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CJ & The Duke decide to just hit the record button and run with it. This jam session covered the following:
Iterative Development
Recombination & Innovation
Perils of Context Switching
Pursuing the Unicorn Project
Offshoring and International Consulting
Pricing Your Work
Authentic, Authoritative, Unapologetic ServiceNow commentary by Cory "CJ" Wesley and Robert "The Duke" Fedoruk
Duke: Hey everyone.
Welcome to another episode
of CJ and the Duke.
As always, I am a co-host
Robert the Duke Fedor.
And I am Corey, CJ Wesley.
This episode is brought
to you by Clear Sky.
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can be a real nightmare for risk
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with decades worth of I L M and I g A
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CJ: What the goes on here?
Duke: We're keeping that one in yeah,
so for those of you just joining us,
Corey and I have been here for an hour,
scratching our heads, trying to figure
out what episode we're gonna do today.
Not, not to say we're not prepared.
We have a huge library, a
potential episodes, but we just
didn't feel like we didn't have
enough gas in the tank on all on.
CJ: Yeah, man.
You know, sometimes it's a
thing that calls you, right?
Like you go through these things
and something's, calls out to you.
You feel something in
your soul about it, right?
And, and, and we, and we jump in on it and
we, and we, you know, knock out like some
bullet points and then we proceed to start
recording and ignoring all the bullet.
Points and . and you know, this time,
like we went through our extensive backlog
of, you know, I love backlog, right?
Like, we're gonna talk about this, like
we're doing stories in agile development.
Yeah.
We went through our backlog and
none of this stuff really just,
called out to either of us.
And so here we are now, just kind
of, uh, we're shooting really
Duke: There we go.
Yeah.
So, um, what do you struggle
with this week, bud?
CJ: testing actually,
testing and documentation.
were on the agenda for this week and.
You know, neither one of those are
typically a struggle to this week
though, they were a struggle, and
maybe it was, maybe they were a
struggle because I just kind of hit
my flow state on the theme that I was
building last week and which led to me
completing it, which was great, right?
, but it was, but I felt like I had a little
bit of flow state left over and I had,
I didn't have anything to use it on.
and so now when it comes to like testing
and, writing a documentation like that
doesn't really, for me anyway, doesn't
really require or utilize Flow state.
, for like documentation.
I do other kinds of writing that
I do need the, flow state for, but
those sorts of things are a little
bit more, , they're a little less, I
don't know where you want to call it.
Right.
But in the zone.
Yeah.
They're a little less in
the zone when I do it.
Right.
So it's just been a little
bit of a struggle to get
through that stuff this week.
What about you?
Duke: I can totally riff on that actually.
I relearned another important lesson.
You know, those lessons that you just like
relearn every, two years for 10 years,
CJ: Yeah, absolutely.
Right.
One of those things that you say I,
I'm never going to make this mistake
again, and then you proceed to.
Duke: Or it's not just a mistake.
It's just a truth.
Right.
And I'm developing an, gosh, I'm
developing several custom apps right
now, but one app in particular is it's
kind of a mutation of something that
they do very primitive, but it's like,
what would level three of this look like?
And so we're basically going all, all in.
Functionality ServiceNow
doesn't normally do.
, they don't have the funds to get
stuff that actually does this,
so we're doing it in ServiceNow.
It's a lot of fun.
But what I'm relearning is that
when you do something like that,
it's so, so difficult to get the
full picture of what the thing
is gonna be without having tests.
CJ: Okay.
Duke: You know what I mean?
And I guess, I guess it's just iterative
development, agile development,
whatever you want to call it.
But look at this thing in the beginning,
you're like, this is like a four week job.
And it's just like a long time later,
you're still like adding new stuff and
stuff that is quote unquote simple,
just pops out as being missing.
Like, how could we forget that?
Well it's, it's like a brand new thing.
how should we have remembered that
CJ: Right.
Duke: that's what I'm kind of relearning
is that the newer and more novel, the
thing that you're putting on ServiceNow,
the more absolutely critical it is to just
have jam sessions with your stakeholders
and just like, how do you feel about this?
CJ: I mean, that's a
really good point, right?
when you're doing that iterative
development, the sooner you
can get stuff in front of your
stakeholders and have them tell
you yay or nay, essentially, right?
Like the better.
Off the project is like, developing
inside of a vacuum is never a good idea.
You gotta, you gotta let that thing get
in the hands of the client, let somebody
deal with it and somebody bust through
the vacuum Of, of your own preconceptions.
Duke: And like literally
nobody's used this before,
CJ: Yeah.
Duke: right?
So it's like, how do you even know at
the start, did we even ask all the right
questions to get the fullness of this app?
And it's not like we're developing
like Angry Birds or something on the
mobile phone where it's like it does
one thing exquisitely, no, everything in
ServiceNow does like, five to 10 things.
how do you even know you've.
The fullness defined.
CJ: So, uh, James Altucher has this,
, concept he calls idea sex, right?
And it's basically when you got two
different or multiple different ideas
that exists separately, and you combine
them on some sort of intersectionality
and that, and the intersection of those
ideas form something great, right?
So I look at this, what you're,
what we're talking about here.
From the perspective of you got this
process and you have this technology, and
now we combine them and they're, and in,
in certain circumstances, like Nirvana
happens with that combination, right?
And you and the folks who are now
looking at the product and understanding
the product more and understanding
their process and understanding
now the technology more start.
All of these huge ideas about what
can be done and what should be done.
And so maybe you had all of this ironed
out and buttoned up before you guys
started, but now they know right.
Click everything and it changed the
world and so I, that, that's how
I look at something like this too.
Well, in terms of like making sure that
you get your code, your product, your app
in front of your, customer, as soon as.
Duke: Man, that idea sex thing I
did at Knowledge 15, I did a present
presentation on innovation is Not
Alchemy, and one of the things I
talked about is having a repository
to, to put all of your ideas in, right?
Or concepts you wanna research,
and then after that, like regularly
recombine all of those things.
CJ: Right.
Duke: And I remember at the time it
was, Michael SL Robotnik, you remember?
CJ: I do
Duke: Actually not past tense.
The guy's still around, but I remember at
CJ: one out for Michael.
Duke: Hey, Michael's back.
We can pour another one
to celebrate Uh, good.
All right.
Cheers to Michael.
he came from a customer and they had,
basically, it was just at the point
where I'm thinking like, what could Xbox
achievements combined with ServiceNow?
Does anything useful come outta that and
then sure enough, a day later, Michael
Snicks, like doing this case study where
they gamified their IT support and they
had points and badges and levels and
stuff for your contributions it, or
like revolutionized their help desk,
CJ: kick
Duke: was really cool because with these
stuffy corporate attitudes and aesthetics
and frameworks, like who would've.
To even say, Hey, what can, video
gaming teach us about our performance?
CJ: Yeah.
Duke: would've been laughed out of
the room until somebody actually has
the guts to do that recombination.
CJ: Which, you know, in hindsight
seems pretty obvious because when
you think about it, like how many
casinos are there in the world, right?
Like there are a ton of them.
And people love gambling, right?
And people love playing,
and that's gaming.
it's called the gaming industry.
Like how many, gaming consoles has, you
know, Microsoft, Sony, uh, Nintendo sold
over the past like 30, 40 years, right?
Atari, all of them, right?
So many games, right?
like these things sell.
by the boatload for a reason.
And you know, ignoring them, I
think society, has made a huge
mistake in ignoring gaming as
like a kids sing for far too long.
Duke: it's what keeps us
glued to our iPhones, right?
CJ: Yeah, exactly.
It's the same mechanism.
Social media too.
Duke: somebody's using that to ex,
you know, to exploit your attention.
So,
CJ: Oh man, absolutely.
I just read a great book on this.
I will figure it out.
We can put it in the
show, in the show notes.
, but it was about habit and
oh, the Power of Habit by, uh,
char Charles, uh, duh, hick.
So I wrote for the, , New York Times.
, it talks about like why we do what
we do and how to change those things
that we do with, that we're doing
without, no, without thinking.
Right.
Like it's, oh, it's a phenomenal book.
And once you read it and understand
like what's driving you, you know,
you can kind of use that to, to build
better habits and get more productive.
Awesome.
But we should put it in show notes.
Duke: For sure you got a link to it.
CJ: Yep.
Absolutely.
So what about you, duke?
Duke: Um, this week, I guess it's
less about ServiceNow specifically and
more about, personal performance and,
CJ: Okay.
Duke: and how context switching
is just the ruin of performance
CJ: Yeah, go on
Duke: And I kind of got into
one of those things, right?
Where it's, it's the big thing about
being an independent consultant, right?
It's like things don't slot in
40 hour intervals really nicely.
And so I'm in the process of like
wrapping some up and ramping some on,
and on paper it's just like I have to
do x number of things in a day, right?
But if the X things are from completely.
Ends of the spectrum, it's way
heavier than just four things.
Does that make sense?
CJ: It.
Yes, absolutely.
Duke: Like if I work for customer X
and I have 1, 2, 3, 4 things to do, or
I have four customers and one things
to do for each, the one to do for each
of the cust that like, that's second
scenario I'd say is more than double the
amount of like mental fuel to manage.
That make sense?
CJ: It absolutely does.
Right?
Because you're now in this context, right?
Of this dealing with this one customer.
And you might have five things,
but you can peel 'em off
because there is a next right?
The, it's the power of next.
Right?
And maybe I should coin this,
but somebody probably smarter
than me probably already has.
But what I've noticed too, and I, I,
you know, I, I've mentioned before
on I show I have d h, D, right?
And so one of the things.
For me, it's like the power of next is
something that I try to weaponize is by
having a stack of readily available tasks
that I can draw upon in the context that
I'm in and which will keep me going.
But if that stack is empty, right, if
there's nothing to draw on and that
next queue, that's when I find myself
spacing and finding it hard to go
to the next task, whatever, and even
decide what the next task is, right?
Or know what that is.
and you know, and it sounds a lot
like what you're talking about now.
Sorry, I didn't mean I jumped in there.
I kind of , you know, but, you know, it
resonates really, really hard with me.
Really, uh, really strongly with me
because, that whole context shifting
thing for me is, is really, one things
that sa SAPs a lot of my, productivity.
Duke: Yeah, I just, I'm gonna
be just like commit to being way
more careful about it this year.
. And this is just a lesson too, because
this week, like three or four people
have asked me to like, Hey, connect
me with recruiters cuz I'm really
interested in, hyper flexible part-time
work that I could do after hours.
CJ: Okay guys.
Duke: And it's just like, but it isn't Or
at least like, I don't know if I, if I'm
the one of the blind spot here, but I'm
just like, do those even really exist?
Those, feel like unicorns.
CJ: So I, you know, I feel
like they should exist.
I think that they don't exist
because people are still kind
of glued even in 2023, right?
People are still glued a little
bit to the boots in the seat
kind of methodology, right?
and not, and even if boots in this.
Seat is, seat is now in your home office.
People are still glued to nine
to five business hours, right?
Where you should be available during
the conventional time when business
is done, except that what we do in a
lot of cases can be flexed outside of
conventional business hours, right?
So if you have somebody who's working
a day job and instead of them starting
a side project, would just like to take
up some additional ServiceNow work, to
me, that makes a whole lot of sense.
But I.
Find that, and I have found this too,
from just talking to potential clients and
existing clients over the years is really
difficult to make that work in practice.
Duke: Yeah.
And the more I struggle with things
like my own context switching fatigue,
the more I, the more it underscores
my idea that these unicorn, I'm not
saying they don't exist, I'm just
saying they are, they're unicorns.
They're, they're super rare.
CJ: Right.
Duke: it's just because, If they could
see you at the time of day you choose to
work, would they want to pay the money?
Right.
So I just finished an eight hour day at
my day job and then, I got dinner ready.
I helped the kids with their homework,
took a breath, family time, got my
kids tucked in, and it's 8:39 PM.
And am I like rough and ready to go
and do some like real significant
troubleshooting or are we like
being real here, maybe being a bit
antagonistic or am I just trying to
monetize my least valuable hours?
my very, very least monitor,
you know what I mean?
CJ: I do.
I do, but I think it.
Duke: and if the, and if the work could
be, at that time with that, after the,
you know, in that time by somebody whose
mind has already gone through a full day's
worth of cognitive work, why wouldn't
they just ship that offshore immediately?
CJ: What I say is because everybody's
different, I'm an early bird,
I'm up at four o'clock in the
morning in the wintertime, right?
And, the work that I do from four
to seven, it's just as valuable as
if I had done it from 10 to one,
and yet it ain't, you know, and it
got done and the client is happy.
, So I, I'd say that, if you can manage
to deliver quality work by doing it in
unconventional times of the day, then I
think, there should be a market for that.
But the hack that I'm thinking that
probably exists is maybe folks should
be looking to consider themselves
offshore to other countries, right?
We're working hours are dovetailing
with those, , late night
hours or early morning hours.
, right?
Like maybe you need a European client.
where you can then, you know, at 10
o'clock at night, maybe you're now,
and forgive me on the time zones, I
don't feel like doing the middle maths.
I'm figuring out what times people are
open, but you know what I mean, right?
so in AsiaPac, right, like three
o'clock in the afternoon, it's
typically about the time that they're
starting to get up and get online.
So like 7, 8, 9 in the evening, if
you're doing work there, you're still
in the middle of their business day.
Right.
And so if you're doing work for an
Asia Pac company, maybe that's how you
align that, those few hours of, off
cycle time that you want to monetize,
Duke: I'm glad we did this jam session
thing because I think we can riff on this
one seriously, and I'll play the bad guy
CJ: go for it.
Duke: Uh, Because this, like, this
actually scratches a lot of the
questions that I get asked, right?
So number one is, can you connect me
with jobs where I can basically sign
in whenever I want, do as much hours as
I want, whenever you know what I mean?
The, the unicorn customers.
And I don't, I don't believe
that those exist at scale.
And I think it's a bad idea, even in
your case where it's like, okay, you
get up at six, but now you're given,
or whatever, you start work at six.
Five to seven, you get
CJ: Yeah.
Duke: two solid hours of, but
those are your best times.
So you're taking it from somewhere.
That means another one of your
accounts gets your ass hours.
CJ: Okay.
That's a, that's an interesting
Duke: what I mean?
It's like, okay, you, you put 'em in the
morning, but I just go on this principle.
Like you, you have some amount
of cognitive load in a day.
that's your maximum cognitive load.
Never.
And , at a specific point, say it's six
hours, eight hours, whatever, four hours,
maybe even, all other work diminishes
after that if you're doing cognitive work.
And why shouldn't we believe that?
lumberjacks only have a certain amount
of time, they can strain their body
doing lumberjack works, oil rig workers.
Our brains are no different than that.
you can't flex that muscle all day long.
CJ: Right.
Duke: And so let's say there's
leftover hours somewhere, who are
you given the leftover hours to?
CJ: Yeah.
I'm
Duke: And there's another
point you just made too.
It was like, Oh, the
internationalness, right?
Like, oh, I'll just get a
customer somewhere else.
Because a lot of people wanna just
say, I wanna live over here and
I wanna do contract work and bill
US rates to us customers, but I
wanna live in like wherever, right?
Cheapest cost of living
in the entire world.
you can't just do.
CJ: Why not?
Duke: Well, because it's the same
as working for like, I, think the
companies that want to, the companies
that want to offshore, right?
There's no question
companies want to offshore.
Um, but when they do it, they don't
say, oh, find five a hundred, find a
hundred independent people for us to,
connect with and build contracts with.
No, they pick one like
vendor of offshore resources.
Then it's basically like one
interaction they have to.
Your people aren't doing
good enough, great.
We'll add five more or we'll
crack the whip harder or whatever.
And so, but they don't go and say,
find me one person to do this.
I just don't think they think like that.
CJ: yes, I could probably agree with you
that I don't think they think like that,
but I wouldn't, wouldn't you think they'd
have a much better experience if they did?
, when you think about like, and, and
I, and I'm speaking from, from the
entirety of the IT experience, right?
Because not just, you know, all shoring
from the ServiceNow perspective,
but I, you know, general IT as
well, and I've been, I've been in
situations where, you know, a all
shoring company has been brought in
and the quality is often different.
even when we, um, when I've seen like
some of the better offshoring companies
get brought in, , you know, there's,
there's still like a difference between,
you know, your permanent folks and
the ssha folks, or a communications
barrier sometimes, or, you know, other,
other things that contribute to a, a
less than baseline experience of the
people that you might be replacing.
and so in those situations, right?
why do you need to actually why
continue to throw the throw?
Why continue to follow the same existing
paradigm that's not working and why can't
I see, and I I think this way because
I'm independent consultant, right?
And, my, what I'm selling is value, right?
I, I'm not selling hours.
You know, like that's how I get paid.
Duke: Yeah, I'm, I think you're
a different cat though, right?
Like you, you've reached a certain
point in your career where you can't
pitch it that way, but even so, okay.
CJ: Okay.
Duke: like the companies
that can afford ServiceNow on
average are larger companies.
We can agree on this, right?
Okay.
And like when you decide, like let's say
the ServiceNow owner is really open and
says, I need to do X, and there's one
person that's all the way across the,
the world in this other country, and I
want to pick them to get this stuff done.
Okay, so now you're at like a
Fortune 500, fortune 100 company
and, and they're like, okay, do they
just, they don't mail cash to that.
You know, so how do you
get this person paid?
Well, we have to know exactly how their
country allows them to get paid, right?
So this person's like, this
person's out in the Ivory Coast.
What do I know about the Ivory
Coast and what, what tax?
How much do I have to
send to their government?
Do I have to send anything
to the state that they.
Do I have, do I have to provide
some kind of benefit because
I'm paying them a certain way?
they basically have to adopt another
country's legal way of paying you
CJ: Why, why would they know?
Right?
Like
Duke: well, they probably won't.
That's the thing.
So it's basically like you, you know,
you're in the Ivory coast and somebody
says, and the US says, okay, Corey like,
'em and stack 'em, do all this work.
And then you're like, great, how do
I get paid for my a hundred hours?
And I'm like, uh, I don't know, maybe
their co their vendor management
part of the company doesn't know.
And furthermore, they're basically filling
out contracts for like massive right?
A hundred thousand dollars at a time.
And then your contract might
be a rounding error for that.
And so basically just for somebody
to buy you, you personally
might not be worth the effort.
Cause procurement's gonna put at
the bottom of the list just to get
you in a position where they can.
CJ: Yeah.
And that's the problem, right?
and, and that's why there's a typically
a difference in quality too, right?
Like, you know, when you.
for me, right?
Like any company hiring me,
I make it really easy for
them to hire me, number one.
But, you know, there's also the,
um, let me think on this one.
So it's a, so if a company
wants to hire me, so let me
put it to you this way, right?
, I'm more valuable than a team of
most offshore resources, right?
I didn't notice, I didn't
say one person, right?
I said a team.
and that's both from a,
development standpoint and an
architectural standpoint, right?
, but if you're looking for
that and I happen to just be
working outta Jamaica, right?
Like, and you, and you rob yourself of
that experience like, To me that , that's
a negative on the company, right?
Like you're losing, , you're losing
value there, or you losing generated
value for the company, right?
Because you're inflexible with
the way that you do business.
Now, that's the theory.
The reality of this is you would
absolutely not know I'm in Jamaica, right?
Or you might know that I'm in
Jamaica, but you wouldn't know
that I work outta Jamaica.
You might just happen to
know I'm on vacation and I'm,
and it's a working vacation.
The my bank account would be a
US bank account in the US Bank.
All of my, , tax information would be all
US information, . And I might not even
be in Jamaica long for, for a long time.
I might be happy to be there
for a month and I might be going
to like Antigua a month later.
And it, and that just might
be my lifestyle, right?
Like a more digital nomad.
Travel the world, stay in these
places where the cost of living
is a lot lower than the us.
All I need is an internet
connection, right?
And you pay me what, uh, whatever we
negotiate you, you send it to me as
if I still, because I maintain the US
address, you send it to me as if I still
live in the US and everybody's happy.
Duke: Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying
it doesn't happen or can't happen,
I'm just saying like, like I'm
dealing with this right now.
Somebody wants me to come in and do
kind of a, uh, prepare them for a
greenfield re architecture, right?
They got the seven year rich, let's
just trash this thing and start over.
CJ: Kick ass.
Duke: And, but they're
basically right out front.
They're like, yeah, we want you.
Who can you work through?
Because their procurement is not gonna
st is not gonna take one second to
like, sign a contract with, Robert
Fedor of Chicago, Illinois, 66 30
CJ: Right.
Duke: You know what I mean?
CJ: I do.
I do absolutely know what you mean.
Yeah.
Duke: Even if they did take the
time, I would never pass their
vendor standards to be this.
So basically they're telling me
like, align yourself with some big
company whose paper you can reside
on, or this thing is a wash even
though you know we really want you.
CJ: Yeah.
Duke: So it's just,
CJ: I agree.
Like those, those companies, you know,
and a lot of companies really, it's
not just those companies, you're right.
There's a lot of companies who
are not gonna take the time out.
once they understand that, the nature
of what's going on to, to deal with it.
So that's a good, that's a
good, that's a good point.
, I don't know, but I, I do feel
like it's a missed opportunity.
Right.
Yeah, I can keep it working
for, for individuals.
Maybe this isn't a scalable idea.
Maybe this doesn't work for like thousands
or tens of thousands of people, right?
But it can certainly work
for 10 or a hundred people,
Duke: Yeah.
To me it's like, I wish it could be
different, but then it's like, maybe
it's not different for a reason.
CJ: right?
, Duke: yeah.
Anyways, it's an interesting
thought process anyway.
CJ: Yeah.
Yeah.
You know, and.
I think it works for, individuals who
are out there listening to the show
right now, maybe it doesn't work for
a thousand or an ecosystem, right?
So maybe you can't build an
ecosystem off the back of this idea.
But if you one person is listen or
are listening to this, And you're
thinking, I would like to pick up
a few extra hours in my off cycles.
Right?
And those off off cycles happen
to align with prime European
business working hours.
And I say European as if it's
one time zone as many of them.
But pick a country and then pick a
time zone and you happen to align
with one of those and they happen
to need ServiceNow work, right?
Then boom, Bob's your uncle and do it.
And I think you could make it work.
what I probably wouldn't try to build a
career on it though, and, but maybe you.
Duke: Yeah.
Um, yeah, I just, I hate being
the bear of bad news, right?
Like, cuz people ask me this all the
time and I'm like, I wish you well.
It's just like, this is
not how things work, right?
Or not how things are optimized to work.
CJ: Yeah.
Well, you know, let me, and let me
ran on this a little bit too, right?
Because this has exposed this to
me, like the lack of understanding
of, business value that's
inherent in the IT space, right?
Like so when companies are hiring
consultants, and say a in, in a
lot of different spaces when a
company brings in a Accenture right?
They're not expecting Accenture to
sit in a cubicle 40 hours a week, and
have that green line button going from
eight to four, eight to five, right?
that's not happening.
I mean, and when it is happening,
that's like negotiated upfront.
Most of the time, Accenture's telling
them this is gonna be the output.
Of this project that we're signing
up for, and the company's just
waiting on that output because they
appreciate and understand the value
that Accenture brings to the table.
Right.
, you know, and I think what we see a lot
is that con that companies don't hire
service down resources and understand
the value that's being generated
by the, for the business, right?
They still think of this as almost, you
know, staff ag butts in seats, right?
I need to see your green.
teams icon lit up to make sure that I
know that you're actually doing something.
It's like, no, you know that I'm doing
something, you know, the valuable I'm
doing because you actually see the code
and somebody can use it and it works.
And the process that you have
trouble with after you hire me, you
no longer have any trouble with it.
Duke: Yeah, that's, I like, I gotta
underscore that that is not the
most common type of ServiceNow work.
CJ: Yeah.
Duke: That that whole, like I'm providing
a business outcome to you is kind of a,
it's a solution consultant mentality.
And it's best leverage when you can
say like, I don't know how to do this
so well, like an almost fixed rate it,
CJ: Well, that's kind of what it is.
Like it is, it is almost that it's,
it is a, , fixed rate, , project that
you happen to break up , and bill as
like time and materials or hourly.
Right.
and because again, the mentality of
the industry in general is one that
doesn't necessarily tolerate the
value billing sort of, um, uh, method.
right?
Like , there it isn't aligned to outcomes.
It's aligned to bust seats, right?
Like, you know, you spent six
hours in this business rule, right?
Who cares about the business rule?
Duke, like you didn't hire me.
Like I think you think like
companies, I think they think they
hired me to build a business rule.
But that's not really
what they hired me for.
They hired me to take ServiceNow
and make money with it for them.
Right?
that's why they hire me.
So it's like whatever that
process is, you know, asset
management, for example, right?
Like they didn't hire me to
come in here and build business
rules around asset management.
They hired me to build a really
consistent, efficient, and
scalable process for them in
asset management that's gonna.
Take their as management staff and to a
certain degree, their op degree, their
operational staff internally, right.
And make them more efficient so that
they lose less ac, ac, assets, right?
So that they are, they stay on, time
with, um, returning their leases, right?
And, and get new, hardware
and software in as they.
They cut down on the amount
of, uh, software asset license
spending they're doing.
. Because maybe, you know, you, your, um,
licensed for 15,000 windows installed
and you really only got 5,000 people
since 2008, but you didn't know.
Duke: they gotta, they have to have,
like, they have to have a way to gauge
the cost and the work though, right?
So you can either come in and say, I do
this for a hundred thousand flat rate,
CJ: Yeah.
Duke: And they're down for that.
, or like the only other alternative
like that is to count hours.
CJ: Yeah, well, I, I think it's
in intrinsic upon the, , the
consultant also to know the value
that you bring to the, uh, project.
Duke: and here's another thing
that I learned through s SPM
is that the different types
of labor matter to finance.
So Robert Fedor, building the
business rule is a different
financial transaction than Robert
Fedor training a room full of people
CJ: Fair enough.
Duke: because that business
rule is a thing that exists now.
It's an asset,
CJ: Right.
Duke: abstract sense, it's an asset
and therefore like they can depreciate
the labor on that part of the project.
So I have some sympathy
to like, well, what?
What are you spending your hours on?
Even if it is the components,
CJ: Yeah.
I think we, I think we will, we will have
to disagree on that dude, cuz I, I, , I,
because I really don't think it matters.
Right.
For me, it's all coms.
It's like, what did I deliver for you?
Did it meet the thing?
Did it enable you to do the
thing you were trying to do?
Right.
And if it did and it did, it, did
it successfully, then we, everyone
should consider that a win.
, I mean, way back in
the battle days, right.
Of, of, , accelerators, right?
That's what this was.
, right?
Excel.
This is the accelerator methodology.
You go in and you hire, you know, partner
A and they come in with their way of doing
things and they, they kinda, you know,
they sung a dance shoe about like why
they have an accelerator, but honestly
they have an accelerator so they can
write once and, and build many, right?
It's scale, it's just scaling hours
that they invested in it, right?
For me and, and, and abstracting those
hours away from their hourly cost.
That's exactly why you had,
well, you had accelerators.
To me, it's the same thing, right?
Like, I wanna scale the hours that
I put into, um, that I put into the,
in, into, the, the relationship with
my client as well, and that as long
as that value is there for them.
Right.
And, in the startup world, and if you
listen to folks who are like, you know,
selling SaaS services, um, they'll
come in with a service and they'll
sell it to an individual or small team.
And that service might
be $15 a user, per month.
Right.
Reasonable.
Right.
But then IBM comes in and
they wanna buy it, right.
And they want to be a subscriber
and they, they've got a team of
like, I dunno, 50,000 people, right.
Is that company charging it
ibm, $15 a month, per user?
Or is that company now charging
b m $50 a month per user?
Because they gotta deal with all
the enterprise bullshit, right?
That comes with b m, right?
Like you gotta go through like
compliant certifications and you
gotta deal with, you know, ibm.
Purchasing team and proc
processing and blah, blah, blah.
All the stuff that comes with dealing
with big organizations, right?
Like the, you've gotta build more
resilience in your product because
they can't afford to be down, right?
Like, there's a lot more that
comes into it when you start
dealing with big organizations.
And the value that IBM's gonna get
outta your product is different than the
value that small mom and pop business
is gonna get outta your product, right?
And.
Sell them to sell that to them
in two different value, points.
Now, the question is, is like, is
that wrong, right, for acknowledging
the customer gets more value out of
your, um, service than the other one?
And if so, then should you
just sell it always at the
same, , the same price point?
And I'll tell you the answer is
go to any software, , any SaaS app
and look for enterprise sales, and
you'll, you'll see two words there.
You know, contact us,
and, and that's kind of where
we are with this, right?
Like, you know, it's the, it's, it is
the, it's the thought behind it that.
And, and this is aimed at, the
consultants who are at this, this
have, this ability to sell, right?
And the, and the ability
to deliver, right?
Like, you have to think about the value
that you create for client, right?
And so, don't charge mom and prop pop,
rates to, Microsoft, they can afford it,
, and they're gonna get way more value outta
whatever you're gonna deliver for them.
So that's how I look at it.
Duke: Yeah, it's, uh, there's
definitely a lot of merit in there too.
, wow.
We are at 36 minutes
of record and I didn't
CJ: We had nothing to talk about, dude.
Duke: Nothing.
We're coming up blanks and we've
talked about shoot, iterative
development, testing, recombination
and innovation, attention and context.
Switching the unicorn project
offshoring and internationalizing
consulting and shoot what?
Pricing our work.
CJ: And pri Yeah, and pricing our work.
Absolutely.
Duke: There you go folks.
You got six in one episode.
tell us we never do anything for you,
CJ: and, and, and on this one, I would
love to hear your feedback folks.
So if you do have any takeaways
on this one, , do leave us a
comment when we post about it.
Duke: Yeah, man.
Argue with us.
It's gonna be awesome,
CJ: Yeah, no doubt.
Love arguments, right?
Like how else do you know if you're
right or wrong, unless people tell you
that they agree or disagree with you.
Duke: That's right.
So thanks everybody for listening,
and we will see you on the next one.
CJ: Bye-bye.
Duke: CJ and the Duke is hosted by Robert
the Duke, Fedor, and Corey CJ Wesley.
We are both freelance vendor
agnostic, ServiceNow experts who can
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Thanks for listening, and
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