[00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to this episode of Commerce Today. My name is Joshua Warren, your host and the CEO of Creatuity an e-Commerce Agency. First of all, hope you're all having a great day out there and are feeling a little bit better than I am. It is springtime here in Dallas and what that actually means is one day it's 85 degrees, the next day it's 60 degrees, then it's 85 degrees again, which is always so much fun for my allergies. So apologies if there's a little bit of coughing in this episode. I'll do my best to edit that out. We've had a lot of very platform specific and tech heavy episodes, and we're gonna have another one next week that really dives into the new announcements around Adobe Commerce Cloud as a cloud service which is still a mouthful of a name. But we'll talk a lot more about that next week. This week I wanna do something a little different, go back to some. Types of topics we haven't talked about really in quite some time.

And I really wanna look at, when I go into a company that is either having [00:01:00] challenges with their e-commerce operations, they're frustrated, they're. Maybe not meeting their goals or maybe everything's going okay, but it's just okay. And they're looking to go from basically from good to great. And I find there are basically three problems.

And every time I go into a company, it falls into one of these three categories. Three categories being a systems problem. So a problem with your platform, a problem with your ERP, like a real technical problem, a process or policy problem. So problems where the business just. Isn't maybe quite set up right in the way they are looking at e-commerce and the policies and processes they have in place.

This can be everything from how the e-commerce team is structured and treated, all the way to just the simple process of how orders are being fulfilled. And the last one is the trickiest one, and that is a people problem. So sometimes it comes down to. Maybe you don't have the right person doing the [00:02:00] right job.

And those are always, can be the most challenging conversations sometimes. Those are the best conversations though, 'cause it's amazing what happens when you take someone that is in a role that's not quite the right fit for them. And maybe the issue is them. Maybe the issue is the role doesn't really matter.

But you get them into a role, you either adjust the role or you adjust what role they're in. You get them into a role that is the right fit, and it's just incredible seeing how that can unlock so much potential. But going back to the first one, and all of these come from examples from the e-commerce problem solving sessions that I hold.

Those are free 30 minute sessions that you can book directly on my LinkedIn profile. Just type in. Joshua Warren on LinkedIn. Look for the guy with the Creatuity gold background behind his head because there are a lot of Joshua Warrens. I think there's even a lot of Joshua Warrens in the Plano north Texas, Dallas area.

Yeah, definitely make sure you get the right one. But yeah, go there. There's a link that says book an appointment. That is actually a free e-commerce problem solving [00:03:00] session and it'll show you my availability and we can chat through whatever challenges or next steps in e-commerce growth you're looking for.

There's no sales pitch. I do, as you're about to hear, use this anonymized to produce some content for the Commerce Today podcast though. So diving right in systems issues. This is what I feel like people always think their problem is. They think that. If they just have the next new e-commerce platform, if they just have the next new ERP or they got a call or went to a trade show and a rep from a shipping and logistics provider has convinced them that if they just switch that system to this system, suddenly.

They're gonna make more money. Their customers are gonna be happy, their job's gonna be easier, everything's gonna be great. You can tell that I don't always believe that. Definitely there are many cases where it's a systems problem and when you look, if you are having challenges because you have a piece of software that just refuses to integrate and play nice with other pieces of software.[00:04:00] 

Chances are you have a systems problem there. Or if you have something that still has that very old school monolithic mindset where, everything is a big customization that has to be done within the systems code base. Or even worse been working with a company recently that hasn't, ERP, that just flat out doesn't allow any customizations.

You have something like that, you have a systems problem and that can be good and bad. Systems problems can actually be the most straightforward to identify and the most straightforward to identify a fix for. And it's not unlike the other ones you typically aren't having to navigate kind of emotional personality personnel type issues.

However, the systems issues fixing those, lots of times they will be the more expensive or the more time consuming ones. So they're the ones where you're gonna have to possibly switch platforms, move to a new e-commerce platform, move to a new ERP, change out your logistics provider in the. The warehouse management software that you're using with them, different things like that.

[00:05:00] But I would really urge you before you decide, I have a systems problem. I'm switching platforms, I'm switching software. Listen to the other two types of problems and make sure that the true root cause your problem. Is a systems problem before you go out and change systems. I mentioned that because there is actually a very large, very successful brand here in North Texas that I had the privilege to work with about 10 years ago.

And then I've been able to watch them grow ever since and. At the time, 10 years ago, they switched to e-commerce platforms. I wanna say it was like every nine months. It was like just as fast as you could re-platform. They were re-platforming and they were convinced that as they were growing, all their problems were the platform.

And as they hit the next level of growth, they needed to jump to the next platform. They spent all their time and energy on the platform and not really a whole lot on their actual product. They were able to hire a director of e-commerce that understood that sometimes it's not always a systems problem, [00:06:00] and he put a stop to that constant replatforming and said, you know what?

Let's look at our process and policy issues. Let's look at our people issues. Let's look at even potentially, a fourth one that we're not gonna dive into in this episode. But product issues. Let's make sure that we have a solid product that our customers really want. So they stopped the replatforming.

They focused on those items and it has been incredible to watch them grow. Ever since then, like they really have figured out what it takes to get to the next level. Times about 10 compared to where they were before. So that was systems problems. Next up is process or policy problems and I lump both of those together, even though they can be a little different.

But process problem just could be something like I've mentioned earlier where. Your process for fulfilling orders just isn't quite right. This is always really interesting on the omnichannel retail side. Worked with a lot of different companies that they'll have 50, 60, a hundred different stores and they try to standardize those store footprints, but.

All of them are a little [00:07:00] different even within those standardizations. And so you might have a policy that says, this is exactly how ship from store orders need to be picked. This is when you need to pick them. You need to take them to this holding area. You then need to print the labels, like that whole process that you design.

But the problem is sometimes there will be a store that they don't have enough space to hold that many orders, or they don't have enough personnel to dedicate someone to doing this full time. And so either the process needs some flexibility in it, or it needs to be redesigned for those specific cases and situations.

And so lots of times, process problems. Will really surface as either poor performance not hitting kind of industry benchmarks or as complaints. If you have a good culture where employees are, feel comfortable expressing their frustrations and their complaints, if their complaining, chances are it could be a systems issue, but lots of times I find it's actually a process or policy issue.

Now [00:08:00] policy issues. That's the probably one of the hardest things that I have to come in and work with sometimes. And what I mean by that is policies around who e-commerce reports to and who owns e-commerce, who makes decisions for e-commerce. Lots of times those policies aren't really written down.

There's of course a way within the business that this is how we make decisions, but let's say you have a director of marketing, you have a director of it, and then you have an e-commerce manager, and sometimes that e-commerce manager will report to marketing, sometimes to it. Lots of times I find them actually pulled in both directions by both departments, and sadly what I see happen is the.

E-commerce manager knows what needs to happen. They know what your business needs to grow your e-commerce, and they go to whomever they're supposed to go to, and they just can't work their way through the policies and the approval processes to get their [00:09:00] ideas heard, to get their budget approved, different things like that.

So policies around how the departments are structured and how e-commerce is treated can be so important. I've seen. So many companies actually lose really good e-commerce managers over this exact issue, where they basically realize that, and I always remind them of this, that not all companies are broken.

Not all companies have this challenge in understanding the importance of e-commerce or where e-commerce fits within their business. And they find a better job. They go to a company where e-commerce is its own division, or where the e-commerce management role is treated as the level it should be.

I do feel like in most companies now, I. Your e-commerce person really ought to be a dedicated person and they really ought to be a director. And that's not to say that they don't need to work alongside marketing, they don't need to work alongside it, but those roles are very different. There's definitely an interesting Venn diagram you could draw between them, where really good e-commerce directors are.[00:10:00] 

Pulling from some IT experience, pulling from some marketing experience, but their priorities are gonna be very different than someone whose sole priority is marketing or whose sole priority is it. So the last area is people and at Creatuity we actually use a management framework called EOS, the entrepreneurial operating System, which I know a number of agencies and merchants that use EOS.

And EOS has this whole approach to identifying discussing and solving issues called IDS. And one of the interesting things when we implemented EOS at Creatuity is it talked about how so often the root cause of an issue is a, it is a people issue. It is something related to a person. And one of the best things that I like about what I've learned from EOS is that's not a bad thing.

And you're not saying that this person is a bad person. Let's say we have a director of IT named Bob, and we realize that our issue is really an [00:11:00] issue around Bob's performance. Bob's approach, something specific to Bob and his work in that IT role. That's a people issue, but that's not a Bob issue and I always like to draw that distinction.

'cause lots of times the issue isn't that Bob's a bad person or that Bob doesn't, doesn't care or isn't trying. Lots of times the issue is someone that hired Bob or someone that manages Bob. That's actually where the problem started, where maybe Bob was hired for a role that he didn't really have the appropriate experience for.

Maybe Bob was promoted into a position he wasn't quite ready for. And so that's where people issues come in.

So with the people issue, it's really important to sit down and really have a frank open conversation as a team. And when I say as a team, I would do this at the leadership team level or at the management level before bringing Bob in. But basically, sit down and have a conversation about what are the behaviors and the issues that you're seeing.

Why do you believe that this is actually [00:12:00] an issue Specific to Bob and sorry for all the Bobs out there. I was trying to think of a name that I haven't worked with. A IT director that has that name and Bob is the one that came to mind. I'm sure there are a lot of great bobs that don't have any issues with their work, but anyway, I really sit down and have that map out what the challenge is, make sure it's not a systems issue, make sure it's not a policy or process issue, and really look at what's the problem. And sometimes the problem, like I mentioned, is someone's been hired for a role that they're just not equipped for.

They're not trained for. In that case, what, how big is the gap? Can you provide training to close that gap? Sometimes they were hired into a culture where they're just not a good fit, and this is probably the hardest people issue to deal with, but it is the one with the clearest and really most important solution if you've hired someone who culturally just does not fit.

And when I say cultural fit, let's say you have a tight, close knit company where it's really important that [00:13:00] you treat everyone with respect. And you hire one of those, amazing performers that's just a jerk and is rude to everybody and is offending everybody, is causing people to quit possibly over how rude they are.

That's a culture issue. So it's not, do they like comic books? It's not anything like that. But really those values and what is considered normal and appropriate within your business, if there is a conflict there and you realize that's the problem that is driving this people issue.

The absolute best thing to do right away is to offboard that person. And yeah, if you've known me for a long time, I don't like talking about firing people. I don't like offboarding people. That's not the solution I like to really ever use. But. When there, I've seen so many times, both with Creatuity and with the companies that I've consulted with, if it's a culture mismatch, you will do so much damage to your company if you don't take quick, decisive action to remove that person who is not [00:14:00] fitting your company's culture.

Beyond that though, let's say it's not a training issue, it's not a culture issue. Sometimes I'll see that it is, they're just bored. They're not, it's not a good fit for their skills. Maybe they have skills that are being underutilized. This is where, if you go back to some very old Commerce today episodes, I have talked a lot about Michael Hyatt and the Business Accelerator program.

And the full focus planner and all the stuff that Michael has produced, and he has this concept called the freedom compass. And I'm not gonna dive into the whole thing today, but it's a way to basically identify the four different zones of types of tasks that you work on. And the easiest way to describe this is, you know those tasks that they challenge you a little bit, but you really like doing them and you're actually pretty good at them.

That's where you wanna spend a majority of your time. Unfortunately, a lot of people end up. Spending a majority of their time on tasks that they're really not interested in and they're not very good at. And that's where you'll start to see people issues. And so [00:15:00] that's where I like to try to find other ways, either change the role that person is in or find a different role for them within your company.

It really takes sitting down and talking with them, learning what, how they feel about their current tasks and really going through and doing it. And this goes way back to like Peter Drucker for. Those that are old enough to know some of the old management gurus. But it goes back to all that of doing kind of a time study of how are they spending their time?

What tasks are they working on, and then figuring out are they enjoying those tasks? Are they good at those tasks? Something I like to do from the management level is also say, are those tasks even important for the business? Lots of times they'll be something that someone's doing because three years ago when they first started, whoever is managing them that may not even be with the company anymore, told them, Hey, this is a really important report I need you to produce every week.

And it might be now those reports aren't even being looked at. So going through and doing an audit like that can be a great way to resolve a people issue especially since that type of resolution often [00:16:00] turns one of your lowest performing team members into one of your highest performing team members whenever you uncover things like that.

So that's the three types of issues. So you'll have a systems issue, so a true technical issue with your platform issue with your ERP, things like that. You'll have a policy or process issue, and then you'll have a people issue. And I would really encourage you, so often we do fixate on those technical issues and on those systems issues.

And I think a lot of that is because. You don't have to try to change anything at the company. It allows you to point outside of your company and say, oh, the problem isn't us. The problem is them. The problem is the people that provided this software, the problem is this logistics provider. Whereas when you really approach a process or policy or people issue, you're having to take a hard look inside the company and really say, look, here's where the problem is.

We need to fix this. We need to sit down and we need to make some changes. And those changes, again, those can be [00:17:00] hard, but they can have the best results. So I do, of course, love it when people wanna switch e-commerce platforms. That's obviously a big part of what we do at Creatuity. We help both omnichannel retailers and B2B companies, so wholesalers, distributors, et cetera.

We help them implement, integrate, support, and grow their e-commerce platform. So love that work, but. Honestly, my main message from this podcast today is lots of times that's not what you need. And so before you go down that road, sit down with me or somebody else, somebody external from your company, sit down and say, okay, why do we think we may need to make this change?

What type of problem are we trying to solve? What type of outcome are we trying to drive? And is this something that. We could implement the best e-commerce platform in the world, we could implement the best ERP, and we're still gonna have issues because we have out of date policies, we have inefficient processes, or we have the wrong people in the wrong roles within the company.

And I always hate [00:18:00] to see that because you spend a lot of money, a lot of time on a new e-commerce platform, and then you find yourself with a nicer looking website. But the same problems you had before because you didn't address those other challenges. So that's about it for today. Like I mentioned next week I wanna dive in much deeper on the new Adobe commerce platforms.

There's more details, more information, more technical stuff we can dive into about how those are being positioned and what we can do with those. And I'm really excited about that. Also by the time you're watching this, it may be too late. But if you are in north Texas and you are in an e-commerce role at a merchant and you would like to go to the Rangers game on Friday, March 28th, I believe it is reach out to me.

I still have a couple of tickets left, putting together a little e-commerce meetup at the Rangers game. Also have a fun event plan for April at Martin House Brewing, and then more events after that. So if you are in an e-commerce role in North Texas. And you might be interested in going to that sort [00:19:00] of an event or those events.

Please reach out to me and of course, always reach out if you would like to be a guest on the Commerce Today podcast. Would love to have you on and I hope you have a great start to your spring.