Listen to Simpro CEO, Gary Specter, discuss all things Simpro and the future of the business.

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Hello and welcome to Trades Tools

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and Talks, a podcast powered by Simpro.

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Today we've got something special

to get your new year off to a great start.

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A dynamic keynote by Gary Spector,

CEO of Simpro.

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In his speech, Gary shares his vision

for the future of Simpro

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and the trades industry.

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Ready to dive in?

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Let's take a listen.

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Thank you.

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Good morning.

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I'm going to go

completely off the rails today.

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I have this deck

that I'm supposed to go through

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and I've decided I'm

not going to go through it

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and I'll share some of the slides

and some of what I have to say.

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I'll match and some of it probably won't,

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but that's okay.

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And the reason that I'm doing that

is, as Greg

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said, this is our this is the third

Simprosium that I attended.

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I wasn't able to go to the Auckland one

I was in, in London

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visiting our Simpro team in London.

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But I did go to the CAB last night.

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We had our first customer

advisory board meeting last night.

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In addition to all the Simprosium’s

that we've put on

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and know, the interesting thing for me

this morning,

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all the Simpro people got together

and we were talking this morning about,

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you know, are we tired?

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You know, we've been out here for a week

and a half.

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We're doing these roadshows

and nobody's tired

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and we're not tired because we're excited.

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And we're excited because every time

we've come into a Simprosium

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starts out a little slow

and people start listening to what we have

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to say, the changes that we're making,

really getting a feeling

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of what we believe is true,

which is for you to be successful

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and Simpro To be successful,

we have to create a more vibrant community

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as much as I want to stand up here

and say,

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you know, here's all the wonderful things

that we're doing with Simpro,

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and there's a lot we are

we're doing a lot.

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Our focus really needs to be

about the ecosystem,

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how we work with suppliers,

how we work with our partners,

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how we work with all of you,

how we work with associations.

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This is a community and one of the reasons

that I wanted to come here

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was that as I started to learn about

the trade industries and I'm the first one

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to admit I don't come from the trades,

I come from a retail background.

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I built most of the largest e-commerce

sites on the planet.

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I probably had a hand in building

and there were a lot of similarities

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between what we did there

and what we're doing here.

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A lot of owner operators

that own their own businesses

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and they vote with their own paychecks.

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It's not like I'm selling to a Wal-Mart

or a Target

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or an IBM or an HP, where people vote

with other people's money.

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And I like these types of businesses.

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I like being part of an ecosystem

or a community

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where we invest in each other.

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And for me, going forward,

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I want to make sure that that's

what we're doing, that we're providing

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value for the investments

that you're making in us.

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But it can't be us alone.

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It has to be this ecosystem,

because that's what this is.

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I mean, a lot of you that are here today

probably know each other,

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belong to the same associations,

share information,

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probably not customer lists,

but a lot of other details

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and Simpro needs to be leading the charge.

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We need to be helping drive that

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that community, that collaboration.

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I'm a big believer that a high tide

raises all boats

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and we need to be helping each other in

driving that so that we're all successful.

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And this is a really great industry.

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It's a very cool industry.

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You have people that are of all ages

that want to get engaged,

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involved in the industry,

and your opportunities are limitless,

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whether you start

as an apprentice electrician

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and you move to be an electrician,

then you get,

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you know, you decide

that you want to start your own business.

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Sky's the limit

to what you want to do as an individual,

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and there's no barrier to entry here.

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It really just comes down

to how hard you want to work.

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How well can you network

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so I think it's an incredible opportunity.

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I couldn't be more excited to be here.

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And the more time I spend with all of you,

the more excited

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I get about what

I think the possibilities are.

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So I couldn't be more thrilled to be here.

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I'll share

a story about how Simprosium came to be,

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and I know Simpro did roadshows

before we did a lot of them

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and but my second week here

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I was in a van

and I was with our new CMO, who was

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I was lucky enough that she followed me

here from our previous company

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and she's someone that I had worked with

it, I think two or three other companies.

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So I've known her for quite a while

and we were talking to our head of h.r.

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And our head of customer success,

and i asked about these roadshows.

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I said, well,

what goes on with the roadshows?

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Everyone says, well, we do a road map

and we let people know what we're doing.

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And i said, well,

we're not going to do that Simprosium.

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And they kind of looked at me,

What are we going to do?

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And I said, Well, go send out

a SurveyMonkey to all of our customers

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and let's go see what

they want us to talk about.

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And if we're going to go spend

five or 6 hours with some of our customers

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in Australia and in New Zealand,

it should be about them.

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What do they want to know?

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Do they want to hear about the roadmap?

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If they do, let's talk about the roadmap.

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Do they want to hear customer stories or

do they want to hear from other customers?

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If they do, let's run customer panels.

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So all of the content that you're seeing

today is a direct result

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of what you told us

you wanted about today to be.

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So that's what we're going to do.

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And going forward,

that's sort of the mantra here at Simpro.

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I need all of you, the

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community, to drive where we go.

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I think we've, you know, Simpro’s

not perfect.

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I think we probably have done some things

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not super

well over the last couple of years.

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That's probably why I'm here as a new CEO.

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I've been here for six months.

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I suspect that somebody thought

maybe things should be done

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a little differently. So here you go.

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And I think that

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we have an opportunity to get it right.

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But for me to get it right

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and for Simpro to get it right,

I need to hear from all of you.

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And you're going to find that our culture

is going to become very, very open.

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I know sometimes it's been tough to get

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a hold of people that will come to an end

and it is coming to an end.

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I think we've already started

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to make a difference in our ability

to respond and communicate to people,

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but that is probably at the front and

foremost of everything that I want to do.

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We will be customer

focused and customer driven,

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and if we're not,

I'd love to hear about it.

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And I'm going to give all of you

my email address at the end of this thing,

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and I encourage you to reach out

if there are sparks of innovation

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or things that you think that we should be

doing so that we can better support you.

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I'm all ears.

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That's just how I

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operate and it's how the leadership team

that I brought in operates.

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And it's now how Simpro will operate

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and I think most of the people

that have been here for years

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are embracing and are happy

to get reengaged with all of you

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just to see how much potential

we have together

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before

we really get into our presentation.

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I do want to thank our sponsors.

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So we've got a row of sponsors

in the back.

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I hope next year

that there's a lot more of them.

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Again, I'm a big builder or a big

believer in building up community,

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so I want to thank our sponsors

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for being here and

and really being at the shows with us.

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They've been to all of them

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and I'm hopeful that next year

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we'll just continue to grow this thing

and make it bigger and bigger.

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So a lot of people

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are sitting back in there saying,

okay, got a new CEO comes from the US.

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What does that mean?

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And what I can tell you is it means that

you have a CEO that lives in the US.

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That's it. I've been out to Australia.

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This is probably, I think my second

or third time since I started in the role.

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This is such a vibrant community

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and I've been to our teams in EMEA

I've been with the teams in the US

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and I can promise you

that the trades industry in APAC

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is very, very different than EMEA

and the US.

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And part of the reason

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that it's different is it's,

it's embedded into the culture here.

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It's a part of all of Australia,

New Zealand, it's a big deal.

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And while it is a big deal in EMEA

and starting to become

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a bigger deal in the US,

it is a much bigger deal here

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and I recognize that

and I've never had plans to.

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I get asked all the time, Well,

are you going to have

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are you guys going to move to the US?

What's going to happen?

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Nothing.

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This is the epicenter of the trades

industries is it's APAC.

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So not only are we going to remain in

APAC, we're going to double down in APAC.

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There's so much more to be done

in Australia and in New Zealand.

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And we've just started.

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I know that we've been here for about

20 years, but there's so much more to do.

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There's so much innovation

coming in with technology

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that can impact the trades industries

and we need to be bringing that in

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and it'll

resonate and we'll do these things in

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in the UK and in EMEA

and we'll do these things in the US.

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But it's going to start here.

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The epicenter of Simpro

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has always been Australia and it's

going to continue to be Australia.

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So for those of you that are going,

my God,

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all these people being hired in the US,

we're all coming here, we're not moving,

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but we are going to be here,

we will be present here.

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And it's one of the conditions.

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When I started hiring people,

I wanted to pick the right people.

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I didn't care where they lived.

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The right people will get on a plane

and go be with our customers

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and learn from our customers.

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And our customers are global,

but a lot of our innovation

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and our ideas are going to come from here

and we need to double down on

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what we do here

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today.

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We have over 8500 businesses,

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you know, a million jobs created monthly.

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It's a big deal like this impacts

people's lives.

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And I think, you know,

it was really important for me

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that the people at Simpro,

our team understands

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the impact

and the gravity of our situation.

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People depend on us.

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They run their businesses on us.

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We're at the center

of what some businesses do.

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I've seen slides now and other customers

have shared with me and said,

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Hey, here's all the systems we use.

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Simpro sits right in the middle.

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And if, if,

if the people at Simpro haven't realized

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just how important we are

and why we need to be so collaborative

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and why we need to be innovative and why

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we need to listen to all of you,

they're starting to feel it now.

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We matter,

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but we matter as part of an ecosystem

and a community, not just us.

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But we really need it to be about you,

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our customers, not us as a company.

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And I'm thrilled.

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You know,

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I've talked to a bunch of customers

who've said, We need you to be successful.

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Well, it's right back at you.

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I need all of you to be successful.

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If I can help with that, that's awesome.

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That's what I feel good about.

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And of course, as a CEO, I run a business.

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I'm responsible for running a business

and I have a number,

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but the number will take care of itself.

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And I have a PE firm

that asks me every day, Where are you?

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What is your growth,

what numbers are you delivering?

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And as long as we take

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care of our customers

and we go on this journey together,

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whatever targets

we set, we'll get to, right?

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But they don't have to sit

and think about the business.

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I need to sit and think about how we help

all of you, how we support you.

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The business will take care of itself.

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And if we can lead the charge

in building this ecosystem,

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the results that we want, they'll come.

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I'm not too worried about that.

They'll come.

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But our primary objective

has to be making sure that each

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and all of you are successful.

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What super

interesting about the trade industry

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right now is they're getting more complex

and they're getting more complex

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because your customers

are demanding more from you.

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If you're doing

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a job, they want to know where you are

in the job.

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They want to know is is the budget right?

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Is there a cost overrun?

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Are we going to hit the dates

that you've set?

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They want bilateral communication

from you.

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When are you going to be at the site?

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Should we expect you?

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Do you have everything you need?

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You know,

your customers are getting really

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I don't want to say more needy,

but they are.

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And the reason that they're getting more

needy is because technology

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globally and everything

they do has set that expectation.

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Like if you order something

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and you want to have it

delivered to your house,

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you generally get an email saying,

Hey, your order shipped,

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hey, your orders on the way, hey,

your order sitting at your front door.

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Sometimes I get a picture from FedEx

saying Your order sitting right here.

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That's the expectation.

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Your customers

now have the same expectation of you

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and you should have

the same expectation of us.

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Your business is going to get more complex

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and we need to do more to help you

with that complexity.

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So when I'm thinking about how

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we help you, I'm

not thinking about just the platform.

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To me, the platform is table stakes.

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We have to provide a platform

that allows you to run their business,

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your businesses.

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But we also have to help you figure out

how to do invoicing, billing payments.

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How do you connect with your suppliers

in a more direct way?

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How do we help you find resources?

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If you're running an HVAC company

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and you need more, more techs,

how do you go find them?

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If you need insurance,

where do you get insurance?

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If you need capital,

where do you get capital?

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I'm thinking about Simpro

in a much broader way

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than anyone at Simpro

thought about it before,

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and probably a little bit different than

how our competitors are thinking about it.

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But that's because of the world

that I come

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from, is a very connected world

that was very complex.

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Retail.

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Retail isn't much different than here.

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You work with an end customer

who's made an order.

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You work with an end customer

that has an order.

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It's just a service.

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But all of this technology

that enables or creates

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simplicity out of all this complexity,

it exists today.

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We just haven't

brought it into this industry.

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And so I think this industry

is really ripe for a transformation.

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Some people like the word use,

the word disruption

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and the beauty of of the trades

industry is

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you can't disrupt a lot of things.

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I don't think that AI is going to come

fix your air conditioner any time soon.

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It's still going to need people

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that want to use their hands

and have to use their hands.

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But things like AI and machine learning

could be used to make that better.

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To augment what they do, they can respond

faster, they can find material quicker.

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All of those things.

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And as

the platform that you run your business

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on, it's it's really our obligation

to figure out how to bring that technology

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in and innovate

so that you can run your businesses

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faster and more efficiently

and more effectively,

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more profitability,

more customers, more growth.

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And that has to be

our focus is is to enable that for you.

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Some of the changes that we're making,

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you've already seen

and hopefully you've felt.

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So I know that when I first got here,

I spent the first probably three

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or four months taking a lot of email

because the systems were going down.

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They weren't very stable.

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And I was told, Hey, you know,

we want to move to AWS.

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Great. When are we going to do that? Well,

it's going to take us nine months.

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I'm like,

No, we're going to do it in four.

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And so in July, very quickly,

we moved to AWS.

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And I'm thrilled to say that since July,

I think our uptime has been 99.999%.

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And I think that is when

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Simpro, the company, started to realize

that I don't have a whole lot of patience

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and that we're going to move very,

very fast.

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We're not going to do things

in eight months and nine months.

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We're going to do things

in two months or three months,

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not at the expense of quality.

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We're going to do good work.

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We're going to do the right things,

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but we're really going to focus

on the three

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or four things that matter and we're

going to bang them out and get them done.

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I understand right now

that customer support is an issue

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a lot of people have called in to support

and they don't hear from anybody

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or the right person

doesn't get on the phone

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and we're not connecting the dots

in the right way.

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And when I got here, for example,

there were 12 open head count for support.

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And I'm like, why aren't we?

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Why are there 12 open headcount

for support?

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And people couldn't tell me why.

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I'm like, This is dumb.

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So I hired a new head of support

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and within three months

we hired 12 people for support.

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Now it's going to take them a little while

to ramp up.

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Simpro’s Not the easiest in the world.

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It's not complex, it's just comprehensive.

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It's a lot to learn.

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And so we've got to take some time

to train these people.

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But I already see our time

in which we're getting back to people.

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It's coming down

and it'll continue to come down.

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We have

this customer success organization.

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It's a big organization.

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There's a lot of people,

but I don't believe that it was formatted

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correctly to support all of you

and the customer base that we have.

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So we're going to make big changes there.

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I brought in a Chief revenue officer,

who started about four weeks ago.

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She's been with me

at four different companies.

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We've been together for ten years.

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That sounds really weird, but it's true.

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And the reason that we work really

well together is because we both share

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a common belief, which is the customer

comes first and we rebuilt

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the entire customer success motion

and teams at Magento and at Adobe.

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And I think if we can build

a customer success team

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for a $20 billion company,

we can figure out how to do it for Simpro.

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And so I brought her here

to help me do that.

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So we are now dismantling

the entire customer journey,

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how we interact with all of you.

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What are the touch points

in which we have with all of you?

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And then we're going to figure out

how to align around that

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so that, you know,

no matter where you are in your journey,

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whether it's day one is tomorrow

or you've been here six weeks

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or you been here,

who is the longest 16 years,

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Right.

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I want to make sure that you're supported

in the best way for you

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because you need more support than he does

or a different type of support.

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And we need to adapt to that.

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So over the next couple of months,

you will see our customer

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success teams realign around you.

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Our customer base,

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communication and engagement.

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We're here

and I've sent out a couple emails

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to the entire customer base

since I've been here.

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My commitment to you is one a quarter.

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If you've spoken to people that have been

to any of the other Simprosiums

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or you haven't gotten the message

here, I'm incredibly transparent and

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there is nothing I won't share with you

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unless our owners come back to me

and say, Please don't share this.

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And that's pretty rare.

It might be financial.

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Who knows everything else.

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We're an open book,

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and the people that I've brought in

to help me lead this company

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and the people that are still

at this company and have stayed here,

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they're here

because they believe the same thing.

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We should operate with candor,

with transparency,

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and we should lead with our ears.

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We need to listen to you in order

to understand where we're going to go.

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But we also need to be really transparent

about what we're doing.

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And my hope is that if we're not doing

the right things, you raise your hand.

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Go, wait a minute, Could

you think about it a little differently?

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And we're going to be open

and receptive to that.

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I talked early about this

renewed focus on community

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customers, partners, associations.

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Simpro is bigger than Simpro,

and if it's not, it should be.

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We should be leading the charge

in bringing all of these things together

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so that we can make you more successful

because us alone can't do it.

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There's all these

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other components of your business,

but we should be collaborating and talking

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with the other components of your business

to make sure that you're successful

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because if you're successful,

everyone else is too.

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That's the beauty of it.

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We pull each other along,

but we have to start creating that.

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Those tendencies between each

of these pieces of your business.

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And my hope is that

Simpro will be the heart and soul of that

403

and will drive

that communication in that collaboration

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and then finally, of course,

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there is a technology roadmap

and we want to share what that is.

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And the reason that we want to share

it isn't so much that we can say,

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Hey, let's pound our chests

and show you what

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we're doing it so that you can say to us,

Yeah, those are the right things.

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Or, Wait, wait a minute,

maybe we don't need that.

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These other things should be prioritized.

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And so when I think about us

sharing the roadmap

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and talking about the features

and the functions that are coming,

413

I don't think about it

in the way that most people do.

414

It's not, Hey, here's what we're doing.

415

It's more of a question, Hey, here's

what we're doing.

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Is this right?

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And then we want your guidance on whether

we're moving in the right direction

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or not.

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That communication has to be,

you know, bilateral has to go both ways.

420

We share. You share.

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So my ask of you is

is definitely share with us.

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And we're going to be sharing that

with our ecosystem

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because I want the ecosystem

to come along with us.

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We have a lot of partners in the back.

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We have a lot of partners

that do implementation work

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and they do services work.

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They're not my enemy, they're my friend.

428

They need to know what's in the roadmap.

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They need to know what's coming.

430

They need to be as knowledgeable

about Simpro as we are.

431

And that

432

is a different strategy

than Simpro's had in the past.

433

We need to be both experts

and trainers and educators and

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we need to bring everybody along with us

because we all have the same common goal.

435

And if we don't, we should, which is

how do we make our customers

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successful?

437

You're in your voice matters,

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your feedback,

your aspirations, what you want to do.

439

We want to hear from you.

440

I want to hear from you.

441

You're all get surveyed

after a simple Rosie.

442

You'll get a survey in your emails

and I hope you answer them

443

and say, Hey, next year,

what if we what if we saw this?

444

Or could you provide this or do this?

445

You get to drive where we go,

446

you get to drive where we focus.

447

Take advantage of that.

448

We're your partner.

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We want to make you better

and we're listening.

450

We want to know from

451

you specifically what it is

that you would like to see from us.

452

That's my email address.

453

Feel free to drop a note again

if you've got

454

anything that's innovative.

455

Any opportunities for us to get better?

456

Anything that you think we could do that

we're doing?

457

I'd love to hear what we're doing.

458

Well, in addition to where

we have opportunities to get better.

459

But I'm open to it.

460

I've respond to every email

I've ever gotten in my entire life.

461

I don't think I've ever ignored

462

anybody in any of the companies

that I've worked for or with.

463

And I'm a big believer

464

in being open and transparent

and just willing to talk to people.

465

That's how you get better.

466

I don't believe that

my role is any more important

467

or any less important than anyone else

that's in process.

468

It's not the way that I think

and it's not the way that I operate.

469

I'm cognizant of

470

the fact that tomorrow

probably can't be successful

471

unless the vision and the strategy

that I set works.

472

But the vision and the strategy that I set

comes from everyone in this room.

473

It's not mine. Sure.

474

And I have to do things

475

in my role in order for everyone

at scenario to be successful.

476

And I need everyone at semi-pro

to focus on what they're responsible for.

477

I can't be successful, so I'm no

important, no more important than anybody

478

else.

479

I just have a different title

and a different role.

480

But we all have the same purpose,

which is to make all of you successful.

481

That's my email address.

482

If you want to communicate,

483

please, I'd appreciate it

hearing anything that you have to say.

484

I hope that today's a good day

and that you learn

485

and that you get to meet other people

and you get to collaborate and talk.

486

I'm excited for the day.

487

I'm thrilled for the day to get started.

488

I appreciate all of you being here

and giving us your time

489

because I know

you all stepped away from your jobs.

490

And that's hard to do in the industry

491

that we're in,

but it's very much appreciated.

492

And I know today will be worth it for you.

493

But if it's not,

let me know what else we can do

494

so that the next time around

we get it right.

495

So thank you.

496

Thanks for giving me some time.

497

Thanks for listening to this episode

of Trades Tools and Talks.

498

For Simpro, I'm Bill.

499

We're looking forward

500

Now let's get to work.