Is Automation Solving Your Problems or Revealing Them?

Speaker A: Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Cloud PSO Value Props podcast. I am Usman and I'm here with Walid Alimary, the CEO of Cloud pso. And we are really glad you're joining us today. And if you're enjoying these conversations, please don't forget to follow, subscribe and leave a comment. It really helps us to continue creating this content. In our last episode, we talked a lot about delivery and leadership. But today builds on that. But it's very real, very human way. I, I want to start with something we both experience ourselves, that there's a moment a lot of founders hit really badly. Not because they are doing anything wrong, not because they are lacking talent, they are lacking efforts. But uh, uh, because growth starts to feel like messy things, feels like very busy discussions, you know, piles up, they shuffles up. Uh, so nothing feels broken, but nothing feels calmer either. And almost by default the thought becomes, maybe we need to need an automation, maybe we need a better CRM tool. Maybe we need a better tool now. And honestly that, that makes total sense. But sometimes instead of clarity, things, uh, you know, accidentally feels much louder than we expect. Uh, so today isn't about criticizing these tools, criticizing these, uh, CRMs or automation tools, but it's more about understanding why they help and why they sometimes don't. Uh, so Waleed, we both been, uh, on the both side of this. Yeah. So I want to ask you, why do you think this moment is so common for most of the founders?

Speaker B: My God, we go through it at Cloud PSO too. Um, well, number one, it's natural. It's the natural response to uh, go through these kind of scenarios. Founders, they're always, I've been through it, you know, they're always looking for something tangible that justify fixing something or help improve something and so forth. And sometime that, that really does help. It helps to add certain tools, whether it's automation or CRM system or whatever it may be into your infrastructure. But, um, you have to also ask yourself, do, is this really the issue that I'm having? Is this a challenge that, that I'm facing? Is this, is this where chaos is coming from? So, um, um, there's, there's, you know, founders, they have so much stuff going on in the day and they try to understand how to improve their business. Um, and there's a lot of emotions to Usman, there's a lot of emotion, even cognitive, you know, cognitive emotions as well, where people understand, you know, how I'm going to make these decisions to improve the company. Are these the right people, is this the right software? What is my priorities? There's a lot that happen when, when it comes to management and founders and things like that. So adding tools does help, but you have to ask yourself, does automation resolve the chaos in my head or within my team? Is it going to help change the climate in your company and so forth? But you just have to take a step back and say, okay, um, if automation doesn't solve everything that you're pointing out for issues, whether chaos, then you need to look at the process. Is your process clear? Are the people, um, you know, run doing the right thing in the process? So automation doesn't really solve everything. I think automation will make you see things a lot more visible though. Like it's going to amplify. If you add automation to an existing process, you're going to start seeing the issue a lot more bigger because now it's like, okay, you know, I can improve this step, I can add this step, uh, it. Automation will help you see a lot better when it comes to looking to visibility of the issues that you're having.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's such an important point. It's not that the automation isn't the problem, it's, it's more like it reflects what's underneath and.

Speaker B: Exactly. And it, it um, I would say it also, it reflects clarity. Right? It reflects clarity or it reflects confusion too. Like it will make you see all that stuff. For example, like in the past I have worked on automation projects where very complex manual paperwork that needed to be, that needed to be processed. And when you go into the weed of things and you start seeing how we do things paper wise, you start, start to see why they're doing it this way or they're, they're running their business this way. Then you add technology in the mix, things start improving. But you don't want to rush it because humans tend to get scared when you introduce something new. Right. You want to do it incrementally to make sure that they see the vision of this will make your job better. This will make the job, uh, the process a lot more streamlined and so forth. So introducing something like right away you might cause chaos, you know, so take a step back, look at the, you know, look at how to improve the process but do it slowly so you also understand and get clarity on how to improve it. Scale, you know what I'm saying? Like at scale.

Speaker A: Let's talk about sales for a second. I've uh, seen this so many times, like so many times. Teams, uh, automate emails, follow ups Automate sequences. And while these activities are, you know, going up, um, I see the results don't always follow. So what do you think? I want to ask why these sales automations feel so productive even when the outcome is still flat, the outcome is

Speaker B: still the same, right?

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: I think automation and sales will reduce friction. Obviously we all know that. But it also removes the constant of asking the question what to do next. Right. But automation can't replace understanding your, your messaging to your customer, your target audience. It doesn't help you understand the expectation of your audience. So automation doesn't resolve that. However, automation just repeats, it repeats itself. Right? It repeats the same uncertainty. So having clarity on automation when being implemented even in a sales organization, it's very important. But again take a step back, understand the process, get people involved, get the key people involved. Right. So for example, at Cloud pso we introduced so many automations and I remember in the beginning when we did a spawn and you probably remember too right when we, when we introduced it, a lot of our SDR or AES they were, they were confused because we implemented something that we were not ready for. We did it pretty fast. I think if anything we were super excited to add new, to add new tools. But it set us back because now we have to, we have to train all the sales folks on how to do this, how to use these automation and tools, sequence all that stuff, um, along with marketing tools. I'm pretty sure Osman like we added some new automations with marketing and when we introduced it it kind of set you back as well because you have to understand how it works, right?

Speaker A: 100%.

Speaker B: So having clarity when introducing any type of tools in automation, whether it's sales and marketing or operation, you need to really understand how it's going to affect um, how is your user, your community, your customers. But also the most importantly is the process and workflow that you have implemented in a non automated way.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's really resonate and I, you know what I also noticed? Founders tends to focus heavily on CRM M in this phase. Dashboards, reports and metrics and activities. So where do you see these people accidentally over compiling things?

Speaker B: When, when you implement for example a CRM, you're looking for measurement, how to measure your ops, your sales, your marketing and the quality of messaging that is going out. CRM will help you do that. But you know, CRM also shows you motion, you know, how things are being moved, you know, whether it's stages in sales or operation, services, whatever it may be. But motion isn't the Same as a process. For example, when you, you. I um, would say when teams are aligned on why we are doing things the way we are doing it, the CRM becomes um, a supporting tool instead of an overwhelming tool. You follow me? And this is something that founders should really understand. You need to add tool that is going to support not going, it's not going to overwhelm because again you're not solving the problem of chaos or uncertainty or you trying to see data in motion. That is going to help you make better decisions. Don't make it overwhelming. I think anytime you introduce automation that overwhelmed you uh, overwhelm your teams, that's going to create issue. And I have done that with you Osman, many times. Right? Yeah. So, um, but you live and you learn and that's the name of the game. You live and you learn and you just move on to the next one, you know?

Speaker A: Yeah. Ah, I think uh, that's the feeling, um, that uh, the founder doesn't expect. They buy clarity, but they end up feeling like more overwhelmed. Um, right.

Speaker B: Keep in mind, founders are humans too. So yeah, they, they, you know, ultimately they're just trying to do what's best for their company, you know, and sometimes M M, they get overwhelmed, you know, and so. But you move on and you figure it out, get clarity and move on.

Speaker A: So Walid, here's something we both uh, uh, seen and uh, we lived in. When the automation is added, uh, leadership dynamics become, you know, more, more bolder and more visible. It's not bad way. But in an honest way. What tends to surface once system are in place?

Speaker B: Oh my God. Yeah. So you start to see your decision pattern right away. As soon as you see that, your decision pattern just shows up. Who decided how quickly decisions are made. Once you start seeing these type of issues or how automation is solving things, you start to see why we made that decision. Why did we make that decision so fast? We could have slowed down or we could have speed it up. Um, then the other thing is that is very important. You really start seeing why things went off track, you know, and, and I have done that over and over. I implemented some tools and these tools actually showed me why I made the decision to get these tools. But ultimately the mistakes that showed up after implementing these tools and why, you know, um, automation doesn't judge leadership. So we, we kind of have to judge our own selves. Automation will reveal issues 100% but it's also going to improve things over time. And that can be incredibly helpful, I believe, if leadership, I would say if, if we, if leadership, if the leadership treat the feedback as a positive feedback, not as a negative feedback. As I said, founders, OSMAN, you know, CEOs, CXOs, everybody's humans and everybody want to improve things. But once you start seeing things in a positive way, then it's not just automation anymore, it's not just technology. It's like, like synergy, uh, that you're building to create a workflow that is going to repeat itself but at the same time it's improve itself, get everybody involved and build it at scale. And that's how you grow and that's how you're going to monetize your company as well.

Speaker A: So you're trying to say like it's less about the tools and more about how clarity leadership shows up when the things uh, goes off to the track.

Speaker B: Yeah. Think about it this way. When the existing process makes sense today without having tools, if people can explain, I would say Osman, when the process makes sense without the tool, if people can explain the workflow clearly, number one, clearly to each other, automation becomes a multiplier. It's gonna scale your company big time. But the day you make it into a clutch is gonna slow you down. That's my sense about it. And um, I have learned this the hard way. Um, and I have learned, learn how to um, take a step back. And that's why I always say Osman, like let's not chase, like stop and figure things out, you know, even, even with marketing and sales, like let's take a step back and figure out if these tools are really helping us. But if they are and you, the way you know they are, if your people can explain the process without the tool, that's success.

Speaker A: So for a founder listening right now, Walid, before automating anything, what's the simple checkpoint they can run?

Speaker B: Oh, that's a very good question. I would say, um, if the tool. Here, here's a, here's a question for the founder. If your tool disappears tomorrow or today, for example, let's, let's just say that would we still know what good look like? Ask yourself this question. If the tool disappeared today, would you know, Would you still know what good look like if, if yes automation. Um, if yes automate confidently 100%. If not, clarity is first go back and to the, go back to the drawing board and define your clarity, improve your process, get your teams involved, make sure you have the right people. And really it.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's such a good test Walid and I, and I honestly feel like most founders, uh, skip that, uh, skip this moment, uh, of asking themselves what good even looks like. They hope that the tool will define it for them.

Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And automation is not bad. It's a great saying. I have automated so much stuff in my lifetime. But you always gotta make sure that, um, you understand your processes, your workflows, your people understand your processes and your workflows without using a tool. Once you implement the tool, you, the tool should automatically scale on a massive scale or help them, help them, um, deliver their services and product in a nice way.

Speaker A: So honestly Waleed, what I love about this conversation is that none of this is about tools are being bad, automations are being bad. Um, even the services CRMs, um, they're like just the mirror. They reflects how clear or unclear, um, our thinking is. So, yeah, I believe if there's one thread across everything we talk about today, it is clarity comes before scale. So, Valit, thank you so much for sharing this so openly.

Speaker B: Uh, you're welcome.

Speaker A: Everyone is listening. If this episode is felt relatable, that's intentionally. We all been there. So this is the Value Pro podcast. Thank you everyone.

Speaker B: Thank you guys.

Speaker A: Have a good day.