The Dream Manager Strategy That Cuts Turnover in Half

02:10 · The Origin of the Dream Wall at Stellar One

>> Excellent. Yeah, I'm a uh I'm the CEO at Stellar One. We're an Acumatica reseller. Stellar One is a little different in the Acumatica community and probably most ERP implementation communities. We do everything as a subscription. We don't charge for implementation. You'll never see a time and materials invoice from us. We have a 5-year price lock. We let our customers cancel any time after the sixth month. So, lots of interesting crazy things that we do out there. I guess some people think they're crazy. Uh but yeah, we we are trying to actually walk the walk for the things that we say and the feedback I've gotten over the last gosh, how many years of doing this? I started in this business in 1997, so it's really a culmination of everything that's happened to me since then.

Yeah. Uh so fun fact, Richard in his past life was the the former ERP systems director at SpaceX. So that that work was done. So he worked with Mr. Musk. We won't go into any of that because that's not what we're talking about. So we'll just keep it moving. >> So let's go back to the beginning. Where did the belief come from that a company has a responsibility to invest in its employees personal dreams? >> Yeah, it's interesting. I had this concept in my head of this different way of handling bonuses because bonuses always felt like a very transactional, not very meaningful way to do things on an annual basis. It's like, okay, we got this bonus pool and we spread it out among everybody, but it never you it's kind of like a tax refund, right? It doesn't make a tremendous impact on your life. Again, yeah, for a short time there's this nice little bump, but it didn't really tied to anything that mattered to people. So, I always had this concept of having what I called a life stage bonus plan, and it's something that's still on my road map to implement at some point here, but it was really tied to different stages in people's lives. you know, whether it's, you know, a new hireer coming out of college that needs money to buy a down payment for a car or to get a security deposit for an apartment or whatever, and then later on down payments for houses and dream vacations and retirement and and so really defining people's journey with us through five different stages and trying to provide a bonus or a special compensation tied to those stages of their life rather than just what you're doing every day. So, that was kind of the genesis for it. and um a consultant that we worked with a contractor Quesha who you know well Kesha turned me on to Matthew Kelly's the Dream Manager and when I read it it just was a light bulb moment for me it's okay this kind of crystallizes what I'm thinking but in a much more operational and and day-to-day way yeah so you I mean let's be honest you were doing this before employee engagement right was a buzz word, right? So, >> you know, I'll ask the question, but I already know the answer. Did you feel like you were swimming against the current a bit?

04:45 · Early Resistance and Swimming Against the Current

>> That pretty much defines my whole career, Kevin. >> Yeah, fair. We we definitely were doing things that other people just kind of looked at us as scans along with that too as a publicly available salary calculator for people like not hiding things that people tended to put walls around because we we really do feel transparency is a big cornerstone of what we do and and that doesn't just apply to work life. crosses boundaries to a certain extent because work is part of who we are and we try not to try and just segregate it and say oh yeah this is disconnected from everything else that's happening to you. So breaking down some of those barriers has always been interesting for us and yeah still today people have a hard time understanding how we're doing that and why.

>> Yeah. >> Oh I know they do. >> Yeah. You get to look too. >> Yeah. I I uh I'd like to take a sec to talk about the dream wall because that's what you know started to change everything for me. Walk walk our listeners through it. What is it? How does it work? And what kinds of dreams end up on that wall? >> Yeah, it was interesting because we did this as part of um every quarterly company meeting we had, we'd have a little team building exercise of some sort. And for one of those exercises, I got a Sharpie and we all stood around the wall outside our break room and wrote our dreams on the wall in Sharpie and put our names to them. And we prepped people ahead of time to to bring dreams. But it was a little bit of an awkward situation because we didn't have this concept of a Dream Manager or the Dream Manager program at all. So people weren't sure what to make of it. I think they leaned in and they put their dreams on the wall and then we started to see people achieve those dreams. I think one of the first people in our company that did it was Jeremy. you remember Jeremy um he he had a dream to I think it was this is what 10 years ago now pay off his car or something and so he did that.

It was just it's a cool experience to see those start happening and and it makes people publicly accountable for their personal dreams. People ask about them and it's not in a hey did you do this yet. It's more of a hey this was really cool. I hadn't thought about this. Were you able to achieve it way and it it really changed some of the conversations that happened around the workplace. My jaw just dropped when you said that's been 10 years, but I guess it's getting there. Like, wow. >> It's like 10 years. Yeah, it's almost a decade now. >> Wild. Wild. So, do you Trick question, do you happen to remember what my dream was?

07:30 · What the Dream Wall Actually Changed

>> I don't I don't even remember what mine was at the time. >> Yeah. So, mine was mine was to take the family to Ireland. We're going in 45 days. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Kelly, Brendan, myself. >> No. >> And the and the ashes of my parents, which we're going to, you know, sprinkle around somewhere where nobody's looking. So, yeah, it's I mean, it's right. I mean, it's been five years in the making to do it and to do it right. To do the vacation that we want to do. >> Yes. But I'm thrilled about That's great. >> Yeah, it's going to be fun. >> So, you eventually brought on a full-time Dream Manager, Mr. Fort.

>> Yes. >> What was the tipping point? Where did where where did you realize this needed to be someone's full-time job? >> Yeah, that's that's a good question. I don't know that there was any one event or moment where I said, "Okay, let's do this." But it it did. It was really an interesting time for our company. We had had some attrition and I felt like we were talking about trying to make people's dreams a reality but never really put our money where our mouth was and formalized it. And so I got a lot of resistance from the leadership team. It's one of the only times in my career that I just overrode our leadership team completely. And nobody thought this was a great idea at the time. And I was so passionate about I said, "Okay, great. But it's a reversible decision. Let's do it." And if it just prevents one person from leaving the company, it's paid for itself, right? because the cost of replacing somebody's like three times their salary, you know, by the time they you go hire and recruit and train and get them up to speed, it takes forever and cost a lot of money. So, it made perfect sense to me and and so the leadership team kind of begrudgingly went along with it, but the results we saw were fantastic. Voluntary turnover is almost non-existent.

09:40 · Hiring a Full-Time Dream Manager

We do see it occasionally when there's not a good culture fit with the company and that's a miss on the front end, not on the back end. And so, it's it's definitely been more than worthwhile. And not just from a business operations standpoint, but for our people as well. They feel really connected to the company and what we're doing because we're not just here to go finish projects and build revenue and all that. It's really about helping them get where they are as people. >> Yeah. I mean, it's I can I can just tell how close everybody is at Stellar. Like right when I see you guys at the summit, you guys are pretty much together the entire time as a team. or you know if if you go into breakout sessions, you come back and huddle and hey, what did we see? What did we hear? And I can I can imagine what those conversations are like. How are we going to do this?

But yeah, I mean it's, you know, it's it's it's pretty incredible to watch. So watching what Richard built is what led me to the Dream Manager program through Trinity One Consulting and ultimately to building an application that I just released called the DreamCompass. It's a platform that gives organizations the system to capture, track, and follow through on the employee dreams. Richard, what's what's been the biggest challenge in keeping track of of dreams and progress and ROI and all that business? >> Yeah, for us it really I think it relies on one person right now. Jason's kind of that guy and and we don't track the dreams as a company necessarily. Like that's up to the individual and we don't really have any tools to provide them.

Jason's got a spreadsheet and they you know kind of a template that people use and some do, some don't. I know some people are tracking things in notion and other places and tools that work for them, but but Jason relies a lot on the individual to come back and say, "Oh yeah, I did this." Or, "Oh, yeah, I reviewed my dream list and this is what's going on." So, and he'll take notes. He's good at followup, but but it really there's no there's no central repository for Jason to go out and track how many dreams have been achieved and what kind of, you know, how big they are and things like that.

Well, there is now. >> It's Yeah. So, I've actually I I sent over a invite to him, you know, free premium to to take a look at it and provide me feedback. So, we we'll see. We'll see how that goes. Yeah. But it's >> it's uh feedback so far has been great. It's exciting. >> Okay. >> So, let's shift gear. You >> recently published uh 15 ways the ERP industry is broken. >> Yes. >> And when I read it, my first thought was this isn't just about technology. This is about how the industry treats its people. So let's get into that a bit. What was the breaking point? They made you write it. Frustration. I know there are people out there that agree with parts of it if not all. And again that my career has been swimming upstream. I am trying I think for me it's trying to get other people who think similarly to engage and start going in the same direction and the industry is not going to change if I'm just out there shouting into the wind, right? I' I've got to have other people there who are doing some of the same things so that we can gain some momentum and it's not a foreign concept to people because we we look weird in the industry when we come up on Google search. Like we had a prospect recently who came to our site and saw free implementation and then went to Acumatica and said is this real like this what is this? I've never seen this before. And so Acumatica had to actually verify our claims before they would talk to us like prospect. And it's that friction that is there just because people can't wrap their head around what we're doing is in order for us to be successful that's got to change. So just getting those concepts out there and you see it. People say, "Oh yeah, that's right. That's right." But you don't see the change happening. So it's it's just building community.

12:20 · Tracking Dreams and Measuring ROI

>> People people don't want to change their cash flow setup at >> or can't figure out how. Right. That's the other. >> So you say one of you say customers should never pay for an ERP implementation which you just touched on. And you back it up with math showing the lifetime value is actually 10x the initial purchase. >> Yeah. >> Most people in the industry think that's insane. Walk us through it. how you got there. >> Well, so if your average customer is seven to 10 years, by the way, it's a lot cheaper to keep a customer than get a new one. We all know that. That's simple. And Acumatica is actually very good at supporting that ongoing customer journey and not just allowing customers to jump from partner to partner like you see in other industries. They do try and work through problems, but it's really expensive to get a new customer for, you know, our industry. It's not uncommon for somebody to spend $30,000 to get a new customer. Think about how much that is as a percentage of license revenue and and license margin >> year in some cases.

14:30 · “15 Ways the ERP Industry Is Broken” Explained

>> Yeah, it's a lot. But that lifetime value is where you really get the deeper connection with the customer. You're helping them see their business grow and achieve their goals. And keeping them doesn't cost very much. So why do we have this big barrier to entry on the front side of the relationship that says, "Oh yeah, pay me a bunch of money to get you up on this software platform so that I can get my money back on the back end." But what ends up happening is the customer spends so much money and implementations are so painful that they're fatigued by the time it's done. They don't want to keep engaging because they know they're going to get an invoice for more and they just spend a bunch of money. So by removing that upfront friction and and then focusing on making that implementation experience very easy and painless as much as possible, we do promote that ongoing relationship and remove the friction from them wanting to talk to us instead of dreading it.

>> Right. So you wrote you wrote the longer the implementation takes the worse the experience which would seem like common sense >> and that customers get asked to do tasks that they don't have the expertise for. Yes. >> Give me some examples and you know what does that actually do to the people involved at on the client side. >> Yeah. So couple of very common things that get pushed onto the customer in order to reduce the implementation cost. Data migration is number one and it's the thing that slows implementations down because customers don't know how to extract their data, cleanse their data, prep it for the new system. And the second place you see a lot of offloading of work to the customer is on reporting.

You know, you're going to need all these reports and it's going to cost you x thousands of dollars. You know, a big percentage of the implementation for the reseller to go do those. Yet, we're really good at it. But instead, in order to save money, it's oh yeah, you can learn this and do it yourself. And the customer is not successful, right? Because they don't have the the bandwidth because they're trying to install a new business. >> Yeah. Then run a business at the same time. and they don't have the skills and expert like, oh, I've got these two generic inquiries and I need to pull data from both of them. How does this all work? And it's just really painful for them and we're good at it. So, why aren't we doing that for them and taking on that task so they can get to the finish line quicker and get value out of the system that they're paying for? So, point 13, that was that was the doozy for me, which was the biggest barrier to success is your team and your consultants speaking to all the bars out there.

17:00 · Why Customers Shouldn’t Pay for Implementation

>> Yep. knowing you and knowing that you, you know, truly care for and love your people. Here's the question I keep coming back to. If the biggest barrier to ERP successes people and you're also the guy who puts employee dreams on a wall, are those two >> connected? And is the dream wall was the dream wall your answer to point 13 before you kind of formalized the Dream Manager program? Hm. Hadn't thought about it that way. Um, and and by the way, I am a former consultant too, so I know how bad we can be. I would say for me the crap consultants aren't the way they are because of their beliefs or the way they want to do things. They are the way they are because of the system they put put it been put into. What's your utilization? What's your average billable rate? How many hours billable hours did you have last month? Those things all drive the wrong behavior in our consulting teams. It's not their fault. they're just responding to the inputs to the system. So really to to remake that to change that mindset around and really shift the way people think, we've taken those things off the table. That's why the subscription model is great. But it then puts the focus on allowing our consult to do what they naturally want to do, which is to make their customers happy without the barriers to doing it. Like, oh, I've got to bill 50 hours this week or this month in order to get to my bonus or whatever it is. It really changes that. They don't have that target. Their complete and total focus is on the experience that that customer has.

>> Yeah. Velocity. >> Yeah. And it ties into their feeling of self-worth. Instead of measuring it by how many hours I build or how much revenue I've generated, it's really built around that satisfaction that everybody gets by solving problems and keeping things moving forward. And it's just a different relationship. For leaders listening right now who have no idea what we're talking about and don't know where to start, what's the one thing you could say to them that they could do first thing Monday morning? >> Take three to four hours out of your day, read the Dream Manager, and be curious and get over the fact that it's about a janitorial services company because it's not. It's about a company like any other. Everybody's got dreams.

19:30 · Data Migration, Reporting & Implementation Friction

And we think as leaders that we know what our people's motivation is, but we don't. We have no idea cuz, you know, Susie may be having, you know, her grandmother may be having health issues and that's distracting her. And her, what she really needs right now in this point in time is to spend time with her grandmother. She doesn't need more money. She needs the freedom to go do the things she needs to do to run her life. And so, we can't possibly anticipate all the things that our employees need. So ask them, find out from them. Don't don't assume that we're smarter than them.

Assume that they know what they need and that we can find ways to enable them. It doesn't mean necessarily just giving them things, but putting things in place to help make their lives easier. >> Yeah. So, there's a question I've been looking forward to asking. You spent years helping people achieve their dreams, and you've just challenged the entire industry publicly to do better. So to turn the tables, what's Richard Seller's dream right now? >> Uh, couple of them. On the business side, I want to have our organization show people that we can be different and be successful being different and really turn the whole narrative on its head about how to run a consulting. I I don't I don't even like the word consulting a software reseller or software publisher practice. This goes to the publishers as well. And so I would say in the next year to two, I want us to be so wildly successful doing this. Not for us, but to show people there is a better way and that it is human- centered and it's every bit as personal and relationship driven as the way that things are done today, but at scale. And I know it can be. It's it's not a lot of things we do today are so people intensive and they don't need to be or shouldn't be because they're repetitive and they're on our schedule not the customer schedule. So that's one thing. The other thing for me too is I would say on the personal side enabling that next generation of people in our industry who are thinking differently and who are going to have different and better and newer ideas than me. Like I'm I'm almost 60 years old. I'm 59 in a week or two. I'm not going to be in this industry for much longer. I shouldn't be. Let's put it that way. There are a lot of very bright, very motivated, very awesome upandcoming people. We've got them in our company right now, and it's their turn. My My dream is to have a path laid out for them that they can start charging down and then go beyond what I've ever imagined. Awesome.

21:45 · Consultants, Utilization Metrics & Broken Incentives

So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to put links in the notes to the show to the the whole 15 ways article. So, anybody who's interested can go and read it. It is an intriguing read, especially if you're in the ERP space, either as a customer or as a VAR or ISV or, you know, whatever. It's I mean, it's a challenge, plain and simple. So, Richard, thank you. Thank you for planting the seeds and for having the courage to challenge the industry out loud. >> Thank you, Kevin. and thank you for continuing the and spreading the word about Dream Managers and and really taking care of people. There's nothing more important than than that if you're in charge of a company or or even participating in a company in any way.

If you're in the workforce, that is something that should be on our top of everybody's mind, especially these days. >> Yeah. I mean, right now, honestly, I'm I'm I'm I'm focused on how can we thread the needle of the Dream Manager programming of the Dream Manager program addressing the disengagement problem at companies, which is one of the main, if not the main reasons implementations fail, right? Because like again, Stellar One does things differently. They don't sit in conference rooms and do blueprinting sessions and business process type sessions that take days and, you know, hundreds of hours to write, but they right they they deliver quickly and iteratively.

24:00 · Disengagement: The Hidden Cause of ERP Failure

>> Mhm. >> It's it's a lot it's different than everybody else that I've worked for. I mean, it just is. And when you when you look at the way the industry works and you look at people in a conference room, right, the team of consultants come in, we come in, you know, we're hot We come in with all of our knowledge and charts and graphs and blah blah blah. And decisions are made, right? decisions are made in a conference room from a department head or a VP or whatever who hasn't been on the front line doing the job in god knows how long. Right? So it it's at some point through the life cycle of the implementation some people are going downstairs and saying hey here's your new software and here's your system and this is the way we're going to do it now. So essentially what you just told that person was I don't care what you think just do the job.

>> That's exactly what you said. I mean without saying it that's what you said. >> So that's that's what I'm that's like my perfect world. Like if I can if I can align those two things to to streamline the process, right? It's a little bit of a different approach than you're doing. >> Mhm. >> I think it's I mean I think the not I think I know that the results would be incredible. Like I I really do. It's the same thing we do when we're selling to an executive here. Get get your weekends back. Get your family time back, right? That's your dream is to spend time with your family. instead you're slogging through these reports and all these other things because you don't have all the data you need and we have that conversation with them but that's where it stops and so yeah being able to have that same conversation down on the front lines and Susie you're doing AP I use Susie's name I don't know why but you're doing AP what you know what is your dream for this function like what what is your dream day it's not fighting fires and dealing with angry suppliers who haven't gotten paid yet it's it's about having a I'm sure whoever's in that position has pride in what they do and they want to do an excellent job and we have to figure out what that is and enable that >> 100%.

26:30 · Richard’s Personal Dream & The Future of the Industry

Okay, we've come to the end of the interview. That was Richard Cellar, CEO of Stellar One, my prior boss, existing friend. I still look at Richard as a mentor. I say this not to blow smoke up your ass, but Richard is genuinely probably the most intelligent person I've ever met. And you know, these ideas that he has don't come along so often like like he said, they're they're radical and they're awesome and it's the reason I joined him. When I when I went to work for Richard, it was the reason I joined him and then COVID hit and things had to happen. So, >> was a weird place.

>> We'll just leave that at that. So, if this resonated with you, please subscribe and share this episode with a leader who needs to hear it because I think we all know there's many. If you're ready to bring the Dream Manager methodology into your organization, visit trinity1cculting.com. And if you need a system to track it all, check out the newly releasleased DreamCompass app at the rhythmoflife.thedreamividend.com. And I'll put that link in the show notes. Everybody, I'm Kevin Patrick and this was the Dream Dividend. Until next time, watch your dream and more importantly, what's standing in the way. Richard, thank you. >> Thank you, Kevin.

>> If this episode made you uncomfortable, good. That means you are paying attention. The future belongs to leaders who stop managing people like assets and start investing in them like humans. See you next time. And remember, dreams aren't frivolous. Ignoring them is.