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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
Recently my son is learning about money.
He's about four years old and he's super
curious about just seeing the greenbacks
and being able to see how we transact
money, what it's used for, how it feels,
what it looks like, and he has no clue,
zero context about how money is made.
So we were at a festival here in San
Diego, and we were about to purchase,
you know, just a meal together.
And my, my son wanted to see
the money and I asked him.
Son, do you know how money is made?
And in the past, you would say that
you have to earn your money, you
have to work hard for your money.
And I know what that feels like and I know
what that is, and you probably do too.
And we've shifted now that you
have to create, create value and
exchange that for monetary goods.
And when I share that to my son that all
you have to do is become an inventor,
a creator, and create something that is
valuable enough for someone else when
you create that thing for someone else.
That in itself is the value and
you can exchange that for money.
And he doesn't have any context
about value creation or how
money is made or money itself.
I taught him that and he just accepted
it because he didn't have to unlearn
a mental model that we were , brought
up that we are tied to our labor
and that's the new paradigm
that I wanna share here.
That you create value and you
exchange that value in the marketplace
and you get rewarded for it.
Now, this might sound esoteric, but I
actually think this is one of the highest
callings that we have in our work to focus
on being co-creators since we are created
beings, being co-creators in creating
new ways to help other humans flourish.
And I think that's one of the
most beautiful things around work.
And that is a choice, and that's
something that we have presented
here now with all the opportunities
that we have in the ENT era.
So the old question was.
We have to work for our money.
And the old answer was, yes, you have to
trade hours, you have to trade whatever
services, work hard for it, and you
get rewarded for it, but not anymore.
Now it's mostly focused, and we've
seen this before, the AI economy.
Value creation is the main
center focal point that I wanna
emphasize this podcast on.
Because now we have new tools at our
disposals for us to not only create
new value or recreate value with less
effort, but now we have the opportunity
to find ways to create net new value,
which is what I wanna dive into today.
So recently one of my LinkedIn posts
went viral, and it's kind of weird that
this one specifically went viral, but
I was essentially answering one of Mark
Cuban's posts where he was mentioning
that with the costs right now to run
agentic workforces to replace your current
team, some of those costs because you
might be running multiple agents and the
most expensive models could be more than
like twice or triple your current like.
Overhead expenses for your team.
And the argument was like, well, if
the investment cost to replace your
workforce isn't there, doesn't make sense
to replace, and I get it, but if we're
looking at just pure replacement, then
maybe it doesn't make sense to run agents
for you and for your team to execute.
But this is a big rebuttal that I
had and probably why it went viral.
Replacement it's not the answer
that you wanna be looking for.
It's about finding the net new
efficiencies that you couldn't
otherwise have and find opportunities
to increase value for your end clients
and creatively price that or creatively.
Bake that into your business
model so that you can increase
lifetime value, stickiness rate,
maybe creative pricing, and keep a
client satisfied for longer time.
And the nice thing is these models are
gonna get cheaper and cheaper over time.
So the worst, it's the most expensive
than it is today, and it's the worst
that it'll ever be today, which means
that it's only gonna get better and
it's only gonna get cheaper now.
In my opinion, the bigger opportunity,
again, it's not just about replacement
and using AI agents to be able to, you
know, do the work that you currently do.
I think that's level one thinking.
Level two thinking is looking at
what are the, what am I able now
to do that I couldn't do otherwise?
And because of that, how do I ensure that
I can help more people or help my client
go further with this new opportunity?
And this is where net new value is found.
So let's define our terms.
What is net new value?
. It's the ability to do things that you
previously couldn't do because A, either
didn't exist in your business, or B, you
didn't have the capacity to do so on.
B, like not having the capacity.
It doesn't mean that you weren't smart
enough or you don't have the capabilities,
you were just stuck in execution or
having your time being drained by other.
Focal points that weren't as high
value as you finding opportunity
and creating that new value.
'cause you probably have
a lot of brilliant ideas.
You probably have a lot
of ways to innovate.
You just never had the bandwidth or
the breathing space to act on those.
And now you do.
Even one of my clients literally told
me, I think this week or last week, that
they needed to get outta the execution
layer, and that was by bringing in
staff members and creating efficiencies.
Of course, it's not just purely
an AI play, but getting out of
the execution layer because that.
Them to increase their strategic brain,
how they think about their clients and
the value that's delivered to the clients.
And frankly, that's what
clients are wanting.
They're wanting those spark those
ideas, that strategy, that insight
that they couldn't get with another if
they just hired another team member.
So being able to get yourself out of the
day to day is level one, but second is to.
R do r and d.
Figure out new ways to add new value
in your existing processes to existing
clients or new opportunities that weren't
there before because you didn't see them
or they weren't created in your business.
And I wanna make a key distinction here.
Net new value isn't about
doing the same work faster.
That's efficiency.
It's about creating something new, viable
that wasn't there, and either a new
offering or help your clients go further
in a new way that you couldn't do before.
It's about unlocking a capacity
from execution and deploying
that capacity into creation.
And I wanna repeat that 'cause
it might sound like it's like
judo, like verbal judo here.
But you wanna unlock the capacity from
execution, just focusing on execution and
deploying that new capacity into creation.
And I'm going back to what I told
my son, money is made by creating
something valuable for someone else.
AI doesn't change that principle and
value is in the eye of the beholder.
AI just gives you the capacity to
reach and help clients go further in
ways they couldn't otherwise be for.
And this is a callback to the classic
business principles of getting
yourself out of the day to day if
you're stuck in 80% of the weeds.
Flipping that to being a free time
or new value creation time 80% of
the time and again, to create new
products, new services, new ways of
solving things for your clients that
you couldn't literally do before
because you didn't have the bandwidth.
To build for them.
Like, I'll give you a real
example, and this may not be
like the most brilliant example.
That's just something that I'm personally
doing and I had an agent work for me,
like an agent, an AI agent, produce
quality outputs for me, and it was
thinking and actually doing the work
for me in about 30 minutes time.
I'm not outsourcing my thinking.
I'm just able to condense time and get
to value quicker and have the agent
leverage all the capacity, all the skill
sets and all the learnings that I have.
Through just literally dumping my
brain, but then also giving it all
my writings and IP and strategies to
be able to help me increase capacity,
but also help clients get a 10000%
better output than if it was just
me by myself, toiling for hours.
And that's just one simple example.
I know I'm not alone.
And it's not just about building new time
in my calendar, it's to allow me to solve
new problems of what my client will need
eventually, and being able to meet them
in those needs and help them go further
. Now in, in this next point, I don't
mean to be blunt, but if you can't
point to something specific that you're
building, delivering, or offer offering
to your client that didn't exist before
you deployed AgTech workflows, you're
still thinking in replacement mode.
And replacement mode looks at
the math of inputs and outputs.
Can I do things faster,
cheaper, more efficiency?
Efficiency is great.
This is beyond just being efficient.
This is about helping clients go further
and enabling you to pretty much create
superpowers in the value that you create.
And for me, it isn't about
compressing time and replacing
my time for client work.
It's enabling me to focus on what my
premium clients actually care about,
which is strategic thinking, the
relationships that we build, and helping
them build the actual transformations
in their business and in their mindset
that they couldn't otherwise do.
And in doing so, I'm able
to build new offerings.
I'm able to go deeper and much deeper
in the client relationship and help
them support at even higher levels
that I couldn't otherwise do before.
And that agencies in the past, literal
agencies in the past, which charge like
five KA month just to do some of the
work that my agents are able to do now.
Let me share with you another story.
I was on a call with a friend of mine
and a founder, and he's starting with the
agency of the future, pretty much a firm
of the future where his in his ratio,
about 70% of the decline deliverables.
Is age agentic work 70%.
While the last 30% is a white glove
human touch, they're able to do this
because their positioning is too high-end
and elite clientele, meaning that the
human touch is necessary for that.
It's part of their positioning.
If their positioning was not high-end
clientele, that'll probably 99%.
Like Agent Agentic delivery and
they would be doing a volume play.
They're not doing a volume play.
They're charging strong margins, but
they're also leveraging the technology
to build a unified client experience
and also help their clients, which is
a crossover of luxury clients to not
have to think, just to have everything
done for them, which is creates that
customer journey, that client journey.
And I just want to remind you,
they're not replacing the human touch.
They're not replacing judgment, they're
not replacing taste, and they're not
replacing that interaction with a human
again because of their positioning.
And this goes back to your business model,
and this goes back to your strategy.
Once you start thinking
about net new value creation.
How is your positioning in alignment
with the services that you deliver
in alignment with the value that you
create, in alignment with how you wanna
mix Agentic work with human touch.
Now, if you're still with me, I do want
to bring it down to earth and give you
a practical, like how do you find your
net new value in a simple starting guide?
So here's how I walk my clients
through, and this is the work that
I do internally for myself too.
But when I work with new clients,
I always focus on their offer.
And I know this sounds strange,
but your offer dictates everything.
It'll dictate your positioning,
it'll dictate your operations.
It'll dictate your profitability, your
business model, your strategy, and it'll
dictate the markets that you go after.
Your offer is literally everything
in your business right now.
So I would start there when you're
looking at creating that new value.
What are you currently solving for?
I want you to ask yourself that.
What is the key thing that you're solving
for, not the three or five things?
What is the number one
thing you're solving for?
For example, if you're selling
services or consulting, you're
saying like, oh, we do marketing.
Oh, we do consulting.
Oh, we sell websites.
That's not the thing you're solving for.
The key thing is what is
the outcome you're actually
helping your clients achieve?
Now, once you identify that you want
to tie that to the execution to deliver
those outcomes, what takes the most
manual effort, that's the first place that
obviously you can deploy agentic support.
But once you deploy agents, you have
some breathing room, and this is
where your net new value work begins.
Now that you have the capacity to
focus on higher level thinking, what
do you think your clients will need
once you solve their initial problems?
And you wanna start looking at avenues
that you can currently take on,
and even avenues that you couldn't
take on, like peripheral avenues
that you couldn't do before because
you didn't have the capacity or the
team or the staff to execute on it.
Let me give you an analogous example.
So in my time in learnings managing
millions in direct response ad spend
for small business owners, so ad spend
for small business owners who needed
to make a return on their money.
This was not just like brand ad spent.
This was like they needed to
make a return on their money.
One of the key strategies was
to look at creating upsells or
one-time offers and downsells.
And the key thing that I learned
about an upsell is that it is
not a manufactured process.
The key thing that makes the best upsells
tick, and people take action on that is
in their mind when a buyer is looking
to make a decision, once they make a
purchasing decision to move forward, even
though you haven't solved that problem,
in their mind, that loop is closed.
This is really important because once
that loop is closed, then they can start
thinking about, okay, I solved that issue.
I took an action to solve
my current problems.
What's the next set of
problems that I need?
And that's where their mind starts
spinning of what other loops now
become open and the best upsell
closes that loop for them naturally.
I want you to use that analogous example
to think about your net new value creation
with your services and your consulting.
When you help clients solve a problem,
what is the next problem that they're
going to face eventually, and how
can you proactively build towards
that or actually help them go there
the inverse is also true.
A client cannot think about.
The backend offering or the next
solution that you have for them if
you don't help them actually solve
the initial solution up front.
So you have to make sure that
you meet them where they're at.
You have to make sure that you help solve
where they're at, but also your solutions
to lead them towards here's the next
natural problem that you might surface.
Here's how we can support
you as a matter of fact.
Here's how we already deployed a few
workflows to help solve for that.
And we're actually packaging all upfront
so that we can support you even further.
Now, that is extremely valuable if
you're proactive in thinking like an
owner and how you can help them go
further and it's already done for them,
and they don't even have to think.
That is premium pricing.
That is superiorly high value,
and that is something that very
few people I see are doing.
So to recap, the next best offer
you create solves a new problem
that your client is going to face.
And the goal with this is to,
again, not sell your products or
services, is to go beyond the product
or service that you're selling.
You wanna sell the end state.
You wanna sell that relationship.
You wanna get them the goal accomplished
as quickly as you can, as efficiently
as you can, And in my opinion, these are
the consulting and agency companies that
are going to win, the ones that can find
ways to go up the value chain, deepen
the relationship, increase your client's
likelihood of success, and actually
help them achieve that end outcome.
And you marry your domain
expertise to the principles that
will always exist in business.
If you help a client achieve more
margin, more revenue, more donors,
more retention, more lifetime value.
Cut cost.
You have a model for net new value
and a layer for value creation.
Cut.
So to close, I'm gonna urge you
to be a creator and an inventor.
Going back to my son's earlier
example, like my son doesn't know
anything about agentic workflows.
He doesn't know anything about
like net new valley creation.
He doesn't care about any of those things
or the arguments that we're having online.
What he does know though, and I think
this is a key principle that we can all
take away is that if you create something
valuable and you exchange it for award.
That is the economy that we're
gonna continue to grow into.
Now focusing on how hard you worked
or the hours that you took to execute
something, there's still merit in that.
But the real merit is how do you
create something more valuable
and solve for the right problems
to help your clients go further?
Because if you're like most agencies
and consultants, you're not struggling
because you lack good ideas.
You currently lack capacity or
ways to reinvigorate your energy
towards ingenuity and innovation.
So again, leverage this technology to
give yourself capacity, but also to create
net new value that wasn't there before.
And I urge you, tinker, play around,
create new, create new things.
Just do it for the, the sake of creation.
That's the beauty of this thing.
Like you can actually create and have fun
creating and you become wildly addicting.
May not be good for overwork that way,
but it's really fun to create new ways
of solving problems for your clients.
And once you do that, you'll be able
to help your clients go further, enjoy
more profits, have those margins,
and be able to redistribute that
with your team, your family, and have
your family and community thrive.
So build for building's
sake, have fun and doing so.
And when you create net new value,
focus on the human dignity at
the center and how you're helping
others go further and accelerate.
Leverage the tools
beyond just replacement.
Again, replacement is level zero thinking.
I want you to go beyond that
and as you create something
valuable, exchange for it in the
marketplace and get rewarded for it.
Now after listening to this and you're
curious about how you can create
net new value, or you've already
created net new value and you need
support on how you repackage this,
how you price this, reach out to me.
These are things that I absolutely
love talking about and I work with my
clients day in and day out with, and
I'd love to see how I can support you.