Sharon Spano:
This is The Other Side of Potential podcast. I'm Dr. Sharon Spano, and each week, I'll be exploring the many complexities of our world that often disrupt our ability to effectively lead ourselves and others. Join me in these provocative conversations with cutting-edge trailblazers as we navigate the art of high-impact leadership and how to move beyond the daily pressures of success to a place of radical abundance.
Good morning listeners, and welcome to The Other Side of Potential. This is Dr. Sharon Spano, and I am so glad that you are with us today. Today's guest is someone I think you're going to find very interesting, because we're doing a little bit of a different type of interview and moving a little bit away from the soft skills, but still really very relevant to you as leaders and business owners, in that Greg Williams is a seasoned professional, with over 15 years of experience at Western Computer, which is a leading provider of Microsoft solutions for small to mid-sized businesses in North America.
Now, I've asked Greg to be on the show today because his work focuses on helping leaders like yourself increase team efficiency and productivity by creating systems. And I think you all know if you've been listening to the show at all, my work is in operational systems as well as human systems. So I'm a systems geek, so I love talking to people that have a whole other level of understanding of systems than I do, because I think we all know, in today's world, with the complexity, and we often focus on complexity on the show, it's impossible for you to be effective and productive if you don't have the appropriate systems in place. So this is what Greg does, and I'm so excited to hear more about how he influences these operational strategies in business, and how he draws on his extensive expertise. If you can imagine, spans over two decades in distribution, manufacturing, and project-based businesses within the Microsoft dynamic space.
He has a profound understanding of production processes and robust technical skill sets that are matched only by his ability to simplify these complex technical concepts. So we're going to be talking in layman's terms, so you'll get a sense of what you might need to be thinking about and where you might even need some outside expertise to help you build your operational systems, if they're not where you need them to be. And he comprehends all of this and is able to communicate it, as I alluded to a moment ago, without all the tech jargon that so many of us struggle with. His talent lies in fostering a shared understanding, again by breaking down these technical dialogues, making technology accessible to all of us, and connecting us as individuals within that company. So throughout his professional career, Greg has actually worn many, many hats, including consultant, project manager, sales and executive positions, and again, contributing significantly to the growth of Western Computer.
And as a prominent voice in the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem, Greg has also established his name through diverse roles and valuable contributions. Beyond his professional endeavors, and I always like you to know our guest as human beings, and we'll talk more about Greg's journey in a moment, he's a dedicated family man who hails to us from Michigan. He navigates the challenge of work-life balance, which I know many of you also struggle with, in a multicultural household, where his family is fluent in two languages. He embraces remote work, spending part of his year working from Central America, and he leverages cloud technology for remote work across the Americas as well. His passion lies in enabling companies to harness new technology for sustainable growth, while emphasizing the importance of eliminating manual processes and maintaining a balanced, integrated life. So without any further hesitation, Greg, it is great to have you on the show. Thanks so much for being with us today.
Greg Williams:
Thank you, Sharon. It's really nice to meet you.
Sharon Spano:
Well, it's nice to meet you too, and I am one of these people who loves technology. I'm self-taught. From the very beginning, I had one of the very first computers out there, and I know enough to be dangerous. And so I'm really excited to hear what you have to offer us as business owners today, because I think we're all aware that technology is changing faster than we can even keep up with. So first, maybe let's start with a conversation on what led you into this field, and how that may have evolved for you, because I know you're also very interested in executive leadership, and how to help leaders be more effective within the context of systems and whatnot.
Greg Williams:
Yes, thank you. I was always interested in computers from a young age. I think in junior high school, started on the RadioShack computers, and then had one of the first Windows PCs. I played some video games on them, but I also just liked tinkering with them and learning how they worked. I was an early adopter of the internet, with the bulletin board system that was just sending text-based messages on message boards over the internet back then. That would've been around 1990. And then, when I got into college, I really saw the internet changing. In fact, I started using it right away to research for papers. I got my hand slapped by some professors that said, "No, we can't trust that source. You need to go to the library, and pull out an encyclopedia or a book, and note the page you got that information from." But just like young people now are challenging the system, I kind of challenged the system then, and-
Sharon Spano:
Well, back in those days they didn't know how, because I remember when I was doing my doctoral work even, the MLA or the APA didn't know how to cite things.
Greg Williams:
Exactly.
Sharon Spano:
That was the biggest problem was not that some things are not necessarily reliable, we have to be careful about that as well, but at least being able to cite where you got it from, so I could understand where your professors probably thought, "Who is this kid and what the heck is he doing?"
Greg Williams:
Right, yeah, so that was interesting. And then, I realized that I did not want to be a programmer and a developer. I did not want to spend my life in a dark room, developing software, or as we often say, "in the basement", in our industry, but I was more of a people person and liked to be out and about. So I majored in economics and math in college, but then out of college, I got a job at the software company and got training on the job.
Sharon Spano:
So tell me a little bit about the company that you're working for, because when you talk about Microsoft software, I mean, what does that really mean? When I read that, I'm thinking like, "Microsoft is its own beast."
Greg Williams:
Right, yeah.
Sharon Spano:
It does its own thing, so how does your company interface with what they do?
Greg Williams:
Sure. So when most people think of Microsoft, they think of Office and Windows, which are their major money makers. We all use Word, and Excel, and PowerPoint, and Windows all the time. But there's another division of Microsoft that's small by Microsoft standards, but big amongst their competitors. It's a several billion a year business, called Microsoft Dynamics, and those are Microsoft's applications for businesses. They are applications that do accounting, and inventory control, and commerce, and those types of things. And that's what we specialize in. So I like to say that we're part computer person and part accounting person, because we have to know both and how they intersect.
Sharon Spano:
So are you building these applications for people who purchase through Microsoft? Give me an example of one of them. If I was a business owner, what might I want to... Or what might I need?
Greg Williams:
Right, so Microsoft sells a very popular application called Business Central, and it is a... Think of like QuickBooks, but a higher-end version of it. It has more capabilities for handling inventory, for invoicing, for production, and warehousing. It just does a lot more than QuickBooks does. So a lot of our customers we're graduating off of QuickBooks onto Business Central, because their business is growing faster than they can handle, those small business systems, or some will be coming off of old technology, an old AS/400 or something like that.
Sharon Spano:
Okay. So pardon my ignorance, because I jumped off of Microsoft some years ago and went over to Apple, so I'm not up on all that Microsoft offers, but I'm curious then, when you're seeing leaders out there... Well, let me back up a minute, because I want to tell you an issue that I'm having right now, which I just find so fascinating, being a system-minded person. I'm like, "Seriously, why is this happening in our world?" And I think all of us are becoming increasingly aware of the challenge of getting an appointment on our healthcare system. I've been trying to get some routine checkups for over a year, and I tried in Orlando and I've tried up here in North Carolina, and what's fascinating to me is how broken the systems are. Because what keeps happening is there's these... What do you call the recordings that you go through, that whole system to schedule something?
Greg Williams:
Sure.
Sharon Spano:
And then it sends you to here, and it sends you to there, and it sends you somewhere else, and then you get letters, and I'm getting texts, and I'm getting voice messages that they're trying to schedule me and I need to call this number. But when I call the number, all it does is start me in this cycle again of stuff I've already done. I've already done the forms, I've already done the da, da, da, da, da, online, I've already... And you're just sending me around in circles, and I cannot get these appointments.
And it is incredible to me that they have systems in place, and I know a part of the problem is they have shortage of helpers to schedule, but to me, the system is broken in that, as an example, if I've done all the work online, and now you're telling me I'm in the next phase, and you're ready to book me, and you're telling me to call a number, then I shouldn't be put in the same system, routing me through the same processes. I should be, in my mind, sent somewhere else, where I actually get a scheduler. And I think we're seeing more of these kinds of robotic systems that are inefficient in many other areas besides healthcare.
So I share that example, because it's just a current frustration that came up for me this morning when I opened a letter saying, "We've been calling you," and they haven't been calling me, because I've been watching my [inaudible 00:10:46], and there's no messages. I'm in this cycle of... It's like being in the Twilight Zone or something, you know? You're trying to get a simple appointment. I'm wondering what you see small to midsize business leaders struggling with, similar to the problem I'm talking about in the larger healthcare system, where a system is broken and people just don't even know what to do about it?
Greg Williams:
Calling on the phone is much less acceptable to the younger generation. In fact, if you talk to someone in their 30s, the last thing they want to do is call anyone on the phone. They want to do everything online.
Sharon Spano:
Well, I feel that way too, and I don't know why they're asking me to even do it. Why shouldn't we just schedule this online?
Greg Williams:
Yeah, who knows.
Sharon Spano:
... schedule this online?
Greg Williams:
Yeah, so I think different businesses and organizations are at different stages within their digital transformation. What we're seeing is more of an increase to do things with self-service web systems. We're seeing that that's been a big trend with larger businesses. It is starting to trickle down to the small businesses, but the challenge is that you end up purchasing several different apps that may or may not work together that well. So for example, you may have one application for chat on your website. You may have another one to schedule an appointment, you may have a third one to send text messages confirming the appointment, and so on.
Sharon Spano:
But they're not integrated, they're not integrated.
Greg Williams:
Not integrated well, yes.
Sharon Spano:
Yeah, yeah.
Greg Williams:
So the difference we have with Microsoft is they're a monolithic application that touches everything, so we can do it all in one system. We may not have every feature of those, what I call point solutions, but we can do it all in one system.
Sharon Spano:
So I'm a small to mid-sized business owner, I don't know what that necessarily means, because it can mean a lot of things, but let's say I have a company that's generating anywhere from 10 to 20 million. I'm growing, as I think you alluded to in the beginning, they're growing faster than they can keep up with, may not even necessarily have identified or have knowledge of what's out there to help solve their problem, and I need a guy like you, or I need someone in that world, what do I do?
Greg Williams:
So most of our customers will reach out to a company like ours or someone similar. We get a lot of referrals from Microsoft. So a lot of companies will go to the Microsoft website and say, "I am interested in learning more about ERP software or accounting software." And Microsoft's call center will then connect them to us. Or a lot of people get referrals through their network that they do business with from vendors and customers. They say, "Hey, who did you use for your last systems upgrade and would you recommend them?"
So we get a lot of referrals, and then we get a lot of people that just browse our website as well. And then, we look at their current systems and with our... I think we support four or 500 small business customers right now, and most of them started about 10 million in revenue and go up from there. Most of them are between that 10 and 100 million in revenue, for the most part. And they like meeting with us, because they're like, "Hey, you have knowledge of what all these other businesses have done, and what we can do and to improve our workflow and systems, and also what we should stay away from."
Sharon Spano:
Ah, okay, so I'm going to give you another example, because again, it's like a disease: When you have a systems mine and you go to a restaurant or you go anywhere and you're seeing the broken pieces, and I don't claim to have the mind for systems that you have, but I have it in my way. I'm seeing a difference between how Europe operates and the United States, at least in one context. And I'm going to share that with you, to see, because this could be a lead for you. Actually, Greg.
I recently was blessed, my husband planned this trip for us. Were not people that go on cruises, but he planned a cruise for us on the new Ritz-Carlton cruise line. Well, what I quickly realized is the cruise part was exceptional, but they haven't quite figured out yet their systems for the offshore component. And it started at the very beginning, when I was trying to book something when we arrived in Lisbon.
And so I'm going back and forth with their operators and we're having, again, similar... Maybe it's me, Greg, maybe I attract this, because I'm having the same conversation via email with this operator, and she keeps sending me a brochure for my options, which are ridiculously numerous. And I finally said, "Well, this is what I want. I want someone to take us to this castle, and I want a whole-day tour with this person, with a tour operator," and you need a driver and all that. So it was like a one-day thing, but I couldn't get a price from her. So I finally get a price from her. Now I need to pay, and they don't have systems for that, other than they call you and that you give them your credit card.
She's in Malta and I'm in the United States, and we're going back and forth. We're calling each other, we're missing each other. Now, I'm getting emails saying, "If you don't pay this by Monday, you can't have it, because we closed down the entire operation, because the tour starts the following week," and it was just insane. And so I brought it to their attention in a gentle way and said, "This should not be happening, I should be able to pay this as an invoice online." And they were so gracious. Ritz-Carlson is so high class, their best practices across the board, and they apologize and even offered me an on-ship credit and all that, which is not what I cared about. I really wanted them to know, "This is a broken system, and you're missing opportunities here, and people should not be having to go through this whole rigmarole of being chased all over the place for payment."
So it's interesting to me, because I would never have imagined that a company of that size, and again, they're new in the cruise business, but I never would've imagined that that would be... To me, that's such a simple thing, an online invoice. And yet, they've missed that because they haven't somehow arranged that with their onshore tour operators. And I could go on and on, because there were other onshore things that weren't quite where they needed to be yet. And again, I've made it known to them and they