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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
there's been a vibe shift in the
consulting and agency space in the
last couple of months, around the
last 18 to 24 months, and even in
the most recent months where budgets
have gotten a little stricter.
Clients are holding onto their wallets.
They're slower to sign.
Every dollar has to account for itself.
This is word on the street and anecdotal
data from talking to multiple people in
the field who service a lot of agencies.
And this isn't new.,
I think there's a lot of factors that
are playing into this, and I'm actually
seeing more bullish approaches now
in 2026, but I think the macro shift
and macro, a bigger shift is what I
discussed in the services stack where
AI is compressing services from the
bottom up and the only durable position.
To sell your services are at the top
of the stack where you're delivering
transformation, accountability,
and belief, not just deliverables.
I'll post a services stack somewhere
here in the, in the show notes and
how to price that using the new
value quadrant, two separate posts
and podcasts that you can listen to.
But what I want to talk about here
is if the services stack is the
thesis of what's happening, and the
new value quadrant is how do, how I
approach pricing in the agentic era.
But what I wanna do here is talk about
that vibe shift and how to approach it
practically, because in the services
stack, I give you pretty much a thesis,
a mental model of how to approach the
agentic era and how to sell services
in this new era that we're entering,
as well as the new model that replaces
the traditional agency and consulting
model and in the value quadrant.
I discuss four quadrants of
how you can start pricing and
selling in the agent to era.
Here in this podcast, I wanna dive in
specifically on the scope level, and it
comes from a conversation that I had on a
podcast with Taylor McMaster on her Happy
Clients podcast where we are entering,
or we've been in the post scope era.
So let's dive in.
So the old model, the old way
of scoping, was pretty clean.
There were simpler times.
You scope the work, you do the work.
Like you do good work.
You measure the work, you communicate
the value, you show the value,
and if the clients liked you,
then you would repeat the work.
You would do it over and over again.
And in short, if you delivered was the
scope of work, you kept the client.
If you just did everything that was
in that scope document, you were fine.
But that's not how it works anymore.
And I think we're sensing that,
or this industry is taking time
to adopt that mindset because I'm
calling this the post scope era.
Now, this doesn't mean scope creep.
Let's be very specific about this.
'cause I know you're probably
thinking in your mind, oh my gosh,
he's gonna tell me to do more.
So yes, but no.
So it's not scope creep because post scope
means that you actually have to match.
Business outcomes to the work that you
do and go beyond just the line items
of the things that you're delivering
because things naturally come up.
You can't scope everything that's
gonna happen in the engagement.
let's be real.
If you've been around and doing this
game long enough, there's the scope
and then the scope, the stuff that
always comes up that you would never
realize until you got into the account.
And so you like lifted the hood
and saw how the engine when you
start seeing under the hood.
Then you understand, okay, this is
completely different or a little
different, or somewhat what I expected.
Just depends on the client, depends on
your industry, depends on your offering,
depends on what your work you do.
But you can't just do the
scope of work anymore.
You have to assume responsibility for the
items that are peripheral, the items that
are related to the work that you're doing,
and match your expertise and insights.
On those items.
Now, not everyone can do this because
not everyone can be a strategic partner.
Everyone wants to be the strategic
partner or the strategic vendor.
But it's very few can actually do
it because the deliverables have to
produce tangible outcome that the
clients can see and feel and measure.
'cause if you can't see, feel, and
measure it, you're gonna try to
convince the world that it exists, but
it's gonna be, that's a harder sale.
So how does this look like?
So for example, if you do paid
ads, you're not just managing ads,
but you're just launching ads.
You're focusing on generating
qualified, not just leads, but
qualified leads that convert.
You're trying to provide insight
on the conversions, conversion rate
optimization you're trying to create
provide insight on the offer itself.
You might be listening to sales calls.
You might be supporting on making new
offers and new pricing or new packages,
like that's going beyond scope.
'cause traditionally it's like,
Hey, I'll just manage your stuff.
I'll launch these ads, I'll
have my media buyers do this.
And we're set that used.
I mean, that was back in the day.
that was, those were the easy days.
But you have to go further
up the value chain.
If you're delivering, or you're building
websites, you're not shipping webpages.
No one cares about getting a new webpage.
They might feel good and fancy
in the beginning, but you're
creating an actual experience
that drives business performance.
Cause a website is supposed to
be around a client experience.
And when you do that, how
do you leverage messaging?
How do you leverage positioning?
How do you leverage video or
imagery or suggesting on pricing
or suggesting on go to market?
So you have to go further
up the value chain.
The further you go up, the
better your outcomes will be.
And that's the post scope era,
not just what the scope of work
says, not what that document says.
And again, this is not for everyone
because The scope is not the value.
The business outcome is the value, and
you're showing you care by actually
caring, going outta your way to
provide more value, to tinker and
think, what else could we be doing?
What else is more valuable
to think like an owner?
And this is where a lot of
consultants and agencies do far apart.
Apart, is that their entire organization,
everything that you're set to
deliver is based on the proposal.
Your entire operations is
based on how to fulfill the
scope, not around the outcomes.
Now, I know you might be thinking, Raul,
you literally just described scope creep.
I get it, but that's 'cause you might
still be thinking in deliverables.
Let me ask you a really pivotal question.
How do you scope relationship seriously?
How do you scope relationship?
You can't put that on a document.
How do you scope strategic thinking,
proactive recommendations to your clients?
Like, Hey, I noticed this
thing, so we recommend this.
Or even further, how do you scope this?
Hey, we noticed this thing happened, so
our team built that thing and then we're
ready to actually deploy this thing next.
You can't just scope proactiveness
'cause you can't plan for
everything that's gonna happen.
So it's either gonna be you're in
response mode or you're in react mode.
Response means that you're
ready to be proactive.
Reacting is you're just reacting to the
environment, reacting to your clients.
And that puts you like
in a ping pong machine.
It's not fun.
So you might call this scope creep.
I call this, this is the new normal.
This is what it takes to win.
And right now most agencies and
consultants aren't playing in that zone.
It's because they're too busy doing
the work to step outside of, they're
too busy in the grind, too busy in
the wheel, and that's exactly how
you get up, how you get replaced.
That's not ideal.
So before you touch your offering,
I want you to read the room.
So I, I'll go through a framework
that I use with clients but I want
you give, to give you a macro picture.
To shape pretty much every decision
in how you make the offers.
Right now your clients are
buying one of two things.
They're usually buying these two things.
They're buying safety or
they're buying certainty.
So certainty is stronger than
confidence and safety is because they
wanna make sure that they're taking
the best action with the best res,
with the resources that they have.
And they don't wanna feel stupid.
I mean, this be real.
They've gotten burdens in the past.
A lot of other people have promised
great things and they couldn't
deliver the average fail rate.
I mean, it depends on the industry.
There is an average fail rate depending
on your industry and your offering.
But like dude, very few people care.
Very few people go above and beyond.
So they're, they're comparing you to
the average and the average sucks.
Okay.
So they, the major two emotions
that they're buying right now is, I
want to make sure that one, I don't.
Make a stupid decision.
Two, I make the best decision
with the resources that I have.
Or if they're limited resources,
I'm making the best decision with
the limited resources I have.
And number three, I wanna be certain
that the actions that I take are
gonna get me towards my goal.
So those are the major two emotions.
Some clients are right now
buying growth and expansion.
They're buying opportunity.
And that's, not every single client.
, And you know that probably if
your experience, you've been
in the game for long enough.
Most clients are not always
buying growth and expansion.
That's what they say that they want.
But really they're buying motivation and
their triggers are certainty and safety.
So that's just the nature
of the energy here.
That's the energy in client services.
They wanna feel smart.
By working with you and you have to
do right by delivering the goods.
Okay?
So if your offer, if what you're
currently offering screams risk when
your buyer is thinking survival.
Then you're gonna have
different conversations.
It's just not gonna match,
and you will lose the deal.
So your initial offer has to be in
alignment with what they actually
want and what they're thinking and
what they're going through right now.
So if the client wants safety, you
have to provide a way to reduce risk.
This doesn't always mean
money back guarantees.
That's like minor league thinking.
That's like the easiest thing to do,
but it doesn't always mean to do that.
If the client wants certainty,
then you have to show a path and
measurable outcomes of how working
with you provides the outcome.
If they want to count every
dollar, show them the math.
Now, this is an important note because
I, I'm doing this podcast, the masses,
not to you individually because
buyer psychology that I'm describing.
Isn't cookie cutter?
Okay?
So this is a really big macro idea
for you to think about and adopt it to
your offer, to your industry, to your
buyer type, to your personality, and
to the stakeholders that you sell to.
So you do have to customize this in
a way, but I'm just giving you like
archetypes to think about because
if your offer is misaligned, your
communicating different things.
So again, you might be
doing this right now.
You might not be doing this.
I have not seen a lot of people do this.
'cause a lot of the market
right now still screams.
We lead with our services.
For example, we do websites.
I see that a lot all the time.
We do a BM, we do custom dev work.
We do these things.
To be frank with you, nobody cares.
And I don't mean to be dismissive.
I actually mean that as the most
practical piece of advice I can give
you my first mentor that I've ever
had, and I don't even know if he would
call himself a mentor, but he built
the first billion dollar integrated
marketing agency in the world.
And Bernie, if you're listening
to this, you're a huge influence.
I appreciate you.
He would listen to every pitch, any
big idea, any fancy value prop, and
these were some good value props.
He would listen to them and
he would say, who cares?
Okay.
He didn't say this to be mean.
He's forcing you to go deeper.
So here I wanna force you to go deeper.
You deliver marketing services, who cares?
What's the bigger thing you're doing?
You deliver custom websites.
Who cares?
You do video work and you dev
develop custom like video podcasts.
Who cares?
You develop new AI workflows and
agentic work, and you do development
work, and you develop enterprise
ready Agent agentic workflows.
Who cares.
Again, it's not to really dive
into and be dismissive, but I
really want you to go deeper.
Who actually cares?
What's the bigger thing you're doing?
What's the mission?
Is there a center of gravity
of your point of view?
And this question, this is probably one
of the most important questions, is who
actually cares about the work that you do?
Who and when does your work
become important to them?
Because your offer is your positioning.
That's the biggest takeaway that I
want you to have from this podcast.
Your offer is your positioning.
So here's the framework that I use with
almost every single client, and you
know, it does change how you're going
to sell, how you're gonna deliver, how
you're going to operate, how you're going
to recruit, how you're going to lead.
And it's based off of this
premise, how we communicate is
the epitome of everything we do.
The most important communication
is the most important skill set
in this universe, in my opinion.
And we can dive more about that, like
just to go on a tangent, the first
thing that we did with AI was a chat
interface to communicate with it.
Just think about that.
Okay.
So tangent, here.
How you dress is also
a communication style.
How you make an offer is
a communication style.
What you offer is a communication style.
How you charge and what you
charge is a communication style.
Every single touch point from the
first DM to the final invoice.
Says something about who you
are, what you believe, and how
much you value the work you do.
So if you're sending like a 20 page
words document proposal with walls
of text, which I have seen, you're
communicating something, it might
be saying, Hey, I'm an order taker.
I'm here to do whatever you need.
Here's the list of everything I'll do.
That's o that's okay.
I wouldn't recommend that.
But that's a scope document, not like
working to be a strategic partner.
When you present maybe a
shorter document or just.
Ways to work with you maybe three
pages or less with clear options, clear
outcomes, clear paths to work together.
You might keep be communicating a
little different than if you were
just sending like a literal 20 page
word doc, When you communicate with
clarity, it's actually saying, here's
what I want us to achieve together.
Here's what I've done to
achieve this in the past so
that it aligns with your goals.
Here's how we can approach it
together, and here's the options
that we can work together with.
That's a different narrative.
It's a different conversation.
It's a different vibe between two parties.
The actual proposal itself, the
way you frame the engagement from
pricing, the number of tiers of how
to work with you, how you de-risk the
entry point, all communicate before
you even say a word in the call.
And based on what I've seen, most are
honestly not saying the right thing, or
you're not intending to say what you're
saying with your current proposal stack.
So I'll take it a step further.
How you price is also
a communications style.
There's a plethora of ways to price.
I wrote about that in
the new value quadrant.
Just those are four additional
options in the new age agentic era.
But when you undercharge, you're
not just leaving money on the table,
you're communicating that the worth
isn't, the work isn't worth more.
You might be attracting a buyer
who just shops on price and you
might be structurally limiting
yourself to deliver at the capacity
that your client actually needs.
And I'll share with you a story
about that a little bit later.
But when you revamp your offerings,
which is the first thing I do
with clients, like I always look
at their offer stack, how they're
communicating, how they're positioning.
It's not just to raise prices, it's
just the way, how do we communicate
the value of what we deliver, the value
of our work, our stance on our work
and on the market and the position,
and how do we price according to that?
And it sounds simple, but to be honest
with you, I've seen this change.
I mean, I can't like hype it up,
but this has made radical changes in
how you attract the right clients,
the conversations that you have and
how you attract the right talent.
And again, the services
typically stay the same.
we just communicate differently
and we have a new caliber of client
that you're able to work with.
And frankly, a different caliber of
team and talent that you can attract.
So an important note about this
framework that we're talking about here.
is that you don't just have to
change your proposal document
and how you work with the client.
You have to change the entire client
experience from how you run the
sales calls, to how you present in
your discovery, to how you onboard,
to how often do you meet the touch
points and how do you report.
Like all these micro touches
will either start saying, yo.
I'm a strategic partner,
I'm here with you.
Or, hey, I'm just here to do
the work that's on the scope.
Peace out.
It's up to you.
So what's your client experience
that you're communicating?
So I have a small confession to make that.
Early on when I started learning
about offers, like this was maybe
10 over 10 years ago I honestly
used to think that an offer was just
like, what you do and here's how
much it is for me to do what you do.
Okay.
So that's like basic thinking.
My, my ESL brain over there
English as second language.
So that's what I was first
learning about offers.
But after working with enough clients,
doing this myself, working with
clients in multiple verticals, and
me myself doing this for myself,
and then learning along the way, AKA
Allah feedback loops and making my own
mistakes, I've come to believe that
how you progress the relationship.
It is just as important
of what you're selling.
So I'll give you a a
real clear example here.
So one of my clients does development
work, like important development
work, and they're targeting mid-market
and some enterprise clients.
You don't just go up to these clients
and say, Hey, let me audit what
you're doing and let me just make
a proposal and we'll be on our way.
you don't do that.
The offer is in alignment with the
progression in the relationship we
want to have and the positioning.
So we start with education.
We're starting with lunch and learns, meet
the stakeholders, provide value, build a
relationship, earn the right to be in the
room so that that in itself is a sale.
From there, you earn the right for the
next sale, which is either a paid a
workshop or a paid discovery session.
And this is again.
A discovery engagement that's risk free.
It's not super high cost, but it
gets the stakeholders in the room and
then really dive deep into the, their
needs, what they're trying to achieve.
And you've earned the right to be there.
You didn't just pitch it, call like, Hey,
let me just run these workshops for you.
You earned the right to be there.
And then from there, selling a
productized offer with a risk reversal
for engaging the client in the
relationship to go even further to
figure out the actual true larger scope.
So there's multiple ways
that we can channel this.
'cause not every client, to be
honest with you, buyer's journeys
are not just a linear line.
So you're literally creating like
a, like a maze and you're giving
different options depending on
which, which path a client takes and
which path the relationship goes.
So when you craft that experience there,
they're making a small investment.
But they're also, you're also working
with them to de-risk the next stage.
Remember, they're buying certainty.
They're buying confidence.
Now, does this mean that you have
to be with a client and sell like
super small offers for six to
eight months until they say yes?
Maybe, but maybe not.
It's not to belabor.
Getting to the end goal, it's just you
have to craft the client experience in a
way that every stage builds upon itself,
and then every stage de-risks the next.
And then both parties are happy and
satisfied with the action that they
take, and the outcomes are in alignment.
That the outcomes of what you're
providing and what they wanna get
in their business or what they
want to solve are in alignment.
That's super important, and that's
part of the client experience.
So again, de-risking, crafting the
experience, making sure that each
stage builds onto the next one.
So we couldn't get to stage, for example,
three if we didn't build the foundations
for stage one and two, and then we
couldn't do the build on stage four
if we didn't actually do stage three.
So everything builds on top of each other
and the work that you have to do anyways
to get to stage four, for example, let's
say stage four is the actual full, the
full suite build, then you would still
have to naturally do stages one, two, and
three at any part of the relationship.
You're just taking that part of your
client experience, creating offers around
it, presenting it, and having them choose
their own journey and working with 'em to
build a relationship and the rapport earn
the right for the higher stakes, because
then if you do this right, there's trust.
And if we talked about this in the offer
stack, and we also talked about this
in the services stack, trust is the
number one thing that you have right
now around transformation, belief, and
building real rapport with another human
being that AI's not gonna take from you.
So that's one key thing to keep it.
So I want you to take that and
think about your client experience.
Are you de-risking the relationship
of working with you at different
stages of the client journey?
That doesn't mean you just have
to do money back guarantees.
That's not what de-risking means.
You just wanna give enough confidence
with your offer to make it easy
for them to take the next step.
And removing the friction of saying,
yes, there is a plethora of ways to
de-risk money back guarantees the
easiest and the simplest, but it's not
the only one because there's a plethora.
It would not be prudent from
just search it on Google.
But it really depends on your offering,
your personality, the actual risk
of the work that you're doing, the
type of work that you're doing, the
client that you're working with, the
industry that they're working with,
your price point, your business model,
and your growth trajectory goals.
Those are like nine different
factors I've had to de-risk an offer.
I can't give you all the opportunities
of how to do that, because it'd be
that that's literally like nine.
What is that nine?
Nine factorial.
And if I just do the math
here, that's like 362,880, 80
ways of de-risking an offer.
Okay?
So that's, that's, I'm not gonna
be able to do that in one podcast.
So just know that those, those
variables you have to take into
account to de-risk your offer.
So how you communicate again, your value.
The confidence in what you do is
encapsulated with your offering
and the client journey and how you
de-risk per stage and earn the right
to work deeper with your clients.
So, so like I promised earlier,
I have a quick story for you.
This is when pricing, like good
pricing can actually betray you.
So one of my clients manages an agency.
That agency is gonna be fired from a
plethora or a multiple of clients because
they, they honestly priced too low.
And that sounds kind of counterintuitive
because they made an offer.
They priced it low to win the deal.
It felt safe.
The client said yes, everyone was
quote unquote happy, but because they
priced it low and they're running the
traditional agency model, not the craft
model, and they're still using a lot
of labor to execute the work, they
couldn't hire the right labor to execute
the work because they couldn't, they
didn't price it high enough, right?
So they didn't price it high enough.
They couldn't contract the right
labor to execute the work at
the quality that they wanted.
The client is not getting
the quality that they need.
They're actually not getting
the outcomes, frankly.
The agency looks bad,
the client looks bad.
Like everyone's like unhappy because
the pricing wasn't on aligned.
So again, if you think that just competing
on pricing is the only way, just know
that there's multiple ways that you
can compete pricing being one of them.
But this is a real life story.
Like this is not too, too far out in
the distant past, like in recent last,
last 60 days of where bad pricing.
Can harm not only client
relationship, reputation, churn
rate, but also your next win win.
Like, that's like if you can't
fulfill on this pricing is not gonna
be the game for you to optimize in.
However, just know that they
were not running the craft model.
So if they were running the craft model,
could they have competed with that?
Probably.
But again, that's a different
story and that's an if scenario,
so I can never be sure about that.
But I just wanna give you an
example because the main point
is your pricing is a stance.
It communicates your value.
And when you underprice with
no clear strategy other than
being cheaper, you will be cut.
Like you will be cut multiple ways.
Either you'll be cut from the relationship
or you'll be cut because you can't
fulfill, or you'll be cut because
you're not making enough margin and you
don't wanna work on the account, like
multiple ways that you're gonna get cut.
And I talk about this
in the services stack.
And then how to price in the age agent
era using the new value quad or not link
those articles below in the show notes.
So, but I think we're returning to the
bespoke, so if you haven't read those
articles and there's pieces, here's a key,
a quick debrief that the future of client
services, of agencies, of consultants.
It's just getting back to the
bespoke, not being small for small
sake, but I think there's gonna be
a significant rise of just five,
10, maybe max 20 people agencies.
Where they would take the
place of traditional 50 to
a hundred people agencies.
That sounds ridiculous, but hear me out.
If they're leveraging agentic workflows
and agents to deliver work and customizing
their strategy and training agents to
support how they think, and then only
focusing on judgment, transformation
and belief with client relationships.
One person can literally 10 x work.
It's not an exaggeration.
That's literally the world
that we're living in.
And I wrote about that and if you
wanna dive more into that craft model,
head over to the services stack to
learn a little bit more about that.
But that model is the engine that's
fueling this post scope era playbook.
Because we are in the post scope era, you
have to do more, you have to be able to
deliver a higher value of the value chain.
And if you're still focused on the work.
And your margins and your investment
and your time is being sucked down.
Just delivering the work, not
leveraging agents and workflows
to help you offset that work.
That you will never get the opportunity
to think, to breathe, to strategize,
to have more creative juices going.
All right, so that's one of the
key things that the return of the
bespoke, so you don't have to have
20 or a hundred or 50 clients.
You can just focus on a small
portfolio of really solid clients
you have deep relationships with.
So I wanna close this podcast
by going back to a simple
premise that I wrote eons ago.
This at this time is that
belief is your differentiator.
What you believe to be true
about the work that you do, about
how you leverage technology.
About the human aspect
of what you deliver.
It's not gonna close the deal by itself.
Like belief isn't gonna close a deal, but
it is going to help you with the stronger
offer, communicate the work that you do,
and align with the right kind of clients
that you wanna work with, attract the
right kind of talent that you work with
and how you're going to lead that talent.
And this is going beyond just
like brand values and how
you're executing those values.
This is you living and breathing your
own ethos and communicating that in
every single touch point of what you do.
So I think the key thing
is what do you believe in?
Because your clients want to know.
They wanna know where you stand.
What do you believe about your work?
Do you and your clients
align on your beliefs?
They also wanna know,
where's the energy here?
Who are you, what kind of energy
you're bringing to the table?
What's the center of gravity
of your point of view?
Actually, one of my clients like literally
wins deals and attracts new clients
or new opportunities because of the
energy and how they show up in the room.
It's contagious.
So how are you showing up?
What's your point of view?
What's the center of gravity
that you're building?
Because your content, your offers, your
pricing, your mission, they all say,
they all have to say the same thing.
And then right now they're
saying something, but are
they saying the same thing?
And remember, Your offer
is your positioning.
Every proposal, every price
point, every touch point,
every single client experience.
From the first DM to the first
invoice, to the first onboarding call
is all one message and coherence.
Everything in alignment is
actually rare and incoherence.
It's not that it's not rare,
it's actually replaceable.
And both are a choice.
You can choose to be coherent
in alignment with what you do
and what you offer and how you
position, or it could be incoherent.
Both are a choice.
Now, if you want to go deeper on
how the post scope affects your
specific situation, reach out to me.
And if you like this podcast and
you like this content it is said,
this is a stat that I heard.
That the average person like you and me
affects 10,000 people in their lifetime.
So if you found this useful
in any way, shape, or form,
share it with someone else.
You never know how you might be a
positive influence in their life.
And if someone did share this
with you, consider subscribing.
We have here on podcast as well
as Substack where you can listen.
We have to the same podcast and
get the articles directly to you.
And if this is your first time meeting me.
Hi, my name is Raul.
I'm here in San Diego and I help services
founders redesign how you price, sell,
and operate in the AgTech AI era.
And if you're ready to talk about the next
version of your firm, either your agency
or consultancy, reach out@dogoodwork.io.
That's Do Good work.io.
And until next time, do good work.