GSD Podcast - Implementation Tips from Cheyanne LaFrance

Listen in as Cheyanne LaFrance and Jeff discuss their best tips for successful onboarding and implementation. From communication to getting everyone on the same page, they cover it all!

• Cheyanne LaFrance and Jeff discussed implementation for this GSD Podcast episode.

• Cheyanne talks about closely working with her sales team to onboard customers and leads kick-off calls.

• Cheyanne and Jeff discussed the common pain points on implementation including too many people wanting to be involved but not actually doing anything, and confusion about why the software is essential.

• They also discussed the importance of understanding both what they're selling and what they're buying, as well as having sales engineers who understand customer needs.

• Lastly, they talked about how implementation can be difficult yet possible with hard work and talent.

Away from work, Cheyanne enjoys snowboarding trips and relaxing in the outdoors. You can connect with her via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheyanne-lafrance/

 Transcript:

Jeff  00:00

Hey there. And just a quick note I just recorded this podcast was Cheyanne. And it's a lot of Shop Talk. We get pretty into implementation. But I will say although that can be a dry subject, we're both from Massachusetts and have that, that humor and it was Friday at four. So it's a little loose. I can't remember how much swearing there was, but it was just a loose conversation. I'll just say that so I really enjoy it because it's just like sitting down at a bar talking with people. But just a warning, hunt that it's just a little it's just a little as we know, for the first five minutes in that conversation. This customer sucks.

Cheyanne LaFrance  00:49

Yeah, I did. It's actually a good number about five minutes in three to five.

Jeff  00:53

It's like a zoom calls. Like you know, I mean, like other students sucks. How do I get off like, oh, can somebody go unplug the internet?

Cheyanne LaFrance  01:00

Yeah. Cat like, Hey, can you just go shut the router off? It's fine.

Jeff  01:03

Oh, yeah. Oh, my Oh, what is that? Oh, no, the school's calling. My daughter has diarrhea. I gotta go.

Intro  01:10

Welcome to the GSD podcast. Welcome to the GSD podcast, getting it done services, success and software. We'll talk with the pros that have been in the trenches, getting service teams off the ground, launching new types of groups to service customers, or running agencies that don't have a product attached to it for the pros by the pros. This is the GSD podcast and in this is your host Jeff Kushmerek.

Jeff  01:46

So let's do this. We will we're going to start the podcast right we're gonna get going. I didn't ask you how to pronounce your name. So you can call me a jerk if I get it wrong.

Cheyanne LaFrance  01:57

I mean, it is the capital of Wyoming.

Jeff  01:59

Say it is Cheyanne. Right? Like there's but in these days, I take nothing for granted ever. There's like no, you didn't see the hive the accent on top of the why that means it's actually you know, a schwa in there so and so your eye people on the PA gets me listening me hear me a little more relaxed because I'm talking to another fellow Masshole. But you're not a masculine man, because you actually moved away. You don't live 30 minutes from where you grew up.

Cheyanne LaFrance  02:29

But I still consider myself a mass wall. Yeah, from the North Shore. Right. Right. Yeah.

Jeff  02:37

I drove I drove by the clam box the other day.

Cheyanne LaFrance  02:41

Come on. You had to really

Jeff  02:45

there's an amazing. I forget the name of the ice cream shop. You asked. You asked for the it's right down the street from the clam box. And you asked for the key lime ice cream and they crumble up the Graham crust into the ice cream for you.

Cheyanne LaFrance  02:59

Oh, yes. I used to go to Benson's Oh, yeah, Benson.

Jeff  03:03

This is legit. Yeah. It's been since I think it's been today like the milk thing. Yeah, that's that's the one.

Cheyanne LaFrance  03:10

So good. I'm so glad it's still there.

Jeff  03:13

Oh, it's thriving. Absolutely. It's great. So and So you're a guy? That's right. So let's talk about that, right? Because this is one of those weird things where you do onboarding for an onboarding company. It's like mirror in a mirror.

Cheyanne LaFrance  03:25

It's interesting. Yeah. And a lot of the customers we onboard with our product. Hopefully, that would be the case and everyone, right? Oh, it makes

Jeff  03:32

sense, right. But you want to sign up for the launch.

Cheyanne LaFrance  03:37

This week, they were like, I was like, we did that it would be a really big red flag. And I probably wouldn't be in this role. So ya know, it's, um, it is an interesting, it's the first time I've onboarded. Other softwares with a software essentially, like really well made software. So it's kind of like, it just flow is very easy. And everyone really fully understands it. And, you know, when you sit down and you write out an entire process, it is. It's a game changer.

Jeff  04:08

Really? Yeah, how you do that you like I'm a big narrow guy, like I've been through Amuro first, and then I break it down, I showed the staff and they're like, No, you got it all wrong, you know, the fuck you're talking about or anything like that, but like, we've got out, please. And, and that's what and then we just go through? And they're like, No, and there's a million sticky notes on it. And then we wind up, you know, eventually creating the templates inside the software and everything is that sort of how you want to, you know, you go about it that way or for creating your process.

Cheyanne LaFrance  04:34

We actually build it in the software. So we start there. It's just so simple to add things and your template as you go, that I'm like, This looks good. And then I like send it to my team. And they're like, this looks not great. Let's do it this way instead, and you can just like, it's almost like a Google Sheet. Essentially. Yeah, data. It's just so much easier because everyone's in a different spot. Yeah, they would work from home remote workers, all of that stuff. So it just, it makes it a little bit more seamless. And you can change your process in like, a couple of clicks and be done with it. Yeah.

Jeff  05:09

Now let's talk about this. Everybody in implementation knows this, right? Hopefully, everybody wakes up with the, hey, we just signed a new customer up this morning, and they want to kick off tomorrow. Right? Does that happen? Does that happen? Still? What do you do in that scenario? When that pops up?

Cheyanne LaFrance  05:29

I scream or

Jeff  05:32

yell silently into a pillow?

Cheyanne LaFrance  05:33

Or that chair across the room? Yeah. No, I've actually. So I work very closely with the sales team. And I'm fortunate enough to have a really good sales team that brings the right customers in. So I have notes in our CRM I have Oh, that's great. Yeah, they're mandatory fields. At this point, you cannot close when that

Jeff  05:55

and you can my words right here. Exactly. I have now said before, I was like, you could perhaps and now I'm like, you must make sure that nobody gets their commission unless they have an internal handoff. And that form is filled out with the mandatory fields.

Cheyanne LaFrance  06:11

Exactly. Yeah. No, it's funny, because when I first started, I was treading lightly just to see, okay, who who's gonna play game with me? Who's gonna do this? Who's gonna at least try it out? Before they just completely say no. And all of them tried it out? And it worked out really well. I don't even have to have an internal handoff call. Unless it's some really specific customer. Yeah, it's amazing. It's really it's the first time because normally you see like sales team like, Oh, God, they don't even know the product. They don't know implementation. What?

Jeff  06:40

What if there were a dog? What? Which, which breed would you associate your sales to? At most?

Cheyanne LaFrance  06:48

Ah, I'm mixed between a husky and a golden doodle. Because

Jeff  06:54

that's, that's nice. Because I'm used to dealing with Dalmatians. If you don't know, Dalmatians are the stupidest dogs in the world.

Cheyanne LaFrance  07:02

You're very cute.

Jeff  07:03

Very, very cute. Get away with a lot of stuff.

Cheyanne LaFrance  07:07

Yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, you can lose 101 Dalmatians.

Jeff  07:15

Well, I'm that fall you've done if you've got that straightened out. My my point of view is that you're you've set yourself up because what I've seen is you can do everything else after that. But if you haven't fixed that problem, sorry. Like, you're just taking a 5050 shot on your customer being okay. Right, like so. Right? Because otherwise, yeah, you're gonna get the worst comment in the world, which is usually don't you guys talk to each

Cheyanne LaFrance  07:45

other? Yeah, that is like in my nightmares. Yeah.

Jeff  07:49

There's nothing you can do. There's just that, like, you know, a little tear that comes out and everything is just the worst question. That's the worst thing that can ever happen. So yeah,

Cheyanne LaFrance  07:58

walk that back. Once it's, you can't bring it back, either. It's like what we do, but obviously, we don't do a good job at it.

Jeff  08:05

Oh, no, you know, what are? Okay, so it does happen, right? I always try and preface my questions with like, so we've gotten the info from the sales team. But I want to hear it from you. Because we want to establish your joint success criteria. And there's a lot of difference between looking at stuff in a CRM versus hearing it from you. Now, if you're lucky, they won't say what was CRMC?

Cheyanne LaFrance  08:28

Yeah, yeah. Oh,

Jeff  08:31

poker, and I'd be like, Okay, I like it. I liked the game. Right? What's

Cheyanne LaFrance  08:37

funny is I feel like I should play poker because I have a very good face when things pop up. But I don't want to play it at all. So I can't do that. But yeah, it's funny, because I always start the conversation, introductions, all those things. And then what do you have any questions? And if they have questions, and I'm like, Okay, let me just keep reviewing what these notes, say in our CRM, and then questions. We'll follow up

Jeff  09:00

with one. That's good. I like that. That's

Cheyanne LaFrance  09:02

just kind of start off with that. And hopefully, normally 90% of the time, you can get all that information from there.

Jeff  09:09

Do you have a set duration for your for your implementations? Like, can your sales team say we'll get this live in 30 days? Or is it like, oh, you know, we're not quite sure.

Cheyanne LaFrance  09:19

Yeah, we have a good point on understanding our reporting. We want to know exactly how long each customer's taking so that we can relay that information. Because like, you know, 65% of the time, people are like, I want to be live yesterday, what do I have to do to just push this through? Like, well, you have some stuff that you need to do. So you have to be live in the next week? Yeah, it depends on the bandwidth, really. And that's that's essentially why I have my kickoff call so that they understand realistic expectations. Oh, yeah.

Jeff  09:52

Yeah. So what is what is your basic so some people do like multi hour kickoffs, and I don't do that. I I like to have like a quick little, hey, this is what we're doing. You know, I'm used to more complicated b2b SaaS things where you're doing integrations and everything. And so it's like, we're gonna come on site, and we're gonna map everything out and set you up and everything like that. So this is more of a, we're getting to know each other, and we're gonna give you some homework and go away. But that's what that's for a complex, like nine month long integrations and things like that. So what is your sort of normal? Like, if everything was to go perfectly? What would the what would be? How long would the kickoff be? And then what would the actions be that follow after that,

Cheyanne LaFrance  10:36

they kick off the call, in general is 30 minutes. So I went through the entire roadmap, introductions, understanding their goals, all that in 30 minutes or less, it's never less than 30 minutes. So definitely 30 or 30, to 45. I would say normally, our customers that we have between two weeks, and no matter the size, the amount of integrations that they want to do, just because we've set up our process to have a dedicated individual for each task I look for and my calls to is, you know, this is what you have to do. Who's gonna do it somebody volunteer, and then it's on you to complete it in those those days

Jeff  11:13

at on the customer? Or is it on somebody on your team

Cheyanne LaFrance  11:17

assembled? So the customer essentially starts it and then we confirm it? And then they move on? Put it into production? Essentially?

Jeff  11:24

That's great. That's cool. Awesome. What are some of the classic pain points that will come up and you know, I don't want this to be specific to the software. But you know, and be like, this thing's not working or whatever. But just in terms of like trends that you've seen,

Cheyanne LaFrance  11:37

that don't work. When you have too many people wanting to onboard, everybody wants to be involved, but nobody actually wants to do it. Yeah, those are the most silent phone calls that I've ever had. And I'm like, There's seven people. And I'm going over this. And so this like, looks like this is something that, you know, Rachel should be doing. And Rachel just is on mute. Or off? Probably not even at her computer, and nobody knows where she's at. But someone else is like, yeah, she can do it five minutes in. I mean, it's just it's a really wonky kickoff call. And there's way too many people. Oh, yeah.

Jeff  12:11

Yeah. Yeah. The the issues that I get the most are when, you know, champion signed this person on the sales team, and then it gets pushed down to this level. And then the person you're interacting is like, what am I doing? What how, what is this for? So they don't understand why it's important. And things like that. Obviously, I think with your software, though, people should recognize the value like it's going to make their onboarding and implementations easier or whatnot. Right? But so they like, Thank God, this is this is happening are they're like, Oh, crap, like, why can't you just keep using Smartsheet?

Cheyanne LaFrance  12:47

No, by the time it gets to me, they're like, I'm done with whatever they're using? Oh, yeah. Yeah, so 90, but I mean, honestly, that's where the sales team comes into play to is you have to sell it really well. But a lot of the times, people are just so fed up with the other products that are out there, that they're ready for a solution, and they want the help. That gets there too. That's the biggest piece is, you know, you can tell me all day, I have to complete 55 tasks and extra days, but if I have no help, I'm not completing one of those. That's probably the biggest, the biggest piece is like not hand holding, but knowing that there's someone there if you need them.

Jeff  13:23

Oh, that's a good point, too. Yeah. Is there any type and again, depending on complexity, some things aren't necessary. But is there any type of like coordinated training that maps in line with their sort of the way I always view this is all the more complex stuff is like week three, you'll be uploading data. So week two, you're gonna take the you're gonna watch the video modules on uploading data or something like that. Do you have any of that sort of like tied in coordinated education?

Cheyanne LaFrance  13:49

Yeah, yeah, I think I mean, if you are onboarding a company, and you don't have any of that, it's

Jeff  13:57

how can you scale right? You're just you're just dude, you have now turned into a trainer, and implementation person. And And now, it's so funny, because I've seen this movie so many times. We're like, can you just record that next session or record a session for them? And then we can just keep using it over? And over? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I'll do that. And my guest, so don't get on live with them. Record it. Make it generic. And so too, so we can keep using it. What do you think eventually happens to that recording?

Cheyanne LaFrance  14:28

Yeah.

Jeff  14:29

Well, no, I'll tell you what happened. Yeah, I'd

Cheyanne LaFrance  14:31

like to know actually, because I refuse to do these.

Jeff  14:34

Every time they wind up doing their customers instance, like we can't reuse this, like, let's say like, oh, I'm implementing for Hydroflask today, right? Like, am I Oh, yeah. Just use our sandbox instance. So we can just put that in our LMS and then they're like, Okay, so you see suddenly easy the Hydroflask logo on the in the corner? In the zoom? You're like, No, we can't use I feel like I've had that conversation. 55 times or so.

Cheyanne LaFrance  14:59

Absolutely. Now that's a very good point. There are a lot. I mean, there's a lot of videos of just overviews of products. Yeah, that you can't use, because it's so specific to whatever that person has recorded. Like this is not helpful for me. Yeah. Why did you even send this to anyone besides the customer that wanted? It doesn't make any sense. It doesn't work? Yeah, there's been a lot of people just don't want to do that. Either. They just want it done for them already. And then they can go and duplicate it in their own instance. Yeah, just saying, because it's never, I always find that it's best if you do it, either for that customer. Or if you do do a generic one that is so specific, that it's interesting, because everyone's different package, right, will have different access levels. They have different resources that they have features that they're all assigned to, you can't just send a generic one out every time. I would say just just hop on the call with me. And then if you have questions, it's easier to do it that way.

Jeff  15:59

Yeah, that's the thing. So many people I find are so scared to get on a call now, right? Like, well, they're fine with the strike. It's like, I can have that 30 minute check in call. But when there's an issue, I'm like, yeah, just call them up. And they'll be like, they saw a ghost or something like that. I'm like, give her a ring, like, Slack them and say, you know, hey, do you have five minutes? Like, like, like, like humans do

Cheyanne LaFrance  16:24

that? Right? Exactly. Like, if you were in an office, you would stand up and watch that person's desk and be like, Hey, do you have five minutes? You know, normal concept. I admit. It's so interesting. And it's funny how people say things in email, so you get an understanding of their personality.

Jeff  16:42

Well, the keyboard warriors is where we're going.

Cheyanne LaFrance  16:46

But then they join the call, and they are a completely different person. Yeah, like, wow, that you're pleasant. You're easy to work with you answer the questions you ask great ones. Where was that in the email thread? That is

Jeff  16:57

what's called, I don't want to get the explicit rating like an NWA record. Yeah. But that's what's called a grin effort, by the way, like, that's, that's the terminology for that. Oh,

Cheyanne LaFrance  17:07

that's a new one. Yeah,

Jeff  17:09

I believe that urban dictionary is up to date on that terminology.

Cheyanne LaFrance  17:13

I'm not logged into that. And so I should probably look at it. Yeah.

Jeff  17:17

Unfortunately, that comes up. Like my daughter asks something and I'm like, Oh, it's just pull it up. And then one of those things pull up. And I'm like, you know, nothing good happens when you click on Urban Dictionary. Ready? Your kids? I can tell you a hilarious thing that happened a few weeks ago, but there's no way I'm doing that on video. So yeah, absolutely.

Cheyanne LaFrance  17:35

Well, I'm looking forward to hearing about it after this.

Jeff  17:37

Yeah. Soon as I hit pause while we take a note on that. I will tell you what. So um, yeah, but I think we might have to sign a waiver as well, too. But anyways, um, so I said slack from it. And then I realized, Oh, my God, did I just say slack? And but like, how do you interact with your customers on the non phone calls? Are you or do you set up an implementation slack? Do Are you? Is it just email? Is it in your system?

Cheyanne LaFrance  18:01

It's in our system? Yeah. We try to get them out of their email, because there's just too much noise inside of it. I mean, I get 50 emails a day will say, I look at 10. Yeah, yeah, these are important. The other ones are just, I'll deal with those tomorrow kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. So we communicate 100% in our system, more or less, until they're in there, they're ready to go ongoing support, then we have all of that support inside as well. Oh,

Jeff  18:28

so and so. And then you transition to a CSM once, once there, what are what happens? What's the what's the model? Once they're up and running and live and good to go?

Cheyanne LaFrance  18:38

You can still communicate within the product. Okay. Yeah. So we want you essentially living in the product that you're living in daily anyways. So while we get distracted, and your email inbox, you know, pick up the phone to call someone and look at all your text messages, and then actually follow through and get the answer that you're looking for. So we try to keep it all within house, essentially. Oh, that's,

Jeff  19:01

that's how, yeah, it's all there too. Because I used to say, the reason why things like the software is so good is because you get, you know, I remember back in the days before, all, you know, got X and all the other ones that are out there, we use Basecamp, for example. And it was the best because, you know, a decision was made in the system, right on a task level. And then somebody who eventually will be a seagull and fly in and say, who said we were gonna go with that logo or something like that, right? And then you're like, oh, let's pull it up here. But you're not pulling through slack. You're not pulling through emails. And you're like, oh, it looks like you said

Cheyanne LaFrance  19:42

let me zoom in really slowly.

Jeff  19:45

It was 53 on Friday, just last just last Friday, actually, yeah.

Cheyanne LaFrance  19:52

This logo and then we posted it, so

Jeff  19:56

it's a very dry humor podcast. I appreciate this is everybody in it? implementation will appreciate this. I'm not sure. Anybody else. These are the people I want to listen like I you know, this is this is perfect memory. So we started off talking before we started recording, maybe about we get on a kickoff call we know almost instantaneous, like mother's intuition. Like, this customer sucks, right? It happens, right? Not ICP sale, whatever. What do you what makes them suck the most? Do you think? In that scenario,

Cheyanne LaFrance  20:33

I have absolutely no idea what they want. They think they know. Then they see the product. I mean, this this happens here. This happens on my old companies. Oh, yeah. So they think they know what they want. They were just Yes manned the entire process. And then they're here. And they're like, Okay, so this is what I wanted to do. I'm like, this is not gonna go well. Okay. Where's that AI? Poster work like this, right? And I'm like, wrong, actually.

Jeff  21:02

Like, oh, that's no good. That's not good at all.

Cheyanne LaFrance  21:05

And then they hone in on that. Yeah. 90% other things that are working exactly how they want it to, they focus on one thing that isn't going to work.

Jeff  21:14

I call it the big red button, because I had a customer that was like switching from one system to the next. And they're literally like, Where's that big red button? Right? And we're like, What do you mean? Like, I'm looking for the red button. And then we're like, Well, what are you trying to do? And they're like, Oh, I know, as I hit that red button, and I get it a direct export to Excel like, so you're looking for export to Excel. Right? Right. Yeah, yeah, that's right over here. Right. VO, it's just like, pulls it back to, you know, let's get the job to be done. What are you trying to do here? But they write they get so lasered in on that thing. Like, yeah, it's great.

Cheyanne LaFrance  21:54

The other fun piece is you have an executive sponsor, someone who knows that you need a product, you need something to make this seamless to make it work, but then doesn't want to be involved in any of it. So they're like, Oh, I'm gonna delegate 105% of these tasks,

Jeff  22:09

but still wants to do all the decision making that never happens. Exactly. And

Cheyanne LaFrance  22:13

then tries to make the decisions. And then the other person's like, this is actually how you do this job. You don't do it on a regular basis. So then I'm like, Well, why don't we do it like this? On the call?

Jeff  22:23

Of course, the only time I can tell you from 20 plus years of consulting, the only time people get together and talk are on these calls, like, yeah, it's like family therapy, or like, Okay, so here's our status report. We did X, Y, and Z and go in there like I didn't, I didn't want I bet didn't that's No, like nada. Exactly. The news. Just like, everybody, Slack knew each other's like, do these people talk at all? And it's just literally,

Cheyanne LaFrance  22:47

like poker face is just like, Yep, it's going really well.

Jeff  22:51

This is good. This is why we have these meetings so we can flush these requirements. So this is great. Very good. Yeah,

Cheyanne LaFrance  22:57

it's pushed back another week, because they have to meet internally again, and they're not going to, so then it's pushed again, pushed again. So like, we're actually just gonna make it. Do you

Jeff  23:05

have any, like penalties or carrots or things that you use for that scenario? Because you don't want to what, you know, I'm sure you've got some adherence to going live in certain time periods and things like that. What's, what's your sort of buttons that that you use to sort of push those things along? I'll tell you what mine is when you're done. But yeah, yeah,

Cheyanne LaFrance  23:23

I mean, we have just a big red date that says forecasted. ND Yes. Yes, you're getting to where I am. Yeah. And I'm like, this is the number that your executive sponsor cares about. So make some decisions three weeks before this. In a state read, you're never gonna go live like this

Jeff  23:41

show. 24 it's just it's getting to the 20 Right? It's It's nobody's clock. You know, Jack's run in his daughter's gonna tag my Cougar, but like, it's still gonna, you know, you're

Cheyanne LaFrance  23:55

22 Yeah,

Jeff  23:57

I do the same thing. I usually say who? Okay, let me let me do the Cheyanne who who's your favorite onboarding person on on a bet you've ever met? Like, what's their name?

Cheyanne LaFrance  24:06

Oh, Mark Mitchell.

Jeff  24:09

This is what I usually, you know, Omar. Yeah. Omar turns into a pumpkin and 17 days. And if you want to work with Omar again, that is in you just received, we recite what the implementation fee is again, and then in then they're like, what any, like, like, and then I'm like, well, that it doesn't have to be that way. And, you know, we'll give you like, maybe another five days, but you have to do X, Y and Z and that time, like essentially stopped the BS and started working together and things like

Cheyanne LaFrance  24:38

that. Yeah, that's good. I like that. Yeah,

Jeff  24:41

the separation and in $1 amount, right? Because it probably, you know, this is the old just gonna talk about that thing again, but it's like, you know, free is a four letter F word and they're not going to value your stuff. If it's free, so if implementations free and by the way A doesn't end anytime it's like, oh, well, we'll just show up. Like, is it Tuesday for not feeling that meeting? We just push that off for another week? Yeah, we're gonna do, right, they're gonna do what happens to your team in that scenario.

Cheyanne LaFrance  25:18

We all cry collectively. And then we come together and just push at different angles. We're like, you know, this person, you still need to do this, you need to do this from different points of contact. Essentially, we rely on the sales team, bring it in, bring that person that signed that contract back in and say, This has everything on the table. When was

Jeff  25:41

it? Because if you don't do that, and people were like, Whoa, why is he hanging on this point? So much? It's like, let's say you've just got, you know, four implementation managers, right. And you're used to a certain volume every month, suddenly, like you might be holding, how many? How many the implementation people have right now? 510? How many cut live?

Cheyanne LaFrance  26:01

I think like 15 each. Okay, so 15, right?

Jeff  26:04

Suddenly, it's 2025. And suddenly, people not enjoying their life too much. And then you're like, do we need to hire more like, why? Because Omar's got 25 active projects, right? Now, why is that? Well, we can end any of them. Why is that? Because they're ghosting, and we don't have any leverage on this, right? So that's why we use the, you know, Omar turns into a pumpkin and you need to pay another 5k or 10k, or 15, whatever your charge is, you know, to extend this out or something like that. And, you know, hey, gotta run a business here. And you know, that that whole thing and everything.

Cheyanne LaFrance  26:34

And then like, well, you know, we haven't done anything. Yeah, well, that's not my issue at this moment. Like, you haven't done anything. So you're gonna have to figure out how to do these things. And this a lot of time that you've already had three months to do it.

Jeff  26:46

Yeah. Is that in the contract, by the way, is like, does it state? Because that's my next point is like, five lines, like don't do it. Some people when I start saying that, like, you know, we don't want to write Oh, so why not a little attachment, like little implementation? 30 days? Or your dollar amount in there? Yeah.

Cheyanne LaFrance  27:04

Um, that I don't know about at this moment. But past jobs, yes. It says, If you are not done by, I think it was 45 days, you will be charged X amount more dollars for German boarding fee. Yeah. I'm gonna tell you right now, though, it didn't really help.

Jeff  27:23

Did you enforce it? It was interesting. Like, did you actually come up? Really?

Cheyanne LaFrance  27:28

Sometimes we, but the issue again, was the delegation down was, you know, somebody signed it? And they're like, Yeah, you know, Cheyanne, we'll get it done in 15 days out of the 45. And Cheyanne has 25 projects on her plate. And 26 is way too many, but they don't. So it's, it's 5050, I'd say yeah, like 90 minute sentence time. PolyWorks got it, because nobody wants to pay more.

Jeff  27:54

Nobody wants to pay more, you just have to know everybody's carrot, right? Like, you know, carrot stick whatever works the best or whatever. Like, and by the way, in that scenario that I just talked about, like probably done one change order and 15 years of like that speech, right? It's just, it's just a position, it's not necessary. Because you don't want to like, you know, it's a, it's a business where you want to renew your customers, right, so to PMP them to death, like, you know, day in and day out, and it's gonna cost you $2,000 day, like, you know, that works when you're building space shuttles and stuff like that. But like, when you're just like, you know, you want you don't want them to be going out on Jeetu saying the implementation team sucks. And you know, about X, Y, and Z. You know, ultimately, you're trying to not mess with the revenue, but you're just trying to just push them along like a little bit. So it's a delicate balance. So absolutely.

Cheyanne LaFrance  28:45

Yeah. I mean, I always say, you know, every customer is different, as you're all aware, because you all have customers looking for you like to give you a trophy at the end of this to be the best customer walking through this. Some some of them. It's like, oh, that's motivating. Like, we can definitely do that. And they can work on it.

Jeff  29:02

All I'm hearing of this is that we we need to treat our customers like fourth grade soccer teams.

Cheyanne LaFrance  29:10

Everyone gets a trophy. Yeah,

Jeff  29:12

you too, will get an implementation. Oh, live implementation. Right?

Cheyanne LaFrance  29:18

Yeah, no, I mean, to a level it's true, though. I mean, you have to you have to work it up. And, and that's the kickoff call, in my opinion is so critical, because you have to understand the bandwidth of their team, as well as the bandwidth of your team. So schedule calls right on my call, we say if you want to do it in three weeks, you have to put away X amount of hours every single week and get this done and get this push through. And that I mean that at least resets expectations if they were, you know, miscommunicated before that, I'll be

Jeff  29:48

like, set it like hey, just in case you didn't hear probably need to do about five hours of homework a week and things like that or something like that.

Cheyanne LaFrance  29:54

Yeah. And I mean, like we have dedicated individuals for you, but we're only dedicated enough to your dedication as well, yeah, you're not dedicated. We're kind of in the dark about.

Jeff  30:04

Absolutely. What's your like, biggest problem that you're trying to fix right now? Or like your next initiative? I don't want to say like, too much.

Cheyanne LaFrance  30:14

Next initiative that I have is, well, we're all actually working on we all have quarterly initiatives that we have to work on. Right. And mine's more feature based. I, yeah. So I enjoy doing our process, and then somehow putting it into the product.

Jeff  30:31

Oh, that's, that's awesome. Yeah, that's it's, yeah, we have

Cheyanne LaFrance  30:35

a very, we have, like you said, we have a very interesting perspective, because everyone has an onboarding background. But we're onboarding on orders. Yeah. Working for me, it should work for you as well, in some capacity. So that's essentially what we're trying to uncover through the processes that we see everyone come through, like, Where are their pain points? Do they match Rs? Should we, you know, somewhat, figure this out in the product? So that's what we're working on now. Yeah, it's just adding new features.

Jeff  31:02

Yeah. Okay. That's great. What have I missed, like coming into this year? Like, Oh, I gotta make sure I talked about this.

Cheyanne LaFrance  31:09

I think just like how critical it is to understand the product that you're buying, and understand the product that you're selling, giving to your customers that is there, it's just there's you can't turn it back. Once you they don't understand what they're what they bought, it is going to exponentially ruin your entire onboarding process. That timeline thrown out the window.

Jeff  31:35

Are you getting pulled into pre sales conversations at all? Yeah,

Cheyanne LaFrance  31:39

sometimes. Oh, that's great. Yeah, just for people to fully understand what they're working with. And honestly, those are the ones that fly through on

Jeff  31:46

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I will consistently say it accelerates the deal. It does not slow it down. Because here you come in near Cheyanne. She's not on commission. ask her any questions. She's gonna ask you questions back, she's gonna say, Oh, you're in this vertical. Yeah, we did XY and Z for so and so and then, you know, your sales engineers, they don't know any of that stuff. Right. There, there Labradors. Not as dumb as the dope has

Cheyanne LaFrance  32:13

felt. It's, you know, guys like that. Yeah, they know the product so well. But I think they don't know the customers

Jeff  32:21

know, I feel. Check me on this. But I feel it's like salespeople go in, they set the relationship up. And then the sales engineer is like, right, we have these 57 features. Our competitor has these 52 features. So these four features right here, you know what I mean? They know those things in and out, download the crap out of it. But then a customer's like, I like going to the Midwestern boy, I'm in. I'm in manufacturing, right? Like, how am I gonna set this up for my blah, blah, blah? And they're like, you know, and then it just dies at that point? Ya

Cheyanne LaFrance  32:55

know, I've definitely seen a couple of calls like that, in the past, where I'm like, you had it like you, you had it in your hands, and you just walked it so hard. But it's like, how do I? How do I read through together like, product is great. Their process is not. So let's just like they know that it's not, or they wouldn't be in this call with you? Yeah.

Jeff  33:18

Are you helping them map to a new process? So you're just basically saying, like, what are you doing? Now? We're gonna map it in here, like, do you? Do you help them define some of that? I mean, if they want to write some people, yeah,

Cheyanne LaFrance  33:29

some people are so stuck in the ways that they have their process now that they're like, we just want to, you know, whatever feature that they want out of the product today, but we just want this, so let's just shift everything over. But then others are like, I'm not even gonna give you my process. It is so horrible that let's just start over.

Jeff  33:46

Yeah. Don't look at it. Don't judge me

Cheyanne LaFrance  33:50

to have to, but don't even look at it. Because I don't want to I don't want to do it. Yeah, so it's interesting mix that that's one of the questions I asked him, like, where do you want to go with this? Where do you want, you know, what are your pain points? How can we fix them? It's just, you know, figure it out as we go.

Jeff  34:09

You can like

Cheyanne LaFrance  34:12

we could do it that way. Yeah. Let's do it the other way. It's

Jeff  34:15

a little, little little planning upfront.

Cheyanne LaFrance  34:19

A little bit of homework would be fine. Yeah.

Jeff  34:23

Yeah, I found helpful, you know, give them like, Hey, here's a process diagram or like, here's the x or this is how 1500 other customers do it and stuff like that.

Cheyanne LaFrance  34:32

But yeah, I do. I love the customers that ask, you know, what do you normally see when they have absolutely no idea what they're doing? Yeah. Then I'm like all along. What I normally see is just chaos. But I'm usually you're gonna just send me over everything and then we're going to tell you to fix it. So

Jeff  34:48

and as always implementation, the hardest gig in the company and they get it done. roll up the sleeves go from there,

Cheyanne LaFrance  34:57

right. I mean, I agree. There's just a lot of moving parts and everything, and all of them are in a certain way,

Jeff  35:04

how much talent you have to go back to product and say like, we need this feature, and three weeks of these people are going to churn.

Cheyanne LaFrance  35:11

So we're very transparent on what we're releasing, and we give the customer full rein to ask for a product or a feature. Yeah, we tell you, it's a really good product. Um, so it's interesting, because if they want something, we normally have some sort of workaround already, or it's being built into the product is going to be released at the end of the quarter. So I would say only twice, but they've come back, okay. Because we say, okay, like, yes, this actually works, we send out the, you know, bat signal and say, Who else wants to? Yeah, like, 90% of them come back and say we wanted to, so we kind of put on the docket getting awesome.

Jeff  35:53

Well, this has been great, like, you know, classic implementation conversation where it's like, yeah, that's kind of how it is. And you know,

Cheyanne LaFrance  36:02

like, this is, this is shot right here. This is exactly how this is

Jeff  36:05

all Shop Talk. This is, you know, missing the bar. We should have had drinks, but I have to go to a school play after this. And that's not a good luck. Yeah. Daddy, smells like Sunday is not a good thing. So we don't want that. But so let me ask this. I hate asking you this. Because you're now you're like down in Florida in the summer, but like, it's February, right. So we're in the middle of winter. But what is your, you know, hunker down in the winter, you're not even doing that. And like so like, what's your what's your nonwork fun thing that you're doing for the wintertime? That's not even winter, for a season or for a season list environment?

Cheyanne LaFrance  36:42

It's so funny. I fly away from Florida and then winter a lot, too. Yeah, yeah. So I like do like a snowboarding trip every year. But if I'm here, there's a lot of me like on my bike on the weekends taking my hammock to some random trees and like reading a book.

Jeff  37:00

Yeah, that's, it's different than my weekend. I'm gonna say that

Cheyanne LaFrance  37:06

by the fireplace. You know, reading some nice books.

Jeff  37:11

You know? Yeah. That's nice. You just enjoy that while you got it. You know, who am I remember that? I remember getting the globe Sunday morning Charlestown roof deck. Reading paper, not a care in the world. That's great. Yeah, that's awesome. Well, this has been great. Um, I'm going I really appreciate you willing to just have an open, honest, candid conversation Shop Talk. Implementation. It's it's a hard gig. We love it. For some, we're probably all just psychotics. And we love it. And there's probably a lot to analyze here. But it's been great chatting with you. And hold on for a minute. I'm going to make sure we get all your LinkedIn stuff and everybody knows where to find you and everything like that. And just hold on. We'll work out a couple of logistics and we're good to go. But thanks so much.

Cheyanne LaFrance  38:00

Yeah, no, thank you. This was very beneficial. Awesome.