Niching Down in Reporting Using CHAMPS Analytics to Power Electrical Companies Insights | Chuck Patel

Chuck Patel sold cable scramblers as a kid, as described in a Popular Mechanics article, and became hooked on technology and business. He subsequently participated in a startup that experienced a successful exit. Eventually, he found his way to CHAMPS Software, where he currently serves as the President. They provide dashboard reporting utilizing their data analytics to help power companies save hundreds of millions of dollars each year. This episode is a fascinating testament to how combining your passion with business can lead to enjoying both business and life. Did you know our amazing voices can go beyond just the microphone? Yes, we have video! Subscribe to our YouTube channel here!

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GOLD NUGGETS:

(03:06) - CHAMPS Analytics Software for Business

(10:39) - Entrepreneurial Conversations on Software Development

(20:48) - Evolution of CRM Software Industry

(33:39) - Sales Skills Training and Approach

(44:15) - CHAMPS Software Growth and History

(48:36) - Small Business Success Strategies and Lessons

(58:06) - Communication Challenges With Millennials

(01:02:51) - CHAMPS in Nuclear Power?

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Chuck’s Links:

Website | https://champsanalytics.com/ 

LinkedIn | https://www.linkedin.com/in/bidashboards/ 

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Book Mentioned: Let's Get Real or Let's not Play by Mahan Khalsa

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Previous guests on The Small Business Safari include Dale Cardwell, Amy Lyle, Ben Alexander, Joseph Sission, Jonathan Ellis, Brad Dell, Chris Hanks, C.T. Emerson, Chad Brown, Tracy Moore, Wayne Sherger, David Raymond, Paul Redman, Gabby Meteor, Ryan Dement, Barbara Heil Sonneck, Bryan John, Tom Defore, Rusty Clifton, Duane Johns, Jason Sleeman, Andy Suggs, Chris Michel, Jon Ostenson, Tommy Breedlove, Rocky Lalvani, Amanda Griffey, Spencer Powell, Joe Perrone, David Lupberger, Duane C. Barney, Dave Moerman, Jim Ryerson, Al Mishkoff, Scott Specker, Mike Claudio and more!

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• Turning 23 Years of McDonald's Franchise Ownership to an Entrepreneurial Lifestyle

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Have any questions or comments? Connect with me here!

Transcript

Chris Lalomia: 0:00

And everybody thinks today it's like, oh, what did he do? Was he like a YouTube influencer? Is that what he started his business in? You know, you go back to our age. You're like, oh, was he in a dot-com startup? Dude, there was no such thing as dot-com in 94, 95.

Chuck Patel: 0:13

Nothing like that at all. I wish there was, because I it could have been more fun, I think, so We'd be doing this podcast on our yachts I on our yachts.

Chris Lalomia: 0:22

I'm dead of being better. We would have flown in on our yachts. Well, we would have flown in and then taken a helicopter to our yachts next to Ellison and Gates. Well, gates won't have one, but Ellison does have one. And I say their last names like I'm big buds with them, but you know we're all tech people.

Alan Wyatt: 0:36

The fact that you know that one has a helicopter and the other doesn't I know Ellison does it is Hell yeah.

Chris Lalomia: 0:41

It's telling it is. I'm not jealous, just a little. Welcome to the Small Business Safari, where I help guide you to avoid those traps, pitfalls and dangers that lurk when navigating the wild world of small business ownership. I'll share those gold nuggets of information and invite guests to help accelerate your ascent to that mountaintop of success. It's a jungle out there and I want to help you traverse through the levels of owning your own business that can get you bogged down and distract you from any of your own personal and professional goals. So strap in adventure team and let's take a ride through the safari and get you to the mountaintop. What could go wrong? That's the name of this podcast. What could possibly go wrong?

Chris Lalomia: 1:21

with a glass of bourbon. I got a bourbon of Milam and green in my hand. Single barrel straight bourbon whiskey. Chuck. Our guest has gone with the Michter's rye.

Alan Wyatt: 1:33

I love that one. I got a little Woodford Reserve which you call maintenance bourbon.

Chris Lalomia: 1:36

I call that my maintenance bourbon. So he's already gone to the maintenance bourbon. People, you're obnoxious, I am, but we just got started on the podcast and he goes right to the maintenance bourbon. I'm like come on, alan, we got a special guest there. He's in studio.

Alan Wyatt: 1:47

I don't want to bring your good stuff, because I think this is good stuff.

Chris Lalomia: 1:51

Yeah, well, that's true, I don't want to drink my good stuff actually. Uh, check this out. Uh, a week and a half ago I went to get the good stuff and I bought fiddler. I'm like I'm gonna share this with alan and my dad's in town and I went to grab the Fiddler on the way here and it's gone, gone, gone.

Alan Wyatt: 2:07

Oh really.

Chris Lalomia: 2:07

Oh yeah, we finished off a bottle.

Alan Wyatt: 2:09

We or your dad.

Chris Lalomia: 2:11

We, we. Okay, but we had some people over too, so we had the whole bottle's gone. I'm like, who was that? And it's not even I. I always like to have an accomplice.

Alan Wyatt: 2:20

I was going to ask how your dad's doing, but apparently pretty good. So he's doing pretty good, he's up there, he's loose, he's goose.

Chris Lalomia: 2:26

He's down, he's sleeping. I don't know what's going on. I'm like, hey, where'd my fiddler go, dad? All right, everybody, we got a very interesting episode because of home service providers. We've got a special treat for you, because this dude is not a home service provider. Alan's excited about it. Chuck Patel from Champs analytics Welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on. He's also a neighbor and a friend, so I'm excited to have him in here and he's in studio. Our favorite. Hey, thanks for having me looking forward to it. Awesome, our favorite. Hey, chuck, thanks for having me Looking forward to it. Awesome, chuck. So for everybody, let's talk a little bit about what Champs Analytics is, so we get a flavor for what you do, because that's a lot different than swinging a hammer and out there with my jaw in and my jeans culling all over my pants and going.

Alan Wyatt: 3:16

Are you saying use small words, chuck, please.

Chuck Patel: 3:19

No problem. So yeah, champs Analytics is a software company that is part of a larger organization called Champs Software, but on Champs Analytics side, we basically help our customers make better decisions with their data in terms of how to run their business. So, essentially, we have customers that have lots and lots of data. It's stored in lots of different types of places ERP systems, crm systems, accounting systems, you name it and we help bring all that data together so that they can very quickly see dashboards and analytics on how their key performance indicators and their metrics that they're trying to manage their business from are looking and trending, so that if you want to look at what kind of problems you're having today, you can focus on the area on the dashboard where it's red or yellow and things are green. You don't have to worry about those things.

Alan Wyatt: 4:15

So it's all about Color coded for somebody stupid like me. Is that what you're telling me, Chuck?

Chuck Patel: 4:20

It can be color coded. You can use any color codes you want, no-transcript to their source data and they're looking at data in real time, which is a lot easier to run your business that way.

Chris Lalomia: 5:02

So you guys create the dashboard for a company so they can see the hotspots quick or whatever's going on understanding their data. So who are examples of your customers? Because I'm pretty sure it doesn't sound like it's a handyman.

Chuck Patel: 5:12

No, our customers can be. They're typically what we call enterprise and mid-sized companies, so they're companies that are in the billions of dollars in revenues. We try to focus on companies that are in the billions of dollars in revenues. We try to focus on companies that are in the over $100 million in terms of revenue size.

Chris Lalomia: 5:31

Kind of like you, I'm a little short on $100 million. I don't think I'm enterprise.

Alan Wyatt: 5:37

I think, in fact, I think it may be. Do you do pro bono, chuck? I mean Chris, I'm just asking for Chris.

Chuck Patel: 5:40

I can definitely give Chris some help. All he has to do is ask.

Alan Wyatt: 5:44

You know what I will ask? You could be $100 million if you actually had good data, probably.

Chris Lalomia: 5:49

Actually, if I would have this dashboard, I think I'd be rocking it. So you guys, chuck, go out there, get the dashboards, get into it. So you guys, this is very interesting, because how long has this business been around?

Chuck Patel: 6:00

So I joined the main business, champ Software, back in 2006. And some of our greatest success stories are in the nuclear power industry. So we helped revolutionize the way the nuclear power industry competes against cheap natural gas. So back they had this thing called delivering the nuclear promise about seven or eight years ago, and it was all about trying to combat all the natural gas plants that are being built, because nuclear, as you know or you can imagine, is super regulated and a very complex business.

Chuck Patel: 6:38

So you can have a nuclear power plant that generates one gigawatt of power, 1,000 megawatts of power or a gigawatt of power and it employs 1,700 people. Or you can have a gas plant that generates half of that power but it only employs 100 people. So you can see how, when you look at the metrics of how to run those types of facilities, it's a lot cheaper to do with natural gas. So one of the things that we did with the nuclear power industry every nuclear power utility in US, north America, canada, mexico, and we've got some customers in Europe as well they're all using our analytics to look at how they spend money on their preventative maintenance strategy, and our biggest case study success story was with Exelon Energy, where we helped them save $85 million every year going into the future for the next 30 years. So we probably underpriced that job.

Chuck Patel: 7:43

Atta boy Spoken like a true entrepreneur exactly, we left some money on the table, but but they're having fun using it and they're really just safe.

Chris Lalomia: 7:52

You're using our software, you're talking big boy dollars, man, 85 million, I mean times every year, times every size for the next 30 years. Yeah, yeah. So you, you got into this and that's what's interesting is that you were. This company has been around before. Then you got into champ software, but you eventually got bought into it. But these guys have been getting access to people's data and then providing dashboards. I gotta believe before the real uh rules of data and um, so what I'm looking for? Piracy, all that stuff that happens. Has it been a huge burden in the last couple of years?

Alan Wyatt: 8:26

to keep this going. Are you talking from a security standpoint?

Chris Lalomia: 8:29

Yeah, like security. Like yeah, because you're giving access to my data, I mean in the 80s and 90s, 2000, early.

Chuck Patel: 8:35

It's really not that bad. I mean, now that it's 2024, everything is SaaS related now, so people are much more comfortable with you know, bringing you know, using systems and putting having their data get exposed into the cloud and things like that. The nuclear power industry is a little bit different, though. They're very anal about that. They don't like having their data not under their you know, their security under their. I'm kind of glad to hear that.

Chuck Patel: 9:00

Yeah, yeah. So very few of them actually have their data running in the cloud. Our system is running in a very secure environment. It's actually running under EPRI, which you may not be familiar with E-P-R-I, but that's the Electric Power Research Institute so they're actually hosting the solution for the entire nuclear power industry on their secure environment. So you have to have, you know, you have to have some, you can't. Just it's not available via the web for you know, you or I to go look at that data.

Chuck Patel: 9:32

What's interesting, though, about that is you know, duke Energy, southern Company, exelon, entergy all the big fleets, they what's interesting about this business? You're talking about security and data. They really love to share their results because of how they're saving money. Because in the nuclear power world and in the electric power world in general, they're they don't really have any competition, right. You know, southern company uh, basically has a mostly a, a monopoly in in their markets, right, they don't. And they don't compete against duke energy because duke has a monopoly in their markets, right, and they don't compete against Duke Energy because Duke has a monopoly in their markets. And so what's interesting is, because it's the nuclear power world, they really band together as an entire industry, because if somebody has an accident somewhere, it's not only a black eye for that particular station, but it's a black eye for the entire industry in general. I think a nuclear accident's bigger than a black eye for that particular station, but it's a black eye for the entire industry in general.

Alan Wyatt: 10:27

I think a nuclear accident's bigger than a black eye. Yeah, well, a little bit.

Chuck Patel: 10:32

So it's a collaborative industry In terms of how they share data, in terms of how they are able to save money. They love to share their wins and they love to share when something goes wrong, because they're they're they're basically band together as it's an us against them type of mentality and it's it's very interesting. They, they are absolutely open about sharing amongst their you know, private, you know group of of fellow uh nuclear power reactors, uh, that they love sharing that information.

Chris Lalomia: 11:04

And so you guys are, uh, your champs analytics, champ software, you, you guys are the premier provider for this dashboard solution to all of them.

Chuck Patel: 11:12

Uh, in this particular case, yes, yes, but we do have competition as well, uh, you know, with companies like Microsoft and all the other big players as well. But for this particular solution, for this, particular solution. They suck that sponsors for this particular solution we are the sole provider for for the entire industry beautiful, that's nice all right, so wait a minute.

Alan Wyatt: 11:32

I gotta ask. So, if natural gas comes a knocking, can you take care of that?

Chuck Patel: 11:35

absolutely, absolutely we don't limit, we don't limit, we don't turn away business we're, you know, we, we. If you've got money and you want to solve a problem, we are more than your own heart.

Chris Lalomia: 11:45

This is why chuck and I are friends. When we met years ago and I'm sitting here trying to grow this little handyman business to clearly a lot less than 100 million dollars, I said at the time I'd do anything to anybody at any time. Um so yes. But chuck says hey, my doors are busy, are open for business, let's go, do it all right, it's a more elegant way of saying what you said.

Alan Wyatt: 12:06

That is true.

Chris Lalomia: 12:08

Well, again $100 million, chuck, and then $100, Chris. So there's a big difference, there's a chasm there. My friends, let's talk about this software and let's talk about the entrepreneurship route that you took. So you joined in 2006 as an employee.

Chuck Patel: 12:27

Yes, I actually. I've always been an entrepreneur. I learned a lot about software and software companies when I was a co-op at Georgia Tech. I basically had this job at this software company in Buckhead and I worked there for four years while I was still a student and I learned a lot of interesting insights on what makes a good software company and what makes a not so good software company in terms of how it's run, just by being a co-op at that job. And after I graduated I worked for another little small software company and did that for a couple of years. But I've always been an entrepreneur, even even before college. Right I? I had a lot of lawns and made illegal TV able, cable de-scramblers, and I didn't. I didn't.

Chris Lalomia: 13:22

I didn't I? So you know, alan Chuck and I did both go to technical technological colleges. You know, michigan tech, georgia tech very similar, it's pretty similar, very close, very close.

Chuck Patel: 13:34

They both teach calculus, so uh they both have tech in their name.

Chris Lalomia: 13:39

That's right, we have tech, all right. So back to the. You had this entrepreneur. Actually, you could have made millions with that D scrambler, or made tens of dollars, I don't know, but I know I.

Chuck Patel: 13:49

I still make them.

Chris Lalomia: 13:51

It's pretty funny.

Chuck Patel: 13:52

They, uh I, I learned it. I learned how to build them from my electronics teacher in high school. He's like, hey, you want to make a few bucks? I'm like sure, and we went into the back of popular mechanics uh magazine. If you remember that, oh, that still have that magazine. Is it really still around?

Chuck Patel: 14:08

I think it is, I think, so that's awesome, and in the back in the uh where all the ads are, there is actually uh. Arrow electronics was the company that used to sell a kit and it's. It was the all the, the resistors, transistors, the circuit board and you can get the kit and you could just sit in your. I sat in my basement and I basically put the kit together, went to Radio Shack and go, bought a like a $4 black box and a couple of potentiometers, drilled the holes, put the, put the integrated circuit board back in the back in the box and I would sell it to all my neighbors and it worked.

Chuck Patel: 14:52

I had an asylum, my teacher, uh, he gave me a Vito Demianuk, great guy, vietnam vet. I still stay in touch with him. He gave me a uh, an oscilloscope during uh one of my summers that, that first summer when I started. He's like, hey, just take this home and go make these things and go sell them to as many people as you want. So I think I was all in for about 50 to 60 bucks and I would sell them for 120 130 bucks and you would get uh, hbo showtime and cinemax you can unscramble.

Alan Wyatt: 15:17

How much was your labor worth at that time per hour?

Chuck Patel: 16:35

oh, I was. I was when I when I get. I was probably in about an hour and I was selling them for $120.

Chris Lalomia: 16:43

It took you an hour to build these things. It was taking an hour. I was waiting for you to say 11 hours.

Chuck Patel: 16:47

No, it wasn't that complicated, oh my. God. So I basically made a decent amount of money and I never had to pay any taxes.

Chris Lalomia: 16:55

All those years I was watching certain shows through the snow and I could have had it scrambled. That's right.

Alan Wyatt: 17:02

I think I saw a… Allegedly.

Chris Lalomia: 17:03

Yeah right. Oh my God, I'm not as smart as Chuck. Did I mention we both went to technological school? Yeah, I didn't even go to….

Alan Wyatt: 17:09

Damn it. I knew I should have gone to…. I don't know what you guys are talking about. This is awesome, so there you go, right.

Chris Lalomia: 17:16

I love it because I don't think I could use a oscilloscope in a sentence A oscilloscope actually had to use one. So you know, I wouldn't even know what to do with an oscilloscope anymore. I wouldn't even know how to hook it up, I wouldn't even know how to read it anymore. You know, I say I probably have lost that skill set myself over the last few years. Yeah, I guess you're not scrambling any signals lately scrambling signals lately.

Chuck Patel: 17:43

No, no, but it was the in-band gated sync that was the name of the scrambling technique that those that came out back in the mid-80s when they started scrambling signals, you could hear all the audio, but you had, you had the squiggly. Uh, you had the squiggly, you couldn't. You couldn't make out the picture I love that.

Chris Lalomia: 17:57

You know we've had so many people on it. Like you know, I had a paper route. You know what I've always wanted to do good in the world. My whole thing is you've got to have integrity, you've got to do the right thing. The whole time I'm sitting there going, yeah, yeah, yeah me too, me too. Now I finally heard a guy who scrambled a box. I'm like I love that idea.

Chris Lalomia: 18:12

That's my favorite one I've ever heard. That's awesome dude. All right, so you sell these things. You realize probably can't make a living doing it. No, I was that was.

Chuck Patel: 18:24

That was, uh, like a you know a couple summers and then I left, you know, to go to beats mowing lawns, doesn't it chuck? It. You know, I still love. I still love mowing lawns. I. I mow my lawn today. I mow my lawn every in the middle of the growing season. I mow it every other day. It takes me about 35 minutes.

Chris Lalomia: 18:41

He's the guy in the neighborhood that mows his own lawn still I do I do, I it's, it's uh, I don't, yeah, we know that.

Alan Wyatt: 18:48

Okay, it's, it's actually just therapeutic for me.

Chris Lalomia: 18:50

I just love doing it yeah, I like that and that's cool, I'm cheap too.

Chuck Patel: 18:53

I don't know if I mentioned that I love it.

Chris Lalomia: 18:56

All. Right, let's get back to it. So we go out, we start, we start working. So you got your degree not in electrical engineering but in computer engineering. So you stayed in the field a little bit.

Chuck Patel: 19:05

Yeah, I got a degree in what they call. My degree is called management science and it's basically mathematical modeling applied to business problems. Okay, it was basically a lot of industrial engineering without the physics.

Chris Lalomia: 19:22

Nice. I struggled through and got a mechanical engineering degree from again a technological school. It just might have been. We were both in the top 100. I was in the 100 of my top regional schools in the upper peninsula of Michigan in a five-mile radius. It depends how you define your parameters. Okay, okay, all right, let's keep it to new, all right. So been entrepreneurial at heart. You start working for all these software development companies or, I'm sorry, startups, yeah. So this is late eighties, early nineties.

Chuck Patel: 19:53

Yep, I started, I graduated 93. I worked for this small software company for two years in 93, 94, 95 ish At the end of 95, I was getting kind of bored with what I was doing and there was some kind of shady stuff happening Like, what. Like back. If you remember the nineties, let's see. This is well, I'll tell you the funny story I do barely they were. I mean honestly, that was the best decade of my life. It was the most fun I've ever had.

Chris Lalomia: 20:21

So we're all the same age, but all right, let's keep, because I was in manufacturing at this time and I was just being reintroduced to technology. After having left, I got to tell this story. I'm getting my master's degree in North Carolina in mechanical engineering and we are sending data and talking to people in england through this thing that you wrote and you put his address in at edu and you sent it, and it was this thing that we didn't even know what we were calling it. But we call it today email exactly. And somebody's like, hey, isn't that a great idea? I'm like, no, I'm gonna go make parts, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna be manufactured. No, I'm not emailed. Who's doing that? No, screw that.

Alan Wyatt: 21:02

So you had a chance on being on the cutting edge of email.

Chris Lalomia: 21:05

I could have been Al Gore. I invented the internet. I could have, but no, I decided to go make parts and then I get reintroduced to doing email later. We'll get back to that later. In the world of, and everybody thinks today it's like oh, what did he do? Was he like a YouTube influencer? Is that what he started his business in? You know, you go back to our age. You're like oh, was he in a dot-com startup? Dude, there was no such thing as dot-com in 94, 95.

Chuck Patel: 21:30

Nothing like that at all. I wish there was, because I it could have been more fun, I think, so We'd be doing this podcast on our yachts.

Chris Lalomia: 21:39

I'm dead of being better. We would have flown in on our yachts. Well, we would have flown in and then taken a helicopter to our yachts next to Ellison and Gates. Well, gates won't have one, but Ellison does have one. And I say their last names like I'm big buds with them, but you know we're all tech people.

Alan Wyatt: 21:57

The fact that you know that one has a helicopter and the other doesn't.

Chris Lalomia: 21:59

I know else is. Oh yeah, it's telling it is.

Chuck Patel: 22:00

I'm not jealous, just a little, but it was an interesting story. So I work for this small little software company and you know, we're like I've got, uh, a bunch of my fraternity brothers working there with me and and I really wanted to. You know, I had an opportunity to participate in the 401k and I was trying to get my buddies to do the same thing and they're like, and they and they, just they wanted to. You know, we didn't make a lot of money at the time, um, but we were young and things didn't cost as much and we had, we were just having a lot of fun. But I'm like, hey, we really need to participate in this 401k program. So I got them to all do it. There was like four or five of us. So we get our first statements and I guess the money was being sent on either a monthly or quarterly basis. So they're taking your money out of your paycheck to put into this fund.

Chris Lalomia: 22:48

Every check, every check gets taken out Right.

Chuck Patel: 22:51

Right, yep. So we get our first quarterly statement and I see that I bought this Magellan fund, whatever. I bought 12 shares at 60 bucks or whatever it was. And then we're all talking over beers about we're going to save for our retirement and be rich when we're old, and then so the next statement comes out three months later and we look at the document it's gone up in value, but the number of shares are exactly the same. So we're like we were young and shy and didn't really want to maybe ask them some hard questions. So then the third statement comes up, after now being in this program for nine months, and it's gone up in value and, if you remember, in the 90s the stock market was roaring right. So it's all going up, which is great. But the number of shares was still the same and I didn't know if the other guys were paying attention to that or not. So I started asking them hey, did you get your statement? And they're like yeah, did you? Are the number of shares the same as the original statement and the previous one, the middle one and they said they weren't really sure. And they looked at it and go yeah, it's the same. Like dude, we should be having more shares.

Chuck Patel: 24:08

So again back in the nineties, what was happening was the owner of the company was basically utilizing those funds and he wasn't using it to pay the light bill or something. And that kind of soured me a little bit and I ended up leaving that company and ended up working for a couple of my buddies and we started a company. We started a consulting company in the software world. We did management consulting for customer relationship management systems, which is basically the same type of software that I was working with in my co-op job at Georgia Tech. And so we started that and we did really well and we sold the business after growing it to about 38 people and we sold it for millions of dollars in 1999, right in July of 1999. So we had a great 4th of July party that year.

Chris Lalomia: 25:02

It was, but you did. And perfect time going back to it, perfect time to have sold? Oh, absolutely, because the dot-com bubble came and it blew us all out of the water in 1-2. Well, actually, 1,001-2. Yeah, right around there, so it seemed like yeah, yeah.

Chuck Patel: 25:18

And what was insane was the company that bought us. They were absolutely moronic and overpaid and it was funny, they proceeded to run that company into the ground. So then I ended up leaving there and I went to go work for another software company that I was basically selling that. So I was working for a consulting company that we ended up buying or selling that business to, and then I ended up working for the software publisher of which we were doing that consulting for. So I was able to kind of jump out really quickly and get into this company called SalesLogix, which is one of the leading CRM vendors of the mid-90s, and I worked with them for about five years. But it was basically a job and it was a great job, great company, great people. But we were literally getting our ass kicked by Salesforcecom and they were not only beating us but they were stealing our lunch money and beating us with it. It was hard to compete against them. It know our company because it was seagull.

Chris Lalomia: 26:27

And then, uh, at the time, and this guy goes, uh, mark, uh, everybody should know his name too, because he has a jet and a boat and a yacht now and he goes to start the sales. You need to give up the jealousy, really. Yeah, that's been after this many years. This little dog's eating you inside out. It just kills me, but I love it. He started that and it was the cheaper version of siebel and uh, hey, we're gonna be. We're gonna be siebel to the masses, we're gonna be siebel to the little guy. And look at him now at salesforce, like you said, they came in the lunchroom and they said, hey, siebel's the bad one. And then they took your lunch tray and just whipped you over the head with it.

Chuck Patel: 27:02

Yep, mark Benioff used to work at Oracle along with Tom Siebel. So Siebel was he really presented himself as the enterprise player, right, the big dog. And I'll tell you a funny story. We were at a conference in Chicago and this is probably let's see what year was it? It was probably that 1997 or 1998, right, it was maybe 1999.

Chuck Patel: 27:27

And there was all this buzz about Salesforce, and back then the internet wasn't as viable as it is today. Right, if salespeople with their CRM software, they would have it running on their laptop, they'd go do their meetings or presentations, whatever, and then they'd go back to their computers, right, and they would open up their laptop and plug in their notes of what went on with meeting schedule, their follow-up calls, you know all that stuff and update their opportunities, update their pipeline. They'd all do it on their laptop because the laptop had a piece of software on it. And then at the end of the day, they would plug in the phone line into the laptop and sync that up with the main database somewhere at corporate right. So we made a product called SalesLogic who did exactly that. It was not a web type of product, it was what they call a client server.

Chris Lalomia: 28:16

Which everybody, if you're listening now, you're like what a moronic move. No, hang on man. Ironic move, no, hang on man. Technology is so flippant. Edge back. Hell, yeah, it was. And I mean I mean insert modem sound here. Dude, I got 2400 baud, let's go exactly. I got this. This sucker's gonna download at least an hour right now. If it doesn't do in five seconds you're off that point.

Chuck Patel: 28:37

I mean that website so the funny thing at this at this trade show there was my boss, pat Sullivan, who founded SalesLogix, tom Siebel, this guy, norm Francis from Pivotal Software out of Vancouver and Mark Benioff from Salesforce, and they're all sitting at this panel and there's probably 500 people in this gigantic hotel ballroom attending this conference and they're all talking about the future of CRM, customer relationship management, what the industry is going to do, how software is going to solve problems for sales and marketing and customer service organizations. And my boss, pat, and Tom and Norm, they're all having these conversations and nobody's asking any questions about Salesforce and nobody's asking any questions of Mark Benioff. And finally, you know, 45 minutes goes by and, uh, somebody asks a question and somehow the question got to Mark and Mark was like hey, let me. He kind of chimed in and said I want to answer this question and and by the way he looked, he was sitting at the end of the panel.

Chuck Patel: 29:40

So there's four guys in a row at a table right and he's sitting on the left-hand side and he basically looks down to the other three people and he looks, goes into the microphone and he says in his mic he says in the next 10 years, all of you guys will be dinosaurs. Your companies will not exist. Whoa, salesforcecom is the future and it was so total mic drop. Not only did the mic drop, but it's almost like they opened up the. Somebody dropped Halon into the room and it just seems so out of the you know way out there and almost moronic for him to make a statement like that, because there were some legends on on the stage there with him and it was you know what. He was, 100 right, all those companies are gone.

Chris Lalomia: 30:35

so you look back on that as an entrepreneur, right? And the guy who took a chance because he started this thing, he split off, he goes off, he goes. I'm gonna'm going to do this, I'm going to be the sales CRM system to the masses and he did it. And when this happened, you think about what he just did there, right, especially to have the guts to do what he just did and pull that off on the stage. Obviously he had some serious cojones.

Alan Wyatt: 30:56

I mean that's back to after he does.

Chuck Patel: 31:04

He was sick of hearing them talk about stuff and finally just went. I'm just gonna shut this down, yeah, and if you, if you google, uh, a picture of the the salesforcecom tower in san francisco, you'll kind of see it. It kind of looks, kind of like him nice.

Chris Lalomia: 31:17

He might not have been the nicest person in the world, but he definitely had some cojones man. He pulled it off, so all right. So let's get back to chuck's story. So chuck gets to see this and then, after all these entrepreneurship things, after making millions, had a chance to go. But I think something might have happened after he sold. Were you married yet? Uh, yes, aha, I was married. And those women still aren't married. Yeah, it still is married. They're addicted to cash flow. So you're like, hey, babe, let's just go to the beach and retire.

Chuck Patel: 31:46

No, we got work to do, chuck, it wasn't. It wasn't millions for me, that's for sure. I wish it was, but it wasn't, but it was. It was still a nice payout for, uh, you know, being 30 years old yeah, no, right now it's a great call, you're right.

Chris Lalomia: 31:59

So you go off and we go go back to this. And we got off this because you went to Champs as an employee. You're like wait a minute, I'm really not an employee man, I was an entrepreneur. You were very quick to go there and I love that. That's the mark of an entrepreneur. That's what I remember. When I first met Chuck, I was like did you start this? And honestly, I remember that he didn't start it because when I met him, he had what we talked about, those common traits and entrepreneurs trouble uh problem solving, troubleshooting, stick-to-itiveness uh persistence, tenacity. He had all that. You're like now that this guy is not a corporate dude, but you went and took a job yeah, well, it was.

Chuck Patel: 32:37

It was an interesting uh. You know, I worked for sage for five years and in 2000, at the end of 2005, I was there from 2000 to At the end of 2005,. I was there from 2000 to 2005. At the end of 2005, I really wanted to get back to being an entrepreneur after having Salesforce just be beating my ass time and time again. What's interesting is my wife, her father, my father-in-law had this software company called Champ Software and it's been around since 1976. And I never really knew what they did. I just knew it was software for maintenance operations for nuclear power plants, steel mills, food processing companies. It was pretty nebulous to me and so I was talking with him about it and my father-in-law is a great guy and he's like, hey, I want to get out of doing this. I got in, I got involved with data and analytics.

Chuck Patel: 33:27

Towards the end of my time at Sage I thought that was the next new wave and Sage wasn't really doing a whole lot in there and I, you know, I wanted to get out of the CRM game and get into something new. And you know, being an entrepreneur and talking to him, he said, well, why don't you just come out. And why don't you set up a partnership with this company called Click, which is still around today, and just do what you were doing prior to Sage when you were at Global Technology Partners Become a solution provider with this Click technology and just do it under the Champs umbrella. I'm like what a great idea.

Chuck Patel: 34:01

So while I was able to do that, as I was winding down my time at Sage, I had really good relationships with some of my customers and I said, hey look, I'm going to be doing this in the future. Would you be interested in becoming a customer of this or moving some of your business over to us? And they said, yeah. So I was able to join Champs, create this Champs Analytics brand, if you will under the Champs software umbrella, and I was able to bring three or four customers with me, so I was able to actually instantaneously have some revenue stream to start out. And we started out doing CRM and analytics, where it was mostly CRM, it was probably 90% CRM and 10% analytics. But then over time we weaned off the CRM and now we're 100% analytics. We don't do anything CRM related.

Alan Wyatt: 34:55

Where did you learn your sales skills?

Chuck Patel: 35:00

I learned it the hard way. That's actually a really good, good question. Uh, I went through a lot of sales training, uh, when I was younger by the way, chuck, and who asked the best question?

Chris Lalomia: 35:11

and you just went hey, that's a really good question. So right now alan's one. Oh, I'm like that's crap, but okay yeah, so you know no it is a good all right.

Alan Wyatt: 35:18

I want to hear this case working for some software companies.

Chuck Patel: 35:20

You definitely uh get exposed to lots of different types of sales training and I've been exposed to several different types they all have. The basic backbones are all pretty much the same. But while I was at Sage I learned we went through solution selling. You've probably heard of that. While I was at Sage we did some solution selling and then it's some changes in management. They brought in some, some new people and um they put us through uh this program called 95.5, which is which isa company called 95.5, but they ended up getting acquired by franklin covey for probably mega, mega millions of dollars. But 95.5 is uh training based on um this book called let's Get Real or let's Not Play.

Chris Lalomia: 36:07

Oh my God, I have the book. It's in my. I got trained on that one.

Alan Wyatt: 36:10

See how good of a question this was. Chris, have you read?

Chris Lalomia: 36:12

it. I have read it. It's absolutely. Oh my gosh, His name is killing me.

Chuck Patel: 36:17

Mahan Khalsa.

Chris Lalomia: 36:18

There it is. I have it in my bookshelf and I got trained in that Accenture before I left. It was a great question. So you, you, oh, my God, I've gotten.

Chuck Patel: 36:26

I've gotten two different types, two different installations of that same training. And then I had a third one where I, when I brought it over to Champs, I had the Mahan Khalsa team come out and do sales training for our team at Champs.

Alan Wyatt: 36:43

So what is it about that training that you like?

Chuck Patel: 36:45

So I'll tell you what you know, going through lots of, lots of different types of sales training. What I really love about let's get real or let's not play, which is the book that that's the training is based on by Mahan Khalsa is it really teaches you how to have a conversation with your customers or your prospects? A lot of you know, especially in the enterprise software world, those salespeople have a really bad reputation. I mean, salespeople are not liked.

Chris Lalomia: 37:15

Why? Why is that, though, I mean, for a lot of people who aren't in that world?

Chuck Patel: 37:18

Well, because they're just. They're just. They just have that impression of being a sleazy salesperson. He just wants, or she just wants, to sell that deal and then move on and then you never hear from them again. So when you're selling millions of dollars worth of software and there's some slick sales guy comes in with a suit, fancy suit, blah, blah, blah and he just is either harassing you or pounding you to to become a customer, people don't like that. They don't like to be, they don't want to feel like they're being sold. And what Mahan Khalsa does and let's get real, and that's how play it's. It's a book about how to be on the same side of the table, right as your prospect, as your potential customer, and you really, you really have me a conversation with them about helping them solve a problem. And the way they solve that problem is they want to buy whatever your solution is. So you're really helping them buy your product versus making them feel like you're selling them your product.

Chris Lalomia: 38:18

It's such a great move that he's just talking about the Mahanan Kalsa method, because I've actually implemented it in home services.

Alan Wyatt: 38:25

Yeah, it's totally translatable to any industry.

Chris Lalomia: 38:27

It is. You rip off the cover. It's everything. It's more relationship selling. And if you think you're selling a transaction, which we do in home services, it's not because I've used this to slow people down. We talk about the yellow light, green light, red light. Sometimes you've got to slow down down. They talk about the yellow light, green light, red light. It's talking about sometimes you got to slow down to speed up. But that's the thing, especially in all businesses. We've all been trained and we've all been told in all of our lives, right? Is that the only card we get to play in our game of poker, whether you're going to buy a car, going to have somebody work on your house, is the card of price, and what he tells you is that price is so low on the list. You got to get on the other side of the table, figure out what their pain points are and help them understand their pain before you even start talking about money at all.

Chuck Patel: 39:11

Exactly, and that is key. And if all you have is price to talk about, then all they have is this notion to compare that price against something that they're thinking about. And guess what? That price is always going to be high. It's always going to be more than what they had in mind.

Chuck Patel: 39:30

So if you can talk to them about their problems and figure out how to have them quantify how big the problem is and how much it costs for them to operate the way they're operating now, which is maybe they're, maybe they're, they're they're not selling as much, or they're operating at some sort of loss or they have bad you know retention with their customers, if you can kind of get them to start quantifying what that actually translates to from a bottom line standpoint, and then you say, oh well, if it, if it's costing you $150,000 to operate this way and you do it over four years, that's $600,000, right, and you're using their numbers and their math so that when, when you can, when they start thinking about this is this is like a $600,000 problem, and then you say, all right, now you understand what the problem is and how much it's costing them. Then, when your solution comes in at a hundred grand or 110 grand or 120 grand, uh, it becomes a lot more palatable for them to be able to to say, hey, that makes sense. But if you just tell them, yeah, if you just tell them it's 120 grand, they're, they're going to, they're going to balk, right, they're going to. They're going to say, hey, that's too much money. So, by helping them have the conversation about what is the problem, how big is it, how much is it costing you?

Chuck Patel: 40:41

Hopefully, you know, they understand that. You know, no, no one's going to buy a. No one's going to buy a. A a hundred thousand dollar solution, right?

Chris Lalomia: 40:54

To a $10,000 problem. Exactly that's a great point that you just brought up is that you've got to help them understand that the problem is not the price, it's. The problem is the cost, or the problem is that there's a different pain, and I talk about this in home services. People don't buy on price. They've only been trained to negotiate on price. Oh, absolutely, because we never talk about quality, trust, timeline. Are you actually going to do it? You know, and so price is always fifth on the list. And what we do, like every time I go out there and talk to somebody, they go oh, your price is too high. Well, you as a salesperson or you as a technician, didn't explain to them the value of what you're providing to them.

Chris Lalomia: 41:28

Because for a lot of us we talk about in home services again, home service focus, chris your assets. Your number one port, number one asset in your portfolio is your house. Usually Right, and yet the thing that we're the cheapest on a lot of our times is the house. Because if my car seizes up because I don't change the oil or I don't put any oil in it, I can't get to work, yeah, but if your house seizes up and you have to actually fix your foundation and do all this other stuff. You're like, oh my God, look at all this money I got to spend. But if I tell you that if you don't do this, you don't believe you. I didn't give up that trust, and that's where Mahan Khalsa and his methodology has been so deep?

Chuck Patel: 42:06

Yeah, exactly, and it applies really to any type of salesperson, regardless of what they're selling. Whether it's millions of dollars worth of software, tens of thousands of dollars worth of software, or selling services for helping people repair their homes, it doesn't matter. And when people talk about price there's great strategies in the book to talk about price when people throw up those suggestions, well, hey, the price is going to be $1,800 or $2,000 to do this particular job. And if they balk on it, you say, well, look, the way I came up with this price is based on how we've done similar work for other customers. If they want it cheaper, they can say, all right, well, you know, the price is going to basically be a function of the cost of our materials, the division of labor, and how soon do you want it?

Chuck Patel: 42:51

So, do you, do you want my A team to do the work or do you want my B team to do the work? I can help you lower the price that way. If you want to lower the price, do you need to have it done now, or can we get it done for you in the next six months, cause I'm too busy right now? Right, so you, you start giving these customers and prospects an option to think about uh, you know how you came up with that price. And the other thing, too, that you learn in the book is you. You can start asking questions like well, well, what price did you have in mind and how did you arrive at that price? And it gives you something to talk about. You know versus just. You know what a lot of salespeople do is they just drop their pants and lower the price, and then they they don't make any money on the, on the, on the transaction.

Chris Lalomia: 43:29

Welcome to dropping your pants, lowering your price, welcome to my first four years in business. Everybody, that should be the title of your second book. Why not to drop your pants, lower your price, and why to actually pull my pants up, know, right, all right. So, uh, chuck learned the sales process that that was a great question, alan, I'll give you that, but I want to get back to the. I became an employee, but, no, my father-in-law. Oh, I'm in with the uh wife. You have to stick with her but, he done, he has.

Chris Lalomia: 43:56

He's stuck with her. I'm proud of him. Good job way to go, still sleeping in the same bed with her. Good job way to go. Me too, ish, no, I'm kidding, all right. So you started this thing and you, you got this thing growing. But you you guys got into this business, but you were still thinking entrepreneurially is that I can do more with it? And one of the things we talked about before we got started was your father-in-law bought this business off a bunch of guys who probably weren't the the best, most trustworthy people in the world well they were.

Chuck Patel: 44:27

They were, you know, the the business champs software was created in in 1976 and it was. It was really a a nuclear power construction engineering company and uh, so we basically had and I and it wasn't called champs at the time, it was called Systems Consulting Group or SCG or something like that and basically what that company did was it had a bunch of mechanical engineers, chemical engineers, electrical engineers, and during the renaissance of the nuclear power construction that was going on in the 70s and 80s, we had 200 people in the company, all engineers, and we were just basically a body shop of just schlepping engineers around that were needed during all the. You know, there was probably about 40 or 50 units being built at the same time. So we were just providing, you know, engineering services and engineering people to those various construction projects, engineering services and engineering people to those various construction projects. And one of our customers, which is Scana Energy. They basically said, hey, we've got all these spare parts and all this equipment arriving motors, valves, pumps, et cetera. It's a pretty complex environment at a nuclear power plant.

Chuck Patel: 45:40

And they basically said, well, we don't know how to manage and track all this stuff. And they asked us well, we don't know how to manage and track all this stuff. And they asked us well, what do you want us to do with that? We're just a bunch of engineers. We need to figure a way to track this and manage it and make sure nothing gets lost. And blah, blah, blah. And we said, well, do you guys want us to write you some software to do that? And they're like yeah, I think that's kind of what we're asking us, what we're asking you guys to do. And that became the genesis of Champ Software, and Champs actually stands for Computerized History and Asset Management Planning Systems. That's where the name came from. I had no idea, me either.

Chris Lalomia: 46:16

I just thought woo, Champ, You've got a champ baby yeah.

Chuck Patel: 46:18

Well, we like to think that as well, but that's where the name came from, and from that conversation with that customer was born this whole new company. And we still provide engineering resources. But really the company transformed into a software company. We started writing all this software and nobody in the world was doing this, so we were actually the pioneers in the space, and the only companies that could really afford it at the time were these big utilities. And back then, if you remember, it was mainframes, so it was punch cards and mainframes, so it was written in some really old technology. It was the best technology available at the time. Cool ball, yep.

Alan Wyatt: 47:01

Isn't it amazing how many great business stories somewhere in their past it was a customer or an employee or just some sort of pivot away from what you originally thought you were going to start Right, and then suddenly you just take a completely different direction and that's where your fortunes are made.

Chuck Patel: 47:20

A whole new idea was born from that conversation.

Chris Lalomia: 47:29

That's so funny. I remember in uh it consulting days back at the time mainframe is dying, it's over, it's done, not here. I am 20, 25 years later and if you're a cobalt programmer now you name your number because nobody knows how to program it. And I was like damn, I had to learn how to program a cobalt to fix some stuff on the fly because I had learned in the engineering world and then into it consulting and working with banks, which everything is mainframe. Oh, absolutely, and it still is. I know crazy right, because it's bulletproof, it's, it's hard to hack, but yet you guys did. You did champs analytics, so yeah, so now you're, you're building around it, you're working with a. You got a niche business on this. How big are you guys? How many employees? Talk a little bit about who you are in the scope.

Chuck Patel: 48:10

So champs software total, including champs analytics, we're probably about just under 20 people. We're headquartered in crystal river, florida, and we've got most of the people are there, but we swimming with the manatees there you go, baby.

Alan Wyatt: 48:31

Uh, speaking of eight frames, some of the most. Chris, have you swum with the manatees I?

Chris Lalomia: 48:35

have not. I am a manatee, I think. If I get in there, I think I'd be I'd be sexually assaulted, like hey, I think he's one of us get away from me, I'm not that fat why is this guy throwing lettuce at me? Don't throw lettuce at me. Oh, that's even better. That's the best night of the day. Don't throw lettuce at me. Oh, that's even better. That's the best night of the day. Don't throw lettuce at me. I'm not that fat. You need any more salad fat, I tell you. Oh, my God.

Chuck Patel: 48:58

Manatees love eating lettuce. That's what people feed them.

Alan Wyatt: 49:01

It's hilarious. That's how you tell the difference between Chris and a manatee. Chris won't go for the lettuce.

Chris Lalomia: 49:05

He will go for the lettuce Throw pizza. Amazing that you guys have grown this so at this point, what's your?

Chuck Patel: 49:18

role in the company. What are you doing? You obviously did a great job, yeah. So, uh, back a couple of years, my father-in-law is uh 80, something now 81, so he's kind of you know, he's taking more of the chairman role and he's uh, provided uh, or he's got myself and his daughter involved in trying to grow the business. The goal is to grow the business, get it back up above $10 million in revenue. We're not a huge company and that's really the goal is for us to get it back up to around 10 million.

Chris Lalomia: 49:49

So you guys are in growth mode. I mean, this has been great to have you on. Obviously, we talked to a lot of small business owners and Chuck. We talked big numbers in the beginning but, as you heard, chuck is a small business owner and always an entrepreneur at heart and that's why I kept going back to well, you're just an employee, right, and he immediately no, I'm like exactly, that's what you love about him, cause that's what it takes, that's the tenacity finding that niche. And then looking back on history, I think has been huge, because what made these guys break out and win? I mean, what happens? What do you do next? What's your growth strategy? Don't give it up, because I don't want your competitors to hear this, because they suck. You win.

Chuck Patel: 50:26

Our growth strategy. Well, I tell you we've been successful because we compete. We have a really phenomenal solution. The problem is we just don't have this gigantic sales force right. So the reason why we're able to stay in business is because we can compete with the big boys the SAPs, the IBMs, the Oracles because they have very specific solutions that compete with ours. But the problem is their solutions are not very user-friendly and they're cost three times as much as ours. So, even though we're a small company, we are able to provide a better solution than the bigger players have, and we are able to do it for literally a third of the price which?

Alan Wyatt: 51:02

is almost counterintuitive. What a great angle yeah.

Chuck Patel: 51:06

And it's funny because we've been around so long we've got customers that have used Champs in the past maybe 20, 30 years ago and they had to basically get off of it. Because IBM comes in at the Masters or at the Super Bowl and they're meeting with the CIO of Exelon or Southern Company and they do this big deal. And then all those users because we see them on a regular basis at various trade shows they all come back to our booth and say, man, we're using IBM Maximo and it just sucks. We wish we were using Jams. So we know what we're doing is still correct. We know that we've got a product that people still like to use, and so that's kind of what, that's kind of our, what makes us feel good about about our future.

Alan Wyatt: 51:54

So gold nugget for anybody is re-prospecting the old client list. That's a great one I agree with it.

Chris Lalomia: 52:01

Got another great point. Damn it, because I was coming up with another pun don't be a champ, don't be a chump, be a champ. Go back to champ analytics, we'll make happen.

Alan Wyatt: 52:10

Can't do that I'll get mr t to do it. Yeah, I don't think that that's the angle they want in the nuclear power.

Chris Lalomia: 52:17

They don't want Mr T coming in and breaking through the glass, going don't be a chump, be a champ. Oh, I can't make Mr T. All right, this has been great, chuck. This is a great story, again, very different than a lot of people we've had on here. However, it was awesome. I know it was, yeah, I know we ran out of time and but this has been phenomenal because you, you, you talk about it and a lot of people don't understand.

Chris Lalomia: 52:40

Every business is different, but yet every business is the same and so you got to find them right, you got to find the breaks, you got to find the breakouts, you got to find what makes things happen sales process, sales process, in this case, you know, human development, human capital, yeah, developing your product, re-prospecting great point, it's been great. But, chuck, we can't let you go without talking about. We've already talked about one great book I love. This thing came, yeah, we need to go to question b, right? Yeah, we're going with mahan calls his book, because, man, I could talk about that book all day long, such a good book it really was. So I didn't get to go. I got, I got the second tier division, right. So the lady who came, who went to it, and then because she had to go out to Denver at the time to do it, because that's, he wouldn't travel, but he lives.

Chris Lalomia: 53:26

He lives in Denver and he lives in Hawaii now, yeah, right, yeah, so you had to go to Denver. Well, I didn't't get to go to denver because I wasn't a partner yet, uh, or never was. And so she comes back. She says she delivers the training from him. She said so right off the bat and and she is a type a hardcore female race. She says how, how can you teach us? He says I'm not'm not going to answer that question and he just kept going. She goes no, no, no, you can't keep going. He goes I don't need to tell you who I am, I just need to tell you.

Alan Wyatt: 53:57

Is this like some guy up on a mountaintop, if you look at the picture, dude, he looks like that all-knowing Buddha.

Chris Lalomia: 54:04

I mean, he's not that fat, but you look about him, he does. So I'd never met him. But the training. She kept saying she goes, I kept interrupting going. But I want to know where you're from, where did you go to school? Because she had gone to duke. You know she had gone to all the high power. She went to uh yale, undergrad duke for her. And you just mic drop, michigan tech. And I am michigan tech baby, and I'm sitting there going. Um, by the way, I got my master's degree at UNC Charlotte. So is that Georgia Tech? Yeah, actually, I turned down Georgia Tech to go to UNC Charlotte. How am I doing? Yeah, and the colossal decisions of my life, anyway.

Chris Lalomia: 54:43

But she talked about that he didn't credential himself. And when she was. But here's her point Her point was he didn't have to because, as he kept talking, he credentialed himself with his knowing and knowledge of his process, what he was doing. And you're like, you're right, you don't have to walk in with a Harvard degree. Oh, look at me, I'm from here. Or look at me, I'm from a trusted toolbox, and that's why I teach my people all the time. I don't care if you've got a trusted toolbox on your shirt, they're get trusted toolbox on your shirt. They're buying from you and whether or not they believe you or not, it's not about chris. They they have no idea who I am. I mean, of course, everybody in atlanta thinks they're chris's friend, especially if they get a discount. But but that's the point, right, is that? And so back to that book and back to what chuck's talking about. That's so big.

Chuck Patel: 55:26

Yeah, people like to buy from people that they like yeah, and they and they'll pay, and they'll pay more because they like working with you. The price goes out the window when you develop that relationship. So if you're able to sit on the same side of the table with them and help them solve their problem, really show that you care, with good intent, and communicate that. Your competition is probably talking feature function, but you're talking about hey, what is this? How is this going to help you in the future? How is it going to make you feel when you, you know, when you implement something like this, how is it going to help your future? Blah, blah, blah. Those types of things. When you talk to them about that, you're developing a much tighter relationship with them.

Chuck Patel: 56:08

If you're having those types of conversations with them and your competition is not. Your competition is having them sit through Zoom demos or demo after demo where you're showing what we call it, show up and throw up in the software world, where you just come in and you do a demo without even talking to them about what's really important to them. So it's a great way to waste time and I learned that the hard way just doing demos getting on an airplane to go see somebody and then you get up there and then they're not there. That's happened a few times, not recently, of course, but in my younger days we were told to go fly and meet people in person. And yeah, we set an appointment, we're two weeks in advance and we go out there and meet them And're like, oh they, they didn't have the balls to say, yeah, I'm sick today or I'm traveling this week. So that's really a nice way to to basically say you're not really important for for us to meet.

Alan Wyatt: 56:59

Yeah, people want to feel important and they don't want to get screwed, and so the second they feel like you actually understand their problem. They're less worried about being screwed Exactly.

Chuck Patel: 57:08

It's just like going to the doctor. You know, if you go to the doctor and you say, hey, I'm feeling, you know, I'm feeling a little ill, and the doctor just looks at you and says, well, take two of these Tylenol and come back the next day, you're not going to feel good about it. But if you go to the doctor and the doctor spends time with you and he's sitting there asking you questions hey, what did you eat? Blah? You know he's probably trying to figure out what's going on with you, right? Not?

Chris Lalomia: 57:35

my doctor, I just want percocet. Yeah, chris, don't. Don't, chris, don't poke anybody. Yeah, well, I'm not gonna poke, but I don't want that doctor either. I'm like dude, just prescribe the percocet. I'll be back in a couple weeks. All right, kidding refill, all right. Hope I don't refill when you for you doc. All right, baby, all right. What's the favorite feature of your house?

Chuck Patel: 57:54

uh, I would probably think it is the deck that we had installed a couple years ago nice, don't ask how I didn't do it.

Alan Wyatt: 58:02

You know where I was going. Did you trim the bushes?

Chris Lalomia: 58:07

make it look bigger. All right, favorite, all right. So you're out there and you are in the marketplace. You're out there doing whatever you're doing. Alan and I happen to be customer service freaks, thank you, what is it? What is a customer service pet peeve of yours when you're the customer?

Chuck Patel: 58:26

uh, probably and this has happened a lot of just not not getting the follow-up. You know, when you call, when you're calling different types of, when you're calling different types of folks and you're doing a project, and they're just you know, I don't expect people to. You know, call me back immediately in my world, in my voicemail, if you leave me a message, I'll basically give you an SLA. I'm going to, I'm going to call you back in four business hours. I try to do that as much as I can, but just, you know, know, getting ghosted and and not not being responsive, especially when you're spending a decent amount of money, uh, with with a particular vendor, that that's a real pet peeve of mine four business hours.

Alan Wyatt: 59:00

So that means if the call came in at 3 pm, you're calling them by 10 in the morning, is that?

Chuck Patel: 59:04

how that works. Well, if they call at three, I'll probably call them back before the end of the day, but but 10 the next day, for sure that's so funny because my cell phone says if you're calling for trusted toolbox business, call the trusted toolbox because this has to lay in the happen.

Chris Lalomia: 59:16

If you want to hear from me, you can text me bro. Yeah, you can email me, but I asked just because it's so much. Yeah, you're. You know a lot of the pet peeves. The common theme has been communication and we're getting more and more and more, and so we're sitting around the table and we're talking and we're obviously not 30 anymore, but 30 year olds are becoming customers of everybody and we're like, wow, what do we all hear from our parents?

Alan Wyatt: 59:41

Wow, you guys are lazy.

Chris Lalomia: 59:43

What did their parents say to them? Well, you guys don't, are lazy.

Alan Wyatt: 59:46

What are we saying about our millennial?

Chris Lalomia: 59:47

Ah, they're lazy, they're not. And what I've done is I've just been out the field, uh, training a new sales guy. We've been. I was on a millennial day. I was like, oh my god, they're either millennial or one foot in the grave, which means they're one year older than me.

Chris Lalomia: 59:59

And the millennials, when you're talking to them, they just want it, they just they, they. They don't know what they're talking about. Number one they watch it on youtube. You know, oh, this guy sends me a thing. He says, well, I saw this guy on YouTube. He said he could fix this. I'm like, yeah, you can't. I mean, you have four pillars. You happen to be in Highlands. These pillars are old, you didn't take care of them. You can't say all that stuff, but you have to educate them and but they're coming on. But here's what they want. They'll receive it. The communication, yeah, no, okay, they will a little bit.

Chris Lalomia: 1:00:30

But I'll tell you what we left him at one, at three. We're in our next appointment, we're on our second appointment. He had already texted the guy I was with, my sales guy that I was training, saying, oh, here's another one. I said this guy wants to hear from you tomorrow morning. I said if you don't talk to him or email him tomorrow morning, you will not even have a chance to explain to him that perhaps with financing we can do this thing the right way. But communicate with him tomorrow and he did Now. Will we win the job? Maybe yes, maybe no. But we never would have won if we did not get back to that guy. We saw him at one o'clock on a Friday and my guy got back to him on 8 am Saturday morning, but that's the expectation. And so back to him on 8 am saturday morning. That's not, but that's the expectation. And so back to following up with people, that's so huge.

Chuck Patel: 1:01:18

Yeah, I mean especially millennials, I mean even even ourselves. I mean we're, we're addicted to these, these phones, right? So we, we live in an instant gratification world. If I want to look something up, I can look it up, and, and when I text somebody, I expect them to text me back right away. So I think texting has actually become even in our world, in the software world. I can call some of my customers, but they actually prefer to text them and the response is much faster with texting versus email, or definitely faster than leaving them a voicemail, for sure yeah, I uh again.

Chris Lalomia: 1:01:54

A social media video all day long. But communication millennials, it's texting. Yeah, I yeah again. I talk to people our age a lot and you still hear this from guys. I'm a phone call kind of guy.

Alan Wyatt: 1:02:05

I'm like yeah, but you text to set up the call right exactly all the time.

Chris Lalomia: 1:02:09

Yeah in fact I even I said text me when you're available. Don't call me, just text me when you're available, because I don't know where I'm going to be right and exactly. But I just did this. Somebody goes I'm a calling kind of guy. I said I'm kind of a texting kind of guy. I said so, uh, maybe I should just turn my back to you, start texting. I said all right. Last question, chuck, this has been awesome. Give us a diy nightmare failure a story, not a failure.

Chuck Patel: 1:02:35

But oh, I'm sorry you just cut to the chase.

Chris Lalomia: 1:02:37

I do because we want body parts, yeah but we definitely we don't want to hear death again because I said that and then yeah shit, it was a death story. I'm like, okay, didn't want that one just a little spurting blood that's it, yeah, no.

Chuck Patel: 1:02:50

No depth. I've got one that pops to mind, and this is probably one that most people have probably experienced I was trying to do some crown molding work on my own at home. The first time I think upside down. Yeah, that just totally destroyed my mind.

Alan Wyatt: 1:03:11

Something that should have taken two hours.

Chris Lalomia: 1:03:13

The industry took me, took me three days to do. Yeah, probably should have done a couple black boxes, de-scrabble, some shit for people that had this. This dude come over to, yeah, because I would have paid you to do that and I would have put your crown molding up. It wouldn't take me that long, yeah, but then again we're sitting in my basement. We're uh doing this because that's where we are just two clowns in the basement. According to YouTube and one of the guys who talked about us, you're still suffering from that, aren't you?

Alan Wyatt: 1:03:36

You know a little bit. I don't have someone who got mad and you were like eh no big deal, oh no, I'm suffering.

Chris Lalomia: 1:03:42

Yeah, okay, yeah, all these two clowns. All they do is sit in, their think we're funny and we really are. But yeah, and if you look around, you'll see two park grounds sitting here, boys and uh, I rocked it, big daddy did it he did.

Alan Wyatt: 1:03:55

It looks good. Yeah, thanks, yeah, but that's what putty will do. Yeah, a lot of pain in the paint.

Chris Lalomia: 1:04:02

That's funny. But you're right, crown, I've sent down backwards to those again. You guys haven't learned something. That's on you, because I don't care if you're in software. If you are in software, you definitely learn something. If you stuck with us till the end, you probably should, because champs analytics that's the way to go. Don't be a chump be a champ, it's not gonna work, damn it.

Alan Wyatt: 1:04:21

No, I say it like that. No, no, not for the nuclear people. Oh my god don't get nuclear.

Chris Lalomia: 1:04:26

We should put that on our website. Don't be a mushroom, well that's.

Chuck Patel: 1:04:31

That's the worst. I know there are going to be some people that are afraid of nuclear, but I just want to make this one point Commercial nuclear power in America has killed zero people.

Chris Lalomia: 1:04:41

How about that everybody? There's a tagline. Long story short. My father moved to Washington just so my dad could help build a power plant out in the state of Washington. His best friend was one of the very first people in the 1960s that was trained in nuclear power at the University of Wisconsin. I've never been afraid of it. I understand it and you're right. Unfortunately it's a really big black name because of all the crap that went through.

Alan Wyatt: 1:05:08

You mean?

Chris Lalomia: 1:05:08

like Chernobyl? Yeah, but is it here? No, all right, all right. So, oh, give me the other one, go ahead, go ahead, three mile oh my god, so bad, it was horrible. Can't believe that we can't have another three mile island. And nobody died from three mile island. Oh, that's right that's right.

Alan Wyatt: 1:05:24

Do people have an extra testicle?

Chris Lalomia: 1:05:26

well, from through my you know I don't know three, but actually I'll take one all right now. Note everybody we're out of here. Hey, champs analytics, go figure it out. You will not have three testicles. You're going to love this show, we're out of here, Thank you. Chuck, thank you.