Episode Overview
Dustin Cole is a seasoned Salesforce professional and the driving force behind Navigators, a Salesforce Consultancy. Dustin specializes in transforming small to medium-sized nonprofits with the power of Salesforce.
In this episode, Dustin shares insightful case studies, including fascinating work with Goodwill of North Florida and their workforce development programs. We also explore critical aspects of data management, the pitfalls of over-automation, and the importance of starting with manual processes before diving into full-scale automation.
Dustin offers a unique perspective on the evolving landscape of Salesforce implementations, from integrating donation and form tools to leveraging apps like Dayback for efficient field service management. He also shares valuable lessons from past projects and emphasizes the necessity of collaboration and structured data migration processes.
Stay tuned as we uncover Dustin’s innovative “expert on demand” service model, born from his aviation-inspired company’s mission to guide nonprofits through their Salesforce journey. With a blend of professional insights and personal anecdotes, this episode is packed with valuable takeaways for anyone involved in the nonprofit sector or interested in Salesforce consulting.
Interview Highlights
Dustin’s Current Learning and Team
- Learning payroll and administrative tasks.
- Current team size and plans for expansion.
Salesforce Case Studies in Nonprofits
- Implementations in small to medium-sized nonprofits.
- Positive impacts on operations and donor management.
Key Benefits of Salesforce for Nonprofits
- Data centralization.
- Streamlining operations and enhancing donor management.
- Use of additional apps like Give Lively, Classy, Formstack, JotForm, Appsona, and Conga.
Interesting Case Studies
- Goodwill of North Florida’s workforce development programs.
- Dustin’s involvement with Landscaping Consultants Inc. (LCI).
Data Management and Project Experiences
- Importance of data collection and building data architecture.
- Issues with over-automation and technical debt.
- Advice on starting with manual processes before automation.
- Experience migrating data from another CRM to Salesforce.
- Lessons learned about collaboration and structured processes.
Work Philosophy and Operations
- Iterating and adding value over time.
- Balancing professional duties and family responsibilities.
- Preference for client interaction and project planning.
- Structure and operation of Navigators as a Salesforce partner.
- Emphasis on transparency, client training, and word-of-mouth growth.
Business Insights
- Navigators’ growth and success despite initial challenges.
- Approach to consulting roles and current thriving status.
Technical Tools and Practices
- Use of Dayback app for scheduling and routing at LCI.
- Dustin’s past use with a different client influencing recommendations.
- Technical learning, culture, and SOPs for data migration.
- Collaborative work culture.
- Project staffing with delivery managers and project managers.
- Device preferences and use of communication and project management tools (Salesforce, Slack, Confluence, Todoist, Google Workspace, Loom).
Opinions on Salesforce Product Launches and AI
- Preference for delayed announcements.
- Criticism of premature AI discussions.
- Skepticism about AI’s impact in the nonprofit sector.
- Optimism for future AI innovations.
Business Model and Client Empowerment
- Shift from project-based to expert-on-demand managed services.
- Benefits of the managed services subscription model.
- Integration with internal administrators at larger organizations.
Inspiration Behind Navigators’ Name
- Aviation backgrounds of Dustin and Hailey.
Full Episode Transcript
Jerome Clatworthy [00:00:00]:
Welcome to CRM Stories with me, Jerome Clitworthy. CRM Stories is a podcast where we speak with Salesforce professionals from all over the world about their careers and favorite Salesforce case studies. Today, we’re speaking with Dustin Cole from Navigators. Dustin, thanks so much for joining us today.
Dustin Cole [00:00:18]:
Yeah. Great to be with you. Thanks for inviting me here.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:00:20]:
No worries. So, Dustin, where in the world are you sitting as we have this chat today?
Dustin Cole [00:00:25]:
I am in, the suburbia of suburbia of Orange County. Basically, just think of the flattest, you know, rows of housing. Yeah. Single store you know, like, single family housing. I got a a wife, 2 kids, and Yes. A golden retriever and just I always imagine myself living in the city or in aftercare or something, but somehow I ended up in the opposite of that. I can’t complain. It’s it’s a good life, but it is very, you know, typical Southern California, Orange County.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:00:56]:
Is that where you grew up or somewhere you’ve moved to later in life?
Dustin Cole [00:00:59]:
Yeah. Well, I grew up in San Diego, so I didn’t go very far. I did spend a stand living in Korea and to Oh, yeah. Northern California and, Los Angeles, but Okay. I ended up here somewhere in between Los Angeles and San Diego.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:01:11]:
Yeah. Right. Cool. Cool. And how did you get started in the Salesforce ecosystem? Were you already in that sort of space, and then you just specialize in this as a product, or it was sort of a whole new sort of career change for you?
Dustin Cole [00:01:20]:
Was it Yeah. So I started as, as many people do, as an external admin. I was working as a finance manager at a nonprofit, and I found myself as the, controller of all data. So it’s a fairly good sized nonprofit, somewhere around $10,000,000, expenses. And, you know, the development team would come to me asking how much did John Smith give over the last 5 years. Yep. And so every day, I was running these these reports, these one up reports for everyone, and I thought this is, you know, this is crazy. There must be a better way.
Dustin Cole [00:01:53]:
And Yeah. So that led me to Salesforce. And, they allowed me to well, they, you know, they asked me to implement or no. I I asked them if I could implement it
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:08]:
Yeah.
Dustin Cole [00:02:08]:
Which, you know, is much a much bigger project than I or anyone had had expected it to be. And, you know, so we got a quote from a consultant for, like, $25,000 for an implementation. The executive director laughed in my face and That’s sick. So I ended up, doing it myself. And, of course, I botched it.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:32]:
Yep.
Dustin Cole [00:02:32]:
Botched it over and over. Yeah. And, but that was 8 8 years ago or so, and I’m still still admin for that nonprofit. Still really good friends, with them.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:42]:
Yeah. Right.
Dustin Cole [00:02:44]:
So I’ve had the opportunity to fix it and Yeah. Rework it and, you know, change it for the last 8 years or so.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:50]:
Okay. And so what’s the obviously, say set up as they sort of, solo admin? What other roles have you had that have less led you to this point now?
Dustin Cole [00:02:57]:
Yeah. So that was the admin, and then, I did a stint at the Marshall School of Business at, USC where I was working with a whole bunch of different, departments there. And then after that, I moved into consulting, working mainly with nonprofits. And I’ve been doing consulting ever since except for a stint as an IT director for a couple years. Okay. That was that was really really cool nonprofit that does a lot of, reforestation.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:03:24]:
Okay.
Dustin Cole [00:03:25]:
And we had a huge Salesforce, instance there that I got to be a big part of.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:03:30]:
And Yeah. Are they typically sort of fundraising scenarios or just running the whole operations or mostly in the fundraising side of things that using Salesforce?
Dustin Cole [00:03:37]:
Are you talking about that specific nonprofit or In general,
Jerome Clatworthy [00:03:40]:
the all the ones you worked on with these. Yeah.
Dustin Cole [00:03:42]:
Yeah. So I’ve mainly been working with nonprofits, and nonprofits tend to start with with development fundraising, which is, you know, often one of their biggest needs and and the first usually, the first department that, needs to needs to move on to Salesforce. And Salesforce has a great product for, called nonprofit success back. And so, you can kinda just turn that on, do some, like, configuration, and and they’re ready to go. Plug in some third party services, and and they’re ready to go. And you can do a quick start with a nonprofit and, you know, 20 hours of work or so if there’s not too much data migration. Yep. But there’s a whole bunch of other things that nonprofits need to do.
Dustin Cole [00:04:21]:
They need to do marketing automation. They need to do often they wanna do program management. Program management can be can have all ranges of of, complications. They’re not complications, but, complexity because every program is different. Right? So they could be running a daycare. They could be doing a food bank. And and then there’s all sorts of processes and challenges around doing, program implementation. And Salesforce does have a program management module.
Dustin Cole [00:04:54]:
It’s actually called the program management module. But it doesn’t always it’s it’s so hard to build an architecture for something that has an infinite number of business processes. So, there’s always a large amount of configuration and, and optimization around around program managements for Yeah. For nonprofits.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:05:19]:
Slightly off topic. Just out of my personal interest, have you done much with nonprofit cloud yet, or are you still mostly with nonprofit service?
Dustin Cole [00:05:27]:
So we started our company, a little bit less than 2 years ago, and nonprofit cloud came about a year ago. Yeah. And I personally I I had a one project, and I was really getting into nonprofit cloud. And it was very early on, and the documentation was just, abysmal at that point. They’ve been improving it since then. But I ever since that first experience trying to get that project up the ground, I I’ve determined that I’m not gonna learn non profit cloud. Me, personally Agree. Other yeah.
Dustin Cole [00:06:01]:
It’s just like it’s because my role at my company now is more in sales marketing and and operations, and I have plenty of clients still that I’m doing work with with NPSP and and, all that. So I’m trying my best not to learn it. I I think some some point in the future, I will. Yeah. Sure. But, Haley, my partner, head of services, and the other people at my company are are neck deep and and not on the cloud. And it’s, yeah, we we really pride ourselves on being one of the first, or taking on that challenge, I think Okay. A little bit earlier than than some other partners have.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:06:37]:
Okay. Cool. Cool. Alright. Great. So, Carton, as you said, so marketing operations overseeing sort of making sure the work gets done as opposed to being on the keyboard yourself. Is that sort of the role now?
Dustin Cole [00:06:48]:
That’s supposed to be it. But, really, I I spend 40 hours doing not 40 hours, maybe 30 hours a week doing actual delivery and and time work. So Maybe
Jerome Clatworthy [00:06:57]:
2 2 full time jobs then?
Dustin Cole [00:07:00]:
Yeah. Exactly. I actually do very little marketing. Okay. But a lot of lot of operations stuff. I mean, starting a new company, there’s a lot of, like, you know Yeah. Figuring out how to work health care and
Jerome Clatworthy [00:07:11]:
Sure.
Dustin Cole [00:07:12]:
How to do payroll and Yeah. All that stuff is new to me. So that that takes up a good chunk of my time too.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:07:17]:
Yeah. And how big is the team
Dustin Cole [00:07:18]:
currently with Navigators? Currently, we are 4. So myself and my partner, 2 more. Yep. And then we’re bringing on 2 more here, sometime this this month. We just got a acceptance from someone yesterday. We were super excited about that, and we’re looking to bring out someone else. Yeah. We are currently snowed over, drowning in work, and so we we really need to bring, yeah, at least 2 people on right away.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:07:42]:
Oh, fantastic. Goodness.
Dustin Cole [00:07:43]:
Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:07:44]:
Alright. Well, on this podcast, we love to talk about, case studies about, times that people sort of use Salesforce had a massive impact on a business or organization. And then also talk about one that you’ve just found personally fascinating, then also talk about one which maybe didn’t go so well or something that didn’t go well and sort of what you learned from that. Do you mind if we start talking about some case studies now?
Dustin Cole [00:08:02]:
Sure. Yeah. I’d love to.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:08:03]:
So firstly, yeah, can you think of in your career or even something you’ve heard of where, you know, the Salesforce implementation has had a massive impact on a business in terms of revenue or donations or operations in some form. Does anything come to mind?
Dustin Cole [00:08:16]:
Well, there’s quite a few that’s, you know, I we we really like the, or the big impact from a very fresh, and small limited Salesforce implementation. So we’ve had several instances where we do you know, in development teams for mid to small small sized nonprofits, the development teams are only, 2 to 8 people, and you can really get them off the ground, within a month or 2, just by setting them up, data migration, training, setting up reports. It’s pretty pretty simple stuff.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:08:51]:
Yep. Not that
Dustin Cole [00:08:52]:
I mean, we have plenty of larger projects, but we’ve there’s so much impact from a a fresh when people come off of Excel sheets, when people come off of just, like, not knowing the history of any of their donors. And then they have all of the history of their donors, and they can run a report that says, you know, who gave last year that hasn’t given yet this year? Really basic CRM donor management stuff, and they go from nothing or things that take hours to things that are available on their homepage, right when they log in. And then it’s always, you know, these teams are fairly cash strapped. Right? And so they they go from having nothing to having all this information available on these processes and automations. And they can finally start utilizing, their data. And so we we seal we get to see a lot of those huge wins off of, smaller teams freshly, freshly put on to Salesforce. Unfortunately, actually, that’s that’s not too much of our work. We get a lot of work trying to fix Salesforce or fix past development work.
Dustin Cole [00:10:05]:
Right? That’s Yeah. That’s quite a bit of our work, but I really like those those fresh, those fresh installs.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:10:14]:
And what do you call so part of the benefits is just digital transformation benefits in general where they’re going from, you know, spreadsheets all over the place through to a single system where it’s all there and, you know, the key information is highlighted, as you said, on that first page when they log in. Is that the sort of key benefit in those scenarios? Is that
Dustin Cole [00:10:29]:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. It’s exactly right.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:10:33]:
For those, you know, in that fundraising space, is it what makes the most impact that you’ve seen? Is it the fact that they can then say, oh, yeah. John gave us 10,000 last year. He’s done nothing this year. That’s a high priority phone call for us to make today. Is it that is it that kind of just making it so simple to say that, oh, yeah. This person is a really regular donor, but it wasn’t that clear in my mind. So I’ve been wasting my time on someone who may not be as, a fruitful of a donor to sort of just really focus their resources on the highest likelihood sort of tasks. Is it just that simple, essentially? You know?
Dustin Cole [00:11:03]:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s that simple, and it’s, you know, the whole 360 degree view of a individual being able to actually have the data in one place and all connected together so they can see that this person, has a relationship with this, you know, board member. Yeah. And so we can get that board member to talk to this person to arrange a donation.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:11:23]:
So it’s just
Dustin Cole [00:11:24]:
centralizing, getting all that info in one place that they can actually utilize it, or they can utilize it in a better way that they don’t have to spend so much time looking up that data. Because they they wanna do a lot of this work, but they’re time limited, so they they can’t do it. So, having a proper Salesforce implementation, they can actually utilize it on a larger scale instead of focusing and a lot of small nonprofit development teams that just start focusing or they, are often limited to focusing on their highest owners because that’s all they have time for. But once they have the data Yeah. Usable, they can actually spread that out to some of the medium sized and smaller sized data and try to work them up the, kind of up the up the pyramid of of engagement to Yep.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:12:14]:
Yeah. Start doing some list based emails, and we start getting a lot more effective with the with the time. Yeah. Cool. Mhmm. And when you do those implementations, is it pretty straightforward NPSP plus status club? Is there any any other sort of apps that you tend to add on in general that you sort of found useful, or is it pretty straightforward, out of the box type stuff?
Dustin Cole [00:12:32]:
Oh, yeah. There’s definitely a a list of apps that we we typically go to. Most nonprofits need a a donation an online donation service. So Give Lively is a great one. Classy is a good one. Salesforce used to have one called Elevate, and they just killed it. Mhmm. So there’s there’s always that.
Dustin Cole [00:12:49]:
Almost all of my clients have a form tool. The form tools always have, always have needs to and have so much ROI in terms of getting data in the system Yeah. Whether it’s for, you know, web webinar registrations, event registrations, contact us forms, stuff like that. So forms only form stack, job form, gravity forms sometimes. Yep. And then document generation is a big one, tax receipts. So Yep. We love Appsona.
Dustin Cole [00:13:19]:
Forestack’s a great one. Okay. Conga, if I have to. So,
Jerome Clatworthy [00:13:26]:
yeah. Yeah. That’s Cool. Cool.
Dustin Cole [00:13:28]:
Those are the main main ones. Yeah. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:13:29]:
That comes pretty well. And, I guess, just from your personal point of view, is there a project you’ve been involved with that you just personally found, super fascinating, that just really was interesting to you for whatever reason regardless of the the business impact?
Dustin Cole [00:13:42]:
Yeah. Yeah. Currently, I’m working with, the Goodwill of North Florida. They’re really cool, cool good Goodwill. And I think what people don’t typically know about Goodwills is that the front facing store is actually a it’s not the main well, I guess it is one of their main parts of their business, but they do so much work on top of that. So they do a lot of workforce development and and and people training. So they have a store so that they can hire people to employ them there. But they also do a whole bunch of other
Jerome Clatworthy [00:14:14]:
work on
Dustin Cole [00:14:15]:
top of that. And so one thing that I’m working with them on is they have a landscaping business. You wouldn’t think that Goodwill would have a landscaping business, but that’s part of their, employment. Right? They wanna, you know, help these people get jobs, and they employ themselves and have them go out and cut grass, do irrigation work, some pest control.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:14:34]:
Interesting. So is that is that the the branding similar to Goodwill, or it’s a totally different so if we saw the the trailer drive past, we wouldn’t recognize it, or is it typically under that Goodwill sort of terminology still when they’re doing those other things?
Dustin Cole [00:14:45]:
It’s called Landscaping Consultants, I. I forget what the I stands for. LCI.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:14:51]:
Yeah. Sure.
Dustin Cole [00:14:52]:
But it’s it’s co branded. Yeah. So you you would probably you would see it and know it if you saw the invoice that has both Goodwill and and LCI on it. But the the build that we’re doing for them, it’s it’s total field service management. So Oh, really? Yeah. They have 10 trucks. They come they have trucks come in every day, have 5 jobs to do that day. And so we’ve built this whole system in Salesforce to to schedule schedule the trucks, do routing Really? Send them out and have them you log build estimates, you know, control invoices, you know, the whole whole field service management business.
Dustin Cole [00:15:26]:
It’s all all for that that goodwill.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:15:29]:
I’ve never had a chance to play with field service, but it looks like it’s a really interesting cloud I’ve wanted to sort of, have a go with. Have you done much field service management, or has this been one of the first opportunities?
Dustin Cole [00:15:38]:
This I’ve actually done something similar for another company. Okay. But, actually, we’re not using Salesforce’s field service management because that’s a it’s kind of a beast of a Yeah. System. And for just 10 trucks, it’s it’s kinda like killing a fly with a sledgehammer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dustin Cole [00:15:53]:
So just
Jerome Clatworthy [00:15:53]:
taking those principles. So more of a custom build, or is there an app that’s been good for that?
Dustin Cole [00:15:58]:
Yeah. It’s it’s a custom build, but there’s an app that I’ve been using for this. It’s called Dayback. It’s Okay. It’s a calendaring, application, actually. But it’s great for resource management. And, and then their development team is is really awesome. So their development team can assist with things like setting up, like, routing and scheduling, and they can do a lot of stuff with with this program.
Dustin Cole [00:16:22]:
Yeah. It’s it’s actually a incredible calendar. Like, Salesforce’s calendaring system is pretty pretty weak. Okay. Like, Salesforce Scheduler that.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:16:31]:
Is that what it’s called? Salesforce Scheduler’s like their Salesforce Scheduler? Their, licenses, I mean, is that
Dustin Cole [00:16:37]:
Oh, oh, yeah. Actually, their scheduler, I haven’t played around with too much, but I’m I’m just talking about their calendar Okay. Like this normal sales calendar?
Jerome Clatworthy [00:16:45]:
Yeah. Sure. Sure.
Dustin Cole [00:16:47]:
Yeah. Yeah. So day back is, quite low cost.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:16:51]:
Yeah. Right.
Dustin Cole [00:16:52]:
You can pull from any object in Salesforce and display it on a calendar, but there’s so much more that can go go into it in terms of customization. And you could really take it anywhere you want with, with custom code as well. Yeah. There’s a lot of stuff you can do programmatically. And then there’s a lot of stuff you like, your dev team could do with, with that product.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:17:13]:
Wow.
Dustin Cole [00:17:13]:
And then also their in house dev team is very, very good as well. So, yeah, it’s definitely a product that I highly highly recommend.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:17:22]:
Yeah. Sure. Oh, fantastic. And did they come to you saying this is what we wanna use, or that was part of your process was to, I guess, find that solution and put that forward in terms of Dayvac and stuff like that?
Dustin Cole [00:17:31]:
Yeah. No. I used Dayvac for a previous, previous client and really liked it, so I I recommended it for this one.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:17:38]:
Yeah. Nice. Fantastic. Oh, that is really interesting. I did not know Goodwill was sort of doing that other thing as well. Yeah. Alright. Now, Tessa, another case study.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:17:46]:
Is there an example you could think of where maybe things really didn’t go so well and then maybe lessons learned and what you do differently as a result?
Dustin Cole [00:17:53]:
Yeah. For sure. Probably the one project that I really, really dropped the ball on or had struggled with, maybe I should say, was a Razor’s Edge to Salesforce migration. And Okay. Razor’s Edge is a product by a company called Blackbaud, and it’s it’s probably the 2nd most popular donation management system.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:18:17]:
Okay.
Dustin Cole [00:18:18]:
And it’s, yeah. So it’s it’s quite a it’s got quite a quite a reach, but there are a lot of Razor’s Edge Salesforce migrations out there. But the thing about Raises Edge is that it the data model is, extremely different from Salesforce. And so the migration, can be can be really difficult if you don’t know what you’re doing.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:18:40]:
Yeah, sure.
Dustin Cole [00:18:41]:
Which I certainly didn’t. And at the time, I was working at a, at another consulting firm, and I’ve gotten this project. And there were some other people at the firm that had done some, some migrations. Mhmm. But just the way that that that firm worked, there there wasn’t too much collaboration going on. So if one person was assigned to a project, that’s you you’re pretty much you gotta figure it out yourself. And Oh, really?
Jerome Clatworthy [00:19:12]:
Was that just people too people say busy on the right thing or there was, like, I don’t know, privacy secrecy to privacy sort of things? Or was it just everyone was just focused on their own? What was the what was underlying that?
Dustin Cole [00:19:24]:
I I think it’s just it’s just a culture of Yeah. Of, I don’t know, do do do it on your own. Self
Jerome Clatworthy [00:19:32]:
sufficiency for me. Okay.
Dustin Cole [00:19:33]:
Yeah. Yeah. And it it you know, I think it was also my fault for not raising a flag and and calling it out earlier Yep. And making more of us think about it. But, yeah, that that that project didn’t go so well and had to be rescued by someone else at the firm eventually. Okay. So it did it did turn out okay in the end, but Yeah. It didn’t didn’t go great.
Dustin Cole [00:19:58]:
But I did learn a lot about, systems and and data migration. And Okay. My partner, Haley, who is our head of services, and is way more technically talented and savvy than I am. She really prides herself on data migrations, and she has a whole presentation on it. And there is a long process and, system that you need to follow when you’re when you’re doing a proper systems and data migration.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:20:26]:
Yeah. Right.
Dustin Cole [00:20:27]:
And, yeah, I’m really glad that now we have a we have a thorough guide. Yeah. We have a whole process around it. And our company has a great knowledge base, and Mhmm. We’re super collaborative, and no one no one is out there on their own. And we’re trying to build a culture that’s, to try to not have something like that happen. And I it’s inevitable if if the project manager, if someone like me, doesn’t actually reach out. You know? But, Yeah.
Dustin Cole [00:20:54]:
We are trying to trying to avoid that from happening.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:20:57]:
Yeah. So it sounds like, I guess, learning’s 2 pronged on the technical side. It’s learning’s about data migration, and you’ve sort of addressed that by having third process and SOPs around that. And then secondly, the other thing is you’re current in that culture. If if you’re having a problem, shout out. Let’s all figure it out together as opposed to struggle on your own and fall over because you’re not getting any help with something that you haven’t been properly prepared to do.
Dustin Cole [00:21:20]:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And then we also make sure we staff all of our projects with at least at least 2 people and the Okay. And the supervisor, the delivery manager is just as engaged on the project as the, as the project manager, the primary Yeah. Sure. Point person. So in that way, we have some, accountability and
Jerome Clatworthy [00:21:41]:
Yeah. Sure. To be able to multiple sets of eyes seeing how things are going. So if one person doesn’t see the problem, the other one might sort of just increase the chance of or decrease the chance of something going real badly.
Dustin Cole [00:21:51]:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, it it costs more for the clients and Yeah. Sure. Because it takes more of our time, but it’s Yep. It’s so much it’s you know, it’s not just 1 plus only because 2, it’s it’s way more than that.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:02]:
Yeah.
Dustin Cole [00:22:03]:
The end result. And so it’s as much better quality of service.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:07]:
Absolutely. Sure. Sure. Alright. Well, I appreciate those cases. That was really interesting. As we sort of get towards the end, I just wanna geek out on a few, technical questions if that’s alright. So firstly, iPhone or Android, where do you sit?
Dustin Cole [00:22:19]:
IPhone for sure.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:20]:
Okay. Alright. Mac or PC? Mac, usually.
Dustin Cole [00:22:24]:
Though Okay. I What is it like? PC is that too.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:27]:
Okay.
Dustin Cole [00:22:28]:
Yeah. Usually usually Mac, but I have a PC for gaming. And, Okay. Yeah. I I like it a lot.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:34]:
What’s your gaming PC specs? What do you got under the hood?
Dustin Cole [00:22:37]:
You know, it’s nothing fancy. It’s Okay. My the only game I play is DotA.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:44]:
Okay.
Dustin Cole [00:22:44]:
I just don’t have time. I have I have a I have a 1 and a 3 year old in a business and, like
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:49]:
I get it.
Dustin Cole [00:22:49]:
Yeah. Sometimes, maybe once a month, I can play with my brother for a couple hours, but it’s Yeah. Yeah. It doesn’t I don’t get to play as much right now, unfortunately.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:59]:
Understood. And, in house navigators, how do you guys sort of communicate or how do you manage your projects? What’s your tech stack in that sense? What’s
Dustin Cole [00:23:06]:
Yeah. So most of our a lot of our stuff is in Salesforce. Obviously, Slack is our primary communication tool. We use Confluence for internal documentation. We’re actually rolling it out for client documentation too.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:23:20]:
Oh, right.
Dustin Cole [00:23:20]:
Client documentation is, I think, one of the biggest, biggest things that I’ve seen other partners fail at. And
Jerome Clatworthy [00:23:32]:
Okay. So Leaving them with a a handbook to how to use system when you’re gone sort of thing.
Dustin Cole [00:23:37]:
Yeah. Absolutely. So all of our configuration is documented. Mostly, it’s it we build admin guides. So it’s like, how do we build this? Why do we build it? And if someone if we came along in 2 years and forgot or someone else comes along, how are they going to maintain it? So we use Confluence for well, we don’t use Confluence for client documentation now, but but we will. Yeah. What else do we use? We use Todoist for internal task management. Yep.
Dustin Cole [00:24:03]:
It’s quite it’s quite simple, but it it gets the job done, and I like it a lot.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:24:07]:
Okay.
Dustin Cole [00:24:07]:
And then, you know, Google Workspace. We use a lot of Loom. We love creating quick Loom videos for documentation or just, like Okay. How to do something. It’s a great way to create a quick video.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:24:17]:
And is that just now it’s got the integration with Jira Confluence. Does that make that even easier? Is that what’s or you were sort of using them separately already?
Dustin Cole [00:24:25]:
Yeah. We haven’t we haven’t used that. We just, you know, No. We haven’t used that.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:24:30]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. I do find it super handy, though. Yeah. And if you’re CEO of Salesforce for a day, what’s you could wave your magic wand, or is there sort of a a single bugbear that you would fix or a new feature you’d roll out if you were in charge of Salesforce products?
Dustin Cole [00:24:45]:
I would not announce products until they’re ready to launch.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:24:50]:
Yeah. Right.
Dustin Cole [00:24:51]:
Maybe I would get them to stop talking about AI for another, like, 2 years until there’s actual especially for nonprofits, things tend to roll out to, like, Nike and Adidas and Yeah. You know, those those flagship firms first. And then we get the we get the, you know, keynotes that look incredible. And then Yeah. Maybe 10 years down the line, a nonprofit will will see a a product that is somewhat affordable. Yeah. So I kinda wish they would stop doing that.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:25:21]:
Yeah. Right. And in terms of AI, what, I was gonna ask that as well. What do you think Do you think it’s having impact now, or how long do you think until it really changes the the day to day work of a a Salesforce admin? Or do you think it already has?
Dustin Cole [00:25:35]:
You know, I’m not I’m not sure. I haven’t seen too much yet that convinces me that it’s, especially in the nonprofit space, that it’s it’s useful yet. I’m sure one day it will be, and I love seeing chat gbt just kinda integrated into, you know, a lot of different things. I think that’s really cool. But I’ll be really excited when when you can build reports through text input and Yeah. Of course. Can provide guidance on data architecture and data collection. So, yeah, I don’t really see it right now, but I’m I’m sure more and more things will open up in the next few years.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:26:13]:
So when, sort of, playing language can be converted to a a really meaty sort of circle command and really get the exact data they want in the way they want it, you’d be pretty excited to see that. What’s up?
Dustin Cole [00:26:23]:
Yeah. That would that would be great. Yeah. But but the hard part about running reports is not pulling up the reports. It’s the Get clear
Jerome Clatworthy [00:26:29]:
on what you need.
Dustin Cole [00:26:31]:
Yeah. It’s all and it’s all the stuff that comes before it. It’s the data collection. It’s what what what do we put in the forums? What do we ask people when we give them a phone call? We enter that, you know, and then we have to build the data architecture and the the, you know, the report building comes at the very end. So I don’t even know how AI can help with that. Yeah. You know, really. But It’s
Jerome Clatworthy [00:26:50]:
got bad data to work with. It’s not gonna be much use. Yeah. Cool. And I think you mentioned it earlier in terms of, I guess, some of your work is inheriting existing orgs and sort of, fixing apps and messes. What do you find, I guess, when you, you know, take on a job of an existing org? What is there some common themes of, I guess, mistakes or poor implementations that you’ve sort of witnessed that you think people should be aware of when they’re doing new new implementations?
Dustin Cole [00:27:16]:
Yeah. I think in general, people tend to over over automate. Okay. And there’s a lot of I I see the temptation. Right? It’s it’s so nice to solve the problem for a client by creating a button or creating some type of automation. Mhmm. Some validation rules. Right? But the thing is that every time you build an automation, first of all, it costs money.
Dustin Cole [00:27:42]:
So the consultants cost money, or whoever’s building it. And then you create technical debt. So you’re you’re baking into that, org that that specific process. But a lot of orgs change very quickly. They new staff come in, wanna do something different. They wanna change up their data model or something. Yeah. So I always tell clients to you you know, I can say, I can build this, but you gotta realize that there’s always gonna be some type technical debt here.
Dustin Cole [00:28:13]:
And if you guys change your mind in a couple months, we’re gonna have to come back and and and, you know, kind of pull this all apart.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:28:22]:
Yeah. Right.
Dustin Cole [00:28:22]:
And and that’s what we do a lot is that, you know, we someone hits an error, they come to us, and they’re like, well, there’s this big automation. And they’re like, we’ve never heard of that. So we have to unravel that we have to audit the fields. Are the fields being used? No, maybe. Can we delete them? Maybe. And so we spent a lot of time doing that. So I Yeah. I always advise my clients.
Dustin Cole [00:28:44]:
Let’s, maybe let’s hold off on that. And let’s let’s do your process manually for a while. And if you guys really want that automation in in one moment, then we’ll build it. We get a little bit less work from that. But Yes. That’s totally fine. It’s it’s it’s much better to slow down on automations and builds and go slow on that rather than build quick and then have to have to unravel it later on.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:29:10]:
So your in so your philosophy tends to be start smaller and sort of let them get get them in the system and start doing their work a little bit and then sort of get a feel for get at the moment, and they are from from here, what’s gonna be the best value add in terms of the next thing that we can make easier for you and quicker for you as opposed to, here’s our 10 things. We’re gonna build it all and see you later. Good luck.
Dustin Cole [00:29:31]:
For sure. Yeah. Especially when it’s a fresh build. I always want them to work in the system for a while so that they are sure about of other systems, data collection, and processes. And and actually so they’re working in it. And then when they find out what their real pain points are, what their Yeah. Repetitive tasks are, then we can build those automations.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:29:53]:
Yeah. Perfect. Okay. How many hours do you think you’re working a week on average? What would you guess?
Dustin Cole [00:30:00]:
You know, I’m I’m only working about 40 hours a week. Okay. And that’s because when, you know, my I have to get my my kids are 1 and 3, like I said. And so in the morning, I’m getting them ready. I have to make their lunches. It takes, like, an hour and a half of both maybe an hour if me and my wife are both working just to get them changed, cleaned up, get we have to make their lunches. So the morning is packed. Then I take them to school, come home, and then I can I can work? And then I pick them up at 4:30.
Dustin Cole [00:30:29]:
Yeah. And then after that, if I even look at the computer, my wife is, like she’s upset with me. So I might be able to get some more work done after 8, 8:30 after they go down. But at that point, I’m just I’m just tired. So Yeah. Okay. I don’t like to do that unless I really You’ve been pretty
Jerome Clatworthy [00:30:42]:
respectable business sales for the most part?
Dustin Cole [00:30:45]:
Yeah. Nice. So I’m I’m probably averaging around 40.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:30:49]:
Yeah. Sure. What’s the perfect day from your point of view? Like, it’s door locked and tapped away the computer, or you wanna be on the phone talking with clients out and about having conversations? What’s your sort of preferred mode of operation or bit of both, Leon?
Dustin Cole [00:31:02]:
You know, I I used to love doing Salesforce configuration and doing Salesforce fields. Not as much anymore. I really like talking to talking to clients, talking to new potential clients, talking about their their processes, their, you know, their their pain points, and
Jerome Clatworthy [00:31:17]:
Yeah.
Dustin Cole [00:31:18]:
And how we can how we can solve it. So I I love doing initial discovery and writing up project plans and proposals and Okay. And taking meetings. I know Hailey, my partner, loves just heads down. Just don’t bother me. You know, do not disturb is on, and she can do that all day long. That would drive me crazy. I’m on the other hand.
Dustin Cole [00:31:35]:
I can do meetings all day, and I’ll I’ll I’ll be surprised in that role. Yep.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:31:39]:
Yeah. Right. Okay, Frances. And so are you guys working from home then? Is that the situation? You don’t have an office external? Is that No. We’re all I guess, if your kids are away at daycare or whatever, that that would work around. No distractions.
Dustin Cole [00:31:50]:
Yeah. We’re all
Jerome Clatworthy [00:31:51]:
yeah. Nice one. Alright. Well, that is, my interrogation fleet. I appreciate your time. Take the chance to tell us all about Navigators and, you know, what you guys condition people.
Dustin Cole [00:32:01]:
Sure. Yeah. So Navigators is a salesless partner. We have taken tried to take him try to have taken all the stuff we’ve learned from our previous consulting roles and working in in companies in Salesforce and just do it do it a little bit better. You know, we really focus on client training and documentation and empowerment. We really focus on trying to give the best, advice and most transparent, advice we can. And we’ve seen a a lot of success. We’ve been really thankful to have a lot of our old clients come back to us, see a lot of referrals.
Dustin Cole [00:32:41]:
You know, we do know we don’t do any paid or not much paid marketing, and it’s it’s all, you know, word-of-mouth. And, you know, it’s been a really, really great journey. The the the first 6 months was a little scary.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:32:52]:
Oh, boy.
Dustin Cole [00:32:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. Really, really scary. But, it’s been really, really thriving lately, and we’re kinda building. You know, I think we’re hitting our stride, this year in terms of really solidifying our our processes. And we’ve got a great team. We’ve got 2 just absolutely awesome, employees, and we’ve got a few more coming in that we think are very, very high potential. And, yes, it’s been it’s it’s been really great.
Dustin Cole [00:33:23]:
And most importantly, we’ve got to see a lot of clients just really, really thrive and have their their technology and organizations be be empowered through our our partnership. And, yeah, we’ve also really enjoyed moving from a project based model. We still do a lot of project work where we do full scoping and project lifestyle life cycle. But we more than half of our business at this point is what we call expert on demand, which is a managed services Yeah. Sure. Subscription style where people Fantastic. Organizations subscribe for a certain hours number of hours a month, and then Yep. We are just their external, administrators.
Dustin Cole [00:34:08]:
And, we really like that kind of work because our goal is to be navigators. Basically, we are the organization’s support, and we will help them get to where they wanna go. And,
Jerome Clatworthy [00:34:23]:
is that typically, like, I mean, really small orgs where they just don’t have an IT team at all, and you guys are their IT team, or they’ve got one, but you guys just do the Salesforce side or all of the above sort of thing?
Dustin Cole [00:34:35]:
It it really depends. Yeah. Most of them are smaller, but we have some clients at the 40 hours a month range. So it’s just kind of like Yeah. Right. Interesting. Thresholds of where it might make sense for them to hire an internal administrator. But even if someone hires an internal administrator, they it’s it’s not guaranteed that they would get the level of service that they would get with someone like us because we have a a a deeper bench of of talent.
Dustin Cole [00:35:02]:
We can pull from Yeah. You know, a whole a whole group of people that can that can support them.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:35:08]:
And you’ve got that background. If you were there from you built it from the ground up in a lot of cases, then you’ve got that, understanding of their platform and the data model, and they don’t have to go through that whole process of a new person coming to learn in the org and and then starting the work. So you’re ready to go from
Dustin Cole [00:35:22]:
Yeah. Yeah. But we also work with a lot of internal, administrators too
Jerome Clatworthy [00:35:27]:
Yeah.
Dustin Cole [00:35:27]:
Which is great because they that that’s even better, actually.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:35:30]:
We love working with the new guidance. Add new users, all all the the really straightforward stuff, and then you guys can sort of come in and out for the more complex and bigger things.
Dustin Cole [00:35:40]:
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And then a lot of what we offer is just just guidance. You know? Yeah. Keep keeping that door open for, questions like, hey. I’m thinking about this this problem. You know, what are your what are your thoughts on Salesforce apps or or something like that? And and we can we can offer that kind of, you know, guidance.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:35:59]:
And where did the Navigator’s name come from? Is that got a specific meaning or just something that neatly Yeah. Maps the way you think about the process?
Dustin Cole [00:36:08]:
Yeah. It’s it’s actually it came from, an aviation theme. Me and me and Hailey are both big aviation enthusiasts. Haley spent 20 years in the navy as a air crewman, so she was doing flight missions as a cryptographer and intel intelligence analyst over Afghanistan. So she’s she spent a lot of time in in airplanes. And, and then I got my private pilot’s license about 2 years ago, so I’ve done really Oh, beautiful. Love flying, and I just love aviation in general. And so that’s that’s where the name came from, is that shared background.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:36:44]:
Yeah. Fantastic. Alright. And how do people get in touch with you if they wanna talk more?
Dustin Cole [00:36:48]:
Yeah. My email is great. Dustin.colcrmnavigators.com. You could also go to the website.com and and find our contact information also on Twitter at, dustinmcole. And, LinkedIn is also a great place. You just search for me and and find me there too.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:37:05]:
Perfect. Well, thanks so much for your time, Dustin. Really appreciate it. I’ll finish up with one last question of what’s something exciting coming up for you either in work or outside of work? Anything interesting on the horizon?
Dustin Cole [00:37:17]:
Oh, man. I can’t wait until my youngest daughter, stops crying all day every day.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:37:25]:
I know
Dustin Cole [00:37:25]:
that doesn’t sound that exciting, but she’s like, I feel like she’s almost there. She’s 3rd she’s 15 months. And that’s kind of the threshold with my older one that she stopped just being like a huge amount of work. Yeah. That’s the nicer way to put that. So Yeah. You know, most people don’t won’t really the the fathers will or the the parents will understand.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:37:48]:
But I understand.
Dustin Cole [00:37:49]:
I understand. That’s super exciting, but I can’t can’t wait for that.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:37:52]:
Alright. Well, again, thanks so much for your time, Dustin. Really appreciate it, and all the best in Navigators.
Dustin Cole [00:37:58]:
Alright. Thanks a lot, Jerome. Thanks for having
Jerome Clatworthy [00:37:59]:
me. Cheers. See you.