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Do Good Work is not a label but a way of living.
It is the constant and diligent effort to achieve a new level of excellence in one’s own life.
It is the hidden inner beauty behind the struggle to achieve excellence.
It is not perfect but imperfect.
It is the effort, discipline and focus that often goes unnoticed.
The goal of this podcast is to highlight that drive.
The guests I have on this show emulate this drive in their own special way. You’ll be able to apply new ideas into your own life by learning from them.
We will also have 1on1 episodes with me where we’ll dive into my own experiences with entrepreneurship and leadership.
Every episode is designed to provide you with ideas that you can apply and grow in excellence in all areas of your life, business and career.
Do Good Work,
Raul
INTRO
Today on the podcast, I'm joined by
Ronan Leonard, founder of Intelligent
Resourcing and a certified innovation
officer and serial entrepreneur.
In his work now with clients, he
essentially helps sales rep eliminate
completely the forty percent of their
day manually looking up companies
on Google and ZoomInfo, and instead
he gives his clients the buying
signals they need right into the
CRM so the team just takes action.
We also dove into our conversation around
AI and how that's going to evolve or
change business models And Ronan used
an illustration of when he grew up in
Wales, he described that sometimes it
would snow for weeks, and some days
you would open up the curtains and
then the snow would be completely gone.
And he's alluding that that is what may
happen with some business models today.
Business models that you and I
see look totally fine, but then
they might vanish overnight.
This isn't doomerism.
This is just, just an approach
of how business models have to
evolve with the changing times,
technology, and opportunities.
We dive into in the podcast why he
refuses to build software as a service,
which is how we originally met o-
over ten years ago, actually, building
software as a service companies.
We also dive into what he means when
he talks about dark data, hiding in
your own sales call transcripts, and
how pricing works more like a Coke in a
vending machine versus a Coke at a bar.
And a lot of people don't understand
the difference of how you can price the
same product differently at different
locations depending on perception.
And we have a genuinely honest
disagreement about co-risking deals
and doing revenue share with clients,
So let's dive into the
podcast and hope you enjoy it
PODCAST
Raul: overwhelmed as well,
like, with all the changes.
And it's nice to hear that even
some, like if you hear Kaparthy on
podcasts, it's like, oh yeah, even
I'm overwhelmed, like he's saying it.
That means that everyone's overwhelmed.
That means that even if you're working
in it every single day, it's still
overwhelming of-- the pace of change.
But let-- d-dive us backwards.
How was it before AI
and the new tech stacks?
Like you were doing like your business
systems and development and go-to-market.
Can you walk me through
like what was life pre-AI?
Ronan leonard: Pre-AI, I actually
had a different business, so
you could see it coming, but it
doesn't apply to every business.
It, it does in some way,
but in others it doesn't.
You go, "Okay, well, we do
a lot of things manually.
We do a lot of face-to-face things.
There's not a lot there that
I could optimize using AI."
So there are obviously certain
business models and, and use cases
where it's gonna have minimal impact.
But as, as the rapid chase of-- the
pace of change, there's others where
it's, it's gonna complete-completely
smash your business model.
you're either in this bubble,
which I think a lot of us
Raul: Mm-hmm.
Hmm.
Hmm.
Ronan leonard: I grew up in Wales, and
we'd have snow, and you play around
for a week, and then one morning
you'd open the curtains, it was
Raul: Hmm.
Ronan leonard: It happens really,
really quickly, and this is what AI
is doing to lots of business models.
Raul: Okay, so this is a really key
thing that I'm helping people through,
thinking through myself, writing a
lot on or thinking a lot on and hel-
and being interviewed by my agents
to help me write and expand on it.
How are you thinking through your own
business model, and how are you building
moats to differentiate and protect?
Because even, like you mentioned,
the tech's changing rapidly.
It's almost every other day
of a new iteration, new cycle,
something coming through.
How are you thinking about current
state, building what needs to be, if
then, then also future pacing or future
protection of how do I differentiate or
keep my in-in-integral moat, go-to-market
structure, either value prop in integrity
while also being open for change?
Ronan leonard: one of the first things
that I've been thinking about for the
last, sort of, six, nine months is
not to build any kind of SaaS or a
Raul: Yeah.
Ronan leonard: because you
can almost just rip it up.
So it's- I'm focusing on what's
the latest thing that comes out
or what's something new that
Raul: Hmm.
Ronan leonard: Before they were
doing all of that manually.
it's just one more layer on top
of, we call it kind of signals.
What are the signals or marketing
intelligence that we can deliver
to you that before you had somebody
that was going out manually looking
on Google, using outdated tools like
ZoomInfo and doing all this themselves
when they're not GCM engineers, they
don't really know the tech stack.
We now say, "Here's all the information
delivered to you into your CRM hit.
Thank you very much.
All I need to do is actually action
Raul: Take action on it.
And that's the hardest part of control
too, is like you got gold you're sitting
on, why are you not taking action on it?
But so you're, you're looking
at, okay, the basis of-- Or it's
a key fundamental, go to market
in terms of the business model.
And I think it's important to
un-understand the ingredients
of a business model.
And I'm saying it for the audience here.
There's your value prop, then there's
your go to market, your customer
relationships, your ICP, your cost
driver, like your revenue driver, how
you price out, how you generate rev.
Then on the back end is your key
activities, key relationships,
cost structure, team admin,
strategy, finance, et cetera.
That is essentially your business model.
Here you're focusing on the key
ingredient, which is sales, which
every business in the world needs.
But also it's how you go to market
differently versus how in the past you
would go to market with calling people up,
visiting the site, doing manual research.
So you're able to amplify that, and you're
using the tech, from what I'm hearing,
to find more ways to add value to the
client or more ways to give them an edge
in their outreach, whatever that may be.
Is that what I'm hearing correctly?
Ronan leonard: Yeah.
Hun-100%, so we look at
things like their dark data.
So really kind of old school, one
of the things that I see more and
more is you're gonna have this,
what we call an evergreen CRM.
So again, one of our clients, 5,000
contacts in there, very minimal details.
So the first thing we do is kind of
enrich their CRM so that we know if we
pull a new ICP into there, it's notâ¦
It's brand new, and it's not
already kind of hidden there with an
incorrect name or barely information.
And we then put AI across all that,
so all of their existing clients,
they're getting marketing intelligence
But this company is expanding.
This company has just hired someone new.
This, this, this has
Raul: Mm-hmm.
Ronan leonard: and if it's
relevant, we'll push it straight
through to their account managers.
We're also taking a lot of their
dark data, things like their sales
transcripts and you're probably
doing this as well and saying, "Okay,
let's analyze your sales transcript.
What are the objections?
What are all of the key things that five
or six sales reps individually kind of
know it, but collectively they don't?"
we're feeding that back into GEO, so
helping them with answer optimization
for the LMMs because they've had some
great insights in these sales calls.
The people have told them their
biggest pain points, the reason
that they're switching or they're
going from manual to this SaaS.
And so then we just feed that back
into their content because then it
gets better because the audience
are looking for those questions.
surface them up in their sales
calls, but they're not on their
website and their brochures and
their information and their blogs.
Raul: Yeah, it's kind of incredible,
just on a side note, how easy your SEO
or A-J- AI SEO is, is now because of AI.
Like it's like the full cycle,
like things that you wouldn't think
that could just be like an add-on.
In terms of how you're evolving
the business model, like what
are you doing personally?
Is it still net new value for
clients and expanding upon that?
But how are you also operate
changing the operational structure
or even the cost structure teams
versus agents versus tech stack?
Ronan leonard: That's really
on an individual basis.
I find that a lot of them are
still aren't kind of ready for
Raul: Hmm.
Ronan leonard: So what they've done is
they've scaled systems that don't scale.
Raul: Hmm.
Ronan leonard: And so some of
those you, you can't change
a business model overnight.
You know, I used to work on cruise
Raul: Yep.
Ronan leonard: It takes half an hour to
turn a cruise ship round if someone jumps.
So you've got to kind of lead
them in a direction where what
do they wanna focus on first?
Okay, this part.
Now, here's something
else we can add value to.
So you prove yourself and
y- you, you add more value.
Raul, you know what it's like.
It, it's, it's very hard for
everybody to find customers.
So when you've find, found one really
smart to add more value to them
and more value to them rather than
trying to take the new one, a new
one and, and prove yourself all over
Raul: Yeah.
Ronan leonard: to say you wanna
be a jack of all trades and
try and do everything for them.
That's not the goal.
But the goal is to say,
"Hey, we've solved this part.
There's another component
we can do as well.
Have you thought about this?"
And just add more value, and so your cost
of acquisition goes down You become more
sticky and you're just adding more value
because there's other areas you can see.
But if you try and bite off that
Raul: Yeah, yeah.
Ronan leonard: don't believe you
or they just become overwhelmed
and go, "No, no, it's too hard."
Raul: Yeah, so you're pacing it
and, and increasing LTV as well.
But so you're pacing it, you're looking
at around what you're able to do and
what you also frankly want to do,
'cause everything that you're able
to do, you may not want to do it.
So I think there's also
that, that paradigm as well.
Is there a specific tech stack
that you like to focus on, or is it
always different per, per client?
Is that-- And have you developed
your system to the point where the
tech stack doesn't matter, and it's
the system and how you orient it
and how you focus to drive value?
Or do you have like a tried and true
specific tech stack that you like,
like a CRM that you always fall back
to or like specific integrations
or APIs that you use every time?
Ronan leonard: No, they
just keep changing.
Raul: Hmm.
Ronan leonard: six
months ago, it was Clay.
We're still using Clay, but there's
just different ways of doing things.
You mentioned I've playing around with the
Caparthy methodology of looping agents.
Raul: Yeah.
Ronan leonard: we
Raul: Hmm.
Ronan leonard: for what
most of those people do.
So they're doing very, very
complex things inside them.
Sure.
Very hard to rip out Salesforce
because the emotional pain
Raul: Yeah.
Ronan leonard: and everybody
uses it and knows where the
fields are and what happens.
But there native now AI CRMs that
20th of the price of that and can
deliver similar, if not better value.
it's just evolving.
It really just depends what
they're comfortable with.
I got one client that's locked into a CRM.
We came in and said, "We could
do all this and we can give you
a CRM that becomes evergreen."
And now we're locked into this one.
And again, in the larger sort of
space, there's that both fear change,
but also somebody signed off on that.
And so you don't want to step
on their toes and tell them
that they've made a mistake.
So you have to be, "Okay, look,
we'll work with that legacy CRM.
We'll just plug in everything two-way.
We'll do APIs and we'll push
the data in and we'll pull it
out and we'll do that for you.
And you keep your CRM.
I'm not going to die on that hill."
Raul: No, yeah, that's
always a difficult one.
But you're not going to the point
where you're vibe coding the CRM.
You're essentially-- I think it's
best to use like third-party providers
that are API open or easier to use
through MCP, but ideally through CLI.
Which ones do you pr- particularly
like to lean towards or do you actually
vibe code the CRM for specific clients?
Ronan leonard: We don't vibe code CRM.
My main G2 engineer, he loves looking
at faults, and he finds he can hack
some of the most advanced or well-known
Raul: Yeah.
Ronan leonard: pole."
So we're also mindful of our customers'
kind of data, because when you're
pushing and pulling data in and
out, especially when you're looking
at five thousand, twenty thousand
records, you have to be careful.
So vibe coding looks great
on paper and you can spin up
things really, really quickly.
So for example, we were tracking
all of our prompts inside of
a software that does that.
It's about three hundred dollars a month.
One of our clients, we've got about two
hundred and fifty we built content for
them over the last three, four months,
and we were tracking all of that, and
built our own tool, cost us twenty
Raul: Mm.
Ronan leonard: So instead of three
hundred US, we now pay twenty, we know
how to, to tap into the, the APIs.
We can do the calls for
complexity, all those things.
And also we've got a couple
additional features as well.
But I would never front end that
and, and give it away to, to
Raul: Mm-hmm.
Ronan leonard: It's just for our use
Raul: Internal.
Ronan leonard: Again, internal, I
don't wanna build a SaaS at this
point because just believe someone's
gonna build it that's half the price.
And, and again, when you're talkingâ¦
It would cost you twenty dollars,
you can make it in half a
day, where's the moat in that?
'Cause someone else, even if you
try and sell that and promote it
with a margin, someone else is gonna
Raul: Yeah, but you're building on
something that's more important is right
now you're-- where what I'm seeing is
building custom software internally.
Obviously, you wouldn't for specific
clients who have specific compliance
requirements, you're never gonna just like
overnight build a SOC 2 compliant data
integration system or a HIPAA compliant.
Like there's a lot of pieces that you
shouldn't before either visualization
or workflow management or something that
can help you deliver more value quicker.
I think that's the key play is
building internal tools that become
now your IP or either through skills
or agents or actual software that you
use internally to service the client.
And I think that's a key reframe
here to think about is the tool is
not the value, it's the outcome.
So selling the tool now is a
deflationary strategy, in my opinion.
But when you sell the outcome,
Ronan leonard: percent.
Raul: use these deflated tool
costs to sell a bigger outcome
or to focus on a bigger outcome.
How are you structuring the
team based on that thesis?
Ronan leonard: Structuring the team in,
Raul: Like, are you building with,
Ronan leonard: the
Raul: like hiring more, more people
to run specific roles, or are you
making every person AI native so they
have to build their stream of agents
or flows of agents to support them?
Is it a flat organizational structure?
How are you currently structuring
thinking about growth for your own
company based on the, you know,
being able to leverage the new tech?
Ronan leonard: it kind of
depends on the employee.
So weâ¦
Every week in our team meeting,
I say one of our few advantages
is the rate at which we learn.
Raul: Hmm.
Yeah.
Ronan leonard: it's-- I, I
don't know where it's gonna go.
Do you go really, really deep?
Or if you've got a subject matter
expert for twenty years, you can
look at AI and, and the outcomes
of that and go, "That's rubbish.
That's bad."
Raul: Hmm.
Ronan leonard: that.
a-and now I've got to get an agent to
go out and double-check that's true."
the first thing I do, because
otherwise, if you don't really
know what you're looking at,
you just go, "That looks right.
Raul: Oh,
Ronan leonard: that to the
Raul: yeah.
Ronan leonard: or let's implement that."
Yeah.
But going back to your question I've
got a number of staff that just fit
inside of their, their skills, and as
much as I encourage them to, to lean
to new tools, and we give them all
these things to play, they're just not
gonna really, really push themselves.
And then I've got others that, you
know, I wake up in the morning, and they
say, "Oh, look, overnight, I, I played
around with this and I've learnt this."
So for the teams that into that, I
give them more and more autonomy.
Tell me what tools you want.
Go, go play, go experiment.
Have some fun.
Learn, learn into that.
And then the others, I just have to
manage, manage them like traditional
employees and say "Have you done this?
What, what about that?"
And, and, and they sort of
stay inside of their lane.
So I've got two at the same time,
which is a little bit schizophrenic.
So that's how I manage in the team
Raul: And then in terms of agent
skills, like are you currently
having specific internalâ¦
I mean, for the client delivery,
there's probably a plethora of
skills and, and agents running.
Internally, are you having any
agents run for you either on Cron or
Heartbeats, or is that still based
on human in the loop, human leads,
reviews work, reports back from agent?
Or how are you using AI in
the actual org structure?
Ronan leonard: Predominantly
human in the loop, so quite a lot.
We've got to drink our own
Raul: Yeah.
There you go.
Ronan leonard: I don't see us
hiring too many more people.
The reason being is that, again,
my weekly meetings, like you
default towards a process and a
system and automation once you've
Raul: Mm-hmm.
Ronan leonard: But you have to
kind of understand it and nail
it first and say, "Is this worth
creating a system and a process?"
And again, some of our systems
and processes have changed because
Raul: fast.
Yeah, it changes so fast.
Ronan leonard: we've grown so fast.
Raul: Once you harden the scaler.
Ronan leonard: to find that right
Raul: Yeah.
how do you find that right balance?
'Cause in the past, it would be you
SOP it out because you run that 100
times or 20 times for the clients.
You'd SOP it out, it document
it, then the team's like,
"Okay, did you follow the SOP?
Did you not do that?
Okay, cool."
Now, it's like you do it 20 times
and then you create a skill, and
an agent runs the skill, and then
a team member manages that agent.
But then there's a new way to
enhance it, so you would enhance
the skill, test it, validate it.
Is it just a constant iteration
where your SOPs or your agent
skills are updated every month?
Do you have a cycle, or is it
quarterly basis, or is itâ¦
how do you systemize that?
'Cause I-- That's something that I'm
seeing is like the skills that I builtâ¦
Well, there's some evergreen skills
that won't change, but there's
some that are like cutting edge.
Like something's gonna improve next week,
and one, the system's gonna get better
because that improvement, but also there's
new tooling involved for an agent to
actually work and get access to tools.
How do you, how do you keep up with that
pace of change and Harden that within
the actual agents or team member skills.
And the skill that I'm referencing
for the audience is like the
MD file that chains the agent.
Ronan leonard: Yeah.
I think is the, the perennial challenge.
Having said that, I actually don't
think it's any different from
business three, five years ago.
whatever your biggest problem is in
business, once you've solved that,
everything else gets a promotion.
Raul: Yeah.
Ronan leonard: So there's always
this list of, "I've got all of
these things to do," and, and you
try and rank them in importance,
and sometimes we, we as humans, we
do the things that are quite easy.
You know, let's do number six and
seven, and let's leave number one.
Let's leave
Raul: Mm-hmm.
Ronan leonard: Do number one
until it's kind of critical.
So- it's just one of those things that
is always gonna be there because of
the rate of change, and it's finding
what's the right balance, I don't know.
My balance might be different to someone
Raul: Mm-hmm.
Ronan leonard: So it, it, it is something
I'm acutely aware of because last month we
we signed a contract with two new clients.
We're all part of the same entity, and
they all want this kind of delivered
Raul: Hmm.
Ronan leonard: I've got three more
introductions, so And, and because
we're doing different work for each
client, it's not like we do one skill
and we do it for the same people.
it's a challenge to get that right balance
Raul: Yeah, ki- skill orchestration.
Ronan leonard: on new clients.
Raul: One of the things that I foundâ¦
Ronan leonard: Give them what they want.
Raul: Yeah, to that point, one of the
things that I found that was really
useful is not making one master skill,
but creating a waterfall system of
nine to 12 different skills for a
specific job to be done, and each
skill has its own repository of
resources of how good looks like.
But then also Python hardening to make
sure that it references the source
code or it references the, the truth of
like what to do every single time, and
then there's a pre-audit validation.
Then from there, it can move on to
the waterfall for the next stage.
And then that way, you can almost
have like a library of skills, and
then you can custom combine them.
Like, okay, this client only
needs this, this, and this, so
we're gonna combine these skills
together, and then you can create
orchestrator agents that can run that.
And then obviously the team members
would have to know what the scope is.
But instead of making one master
skill, I f- I found it to be much more
accurate, faster time to value to have
a plethora of skills with the agents
specifically knowing which ones to use.
But the human has to know, like the, like
a, a simple-- even if it's a simple map.
Here's what we're gonna use.
Here's how we're gonna custom-
customize our options to execute.
Ronan leonard: Nice.
I like it.
At the moment though, I don't
have two clients who are actually
doing the same thing yet.
Raul: Oh my gosh, Ronan.
Ronan leonard: all doing almost completely
Raul: Oh my gosh.
Ronan leonard: They've
got a different CRM.
I need this or I want something else.
And look, it'll
Raul: Yeah.
Ronan leonard: It, it's just been the fact
Raul: You're growing rapidly.
It's at that stage.
Ronan leonard: we also don't
work with really small companies,
so which is a good thing.
It's about sort of doing good work
for organizations where you can make
this kind of meaningful difference.
So if someone comes to me like,
"Oh, I've got one sales staff and,
we're a team of six, and we want
to implement what you've got."
It's like it's, you're just too, too small
Raul: Yeah.
Ronan leonard: Because the, the
process and the systems and, and,
and how we would build all, all of
that probably isn't worth it for you
unless you- the lifetime value of
customer is, is a reasonable size.
You know, do what you-- continue to
do what you do or do manually or, you
know, do, do components of it yourself
at a small, small bit so yeah, because
we're working with organizations that,
as you said, you know, sort of, eight
sales staff, 22, 50, there's that sort
of level of complexity and, and that is,
is quite unique to, to their problems
versus a universal, "Hey, I just need
these five, seven things done for me."
Raul: Yeah.
I would challenge that, 'cause even
with custom work, you can build
the meta principles into skills.
At least that's how I view
it when I would leverage it.
Because you would take that baseline,
and then you would build on top of
it, so you can get to done ready.
But again, that's just-- I haven't
looked behind the scenes, but
that's just a way to think about it.
How are you thinking about pricing too?
'Cause I-- One of theseâ¦
So I'll tell you a story, and I think--
I'm not sure if you read the post or,
or the pod, but one of the guys I was
talking to is that their agency gave
an AI discount because like, "Oh,
we're gonna use AI for your account."
So they gave a discount.
But that's pretty much like
discounting your innovation.
You can also price per outcome.
You can also price per
base fees plus outcome.
Like how are, how are you
thinking about pricing?
Knowing the cost to deliver is either more
effective or you can go deeper with more
value, which I'm more of the value play.
But how are you currently
thinking about pricing?
Traditional agency pricing, retainer
pricing, fee pricing, or are you now like
questioning how you should price based
on your availability to the tools and
the ability for you to add more value?
Ronan leonard: it's a good question.
one of the things I look at is
what's their existing cost base?
What is the traditional
sort of agency model?
and where do we sit that we can
probably add three to five X value?
Raul: Hmm.
Ronan leonard: And, and, and that's,
that's kind of about my price point.
You know, I look at traditional
SEO companies that, that say,
I'm gonna use Australian dollars
Raul: Mm-hmm.
" Ronan leonard: Hey,
you're a mid-tier company.
We're gonna charge you, we have
been charging you five, $6,000
a month to do SEO for you.
and we'll write you two blog
posts or four blog posts, and
we'll give you two backlinks."
And then you just go, you know, I can
give you 16 pieces of content or 24 pieces
of content for close to half that price.
And we can track you in the
GEO and all that included."
So I'm working somewhere between
three to five times price point.
If you look at staff, again these teams
have had six, eight BDMs and I ask
them, you know, what are they doing?
40% of their day is based on just
the manual research of looking this
company up and all these things.
Say, okay, right, what does that cost you?
if we can improve that and give you a
whole, a whole group of ICPs that you
haven't found on your CRM, that's again,
that's worth three, five, seven 10X.
and so I'm just looking
at that price point.
if I can't add three, 3X to what
they're already doing, again,
Raul: Yeah, it has to make sense.
Ronan leonard: a no for both sides.
Raul: has to make sense.
So you're thinking in terms of
consolidation for their costs to-- of
spreading the fees across these different
peripherals or adjacent things you could
be doing, just work with us, and we'll be
able to do more with that same base fee.
Is that what I'm hearing?
Is like you're, you're helping--
Like a cost savings angle?
Ronan leonard: Well, some of those only--
So you-- we put a proposal together to
this client, and then it's only when we
got under the hood that we found all these
Raul: Yeah.
Ronan leonard: They were using an agency
who were, five times the price of us, when
they were delivering these leads qualified
they were different value proposition.
They were actually doing all
the phone calls and booking a
Raul: Oh, the SDR, yeah.
Ronan leonard: sending out emails.
Yeah.
And then of the, the leads that they
booked in didn't meet the client's ICP.
Raul: Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Ronan leonard: they were
five times our price.
And then I found our clients also
using ZoomInfo, $20,000 a year.
Like, you don't need ZoomInfo anymore.
"Oh, we're doing this."
You don't need that anymore.
So all of a sudden the, the
value proposition just got better
and better as we looked under
Raul: Mm-hmm.
Ronan leonard: So it, it
really, everyone's different.
Raul: Yeah.
Ronan leonard: a, it's you don't
need this tool stack anymore.
You don't need to do this process anymore.
Or if you've got five, six staff doing
this, they don't need to anymore.
They can be more focused on,
the, the job that they're
supposed to do, which is sales.
and so it becomes that combination,
that value proposition.
Raul: Yeah, it's everything is a
consultative sale, but-- and I'm
not trying to dig into specifically,
"Oh, this is how you're gonna
price exactly every time."
But it's just good to know the
framing, 'cause this is a key thing
that people come to me with like,
"Hey, how do I price differently now?"
Or, "How do I think about pricing
based on what I'm able to do?"
And I think to your point, that
is a huge competitive advantage.
it's not saying that you're the
cheapest option, which I don't
think that's your positioning.
But your positioning is, here's
immediate cost savings, and then
here's how we're gonna get more
value without spending more.
So it's almost the trifecta of
it's, quote unquote, "cheaper."
Not, I'm not anchoring towards cheap, but
it's cheaper, faster, and better quality.
But you're positioning it that-- in
a way where you're not competing on
price, you're competing on value,
but everything else comes together
because AI and everything that
we're doing is more deflationary
in terms of tool cost and usage.
But your anchor is towards the outcome.
And so there is a mix of value pricing
but a mix of here's how we're gonna be
able to like day one get you effective
savings and do more quality work for you.
There's no wrong way to price either,
except if you're doing by the hour.
I definitely don't recommend
anyone ever price by the hour.
But it's just interesting to hear that.
it's cool to hear how you're
in real life doing it.
Ronan leonard: Well, p-pricing
is incredibly elastic, right?
If you, if you dive into it, you
know, you can buy a, a Coke in a, in a
vending machine and pay a certain price.
You can buy it in a bar where it's
on tap, it's a different price.
You can buy it in a supermarket.
So pricing is incredibly elastic
depending on the, the value.
So if you understand what
value you're providing to the
Raul: Mm-hmm.
Ronan leonard: by, by digging a
little bit deeper, then you can price
accordingly to value rather than the
price, and also what's important to them.
So I have one client that didn't really
care about the, the cost of theâ¦
the sunk cost of the staff, even
though we said with this amount,
we'll save them because they're
doing all this manual task.
about the pipeline and, and,
and, and lead generation.
So sometimes people are very
cost-conscious or about certain
things and others aren't, and so
it's finding that balance, and
sometimes you just don't know.
You go in and you've got this proposal
and you've done all the work and you
push on this, and that's not the thing
Raul: It bites.
Ronan leonard: motivates or drive them.
It- it's something else.
A-and so pricing isâ¦
As you said, you have these
conversations all the time.
It's difficult.
It is.
It's incredibly elastic.
It,
Raul: It's an art.
Yeah
Ronan leonard: Yeah.
You know Damien Hirst sold a,
a shark for I think 16 million.
He paid $250,000 for that.
He bought it from Australia.
He put it in formaldehyde and then
said, "Hey, this shark is worth 16
million," and someone bought it.
So,
Raul: It's all perception.
Are you finding room or wiggle
room to do more co-risk offers?
Like we-- It's, it's not new to
take the risk of the client, like
with the client and, and take
a, participate in the upside.
Are you finding yourself more
bullish using the tech to do that?
Or are you still traditionally just
doing value-based pricing and then
just focusing on deliverables and
make sure that the client's happy?
But are you now looking at how can
I participate in the upside for
what the client wins that I get?
Ronan leonard: I, I'd love to do that, but
I find that it is incredibly challenging.
And, and the reason behind
it is Robert Cialdini, who
talks about kind of influence.
I learned this seven, eight years ago.
Whenever you do a favor for
someone, it's like bread and wine.
And so the person giving that favor,
over time it comes better and better.
It's like a great bottle of wine
and, and you r-remember fondly.
For the person who received
that gift, it's like bread.
It might be artisanal, it could be
lovely, but eventually it goes stale.
And so what happens with that pricing
model is you could say to someone,
"Right I wanna take 25% of all of the
upside, and if we make a million, I make
a quarter, you make three quarters."
And so someone who doesn't have that
million says, that sounds fantastic."
But what happens when they go
to cut the quarter of a million
dollar check, start going, "Well
they've barely done anything."
and so I find it tends to
ruin relationships becauseâ¦
and because of that, that
deep psychological thing
Raul: Hmm.
Ronan leonard: what happens
and why it changes over time.
and so it's fraught with danger.
Tried it a few times.
Find people, you know, when they
don't have something they're really,
really appreciative, and then
once they've got it they're like,
"Well, I don't wanna give that
Raul: Yeah, interesting.
Ronan leonard: I, I've yet to find
a client that I would really do
that for because I've seen it in
smaller ways, and I've seen that
bread and wine thing play out again
and again and again on small things.
And so it gonna play out on a,
on quarter of a million dollars?
Raul: Interesting.
I've had theâ¦
Ronan leonard: that's
Raul: It's a good--
Ronan leonard: my take on it.
Raul: No, it's a good experience, 'cause
I, I also have, Not actually as similar.
I have the, the opposite happen hitting
either we hit performance markers
and/or like deal closes, et cetera.
But I think that, and I'm not saying
this is maybe why the difference
is, but I think one of the things
that I, that I believe to be true,
and I'm betting on it as well, is
that there's a belief layer on the
relationship between you and the client.
Obviously, this depends on client
relationships, industry offer,
what they offer, their mindset,
their leadership, et cetera.
But I think you're right.
It's also anchoring the offer
based on the mindset of the ideal
target that you're gonna buy.
If they just wanna hit the thing, and
you're helping them achieve that goal
and that metric, and the relationship is,
"Hey, we're just gonna do this for that,
for that reason," then maybe you're right.
Maybe it's best not to co-risk and go, go
into, into it together with the payout.
I've seen it in my experience.
Obviously, different industry,
different founder mentality,
different delivery, different system.
So it's, it's not to say one
is true and one isn't true.
But I think it all depends on the
mindset of the founder and the belief
that you bring to the table when
you're working with that founder.
But I, I do see what you're saying.
Sometimes it's, it's easier when
you don't have it, it's easier
to say, "Yeah, you can take it."
But then when push comes to
shove, it's like, "Oh, wait, we
gotta, we gotta think about this.
Gotta talk about it."
It's like startup founders giving away
equity way too soon, and like they
give half the company away withâ¦
And it's like two people.
That's interesting.
Are you, though, more confident in your
ability to deliver value now that you
have access to the tools and you're
developing agents and AI around it?
Are you more bullish on outcomes,
or are you less bullish or the same?
Ronan leonard: It, it's
a combination, isn't it?
Because it's also much as you can
a certain amount of things inside
their business, they still have to
have a very good business model.
They have to execute on all of those
Raul: Mm-hmm.
Ronan leonard: So it's a combination.
We've got everything from a private
equity company, who we're doing
in several divisions for, through
that's got a business partner and,
and a not chief operations manager.
So there's different dynamics in there.
it's navigating, as always, it
always comes back to people.
it's navigating those who's it right for?
What's the right value
proposition or what's important
to them and, and finding that.
I do think the tech stack is, isâ¦
And the, the technology is gonna
change and change and change.
I think we're on this huge
upward, exponential curve, which
most people just have no idea
Raul: Yeah, we're starting it.
Ronan leonard: and so they
can't predict the future.
Even we can't.
People try and predict the future,
just n- nearly all of them are
wrong in, in so many ways and, and
Raul: Yeah.
Ronan leonard: So who
knows where it's going?
I think as long as you are you only need
to be one step ahead of your clients.
Like, you need to learn
something today that you can
around and play with tomorrow.
That's, that's half the time,
that's half the battle, just
being one step ahead of, of them.
And if you look at, the vast majority of
businesses, you're two, three, four steps
ahead because they are so focused on BAU
that they're just not looking at theâ¦
this curve coming.
You know, they'reâ¦
As I said, you know, you've got
50 sales staff, you're, you're
managing them day in, day out.
Well, what are they doing?
What are their KPIs?
What's working?
So few business owners and
leaders take that time to
Raul: Oh, yeah.
Very few.
I think less than 5%.
Ronan leonard: yeah.
And so do you wanna work
with those, those people?
That, that's it.
Yeah.
Even six months ago, we hadâ¦
we had a meeting and, and CEO saidâ¦
And we said, "We can do
this, this, and this."
And he said, "Well, maybe I just
wait three months and someone's
gonna build that tech stack."
Raul: Oh, wow.
Good luck.
Yeah.
Ronan leonard: 'cause
he'd been vibe coding.
You know, going back to
Raul: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Ronan leonard: he'd been
Raul: Hey.
Ronan leonard: coding.
So he was like, "Oh, well potentially,
you know, someone's gonna build that."
Well, if they did, for all of the
things that you've told us you want
to do and, and all the manual process
you're doing, they did, it would
cost you $100,000 a month probably.
So
Raul: Yeah,
Ronan leonard: yeah,
Raul: those are lies.
Yeah.
Some people
Ronan leonard: And there
Raul: believe the
Ronan leonard: team,
Raul: though.
Ronan leonard: with Claude
Raul: That's the key thing.
Some people don't know truth from
fiction 'cause they've never done it
Ronan leonard: Yeah exactly.
And so it's, it's it's both
managing the expectations both
internally and externally.
Raul: Hmm.
Ronan leonard: So I've done that to
a client, said, "We think we can take
the of where your trucks go, then we'll
find more clients along that route
Raul: That's cool.
Ronan leonard: that you can then
increase the, the value of that run
because you've got this sunk cost."
I said, "I can't guarantee it's gonna
work, but I'm pretty sure it will.
Let's get the data and let's
run that additional experiment."
it's about- I believe now
it's about creativity.
How creative are you in the
business to go, that wasn't
possible, even two years ago.
You look at how ChatGPT came
out and okay, it's gone back
and forth and that's brilliant.
But then it's memory and, and all
those things like it's just forgotten
what it told me five minutes ago.
It's had to hallucinate.
But if you look now and you
just go find a data point and
find is that important to you?
Let's go look, see if we can
find it and feed that into your
intelligence for your business.
Raul: Yeah, and then from there, iterate.
It's creating that loop,
that self-improving loop,
then you're orchestrating it.
Ronan, I think there's a lot of
different angles that we can continue
the conversation with, and I think
we'll have you back to, to share
how, how you're growing from nine
to maybe 20 or 30 people, if you
decide to go that way, or nine people
and 50 agents running the business.
But between now and then, where's the
best place for people to, one, thank you
for being on and to learn more about you?
Ronan leonard: LinkedIn, they'll be in the
show notes and just check out our website.
We- we've grown so quickly.
It's, it's probably about
10 videos I wanna put up.
I just haven't, haven't had the time.
It's an excuse.
Just
Raul: Yeah,
Ronan leonard: been a
Raul: it's all good.
Ronan leonard: So we're, we're, we're
trying to share some of the things
that, that, that we are working
and seeing what's working for us.
It's just, it's happening so fast.
It's-- you put it up there and, and
then it's superseded in three months.
yeah LinkedIn or, or our
Raul: I will put the
links to the show notes.
Definitely try last 30 days and
then auto research so that yourâ¦
whatever you develop,
it just trains itself.
Ronan leonard: Nice.
Yeah.
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