Why Your Last Software Rollout Failed With Erin Mathie

Chris Ronzio (02:37):

Hey everyone, and welcome back to Organize Chaos. I'm your host, Chris Ronzio, and today we're here with Erin Mathie. Hey, Erin.

Erin Mathie (02:45):

Hi. I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me today.

Chris Ronzio (02:48):

Thanks for coming on. So as I mentioned in the intro, Erin's one of our Process People members and a certified consultant. So I've invited her onto the show today so we can just have a pretty casual discussion about two different topics. So today we're going to be digging into unique ways to leverage training in your business. So I'm excited to get into those ideas, and then also why your last software rollout failed. So I love this topic. We'll be talking about just how sometimes it's difficult to get software to stick. And so we can both share some best practices on how to make it work. Sound good?

Erin Mathie (03:25):

That sounds great. I'm happy to be here and chat about that.

Chris Ronzio (03:29):

Cool. So you told me right before we hit live, hit go, record, that you're up in Utah, right?

Erin Mathie (03:35):

I am, yes. And it is beautiful looking out at the green mountains today and hoping for some fall soon.

Chris Ronzio (03:42):

Amazing. Well, today is my last official day in the high country of Arizona and Flagstaff where I've been the last three months. So I'm getting ready to head back to the 100-degree weather. So this is my last hurrah with you here. But let's-

Erin Mathie (03:58):

Good for you. I've lived in both Flagstaff and in southern Arizona, so I know the differences there.

Chris Ronzio (04:04):

Yeah. It's a lot better to be here in August, so I wish my kids didn't have to go back to school. But oh well. It is what it is. So unique ways to leverage training. I guess let's just dive right into it. So first, your business is all about just making... Well, it's actually called Business Made Simple, right?

Erin Mathie (04:24):

That's right. Yep. We try to make business simple both internally and for clients that are working with your company.

Chris Ronzio (04:32):

I love it. So maybe based on some of your clients, what are some of the most unique ways you've seen people use training?

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Unique Ways to Leverage Training

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Erin Mathie (04:42):

Yeah. I think that training is underutilized, especially when we're looking at training used externally. There's a lot of great ways that you can actually train your clients and train your vendors on how to help to work with you more smoothly because the truth is you can never overcommunicate too much. There's no way to give your customers too much information on how to work with you. And so really providing some external training can help to improving efficiency and also to be able to reduce customer service tickets and just enhance the general customer experience. And I think sometimes people think that that's going to be something really complex, and it could be, but it could be as simple as an email or it could be as complex as sending people through a learning management system. But there's a lot of different ways that you can leverage that external training to help with your clients as well as with the vendors that you're working with.

Chris Ronzio (05:35):

External training is kind of a fun term. So just hearing you say this, it reminded me of when I was running my consulting business, which for anyone that's new to the podcast, my consulting business was called Organize Chaos. That's where the name came from. I remember my second client ever was this marketing firm. They did these big, detailed branding projects. And when you'd work with this firm, this agency, they had a pretty specific process for, "We're going to do this discovery phase. We're going to go out and do some research. We're going to set up a meeting with you and present everything that we found. And then we're going to get your feedback and take another pass at some of the branding mood boards and everything." And so they had an internal process.

(06:17):

And when I came in, one of the problems that they were having was, "Our clients, they keep pinging us for like, 'Oh. When are we going to meet next? And is it done? And when are we getting back together?'" And I said, "Well, do you have a process?" They said, "Yes." And I said, "Well, have you showed them?" And they were caught in their tracks. And so when you say external training, sometimes it's really just showing our customers or our vendors like, "Hey. Here's how we do things behind the curtain so that you know what to expect," right?

Erin Mathie (06:50):

Absolutely. Yeah. In fact, my trademark lawyer that I'm working with right now, they send out an infographic that says, "Here's all the different stages of applying for a trademark and here's how long you can expect it to take, because it takes a lot longer than you think it's going to." And so they sent that over and then it stops me from calling them every week saying, "Are we approved? Where are we at?" It really gets in front of some of those customer service things.

(07:13):

They also sent me a little short video walking through, "Here is where you can go to find resources on our website and here's the best way to communicate with the team." So just a little intro video and infographic really helped to be able to set the stage and simplify the process in working with them.

Chris Ronzio (07:29):

Yeah. I love that. I mean, just little videos or a little infographic can save you a lot of heartburn for having to deal with people that don't know what to expect. I think that's where most of the questions come from, is if I just don't know what's next in your process, I'm left in the dark.

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‍(07:49):

Even on our website, I had a call this morning with a candidate that's applying for a job and she said, "I love on your website how it spells out the process start to finish of from this call to maybe getting the job offer." And I think anyone externally can benefit from that learning the process, seeing the process transparently.

Erin Mathie (08:15):

Yeah. Absolutely. I think also another way to be able to share that external training is to think about what are the common customer service questions that you get asked, and then create training to get in front of them. There was a solar company that we wrote processes for, and every summer, they get bombarded with different customer service ticket requests because people are like, "I don't know how to read my new solar bill because it's not what I expected it to be at the start of the summer." And so we put together a process to say, "Hey. Let's send out a training right before summer begins to say your summer bill is going to be different and let me walk you through why that is and how it works." And so being able to do that reduced their customer service tickets by about 75% that month, just by getting in front of it. And so I think it's really important-

Chris Ronzio (09:01):

So they blast this out to all their customers?

Erin Mathie (09:04):

Well, they send it to everybody that was the first time. So if this was their first summer on the program, they send it out to everybody that was the first timer, so they knew what to expect.

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Training Your Customers

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Chris Ronzio (09:13):

That's cool. I like that. Have you seen other instances of training customers?

Erin Mathie (09:20):

Yeah. Absolutely. There was a marketing firm that we worked with that they said, "We want to walk you through the back end of our process," to be able to say, "Here's where you can find all the content that was created. If you want to add your own stuff, here's the way. Here's the hashtags that we recommend that you use and here's the style guide." So they provided us with templates, but they're saying, "We want to include you as part of the process and we want you to be educated as you go so that we can work together." And I think that those simple little education pieces really help to be able to create that customer experience and reduce those customer service questions.

Chris Ronzio (09:56):

Yeah. That's great. We work with Ironman who does the big triathlon races, and they train all of their volunteers, thousands of volunteers, which you don't even really think about when you're at these races, but it's the people handing out the Gatorade and the bananas and all that, and the people passing out the medals, and the people in the aid station or the medic stations. They have a ton of volunteers, as many volunteers as they do racers at a lot of these events. And so training volunteers is something that just didn't have a really thorough process before. But now, they package it together in our system. They send it out a week in advance. They can see if people have done it. And it's been really helpful.

Erin Mathie (10:42):

I see that a lot with nonprofits too, especially when you've got those short-term volunteers that you need to be able to train en masse. But also in instances where you have volunteers that have a high level of turnover, you don't want to take a whole full-time position just to train the volunteers as they come in. So having that built-in training could be really helpful.

Chris Ronzio (11:01):

Yeah. I remember I had the worst volunteer experience when I was... It was right when all these, the vaccine stuff was starting to come out, and I volunteered at this one place just to help out with distribution and the car flow and all this. And I remember showing up that morning, it was 5:00 AM, and the police officer there just gave me a flashlight and was like, "Stand here." And that was my entire training. And so as the day went on, people are sobbing and asking me questions and I'm like, "Oh. I don't know. You go ask somebody else." And I was kind of laughing. It's just the irony of the situation. I got zero training to be in this situation and I felt useless. And so it was a good reminder that anytime people are feeling like they don't know what's going on, how can you be more proactive to show them what they need to know?

Erin Mathie (11:55):

Yeah. Absolutely. I see that especially as I was thinking about volunteering in my kids' classrooms at their school, and you go in and some of the teachers are like, "Hey. Here's your checklist. Here's what we want you to do." And sometimes you go in and they're like, "I don't know." You're like, "Well, I took time to be here." So it's helpful to be able to have those trainings. But I think sometimes we do more training externally than we realize, though. I think things like before client calls, if you're sending people an agenda and being able to say, "Here's what you need to do to prepare for the call and here's what we're going to be discussing and who needs to be there, that is a form of little mini-training that I think a lot of people are sending out that they could probably beef up to reduce some of the problems that they're having with meetings.

(12:34):

Or a meeting reminder like the one that you sent me for the podcast. I loved it. It had instructions of, "Here's all the things you need to do to your computer to prep for the call. "And I think those things are a form of external training to get us ready.

Chris Ronzio (12:47):

Totally. We made a whole training for any contractor that we bring on, any kind of vendor because I think it's important when you work with a vendor to teach them about the company and the culture and how to work with your people and your communication styles and where you're going to correspond. Are you going to be an email? Are you going to invite them as a guest into your Slack channel? These are the types of things that you can have a standard way of doing business. But I don't think a lot of companies put the effort into making vendor training or contractor training. But if you're hiring a lot of those people, why not?

Erin Mathie (13:22):

Yeah. Absolutely. We were just reviewing one for a property maintenance company where they have a lot of vendors that come in to do repairs, all the plumbers and electricians and painters. And so if they didn't have a standard method and they're working with 50 different vendors on any given day, it's really complex. And so it's great to be able to train the vendors to be able to say, "Here's how the best ways to communicate with us, and here's what you can expect, and here's who to call if you have a problem."

Chris Ronzio (13:48):

So I'll give you another creative, unique way to leverage training. I actually have a Trainual account for my family. I don't know if you've ever heard of that before.

Erin Mathie (13:59):

Oh. I love that.

Chris Ronzio (14:00):

But it's like we have our house vendors and stuff, like the landscaper, the contact info and the groceries and stuff, and the kids' school and the teachers' names and all those common FAQs because if my mom flies into town and my wife and I go on a trip, she's got a place to have all the info that she needs. So we have that.

Erin Mathie (14:24):

I love that.

Chris Ronzio (14:26):

And then we also set up one for... We got this cabin that I'm up at in Flagstaff. We've used it for retreats and had employees come up here. And so I also set up an account for the FAQs about the house. So anyone that's ever stayed in an Airbnb and had one of those binders, that's a form of training. You're showing people the answers to the questions and when to take the trash out and all those simple things. So I think we probably do a lot more training than we realize.

Erin Mathie (14:57):

Yeah. I think so. And I think if we just view it as training, then it helps us to be able to say, "Oh. How can I expand on that? How can I use it to... If I'm using it for education purposes instead of just an FAQ?" I think if we just shift the mindset, the quality of the training gets a lot better.

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Chris Ronzio (15:12):

Yeah. Training is like an experience. How do you craft the experience of someone learning something from 0 to 100? So you're totally right. It's a more intentional way of communicating than just like, "Here's all the info." The last one I would mention that I think is unique, I alluded to it a little earlier, but we do have a formal training for any candidate that applies at Trainual. And so yes, we have a formal process that's on our website, but when they actually make it through the first step in the process, they get assigned content from our internal account to teach them about the company. And so we can see if someone's actually going through and completing everything because that to us is one of the hurdles. Do they care enough about this company that they actually want to dig in and get engaged and learn? And it makes the rest of the process that much more enjoyable because then they have all this background info and they have all these questions that they can bring to the table.

Erin Mathie (16:18):

I love that. And it's so much better than just saying, "If you read all the way to the end of this post, please write the word pool at the beginning of your application," or something.

Chris Ronzio (16:25):

I totally do that.

Erin Mathie (16:30):

Yeah. But this way, they're actually getting content and you're being able to say, "Okay. This person is truly interested. They're really investing themselves into the process." So I love that.

Chris Ronzio (16:38):

Exactly. I mean, practically speaking, this doesn't have to be a crazy investment in creating an entire professional course for someone. So I want everybody that's listening to know that it could be a blog post or something on a website. It could be a public share link that you send out that you're not necessarily tracking everything, but it's all organized. The point is that you're systematizing it, that you're recording these common FAQs that you're teaching people, that you're saving yourself those inbound tickets, like you mentioned. And if you are making investments in communicating and being proactive in all these different areas, it's just going to make your business run smoother or make your business simpler, as the sign behind you says.

Erin Mathie (17:24):

That's right. Absolutely.

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Why Your Last Software Rollout Failed

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Chris Ronzio (17:25):

All right. So let's pivot over to the next topic, rolling out software or failing at rolling out software. So what prompted this? Is this something you're dealing with right now?

Erin Mathie (17:42):

It's something that I think a lot of the customers that I'm working with are dealing with. So anytime that you're implementing something new, a software, there's a learning curve. And I think there are some common reasons why any new process or any new software really fails in its rollout. And some of the statistics around this are actually quite shocking. Some CRM statistics for a CRM rollout has up as high as a 70% failure rate for implementation. That's huge. And so I think there's just a lot of thought that needs to go behind a software rollout, even if it's a really simple software to use. There are steps and thought that needs to go behind it to really be able to make sure that it can be used successfully and that your team knows why you're using it and how to use it, and they know what the expectations are on using it.

Chris Ronzio (18:29):

Wow. So maybe you don't know, but are those statistics based on when someone's paid for the software and then it fails, or is it based on just from the get-go of testing it?

Erin Mathie (18:42):

Yeah. It's based on when they've actually paid for it. So paid for it all the way through. Did it implement and solve the problems that they were trying to solve, and did their team use it?

Chris Ronzio (18:51):

Wow. That's insane. I'll give just a little bit of history or context. So when Trainual first started, it was a different kind of trial. We required a credit card to even do a trial of the software, and then after seven days, it would send you an email and it would bill your credit card if you were still on there. You had to proactively log back in, cancel, and get out of there. And we saw a ton of customers that would be charged once or twice and then cancel because they never really used it. It was this aspirational thing where they wanted to use it and they thought about it, and then it would drop to the bottom of their to-do list, and it became something they never did.

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(19:30):

And so we shifted that a few years ago and made it so that no credit card's required for the trial. This way, they can kick the tires, decide if they really want it, and then if they actually want to purchase it and move forward, they put it in a credit card. We saw a night and day shift in terms of engagement once they were in based on not having to put a credit card until they decided, "Yeah, I want to use this." And so I can only imagine that companies that put in that credit card, that's not the end-all be-all. Once you put the credit card in, now all the work starts. And so that failure rate that we mentioned, that is crazy. So let's dig into that. Why does that happen?

Erin Mathie (20:09):

Yeah. I think the first problem is that people maybe didn't select the right software. And I think that there's a lot of mindset that needs to go around that. I think one of the first things, that people get into this space of thinking that there's going to be one magical solution that's going to fix everything that they need.

Chris Ronzio (20:26):

The silver bullet.

Erin Mathie (20:27):

And oftentimes what the... Yeah. Exactly. But I think sometimes what they're failing to realize is that they are wanting a software solution to fix all of their process problems. But in reality, software only manages process and software only automates process. But if you have a weak process to begin with, no software is going to fix it. And so I think people get stuck in that mode initially with thinking that some software is going to fix it. And then sometimes people get stuck in this idea that this other software, the grass is green over here. This software is going to be better. But sometimes it's really just better utilizing the tech that you already have because every software has its own strengths and weaknesses. And so it's really about identifying what do you really need.

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(21:14):

And another place that I see people getting stuck mindset-wise on this is thinking that, "I need something specific for my basket-weaving industry," or whatever industry that they're in. But in reality, oftentimes those specific softwares are started by companies that are not software companies. And so I worked with a landscaping company, for example, that they invested, they were like, "We're going to build our own perfect magic bullet solution." And so they invested $400,000 into developing their own software. But at the end of the day, they ended up with something that wasn't flexible enough to even manage their own internals, their own internal things, and they were never able to launch it to outside customers because at the end of the day, they just aren't a software company.

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(22:01):

But sometimes we see these really niche softwares end up being produced by somebody that was a technician in the field and really not a software company. And so it's not as flexible as you may think it needs to be. So I think that's a myth that people think, "I've got to have the software that's specific for my one industry," but that's not really true. I think there's a lot of good softwares that are more flexible than they realize.

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How To Find The Right Software

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Chris Ronzio (22:22):

Yeah. So what would be the counterpoint to that? Say someone needs software that is for basket-weaving or for landscaping. Do you look for case studies of those types of customers using a more horizontal mass market tool?

Erin Mathie (22:40):

Yeah. I think it's important to look at the case studies. But I think the first thing to do is to say, "Let's look at what are your must-haves. What are the processes that you're really trying to manage in the software? And what do you need to have happen? What's the dealbreakers for you?" And then being able to look at the features of different softwares. And then when you see one that you think, "Okay. This seems to be able to check all the boxes," then to go in and start looking for case studies on where it's been successful in those industries.

Chris Ronzio (23:05):

I'm flashing back to when I used to do these kind of research projects. I actually had a little self-published book called 100 Hacks for Your Business, or some version of that. I'm forgetting the title even right now. And all hundred pages were just software recommendations that I found while looking for software to solve my client's problems. But you're absolutely right that everyone wants the silver bullet. And I don't think I've seen ever in one business a company that runs entirely on one software. Have you ever seen that?

Erin Mathie (23:39):

No. I think everybody thinks that it's out there, but it's not. Yeah. I see everybody using a combination of different tools and then maybe connecting them together with different API connections or Zapier or things like that. But it would be really difficult. I've never found one company that has everything on one software.

Chris Ronzio (23:56):

We use 63. I'll share that.

Erin Mathie (23:59):

63.

Chris Ronzio (23:59):

Yeah. I-

Erin Mathie (23:59):

That is impressive.

Chris Ronzio (24:03):

I actually had our team pull a list a couple of months ago, which is why I remember that. But I see software as the way to cobble together this robot superhuman employee that can automate all these different areas in your business. And so when you take this $50 a month tool and this $100 a month tool and this $400 a month tool and this $17 tool, and you just bundle them all together, for a few thousand dollars a month, you've created your silver bullet, your super tool. And I think that if you set out to find something that does everything, you'll probably come up short. So maybe just laying the expectation for people. You'll probably need a handful of tools to accomplish the different things that you need, right?

Erin Mathie (24:50):

Yeah. And give those tools a chance and see how they can work together. One solar company that we were working with, they switched CRMs three times in two months. I'm like, "Give it a minute. Give it a minute to see if it's going to work." So I think that that's important too.

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Software Adoption Rate

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Chris Ronzio (25:07):

What do you think is the normal adoption period? When you recommend a tool or something, how long do you think it takes before it's a go or no-go or they're live with the thing?

Erin Mathie (25:20):

Well, I think that's very dependent on what kind of software it is because there's putting all the data in and tweaking it and getting it run through all of your beta testers and then putting together a plan to roll it out. But I would say once you've started the training process and people have been through that initial training, I would say give it three months to see if it's working and continue to make tweaks to it because people have to unlearn the way that they were doing things before and relearn how to do it on the new system, and then they can give you some new ideas on how you can continue to tweak and dial it in to get it closer to what you need it to be.

Chris Ronzio (25:56):

Yeah. That's how we think about our customers on a three-month kind of adoption thing. We have the internal health score that we look at, and we're always running campaigns based on what does their adoption look like in the first three months? Because you want to know that the enthusiasm that existed when they put in the credit card hasn't totally dissipated, that this is still a problem that we want to solve in the business and we want to strike while the iron's hot, help people while this is a problem before they move on to other things. So I think that 90-day window sounds fair.

Erin Mathie (26:27):

Yeah. I think like you mentioned with having people not lose their passion and their vision for why they initially signed up to it, I think that that leads us to another reason of why a lot of software implementation fails, and it's because they didn't get buy-in from the employees. And I think what's hard is oftentimes the management has their own vision of what the software's going to accomplish for them. So they know what the problem is that they're trying to solve. They know what the limitations are of the software because they've done the research on it. But what they need to do is to communicate that to their team to be able to say, "Here's the problems that we're trying to solve and here's why this is a good solution for it."

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(27:04):

And then one thing that I think is really, really impactful to be able to keep your team on board with the software is to recognize the impact that it's going to have on each role and what the benefits are that are specific to that role. So essentially you're selling the software to your team. But I think it's helpful if you take the time to be able to say, "I recognize that this is going to change these processes for you, or you're going to have to change the way you're logging in here, but here's why I think it's going to be a great tool for you or why it's going to be a great tool for the business." But taking that time to do that and then be able to select some champions that can help you through that vetting process so that what you're presenting the first time looks really good.

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(27:43):

You're more dialed in if you've had some champions that have been able to beta test it and that they've been able to go into the system and share the excitement around and spread the word about, "Oh. I'm so excited for this new software that we're going to be rolling out and here's what it's going to do for us. So I think sharing your vision, talking about the impact, and getting champions on board is really important to help with that buy-in rate.

Chris Ronzio (28:07):

You're reminding me of a recent example where I failed implementing a software, and so I feel like I want to share this story. So I'm 100% with you. You have to start with the problem and how it's going to impact each role. And when I was consulting, that's exactly how I used to approach it, is I would go into the business, I'd be talking with each person, understanding where their challenges were, things that took up a lot of time. And then I would identify and speak back those problems and say, "If we could find a way for this to be automated, would that save you a bunch of time?" And they'd be like, "Yeah. That would be great." And then I would go out and do the research, find the tool, come back and they can't wait to hear the suggestion. That sounds like the right way to do it. That's what I used to do.

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(28:53):

But now as you're talking, I'm remembering a couple of months ago an investor told me about this software, a specific tool, a specific brand, and it had to do with displaying interactive walkthroughs of our product on our website. And so I thought, "Oh. Pre-trial, that could be a really great solution for customers that want to go a little deeper but don't necessarily need to get into a full-blown trial." And so I just sent the website like, "Here's the tool," to the people, and I got met with so much resistance that's like, "Oh. Well, this is going to mess this up on this page and this is like, we've already got this thing in motion," and it was dead in the water. No one ever even went further with the product. And I'm seeing my past before my eyes as you were just telling that story, realizing that that's what happened. I did that wrong. I did not start with the problem.

Erin Mathie (29:49):

Yeah. That's interesting. I love that you share that. I think as leaders in our business, it's easy to be able to say, "Oh. Here it is. This is the shiny object. Let's throw it in." But it's just because that's our nature, I think, as business owners. But taking the time to back it up and think about it and think about how to implement it really does help with that success rate.

Chris Ronzio (30:08):

So you mentioned the grass is greener on the other side and just tool-jumping. Is there anything people can do to avoid that, maybe learn all about the tool that they do have? I've seen some people just that we talk to that call in to support or something. They're like, "Yeah. This isn't working for X, Y, and Z reason." And our support team will say, "Well, have you tried this?" And they'll be like, "I didn't even know I could do that."

Erin Mathie (30:35):

Yeah. I think it's really helpful to talk to the customer service for whatever software you're looking at. And sometimes it's helpful to hire in a consultant who can see the bigger picture and how your software tools can integrate with each other. So that can be really helpful too so that you don't get stuck in always trying to switch different softwares to manage problems, but being able to get that bigger picture. But yeah. I think it's totally worth it to dive in with customer service. And then if that doesn't handle it for you, looking at maybe hiring a consultant that can help put the pieces together.

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Software For Different Stages Of Business

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Chris Ronzio (31:04):

Absolutely. Always important to get a fresh set of eyes. It was how my business worked and it was how your business worked. We've hired a bunch of consultants, so I definitely recommend getting a fresh perspective and bringing someone like you in to help make business simple. Let's talk real quick before we wrap up about are there different software challenges at different size businesses or different tools they should be thinking about?

Erin Mathie (31:28):

Yeah. I think there are definitely different tools. Sometimes, when businesses start, they think, "I'm going to go all in and I'm going to get the top of the level tools," but they're not really ready for it yet. And sometimes we see the opposite. So I think there is definitely tools that you need at different stages. And I don't think these are hard and fast rules, but I think when you're still in development phase, I see a lot of people there existing off from spreadsheets to manage almost everything, which is okay at that stage. But then when you get into more of the startup and you're starting to hire people, there are some basics that you've got to have. You've have accounting software and an email service provider. I recommend a task management tool and a CRM. If you're doing time tracking, you need a tool for that. And then software to manage your documents like Google Suite or Office 365 or something like that, and then maybe moving into a communication tool like Slack.

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(32:20):

I think those are really helpful when you're in that startup phase. And then as you go into that growth and expansion phase, I think that's where it's time to say, "Okay. Let's look at help ticket software. What help desk stuff do we need? And we need a more robust marketing software and maybe payroll things." And maybe that's the point where you want to implement a training system. I always recommend doing that earlier, but I think it becomes really, really needed in that growth phase. And maybe that's where you want to look at HR software or maybe an ERP. But I think again, those aren't really hard and fast rules. I think different businesses have different needs. But I think it's important to think about, what stage am I in and what do I really need right now?

Chris Ronzio (33:03):

Yeah. I think about it in a really simplified, five different categories where the first one is communication tools. When you're just a handful of people doing work together, maybe all you really need is the email and the chat and just like, we can just communicate about everything that we're doing. But then as your business gets more complex, you can't just manage everything real-time. And so at that point you need a project management or task management tool like, how do we capture the backlog of work that needs to happen and coordinate asynchronously? And then as the business gets even bigger and you're doing repeat jobs for those customers, then you want to start to manage the customer relationships. And that's where you need the CRM or the marketing tools. And as your business gets a little bit bigger now, it's like, "Well, how do we fine-tune our margin and where are we spending our money?" And now you need the financial tools.

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(34:01):

And then that fifth bucket is like, "Well, how do we really invest in our employee experience and train people and up level our people and make sure the knowledge is easy to find?" And that's where people tend to run into tools like ours. So I think we both said basically the same thing in just slightly different ways, but hopefully that's helpful for everyone to think about what they might need in the business. And on that note, when they do need knowledge and training tools, I heard you were working on some kind of template, right?

Erin Mathie (34:34):

Yeah. I created a template within Trainual that walks people through how to develop a software rollout plan. So all of the little steps to take, some checklists there and things to think about to make sure that whatever software it is that you're implementing, that it's going to have a high level of adoption. And so it's just great. It walks you through how to fill everything out and really make sure that you have a solid plan and be able to get your team on board.

Chris Ronzio (35:06):

And is that a link that they need or they just search for it in the product?

Erin Mathie (35:06):

So it's in Trainual on the template, so they will just be able to search for it in the templates.

Chris Ronzio (35:09):

Okay. And just search for you or search for software rollout, something like that?

Erin Mathie (35:16):

Yep. It should be the software rollout plan.

Chris Ronzio (35:18):

Cool. Well, Erin, this was fun. Where can people connect with you if they want to learn more about Business Made Simple?

Erin Mathie (35:26):

Yeah. I'd love to communicate with people on our website. So our website is business-made-simple.com.

Chris Ronzio (35:34):

Awesome, business-made-simple.com. Erin Mathie up in Utah, amazing conversation. Thanks so much for the tips about the unique ways to use and leverage training. That was a lot of fun. And it was also fun digging into my own flaws and ways that I was not able to launch software at my own company, at my software company. So thank you for highlighting that for us.

Erin Mathie (35:58):

Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me today.