Episode Overview
In this episode, I sit down with Pratik Desai, a dedicated Salesforce perfectionist, and CEO of 1to1. Join us as Pratik shares his journey from New York/New Jersey to Philadelphia, balancing a demanding career with being a new parent while working from home.
We’ll dive deep into Pratik’s expertise with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, highlighting significant case studies like AI-driven enhancements in e-commerce and the swift migration to the Salesforce suite. Pratik shares candid insights into the evolving landscape of marketing cloud technologies, data-driven strategies for optimal customer engagement, and the potential of AI in CRM.
Discover the challenges and triumphs of running a business, the importance of long-term client relationships, and the future of composable technology in data management.
Since recording this episode, 1to1 was acquired by List Engage (https://broadtreepartners.com/broadtree-portfolio-company-listengage-acquires-1to1/).
Interview Highlights
About Pratik
- Current location: Philadelphia
- Original roots: New York/New Jersey
- Family adjustment to Philadelphia due to wife’s job and new daughter
Working Conditions & Professional Focus
- Work Environment
- Works from home, balancing professional duties with childcare
- Professional Specialization
- Focus on Salesforce Marketing Cloud Personalization
- Case study: AI implementation leading to a 60% content performance improvement
Team Dynamics and Recruitment
- Team Structure
- 3 core members, total team of 6-7 including contractors
- Recruitment Evolution
- Use of automation and specialized firms
- Market saturation of marketing cloud professionals
Business Development Strategies
- Client Acquisition and Retention
- Leveraging networks, active marketing, showcasing success
- Emphasis on long-term relationships and continuous support
- Evolving MCP Product
- Clients under-utilizing capabilities
- Growth opportunities with Data Cloud for advanced users
Challenges and Learning Experiences
- Initial Struggles
- Issues with taxes and reporting
- Perfectionism and Self-Forgiveness
- Importance of learning from mistakes
Key Projects and Case Studies
- AI and Marketing Cloud
- Optimization of website content using AI, transitioning from A/B testing
- LLM Pilots
- Current limitations and challenges with Large Language Models
- Full Salesforce Suite Implementation
- Complex project managing multiple clouds in one year using ‘scrum of scrums’
Product and Process Innovations
- Architectural Project Optimizations
- Streamlining processes, pressure-testing use cases
- Digital Transformation
- Migrating legacy systems to Salesforce, involving hiring and provisioning
Personal Interests and Work-Life Balance
- Personal Hobbies
- Enjoys sports and traveling
- Work Hours
- Extensive working hours, estimated 100-110 hours/week
- Balancing Work and Parenthood
- Support from team and family
Industry Trends and Future Directions
- Composability in Technology
- Shift towards data centralization and less replication
- Data Management Evolution
- Transition from SaaS to FaaS models
- Role of Companies
- Highlight on Snowflake and Databricks
Insights on AI and CRM
- Potential of AI
- AI as an enhancement, not a replacement for roles
- Future of AI in CRM
- Contemplation on artificial general intelligence
Tools and Preferences
- Technology Use in Company
- Slack, Google Drive, Trello
- Device Preference
- Android over Apple for cost-effectiveness
Pratik’s Journey and Business Insights
- Career Path
- Transition from Accenture Technology Manager to Salesforce Product Manager
- Agency Foundation
- Identified market gap, specialization in interaction studio
Closing Thoughts
- Global Implications of Data Management
- Discussing energy consumption and ESG aspects
- Final Thoughts
- Need for improved partner experience with Salesforce
Full Episode Transcript
Jerome Clatworthy [00:00:03]:
Welcome to CRM Stories with me, Jerome. CRM Stories is a podcast where we talk with Salesforce professionals from all over the world about their careers and favorite Salesforce case studies. Today, we’re joined by Pratik Desai from 1 TO 1. Pratik, thanks so much for joining us today.
Pratik Desai [00:00:20]:
Yeah, man. Thanks for having me.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:00:22]:
So, Pratik, whereabouts in the world are you sitting as we have this conversation?
Pratik Desai [00:00:26]:
I am currently in sunny Philadelphia. It actually is sunny today, so that’s nice.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:00:31]:
Yeah. Is it starting to when does it start to cool down? Oh, no. Warm up. So you’re in
Pratik Desai [00:00:35]:
Warm up. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:00:36]:
Coming into summer. You’ll be hanging
Pratik Desai [00:00:38]:
in the opposite. Yeah. It’s, it’s it’s certainly starting to warm up about 4 times in the last month, and it just gets colder again. So Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:00:46]:
Weather weather is a little bit softer. Away from you. Yeah. Right. Is that where you grew up or somewhere you’ve moved to sort of later in life? Is that
Pratik Desai [00:00:53]:
my wife just got a job here at UPenn Hospital. So we’re we’re new Philadelphians, but we’re originally from, New York, New Jersey.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:01:01]:
Oh, really? Okay. So a bit of a change. How how are you finding the difference? Is it?
Pratik Desai [00:01:05]:
It’s cool. Yeah. I mean, we just had a daughter, so we’re not really leaving the building too much. Yeah. Right. So our version of Philadelphia is just the inside of this building.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:01:13]:
Yeah. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. And so has that you’re working from home then if you’re all hands on deck in that sense? Is that, is that been a change as well?
Pratik Desai [00:01:20]:
Yeah. Yeah. I mean Trying
Jerome Clatworthy [00:01:22]:
to work while keeping a human being alive?
Pratik Desai [00:01:24]:
Yeah. That’s the change. I mean, working from home has probably been the norm as a as a Salesforce person for the last 10 years, but, the the difference is trying to keep keep a human alive while running the business. So yeah. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:01:35]:
I’ll bet. I’ll bet. So before we get too much, stuck in the Salesforce stuff, what does life look like? I mean, I guess you’ve just alluded to that, but, yeah, outside of Salesforce, what keeps you busy? So, obviously, you got your wife and your your daughter. But anything else going on, is that pretty much taking all your spare time? Any hobbies you can squeeze in around the edges or not too much?
Pratik Desai [00:01:53]:
No. I mean, I definitely try to squeeze in some sports. So either watching sports or actually trying to get out and, like, throw the ball around or something like that, and travel. Travel is where I spend all my money. So if I’m not
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:04]:
spending on
Pratik Desai [00:02:04]:
food, and surviving, it’s gonna be spent on go exploring the world. So
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:09]:
Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:02:09]:
I think I’ve I’ve almost hit 40 countries. So
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:12]:
Oh, really? Wow. Impressive. What’s, what’s on the hit list? Anything what’s next on the priorities that you haven’t haven’t got to yet?
Pratik Desai [00:02:18]:
Australia’s on the hit list. I’ll I’ll say that one because that’s
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:21]:
Do it, man. Do it. There, so
Pratik Desai [00:02:22]:
I gotta get out there.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:24]:
Yeah. The distance is, Barry, but, yeah, if you can if you can get that covered, then, yeah, you’ll have a good time.
Pratik Desai [00:02:29]:
Yeah. There you go.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:02:30]:
Beautiful. Alright. So, yeah, what we like to do on this podcast is talk about a few different case studies about some stuff that you’ve worked on in the past. So, yeah, potentially, case study you’ve worked on where, you know, the implementation has, just absolutely blown the client away in terms of its impact on whether it be revenue or productivity or efficiency or in some way. Secondly, a case study that was just really fascinating to you in some way. Could be from a technical point of view, or it could just be something that was sort of close to your heart in terms of the mission or the cause of the organization, and then maybe an example of something that didn’t go so well and lessons you’ve learned. So, yeah, is there something that comes to mind in terms of a a project you’ve worked on or an implementation that just absolutely had a phenomenal impact, on the business.
Pratik Desai [00:03:10]:
Yeah. I mean, I would be remiss to not talk about marketing cloud personalization because that’s that’s our bread and butter. Yep. One of the implementations that we’ve been a part of recently, we we actually saw a customer implement marketing cloud personalization. Actually see a 60% increase in the content slot that they’re personalizing, from above percent. 60. 60. Now they went from no AI in that particular content slot to entirely sophisticated AI powered by Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
Pratik Desai [00:03:41]:
And so, obviously, it was going from nothing to something. 60% was something that I couldn’t even have predicted going from nothing to a all all in on AI. So, seeing 60% and then not only seeing 60% off the bat, but seeing actually consistently as they’ve actually stayed on the the platform, seeing them see consistent 60% as the AI. Now this is particularly an ecommerce use case. So seeing the 60%, kinda month over month, quarter over quarter account for seasonality and and different buying trends, from a macroeconomics perspective, they’re still at that 60%. So it’s it’s been quite a quite an interesting, journey just watching them evolve from from static, imagery to AI driven, use cases. It’s it’s quite impressive.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:04:29]:
Is that right? Okay. So for I’m definitely a CRM sort of guy. So marketing cloud, I’m aware of it, but, yeah, definitely don’t know the basics. So what what sort of what value did it bring that they didn’t have before? So you said that moved from sort of static imagery to the next level sort of thing. What what do you think was the the key value drivers that sort of influenced that result?
Pratik Desai [00:04:48]:
Yeah. I think so. You know, one of the things that we need to understand about marketing is that it’s it’s more it’s more than just emails now. Right? It’s marketing is is every interaction that you have with your customers. So CRM is marketing. I mean, as a salesperson talks to your customer, they’re doing a piece of marketing. So service agent talks to your customer, they’re doing a piece of marketing. Mhmm.
Pratik Desai [00:05:06]:
Your website is doing marketing. Right? Mhmm. Every every interaction, there’s a piece of the brand being presented, the value proposition being presented to the to the to the to the end user, whether it’s a shopper or customer or whatever it is that you define as your consumer. And so for this particular use case, they actually recognized that there was a high amount of traffic on a particular page on their website.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:05:28]:
Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:05:28]:
And in that traffic, they noticed that the heat zone these these customers were particularly zoning in on one particular content block or content zone, if you will, in that
Jerome Clatworthy [00:05:40]:
So that heat map of that page, like, in terms of where were the user activity was.
Pratik Desai [00:05:43]:
Yeah. And so they they realized there’s a ton of traffic going to this particular area, but that area didn’t speak to the customer. It was just a static image that no matter whether you were a persona x or persona y
Jerome Clatworthy [00:05:55]:
Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:05:55]:
You saw the same imagery. And so the the idea when we when we initially started the the indication of where you should use this particular product of marketing cloud was, okay. Where where do we have a ton of traffic and where do we have a ton of opportunity to get something right? And as we start to zone in on this particular area, we said, okay. What if we actually detect the reason your cons consumer’s there because the the the pixel or the beacon or the SDK tag from marketing cloud will be dropped on your website. We’ll we’ll understand the behavior of your user. Mhmm. Use that insert information to put the right content piece in that slot. Now it could be business driven, which is where we started.
Pratik Desai [00:06:36]:
We said, okay. Let’s let’s use an AB test or AB rules decision tree to decide what content goes in there. Mhmm. Eventually go to AI which is the AI just tries to figure out how to optimize conversion and click through. And as they went through that journey, they actually went pretty much from 0 click through even though there was a lot of traffic to that area, 0 click through to the initial step of the decision tree took them about 20% click through to 60% improvement in click through rates. Just that one particular slot.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:07:07]:
And just in terms of, terminology, so when you say content slot, are you sort of physically referring to that that section of the of the web page, or is that is that what
Pratik Desai [00:07:14]:
you’re saying? We’re literally talking about a particular, like, real estate zone on the web page. And I and I think just, you know, for your for your, audience, I think one of the important things we gotta dissect there is we were treat we were data driven in that use case. We didn’t pick that use case or pick that particular place to personalize just, you know, based on guesses. We we looked at the data and the data told us that our guests, our shoppers, our consumers were spending a lot of time on that page, but also viewing that particular area. And we knew that because we have a lot of traffic there, there was an opportunity to get something right. And then what we needed to get right is where the AI came in. We didn’t try to guess what content needed to be there. We said, we know that there’s a lot of traffic here.
Pratik Desai [00:08:01]:
The data shows that. So what content should be there? Let’s let the AI figure that out. Let’s feed the data. Let’s feed the AI with the behaviors of the of the the guest, the user, the browser, and then let the AI try to figure out what content will actually get the user to click through. And it, man, it it works.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:08:19]:
Yeah. Right. So at that point, when the user run the page, would was there a knowledge of who they were in terms of were they on the system already, or they were essentially strangers to the to marketing cloud and it was sort of figuring it out on the fly based on what it could sort of get access to? Or was there already some kind of connection to a a user, like, a record in the system?
Pratik Desai [00:08:36]:
There’s yeah. Exactly. So I think, you know, for for your audience, the the beauty of marketing cloud is you’re you’re you’ve got all these signals from all these different places, but we could stitch it all together. Right? So you know you know the emails they’re interacting with. You know the web pages they’re interacting with. What path are they taking on your website? If they’ve got a case logged in CRM, if they’ve got a sales call that just happened, we can stitch all this data together. So when we create this persona, by the time they get to that actual page, we know so much about them, and all we gotta do is react to it. Right? And if we feed all this to our AI, now we’re in a position where the AI can make a much more informed decision than we ever could for all 1,000,000 users that are gonna hit that page every single day.
Pratik Desai [00:09:16]:
Right? We just can’t guess that much, and we can’t we can’t target to that one to one level. And
Jerome Clatworthy [00:09:20]:
Yeah. You and I can’t sit down and map out. Alright. Let’s try a, b, c, d, e, f, g. Just say this
Pratik Desai [00:09:25]:
is a 1,000,000 user.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:09:26]:
Yeah. Exactly.
Pratik Desai [00:09:27]:
Yeah. Exactly. So we we yeah. Tons of data to the AI, but the the beauty of the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Platform is all that data is there. We just gotta direct it in the right channels.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:09:38]:
And with MCP, does it kinda generate essentially infinite, you know, variations that it’s gonna experiment with and see what they work? Is is that essentially or is there still, I guess, a finite number of different, you know, content types that it might produce that you guys have to prepare or is essentially based on the information it’s got and based on, you know, what the objective is that can ultimately generate endless unique sort of presentations? What’s the limitation?
Pratik Desai [00:10:01]:
That’s a that’s a great question because I think a lot of the the hype on AI right now is generative. Right? So, MCP is not a generative AI. It is a machine learning AI. So it’s going to present it’s going to take the feedback. It’s going to present the, the the payload to the user, but there needs to be something in front of it. And that’s that thing that’s in front of it, the content that you’re talking about is not gonna be generated by MCP. So as a user, we need to get we need to feed it cons, content. And so typically, what we would recommend is some sort of CMS integration with MCP so that it has plenty of content to shift through, and it it gets to decide what what makes the most sense by measuring the amount of click throughs it can optimize towards a conversion.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:10:41]:
Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:10:42]:
So not generative AI. Not yet, at least. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:10:44]:
Sure. Yeah. Right. Do you see that I mean, we’ll talk about that later, but do you see that as a, you know, a very much possibility in the future, or it may not could be a bit of a fairy tale?
Pratik Desai [00:10:54]:
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, our job as marketers and our jobs as just basically CRM folks is is going to change with generative AI. I don’t think it’s going to be as as easy as turn the AI on and it’s just gonna create the right content with the right brand guidelines, with the right tone of the brand, with the right, you know, especially in in other industries like fin Finserv and, health you know, HLS, health and life sciences. You’re not gonna wanna want the AI to put different diagnoses or different, you know, APRs in terms of loans in front of the customer without having some sort of regulation behind it. So I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as just turn the AI on. It just creates content, and you have no idea what’s been put in front of the, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:11:40]:
The user. I do think that there’s going to be a step where the generative, AI is more so replacing the design process, less so the activation process, if that makes sense.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:11:50]:
Yeah. Sure. So just a more fluid code to an API, which may bring out something a bit custom that you haven’t previously created.
Pratik Desai [00:11:58]:
Yeah. But within within the guard lines or guard guardrails of
Jerome Clatworthy [00:12:01]:
Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:12:02]:
The design process that you’re gonna regulate.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:12:04]:
Yeah. I guess that brings the more automatic things get, the more, I guess, brand risk and all the things you gotta consider, don’t you? Because it could be interesting.
Pratik Desai [00:12:11]:
Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:12:12]:
Yeah. Right?
Pratik Desai [00:12:12]:
And do
Jerome Clatworthy [00:12:12]:
you think did that sort of, sorry. Go.
Pratik Desai [00:12:14]:
I was just gonna say we’ve run a couple of pilots too in terms of using LLMs to be kinda be commercially great, and the reality is, like, it’s just not commercially ready.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:12:22]:
Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:12:23]:
I I might be saying something proactive here, but I think LLMs are are great in in practice and theory and research right now. But in terms of commercial grade, there’s there’s been too many hallucinations and
Jerome Clatworthy [00:12:34]:
Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:12:34]:
Contradicting brand policies or or or brand guidelines that or sorry, guidelines that, is just not gonna make it commercially great at this point.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:12:44]:
Yeah. And the fact is that they could they made it sometimes, but it’s not consistent enough in the margin for error. It’d just be too great that it would, you know, be such a risk where maybe 1 out of 10. Yeah. It is spot on, perfect, usable. But, obviously, 1 out of 10 isn’t isn’t enough when you’re in that sort of space.
Pratik Desai [00:12:58]:
Yeah. It’s just gonna make us more efficient, but it’s not going to do the job for us. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:13:02]:
Not not yet. Yeah. Sure. So with that that case study, was that, the client had already adopted MCP and you guys just came in and sort of configured it or you part of your consultation was to, I guess, propose and implement that? How did that sort of come about?
Pratik Desai [00:13:14]:
It it certainly was to propose and implement, and I think that that’s that’s what set us up for success was coming in from a fresh take, which was, okay, what are the use cases? Because that wasn’t the only use case we we we went forward with. Okay. Being able to be a little bit more data driven in the use cases that we selected versus, I think, a lot of times, when when folks are already implemented, we we get brought in with a use case in mind of, like, hey. We just wanna light this use case up. Can you just build it for us? Yeah. So it’s a it’s a little bit harder to share success because the use case might not always be data driven.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:13:46]:
Yeah. Sure.
Pratik Desai [00:13:46]:
Because we came in from a scratch implementation, we were able to help select the use cases, in a data driven fashion, which allowed us to pick one of those that just knocked it out of the park, if you will.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:13:59]:
Yeah. Right. Fantastic. Brilliant. Alright. Well, moving on, is there a case study that comes to mind that I guess you just personally just found absolutely fascinating and interesting? Could be from just geeking out on the tech side of things or a certain product that you got to use that you you sort of hadn’t had a chance to do, but something that you just really enjoyed working on and just really thought was just a just a phenomenal project to be involved in for for whatever reason.
Pratik Desai [00:14:22]:
Yeah. I mean, I think from a marketing cloud perspective, and and this is gonna be you know, it’s gonna predate data cloud, as a CDP. But I think from a marketing cloud perspective, one of the one of the coolest implementations I’ve ever done was one that actually did a full implementation migration of the entire Salesforce suite.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:14:40]:
And I CRM CRM and up everything.
Pratik Desai [00:14:43]:
In 1 year. Yeah. And so 1 year. I’ve implemented all of them, but I’ve never implemented all of them at the same time in 1 year, and that was that was quite quite the undertaking. Woah. We’re talking the the whole shebang sales service, marketing cloud, commerce cloud.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:15:04]:
Gotcha. And then
Pratik Desai [00:15:04]:
c data cloud was not a thing yet, so the the CDP was an external CDP, but that was also implemented at the same time. Oh. So it was it was quite the quite the learning lesson about what works and doesn’t work across the board.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:15:18]:
What was the logistics in terms of, I guess, the sequence? Did you sort of just chunk a CRM I got CRM sales service and then sort of chunk the other ones on top, or you just disconnected 1 and turned on overnight or over the weekend or something? How did you sort of manage the logistics? Yeah. So we had to
Pratik Desai [00:15:32]:
we we definitely brought on a a Salesforce program architect, and we were running a scrum of scrums because there was no way else to keep this manageable. But the scrum of scrums allowed us to kind of have these pod teams where every pod was responsible for one of the clouds.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:15:48]:
Got it.
Pratik Desai [00:15:49]:
And then a program architect above that, and then I was above the program architect. So the program architect was the kind of making sure we were never, pigeonholing the solution.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:15:58]:
Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:15:58]:
But the the starting point was definitely to build up a shell of the CRM because get every record needed that contact ID.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:16:05]:
Yep.
Pratik Desai [00:16:05]:
So get all of your your, records loaded in this into core. Get the contact ID. Make sure you have the right contact, object solution, and then turn on the connector into marketing cloud.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:16:17]:
Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:16:17]:
And then create the APIs between marketing cloud and commerce cloud. So once we had that initial architecture, every pod was able to kind of essentially sprint into their own direction
Jerome Clatworthy [00:16:28]:
Okay. Because
Pratik Desai [00:16:28]:
we essentially lit up the backbone of the Salesforce architecture. Where we had to potentially bring things together from time to time is when there was a a use case we were dependent on each other. For example, welcome API. Right? Welcome is Okay. Starts with someone signing up for newsletter in Commerce Cloud.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:16:46]:
Mhmm.
Pratik Desai [00:16:47]:
Initially, the record needs to be created in core. That contact ID needs to be shared back with, Marketing Cloud. A welcome email needs to be sent out, and all while Commerce Cloud needs to be, you know, informed that, yes, we did the thing that you just asked us to do. So all of that, obviously, that use case brought us all back together even though the backbone was there. And Marketing Cloud could start creating journeys. Service Cloud could start creating their their telephony and case management process. Use cases like that made us have to come back to the table and be like, how do we how do we make sure that this, backbone was, was set up correctly? And so, it was it was probably the most intensive architectural project I’ve ever taken on. As you can imagine, this is the sheer amount of use cases
Jerome Clatworthy [00:17:36]:
My brain hurts just trying to understand it, man. That’s
Pratik Desai [00:17:38]:
Yeah. Sheer amount of use case and pipes we had to make sure were lit up, before we even set off, and make sure that we didn’t have we didn’t have, any any rabbit holes or or or, you know, gaps. Yeah. But I’ll tell you one of one of the coolest things that we did in this project was, if you’ve ever watched the watched the movie, The Founder, it’s the story about McDonald’s and how Great.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:18:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Pratik Desai [00:18:04]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, there’s a scene in there where they actually bring the entire, they bring the entire staff into a tennis court and they draw what would be the setup for, like, kind of the the the assembly line. And they they say, okay. Pretend you’re making a burger, and I wanna see how fast we can get a burger out the window.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:18:23]:
Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:18:23]:
And they would redraw where the stove was. They redraw where the the the the the, you know, different aspects of the order making. Just to optimize the process. To optimize the process. Yeah. So we we we use this. We use this, in in one of our one of our final architectural processes was to pressure test the architecture, and we sat there and we’re like, okay. Someone just signed up for a newsletter.
Pratik Desai [00:18:44]:
Who’s taking this thing? Is it is it does is it is it core? Do you core does core get it first, or does it go to marketing cloud first? And we would just kinda go through and and we pressure tested every single use case that this architecture needed to handle. But, of course, there’s different ways to slice the cat. So we’ve handed off the use case by one person representing every cloud, and and we just kinda went back and forth. And it was it’s quite impressive to see how, impossibly difficult this was, but how that the process we use actually got us to the point where there was very few gaps when we actually set forward and did it. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:19:20]:
Did the, the client have a good understanding of their processes, or that was a big part of the project was unpicking that and mapping them all out sort of 1 by 1 to get a to get a good feel for what what was going on.
Pratik Desai [00:19:30]:
Yeah. We were creating the processes on the fly. I mean, for sure Yeah. Right. Because because this is a digital transformation, there was there was a a decision at the top that said we’re going to do this. We’re all in Salesforce. Yeah. And then everything had to be invented at that point.
Pratik Desai [00:19:46]:
Right? Yeah. Process, people were hired, and and all of the product obviously was provisioned, and then we were kinda on our own. So, I was actually on the client side at this point, by the way. So yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:19:59]:
Yeah. Right. In terms of moving from what with the previous legacy system, was that a whole big project before that, like, data model of that compared to getting into sort of a Salesforce friendly data model? Was that a whole separate challenge as well that before you even thought about the Salesforce side? Was that
Pratik Desai [00:20:14]:
That’s a great question. I mean, absolutely. But you you don’t do something in a year of this size if if you are sequential. So Yeah. If if I’m making it sound like we did this sequentially, we absolutely did not. We we ran in parallel for most of it. But, yeah, I mean, the the the starting point of any migration is going to be making sure your data’s clean Mhmm. And and, and ready for that migration.
Pratik Desai [00:20:37]:
So there was a there was an ETL effort, clean the clean the data well, extract the data, transform the data, load the data. Right? So, but it was certainly an effort in terms of cleaning it because it wasn’t just stored in one place. Right? We’re doing a transformation to every cloud. So there needs to be the marketing view. There needs to be the service view, the sales view, the commerce view. So there was a a ton of, untangling, if you will, of of 10 to 15 years worth of data Oh, god. That needed to happen. Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:21:08]:
It’s cool. It’s exciting.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:21:10]:
Yeah. Okay. Do you enjoy obviously, you’re a market guy now, but do you enjoy the the bigger picture? Are you sort of an architect sort of tech sort of guide heart or more of a marketer at heart? Where do you sort of find yourself? Where do you or you bit of everything? Yeah. Yeah. No. It’s a
Pratik Desai [00:21:23]:
good question. I’m definitely an architect at heart. Okay. I just I just happen to really love and and have I have a passion behind digital experience. But Yeah. My my entire career is spent just architecting different things, whether it’s product from a consumer perspective or service cloud where I got my Salesforce career started. Okay. And and now from the marketing cloud perspective, I’m definitely I I I tend to just love looking at data piping and processes and architecting those.
Pratik Desai [00:21:49]:
And do
Jerome Clatworthy [00:21:50]:
you see that’s why you sort of really enjoy market cloud because of the, I guess, sheer volume of data that can is now available to us with cookies and or whatever the the new technologies for that kind of stuff? Is that why it’s such a you can figure it out because there’s, you know, infinite data points about who’s clicked where and when and how and how long and on.
Pratik Desai [00:22:07]:
Absolutely. I mean, you hit the nail on the head. I think one of the reasons why digital experience is so, like, exciting to me is because as an architect at heart, just the sheer amount of data we’re collecting from this so many amount of touch points we have, like, the the amount of ways we contact our consumers is is is vast. Right? So, and if you start to get outside of the US, now we’re adding WhatsApp to that. And we if you get outside of the, western world, we’re adding, you know, different consumer apps, that are that are targeting our consumers. So, like, the sheer amount of ways we contact our data, the sheer amount of behavioral signals that are coming back to the data, and the and the amount of AI that we can put in front of this stuff to, to actually be between us, the collection of the data, and the consumer experiencing whatever it is, that AI layer being at the forefront of digital experiences is really exciting.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:22:59]:
Yeah. The fact we don’t have to hard code every line of if this then that now we’ve got AI that can just Mhmm. Speed that process up, ridiculously. Cool. Cool. Well, I’m keen to dig into your career a bit more in one second. But is there a project that’s just really not gone so well and you’re falling on your face and taking some lessons learned? Is there something you can think of where you go, oh, yeah. That was a a disaster or something that didn’t go so well, and any lessons learned that you sort of, I guess, use in your practice now to prevent that happening again?
Pratik Desai [00:23:28]:
Yeah. I think it’s not one particular project, but I think it’s just a flavor of projects that I’ve been a part of. You know? I think the the flavor of projects is is when the product was sold without a, like, success model in mind. Right? Okay. And so that could be different flavors. I’ve and I’ve been part of a lot of them. So one, it could have been, you know, we buy Salesforce because that’s what you do at this level. You you become a an executive at a at a enterprise level, and you buy Salesforce, and that’s what you do, and then you figure out the rest later.
Pratik Desai [00:23:57]:
Yeah. And and I think that becomes a little harder because we don’t actually know why we’re here. We we can become just we, you know, we we end up just being order takers and checking boxes of, are we implementing Salesforce? Yes. Okay. Did we implement it correctly? Yes. But what’s the success? Right? Or is did did we help you as a client move the needle on your business priorities? It’s it becomes a little harder to measure that. So, I would I’d say that’s one flavor. And then another flavor of this is, may not necessarily be that you just bought Salesforce because that’s what you do, but it’s it’s because you bought Salesforce, and now you don’t actually know how to use Salesforce.
Pratik Desai [00:24:36]:
So you bring us in and say, I’m hearing that x y z competitor is doing x y z use case.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:24:43]:
Mhmm.
Pratik Desai [00:24:44]:
So you need to implement that. And not being data driven in selecting what are those use cases that are the largest opportunities for your organization that are going to be the best experiences and solve the biggest pain points for your consumer Mhmm. Is going to always lead to a situation where we’re not gonna necessarily be successful, because we’re just doing what the market’s telling you to do.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:25:08]:
Yeah. And, obviously, competitive analysis is important, but it’s not the only thing, is it? You know? If you’ve already got data, you maybe have some other quick wins or some other things which could lead you to way more success than you could by trying to figure out what competitors doing even though you don’t know why and how and just trying to copy that So you’re keeping up with the Joneses sort of.
Pratik Desai [00:25:26]:
Keeping up with the Joneses. I mean, I think, like, you know, the reality is every ecommerce vendor is gonna benefit from an abandoned cart use case. But if your particular ecommerce, journey is is struggling on the onboarding experience, If we’re optimizing the latter part of the funnel that sees, you know, 96% of folks not even get to the latter part, then that abandoned card is gonna be very in inefficient in driving top line revenue when the reality is we need to focus on getting folks down to the point where they even abandon something in the first place. So, it’s it’s those different nuances that if you look at the articles being posted by the MVPers, yes, they’re gonna tell you to do with any card, but
Jerome Clatworthy [00:26:08]:
Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:26:08]:
It’s the the sequential aspects of these use cases that are important for each individual organization.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:26:13]:
Yeah. I don’t know if it’s just an Australian sort of a colloquialism, but they’re gonna say that it’s like putting lipstick on a pig. Like, you know, you can do that at the end, but, you know, if you’re not working on the core, the core elements, yeah, that could all be in vain. Now, yeah, really interesting. So in terms of your Salesforce career, how did you get started? So I think you mentioned earlier on there that sort of service cloud was your entry to the ecosystem. Is that correct?
Pratik Desai [00:26:37]:
Yes. Service cloud was the entry, but I would say I quickly pivoted from service cloud into, marketing cloud when I when I initially, like, really dove into Salesforce as, like, the career choice.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:26:49]:
So you’re, like, an analyst or a BA or something that end up specializing in sort of Salesforce? Or it’s totally a a sort of left hand turn in your career at some point?
Pratik Desai [00:26:56]:
It it was a left hand turn. I went from kinda like a technology manager, Accenture, to a con a consumer group consumer, product product manager Okay. To, got some exposure to Salesforce as a user of the the actual platform, started getting really interested in, like, the space and, eventually, secured a job in the marketing cloud world.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:27:16]:
Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:27:17]:
And that’s when I, like, I was like, man, this thing is this this is gonna take over. Right? So, So
Jerome Clatworthy [00:27:22]:
how long ago was that? Was that when it was still under the previous sort of brand, or it was definitely within Salesforce at that point?
Pratik Desai [00:27:27]:
No. It was definitely within Salesforce at that point. But I think the the the the realization that I wanted to really go into, like, all in on Salesforce was was the ability to kinda marry the the different passions. Right? I I’ve already touched on my my passion around architecture
Jerome Clatworthy [00:27:42]:
Yep.
Pratik Desai [00:27:43]:
And my passion around, kind of, like, digital experience because that’s what brought me to be a product manager was try to solve for pain points in the in the consumer experience world. But then the 3rd piece was just really being tied to a technology that I can, like, anchor my career towards. And that, you know, a lot of a lot of, product management is home growing products. And then finding a technology where I was like, man, this thing is gonna be big, or it’s gonna continue to be big because it was already big
Jerome Clatworthy [00:28:09]:
Yeah. Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:28:10]:
Was was kinda what rounded off my my desire to just say, I’m all in on the Salesforce thing.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:28:15]:
Yeah. Right. Okay. And how long ago was that that you sort of first sort of started making that transition? How long was that?
Pratik Desai [00:28:21]:
Man, I think we’re about 7 years ago. So Okay. I would say It’s
Jerome Clatworthy [00:28:25]:
still relatively new. Okay. And so, obviously, now you’re running the agency, so one to 1. How is that now a more recent thing, or you’ve been doing that for a while now?
Pratik Desai [00:28:33]:
Yeah. So my last role prior to running the agency was actually at Salesforce where I was the personalization practice lead. Okay. So I was at Salesforce, I wanna say about two and a half years or something like that.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:28:44]:
Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:28:45]:
And, what I what I realized was when Salesforce purchased, what is now known as Marketing Cloud Interaction Studio, they signaled to the market that they were okay with the idea of code over clicks. Okay. And that that was a breaking from the mantra for for a very long time, especially as it relates to marketing cloud. It was very much a a click not code mantra. But this this technology broke the broke the trend, and what ended up happening was it it actually caused a lot of pain in the market because a lot of the folks that were staffed around marketing cloud were staffed to be of the mantra clicks not code.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:29:23]:
Okay. And so what they the way they staff their teams to have the skill sets and resourcing, it was all in that the the sort of clicks skill set, not so much on the code side.
Pratik Desai [00:29:31]:
Exactly. And so when when this product when when, you know, partners needed to start implementing this product, there was definitely some pain in the market on on doing that successfully. So that was a gap that I saw. And I was like, you know what? I I tried for 6 months to try to see if I can figure out how to solve it from the Salesforce seat.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:29:47]:
Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:29:47]:
And I talked to a couple advisors, and they said, you know what? You could probably solve it quicker and faster if you just build the thing yourself. So, jumped from Salesforce, decided to start my own agency specializing on on that particular area of marketing cloud. Okay. The team is definitely a strategy led team where we share success and wanna be generating ROI. We just happen to be full stack developers because that’s the right way to implement this technology.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:30:11]:
Okay. So what’s that process been like going from, corporate to to agency? Has it been a big transition?
Pratik Desai [00:30:18]:
It’s been a big transition. I mean, I I definitely had no experience running payroll and doing taxes and Yeah. Administrating 401 k and health care benefits.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:30:28]:
Yeah. There’s a
Pratik Desai [00:30:30]:
there’s a I think there’s a night a a piece of me that was naive. And they were like, oh, yeah. I could just start an agency,
Jerome Clatworthy [00:30:37]:
and
Pratik Desai [00:30:37]:
not realize how much administration goes into, actually doing something like that. So there was, you know, definitely a I I I like to tell my wife I I got an MBA by fire. Yeah. Learn how to run a business overnight. It’s
Jerome Clatworthy [00:30:50]:
the ultimate personal growth experience, isn’t it, standing business?
Pratik Desai [00:30:52]:
Absolutely. And I I think definitely, like, there was a there was a piece of this which which was, giving my room giving myself room to make mistakes, and and giving you know, being forgiving and and recognizing that I wasn’t gonna solve it overnight. Has
Jerome Clatworthy [00:31:06]:
that been a challenge for you? Like, you’re a bit of a perfectionist with high expectations of yourself. Is that something you need to Yeah. To try and give yourself that grace with this big new challenge?
Pratik Desai [00:31:14]:
Definitely a perfectionist. So I think, the the the typical perfectionist in me would have, probably burned out about a year and a half ago when I when I made the first few mistakes on taxes and reporting and yada yada yada. So, I think just, you know, being graceful and giving myself the leeway to make the mistakes and persevere through it and recognizing that eventually I’ll get it and and figure it out. And then, you know, at some point, it’s just gonna be automated, And then I’ll be able to actually run the business and view the
Jerome Clatworthy [00:31:42]:
Salesforce Focus on work.
Pratik Desai [00:31:43]:
Implementation. Yeah. So, you know, we’re we’re definitely past that point.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:31:47]:
Okay. You
Pratik Desai [00:31:47]:
know, like, I’ve gotten past the administration, and and we can actually focus on our customers and focus on our, focus on our success. But definitely, you know, it doesn’t come without having a great team behind me. And so I I definitely What does
Jerome Clatworthy [00:32:01]:
the team look like? How how big are you guys at the moment? What’s the team structure?
Pratik Desai [00:32:04]:
So at any given moment, we’re gonna be about, you know, 6 or 7, if you include contractors because I think Okay. One of the ways that you can, you know, kinda scale fast as a as an agency, it’s just starting off, is using contractors. Okay. But our core team is 3 people.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:32:21]:
Okay. Is there a good supply there? Are you finding you can get people when you need them or pretty hard to find good people with skills in sort of MCP?
Pratik Desai [00:32:27]:
Yeah. That’s definitely that was a learning for me. I I think I try to find the find the folks myself in the initial stages of the company, and then I realized that there’s there’s entire automations and recruitment firms that do that for you. Okay. Yeah. No. It’s it’s been it’s been quite quite, quite easy once all of those processes were set up, to be able to say, hey. This is what we need, and and they’ll go find it in in quite quite a reasonable amount of time.
Pratik Desai [00:32:51]:
So, definitely lots of skill set in terms of MCP as well as the larger marketing cloud in general.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:32:56]:
Because it seemed like I mean, just from browsing LinkedIn 2, 3 years ago, it was like, ah, there’s no, you know, marketing cloud professionals were like in insanely high demand whereas I’m not sort of sensing that to the same. It seems like that demand sort of gap has been filled in many ways. I mean, could be totally off, but it’s sort of that’s just the way it seemed in, in LinkedIn land. You know?
Pratik Desai [00:33:16]:
Yeah. I mean, I I think I think what you’re probably commenting on is the fact there’s definitely a saturation for sure. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:33:21]:
Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:33:21]:
So there’s for for us, there’s there’s a readily amount of talent to pick from, but I think what you’re what you’re what you’re seeing on the other side is that that’s because there’s a saturation to how much talent there is. Yeah. Sure. And I I definitely I I agree I’m seeing a little bit of, like, oversaturation of talent to to the amount of work that’s actually out there.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:33:40]:
Yeah. Sure. And how what about, obviously, the business side of it was a challenge. What about just, you know, deal flow for you guys? How were you finding clients to get started? Did you already have have a bit of a network, or did you have enough of a profile from the previous role that you’re like, oh, you’re doing agency work. Let’s roll, or that was a whole separate challenge that you had to, I guess, put out your sign and try and get some attention in that sense?
Pratik Desai [00:34:00]:
Yeah. A little bit of both or a little bit all of that, actually. So definitely, you know, calling up the network and saying, hey. You know, I know you had some struggles with this particular product. We’re here now. We’re we’re primarily looking to solve those struggles that you had, so let’s have a conversation. Definitely also leaning on the fact that, you know, we need to also create our our own new business. So making sure we’re marketing ourselves and letting letting the sales forces of the world know that we exist.
Pratik Desai [00:34:28]:
And, if you sell these particular aspects of marketing cloud, we’re we’re the right partner to to create success. And then also, you know, there’s also a little bit of, like, retention. Creating success drives more work. So, I think as I mentioned earlier, we we we don’t wanna be that partner that just checks the boxes, and then doesn’t have something to point to because being able to point to some sort of success or ROI generates the business case as to why we should continue to do the next version of that ROI.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:34:59]:
So more into long term relationships as opposed to a one night stand sort of.
Pratik Desai [00:35:03]:
Yeah. Exactly. And we just keep keep that momentum rolling. And especially when it comes to digital experience, there’s so many opportunities that we can go after. Yeah. Just keeping keeping that, momentum going on the on the the marketer side or the experience side is a is a high priority for them to squeeze every opportunity they have, and we can match that energy on our side by just making sure that, we’re implementing those technologies, those capabilities, but then also showing them that it it’s worth their dollars.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:35:32]:
And how fast is, I guess, the product MCP itself evolving? Is it is it, I mean, just tripping out new features here and there, or is it just the features of, you know, functionality and possibilities just coming out so quickly that you just got a never ending scope of new things you can try or new offerings you can sort of present to to clients to consider.
Pratik Desai [00:35:49]:
Yeah. I mean, there’s I think definitely there’s kinda 2 lenses to this. Lens number 1 is that the the tool itself is over, is is so sophisticated that most, clients that we’re working with have so much room for opportunity just to leverage what’s the out of the box technology.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:36:07]:
Okay. So the runway is long.
Pratik Desai [00:36:08]:
So the runway is very long because most of our clients not are not even using, like, 90% of
Jerome Clatworthy [00:36:13]:
the tool. So there’s there’s
Pratik Desai [00:36:15]:
plenty of opportunity to grow into, which is the gap that we saw in in the market and we had to figure out how to fix it. But then I think number 2, which is the the folks that we are seeing that are kind of, like, much more sophisticated users of the technology, that’s where data cloud is is is obviously
Jerome Clatworthy [00:36:33]:
coming
Pratik Desai [00:36:33]:
into play. It’s like Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:36:34]:
Right.
Pratik Desai [00:36:35]:
MCP, as I see it, is really that real time activation layer in terms of very rigid data. But if you wanna if you wanna grow to that next level, that’s where data cloud gives you that flexibility, all the different types of flexible data models and all the different calculated insights that you wanna create to really, really take your marketing program to that next, iteration. So I would say that’s kind of the natural evolution from the Salesforce platform perspective.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:37:02]:
Fantastic. And you mentioned that, MCP sort of broke the trend in terms of a code, not clicks, instead of the clicks, not code. Is that always gonna be the case? Or is Salesforce working to make it more more clickable, or you think this particular product is just always gonna be, I guess, more develop centric?
Pratik Desai [00:37:19]:
From what I can tell, I think Salesforce definitely has it on their radar to
Jerome Clatworthy [00:37:24]:
try to make this a little bit more click
Pratik Desai [00:37:26]:
focused. Because one of one of the pain points for this product is is the requirement to be full stack developers to implement it. And and, obviously, that’s that’s like a it’s a huge hurdle not only for for clients to implement this, but obviously for us to implement a a technology of Salesforce, we need to have full stack developers on staff. It’s it’s quite it’s quite the the the big ask if if you will. So, I think from what I can tell, and this is this is speculation. This is not fact. They’re they definitely have other than radar to try to make this a little bit more clicks integration over code integration.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:38:01]:
Okay. But at the end of the day, it’s probably most likely there’s always gonna be a need for full stack devs and MTP. Never gonna be able to get rid of that, but it’s always gonna be big, but they might make it a bit more friendly for for someone to better do some clicking.
Pratik Desai [00:38:13]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I think it there’s always gonna be a need for for development work.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:38:18]:
Yeah. So
Pratik Desai [00:38:19]:
there’s no no short of joke work for partners, but, yeah, I think it definitely can be more, user friendly.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:38:24]:
Yeah. Sure. Now we’ve gone in so many different sort of rabbit holes here, but overall so where where do you think the the industry is heading in this space? Like, what what do you see coming in the future and the the big innovations going forward?
Pratik Desai [00:38:36]:
Yeah. I mean, I I obviously I I think Mark recently said, like, data is basically gold. Yeah. So I I agree with that. Right? I think data is is certainly gold, and, I also, you know, would be wise to not challenge Mark. He’s he’s a much smarter than I am, but I I think I think the the the be all end all of where I think all of this is headed is that data is gold, and gold is very malleable. So while, you know, data can be changed and transformed in all different formats and all different ways, every single replication, every different tran every different transformation just makes it a little bit more farther from the truth. Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:39:19]:
And so where I think all of this is really headed in the mantra of data is gold is the idea of having a centralized data repository. I’m I’m staying away from the word like data warehouse, data lake, data cloud. It doesn’t matter what we call it.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:39:34]:
Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:39:34]:
There’s going to be one source of truth.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:39:36]:
Yep.
Pratik Desai [00:39:37]:
And every single type of technology that we actually use, whether it be a sales technology, a service technology, a marketing technology, a digital experience technology, a commerce technology, all of that is going to nest need to be composable on top of these various very finite but various different data house providers. So think of, like, Snowflake and Databricks and, AWS and maybe GCP is in there somewhere.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:40:05]:
Mhmm.
Pratik Desai [00:40:05]:
There’s a finite list of places where all of our users are gonna put their data. Yep. Every single one of the technologies out there from a Salesforce perspective is going to need to be a composable technology on those particular data houses. And I think Salesforce sees that that writing. Right? Because that’s why data cloud is doing this all of this work on 0 ETL, 0 copy is to make sure that they can keep up with the times and the mantra that all IT organizations are saying, I’m not copying my data anymore. You guys figure out how to how to you you figure out how to sell us that feature
Jerome Clatworthy [00:40:36]:
Yep.
Pratik Desai [00:40:37]:
On top of my database. And that’s what composable means. Right? So I think we’re going we’re seeing a shift from we went from on prem as, like, everything that technology did to the cloud to now cloud but on prem, composable. And another way to look at it is, we’re moving from SaaS where SaaS was just I’ll take your data and sell you the features back. Yep. To what what I like to call FaaS, which is I’m gonna house the data, create the feature on top of my database
Jerome Clatworthy [00:41:09]:
Yeah. Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:41:09]:
Which is just feature as a service.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:41:11]:
And then you can go shopping for various, yeah, technologies and functionalities and bring that onto your own, cloud based data. Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:41:18]:
You go go shopping for features. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:41:20]:
And then around
Pratik Desai [00:41:20]:
That’s how I see the market. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:41:22]:
Interesting. Yeah. Right. Okay. And is that just, like, crystal ball or you really see that happening in real time or that’s kinda like a real 5, 10, 20 years sort of
Pratik Desai [00:41:31]:
I I I see that happening in real time. I mean, I think I think IT organizations are getting a little bit more stricter than Mhmm. The amount of data replication that happens. I think they’re they’ve been burned by the amount of sources of truths that are out there. Right? Oh. Upwards of, like, 15 to 20 when you really count all the point solutions that are
Jerome Clatworthy [00:41:48]:
You’re making my head hurt. Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:41:49]:
It’s true. If you really, you know, start to count it, I think they’re they’re starting to become a little bit more strict about that. I think at the same time, vendors, competitors, quite frankly, to to, the CDP space like High Touch and Flywheel and Census are starting to figure out that, you know what? We can we can build these particular features just right on top of Snowflake, right on top of Databricks. And with the democratization of data management that Snowflake and Databricks brought to the table, all of this is kinda just creating this transformation that’s going to require us to think differently about how we sell software.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:42:30]:
Yeah. And do you think the pain point that’ll drive it is more, I guess, efficiency from using it or governance, security, or all the above
Pratik Desai [00:42:37]:
one? I I think it’s gonna make us all smarter. Right? I mean, I think definitely security and governance is part of it, but I think, like, stopping the the the the as I said, data’s malleable. That like, gold is malleable. Data is malleable. Mhmm. Every single version of the truth gets farther away from the truth.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:42:55]:
Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:42:55]:
Right? Like, that’s just the reality of it. Right? And so I think if you want your organizations to stop processes that are acting in silos, you have to get them to stop looking at data in silos. And that’s the starting point in my opinion. So Mhmm. If all of the data is in one place and we’re all just looking at the same source of truth, it gets us to the same table and it gets us to start to have the same conversation. So I think it just makes us all a little bit more effective.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:43:25]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, ultimately, I don’t know how long this eventually, they’ll become a point at which, I guess, energy consumption for powering duplicate data will be a legitimate concern worldwide. Like, you know, the amount of data tables of duplicate data out there, like, at the as we talk about, it seems quite negligible. But at a certain point, if there’s that many surplus databases out there that are all Yeah. Crunching, similar calculations on the same data twice, like, it’ll eventually become a, a very, very significant return as well on top of that.
Pratik Desai [00:43:52]:
Yeah. I mean, there there’s a huge ESG component to this, that we haven’t even really touched on. But, I think there’s definitely a an ESG drive to, I mean, because let’s face it. Like, half these technologies, like I said, 15 to 20 point solutions, they’re all half of them are built on AWS. The other half are built on some, like, combination of GCP or something else. So Yeah. They’re literally all in the same environments. They’re just siloing your data, replicating it, and giving you different sources of truth so they can sell you the feature back.
Pratik Desai [00:44:20]:
Right?
Jerome Clatworthy [00:44:21]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:44:22]:
I think there’s gonna be a consolidation, effort.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:44:26]:
Fascinating. That’s giving me some food for thought. Yeah. So there’s the the my data, my choice, and then, yes, there’s so many delays in there. It’s just crazy.
Pratik Desai [00:44:32]:
There’s so much to it. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:44:34]:
Yeah. And, yeah, I I, I can really see what you’re saying now. And we’ve, I guess, touched on AI as well in terms of potential impacts. But, again, big picture, where do you see AI sort of adding the most value in terms of and what are humans doing? You think AI could do better and what are what what consumers do that AI probably won’t be able to do for quite some time? How do you see that playing out within the in the short term next few years?
Pratik Desai [00:44:56]:
Yeah. I mean, I think look. I’m I’m bullish on AI, but I don’t prescribe to the idea that it’s going to replace us. I think I think the the replacement is going to be folks that are using AI. And I know I know it’s like you’re seeing the statement everywhere, like, marketers are not gonna be replaced by AI. They’re gonna be replaced by marketers using AI. But I I do truly stand by that. Yep.
Pratik Desai [00:45:18]:
I think that’s true across the CRM. The the different clouds, I think our capability and our ability to use AI is just going to make us more effective. Now I have concerns on that in terms of, like, entry level, knowledge because a lot of, what made us effective and what made us who we are is is learning the the and the initial job and learning how to act and think like an architect and a marketer and a CRM person, a salesperson. So I think I have concerns from an entry level perspective. I think that’s going to have to change at some point. But I think the
Jerome Clatworthy [00:45:53]:
Yeah. Because that skill set you’ve got helps you judge the output and decide, you know, judge the assistance you’re getting to know whether it’s, you know, useful or not. Woah. No. That’s way off. We’re not not gonna do that.
Pratik Desai [00:46:02]:
Yeah. Yeah. I think yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. Because I I think that’s important for your audience. I think I have concerns on that, but I think the folks that are already in the industry that can understand the quality of the output are going to be that much more effective by not only to the quality of the output, but also knowing how to prompt it. Right? So knowing knowing what it is that you’re looking for is half the battle in actually prompting it correctly.
Pratik Desai [00:46:26]:
And so it’s like the cyclical, like, need of I don’t I can’t get the right outcome if I don’t know what the outcome I’m looking for is enough to prompt it to get the outcome. I I I don’t think we’re gonna go far away from that type of generative AI, and we’ve talked to you know, the industry is talking about, like, agents that can self prompt, but something’s prompting the agent. Right? And Mhmm. If there’s some automation behind there, someone’s building the automation. So I think at least in the next, like, you know, 5 years, I think we’re all just gonna become way more effective with Mhmm. AI being embedded in every process that we do. And I think tech technology is gonna become more intelligent, but only as intelligent as as our ability to actually tell it what what this particular organization needs to do. Now I think the the the question that everyone asks is, like, is general intelligence, you know, artificial artificial general intelligence out there somewhere? I I I don’t know.
Pratik Desai [00:47:25]:
Right? I I think that’s that’s for someone smarter than me to actually answer, whether we’re all gonna be replaced by AI. But I think we have different problems at that point than CRM. So I think from a CRM perspective, I think right now in front of us, it’s really just a a a a matter of us understanding where can it be embedded from a process perspective, a product perspective, and from a people perspective, it just met it just needs to be, an upscaling effort.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:47:53]:
Yeah. Really good with that. That’s cool. Well, you’ve been so friendly with the time. I appreciate that. I just wanna geek out on a couple of really quick questions as we get towards the end. So real quickly, are you a iPhone or Android guy? What are you?
Pratik Desai [00:48:05]:
I’m an Android guy. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:48:07]:
Android. Okay. Always happened, or have you made a change at some point in your life?
Pratik Desai [00:48:11]:
I’ve I’ve always been a non Apple guy is Okay. Probably the right way to put it. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:48:16]:
I From the beginning, or did you did you get worried? Did you did you have a bad experience, or you’ve always been a bit suspicious?
Pratik Desai [00:48:22]:
From from the beginning, I just Okay. I I’ve always I’ve always looked at the price tag of of Apple products, and I was like, man, for that cost, I could build, like, way better computer.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:48:32]:
Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:48:32]:
And and, you know, obviously, having that skill set separates separates why that matters.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:48:36]:
But Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:48:37]:
I think, yeah, it for the price tag of, like, MacBooks and and Macs Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:48:41]:
Yeah. Yeah.
Pratik Desai [00:48:42]:
I was like, I I could build a way better PC for this. Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:48:44]:
Alright. Well, that answers my next question of Mac or PC. So I’m guessing you’re in the PC camp there also. And, just in house one to 1, what are you guys using to to talk, communicate your work, manage your projects? What’s your tech stack internally?
Pratik Desai [00:48:56]:
We’re on Slack from a communication standpoint. We use Google Drive to house our our repository. And then we, from a
Jerome Clatworthy [00:49:05]:
So workspace as well for your for your apps as opposed to Office? Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:49:09]:
Yep. Yep. Exactly. And then from a, project management standpoint, we use Trello.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:49:13]:
Okay. Cool. Cool. And if you were CEO of Salesforce for the day, what’s wave a magic wand. Is there a new feature or a bug you would fix or a new feature you’d roll out, or what comes to mind as something that you could fix if you had the chance?
Pratik Desai [00:49:28]:
Oh, man. So many come to mind. But I think I think I’m gonna I’m gonna do it from the frame of now being a partner of Salesforce. Yeah. Sure. Now that I’m a partner of Salesforce, one of the things that’s top of mind, I think, right now is the partner experience.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:49:43]:
Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:49:43]:
And I think Salesforce does a really good job of creating, like, all different types of experiences for their customers and their employees. I think the partner experience definitely could use a revamp, especially as it relates to, like, the partner portal and and the way we can actually engage with the right, account owner and the right, folks on the Salesforce side, I think
Jerome Clatworthy [00:50:03]:
Okay.
Pratik Desai [00:50:03]:
Definitely, there’s a there’s a little bit of love that can be given there.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:50:06]:
Okay. Cool. Cool. And in terms of we’ve talked a little bit about, you know, lessons you’ve learned from other orgs. But in terms of when you guys inherit an org and get started with an existing sort of an implementation, what have you noticed? Or is there any themes that come up in terms of, I guess, poor practice or maybe things that you’ve seen, trends of things that are set up in a certain way that you can sort of identify in terms of your patterns of non ideal practices or something that that come to mind that you’ve seen in multiple places?
Pratik Desai [00:50:34]:
Yeah. I’m gonna go I’m gonna go for an interesting one, permissions. I think Okay. I think, like, when when the org is initially set up, there’s always, like, this, like, everyone’s stacked hands on making sure everyone has the right permissions, making sure everyone has, like, the right access they need. And then over time, you end up bringing in, like, let’s say, 3 years later, you’ve brought in, like, 15 different consultants, 3 different agencies. You’ve, like, one, you know, one part of the organization had, like, one need at one time in one month. Yeah. And all of a sudden, everyone has permissions that have Give
Jerome Clatworthy [00:51:06]:
them all system admin. It’s easier. Let’s just give them a system admin. Yeah. And all that. Time to create.
Pratik Desai [00:51:11]:
Any permissions that actually are compliant. So I think permissions when when some when someone’s been using, the the org
Jerome Clatworthy [00:51:18]:
Is that just from a sort of data security point? That’s that’s the key concern there, data security? Is that
Pratik Desai [00:51:24]:
Data security as well is also just, like, just day to day usage. Right? There’s I’ve I’ve I’ve met a lot of folks that are like, I don’t want that permission. I don’t even wanna accidentally touch that stuff.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:51:33]:
So That’s right.
Pratik Desai [00:51:35]:
So, yeah, it’s it’s it’s it’s always funny to see how much how much emphasis is put on the initial implementation, and then it just all goes out the window when Yeah.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:51:44]:
At the start, it’s a little while. Row by row, column by column. Yes. To be neat. Yeah. Cool. Cool. And how many hours do you think you’re working a week on average? What would you guess?
Pratik Desai [00:51:54]:
Oh, jeez. I think, you know, as a CEO, you’re pretty much always working. So it’s if I had to estimate, I’d probably say, like, anywhere is up for it’s upwards of, like, a 100 to a 110 hours a week.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:52:06]:
Oh god. So you do a full day’s work of work and then another full day’s work of right now, is this behind the scenes?
Pratik Desai [00:52:12]:
It really is nonstop. I mean, it it’s it’s it’s you you’re pretty much working on the weekends. You’re working at nights. It is getting better, I would say.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:52:22]:
Is that, yeah, is that just because of the stage you’re at in terms of starting a business, you know, that kind of thing? Or you think Yeah. To an extent as CEO, that’s always gonna be very, very high, or you think it’s just more of a a shorter term thing while you’re getting one to one established and getting the people in and the processes in.
Pratik Desai [00:52:36]:
And I don’t know. I don’t know. Because it’s it’s it’s it’s at the stage we’re at, it’s like, as soon as something gets better, I I realize I can do something else to make Yeah. Business better. So I’m like, every time I go from a 100 hours a week till I I offloaded this, I either automated or hired someone to do this, I could fill the rest of the time with my personal stuff and actually live my life, or Yep. I could build more stuff, more capabilities of the business.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:53:02]:
Yeah. Yeah. And this I mean, yeah, I work from home, and I’ve got kids. So how do you think through that just as a parent in terms of because, obviously, we’re always around in in a sense. We’re often around. But how do you sort of segregate quality time in terms of, well, yeah, dad’s here, but he’s looking at his screen. Or, you know, how do you think through that, I guess, philosophically and practically in terms of
Pratik Desai [00:53:23]:
Yeah, man. I’m still learning. I I my my daughter is now 8 weeks old. So
Jerome Clatworthy [00:53:28]:
Oh, that’s awesome. It was
Pratik Desai [00:53:29]:
it’s been a it’s been a crash course on, like, how do I you know, essentially building helping raise slash build 2 babies. Yeah. And and they both require a ton of nurturing.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:53:40]:
Yeah. They’re both more than full time jobs.
Pratik Desai [00:53:42]:
Yeah. Both both both more than full time jobs. And but I would say, like, I’ve got a great team from a one to one perspective that helps nurture that baby. And then, I’ve got a great team at home in terms of my wife and and and our our my parents and her in laws. So my in laws, have been extremely, supportive and helpful. So, it is not an easy job, but I think, we’re doing we’re doing what we can.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:54:05]:
Yep. And what’s, excuse me, preferred day of work for you? Do you wanna be a door locked, tap on the keyboard with your architect hat on or on the phone to clients or behind the scenes figuring out health care plans? What what are you what really floats your boat in terms of the the perfect day?
Pratik Desai [00:54:22]:
Oh, man. As a CEO, I think the the perfect day would be having, you know, high level client conversations from a road map and strategy perspective, but then obviously my team handling the tactical, having some sales conversations in terms of pipeline as as it relates to Salesforce or
Jerome Clatworthy [00:54:39]:
Mhmm.
Pratik Desai [00:54:40]:
As it relates to kind of other products that we’re building internally, and then probably having some time to actually parse through it all personally and, like, sit sit with my own thoughts and be like, okay. What what content and and actual, administration do I need to do here? So I would say, like, a a perfect balance of all 3 is probably the perfect day, but, you know, reality is always far from the truth.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:55:03]:
Yeah. Appreciate that. Excuse me again. Alright. Well, we’ll get to there now. So please tell us all about sort of one to 1 and, I guess, how you guys can help people and, I guess, where you best sort of suited and the, yeah, the the the value you guys bring and what you think you can do for people.
Pratik Desai [00:55:16]:
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, we’re we’re continuing to grow our capabilities, and we’re continuing to grow our services. So if you’re a marketer slash person that is interested in digital experience of your customer, doesn’t have to be related to a particular channel, doesn’t have to be email, doesn’t have to be web, it doesn’t have to be mobile, doesn’t you know, it could be any one of these channels, but you’re particularly interested in figuring out how you can leverage consumer signals and personalize these particular areas of your experience. Reach out. That’s what we do. And, you know, bonus points if you’re a Salesforce user because that makes our job half half, half the work.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:55:53]:
Yeah. Right. Brilliant. Alright. Well, Patrick, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate. That was a really interesting conversation and, give me a lot of food for thought, especially the, fast sort of concept. So, yeah, thanks so much.
Jerome Clatworthy [00:56:04]:
All the best with 1 to 1 and all the best with the new baby too.
Pratik Desai [00:56:08]:
Thank you. Yeah. Great conversation. Appreciate having