Fast is Slow – Slow is Fast: the costly repercussions of rushing your CRM implementation

Full Transcript

Mickey Baines: [00:00:00] When we have this project that we have in front of us, we get distracted by the idea of being live in January without fully understanding. Now, that's not always a client's fault. Sometimes it's our job to say, Hey, We wanna be sure we fully are bringing you to this because what happens most times if we allow that project to be condensed Yep.

The likelihood of hitting that timeline is not guaranteed.

Are you ready 

Mickey Baines: to go? Good morning. Good morning. Happy New Week here in CRMprov land. I know we've got, um, a lot going on. Fall has started for everybody and I think we're feeling it. Are you feeling it? Yeah, 

I am feeling it. Yeah. My, my wife, faculty member, wife, uh, started [00:01:00] classes yesterday. You know what I was thinking last night or maybe, maybe two days ago, I was.

It's almost like when you're in higher ed, you get two times to have New Year's resolutions. You get January and then you get September. Like that could be a great topic one day to talk about the, you know, New Year, New Year's resolutions, times two in higher ed, maybe even times three, cuz you might have like, it's almost like there's so many, like these critical points of break.

Mickey Baines: It does allow you to more easily. And I'm sure there are challenges to it, but still, I think maybe more easily break the year into segments. Yeah, Yeah. You've gotta fall, you gotta spring, you gotta summer. Yep. Yep. And you have times of reflection for each. Yeah. Sometimes it's a little more hectic than others.

You know, August is a very hectic time, very hectic. By about May 20th there's this whole new spirit, um, as everybody's leaving on a high. So you get to start on a great, great positive vibe. Then you go in the summer. Yeah. You get the [00:02:00] positive vibe when people start coming back to campus. Getting all excited.

Yeah. You the normal holiday vibes. You 

remember that. You remember that like when people start coming back on campus, it's like, It's like this shot of adrenaline in your arm. It's like, Oh, it is. You get, It's so exciting. I actually get excited about it right now. Like chills in my, It's like all that moment was 

Mickey Baines: magical and when I left hired, I was working with non-traditional students.

It wasn't the same. Yeah. But I still felt that because I was on a campus when the folks were coming back. Yeah. I volunteered to help move new students in. Like becau, you had those activities and it was. So good. It's hard. I don't know other industries that have multiple moments like that. Yeah. For year.

That's, I suppose if you work in retail, there's the rush, the holidays. Yeah. That's what I was 

thinking. It must be like that Black Friday kind of feeling, but, but it's still, it's something, I mean, maybe it's the libertarian in me that says like, it's just not the same. Right? I mean, like, It's just like, it's just not the same.

Mickey Baines: Well, cause you get excited about people coming in to shop versus, 

Right. This [00:03:00] like changing experience of education, right? 

Mickey Baines: Yes. Yes. Well, all these people are coming in. Families are letting go of their child to embark upon their education. That's gonna be the next huge catalyst for the rest of their lives.

Like there there's a difference. And so even though I think other industries like retail that might have moments. Yep. They aren't profound moments. Not to the same extent. Yeah, and there's something 

about the fall too that it's like it is the biggest. Right, And, and it's funny cuz like I've kind of wrestled with this as I've thought about, like the breaking up of education and kind of like, you know, eight week cohorts and online education and what it would do to the fall.

There's something about the fall, September, like August, September when athletes arrive, when those sports, you know, like all that starts happening. It's like, oh my word just magical. Oh my goodness. I'm like, I kind of feel like I wanna just go and. Like, crash a campus today and just kind of like, just be a part of that experience.

Yes. [00:04:00] Walk around in the hallways. I'd probably get arrested, but like . Who says Randa? A middle-aged man walking through the 

Mickey Baines: hallways. Well, like watching, you know, today the hall, the doors are locked, so you'd have to kind of call in, tell in behind someone . So. Yep. 

Yeah. So it definitely feels like the end of summer, but that's a, that's a good thing.

All, all good things must come to an end, and hopefully this heat in Pennsylvania will be one of those things. , but. The fall is? The fall is 

Mickey Baines: here. Well, I'm gonna segue. Segue. It's not, there's always a segueway if you actually say it, um, rather than letting it naturally and organically occur. 

Well, it's not a seamless transition for sure.

When you just, when you claim it, it's, it's happening. 

Mickey Baines: Here it is. Well, but when you were talking about these periods of, of. Resolutions and things. So, you know, the school year started that whole vibe, that one of those periods that we were just about is here. Yeah. And inevitably that comes with, uh, a ramping up, at least from our side of the consulting side.

And I'm seeing it maybe, maybe you aren't, but there, you know, a few more [00:05:00] RFPs and, and emails coming in for people needing help with work and Yep. Um, uh, we're whatever the specific issue or problem is, and so we're, we're seeing that. Yep. And it kind of led me to a. To a topic I've been wanting to talk about for a few weeks.

We were gonna talk about it last week. Um, and I think I digressed and stole, um, and stole the entire time, uh, on whatever it was we were talking about last week. 

Uh, yeah, I haven't edited that episode yet, so I can't actually remember right now cuz it's been, it's been one of those weeks, but, It ended up being a great episode, I think.

What, what were we? It, it was 

Mickey Baines: very organic, that's for sure. We rift, we definitely rft, which is the mission of this podcast. That's right. Um, and, and so, but the topic I wanted to talk about was fastest, slow, slowest, fast. Mm. Um, 

and philosophical Today I see Mr. Banes, 

Mickey Baines: maybe I'm stealing it. It's, it's something I've heard, uh, and learned as I jumped into the world of.[00:06:00] 

RVing and, and traveling. So, you know, when it always comes back to RVing at these, doesn't, it, doesn't it? It always does. It circles back. Sometimes we get into a project, but inevitably, you know, a lot of the work we take on can be 10 or 20 and maybe longer weeks of project, 10 weeks, 20 weeks could be long.

But people are thinking now, Hey, I've got this work. I wanna get this done. I wanna have this live, Um, right after we come back from the holidays. Uh, and when you look at. Most schools will do in that period of time. Yep. That say let's, it could be 16 or 20 weeks of work. And realistically, you know, we're being asked right away, can we shave this back to make it 14 weeks?

And realistically, we also know this is the fall, which leads into Thanksgiving and um, um, the Christmas holiday period. Mm. Now, now we're talking 12 weeks because we're gonna lose time anyway. Sure. And to what extent should you really [00:07:00] condense the work as best you can to get it in that timeframe? Yeah.

When you know realistically you've got a 40% chance that a, the work you need to do with our partners. Meaning meaning to clients. Yep. To ensure that they can make an informed decision, um, do their side of the work with us and have it done in time. It's not high. No. And to what extent do you rush for that?

And when you do rush, what do you miss? Yeah, I mean, our ving perspective, when I say fast is slow. Slow is fast. There are certain steps you have to take when you're setting up or tearing down on rb and more time, more times than not, we're talking tearing it down when you're getting this all, um, ready to go so you can pack up and leave and go home or to the next campground or wherever.

There's certain things that have to be done and sometimes you get behind checkouts at 10, it's nine 15, you gotta get started and what normally takes you an hour you're trying to do in 45 minutes. Yeah. The more you rush, the more likely you miss a step. [00:08:00] Yep. And when you miss a step, there are repercussions.

Yeah. That follow and those repercussions sometimes can be catastrophic, sometimes not as catastrophic, but lead to other steps that you then have to go take to make up for it, which in turn take more time than it ever would have had you just taken the hour. Yeah. 

I feel like the finale of this prelude would actually be a great story about how you tried to rush a tear down and then something happened while you were traveling in your rv.

But I'm hoping that's not the case. I'm hoping you's not 

Mickey Baines: life. I'm somewhat superstitious, I'm afraid you just ruined it for me. Um, but, but I will tell you, here's, here's a good, a good example, uh, of an accident did occur. So I'm was parking the RV in front of my house, um, to set up for a camping. And, and, and we, I don't know if we've said this, um, I have a fifth wheel, which means that's where it connects kind of to the bed of the truck.

Yeah. It's [00:09:00] not, it's not, When we drive, it's not one that I pull on the hitch at the back. It, it, it hitches into the bed of the truck. And so my kids were playing in the driveway, um, playing basketball and our driver's little slope, so sometimes they missed a shot. The ball rolls out into the street. Yeah.

We gotta watch for it. And so I'm setting up the rv, I've got all the feet down and got it. The wedges into the tires. It's set to go. And I'm trying to watch them to be sure that nothing's happening while I'm trying to watch behind me and I'm pulling out this rv. Um, and so I made a mistake when I unhooked, um, the electrical wire from the rv, which gives it lights and brakes and all that kind of stuff.

I actually closed my tailgate back rather than leading it down. Oh, so when I pulled out Yeah, the hitch part, that, that actually connects him to the bed, the. Hit the top of my tailgate. Did not injure the rv, but it did had I not seen what I did right away. Yeah. There's a little component to that hitch that would've caught the tailgate, and I either would've pulled the RV forward and bent the front legs, [00:10:00] which would've been thousands of dollars to fix or broken the tailgate, and it would've come open and not been able to latch back legs.

Right. So I'm not paying attention. I'm trying to get this Yeah. To move in my normal speed. Yep. But also do the things that should have required me to slow up and rethink. Yeah. Because once your mind gets distracted by looking at kids. Yeah. Great thing to be distracted by, by the way. Sure. Sure's running in front of me.

Yeah. Just look one more time. A I can look, when I'm looking back, the a the tailgate was closed. I could've seen. Yeah. I have a camera. You know your backup camera? I have a different view that looks into the bed of the truck. Yeah. I had that vi camera up. I could have seen that. Yeah. Um, but because I got.

And so to bring this back to higher ed, when we have this project that we have in front of us, we get distracted by the idea of being live in January without fully understanding. Now, that's not always a client's fault. Sometimes it's our job to say, Hey, We wanna be sure we fully are bringing you to this because what happens most times if we [00:11:00] allow that project to be condensed Yep.

The likelihood of hitting that timeline is not guaranteed. It reduces Sure. The likelihood of hitting that original timeline, say it was originally 16 weeks, I don't know. Could be 70, 80%. Just depends on the project and what comes up. Yep. Um, but now it's probably we're shorten. And now the likelihood could be 40%.

Yeah. And so while we know what needs to occur to make it happen, and we communicate that with a client, being sure that they're able to do it doesn't always happen. And. And when that doesn't, it's because they actually are taking the time. They should have taken upfront when they are making decisions, but sometimes you have to compromise.

You cut quarters, you eliminate a part of the scope potentially to, to move timeline up. And the key is really understanding what's, what are the implications for each of those decisions. So that you know and go into it. And so when you wanna make up for those implications, because you're live when you wanted to, [00:12:00] maybe we cut something outta scope, you know, part of that functionality that you cut out of the project.

Now, might I, uh, impact the outcomes you want from having this tool or whatever the project was designed to do in place? Yeah. Mm-hmm. and now you've gotta change expectations for the. Yep. Yeah. Cruise enrollment 5%. Well, we cut out a third of the project. Yeah. I don't know that this tool is gonna help you get in 5%.

It might, it might be 3%. Yeah. And those things aren't taken into case and taken into account. And if, if someone would've said, Hey, well then I'd rather take longer and ensure I get my 5%. Hey, I know you're deeply engaged with this conversation, but we're gonna pause just for a moment, for an important word from our sponsor.

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offi.

Yep. Yeah, and I don't know if you face this, sometimes when I'm, you know, when I'm prospecting or talking with clients, There's this real temptation. Um, you know, there's a real temptation in my mind to wanna be able to, you know, make the client happy, right? We wanna make our work fit into their budget. We wanna make sure that we fit into their timeline.

And, and as a result, like it's very easy sometimes to be like, Oh yeah, I think we can do it in that AO of time, or we can, we can make that work. And I feel like that's famous last words. We can make that. But what in, in doing that, I think there's often a [00:14:00] sacrifice, and I think this is what you're getting at, is there's a sacrifice in some, some end, you know, something, something, you know, when you say yes to something, you say no to something else.

And I say that phrase to my wife a lot because she is a people pleaser and likes to say yes to a lot of things. But I think there's, there's kind of this interesting twofold sense cuz what sometimes when we're talking with clients, it. We'll pitch, you know, and we do a lot of like full inbound retainer services.

We like to make sure that we have the full bundle, right? Automated marketing automation emails. We're doing lots of landing pages, we're doing lots of blog content. We're doing lots of long form, like lots of full campaigns where it's like there's a bunch of touchpoints, there's a bunch of digital that's like all firing into the same, you know, piece.

But sometimes we'll talk with clients and they'll be like, Oh, well we are, we're already doing that somehow, we're already doing this somehow. And then there it's like, well, let's, then we wanna back that off. And my, my experience so far in the, you know, the [00:15:00] 18 months that I've been with, with DD agency is that sometimes I, what I notice is that we.

We shortchange ourselves, first of all, when we kind of make those accommodations when they're already doing something else, because it's not the way that we would do it and it's not always gonna get the the results that we would want. But then the other part is I've seen the client come back to us and say, Oh, you know what?

Like we haven't been able to get to that the way we wanted to. We haven't been able to do that the way we wanted to. Can you add that back in? And what ends up happening is we then have. Go back in and update a proposal and it ends up costing, like you said, more because there's more time. We didn't do it in sequence the way that we wanted to, and there's like this, it's just like not taking into account the full scope of the project.

We lose a great deal because we're, you know, Almost like this whole concept of, you know, stepping over dollars to pick up pennies. And in, in the meantime what we're doing is just losing [00:16:00] time. Um, we lose time, We lose the, the, the effectiveness of the, of what we know can happen when a campaign is done fully.

Fully baked, um, instead of like, kind of like piecemealed 

Mickey Baines: together. And, and how often does this happen? Oh, we're excited for this project. Um, but we actually have a cohort starting up in a few weeks. Can we just first get, get something up and running so we can get this out? Like that's, that happens all the time.

Yeah. And what you can get out isn't gonna get the results that your other campaigns could get out. Yeah. Yeah. And someone's gonna see the results on that. And they're like, Well, if this only got this, how much is this? Like outta order put out crap. Yep. Oh, I'm, I'm in the middle of that right now. You needed something.

And, and crap is, is the, what happens when you only need two weeks to build. Exactly. Yeah. And so, you know, those are some of the implications. Are some of the things, the factors that come into it. And then the implication is that you're not getting intended results. Yeah. And you get so focused on, [00:17:00] well what about this one?

And how, you know, the key is to be sure you have your focus. Know what the goal and the goal is to have that and then have the plan that supports getting things done to achieve the goal. Yep. And then to find your indicators. Something's off course. And it's not just because a timeline wasn't met, it can be, Hey, what?

or we've got this thing happening in three weeks, can we? Yeah. And it's not to say no because the other thing I will say, it does bother me when folks no can't do it. Cuz that's not in this. Yeah. That's not the world we live in and we need to be able to pivot. Yep. But I think where there's missed communication is from the folks in our seats not really communicating the impact.

Yeah. and or the folks from the client's side not indicating across their entire team. Sure. And, and that is where expecta expectations get thrown off and projects get thrown off. Um, and that's [00:18:00] where things go from fast to slow, because when you speed up to get that campaign out, , you also aren't doing the work for the other campaign soon.

Now that other pro project hasn't started and it's six weeks behind end starting. Yeah. But why are we late in getting this launch? Well, we started six. Well, why didn't we start six weeks late? Because you wanted that. Yeah, because you asked us to do the like, um, and, and so that is where, You know, we, we get thrown off and fast becomes slow.

Yeah. But if we start out slow and say, Look, you know, is there anything else? If you can capture that they have this in mind and you already have it all built out, the expectations don't need to be changed. Yeah. Cause you know, you're gonna put out and you know, you're gonna put out something that's not gonna get the same results, but it gets some communication going Sure.

While you're building it. Like those, if you just take a little bit of time. Yep. Uh, and, and while I think that's an easy statement to. Yeah, , it's harder to enforce. Yeah. When you've got the real world on, real world on you. It could be as a [00:19:00] consultant, not being comfortable or confident with the client that says, Hey, we gotta do this.

And or even on the client's side, if you're working at an institution and you've got someone over your shoulder saying, Hey, you gotta get this out, I get that. Now. What are you doing? Get them to do this to, without pushing back and not feeling comfortable yourself to push back or asking your third party person to say, I'm being pushed for this.

Can you tell them? Yeah. Yep. Or saying to your third party, what is the impact of this so that I can better communicate to them? Sure. Yeah. I, I sometimes I find that fear in there, uh, and I think that's, you know, something we have to move past. Yeah. Because there are other implications, because while you are afraid to say that you will pay for that on the back end when something's not met.

Oh yeah, totally. Yeah. You have like a, so as a do it yourselfer, I often find myself in this scenario at, with home projects where I tell my wife, Oh, it'll take this long. And I, I know I'm short changing the timeline. It'll take, I'm doing it in my head. I'm, you know, I'm like, I'm, [00:20:00] uh, in some ways I'm saying what she wants to hear, similar to the client thing that I just talked about.

But, um, do you have a particular like formula that you use to like, like, like, obviously you know how quickly your team can produce a campaign or do some sort of, you know, implementation work. But are there, is there like an X factor where you go and say, Oh, I'm gonna factor in this much like, time for client approvals or in my experience with like, you know, in, even in the, the talking pitch process, you understand, hey, it's this, this client takes a long time to like, make decisions.

So I'm gonna factor in an extra two weeks to get this off the ground. Uh, I 

Mickey Baines: have on occasion a rare occasion, Worked with the team to adjust a timeline based on what I learned from a client in the sales process. Sure. Um, I have modified some of our conversations with clients when we're talking about potential projects, especially new clients say, This project should be this amount of time.

Sure. So, [00:21:00] in effect, I said it yesterday, this type of project typically is about 12 to 14 weeks. , but it could be 10 weeks or it could be 20 weeks. Yeah. And the difference between those two is 100% you, your team. Um, and so I have that and when we build out a plan, we build it out with what we anticipate being amount of time.

Sure. The other thing is we try to identify critical decision points. Yep. And when we are getting. So we've got a client who wants an application live. Yep. In September. Uhhuh for fall 2023. It's gotta be live on September 30th. Yep. Um, we've told them from when we, when we started the project, you want to integrate it in the payment connector.

And based on the two tools that we're connecting here, we said that getting the payment connector up and running is a four to six week process. Yeah. So last week we were at five weeks. To be live. We've not gotten any information or support from them to get that up and Oh goodness. Yeah. Right. And [00:22:00] so we just said, look, we said four to six weeks.

If we get it this week, we've got a 50 50 shot of being live in time. If we don't get it this week, we've got 0% shot. Yeah. And basically the week before that was, we've got maybe a 60 to 70% shot of getting it done in time. Cause we're right at 60. Yeah. Um. Then it's 50. Yeah. And after that it's zero. Yep.

Um, and so that's 

gotta be, It's so frustrating, isn't it? Like, ugh, it 

Mickey Baines: like, it it is. Yeah. And then, you know, and, and you just have to keep in mind, you know, at the same time when you are dealing with a team that's, um, can be, can feel like they're being pushed and yeah. Get something live in time and, and be letting me down or letting the client down, you know, I just have to, let's keep perspective.

Um, today is August 30th, so last Monday. Our last Tuesday, rather, was August 23rd. How many schools were starting. Yeah. Oh yeah. Full term, right? Sure. You know, when you're working on enrollment related projects, you're working with enrollment related people [00:23:00] who have other things on their plate. Yeah. Lots of other things right now and you know, when we agreed to, to do the work and take on with a tight timeline, which the work began in July.

Yeah. You know, we, we, we did communicate. We took. Careful time in consideration to say, Look, these are some important things that have to occur. Yeah. And normally we wouldn't start out by saying it takes us four to six weeks on this payment connector. We have to have this inform. We, we don't normally say that a project kickoff.

Um, we'll talk about some timelines and some critical dates, but we don't enforce it. And we did in this one and we just kind of more carefully brought it up and enforced it. And yeah, you know, there, there's some implications. And, and, and in this instance, we knew going in what is plan? Yeah, sometimes we tell the client plan B and C.

Sometimes we tell the client we have a plan but not what it is. Yeah. And sometimes we don't even mention it. Now we have a plan B and we know we're gonna need to use plan B at this point. Yeah. Um, because we don't have that information. Yeah. And so we have [00:24:00] to account for that. And we did that from the ue.

And again, that's fast and slow. Slow is fast and Yep. And had we not had a plan B, we'd definitely. Rushed and have to go back and, and lose even more time. Uh, but because they have a plan B, I've got two team members. One's, uh, launching Plan B, and the other is pushing forward to get plan A there as fast as we can.

Yeah. Uh, so that's, you know, it's, it's all, um, relative to the project and, and the client and the time of year we all connect and I think that makes a huge differe to be aware of it. Yeah. And, and I will say as a. Pat on the back to an extent to the work you do and the work we do and and our backgrounds.

Yeah. The difference sometimes in having a third party take on, especially like a technology Sure. Project that cuz there's a lot of people that do what you do that don't necessarily focus completely on higher ed. Yeah. They would not have understood. Right. 

Oh, that's huge. Yeah. That's 

Mickey Baines: huge. Where we did, they would not have had a plan [00:25:00] B.

Yep. And I think sometimes, you know, that is a difference in us being able to come in and do work. A, we understand it can translate it better get started a little faster, but B, we understand those cycles. Yeah. A hundred percent. Others don't always understand the cycle and they get frustrated and it hurts and streams That relationship, our relationship with the client in this particular example is great.

Um, We've just been, you know, very clearly communicating with empathy. Yep. Um, because we understand that and I've seen instances where it's not, um, where we were brought in to fix a problem. So yeah, we understand that. So, um, I think that's a pausing point. Um, yeah, 

no, I think these are good, these are good words cuz especially as we're in this new cycle, like, I think it's, you know, there's, there's always a lot adding up, but making sure that we're being you.

Appropriately planning appropriately and understanding like the implications of our time and, and, and that that will always slow things down when we try to speed things up. [00:26:00] So, Mickey, good topic. 

Mickey Baines: Well done. Absolutely. All right. Enjoy the week, uh, and we'll connect again next week. Everyone. Thanks you for listening to CR Improv.

We'll see you next time.

Now. Now are you right now?

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