do we get
data from Salesforce into the
other business systems you're
using? Because sometimes they're
using some other tool for
account management? And so their
Salesforce tools to do that, but
a lot of times there's legacy
systems that a business use. So
how do we exchange the data back
and forth? How can we change
data in one area of the
business? Do we get that the
flow back into the primary place
within the business, which is
probably Salesforce, but if
they're using it, but it doesn't
have to be? But more often than
not, it's the primary place to
go within the business. So we're
working with our customers to do
those things so they can make
better decisions and service
people better.
Aaron Bock: Gotcha. So we talked
a little bit about the smaller
companies and why a CRM and how
they should use it. You've
talked about data silos being a
huge issue today with companies
you know, in a digital
transformation, wanting to see
data in a better, more
consistent manner. I think any
of those folks listening who
have been in IT for a long time
or around IT know that one of
the big problems with a big
system of implementation and in
using it company wide is the is
the actual implementation of the
system. Right? So, you know, do
you use all the modules? Have
you implemented the modules?
Right? Does everyone understand
it? Are users aware of how to
use it? So I know that that's a
huge problem. And I know it's a
huge problem and the bigger the
company, because you have to
make sure that the system is
implemented, right. So maybe you
can speak to that, you know,
what are some of the challenges
there? But then, what I'd be
curious of, and what you see in
your day to day around this is,
what are companies, they're
using Salesforce today and they
think they might be using it
right. But there's just things
that they're doing that are
shooting themselves in the foot
for the future? What are some of
those common things you see, and
and maybe advice for some of
those listeners out there that
are Salesforce administrators,
or in a company using
Salesforce? Like, what are
things they can do on their own
that would help, you know,
prevent some of those things?
Jim Marascio: Yeah, I think the
first thing you need to
acknowledge is a business isn't
stagnant. It's always evolving,
things are changing either
outside market factors, or
things within the business, your
products evolving, your clients
are changing, the marketplace is
changing. So thinking that you
did something and it's done is
probably a little bit naive. And
it's really important to put in
a solution that's going to be
flexible and scalable for you,
so that you're not constantly
changing everything. But be
prepared to be reviewing it and
looking at how your business is
evolving. And what does that
mean for the tools you're using,
whether it's your CRM, or it's
some other system that the CRM
may be interfacing with. The
other thing related to that on
the implementation side,
specifically, is we see a lot of
situations where implementations
are done. And again, it's more
of a change management exercise.
And when it's done, it may
address the needs of one
department in the business. But
every other department has got
this Who Moved My Cheese feeling
where they're saying, okay, you
know, now I need to change the
way I operate because of this.
And that's the result of
improper inadequate planning. So
I think like anything else,
that's a significant change in
your business, if you don't plan
adequately, you result in
technical debt, that you have to
then come back and reconcile.
And sometimes, or not,
sometimes, almost always, the
cost of resolving and addressing
the technical debt that you
created by not taking the time
to plan and architect in design,
before you built ends up costing
significantly more than the time
and effort it would have taken
to plan. So if you want to draw
an analogy, think about building
a house, if I said, we're going
to build a house, and we just
kind of threw up some kind of
vague requirements, and then
came back and I said, Well, you
know, I said, I needed X number
of bathrooms. But I didn't tell
you how many needs to be on
which floor. And now we've got
to replumb the house, you're
tearing down walls and running,
you know, the cost to do
something after the house was
built, can be exponentially more
than doing it when you're
building the house the first
time. So the same thing happens
when you're doing any type of
your ERP CRM, implementation and
customization and integration
with other systems. So take the
time to understand the outcomes
that are desired, plan
appropriately, architect
appropriately, plan for
scalability and flexibility, and
then build to that. And then
finally, don't think it's done
when it's done, monitor and be
prepared to evolve and make sure
that you're resourced
appropriately to do that,
because your business is going
to change and require new needs.
Aaron Bock: That's great advice.
And I think I can speak to that
personally. Opkalla, we use
Salesforce. It's funny, every
quarter we talk about okay,
here's the enhancements, here's
the things we want to do. And
it's like, alright, we got them
all done. It's like well, wow,
there's just as many for the
next quarter. How'd that happen?
I thought we got all this stuff
done. But like you said,
business always changes,
processes evolve, people evolve.
The technology evolves, there's
new things, you can do API's,
etc. So you're right, it always
changes. I'm curious. There is
data out there on it, but I'm
curious what you see. So talked
about implementations, data
silos. Let's go back to all CRM.
So sure, large companies, small
companies, what is the single
biggest challenge of using a CRM
for an organization?
Jim Marascio: The people. It's
the people
Aaron Bock: is it not
understanding why to use it? Is
it is it the how to use it?
Jim Marascio: is it's again, a
change management exercise,
especially on implementation
people have some way they want
to do something and now you're
giving them a tool. And if you
think about the first time you
drove a car, if you didn't know
what to do, it was awkward. It
was weird. And it may not you
may have, you know, I learned
how to drive on the standard.
And I remember getting out and
telling my mom, No, I've never
want to drive again, because
this is too frustrating to be,
I'll just ride my bike. And so I
think anytime you're asking
people to change the way they do
something, it can be
uncomfortable. So recognizing
and getting people to focus on
the fact that the process is
going to be uncomfortable, but
the outcome is going to be much
better once we work through it.
So including everybody that
needs to be done on that. And
it's the same thing. And you
know, again, we focus on post
implementation optimization, not
necessarily implementation, it's
the same thing just at a smaller
scale. If we're coming in, and
we're working with the Opkalla
team, and you need something,
there's going to be a little
pain, going through the process
of building out that until it's
done, but you've got to be
focused on at the end of this,
it's going to be better. And
here's why. And so it's worth
that cost. And it goes back to
that whole adage that until the
cost of staying the same exceeds
the cost of change, you're never
going to change. So you've got
to get to the point where you
say, okay, the cost, it's going
to be painful, it's going to
cost something to change, but
it's going to be worth it.
Aaron Bock: Well, if it helps
people out there listening, we
already share the ROI metrics of
five to one or eight to one and
30 to one, you pick the one you
want to want to use to tell the
story. I've also read because we
work with a lot of different
folks in sales, salespeople are
three times as likely to hit
their quota if they're using a
CRM that's well built versus
not. So we don't need to dive
into that. But hopefully, for
those out there who are who are
focused on sales, CRM is a great
tool. Couple final questions for
you on maybe CRM or Salesforce,
specifically. We already talked
about data, but like, what is a
new feature that you're seeing
from Salesforce, that they're
rolling out or new trend
features in all CRM that you're
gonna see?
Jim Marascio: Sure. So I'll say
more newly being implemented.
Salesforce has an AI rapidly
evolving artificial intelligence
engine they call Einstein. And
so it's been around in evolving
for a few years, but adoptions
starting to really happen. And
as you look at a business and
you think about, we need to get
data from here to there, we need
to enter the data, we've got
this marketing campaign that
went out, we need to track this
information that's coming back
in a lot of those things can be
very repetitive tasks, or can be
predictable based on certain
behaviors. So effectively, you
identify a scenario, when this
happens, this happens, and this
happens, this needs to happen.
So why have a person do that? If
it's predictable, and you know
what the scenario is, you know,
if you think about your camera,
and your iPhone recognizes where
the faces and you don't have to
choose where to focus, that's
because Apple put and Google the
same thing with with their
phones, put AI into it to
identify the face and change the
focus point. If there's parts of
your business, that you can
predict certain patterns. And
when this happens, this happens,
this happens, this is what we
need to do. Managing that with
humans can be really
ineffective, and cutting very
costly, there's more opportunity
for error, there's a higher cost
to do it. Taking the time to
implement an AI based solution
to identify, look for those
scenarios, and actually handle
the data for you is something
that we're seeing rapidly being
adopted and having a lot of
conversations. But again, back
to that bad data. A lot of the
bad data is predictable. A lot
of times it may be humans, I
enter a name, last name, first
you enter it first name, first.
I put before the name of
business, you don't want to have
it on your database. Let's
truncate and pull it out. You
can create rules and find things
like that you can scan forms and
look for things that look like
addresses and automatically
populate the addresses in there.
You can scan form, a computer
can look at an email and see
where the phone number is, where
the email is, where the name is,
and all that and automatically
update your records. So you
don't have to have a human do
that. So being able to use
artificial intelligence is huge
in this space, and it's only
going to get bigger.
Aaron Bock: Yeah. And I would
add to that another thing that
we're seeing in our space, we do
a lot in the collaboration
spaces. We see a lot of
monitoring down to a social
media account level and tracking
that data and Salesforce or CRM.
Jim Marascio: Marketing
technology. The martech side of
this is huge as well.
Aaron Bock: Yeah, it's huge.
Usually because you can tell not
only what, what people like, who
they cheer for what their family
looks like, Are they happy? Are
they sad? I mean, there's so
much around it. And then you
think of the product marketing
around it. My wife always tells
me, I'm a marketer's dream.
Because I see a commercial, I'm
like, we should go. So within,
like, you know, if they could
track my eyes, like I'm watching
a commercial, Aaron's probably
gonna go purchase that food in
about five minutes. It's pretty
sad. But I'm probably in a lot
of Salesforce databases out
there for anything food related.
Jim Marascio: Looking at what
Amazon's done. Look at what
Google's done all that, you
know, the creepy thing is that
Alexa must be listening me I saw
this ad next to when I was here,
Google must be listening. My
phone's listening to me and I
got presented this and that type
of thing. Absolutely. There's
truth to a lot of that creepy
stuff. There's tools to do that.
I think there's some ethical
things that need to be factored
into how do we do this? And how
do I do it in a way that doesn't
feel creepy? Because really, if
it feels natural, and oh,
Okkalla was paying attention to
my needs. And they presented
this, then there's value. If it
was, you know, Jim was spying on
me, I won't, I won't say Aaron
would do it, then it's then it's
creepy. And so there's amazing
tools to do those things. And we
can help you do that. And part
of it is working through that
user experience level, just like
anything else. The UX matters,
and you don't want to freak
people out.
Aaron Bock: As long as it's
like, I think it was the movie
in the 90s. Smart House, as long
as it's getting all my
preferences. Exactly right and
it's delivering me, you know,
the product exactly when I need
it, I guess I don't care. But if
it starts doing it wrong, then
we've got problems,
Jim Marascio: You definitely
notice what's wrong, or you
notice when it does things that
you didn't want it to know.
Target got in some trouble, you
know, 5, 6, 7 years ago, when it
started sending diaper
advertisements to people that
shouldn't, you know, their
parents didn't want to know that
they were doing things and stuff
like that. So yeah, there's,
there's definitely a either an
uncomfortable factor because
it's wrong. And it feels wrong
or a creep factor, because it's
right. And it's it's not
something you wanted to be so
over with.
Aaron Bock: Maybe that's our
episode, a follow up episode to
this is the ethics, compliance
and security of all CRM. But,
Jim, I know that you've got
things to do. And I appreciate
you coming on the show. I think
one final question for you. And
I've asked all my, all my guests
on this show on the podcast. If
you could stand in front of a
million people, we'll call them
Salesforce users or CRM users or
potential business owners,
you're speaking in front of a
million people, and you give
them a piece of advice about
technology could be Salesforce
CRM, specifically, what would
you tell them?
Jim Marascio: I think goes back
to what I said earlier, is take
the time to plan. Figure out
what what the objective is a lot
of times, technologists, and
I've, you know, I've probably
made this mistake along the way
to technologies can geek out a
little bit and want to use
technology because it's cool and
fun. Or we can say oh, that's
the problem. Let's solve it. And
if you don't take the time to
really understand what the
problem is, what the desired
outcome is, what the user
experience needs to be, then
you'll create that technical
debt again. So I think what
regardless of what it is, but
absolutely in the CRM and in the
Salesforce space, understand
what you need to be doing, what
the outcome is, and then
architecting the solution to a
deliver that but also be in a
position to be flexible enough
so that as your business evolves
from that point, you have
something that's a strong
foundation to build and grow
from, rather than something that
maybe you have to tear down and
rebuild.
Aaron Bock: That is great
advice. And, Jim, thank you for
being on the show today on the
podcast. We will put some of the
links that we talked about some
of the technology in the show
notes so that you listeners out
there, have it. Thank you all
for listening. Jim, thank you
for joining us and I hope you
all have a great rest of the
day. Thanks Good.
Narrator: Thanks, Jim. Thanks
for listening. The IT Matters
podcast is produced by a color
and it advisory firm that helps
businesses navigate the vast and
complex IT marketplace. Learn
more about kala at op klla.com