November 11, 2025 • 41 mins
What does ERP really mean for your business—and why should even small companies care?
In this episode of the Business Roundtable Podcast, host David W. Carr speaks with Chris Carter, four-time best-selling author, global SAP leader, and founder of Approyo. With more than three decades of experience, Chris has guided companies from $3 million startups to billion-dollar enterprises in implementing ERP systems that unify finance, HR, logistics, and operations into one source of truth.
Chris shares his journey from high school entrepreneur to building one of the world’s most recognized SAP service providers. He breaks down why ERP isn’t just for massive corporations, how AI is changing enterprise systems, and what leaders must know to avoid costly mistakes in implementation.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Connect with Chris Carter:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-carter-885159
Website: https://www.approyo.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
In this episode of the Business Roundtable Podcast, host David W. Carr speaks with Chris Carter, four-time best-selling author, global SAP leader, and founder of Approyo. With more than three decades of experience, Chris has guided companies from $3 million startups to billion-dollar enterprises in implementing ERP systems that unify finance, HR, logistics, and operations into one source of truth.
Chris shares his journey from high school entrepreneur to building one of the world’s most recognized SAP service providers. He breaks down why ERP isn’t just for massive corporations, how AI is changing enterprise systems, and what leaders must know to avoid costly mistakes in implementation.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- What ERP and SAP actually mean for scaling a business
- Why small and mid-sized companies can benefit from ERP
- Common pitfalls in ERP adoption—and how to avoid them
- How AI is reshaping ERP and competitive advantage
- Why leadership and accountability are essential for success
Connect with Chris Carter:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christopher-carter-885159
Website: https://www.approyo.com
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-roundtable--6049255/support.
Watch more episodes on YouTube and subscribe here:
https://www.youtube.com/@steward_your_business
Connect with Steward Your Business:
Website: https://stewardyourbusiness.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidwcarr
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I am your host,
David Carr. Super excited to have you back here where
we bring people together to accomplish great things, have great conversations.
And I've got a brand new guest on the podcast
this week, Chris Carter. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Chris.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Hey, thanks David. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Absolutely now.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Chris, You've got we we we're we're friends in the
forest too.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
We're big Star Wars fans and nerds out here too.
We love. We're gonna have a great time with the podcast. Chris.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
You you have a great background and something we haven't
talked about on the podcast before or really not very much.
Maybe I mentioned in the past, but we're talking about
e ERP Enterprise resource planning. We're talking about s a
P systems, applications and products. These are acronyms you might
have heard floating around out there and you're like, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Sure exactly what that is or how does that apply
to me.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, Chris is a leading expert in this area, and
you know, I'm gonna we're gonna break you down and
get into that today because I'm gonna leverage you know,
bringing Chris to you guys and our audience to learn
from him, get to understand more about this stuff, so
to demystified, if you will. And Chris has created a
(01:25):
company called app Royo that you're gonna be able to
learn more about, which really helps companies make the SAP
work harder for them. And really I appreciate Chris your
people first perspective regarding technology AI.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So again, super excited to have you here. Chris. One
thing I love to ask about our guests is to
walk us through your little bit of your.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Entrepreneurial journey as a business owner going through this and
what got you today to where you're at. You know,
app Royo and and the things that you're doing, Chris,
want you know and how did you become an s
a P expert if you will?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yes, Well, it's my entrepreneurial journey started very early in life.
In high school, I decided I was going to create
a business card company and it was going to be
plastic vellun business cards. I would go through and I
would have a fish bowl with a lot of real
business cards, but then I would put two of my
own in there with the plastic and almost nine out
(02:21):
of ten times. The individuals that were picking the cards
out who I was trying to sell to, they would
pick mine because it was a different touch and feel process.
It was all about the marketing piece of it. Fast
forward into college. I go off to Georgia Tech. I
take my Commodore VIC twenty. Shout out to the good
people a commodore, they are back in business. Woo you
(02:43):
get my own Commodore VIC twenty back.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Oh my gosh, apple twoey.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I went off to Georgia Tech and I started learning
computer science. Lo and behold. My sophomore year, I got
an internship at Coca Cola on their SAP system, which
was in the bowels of the tell or. At Coca
I was working at an old R two main frame
with punt cards.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh my gosh, as an.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Intern, But it just so happened they were negotiating with
SAP to bring in the new X eighty six variation,
which was called R three, and I had been playing
on there are two and so SAP asked me if
I would be interested in working with them. So I
literally had got a job right out of college working
on SAP. The only thing that changed is I went
(03:27):
from a Coca Cola name Batch to an SAP contractor
name Badge, and I started from there. That brings me
forward to starting multiple companies, investor in multiple companies, writing
multiple books. I now have seventeen books and I keep
at more. Thank God for technology to be able to
(03:47):
help me edit those books because sitting in front of
I literally published my first four during COVID and I
really got into things called it grammarly and some of
the tool to help me with my formatting. And yes,
if you have to do in order to publish properly,
you have to have properly formatted books. So now I
(04:08):
own four companies, a bar, restaurant, seventeen books, and thank god,
I have an incredible wife who supports me in these
endeavors and the activity is going on there. And we
have an investment arm that also works with companies that
are looking to get funded and will help with depending
upon what the organization is and what. So it's my
(04:30):
entrepreneurial journey started young, and it's I will continue to
be an entrepreneur and help other entrepreneurs and wait until
I pass away, because we've got a foundation now that's
going to do the same with my daughter so it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Oh that's great, Chris. Well again, that's why I love
your energy, I love your background. So the folks that
you're listening to this, you know, lean in Chris's gout.
You know a lot of experience, and you know, I think, Chris,
sometimes people think of that.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I work with a lot of.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Small business owners are that are up and coming and
they get intimidated by some kind of enterrized resource planning
software and SAP, and I feel like, you know, they're
not understanding this. So can you back it up a
little bit for other folks that maybe haven't heard, that
haven't experience, break it down for a little bit about what.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Does that mean? What does it mean to the business?
How do they be successful with such a tool?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, tool like SAP. It's an ERP solution Enterprise Resource
Planner as you made reference, SAP just so happens to
be one of many, and it actually works for companies
that are three million dollars, five million dollars, all the
way up to multi billions of dollars. It just depends
on how you use it and how you set it
up properly, because what it does is it allows you
(05:42):
as an entrepreneur to have your HR, your finance, you're
shipping and distribution, maybe your warehouse management, maybe your travel
and engagement. You're so if you're traveling around the globe,
all that gets integrated into one nice, neat clean platform.
And I like to say, it's your one record of truth.
(06:02):
So instead of using quick Books and Salesforce and then
Concur and then something else and then something else, Now
you've got five or six disparage different systems. Instead of that,
you have one. You have one. You use one interface.
It's it's your template, you's your GOUI. It's either on
your phone, your iPads or pad, it's on your computer.
(06:25):
You always have that one record of truth and where
you go in the world, what you do in the world.
You can move between the different components or the modules,
and it's all built in instead of having to log
in and log out, log in law. I used to
have Salesforce, quick Books, I used to have Concur. I
used to have a warehouse management tool that we would
(06:46):
use for some of our shipping and receiving activities that
we had for a different comp You constantly have to hey, there,
have them plugged in or log back into them. And
because they don't stay on where you have this capability
and SAP no matter what size of an organization you are,
you just have to make sure that you're using it properly.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Absolutely well, and again Chris, as you're talking about that,
because I think sometimes that I remember working with another
company and they were.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Trying to figure out when do I you'll switch over?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And I like what you kind of listed a bunch
of those of like, hey, we've got these different things
in different places, and I think that's I found that
happens quite often. And even when you have an even
maybe not SAP specifically, but you try organic, people will
go around the system and they'll not use it or
they want, oh, I want to do my own little thing.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Do you see that?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Uh, not as much anymore because you really can't get
around the system.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
If you're trying to get around the system, it's probably
because you're trying to do something with AI and you're
trying to build your own activities around that. You're trying
to do your own prompting, and maybe you're trying to
get data from a different repository of something. Most of
the times when you're in an SAP environment. You're in
that one record of truth and that's what helps organizations
as well. Now they can't supersede the system. They have
(08:08):
to use the tool that is there for them to
use to benet be a benefit of it.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Sounds to me like when they do that, Chris, that
you're actually protecting them from you maybe exposure to other things, right,
you know, miss bad data or just you know logins.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I mean, there's.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Unfortunately a lot of bad actors out there that try
to get in people's systems that.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
There really are. There's bad actors out there, and we've
been hit at SAP. They've got so many patches that
have been coming up because they're continuously updating and making
sure that their security profiles are so we as a
partner are always validating what they're doing. We send in
bug fixes, we send in tickets to them, Hey, we
see this activity and we see that going on, and
(08:48):
we see this bug needs to be fit. They're continuously
getting those. We're probably getting about a dozen or so
every week that everybody's got to upload into their system.
So from a security standpoint, it's upon us as the
end user as well as SAP to make sure that
these fixes get put into place and they're validated. We
(09:09):
firmly believe in the validation process and making sure that
those things move forward.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So when you're working with your clients, Chris ap Royo,
you might be seeing, hey, there's a there's something that
needs to be fixed or address, so you're being proactive
on their behalf of saying, hey, this needs to get fixed,
this needs to be addressed.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
We are proactive on our customer side as well as
as a partner. We make sure that we're validating and
we'll send that off to SAP, so our customer will
know that we're taking care of that, and our partner,
SAP knows that we're we're seeing that and we're shipping
that to them so they can make validations and fix
it for everybody, all four and eighty three thousand SAP customers,
(09:49):
we'll get that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, that's that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Now when you does, just because for the audience purposes,
if they don't understand this, if they if they're looking
at enterprise rese our software, there's lots of different ones
out there, SAP.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Is that one, just for folks.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That aren't familiar with it, is that kind of industry
agnostic is it serves different industries. Talk a little bit
about how that helps different companies industries.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
That's a great question because it's it goes across so
many different industries. They literally have a component that fits
in for every industry. So no matter if you're in
the retail and your CpG, or if you're in a
housing industry, or if you're in the finance industry, it's
got components within the capability to be able to fit
specifically for those industries. From a technical side, where we
(10:40):
tend to live, we don't care what industry there, will
make sure that that system is up and running, whatever
cloud they're choose, whatever APIs that we have to use
to connect back and forth to third party systems. We
take on that responsibility and the management of that infrastructure.
It's the functionality component where organizations either have internal peoper
(11:01):
or they hire folks from us that take on those
responsibilities of the industry specific aptitude that make sure that
they're moving forward. So yes, they do have as many
industries as you can think of. They're a part of
it and they're working on those every single day.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So when when when you when you have a customer
coming to you, Chris Uh, I'm like, so there's all
these different components, is is it?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Because this is why I.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Find sometimes for software technology people, I try to do
a one size fits all, like here's the whole thing
you you know, and you have to figure out how
to use it or do I even need all these parts?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
How do you assess that for a potential client or customers?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Absolutely understand that because we do also do the licensing
for these organizations. So what we'll do is we'll sit
down with organizations so if they currently have SAP, we'll
evaluate what evaluate what they have and what they're using.
There's a lot of times they have licenses on the
plate that it's just shelff. It's just sitting up there
and it's doing absolutely nothing but collecting the next to
(12:00):
my temperature gauge. So why have those Why use those
activities and be a part of that At the end
of the day. What you need to do as well
is you need to evaluate those activities from the beginning
to the end, and then you need to make sure
that you're literally making sure that that applications are right,
(12:20):
what modules are right, how those activities are being used,
and be able to funnel that all together.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, I think that's really important Chris, as you're talking
through that, because I found, like, to what your point,
either there's licenses.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Or are not being used.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I found this, or there's license that we need people,
and like I work with companies and so it's working
with somebody like you to figure out what do you
need access to you, why do you need access to
it for? How long do you need access to it?
Helping them because I found like sometimes people are like
in a roadblock while I really need to get this,
but I don't know how to get to that. How
do I do this? So you find out where they're
at and what they need for the workflows?
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yes, absolutely, we will evaluate how their systems are being used,
what they're doing with those systems. How many individuals are
you there's these Uh, there's very unique circumstances of what
the licenses can be used, how they can be used,
and when they can be used. If you're not using
the right ones or valuating the right ones, you know,
(13:18):
why are you wasting that money? Why are you wasting
the resources? I can take those and I can funnel
those to somewhere else and go from there.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
M h.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
What would you say, Chris, You mentioned, you know, as
you know, a three million dollar annual or way beyond that.
What when I came to a company we were looking
at they were using, like you said, just quick books,
and I suggested to her because at the time he
wasn't quite there, but I said, look, I can see
the possibility.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Of what scaling beyond where she was currently.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
You know, she wanted to do a million in revenue,
and then we went eventually by on my laft we
got to over I think seven million in revenue.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Chris.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So we because part of the reason was we put
in the RP in place that helped us do that,
particularly because of professional services. There's projects, we were having
a track schedule, budget, all of that stuff. Chris, What
should they be doing if they're not Maybe they're not
there yet, but what should they be considering tracking looking
for to when they're like, yeah, we probably should make
that transition.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
You have to having issues with So let's start with finances.
If you're having issues with your month, then closes, your
quarterly closes, in your year end closes, and it's taking
up a lot of time because quick books isn't giving
you the information you need start looking at it from
an HR issue. If you're having issues from an HR perspective, hiring,
letting people go, doing vacation times, monitoring your health insurance
(14:40):
is all those types of activities. Another thing that's really
good for you is to start looking at an EARP
solution that'll help you with those types of things, including
onboarding and letting individuals go if you need to. If
you're in an organization where you've got product and delivery,
start looking at an application like an SAP or other
air where you've got warehouse management. One of the biggest
(15:03):
things that I see all the time with companies that
are starting to make that change. You got your logistics,
your distribution, your warehouse. I need to order product from A.
I need to get it to B because B needs
to do something that needs to get it to CE.
C needs to get it to me because I need
to package it, and then I need to get it out.
A can't do it. Who's my A backup? Who's my
(15:23):
B backup? Who's my C. These types of questions can
be held inside of an SAP and borough. If A
can't do it, you've got B, CD E, n F
G under your number your A, Okay, they do what
they can fulfill it. They got to fulfilled. I need
these orders fulfilled in this amount of time. By this
these types of things, those are critical for businesses to succeed.
(15:47):
I've seen businesses have a million dollars an hour failure
because they lost track of what they were doing and
how they're well. Think about it. If you've got a
union labor force sitting on you on the floor twiddling
their thumbs doing absolutely nothing, Holy cow, you're screwed. You're
bored on Monday and say, well, hey, guys, you know what,
(16:10):
I just lost US fifty two million dollars because we
were down for the entire weekend because I couldn't figure
out where to get product from.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, that's so important. I hope as you guys are
listening here, you know, think about this about how it
affects you.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I've definitely seen that. I was a user group leader
for another ERP.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Years ago because I saw the value of as a
project bander becoming more aware, integrated and saw how these
things were connected. Chris, like you're saying the optics from
the business, I was more in the business development the
project I wasn't doing I had to do some accounting
stuff because my ran projects, but I was working with
that team. I think the value of seeing us and
coming together is super powerful, and I think sometimes again
(16:53):
people just don't realize how these things are newted together
and you're you just highlighted some of those things. So Chris,
they can come you, So a client can come to
your potential customer come to you and say hey, here's
what I'm currently doing, and then can you assess them
and give them the guidance as to here's how this
would this we would match you up with In this
case SAP we do.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And as a matter of fact, after this podcast, I'm
going to do an assessment organization on another SAP project.
They've come to us and asked us to do an
assessment because they've acquired another company and they have the
same application, but they're not using it in the same way.
So they're going to do an assessment based upon what
they're buying and what they have, what fits, what doesn't fit,
(17:35):
what can they use, what don't they use, what should
they maybe modify and put into their environment. So it's
an assessment that's going to evaluate there from top to
bottom on that acquisition. And we do those all the time.
It's amazing what's going on in the market right now.
The merger and acquisition side of this industry right now
is hot. We go in and will do full assessments
(17:56):
of current companies that are being acquired. You need to
what you're acquiring, how you need to take out that
bit of data because a lot of times, and I
get this, one of our customers does seventeen to twenty
five different deals a year, just in one year, So
we have to go in and we have to assess
every single landscape that they have of technology. And typically
(18:19):
they all have SAP in one way, shape or form
because of the industry there, and so we'll go in
and evaluate what they have. We'll also decide what we
need to cut out, put into an environment be able
to sustain it for itself or that part of the
business that they're buying, and then be able to move
that into the mothership. How that works and the templates
(18:42):
that we built for them and how we will move those.
We've got that down to a science because we've templated
that activity for them, and we've done that for other organizations,
but every company that's out there running an SAP ecosystem
or some sort of ERP or want to grow in
the ERP ecosystem. It's those types of things that move
the needle and really help with organizations on a go
(19:05):
forward strategy.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
It's important.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, I could see that, Chris, when you're talking about
mergers or acquisitions and making sure that this is all
cleaned up, looking good. I mean, if you're buying a business,
you want to if they have obviously a SAP and
it's really tight to pull together, you're like, man, this
is very valuable. If it's in disarray, it hasn't been maintained,
and it's just kind of all over the place, and
you know, you got little things here and there, and
like who's who's Who's who's shepherding this? Who's everything? I
(19:31):
don't know that. That's why I see outside of SAP.
I see this outsiding in small companies, and that's where
I come in and help their teams, like empowering.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
People, like you're in charge of this, You've got to
take care of this. Who's who's watching over this? Right?
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And you do it? You have to empower them. That's
the interesting thing. When we do upgrades and migrations, or
we even start to bring we empower specific individuals and
we start at the top. I beg CEOs to get
involved with these projects. Be the leader that you have been,
and you need to be for this, even if it's
(20:06):
coming in once a month and patting everybody on the
back and thanking them for their hard works and ever,
because at the end of the day, you need a
C level executive, somebody with the ultimate power to say
either yes or no when it comes down to that
hard decision. Sure, you have everybody that's going to be
working on their different modules and the different activities, the
(20:26):
testing and so on, but when the poop, it's the van.
You're the individual that they need to come to. You
need the knowledge, you need the background, you need the
information to say yes or no to make the betterment
for your organization's success.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I can't agree more, Chris. I've unfortunately been in the
place where they were disconnected and like all the other
people are doing that and they don't really know and
you know, and they're and I feel like that people
are disempowered, like, well, I guess I can't really make
any changes. They have to make the changes, but then
they're not to make they don't like, well, I don't know,
and so it's not a it's not a clear no,
it's not clear yes.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Cannot be wishy was you need to make executive decisions
as an executive that company. You need to do it now.
We need to make this change in this organization. We're
going to go to this cloud. We're going to do this.
We got to make these changes based upon X, Y
and Z. Do I have your approval? Yes or no?
And they need to put on their big boy or
big girl pants and say yes or no. And then
(21:27):
if you're going to say no, tell me why we're
not going to do it. What do you know that
we don't know that are gonna that's gonna make a
change in this organization because we've laid it out and
why this is important to this organization. Now you move forward.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, well, you know, I we were talking before we're
doing this recording. I'm going to be speaking at a
conference later this month to that about how do we
help those those folks in the in the they're not
the executives, so they're trying to provide that feedback to them,
whether there's a cybersecurity instead of internal auditors.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
You know, I SACA.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
These folks that are trying to help and get this feedback,
but then they're like, but I'm not getting a response.
It's like it goes up and it just it's like
floating up there somewhere. It's like, what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Right?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
And technology is changing you just mentioned a million dollars
an hour or whatever. I mean, there's things that are changing,
and we're like, hey, nobody's addressed. You know, nobody's making
action here.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
So, David, I'm known as kind of an arsehole in
my industry. I am the people. If I ask you
for something, you got twenty four hours to respond to me.
I am not a nice person when it comes to that.
My time is valuable. Time is valuable, Our work is valuable.
If you are going to sit there and pooh pooh
(22:44):
because you think you've hired us, guys, gals, I've one
hundred plus companies sitting behind you waiting for us to
help them because they trust us. Hire us because we're trustworthy.
We know what we're going to do, how we're going
to do it, and we're gonna make you a success.
(23:05):
So you come out of this thinking that you can
stick your nose in the air and I need to
kiss your backside. You're absolutely wrong, because I will literally
and I've done this before. I will tell you thank you.
This project is no longer fits our go forward strategy
as an organization. You obviously don't feel that this fits
(23:25):
your organization. My team cannot move forward in this manner.
We are breaking our contract. I'll sign the contract, say
thank you very much. Go find yourself some offshore company,
or go find yourself some company that you feel more
comfortable with. Who are going to kiss your backside? We
will not. We're going to tell you the truth. We're
(23:46):
going to tell the bodies are buried. We're going to
tell you how we need to dig it up, how
we need to go through the process, and how we
need to deal with an autopsy. And it's straightforward, it's
not that difficult. Listen to us and you will succeed.
Mess around what is that f a FO? These days
the kids are doing trying to remember what that means?
(24:09):
Find out. I don't know. I can't live in any case.
You're being strange.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
That's why I have you on the podcast because united
connected and and that's what honestly, I'm the same way
Chris I'm the same way, and that I'm not going
to sugarcoat it for you. I'm not going to like
play games. Uh, this isn't a power play. It's just
this is what's needed. How do we get it done together?
And if you want to play the game, then you
(24:35):
can go play the game somewhere else. And there's unfortunate
people that want to do that, and they and and
and and businesses that hold on.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
To people like that.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
In my experience, they're just self sabotaging in the long run.
Whatever reason you think that this person is quote unquote
valuable in the company, I'm telling you.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
You know, listen, let's it's.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
All the time. And it's funny. There was a major
lawsuit in the SAP ecosystem about one of the companies
that was doing an SAP upgrade and they were suing
the consulting firm on it. And I happened to know
one of the project leads on that environment because we've
worked together. I've been doing this since nineteen eighty nine.
I'm not just some fresh pop out of the fresh
(25:15):
aer academy. And so he and I would talk every
once in a while. He would just be banging his
I can't get them to do this. I can't get
them to do this. I can't. They don't even know
how to do their testing. And I'm like, what are
they doing? Why are you still well? They're this and this.
Come to find out all of a sudden that they
had backdoors, so much detail that they hadn't told the firms,
(25:37):
plus their teams were so ill prepared to do any
of it, even after they were begged to make sure
that they were ready. And then they wanted to modify
a system. SAP is not a system you modify in
any way, shape or form. You do not fit SAP
to fit your business. You fit your business to fit
(25:57):
into the best case scenarios of an SAP environment, because
the use cases are built by SAP and the current
partner community of the four hundred and eighty three customers
that are out here. You modify or try to modify,
that's when trouble starts and it causes time and additional money.
Of course, it got thrown out of court because they
(26:19):
found out how stupid they were. But you don't do
those things and then think that you're you, Oh, you're you,
you wronged me. I'm sorry. That's just it's nonsense. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
People try to turn the tables and blame others and
are like, look, you're asking me to do things that
are not and like you said, modifying, adjusting it changing things.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I want to ask you.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I know we're uh, I don't want to let exit
this podcast without You're a tech person, you know, and
we talk about as things evolve and there's now AI,
and I'm sure say obviously it is involving AI and
how we're using the tools, but talk a lit a
little bit about how you're seeing that, not just as
an SAP, but I think there's people concerned out there,
(27:05):
maybe that hey, I'm gonna lose my job, or this
is coming in or this this program is going to
remove my job. Talk a little bit about that concern
or that that that out there about AI and technologists
in general, even s a p like is that going
to take I've been doing this and now is it's
going to take my job or adjust what I'm doing?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Talk talk a little bit about that, Chris.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I appreciate that because I actually wrote one of my
four best sellers is The Mastering of SAP with AI.
It's the green book right there, and it just so happens.
I firmly believe that AI is not going to take
away your job, but it's going to make you a
better person at your job. It's going to be better capabilities,
(27:44):
it's going to make you a smarter human. Whatever tasks
you're doing now, Will it take away some of the
menial tasks? And that sure and absolutely well. And there
are companies and activities and things that it will definitely
take and do once you get the prompting down and
you get the activities wrapped around. Absolutely, But I make
(28:05):
that claim in that book, and I actually have two
other books on AI that I've talked about. It will
strictly make you a better human being, for your company,
for your life, hey, even for your wife, and for
the activities that you want to do to better yourself.
Use it as a training mechanism, Make it as a
training activities for your company. Use it as a tool
(28:28):
for learning how to prompt properly to do finance or
create an ROI based solution for your HR or your finance,
or your shipping and activities. Use as an external component
for your sales and marketing activities. All these things you
can do with AI. So it'll take away tasks will.
I don't think it will take away your job unless
(28:51):
you give it the reason to take away your job.
When your boss comes in, it says, look, you're just
you're lazy. You're not here on time, you're not doing
the things you need to do. I can get somebody
who knows how to prompt knows how to use the
AI tools, and I can get them because they're going
to be a benefit to my company and to the
organization as a whole. That's where I see AI really
(29:13):
going and really driving business value for those organizations and
for the humans who know how to use it.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
That's that's great that you're saying that, Chris. We're going
to put a link to the books. You guys can
go find Christmas books, and we're going to make sure
again connect with Chris on LinkedIn and all that will
make sure it's all in the show notes. Also, I
would encourage you guys, if you're listening to the podcast,
if you guys have questions or comments, please go ahead
and leave them in there. Whatever the platform, whether there's YouTube, LinkedIn,
wherever you're hearing this, wherever you're taking this in listening
(29:43):
watching us. We want to we'll make sure that gets
back to Chris that he can respond to as well,
and we appreciate the engagement and sharing. I'm encouraged when
you say that, Chris, I agree with you. I think
that for those that embrace it as a tool a
funny story, I'm gonna doing environmental consulting since the late nineties.
Chris and I remember we never didn't we didn't use
(30:06):
GPS units like that was like we didn't have you know,
we did, we had surveying, did ways of different doing serving,
but GPS units were new, and I remember like people
were like, oh, I don't know about this technology. I'm
intimid about it. And this is just GPS back in
the day. But then understanding and incorporating the spatial Lada
and how can we use it more and just the
evolution of how they could use it more. This is
so exciting and it's just it's again understanding and this
(30:30):
is a major evolution. I A is a major tool
and revolution. But I believe just like whatever it was
one hundred years more than one hundred years ago when
cars were first introduced, like, right, what's the car going
to do?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
You know? We got horses for that. I'm right.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Uh, and and I mean, I so just I think
embracing that and leveraging it and saying like, Okay, how
can this help me be a better person?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
And I saw your post. I was talking about you
before we recorded today.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
You made a post on your LinkedIn about how it
can help me be I'm a better person. And I
agree the people that embrace that and they say, okay,
how could this help me? How can I use this
to be better? Those folks will different, differential of themselves.
But if you, if you dig in your heels, right,
you're saying same thing with like, hey, I'm not going
to use that SAPI. I don't want to use it.
I want to like somebody else is. And I think you,
(31:19):
you know, you're just kind of dig in your own grave.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Great, well, that's the problem we have in the sap
ecosystem right now is fifty seven percent of the sap
ecosystem when it's staff members and such, fifty seven percent
right now are the age of fifty or older. That's
a crazy number. Right now. We're not getting younger. We're
not getting these young people. And you look at these
(31:44):
individuals that come in. We've got about eight percent that
are in the from the teens to the twenties. Then
it's like thirteen percent from twenty to thirty, and then
another three or seven to eight percent that are in there.
For it is a old humans game right now in
the sa becos, and we need to educate younger people
and they want the whizbang new tools. AI is the
(32:06):
tool they want to use. They want to use chat, BBT,
they want to use Copilot, they want to use tools.
They want to use all these tools to better their careers,
better their life, to better their day to day activities.
And so it's one of those tools where you better
embrace that where you are going to be retired.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, no, one hundred percent. And to your point, it's
great that I love the breakdown that you said there, Chris,
because I see this right now. I've been in the
AC architecture, engineering, environmental consulting space for twenty five years.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I'm fifty one.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I'm in the Gen xers, but I'm seeing a gap
in the leadership space as well of guiding and mentoring
people those millennials, especially the Gen zs, and so my
passion is to help work with folks like you of
saying hey, we're trying to build this. How do we
mentor and guide and empower those folks to stop up
to start learning this stuff to work with the team, right, Chris.
(32:58):
And that's why I want to have you on the
podcast because here listening to this as a business owner,
if you're in that place, your company is going to
be so much more valuable and better off if you
get these folks in there and understand this and grow
with your company, right Chris, Get them in.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Early, get them bringing up early. Yes, you're going to
have individuals that are going to leave your organization after
you bring them up and you've moved them forward in
your organization. But at the end of the day, you're
going to have these successes, and those are the successes.
I've always said, no matter where I go on the
corporate ladder, I am always reaching a handbag to try
to help somebody get to the next rung as well.
(33:31):
I'm trying to get better. They need to get better.
As long as we're working together and in tandem, we're
going to keep moving up that corporate lander or of success.
Just so happens that I happen to be the chairman
and CEO at this point time, Well, I want to
cut some other people to come up, and I want
them to take over. I don't want to be doing
this for the rest of my life. I've got an
incredible wife that likes to travel and she wants to
(33:53):
spend some time with me. She keeps selling me. So
I need individuals to be successful as well, and every
company should look it. Reach those hands back down the
ladder and bring people up with you. Hell, have five
or six of them on the same rung and working together.
You never know who's going to reach that out for
that hand and grab onto the next rum and keep
(34:14):
driving success with those individuals.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, yeah, definitely to your point. And Chris, I think
finding multiple people. Don't do one source of failure, one
person that knows all. That's a classic mistake. But I
do see that happen quite obviously the business. This person
knows it all. It's in their head. They figured to
figure it out. I'm like, yeah, what happens to that
person if something happens and.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Then the owner gets all for clemt that, Oh my god,
they left me. I trained them. You know, this is
why I don't reach my hand. No, it's because you,
you as the leader. You didn't make the choice to
bring in more individuals and to help them help them.
You're not going to sit there and do a mentoring
program for twenty people, got it, But you know what
(34:59):
you are going to I see a couple of bright,
shining nuggets that you think can make diamonds, then you're
gonna put them up. It's the Ge mentality. G Jack Welch.
He did this perfectly. He would have ten to fifteen
executives across that VP level and they would be down
there and they would swap rolls, and they would continuously
swaps to see who is learning and who could pick
(35:22):
up the different variations. Some of them would and all
of a sudden go off to run a different company,
and then someone else would go off to a different
and then that would be taken in them and they
would lead, and you would have a couple that would
go up, and it would continuously. It's like a reversed funnel.
You know, you're trying to get as many into the
bottom to see who comes out the top. Well, sales
(35:43):
is the opposite. You want to bring as many in
to see who comes out at the bottom. And Ge
did that, and that's why I love I considered Jack's
philosophy is Jack Welch. His philosophies were fantastic and I
love that between him and Bill McDermott, two mentors that
I just love and follow and was fortunate enough and
actually that chet jpt on aibook is dedicated to Bill McDermott,
(36:06):
who's now the CEO of Service Now. When he was
at SAP, I looked at him as a leader who
I wanted to be like, and I wanted to push
myself towards. Very fortunate to work with him in some
of the activities around SAP, and those are the types
of individuals. You look at what they did and how
they're always bringing people up. They're always trying to help
(36:27):
the next one, and that I think we're lacking a
little bit here in America today and even the world,
and we need to start looking at that. I don't
care what your creed, your color, your religion, who we are,
who you go to bed with, and that doesn't matter me.
What matters to me is are you a good human being?
And can you help others? Because I need to help
others to make my company successful. If you can do
(36:49):
those things, we're gonna get along great. And I'm gonna
help you and you're gonna help me.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Chris, I love it and you're the same lane length
on that. I want to serve. I want to help
more reach more people. That's why we have this podcast.
I know we're getting the into the podcast, we're gonna
have to become back Chrisca. This is just so much
fun in enjoying the conversation with you. Absolutely, you know,
as we wrap it up, I just I like to
(37:16):
ask our guests. You know, we cover a lot of
different things and if if, if, if you would just
say a key takeaway or an action for that CEO,
that business leader that's listening right now, Hey, Chris, you
know what what do you how either whether to you know,
prepare or improve their their organization, whether they're currently with
the air in the f or they're they're considering it
(37:38):
or what what What would you say?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
What was that?
Speaker 1 (37:40):
What would you want to do? What was what's the
first action? One of the things they can do today
as they leave listening to this podcast.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
First thing is call me, call me and ask a question.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
I am not on the clocks, so you don't have
to worry about compensations. You don't have to worry about contract.
Call me and ask a question. I answer hundreds of
questions every month, and I'm you know, I used to
have my phone number out there where I told people
just call me if you've got a question. Then all
of a sudden, I'd get bombarded by questions. But then
I got bombarded by everybody asking for to send their resume,
(38:13):
and I was like, wait a second, I'm not hr
you got to go through a process. I can't just
So what I'm gonna ask you to do is join
me on LinkedIn, send me a chat or yeah there's
the chats because David chat on it is send me
a chat and say, hey, you listen to the podcast.
I've got a question about what we're doing or what
we're looking to go through. I can set up a
(38:35):
time to talk. I have my own team's accounts, I've
got my own zooms. I don't have to do it
as part of the company, even though it is on
the company. I will. I will set it up. You
can ask me any question you want, ask me what hell?
You can even ask me what color the sky is
this week? Right now, it's kind of a sunny gray
outside in Wisconsin in a couple of days. It's going
(38:57):
to be victory, yellow and Blue at Georgia Tech.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
When I'm done there, you go.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
I that being said, just contact me and say, hey,
I heard the podcast. I really liked what we're doing.
Can resonate with what you've been doing. I've got a
couple of questions. Can you help me with the direction
that I can go. I may send you to a
company if you're down in Atlanta. I work with some
partner companies down there that are fantastic individuals. Off I Kantope.
(39:21):
If you're looking for something from an Oracle or Dynamics,
or maybe use some things with service now. Hell, I
might even send you directly to mister McDermott. Say hey, Bill,
this company contact me. They don't have service now, They've
got some things that they could do with AI. You
got somebody in that neighborhood that you can help them
out with. Contact me, let's have a conversation. And if
I'm in a no location near you, I like bourbon
(39:44):
and I like coffee, So depending on the time of
the day.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Out Well, I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Chris Aproyo, You guys go check out apro dot com
and check out his books. We'll put it in the
LinkedIn the Lincoln connection here as well in our show notes. Chris,
thanks for being here and we look forward to having
you come back again.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Well, David, I'm excited that this was a fantastic conversation.
But if you want to show you something, I just
got to my collection and I knew you would like
this because I kept him out here just for you.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Oh look at that grogo Star Wars with cookies.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yes, just for you. I kept them. It's part of
my Uh, I'm all.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
The forces with us. I changed my off a little bit.
I'm you guys are going to see some more Star
Wars stuff in the background there. So we're working on
my little life labor there. Uh No, I think it's
this is life, this is connection, this is being real.
I love that, Chris, and I'm looking forward to grabbing
coffee or bourbon or whatever the keys might be when
you're in town here in Socow.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks again Chris for being here.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Great to see again, David. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
All right, Thanks everybody until next time. All along the
podcast and we'll look forward to you here. Are you
having you on the ex one, Thanks everybody, mm hmm.
Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I am your host,
David Carr. Super excited to have you back here where
we bring people together to accomplish great things, have great conversations.
And I've got a brand new guest on the podcast
this week, Chris Carter. Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Chris.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Hey, thanks David. I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
Absolutely now.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Chris, You've got we we we're we're friends in the
forest too.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
We're big Star Wars fans and nerds out here too.
We love. We're gonna have a great time with the podcast. Chris.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
You you have a great background and something we haven't
talked about on the podcast before or really not very much.
Maybe I mentioned in the past, but we're talking about
e ERP Enterprise resource planning. We're talking about s a
P systems, applications and products. These are acronyms you might
have heard floating around out there and you're like, I'm not.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Sure exactly what that is or how does that apply
to me.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Well, Chris is a leading expert in this area, and
you know, I'm gonna we're gonna break you down and
get into that today because I'm gonna leverage you know,
bringing Chris to you guys and our audience to learn
from him, get to understand more about this stuff, so
to demystified, if you will. And Chris has created a
(01:25):
company called app Royo that you're gonna be able to
learn more about, which really helps companies make the SAP
work harder for them. And really I appreciate Chris your
people first perspective regarding technology AI.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So again, super excited to have you here. Chris. One
thing I love to ask about our guests is to
walk us through your little bit of your.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Entrepreneurial journey as a business owner going through this and
what got you today to where you're at. You know,
app Royo and and the things that you're doing, Chris,
want you know and how did you become an s
a P expert if you will?
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Yes, Well, it's my entrepreneurial journey started very early in life.
In high school, I decided I was going to create
a business card company and it was going to be
plastic vellun business cards. I would go through and I
would have a fish bowl with a lot of real
business cards, but then I would put two of my
own in there with the plastic and almost nine out
(02:21):
of ten times. The individuals that were picking the cards
out who I was trying to sell to, they would
pick mine because it was a different touch and feel process.
It was all about the marketing piece of it. Fast
forward into college. I go off to Georgia Tech. I
take my Commodore VIC twenty. Shout out to the good
people a commodore, they are back in business. Woo you
(02:43):
get my own Commodore VIC twenty back.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Oh my gosh, apple twoey.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I went off to Georgia Tech and I started learning
computer science. Lo and behold. My sophomore year, I got
an internship at Coca Cola on their SAP system, which
was in the bowels of the tell or. At Coca
I was working at an old R two main frame
with punt cards.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Oh my gosh, as an.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Intern, But it just so happened they were negotiating with
SAP to bring in the new X eighty six variation,
which was called R three, and I had been playing
on there are two and so SAP asked me if
I would be interested in working with them. So I
literally had got a job right out of college working
on SAP. The only thing that changed is I went
(03:27):
from a Coca Cola name Batch to an SAP contractor
name Badge, and I started from there. That brings me
forward to starting multiple companies, investor in multiple companies, writing
multiple books. I now have seventeen books and I keep
at more. Thank God for technology to be able to
(03:47):
help me edit those books because sitting in front of
I literally published my first four during COVID and I
really got into things called it grammarly and some of
the tool to help me with my formatting. And yes,
if you have to do in order to publish properly,
you have to have properly formatted books. So now I
(04:08):
own four companies, a bar, restaurant, seventeen books, and thank god,
I have an incredible wife who supports me in these
endeavors and the activity is going on there. And we
have an investment arm that also works with companies that
are looking to get funded and will help with depending
upon what the organization is and what. So it's my
(04:30):
entrepreneurial journey started young, and it's I will continue to
be an entrepreneur and help other entrepreneurs and wait until
I pass away, because we've got a foundation now that's
going to do the same with my daughter so it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Oh that's great, Chris. Well again, that's why I love
your energy, I love your background. So the folks that
you're listening to this, you know, lean in Chris's gout.
You know a lot of experience, and you know, I think, Chris,
sometimes people think of that.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
I work with a lot of.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Small business owners are that are up and coming and
they get intimidated by some kind of enterrized resource planning
software and SAP, and I feel like, you know, they're
not understanding this. So can you back it up a
little bit for other folks that maybe haven't heard, that
haven't experience, break it down for a little bit about what.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Does that mean? What does it mean to the business?
How do they be successful with such a tool?
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, tool like SAP. It's an ERP solution Enterprise Resource
Planner as you made reference, SAP just so happens to
be one of many, and it actually works for companies
that are three million dollars, five million dollars, all the
way up to multi billions of dollars. It just depends
on how you use it and how you set it
up properly, because what it does is it allows you
(05:42):
as an entrepreneur to have your HR, your finance, you're
shipping and distribution, maybe your warehouse management, maybe your travel
and engagement. You're so if you're traveling around the globe,
all that gets integrated into one nice, neat clean platform.
And I like to say, it's your one record of truth.
(06:02):
So instead of using quick Books and Salesforce and then
Concur and then something else and then something else, Now
you've got five or six disparage different systems. Instead of that,
you have one. You have one. You use one interface.
It's it's your template, you's your GOUI. It's either on
your phone, your iPads or pad, it's on your computer.
(06:25):
You always have that one record of truth and where
you go in the world, what you do in the world.
You can move between the different components or the modules,
and it's all built in instead of having to log
in and log out, log in law. I used to
have Salesforce, quick Books, I used to have Concur. I
used to have a warehouse management tool that we would
(06:46):
use for some of our shipping and receiving activities that
we had for a different comp You constantly have to hey, there,
have them plugged in or log back into them. And
because they don't stay on where you have this capability
and SAP no matter what size of an organization you are,
you just have to make sure that you're using it properly.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Absolutely well, and again Chris, as you're talking about that,
because I think sometimes that I remember working with another
company and they were.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Trying to figure out when do I you'll switch over?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
And I like what you kind of listed a bunch
of those of like, hey, we've got these different things
in different places, and I think that's I found that
happens quite often. And even when you have an even
maybe not SAP specifically, but you try organic, people will
go around the system and they'll not use it or
they want, oh, I want to do my own little thing.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
Do you see that?
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Uh, not as much anymore because you really can't get
around the system.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
That's good.
Speaker 3 (07:44):
If you're trying to get around the system, it's probably
because you're trying to do something with AI and you're
trying to build your own activities around that. You're trying
to do your own prompting, and maybe you're trying to
get data from a different repository of something. Most of
the times when you're in an SAP environment. You're in
that one record of truth and that's what helps organizations
as well. Now they can't supersede the system. They have
(08:08):
to use the tool that is there for them to
use to benet be a benefit of it.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Sounds to me like when they do that, Chris, that
you're actually protecting them from you maybe exposure to other things, right,
you know, miss bad data or just you know logins.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I mean, there's.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
Unfortunately a lot of bad actors out there that try
to get in people's systems that.
Speaker 3 (08:26):
There really are. There's bad actors out there, and we've
been hit at SAP. They've got so many patches that
have been coming up because they're continuously updating and making
sure that their security profiles are so we as a
partner are always validating what they're doing. We send in
bug fixes, we send in tickets to them, Hey, we
see this activity and we see that going on, and
(08:48):
we see this bug needs to be fit. They're continuously
getting those. We're probably getting about a dozen or so
every week that everybody's got to upload into their system.
So from a security standpoint, it's upon us as the
end user as well as SAP to make sure that
these fixes get put into place and they're validated. We
(09:09):
firmly believe in the validation process and making sure that
those things move forward.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
That's great.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
So when you're working with your clients, Chris ap Royo,
you might be seeing, hey, there's a there's something that
needs to be fixed or address, so you're being proactive
on their behalf of saying, hey, this needs to get fixed,
this needs to be addressed.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
Correct.
Speaker 3 (09:27):
We are proactive on our customer side as well as
as a partner. We make sure that we're validating and
we'll send that off to SAP, so our customer will
know that we're taking care of that, and our partner,
SAP knows that we're we're seeing that and we're shipping
that to them so they can make validations and fix
it for everybody, all four and eighty three thousand SAP customers,
(09:49):
we'll get that.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Well, that's that's incredible.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Now when you does, just because for the audience purposes,
if they don't understand this, if they if they're looking
at enterprise rese our software, there's lots of different ones
out there, SAP.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Is that one, just for folks.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
That aren't familiar with it, is that kind of industry
agnostic is it serves different industries. Talk a little bit
about how that helps different companies industries.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
That's a great question because it's it goes across so
many different industries. They literally have a component that fits
in for every industry. So no matter if you're in
the retail and your CpG, or if you're in a
housing industry, or if you're in the finance industry, it's
got components within the capability to be able to fit
specifically for those industries. From a technical side, where we
(10:40):
tend to live, we don't care what industry there, will
make sure that that system is up and running, whatever
cloud they're choose, whatever APIs that we have to use
to connect back and forth to third party systems. We
take on that responsibility and the management of that infrastructure.
It's the functionality component where organizations either have internal peoper
(11:01):
or they hire folks from us that take on those
responsibilities of the industry specific aptitude that make sure that
they're moving forward. So yes, they do have as many
industries as you can think of. They're a part of
it and they're working on those every single day.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
So when when when you when you have a customer
coming to you, Chris Uh, I'm like, so there's all
these different components, is is it?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Because this is why I.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Find sometimes for software technology people, I try to do
a one size fits all, like here's the whole thing
you you know, and you have to figure out how
to use it or do I even need all these parts?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
How do you assess that for a potential client or customers?
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Absolutely understand that because we do also do the licensing
for these organizations. So what we'll do is we'll sit
down with organizations so if they currently have SAP, we'll
evaluate what evaluate what they have and what they're using.
There's a lot of times they have licenses on the
plate that it's just shelff. It's just sitting up there
and it's doing absolutely nothing but collecting the next to
(12:00):
my temperature gauge. So why have those Why use those
activities and be a part of that At the end
of the day. What you need to do as well
is you need to evaluate those activities from the beginning
to the end, and then you need to make sure
that you're literally making sure that that applications are right,
(12:20):
what modules are right, how those activities are being used,
and be able to funnel that all together.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
Yeah, I think that's really important Chris, as you're talking
through that, because I found, like, to what your point,
either there's licenses.
Speaker 2 (12:34):
Or are not being used.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
I found this, or there's license that we need people,
and like I work with companies and so it's working
with somebody like you to figure out what do you
need access to you, why do you need access to
it for? How long do you need access to it?
Helping them because I found like sometimes people are like
in a roadblock while I really need to get this,
but I don't know how to get to that. How
do I do this? So you find out where they're
at and what they need for the workflows?
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yes, absolutely, we will evaluate how their systems are being used,
what they're doing with those systems. How many individuals are
you there's these Uh, there's very unique circumstances of what
the licenses can be used, how they can be used,
and when they can be used. If you're not using
the right ones or valuating the right ones, you know,
(13:18):
why are you wasting that money? Why are you wasting
the resources? I can take those and I can funnel
those to somewhere else and go from there.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
M h.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
What would you say, Chris, You mentioned, you know, as
you know, a three million dollar annual or way beyond that.
What when I came to a company we were looking
at they were using, like you said, just quick books,
and I suggested to her because at the time he
wasn't quite there, but I said, look, I can see
the possibility.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Of what scaling beyond where she was currently.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
You know, she wanted to do a million in revenue,
and then we went eventually by on my laft we
got to over I think seven million in revenue.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Chris.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
So we because part of the reason was we put
in the RP in place that helped us do that,
particularly because of professional services. There's projects, we were having
a track schedule, budget, all of that stuff. Chris, What
should they be doing if they're not Maybe they're not
there yet, but what should they be considering tracking looking
for to when they're like, yeah, we probably should make
that transition.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
You have to having issues with So let's start with finances.
If you're having issues with your month, then closes, your
quarterly closes, in your year end closes, and it's taking
up a lot of time because quick books isn't giving
you the information you need start looking at it from
an HR issue. If you're having issues from an HR perspective, hiring,
letting people go, doing vacation times, monitoring your health insurance
(14:40):
is all those types of activities. Another thing that's really
good for you is to start looking at an EARP
solution that'll help you with those types of things, including
onboarding and letting individuals go if you need to. If
you're in an organization where you've got product and delivery,
start looking at an application like an SAP or other
air where you've got warehouse management. One of the biggest
(15:03):
things that I see all the time with companies that
are starting to make that change. You got your logistics,
your distribution, your warehouse. I need to order product from A.
I need to get it to B because B needs
to do something that needs to get it to CE.
C needs to get it to me because I need
to package it, and then I need to get it out.
A can't do it. Who's my A backup? Who's my
(15:23):
B backup? Who's my C. These types of questions can
be held inside of an SAP and borough. If A
can't do it, you've got B, CD E, n F
G under your number your A, Okay, they do what
they can fulfill it. They got to fulfilled. I need
these orders fulfilled in this amount of time. By this
these types of things, those are critical for businesses to succeed.
(15:47):
I've seen businesses have a million dollars an hour failure
because they lost track of what they were doing and
how they're well. Think about it. If you've got a
union labor force sitting on you on the floor twiddling
their thumbs doing absolutely nothing, Holy cow, you're screwed. You're
bored on Monday and say, well, hey, guys, you know what,
(16:10):
I just lost US fifty two million dollars because we
were down for the entire weekend because I couldn't figure
out where to get product from.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Yeah, that's so important. I hope as you guys are
listening here, you know, think about this about how it
affects you.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
I've definitely seen that. I was a user group leader
for another ERP.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
Years ago because I saw the value of as a
project bander becoming more aware, integrated and saw how these
things were connected. Chris, like you're saying the optics from
the business, I was more in the business development the
project I wasn't doing I had to do some accounting
stuff because my ran projects, but I was working with
that team. I think the value of seeing us and
coming together is super powerful, and I think sometimes again
(16:53):
people just don't realize how these things are newted together
and you're you just highlighted some of those things. So Chris,
they can come you, So a client can come to
your potential customer come to you and say hey, here's
what I'm currently doing, and then can you assess them
and give them the guidance as to here's how this
would this we would match you up with In this
case SAP we do.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
And as a matter of fact, after this podcast, I'm
going to do an assessment organization on another SAP project.
They've come to us and asked us to do an
assessment because they've acquired another company and they have the
same application, but they're not using it in the same way.
So they're going to do an assessment based upon what
they're buying and what they have, what fits, what doesn't fit,
(17:35):
what can they use, what don't they use, what should
they maybe modify and put into their environment. So it's
an assessment that's going to evaluate there from top to
bottom on that acquisition. And we do those all the time.
It's amazing what's going on in the market right now.
The merger and acquisition side of this industry right now
is hot. We go in and will do full assessments
(17:56):
of current companies that are being acquired. You need to
what you're acquiring, how you need to take out that
bit of data because a lot of times, and I
get this, one of our customers does seventeen to twenty
five different deals a year, just in one year, So
we have to go in and we have to assess
every single landscape that they have of technology. And typically
(18:19):
they all have SAP in one way, shape or form
because of the industry there, and so we'll go in
and evaluate what they have. We'll also decide what we
need to cut out, put into an environment be able
to sustain it for itself or that part of the
business that they're buying, and then be able to move
that into the mothership. How that works and the templates
(18:42):
that we built for them and how we will move those.
We've got that down to a science because we've templated
that activity for them, and we've done that for other organizations,
but every company that's out there running an SAP ecosystem
or some sort of ERP or want to grow in
the ERP ecosystem. It's those types of things that move
the needle and really help with organizations on a go
(19:05):
forward strategy.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
It's important.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
Yeah, I could see that, Chris, when you're talking about
mergers or acquisitions and making sure that this is all
cleaned up, looking good. I mean, if you're buying a business,
you want to if they have obviously a SAP and
it's really tight to pull together, you're like, man, this
is very valuable. If it's in disarray, it hasn't been maintained,
and it's just kind of all over the place, and
you know, you got little things here and there, and
like who's who's Who's who's shepherding this? Who's everything? I
(19:31):
don't know that. That's why I see outside of SAP.
I see this outsiding in small companies, and that's where
I come in and help their teams, like empowering.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
People, like you're in charge of this, You've got to
take care of this. Who's who's watching over this? Right?
Speaker 3 (19:44):
And you do it? You have to empower them. That's
the interesting thing. When we do upgrades and migrations, or
we even start to bring we empower specific individuals and
we start at the top. I beg CEOs to get
involved with these projects. Be the leader that you have been,
and you need to be for this, even if it's
(20:06):
coming in once a month and patting everybody on the
back and thanking them for their hard works and ever,
because at the end of the day, you need a
C level executive, somebody with the ultimate power to say
either yes or no when it comes down to that
hard decision. Sure, you have everybody that's going to be
working on their different modules and the different activities, the
(20:26):
testing and so on, but when the poop, it's the van.
You're the individual that they need to come to. You
need the knowledge, you need the background, you need the
information to say yes or no to make the betterment
for your organization's success.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
I can't agree more, Chris. I've unfortunately been in the
place where they were disconnected and like all the other
people are doing that and they don't really know and
you know, and they're and I feel like that people
are disempowered, like, well, I guess I can't really make
any changes. They have to make the changes, but then
they're not to make they don't like, well, I don't know,
and so it's not a it's not a clear no,
it's not clear yes.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
Cannot be wishy was you need to make executive decisions
as an executive that company. You need to do it now.
We need to make this change in this organization. We're
going to go to this cloud. We're going to do this.
We got to make these changes based upon X, Y
and Z. Do I have your approval? Yes or no?
And they need to put on their big boy or
big girl pants and say yes or no. And then
(21:27):
if you're going to say no, tell me why we're
not going to do it. What do you know that
we don't know that are gonna that's gonna make a
change in this organization because we've laid it out and
why this is important to this organization. Now you move forward.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, well, you know, I we were talking before we're
doing this recording. I'm going to be speaking at a
conference later this month to that about how do we
help those those folks in the in the they're not
the executives, so they're trying to provide that feedback to them,
whether there's a cybersecurity instead of internal auditors.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
You know, I SACA.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
These folks that are trying to help and get this feedback,
but then they're like, but I'm not getting a response.
It's like it goes up and it just it's like
floating up there somewhere. It's like, what's going on here?
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Right?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
And technology is changing you just mentioned a million dollars
an hour or whatever. I mean, there's things that are changing,
and we're like, hey, nobody's addressed. You know, nobody's making
action here.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
So, David, I'm known as kind of an arsehole in
my industry. I am the people. If I ask you
for something, you got twenty four hours to respond to me.
I am not a nice person when it comes to that.
My time is valuable. Time is valuable, Our work is valuable.
If you are going to sit there and pooh pooh
(22:44):
because you think you've hired us, guys, gals, I've one
hundred plus companies sitting behind you waiting for us to
help them because they trust us. Hire us because we're trustworthy.
We know what we're going to do, how we're going
to do it, and we're gonna make you a success.
(23:05):
So you come out of this thinking that you can
stick your nose in the air and I need to
kiss your backside. You're absolutely wrong, because I will literally
and I've done this before. I will tell you thank you.
This project is no longer fits our go forward strategy
as an organization. You obviously don't feel that this fits
(23:25):
your organization. My team cannot move forward in this manner.
We are breaking our contract. I'll sign the contract, say
thank you very much. Go find yourself some offshore company,
or go find yourself some company that you feel more
comfortable with. Who are going to kiss your backside? We
will not. We're going to tell you the truth. We're
(23:46):
going to tell the bodies are buried. We're going to
tell you how we need to dig it up, how
we need to go through the process, and how we
need to deal with an autopsy. And it's straightforward, it's
not that difficult. Listen to us and you will succeed.
Mess around what is that f a FO? These days
the kids are doing trying to remember what that means?
(24:09):
Find out. I don't know. I can't live in any case.
You're being strange.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
That's why I have you on the podcast because united
connected and and that's what honestly, I'm the same way
Chris I'm the same way, and that I'm not going
to sugarcoat it for you. I'm not going to like
play games. Uh, this isn't a power play. It's just
this is what's needed. How do we get it done together?
And if you want to play the game, then you
(24:35):
can go play the game somewhere else. And there's unfortunate
people that want to do that, and they and and
and and businesses that hold on.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
To people like that.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
In my experience, they're just self sabotaging in the long run.
Whatever reason you think that this person is quote unquote
valuable in the company, I'm telling you.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
You know, listen, let's it's.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
All the time. And it's funny. There was a major
lawsuit in the SAP ecosystem about one of the companies
that was doing an SAP upgrade and they were suing
the consulting firm on it. And I happened to know
one of the project leads on that environment because we've
worked together. I've been doing this since nineteen eighty nine.
I'm not just some fresh pop out of the fresh
(25:15):
aer academy. And so he and I would talk every
once in a while. He would just be banging his
I can't get them to do this. I can't get
them to do this. I can't. They don't even know
how to do their testing. And I'm like, what are
they doing? Why are you still well? They're this and this.
Come to find out all of a sudden that they
had backdoors, so much detail that they hadn't told the firms,
(25:37):
plus their teams were so ill prepared to do any
of it, even after they were begged to make sure
that they were ready. And then they wanted to modify
a system. SAP is not a system you modify in
any way, shape or form. You do not fit SAP
to fit your business. You fit your business to fit
(25:57):
into the best case scenarios of an SAP environment, because
the use cases are built by SAP and the current
partner community of the four hundred and eighty three customers
that are out here. You modify or try to modify,
that's when trouble starts and it causes time and additional money.
Of course, it got thrown out of court because they
(26:19):
found out how stupid they were. But you don't do
those things and then think that you're you, Oh, you're you,
you wronged me. I'm sorry. That's just it's nonsense. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
People try to turn the tables and blame others and
are like, look, you're asking me to do things that
are not and like you said, modifying, adjusting it changing things.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
I want to ask you.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I know we're uh, I don't want to let exit
this podcast without You're a tech person, you know, and
we talk about as things evolve and there's now AI,
and I'm sure say obviously it is involving AI and
how we're using the tools, but talk a lit a
little bit about how you're seeing that, not just as
an SAP, but I think there's people concerned out there,
(27:05):
maybe that hey, I'm gonna lose my job, or this
is coming in or this this program is going to
remove my job. Talk a little bit about that concern
or that that that out there about AI and technologists
in general, even s a p like is that going
to take I've been doing this and now is it's
going to take my job or adjust what I'm doing?
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Talk talk a little bit about that, Chris.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I appreciate that because I actually wrote one of my
four best sellers is The Mastering of SAP with AI.
It's the green book right there, and it just so happens.
I firmly believe that AI is not going to take
away your job, but it's going to make you a
better person at your job. It's going to be better capabilities,
(27:44):
it's going to make you a smarter human. Whatever tasks
you're doing now, Will it take away some of the
menial tasks? And that sure and absolutely well. And there
are companies and activities and things that it will definitely
take and do once you get the prompting down and
you get the activities wrapped around. Absolutely, But I make
(28:05):
that claim in that book, and I actually have two
other books on AI that I've talked about. It will
strictly make you a better human being, for your company,
for your life, hey, even for your wife, and for
the activities that you want to do to better yourself.
Use it as a training mechanism, Make it as a
training activities for your company. Use it as a tool
(28:28):
for learning how to prompt properly to do finance or
create an ROI based solution for your HR or your finance,
or your shipping and activities. Use as an external component
for your sales and marketing activities. All these things you
can do with AI. So it'll take away tasks will.
I don't think it will take away your job unless
(28:51):
you give it the reason to take away your job.
When your boss comes in, it says, look, you're just
you're lazy. You're not here on time, you're not doing
the things you need to do. I can get somebody
who knows how to prompt knows how to use the
AI tools, and I can get them because they're going
to be a benefit to my company and to the
organization as a whole. That's where I see AI really
(29:13):
going and really driving business value for those organizations and
for the humans who know how to use it.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
That's that's great that you're saying that, Chris. We're going
to put a link to the books. You guys can
go find Christmas books, and we're going to make sure
again connect with Chris on LinkedIn and all that will
make sure it's all in the show notes. Also, I
would encourage you guys, if you're listening to the podcast,
if you guys have questions or comments, please go ahead
and leave them in there. Whatever the platform, whether there's YouTube, LinkedIn,
wherever you're hearing this, wherever you're taking this in listening
(29:43):
watching us. We want to we'll make sure that gets
back to Chris that he can respond to as well,
and we appreciate the engagement and sharing. I'm encouraged when
you say that, Chris, I agree with you. I think
that for those that embrace it as a tool a
funny story, I'm gonna doing environmental consulting since the late nineties.
Chris and I remember we never didn't we didn't use
(30:06):
GPS units like that was like we didn't have you know,
we did, we had surveying, did ways of different doing serving,
but GPS units were new, and I remember like people
were like, oh, I don't know about this technology. I'm
intimid about it. And this is just GPS back in
the day. But then understanding and incorporating the spatial Lada
and how can we use it more and just the
evolution of how they could use it more. This is
so exciting and it's just it's again understanding and this
(30:30):
is a major evolution. I A is a major tool
and revolution. But I believe just like whatever it was
one hundred years more than one hundred years ago when
cars were first introduced, like, right, what's the car going
to do?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
You know? We got horses for that. I'm right.
Speaker 1 (30:46):
Uh, and and I mean, I so just I think
embracing that and leveraging it and saying like, Okay, how
can this help me be a better person?
Speaker 2 (30:55):
And I saw your post. I was talking about you
before we recorded today.
Speaker 1 (30:58):
You made a post on your LinkedIn about how it
can help me be I'm a better person. And I
agree the people that embrace that and they say, okay,
how could this help me? How can I use this
to be better? Those folks will different, differential of themselves.
But if you, if you dig in your heels, right,
you're saying same thing with like, hey, I'm not going
to use that SAPI. I don't want to use it.
I want to like somebody else is. And I think you,
(31:19):
you know, you're just kind of dig in your own grave.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Great, well, that's the problem we have in the sap
ecosystem right now is fifty seven percent of the sap
ecosystem when it's staff members and such, fifty seven percent
right now are the age of fifty or older. That's
a crazy number. Right now. We're not getting younger. We're
not getting these young people. And you look at these
(31:44):
individuals that come in. We've got about eight percent that
are in the from the teens to the twenties. Then
it's like thirteen percent from twenty to thirty, and then
another three or seven to eight percent that are in there.
For it is a old humans game right now in
the sa becos, and we need to educate younger people
and they want the whizbang new tools. AI is the
(32:06):
tool they want to use. They want to use chat, BBT,
they want to use Copilot, they want to use tools.
They want to use all these tools to better their careers,
better their life, to better their day to day activities.
And so it's one of those tools where you better
embrace that where you are going to be retired.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yeah, no, one hundred percent. And to your point, it's
great that I love the breakdown that you said there, Chris,
because I see this right now. I've been in the
AC architecture, engineering, environmental consulting space for twenty five years.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
I'm fifty one.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
I'm in the Gen xers, but I'm seeing a gap
in the leadership space as well of guiding and mentoring
people those millennials, especially the Gen zs, and so my
passion is to help work with folks like you of
saying hey, we're trying to build this. How do we
mentor and guide and empower those folks to stop up
to start learning this stuff to work with the team, right, Chris.
(32:58):
And that's why I want to have you on the
podcast because here listening to this as a business owner,
if you're in that place, your company is going to
be so much more valuable and better off if you
get these folks in there and understand this and grow
with your company, right Chris, Get them in.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
Early, get them bringing up early. Yes, you're going to
have individuals that are going to leave your organization after
you bring them up and you've moved them forward in
your organization. But at the end of the day, you're
going to have these successes, and those are the successes.
I've always said, no matter where I go on the
corporate ladder, I am always reaching a handbag to try
to help somebody get to the next rung as well.
(33:31):
I'm trying to get better. They need to get better.
As long as we're working together and in tandem, we're
going to keep moving up that corporate lander or of success.
Just so happens that I happen to be the chairman
and CEO at this point time, Well, I want to
cut some other people to come up, and I want
them to take over. I don't want to be doing
this for the rest of my life. I've got an
incredible wife that likes to travel and she wants to
(33:53):
spend some time with me. She keeps selling me. So
I need individuals to be successful as well, and every
company should look it. Reach those hands back down the
ladder and bring people up with you. Hell, have five
or six of them on the same rung and working together.
You never know who's going to reach that out for
that hand and grab onto the next rum and keep
(34:14):
driving success with those individuals.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, yeah, definitely to your point. And Chris, I think
finding multiple people. Don't do one source of failure, one
person that knows all. That's a classic mistake. But I
do see that happen quite obviously the business. This person
knows it all. It's in their head. They figured to
figure it out. I'm like, yeah, what happens to that
person if something happens and.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Then the owner gets all for clemt that, Oh my god,
they left me. I trained them. You know, this is
why I don't reach my hand. No, it's because you,
you as the leader. You didn't make the choice to
bring in more individuals and to help them help them.
You're not going to sit there and do a mentoring
program for twenty people, got it, But you know what
(34:59):
you are going to I see a couple of bright,
shining nuggets that you think can make diamonds, then you're
gonna put them up. It's the Ge mentality. G Jack Welch.
He did this perfectly. He would have ten to fifteen
executives across that VP level and they would be down
there and they would swap rolls, and they would continuously
swaps to see who is learning and who could pick
(35:22):
up the different variations. Some of them would and all
of a sudden go off to run a different company,
and then someone else would go off to a different
and then that would be taken in them and they
would lead, and you would have a couple that would
go up, and it would continuously. It's like a reversed funnel.
You know, you're trying to get as many into the
bottom to see who comes out the top. Well, sales
(35:43):
is the opposite. You want to bring as many in
to see who comes out at the bottom. And Ge
did that, and that's why I love I considered Jack's
philosophy is Jack Welch. His philosophies were fantastic and I
love that between him and Bill McDermott, two mentors that
I just love and follow and was fortunate enough and
actually that chet jpt on aibook is dedicated to Bill McDermott,
(36:06):
who's now the CEO of Service Now. When he was
at SAP, I looked at him as a leader who
I wanted to be like, and I wanted to push
myself towards. Very fortunate to work with him in some
of the activities around SAP, and those are the types
of individuals. You look at what they did and how
they're always bringing people up. They're always trying to help
(36:27):
the next one, and that I think we're lacking a
little bit here in America today and even the world,
and we need to start looking at that. I don't
care what your creed, your color, your religion, who we are,
who you go to bed with, and that doesn't matter me.
What matters to me is are you a good human being?
And can you help others? Because I need to help
others to make my company successful. If you can do
(36:49):
those things, we're gonna get along great. And I'm gonna
help you and you're gonna help me.
Speaker 1 (36:54):
Chris, I love it and you're the same lane length
on that. I want to serve. I want to help
more reach more people. That's why we have this podcast.
I know we're getting the into the podcast, we're gonna
have to become back Chrisca. This is just so much
fun in enjoying the conversation with you. Absolutely, you know,
as we wrap it up, I just I like to
(37:16):
ask our guests. You know, we cover a lot of
different things and if if, if, if you would just
say a key takeaway or an action for that CEO,
that business leader that's listening right now, Hey, Chris, you
know what what do you how either whether to you know,
prepare or improve their their organization, whether they're currently with
the air in the f or they're they're considering it
(37:38):
or what what What would you say?
Speaker 3 (37:39):
What was that?
Speaker 1 (37:40):
What would you want to do? What was what's the
first action? One of the things they can do today
as they leave listening to this podcast.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
First thing is call me, call me and ask a question.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
I am not on the clocks, so you don't have
to worry about compensations. You don't have to worry about contract.
Call me and ask a question. I answer hundreds of
questions every month, and I'm you know, I used to
have my phone number out there where I told people
just call me if you've got a question. Then all
of a sudden, I'd get bombarded by questions. But then
I got bombarded by everybody asking for to send their resume,
(38:13):
and I was like, wait a second, I'm not hr
you got to go through a process. I can't just
So what I'm gonna ask you to do is join
me on LinkedIn, send me a chat or yeah there's
the chats because David chat on it is send me
a chat and say, hey, you listen to the podcast.
I've got a question about what we're doing or what
we're looking to go through. I can set up a
(38:35):
time to talk. I have my own team's accounts, I've
got my own zooms. I don't have to do it
as part of the company, even though it is on
the company. I will. I will set it up. You
can ask me any question you want, ask me what hell?
You can even ask me what color the sky is
this week? Right now, it's kind of a sunny gray
outside in Wisconsin in a couple of days. It's going
(38:57):
to be victory, yellow and Blue at Georgia Tech.
Speaker 2 (38:59):
When I'm done there, you go.
Speaker 3 (39:01):
I that being said, just contact me and say, hey,
I heard the podcast. I really liked what we're doing.
Can resonate with what you've been doing. I've got a
couple of questions. Can you help me with the direction
that I can go. I may send you to a
company if you're down in Atlanta. I work with some
partner companies down there that are fantastic individuals. Off I Kantope.
(39:21):
If you're looking for something from an Oracle or Dynamics,
or maybe use some things with service now. Hell, I
might even send you directly to mister McDermott. Say hey, Bill,
this company contact me. They don't have service now, They've
got some things that they could do with AI. You
got somebody in that neighborhood that you can help them
out with. Contact me, let's have a conversation. And if
I'm in a no location near you, I like bourbon
(39:44):
and I like coffee, So depending on the time of
the day.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Out Well, I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Chris Aproyo, You guys go check out apro dot com
and check out his books. We'll put it in the
LinkedIn the Lincoln connection here as well in our show notes. Chris,
thanks for being here and we look forward to having
you come back again.
Speaker 3 (40:06):
Well, David, I'm excited that this was a fantastic conversation.
But if you want to show you something, I just
got to my collection and I knew you would like
this because I kept him out here just for you.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Oh look at that grogo Star Wars with cookies.
Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yes, just for you. I kept them. It's part of
my Uh, I'm all.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
The forces with us. I changed my off a little bit.
I'm you guys are going to see some more Star
Wars stuff in the background there. So we're working on
my little life labor there. Uh No, I think it's
this is life, this is connection, this is being real.
I love that, Chris, and I'm looking forward to grabbing
coffee or bourbon or whatever the keys might be when
you're in town here in Socow.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Thanks everybody for listening. Thanks again Chris for being here.
Speaker 3 (40:49):
Great to see again, David. We'll talk soon.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
All right, Thanks everybody until next time. All along the
podcast and we'll look forward to you here. Are you
having you on the ex one, Thanks everybody, mm hmm.
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