Shut Her Down, Clancy: Kim Dallefeld on Grit, Community, and a Career That Never Stopped Moving

Kim Dallefeld has spent nearly three decades in the Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Business Central ecosystem, and her story is anything but a straight line. From accidentally triggering a debugging message at Ford Motor Company to leading a ten-country ERP implementation, building Dallefeld Consulting from the ground up, and eventually selling it to Centre Technologies, Kim has lived through just about every chapter this industry has to offer. In this conversation, Kim and Kate dig into what it really takes to build a career worth remembering: listening before solving, showing up honestly, leaning into community, and never being afraid to ask for help. Kim is an MVP, MCT, NAVUG All-Star, and NAVUG Legend, and she still believes the best credential you can carry is your reputation.

Key Takeaways:

• Listening is the most underrated consulting skill. Kim learned early that the best thing you can do before offering a solution is to actually hear what someone needs.
• Community gives you what certification never can. The relationships formed in the NAVUG community shaped Kim's career in ways no credential ever could.
• You get back as much as you put in, and sometimes way more. Showing up to serve, not to grab, is what builds lasting trust and opens unexpected doors.
• Knowing when to let go is its own kind of leadership. Kim's decision to sell Dallefeld Consulting came from self-awareness, not defeat, and that distinction matters.
• Be yourself and do what you say you're going to do. Simple advice that still holds up after 30 years in the field.

👉🏻Contact information for Kim Dallefeld

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-dallefeld/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:01

Welcome back to Coffee Talk. These are real stories that are told by real people. This episode is a special one. I'm sitting down with my friend Kim Dalafeld, someone who has spent nearly three decades helping to shape the Microsoft Dynamics NAV and Business Central community. Kim is a Microsoft MVP, a nav user group legend, a longtime consultant, educator, and the founder of Dalafeld Consulting, which she recently sold as she steps into a new chapter with Center Technologies. In this conversation, we go all the way back to the beginning. Kim shares a story of one of her first experiences with computers, the moment she thought she broke the entire system, and how that curiosity eventually led her into the early frontier days of Nevision in the mid-90s. We talk about building a consulting career from the ground up, what it was like implementing ERP systems across 10 countries, and the very human side of deciding when it's time to close one chapter and step into another. But more than anything, this conversation is about community, about mentorship, and about the kind of leadership that's built slowly over time by showing up, by helping others, and doing what you say you're going to do. It's a longer episode, but it's full of stories and wisdom from someone who has truly lived the evolution of this ecosystem. So let's get into it. Kim, welcome to Coffee Talk.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Thank you. You know, I don't drink coffee, but I'm I'm so happy to be here.

SPEAKER_03 1:46

That's okay. That's okay. Amy Keenan said, I don't drink coffee. Can I come on Coffee Talk? And I'm like, bring your protein drink. Let's go. Like, whatever, whatever uh suits your fancy is fine with me. So Kim, tell you've had so many changes really in the last year, right? Tell us what you're doing now. Where are you? Um, we'll talk more about your big change in this episode, but where are you now? What are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 2:16

So I am at Center Technologies now. I'm there, BC SME, you know, trying to work with partners to their clients, not partners, clients strategically on what do you need, where are you going with your business, and also doing that with the internal resources and with the business as a whole around business central. So it's new, it's different. And that's how I'm viewing this stage is just I'm open for the opportunities to do something different. I'm not heads down doing client support and implementation, which I've done for the last couple of decades. So it's it's different. I just try to approach each day as um a new opportunity, right?

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Right. A new season, a new chapter, um, doing something different and fun. So, Kim, I want to go way back before the MVP, before decades of implementations, before Dalafield Consulting. Let's talk about Ford Motor Company. About your first experience with computers at Ford.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yeah, so I was living in Austin, Texas, and I went to I was right out of college. I went to work for um a Lincoln Mercury dealer, which is Ford. And the general manager bought the company and he signed up for a computer system in the dealership. The way Ford used to do it is everybody it was typed in and it was like uploaded, you know, via modem overnight and they sent all your reports to you overnight it every day. So he was one of the first ten or so to get these in-house computer systems. First, you know, time really working on a computer, a little bit in college, but not much. And uh the big story I tell about this is you know, I'm sitting there typing away, and I hit the wrong keys, and the screen comes up and says, Shut her down, Clancy, she's a pump in mud. I'm brand new at this. Right out of the time. I really should that we had a room that the computer was in. I opened the door and I th I don't know what I'm expecting to see. Mud coming out of the computer. Anyway, I called Ford and I told him, and they're like, No way. Shut her down, Clancy. I don't know how to do a screenshot. So they told me what keys to hit, and I don't know, a month or two later, I did the same thing. It was just a series of keys, and sure enough, shut her down, Clancy, she's a pump in mud. And so I was able to show Ford that this really did happen. They still thought I was crazy, but I had the proof. It's really what's really funny about this story is twenty some odd years later, I'm working on a business central at that time it was Nav or Navision, with a girl out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and I'm telling this story, and she's cracking up at the first mention of Shutter Down, Clancy. And she goes, I know the guys that put that code in, and it was never supposed to get out in the public, but it would they were just trying to debug code. And she was it all them.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

Wow, and you thought you broke the whole system. I did.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

And it was the computer was pumping mud in the other room. Right. It's a great story to be able to tell later, but at the time I was scared to death.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

I feel like we need to make buttons just to wear that. Shut her down, Clancy. Oh, that's so good. That's so good. Just on those days where you feel like everything you touch just breaks. I certainly have days like that where I'm just I'm not at one with my technology. And so on those days I'm just gonna be like, shut her down, Clancy. Let's move on.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

Yes, you know, there are those days, way too often it seems. Try to do one thing and then five other things pop up. It's like why my mouse quit letting or my computer quit letting me do a control C, control V the other day.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

It's a problem. Yeah. It's a problem. Today my keyboard and my mouse both died. So when you have Bluetooth both and they die, you get to take a break. You get to have an extended lunch while things charge. So that was, you know, and I'm just responding to emails on my phone. So you know, we're we we own our technology, or do we?

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Which which I think it's the other way around.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

I think it's the other way around. So let's talk about career paths for you um from your job with Ford Motor Company, then uh programming at a city city utility. Tell us more about that.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, so I was hired on as an accountant, and that was not enough to keep me busy. And if I'm not busy, I'm just looking for stuff to do, right? So uh they were putting in a new computer system. So I was like, oh, I can help do some of this. And I kept having to go to the guy and get him to fix a report, and I'm like, and I watched him, I was like, you know, that's not hard. If you just show me how to get in there, I could do those changes, you know. And he was like, So he showed me, and I I said, I'll bring them to you every time and you can review them. So pretty much I showed him a few times and it was like, here, go make these changes. And then the accounting man so the accounting manager left, so I became the accounting manager for the city and the data processing manager for the city. So I was doing two jobs. Now I'm happy because I'm busy, but I met the owner of the software house and he said, You know, I get a lot of calls from small cities or small water supply companies wanting my software. And he said, I c it makes no sense to come in from Georgia to do this. Would you be interested in doing some of these small implementations? And so I said, Sure. So I know way too much about how you bill out for water and I know fund accounting, which um Yeah. So it was good. You learn a lot about how governments operate. You know, you get a budget. If you don't spend that budget, you don't get as much next year.

SPEAKER_02 8:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

And yeah, way too much about how um how much excess is in our budgets for government entities.

SPEAKER_03 8:57

When along the path did you realize that software consulting was actually your true calling?

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Probably there, probably at the at the city. You know, I I the last semester of college I took a basic oh, it's called Introduction to Data Processing. That's how far back this is. And it ended up being a business basic programming class and I loved it. But it was my last semester of college. It's like I'm not changing my degree plan now, you know, so I got out with my BBA. So I I had this knack for computers, and so I think between the Ford experience and and then being able to do what I did for the city, that's when it kind of clicked in. And it's funny because one thing just led to another. I didn't really start doing that um until my my husband was running a plant and he was talking to some of his suppliers and one of they were sitting in the office one day and he said, You know, you work on computers and I was like, Yeah, a little bit. He goes, I need a computer system for my business and but I can't afford a hundred thousand dollars. And I said, You know, I I had no idea what they cost.

SPEAKER_02 10:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

And he said, I said there's this one I that's been sending me information and it's only gonna be about thirty thousand, but I don't know anything about it. They want to show it to me in Dallas. Will you go with me? I said, sure. So I went and he liked it a lot. He said, But you have to help me. You have to be the per my go-to person. So I literally went out to California and got trained. It was it was uh something called Super DOS. They took an IBM AT and you could plug 50 into this AT, and I just lapped up and I said, There's just no way. But they would change out boards and some things, and so you they turned the AT into a mini computer, which is why it was so much cheaper. And the software was pretty good. It was two pieces of software, one for the distribution side and one for accounting, but they worked well together, and I did that for quite a few years.

SPEAKER_03 11:03

Oh wow. I'll tell you a funny story just because as a side note, I started when I started college, and I went to my advisor to go get my password, and this was before anything was on a computer. Like you went to the advisor's office and they gave you, you know, your password to go into the computer lab because we didn't have computers, which is we did I didn't grow up with a computer in my home. I didn't have a computer when I started college. All of my papers in high school I used a typewriter for. So when I went to my advisor's office to get my welcome packet, they gave me an email address. And I was like, what the hell is this? And they're like, it's email. It's how we're going to communicate with you. And it was like, well, email, like it was so foreign to me. Um I get it. I get it. Right? And that was really truly not that long ago. And so now, fast forward, I mean, in my home, I have my desktop, I have a laptop, I have an iPad, I have a phone, my daughter has all all of the above, my husband has all of the above. Like, we my kids don't know a life without it, a computer, and I have 19 email addresses now. Like, but it was so and I was like, well, how am I supposed to get this email?

SPEAKER_00 12:22

I didn't an internet that that well this internet was like, what is that? What is that? It was just such a far out idea that we couldn't wrap our heads around. Yeah, I'm looking right here. There's one, two, three, four computers with yeah, you know, within right here. Plus the phone. These things are a whole computer.

SPEAKER_03 12:43

They're a whole computer right at our fingertips.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

When I was at the city um and they put in this new computer, it went from the punch cards, yeah old IBM punch cards system to now a mini computer, and we ran out of disk space kind of early on in the implementation. So they had to buy another hard drive. It was a hundred and twenty megabytes and it was twelve grand. Wow. It was the size of two file cabinet drawers wide and about four long. It was a big thing, you slid into this cabinet. And now this has how much more than that? It's cra it's literally crazy the the way the technology has gone. My grandson's the oldest one is 12, they all have an Apple Watch.

SPEAKER_03 13:36

That's a time computer right there on your wrist. You can answer calls on it, I'm like Inspector Gadget with my Apple Watch. I know it is um, you know, I I have made the argument that I think that babies being born right now will never have to learn to drive. Because cars will drive for them.

SPEAKER_00 13:58

That's true. I think I think you're you're very true. And somebody said, Are we getting dumber? I've heard that conversation. I I I think we've let some things slide because we don't need to know them now.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

I still think everybody needs to know, but we are pushing some things down because it's just not important like it used to be. Like who writes in cursive? Which one of my sisters is like, yes, because she would never write in cursive, she'd be only prints. But there's a lot of little things like that that are kind of going by the wayside.

SPEAKER_03 14:33

I know. You know, as you said, like I don't have to remember phone numbers anymore. I just a very easy example. I don't have to remember anyone's I still remember my phone number when I was five years old, but I don't know my husband's phone number. But so we don't have to remember those things. But I would like to think and hope that we are becoming a little bit more emotionally mature and more emotionally aware because awareness for other other things are kind of are coming up and forward. And we get to talk about those things in community, like you know, ADHD, autism, things like that. We get to have space for that where, you know, my parents, there was no room for that. I mean, I I I think it's a it's a trade-off. Are we just switching our brain power into other I'm gonna go over switching our brain power, but there we go.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

I'm like you. I um so I ha with all my kids, I while I was pregnant with them, I read a memory book. It's called the memory book. And it's little ways to teach yourself how to remember things. I'm bad with faces. And until I've had a conversation with you I won't remember your name. And so one of the things in that book was to take a feature and connect it to the name, which I never got. Wow. I still don't do it, but it's interesting. But one of the things I use out of the book is when you've got something really important you need to remember um especially if it's like it well, it works for me on a task. Like I've gotta remember to mail that tax return tomorrow, right? You you create some image, like I would put an envelope across my front door in my vision that that's one of those Tyvx ones, and you can't tear, so I can't get out the door without taking my envelope with me. Yeah. And it it's just it's it's just a quick image that you kind of have to set and and it's funny, then then you remember it. But all of my kids, I read that to them, and I I don't know, maybe some of it's stuck, they all seem to be doing okay.

SPEAKER_03 16:34

Those memory tactics, when I'm at home, I usually have love notes to myself written on my hand so that I don't forget things, just like you know, little things like that.

SPEAKER_00 16:45

It's a list maker, which I think is fine, just don't make lists for me. Right? I have my own list. I do not need you making lists for me.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

I know. I know. I'm definitely a list maker, and then I have lists that say refer to the list on the pink on the pink post-it.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

Do you remember the Franklins where you used to like you're supposed to move all of the things you didn't get done today to the next page? I got so tired of doing that.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

You're like, this is too much moving for me. And again, because you start in one task and then you get side at sidetracked with five other tasks because something doesn't break, and then you don't get through your list, you have to move it to the next day.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah. It made me mad.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Right. Well, let's pivot a little bit back on track. We've talked about everything under the sun so far. Let's talk about your early days in division um and becoming a division pioneer. 1995, you reviewed a software for a company that would become the eighth division reseller in the United States. So you were trained in 1996 and never looked back. That is early, that is frontier days. What was that ecosystem like in 1996?

SPEAKER_00 18:03

Very sparse. One good thing is I think that Nivision did was they they did staff their Atlanta office with good people, right? Because nobody knew anything, so you were constantly calling in.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Uh how I remember I did the two um two weeks of training, one for being a developer and one for being an implementer. And sat down in my computer and went, How do I get started? Yeah. They just kind of dove us in without, okay, step one, step two, you know, and so I I I didn't even know how to create a company. So that was the first phone call. And so you get to n you get to know the the people on support very well. It w it was hard. It was learning on the job, you know, uh figuring out as you went, which that never scares me for some reason. I figure I'll figure it out at some point. I do remember I was at Johnson Engineering I was working late because we were doing an upgrade and we were they were on version one one point zero and I I think we're going to one point one, one point oh one or something. It's a stack of discettes, three and a half inch discettes, like twenty something of them. And plugging them in. And then every time you would start to go to the next step, their data would would have an ansign or a dash or something in it, and you had to go take that out and then start over again. And it just it was a very long night. But I remember those day I wish I'd had had a stack of those discettes. It was amazing when we got to go to a C D.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

In those days you did everything, programming, you said you did training, you were managing project support, you were wearing so many hats. What do you think wearing all those hats taught you?

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Yeah. Well you you you learn a lot of skills. You kind of learn the most important things is really about listening. Uh was doing a demo for somebody and we there was another client doing a demo. What they came back and said is you listened. You know, it wasn't you were trying to tell us what we needed. You listened to what we thought we needed before you, you know, said anything. And I think that's the big thing is a lot of times we think we hear what's being asked and then we start start down a road and and that's not at all what the customer was was trying to ask. You know, so I I think listening which I'm still not good at because I want to jump in and talk about it. But I think that's it. I totally love the programming I did in in nav. I let it go when VC came out and I said, you know what? I at that point I had met some good programmers and I said, you know what, you guys are good. I'll do the functional side. Having set on the side of the desk where I'm doing the work allowed me to empathize with customers, right? I know what you're going through. I've been there, I've I've tried I've done payroll, I've done payables, I've done accounted inventory out in the warehouse. So all those things you can understand what your clients are dealing with. And I think that's where we miss out sometimes when we take young people and try to make them consultants. They need some some practical work experience. Yeah. Right. That's not saying that they can't they won't be a good consultant, but having that background where I can say, Oh, okay, have you had to do this? And they go, Yeah, you make that connection with the customer. Um and that's the fun part to me.

SPEAKER_03 21:49

I did a coffee talk with Steve Chinsky, one of three BC and YOs. That was Steve's feedback too, was that you know, our Our younger, our junior consultants, our junior developers coming up need that foundation of experience and also those soft skills of being able to communicate with people. We don't always get to go on site and meet with people anymore. There's a lot of this, there's a lot of like digital conversations, right? So again, it's just it's a change. We're kind of trading one thing for for another.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

And I can't tell you how much uh work and how much help I used to give and get being in someone's office and just having to walk by and see them open up Excel and take this data out of business central, put it in. I would go, what are you doing? Oh, well, I have to put this in here and then I calculate this, and I take that and I put it back, and I'm like, whoa, wait a minute, we're gonna find a better way to do this, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:56

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

And you don't get to see that when we're just on the computer with faces. And way too many c clients and companies don't use the video, right? I know it slows computers down and it that kind of thing, but it is such an important part. You know, that's um and I'm I've been guilty of it for sure. Uh it is a big thing at center, is that we we want to have that that connection at least visually, even though we're not in the same space.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

I really appreciate that. And I found too that if you if you have your camera on, it encourages others to put their camera on.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

It does.

SPEAKER_00 23:36

That's real good.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

It absolutely does. And I think you know, you were at Vibe with me last month, and what a what an amazing community event that was. And I think everything you're saying speaks to the importance of coming together as a community, being in the same zip code, sitting in rooms together, learning together. Um, some of my best learning doesn't happen in a classroom. It happens in the conversation that happened in the hallway right before I walked in that classroom. And you don't have that, you're not going to get that from just webinars or you know, online learning. You have to have those person-to-person conversations. Um, and even application of what you just heard in the classroom that really synthesizes that learning. So we'll talk a little bit about more about community um in just a minute. But I'm curious, so kind of digging back into your story, we were in 1996 when you jumped into uh nav ecosystem. And then by 1999, 1998, you were independent. You were on your own in 98.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

I was. So the gentleman who brought me in and became eighth in the in the US, he already had a business basic practice, and his people just didn't take to Navision. Here I am thinking it's better than sliced bread, and they don't want really any part of it. So he didn't have a whole lot of success selling it because he was a kind of afraid too because people didn't want it. Then I I ran across somebody who was selling it right and left and needed people. I'm like, well, that's where I want to go. And I was just a consultant with um Ray. And um so I went to work for this other person and yes, we had lots of clients. And I was there for I guess almost ninety-six, ninety-seven, somewhere in ninety-eight. And it was the fall. I could have I'm on my way to a client site. What time are you gonna be here today? From a different client. I was like, Uh I'm not scheduled to come to you today. I'm actually headed out of town to another client. Oh well the owner had said you'd be you'd be here today, and I said, Well, I'm gonna have to reschedule because I'm going somewhere else. Okay, well, let me know when. And so I said, I'll get back to driving along a little further and another phone call. You're gonna be here after lunch, right? No? Same same scenario, right? So started questioning what was going on and then where was I? Was with somebody and found out that they had never received their license. And so I'm trying to help them figure that out. And the owner then said, Oh, I haven't bought it yet. Well, they've been live three months. What what license are they running on? So basically I found out that he's robbing Peter to pay Paul and he's just not gonna make it. So I gave my n my notice and I was in the tail end of an implementation. I said, Look, I'll bring him live within the next two weeks and then I'll be done. And he said, No, that's okay. Okay. So I called the cli I said, be sure you call the client and let him know I was supposed to be there tomorrow. Let him know, you know, and just don't leave them hanging. Well, they didn't. So I get a phone call on Sunday night at my house with this client calling. What will it take to get you here tomorrow? And so I went out there, he showed up the next day, had not talked to the clients till I I went out there, he showed up the next day and got on the phone, you know, she can't be here working, she doesn't work for me, blah, blah, blah. And they called division and said told them what was going on. And division granted me a right to use a license, do whatever I needed to do. So I worked gosh, I worked that client for probably a year. But um and yeah, so I became independent because then other people started calling me. Uh and um it was it was just bad management. I mean, the guy could have had probably, you know, one of the great um partnerships of because he was in it early and did so much, but he just was he was a nice guy, just not a good manager, you know.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

So yeah, that's kind of and then from there I stayed independent till 2003, I guess. And so all through Y2K and all of that was super busy, '99, and then and then two thousand and one, two, or there wasn't a lot of computer stuff going on. Everybody spent all their money. And in 2003, one of my largest clients talked me into going to work for them. So I did that for a couple of years.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

You were working for Partner of the Year in 2014 with a as a larger partner group. So you've done kind of every side of the vision. So you're talking about chapters that stretch you, that pushed you. What did the season of working for partner of the year in 2014, what did what did that season teach you?

SPEAKER_00 29:12

So we had a pretty good sized team and we were working on a global implementation. And that was hard because the client wanted us in London for like three weeks and then home for two.

SPEAKER_03 29:25

Was it one client multiple country? Yeah, wow. Ten countries.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

That's when I learned you can you can buy an around the world plane ticket.

SPEAKER_03 29:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

And as long as you're going well, then you could. As long as you were going the same direction, but you got thirty-three thousand miles or thirty-six thousand miles, whatever it was. Um we did an around the world trip in about ten days. We went to five of the ten countries, and in each c each country we were met with two countries. So they would they would pull somebody into one of their other locations. And it's like they were talking about Abu Dhabi on the news. I was like, I've been there and Indonesia, Australia. Wow course London and Houston. It was very that was harder when I I realized that I'm more of a small business type person. I get really bogged down when we start having to, you know, dot every I, cross every T, which is all necessary. But then let's do that, but let's don't make it stall everything out, right?

SPEAKER_02 30:36

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Which I've learned more and more that, you know, unfortunately because things are moving so fast, we have to do that more now than we used to. But it was it was very heavy on well, trying to coordinate ten countries, I get it. They were trying to move get everybody to do things the same way. So that was a challenge, right? Getting getting basically ten independent companies, which they weren't, they were all one, but ten countries to do everything the same way and compromise. I mean, it that was a story of compromise on every end and some being worse than others. We had a blast traveling all the time.

SPEAKER_03 31:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:22

I stayed on the toppest tier you could be for for United for like three years because of it.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

You uh definitely had that status. So you do this massive implementation, in country implementation, but then when you got back, is that when you went out on your own with Dallas Consulting, or was it a little bit later? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:44

It was it was it was shortly after well 2016, I think, is when I left the the person who owned the company had sold it years ago and was just supposed to stay on a couple of years to run it. And she was on like year five or six, and she finally said, Guys, I'm supposed to move on. So they brought somebody in out of the cell phone industry to to run the company. Nice guy. It just you know was a very different market for him. With I guess within three months after he was there, senior people started leaving. Uh like and from November I left, I think in June or July. I turned in my notice and talked to my developer, and he had turned in his notice the same day. Neither one of us knowing the other was doing it.

SPEAKER_02 32:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:35

And I said, Well now I'm mad at you because you should have told me that you were leaving before you left. Anyway, yeah, and we both ended up leaving in like the next two months it was just mass exodus. So uh and it wasn't any one thing other than that, you know, uh a lot of little things. Yeah. So I thought I would try working with some small partners, seeing if I couldn't help them grow a little bit. I had one that was had an add-on and I thought I always thought maybe I'd like to work for for a company that had an add-on.

SPEAKER_02 33:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Um that really helps a market. I was there six months and never saw the add-on. And what I realized very quickly is the owner there was just his own worst enemy. Very difficult to deal with for everybody. There was a revolving door at that company. So I guess that was the last one when I said, okay, I think I'll just pick up some work here and there and do that. And um, I just kind of grew from there.

SPEAKER_03 33:38

So you built Dowfield Consulting from scratch. What does building something like that teach you about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Well, I've never been shy of confidence. Uh I think that goes back to growing up in a small place, and if you wanted to do something, you got to try it, you know. Uh and my parents just being supportive in that way. I mean, I started programming and access, billing somebody twenty-five dollars an hour. Right? Yeah. About around the time I started doing the vision actually. So and I knew I could catch on to software, right? I have a knack for numbers and things I could see something, it would just make sense that I know what to do. I can't explain it. So uh I just that that confidence was really something that didn't bother me. And I'd been independent before. Yeah. So it was really I just talked to people, let them know I was available. I w I did work for partners. I called some old clients that I had done work for, um, and and did a little bit of work for some of them. Uh I didn't sell systems, so that was the key there. I was not competing against any partner. I could be a resource for a partner to use, and then people would find me at a conference somewhere I was speaking and ask for help, right? Could you just help me with this one thing? I know one lady said, I need you for about 10 hours, and I helped her out, and then we had uh a meeting every week for like six months, and then every month for another year. Finally they're on their own. But uh they just had so much that they needed done. So it was just a little morphing like that. Yes, somebody would leave a company and then call and say, Hey, I'm at this new company and I want to put in BC. So it's just a lot of that. I think honestly being around so long, your name's out there so long that people remember, you know, a name or see you again and they're like, Yes, I want to talk. Yeah. So it was I didn't do anything fancy, didn't do advertising. Oh, I do have pens that that a lot of my customers like. They love my little pens. I like it. I literally get people asking for my pens.

SPEAKER_02 35:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

But n you know, it was just a little by little. And if I if I saw I didn't have a lot of work, I would call some customers and just say, How are you doing? One of the things that I really learned that helped keep things moving somewhere along the way, the the guy that does my programming, he would get a customer who also needed something functional. So now he's giving me work and I'm giving him work. And so then we found other resources that were independent that we could so you could take on more than you could do because you knew you had good resources that you could put on the test. And that's really what helped stabilize things, really made a difference. I did learn that whenever I would talk to somebody on a support issue, once I helped them solve it, I would say, Hey, did you know about the latest thing that came out? And and I'd give I'd say there's there's these three things that I think are really good, you might use them, and I'd get more work out of that, right? Because they hadn't heard about it. I think there's a lot of work on the table out there for everybody just to help teach people all the things that Microsoft has been adding to the product because it's so much.

SPEAKER_03 37:15

And I think that that goes back to your that goes back to your lesson about listening. Um, so calling the customer and say, How are you doing? You know, how can I help? How can I show up for you? And then listening, and then knowing the product, knowing the advances in the product, and then coming alongside them and helping them. And um, that makes you indispensable. How did you know that it was the right time for you to sell? And what was that like emotionally for you?

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Well, I think when people started asking me, when are you gonna retire? For for two or three years in a row, it's like, God, I guess I need to. No, um, it literally was looking at it, you know, I'm you know, I hit another decade old next year. And you know, it was just it's like I love what I do, but do I want to it's harder to travel these days, you know, it's just um conferences are great and they're awful because the days are long and you know, um it's just hard to keep going. I'm not I'm not 40 anymore. I won't even say 20. So it was a combination of things, right? Can't keep up the same pace in your 70s that you did in your forties or fifties. Yeah. So I just started talking. I approached one person um and I said, What do you think? And he goes, I'm interested. And I was like, No, I did I wasn't I didn't mean that. I just he goes, No, this is the conversation. Yeah. Like, I was just kind of getting your opinion. And he's like, No. And so he said, You just talk to whoever you want to, because they're all gonna react like I do. And so yeah, making that decision was hard. Like a couple of them for probably really good offers, but they wanted to build literally from scratch, something. I was like, guys, I'm on the way out, I'm not really ready to build.

SPEAKER_03 39:09

You're not building, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

I'm not building, I'm I'm on the s I'm on the slide. Yeah. And so I I was looking for one that was um maybe I could help push a little bit, but also I knew it would take care of the customers, even if they didn't change at all, they were gonna take care of my customers because a lot of them have been with me a very long time. And so that was that was a deciding factor there. Um it's been interesting, right? You know, I have to get approval for travel. Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:43

You have a boss now?

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Do you have a boss now? I have a boss. Yeah. It's so funny because he has a boss now, and he was also owned his own practice. So he gets it. So it's it's it's easy, it's easygoing, but it's just having to you know you don't make the decisions anymore, right? Um but it's it's all been good. The people have been really nice. Uh I like it. I want to do more for them. Um and I just, you know, I'm one that likes to do things fast and go and get it done. And um you know, bigger organizations have more layers of things and yeah. But um, so I'm on I've been five months with the new company as of today, actually. Well, so there's 19 to go.

SPEAKER_03 40:35

Nineteen to go. We're counting them down. We're counting them down, and we're gonna throw a big party for you at the end. Kim, you were one of my first points of contact in the community. I don't remember how our paths crossed, but I'm so thankful that they did. You you when I think, I mean, I've only been in channel for three years, but when I look back, like I don't ever remember a conference where I didn't give you a UST pay bracelet. Like you have been like like uh they're sitting on my desk over here. You have been a trusted friend of mine since I my boots first, I should say my heels first hit the ground. In your career, you didn't just build systems. I have seen you build community, you teach across the country. You are an all-star, you're a legend, you're an MVP. Those are really notable designations for you personally. What do those honors, those designations represent for you?

SPEAKER_00 41:37

An all-star came along late. It happened literally when I was working for that partner of the year because they didn't do anything with the user group. And so I had done all this work helping build the user group, and then I was not in it, and that's when they started the all-stars. So it was like, well, I guess I missed out because I did all my work before that happened. Right. So that was kind of nice when I got that one. Legend was total surprise. I was gracious of DCI on that. There was a lot of us who really pulled the user group back out from the ashes of of COVID and right before. I think it was the MVP that that I walked around on Cloud Nine for months. I didn't know there was such a thing. You know, I I guess I really didn't find out about it or d understand what it was for a for a long time. And I was I knew somebody who had who was an MVP and they basically discouraged me from from working towards it and then spoke at a round table and made the statement that their goal was to get more female MVPs. This is after I was discouraged. And uh luckily a a mutual friend of ours, I happened to literally bump into her and she looked at me and she said, What's the matter? And I was like, uh, I'm just mad. It's okay. She's like, you know, tell me what's going on. So anyway, um and she was, you know, she was just uh so gracious and uh helped me out and said, Here's what you're gonna do and this is you know, and within um within the year, you know, I got that award and and I uh I really appreciated her and and really the community. It's really interesting. I feel like I'm more noticed now, and I don't know if people just feel like it's it's easier to come talk because you have that designation. You're not just another user. I don't know what it is, but it it it really was a s a stepping stone for more. It also gives it gives me a little motivation to make sure I keep trying to give information back to the community. You know, I'm working on videos. I'm not good at videos yet, but I'm finding that my little short videos, I can't talk short. I mentioned in one of my videos the other day. Well this was supposed to be four minutes long, but we're on nine minutes and fifty seconds. So I best I'll I guess I better end.

SPEAKER_03 44:15

We are on a 54 minute coffee talk right now, but you and I like to talk so I wasn't surprised that this one wasn't gonna arrive.

SPEAKER_00 44:22

I will have to say this um I remember meeting back and UST was you know an unknown entity in the community and wow look at look at what you've done. Yeah everybody knows Kate Kate Coffee Bacon.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

It's the name.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Yeah and we're just you know you're well known in the community now in in just three short years.

SPEAKER_03 44:46

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 44:47

It's a big community.

SPEAKER_03 44:48

It is a big community and you know I'm a community builder. I I believe in people and I believe that people need people now more than ever. We need each other because we can't learn at all. We can't excel at everything so do what you do and you do it really well and then you get by with a little help from your friends. And and I yeah and so I fully believe that and so a huge part of my job at UST is a community builder. I serve in almost in in every conference group um and what I'm seeing over time is the benefit the beneficial connections I'm able to make. Last week's coffee talk was with the new president of IEMCP and Molly Fuchsel who's just started the new partner education conference and I brought them together and we talked about the importance of partner education and you don't get there by showing up in communities and this is a this is a very big platform that I stand on is what can you give back not necessarily what are you grabbing when you go into a space. So giving not grabbing and so it's really important to me and I really love this community and every event that I go to I feel like I'm I get butterflies in my stomach just to see everyone again and and share space and you know I say we're all in the same zip code if only for three days we're all in the same zip code. So thank you for saying that um thank you for coming alongside me and and being um my friend and being a mentor to me and um just being a light every time I see you you're just you're you're really special to me Kim. So um back at you girl.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Yeah you know the the community thing I get people all the time that you know we're always encouraging people to get involved in the community.

unknown 46:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

Get involved somehow. And I always tell them I said you're gonna get back as much as you put in.

SPEAKER_02 47:04

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 47:05

And sometimes way more until I really got involved in the community. It was Microsoft created the first user group for business for nav like in two two thousand three. But the before then we were all just out there trying to figure it out on our own, you know and you know just you meet one person and then you meet another and um one of the girls that's on the board for PC right now, I met her just a few years ago. And you know she just kind of was it introduced me to other people and I think she actually did a speaking co-presenting with somebody and and she's just you know stretched and gone a little further and I mean it's it's exciting to see people blossom in the community because that's what happened when you're among friends.

SPEAKER_03 47:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:58

Because that's what it is. It's a big friendship among it is everybody partners who are out there competing against the same thing they're still friends. Yeah right and in the end they're still friends.

SPEAKER_03 48:10

Yeah yeah well as I wrap us up you've given some really great advice about community jumping in and serving what stands out to me in your story of what we've talked about for the last hour is this thread of curiosity that you have of resilience that you have from a debugging message at Ford that we're gonna put on light up buttons um leadership in a huge ERP implementation project you built and sold your own firm you have lived and thrived in so many seasons and chapters of reinvention without losing your core and you're still doing it now in this chapter that you're in and you're just a true inspiration. Thank you for showing me what steady leadership truly looks like I count myself so very lucky to be called your friend. Thank you for coming on to Coffee Talk Kim is there any other last piece of advice you would give to maybe somebody that's just stepping into you know our our crazy family.

SPEAKER_00 49:32

You know what? Be yourself be honest do what you say you're gonna do it's all the things that I grew up I can't hear my parents as I were just saying these things right but and that's one thing for me you know is if I say I'm gonna do X, I'm gonna be here, I'm going to speak there, whatever it is then you do it 'cause you committed to it, right? What I loved about being an independent is I could tell it how it was. I didn't have to walk a party line when a salesperson sold something that wasn't quite there. And that still happens. It's unfortunate you know and but a salesman might have seen it when you this way but you can't it I hate that part. But I think that's it. Just to yourself be honest with people. I think you find that even though something came across wrong if you're honest about confronting it people are much more understanding. Okay. Not everybody but most of them most people yeah. So that that's my big thing. Don't be afraid to ask for help.

unknown 50:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

Right? Uh because we all need like you said we need a little help from our friends.

SPEAKER_03 50:43

Just getting by with a little help from my friends. Yeah well again Kim thank you for spending your hour with me if you're listening if you're listening thank you for uh hanging out with with Kim and I there's so many nuggets in her story that I know will inspire you that you can carry on and apply into the own the work that you're doing in your own life. Until next time this has been Coffee Talk. Hi Kate Thank you for joining us today on Coffee Talk a special thanks to my guests for sharing their story and to you the listener for being a part of this conversation if you enjoyed today's episode be sure to subscribe so you never miss a Monday morning chat. Until next time I'm Kate Coffeon and this has been Coffee Talk