866: LIVE From Ellucian Live 2024 - with Robert Ferrilli, President, Ferrilli

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Welcome back, everybody. It's your time to up on the EdUp Experience podcast where we make education your business. This is Dr. Joe Sallustio back with another episode here at Ellucian Live 2024 in San Antonio. I just ate lunch, so I've got a lot of energy right now. All I need is another cup of coffee, but then things will go crazy.

Let me tell you guys a little about the person that's with me. When I come to Ellucian, he's the first person I ask to be on my schedule. He has the best exhibits in an exhibit hall that I have personally ever seen. I've been to a lot of conferences, so I don't give out these compliments lightly. He is also the best-dressed guest, I think, that has ever come on the EdUp Experience podcast. No matter how I've tried to catch him - I'd see if he goes to the gym in the morning, try to see if he goes to dinner at night and puts on a t-shirt - no. This dude wears a shirt, tie, and slacks every day. In fact, I'm pretty sure he sleeps in that stuff.

Ladies and gentlemen, back for a third straight year, here he is - Robert Ferrilli. He is the CEO, founder, and owner of Ferrilli. What's up?

Robert Ferrilli: I want to say thank you, first of all, for all the kind words. You know, the team here at Ferrilli works really hard on the booths. We like to really outdo ourselves. We're already starting to kick around ideas for 2025 and what we're going to do then. And then my wife wants to thank you for saying that I'm the best dressed.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Oh, well, thank you to your wife for dressing you appropriately, I guess.

Robert Ferrilli: Yes. She puts little Garanimals tags into the suit so I know which tie to wear, which jacket, which pants. Smart move. If it wasn't for her, I would probably be the worst dressed on the EdUp Experience.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That is true. Thank you to your wife, 100 percent. Before I get to talk about Ferrilli and the work that you're doing to serve higher education in an amazing way, I would like to be selfish for a moment and say that your exhibit was serving French fries, cheeseburgers, margaritas, and you have the DeLorean replica from Back to the Future, which I sat in and took a picture of. That was like a lifelong goal of mine, a bucket list goal that you helped me achieve. So thank you, sir. I can't tell you how cool that was. I don't know where you come up with this stuff. I mean, are you the ideation? Do you have a team around you? Are you the one that comes to the table and says, "I'd like to do like a diner inside an exhibit hall," and they go, "Okay, we'll try to make it happen"?

Robert Ferrilli: No, I would say we want to be number one at everything we do. We want to be the number one employer. We want to be the best vendor partner. And we want to be the first call that higher education makes for problem-solving and innovation. In being number one, we want to be the number one booth. We want to go all out and get creative.

It's kind of funny. I'll even tell the story of how these booths first started. We didn't know, you know, what I would say is we've always had the traditional boring booth in the past, but we were working with a marketing firm and they were kicking around an idea of... It's very close, Ferrilli and Ferrari. You know, almost letter for letter.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, I like it.

Robert Ferrilli: And I want my money back.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: We brought it up. Remember the golf simulator? There was a line to hit that ball. You were giving away a trip somewhere or something.

Robert Ferrilli: Are you serious?

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Excellent. Almost. I never tried. That's why you didn't give out a winner, you know, but I did get into the DeLorean. So as we transition, you talked about serving to being the best in serving higher education. Level set for us, for those that didn't hear the last two episodes that we had with you at Ellucian Live the last couple of years. What does Ferrilli do? Tell us what you do in two minutes or less.

Robert Ferrilli: We service the entire gamut. We are all in on education. We basically add every component to our organization to make our higher education partners successful.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: I know a lot about you because we've talked for the last couple years and I've researched your company. What I don't know is why you're so passionate about higher education. Can you give us a little bit of background on you? Why higher ed? Why the passion to serve this industry?

Robert Ferrilli: It's fuzzy math, but you know, we were probably not necessarily financially stable and didn't necessarily have a lot of opportunity. The opportunities my mother fought for for me, you know, I can't say thank you enough for that. I guess a big motivator for me is I'm an opportunity creator. And that's what higher education does. It creates opportunities. There is nothing more inspiring than volunteering at a graduation ceremony and seeing somebody with new knowledge, with a dream, ready to go chase after it.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Bullseye.

Robert Ferrilli: And so higher education represents opportunity. Ferrilli represents opportunity. We create great opportunities for our employees. You know, I pride myself. I think we have the best health insurance in the business. We actually have free generic drugs for all our employees. And then we have nothing over a fifty-dollar copay. I feel like in Ferrilli, I can make the world a little bit of a better place.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Scale that to higher ed, that passion internally focused on your employees and making them feel better, and then they're obviously going to serve higher ed better. And you take your services and you go out to an industry that is in disruption right now. We have closing schools. We have the value of a degree in question. We have institutions that are strapped for cash because enrollment's declining. The FAFSA - I mean, what the heck is that about? What do institutions want when they come and talk to you right now? What are a couple of pain points that you're really solving for right now?

Robert Ferrilli: God, I mean, FAFSA simplification, you know, as long as there are people and politicians, I will never be out of work. Truth. There's so much regulation and churn that happens at the federal and state levels that just keep... you know, it's hard for these colleges and universities to keep up with compliance. Sometimes I feel like we miss the bark because we're so focused on trying to stay compliant with all these laws and all these regulations that we lose focus of the real mission of teaching and learning and making dreams possible.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Nailed it. Nailed it.

Robert Ferrilli: Now Joe, I want to thank the federal and state governments because they keep me in business.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Nailed it, nailed it. At the same time, we can talk about the disruption that they might cause. FAFSA simplification is a big issue right now. Schools can't project revenue because they don't know what their incoming class is going to look like because of the FAFSA issues. But they know they need technology help. But they can't go and get technology help if they don't know what the revenue is going to be. So it's this really vicious cycle we're in right now.

Maybe enrollment declines - they're saying 20% for this. I think FAFSAs were down 27% for high school seniors going to higher education. But AI is continuing to evolve. AI doesn't care that we have fewer students in school, and schools still need to evolve all of their technology services to better serve the students we do have. How do schools even tackle this technology black swan that we're in right now?

Robert Ferrilli: Look, when I look at AI, I think of my 12-year-old daughter, who's adopted AI faster than most faculty and staff. It's changing the way that she learns. She reads a book and then is able to have a conversation with the character from that book. That's crazy. When she needs help with math, she goes to Khan Academy and asks Khan Academy her math problem.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: I didn't even know that existed.

Robert Ferrilli: You've got to check out Khan Academy. What you're familiar with, Khan Academy, right? And so what Khan Academy did is they partnered with Microsoft. This thing is great. You can talk to characters from books. You can do math refreshers.

What fascinates me is my daughter doesn't use a calculator. She'll sit there, and this drives me nuts because I can't talk to a computer. But she talks to a computer like she's from Star Trek. And she'll just, instead of typing it into the calculator, she'll just talk the problem out to ChatGPT, and ChatGPT will come back with an answer. That's just the way she operates. It's crazy.

My daughter's only six years away from entering college. If we're not adopting AI now, I tell college presidents all the time, if you don't have a plan for AI on your campus, it's like not having the internet during the internet boom.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's a fact. That's a fact. You make a really good point, and that's actually a way for me... That's a way to sell change. My nine-year-old and six-year-old boys, they know how to use technology like nothing you've ever seen before. You know, my nine-year-old - she's almost 10 - she knows AI programs. She comes home and does things. She's hacking into my phone. I'm like, how did she get my password? You know, they just know things. And so they're coming with technology.

Now there are some kids who are moving into college now, even adults who are exploring. I got a doctorate degree and none of these tools existed. Boy, wouldn't it have been great to go back to school to get an MBA or a doctorate when you could have had Elicit that gives you all the research that you want. Now that student's going to come to school - when I say student, I mean adult, you know, traditional student - with an expectation that I use AI, that you're going to accept the fact that I use AI.

But higher ed isn't fully accepting that fact yet, are we? And how do we get there? And what systems are we lacking to get there?

Robert Ferrilli: Well, one, any technology could be used for good and bad. And the expectation to use AI is going to be there. And we've got to train people on how to cite it. We've got to train people to be more accepting of it. With a lot of the colleges that we're working with on AI, we're suggesting that they start with small pilot rollouts with measurable results instead of doing a bit of a scattershot approach.

But faculty need to incorporate it into their teaching and learning. I mean, it's not only changing the humanities and the writing with the large language models, but it's changing graphic design, movie creation. The Adobe Creative Suite and the things you could do with it is incredible.

There are friends of mine that have storied careers in Photoshop, which their careers are not going to be so storied anymore.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, ain't that the truth? Well, I'll tell you this. You know, one thing I know about you, Robert, is I trust you. I think you're, you know, I know when people hire you or when an institution - let me say this - when an institution is going to bring in any kind of managed services or IT services, there is a trust gap that has to be filled. When I give you access to my institution in ways, I have to believe that you really care about my success. And I know you well enough now as a person to know that you really do - not that I didn't think that you did before, but I didn't know you.

But when an institution reaches out to you - and I love this from your website - that you're only as good as your last job. I love that quote because it's the proof is in the pudding. Don't judge me on what I haven't done yet. Judge me on what I have done. Is that a tenet for business for you? I'm only as good as my last job. Is that just proving it time and time again?

Robert Ferrilli: Well, one, we have a money-back guarantee if you're ever not satisfied with the work that we do. And so that's a core value of mine that if I didn't deliver for you, then I shouldn't get paid. And that's just a human being thing. Yeah, I want to be fair in everything that I do.

But you talk about the last 10 minutes, and the reason I say that is I don't have a big piece of software on your campus. I'm not your ERP provider, I'm not your email provider, I'm not your AI provider. I'm a service provider. I provide people with expertise and intellectual capital that will help propel your institution forward. And if I don't do a good job, then you're not going to call me back. It's just a fact. It's not even a tenet. I certainly remind my people of that.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: I will. You know, referrals are big. We talk in higher ed. We, the higher ed administrator, we're going to go, you know what? I worked with Ferrilli and it was really good. That referral network in higher ed is real. And so you have to prove it every single time. Right. And that's an important part of this business. Talk about the award that you have won. I hear that you've won something.

Robert Ferrilli: I'm so excited to share this.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yes. Yes. We've, you know, we are the champions. I'm going to have my own soundboard.

Robert Ferrilli: I don't know if we're going to get a singing career out of you.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: No, there will be no singing career. Yikes. So the award?

Robert Ferrilli: But we were, for the second year in a row, we were selected as Ellucian's implementation partner of the year.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's amazing.

Robert Ferrilli: Now it's a testament. And look, I just collect the award. It's a testament to the professional services team at Ferrilli that works day in and day out for client success. I mean, they do things that are absolutely nuts. We had a client that was in trouble and 14 of our people volunteered to get on the project, flew out that weekend to go on site and work with those colleges and get them back on track in order to achieve success.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Tell it like it is. That's a commitment.

Robert Ferrilli: Yes. The reason why we have that best healthcare, we have education for our employees and we make it such an attractive place to work at is because we want the best. This is part scientific, part art.

We want the best, we want people that are willing to sign their name on their work, that are proud of their work. And so at the end of the day, I want to get out of their way and I want them to create the best things that they could create. You know, one of the things I'm most proud of at Allan Hancock College, we partnered with them and we eliminated the need to apply for graduation. The year we implemented it, 470 additional graduates went through the auto grad program.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: There's a lot of work to be done still in higher ed, isn't there? I mean, we're not... There's so many different types of institutions, so many on the change adoption cycle. You talk, you mentioned change management. I know from my discussions with presidents, that is still the issue. We can do this, we can do that, but I've got this person or this group of people that are fighting it. Change management is such a critical part of this, isn't it?

Robert Ferrilli: Absolutely. You've got to coach the people through it. I mean, people like steady state, they, you know, but this is not a time of steady state for higher education. When I first started in the industry, you built it, they came. We had enough children that those seats were going to get filled even if we did a bad job. And now? Now today, I mean the school I started at, Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, is now part of St. Joseph's University. This is lunacy. And I mean it broke my heart. And I'm sure it broke a lot of alumni's hearts.

Fortunately, it gets to live on as a part of another institution, but we have Cabrini College in my area that just shut down and doesn't even get to live as a part of another institution. And so to me, that's what we've got to fight against as a group, where you know, we talked about early in the conversation about creating opportunity. Well, that's closing the door on opportunity.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: Yeah, it is literally. Closing colleges is a big issue a lot of times because there is a lack of change adoption, and those schools that are closing at some point refused to change. Are you able to go in and do like an assessment? If I said, Robert, I've got to figure out, I don't even know what's wrong. Come in and assess me. What do I need to do?

Robert Ferrilli: We've got an incredible evaluation team. We've got Dr. Rita German that leads up the evaluation team. We actually just revamped it in 2023 to make sure that it's up to date with everything that's going on in higher education and technology. And I mean, she does an incredible job of taking a snapshot of where you are from a current state perspective and also putting together that technology strategic plan and could also support your institution's strategic plan as well.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: What else do you want to say about Ferrilli? What else do you want to say about Ellucian, your award, anything at all? Open mic. Open mic. You never met a mic that you didn't want to get on. Come on. There's something that's just kind of top of mind, especially for my...

Robert Ferrilli: Small private colleges. I recently have gotten the opportunity to work with Immaculata University. It brought me back. Walking in the hallways and having everybody say hello to me. Everyone knowing one another. Everybody focused on the single mission of that student.

My nephew recently graduated there. He's a little bit on the spectrum. They took him in and created an opportunity for him in cybersecurity that he now works for SAP. He's doing a six-month stint in Germany. And I'm so proud to have them as a client. And it's so emotionally relevant for me. And it's just such a great place to work.

You know, we need to get that back where that focus is on that student creating that success, creating that warm environment, creating that environment that no matter what office you go into, we're going to put our hands behind your back and we're going to coach you through this. We're going to get you through this. You're having a bad day. You want to quit. Let's talk about why you should stay. Let's talk about what you could do to keep moving forward.

We've got so many great people that are out there doing it, but we need to do more of it. We need to continue to create those opportunities. We need to support our small private colleges and universities. You know, these closures are tough, but we've got to really fight to keep these doors open, keep these opportunities open because they're just incredible for the community, for the students, and for the people that they serve.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That is truth to power by my guest today, the one and only Robert Ferrilli. He is the founder, CEO, president, and janitor of Ferrilli, and he'll tell you what needs to happen at your institution. Visit ferrilli.com if you want to learn more. You can call him in between the hours of 12 a.m. and 6 a.m. on his cell phone. Yes, you can. And he will speak. Right?

Robert Ferrilli: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Look, I've never turned away a client. As a matter of fact, I was presenting with Hartnell College and she talks about how she was a victim of a ransomware attack. And she found out at 6 a.m. She called our people. And 6 a.m. California time is 3 a.m. East Coast time. And we jumped right in to help and get her back online.

Dr. Joe Sallustio: That's how you do it, ladies and gents. Robert Ferrilli here on the podcast for a third straight year. Remember everybody, be excellent to each other. You've just ed-upped.