Dashboard: ChatGPT, Salesforce CRM, and the Employee-Contractor Dilemma

[Music] welcome to another 21 hats dashboard I'm Lauren Feldman I'm here with genan marks to talk about things we think business owners should be following this week welcome Jean hey Lauren hitting the ground running right yep great to have you here uh where exactly are you I'm in London right now um I've been here for the past two weeks and will continue to be here for another couple of weeks so um my wife's family is here so we've been staking a claim in the city it's a lot of fun very cool are are you uh reporting on small businesses there while you're there interestingly enough you I know you like to ask me the stuff I like I'm I'm working on so next week I am going to write a piece for the guardian uh with a working title of think it's hard to run a small business in the US try running one in the UK wow and I've got a bunch of bunch of a list of challenges that small businesses face in this country that we really don't have right now that yeah I think it'll be fun to write that'll be really interesting uh I'm looking forward to that can you give us a hint one thing that's uh that's hard over there well I I mean the economy here is worse than it is in the US for starters you know um so sentiment consumer spending you know um you know inflation is like 10 and a half percent right now interest rates are higher uh and then there's energy costs just to give you an idea you know got it so and then there's you know regulatory stuff that businesses here have to deal with that we don't have to I mean everybody here gets an automatic four weeks of vacation you know can you imagine that's an outrage yeah buch of slackers so anyway that's the stuff that we'll be working on I'll look forward to that piece uh I'm sure we'll talk about it in the future uh let's talk about some pieces you've already written uh including one you wrote for Forbes on what you call the Inconvenient Truth About Salesforce you're an expert in CRM you help companies uh implement it you you know this field better than anyone that I know what's the Inconvenient Truth About Salesforce I mean being Inconvenient Truth that Salesforce has to you know recognize is that their their software is too damn expensive uh they just announced this past week that they were um laying off 10% of their Workforce about you know almost 8,000 workers um you know they've had significant shake up in Senior Management over the past couple of months uh they made this unprecedented announcement that they couldn't forecast 2024 their fiscal 2024 year because of you know volatility in the market but I Lauren it's just you know when you go and you look at the I mean I'm in the crn field so I deal with this you know I hear this all the time when you look at the price Salesforce is a great software I mean it's it's a you know it's really the BMW of CRM I think you said it was the Lamborghini of CRM Lamborghini example I used to the piece and um and it is but you know most companies like don't really need a Lamborghini to get around and Salesforce is like literally double the price of some of the you know some of the more affordable completely capable CRM platforms that are out there um and you know like Zoho and sugar and you know sightly and Nimble I can name a bunch of them um you know and and so businesses themselves they find themselves paying so much money for Salesforce they don't even have money left over for training and even if they do you know because Salesforce has been designed for sort of larger companies they're trying to get in the small business Market but the consultants for sales fors charge an arm and a leg so using them costs a lot it's just it's just harder now that the economy has slowed and and inflation is what it is and people are trying to watch their dollars and cents to really justify the cost of Salesforce was e you do offer a lower cost version for smaller businesses don't they they do but it's it's significantly stripped down you know so it's not even Apples to Apples they have like a $25 a month version but then when you start you know looking at it with features um compared to some of the other crms that are out there I mean it's it's missing just about everything and then your next bump up is to like 75 bucks a month where you get sort of the workflows and the reporting and the customizations that you want and then there's like 1 15 bucks a month where you get it all including the support that you need and it's just a lot more money it's just a lot more money so so let me ask you this I I suspect a lot of businesses are in this position you know if a small business is currently using sales Force it's probably because they felt well you know it's Salesforce they made the decision some time back to go for the Lamborghini and maybe now they regret it when is it worth switching and that's whether you're unhappy with Salesforce or or any other I mean no nobody's eager to spend the time switching to another CRM what makes that worthwhile and and any tips on on making the move I do I mean it's it's a really it's a great question I mean it it's an Roi question you know I mean if you're if you can justify the return on investment of the software feeds and the maintenance and the uh ongoing services for a sales force type system maybe you've already sunk a lot of that anyway um you know and you're in it already you know and and it's and it's providing value for you in other words it's saving time and it's helping you generate more sales then okay I mean you might just carry on but I I do run into a lot of businesses that are paying 7 or 150 a month a user for sales force 304,000 a year um and you know I can come back to them and say you know you can get any one of these comparable crms you'd be paying half that amount um and still getting the same kind of results yeah you will have to you're going to go through some headaches transitioning off of it but it's longterm the the ROI is just that higher and I think your your question actually is like it it you know what it does it it it pinpoints an issue that we all have to be aware of when we're running businesses which is you know just because we have we're using something now and paying for it doesn't mean it's still right for us are we just being lazy you know so you know if you have Salesforce and you're paying that amount you should know that you can have a very similar system for a lot less and I think it's your responsibility it's my responsibility in my business to to look at all the things that we're paying for and say yeah I've had this for the past few years but is this still the best thing for me it needs to be Revisited because I'm telling you a product like Salesforce it's just for most small businesses it's just Overkill it's a Lamborghini when most of us need like a Camry is there a way to ease the pain of making the switch no it's it's a pain in the ass to do okay you know it's you're you're exporting data from one system into another I mean the process is a lot easier than it was like 10 years ago that's for sure but it's still a pain in the ass to do so you got to get through it and again my feeling is that if if you're listening to this and you're like geez maybe I am paying way too much for Salesforce before you do anything sit there and and you know and spreadsheet out what the cost would be get some help what the cost would be to migrate to a different system and then the cost of the different system compare it to your current cost with Salesforce and do it over say a seven-year period of time because that's like a typical lifespan of a CRF system right now um you know then do your analysis is it worth going through this exercise or not maybe it's not got it next topic you wrote another story about why the Department of Labor's new worker classification rule is going to be a disaster for small businesses you also offer uh interestingly a uh a fix that would solve the problem tell us first what why is the rule of disaster well this rule is coming out um sometime soon sometime in the first quarter and you know it is it's it's going to use California's model which is the ab C test and without going discussing the A's and the B's because the the A and the C part of the test is pretty much what we're all used to with independent contractors you they got to be independent right this is a test of what defines uh an independent contractor versus an employe versus an employee right so the B test is the issue the B test is where um the the the independent contractor can't be doing something that's in the normal course of your business in other words you can't be billing your independent contractor to a customer they can't be performing where if you're bringing in an independent contractor to paint the walls of your office okay that's not the normal course of your business you know but if you're a company that uses an independent contractor in in the course you know that you know to perform services or or to build a product for your customers um that is in the normal course of your business and if that's the case you might very well have to classify that person going forward as an employee so just where I think disaster I mean think about like health care companies that have independent contractors that provide Health Care Services to their to their patients or customers and software development developers accounting firms service technology firms like mate uh other firms that are that do Trucking firms Transportation they have delivery drivers they 1099s people in the construction business they're building houses and they need to bring in somebody to do some drywall work for a few days as a 1099 an independent contractor all of those types of workers under this worker classification rule could very well have to be or probably will have to be classified as an employee which means that you're gonna have to pay employer taxes and make them available to your benefit plans and um you know and allow them to unionize you know have workers rights and that's a huge deal for a lot of small businesses like mine it's a huge deal for me I have about a dozen independent contractors that provide services for my clients just on an off-hand basis whenever I need that and uh now I'll put them on the payroll and pay payroll taxes for them and it's it's a significant is that what you anticipate you will in fact do I I do I mean in reality though because people are asking me like what should I be doing and I'm actually working on the same piece I'm working on a piece about this for the Chicago Daily Herald who the Chicago Daily Herald um and I am um are um uh you know people people are going to ask like well what what should we do and can I can't put this in writing but I can tell you Lauren and and all of our listeners I I would do nothing right now because it's gon to there's going to be lawsuits Galore you know about this and it's gonna it's gonna suspend things for a while before you're really you know have to take action so it could be a couple years before that thing gets sorted out like is the Department of Labor acting within its rights to do this so we'll I'm waiting and seeing is what I'm doing I'm telling all my clients to do the same thing let let me ask you this there is a legitimate issue here we we all know that there are companies that have abused uh the independent contractor role and you know gotten away with paying less for core activities to the business do you have a thought about where you draw that line and and and how you make sure that it works for both sides well it's a um I actually do I mean I guess this gets back to the the the hill piece that I wrote Because you know you and I talked I think we talked about the what was going on in California with the fast food we did we did the councils yeah it's a fast food Council that that has been formed which it's by the way that's been suspended right now because there's lawsuits just so you know right but of course of course but assuming that goes forward um the fast food Council for the industry is one where um a law was pass that that creat this 10 member Council made up of people from government people from business bus and people from labor and they set the rules for themselves and whatever they set when it comes to safety and labor and minimum wage as part of the law the legislature in California will rubber stamp it so it's in other words it's giving the industry the ability to do that and um I think I I like that model I mean a lot of people yell and scream about it but I kind of think it's more of a pro business model that people you know give it credit for well doesn't it comes down to who gets put on the count right yeah that's the critical thing and I'm not saying I got any great answers for that because that's all politics and paybacks and God knows what goes on in Smoke Filled rooms you know but you know if you if you just if we could figure out a way to have a council that's made up of uh industry people somebody representing government somebody representing Freelancers somebody representing labor um you know a in a 10 or a 12 person Council and the Department of Labor just defers to them and says listen and we're going to let you guys decide on what you think is best for worker classification and they all have a you know a say in it I I kind of think like that's a better model than just the Department of Labor just saying this is what it is because you know what's going to happen Lauren is the next time the Republicans take over they'll be a republican labor secretary who will then turn around and reverse the whole thing do you know what I mean so it's just instead of letting the the the politicians do this stuff to get so politicized I'd rather you know you just delegate figuring this out to the people that it affects and let them decide and have you know the government agree that that's what they'll abide by I assume you mean a a One National Council as opposed to different councils in every state it would be a National Council that's exactly right but you know listen I mean maybe it's that's the other issue is that some states already have you know their own independent contract if you're in Illinois for example you've got uh independent Contracting laws that are uh already place with this ABC test so it really kind of depends on what state you're in so maybe that Council idea is is a good idea to try out at a Statewide level but my recommendation is to make it national and the states have to abide by it but you know that's not gonna happen you know I didn't realize that Gan you're saying that the the rule that the lab department wants to impose is already in place in the state of Illinois yeah it's in Illinois there's like an ABC test as well for workers so the rules the work that that you know that the labor department wants to impose do you know how it's working there no I don't actually I don't in fact I'm speaking to an attorney about this just today that would be a good piece for the Chicago Daily Herald Jean who yeah that's exactly right that's and that's exactly what I'm talking to because I wanted to find out more information about how that is working and um and if Illinois you know businesses even are paying attention to what the Department of Labor is doing because they've already got it there I know it's in place in California that's been you know it's it's people there's been a lot of litigation there too right there there have all right last topic uh one of the regulars on this podcast Sean busy wrote a piece for LinkedIn recently in which he said that chat GPT which everybody's talking about it's a uh it's a chat bot that you could ask to do all kinds of things especially writing things um and it's provoked all kinds of reactions some people think it's going to you know end Google's Monopoly on search um and take over the world and cost every journalist his or her job um but there's also talk about what it can do for businesses and um I'm curious you it's it's actually being backed largely by Microsoft you work with Microsoft um do you see um a role for chat GPT in the way small businesses are run yeah it's it's funny that you you suggest that we talk about this because that's another topic of mind that I'm going to be digging into I think in two weeks uh for Forbes because I did want to write Microsoft has released you know they they they have said they're investing like a billion dollars or something into chat GPT and open AI which is the makers of it and they want to incorporate it as part of office and their idea you know is that you know you you go into the I don't know if you call it the question box the search box whatever and you ask questions to have it create things for you like for example I'm G to do a presentation to the National corrugated containers Association in know next month I can go into Microsoft Office and say please create a PowerPoint presentation for this industry that incorporates these you know these topics and theoretically now we're nowhere near there yet but this is where Microsoft's intending it will it will go ahead create that PowerPoint for you um and also incorporate whatever instructions that you give it you know make sure that you would include the you know industry growth in uh you know in in China you know what I mean and make sure that you include uh I want to talk about Labor issues in the Corrugated Container industry and it will find that information and put that information into you know a PowerPoint presentation and you know people get scared about that stuff I love that because just in that one example you know if you're going to do a sales presentation or a business presentation how much time are we wasting researching all this stuff and then building these stupid PowerPoints that suck and that are you know you know we're spinning wheels doing that and I'm like all right if if office using CAD GPT could take something like that at least get me to Third Base you know um I can then look at it review it make changes to it or ask for stuff to be changed to it and then you know have something done it's like giving me an automated assistance to do what I've got to do but it needs me to tell it what to do do do you know what I'm saying right you're right that people are scared of it and you know in part it's for reasons you know what are considered inappropriate uses uh a high school student asking it to write an essay or a college uh essay to get to get into school uh those clearly are a legit concerns uh in Sean busy's piece he said that he thinks that some of those fears are overblown because he doesn't think it's going to really replace human interaction that he actually compared it to the use of stock photography and you know there are clearly are uses for stock photography but it's kind of generic and it's not what you get if you hire a human photographer he thinks that's true of writing as well yeah it's such and it's a great point because it is it's not just the writing stuff but it's also performing certain tasks to a certain point like we want to put together a sales brochure for this product you can ask CH chat GPT to do that incorporating certain things or I want to put together an employment agreement for a new salesperson I'm GNA ask GPT to draft up that employment agreement for me you know that's fine but like like Sean saying but you're gonna read it over carefully before you use it right yeah I'm still going to read it I'm going to tweak it I'm GNA have value ad but it's getting rid of like all the grunt work that has to be done to get it to the certain part you know where then I can sit take a sit back and really think about it and make it better and when you think about it like so many of the things that we do as business owners like we don't leave ourselves enough time to think because we're just doing mundane tasks of assembling and putting things together and you know getting information from this part and this part and whatever if we can have somebody do or something do all that for us um that we it just gives us more time to then look at what's been produced and then think about it and make it better and it's it's like allocating our resources to I think something that is much more um you know productive and I think value add as well so I really look forward to having something like that I think it's great how close do you think we are to it actually being of of value to a business owner I think you're talking about something in the next five years is what I think it'll be I mean it's getting a lot of hype right now but yeah I think people were thinking more of five minutes um not quite there yet yeah it'll be over the next five years and it won't be all of a sudden it'll be gradually as it comes in and you won't even know it you just you won't even know just like you know uh you know we we don't even know that like spam is is quietly being fixed you know what I mean like it is you know there's there's just tweaks and changes that'll be made to office and by the way you know I'm sure Google will do the same thing with you Suite but we're talking Microsoft now there will be these value added things are just going to be working behind the scenes that will just just being like Oh okay you know office has like you go to Microsoft teams and there's all these functions that you can you know teams will do an automatic translation of your phone calls now right if you just set it up and so if you're talking to somebody who's speaking Mandarin uh you know it teams will will real time translate that for you on a teams call that's huge so I think the biggest issue that Microsoft's going to have is is making people aware of this stuff you know and getting them out of the and making them less scared of using it and that'll be something of interest to see over the next few years I think that'll be a good opportunity for companies like me that are Microsoft Partners you know to consult and train teach people how to use these these things more efficiently well we'll look forward to seeing what you write about it Gene marks is a CPA who writes weekly on small business for the guardian the hill the Philadelphia inquire the Washington Times the Chicago Daily Herald Forbes an entrepreneur you could also hear him on ABC radio's ey on the world with John Bachelor Jee hosts two small business podcasts with paychecks Corporation and the Hartford and he's in London right now working on a story about small businesses there thank you Jean thank you Lauren you'll speak to you next week sounds great take care everybody