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We've been asked many times "why take such a personal stake in ServiceNow"? Why podcast, why create content? Why mentor? We answer those questions AND give our thoughts on the future of ServiceNow.
Authentic, Authoritative, Unapologetic ServiceNow commentary by Cory "CJ" Wesley and Robert "The Duke" Fedoruk
[00:00:00] Duke: All right, Corey, what are we talking about today?
[00:00:02] CJ: all right, duke today. We're talking about why we do it. Like why we exist in the ServiceNow space, why we do ServiceNow consulting, why, what, what is it like to be a ServiceNow independent consultant? Like, why are we here?
Like in this space, doing this podcast, talking to you.
[00:00:20] Duke: I'm down what we, what's the fir what are we starting with?
[00:00:23] CJ: All right, dude, let's start with, why are you an independent consultant? That's the first question I have it's one. I always ask myself.
[00:00:30] Duke: Mine's definitely changed over time.
[00:00:32] CJ: Okay.
[00:00:33] Duke: Like the, I think the, I first started becoming an independent consultant because I was capable and there was, even more so than now, just a huge amount of money. I was getting paid something around. I was getting paid under 90,000 SD at the time. And jumping from that into consultant money was just kind of like fire hose time. Um
[00:01:00] CJ: Oh
[00:01:02] Duke: yeah. Yeah. but it's changed over time. I think you do it long enough and it becomes. It comes harder to be employ. it's got, it's a distinctly negative spin and negative on my part, but it just, it's a reality, like now that I'm used to it, it is hard to, be employable, there's a lot of partners that I love.
And, but like, you get to working for them and it's like, okay, Robert do things this way. It's like, I don't necessarily agree with that. Nope, you gotta swallow your pride and do it by their methodologies. There's just a lot more people telling you what to do when to do it, how to do it.
And. I like the freedom.
[00:01:36] CJ: Yeah.
[00:01:36] Duke: What about you, Corey? Why are you an independent consultant?
[00:01:38] CJ: Dude. So like for all of those reasons, right?, so I blame you for this, right.
So, so that's the start, right? Like, so we're gonna, we're gonna start it there, right? Like you convinced me to take this path, It's because of knowing you from way back when, in the early servant, the early to me service nowadays, Seeing you and all those events and us eventually becoming buddies.
. And you telling me, bro, you got the skills and the market out here is like scorching hot. Let's do it. Like you telling me all of that. And that, is what convinced me to leave my really cushy day job. And jump into like the independent consulting market. And you know, why I stayed is for a lot of the reasons that you mentioned number one, right?
Like I remember dude putting in the mailbox and just seeing check after checkout. This is, I mean, 2015 people were still sending paper checks. Right. And so I'm like getting check after check and I was like, this is great. this is completely different than what I'm accustomed to. and then there's, I am also now unemploy.
I guess hashtag recruiters out there who are listening to this, if you're thinking about pinging me about a permanent role, just not don't do it. Like I'm not the guy. Right. I know you think I'm the guy. I know my resume's awesome. I know I've been through the trenches.
I am not the guy to go into somebody's company and sit there on their teams channel like day after, day after day, and, you know, do their, whatever it is. Right. Whatever it is that, that, that normal people do in, in their job. So I'm not that guy. I'm unemployable. I don't care about your culture.
Like I like your culture from a perspective of me interacting with it as a consultant. Right. I love when I work with good people, I have great clients now. They're amazing. I love that. I work with them and I've worked with them for quite a while, and I hope they continue to work with them for quite a while because they're amazing.
but I couldn't, be like an employee there because it just changes how I have to act and how I interact with things. Right. So that's number one, right? Unemployable.
[00:03:38] Duke: Can I, uh,
[00:03:40] CJ: yeah, go for it. Eh,
[00:03:41] Duke: I pitch myself on something there? Cause one thing that I have loved about becoming an independent is basically you get to do with your own time, whatever you want. Right. So I, do my consulting and. If I just decide, you know what, like, I think I'm okay at this recruiting thing, which I am.
I wonder if I, if I could do that for a bit, I wonder how well that will monetize so I can put in the extra time, or peel back on my hours. I could take that time whenever I want and just do something else. So, I do recruiting. And so if you're looking to level up, gimme a ring, if you're looking for really good service now resources that are getting coached by me personally, look me.
let's get you some, slots filled. And so that's one thing I
love about being an independent consultant. And the other thing is like the Mar the digital marketing I do, Helping these service now partners, product and services partners find a message and like roll that. message into their sales enablement.
Like, it's just, I've been able to grow in so many different directions, not just, Hey, do ServiceNow consulting.
[00:04:43] CJ: love that. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, I love
[00:04:46] Duke: it's gonna go, right? Like we have that whole episode on ServiceNow doomsday scenarios. Right. And what if ServiceNow went away? What am I gonna do then? So it.
gives me an ability to like hone other really marketable skills.
[00:04:58] CJ: A ton of them, right? Like in, in any different direction that can be utilized, in any new industry that you decide to go into, if you had to. Right. and you can't do all of that without number two freedom. And that's the next reason why I do this.
It's the freedom to do whatever the hell it is that I want to do whenever the hell I want to do it to subject , to my previously agreed upon, restrictions with my client. Right. I shouldn't say restrictions, but you know, agreed upon like times and dates of when I'm going to be here and there and deliverables and that sort of thing.
As a consultant, everybody's got a deliverable, the client is expecting X, Y, and Z. And so you gotta deliver X, Y, and Z. Right. But, there's still a wide swath of, time and space, outside of that, to do whatever it is you wanna do. And sometimes that's just going to my kids' school and watching their play right at 10 o'clock in the, in the morning.
[00:05:47] Duke: Testify man testify. Yeah.
[00:05:50] CJ: And.
[00:05:51] Duke: let's take Friday off And. go camping.
[00:05:53] CJ: Yeah, right.
[00:05:54] Duke: it just
[00:05:55] CJ: yeah, no, babe. Let's, have a, uh, let's have a date night in the middle of the day. right. We're gonna go get lunch. We'll catch a movie. Right. And we'll make it home before the kids get home from school. Like, let's do that. Done that before. It's amazing.
Right? Like you can't do that, you know, or you can. Right. But it's a lot harder when you're an employee of a company, right. Like it's. You know, so it, it is those sorts of things, right? The freedom to have that work life balance that I want the freedom like you have to, to explore a lot more work things, In a way that wouldn't necessarily be, , enabled by working for someone else where they might wanna sign off on it, or you might need to get sign off from them just so that they don't own it.
[00:06:33] Duke: yeah, Yeah,
Yeah. It's a, I mean, it's a conflict of interest, right? When you're doing ServiceNow stuff in the ServiceNow ecosystem, that's not directly related to your employer. It kind of, it could put them in a bad place. And so, can understand why they're not going to do that anyways.
I feel we should like cause it's not all roses, right? Like these are the benefits we get to reap. But man, I'm always biting my nails about if these contracts end, could I go without work? a month, two months, whatever, and, and you like, nobody's doing the fishing for you, right?
There's no sales rep somewhere selling services for you. you've gotta be hunting and fishing while you're eating, you know,
[00:07:11] CJ: Right.
[00:07:12] Duke: just don't think that it's all pluses. It's very difficult, but yes, that's why I went in.
[00:07:18] CJ: So that's a good point, right? you know, you eat what you kill that has both benefits. And it also has, downfalls, right. You
[00:07:25] Duke: know, what kills me, dude
[00:07:27] CJ: what's that man.
[00:07:28] Duke: like you seal the deal and it's like, maybe you got two ones and you're like 20 hours a week here, 20 hours a week there. And then it takes eight weeks to get up to 20 and you're doing like you're planning on 20, but then you're like, why the hell am I putting time entry in for two hours?
[00:07:43] CJ: Yes.
[00:07:44] Duke: Yeah.
[00:07:45] CJ: I mean, I, dude, I've had it sometimes with clients where I'm like, look, I, I know what we said, we were gonna do. Like, there's like, I built six hours this month. Right? Like, I'm not sending you an invoice for that. We we're gonna carry that over to the next month. Right. Like, it's gonna, it's gonna take me more frustration and more, a executive dysfunction to send you a bill for this, then it would just to be add to added to the next month's bill.
Yeah. I mean, so you're, you're absolutely right. And then there is always that fear, right? That you won't land a deal, you know, I mean the service
[00:08:16] Duke: Fear is what the word is. Yes.
[00:08:18] CJ: Yeah, yeah, absolutely fear. Right? Like an net fear creates anxiety. You know, DeMar is hot, right? The service now market is, has been hot for the entirety that I've been in it with the exception of about six months in 2020, where nobody knew what the hell was going on anywhere.
[00:08:35] Duke: Yeah, exactly. Are we all gonna die, Right. Yeah.
[00:08:39] CJ: You know, but other than that, the market has been for me hot the entire time that I've been in it that said, there is still this fear that you don't know where your next client or your next check is coming from. Right. Because you eat what you kill.
[00:08:52] Duke: Yep.
[00:08:52] CJ: You know, and so that is, that is an anxiety there.
You know, we all got mortgages, we got families, I got kids, duke, you got kids, you got a wife. We got, I got a wife, we got a family. You know what I mean? Like, you know this and I mean, consulting money's good money or so is not like we bills . So
[00:09:10] Duke: it was, it is a nineties song, right? Cypress hill. You wanna be a rock star or something like that.
[00:09:14] CJ: yeah,
[00:09:15] Duke: Yeah. And the guy's like, save your money, man. Like hit records. Don't last forever. Right. And there's like, some dude who's just made, seven figures and he's admonishing the audience, like save your money.
[00:09:25] CJ: Right.
[00:09:26] Duke: like, don't you spend that stuff. You put that Right.
back in the bank account.
[00:09:30] CJ: I felt that way in 2020, right? Like, things kind of things dried up really, really freaking quick. And about April, 2020, like, I, I was lucky I had a, a client, um, that was looking to, lock in and they, they actually did. I didn't know that they would, but had they not, I probably would've gone the entire summer without work.
I did have a cushion, so I wasn't necessarily like super worried. Right. But I was worried didn't know what was gonna happen. And so, yeah, absolutely. is not all, it's not all roses, there are some parts of this where, you know, it does kind of create anxiety and sometimes that keeps you up at night and you don't know what's gonna happen and where, where the next thing is gonna come from.
But I'll tell you what, I wouldn't trade it because I'm unemployable and I love the freedom.
[00:10:13] Duke: Well in typical CJ in the duke style, we are a third of the way into the podcast and, uh, less than a fifth of the way through the points.
[00:10:20] CJ: I know. Right. all right. So we're gonna, we're gonna pivot here. We're gonna go to the next one, why do we do the podcast duke?
[00:10:27] Duke: for me it was like, I always want to produce content that I would want to consume. . And at the time when I started the YouTube channel, the podcast, all of it, I was very much a sense of service. Now videos are very formal and cerebral and, um, like, like kind of burnt toast, you know,
[00:10:57] CJ: And part of
[00:11:01] Duke: There has to be a way to make it an adjective, but burnt toast is an adjective. You know, you, you ran outta butter and it's just like, the only thing you got in the house for breakfast is like, I'm going to eat this and just like crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch. So I, I wanted.
At least for me, right. I'm only half the show, but I wanted to do ServiceNow content. That would be valuable. That would be applicable that wasn't eating burnt toast
[00:11:29] CJ: love it. . All right. so I still remember you called me up. You was like, Hey man, you wanna do a podcast? And I was like, oh no, no, I don't wanna do a podcast, dude. Like, I don't have anything to say. you know, that was the first thought that I had in my, oh, what am I gonna say?
I don't have anything to say. you know, I kinda, just spun that around in my head a few different times, but the reason. That ultimately I said, yes is because of our conversations, Like we, go out and we grab drinks or we grab dinner or whatever, and lunch and all, when, you know, we had real jobs and shit and , and, you know, and, and our conversations do are always like just next level.
And, it dawned on me that what would it be like for other people to join us at the table? And that's what I thought a podcast with me and you, doing it, would be like, you know, like just those conversations that we have that are always amazing and having other people at the table and what would they get out of it?
Cause I know what I get out of them. Right. And I'll say, okay, all right, we can do this. Now, what about the stage frighted, and public speaking things and all that, I was like, well, I guess we'll roll with it, you know? And you, you convinced me, Hey, we'll fix it in post. So I'm like, fuck it.
Let's try it. . And, I get out of it. Out of the podcast, wanna get to hang out with you for like an hour or so, or however long it takes to film these things but the other thing is, I get to bring other people into these great conversations that we have and kind of get this in these insights that I've been getting out of them for years.
So that was the reason.
[00:12:59] Duke: why do you do the other service now? Content for you? You got a, you got a newsletter now. what made you go, would take
[00:13:06] CJ: Because I wanted to do more, I felt like the, podcast was great, but I also felt like I still had a bunch. Other ideas that were just kind of bouncing around in my head. And I felt the, urge to do, you know, a little bit more and get a little bit more out there.
Right? Like some things I feel like, um, lean towards writing and some things lean toward speaking about right. Like talking about them. And I felt like, being able to create. this newsletter and kind of write this stuff down it serves two purposes, right? Like it, it, hopefully somebody somewhere gets some value out of it, but the bigger point and the bigger purpose is that I get a lot out of it by writing it down.
And it shows me where my weaknesses are and my strengths. So as you're trying to teach somebody and I write every newsletter from the perspective of trying to teach somebody something as you're doing that. And you're going through that, you find where the weaknesses are in your own knowledge, and then you shore those up.
And so that was kind of the, the thought is that, you know, if I wanna make sure that I know the things that I think I know, then I should try to teach them the other people and see where I fell at that, and then go out and, plug those holes. So that's kind of why I started the newsletter and that's kind of why I'm a bit more active on LinkedIn, a bit more active on Twitter.
And it's just really I want the. Democratized ServiceNow knowledge and also, shore up my own shortcomings knowledge along the ServiceNow platform and ecosystem cetera,
[00:14:33] Duke: My
[00:14:33] CJ: CRE everywhere, man. Right? YouTube channels.
[00:14:39] Duke: I have one YouTube channel. Come on now. Um, well I, yeah, I do a little bit of every media type So the mailing list. Hmm. It is like you said, right. There's some things that are just better in text.
[00:14:51] CJ: Yeah,
[00:14:51] Duke: it doesn't take as much production time. I could just get it out and get that content outta my soul, you know?
[00:14:58] CJ: right. categories.
[00:14:59] Duke: So that's at least why I have the media selection to use is cuz it it's good for certain reasons. And one of those reasons is it's low production. I guess one of the selfish reasons is I go on a lot of rants about a different things, right? Documentation, like personal development, um, the way the way implementations go and it's like, I can stand. in the street and like yell about it. I could be that guy that just yells at people in the middle of the street. Um, or I could have a, voluntary service, right. They're subscribing to it. And how can I tell more people about these things that I think are dangerous, bad practice, ways they shouldn't be?
How could I, how could. change the mind of the ecosystem? Well, you gotta have a big audience. And so my, my mailing list is now up over 1500 and, I don't do it as often as I like, but my mailing list is where I try and, it's my way of trying to change the course of the ecosystem in whatever way I.
[00:15:59] CJ: your mailing list, dude is awesome. Like your newsletter is amazing. it has so many actionable, deep thought perspectives. it really is a treasure of tr
[00:16:10] Duke: it means extra coming from you, buddy. I guess another thing too, and again, purely selfish is if you're not doing that kind of stuff, It's hard to know what you actually know and what, it really shocked me. Um, my wife and I were driving between states hours long drive, and I'm just gonna like, look back through the podcast.
And it's like, I like, we've got hours and hours and hours of content in just a podcast.
[00:16:39] CJ: Yep.
[00:16:40] Duke: I'm getting like 4,000 hours. consumption on my YouTube channel every month. And wow, like I've, literally got a body of knowledge that is memorialized. So I can do all kinds of stuff with that.
I could start publishing material, like actually like writing books or, or doing whatever, but I wouldn't have been able to say that until I had built that library of. Thoughts and insights, but now the library of thoughts and insights exists through my many videos, my many, mailing list entries, the podcasts it's like, I got, five books on the go.
[00:17:14] CJ: right, dude. I mean, to take that content that you have everywhere else, condense it and turn it into different content. And a different medium, but I mean, it's there. Right. And not everybody consumes media in the same way.
Right. Some people listen, some people watch, some people read,
[00:17:28] Duke: you don't wanna pop you'd look at them and say like, oh yeah, like I have an answer to that somewhere in my, 50 mailing list entries and a hundred, some YouTube channels and 50, 65 episodes of CJ that do
[00:17:41] CJ: Yeah.
[00:17:41] Duke: there's a needle in a haystack, Right.
[00:17:43] CJ: Seriously, right. Like, just like I made that summer, you know, it's like, no, here's the consolidated guy to X, Y and Z. Yeah.
All right. So why do you mentor the newbies?
[00:17:54] Duke: Do we really have a choice? Like I mean, just nothing's gonna stop 'em from asking, right.
[00:18:04] CJ: Yeah, true.
[00:18:05] Duke: for me, at least again, it goes to like, sometimes you don't know that, you know, something until somebody forces you to explain it.
[00:18:12] CJ: right.
[00:18:12] Duke: and that's been a really tantalizing concept in my brain is how much stuff do I know or can I figure out, or can I provide super valuable insights on that?
I have spent not one second considering up until now. And the best way to increase that is by letting anybody ask you a question. that's
[00:18:32] CJ: point, And if you got any kind of pride, right? Like if somebody asks you a question and you don't know the answer to it and. Viewed. And you view yourself as like this person who should have the answer and who is an expert quote, unquote expert. Right? Like you go and find that answer so you can go back so it makes you better.
Yeah, absolutely.
[00:18:54] Duke: And then going back to why I do the mailing list too? It's like, how do I make a lever big enough so that I can shift the ecosystem my way. Right.
think about the MTBF and they have a 400 person cohort and I connected with at least 150 of them, right. There's 150 more people coming into the ecosystem now that know my values for an implementation.
[00:19:17] CJ: Yeah. That's big time.
[00:19:18] Duke: Right. You know, they've got fresh eyes and fresh eyes, fresh years. And one of the first things they've learned is that if you don't memorialize what you've built, you're basically like giving your you're mailing yourself a bill for a million dollars someday
[00:19:32] CJ: Yeah.
[00:19:33] Duke: to rearchitect this garbage. they're impressionable.
So impress upon them.
[00:19:38] CJ: Ha. Nice. if you ask me, why, why do I do it? Right? It's a lot of it comes down to MTBF right. And MTBF has created this cohort of largely, um, black newbies in the ServiceNow space. Right. And to me, right. Like representation matters. Right. and, you know, I look at myself as an example of in the ServiceNow ecosystem that has been successful.
And, and I should absolutely give back. Right. I should absolutely share that. I should absolutely mentor. I should absolutely bring them in and show them what it's like and what this market is and what this ecosystem is is, and how you can be successful here. You know, somebody somewhere. Pour knowledge into me.
And so it's my job to do that for other people. , and that's like a large part of it. Right. And I've been driven by that since way, way back. And you know, is one of those things with imposter syndrome, right? Like you don't necessarily feel like, I don't know if I know enough to start telling people what to do.
[00:20:41] Duke: yeah.
[00:20:43] CJ: But at some point, I, I kind of figured out, like, I kind of do know enough to start telling people what to do. I've been really successful at this and I've got really good references and I've got people vouch for me. A lot of people, I, I mean, you know, I got people call me up and say, Hey man, you busy, you need, I need to get you on this thing.
Right. And at some point you just start to believe them, even if you don't believe yourself,
[00:21:04] Duke: Yeah.
[00:21:05] CJ: and because of that, I felt like, well, if I'm doing something right, I should tell other people how to do it right too.
[00:21:10] Duke: I gotta like riff on your thing about representation. And I'm looking at my LinkedIn invites and it's just like, nobody looks like me. it's just like, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. Like, wow. Like maybe I'm the
[00:21:27] CJ: that one duke. awesome now, but right. But how cool is that that you're scrolling through like your LinkedIn invite and nobody in your LinkedIn advice looked like you.
[00:21:35] Duke: minority
[00:21:36] CJ: Unprecedented.
that's amazing. and that's why, right. Like, and, and it is because of things like that, that have me out here, trying to, just share what I know and, just model, right. Like just model being in this ecosystem and, being successful and letting them know, Hey, it's. Like, I don't know how you got here. I don't care how you got here. Right? Like you're here now and it's possible to be successful here and look like you do and be who you are.
[00:22:01] Duke: Mm-hmm
[00:22:01] CJ: That's it.
So, uh, next one is like, why service now? Why not Salesforce? Why not? I don't know. Whatever
[00:22:08] Duke: Hmm. I guess I did something before, like I was doing magic total service desk, and then we did HP service desk and, they were just awful tools to work with. And then
[00:22:18] CJ: Hey, man. No, no, no. I'm not gonna let you go bashing magic on the
[00:22:22] Duke: Well, no, I mean, I was working on magic and then we switched to HP service desk. Right.
So that was mistake number one. And then, like, I didn't have any say in the whole ServiceNow acquisition, we just saw it. It was awesome. And we bought it. Um, but For once in my life, I didn't have to trick the tool into doing what I want.
You know, I like think we take a lot for granted today and we kind of like rib ServiceNow a little bit about its capabilities and, but really compared to the tools that came before. everything I did was a hack, everything and I couldn't do anything with it. And ServiceNow was basically like almost anything I could conceive in the world of work.
I could do it on ServiceNow. And finally, I had something like a tool that I could manifest my own will on the ecosystem. And
[00:23:05] CJ: For where Morgan at? Like, I feel like when the church, when the choir
[00:23:12] Duke: Yeah, but then you get good at that. And like, why would you switch? Why? Like, there's no, point in my service now career where it's like, this is going awesome. This is going awesome. Let's do, let's go look at Salesforce. yeah.
[00:23:26] CJ: Yeah, right,
[00:23:31] Duke: What about You man? How, why service now? why not it service desk manager or operations?
[00:23:37] CJ: I started on, magic, service desk, and, oddly enough, we probably would've is, is, is so odd that we didn't meet there before we met on service now. Right. Because we were both in that ecosystem, I think at about the same time and.
what I got a taste of through magic service desks was working through the SQL database, which enabled you to pretty much make magic, do whatever you wanted it to do to a certain extent. Right. But there was a lot you can do there. And. , they sunset that. And so we need to find something else and, you know, kinda let the push on, let's get something else.
And we went and we saw service now and, oh my God, dude. And I tell the story all the time and I tell it exact same way, because it's exactly what happened. We were in King's cross or Earl's cross or something like that in London. And it was an ITSM store, uh, show and, uh, ServiceNow was doing a demo and.
Kid you not, it was like the scene in the matrix, the first matrix, the only matrix, uh,
[00:24:34] Duke: There we go. Yeah.
[00:24:36] CJ: the only matrix movie. and that scene where Morpheus is fighting Neo and at.
[00:24:42] Duke: up morph idea.
[00:24:43] CJ: And everybody's like calling like go everybody, every come is fighting Neo. Right? Like, and, and everybody's like running around the kind of crowd around the monitor and watch the fight happen from like the real world looking into the matrix.
That's how it was when we found service now. And we were watching that fricking demo. It was like, oh my God, like, what is this? like, we kept, we stayed at the store, we stayed at the show. our minds were made up. Right. Sorry, Rick. Um, and, you know, we decided it was ServiceNow.
And from then on. I understood like the power of the platform. and I understood what you can build on it and everything that you could do. And there was nothing I could say no to, like, I kept getting demand, from the business, from my boss, from other folks on my team, they were like, Hey, can ServiceNow do this?
Can ServiceNow do, let's say, yeah, we can actually do that. We can do this, let's do that. I would just build it right. Like it would, and it would work. And so, because there was nothing I could say no to. And I just kept seeing. The power, the platform, like I never looked anywhere else.
There was just, yeah, there was just nothing else that shifted. And then, you know, when I went independent, right, like as we said at the top of the show, duke, just kind of going independent and, and. seeing how the market was there and, getting deep into it, like there was just, why, why would I look at Salesforce or, or top desk, or, you know, it, you know, whatever land desk or whatever it is, right?
Like, and, and no, and not disparaging any of those things, but once you service now, you just don't look anywhere else,
All right. This one, cause this one's a little controversial duke this is all, this is the one that might, might provoke duke grant, you know, TM, right? Like
[00:26:20] Duke: Sure. Let's do it. Mm
[00:26:22] CJ: trademark. So what do you think about the future?
[00:26:26] Duke: Okay. Let's buckle up. ah, okay. I encourage you to go back and look at the existential threats to service now, episode, and it's pretty clear to me that none of those are really, um, In major threat range yet. Okay. There is no real substitute for service now, but I have never been more concerned for the future of the ecosystem for a variety of reasons that are swirling closer and closer together.
We got a perfect storm situation brewing here. Okay. Number one. Upgrades are not cheap and easy anymore. they might have been when it was only I T SM and maybe a custom app or two, but the thing ServiceNow went super wide. Awesome, huge land grab into All the other process areas.
Awesome. Love it. Except for the fact that it has complicated the upgrades. Okay. And a decade and a half of service providers, basically like, why do you think I rant all the time about documentation? Like how many customers right.
now are just wish to God, they could justify a Greenfield implementation of service now. for every one of those customers, they don't have the choice as expensive as your upgrades is congrats. You must do it once or twice a. You have to, so you have an upgrade tax. Next thing is they are customizing this stuff. Don't gimme the customization versus configuration stuff. We have an episode on that too, but they are, they are customizing because some stuff just isn't robust enough yet.
ITBM has all kinds of things you have to customize for, because. Out of box has no answer for it. And don't tell me, just wait, cuz you can't wait, what are you supposed to do? Fucking not do billing every 30 days off your time cards. I mean, that was fixed in Paris, but like that's the thing. Some of the things you can't say no to otherwise is like, okay, we won't implement the product.
So people have to customize.
[00:28:20] CJ: right.
[00:28:21] Duke: And because of the license structure, now there's a customization tax. You buy the licenses, then you buy the other stuff that allows you to build it out
[00:28:29] CJ: Yeah. Okay.
[00:28:30] Duke: That that's a problem for upgrades too. Why? Cause you gotta keep testing this stuff, but what's not ready for testing at scale ATF,
who who's building out ATF for the entire year of the service now implementation the flagship clients are, but it takes them seven months to set up. They do nothing but ATF for an entire year,
[00:28:47] CJ: Wow. Okay. Right.
[00:28:48] Duke: So, so ATF can't scale. Everybody has to customize those customizations, put the upgrades at jeopardy and is basically tax tax, tax tax.
One to two times a year. It is going to get prohibitively expensive. It's gonna get prohibitively expensive. And dude, and we just put another couple thousand people, just entered the market. So. They are primed to make the same mistakes that professional services has made these entire 15 years, which is just build, don't ask questions.
Don't think about the right way to do it. And for God sure don't document it. , you know, and that's, what's, that's gonna be the new people who are building, tell me something to be optimistic about.
[00:29:33] CJ: I mean, you make a, you, you make a good point, right? I'm looking at a tweet from Andy hill, right? Like, you know, just over a month, over 45,000 people have taken advantage of the free service down course and exam offer for like service down. Yeah. From the, the foundations, right? Like 45,000.
[00:29:48] Duke: Yeah. It's
[00:29:52] CJ: that's a lot of people. And really good and valid points, duke I don't know.
[00:29:58] Duke: yeah. I mean, do you wanna reminds me of,
[00:30:00] CJ: What's
[00:30:01] Duke: it reminds me of 15 years ago, all the app service now replaced why'd they replace 'em. Oh, super easy, man. You just don't have to worry about half million dollar upgrades, right?
[00:30:10] CJ: that? Oh, shit.
[00:30:12] Duke: Upgrades are easy. Just press the upgrade button. and like, don't get me wrong. I believe in ServiceNow is a platform. Right,
But I J I just think the, the new hotness is, uh, okay. It's exciting. Sometimes when the, when the new hotness is robust enough to like survive a sales cycle tube, right.
[00:30:27] CJ: Right.
Right.
[00:30:28] Duke: But they have to have to have to make a testing framework that scales, they have to have to have to force the partner ecosystem to take documentation and memorialization seriously, or find a way that the PR that the system generates it in some fashion, but you still lose all the abstract.
They have to do these things. And it's those aren't big, sexy features that are gonna get you, the extra couple dollars on your share price. They aren't, but the long term consequences of not doing this certainly will influence the shot is a sock price. By the way, this is not financial advice.
[00:31:07] CJ: No. I mean really good point, right? Duke, the configuration versus customization argument, right? we've had it on the show already here before, but moving folks towards configuration over customization is not a solution to the upgrade problem. because there are some, things there where you absolutely have to do, customization where you can't do configuration.
So yeah. All your whole rent man take into heart. for me, what I think about the future, you know, I'm a natural optimist, Like it's just kind of where I sit on the spectrum. So for me, I am fingers crossed, you know, very hopeful about ServiceNow for the future. , it's been great.
I haven't seen any products that in my opinion, come close to what you can do on the ServiceNow platform. I do worry about the expense, right? That's the, that is the main thing that I worry about that it. that it is sliding itself out of the pocketbook of the regular it, organization.
And that makes it vulnerable to something else that can slide in under it and get that ground swell that service now once did right. And build on. Right? Like you can't just occupy the luxury end of the market. You really do need to have some presence at all, parts of it in order to stay relevant.
And so what I really do worry about is that it will become too expensive. It will only become a fortune 500, platform versus a, platform that any, and everybody can kind of roll out and utilize and in doing so that could break its market dominance.
[00:32:36] Duke: All right. I think that's all we have time for today. We went a little bit long story about that, but, hopefully there was something, um, at least entertaining in there for you.
[00:32:43] CJ: Yeah, dude. I think this one was, uh, will definitely be entertaining for a few folks.
[00:32:48] Duke: Thanks for listening to everybody. We'll see you on the next one.
[00:32:50] CJ: All right. Bye. Bye.