Personnel changes at Faithlife

t is not only the article that has me concerned, but the Glassdoor remarks- the overall problem that raised its head time after time- poor management techniques - even though this is family owned- I get the impression the lack of a qualified management team may be the issue. Maybe its time to let someone else run the ship, I get this not only from articles but from watching FL now for 2 yrs. to be honest I have some major concerns.

Let me be clear, I am not a spokesperson for Bob or the Faithlife Corp. Nor am I compelled to defend Bob's actions blindly. I believe one can be trusted and yet, verification can be expected and in some cases, demanded. This reality remains in light of all that I have said.

Let's keep it real:

1. Bob is in the chair (CE0).
2. Can we, the customers, remove him? I don't think so.
3. He is a part of the family. Let's trust him to do what is best. 
4. Many have invested (by purchase) great sums into the Logos products. This means something to the customers as well as Bob.
5. Sometimes, you have to give a little to get a little or survivability. This is all that Bob is doing.
6. In a private Family owned business, you are only going to get but so much information of the inner workings and finances of the company.
7. It was trust in the leadership (and products) many brought into Logos. Where is the trust now? Stand with the leadership. Be willing and ready to offer sound advise and counsel (providing it would be accepted) to Bob and the Faithlife Corp. Of course, not one person knows everything.
8. I believe (want to) that Bob and the Faithlife Corp know where to go or what to do if management gets too much for them to handle. Purchasers (long time/ large library holders) must believe that Bob loves this company, as much as, they love and enjoys the Logos Bible Software Products.

Bob,

Change is seldom welcomed. I did not like the changes to the payment plans. Even worse is the loss of my Sales rep, Dave Kaplan. 

I hope there are no more drastic changes in 2016.

Our size, our intellectual property, and the very fact that you're active enough users to care if we stick around guarantees that you will be supported. Because you're a huge and substantial business, and even if we make some terrible mistakes and cause 5, 10, 20% of you to run away (please don't!), the remaining 80-95% are still a huge business that someone would find significant enough to take over and run.

If we go completely nuts and destroy more than half the customer base and someones slips on ice and falls and sues us and the business is bankrupted and I have my house forceclosed... the remaining brand / assets / customer base will still be a business in the tens of millions of dollars and a steal for whoever buys it out of the bankruptcy auction.

Hopefully it doesn't come to that but that has been my thoughts have always been the same... worse case it would end up in others hands.... under a new name... Hopefully this whirlwind of speculation will settle down.

-Dan

[Y] I'm not at all worried about Logos' future.

I appreciate everyone's concern, and I know that what's being expressed here is normal concern both for your own investment in our tools as well as for the people who were laid off.

I would love to explain to you in detail why you don't need to worry about the company. But it would just be going down a bottomless rabbit hole; there are simply too many moving parts, and too many opportunities for people to misunderstand / get upset / still be missing data.

For example, it would probably reassure many of you that your investment in our tools was secure if I told you that we made $100 million in profit last year. (We didn't!) But then someone would probably think it was unkind to lay people off just to make even more profit. (That would be.) And someone else would think that in that case, we should lower our prices. Etc. etc. etc. One person's reasonable business explanation will be another person's heartless inconsideration. To really judge our actions you'd need to know more than I can ever explain...

We're a significant business, and well established. We (still!) have more than 300 employees and millions of users. It's possible, even in an established business, to have things happen faster than you anticipate, but it's also possible to address things quickly, as we did when we realized we needed to. It's highly unlikely, though, that a company as established as ours -- and with such an active and still purchasing customer base as all of you (thank you!) -- will suddenly 'go out of business.' BlackBerry is still in business. And they've felt 'dead' for years. :-) 

Our size, our intellectual property, and the very fact that you're active enough users to care if we stick around guarantees that you will be supported. Because you're a huge and substantial business, and even if we make some terrible mistakes and cause 5, 10, 20% of you to run away (please don't!), the remaining 80-95% are still a huge business that someone would find significant enough to take over and run.

If we go completely nuts and destroy more than half the customer base and someones slips on ice and falls and sues us and the business is bankrupted and I have my house forceclosed... the remaining brand / assets / customer base will still be a business in the tens of millions of dollars and a steal for whoever buys it out of the bankruptcy auction.

You're going to be fine, and we're going to be here to support you. 

I appreciate the concern as well for the people who were laid off. Rest assured that those of us still at Faithlife share your concern, and more: these people are our friends, our neighbors in a small town, and people we go to church with.

The good news is, they're great people who once made it through our hiring and screening process, and they shouldn't have much difficulty finding new situations. Other local employers have already reached out to me to get connected to these people, and our team is offering what support we can in recommendations, introductions, etc.

This has been a sad and (for me) embarrassing week. There's a lot of speculation / rumor / untruth circulating that I can't fix. There are unhappy former employees (from long ago) who are gloating and goading. I just have to live with that, because it would be futile or simply unkind to respond in detail. There's too much detail and too many people involved.

I made some mistakes (could have caught things sooner, could have addressed payroll issues slowly over the past year instead of needing to do it all at once, etc.) but I also acknowledged the mistakes and dealt with them. Now we're moving forward.

I feel a little compelled to respond here in the forums because, though you're kinder than some local critics, your opinion matters a lot more. I don't want you to stop purchasing out of mistaken fears about our viability; I don't want to 'start a bank run on a healthy bank.' :-)

And I hate even saying that, because it implies that's a risk: it's not. Our customer base is large enough that even if all the forum users stopped purchasing, we'd survive. But I don't want you to stop -- because there's no reason! We're here, we're healthy, and even this painful change is evidence that we'll do what it takes to continue to be here for you, even if means admitting embarrassing mistakes on the front page of the local newspaper.

I don't know how to give you any stronger assurance of our dedication to being here for you than that.

I am delighted by Bob's response. I really enjoy the product and I want the company to thrive. Hence, despite the risk of being flamed on this forum, I decided to speak up. 

I know this thread is being read by lots of Faithlife current and previous employees and I just want to say Thank You to all of you. i do appreciate your hard work and I will keep supporting your work.

I do hope the management team rethink their sales strategy and address the concerns raised in glassdoor regarding lack of communication within the company. I support your company because you have great people working there. And please get rid of the quota or commission system for your sales department: this setup prompted your sales to push us products that we may not need. And it was a big turnoff. I felt so sad when I turned down the desperate plea of one of your sales: I kind of knew that his job was on the line but I really did not need the stuff he was trying to push. Please do not put your people in such sad predicaments. 

I am looking forward to more freebies next Christmas.

Our customer base is large enough that even if all the forum users stopped purchasing, we'd survive.

That's an interesting thought. It makes me wonder what percentage of Logos uses are forum users.

the blackberry analogy is true.

of all the people I know of, or whose phone number I would have, only one of them has a blackberry, and its provided to him by his job.

But then, of all those same people I only know one guy (that I didn't meet here on the forums, or who isn't or wasn't employed by faithlife) that has Logos. Even among my seminary friends.

I feel a little compelled to respond here in the forums because, though you're kinder than some local critics, your opinion matters a lot more.

Bob, here are the four principal tangible results of my opinion:

I'm going to keep my buying strategy exactly the same as before: buy what's worth it to me when it's worth it to me. Your programs and apps do enough well enough and your resource offerings are good enough that I'm happy with my purchases so far and I foresee myself continuing to incrementally expand my presently four-figure investment. The personnel changes thus far don't affect any of this at all, as long as there keeps being competent and kind people when I have cause to send an email. And I'm sure there will be.

I'm also going to keep recommending Verbum, Logos, and Noet to people I think it would benefit. I've already been personally and directly responsible for $1000's in sales that way and I hope to be responsible for plenty more over the years, especially to Catholic Verbum customers.

I'm also going to keep making and supporting resource suggestions and program improvement suggestions.

And I'm going to keep snapping up freebies, as long as you keep offering them.

[:)]

Sine Nomine and Lew pretty well express my views and confidence as well.

As Logos users we really should have saw this coming. Why you might ask? Well because additions to the last couple of months, that almost guaranteed this would happen.  Its things we as Logos users all wanted. We wanted to know what resources we might own or not on on various bundles besides the regular dynamic pricing. We got that. I am almost positive that demonstrated less of a need for more salespeople.  I like dealing with one salesperson, but with the independent users we have, it makes it almost unnecessary to have so many salespeople on staff. I know we do not like it, but when users change their must be a change the business model as well. Logos cannot continue to  go in the direction it is going if it does not make changes to its business model. 

I think you are spot on. I looked back into my order history and, with the exception of the selection and purchase of the initial Verbum package, I generally did not use Verbum sales for any of the upgrades or add-on purchases. In the engagements I had with Sales after the initial purchase, I did not get any solid advice on product or any discount beyond the online price - pretty much just marketing offers.

I suspect you are correct that Faithlife is streamlining its cost of sales by reducing the Sales organization. However, they will need to enhance their digital marketing and online sales, particularly if the number on this thread that 95% of the initial customers never buy an added resource is true. Given its narrow target market, Faithlife needs a recurring revenue stream from its loyal customers through cross-sales like Proclaim, add-on purchases by its perpetual license customers, and/or recurring revenue through a subscription model with Logos Now.

I will continue to buy resources as needed...and obviously take advantage of the free offers!  

As Logos users we really should have saw this coming. Why you might ask? Well because additions to the last couple of months, that almost guaranteed this would happen.  Its things we as Logos users all wanted. We wanted to know what resources we might own or not on on various bundles besides the regular dynamic pricing. We got that. I am almost positive that demonstrated less of a need for more salespeople.  I like dealing with one salesperson, but with the independent users we have, it makes it almost unnecessary to have so many salespeople on staff. I know we do not like it, but when users change their must be a change the business model as well. Logos cannot continue to  go in the direction it is going if it does not make changes to its business model. 

I agree with this. I'm sad for people who have been let go, and who served me well, but it always seemed crazy to me that in 2015 it was cheaper to buy a product through a sales person than to buy it online.

If Faithlife is changing its discount policy so that the price shown online is the best price you can get (which I suspect we all think should be the case), then the need for a large sales staff is much reduced.

I agree with this. I'm sad for people who have been let go, and who served me well, but it always seemed crazy to me that in 2015 it was cheaper to buy a product through a sales person than to buy it online.

Me too. I rarely used a Sales Rep, and am somewhat offended by the idea that you could get better prices by calling one than I could online. For those of us living multiple time zones away, it was always difficult to get through anyway, even with a UK phone number to call. I didn't initially buy Logos through a Sales Rep and only ever used them when it was a "ring us for a price/offer" promotion. They also presumably accounted for a fair proportion of the Gross Profit in commission and employment costs for those customers who used them, so I can see why it didn't make sense to keep such a large Sales Department. 

There is a linked issue that I think FL needs to consider though: I got into Logos in the first place because I bought a book that had a Libronix CD in the back with a version of the book and the software on it. I also notice from the Forums that quite a lot of others also got the product in the first place via CDs in bookshops, whether as Base Packages or as books in the Libronix format. As this channel is now closed, I wonder how newer users are coming to Logos, and how many potential users are being lost due to the non-availability of CD or USB-based products in the bookshops, at conferences, etc.