Choosing A Partner For Your CLM Journey - Lucy Bassli

Made with speech-to-text software, so a few words may be off.

0:00You're listening to the Contract Heroes Podcast, your one-stop shop for all things contract management. And now here are your hosts, Marc and Pepe. Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Contract Heroes where we're not the heroes, our guests are. Got a great episode for you today. Very excited. This is, uh, been a long time coming. Uh, Lucy Bassli, the, uh, the founder over at InnoLaw. She's been around and, and working with CLM for, God, a, a number of years now. Uh, an extensive history in, in the, uh, in the space, so we're very excited for this one. Uh, before we flip things over to Pepe so he can give you kind of an overview of what we're gonna be chatting about, first off, Lucy, great to have you here, and, uh, would just love for you to give a quick background on maybe how you got into this space and, you know, why you think it is, uh, such an interesting market right now. Thanks so much for having me. And yes, I was a child genius when I started. So yes, I've been at this a long time, but I started so, so early. Um, let's see.

1:05My background, I, I'm your regular commercial contracts lawyer, and started at a big firm and then went in-house to Microsoft. And for about 13 years at Microsoft, really, um, discovered that I love the how of my commercial transactions practice, um, a little bit more than the what. I can still do a deal, and it's fun every once in a while, uh, but I just love the how. We just gotta get more done faster and, and really partner with the business, and I discovered that that became my, my full-time mission and job. Uh, and then left about four years ago now and started my own consultancy and work with corporate law departments to help them do contracts faster, better, more efficient. Um, get to do what I love every day, so I'm pretty lucky. And that's exactly what we, what, what, what we would like to talk about during this podcast, right? Like, how we can help, uh, companies to work faster and better with their contracts.

1:56Because I think one of the big mistakes that we have talked about in, in, in some episodes, but, but we would like to go a, a little bit further on this one is, like, uh, some companies try to do this mistake, right, to go and jump directly with the, with the, the tech. You know, CLMs are very hot right now, especially on the legal, legal tech industry, and they think that, "Okay, we know we have a problem with our contracts. We have no idea who's working on what. Uh, it's taking ages just to negotiate an NDA." Still don't know why people are, are, are still taking- ... days for negotiating an NDA. And, and they think that if they implement a CLM software in their company, that's gonna be like a magical wand and things will be fixed in an instant. However, that's not the case, right? And- Right. Mm-hmm... and that's why there's a lot of things that you gotta work before jumping into tech, and that's exactly what we would like to start talking about, Lucy. That's it. We're done here. You've said it all.

2:56100% the biggest, uh, problem right now that I'm seeing, this frenzy around CLM technology. I, it's, uh, unfortunate- It's my favorite soapbox, not, not because I, I chose it, but because it's very frustrating to watch the complete lack of communication between the prospective buyers of the solutions and the solution providers. The, um, the frenzy that I think is being caused really by just the amount of VC funding floating in the space suddenly is unfortunate. And I, and I'm just gonna, uh, yeah, well, I have no problem saying e- exactly what I'm thinking about this space. It's, it's, it's just driving some bad behaviors. You know, there are serial entrepreneurs that are joining this space because there's money, no background in contracting. Um, this is one area- Right... where you really need that domain experience. That's being overlooked, and that's, um, that's unfortunate. Time will tell, um, but there will be a lot of dissatisfaction along the way. This is not a space to jump to technology. It just isn't.

3:52It's not infrastructural. It's not purely operational. It is very much connected to the domain. You have to know what's inside the four corners of the document before you can do any automation around those four corners or about those four corners. That's what's being missed. So yeah, I, I'm, uh, I'm starting my own hashtag, #CLMreadiness. Let's get it out there, everybody. Yeah. Wow. It's, uh, the- I, I think I was, uh, like, the fifth follower of that on LinkedIn yesterday, so I'm, I, I got in early. Um, but, you know- That's it. That's it. It's gotta go viral, whatever that means. You know, Lucy, I think it was interesting. You know, I, I was at Legal Week, uh, last week- Mm... and, and meeting with some of the organizations that we work with, some of the ones that we're starting to work with, and then other CLM providers that we, we don't work with, but obviously know who they are. Uh, I, I, I think it's interesting to see how different organizations are handling different parts of, of first off, you know, the process, but also, uh, marketing different parts of the CLM solution. Uh, and you know, I, I think one of the things that we were probably gonna get to at a later point, but I figured, hey, why don't we jump right in, and, and I saw that you posted about this yesterday on LinkedIn, is, is AI.

4:58Um, and, and it's a huge buzzword in the space, and, and you know, what I had commented is that even different organizations have different meanings and, and their solutions do different things when it comes to AI. And, and I think, you know, that it's important for, for organizations that are looking, maybe, maybe they are ready for CLM, but they need to understand exactly what AI can do a- and what it can't do and, and where the, the human element also comes into the, quote, unquote, "AI" portion of a solution. So I, I figured maybe could we just talk about that a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. I think one thing you said that's super important we don't wanna gloss over- CLM, right? It, uh, and I say this all the time, it is not the system. It, that's why it's called contract lifecycle management. It is a series of complicated processes and interactions between people, and some part of that is there's some systems and then some technologies. Um, CLM is also a series of phases of activities. Those phases are what I think you're referring to in that a lot of different solutions out there, they're focusing on different phases, or they're actually better at some phases than others.

6:00They may be selling the whole thing, but as we know, the technology, you can't, you don't have unlimited resources to throw R&D money at all the phases of the life cycle. The life cycle is complex. AI plays a role, or could play a role, in some of the phases. Right now, the providers aren't being clear enough. They're not explaining where the AI actually plays a really valuable role. They're getting enough attention and traction simply saying, "AI. Our CLM system, based on AI, driven by AI." That, that's on almost every website at this point. Um, so that is adding to this frenzy. It's adding to the excitability around it, and it's also, of course, the lead cause of disappointment, uh, after, after implementation. Look, artificial intelligence is real. It is here. It is useful. I am not saying, oh, it's all a sham. It isn't. I would've had a different answer two years ago, five years ago for sure, but it's evolving, as all technology does.

6:57This technology isn't any more magical, it's, it's just newer, and that means it still needs to evolve. It also is uniquely dependent on human interaction to be successful. Another misrepresentation and oversimplification from a lot of the providers is the amount of time and energy that is needed from the, uh, the users, the consumers, or the implementers. It takes time. It takes time. It takes repeatable time. It is training a system, just like you'd have to train a human. But here's the funny thing I've learned. We seem to have a lot more, um, flexibility or forgiveness when it comes to humans who make mistakes, and we'll keep teaching them. Junior associates at law firms, fresh graduates, young lawyers in their career, of course we coach, we mentor, we teach. They make mistakes. Once the, uh, system fails, there is a loss of credibility that is really hard to, to kind of bring back. Um, and the patience is much, much lower threshold. Like really? Okay, I already gave it six samples.

7:55Okay, ten, fine. You know, how many more does it need? Well, it needs hundreds if not thousands to do really well what the solution providers are claiming it can do. But the people, um, who are involved, their tolerance is quite low for, for that. So that's an inherent disconnect right now as well. There's just a lack of understanding of what it takes to have a successful, um, A- AI truly, you know, driven solution. Yeah. And, and you know, I, I think there's a lot of misconceptions out there just around contract lifecycle management in general. I think that's one of the big ones, and I, I think if we take a step back, you know, what we were talking about earlier in the conversation too is, uh, jumping into tech before you have your, your processes in place and you understand what you really need to get out of, of a CLM system. So you know, w- when it comes to... Let, let's maybe take a step all the way back and let's kinda talk about legal teams and business professionals working together. How do you see, and, and how, I guess maybe what are best practices when it comes to what, what should the legal team be hands-on about?

8:53How should they know or what should they know, uh, what contracts to get involved with, and, and which other ones should they hopefully push off to other departments so that they can spend more of their time focused on higher priority tasks? You know, this is the first step to recovery. That is the first thing that I start with with any corporate law department I talk about. Why do you do the contracts you do? The question takes them back. "What do you mean why? We're here to support the business." Yeah, good stock answer, healthy answer. It's like, "Apple pie is delicious." I'm not gonna argue. But why do you do the specific contracts that are sent to you? Those. Why specifically though are the... You know, again, the business needs support. It takes time, takes a little therapy to get to them going, "Yeah, you know, I never, I don't, I mean, I, I don't know. They send it to me and they need my, they need my help." Okay, now let's look at what types of contracts you're working on. Uh, and Pepe mentioned it at the beginning, right? NDAs. My favorite example, my favorite whipping child for, for, for the stupidest waste of time for lawyers today. NDAs. Really? Right. Yes.

9:49There's any lawyer who's listening to this, I know they're going, "Well, she, you know, there are some NDAs. There are still once in a while." Yes. Okay. Fine. Right. Let's put that 1 to 2% to the side, right? Can we agree? Like, well, that's okay. But 98%, come on, NDA should be two, two and a half pages tops, and everybody should just shake hands and say, "I'll keep my s- you know, your stuff secret and you'll keep my stuff secret." Um, that's a great example. Something that legal teams should not be spending their time on. Now, here's where it gets interesting. Once we get through that conversation of what you should and shouldn't be spending your time on, so this is a question of should, not it's what you do today, but it's what you should do. In that answer, there are a lot of things to consider. What are the risk tolerances of the company? What are the risk tolerances of the general counsel? What's the nature of the business? Right? So all of that goes, you know, into the discussion, but at the end of the day, legal comes up with an answer. It's like, "You know what? There's some stuff we don't need to see." Fantastic. Now the real hard work starts, the homework. You have to start writing things. You have to write templates and playbooks and empowerment guides and training materials.

10:50You have to communicate to the business often and clearly and crisply and over and over again. That still takes time, but it's much less time, of course, over the long run than just continuously doing this flood of probably lower complexity or, or perhaps lower value work. Um, so that's a super important point, Marc, that again, getting a system, it doesn't change that. It actually doesn't save time. That's the other myth, I think, around the CLM system. It's actually not saving that much lawyer time, from what I'm seeing. I don't know who's gonna like this, and maybe you need to cut this out, but there are a lot of CLM system implementations where lawyers aren't actually even touching the system. They really just refuse. They just don't. They go arou- They, uh, n- nothing evil here, right? Not, not, no, no Ill intention. They just wanna get their stuff done, and they're really just not embracing the system.

11:44It's being used for other things, perhaps by other users, perhaps legal operations, contract managers. Th- there's other use cases, but if we're talking about the lawyer's day job, which I think, you know, where your question started, again, the pain points and the problems they have today are largely not being solved by the systems. They can be solved by #CLMreadiness, actually. I almost use it as a sneaky way to say, "Sure, we'll get you into a system, but first, let's do all this homework." They gain efficiencies immediately by offloading work. Then you can automate stuff, and that's great, right? That's almost the bonus and the gravy as opposed to being the, um, the goal of automation. So it's a- Right... a bit philosophical, you know, conversation. Right, and it, and that's the whole point, right? You, you gotta see the legal team as a business enabler because some, some of the times, like procurement or sales team, they just try to find a way on how to just involve the legal team just at the end when they need to sign the contract. "Now it's Thursday. Okay, can, can you have it ready tomorrow so we can sign it Monday," right? Because otherwise, uh- Yeah... that's something that I've seen, right?

12:48Like, when I was working at the law firm, right, there were some times that the, that the customer just send us the, the contract, "Can you review it, please?" And even though when we knew that the contract was okay, just to justify the money that was- ... going to be spending on you because you have to review the contract, you do gotta put some changes, right? Yes. But when you see those changes, it's just like, okay, it's just like another way you have to say the same thing on the clause, right? And, and, and this is going to take another week of negotiation because now they have, they, they gotta run those, uh, uh, those red lines, right? Right. And, and also, the legal team gotta know that, okay, for an NDAs, es- especially at the beginning w- of the negotiation, they didn't know what they are going to sell, right? So maybe in case of an M&A or something that is a little bit more complicated and you wish to keep things confidential, that's fine, but come on.

13:43An NDA, you can just go with, uh, Electra partners with the one NDA, right? And, and- Yeah... and that would be it, right? And, and most of, of the time, this is because legal doesn't have, um, better handle on their data, right? It's just they, they have no idea. They, if, if you ask them, "Which KPIs would you like to keep in mind?" They're just like, "Okay, how much are we taking to per signature or for negotiation that contract?" There's a lot of things that you can take, uh, control when you have the, uh, proper data, right? Right. Uh, so, so, so you can run reports. So, uh, Lucy, just exactly on this, right? Mm-hmm. Why do you think that legal teams have, don't have better handle on their data like HR or sales team would, and that I think that would be, uh, right, like, a good idea? It's, uh, you know, the, it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem. Right. You know, technology is important. This is one where I w- you know, I, I, I will admit and confess, and by the way, I love technology.

14:39I like picking on it because I don't like the frenzy it's created, but collecting data is just much easier with technology. It just is. So why don't they have it today? Well, obviously, you know, they're living in their email, so in order to collect the data, it's there. It will take hours and hours of, you know, sifting, sorting, scrolling, and then moving that into a spreadsheet, and then making a little graph from that. I mean, so the data, some data exists. Um, operational data exists. You, you know when you got a contract. You know when you finished it. Do you care? Do you track it? Can you find that information easily? No. But there is some core operational data. How many contracts came in? You can count it at the end of the month, right? Uh, but it's, uh, it's just an old, you know, it's a, it's a very manual, painful way to do it. Now, I think we're also getting to the point where it's not okay to not have that data. Used to be for a long time law departments can say, "It depends. You know, we're not sure, right? We need more lawyers. We're so busy." And that was enough to justify more outside counsel spend or more- Right... uh, repeat internal re- That's changing, and that's been nice.

15:39That's been a nice forcing mechanism, to get lawyers to just think more operationally. They don't know they're thinking more oper- operationally, but they're being asked for different stuff. They're suddenly being asked for some data points and, and, and, you know, uh, metrics at the end of a month, perhaps. They don't have it 'cause it is not intuitive to what they were ever taught. It just was never a requirement. It was never an expectation in our training, uh, and in our professional experience. So until somebody asks and you realize, "Oh, God, I gotta do this now?" That's usually their reaction. Like, "Oh, yeah, that would be nice to know, huh?" But they still feel a little bit forced, especially in that kind of mid to junior level. It feels in- invasive. It feels like you're trying to, what are you trying to say? Am I not busy? Why do you need to know? It, at the manager level, certainly at the general counsel level, they're dying for this information right now. They need it to justify resources. They need it to balance their own workload. Right. Look at the last two years. Nobody's walking down the hall going, "Well, you look busy. What's going on? What you working on?"

16:35That's not even an option anymore, so the, the need for data has become a little bit more urgent, which is good. That, that's actually gonna cause, hopefully, some good changes. And Lucy, with the organizations that, you know, you're, you're working with, um, that are maybe newer to, to tech, um, are, are you seeing that they are using, are they utilizing anything as a repository, uh, when you start working with them? Or, or is that kind of the, the first thing that you'd like them to get set up is somewhere where they can store their documents to, to have everyone access them remotely? Uh, that, that's... I, I love that question because I- Yeah... I call repository problem zero. So we have, uh, corporate law departments that want AI, magical robots to track and funnel every single document, track every change, know every version, route every approval auto-magically, and guess what? They can't even find a contract today. So this is like the tricycle version. Before they wanna get, you know, to the rocket ship, we gotta get a repository.

17:30Most, uh, departments I talk with, on the, let's call it, you know, maybe less maturity scale, either 'cause they're young or they just haven't spent the time and attention on this, um, they're storing them everywhere and anywhere. So your answer is, you know, it's a trick question. Are they storing it somewhere? Absolutely. Do they have one place? Absolutely not. Um, so it's some combination of their C drives, their various people's C drives, which is the worst possible behavior. I'll say it now, I'll say it to anybody's face. That is bad.... doing it, move it to the cloud. G Drive, OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, SharePoint, generic, I don't, I don't care, right? That's terrible, and yet we still find it, so that, that is, like, problem zero. Those who do have it in some sort of a shared cloud location, it's usually just a general, generic document repository, right? And it is a, oftentimes certainly, um, either Google Drive, OneDrive, uh, maybe a shared corporate file folder of some, some version. I don't even know if that's cloud-based. Usually isn't. Usually it's on some server.

18:32Um, but I see it all. I mean, I guess that's why it's such a long answer. All over the place, even in 2022. All over the place, including paper. Right. And yeah, and, and I, and I still see, like, some, some law firms especially that they got their, their, their own servers because they are afraid to move to, to, to the cloud. And, and what I tell them is, like, "Just think about it. Like, these guys, they spend millions of dollars on security, on having things, and people getting, auditing their, their servers. If you wanted to have the same se- se- security, you gotta spend a lot of money," right? So it's easier- Right... just to, uh, let's say, like, outsource those kind of services to somebody that is their, their core business. Yeah, I know. Just during my time at Microsoft, you know, we would have a lot of conversations with law firms when they were still moving to the cloud, you know, five, six years ago, four years ago. Right. Still. Um, some still are making that transition. I think that when we're talking about CLM, law firms and law departments have very, very different needs, very different use cases, so I always wanna- Right... separate that.

19:30When I hear references to law firms, I wanna make sure that we're clear on, okay, hold on. Right. A repository for a law firm is about as far in the CLM life cycle as they'll get, and that's not, that's not a CLM life cycle. They just need to find... They need to store documents, and usually they wanna connect it to a matter so that they can charge related to it, with all due respect. That's the core business driver. In-house, the business drivers are very different. They are seeking data for... They're looking for efficiencies. They're looking for, um, sharing knowledge. They're looking for better workflows and productivity. There's a million different reasons I think that they're getting CLM. The core is still gonna be the repository most of the time. Uh, but the vision and the dream of the future is what hooks them into these more robust systems. Law firms, they're just... They're not connoisseurs of CLM. They're not- Right... connoisseurs. Right? Right. Yeah, it's, it's very strange to, to see somebody, like, moving to a- Very much... to a, to a CLM, right.

20:27So Lucy, we know already that having defined frameworks and processes is important before jumping into a CLM tool, right? So let's, let's say that's something that we already know, right? But let's say somebody comes to you and tells you exactly the same, right? So we want to go into CLM software, but we still don't know how to, uh, define our processes and framework. Like, what's your, your experience here? Like, how, how do you help them to start building those, those frameworks? So, you know, understanding the current process is the first step, and, um, it's, it's shocking, again, how few departments can just articulate it very clearly, "This is how contracts flow." Um, they don't have usually one process. They don't have even a few. They have many. Uh, and so we really start with gathering that current state, um, and we're gonna put it on a map.

21:24A current state process map sounds, you know, very project management-y, very Six Sigma-esque. Um, we don't wanna scare any of the lawyers off. When you're working with a legal ops in-house team, they totally get it. With the lawyers, you still have to say, "We need to spend the time to do this," and it's hard to appreciate the value of that time. But we know they're trying to effectuate a change. In order to have an effective change management, you know, experience, you have to know what you're coming from to know where you're going, and that delta is the hard work, right? That's a lot of work. Um, so, so we really do spend the time to understand the current state. It's one of these frustrating parts of, parts of the engagement because from the, you know, in-house team's perspective, especially when they're working with a consultant as an outsider and they're paying somebody, they're like, "Okay, how much longer is the day? It's good that you're learning, but what, when am I gonna see something?" And, and again, most of them appreciate it, and they understand it.

22:16Um, but when you're in-house on your own, right, living in your own bubble, it's hard to take the time to do that. That's the benefit of actually having a third party. It's hard to stop and do. I just had a conversation this week, uh, with the general counsel and, and, uh, one of her deputies. The deputy's like, "But I think, you know, I think we can get this done ourselves internally." And I, I was on the call, and I said, "Absolutely, completely respect that, but do you have the time?" This isn't a capability question. In, in, in their case. In some cases it's a capability question. Not all lawyers are great at process mapping, not... Well, let me rephrase. Most lawyers aren't. They can't facilitate even that exercise. Again, we weren't trained that way. Um- Right... in this team I'm like, "Oh, you guys get it. You get the value. You understand it. Can you really stop your day job for a solid, I don't know, four to five business days in a row to do this effectively? Or is it gonna take you three months?" So it was an interesting conversation where there was, like, the GC jumped in and pushed back on, on her own deputy and said, "I'm gonna push back on you.

23:10I know you can, but will you?" A- and it was just a quiet space, right? So stepping back and doing that process map, and then having also somebody be able to go, like, something as simple as, "Yep, we get, you know, all the requests. They pretty mu- they pretty much come in from, through email." If you don't have somebody there who's a fact checker and a sanity checker to say, "Okay, you said pretty much. What are the other ways?" "Oh, sometimes, you know, maybe they'll send me a Slack message." "Any other ways?" So that needs to be facilitated. Right. If it's not facilitated effectively, you're not gonna get the full story. Again, no, no ill intention there. It's just not what they're trained to do. Um, so, so that current state process mapping, it, it can't be underestimated how important it is. And Lucy, how- You know, people that are, are listening, what, what can they expect? How long can they expect that, that portion of the process to take so that they get a better understanding and they're not kinda getting antsy?

24:02And, and like you, like you said, right, y- in your experience, you've worked with folks that they do think that either, one, they can do it on their own, or two, they, they don't know how long it's going to take and they think it's gonna be maybe a couple of days, and it ends up being, you know, maybe even weeks or, or a month. Um, what does the, the typical engagement look like with the organizations that you work with? Sure. So w- we follow pretty, pretty solid, you know, methodology. I mean, everything, um, every- everything's custom-made for, for the customers. One thing about being a niche or a small consultancy, right? We are practitioners and experts in the domain. We're not, um, trained professional consultants, right? We're not, we didn't come out of business school to do this. Uh, we all did some version of this in-house. So, so everything is very much, you know, customized, but the approach is still the same. We first understand the current state. Takes a couple of weeks to do that. Um, we then formulate some recommendations. We share those, depending if that's part of the deliverables or not. Do they wanna see something in writing or do we, you know, just talk through it? Um, and then we sit together and talk about the future state.

25:01And the future state, before we even map it, we then talk about philosophy, culture. Is this what you wanna do? Who should do it? Do you have, is there a sales ops team? Is there a sale rev team? Is it just sales folks, right? Hundreds of them, dozens of them, thousands of them? Are they global? Buy side, same things. Is there a procurement function? Is it mostly sourcing? Do they do transactional work? How capable are they with contracts? Do you wanna hand off things to them? I mean, so many variables go into this to then design really what that future state could be, and that future state comes with roles and responsibilities, matrices, y- you know, guidebooks, templates, playbooks. All of those are parts of the package which are then delivered in some timeframe. That's the holistic approach. At some point in there, we start helping them select a system as well. They usually start com- by coming to us to say, "Help us find a system," and then we realize, "Not yet."

25:54Uh, and we convince them there's all this other stuff to do, uh, but then we start looking at a system almost simultaneously as we start defining the future state. That's part of the requirements gathering, of course, as well. Done methodically. I, I've been lucky to have some amazing technical PMs, uh, around me when I was in-house at Microsoft, so I know the value and the benefit of gathering requirements, having tight project management, tracking milestones and deliverables, assumptions and risks. So I get to be the, the weird lawyer that knows the value and, and bring along with me amazing operations managers or project managers, um, so that we, you know, document and track, uh, a- and deliver. But- Mm-hmm... it's a, it's a pretty robust engagement if it's to be done right. No, it, it, it sounds, you know, again, just like the actual implementation of the software, these processes need to be documented, they need to be taken slowly, and, and you need to be able to make sure that you're getting buy-in from the organization that you're working with, or even at that stage, you know, th- that type of engagement- At every stage... you know? Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Buy-in s- sponsors, champions every step along the way, and if you just jump to the implementation, you missed a ton of opportunity, a ton to get champions and sponsors.

27:02You get some names in boxes. If, that's kinda late if you're just getting those people in at that implementation stage. So that's another kind of sneaky value and benefit of doing the homework, right? Mm-hmm. The readiness, is you start winning champions along the way. I mean, then the implementation is a whole other thing, as we know. And we can dive into that if you want. Yeah. I, I think we'll, we'll probably save that part of the conversation for another, another session, but I think, you know, uh, something I'm interested in, and I, and I think probably our listeners would be too, is, you know, when you do get to that stage where you're working with a customer and they say, "Hey, we would like some suggestions on, on what types of tools we should be taking a look at," uh, i- is there a handful of vendors that you're almost always recommending? Uh, is there a larger pool depending on what their needs are? Um, w- what does that kinda look like? Sure. So, and th- this is, um, this is a tough one, uh- Yeah... for me, because we are, we're agnostic. We're agnostic, meaning we work with a- any of the CLM providers. At the same time, we have enough experience to know which ones we prefer.

28:05We don't have any formal, um, partnerships where we get any kind of, uh, monetary benefits. There are no kickbacks. Absolutely not. Never will be. I will never get into that business. Um, these concepts of partnerships and alliances, I see them all over the place. I think my, my company's on a couple of them. All that means is I'm familiar with the system, but I'm always very transparent about I don't th- y- I will recommend always what is really best for that particular customer. Having said that, there's at least two and a half dozen probably systems that have come to me to, "Look at this. Check it out. Like us. Recommend us. Get to know us." We can, I can only get in so deep. My team and I spend as much time as we, you know, can, uh, at, at no charge to say, "Okay, well, we'll take a look." Um, but it, it's hard. So naturally over time, there are some that you get in a little bit deeper with. Um, and I have to say, it's largely not about the technology, um, which is interesting. Again, uh, I'm, I'm, uh, I think it's interesting because, again, I love tech. I get the value of the features and the functions.

29:09We're very good about knowing the difference of where the features and the functions are strong. Once we get over that toll, that's the first toll. Are you a solid, really good repository with data extraction? Are you an excellent workflow provider? Um, are you a good contract template builder? Those are the three buckets I tend to put most CLM systems in. And then there's CLM adjacent systems, which is another whole couple of dozen. Um, but the core CLM providers, I tend to put them in those three buckets. Now, 90% of those providers will say they do all three. To some extent, they probably do. But if you push and prod and get to their tech roadmap, get to their investments, where they've been, you'll realize where they're stronger. So once we get over that toll gate of understanding, uh, where the technology strength is, then it comes down to everything but the te- I wanna know who, uh, I wanna, I wanna know how the sales process is gonna go. I wanna get a feel for your sales team. I wanna get a feel for your demos. Do they, do you listen to me?

30:04Because we're gonna prep you to do a really solid demo for this customer, and we're gonna prep the customer on how to perceive and take in your demo and how to score it. We provide all that. Are you listening? Uh, is your demo on point? Uh, and then by the way, I'd like to know implementation. Do you do it yourself, do you have a third party? Who are your third parties? You, you'll be familiar with this space, right? Who are the people? Uh, where are they gonna be post-implementation? What's your success management program process philosophy? Do you have one? What happens to the account managers? Are they involved? Who's with us post-sale? That, I've learned my lesson the hard way. I lived it. I have the bumps and bruises, so these are questions I know how to ask. And I will tell you, 9 times out of 10, it comes down to the people. I like to understand the leadership. I like to understand who the CEO is, who the co-founders are, what's their background. Um, I think I mentioned already on, uh, on this call, I mention it all the time, right, the serial entrepreneurs.

30:58Um, those are nice because they have good experience with business, but I wanna know was their last thing doing a, I don't know, a shoe company? Or, or w- where's the domain experience? Where's the passion? Where's the energy? Uh, why are they in this space? Look, it, it's not, it's not, I don't have a dating app or anything for this, but I really feel like I need to know who these people are. Are they gonna be in for the long run? Or they wanna get bought out in three years? Are they in it just 'cause they're riding this crazy VC funding train right now? Um, those are all concerning to me, very much so. That's- Right... what our customers get, right? That, that's, they can't get that anywhere else, frankly. The- not at this depth. They just can't. So. Right. And at the end, the customer is the one that is going to choose, right, whenever they run- Absolutely... like three, couple, couple demos or they, they gotta know, like once they know their, their processes and what they need, now it's easier for them to choose because they can come with, you know, like AI and I, I, um, I total- Yeah, what does that even mean?

32:00I, I- That's not a requirement. I totally agree. Exactly. They think that they, they can just build a PDF and it will extract the termination date plus the obligations- Everything... and everything, and then you're gonna have a robot that is going to, to tell you what you have to do on the upcoming weeks. That doesn't happen. Oh, yeah. I mean- And it'll go back and fix your templates for you because it's gonna learn. I can't even find a good, you know, contract manager to do that effectively sometimes. So it's, yeah, i- yes, absolutely. You got it. It is a complete, uh, misalignment. But yeah, they always have two to three choices. We don't wanna give 'em more. We start with five to six ourselves, based on their requirements. We do it enough that we're like, "Okay, we're gonna kind of hone back to the couple that we know, um, and that we know they're successful. We've seen it." So you naturally start getting, I, I don't wanna call them favorites, but you naturally start getting repeat successes. Um, and of course, why wouldn't you go back there? And again, not 'cause we get any financial benefit. We just want it to be successful. Exactly. Like you, you gotta go one step at a time, right?

32:55Like because maybe like if there's a company with a huge infrastructure, they wanna have e- everything well organized, but maybe they haven't even started yet using e-signatures. Okay, maybe that's like a first step. Like try to get all your documents digitally, and once you have a repository, you know how it works, then you can go with the next step, right? So don't get- Exactly... like amazed because people come with AI and some others with blockchain. I don't know why they use blockchain, but there are some. Don't even, don't even get me started. That, there was a, that was a big hype also, I'd say about three years ago. Right. Smart contracts. Smart contracts. Okay? They didn't actually- I'd be asked about that all the time in podcasts. Yes. And I was like, "Are you kidding? We still have people that use red pens on yellow notepads. What, what smart contracts? Nobody's ready for that." It's gonna work in some industries. No, we're not ready for that. We're not in legal yet. Exactly.

33:48And, and, and you know, like some of the times they only need to go like one step at, at, at, at a time, and try to think about it like one is the, the phase zero process, right, when you wanna have all your processes done. Then you have the implementation, and then another completely, another thing is the adoption process. Like how are you- Mm-hmm. Yes... going to get your internal customers get adapted to start using the system? Because maybe you can be spending thousands of dollars, but now you're gonna know how to- Yes... train them, right? And that's the importance. So, absolutely. That's the importance. Yeah. I always tell, I always tell the clients, "I don't want a, a parade when you implement. The go live party, I don't want it. I wanna do it in a year." It's just like, like marriage, right? Everybody's... Uh, it's no different. Like yeah, everybody has a big party at the wedding. That's great. I wanna see who's still married five, 10 years later, then we're gonna celebrate. There's no difference.

34:44CLM success should be exactly based on that. I wanna go to all the CLM tech vendors and say, "Don't show me your revenue. Don't show me the big logos and the few brands that you've landed," which I appreciate that that's all part of the journey of- of- of these startups. I get it. That's fine. You have all that. Show me consumption. Show me adoption. Show me the number of users and how much they're using it and how often they're in your system, and then I wanna know the titles of those users. Mm-hmm. Happy users. I wanna know those. Yeah. That data is nowhere to be shared, I'll tell you that. Hard to get to. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're listening, those are some things to really take a look at when you're evaluating vendors out there. See, you know, who still has, has customers year over year, what their churn is, uh, how successful, what's their implementation success rate. You know, these are things that, that really need to, um, need to be clear and, and you need to have an understanding of. Um, so Lucy- Yeah, and I would say, you know what? Yeah. Um, just one more thing. Yeah.

35:39Do a pilot. Do a pilot Yes. Yeah Um, I underestimated that. I didn't, I... That was a lesson learned for me. Um, actually did one pilot with one piece of technology that way back then was super, super young. They're now very fancy and famous and bought in bazillions and, and, and all that good journey. It was a terrible disaster when I did the pilot in-house . Um, that was many moons ago. After that though, I hadn't done another pilot and I should have for another system we implemented, and that's, um, that's just a painful lesson that if I could share with anybody, do a pilot. They should, these systems should run something. Give, give them something to actually run and, and don't just test that, yeah, and the technology does what it does. Yes, because it's assuming everybody's living it and breathing it 'cause it's the best case. Have your, have your naysayers test it, right, internally. Ha- have... See that, 'cause that'll give you that whole change management challenge, right? You know, it'll become very obvious. Mm-hmm. Um, but yeah, do a pilot. I would just say that. Yeah. Definitely, and that's, that is something that we, we always push for is call it managed evaluation, but, you know, the same, same thing, right?

36:37And, and I think that that's always one of the, the things that, um, separates some of the solutions that we sell versus some of the other ones is, is, um, usually people have a successful experience with that and, and it helps to make them feel more comfortable before they're, they're actually going to make the purchase, so. Right. Um, yeah, another, another great tip. But, um, Lucy, I know we could sit here all day and probably chat about this, um, but we, we do try to keep these things a little bit shorter. Um, so we wanted to, to thank you for coming on. Um, a- anything, anywhere you wanna plug, where, where can folks go to learn more about you, more about InnoLaw if they, they want to, uh, get a better understanding or, or have a conversation about anything that we talked about today? Thank you, yeah, for that. Of course, you can find me on LinkedIn, um, and, uh, our company's InnoLaw, innovative law com- combined into one brilliantly marketed branded name done by yours truly lawyer here. Uh, but yeah, look me up on LinkedIn and that is the easiest way for sure. All right. Well, thanks everybody for listening. This has been a, a fantastic episode. I do also wanna say that we have put out our first e-book.

37:37That's kind of a, a culmination of other conversations that we've had out of the first 24 episodes I think. So if you're interested in that, go ahead and, uh, grab it on the website. Uh, but Lucy, thanks for joining us, and we'll see you next time here on Contract Heroes. Thank you. Thank you. And follow Lucy on LinkedIn.