October 17, 2023 • 30 mins
Are you poised to revolutionize your lighting showroom with the power of data and robust ERP systems? We'll delve into the data consistency, examining its need to keep up with the ever-evolving industry standards. Information overload or the lack thereof can be an issue, but what if you had an abundance of searchable and sortable data at your fingertips? What would productivity gains mean to you and your staff? And how do we even quantify our losses due to bad data? The opportunities for improvement are many -- what steps is your showroom taking to update your procedures and deal with your data infrastructure?
This week's episode is sponsored by Zastro. Be sure to listen for their exclusive offer for LWL listeners! For more on Zastro and their illumiNet solution, visit: https://zastro.com/illuminet. To set up a demo, please email Heather Mestad.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello and welcome fellow lighting nerds and
friends to another episode of alighting with Lisa, the podcast.
This week we're sponsored byZastro.
I have so much more informationabout them upcoming, along with
a special offer just for ourpodcast listeners.
So stay tuned for that.
(00:24):
I can't wait to talk about itwith y'all.
So this episode sort of inhonor of our sponsor, but that
was kind of an accident.
So I love it when a thingunintentionally comes together.
But my topic planned for thisepisode was the importance of
data, data consistency andsystems in a lighting showroom.
(00:49):
I've long time listeners of thepodcast will know this is like
a near and dear topic to myheart.
My background in life, wellbefore I entered the lighting
showroom business, was indatabase management and I kind
(01:11):
of love it.
But like I'm a proceduresgirlie, like I really can get
nerdy over like processes andprocedures and in many
businesses like all of them notjust lighting showrooms, but
that's what we're here to talkabout Data is so, so critical to
(01:31):
our success and has becomeincreasingly more so I mean not
shockingly given the world thatwe live in, but it's just so, so
integral to how we operate on adaily basis.
So I spent a lot of timethinking about it and thinking
about ways to improve it and howto better work with, like the
(01:56):
data sources that we have, andyou know where, where do we go
from here.
So I just have kind of havesome general thoughts on this
that I wanted to talk about inthis podcast and would
definitely love to hear yourtakes in, your feedback, on some
of the things I'm gonna mention, and then we can do a deeper
(02:18):
dive on a future podcast.
Before I get too far into theepisode, though, I do want to
remind y'all of the threeFacebook groups that are
associated with lighting withLisa.
So the first is the fixturefinder page, which I started way
(02:39):
back in lighting showroomcoalition days, and then I
turned that over to the LSA andthen, as the LSA is exiting the
week, kind of all just agreed Iwould still maintain it.
So it's there now.
If Facebookcom slash groupsslash lighting fixture, help for
that page.
(02:59):
It's super, super, super usefuland full of great ideas, so I
appreciate everyone being a partof that page.
There's also the industry jobboard.
That's the same star atFacebookcom slash groups, slash
lighting jobs and the name ofthat group.
If you just want to search.
It is residential lightingindustry job board.
(03:21):
And then the last group is theprivate group.
That really is the supportgroup of this podcast, in that
it's where you can go to give mefeedback on an episode or
suggest a topic or answer one ofthe polls.
You know I love a poll.
You know it's just a good wayto kind of get like top line
(03:42):
information from y'all aboutwhat is critical to you or your
business or, you know, sometimeswe'll just do fun ones, but
anyway, that's the group.
Is Facebookcom slash groups,slash lighting showrooms and
that's LWL dash lightingshowrooms is the group.
Please join us there.
I'll have the links to all ofthese in the show notes for
(04:05):
today, along with a link to oursponsor.
So the thing with data in ourbeloved lighting and fan
industry still is just a lack ofconsistency.
Now I know there is the ALAformat for data that I know most
(04:30):
manufacturers used or probablystill use, and I have an honest
question about that.
This would definitely be.
You know, let me know.
The spot Is the ALA format.
Has it been updated recentlyfor like LEDs and like to show
(04:51):
if something is integrated orsocketed?
I really don't know.
I haven't seen like thetemplate in a lot of years.
Somebody had forwarded it to mea while back, but that was a
couple of years ago and I'm justnot sure, just honestly, how
often the ALA format is updated.
If it's updated recently, thatwould be amazing, because there
(05:17):
are just some things that arecoming up now that obviously
didn't exist.
Again, the integrated versussocketed, what you know, a lot
of the fixtures that aresocketed, the ratings are
shifting because of the full onban on incandescent light bulbs.
(05:38):
Like you don't have to put asocket rated for 100 watts in
there anymore, anyway, so someof that shifting too.
So it just is an ever evolvingneed for us that our data
standards keep up with like therealities, like even things like
(05:59):
whether a fan is an AC motor orDC motor, like sometimes that's
identified, sometimes it isn't,but like that's something that
like sorry for all the fanlisteners, like for many of us
in showroom world, that wasn'tsomething that was in a topic of
(06:20):
conversation until like fiveyears ago or so, like where we
would really kind of highlightthe difference between, like, an
AC motor and a DC motor.
Five years maybe is too shortof a timeframe, but just drawing
on my best experience, anyway,and now it's like something
we're talking about all the time.
So the data definitely has tokeep up with where we're at in
(06:43):
terms of products and sellingand what we have on display, and
just oftentimes it seems likeit doesn't all go together.
Somebody had commented on thatFacebook group.
I just mentioned that.
Basically, the issue is there'seither too much information or
not enough, and I always amfully on the side of give me too
(07:06):
much information, but I like itto be like sortable or
searchable, like.
If you're going to overload mewith data, fine, but let me like
then pull out the pieces I needLike.
Oftentimes I find these thingsare just like huge data strings
and it's hard to pull out whatyou want and when and why.
(07:29):
It just can be such a challenge.
So I, again, I always say toomuch is better than not enough.
But yeah, there is frequentlynot enough Like and I, you know
again, longtime listeners willknow my constant complaints
about like product imagery orlinking to factory spec sheets
and things like that that arefrequently not available for a
(07:54):
while, sometimes ever.
You know it can just be really,really frustrating in the
showroom, even within onemanufacturer, like there's going
to be some products that youhave an excellent amount of data
on and can see everything youneed to know, and then in that
same brand, you'll havesomething else that doesn't have
any of the details and you'relike frantically hunting around
(08:17):
for something in front of acustomer.
But it was there on this itembut not on that.
It's just.
It can be very, verychallenging.
So just more consistency.
And again, I always say more isbetter and then I can filter
out the things that I don't need.
But if I don't have it, I can'teven I don't even have the
opportunity to filter them out.
And in the world we live in,there is just more data than
(08:41):
ever to manage.
Like, if you just think aboutit, it's not just like your
product database, it's yourcustomer database, it's your
inventory database, it's youreverything.
There is just so much more tokeep up with and all of our
emails and your customer emailsand your marketing campaigns,
(09:02):
like there's just a ton and likeeven more so than I mean just
honestly, even like 15 years ago, if you think about how much
more we're doing on thecomputers with our data than we
ever did before in trying tofind ways to like, drill into
(09:22):
that data to become more andmore successful?
And then, when you don't havethe ability to do so, how do you
measure those costs?
Like, how do you measure yourreal costs of bad data?
And I feel like, intuitively, weall know Bad data is costing us
.
We know it, but it's hard toquantify that on a global level
(09:47):
for your business like.
I've spent probably way morehours than I need to Thinking
about this and trying to figureout, like, how can I quantify
what this is costing me BecauseI want to do this and that and
the other, but like, is thisreally an expense to the level I
think it is in my blowingsomething out of proportion?
(10:09):
You know, whenever I'm tryingto make a decision for a
business, I really try to comeat it, as I know most of us do,
from like a fact basedperspective.
I don't want to just like makeassumptions and make a business
decision off of that, but how doyou even accurately measure the
cost of bad data?
Like, aside from sort of theobvious issues like where you
(10:31):
have to honor a pricing mistakeor or else, so you know, if you
don't honor, like a pricingmistake because you weren't
appropriately notified of aprice increase and a customer
comes in and you're, you know,haven't, didn't know there was a
price change, or you just foundout about the price change in
(10:54):
the tag in your store hasn'tchanged and the price went up
and your tags wrong.
I mean you are gonna loserevenue honoring the price of
that mistake, or you run therisk of generating ill will or a
bad Google review if you'rejust like no, it was a mistake,
I'm not gonna honor that.
You know, I think most of usDefault to that.
(11:18):
You know customers always writemindset where like yeah, I know
it's costing me, but I'm notgonna like pick a fight over
this, I'm just gonna honor mymistake and try to move on.
But it costs.
Every time that happened itcosts and that's probably about
the only time we can reallyquantify it.
But what other costs areassociated with bad data or a
(11:42):
system that isn't working foryou?
Like, are you just losing outin functionality?
Are you like not able to trackthings like the way you might
want to with your customers, orfollow up with them, or Track
your shipping and delivery?
You know there's all theselittle components to data.
That's not just like the datafiles from our manufacturer
(12:06):
partners, it's all this otherstuff that comes together to and
trying to Quantify, like whatyour losses are, what your costs
are, by something just beinglike, actually incorrect again,
whether that's the data feedfrom the manufacturer, or bad
(12:28):
customer email addresses or badcustomer mailing addresses and
the invoice goes to the wrongplace or the email address is
wrong and the AR people can'tget it.
You know, just like there's anynumber of things that cost us
all money and it's just reallyhard to quantify, and I just
(12:50):
think it's so important for allof us to really take a step back
and look at all of our datasystems and how they might be
working or not working and thedata feed, the product data
feeds from our manufacturers.
However, you get thatinformation, whether it's like
(13:11):
direct from the manufacturerthrough a third party service.
It just needs to be better andbetter all the time and it just
kind of seems like it's not andit is just such a challenging
part of what we do.
It's not really a set it andforget it kind of thing.
It's something that we need togo back and review all the time
(13:33):
and again.
All of these things Are costlyand there are time consuming and
requires a lot of manpower andyou know, that's kind of where I
think the data gets to where itgets in our industry and it is
just a costly, time consumingthing to get right.
But once if we can work betteron getting it right like from
(13:53):
the jump, then we're all goingto be so much more better off
and potentially have less likeloss and costs associated with
bad data files or bad data feedsor missing information.
It's the missing informationfor me that really, really kills
me.
It just can be such a waste ofa sales person's time tracking
(14:20):
down information that shouldhave just been there.
It shouldn't be such a headacheto go find this answer to this
question.
I in it can really just likedrive a person nuts.
So Let me shift here to talkingabout our sponsor for this
(14:41):
episode, which is Zastro.
If you have never heard ofZastro, I must add this little
disclaimer at the top that I ama recent new customer of theirs.
Zastro is a.
They provide like ERP softwareall based on the Oracle NetSuite
(15:04):
platform.
I didn't realize it at first,but a lot of the lighting
industry, especially ourmanufacturer partners, use
NetSuite, so I don't know wherethey have it all licensed
through.
But if you start payingattention, you realize how many
emails you get that saysomething about NetSuite in them
.
But anyway, zastro has developedthe NetSuite platform with
(15:31):
their Illuminat program.
I don't know what the right wayto say that is, but long story
short, it is an enhancement forlighting showrooms and the
lighting industry specifically.
So it takes this like kind ofgeneral massive program that can
(15:52):
be customized for whatever youneed and they've done all the
groundwork to customize it forlighting, the lighting industry,
lighting showrooms particularly.
That's the Illuminat platform.
You can learn more about thaton their website zastrocom slash
Illuminat.
They integrate fully withLights America the weekly
(16:15):
updates from Lights America.
If you're a Lights Americacustomer you know that they push
out their updates every Monday.
That is all like fullyintegrated.
You can get your showroom labelslike reprinted that morning.
Get them up.
They will monitor that.
You can have NetSuite set up tomonitor if you've met a free
(16:40):
freight threshold with themanufacturer.
So maybe you normally lookthrough your orders like
whatever days per week.
You know like you have freefreight day on Wednesday or
whatever.
But maybe somebody placed alarge order and you met your
freight minimum on a Tuesday andnormally you wouldn't have even
checked to see if you were ableto order eligible to order free
(17:00):
freight from a manufacturer ona Tuesday.
But this system, via zastro,will notify you of that so you
can go ahead and get your freefreight orders placed earlier,
quickly and do that allimportant thing of fulfilling
orders faster, because that isjust a huge part of what our
(17:21):
customers want these days.
You know, thank you Amazon, butit is, and we all know it.
So any little tool we can havein our own tool bags to make
that work better is justtremendous.
So they have this fan.
It's just a net suite programis like so massive and it can do
(17:43):
so much so it would be reallyhard to like take this on like
individually.
So having this framework inplace and knowing the industry
is a really critical part ofwhat Zastro does and it's been
really great so far for me.
I'm still in the implementationphase, but they net suite
(18:04):
integrates with whatevere-commerce you might use Amazon,
shopify, woocommerce,bigcommerce, whatever others.
There's just a lot offlexibility and usability here.
If you've never checked out theprogram, I would highly
recommend scheduling a demo.
You're going to want to contactHeather at Zastro.
(18:26):
Her email is Heather at Zastro.
Z A S T R O dot com.
If you mentioned that you werereferred by the lighting with
Lisa podcast during your demo,if you elect to sign up, you're
going to get a $500 credit onyour first, on your first
invoice, just for being alistener of the podcast and for
(18:48):
checking out the program, andthen, if you elect to become a
customer, you're going to get$500 off your first invoice.
So please do check it out Ifyou haven't.
Thank you, zastro, forsponsoring podcast.
We super appreciate you.
So back on to my systems, dataand systems topic.
The other thing I was thinkingabout with this is productivity
(19:13):
and how, having a databasesystem that has like quirks and
things we all like learn to livewith them right, and every
system is going to have a thingright Like I don't think the
Holy Grail exists out there.
Everything's going to have itsown like issues.
You just want to find the fitfor your business that has the
(19:36):
least amount of issues.
And I just realized with whatwe were using the productivity
are still using, productivity iskind of slow for us because of,
like just how the platform isset up.
It's not a bad program at all.
It's just we spend so much timehonestly entering passwords in
(19:59):
over and over to grant us thespecific access level for
looking at this or doing thatwithin our system.
I think if I put a time clockon how many times a day I enter
my password and figured out themath on that, I mean it would be
.
I feel like days a year I spendjust typing in a password,
(20:20):
which is really just kind ofexcessive.
So the other part for me, withgood data and again having all
of the data and having it beclean and accurate and up to
date with how we work in today'sworld the other part of that
that I think we is hard toquantify, but it's that
productivity piece that is sucha challenge in our industry
(20:42):
because again we've learned tolive with the workarounds, the
incorrect data, this and that.
But I just it like makes myheart hurt every time.
I think about a missed sale ofa phone call that carried on too
long, a customer not gettingwhat they want when they wanted
(21:03):
it and not being able to reachout to this other customer
because we had to spend so muchtime finding this issue for this
customer or entering theirorder order and the password 25
times.
You know, just like theselittle losses and productivity,
I think can really have such animpact on our bottom line and it
(21:23):
is so hard to quantify.
This is like just a patternI've noticed in my business.
I'm not sure, I'm not sure,like, how to solve all of these
problems, but I have identifiedthat this pattern exists and I
really it's a commitment of minegoing into next year,
(21:45):
especially as, like, the economyis looking a bit softer, it's a
presidential election year,there's no politics here on
lighting with Lisa, but who theheck knows what's going on with
all that, then all the otherconflict in the world that is
just so heartbreaking to see andhear about.
So who knows what's up for usin 2024.
(22:05):
And as an industry, I feel likeit could go a million different
ways.
So by kind of paying attentionreally in depth to all these
patterns I've been noticing it'sreally kind of what led me to
believe it was time for mybusiness for a change, because I
did like the loss andproductivity, the, this, the
(22:27):
that, the not being able to have.
We don't have currently a greatlike CRM management, and I
definitely want to be better atthat.
I think it's going to becomemore and more vital that we're
able to track our interactionswith customers and potential
customers instead of it justbeing kind of like haphazard.
So that's been like a really,really big key to me when I
(22:50):
think about data and systems.
And then you know, I think allof us like, honestly, here I'm
just gonna, this is my.
There's my hot take for today.
Who doesn't love QuickBooks?
Really, it's so easy to use,like I love it, love it, it does
(23:11):
things reasonably well, likeit's such a great crutch or tool
to use in like managing a smallbusiness, like love it.
But what I've realized is, eventhough it's like a lower price
and works great, I don't thinkit keeps up with the current
(23:31):
business structure that I haveat my showroom.
My current business structureis well different than what it
was when I started and althoughI name-drop QuickBooks, we don't
really use them at my store butI have used them in many other
capacities and it's a greatlittle software tool.
(23:52):
I know a bunch of lightingshowrooms that do still use it
for a big portion of what theydo but it's kind of like a
legacy software program thatisn't customized for what we do
and doesn't really keep up withhow I believe many of our
businesses currently operate andI believe that is at our own
(24:14):
expense and it doesn't reallyfeel like it.
It seems like everything'sworking just fine but then when
you realize that again theproductivity loss, the having to
like double enter things orcopy something from here and put
it there because they don'tintegrate, it's just all these
little things, while none ofthem are particularly very hard
(24:36):
or time consuming I think if youadd them up like my little
password entry, I think if youadd them up, you'll realize that
you're actually really spendinga lot of time doing work that
isn't moving your businessforward.
And we want to have tools thatmove our businesses forward and
make us more efficient and moreeffective, like having good data
(24:58):
on all fronts inventory,customer records, billing,
financials.
Having good data is like just acritical infrastructure piece
for all of us.
Do we all kind of wish it couldbe simpler and just handwriting
tickets and just going to thewarehouse and pulling it and
(25:22):
delivering it and being doneLike, yeah, like it to some
degree?
That was an easier, simplertime and there's a lot to
recommend about working that way.
I'm not gonna lie, but I justthink, for being forward
thinking and like the wholemission here of this lighting
with Lisa and this revampedpodcast, and everything else I'm
(25:44):
doing is to really think aboutwhere we are now in the future
and how do we move into ourindustry future collectively and
find successes for all of us.
And that's where this datatopic keeps coming back up for
me, not just in the product datayou know that I've harped on
probably endlessly but in all ofthese other components of data
(26:08):
in our systems and how we usethat data.
It just becomes ever clearer tome that it's such a critical
part of how we operate and Idon't know that we all pay
enough attention to that orunderstand quite how damaging it
can be to not have greatresources and systems and
procedures in place.
(26:29):
And you know, what's also oftenoverlooked with data and data
systems and this has becomerecently important to me, not
with my database change but withother issues I've had in store
is having great service to backup your data system.
So, like whoever you partnerwith to provide your like ERP
(26:51):
software, your computer systems,your IT support, having
excellent service from thosepeople is so, so invaluable.
Because I tell you what, whenyou come into work and the store
is supposed to open and yoursoftware cannot be accessed,
you're totally locked out of itthrough no fault of your own.
Like having service in thatsituation is so important,
(27:15):
especially as, like the businessowner or manager, and you just
like feel the money rushing outthe door because you can't
process sales or you can'tdeliver product or you can't
help a customer because youdon't have access to anything,
like it's just like there'snothing that makes me wanna just
run down the street screaming.
More than that, it's so, sofrustrating.
(27:38):
So, not only just having greatsystems with good data in them,
but then having good service, sothat when there's an issue oh
my gosh, so, so vital and Ididn't fully appreciate that
always until, like the past,maybe couple of years this has
become kind of more of an issuefor me and I've absolutely made
(28:01):
some changes so that we have theservice to back up our, the
software we use.
It's just so so critical to meand our business.
So anyway, that's my rundown ondata for this go round.
(28:23):
Again.
I wanna thank our sponsor onemore time, that is Zastro.
Please reach out to Heather fora demo of their product.
Heather, at ZastroZASTROcom, Imentioned that you were sent
here from the Lighting with Lisapodcast.
They will give you a $500credit on your first invoice if
(28:45):
you elect to move forward withthem as a customer.
But do check out everything thatthey have to offer, even just
seeing what's available outthere, even if it's not
something you wanna do at thistime.
I did my first demo with Zastroprobably like three years ago
and everything just kind of cametogether to make it make sense
(29:06):
for me to change our ERP systemand to move over to NetSuite.
And just so you know because Ihad to Google it like five times
ERP is enterprise resourceplanning, which just means it's
connectivity software tointegrate your planning, your
inventory, sales, marketing,financials, human resources and
(29:28):
more, and you can do all thatwith the Zastro NetSuite
platform.
And I appreciate you all somuch for sponsoring this and
future episodes of Lighting withLisa.
Thank you so much for listeningeveryone.
Until next time, take care.
Hello and welcome fellow lighting nerds and
friends to another episode of alighting with Lisa, the podcast.
This week we're sponsored byZastro.
I have so much more informationabout them upcoming, along with
a special offer just for ourpodcast listeners.
So stay tuned for that.
(00:24):
I can't wait to talk about itwith y'all.
So this episode sort of inhonor of our sponsor, but that
was kind of an accident.
So I love it when a thingunintentionally comes together.
But my topic planned for thisepisode was the importance of
data, data consistency andsystems in a lighting showroom.
(00:49):
I've long time listeners of thepodcast will know this is like
a near and dear topic to myheart.
My background in life, wellbefore I entered the lighting
showroom business, was indatabase management and I kind
(01:11):
of love it.
But like I'm a proceduresgirlie, like I really can get
nerdy over like processes andprocedures and in many
businesses like all of them notjust lighting showrooms, but
that's what we're here to talkabout Data is so, so critical to
(01:31):
our success and has becomeincreasingly more so I mean not
shockingly given the world thatwe live in, but it's just so, so
integral to how we operate on adaily basis.
So I spent a lot of timethinking about it and thinking
about ways to improve it and howto better work with, like the
(01:56):
data sources that we have, andyou know where, where do we go
from here.
So I just have kind of havesome general thoughts on this
that I wanted to talk about inthis podcast and would
definitely love to hear yourtakes in, your feedback, on some
of the things I'm gonna mention, and then we can do a deeper
(02:18):
dive on a future podcast.
Before I get too far into theepisode, though, I do want to
remind y'all of the threeFacebook groups that are
associated with lighting withLisa.
So the first is the fixturefinder page, which I started way
(02:39):
back in lighting showroomcoalition days, and then I
turned that over to the LSA andthen, as the LSA is exiting the
week, kind of all just agreed Iwould still maintain it.
So it's there now.
If Facebookcom slash groupsslash lighting fixture, help for
that page.
(02:59):
It's super, super, super usefuland full of great ideas, so I
appreciate everyone being a partof that page.
There's also the industry jobboard.
That's the same star atFacebookcom slash groups, slash
lighting jobs and the name ofthat group.
If you just want to search.
It is residential lightingindustry job board.
(03:21):
And then the last group is theprivate group.
That really is the supportgroup of this podcast, in that
it's where you can go to give mefeedback on an episode or
suggest a topic or answer one ofthe polls.
You know I love a poll.
You know it's just a good wayto kind of get like top line
(03:42):
information from y'all aboutwhat is critical to you or your
business or, you know, sometimeswe'll just do fun ones, but
anyway, that's the group.
Is Facebookcom slash groups,slash lighting showrooms and
that's LWL dash lightingshowrooms is the group.
Please join us there.
I'll have the links to all ofthese in the show notes for
(04:05):
today, along with a link to oursponsor.
So the thing with data in ourbeloved lighting and fan
industry still is just a lack ofconsistency.
Now I know there is the ALAformat for data that I know most
(04:30):
manufacturers used or probablystill use, and I have an honest
question about that.
This would definitely be.
You know, let me know.
The spot Is the ALA format.
Has it been updated recentlyfor like LEDs and like to show
(04:51):
if something is integrated orsocketed?
I really don't know.
I haven't seen like thetemplate in a lot of years.
Somebody had forwarded it to mea while back, but that was a
couple of years ago and I'm justnot sure, just honestly, how
often the ALA format is updated.
If it's updated recently, thatwould be amazing, because there
(05:17):
are just some things that arecoming up now that obviously
didn't exist.
Again, the integrated versussocketed, what you know, a lot
of the fixtures that aresocketed, the ratings are
shifting because of the full onban on incandescent light bulbs.
(05:38):
Like you don't have to put asocket rated for 100 watts in
there anymore, anyway, so someof that shifting too.
So it just is an ever evolvingneed for us that our data
standards keep up with like therealities, like even things like
(05:59):
whether a fan is an AC motor orDC motor, like sometimes that's
identified, sometimes it isn't,but like that's something that
like sorry for all the fanlisteners, like for many of us
in showroom world, that wasn'tsomething that was in a topic of
(06:20):
conversation until like fiveyears ago or so, like where we
would really kind of highlightthe difference between, like, an
AC motor and a DC motor.
Five years maybe is too shortof a timeframe, but just drawing
on my best experience, anyway,and now it's like something
we're talking about all the time.
So the data definitely has tokeep up with where we're at in
(06:43):
terms of products and sellingand what we have on display, and
just oftentimes it seems likeit doesn't all go together.
Somebody had commented on thatFacebook group.
I just mentioned that.
Basically, the issue is there'seither too much information or
not enough, and I always amfully on the side of give me too
(07:06):
much information, but I like itto be like sortable or
searchable, like.
If you're going to overload mewith data, fine, but let me like
then pull out the pieces I needLike.
Oftentimes I find these thingsare just like huge data strings
and it's hard to pull out whatyou want and when and why.
(07:29):
It just can be such a challenge.
So I, again, I always say toomuch is better than not enough.
But yeah, there is frequentlynot enough Like and I, you know
again, longtime listeners willknow my constant complaints
about like product imagery orlinking to factory spec sheets
and things like that that arefrequently not available for a
(07:54):
while, sometimes ever.
You know it can just be really,really frustrating in the
showroom, even within onemanufacturer, like there's going
to be some products that youhave an excellent amount of data
on and can see everything youneed to know, and then in that
same brand, you'll havesomething else that doesn't have
any of the details and you'relike frantically hunting around
(08:17):
for something in front of acustomer.
But it was there on this itembut not on that.
It's just.
It can be very, verychallenging.
So just more consistency.
And again, I always say more isbetter and then I can filter
out the things that I don't need.
But if I don't have it, I can'teven I don't even have the
opportunity to filter them out.
And in the world we live in,there is just more data than
(08:41):
ever to manage.
Like, if you just think aboutit, it's not just like your
product database, it's yourcustomer database, it's your
inventory database, it's youreverything.
There is just so much more tokeep up with and all of our
emails and your customer emailsand your marketing campaigns,
(09:02):
like there's just a ton and likeeven more so than I mean just
honestly, even like 15 years ago, if you think about how much
more we're doing on thecomputers with our data than we
ever did before in trying tofind ways to like, drill into
(09:22):
that data to become more andmore successful?
And then, when you don't havethe ability to do so, how do you
measure those costs?
Like, how do you measure yourreal costs of bad data?
And I feel like, intuitively, weall know Bad data is costing us
.
We know it, but it's hard toquantify that on a global level
(09:47):
for your business like.
I've spent probably way morehours than I need to Thinking
about this and trying to figureout, like, how can I quantify
what this is costing me BecauseI want to do this and that and
the other, but like, is thisreally an expense to the level I
think it is in my blowingsomething out of proportion?
(10:09):
You know, whenever I'm tryingto make a decision for a
business, I really try to comeat it, as I know most of us do,
from like a fact basedperspective.
I don't want to just like makeassumptions and make a business
decision off of that, but how doyou even accurately measure the
cost of bad data?
Like, aside from sort of theobvious issues like where you
(10:31):
have to honor a pricing mistakeor or else, so you know, if you
don't honor, like a pricingmistake because you weren't
appropriately notified of aprice increase and a customer
comes in and you're, you know,haven't, didn't know there was a
price change, or you just foundout about the price change in
(10:54):
the tag in your store hasn'tchanged and the price went up
and your tags wrong.
I mean you are gonna loserevenue honoring the price of
that mistake, or you run therisk of generating ill will or a
bad Google review if you'rejust like no, it was a mistake,
I'm not gonna honor that.
You know, I think most of usDefault to that.
(11:18):
You know customers always writemindset where like yeah, I know
it's costing me, but I'm notgonna like pick a fight over
this, I'm just gonna honor mymistake and try to move on.
But it costs.
Every time that happened itcosts and that's probably about
the only time we can reallyquantify it.
But what other costs areassociated with bad data or a
(11:42):
system that isn't working foryou?
Like, are you just losing outin functionality?
Are you like not able to trackthings like the way you might
want to with your customers, orfollow up with them, or Track
your shipping and delivery?
You know there's all theselittle components to data.
That's not just like the datafiles from our manufacturer
(12:06):
partners, it's all this otherstuff that comes together to and
trying to Quantify, like whatyour losses are, what your costs
are, by something just beinglike, actually incorrect again,
whether that's the data feedfrom the manufacturer, or bad
(12:28):
customer email addresses or badcustomer mailing addresses and
the invoice goes to the wrongplace or the email address is
wrong and the AR people can'tget it.
You know, just like there's anynumber of things that cost us
all money and it's just reallyhard to quantify, and I just
(12:50):
think it's so important for allof us to really take a step back
and look at all of our datasystems and how they might be
working or not working and thedata feed, the product data
feeds from our manufacturers.
However, you get thatinformation, whether it's like
(13:11):
direct from the manufacturerthrough a third party service.
It just needs to be better andbetter all the time and it just
kind of seems like it's not andit is just such a challenging
part of what we do.
It's not really a set it andforget it kind of thing.
It's something that we need togo back and review all the time
(13:33):
and again.
All of these things Are costlyand there are time consuming and
requires a lot of manpower andyou know, that's kind of where I
think the data gets to where itgets in our industry and it is
just a costly, time consumingthing to get right.
But once if we can work betteron getting it right like from
(13:53):
the jump, then we're all goingto be so much more better off
and potentially have less likeloss and costs associated with
bad data files or bad data feedsor missing information.
It's the missing informationfor me that really, really kills
me.
It just can be such a waste ofa sales person's time tracking
(14:20):
down information that shouldhave just been there.
It shouldn't be such a headacheto go find this answer to this
question.
I in it can really just likedrive a person nuts.
So Let me shift here to talkingabout our sponsor for this
(14:41):
episode, which is Zastro.
If you have never heard ofZastro, I must add this little
disclaimer at the top that I ama recent new customer of theirs.
Zastro is a.
They provide like ERP softwareall based on the Oracle NetSuite
(15:04):
platform.
I didn't realize it at first,but a lot of the lighting
industry, especially ourmanufacturer partners, use
NetSuite, so I don't know wherethey have it all licensed
through.
But if you start payingattention, you realize how many
emails you get that saysomething about NetSuite in them
.
But anyway, zastro has developedthe NetSuite platform with
(15:31):
their Illuminat program.
I don't know what the right wayto say that is, but long story
short, it is an enhancement forlighting showrooms and the
lighting industry specifically.
So it takes this like kind ofgeneral massive program that can
(15:52):
be customized for whatever youneed and they've done all the
groundwork to customize it forlighting, the lighting industry,
lighting showrooms particularly.
That's the Illuminat platform.
You can learn more about thaton their website zastrocom slash
Illuminat.
They integrate fully withLights America the weekly
(16:15):
updates from Lights America.
If you're a Lights Americacustomer you know that they push
out their updates every Monday.
That is all like fullyintegrated.
You can get your showroom labelslike reprinted that morning.
Get them up.
They will monitor that.
You can have NetSuite set up tomonitor if you've met a free
(16:40):
freight threshold with themanufacturer.
So maybe you normally lookthrough your orders like
whatever days per week.
You know like you have freefreight day on Wednesday or
whatever.
But maybe somebody placed alarge order and you met your
freight minimum on a Tuesday andnormally you wouldn't have even
checked to see if you were ableto order eligible to order free
(17:00):
freight from a manufacturer ona Tuesday.
But this system, via zastro,will notify you of that so you
can go ahead and get your freefreight orders placed earlier,
quickly and do that allimportant thing of fulfilling
orders faster, because that isjust a huge part of what our
(17:21):
customers want these days.
You know, thank you Amazon, butit is, and we all know it.
So any little tool we can havein our own tool bags to make
that work better is justtremendous.
So they have this fan.
It's just a net suite programis like so massive and it can do
(17:43):
so much so it would be reallyhard to like take this on like
individually.
So having this framework inplace and knowing the industry
is a really critical part ofwhat Zastro does and it's been
really great so far for me.
I'm still in the implementationphase, but they net suite
(18:04):
integrates with whatevere-commerce you might use Amazon,
shopify, woocommerce,bigcommerce, whatever others.
There's just a lot offlexibility and usability here.
If you've never checked out theprogram, I would highly
recommend scheduling a demo.
You're going to want to contactHeather at Zastro.
(18:26):
Her email is Heather at Zastro.
Z A S T R O dot com.
If you mentioned that you werereferred by the lighting with
Lisa podcast during your demo,if you elect to sign up, you're
going to get a $500 credit onyour first, on your first
invoice, just for being alistener of the podcast and for
(18:48):
checking out the program, andthen, if you elect to become a
customer, you're going to get$500 off your first invoice.
So please do check it out Ifyou haven't.
Thank you, zastro, forsponsoring podcast.
We super appreciate you.
So back on to my systems, dataand systems topic.
The other thing I was thinkingabout with this is productivity
(19:13):
and how, having a databasesystem that has like quirks and
things we all like learn to livewith them right, and every
system is going to have a thingright Like I don't think the
Holy Grail exists out there.
Everything's going to have itsown like issues.
You just want to find the fitfor your business that has the
(19:36):
least amount of issues.
And I just realized with whatwe were using the productivity
are still using, productivity iskind of slow for us because of,
like just how the platform isset up.
It's not a bad program at all.
It's just we spend so much timehonestly entering passwords in
(19:59):
over and over to grant us thespecific access level for
looking at this or doing thatwithin our system.
I think if I put a time clockon how many times a day I enter
my password and figured out themath on that, I mean it would be
.
I feel like days a year I spendjust typing in a password,
(20:20):
which is really just kind ofexcessive.
So the other part for me, withgood data and again having all
of the data and having it beclean and accurate and up to
date with how we work in today'sworld the other part of that
that I think we is hard toquantify, but it's that
productivity piece that is sucha challenge in our industry
(20:42):
because again we've learned tolive with the workarounds, the
incorrect data, this and that.
But I just it like makes myheart hurt every time.
I think about a missed sale ofa phone call that carried on too
long, a customer not gettingwhat they want when they wanted
(21:03):
it and not being able to reachout to this other customer
because we had to spend so muchtime finding this issue for this
customer or entering theirorder order and the password 25
times.
You know, just like theselittle losses and productivity,
I think can really have such animpact on our bottom line and it
(21:23):
is so hard to quantify.
This is like just a patternI've noticed in my business.
I'm not sure, I'm not sure,like, how to solve all of these
problems, but I have identifiedthat this pattern exists and I
really it's a commitment of minegoing into next year,
(21:45):
especially as, like, the economyis looking a bit softer, it's a
presidential election year,there's no politics here on
lighting with Lisa, but who theheck knows what's going on with
all that, then all the otherconflict in the world that is
just so heartbreaking to see andhear about.
So who knows what's up for usin 2024.
(22:05):
And as an industry, I feel likeit could go a million different
ways.
So by kind of paying attentionreally in depth to all these
patterns I've been noticing it'sreally kind of what led me to
believe it was time for mybusiness for a change, because I
did like the loss andproductivity, the, this, the
(22:27):
that, the not being able to have.
We don't have currently a greatlike CRM management, and I
definitely want to be better atthat.
I think it's going to becomemore and more vital that we're
able to track our interactionswith customers and potential
customers instead of it justbeing kind of like haphazard.
So that's been like a really,really big key to me when I
(22:50):
think about data and systems.
And then you know, I think allof us like, honestly, here I'm
just gonna, this is my.
There's my hot take for today.
Who doesn't love QuickBooks?
Really, it's so easy to use,like I love it, love it, it does
(23:11):
things reasonably well, likeit's such a great crutch or tool
to use in like managing a smallbusiness, like love it.
But what I've realized is, eventhough it's like a lower price
and works great, I don't thinkit keeps up with the current
(23:31):
business structure that I haveat my showroom.
My current business structureis well different than what it
was when I started and althoughI name-drop QuickBooks, we don't
really use them at my store butI have used them in many other
capacities and it's a greatlittle software tool.
(23:52):
I know a bunch of lightingshowrooms that do still use it
for a big portion of what theydo but it's kind of like a
legacy software program thatisn't customized for what we do
and doesn't really keep up withhow I believe many of our
businesses currently operate andI believe that is at our own
(24:14):
expense and it doesn't reallyfeel like it.
It seems like everything'sworking just fine but then when
you realize that again theproductivity loss, the having to
like double enter things orcopy something from here and put
it there because they don'tintegrate, it's just all these
little things, while none ofthem are particularly very hard
(24:36):
or time consuming I think if youadd them up like my little
password entry, I think if youadd them up, you'll realize that
you're actually really spendinga lot of time doing work that
isn't moving your businessforward.
And we want to have tools thatmove our businesses forward and
make us more efficient and moreeffective, like having good data
(24:58):
on all fronts inventory,customer records, billing,
financials.
Having good data is like just acritical infrastructure piece
for all of us.
Do we all kind of wish it couldbe simpler and just handwriting
tickets and just going to thewarehouse and pulling it and
(25:22):
delivering it and being doneLike, yeah, like it to some
degree?
That was an easier, simplertime and there's a lot to
recommend about working that way.
I'm not gonna lie, but I justthink, for being forward
thinking and like the wholemission here of this lighting
with Lisa and this revampedpodcast, and everything else I'm
(25:44):
doing is to really think aboutwhere we are now in the future
and how do we move into ourindustry future collectively and
find successes for all of us.
And that's where this datatopic keeps coming back up for
me, not just in the product datayou know that I've harped on
probably endlessly but in all ofthese other components of data
(26:08):
in our systems and how we usethat data.
It just becomes ever clearer tome that it's such a critical
part of how we operate and Idon't know that we all pay
enough attention to that orunderstand quite how damaging it
can be to not have greatresources and systems and
procedures in place.
(26:29):
And you know, what's also oftenoverlooked with data and data
systems and this has becomerecently important to me, not
with my database change but withother issues I've had in store
is having great service to backup your data system.
So, like whoever you partnerwith to provide your like ERP
(26:51):
software, your computer systems,your IT support, having
excellent service from thosepeople is so, so invaluable.
Because I tell you what, whenyou come into work and the store
is supposed to open and yoursoftware cannot be accessed,
you're totally locked out of itthrough no fault of your own.
Like having service in thatsituation is so important,
(27:15):
especially as, like the businessowner or manager, and you just
like feel the money rushing outthe door because you can't
process sales or you can'tdeliver product or you can't
help a customer because youdon't have access to anything,
like it's just like there'snothing that makes me wanna just
run down the street screaming.
More than that, it's so, sofrustrating.
(27:38):
So, not only just having greatsystems with good data in them,
but then having good service, sothat when there's an issue oh
my gosh, so, so vital and Ididn't fully appreciate that
always until, like the past,maybe couple of years this has
become kind of more of an issuefor me and I've absolutely made
(28:01):
some changes so that we have theservice to back up our, the
software we use.
It's just so so critical to meand our business.
So anyway, that's my rundown ondata for this go round.
(28:23):
Again.
I wanna thank our sponsor onemore time, that is Zastro.
Please reach out to Heather fora demo of their product.
Heather, at ZastroZASTROcom, Imentioned that you were sent
here from the Lighting with Lisapodcast.
They will give you a $500credit on your first invoice if
(28:45):
you elect to move forward withthem as a customer.
But do check out everything thatthey have to offer, even just
seeing what's available outthere, even if it's not
something you wanna do at thistime.
I did my first demo with Zastroprobably like three years ago
and everything just kind of cametogether to make it make sense
(29:06):
for me to change our ERP systemand to move over to NetSuite.
And just so you know because Ihad to Google it like five times
ERP is enterprise resourceplanning, which just means it's
connectivity software tointegrate your planning, your
inventory, sales, marketing,financials, human resources and
(29:28):
more, and you can do all thatwith the Zastro NetSuite
platform.
And I appreciate you all somuch for sponsoring this and
future episodes of Lighting withLisa.
Thank you so much for listeningeveryone.
Until next time, take care.
Popular Podcasts
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.