John Bottoms: Streamlining Ecommerce Operations

Transcript:

 [00:01:46] JARED WARD: John, can you, can you give us your, your quick background in Ops and Systems? 

 

[00:01:53] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:01:54] JARED WARD: Where did come from? Your early experience? 

 

[00:01:57] JOHN BOTTOMS: So it's interesting, you know, people assume that I've kind of lived in the software [00:02:00] world for, you know, that's how I kind of learned all of this stuff. But really I did start more on the operational side in a company.

 

[00:02:06] JOHN BOTTOMS: I worked for an energy drink company that we were in the place of needing something to help manage the business and the business was growing more and more. And so we brought something, you know, that profane word that everybody out there's, uh, you know, in this space, if you've heard of it, you're like, I know it's profanity called EDI. 

 

[00:02:23] JARED WARD: Oh yeah.

 

[00:02:25] JOHN BOTTOMS: Um, which, uh, brought us to the conversation of needing software to help manage it. So. Um, you know, well, maybe we'll talk a little bit about more about EDI a little bit later because I think that's, that is a driving factor. I see a lot of businesses kind of in this startup space. They start going, operations start moving, things start getting layered and layered with more and more complication.

 

[00:02:46] JOHN BOTTOMS: They want to go into a big box store, hit EDI and then they, now we're off to, it fell a little chaotic. 

 

[00:02:51] JARED WARD: Got it. So, so, okay. So you were, you're at an energy drink, energy drink company. 

 

[00:02:56] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yep. 

 

[00:02:56] JARED WARD: You guys are doing about 1. 5 million dollars in sales. 

 

[00:02:58] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yep. 

 

[00:02:59] JARED WARD: You're the [00:03:00] ops guy. Which everybody knows that quintessential ops guy that he's just the problem solver. 

 

[00:03:05] JOHN BOTTOMS: Mm-hmm.

 

[00:03:06] JARED WARD: So then you, um, okay, so you needed EDI. At that time, you were just managing everything on, on Google sheets. 

 

[00:03:14] JOHN BOTTOMS: Spreadsheets, Google sheets, pieces of paper, post it notes, all the things, you know, picking up the phone and calling and saying, Hey, when you measured this thing, how much did you put in there? Cause we're doing manufacturing also. You know. Another piece of complication to add to that conversation is more of the administrative side of the company. Marketing, and myself, we were in Virginia, lived in Virginia Beach at the time. The manufacturing and sales and shipping, are, were, excuse me, manufacturing and shipping were down in, uh, outside of Tampa, Florida. And so trying to manage all of these pieces together from a different place adds another level of complexity to the conversation.

 

[00:03:52] JARED WARD: Okay, so manufacturing. So you were needing visibility into everything. So, how, walk me through how you guys are even [00:04:00] managing everything with purchasing and then also the manufacturing process, the build materials, forecasting and demand planning for those components. Like, how? How was that done? 

 

[00:04:10] JOHN BOTTOMS: If you would have looked at me then, obviously now I got a little bit different perspective on that. But if you looked at me then and said something about forecasting or, or demand planning, I would have looked at you like, can we speak English please? You know, and I think that's honestly where a lot of businesses, you know, here at Ledger Guru is working with companies like this all the time now. I think that's where a lot of businesses are actually at. It's like, I don't know what you're saying to me. You're using words that I have no idea what you mean. You're, like, especially with the software space, we're throwing things out there and they're like, I just need to get my orders out on time. 

 

[00:04:43] JARED WARD: I feel like software companies and even service providing companies aren't as empathetic. See, you can look back and be a little bit empathetic.

 

[00:04:49] JOHN BOTTOMS: For sure. 

 

[00:04:50] JARED WARD: Because you're like, man, I've been there. I was the operator at 1.5 million dollars. 

 

[00:04:54] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:04:54] JARED WARD: Where I was like, demand planning. What's that? 

 

[00:04:56] JOHN BOTTOMS: What is that even mean? 

 

[00:04:57] JARED WARD: Other stuff. Looks like we're out of the caps, I'm gonna go and [00:05:00] buy some. 

 

[00:05:00] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:05:00] JARED WARD: So. Why, why do you think software companies and maybe even service providing companies are unempathetic to the disorganization of, of e commerce companies operations?

 

[00:05:14] JOHN BOTTOMS: So I think a big part of that conversation is, and I love software companies. Love you guys. Love other ones out there that, you know, we work with is great. I think the challenge sometimes is with any business, your product becomes your baby. And it becomes the answer to all the problems. Software is not the answer to all the problems in a business. 

 

[00:05:34] JARED WARD: I love this perspective. I love it.

 

[00:05:35] JOHN BOTTOMS: Like, yeah, I tell people all the time. And, you know, people who've heard me before probably get sick of this. But, you know, a successful business is like a waterfall. We're here in Utah. Some pretty sick waterfalls out here to check out. Um, I was just in Colorado last week and saw really cool. And I'm like, I'm gonna take some pictures of this so I can explain what I say. But. 

 

[00:05:54] JARED WARD: We're taking John right now to Utah places giving them funeral potatoes.

 

[00:05:57] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yes. All the cool, uh, Utah places got it in [00:06:00] there. I like it. So, um, you know, it's a waterfall. So at the top of the waterfall, there's a river that feeds it, right? Then you've got this really cool, beautiful waterfall, and then you've got a lake or a river or stream at the bottom that all falls into. And then, you know, moved on. How to explain that in the business is, the operations and the operational processes are the river that feeds the waterfall. The waterfall is the software that manages it all, and the accounting is the river at the bottom. So you can't fix the problems in the river at the top from the river at the bottom. It's just all falling in there. And if you had the, if you had bad software and processes in there, then all the mess is just going to hit that lake at the bottom. So they all work in tandem with each other. 

 

[00:06:41] JARED WARD: I really like that perspective. And this is why. So I also don't, I also don't crap on other platforms. 

 

[00:06:48] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah, yeah. 

 

[00:06:48] JARED WARD: Obviously, like Luminous, we have a, we have a different take on the market and e commerce company, the psyche of why people make decisions. But I really am of the mindset. It's not that the [00:07:00] tool is bad. 

 

[00:07:01] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah.

 

[00:07:02] JARED WARD: And I think what you just highlighted is why people, why people in operations have such strong feelings. Towards tool X and SkuVaults sucks. 

 

[00:07:13] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:07:13] JARED WARD: Or like, I don't know, linnworks sucks. Locate sucks 

 

[00:07:18] JOHN BOTTOMS: yeah. 

 

[00:07:21] JARED WARD: There's a myriad of different reasons why something could feel like it sucks. And actually most of them are, have to do with your processes.

 

[00:07:29] JOHN BOTTOMS: For sure. I mean, I talk to companies all the time. I mean, and it's easier to start with fixing processes. You know, I just came, you know, you and I were just talking about this before, um, that I was at a company here in Utah and, you know, working with a different software. I didn't start off the conversation with him of let me tell you all about this amazing software. I started the conversation. I walked in their warehouse and said, I immediately see problems. We need to fix this stuff. We need to clean up your warehouse, not dirty wise, but like we need to [00:08:00] organize things in a fashion that makes sense. Now, in the back of my mind, I know that how the software is going to function. Um, And so I'm building those processes physically to match what I know is going to function the software. But I'm not thinking software and software conversation. I need to understand that business and their processes and help them along the way versus just jumping right into software. But what happens with companies when you, it's easier to start there, but more often where we're at is we're in the middle of a process with a company where they've already been on some software or they've already, you know, kind of maxed out their capacity with spreadsheets and all those other things. And with every company, the software is the problem. It's bad software. It needs to change. I don't know that I've run into one inventory management software that I would say it's bad software. There's some that work better in certain scenarios or there's some that are designed to be stronger in maybe manufacturing than in pick, pack, and ship or things like that. I don't know that I've met any bad ones, but if you talk to some of these companies, they're like, this software sucks. And it's not usually because the software, it's because we didn't spend enough time in the [00:09:00] operations before we added the software. We didn't fix the river before we got to the waterfall. We thought putting a waterfall in was going to fix this whole beautiful thing. And you just ended up causing a huge mess and, you know, and, and then it, again, the software is the easy thing to blame because it's a third party. You know what I mean? 

 

[00:09:17] JARED WARD: Let's, let's do an exercise here. 

 

[00:09:18] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah.

 

[00:09:19] JARED WARD: I'm curious. You, with all of your experience now, I mean, you must have implemented dozens of systems.

 

[00:09:25] JARED WARD: I've gone to literally hundreds of companies, all doing different things. You know, multi channel, D2C with wholesale. You've probably done distribution companies, like multiple industries requiring manufacturing. Maybe just simple, like they have a three... I bet you've run into it all, right? 

 

[00:09:44] JOHN BOTTOMS: A lot, yeah, for sure.

 

[00:09:46] JARED WARD: Almost all of it. 

 

[00:09:48] JOHN BOTTOMS: It never ceases to amaze me. Sometimes I'm like, now this is a new thing. But, you know, it's another challenge to resolve. 

 

[00:09:55] JARED WARD: Okay, so, so with JOHN BOTTOMS, Mr. JOHN BOTTOMS now, with your head [00:10:00] and your mind, all of your experiences, you know software, how it should work, like the back of your hand, um, okay, if you went back in time to JOHN BOTTOMS at the energy drink company, what, okay, so, let's, let's go back, let's do this exercise, you're back in time, 1.5 million dollars in sales, you're that guy. What are, okay, What are you telling JOHN BOTTOMS in the warehouse at that time? Like what's going wrong in your processes at that energy drink company? What's going wrong with the manufacturing? What's going wrong with purchasing? Like what are, how do you approach that?

 

[00:10:35] JOHN BOTTOMS: So it's, it's very interesting this conversation because I've done a lot of study and personality as well. And that plays a huge role in this whole process. And sometimes I always start the conversation with every company is tell me why you went into business. Like why did you do this? Like, and what do you want to get out of it? And a lot of times you can pick up personality things that end up showing up as problems or whatever in the business. So one of the things that I would say [00:11:00] is, you know, again, one of my personalities is jumping and fix the problem, figure out a solution and go for it. You know, um, sometimes good, sometimes not so good, you know. Um, but one of the things with a lot of companies and even John, the energy drink company guy, we were so busy. And I, every company that I go into, it's like, we're so busy, we're so busy, we're so busy. What I would tell the John of then is just slow down. Know that there's other things and other people out there that can probably help you not be so busy or maybe busy yourself with things that you want to do. Not this chaos that you don't want to do. Um, but again, I have the luxury of now working with probably 75 ish companies or more that I can have that perspective. I wouldn't have been able to have that perspective without living through working with so many companies. 

 

[00:11:47] JARED WARD: It's been, that's been a common thread between all the operators that I talked to.

 

[00:11:51] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:11:52] JARED WARD: They say the same thing. Once they have, once they have the perspective, they're like, man, I wish I just would have like poked my [00:12:00] head out of the sand. Yeah. Like, just bumped it up and kind of looked around like, Oh yeah, I could have fixed so many more things. 

 

[00:12:07] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. And, and things like this are always hard in hindsight to, you know, to look at. But like, again, the company I was with this, this week here, I don't just go into your warehouse and say, You need to do this and you need to do this. You need to do that. And then go back to my computer. I'm in there with them. Like we're counting inventory together. We're moving boxes and we're, you know, yeah, because it's like, we got to get the work done and I will tell you. And then sometimes I just have to say like, this is something you're gonna have to trust me on. I've done this a lot because what happens is we get, and we all do this in a different way. You could probably describe ways that you do this yourself. We all get in our own rut and our personality shows up. And then we think this is the only way that I can survive. Versus saying like, maybe there's somebody out there. I was thinking, you know, as I was driving over about, you and I texting each other back and forth about the, um, the drop ship or sorry, the three PL company. Um, [00:13:00] can't think of their name right now that I texted you that you were talking about. They aggregate API data into one source. 

 

[00:13:07] JARED WARD: Um, yeah. Uh, track star. 

 

[00:13:09] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. Track star. And it's like, I could say like, man, I've got to spend, All my time figuring out these 3PLs is such a pain where there's a million 3 PLs out there. Or I could just text JARED WARD who happened to met a few weeks ago, you know, working with our company and we sat down to lunch and it's like. I wonder if JARED WARD has ever worked with anybody that did that and it's been great. You know what I mean? So a lot of times we think, I've gotta live in my own world. I can't get outside of this space. Software's not going to fix the problem. 

 

[00:13:36] JARED WARD: I guess something, something really important that you were hitting on before this. 

 

[00:13:39] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah.

 

[00:13:39] JARED WARD: People in ops, a lot of times they want to be the answer. 

 

[00:13:42] JOHN BOTTOMS: For sure. 

 

[00:13:43] JARED WARD: They wanna have the answer. 

 

[00:13:44] JOHN BOTTOMS: Mm-Hmm. 

 

[00:13:44] JARED WARD: Like it's gotta come from them. 

 

[00:13:46] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:13:46] JARED WARD: When it's just like, dude, supply chain inventory backend systems are so vast. Like ask somebody. 

 

[00:13:54] JOHN BOTTOMS: For sure. Yeah. And I'll say from an overall, we'll say, you know, and some of these companies are [00:14:00] small than having this structure. But in companies where you've got owners or are kind of executive leaders that are making some of these decisions, like empower your people to do that. Empower your people to have the space to ask the questions and say, Hey, go out and do some research, find some companies that know how to do this. Like you're, you'll probably have conversations with four or five softwares, before you'll even realize, okay, now I've got something that I can kind of build a process to understand on. That's where we really come in. Like I've worked with so many softwares and so many different companies, you know, I was talking about before being on this panel, you know, where I'm kind of the unique guy with a different perspective, even dressed differently. And, um, you know, one of the things that I realized there is it's, you got to empower people. You got to let people know like, Hey, you have the ability to go out and do this thing. You can do it. And, um, versus saying, you know, my, my way is the end all be all way. And it may cost a little bit of money. It may cost a little bit of time. But sometimes you can really connect to [00:15:00] people that are outside of your rut, if you will, and really get some good feedback that will help you. 

 

[00:15:06] JARED WARD: Yeah, love to really hear that. Okay. So I got a couple of specific questions. 

 

[00:15:09] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:15:10] JARED WARD: Since you're the, since you're the inventory master. 

 

[00:15:12] JOHN BOTTOMS: You speak too highly of me. I'm like, inventory master? Who's this? He behind me? Yeah, right. Okay. Yeah. Come on in. 

 

[00:15:23] JARED WARD: Okay. So, well, before we move on to these specific questions, cause I kind of want to dive into the weeds with you. 

 

[00:15:29] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. are we talking about podcast 2. 0? We're going to do this. Yeah. 

 

[00:15:37] JARED WARD: Um, Before we get into the weeds with like specific pivotal questions and inventory ops, I want you to share, what, what's been your, what's been the biggest nightmare? Warehouse nightmare, you know, kitchen nightmares? 

 

[00:15:55] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:15:56] JARED WARD: Let's do JOHN BOTTOMS Warehouse Nightmares. 

 

[00:15:58] JOHN BOTTOMS: I'll have to think about that one. [00:16:00] 

 

[00:16:00] JARED WARD: You don't have to say any names. 

 

[00:16:01] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:16:02] JARED WARD: But like, what was the worst warehouse you went and you're just like, bro, I'm out.

 

[00:16:06] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. I've never done a bro, I'm out. There's probably some times that I wanted to do a bro, I'm out. Um, I mean, sometimes too, depending on the solver's setup, so some maybe feedback for you guys is, there's a lot of pressure on going live with the software and the way some softwares are built, cause more unnecessary pressure based on not being able to fix things or whatever. So it's like when you turn that, you know, orders on, if whatever, they're, you know, some things, if it can't be reversed, there's just a lot of pressure on that. And so sometimes you're up until two or three o'clock in the morning, the night before you're, you've got employees showing up to start picking and packing orders, realizing that. So those are probably more of the nightmares than the, You know, like crazy challenges. Um, I'm trying to think, you know, with so many companies, everybody kind of has their own little thing. Um, probably nightmare story, not necessarily operational company, but it was, you know, I worked through COVID. I had a lot of [00:17:00] companies, people still needed products, people still needed business and they needed help getting this stuff done. And so I was in the middle of downtown LA, um, during the height of COVID, you know, like crazy. And I had no idea. Like, first of all, the business had a lot of, I'll call it chaos. It was not anything of their own. Actually, COVID kind of precipitated some into it with business, like order volumes being kicked up based on their products. But, I mean, I'm in downtown L. A. staying in a hotel. Like, no restaurants were even open. And I'm like, uh, I'm like, how are we going to do this? And so the company I'm working with, I'm trying to figure things out. And like, you know, but that's probably the most chaotic one that comes to mind of, you know, based on circumstances.. 

 

[00:17:43] JARED WARD: So I was, I was CEO of Qualtry and that was, that was during the, the COVID restrictions that was rough.

 

[00:17:50] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:17:51] JARED WARD: So like that, that Q4 and then the Q4 after, it was tough, man. Like I can, I can only imagine because we, so we would scale from like 80 [00:18:00] employees to like 300. 

 

[00:18:01] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:18:01] JARED WARD: During Q4. And during COVID, like it was so hard to find people and sales were through the roof. 

 

[00:18:09] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:18:10] JARED WARD: And like. So at Qualtry, we had, we had binning issues.

 

[00:18:13] JOHN BOTTOMS: Okay. 

 

[00:18:14] JARED WARD: So at Q4, we, we literally had so much bins that bins were like going from the warehouse up the stairs to the top. Like, it was insane. 

 

[00:18:24] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. Yeah. When sometimes, again, we're going back to the same conversation, like in the moment that you design that process, you're probably like, either one of two things. Like, this is the best process in the world and no one else will ever figure this out. Or the other thing is like.

 

[00:18:36] JARED WARD: We're never gonna have a thousand bins. 

 

[00:18:37] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah, right. Or the other thing is like, I got to get bins up there. Quick. Do that. And I think those are the two scenarios that companies end up with. And then you do that for about six months and then you get this mindset, like there's no way to change this process, you know? But the minute you walk in the door, you as now, JARED WARD, you walk in the door and you're like, why the heck are you doing that? It's like, Oh, you're [00:19:00] right. This is probably a little bit crazy. So sometimes I look at myself, you know, I'm like, Am I the inventory expert or am I just the guy that gets to walk into the room and say, why are you doing that? And then come up with a way to try to fix it. 

 

[00:19:10] JARED WARD: Exactly. So I love how you approach it though. It's just like, it's curiosity. 

 

[00:19:14] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:19:14] JARED WARD: Like, Oh, why are you doing that? Hmm. Interesting. 

 

[00:19:16] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:19:17] JARED WARD: Okay. Well, I've seen this and this. What do you think? 

 

[00:19:19] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:19:20] JARED WARD: That is such a better way than like, dude, you're a fucking idiot. 

 

[00:19:24] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah, right. Well, you look at some of these companies, I was again, saying this to last week at this conference that I was at. I worked with a company that the wife looked to me with tears in her eyes and was like, I want this business to end. I'm over it. I want more time with my husband. And if this doesn't change, we're getting a divorce. And I'm walking down like, Oh, I'm the inventory guy. You know what I mean? But how much personality is in that? And what they, what she was really saying is I need a better way to, he needs a better way to pick orders. We need a better way to manage our accounting. We need to be more efficient because my husband is spending more time here and I want him to be in my house with my family. So that's the problem. She didn't [00:20:00] come to me and say, have you ever heard of Luminous? Do you think that they could help keep my marriage together? You know what I mean? 

 

[00:20:05] JARED WARD: No, I love, how you bring this up because it's, it's not, softwares won't solve your issue. 

 

[00:20:13] JOHN BOTTOMS: No. 

 

[00:20:13] JARED WARD: I mean they, they can solve, they can solve specific, like, like you said, there is certain inventory software that is better for specific use cases. Like it's very much the intersection of software processes. Um, and that's why people have such strong feelings towards software. 

 

[00:20:29] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:20:29] JARED WARD: Like man, this one sucks. Because they thought it was supposed to solve their problem and they're disappointed. 

 

[00:20:36] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. And again, I think it goes a lot to have you fix your operational processes before you started talking about software.

 

[00:20:43] JOHN BOTTOMS: The other piece of it is, did you, did you and whoever you're partnering with to get this done? Like see the whole thing to the end because a lot of times what happens is you're live on the software, "Have a great day!", "See you later!". And the companies don't feel like they have someone they can lean on and they [00:21:00] have something pops up They do their best with all honesty and then it just becomes this this snowball that we fixed over here just start snowballing again and then again It's the software that's the problem.

 

[00:21:09] JOHN BOTTOMS: It's not the operations. So I think, again, a big part of it is, you've got to spend time in the beginning in the operations, keep the operations in mind when the software is being implemented and being operated in, but then also keep that conversation going. Like, hey, we're, we're wanting to launch a new store.

 

[00:21:25] JOHN BOTTOMS: We're now getting into EDI. Like how, how can Luminous help me with that? We've already, we, we implemented Luminous. Like does this keep us off the South work and this, and you know, because people just, they don't know the answer to these questions that you and I deal with every day. They're trying to figure out how to get their orders out on time.

 

[00:21:39] JARED WARD: Exactly. You know, which goes to the ad hoc nature of operators. They're just trying to get stuff out. Just trying to get sales. That's it. Um, which is totally understandable. Okay. Yeah. Let's, let's pivot the conversation. Let's go to, um, Um, so at Luminous, I have my theories on the market [00:22:00] and, you know, why a specific inventory system like hasn't taken off and like, you know, it's going head to head with Netsuite and stuff.

 

[00:22:07] JOHN BOTTOMS: So you want me to give my opinion on all the softwares I work with? No, I'm just kidding. 

 

[00:22:13] JARED WARD: Maybe that's a two point. What I'm actually more curious about is, I, so what I, I've kind of bucketed critical decisions or like complexities. It's like. Crossroads in Ops, where people make very pivotal decisions that they don't even really understand are pivotal. And I want to get your opinion on some of these. 

 

[00:22:34] JARED WARD: Okay, so, number one. I am a direct to consumer brand. I do in-house fulfillment. I'm doing my own fulfillment. My own purchasing. I've got my own workhouse. Um, you know, I have maybe one or two pickers. That's it. And they're both pickers. They pack and they ship.

 

[00:22:53] JARED WARD: Um, I'm using ShipStation. Um, all of a sudden, [00:23:00] in order to start increasing visibility, I have, I have a choice. Um, I have pallet racking coming in, and now we have the, like the choice is in front of us. We're keeping track of inventory on a spreadsheet, but it's, it's the choice of inventory by warehouse, or inventory by bin.

 

[00:23:21] JARED WARD: And so I see that's such a pivotal decision for warehouses. What are some things, in your opinion, that this type of company should think of? Like, should I do inventory by warehouse? So in other words, should I just keep track of my on hand by product in warehouse one? Right? And then I just purchase based on that. And it just deducts when something gets shipped. Or should I do inventory by bin? What are, what are some things that people typically don't think of with that decision right there? 

 

[00:23:52] JOHN BOTTOMS: So one of the things I talk about, you know, one of the softwares that we work with is worldwide. They have actually a bigger [00:24:00] presence outside of the U.S. and they currently have in the U.S. and they're growing more. And one of the conversations I've had with them a lot is about U.S. e commerce looks different than it does anywhere else in the world. Amazon has completely changed the way that consumers look at, you know, e commerce. And what's the name of the game with Amazon?

 

[00:24:17] JOHN BOTTOMS: If you get on your computer right now and order something on Amazon, cause we want, you know, go hiking later. I need some hiking boots. I want those hiking boots to my house by the time I drive to the top of the hill to get to the house in an hour, I expect that from Amazon cause they're Amazon. So not only have we built this expectation with Amazon, but that same expectation that Amazon has so well by building their whole logistics network, been able to deliver on.

 

[00:24:40] JOHN BOTTOMS: I now expect that from every company that I order anything online from. So the name of the game in the e commerce operation space is get the orders out. From the minute the order comes in, you've got to immediately be getting it out. It needs to happen within hours, not within days. And if you start having it happen within days, you've now got customer service [00:25:00] problems.

 

[00:25:00] JARED WARD: Your brand identity and your brand perception is 100 percent tied to your ability to get stuff out fast. 

 

[00:25:05] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yep. 100%. And, and so, and the ability to, you know, if you're selling, let's just say you're selling like seller fulfilled prime on Amazon, you have to get it out within a certain time period. They're going to shut you down.

 

[00:25:15] JARED WARD: Yeah, you will be dinged. 

 

[00:25:16] JOHN BOTTOMS: Exactly. And so in that conversation, one of the things that I tell companies all the time is, you know, can you, within minutes, take me to the product that somebody orders? And if the answer to that question is no, then you need bin locations. And if you're going to grow to have more and more, um, SKUs, more and more products that you're going to have, you need to be able to get the inventory just like this.

 

[00:25:40] JARED WARD: So what do you say to those people though? Like, cause see, I, I agree with you, but what do you say to an operator who's just like, but you know, like bin locations, that means we might have to do some like, pick and pack. And then now we're going to have to count and make sure everything is accurate for every single bit. John, isn't it easier just to [00:26:00] like, I just have a general warehouse number. Just the docks, like, doesn't that keep us faster? 

 

[00:26:06] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yes, I will say there's two different conversations we talked earlier about like the leadership team versus the operator. Sometimes certain decisions need to be made by the leadership team and filtered down because sometimes when I'm in my space as an operator of operating, it's hard for me to care about the bigger picture.

 

[00:26:25] JOHN BOTTOMS: Cause my job is to operate, you know what I mean? So I think there has to be a good relationship and sometimes you gotta, as, as the software implementer or as the, you know, operations consultant, you gotta help bridge some of those gaps sometimes between decision makers and operators. 

 

[00:26:40] JARED WARD: So that's, that's interesting.

 

[00:26:43] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah, yeah. 

 

[00:26:44] JARED WARD: How, how have you done that before? So like, for example, say, you're on the ground floor, like with this example right here. Man, guys, you're, you're, Your time to fulfillment, your time to fulfill an order is, it's a lot longer than it needs to be. We, we need to do [00:27:00] inventory by bin so that we can really dial this process in and get visibility. Have you had to go, had, had you, had you had to go up to the C suite and like... 

 

[00:27:10] JOHN BOTTOMS: So I try to... But most of the conversations, especially before we start doing work, get everybody involved. I want the C suite there, but I also want the operators there. And I want to build, and this is, again, we're getting into really some deep personality stuff, you know, and I've done a lot of study in this, so this is hard to learn without doing some practice and studying it.

 

[00:27:29] JOHN BOTTOMS: I think I want to build a, an environment in that conversation where we can be open enough with both leadership and with the operators to say, let's communicate the real problems here. And a lot of companies that's not, that doesn't exist. A lot of times people, operators are afraid to say to their boss, like, Hey, I'm sick of having to do this.

 

[00:27:49] JOHN BOTTOMS: I try to facilitate a conversation where everybody can say, it pisses me off that this thing happens even though it's... 

 

[00:27:57] JARED WARD: You're nailing something because at least in my experience, that's [00:28:00] something I've always heard. 

 

[00:28:02] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:28:02] JARED WARD: I'm, I'm dealing with an operator, I'm meeting with him and we're trying to change the process. Number one thing out of his mouth. 

 

[00:28:09] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:28:09] JARED WARD: Oh my God. CEO X or Executive X, he doesn't like them, like.... Who cares if he doesn't like them. Like, let's go talk to them. "Oh no, no.", like there's like this, it's like you're really, you're really going into uncharted territories. 

 

[00:28:27] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:28:27] JARED WARD: Where like, oh, clearly there isn't a culture here where you can challenge the big man. 

 

[00:28:32] JOHN BOTTOMS: For sure. And so then that gets gives me and my snarky personality when that comes out sometimes of, Oh, I'm going to challenge, you know what I mean?

 

[00:28:39] JOHN BOTTOMS: It's like, because I know, and I've told people this before, like, if you're not going to let me do what I know, is going to help you. Like, I might as well go to an airplane and leave. There's no point in me being here. Why are you paying me? I don't want you to pay me for something that I know is going to be a bad outcome.

 

[00:28:52] JOHN BOTTOMS: And I get really engaged in the companies because contrary to, you know, maybe what people out there might think, I don't care about the software that much. [00:29:00] I care about the software because the software is going to help us fix operational things. 

 

[00:29:04] JARED WARD: It's going to make it scalable, it's going to act actually digitize the processes.

 

[00:29:06] JOHN BOTTOMS: It's going to solve the problems and we're going to think through it and we're going to maybe even fix some of this bad conversation stuff that we didn't even know existed within the company, our culture stuff that we didn't know existed in the company until we started digging into some of the operational stuff, you know?

 

[00:29:19] JOHN BOTTOMS: And so the software then helps us manage all that. And so what's really fun is working with these companies and helping to do that. You know what I mean? 

 

[00:29:28] JARED WARD: Yeah, okay, that's interesting. Oh, I love that. 

 

[00:29:30] JARED WARD: Yeah. Um, okay, here's, here's another inventory question. Um, alright, so, we, uh, I'll give you a profile real fast. . 

 

[00:29:44] JARED WARD: Alright, so this is a, this is a company who, their first three years of business, it's been all D2C, maybe they've done some Amazon, um, Warehouses decently dialed, like they do inventory by band, they have basic pick and pack.

 

[00:29:59] JARED WARD: Inventory is [00:30:00] relatively accurate. Um, they have, they now have the choice where like, we can start doing specialty wholesale. So they have like a bunch of retailers around who are like, they've all committed to buy a hundred units and they're like, man. So it's not EDI, not that profane word. Just like specialty wholesale. How do the, how do you merge wholesale inventory and sales into, uh, into your D2C? 

 

[00:30:31] JARED WARD: And, and how do you merge that into your operations? Because it's, again, like two different beasts. The forecasting of wholesale. 

 

[00:30:39] JOHN BOTTOMS: The sales of it. 

 

[00:30:40] JARED WARD: How you handle inventory, how you handle shipping. 

 

[00:30:43] JARED WARD: How would you recommend to clients who are just starting to go wholesale? What are some things that they're probably not thinking of? 

 

[00:30:50] JOHN BOTTOMS: One thing I'd start with is more isn't always better and complex isn't always better. More complexity isn't always better. I think generally what I see a [00:31:00] lot of startup e commerce businesses do is just add more and more and more and more layers.

 

[00:31:05] JOHN BOTTOMS: So it's like these people over here doing wholesale, I need to do wholesale. These people over here doing Amazon, I need to do all Amazon. These people over here are doing. You know, they're using fair. 

 

[00:31:14] JARED WARD: These people over here started subscription, it's like, and before you know it, you are a complex as F 

 

[00:31:21] JOHN BOTTOMS: Super complex. 

 

[00:31:22] JOHN BOTTOMS: And that's how you spend, had to spend a lot of money, a lot of time kind of rewinding from that. Excuse me. And figuring out like, how do we get this thing back on the road? So I would say like, take a pause when you get an idea of something like that. Take a pause, maybe bring some team around you to say like, Hey, is this a really good idea before you jump into it?

 

[00:31:41] JOHN BOTTOMS: Going into your scenario though, some of the things that, okay, we, let's say we've taken that pause and we figured out, yeah, we can do it. Having the right software to manage these complex pieces is really important. You know, for example, you're probably not going to have the same price on Amazon that you're going to have to a wholesaler, you know, a wholesale company. [00:32:00] How do you manage that? How do you decide what that price is? You know. 

 

[00:32:03] JARED WARD: Payment terms too. 

 

[00:32:04] JOHN BOTTOMS: And again, like I spent a lot of time with companies saying, let's, let's look at the data. You know, Amazon is a good place where a lot of times people, if they're not careful, can really lose money because they don't have the data to look and see with the delivery fees and with the you know, complexities of getting it to Amazon and labeling and all the things that go into the Amazon space. You're actually losing money every time you sell this product, but they don't have the knowledge to be able to put that those data pieces together. So I think having... 

 

[00:32:33] JARED WARD: The processes and the software... 

 

[00:32:35] JOHN BOTTOMS: For sure, for sure. And again, I think if there's a theme that we're hitting, it's operational processes. The right software. You know what I mean? Um, and I think that's the biggest piece with this wholesale company that you're talking about. Do you have the processes and know that you can do this and how you, what's your strategy behind it? And then do you have the software that can manage the process on the backend? And don't just jump in.

 

[00:32:58] JOHN BOTTOMS: Don't just say to, you [00:33:00] know, Macy's. Yes. Macy's is interested. That's great. That's really exciting. Take that pause and say like, how am I going to manage this? When they give me the order for 500,000 units, because they wanna send it to all their places. 

 

[00:33:13] JARED WARD: Otherwise you'll be coming to Luminous or Ledger Gurus.

 

[00:33:15] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah.

 

[00:33:16] JARED WARD: Three months later and you're just like... 

 

[00:33:17] JOHN BOTTOMS: How about Luminous and Ledger Gurus? How about that? Is that good? Yeah. 

 

[00:33:21] JOHN BOTTOMS: There we go. 

 

[00:33:23] JARED WARD: You will be coming to us a couple months later where you're just like, man, like ripping your hair out. Like everything was so easy, but we're doing this QuickBooks invoice and it's not aggregating with my direct consumer inventory. You're like, well, yeah, I know. Duh. Cause you're just... Invoicing on QuickBooks. 

 

[00:33:40] JARED WARD: Stop pushing to your OS like, and, and it's, it's all, it really is like stopping and pausing. 

 

[00:33:46] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:33:47] JARED WARD: Like, okay. Hmm. Direct consumer is way different than wholesale like a customer database. Pricing. 

 

[00:33:54] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:33:54] JARED WARD: How, how am I gonna invoice this?

 

[00:33:56] JARED WARD: How's that get? And this is another thing, like most e-commerce [00:34:00] companies, they'll invoice first rather than like doing a sales order first. 

 

[00:34:04] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. You know why? Cause that's how QuickBooks built the process. You know what I mean? So it's like, again, I think sometimes... 

 

[00:34:11] JARED WARD: They prioritize the collection of revenue first.

 

[00:34:14] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. Well, I don't even know if it's that so much. There's probably some of that. I also think that it's like, I just, I was doing the best I knew how to do. I jumped into QuickBooks cause that was easy. I went online and said, here it is. 

 

[00:34:25] JARED WARD: And it's like, you know, This is, oh, this is how I create an invoice and the software I already use.

 

[00:34:31] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah, if I had to summarize probably every company I've ever worked with, it would be, I was just doing the best thing I knew how. I didn't have anybody that, you know, could walk in and say, Did you know that there's software out there that'll do that for you and save you three hours? You know, or whatever the thing is, it's just, I'm just trying to get by, you know.

 

[00:34:49] JARED WARD: Okay, um, couple questions, because we are running a little bit low on time. What is, what is your take? [00:35:00] How familiar are you with, say, Atlassian or HubSpot, these companies? 

 

[00:35:09] JOHN BOTTOMS: I know HubSpot, I'm not, I don't know the other one you mentioned. 

 

[00:35:12] JARED WARD: So HubSpot was a big disruptor to Salesforce. 

 

[00:35:15] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:35:16] JARED WARD: They're, they're basically CRM. 

 

[00:35:18] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:35:19] JARED WARD: Um, for, you know, sales enablement for, um, for SMBs. 

 

[00:35:24] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:35:25] JARED WARD: Atlassian, that's more like product management side.

 

[00:35:28] JOHN BOTTOMS: Okay. 

 

[00:35:28] JARED WARD: So I deal with them a lot on, at, on Luminous. 

 

[00:35:31] JOHN BOTTOMS: Okay. 

 

[00:35:31] JARED WARD: So I'm a product managing developer sprints and product management. How do you build things out? So they really disrupted the market for, um, for small, medium sized businesses, like software businesses. And I personally, I don't, I'm still waiting for that disruptor. Right now, my perspective of what I see in the inventory supply chain, purchasing like backend for the modern eCommerce business. [00:36:00] Everybody thinks that you have to go to NetSuite, or Sage, or Dynamics 365, or, you know, big massive companies. 

 

[00:36:06] JOHN BOTTOMS: Complicated, yeah. 

 

[00:36:08] JARED WARD: Why do you think nobody's totally emerged in graph market share, like Atlassian or HubSpot have, in their respective industries? 

 

[00:36:17] JOHN BOTTOMS: That's a good question. Um, I think part of the big software conversation is obviously the bigger the software, the bigger the marketing budget.

 

[00:36:26] JOHN BOTTOMS: You know what I mean? And so, when people think of, you know, The ERP inventory management space, you know, somebody like NetSuite comes to mind because what, what pops up first because they have a bigger marketing budget, you know what I mean? Yeah, right. Um, I think that's a big piece why they are more well known.

 

[00:36:43] JOHN BOTTOMS: I would venture to say, and I've worked with people on NetSuite, I've never implemented NetSuite, but I've worked with a lot of people either coming off NetSuite or, um, I would venture to say that especially in the small to medium business space, There's a lot more softwares out there [00:37:00] that really can get you more pinpointed to what you really need than the big machine You know what I mean?

 

[00:37:07] JOHN BOTTOMS: But, but I think sometimes there's a, there's a disconnect between, and again, if we go back to this conversation, operational processes and software, there's a disconnect between the warehouse and the software developer. Like, you know, I've said this to, I said this to a company recently that we work with.

 

[00:37:24] JOHN BOTTOMS: I said, we need to get you in the warehouse because you're arguing with me about a point that if you saw this, you would not have. You would stop this argument, like, because this, this is not how people do business. It's great in the software world. It's great. Like did you add that you spent three months developing this technology and it's really cool in theory.

 

[00:37:41] JOHN BOTTOMS: It will not work in everyday practice. So I think if there were a software out there who would say like, I'm going to prioritize the customer and how they do things first and probably. I don't want to disparage softwares by saying they don't value their customers by any means. I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is like the actual things that they're [00:38:00] struggling with and seeing it.

 

[00:38:02] JARED WARD: I feel like it also goes back to what you're saying at the beginning, which is software companies and it comes out in marketing. 

 

[00:38:11] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:38:11] JARED WARD: It comes out in their marketing, like best WMS, best OMS. 

 

[00:38:16] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:38:18] JARED WARD: Awesome wholesale. Like I'm thinking of these, like keywords that you use in PPC, but like really most operators are actually just like super niche problem X like. 

 

[00:38:29] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah, right. 

 

[00:38:29] JARED WARD: How do I get my wholesale order invoice into my inventory software?

 

[00:38:34] JOHN BOTTOMS: How do I stop selling out on Amazon? 

 

[00:38:36] JARED WARD: Yeah, exactly like it's, it's kind of... I feel like, as this is my theory I'm curious what you think. 

 

[00:38:48] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah, yeah. 

 

[00:38:49] JARED WARD: Most of the, most of the inventory systems that came, you know, between like 2011, 2015, there was a big boom in inventory systems that were founded then. Um, you know, like SIN7, [00:39:00] Linnworks, well Linnwork like 2008, um, 3PL Central, SKU Vaults, like there was a big boom in inventory systems.

 

[00:39:07] JARED WARD: And it was, it was just the big boom in e commerce. It's like, there's a space here. Um, what I think is a lot of these inventory systems... They came out at that time and the whole thesis at that time was like, build this system in the cloud. I personally believe that they all tried to kind of just rebuild NetSuite in the cloud without their own take on the market. Like, but why are you rebuilding NetSuite? And I think what you're hitting at is, is the "Why".

 

[00:39:44] JARED WARD: Operators, e commerce operators, they don't know what WMS, IMS, EDI. 

 

[00:39:50] JOHN BOTTOMS: Multi channel e commerce fulfillment. They're like, what does that even mean? And I've seen, yeah, I've seen you, you go out and look at softwares and one of their big selling points is multi channel e commerce [00:40:00] fulfillment.

 

[00:40:00] JOHN BOTTOMS: And if you go to a, the warehouse I was at yesterday, they're going to say, excuse me, what do you mean? 

 

[00:40:08] JARED WARD: I was literally just, I was just, um, demoing a company yesterday and like, I was like, Sometimes you just throw out acronyms that you don't even, like, it's so common. 

 

[00:40:16] JARED WARD: Like I was saying, EDI, and she shared her screen and she was Googling EDI. It was hilarious. So it's just like, that, that really is the case. So like those, those like V2 inventory systems that came out between 2008, 2015, they really just kind of rebuilt NetSuite. And because of that, like you can tell that they've just rebuilt NetSuite from the cloud. And I think, I think somebody who's going to challenge the status quo is exactly like you're saying is challenging. There building a system for Operators. Like their perspective in the warehouse.

 

[00:40:52] JARED WARD: Yeah. Yeah. 

 

[00:40:53] JOHN BOTTOMS: One of the things with, you know, we talked about locate earlier, you know, it's kind of where I got my start into this [00:41:00] space. And one of the things that I really appreciated about locating their perspective is they started their company. They were. consultants on, you know, another software. And they said they learned all of these places where the software didn't do exactly right.

 

[00:41:13] JOHN BOTTOMS: And they said, we want to fix the things for our customers that we've been fixing on the backend to make this work for the customer. We want to build a software that fixes the things for the customers. So they were really deep into how do their customers work, how do they function, how do their operations work, what are their processes, and then built software to kind of manage that.

 

[00:41:31] JARED WARD: Because like, NetSuite was built, I say NetSuite, I mean I can't stand NetSuite, we're going after them. So you can stay 

 

[00:41:44] out 

 

[00:41:44] JARED WARD: of trouble. 

 

[00:41:45] JARED WARD: They, their system is very antiquated, it's very rigid, like you need to create sales order, then create invoice, then 

 

[00:41:56] go 

 

[00:41:56] JARED WARD: to warehouse group X. Then go to pick and pack. You know what [00:42:00] I mean?

 

[00:42:02] JARED WARD: The locate guys, um, cause I have seen their system. Yeah. It's actually sick. Yeah. I can't, I don't understand why they sold their business 

 

[00:42:09] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah, we won't talk about that. 

 

[00:42:11] JARED WARD: It was, yeah, they had a sick platform. That sunset and left a lot of people. Cause it was such a sick platform, I was like, no! Yeah, yeah.

 

[00:42:21] JARED WARD: So, they, I feel like what they were getting at was like, the things they had to fix was... It was where the intersection of the new e commerce processes were not aligning with the rigid, antiquated, clunky systems. Like, e commerce companies don't necessarily do it that way. So they build things a little bit more flexible. You still have to be rigid to keep processes, but... 

 

[00:42:49] JOHN BOTTOMS: Well, and I think the other piece with a NetSuite or a... An S. A. P. Or, you know, these big legacy platforms. A lot of times it's a huge stretch [00:43:00] financially for a company to even make that decision. And I feel like a lot of softwares have said, if our customer is X, we need to live in the world that our customer lives in and not say customer come to my world, you know, and I think if you can learn to do that and you got to balance the both, I mean, you've got to be a successful company as well.

 

[00:43:17] JOHN BOTTOMS: You got to be able to keep the lights on and pay your employees, you know, and hopefully make some money along the way. I mean, we're. We're all in it to do the same thing. But if you tell all the customers, you've gotta come to my world and you've gotta spend a little more than your budget or a lot more than your budget in order to be successful.

 

[00:43:34] JOHN BOTTOMS: People are going to do it, but they can't sustain that. You know? And I honestly think, you know, this could, we could have a whole podcast episode on this topic. One of the biggest pieces in picking the right software is can the company manage it? 

 

[00:43:46] JARED WARD: Yes. 

 

[00:43:47] JOHN BOTTOMS: And what I've seen from a lot of people on NetSuite, for example, is it's just too complicated. Cause I'm the operator. I just got to get my orders out on time. And then you gave me this big thing. Yeah. 

 

[00:43:58] JARED WARD: In Luminous terminology, we call it, we [00:44:00] say friction. 

 

[00:44:00] JOHN BOTTOMS: Love it. 

 

[00:44:00] JARED WARD: It adds too much friction. And it's like one thing that NetSuite implementations are, or e commerce companies implementing NetSuite, it's that it's notorious for us.

 

[00:44:10] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:44:10] JARED WARD: They don't understand the financial burden.

 

[00:44:13] JOHN BOTTOMS: For sure. 

 

[00:44:14] JARED WARD: Where like, you might have a CFO come in and be like, Oh I want to, I wanna implement NetSuite, but they're not understood. Okay. Being able to totally get off of QuickBooks and go to NetSuite for financials, you probably have to hire like two or three full time people now. 

 

[00:44:35] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah, right. At minimum. 

 

[00:44:37] JARED WARD: Whereas, at least on QuickBooks, you could do that with one person part time. 

 

[00:44:42] JOHN BOTTOMS: For sure. Or partner with somebody like Ledger Gurus and we'll take care of it all for you. 

 

[00:44:45] JARED WARD: Yeah, yeah. 

 

[00:44:46] JOHN BOTTOMS: No, yeah. Case. 

 

[00:44:47] JARED WARD: Exactly. No, seriously, that's really is the case. Also with NetSuite people underestimating. Oh yeah, we really need to dial in our warehouse for scale, but like, okay, well you do [00:45:00] realize what used to be maybe like a three step process now just went to like seven.

 

[00:45:06] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. And the reason people are probably coming to conversation, we talked about this earlier, the number one thing I hear, I'm just too busy, so don't take their comp, their processes and their, their functionality that's supposed to make them less busy and make it more complicated and more busy. And that's what ends up happening is.

 

[00:45:23] JOHN BOTTOMS: You've got to make it more complicated and busy to work in the big platform versus saying, let's simplify things and make it easier for you to do your job because that's what they're looking for. Anyway, they're not coming. Do you want any more complexity? You know? 

 

[00:45:35] JARED WARD: You know, something that I think is so right right now, which we've talked a little bit about this before, but so Luminous, well, we're gonna, we're gonna be building our own OMS.

 

[00:45:44] JOHN BOTTOMS: Oh, sweet. 

 

[00:45:47] JARED WARD: We already have order management functionality. 

 

[00:45:48] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:45:50] JARED WARD: Like our actual own stand alone OMS. 

 

[00:45:53] JOHN BOTTOMS: Okay. 

 

[00:45:53] JARED WARD: Because, yeah, I'm, I really think the, the market is ripe [00:46:00] for disruption with everything that's going on with shipstation right now. And how, it's just, they don't really update their platform, but everybody uses it. 

 

[00:46:10] JARED WARD: Like a conversation that I would love to have with you. Not even, we'll do it offline. 

 

[00:46:14] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:46:14] JARED WARD: Not on the podcast. 

 

[00:46:15] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:46:16] JARED WARD: Like how can, the question being, how can you take a pick, pack, and ship flow, and make it as simple as possible. Like, the least amount of rigid, like how, how can you do these massive fulfillment batches with like the least amount of steps. 

 

[00:46:35] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah.

 

[00:46:36] JOHN BOTTOMS: And I have found there's no one software that does it perfectly, in my opinion. Maybe I just haven't found it yet. Um, but what I have found, you mentioned ShipStation, ShipStation has tons of automation capabilities, but standalone, they can't get you all the way there. But if you hook ShipStation with another, you know, OMS, IMS platform and build some automation triggers over here on this side and the platform that then [00:47:00] picks up on the situation side and they do what they do well.

 

[00:47:03] JOHN BOTTOMS: Where I found that you can really do some really cool things with companies is this layering effect with different softwares that really do well. Like you don't need to be the perfect expert at how 3PLs work, but what if you partner well with a company that that's where they spend all of their effort?

 

[00:47:16] JARED WARD: Oh, that's, that's a hundred percent. So like with Luminous, cause we have a lot of clients who have 3PLs and they want visibility. So instead of us building these massive integrations into freaking like every single 3PL system, instead we searched and we, so we found TrackStar, like TrackStar is an API. So now we can, we don't have to be the solution for everything.

 

[00:47:37] JARED WARD: Like we go through TrackStar and so now we can offer visibility to multiple 3PLs and multiple WMSs. 

 

[00:47:44] JOHN BOTTOMS: I think the question too that we need to ask is how do people find out that people like you and I exist? Because they're sitting in their warehouse ready to give up on their business or ready to hire more people unnecessarily or whatever.

 

[00:47:59] JOHN BOTTOMS: How do we [00:48:00] let them know like, there's a better way we can help you with this, you know, and...

 

[00:48:05] JARED WARD: It's a conversation I had with Emerson Hammer at, he was the CEO at Nomadic of VP of Supply Chain. 

 

[00:48:12] JARED WARD: And so he was telling me his theory because I agreed, like I want to get in front of somebody. Cause I'm, I'm always consultative when I get in front of them.

 

[00:48:23] JARED WARD: I'm never like we're going to produce 20 percent extra efficiency and we're going to save you $62.5k. It's like, no, I, I'm just going to like listen to you and I'll let you know what I think. I'll even tell you if our system isn't good and it's hard to get in front of operators because like you were saying at the beginning, they're heads down.

 

[00:48:43] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:48:43] JARED WARD: They're busy. 

 

[00:48:45] JARED WARD: And, like, that's the question, like, how do you build an Ops community that get their head out of the sand and you don't? You, you make an environment where they know they're not being sold. That's the question I'm trying to answer. [00:49:00] I don't know the answer to that. This is part of this podcast actually.

 

[00:49:03] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. Well, I think sometimes, and this is human nature for sure. It's like, if I have information more like our human condition wants us to like hold it, I think the more information we can get out there to people, it gives us all more opportunity. The fact that, you know, I just worked with a company and increased their using ship station and using you know, inventory management software.

 

[00:49:25] JOHN BOTTOMS: I just completely changed the way that they pick pack and ship orders and went from probably, we'll say 30 to 40 minutes pick time to less than a minute, which is major change for this company. You know what I mean? Like that's nothing proprietary. I don't get paid by ship station to do that. I don't like, you know, I, it's just like, how can I take that information?

 

[00:49:45] JOHN BOTTOMS: And it wasn't anything complicated. We physically fix some stuff in their warehouse. We connect some software together.

 

[00:49:59] JOHN BOTTOMS: [00:50:00] And really what people are buying from both you and I, they're not buying software from you and consulting service from me. They're buying confidence. Like, can this software solve my problems? 

 

[00:50:10] JOHN BOTTOMS: That's actually the number one thing I say all 

 

[00:50:10] JARED WARD: the time. 

 

[00:50:11] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. Can like, do you walk into my world? Do you know what you're talking about? You know how many people out there say that I did this?

 

[00:50:17] JARED WARD: Actually, the word that I say is certainty. 

 

[00:50:19] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:50:19] JARED WARD: That's the same thing. 

 

[00:50:20] JOHN BOTTOMS: Same thing. 

 

[00:50:20] JARED WARD: That's anybody who's bought Luminous, they're, they're actually buying certainty that we're not going to just like throw 'em a software and be like self onboard. There's an Account Manager. Yeah. No, it's like we, we were like, no, we're going to figure this out.

 

[00:50:35] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Um, yeah. Well, let me ask, can I ask you a question? 

 

[00:50:41] JOHN BOTTOMS: So how do you, um, make sure that that certainty remains? Cause as you grow as a company, you're going to obviously have less and less bandwidth for getting in there in the niche, intimate details with every company and all that stuff. So how do you scale in a way that continues to allow certainty and for [00:51:00] people to feel confident what you're doing as you do that?

 

[00:51:02] JARED WARD: Yeah, that's a great question. Yeah. I think the key there is we're, so at Luminous, I'm not focused on vanity metrics. Um, I don't care about our number of users growing like honestly, like my VC like they know that too. They know like if, I want to nail it before we scale it. And if scaling it means turning into this massive marketing company that just blows in thousands of clients a month and has massive churn, that's not going to be Luminous. 

 

[00:51:41] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:51:41] JARED WARD: That's not my vision. 

 

[00:51:42] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:51:43] JARED WARD: So that won't happen. Um, I think I'll answer that question as we go, but It will not look like that.

 

[00:51:53] JARED WARD: It won't look like marketing massive amounts of free users churn. That's not [00:52:00] the vision. I think the vision is actually I've always had a belief that there's an intersection between software and processes. And I will only scale. I'm never just going to scale free users. Like, I want to actually scale the service side of the business with the software. Because I feel like that's how you win. 

 

[00:52:19] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. And I think probably partnerships are a big part of that. Like us working together. You know what I mean? Like, like, do you really need to learn how to do these certain processes in a warehouse? Or can we partner together? And I say like, let me jump in there and fix this.

 

[00:52:34] JOHN BOTTOMS: I've done it now with 85 company or whatever the number is at the point of this conversation. 

 

[00:52:39] JARED WARD: That's that's been like nonstop. Brendan and I have been talking behind the scenes. Not, not only, not only, okay, by the way, Brittany's, Brittany bringing you in is freaking brilliant. 

 

[00:52:54] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah, she's awesome. Love Brittany. 

 

[00:52:56] JOHN BOTTOMS: So the way 

 

[00:52:58] JARED WARD: we see it now is, so we get a [00:53:00] lot of questions about accounting. 

 

[00:53:01] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. 

 

[00:53:01] JARED WARD: Um, and we just, what ends up happening is we just like, oh, we need you to push these as a journal entry like this.

 

[00:53:10] JARED WARD: And we just do it. And then it ends up being like wrong, like, like not wrong. It's just like, you know, you talk to an expert like Brittany and they're like, Oh, no, we probably wouldn't. Um, so yeah, I mean, that's finding pillars in each of the spaces, like implementation and accounting and partnering with them. Um, yeah, it's, it's a big part of our strategy.

 

[00:53:32] JOHN BOTTOMS: Even within Ledger Gurus. I mean, I'm not the, I don't know everything I know. I have learned a lot. Like I tell people all the time, and Brittany, when she listens to this, we'll probably be laughing right now because I tell everybody I'm not an accountant, but I ended up teaching people accounting. You know what I mean?

 

[00:53:45] JOHN BOTTOMS: It's because I've learned it from practice, not from education. And so from, you know, working with all these companies and, and all of that. And so, um, But the cool thing with our team at Ledger Gurus is we have a sales tax division that like are [00:54:00] experts in sales tax. We have, you know, client accounting services that are experts in how to set up your chart of accounts and how to build these processes around your accounting to get you.

 

[00:54:09] JOHN BOTTOMS: We have experts in having the conversation with you to know what you should do based upon looking at your financial numbers. And now with adding our team. There's experts in the conversation to say, this is how you should set up your inventory business. This is the software we should use. I don't go and tell people like, let me tell you how you should set up your sales tax.

 

[00:54:26] JOHN BOTTOMS: I say, let me partner with our internal sales tax team and external partners like Avalara. You know, we work with Avalara a ton. 

 

[00:54:32] JARED WARD: I love what's true. That's why I think I'm so drawn to Ledger Group and Brittany was just cause I could sense you guys, like very much like us, you're driven by what works for the client and it doesn't have to be you with everything.

 

[00:54:47] JARED WARD: It's like you just want things to work. Same thing with Luminous, we know at the end of the day what's going to bring value and stickiness to the software is... 

 

[00:54:58] JOHN BOTTOMS: Yeah. And that you [00:55:00] care that you care about the outcome for the customer. You know me, Brittany and I were on the call a conversation last night about a customer and we were talking about how excited we were that we were able to create this change around their accounting processes and their inventory and all of this stuff.

 

[00:55:13] JOHN BOTTOMS: We're not talking about the financials of the deal and how we built up. Nobody cares about that. I mean, we care cause we got to keep the lights on. But, you know, like with Steven and Brittany, we're often having conversations around this is really cool. What we get to do. We, we get to change. I mean, even with you guys, you get to change the trajectory of a business.

 

[00:55:30] JOHN BOTTOMS: Somebody might be out of business next month because they started EDI and got in over their head. You know what I mean? Uh, I can keep, we keep beating up on EDI today, but you know, but, but, you know, you get to really change people's lives and get them to where they want to be in their business. That's why, again, their founding story is so important to this operational conversation is where do they want to be?

 

[00:55:51] JOHN BOTTOMS: Because getting there is maybe it's a sales tax conversation. 

 

[00:55:54] JARED WARD: That's also why I always harp on, before I close a deal [00:56:00] with a company, I always, literally the biggest thing that I push on the decision makers that choose Luminous is like, look, at the end of the day, what's probably most important to you is our why, and like, I'll send them a video on like, why Luminous exists, and why we care about solving these problems in e commerce.

 

[00:56:19] JARED WARD: It's like, we're gonna be around, and we're looking to solve these problems. We're not, I'm not just like, throwing you in, and you're part of like a bandie metric. You're a thousand... 50th user and well, 50 million in ARR. 

 

[00:56:34] JARED WARD: Yeah, right. 

 

[00:56:34] JOHN BOTTOMS: And even in just full disclosure, when, you know, you and I met, we met Stacy from our team and Brittany set up lunch and they're, you know, like, Oh, we've got these, this, you know, cool software.

 

[00:56:44] JOHN BOTTOMS: We want you to talk to, and we think they'd be good as part of kind of the softwares that, you know, we work with a bunch of softwares, like you said before. And my first thought was, Oh God, another software. Uh, you know what I mean? Like how many of them are there out there and who's going to, but what made the connection for me was [00:57:00] meeting you in person, hearing your story and what gets you excited.

 

[00:57:02] JOHN BOTTOMS: And just seeing, even just like when we started having conversation around operational issues, I mean you're leaning in and you're getting excited and I love that. And so for me, that's, that's rare to see that out there in the software space. So it's like, yeah, let's, I like JARED WARD, I like his energy and what he's doing.

 

[00:57:20] JOHN BOTTOMS: Maybe I don't even know enough about the software yet, which I don't. We're learning still. I'm calling you saying like, Hey, what do you do in this space? But like your energy and it's how you get excited around the things that like we get excited about, I think is a perfect way to see a line. So, yeah. 

 

[00:57:35] JARED WARD: Well, that's, I think that wraps it for now. I think we're, Oh yeah, yeah. We're about an hour and 20 minutes in.

 

[00:57:42] JOHN BOTTOMS: Cool. 

 

[00:57:43] JARED WARD: But that was a great podcast. 

 

[00:57:44] JOHN BOTTOMS: Maybe you can find 30 minutes of it to use. 

 

[00:57:46] JARED WARD: Yeah, yeah.