Episode 502: Is this the End of the Billable Hour?

In this episode of Dynamics Corner, Kris and Brad have a thought-provoking discussion with Cristian Nicola about the changing landscape of business services. They examine the transition from traditional hourly billing to subscription-based models, emphasizing the advantages of fixed pricing and the significance of fostering strong client relationships. Cristian shares insights from his own experiences, noting the importance of flexibility and partnership in delivering effective solutions. Tune in to discover how innovative approaches are transforming the industry and what implications they hold for businesses today.

Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage And Guest Intro
• 4:35 From Navision Roots To Today
• 10:20 The Case Against Hourly Billing
• 16:40 Fixed-Price With A 30-Day Flex Window
• 23:20 Subscription Model: One Task At A Time
• 31:45 Value, ROI, And Risk-Sharing
• 39:20 Relationships Over Timesheets
• 47:05 Budgeting For SMBs And Practical Mix
• 54:10 Service Levels, Priorities, And Trust
• 1:02:30 Marketing Hurdles And Buyer Risk
• 1:10:05 AI, Commoditization, And Ongoing Care

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:01

Welcome everyone to another episode of Dynamics Corner. I'm excited about this subscription, not the BC subscription, but the implementation subscription and a fixed implementation. I'm your co-host, Chris.

SPEAKER_01: 0:16

And this is Brad. This episode is recorded on February 8th, 2026. 26, Chris, I got it right this time. We're in the proper yeah. It is. It's a lot of changes coming around in the world with technology. A lot of changes coming to many places. And we had an interesting conversation today talk about subscription services for Business Central development, as well as fixed bid uh implementations or projects for Business Central. With us today, we had the opportunity to speak with Christina Golden. Good morning, sir. How are you doing? Hey guys. I'm doing very well, thank you.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02

Very well, I'm gonna go back to the video. I like your background. So we'll just keep it as is.

SPEAKER_01: 1:13

And I like it. It looks like you're looking down on me. Just like when we're in person. So I see.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19

Well, I mean, I got two options. If I put you up on this screen, I did this because I got like a secondary screen, and then it looks like I'm looking in the sky.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26

So no, no, look down. I like it. This is a fun it's it's a new year, fun look. And I I do like the background. I like the dinosaurs. Are they dinosaurs? Dragons, dragons, dragons, dinosaurs.

SPEAKER_04: 1:39

There's another one over there. There's another one over there.

SPEAKER_03: 1:46

Like uh hand-drawn.

SPEAKER_01: 1:49

Yeah, there's this guy three-dimensional too. I mean, he's pretty good.

SPEAKER_04: 1:53

I mean, there's this guy in um uh Washto Square Park that actually does this stuff. Um, I mean, I think semi-homeless, but he's always there in the at least in any season aside from winter. So like he usually does like I don't know, more like Bart Simpson type stuff like that and things like that. But I mean, I don't know. He did one dragon, which was the first one over there. I mean, if you can tell it was it's actually like he would just take cardboard pieces because see at the back of the on the corner, it's actually black because it was just burned, half burned. So he would just pick them up from the cardboard, pick them up from and then just draw on them. So I mean I bought one of them originally. I was like, I don't know, I just like that dragon. It looked like exhausted. So that one is probably more me at the end of the day after a lot of calls, because you just the guy just looks I start off exhausted.

SPEAKER_01: 2:38

No, I like that type. See, I like the authenticity of that where it's a cardboard on the side of the street.

SPEAKER_03: 2:45

It's just to me, it just makes it more uh I don't want to say natural, but just it's more you're you're adapting to whatever's in front of you and just drawing around it creating it.

SPEAKER_04: 2:56

So he always says like a stack of this thing, so like then he did another one because I told him I like it, and then I actually ended up commissioning one which is on another wall, and that makes me a patron of arts, I guess, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 3:07

There you go. You now are an art dragon collector.

SPEAKER_04: 3:10

Yes. Well, actually, that was the other thing. He was like, I'm his dragon guy, he says he's only gonna draw those things for me and nobody else. Which I think was a fancy way to see because I haven't seen him in the last year and a half. Haven't seen him draw any dragons, which means he just was done with it, but this way something much better, you know? It's like only a few want it, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 3:28

Well, at least it makes you feel good, and maybe maybe he's holding to that. When you're not there, you don't know what he's doing. But uh, I do like that, and I do like the support of that, I do like the authenticity of that natural art. I think in the world of technology, having some of that good, you know, true art work is refreshing. Uh everything's becoming you know, you look online, you look anywhere. That's all the art that you see. I'll use the word art loosely, is all generated. I mean, many argue that that's still art and such, but um, it's not like you know the classic art that we have with the one of a kinds and such.

SPEAKER_04: 4:04

So you still have a banana tape to a wall that's all for a lot of millions, so you know. That is real, that is real stuff there, you know. That is true.

SPEAKER_01: 4:14

One man's what's one man's trash is another man's treasure. And I think that holds true with a lot of things. And uh you know, I've been looking forward to speaking with you about this topic because this is a topic I have been talking about for some time, maybe from a different angle than you have, but I think we come together uh in the middle with it. Before we jump into it, mind tell us a little bit about yourself.

SPEAKER_04: 4:37

Um, I mean my name is Christian Nicola. Um and I mean I've been in the I guess the vision nav business central space since 1999. So I don't know what is that at this point, I guess 26 years almost, right? So I mean it started as a joke while I was still in college. It was just like a little sort of trainee ship at the vision in Vedbec, and you know, I remember falling asleep during the training, I was like accounting. Who, you know, who cares about this stuff, right? But and also the the stories I went, well, after that, basically the story is that they're supposed to send us, you know, there's a whole group of us, they're supposed to send us either to US, UK, or Germany, right? Those are the three things, you know, to do some work, right? Um, and then basically Germany, I mean, not necessarily wrongly. They were like, well, if you don't speak the language, it's gonna be kind of tough, which they were probably not, you know, not wrong about it. But then the stupid thing was like US, they were like, oh, we can't US were like, we can't take them. They don't know about sales tax, it's too complicated, they will never understand. They just know VAT. I mean, granted, it's a little bit more complicated than VAT, but I mean it's not necessarily something that you can't wrap your head around it, right? So that's how I ended up, uh that's how I ended up in UK, right? And I mean I wasn't really excited, it's an accounting, and I mean in my time I was programming stuff in like you know, low-level assembler or otherwise, like, you know, Linux and all sorts of cool stuff. This this programming I could have done it when I was in you know 10 years old. Um, but I've you know the story is I went to UK to work for like whatever that thread, that that sort of contract, original contract was like three to six months to get some money to buy myself a new computer, right? Then I ended up staying for two years, then ended up coming to US, and you know, in the meantime I did get a computer, you know. So I think I achieved my goal. Uh that original one, actually, you know what the original one might be in one of my you know storage storage stuff that I have somewhere, you know, the original, like sort of like good old-fashioned like IBMs before they were the novels or whatever. But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:32

I wish I kept so much stuff from back then. It's uh I try to to not accumulate or collect so much stuff, but thinking now back that I've been doing it just as long as you have, and you think back to like the manuals, the mouse pads, the keyboard strips. I have a keyboard strip, the notepads. Like we had all this cool stuff, the discs. Do you remember when you had the discs that you had to install? And so I wish I kept all of that because it would be sort of a nice walk back, a walk down memory lane. And as you had mentioned, I think uh I started the same thing too. I I started a job uh on Wednesday and on Saturday I was flying to Atlanta and I was there for four weeks. So to go to the academy. So it's kind of like the thing that we all did back then, and I think it'd be interesting to walk uh down memory lane to see all that stuff because those manuals are like gold. I don't know if you remember that.

SPEAKER_04: 7:26

Like if you had people asking me still like halfway my career, like people asking for manuals, and I knew there were from like the older 2.6. I don't know if they ever got to like 310, but I remember there were like you know, manuals with the blue, you know, yeah, yes. Yeah, yeah. And the the strips, it's why you mentioned the keyboard strips because I mean you know, David Singleton and I, we you know we'd have been easing about this at some point. You know, it's when you went training and vision like in Vedbec, right? They would literally take your mouse away. And they would be go do whatever you need to do, right? You know, those are like the two we've uh you know, we call them like purity tests, right? One, you know, can you use the vision without a mouse? And technically the old versions you could. Two was create a brand new company, go set up everything, like just hit new company, nothing in it, like nah wizard, not nothing, and then go and set up everything, like from the general edge setup, sales that are you know, sales of receivable setup, you know, some basic posting groups, you know. I mean, you don't don't need to make a real company, but just the ability to make it to a level where you could actually post an order and to know to be able to do all those things.

SPEAKER_01: 8:32

That see, I don't want to go down this, but that that brings back so much one, because a lot of that functionality is still there today, uh, the 20 something years later. Two, it's also a a sign of that you were doing development, I did development, but back then we did everybody did everything. You did uh implementations, you did development, you did training, you did data conversions, like you did everything.

SPEAKER_03: 8:58

You are full stack.

SPEAKER_01: 9:00

Now it's the application's so large and people have sort of uh segmented or segregated between the functions that you don't have many that can do both. A lot of people still can, don't get me wrong. But I think you have some people who are just you know purely functional, some people who are more technical in development. And then now, as I keep talking about everybody's being forced into the middle, uh uh, you know, with with AI coming in and technology, uh, development's changing, uh, the technical aspects changing, again, with a lot of the information coming uh uh public and available, because before it was only the partners had access to a lot of that information. You know, you had customer source and you had partner source, so you had a separation between what customers could do and what partners could do. And partner source is still around, by the way. It's slow as dog, but it's still around. They're probably running that same they're probably running that. Well, you have to do licenses and stuff for on-premises. You still need to get in there and generate them there. But it's probably the same technology that it was back in 1999, because uh I think I could manually write a license in the permissions table uh file that comes with it, how fast I can generate it. But to go into it, I think with with the changes uh in technology, and uh I'm not certain if that's the foundation of it, but yeah, with the way the world is today, uh you're you're promoting an interesting topic. And that topic is is something that you started recently. I saw that when you first started, I think it was sometime last year, if I'm correct, right? You started.

SPEAKER_04: 10:30

Yeah, I mean, officially the effort was the well, I won't preparing the marketing efforts at the beginning of the year, but yeah, kind of like more went in force after the summer, right? After I learned a lot more about how to do marketing, but yes. So what is that approach? So the approach, I mean, I I the idea was provide providing services in a different manner, right, than hourly rate, you know, basically. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why I think that should happen, and I've obviously that we can discuss more about that. But the idea was just basically that's what I wanted to promote, right? And I think I was reading some articles because I immersed myself on talking there's in BC, so right now, I as far as I know nobody else is offering it in the US. I mean, David is kind of doing David Singleton is doing this in Australia. But I mean that there's some people that do this on CRM, Power Platform, and I mean across the world. I mean, and I've talked to each of them just to sort of learn about this. I've been sort of noodling on the concept and the approach, and I don't know necessarily that there's one single answer, and not even mine is totally finalized for like a few years, right? But then I was reading some articles recently, like at the recently at the time, at the beginning of the year, and at some point I was like, you know what? What's the most in your face marketing? So I look went to look for the domain hourly rate is dead, and it was available to my surprise. I mean, you know, so I basically theoretically the concept was hourly rate is dead.com, right? Umriginally, since I had talked to someone that I knew, so you have Andrew King in Canada that kind of does fixed price um fixed price implementations. It's not purely that, but it's probably close, right? Um, and then you had this someone that I was talking to that was uh uh CRM, right? So I even suggested to them like we should like when we go to um what was that dynamics card, right? I I Owli Rate is that doesn't necessarily need to be my sort of because it's kind of weird actually whenever I try to sort of you know send emails saying I'm from Owlly Rate is that anyway versus my company itself. But you know, could be also like a portal for people that offer services like this, right? So I was kind of talking to them, maybe doing like a John Micro thing, but it's kind of hard to bring people together. So for now it's basically just my services around Power BI and Business Central, uh offer the subscription at fixed price, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 12:38

Uh so so the premise is the hourly rate is dead, and in your case, it's you have a subscription service. So it's basically development or implementation as a service. Where if you pay a fixed fee per month, you have uh implementation services for Power BI or Business Central.

SPEAKER_04: 12:58

Yeah, so for yeah, for business central and for Power BI, yes, yeah, for both of them.

SPEAKER_01: 13:03

It's an interesting model. And as I had mentioned, I have been saying for a long time that I think the way that in this industry, and it's not just within for business central, I think it's along the industry, that it's challenging to charge hourly rate for services. And a lot of people shy away from it because they think, well, you have a project, you have a scope. What if it goes out of scope and you um and you you know go over on the hours, as I say, or whatever that you estimate, and then you go into this, you know, that's why most of them have the time and the materials. But in your model, and I I want to dive into that because I'm passionate about that, even more so today with technology and what I see individuals doing with AI, where I think it's even a little more challenging to charge someone by the hour uh for services. So for a fixed fee, what do you with your services, what do you get for that fixed fee? Do you get any business central development and implementation? Or is there a pre a pretty defined scope of what's included within that uh uh uh service fee that you pay?

SPEAKER_04: 14:11

Okay. Well, so first, I mean, as uh as I've learned through the last year of marketing, that you have to you know, words matter. So there's a difference between fixed price and subscription. The idea is we fixed price, which is one thing that we do offer, right? Is basically that is a defined scope and a defined price, right? You know? Now, my tweak on it, one is just personal because I hate, I don't really like to sort of sit there and do something that it's a CYA kind of document, right? Let's exhaust everything that you want and put it in the list so I can cover myself, right? I kind of put it at a high level, so therefore you have a little bit of wiggle room to solve it, right? But I think the tweak that I put on fixed price, and I mean, I don't know, you know, I mean, everybody can offer that. So what's what's the biggest issue? You know, even if everybody goes with with uh good intentions at the beginning and everybody thinks they understand what the other person does, and I mean I think I've done this for so long that a lot of times understand not what they say they want, but what they actually need, you're gonna find out by the end of it that something was different, right? Preferably something small, right? If someone comes and says, I need the tent, and then they re you realize they need a castle, that's a you know, that's a big problem. But generally it's more of you know, this house maybe need another bathroom or maybe just need extra windows or something like this, right? So my offer is for the fixed price, okay, you know what you're getting, it's basically we're gonna deliver that, and then for 30 days afterwards, it's not just the bug fixes or whatever you want to call that warranty stuff, which I've never done to 400 people. Any tweaks within the general scope of that will be included for 30 days. So that means you're not gonna get to this little, well, now that you found out that you need an extra window, you know how the house was you know$100,000, and now basically the extra window is another$20,000, right? You know, so that's the offering on the fixed price side, right? Essentially, it's kind of like this sort of guarantee at the end that look, you know, for 30 days, you know, essentially we'll do anything to make it fit you to fit what you actually really need and what we've learned through the process of going to that fixed price, right? So that's and I mean people do fixed price, so therefore, other than my little tweak tweets, I don't think that's necessarily as novel or as leaked as revolutionary.

SPEAKER_01: 16:24

The subscription is so go back to the fixed price, though. I'm sorry to interrupt, I do want to talk about the subscription. It's I I can see that being challenging, and I uh everyone talks about fixed price, and I really appreciate your analogy to building a house and putting in a window. Because when I Chris, you hear me talk about this all the time. Any implementation, I equate it to a project of doing work on a house because, in essence, that's what you're doing. You know, if you really extrapolate it out, you have a business, you're doing work, they're building a house, they're doing an addition to a room, they're doing something. So it is the matter of if someone's coming to do work for you, they're going to renovate your bathroom. Most of the time, they're going to tell you to they'll come in, they'll look, they'll do an estimate to renovate your bathroom. You want this, this, and this. It's going to cost you$2,000. They charge you$2,000. If they get it done in a day, they get it done in five days, it's$2,000. If they run into issues, then they say, Oh, by the way, once we took out the old tub, we found you had rot. Now that you have rot, you need to add a little bit more to it because it would, you know, something that none of us knew. So now your$2,000 becomes$2,500. So it's not the hourly rate where you get to run on forever, in essence, right? Where some people think if you're doing an hourly rate, I'm bringing so much into this because I'm excited about this topic. And I I'll try to keep us on with um the services that you have. Some people feel that, okay, well, you're renting my bathroom, you tell me it's 10 hours, and then, oh, by the way, if it takes you 20, it takes you 20, right? Because I can go from 10 till whenever it's done. And I I see the challenges with that, and I see the hesitation with that, everybody, because then it almost is like the software industry is almost like lawyers, right? Where lawyers will pick up the phone, they'll talk to you, and they charge you seven minutes for just you know saying hello, uh, which leaves a bad taste. So now I appreciate the project. This is what it is. You get it done when you get it done. We identify what we need. Now, within yours, when you have a fixed bid and you're saying you have some additional tweaks to get it to your liking, what if someone tells you they wanted a room with no windows? They didn't even say they wanted a window. And now you frame the whole room up, you put the walls in, you put the brick on the outside because they wanted a brick house, and now they say we want a window. And now you have to like tear into the brick. It's not a small fix, it's actually a pretty significant change.

SPEAKER_04: 18:45

Well, it's funny because you know, I mean, I think you guys know, but maybe not uh the audience, I mean I'm originally from Europe, but from Eastern Europe, right? So coming into America and the whole customer service with the customer is always right, it's always seemed a little bit weird to me. Like, I mean, even like the doggy bag, it was not a thing in Romania. You know, like I mean, basically, so just you know, but if you think about uh the customer service, which I've never found myself to ever be because everybody knows me quite like that. But remember when you go to like a department store and you come in and you know, people return underwear, you know, two weeks after, right? Or people return a suit that clearly has been worn and probably you know they were out crashing weddings, you know? Who knows, right? And yet they take you back, right? So I mean, look, I mean, I don't think you know, just innately, I don't think I would be to that level, but in my opinion, is look, fine, you know, it's that's still within the reality of if I do this, I create goodwill, right? I mean, just by the sheer fact that we are a small company and we're not like a big company, whatever, from us, you know, most of our clients. I mean, I have clients that have been with me since 2003, right? So, I mean, to me, it's uh if I can build a long term relationship and stay with someone for a long time, it's a lot more fun. And I, you know, one of the things the you know, last year. That I also did help me pull the trigger here is finding your crowd, you know, finding your your flock, actually, right? I like I rather work with less people, but people that I've sort of I'm in the same mind of than anything else, right? So if you value me, fine. I mean, I'll go the extra mile. You're right. Theoretically, that is somewhat of an um unfair request, right? Because exactly you should have known you need Windows, right? You know, I mean, I think the problem is uh it was funny because I mean I used to live and I'm back in your city, but I mean I used to live upstate, right? So once I got a house, you know, I got the taste of you know trying to fix things or whatever. So remember one time I was trying to go away from my from the contractor ahead of the time, and I was kind of like having all sorts of problems. So I'm I'm bitching a moment to one of my clients, right? So like I'm just commenting, complaining about it. And when I'm done, the client goes to me and goes, like, well, now you know how we feel about you, you know. So they have you know, they have their own perspective on this. Because I mean the argument is look, I mean, do you I I think what I've seen happen in the market, it's also the other way around, right? Um, some part, you know, some people uh you know essentially will just say if you want a room without windows, that's what we'll do for you without trying to convince you that you should have windows, right? So once you deliver that, I mean, I think the customer is also in the right to say, Well, you should have told me that I needed Windows, right? You know, or like houses with electricity, but they don't have you know the whatever turn on, turn off, you know, where the switches, right? You know, because you didn't put them in a spec, right? That is that attitude that sometimes the customer encounters. So I say split the difference, right? So I mean, if they you know, uh if unless they're you know extreme in the request, that's why I said to me the tent to castle is the big thing, or tend to house for that matter, right? But I mean, like if you want extra, you know what? Uh one, I feel building relationship in the long run. I mean, I think yes, I I listened to a couple of you, you know, last and yesterday, including the one with Rory about like you know AI and everything else, like you know, what is that gonna do? So code becoming so commoditized at the end of the day, that part is pretty easy, right? You know, so at the end of the day, look, I mean, it's we try to get you as long as you stay in business and you're successful, we are gonna be successful, right? So I mean that's kind of my philosophy in that case.

SPEAKER_03: 22:15

I think I think I think uh the the service industry is certainly a change. I mean, if you look at service delivery in many areas, you always have that kind of a standard, kind of a fixed standard implementation, right? So you have standard, you know, premium or whatever, and then you may have enterprise where it's much more complex. Maybe they're building a larger home, a lot of like options they want to add. And so those are maybe become like, hey, it's a kind of a time material. But you're right, I think uh there's a a fit for implementation that are fixed, especially for SMBs where they may have a very set um the budget that they put aside. So I think a lot of people forget about that, where it's a lot easier for small and medium-sized businesses where hey, look, I'm a I'm a I'm a growing business and I have this much money that I've put aside, you know, and but I want to implement, I want to grow. Here's what you know, what can I get out of this one? And sometimes that's all they need. They just need a good starting point and then maybe improve down the road. And if as you as we all know, business central always improves. So they're going to benefit a lot of the new features are coming. And um so I think there's a definitely a good fit for fixed implementation. So that's a need.

SPEAKER_01: 23:34

Well, you hit on another key point with that is the relationships. And I'm on the the again, it's something that I've been talking about even more so. Again, you said software is becoming commoditized. And well, geez, if we want to jump into that, we can as well, but I want to talk about the subscription point. Relationships are going to be important. Unless you had like I like what you had said, you had two key points to me that I heard. One, have strong relationships, and two, uh, pick who you work with. Uh just like you you you interview candidates uh for positions, it it goes both ways. If if uh a customer wants you to do work for them, you should also make sure it's the type of customer that you want to work with. I'll tell you, over the years that I've worked, we've had customers in in some of the places that I've worked, I've worked with customers that we had to tell them we didn't want them to be customers anymore because they were just not easy to work with. It goes on both sides, right? Not just because you're getting money for it, but you also have the stress, the anxiety, and you know, the difficulties of working. Not to say that you know there aren't challenging problems that need to be solved. It's are you working together and partnering for the end result of a successful implementation, right? Making sure that uh you're satisfied with what you deliver. That's extremely important, and the the whomever's receiving is important. So I I like your approach of finding, like you said, finding your flock, which is uh finding the right fit because there's so many people out there, there's so many different things out there that you can waste your time in negative energy and you're not going anywhere and suiting anybody, and then you have hostility, or you can build those strong relationships, like you said. I call it like don't nickel and dime, right? You you like you could try to get as much money as you can today, but if you have a long relationship, you could have uh a strong relationship where you both benefit from that relationship, right? Again, if someone's paying you to do something for their benefit, they're not doing it just to give you money, and then you want them to pay you for the services so that you can, you know, you have the benefit of the income as well. So I think that's extremely important is to identify who you want to uh do things with in your life as well as value that relationship.

SPEAKER_03: 25:40

Um go ahead I sorry, just a quick point. Uh people don't realize there's a cost of acquisition of relationship. So you you know building the relationship early on is very, very important to me and identifying who is the the right partner because yeah, I mean, in both sides, by the way. So if you're ever as a customer, as an end user, finding a new partner is very, very difficult. It's like starting all over, right? And so same thing with a new client. Um acquiring a client takes a long time to build that relationship. So yes, a relationship is very, very important in this space, especially.

SPEAKER_01: 26:20

So the other thing you have is you have that uh a subscription billing model, which I do want to get back to software being commoditized because I think it'd be great to speak with you with that. But the subscription scripts subscription model is not the fixed bid model, a fixed price model, whatever someone may talk about. Now they pay a monthly service. Someone could pay you a monthly service for services, uh, and under that model, how does that work?

SPEAKER_04: 26:44

Yes, I think Chris kind of talked about like he said, I mean, then it doesn't necessarily need to be enterprise, but I mean, if the things are not easily defined, or you know you have a lot of them, right? Then I mean it's gonna be a lot more complicated to figure it out. And I mean, sometimes, yeah, I mean, look, I mean, if you're a distribution company, unless you have some weird thing, I think I I'm I today I'm willing, I'm willing to take a chance and throw at you a particular budget and even stick to it because I kind of know what it's gonna be. But sometimes some things are more complex, sometimes it takes longer and you don't necessarily know everything. And I this actually fits quite well, especially on the power BI side, where we like to do like really small increments, right? Because the problem is I can think I understand what the reports are. You I'm sure you think you understand what I told you. I'm gonna do the reports, but when I come to you, you're gonna go, oh, this is this is not what I wanted. And part of the Power BI is more a power BI again, analogy. I always use analogy when I when I talk about Power BI projects. It is the data model, is the foundation and the plumbing, right? Then you have dimension measures, and that's your rooms, your bathrooms, your windows, whatever. And then the actual report is basically the interior design. And I think I would never build a house because I have the patience to sort of think through those things. But what color are the cartas, what color are gonna be the paint on the walls, what marble do you want in the kitchen, what uh you know, like those things everybody, you know, even in the same, you know, in the same family, you know, you you know, the wife and you could be arguing and you can never come to a conclusion, right? So that's why they we go in small increments, and therefore then it makes sense to just keep going, knowing that we're working together, right? So with the subscription, theoretically, I guess originally I felt it would be I mean, I might back up from that thing just simply because maybe it just sounds too good to be true, but it says unlimited development, right? Essentially, call it power BI or business central, right? Um, now obviously, like everything else, it can't be a hundred percent unlimited since since basically, you know, like at the end of the day, then you know I would be losing my shirt, you know. Um the the only rule, and everybody's different. My rule, because this is where you have to put at least a rule, a limitation, right? So the only rule is you can give us as many tasks as you want, but we only work on one task at a time, right? So there's two parts. What is it that you're doing? So you we only work on one task at a time. I think David Singleton was saying that he says his rule is I only have one person from the car line that I talk to, they're supposed to tell me what it is. The idea being that you kind of slow down, it'll be the funnel of stuff that comes to you, you know. And the other part to consider, which I mean I would expect clients to think about, is okay, fine. So now we're doing one task at a time. The if you want to be cynical, obviously the question is, well, you then it sounds like you have an incentive to work really slow so you can make more money, right? Um, and I mean, this is where the answer to the client is basically, well, you know, we're gonna treat you like all of our clients. I mean, I work informally with most of my clients this way. I don't give estimates, they just tell me what to do, and I do it, and I know with my each client when is something super important, when something can wait, and generally we just put them into the queue. And obviously, sometimes he jumps if there is something and whatever. So we will get you, you know, going at a what we think it's a good sort of customer service delivery level, right? Um, if you wanted to, if you wanted to sort of um, I don't know, define that further. For instance, there is a guy on the CRM side, the way he's he's put his, which was actually, you know, I've influenced myself a lot from him, and I spent a lot of time talking to him about this stuff, but um he's got like this sort of like economy, premium, and first class, right? So economy, he says, um, he says basically the resources working on a project are shared with six other clients. Not sure if that means including you, whatever, but you know, then uh premium is like three other clients, and um, you know, basically first class it was like just you get your own team, right? I mean, to me, that sounds a little bit more defined, but in the same time, what does that really mean, right? Because you you could be sharing with one other client, and if the other client has, you know, a hundred projects and you only have one, the question is how does that work, right? So, I mean, that doesn't mean this the model is wrong, it just means it really doesn't matter what the definition is. I mean, to me, the idea is what we offer is look, you have one month to try, right? And then if you don't like, you know, I mean, technically, the proper way to do this is it would be to say you have to come in for a year or three years, because there are ups and downs for for both sides, right? That's that's literally the um sort of retainer with lawyers, right? I mean, not nothing that I'm doing here, it's like something that I came up with and doesn't really exist.

SPEAKER_01: 31:22

No, it doesn't but just to go back, you hit one key thing on that. I'd like to just jump in and you hit on the relationship. You said with most of your clients that you work with, you have an understanding of it. And that see, this is where I keep coming into the relationship because as you had mentioned, is you work with people long enough, you have faith that they're going to deliver, as also and they have faith that they understand what's critical, because it's very difficult to gauge what's an emergency because everything's an emergency to the person who has the problem, right? It really is, and it could be something like my computer's unplugged from the wall and I can't turn it on, and it's an emergency, it's an emergency, it's an emergency to you know, my entire system's not working because the internet outage or something. You know, there's different levels of uh of uh priority, I guess you could say, and having a relationship where you understand those levels and how to manage that to at least have so that they know that you listen to them and you hear them and you work with them and they know that you always deliver is important uh with that. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to jump in, but I'm on this relationship.

SPEAKER_04: 32:25

No, no, it's a valid, it's a valid thing, and it's funny enough because you know I gave you that example with when I was trying to go away from my contractor that I had at the time, it wasn't trying to go trying to supplant him because there was this thing where I would ask for something that I just wanted it done quickly, right? And I mean my contractor has a slightly different opinion of uh you know time, right? I mean, like for him, if he says gonna be there in an hour or two, but sometime today, it's not quite time warner, you know, cable, but uh basically, you know, and sometimes I could see how he would literally literally wait until we put the whole bunch of things together, like we had multiple needs, and then he would come in and do them then. So, first of all, you know, that it's funny because I mean again, I'm leaving the same thing on the personal side, and it's a very interesting thing to compare with the house and with the personal stuff. So, one, you know, like at the end of the day, basically I tried to go to other people, right? And I mean, I remember hiring this guy hourly, and I mean like$80,$90 to literally do like one thing. I wanted him to replace the oil in the sort of lamps that were out in the garden, like a van in a bathroom. He studied half a day, he took the containers and he never showed up ever again, with the exception of two months later asking for the half a day of work money back, money for that half a day of work that he did, even though he never even brought back the containers, right? So am I half joke, half serious whenever clients complain about my services? I would be like, Look, man, you should see the other guys, you know. So honestly, it's true.

SPEAKER_01: 33:44

It's absolutely what you just said is absolutely true, and it's it's it's pretty poor that people work this way. And it's every industry where people say they'll do something. I I could tell you some personal stories, and it's like you said, they show up, they do minimal, they never come back, and you're just kind of stuck there.

SPEAKER_04: 34:05

It's very hard to find what and it's to say$18 for what change, you know. But here's the thing I don't necessarily like this, I'm not here denigrating that guy because you know we don't know. Look, maybe you know, who knows? Maybe he had something personal. I mean, I think where I can denigrate him is when he one asks for the money two months later, two doesn't really apologize. Those are problems, right?

SPEAKER_01: 34:24

But I think that's communication in that key, right? People fail to realize the importance of communication. Issues do occur. And listen, we all have them. All you have to all you have to say. I hate it when people say all you have to do is what's important to do in that situation is say, hey, I know I said I'd fill your uh oil and your lanterns, I took the containers, I ran into a personal issue, I won't be able to get back to you until two months. At least it sets the expectation and then it gives you the opportunity to have sort of closure on it that you know that he's not coming back for two months, or you can find someone else in the meantime as well, if you're not satisfied with that level. And I think that again, it's it's this industry is just like any other service industry, and we we fail to realize that. I mean, even if you're selling products in a sense, it's almost the same way. You you have services that you're delivering for those products or those products or those services.

SPEAKER_04: 35:15

So um but it's yeah, it's fine. So but to close on the contract, you see, here's the thing. Eventually I give up, right? But here's the thing. Yes, uh it was frustrating, if nothing else, because of the you know, but it's frustrating sometimes to wait. But here's where the key thing is, right? He also knew why it was important. Look, I mean, on July 4th, like we had guests over one particular year when I had a house upstate, and uh septic time backed into the you know, um backed into the basement, right? And it took us a while to figure out. I mean, that experience, first of all, really I don't know if we're allowed to say this on a podcast, but ruined the worst shit for me because you know you can say whatever you want. Yeah, so I mean it's like you know, you know when you say they should actually buy you had I had water, what they call it brown water, call it that, all over the basement, right? And I mean I had this, I called this company in the middle of the night, and they really screwed up everything, made things even worse. But I mean, the thing is he came in the next day to help me find like the septic tank to unplug it, whatever. So even though it was weekend, it was like the weekend of July 4th, whatever. So the point is, you know, and it's funny because you're talking about even like a computer being unplugged, like there's a Joe, there's a writing job between us about the GFI, which look, I don't know nothing about like you know, doing stuff around the house. So that's like the little red button on the you know power strip, whatever. I didn't know existed until he pointed out to me once because something wasn't working. So, but that's the thing. I know that when it's a truly you know system down thing, right? He shows up, right? And he showed up despite the fact that was July 4th, despite the fact that his people were not working, he came in and sat there and we dug for like two hours until we found what the septic tank was. And I mean, he literally sort of you know got himself dirty to do this, right? So I mean, I think this is kind of our promise. This is a promise that we were to the client, you know. They have our cell phone, they have, you know, then they you know they know how to reach to us if there's a true problem, and also we can kind of recognize. But I mean, I think this is where the flock concept comes in because you need a person that understands, because eventually I kind of settle myself into this thing. I know that sometimes he's not gonna jump on it, and I also know myself that yes, I would like it fast, but is I would like it, right? You know, and again, if he didn't have anything else to do, or if he had the space, he would actually do it. It wasn't just like generally. I know the reason he would not do some of the stuff is because he was already super busy with other people, right? And as he happens, he basically his entire career apparently is like that development. He basically had again reputation. One house, as he got sold, everybody recommended him to the next person. That's how I got him, right? So, like, literally, the guy is, I don't know, probably around my age, like close to 40, something, 50, right? And I mean, like essentially he that his entire career since was like 16, 18 when he started this, he's been mostly in that particular development and just built relationships with everybody there, known the owners and everything else, right? So, I mean, that's kind of you know, that's the problem with this is everything that we just said right now. How do I put this in a marketing page on you know, on my subscription service to say what is the level of service? It's everything I just said right now, but everybody keeps telling me, like, when you have a website, put like you know, two phrases. So, this is why technique for us is look, you get one month, if you don't like it, you can cancel afterwards, or you know, we say you can always start with a fixed price project with us, right? Do one fixed price project, see how it goes, and then you can go into the subscription thing, right? And I think again, going back to relationship, going back to knowing. I mean, Chris, a good point about the custom acquisition, right? You with a lot of our clients right now, they send us an email, and we already know between the development team, between me and everybody, we already know the history. They don't need to sit there and explain, right? Imagine the way the way you have with the new company. You have to explain a lot of the background, and more importantly, you you might not even think of all the things that need to be considered. Hey, this might might impact other things. If I already know everything else you have in the house, right? I mean, like, hey, you know, let's go spray the roof for whatever, you know, to get mass off. But if you have solar panels, that makes a huge difference in how you approach the whole thing, right? Um, so like, I mean, but if you don't know, you could have a kid that just goes and starts spraying because you said you want to spray it for, you know, whatever. So the more you go, the more there's a value in that in that relationship, right?

SPEAKER_01: 39:26

Then well, that's where you become a consultant uh uh versus just labor because partner, partner. Well, that's well, can yes, partner, excuse me. But uh I use the consultant in the sense of you talk with them about what they want. Or you again, the partner is the better word, thank you. It's and I use that all the time. It's a a partner should be a partner with you to make sure that your business is successful and they don't just do what you want per se, they talk with you about what you are looking for. Because again, it's I could go into the doctor because I have Soram and say, hey. My arm's broken, put a cast on it. Or do I want the doctor to take the time to talk to me about my pain, to see what's going on, to see actually my problem is I have pain and I want it to stop. If you walk in telling them how to solve the problem, then you may not really find the root cause of the problem and you can make things worse. So having somebody who partners with you is good. So so the whole billable hour is dead means that you're not getting into that. We're going to give you an estimate and then whatever it takes, it takes. Right. So it's it's not that open-ended time and materials type thing. And I know a lot of people get hesitant of it, but even more so now because even outside of our industry, as you could call it, a lot of people don't charge by the hour anymore either. So it's it's you know, why would I pay for the hour for software when I'm not paying for the hour for anything else? So you can offer a fixed project within reason, right? So you said you do the fixed project for uh a certain amount of dollars based upon the task, and then you have remediation for that task for 30 days afterwards. And that's all they'd have to pay for. For the subscription, I'm just trying to re bring it back in. So then for the subscription portion of it, you pay a monthly fee, you get 30 days free. Now, when you get into the monthly after the monthly fee, do you have a contract for a certain period of time or is it just months?

SPEAKER_04: 41:18

No, no, no, that's what I'm saying. No, so it's not like no, it don't you don't get a month for month free. You just basically beat one month a month. You can cancel anytime. I mean, you could basically pause it at any time because there's also the question, you know, what if I don't have anything right now, right? You know, so I mean if you want to pause it mid-month and then just revive it later on. But I mean, we're not locking anybody in. I mean, uh, presumably at some point, assuming that it takes off. I mean, we can always do like discounts if you want to commit. But I mean, generally, the idea is, you know, if you want to be here, you want to be here. If you don't want to be here, you know, there's no point forcing you just because, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 41:53

With but just with that, uh, you said there's unlimited development for Power BI and Business Essential. Is it just development? Does it include training and other types of services?

SPEAKER_04: 42:02

I mean, it's a good, it's a good question. I think for now, I mean, for now, for us, it's just development, right? I mean, essentially. Um, we do, you know, we do have a separate thing for like which I don't know which category comes in. And I literally just started a project right now, and I did this originally with the Valve's jewelry thing. Uh, I did the project for him that way. Fixed price implementation. Budget is let's say$120,000. You agree you're doing it in 12 months. We charge you basically 220 divided by 12. I just made it for the ease of math,$10,000 a month. We bill it$10,000 a month, so there's no timesheets. You know, we agree at the beginning what it cut what it goes into it. Um, and then basically we don't charge, and then whether there's meetings, whether there's everything, there's an assumption that we're gonna train. I mean, you you say you're gonna train the trainer, we you know, you put a limit like data conversion to of them, but you don't go and say they better be like this, or otherwise we're gonna charge you every hour for every little thing that we change or whatever stuff like that, right? So, I mean, there is kind of that option as well. In the ins it's in the middle, and I'm not sure if that's subscription, because it is subscription with a predefined term that includes pretty much a task, right? That's so at the end of the day, it is kind of a subscription. But for the regular subscription, it's just development because I mean training, uh, you know, then it's a lot harder to limit that, and also that means the the most costly is the human interface, right? So I mean if I have to spend 40 hours a day training, obviously in that case I can't see it making you know, I can't see making it sort of profitable in any way. Until I get because I heard in the Rory thing, until I get an avatar the way you want to have your Brad avatar, and then uh you know, I can have them do the training, maybe. You know, in that case, fair enough. We can do that, you know. They're coming. I know, I know. Chris, you were gonna say something? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03: 43:49

Yeah, I just want to from it, but no, no, I uh it's still within the same subject. I think I I think uh people are realizing that um you know we talked about little uh other different generation um you know coming into this space and we've talked about this several times. And one thing I wanted to point out that a lot of times we we tend to mirror what we do or per in a personal level um into the business space. Um so you talked about subscription and fix fix a bid or fix uh fix that fix a bid implementation. Those are common things that people like us expect on a day-to-day life. So if you look at this subscription base, it's a fantastic idea because if you look at newer generations coming into the workshop decision makers, they're used to that. Look what we do in a day-to-day, everything that we do is a subscription base, and we know what we expect on a monthly basis. Here's what I get on a monthly basis and a subscription. And it's up to you to get the most out of it, right? It's easier for everybody as well. Like I you had mentioned, you there's no timesheet. It's a lot of work to have to do a timesheet on a monthly basis or on a weekly basis where you have a subscription, it's much easier for both parties to say, hey, here's what I want to accomplish. What can we do to get as much as we can and and and um and implement it? So I think that's what you're doing, Christians, is is amazing. And I think we I think a lot of small, medium-sized businesses would essentially prefer now. It's not for everybody. Absolutely, it's not for everybody, but there's a lot of them out there that like, hey, this is easier for me to um budget on a monthly basis or even budget for the entire project in itself. So I having an option is is a great option for a lot of the SMBs out there.

SPEAKER_01: 45:41

And what you hit on that, Chris, was really good is you don't focus on the time, you focus on the task. Yes. That's the key to me, and and that's what I'm saying. It's you're focusing on working together to solve the problem. You're not worrying about, oh, it took two hours to do this, it took three hours to do that. And oftentimes, and we've all been doing this, people will pay what they need to pay for something that they need to get done. There's a value to them. What is that value to me to have that done? And I'll pay for it. It's not a matter of if it takes you, oh, it's three hours, it's gonna be this and that. It's I just need this task done, right? I'm not saying it's an emergency. I'm just saying you need something done to uh, as Chris as you had mentioned, that in your home life, right? We have subscriptions. We don't, you know, uh you pay a subscription fee for your internet monthly fee. You can use a terabyte or you can use 500 gigabytes. You don't sit there and worry about did I use not anymore. I mean, early on in the days, that's what we used to do back when we were kids, when the internet was invented. But it I like the fact that you focus on solving a problem or completing a task versus all of the overhead around that task. And I and I like that. One question with a subscription. Oh, okay, Chris.

SPEAKER_03: 46:59

No, I'm sorry, it's uh it's it's also the value that you get out of it, right? Because like uh it's uh value is subjective to you know but for the dollar that you're paying. Um, you know, we're talking about house houses built or even maintenance in your house. You know, I had a guy come out here and and we talked about this in the last episode. I have a boiler room and you know, I I need someone to do a maintenance. I have I know not no and I don't know anything about boiler rooms, but the value is making sure that my house is heating properly during the winter time. What am I willing to pay? The guy came out and you know, gave you know, I think I paid a guy$350. I don't know how long he spent here. I know he was out there working on something, but knowing the fact that it's going to do it's going to do exactly what I needed to do, and the value of that is keeping my house warm and my family uh warm during wintertime. So the dollar didn't matter at that point. It's the result that I was expecting. So just to kind of finish it off what you were saying, Brad.

SPEAKER_01: 47:59

The the subscription billing, and this is what I'm thinking of, is is there a different structure uh based upon the organization size? It goes with what you uh you know, I was thinking about when Chris was talking about the SMBs, right? I could be a one-user system that I need your services, and it will fluctuate, as you had mentioned. It's nice to see that you could stop and start that. Or I could be a 300-user system where I may have a little bit more that I need uh from you. Is it a one subscription fee and then you work on one task at a time, or uh does the subscription vary based upon the organization?

SPEAKER_04: 48:40

Um I mean, and we thought about that. So here's the thing theoretically, it's really the work, right? So I mean, if you if you needed to, so if you need because the problem is the following. Look, you could be you could be a one one-man company, or you could be a thousand-man company, right? You know, um, if you only have one task at a time, it really doesn't matter, right? I mean, it's an artificial sort of differentiation. The way in my mind is nothing stops you from buying two subscriptions for me. If you want to have two two tasks going at the same time, you can buy either two subscriptions, or you can have a subscription, and if you need something extra or something done faster, exactly know when it's delivered. You could do a fixed price. The point is you can you can sort of mix and match on the two offerings, right? So you can have this, and then you can have a fixed price for one particular project if it's a one-off, or you can do two or three. I mean, I don't think I could have absorbed three from a company at a given time because I would have to like scale up on the you know on the resources and everything else, but that is sort of the philosophy behind it. You know, if you if you have seven projects going at the same time, buy seven subscriptions.

SPEAKER_00: 49:48

Let me talk to you about these agents that can help you.

SPEAKER_04: 49:52

And I mean, there is part of it, it's still it's it's look, here's where the the biggest part is gonna be the specing, right? The spec of the stuff and figuring out what you put in there and everything. So, I mean, to to like for instance, I want to say that as far as as enamored I am with this concept, and I'm very passionate about it, and there's a lot of reasons, not just these, but you know, Chris, you said something about what is the value. Really, the the on the internet, there are people I sort of with this starts in me initially, is not it's really based on what is the value to you, right? Because essentially, I've had this with clients where there's a mod that I could do in two hours, but the client would not blink at paying five or ten thousand dollars because it's super important to them. Then it's something that I slugged away for three days developing, and then they're like, What? This thing couldn't be just$200, right? So, and again, I was like, Oh my god, look at them how, but I mean, I ended, I understood over time the point, which is one, they don't know the work, but more importantly, if it doesn't have the value, that's what they that's what matters to them, right? So the argument that the really ideal model is to be, you know, going back to that keyword, that's why I said partner, based on what is the benefit, what is the ROI for you? So here's the thing, and this applies a lot better when you, you know, this probably will apply like better when you introduce the agents and everything else, but really it doesn't matter. A tool is a tool. If this brings you, you know, I don't know, cost savings of a million dollars a year or extra revenue of a million dollars a year. Is it okay if I charge you 10% of it? Should be okay if I charge you 10% of that, even if that took me three hours to do it, right? That it shouldn't really matter what it took me to do it. If I can deliver that to you, that's the argument, right? That's really the ultimate holy grail in that in this other world. The issue with that one is, I mean, I've seen and I've read some of these things. Some people really follow these guys that are that are you know sort of proselytizing this. Obviously, the issue there is how do you define ROI on a thing, right? You know, it's really hard because to attribute a direct impact to something. I mean, in certain scenarios, it's clear-cut, especially when it's a new thing that you're doing a business or whatever. But I mean, otherwise it's kind of hard, right? But ultimately, that would be sort of the perfect thing, right? Because then it's still somewhat arbitrary with a subscription, because it's still based more on, but it still is pay for results, you know, and not uh cost. And then the other thing is to the world of partner. I mean, I have to say this because, you know, I mean, I've learned more a little bit more about marketing, but it is a reality and it is my mind. You know, what do clients what do clients complain about all the time? Man, you know, we do projects and they fail a lot of times, and there's so much risk, and then blah blah blah, and this and this, right? The point with this is also the goal of doing this is to take risk away from the client. You're not just the fact that you're saving money with a fixed price. I mean, yeah, I don't know whether you do or don't, but I mean, like the point of that guarantee for a month afterwards is like reducing your risk, right? Because the risk is, I mean, I I use this example all the time. You're you know, I think I'm you know relatively savvy technically, and I I had a nice big printer, HP, three, four hundred dollars, and at some point I got tired of buying the expensive things. And I'm like, look online, did the research on the$60 printer. I mean, recommended by a whole bunch of websites, go and buy it, and I mean, look fine. It has scanner, it has printing. I don't know if you still had facts at the time, but obviously it doesn't matter. So, I mean, I printed for about a month, right? And then after that, uh, basically I have a contract that I need to sign, like 20-30 pages, right? You know, so do PDF, you know, like whatever that, and then you have to scan it to send it out. Turns out this printer, you could only scan one page at a time. If you wanted to sort of make one PDF out of them, you had to scan, put go back and say, add the next page they're gonna scan to this PDF, otherwise, you would just keep creating another PDF, another PDF. But I'm like, I'm not doing this, right? But Chris, you said about SMBs, I have a limited uh budget. Here's the thing you know, I could just throw I threw that away immediately and I went and bought back a$300 printer, you know. But I made an assumption in terms of what is there, but I mean that's a risk because if you don't have the money to throw away that printer and put a new one, now you're stuck with a subpar system because maybe QuickBooks plus Excel was actually more efficient to them than something that I put you into this, right? So, my point with this is my goal here is also to reduce the risk for the client, right? With subscription, there is exactly leveling off on the budgeting and in the long run building a relationship that technically makes things better. Fixed price, same thing. So, I mean, if you know, if you that's again going back to a flock, if you view me as a partner rather than just someone that's gonna deliver you the cheapest, right? You know, then that's fine. I mean, I think interesting enough, because we keep going back to this analogy, you know, to this analogy, and this is the only thing where I mean it is a frustration for me in terms of the response so far to this, is like if someone came in your house a plumber and said, you know, hey, it's gonna tell you, I'm gonna charge you whatever per hour, put a number, right? And I'll let you know when it's done. I mean, nobody would go with that, right? I mean, like nobody in their right mind would ever go with this, but that's the problem. Why is it, and you guys can tell me your theory, why is it that that's not the same attitude? Because everybody has a house, everybody's gone through these experiences from the people that work with our clients. Why is it that it's such a hard sell? And why is it that uh, you know, we we talk about something as if you know, this is the you know, we we just discovered the wheel, right? You know, and basically the answer this year, when I talk to marketers and everything else, and I've heard this answer before, their answer is well, people don't make decisions based on the value and what it is there, they base decision talking of risk, decision of can I justify to my board afterwards if this thing goes bad, and if I choose a small company or something different, then they're gonna blame me. And my argument is I almost wish I was in the regular home contracting because in home contracting it's your money, and if you know, if your boiler doesn't work, your house is cold, so you're gonna do the best to get the best outcome. Whereas according to marketers, and I mean I've seen in my experiences when we're you know bidding for projects, a lot of times people will go for either just personal connection because they love the salesperson, or they perceive that the bigger partner, regardless of the you know, regardless whether that is way more money, whatever, they're just gonna go with that because it's less risk in terms of making that selection. So it's kind of interesting that it is there like that.

SPEAKER_01: 56:17

That is it. They it's it's the value to them, and no one will go. It is the times have changed, I think, and it's it's because of uh to Chris's point, uh, those making the decisions grew up differently. I I I hate to say it. It's it's you're you're used to doing something, and again, like you said, if someone's gonna come in and tell me, uh, you need to fix my toilet, ah uh it may take me about 10 hours at about$200 an hour or whatever it is. Uh but if it takes more, I'll let you know. You can't budget on it. And again, there's a value to having the toilet fixed. And contrary to popular belief, you could just say take the same, you know, do the math like you did.$200 an hour, it's one hour, I make$200. If my toilet's broken, if you came in and told me it'd be$600 to fix it and you got it done in one hour, I'd pay the$600 because I need my toilet fixed. Do you follow what I'm saying? So it's it's people think that by the hour you you you you're quantifying, it's more like you're quantifying the time versus the value. Where if you quantify the value, I think you can I don't want to say get more from it, it's just easier for everybody to accept. I'm going to have a toilet that's fixed, cost me six hundred dollars, you're gonna get it done today. That's all I care about. I don't care about if it took you an hour, I don't care if about it took you two hours, I don't I just want the toilet to be fixed, and you told me to be done today for six hundred dollars.

SPEAKER_03: 57:39

You you know what's wild.

SPEAKER_01: 57:41

Am I wrong in that thinking? Or no?

SPEAKER_03: 57:42

No, no, it's it's it's a it's a a great analogy because people don't realize, like, for example, you get something fixed and I'm happy with a customer service, I'm happy with the result. I don't go back and tell everyone it's cost me this much at all. I just like it works. I'm happy and move on with my life.

SPEAKER_01: 58:02

And and I tell everybody how great you were.

SPEAKER_03: 58:05

Yes, exactly. I don't tell the price.

SPEAKER_01: 58:08

I'm the biggest promoter of things. You know, I'm the because most people will complain. Like if you look at like people do ratings and reviews, they're like they only do when they complain. I'm on the flip side. You talk to people around me, if I read a book that's great, I tell everybody to read the book. If I work with somebody that did something for me, I tell everybody, right? Because again, it goes to what you're saying. I think with your point of like the larger partners people go with them, and it may cost more to reduce the risk, it's because they have an assumption of reputation that they wouldn't be such a large partner if they weren't successful, if you follow what I'm saying. Where again it comes it cut it does come down to having a relationship reputation, and you have to be able to deliver as well. I mean, listen, you won't have a reputation and um you won't have the ability to have a good reput reputation and relationships if you don't deliver, but it it it sometimes people need to take a look at that of um as well.

SPEAKER_04: 59:02

I mean, uh it's kind of like yeah, but that's kind of the thing. So like uh it still is the pervasive model. And yeah, I mean, there is the reputation and the implication of, but I don't I think it's more of like less risk for them. I mean, this is what I mean, like a bunch of marketers told me the same thing, right? Um, because I mean to me that to me that's the same way as we're using your you know, plumber fixing your toilet, is you know, would you, you know, if two two basic plumbers come to you and say, you know, well, I have a college degree, and the other says I don't have a college degree, you're gonna go with the college degree one. No, you still gotta go with the one that seems more likely to be able to fix it. And if they both give you a fixed price, maybe you go with the one that's slightly cheaper, right? But I mean, that doesn't seem to be, as of today, the decision model, right? You know, for a lot for a lot of people. And I mean, I, you know, there's an interesting thing also with marketing where they're like, well, when I go and say, look, this seems this doesn't create the right incentives, the idea is that that's not the right messaging, because then you you're saying that the customers that are going by Oli Rate, they're wrong, right? And I mean I I like to say that at least what I'm doing right now, it's more of like, look, as long as there's not an option out there, right? Then technically, why you can can you do? I mean, like, you know, there's a lot of lawyers that offer um, you know, offer basic key sort of retainers, right? Um, and I mean, I just got a notification from the lawyer that I use that I use that his rate are going to for senior and junior 750 and 450 an hour, which by the way means we're in their own business. But, you know, essentially the retainers don't reflect that. So, I mean, like that's kind of the idea. For us, at this point, if we start offering this, I mean, I'm interested to see if people will respond to it. I mean, I can tell you that as much marketing as I've done, the I've managed to make some sales that way, but they still have been through my own connection, then through people responding to this, which is kind of the one thing that I still want to understand why is that, you know, because the only explanation that does make sense is that one where people are because it's not your money, you're gonna decide because it's not your house, you're gonna decide on what keeps your job rather than the value of it, right? And I mean, that goes back to the fuck, you know. I mean, I I I have and I do work with a bunch of companies from a private equity. And by the way, you know, Brad, you're talking about like stress and everything else. You know, I have uh I invented a phrase that originally started my own personal life, but I mean applies to work as well. Problems you shouldn't have. I have no problem dealing with problems, you know. I mean, life is full of problems, work and personal. I hate problems you shouldn't have when you do when things could be avoided and you still create them, right? With the private equity, what I found is they are very, you know, they're very demanding, they're very sort of like, you know, sort of, you know, not you know, the core, whatever. They're not like a person, you know, like it's it's a different personality with them, but they just want to get stuff done, right? And I love working with that. I don't care, you don't need to be polite, you don't need to be nice, you don't need to sort of, you know, take me out for dinner, you don't need to say thank you. I love when you work with, you know, when you work with people that want to get stuff done versus people that that's where the problems you shouldn't have. You know, in a lot of clients, I've seen things, especially when it's kind of in between. When you have an owner, there's always someone that can kind of calm down everybody, right? Well, but then if you have like sort of a diffuse ownership, there's a lot more politics, right? And I mean, I've always going back to our analogy with the house, which will stick forever in everybody's mind. I see myself at this point, for better or for worse, that plumber with a butt crack. You know, I want to come in and fix your toilet, you know, you go do watch TV, and I'll tell you when it's done. You know, don't come over and tell me, don't come over and tell me how to do it, because if you did, then you do it. Also, you know, I don't care if you take credit afterwards, but don't come in and interfere. Don't come in and sort of comment or, you know, guess, you know, sort of, you know, try to second guess what I'm doing, whatever, right? You know, so that's kind of you know, that's kind of the thing. I hate when you go into the situations where you have to, you know, basically um, you know, sort of like run through the politics and the goal, you know, everybody has their own goal, and most of the time is not actually getting this thing done, you know. So that's why if you find those people that actually just want to go somewhere, and uh Chris, you did you use that example with like someone that's growing, maybe at the beginning they just need a little bit. And this sort of partners with that idea of partner, like you could almost partner with that person to provide them the tech stack, right? That is actually the same as having a warehouse, same as having a Z com. You could view it that way. And at that at that point, you can almost argue that you could be a minority owner in that company and you could offer it for a lot lower cost, and then you have a equity coming afterwards, right? So you can make that that would be an ideal model that you at some point I believe can be done even from our industry if we want to move on that way. But I mean, to me, the subscription is the same thing. I basically sort of becoming one of your running costs, right? The same way as electricity, the same way as an office, same way as everything else. But here's the thing that means my job is not just to do when you tell me something, get it done. My job is to think about what I need to do for you. My job is to think what will be beneficial for you. And I think the AI thing is gonna be one of the reasons that technically this kind of approach should be taken for two reasons. Number one, everybody talks about how what how to do it I how to put it in and whatever. Nobody talks about what the cost is once AI is there, what else needs to be done? Because the I is not gonna be setting and forget it for a long time, no matter what. So now the question is I have the option of a BC mod or I have the option of an AI agent, right? So, how are you gonna figure out which one is more cost effective in the long run, right? You can pay me to do this on an hourly rate and sort of do that analysis for you. Or if I know, I mean, uh you know, I need to justify my existence, I mean one part of your organization, I'm gonna look at it and allow you to basically see, you know, try these things without necessarily paying a cost for it, right? You know, so I mean I think that's that's one of the benefits of having it together, and then yes, generally allowing me to try things, like this is what the guy with the CRM said for his customers. She would go and say, Let's try some stuff. You know, have you considered this? Have you considered? So for us looking at something and coming back and providing it to them and saying, Here's an idea, here's something else. If it's in the subscription and you didn't have any other task, you know, uh, I mean, you're not gonna have a problem with me doing this, and if it doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't go anywhere. But ultimately, it's a benefit for you to figure out. So, with all these things together, uh, you know, you can sort of basically become a company together with every single client.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:30

I I do I do see it changing. I I do see the model changing or the need for the model to change as time progresses. As as you know, we're talking about billing for time, that's why I threw that in there. But I I I think there will be a shift to uh you're you're paying for the the value of the service or you're paying for the service, not for the time to do the service.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:53

Yeah, and you hit that uh uh perfectly with with all the you know building this relationship. I I think uh just to go back to like the building house or something coming to your house and do the maintenance, you know, one one of the things that I'll always remember anytime someone comes out and do a maintenance in my house, one thing I'll always remember is the time that it the time that they took to educate me and how to maintain and properly, you know, um uh uh create that longevity of whatever I had made uh uh have them come out to do maintenance. It's that just taking the time and just educating me a little bit more. And I will always remember that, right? So it's it's no different of us as partners that are helping organizations implement something or or or install something for them and taking that time to educate them. And so that in itself gives you a lasting relationship, or actually actually kind of like putting a bow uh uh you know when you when you're done doing some work for them. So uh I do want to make that point because uh every time I've done work in the past and I educate them and they always come back. I remember when you took the time to help us out and um you know, and we still reference uh reference uh those those documents and reference those education that you've given us.

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:11

See, it all comes down to the relationship, I think. Um I think it's an interesting model. I I uh sounds like it's going well, uh you know, as you just started it. Uh I know when I first saw it, I was uh intrigued. Uh I was interested.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:25

It is controversial, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01: 1:07:27

It's still it it's it's con it's not controversial in a sense. Uh it's different. I think if uh to your point about uh about the marketing of it, how do you put all of this into a one-page uh uh paper that people can get from it? It's a little bit different, but I also think uh some pieces of it you could put together because I think it would resonate with those making the decision. Uh, you know, equate it to a monthly subscription for cable, equate it to a monthly subscription for something. You're getting us you're not using those words because I don't want to I don't want to trivialize the importance of it either, but it's also you're used to subscriptions now, you pay for it, you use it, and you go with it, I think. But um I do think there needs to be a change, time value, money. Uh it has to change uh uh because of just technology. Uh things are things are getting done faster. Uh and I'm not saying AI is doing it all and it's faster, but as again, used to take a long time to build a house, then they invented the air guns. Houses took less time to build. It's just reality. It's it's not uh saying that something's going to end all and do it all, but electric saws helped cut wood. Uh so now you can cut the wood faster. Does it mean that you should you know the value of the house is less? Yeah, obviously it does. Uh no, great. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us today. I'm uh glad I get to talk with you uh and and you spent the time to talk with Chris and I about uh the billable hour being dead. I like that guy. I like calling it that the billable hour is dead. If anybody would like to contact you to learn a little bit more about uh these services or to talk with you about setting up an arrangement for these services, what's the best way to contact you?

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:13

I mean, just the simplest one because that's easy to remember. Howlyrate is dead.com. Just read and then just contact through there. I mean, it's the easiest name to remember. So, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:22

Hourlyrate is dead.com. I love that. I love that. That's great. Uh, thank you again. Look forward to talking with you soon. And um uh talk to you later. Ciao, ciao.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:30

Take care, Christian. Thank you guys.

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:31

Bye-bye. Thank you, Chris, for your time for another episode of In the Dynamics Corner Chair. And thank you to our guests for participating.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:41

Thank you, Brad, for your time. It is a wonderful episode of Dynamics Corner Chair. I would also like to thank our guests for join joining us. Thank you for all of our listeners tuning in as well. You can find Brad at developerlife.com. That is D V-L-P-R-L-I-F-E.com, and you can interact with them via Twitter D V L P R L I F E. You can also find me at mattalino.io mate a l i-n-o.io, and my Twitter handle is mattalino16. And see you can see those links down below in the show notes. Again, thank you everyone, thank you, and take care.