Episode Overview
In this episode, I speak with Jon Mervis of Blue Engine Solutions, a CRM consultancy from the Washington DC area.
As a family man turned tech entrepreneur, Jon has a unique story of transitioning from the family diamond business to CRM consulting, then carving out a niche in the Salesforce ecosystem. His firm took root in 2020 and Jon’s leading a talented team of eight, facing the challenges of customization, user adoption, and project management in the Salesforce universe.
Join us as Jon shares the bittersweet symphony of CRM implementation, from success stories with nonprofit organizations to sobering tales of projects strained by inadequate requirement gathering. We’ll get into the nitty-gritty of how Salesforce revolutionized operations for a construction client, delve into the lessons learned from a project gone south, and discuss the balancing act between rapid deployment and the necessity of understanding a client’s broader business processes.
Amid conversations about work-life balance, technology preferences, and project management tools, Jon also reflects on the importance of ROI and industry exposure for his team. Furthermore, he touches upon the future of AI in CRM and prepares for the personal milestone of welcoming a new family member.
So stay tuned as we discuss the intricacies of CRM strategies, the pitfalls of piecemeal solutions, and the ethos behind Blue Engine Solutions, where persistence and challenge merge with the transformative power of Salesforce.
Interview Highlights
Introduction to Guest and Background
- Jerome Clatworthy introduces Jon Mervis from Blue Engine Solutions.
- Jon shares about his personal life: living with a 2-year-old child, a dog, and growing up in Washington DC.
- Transition from the family diamond jewelry business to CRM consulting.
Founding of Blue Engine Solutions
- Starting the business in 2020 with a small team.
- Choosing to specialize in Salesforce over other CRM platforms.
- The company’s approach to project management and team management.
Client Case Studies
- Discussion about a construction client’s implementation of Salesforce.
- The challenges in user adoption and how Salesforce addressed their issues.
- A case where the project failed due to insufficient requirement gathering.
Project Management Insights
- Importance of comprehensive requirement gathering.
- Drawbacks of directly translating old systems (e.g., Excel) into Salesforce without adapting processes.
- Learning from past failures and the significance of detailed planning.
Business Philosophy and Approach
- Jon’s focus on delivering ROI and offering industry-wide expertise.
- The tendency of small businesses to have piecemeal solutions and the role of CRM to consolidate operations.
Work-Life Balance and Business Operations
- Jon’s weekly workload and preference for business socializing.
- Use of project management tools like ClickUp and Elements.cloud within the team.
The Story Behind “Blue Engine Solutions”
- Reasoning behind the company name and its relationship to Salesforce.
- Approach to starting the business with basic branding and website development.
Future Focus and Personal Updates
- Preparations for the upcoming baby.
- The need to learn about AI and its integration into Salesforce services.
- Discussing the potential and challenges of AI in custom Salesforce solutions.
Salesforce Success Stories
- Improvements made for a nonprofit through Salesforce implementation.
- How Salesforce enabled better operations and increased the nonprofit’s impact.
Tech Preferences and Salesforce Customization
- Jon’s experience with ClickUp for time tracking and project management.
- Preferences for flexible work arrangements and adaptable contracts with clients.
- Jon’s wish for better default naming conventions in Salesforce.
Common Salesforce Missteps
- Poor setup practices like the creation of unnecessary custom fields.
- Example of a client with an unorganized database due to irrelevant custom fields.
Conclusion
- Contact information for Jon Mervis.
- Final thoughts on the importance of clear project goals and client understanding.
- Jerome’s farewells and well wishes for Jon’s growing family.
Full Episode Transcript
Jerome Clatworthy [00:01:59]:
So, John, where in the world are you sitting as we have this chat?
Jon Mervis [00:02:03]:
Sure. I’m in the Washington DC area, just outside DC in an area called Maryland and Chevy Chase, Maryland.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:09]:
Okay. And definitely my sort of Geography knowledge is pretty low for that area. Is that kind of metropolitan still or is it a bit more regional? Is
Jon Mervis [00:02:17]:
that No. It is. Exactly. It’s metropolitan DC.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:20]:
Okay.
Jon Mervis [00:02:21]:
About a half mile from the city line, but where I am, it feels quieter. You know, I’ve got a dog and a little kid, so we can walk down the middle of the street and Okay. Quiet.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:29]:
Very cool. Well. And, before we get stuck in the Salesforce, so what does life look like, I guess, outside of work in terms of, okay, partners, kids, pets, dependents, hobbies?
Jon Mervis [00:02:37]:
What do you guys got to? I’ve got a 2 year old who’s really a joy, that, I spend a lot of time with and, that’s really the joy of my life. Yeah. And I’ve got a a 3 year old little dog to to my side that is, a pain in the ass. And,
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:52]:
What sort of dog? What breed of him?
Jon Mervis [00:02:54]:
He’s actually an Aussiedoodle. Okay. I don’t I’m just
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:57]:
gonna leave with that.
Jon Mervis [00:02:58]:
Yeah. An Australian Shepherd and a poodle. No. He’s a wonderful dog, but now that, I’ve got a 2 year old that I have to chase around and my wife is pregnant. I I just I have far less patience for a dog and I I’m I I prioritize other things and so yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:03:12]:
And life is good. So I’m in Washington DC. I grew up around here, and stayed around here. We’ll get into it later about my business, but I think they’re sort of a big part of, my business is just like the network of people that I’ve met over the years. If, you know, Was it it wasn’t through networking? It was like they’re going to 1st grade or going to summer camp as a kid or Yeah. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:03:32]:
Wow. Okay.
Jon Mervis [00:03:33]:
The the people in my life that I’ve just Known forever or I know their cousin or their sister or whatever.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:03:38]:
It’s a really organic sort of network. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:03:40]:
Yeah. Exactly. And so, you know, Right. That’s just it’s like sort of those leads, like, fall into my lap. I don’t, like, network for them, but Really? That’s just sort of the the honest truth about well. Without my life.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:03:51]:
Yeah. Fantastic. And how did you get started with Salesforce, John? What was your introduction to the
Jon Mervis [00:03:56]:
Yes. So, My well, I was working, in the family business. My family’s in the diamond jewelry business. And retail, Originally, the family’s from South Africa. So anyway, I was working the family business for about 10 years, and being a multi generational business, of Of course. I, as a on the younger side, was, like, interested in technology and systems and how do we, like, make things more streamlined and processes. And, I brought in, a CRM, Sugar CRM. Well, first of all, I saw the need.
Jon Mervis [00:04:29]:
I was like, wait. You know? Why don’t we not have, like, 1 centralized system? Why can’t And we see, like, you know, visibility of what’s going on and and what Sure. And, brought in SugarCRM, and owned that for, many years, adding all sorts of functionality and and, you know, integrations and whatever, and really, like, saw firsthand sort of the Digital transformation, at a retailer that, you know, diamond jewelry, it’s a sort of old fashioned business, been the same for generations. Yeah. And sort of saw that how the power of a CRM and how it can help a business grow, and then realized, like, I wanna sort of Focus on that. I wanna do that. I like that a lot more than the diamond and the jewelry. So I decided to go off on my own and sort of build out a practice of CRM consulting.
Jon Mervis [00:05:19]:
Yeah. So were
Jerome Clatworthy [00:05:19]:
you in a tech sort of role or just a jack of all trades, family business, you do everything and the technology?
Jon Mervis [00:05:24]:
Exactly. I mean, I didn’t, you know, go through a traditional hiring role. I didn’t apply for a traditional role Yeah. As a family business. Like, you do whatever you think
Jerome Clatworthy [00:05:33]:
Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:05:33]:
The the needs are on that day and a big part of that for me was CRM. Yep. So when I decided to go off on my own and start a CRM consulting business, I I made the decision that if I’m gonna do CRM, like, I should I want to learn the biggest and the best or the best and the brightest, and that is Salesforce. And so I conceptually understood everything, you know, in terms of, like, from another CRM, but there was cross training, of course, Learning a different system. Mhmm. And the truth is I went in completely from the ground up, you know, like, starting Trailblazer or Trailhead, whatever from
Jerome Clatworthy [00:06:07]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:06:07]:
Zero knowledge, and just decided, like, this is gonna be what I do. This is gonna be my new career, and launched my business, and that was in 2020.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:06:17]:
Okay. So coming up 4 years now. A whole better for you. Is that cool? And how would you describe your current role? So are you a one man show? You got a team that you’re looking How how big is it?
Jon Mervis [00:06:26]:
Yeah. I’ve got a small team. I’ve got, a team of about 8, most of which are contractors, well. And, some full time employees as well. And, what was the question?
Jerome Clatworthy [00:06:40]:
Yeah. How would you describe your current role? So you’re mostly Mostly managing people or are you still sort of in the weeds doing that doing the work as well?
Jon Mervis [00:06:46]:
No. Mostly, I’m mostly, I’m managing people and projects.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:06:49]:
Okay.
Jon Mervis [00:06:50]:
I’m not in the weeds In, you know, specific, building out whatever flows and and situations. Yep. And, you know, I try to step in to any projects where I’m needed, where there’s, support, well, where I feel like I can help. Certainly, like, I don’t wanna see things stagnate. I don’t wanna things go off the rails. I’m the ultimate sort of, the buck stops here in terms of
Jerome Clatworthy [00:07:16]:
Yep.
Jon Mervis [00:07:16]:
Making sure project is successful, but, otherwise, I give my team a lot of autonomy and, like Yeah. You know, you’re in charge. I’m not gonna micromanage, but I’m here to support you.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:07:25]:
Well. Yeah. Fantastic. Cool. Cool. So now you’re just sort of making sure the work gets done whether someone else is doing it or chipping in if you need to, but just trying to keep the the train rolling down the tracks.
Jon Mervis [00:07:34]:
Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:07:35]:
Well. Alright. Cool. Well, I’m keen to talk about a few potential case studies of, I guess, projects you may have been exposed to over the years. So firstly, maybe one where, you know, Salesforce had a phenomenal impact on a business in terms of profitability or even efficiency if it’s it was used in a a more, behind the scenes sense. And then also one that was just really fascinating to you in terms of really unique use of Salesforce, and then maybe a project where things didn’t go so well or at least in a part of it and sort of what you learned from that and you took away. Does that sound alright?
Jon Mervis [00:08:03]:
Yeah. I think there was a movie made a movie made about this about 50 years ago, The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:08:07]:
Yeah. Okay. That’s a good idea. Yeah. So in terms of, a Salesforce project that you were, exposed to where Salesforce just had, like, a phenomenal impact on a business
Jon Mervis [00:08:16]:
Yeah. I’ll tell you
Jerome Clatworthy [00:08:17]:
that comes to mind. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:08:18]:
Yeah. So, well, first of all, I wanna say that my business, we work by 50% with nonprofits Okay. And 50% with, small businesses. Mhmm. So, So, actually, the first example I wanna tell you about is from a nonprofit. They they it’s nonprofit organization that gives Services to under pram underprivileged families. Okay. You know, they could be giving, you know, school supplies before back to school or or or maybe they’re helping a A family pay their heating bill, because they can’t afford that.
Jon Mervis [00:08:46]:
So before, if I can just tell you, like, the before and after Absolutely. Yeah. They had A team of, like, essentially social workers. Right? Like Yeah. You know, helpers or whatever, caseworkers.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:08:58]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:08:58]:
And hundreds and hundreds of different Google Sheets Tracking every different type of need and then approval, and then, they would have training process trainings, what’s the word? Like, educational courses. Let’s just say, re like, responsible alcohol use or how to do your taxes. You know? They would have courses, and they every different course, every session would be a different Google Sheet on who showed up, who didn’t show up, and they would try to give certificates. And it’s, like, amazing that anything could get done given how many different moving parts there were.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:09:37]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:09:37]:
Yeah. And, the organization was growing and they reached out to us as, like, hey. We need a system. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:09:45]:
So not just in terms of fundraising, some also in terms of the operation side of it or Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:09:49]:
The operations were just, like, falling apart. Right? Yeah. Of course, things like you know, you could do that if you work with 3 clients, but what happens when 3 becomes 30 or 300 or 1000? So, you know, where I’m so excited is, like, like, we built for them, like, a dynamic form, for example. So, when their their clients wanna attend, let’s just say, you know, How to how to parent a difficulty in seminar every Thursday night. They go to, like, one form on our web on their website. The form dynamically is populated with the different events that are saved in Salesforce, so they don’t have to it used to be they would create a different form for every single event.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:10:28]:
So new landing page every single
Jon Mervis [00:10:30]:
New landing page. So now it’s like 1 page. It just dynamically changes and pulls into the data from Salesforce for the upcoming events. Yeah. Obviously, everything is saved to Salesforce. They’re using prime project, what is it called, program management module. It’s called PMM. Okay.
Jon Mervis [00:10:47]:
You. It’s a free, you know, I don’t know, managed package from Salesforce specifically for nonprofits. Actually, I could imagine many not for profits using it as well, but Okay. It handles specifically, you know, who’s enrolled in what program and what are the services we’re giving them. Okay. And, Yeah. Everything is centralized, and it’s dramatically affected the organization, made their team, like, Love the system. I mean Really? I, like everyone else, has has clients that, you know, adoption is an issue, but here, like, the team loves Salesforce because it makes their lives easier.
Jon Mervis [00:11:22]:
And then big picture, it’s enable because everything is centralized, the data’s in one place, management can easily run a report and say, like, We help this many, I don’t know, Asian Americans in Yeah. War in war with grief.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:11:40]:
Their funding funding applications or whatever they wanna use it for to prove what’s gonna be impact they’re having.
Jon Mervis [00:11:44]:
Yeah. So it’s so much easier for them to get the data out whereas before as you can imagine with all their spreadsheets, It was like a nightmare. And now they can apply because that it’s easier, they can apply for more grants. And because they apply for more grants, they can get more grants. Because they get more grants, they can be so much more impactful. And as a business, like so we are not a nonprofit, but it feels good to have a client that That our work is literally helping key the kids who need help, and, and it just feels good. So, yeah, that’s a certainly a success story where we, I would say we did the implementation of their org from the very beginning, and we’ve maintained sort of an ongoing it’s not as formalized as a managed services agreement, but it’s, sort of ad hoc when they need stuff, we do it, and then they we send them an invoice.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:12:33]:
Yeah. Fantastic.
Jon Mervis [00:12:34]:
And they love us and, just keep, You know? Fair too. The ball keeps rolling down the hill in terms of Yeah. Hey. Can we add this functionality? Can we, you know, build 1 more thing? Or or So so that’s just continued for, I don’t know, few years.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:12:49]:
So how much of the success would you attribute just to, like, digital transformation in general compared to what Salesforce specifically brought to the table.
Jon Mervis [00:13:03]:
Well, I mean, Salesforce is the platform they used to put everything together. If your a Thought or you’re alluding to, like, well, what if they didn’t use Salesforce? What if they had used Dynamics or HubSpot? I mean, I don’t know. I Could imagine that they could have also found a lot of value with another system. Yeah. I’m not a Dynamics expert. I’m not a HubSpot expert. It’s like I couldn’t tell you exactly, Honestly, where where some of the other systems, fall short, but, but Salesforce for them has been has been great.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:13:34]:
Yep. And was it a standard sort of MPSP sort of setup or, sort of custom build most things?
Jon Mervis [00:13:41]:
It was. It was an interesting component because they’re very concerned about privacy. Sure. And so we built all sorts of Lot I have to think about. It will be built already. It’s been years.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:13:54]:
Yeah. That’s alright.
Jon Mervis [00:13:55]:
Confidential information, especially from my guys. Yeah. And they need to report data to, you know, whatever agencies and stuff like that, but they wanna be very careful not to, You know, expose other people’s information just Okay. Just because, you know, they’re underprivileged, you know, their names and details shouldn’t be out and about in the world. Well. So, yeah, we built a lot of customization around that. Yeah. Cool.
Jon Mervis [00:14:20]:
And yeah. And sometimes, I mean, for example, Salesforce requires a last name. You can’t save a record without a last name. But what if Alright. What if you don’t know the last name? What if, like, you intentionally don’t know the last name and you don’t wanna know
Jerome Clatworthy [00:14:32]:
the last name? Yeah. Yep.
Jon Mervis [00:14:33]:
So We built a whole, like, system around that.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:14:37]:
Yeah. Fascinating. Oh, very cool. Alright. And what about, yeah, I guess, a Salesforce use case that was really, that That surprised you that you found really personally fascinating, I guess, just you as individual.
Jon Mervis [00:14:48]:
So an example of one that, it’s not that complicated. It’s not that, like
Jerome Clatworthy [00:14:53]:
No. That’s cool.
Jon Mervis [00:14:54]:
Technically complicated, but I I found it interesting because this was a construction client that, sells Different materials for a construction site.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:15:04]:
Okay.
Jon Mervis [00:15:05]:
And they work on major projects, you know, airports and what whatever. Major projects. So it’s like, First of all, like, when you look at projects, you know, oh, I know those places. Right? It’s already different. Right? When it when you can relate to that. And What was so interesting about that case was that an opportunity doesn’t represent either we won it or lost it because what they said is in their situation, Every opportunity like building a new airport, there’s so many different components to that, that they could win or lose the roofing material for the well. Hanger. They could win or lose the, I don’t know, tiling in the bathroom.
Jon Mervis [00:15:42]:
Like, there’s a 1,000 different things. Well. And how could we track all that? Oh. And when does it make sense to have multiple different opportunities? Because, of course, that’s an idea. You could a hierarchy. But they wanted to keep it together as one opportunity, but they just wanted to be able to track The different components and visually on a page, and this is what I think was really cool was Okay. We used, unofficial Salesforce had a component that we use on the page So they could visually track the processes, like, the stale stages essentially of the tiling or the roofing or the whatever, well. And but all within 1 opportunity.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:16:24]:
So with 1 opportunity with that component, so you could separately somehow visualize all the different of potential, I guess, sub opportunities or whatever the best word is. You
Jon Mervis [00:16:31]:
can do
Jerome Clatworthy [00:16:32]:
that with a within that single wow. Yeah. So how did they manage it over the time frame in terms of, you know, what was the sort of start and end of an opportunity? Like, the whole an airport project would be the CNN or
Jon Mervis [00:16:42]:
You know what I mean?
Jerome Clatworthy [00:16:43]:
Like a finite sales process within that sort of Well, I
Jon Mervis [00:16:46]:
you You know, to be honest, I don’t exactly no. I wasn’t. So, I mean, this is a project where, like, I had one of my consultants on it.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:16:52]:
Yeah. Okay.
Jon Mervis [00:16:52]:
So, like, he did most of the build. I just sort of Jump in and out. So I don’t exactly remember how they or I couldn’t tell you how they did the start and stop of a project. It’s a good point. Absolutely. That’s right. But,
Jerome Clatworthy [00:17:05]:
yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:17:05]:
Yeah. I I just remember this was a client again that, what what made it a little bit more interesting Sort of the personal side, but it was a family business themselves.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:17:14]:
Okay.
Jon Mervis [00:17:14]:
And I was the client was, you know, daughter of the owner. Right? And with working with her father and with her cousins and brothers, and so, like, I could relate to her and where I come from.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:17:26]:
For the fitness side of it. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:17:28]:
Yeah. And And could relate that, like, you know, getting some users to use the system was a challenge. Okay. And for them, adoption was particularly a problem because of this exact a Dilemma where an opportunity didn’t have 1 sales page. Yeah. Because of
Jerome Clatworthy [00:17:42]:
this thing,
Jon Mervis [00:17:43]:
she said people didn’t wanna use a system. They wanted Okay. They wanted 1 place to look at everything, but they wanted different sales stages. And so, like, that was the bigger hurdle, and so it sort of felt nice To solve that hurdle and then she could be the champion internally at the organization. It was like Yeah. Look at Salesforce. We did it. Now we can take our construction company into, you know, the next century.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:18:06]:
So she could do the change management side of things and win the hearts and minds internally. You guys put the system on that. Yeah. Cool.
Jon Mervis [00:18:12]:
So so that was an exciting project.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:18:14]:
Yeah. Interesting. And yeah. Okay. Cool. Cool. And then, yeah, last sort of case study, is Is there something that comes to mind about, yeah, where something maybe really didn’t go to plan and, you know, lessons learned, what you’ve taken from that, and, you know, do you do anything differently, I guess, now, you know.
Jon Mervis [00:18:28]:
Yeah. There’s 1 project specifically, at a high level. Confidentiality, of course, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:18:35]:
Confidential, but you’re gonna put this on the Internet. But no. No. The the lesson learned and, I guess, it’s just about insufficient requirement gathering. Yeah. Okay. That’s the main problem. But the the root or the how it’s all started was the client Wanted to save time and, like, they were too busy and whatnot.
Jon Mervis [00:18:56]:
So they would record all of these videos showing us How they used to do all these different things in Excel, they used to have these, like, massively sophisticated Excel documents Mhmm. That they would keep for years years, like, to organize that was, like, how they tracked all sorts of things, and they would go really fast in a video, well. Like, screen yeah. Screen sharing, whatever. Showing me
Jerome Clatworthy [00:19:20]:
Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:19:21]:
How they did all these things and basically, like, said, okay. Now build it for me in Salesforce. Right? And, obviously, we didn’t just start building from that. Like, we did ask questions, but Yeah. It Started off on the wrong foot where we just tried to accomplish what they showed us.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:19:38]:
Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:19:38]:
And, yes, we did some requirements gathered, but they just wanted to, like, well. Go. Start. And
Jerome Clatworthy [00:19:44]:
did they have kinda, like have they already done the solution in their mind and they were just trying to tell you just how to build, like, Just build this in Salesforce instead of getting understand the business and then you guys, like,
Jon Mervis [00:19:53]:
get that sales knowledge, you know. They CRM to us with they wanted to they picked the AppExchange product, And they want us to I mean, they like down
Jerome Clatworthy [00:20:02]:
to work.
Jon Mervis [00:20:02]:
Exactly. They came to us with, we wanna implement this product, but we wanna customize it to these needs. Here’s how we used to do it all in Excel. Go fix it all. And
Jerome Clatworthy [00:20:12]:
Yeah. Right.
Jon Mervis [00:20:13]:
We I think they pushed back a little bit on us in terms of the, a, requirements gathering and, like, they didn’t wanna pay for, like, a big discovery. They were like, just
Jerome Clatworthy [00:20:22]:
Do you reckon that was the driver? They were just trying to do it as cheaply as possible? That was that the key or they just wanna They thought that they knew what they needed, and they just wanted someone to come and build it.
Jon Mervis [00:20:30]:
So Yeah. I think that they
Jerome Clatworthy [00:20:32]:
driving it. You know?
Jon Mervis [00:20:33]:
Legitimately thought we know what we want.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:20:35]:
Well. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:20:36]:
Rep replicate what we I mean, that the the problem, if I had to distill it, is Yep. This desire, like, replicate what we currently do In this new tool. Whereas like, that’s not that shouldn’t be the the goal. Like it should be how do we get the business results with this new tool or how do we get the business result. But the one of the problems was that in Excel, you can modify any cell and write anything in the world. There’s no logic that stops you from Putting anything anywhere, and they were used to that. And so Yeah. Anything we would build with a structure Doesn’t allow you to just break the rules anytime you want, and so effectively they kept pushing back on, But we don’t always do it like this.
Jon Mervis [00:21:22]:
It’s sometimes we do it like that. Okay. Well, then we build that and work around. And then we don’t always do it like this, but sometimes it’s like that. We’ve, like, did workaround after workaround after workaround. We’re like Yeah. Ideally, we would have gathered all that in the beginning. We did.
Jon Mervis [00:21:36]:
Effectively, we’ve reached the point, like, I sell or in a in a contract, I’ll typically give a quote and estimate. Mhmm. And I I approached the client saying, hey. Like, we’re nearing the end of the estimate hours. We’re gonna clearly need more because We’re doing lots more revisions than we anticipated. Mhmm. And the client wasn’t happy. They’re like, oh my god.
Jon Mervis [00:21:57]:
We’re nearing the end, and we’re nowhere near even The solution that we want. Yeah. And, ultimately, we had to come to a an agreement where they said basically the a App that they chose themselves, they thought, nope. You know what? This is not gonna work. Okay. And they they threw the whole thing away, which is really Disheartening, because we put out in a lot of time and effort into it.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:22]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:22:22]:
Yeah. And we came up with a financial agreement where they would pay a portion of it because they didn’t want the whole well. It was ugly in that respect.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:30]:
Sure thing.
Jon Mervis [00:22:30]:
Ultimately, that has all only happened once to us. Okay. That sort of thing blew up, but this When I read your question, like, that’s immediately the situation
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:39]:
I follow.
Jon Mervis [00:22:40]:
And, and now I, you know, certainly have my antenna up looking for to avoid that again.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:47]:
Okay. So now you even if someone if you if you can see signs of that coming, you you’d be a lot more, I guess, upfront instead of it. No. We need to do this regard even if you got the perfect solution. That may be the case, but we need to we need to get to that position ourselves before we start building something to make sure there’s
Jon Mervis [00:22:59]:
Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:59]:
Nothing that will surprise us. Well. Yeah. Fantastic. Really interesting. Alright. We are getting towards the end now. That’s, 3 really cool case studies.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:23:07]:
I’ve got a couple of really quick sort of geeky questions before we sort of finish So, iPhone or Android, whether you
Jon Mervis [00:23:13]:
see it or not. IPhone. I’ve been on iPhone for for many years.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:23:17]:
Good. Good. We could be friends. Mac or PC?
Jon Mervis [00:23:20]:
Well. PC.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:23:21]:
Okay.
Jon Mervis [00:23:22]:
Yeah. What do you
Jerome Clatworthy [00:23:23]:
guys use internally to sort of manage your communication and sort of track projects? What’s the sort of stuff like that?
Jon Mervis [00:23:28]:
Yeah. It’s a good question. I I’m always curious actually what other people are using. We use ClickUp.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:23:35]:
Does that work alright? Are you sort of always iterating how that how that works and how that suits you, or Have you just gotta take it have you always iterating how you use that, or have you sort of just taken something pretty simple out of the box and just using it for simple stages? Like, how have you
Jon Mervis [00:23:48]:
configured it? No. I mean, we’ve we’ve been pretty consistent in how we’re using ClickUp. The ClickUp product keeps improving. You know, they have new releases, but, we’ve been consistent. Documentation is a this is not a quick answer, but I’ll just wanna say Perfect. I feel like documentation is something that Everyone knows could be done either better or differently, and so we’re trying to do more and more documentation. And ClickUp is a good tool, but it’s Is it the best tool? We’re also using, Elements dot cloud more and more to track, like, user stories, and you can attach user stories to, of Object or any metadata. So we’re we’re sort of working through this, you know, what’s the best path because now there’s, like, duplicate entry, but, You know, not every user story is the same as, something in our project management system.
Jon Mervis [00:24:37]:
But Okay. ClickUp, A lot of our projects are billed hourly. And so, ClickUp has, you know, every task or project you’re doing, you can log time to it as you go. So that is our The fact that the time tracking as well.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:24:50]:
Alright. Fantastic. And if you’re a CEO of Salesforce for a day, is there sort of 1 if you had to pick 1 thing that you could just wave your magic wand. Is there something like a something that you just wish was a feature they had or a bug that they would fix? Is there sort of something that comes to mind as something you would change about Salesforce if you could?
Jon Mervis [00:25:06]:
Oh, it’s it’s a lot.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:25:11]:
It doesn’t have to be. But
Jon Mervis [00:25:13]:
Yeah. I mean, there’s So many things that I come across. I’m like, why isn’t that an option? And then it’s not. It’s just why isn’t that an option? Yeah. One thing is, yeah. I I feel like it should be easier to have default naming or conventions, without some sort of fancy workaround, just, you know, if I want a default naming convention for a object. Well. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:25:42]:
And just click new, and that’s that should be easier.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:25:45]:
Yeah. Sure. Cool. Cool. And I guess a lot of your work would be new projects, but do you sort of inherit existing orgs as well in some of your work? So actually, the
Jon Mervis [00:25:55]:
The bulk of our work is not, new implementations. Okay. I know some partners are much more heavy on new implementations. Yeah. We are not. Most of our work are is ongoing
Jerome Clatworthy [00:26:08]:
Okay.
Jon Mervis [00:26:08]:
You know, improvements incremental improvements.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:26:12]:
You.
Jon Mervis [00:26:12]:
You could say manage services, although that means different things to different people. Okay. It’s not just, you know, quick break it, fix it, You know, plugging the printer type stuff. You know, it can be also building new integrations or Yep. You know, managing new workflows, streamlining things. But it’s it’s ongoing orgs. And, you know, those are the best, I think, because you build long term relationships with clients where year over year, they’re seeing more benefit. They’re happy, and, frankly, the revenue stream just keeps going.
Jon Mervis [00:26:41]:
It doesn’t end.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:26:42]:
It’s just
Jon Mervis [00:26:43]:
a project. But, like, my company is very, well. Forgiving and, like, flexible with arrangements and contracts.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:26:51]:
Yeah. Fantastic.
Jon Mervis [00:26:53]:
That, you know, like Salesforce is not. If you sign a contract with them, that’s what you’re paying them. Well. Good
Jerome Clatworthy [00:26:58]:
luck changing that mid year. Good luck changing that.
Jon Mervis [00:27:00]:
No. Yeah. Good luck. They don’t care that you change your business model or that you don’t have 20 users. You only need 15. Like, they don’t care.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:27:07]:
Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:27:07]:
I don’t know. So when I don’t sell, like, hours a month, you use it or lose it. Yeah. I sell a lot of buckets of time. Like, you can buy 50 hours of time or a 20 hours of time, and then use it over time.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:27:19]:
Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:27:20]:
Obviously, it’s flexible to the client, but it has its downsides to me too because, You know, you get this lumpy work. They ask for a lot of work this month and 0 work for 2 months, and then they come back in 6 months And you wanna fix something, but I have no idea what they’re talking about because the guy that used to do that is not working with me anymore and, like, it’s it’s so long. Like Okay. Well. Yeah. So it gets a little messy, although still to this point I allow it because
Jerome Clatworthy [00:27:47]:
Yep.
Jon Mervis [00:27:47]:
I feel like if I was the client, with. I would not be happy with paying for a use it or lose it agreement.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:27:52]:
Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:27:53]:
And I don’t think that’s small businesses wanna Can do that. I think, like, big businesses are they they don’t care. It’s, like, not their money.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:28:00]:
Not their money. Yeah. That’s right.
Jon Mervis [00:28:02]:
But, You know, I think the smaller clients, they they won’t do that. So I
Jerome Clatworthy [00:28:07]:
Yeah. Cool.
Jon Mervis [00:28:08]:
I accommodate.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:28:09]:
And is it with all the sort of orgs that you’re just taken on that are already established. Have you sort of seen any themes of, poor practice or poor setup that have sort of come up multiple times that you think People should be aware of in terms of, oh, that’s happened again. Someone else has set this up in a certain way. Is there something that’s come up multiple times that comes to mind?
Jon Mervis [00:28:28]:
I mean, a common thing is just creating custom fields, custom objects unnecessarily.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:28:34]:
Yeah. Okay. So not thinking it through. Just going, oh, yeah. A new object new field. That is a quick easy
Jon Mervis [00:28:40]:
Yeah. Either done by the client themselves because they figured out how to go to object manager a Or or they found some some freelancer for, you know, not much money on the Internet. Yeah. And So I’ll give you a couple examples. 1 is we took on a a client that had, I don’t know, a 100 different custom fields, like uncle’s first name, cousin’s first name, brother’s first name, mom’s last name. It’s, like, all on the contact record. So it’s like it did, like, made no sense. Right? This is not how you you build Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:29:10]:
Relationship, right, obviously. That’s that’s not a
Jerome Clatworthy [00:29:12]:
relationship database. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:29:14]:
Yeah. So so we cleaned all that up, right, and and that’s one thing. But the other thing is when you get so So I think that type of thing was probably done by the end user, not by, another consultant. But I think you also get situations where somebody was hired, for a very specific purpose
Jerome Clatworthy [00:29:32]:
to
Jon Mervis [00:29:32]:
build something, and they built it whether it’s in Apex or not in Apex. Like, they just built, like, some you. Fancy solution that solved a very specific need, but without any larger understanding of the a Or the business, the, like, best practice Sure. Sustainability. And so I just spoke to the client a few days ago where, like, They’ve got the same scenario in multiple departments where they, like Mhmm. A developer built some specific thing for that department, Yeah. But now that they’ve, like they realize they’re taking a step back, and they’re like, wait a minute. Like, this doesn’t all work together.
Jon Mervis [00:30:07]:
It’s actually, like, contradictory. And so I would say I see that a lot where it had different add ons
Jerome Clatworthy [00:30:13]:
that yeah. Not taken within the broader context of the organ, how that could all work together.
Jon Mervis [00:30:17]:
But I I get it as well. Like, it’s easy as a consultant to criticize and be like, well, they should have paid for an architect to oversee this all, like, But they don’t have money for that. Like, what they did have was a need one day, so they went off and found someone to solve their need. Yeah. And it’s, you know, to some degree, I don’t know. At my home, if my dishwasher breaks, I, like Yeah. Find a dishwasher repairman. He fixes it and he leaves.
Jon Mervis [00:30:41]:
Yeah. I I don’t know where this metaphor is going, but I don’t know. I’m not
Jerome Clatworthy [00:30:44]:
I’m just trying to think ahead about how to cut it.
Jon Mervis [00:30:46]:
I’m not paying on a monthly basis in, like, Home architect to make sure that everything is perfect. Like Yeah. Absolutely. Because I’m 1 family with 1 kitchen. I’m a small business or whatever. I’m a small a player. And I think big businesses can afford to, like, have architect or have an ongoing relationship with a Salesforce provider.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:31:07]:
Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:31:08]:
But it’s totally reasonable that small businesses don’t, and they have these piecemeal solutions. Absolutely. And, Anyway, just periodically, you have to clean it up. I think that’s the only thing I I No. That’s
Jerome Clatworthy [00:31:20]:
that. How many hours a week do you think you work on average, like, if you had to sort of just smoothly.
Jon Mervis [00:31:26]:
Yeah. I would say, probably maybe 40 to 50. Okay. Yeah. I I’m not trying to kill myself,
Jerome Clatworthy [00:31:35]:
for
Jon Mervis [00:31:36]:
running this business or growing this business. You know, I’m in the US. It’s maybe a bit of a different work, attitude here to maybe Australia or other parts of the world. Okay. Well, I know some small business owners, they work like a zillion hours a week. Very well. And they and they say, like, well, I have to do so many things. I’m like, I wanna grow my business, and I’m so ambitious.
Jon Mervis [00:31:56]:
Yeah. I just don’t. It’s not that I’m not, well. I it’s just not the life I wanna lead. And, so yeah. That’s my answer.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:32:04]:
Yeah. Perfect. And what’s a perfect day for you? Sort of a door locked and tapping away at the computer or on the phone in meetings or what’s the Wednesday’s arrival? A little bit of both.
Jon Mervis [00:32:13]:
Perfect day for me is do some work in the morning and then go for Business lunch. Yeah. I like meeting people in person, sort of old fashioned in that way. Whether it’s clients or just, like, random people that I know that, are either in the Salesforce world or related or tangential or not even related. I like and, I I joke about this business lunch thing because I got, like, a personality test at one point, as part of, like, a team building thing. And The system spat out. It wasn’t somebody who, like, knows me that, like, you have a risk of long lunches. The system started out as, like, that is a a known risk.
Jon Mervis [00:32:52]:
You should know about it. And I’m like, yeah. Well, I do like long lunches. You’re right.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:32:55]:
That’s hilarious.
Jon Mervis [00:32:56]:
That is But, I mean, the upside is honestly, like, long lunches with people turn into referrals. So, like
Jerome Clatworthy [00:33:01]:
Yeah. Absolutely.
Jon Mervis [00:33:02]:
I’m I’m okay with that. Well. Yeah. So my my ideal day, is a mix. You know? Like, I try not to jump between a 1000 clients, 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there. Yeah. But it’s not always up to me what I get to do. Right? So sometimes that is my day.
Jon Mervis [00:33:21]:
It’s not ideal, but I have to solve a problem here and then solve a problem there and then talk to a client who’s unhappy or go and talk to a, potential lead.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:33:29]:
Yes. So,
Jon Mervis [00:33:32]:
I would say that’s just the reality of consulting is that you’ve gotta swivel your head and, you know, handle different different situation.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:33:39]:
Perfect. Well, that’s my interrogation complete. John, can you, tell us about you and your business and how you guys can help people if the opportunity arises?
Jon Mervis [00:33:47]:
Yeah. Sure. So my business, we work with, like, you know, small, medium sized businesses as well as, nonprofits. We work with, clients to Essentially deliver the business need that they have. I should have said it earlier in the call, but what we try to do is is emphasize that we are not, well. That we we see the big picture, and we’re we’re here as, like, business focused. Like, let’s get you The solution to move the needle and not just build some whiz bang fancy technology thing that isn’t gonna prove itself, right, and in terms of ROI, not worth it. So, yeah, I don’t know who’s gonna listen to this.
Jon Mervis [00:34:25]:
So, whether you’re a client or an end user Salesforce or you’re a consultant, we are always looking for good talent, Whether it’s freelance or full time roles. And, you know, what can be interesting in our team, maybe different to other companies out there, is that, we work in across a range of industries, so you’re gonna get, exposure to different types of problems, different types of solutions, and there’s a lot of learning that can be borrowed from 1 to the other, and, you know, just, you know, mentally interesting.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:34:58]:
Yeah. Sure. And what’s the best way for people to reach out to you, like, through the links
Jon Mervis [00:35:01]:
Of course. Maybe LinkedIn would be best. Just my name, John Mervis, or else, of course, my website, Blue Engine Solutions.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:35:08]:
So where’d that business name come from? Just out of curiosity. What does that mean?
Jon Mervis [00:35:15]:
I I think I wanted to start the company and didn’t wanna I knew that, like, you could go on a 6 month, whatever, a year well. Venture on, like, finding the perfect name and branding and and website. I was like, I’m not doing that. Like, I need to learn Salesforce Yeah. And I need to get customers. And Yep. I’m just gonna put, like, Not a placeholder, but I just like a generic random name. Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:35:36]:
It’s good enough for now, and I can always go back and change it. And, it’s It’s 4 years later, and I haven’t gone back and changed it, but, I am in the process now of trying to redo our website because I feel like, you know, 4 years in, it’s time to you. Pop that. But, Blue Engine didn’t mean much other than, a little bit of an illusion to the little Blue Engine I could or what
Jerome Clatworthy [00:35:55]:
is that?
Jon Mervis [00:35:56]:
Yeah. Sure. Called? Yeah. Yeah. Because I feel like Salesforce is a little bit about, persistence and and trying to find, you know, get to the the end of the the, well. Challenge even if it’s not easy. And, yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:36:14]:
Cool. Cool. Well. Alright. Well, I appreciate your time, so I’m gonna bring this to an end. But I’ll just finish by asking, what’s coming up? Anything exciting on the horizon either at work or outside of work? Anything really cool coming up?
Jon Mervis [00:36:27]:
Well, we’re having a new baby. And I’m sorry. How long have you
Jerome Clatworthy [00:36:30]:
got to go? What’s the countdown?
Jon Mervis [00:36:32]:
The baby is coming in June 1st. So or potential. That’s due date.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:36:36]:
Alright. So you’re good to go. Are you ready? You got everything you need, Corey.
Jon Mervis [00:36:38]:
You got some steps
Jerome Clatworthy [00:36:39]:
to do.
Jon Mervis [00:36:40]:
We’re getting ready. So that’s one thing. The, AI world, honestly, I I’d like a lot of people know that I need to be learning it more, know that there’s, like, There’s always stuff on LinkedIn that, like, makes me feel dumb because, like, oh, no. I don’t know the latest and greatest. I need to just dedicate time. I feel like I should be blocking out time to just Yeah. Fair enough. I’ve got
Jerome Clatworthy [00:36:59]:
clients asking about it and then wondering what’s possible or is it more so just you you you trying to say, hey, so you’re ready to serve the clients when that comes.
Jon Mervis [00:37:07]:
You know what? I don’t have clients asking that much about it. It’s a very good it’s an interesting point, that they’re not knocking down my doors. But I wanna be able to go to them and say, like, hey. They’re way the greatest thing. And, It it’s a little bit weird or interesting that, like, you go to Dreamforce, you hear all about it, you hear all these different talks and everything is all AI. And then you actually go to your computer and try to use something and it’s like, well, nothing’s available. Like, it’s all, like, gonna one day. One day.
Jon Mervis [00:37:35]:
One day. But But I feel like that’s obviously gonna be changing. And with the newest release, there are some more tools. But that is one thing when you talk about what’s on the horizon that I know I need to speak that spending more time and building tools like into Salesforce, that will Make, you know, client’s lives easier. So
Jerome Clatworthy [00:37:55]:
Yeah. And what’s fascinating to me in that space is even some of the predictive stuff they’ve built so far is almost useless for anything outside of the basic standard objects. I’m like, even if they do bring out something fancy, I’m curious to see how well it can adapt to custom objects because, god, the amount of random objects that are gonna exist in the Salesforce world, like, how can they how could one product, you know, well unless it’s that smart. But, yeah, it’s really interesting to see where they’re gonna go with that, isn’t it?
Jon Mervis [00:38:19]:
I don’t know. Every day, it’s it’s yeah. I’m I’m I don’t know.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:38:23]:
Is there something in like, this is just off the cuff. Is there something that you’re really curious about? Is there, like, a specific use case you’ve got in mind that you’re wondering if AI could Can serve in some way or you’re just like big picture curious in general?
Jon Mervis [00:38:34]:
Well, well, there was a use that I a situation I used it for a few weeks ago. I didn’t build it into Salesforce, but, like, they wanted to start categorizing, object. I forgot what object was it. It wasn’t cases, but it was something like That oh, it’s a custom object they had to for, like, home repairs. Right? Okay. Because they’re doing home repairs for, underprivileged people, well. For free to, like, make sure they’re heating and, I don’t know, their their roof’s not leaking. And they, of course, have thousands of records in the system.
Jon Mervis [00:39:08]:
And so going forward, okay, great. You start using the new drop downs. Mhmm. But what about in the past? And so I thought, well, what if we Took, like, the descriptive ways you used to, describe them and put it into ChatGPT and said, okay. Recategorize all these according to the new drop down.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:39:28]:
Yeah.
Jon Mervis [00:39:28]:
And it sort of worked. I felt like it was clunky, and I maybe it’s just a learning curve of me learning how to, like, I had more data than I could copy and paste, and so then I tried and, like, some of it was off the screen, so I didn’t know where it went. But it ultimately was good at figuring out, okay, you somebody wrote, you know, whatever, heater broken, that must mean, HVAC repair. Right? Yeah. Right. Okay. So, yeah, that was a interesting use. But it wasn’t built into Salesforce.
Jon Mervis [00:39:57]:
It was more of, like, Yeah. You know? As part of our new setup, I just did, like, a one time import of all the new
Jerome Clatworthy [00:40:04]:
data. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Cool. Well. Well, thanks so much for your time, John. Really appreciate it, and, good luck with the new baby.
Jon Mervis [00:40:10]:
Yeah. Thanks.