Systemizing your business with Sam Gupta

Dave Crysler

Hello and welcome to the Everyday Business Problems podcast, I’m your host, Dave Crysler. In each episode, we talk to business owners and leaders to learn about their story, their business, the challenges they’ve overcome, and the challenges they still face. You’ll hear fresh insights, real talk, and get inspiration to grow your business.

Hey everybody, I’m so excited to welcome Sam Gupta to the podcast today. Sam Gupta has been an ERP thought leader in the digital transformation space for nearly two decades, with the primary focus on financial systems and ERP. Sam is rated as #2 thought leader in the ERP category and #15 in the digital transformation category on Thinkers 360. He has been part of large transformation initiatives for fortune-500 corporations but now spends his time consulting with SMEs as a Principal Consultant at ElevatIQ. Sam regularly speaks at industry conferences and contributes his experiences through many popular blogs and publications. He also hosts a podcast called WBSRocks focused on business growth through digital transformation and ERP where he interviews top influencers and executives focused on digital transformation.

Sam, thank you so much for joining us on the Everyday Business Problems podcast. I’m thrilled to have you here and get into this conversation with you.

Sam Gupta

It’s my pleasure, Dave, it’s always fun talking to you, and I am super excited to share my insights with your listeners.

Dave Crysler

Yeah, thanks. So let’s just jump right into it. As I was thinking about the episode and how to get into this with you, because of what you do from a systems perspective, you bring just such a tremendous amount of insight, knowledge, years of experience in this space. I was trying to search for a good entry point, and as I thought about it, I thought the best way to do that is to ask you a question that you ask a lot of guests on your podcasts.

And that is, what does growth mean to Sam?

Sam Gupta

That’s a very interesting question. I guess, you know, after hearing two hundred different responses, obviously, now I think I have figured out what my response is going to be. But in my mind, growth has always been slightly more sustainable.

The whole entrepreneurial journey that I started, was inspired by a book called Predictable Revenue, and I don’t know if you have read it or your listeners might be familiar with it. It’s written by a guy called Adam Ross, and he is the guy who actually took SalesForce; I think they got their first hundred million just because of this guy.

So that book actually inspired me in terms of how to build the scalability to your business, how to build the predictable funnel for your revenue. But obviously, revenue alone is not going to be enough.

You have to have a building block for all of your infrastructure, and that’s going to be your sales, operations, finance, you know. So the more predictable you make, the more predictable your growth is going to be. So my perspective is going to be to make your growth predictable.

Dave Crysler

Yeah, it’s that’s really great, and I have not had a chance to read that book, but you know, the story of that business and kind of the trajectory is obviously amazing. So I’m definitely going to have to check that out. And I think it’s a good way to not only capture how you feel about it, but it’s a very accurate description and kind of depiction of what you really need to have a business that lasts, not just to grow it, to something, to sell it.

If you are really trying to grow a business, to build a business, it has to be sustainable. And there are some fundamentals to that. It’s not as easy as just saying, you know, well, yeah, this is what I’m going after. This is what I’m trying to build. It really is about putting the building blocks in place and putting a system in place, which is an excellent segway into really the meat of this conversation. And I’m curious to know from your standpoint, you know, being in the business that you’re in selling systems, consulting on very high-level systems to, you know, Fortune 500 companies when it comes to your own business, how do you connect those same dots from a systems perspective? And what was your journey like inside of your own business to utilize, from a systems perspective, to utilize the information you know, that would help you build a sustainable business?

How were you able to kind of connect those dots, especially, you know, kind of early on? And to where you’re at now, what is that kind of trajectory from a systems perspective look like for you? And if you can maybe tie that into, you know, kind of the bigger picture?

Sam Gupta

So honestly speaking, in my case, and I am probably going to be the outlier, I don’t know if this is going to be the recommendation for every business out there, but Dave, you know, I don’t know how long you have been doing the consulting, but now you must have known the consulting is really hard in terms of tracking your dollars because you need to be really mindful of your time as well as you know your efficiency. And if you are not, then it’s very, very, very hard for consulting businesses to survive. Now for our business, and I don’t think we ever have had detailed conversations in terms of the kind of business we have. We have four different focus areas now. We don’t really have as much management overhead because we cannot afford that, to be honest.

You know, I don’t think if I asked my clients to pay for the management overhead, I don’t think they are willing to pay, obviously, because obviously, you need to be mindful of their cost as well. So what we had to do for our own business is we had to get our systems connected before we started our business. Can believe this, OK?

So we had the ERP system for at least two or three different business units, you know, that were really operational in nature. Not every business unit that we have are going to be equally operational.

They all have their own way of sort of operating. So the one that focuses on enterprise recruiting, OK. So, you know, enterprise recruiting is basically we supply the resources for the enterprise companies in that business. Now that requires a lot of labor of love.

1. If you don’t have the systems; oh my goodness, I probably need five managers there now. I don’t think we have the kind of margins that we can afford to have five managers there. So we had to actually bring in the system, day one, to be honest.

And now we have a lot of people in that business unit and we have zero management overhead; can you believe this? Zero management oversight on that business. I have data information at my fingertips on a daily basis. I spend 15 minutes on that business on a daily basis and the business runs on autopilot.

OK, so now we have to do this for all of the business units that we have. As a consulting business, we have to have systems and processes. And if we don’t have that, I don’t think we can survive in today’s market, you know, so so we really had to figure this out.

Dave Crysler

I love what you just said. I mean, you know, as a fellow systems person, you know it, it’s music to my ears. But I think the real takeaway for people is, at least in my experience, and talk a little bit about this from your experience.

In my experience, I think people look at systemization, specifically like ERP, some higher-level management systems as I’ll grow into that, I’ll get to that when the time is appropriate. And the story that you just laid out in terms of your own business and what you had to do going into it, kind of knowing what the model was going to look like. That was the first thing on your list. So in your experience, do you run into companies that kind of use that same thought process? Well, we’re not big enough. I’m going to get to it when I get to it.

And in the interim, I’m going to put people in place from a management perspective and kind of try to backfill the gap there is that in your experience, what you’ve seen?

Sam Gupta

So let me tell you this; I mean, people often ask me, OK, how do you stay so productive? How were you able to produce 200 podcasts in nine months? OK. How are you so efficient? Because I see you everywhere.

If you want to be efficient, you have to automate some of the processes. OK. I don’t have a team of a hundred people here, to be honest; we cannot afford that. As a small business owner, and you know, my customers are going to be fairly small as well.

The reason why they cannot accomplish as much as we do is that they are spending time in activities that could be automated easily. OK. And that’s what we have done, to be honest. That’s why we’re able to spend so much time in marketing, building our thought leadership at this point in time.

If anybody looks at it, I don’t think anybody can match the kind of presence that we have overall from our branding perspective and from the marketing perspective. And by the way, we are a relatively newer company, if you look at some of the some of my customers, you know, these customers have been in the market for the last 40 years. But if you look at their website or digital presence, they hardly have a full-page website. They don’t really have any sort of digital presence. They’re processes that are not really automated. So obviously, I don’t see what we have to be honest in the industry.

Even my competitors. They have been in the industry for 35 years, 40 years, but they don’t really have these kinds of capabilities and they are coming to me and asking, OK, how do they do this?

Dave Crysler

That’s really amazing, I mean, it obviously goes to show you the power of systemization and the amount of, you know, efficiency that you can gain when you look at your business through that lens. And again, I think so often business owners are kind of thinking that this is something that I’ll get to later versus trying to figure out very quickly whether it’s before you start the sales process, or, you know, very early on in your business journey.

What are some of these things that I can automate and get off of my plate so I can double down on the things that are really driving value and driving revenue for, you know, for the organization, you know, as a whole? I knew this conversation was going to go something like this, and I just love the fact that you are so early in on systemization in your own business, which you know, of course, makes sense.

Again, I think is a part that gets missed by a lot of people because it’s; they think systemization and, you know, ERP and MRP and all of these different things are just so high level. And you know, the larger the company, right, the more that, that stuff is kind of a normal thing. But I would say the smaller the company, the more people feel; well, this is something I can get to down the road, and I’m not quite to that point. I’ll just, you know, kind of go ahead and play, play it as is.

So taking a look from that system’s perspective, and, looking at your business specifically, how are you leveraging, you know, those automations and those tools and the information that it delivers back to you to help you drive some of your decision making? Back to your example that you’re spending 15 minutes a day managing this one business unit. What does that really look like from a standpoint of what kind of metrics are you looking at to then say, OK, you know, this is the only amount of time that I really need to devote to this because everything is looking good and on track with our planning. And so, you know, you can get back to it because I think again, people not being familiar with some of the feedback or KPIs, the metrics that the systems will actually deliver to you. Can you speak a little bit more in-depth about that and why you have such comfort in only spending such a short period of time on a particular business unit because of the systemization that you have?

Sam Gupta

So in that specific business unit, the way I like to operate, if I this actually starts from behind, to be honest, the kind of people I want to hire in that specific business unit is going to be the ones who are super comfortable being independent.

Now that is not for everyone, OK? You are not going to find everybody who is going to be independent. So that’s why for us when we look at anyone when we are hiring them, they need to be able to work without any management layer.

Now, once they are hired, they typically get coaching from me directly; can you believe this? OK. So I spend roughly a month coaching them in terms of the culture that is going to be how we utilize the system in the best fashion.

And I like to invest my personal time in training because if I actually handed over that to somebody else, what is going to happen is that it’s going to be a translation even more and that is something I don’t like.

1. So in my case, I am actually going to be watching if they are able to deliver on on the KPIs. When you hire somebody, there’s going to be a little bit of trust factor as well because you haven’t worked with them.

You might be hiring somebody unknown, they might be working remotely. So that’s my process of knowing this person. But let’s say, if they survive in the company for three months, they are probably going to be with me for the next 20 years because we are not going to find anybody else who is going to be as cool as me. OK.

Dave Crysler

I can attest to that.

Sam Gupta

So, you know, one month is really hard for them because they are really being formed in the culture. You know, I’m super hard on them, OK, that you have to follow that process, OK? Even if you skipped one of the steps, then I’m probably going to be mean to them.

1. So but once they understand and I like to explain them everything, OK, it’s not going to be, Hey, you are just a low-level worker and you should not be knowing, you know, we have our incentive plan based on the revenue that the business unit is actually generating.

So our incentive plan is in sync with everybody’s performance. Their career plan is actually about their career plan is printed in the contract that they have as part of their employment, so they have clear visibility. OK. None of the employees in the history of this company have ever argued if I had to fire them, to be honest.

OK, they had to admit that I was not able to perform and I am getting fired. And the reason for that is because the roadmap is very clearly mapped out and they know how good I am at tracking data and information.

So we have a very clear path mapped out and if they don’t follow the process, they are definitely going to get yelled at by me; OK? I very rarely do spot-checking; I’m building trust in the first month or two.

And then these guys figured out that this is how Sam operates and this is how I should be working. After that, I’m probably not going to touch them unless I find some sort of red flag, which is rarely there.

And but once I have my people down, then you know, I want to do everything for them, to be honest, OK, to support them with their goals and want to make sure that they are really hitting that because that’s how they are going to grow in their career.

So, yeah, so in my case, the only reason why I’m able to spend 15 minutes is that I have really molded them as the business owner. I want them to think as the founder or the business owner and they have the independent slice that they are managing.

Whether they are in the operational role or marketing role or in these fields, they have very clear KPI’s. There is no conflict between two people because you have your KPI, you have your KPI. If you are not hitting that, obviously you are going to get there.

Dave Crysler

Yeah, yeah. So much. I mean, honestly, Sam, there’s like so much gold in what you just said and laid out very clearly for our listeners. I mean, I honestly, I hope people are really focused on what you just said there because, you know, you hear things like it all starts at the beginning.

It all starts with the hiring process. It’s about culture and all these different things and what you just laid out for really any business; I feel like you what you just laid out can be applied to any business, product-based, service-based, you know, vertical-specific or not.

The whole point is that to really have a system in place, you have to not only spend the time on the front end identifying people, hiring them but the onboarding process and the amount of time that you’re investing on the front end of things to take all of your culture and your thoughts and your ideas about how your business operates from a process level detail and instilling that into somebody and still allowing them some autonomy. You know, once they understand that to be responsible for their own KPIs, that is exactly how you systematize a business and, you know, doing it right from the onset, again, allowing yourself only some, some really, you know, checking the KPIs, checking the results, you know, that’s tremendous.

I love all of what you just said there. Let me ask you this for the listeners that are out there that are maybe struggling with that systemization, with getting things out of their head onto paper and, you know, really building the culture and celebrating kind of the teamwork part and giving people the boundaries as you just laid out. What are some things that you’ve done over the course of kind of your business ownership that has helped you be the kind of owner that you are today and to know that that’s the system that you have to have in place in order to tie it back to what we originally started with, you know, have a sustainable business in the long term? Do you have any, any couple of thoughts around that?

Sam Gupta

Yeah. Honestly speaking, in my experience, and obviously, you know, I wasn’t as good from day one. I have had my own learning path in terms of how to govern the team obviously there are tons of advice available, but obviously the advice is not going to be applicable in each case.

In my case, what I like to and what works for me, to be honest, is going to be number one; I like to be the role model for the team. If you don’t follow the process, how do you expect that your team is going to follow?

Okay, so that’s the number one rule that you have to really get into this, OK; If your team believes that, you didn’t follow and because of that, I am impacted. Now you have to really take accountability for that. If you are not willing to do that, if your ego is going to get in the way, then obviously you know that you are breaking the rules right there. So in my case, what I personally do is I am going to follow the same process, meaning I do my own tracking just like any one person tracking, and at any point in time, I can actually show them that this is what I am doing. So I don’t just preach things okay, I literally live them, OK? I am extremely crystal clear in my communication as well when I talk to these guys, and that’s what I expect from them, that you have to show me the facts. And if you have facts with you, then nobody really can tell you. If you are the winner, I’m going to make sure that everybody recognizes that you are really the winner and we are actually going to celebrate that.

So I don’t know if that is just one thing. I guess, you know, there are so many different things, and the whole model is so complex that sometimes people don’t understand what we are trying to do here, to be honest, but it’s very unique.

It’s working for us. one of the things that I often get challenged is going to be we have a very transparent culture and transparent. A lot of leaders are going to say that, you know what, in front of that team member, you are supposed to fire anybody, nor you are supposed to criticize anybody.

We have a very different culture. So if you screwed up on something, OK, you are actually going to get the yelling publicly, OK. So we don’t have any watercooler conversations in the company, can you believe this? And in my experience, I have been called out on this approach for a very long time.

But I have always been a very strong proponent of OK, if you don’t have any side conversation that is actually going to help your company, that is going to help your culture because people are being honest, people are talking openly.

OK, let’s resolve this as a team; and let me communicate the values of the company, the values of the team, why we are doing certain things. Now, if you fired somebody publicly, which is again, it’s going to be a huge red flag. If you pick any management blueprint book, they are going to say, you know what? You need to go to the side, in the corner. That’s where you fire people, you know, not in front of everybody. No, but I really approach this very differently.

What I do is I share the screen, OK. This has been your performance, OK. We have told you that this was your contract, and now this is not working out. So either we tried our best and provided all the tools that you needed, but still not working out.

So maybe this is not the best place for you, OK. So now when you have this transparent culture, then people actually become your champion because the people who are going to be winners, they really want to win and they want to make sure that only winners are hanging out in the company.

And that’s how you create the winning culture, in my experience, yeah, again, I’m not sure that this is the right approach. But yeah.

Dave Crysler

Well, I’ll tell you what, it’s definitely unconventional. I will give you that. But I think the point is when something works, you know, not everything has to be the same as everywhere else. And I think what you just kind of highlighted about your own culture, you know, that’s the best example of it.

Because if what you’ve found in your particular business and with your group of people that you’re attracting and obviously retaining right, if that has helped boost your culture, your morale where people really are engaged in making sure that everybody’s driving in the same direction and pulling for the goals that you guys have outlined and people feel just as comfortable calling you out as they do other people and vice versa, then I don’t think that there’s honestly anything wrong with it. I think the biggest problem and I just saw a post about this the other day. I’d love to get your takeaway on it. But you know, the context of the post, which I think is appropriate here, is just that can’t be a different person to different people.

Right. And so I think kind of what you’re saying, or at least my takeaway on it is when you have these sidebar conversations when you try to reprimand people in private or try to squash, you know what, what have you some of the kind of interoffice politics that typically happens, you kind of are being a different person. You know you are being portrayed differently because the person that you talk to is going to have one impression. The team is going to have another impression because they’re not privy to the conversation, so they don’t really know, well, will, are you really holding this person accountable or are you not?

So I really think there is something to that. I mean, what’s your takeaway and kind of that thought process of, you know, to your point, being transparent versus trying to appease what would be considered more the norm of office politics?

Sam Gupta

So in my case, honestly speaking, what really works is transparency, and that’s what you know, my employees really appreciate. In fact, I’ll tell you one thing the people who were actually fired from this company actually want to work for us.

They always contact us that, OK, give us the second chance, give the second chance, and I’m we’ll give it back. You know what I mean? You know, there is always going to be a second chance for everybody. I’m not saying that.

You know what, if you were fired today, that means that is not a second chance. That’s not how I operate. My lines are always open for whether you were able to perform in the company or were not able to perform in the company.

What I am saying is the company is built on a specific foundation. If a company does not make money, then none of the people inside the company should be comfortable because it’s when you look at, let’s say, the sales or marketing.

The sales should not be the job of only a few people. It should be the job of the entire company of the company itself is struggling, then everybody should take some of it. And as the leader, as the manager, it is my responsibility to make sure that my boat is not going to sink, that’s my responsibility.

I need to be completely fair with my company. And sometimes that does mean that you might have to kill your darlings, which is OK. But this is my management style, to be honest. I mean, and it really works just because it’s really transparent and people really appreciate that because they have a clear career path. And if they fail, they are ready to admit that, you know what? It’s really me. It’s not anybody else. I was given very clear goals. Sure, there are going to be situations where either your skillset is not going to be aligned or maybe you are overcommitting, or maybe the market is not good.

So many different factors. I mean, you know, but you know, if you are really being true to yourself, I don’t see a reason why you should not be able to perform in this culture.

Dave Crysler

Yeah, no. I don’t disagree with you at all. I mean, to be perfectly honest, I think it’s a bit refreshing to take a completely different approach to again, what people would consider to be kind of more, you know, more in the lines of what a typical culture would be.

And I’m all for that. Know, like I said, when it works. Another thing that you talked about that I really like about what you said is two things, actually. Number one, the fact that early on, you’re establishing what somebody’s career trajectory looks like within your own business.

And number two, making sure that the systems that you have in place and the processes, everything that you’re doing from a systemization standpoint supports people in their roles and throughout that growth process. And what I find missing oftentimes is, you know, really both of those.

But it starts with that kind of laying out for somebody; what does what is your future look like here? And if you can’t as a business owner, as somebody in business leadership, articulate that for somebody new coming into your organization; I think the long term prospect of that person working for you, for, you know, for a significant amount of time has just diminished significantly because especially in today’s market, people want to work for a place that celebrates kind of their contributions among with all of the other things, right?

You have to pay competitively. You, you know, you have to be flexible with people. But to me, it really gets down to. People want to, you know, be rewarded and kind of heard, you know, for the contributions that they make.

I mean, at what point in time did you start doing that? Because I feel like maybe that was something that you grew into or was that something you guys did right from the onset?

Sam Gupta

So this is how personally, I actually wanted to build a company because this was something I was not happy with. And the other corporations and the reason why I was not happy with is the way I like to think Dave is I don’t care whether I am the shop floor guy or I am working in the finance department.

For me, I need to know where my contributions are going and what value I might add to the company. And if that is being benefited?

OK, great. You know, tell me fairly, you know how my career path is going to be. So now, when I was working in different Fortune 500, companies sometimes create the system and the system will never go live, the efforts are going to be completely wasted.

I wasted my two years honestly thinking, I don’t have that much time in my life. OK, I want to make sure I am adding significant value in my life. So this is the problem that I faced as an individual when I was working for somebody else because there were always these silos in the company there were walls. And, you know, you were not supposed to talk to anybody else, you know, other than those four walls. So I really wanted to break those from the get-go again. You know, I have been called out on this one because people are going to challenge everything, and I don’t know if we will be able to sustain this culture because keep in mind, we are still a very small company, to be honest, OK? So once you are, let’s say, 5000 people, 10,000 people, then it’s a different case. Maybe this culture may not work in that situation, but in my case, I really wanted to build a culture because, you know, as you know, smaller companies, people need to own things. Otherwise, you are going to have so much management overhead, as the consulting company, you can never afford to do that. And that’s why we are one of the most economical, to be honest, in terms of services.

Nobody can beat us in terms of cost and nobody can beat us in terms of quality. And sometimes people are shocked, OK, how are you doing that that’s not possible at all. But then again, you know, it’s all about creating those efficiencies from the day when most people, what they do is, they simply pick this one part.

It’s not going to work unless you have everything, the line that is going to be your culture. It’s going to be your people. It’s going to be your training. It’s going to be your career path. It’s going to be your compensation, it’s going to be your systems as well.

So everything needs to be in sync. if they are not in sync. It’s probably not going to work.

Dave Crysler

Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with you and I and I would say that even though we keep coming back to your business and it’s a perfect model for this, it really, you know, at large applies to any business because again, we all have the same challenges, no matter what type of business you’re in and you’re always trying to figure out how to make all of those blocks interconnect and make the whole entire system, you know, operate as smoothly as possible. And kind of to your point, you know, taking that approach has allowed you for your particular customers to deliver top-notch service at a, you know, probably ultra-competitive price.

And you know, it makes the sales cycle probably much easier because of that, because you’ve looked at it from a holistic standpoint and said, OK, well, we need to have all of these different building blocks in place to all move forward.

And you know, another thing that you said in there that I want to touch on is, you know, is this culture sustainable and nobody has, you know, a crystal ball. But I would say based on my experience, you know, the culture can be whatever you want it to be as an owner.

And yes, it’s going to be less centralized. So when you get to a certain point where you know you go over the, you know, 200, 300, 500 employees, you’re not going to, Sam is not going to be able to spend a month with every new person.

I think about this new book that I’m reading called Working Backwards, which is a story; it is some commentary from two high-level executives at Amazon. And they kind of talk about this where there is definitely a shift where Sam no longer can spend that amount of time, but building in smaller teams of people underneath Sam that really understands how the culture needs to be. And it’s really an interesting, you know, kind of diagram of how they built that, where the culture remains, what you know, Jeff Bezos wanted it to be. It remains today. It’s a super fascinating book if you haven’t had a chance to read this yet.

But that’s what really struck me. And I think that you can do exactly what you’re saying, regardless of the size company, because, you know, I’ve worked for a big company as well, and I’ve seen what that culture is like and the culture is what people make it.

It’s what the leadership team wants it to be. You know, that’s how they line it out. That’s what it ends up being. So yeah, I really appreciate that as we kind of, you know, shift in and get ready to wind up here.

You’ve taken it from the beginning standpoint, a business that is out there today that is looking to start doing more systemization and, you know, getting these building blocks put into place? What are some steps that they can take today to start looking at their business from that same holistic approach that you have and kind of start moving the pieces closer and closer together? Does it start with a strategic plan or from your perspective, what does that start with?

Sam Gupta

So in my mind, the way I like to think about this is obviously, you know, we didn’t have the complete systemization from day one. But the way I personally like to think is, let’s say today if I am spending only 15 minutes and today if I want to track, let’s say, the performance of a specific employee or want to track any details about specific customers, can I do that at my fingertips?

That’s my thought process always, OK, if you have the complete end-to-end traceability. Tomorrow, let’s say if you have a meeting with five employees, they all are probably telling different stories and that’s how the conversations go in in the company. And as a leader, your challenge is going to be who to trust. That is always the challenge for leaders. In my case, I don’t trust anyone. That’s how I work. OK, I trust only one thing and that is going to be data and systems, OK?

So what I am going to do, whatever everybody is going to say. And based on that, in my opinion, what I do is I try to track the credibility as well. So the people who are super credible, they sort of know what they are talking about.

They very rarely overcommit, they are always going to be claiming things with facts. And if you are working with leaders like Sam Gupta, to be honest, you really have to have your facts down.

OK, so in my case, you know, what happens is, you know, I try to look at, can I trace everything? And if I can’t trace everything, then I’m probably not going to challenge that person because that’s my limitation.

That’s not their limitation. If I don’t have facts to prove things up, then I should not be challenging anybody in my company. So that’s how I like to think. I only challenge the things that I can really prove based on the real data based on the real facts.

Otherwise, I’m never going to. I’m actually going to give them the benefit of doubt, you know, because it’s not fair to them. If I tried to challenge. And so if a business is starting on their systemization journey, think of, can you trace everything on your fingertips when you have to make decisions if you have to talk to five people in the company, the process has broken right there. OK, so you have to figure out how to convert that into the design process so that you can have that end-to-end traceability so you can your operations can run on the Autopilot just the way it’s working for us.

Dave Crysler

That’s amazing. You know, I love how you summed it up in there, you know, as you were talking, kind of one thought that popped into my mind is; you know, not really two: One, that’s the way we’ve always done it. And two, that happens all of the time. And in both cases, you’re left with exactly what you said, kind of diving into the details of it and looking for the facts and not being kind of swayed and pulled into all of these different directions based on what other people are saying.

You have to be able to go right down to the root of things and figure out at a very rudimentary process level; what is happening? How can we impact the result? How can we document to make sure that the results are consistent?

And when we see an anomaly in the results, what are we going to do to go back to the process and figure out what changes we need to introduce to again, you know, continually look at the results that are being delivered to be able to ultimately impact the entire system at large.

So, Sam, I’d love to, you know, I’d love to continue this conversation, but I’d like to wrap up with if you have any final thoughts for our listeners out there who are again, kind of in this process of early stages of systemization if you have anything to wrap up, I’d love to hear it.

Sam Gupta

The only advice I’m going to have for anybody who is listening to the show as a leader, you can always improve, and the most improvement that you are going to get is going to be in terms of the data and the information.

So look at how accurate the information that you are getting is. And if you are not getting that, you should be thinking deeper about how to improvise the quality of the information and how you can make better decisions. So that team is going to trust you, that you are the real leader that they can bet their life on.

Dave Crysler

That was amazing, amazing, and insert ERP system, all types of things at the end of that because that’s really the stuff that will deliver that data to you. Sam, I really appreciate you coming on to the Everyday Business Problems podcast with me.

For anybody that is interested in connecting with you and learning more about ERP systems and how that process works, where’s the best place to find you?

Sam Gupta

I am super popular, obviously. You know, if they googled me, Sam Gupta WBS Rocks, it’s w b s r o c k s. The first link is going to be me, OK. They can also go to WBS dot rocks and just fill out the contact form.

My team is going to get you in touch with me and you can find WBS Rocks on any of the podcasting platforms; Apple, Spotify, Google. Subscribe to it. You are going to get a lot of wisdom from really strong leaders. They are making a real difference in the community.

Dave Crysler

I love it and I will make sure I put all of those links in the show notes for everybody that’s out there, but please go check out all of Sam’s resources. He has a tremendous library of information out there and available for you to consume and learn about all of the things that we cover today.

Thanks again, Sam.

Sam Gupta

Thank you so much, Dave.

Dave Crysler

Thank you so much for listening today. If we brought you any value, please rate, subscribe, and share our podcast. Also, be sure to connect with us on social media by searching at the Crysler Club. Until next week, I’m your host, Dave Crysler.