Value-First Revenue Architecture - Mar 26, 2026

[00:00] **Introduction** Pedro Miquellasso: Good afternoon, LinkedIn Friends Value First Nation. Welcome to another episode of Value First Delivery with Aaron Wickers. How you doing, Aaron? Aaron Wickers: Doing good. Hey everyone. It just been a fun week as you know. Pedro Miquellasso: It it has, um, and for the reasons that we're going to talk about today. Um, commitment number six we are on out of seven on a journey of Value First Delivery Manifesto to counter uh, the most insidious trap of them all, uh, the managed services trap. Um, Pedro Miquellasso: Commitment six, we will build capability rather than dependency. Um, and man, everybody can do this right now. Uh, so what is actually, is this? Uh, we believe that true partnership means helping customers become more capable and independent. We commit to increasing customer self-sufficiency rather than engineering ongoing reliance on our services. Pedro Miquellasso: Uh, this means we will design services that progressively transfer skills and knowledge rather than maintaining expertise concentration with our team. We're going to celebrate when customers handle things independently, rather than viewing client independence as revenue threat. Pedro Miquellasso: We're going to create clear paths to greater self-sufficiency as part of delivery roadmaps rather than hiding the pathway to independence. We will be transparent about how and when dependency should decrease rather than obscuring the journey to client empowerment. Pedro Miquellasso: And we will view customer capability growth as a success metric rather than just measuring utilization and satisfaction. Pedro Miquellasso: Probably the most powerful one of the bunch and the reason this one's not optional. Um, managed services friends, agency friends is because we have AI now and we can build capability whenever we want, whether you like it or not. So, uh, we're going to try and help you embrace that today. Um Aaron Wickers: Love that. Aaron Wickers: The core issue is that people assume that independence is going to lead to them never working with you ever again. But if you're following all the other steps that we've gone through and you're getting them invested in the technology and excited about the technology and learning it as you go, it's like if you give a mouse a cookie, like they're going to want something else. It may not be the thing that you set them up for. Hopefully it's something else, something bigger, you know. Um, so I think that's kind of like the core issue is just making an assumption that independence is a bad thing. Um, Aaron Wickers: I have always built stuff with the explicit desire that when I'm done, you do not need me anymore, because I'm a very uh, like I love the next new shiny object. So I want to like finish, finish the one thing and then move on to something else. Um, and I kind of realized very early on that if I have to keep all the other plates down the row spinning just so I can move on to the next one, it it's not scalable. That's not um, yeah, it's just it's it's an untenable situation.

[06:22] **Need to Help the Buyer Set Expectations** Pedro Miquellasso: Yeah, and like nobody should be putting up with it anymore. Like, you know, what I read is very like agency focused, but it's to help set an expectation on the buyer side and the client side as well. Like you should not be so dependent on these other companies. There's lots of reasons why and we talked about that, you know, in our first episode about the the managed services trap itself. But like, you know, ERPs always come to mind as far as just when everybody hates the system and you spend all this money and you you you don't even use it or you don't ask for what you need because it's going to take six months to fix it and it's going to cost too much and we you just can't even entertain the idea of replacing this system. Pedro Miquellasso: It's like how do we get to this place? And it's built into the system. Like literally the word managed services it's like we got it. Like you you can't do it yourself, so you need us. We'll take care of it for you. And since that's recurring revenue and that's what the Holy Grail for everybody. Aaron Wickers: Right. Pedro Miquellasso: Built our whole business around you needing us. Aaron Wickers: Right.

[08:17] **People Will Say the Quiet Part Out Loud** Aaron Wickers: And this is the one that like and I won't name names, but it happens way more often than you would think. Um, this is the one like where people will say the quiet part out loud and like we'll just straight up be like, yeah, I built it that way because then they can't they can't use it and they have to have us. And like we can't like, let me build this on AWS with the most complicated infrastructure that you could possibly imagine and then hand it over to a non-technical client. Like that is a bad solution, um, for the client. I mean it works, but it's a bad solution for the client. Pedro Miquellasso: Yep. it it work sometimes. I'll never forget my first experience with that, like after becoming a HubSpot partner and getting serious, like getting excited about bringing portals, you know, in front of people with HubSpot CMS. To find an elite partner like proposal that was just what you described where it's like AWS and QuickBooks, like just all this stuff and like a little bitty HubSpot like, oh, marketing and deals are over here. Right? Meanwhile, like it cuts the hours in there for the the cost by 90% to build it in the way that HubSpot and this is like three years ago before the the wonderful things that have happened so far to make it even easier. Um, and now that like stuff like Hub code is coming in like you cannot avoid people being enabled and being exposed to being able to do things themselves. Right? And when I first saw that like 600 hour contract. Aaron Wickers: Oh jeez. Pedro Miquellasso: Like and it and like six to nine months, right? The way that those are delivered because of the mindset that we're trying to break everybody free from it's like, yeah, of course, like and like if you don't want it, okay, like we're not going to change the 600 hours. So what happens? They don't get the portal. Like it's not like they're like, oh, hey, I guess we got to pay it. Like, nope, they just don't do it. They know they need to do it for their business and even spending that much amount of money is probably a great ROI if they do get it done. But it's so like 600 hours like like whether it's the dollars or there's so many ways to be overwhelmed and just be like, why why no, we don't want any part of that. Like keep away, right? Not to mention, it's like, well, what is it going to be after the 600 hours? Like what's the cost going to be for your services plan and your support and what's out of scope versus in scope and just all these things that we've talked about this whole series. Um, yeah, it's that the jig is up, I think. Aaron Wickers: Right, right.

[12:48] **Train Has Left the Station** Aaron Wickers: Because I mean now 600 hours to develop something seems absurd. Like, I mean, I could have easily told you of like 10 different projects that I think would take 600 hours, maybe like two years ago. And now it's like, I mean, I mean you have seen, I built one of the most complicated things I've ever built since Sunday or no, since Monday, so four days. Um, and it was not, I didn't there's not 600 hours in there. Um, so it's it's crazy to think that like that's really just not how it works anymore. And the train has left the station. So at this point, you're either on it or you're running behind trying to catch up. Um, and yeah, you just have to make adjustments for this age of AI where it's not necessarily the manpower that goes into it. It's the value that you get out of it. Pedro Miquellasso: Yeah, and that value like if you can embrace this, it doesn't mean you don't like the 600 hours goes away, but the $150,000 doesn't have to go away. Right? Because what you're able to build this week, it's from lots of hours of experience, like many 600s of of hours of experience put into this and I think that's the challenge for everybody that like you could switch to this and you probably know you need to, which is what we're trying to help you do through Value First and the AI Native Shift. It's like, if you understand this is just a broken promise and the business model cannot sustain itself because so much of it had to be hidden, had to be in the black box, had to be like, you know, secretive. Pedro Miquellasso: Like and you just don't get to do that anymore. Everything's out in the open. We can ask AI questions about stuff. And it doesn't mean we're going to be able to add our own capabilities for everything, but it will mean we have to we will be able to ask questions like 600 hours, huh? What does that look like? Right. Tell tell us, what takes 600 hours when we are all experiencing and I even see you out there doing content about how AI is enabling you to go so much faster. So tell me what like totally objective, like what does the 600 hours compose of and you will not be able to answer that question honestly anymore. Right? So do you want to put all your people in the position to have to like spin that hard, right? Don't, don't do that. Aaron Wickers: Right.

[17:05] **Heavy Project Development** Aaron Wickers: Especially enough like development heavy projects, 70% of that 600 hours is probably dev work. And if you cut 70% of 600 hours down to like a tenth of that, I mean then that's probably pretty accurate for like how much faster you could go. Like you could 10x your productivity for 70% of the project. Everything looks different when you when the number like the math ain't math anymore. Pedro Miquellasso: Right. And it's it doesn't mean they'll figure out how to do that stuff again, but they will be able to put everybody in an uncomfortable position. That's where even if you're still in these contracts like more and more questions like what are we actually getting for the hours? Uh, show us what the value is and right? Um, And so let's think about what it what it looks like to embrace it. Um, this come up a couple times. I think you said it in our first episode, like, what if success was measured by how independent they became, right? I think it's fair to go there already because it's so obvious that the dependency business model is just done. Right? Like just stop, stop pretending. Um, sorry you have a big payroll in like business infrastructure, but you got to figure this out. Like, you know, like you have to figure this out. Um, any forecasts I think into next year that rely on large dependency managed services contracts, uh, yeah, not going to work out for you. Um, so if you're not dependent on us for that, for the break fix, for the um, you know, support, what can we offer from a continuing, I'd say manage partnership perspective. So instead of manage services, it's a manage partnership. Right? So what are we replacing with the support hours? Aaron Wickers: Mhm. Aaron Wickers: I think if you if you shift your mindset to this is not a project, this is a product. The question answers itself. Like what do you do after you launch a product? You collect feedback. You continually improve it. You squash bugs. You um find a way to continue to add value for your users because now you've got the infrastructure to do that. So, you know, building something as a as a product that everyone owns uh it gives it you just kind of look at everything in a whole different light in that in that case where I'm not maintaining this. Like any product that is just being maintained is not going to have much market share because everybody is moving lightning fast. Um in all aspects of everything thanks to AI. So, you know, how do you harness that and the only way to really do that is to build something that you can build on like going forward. Like it's not a static, you know, we launched a website. Like, okay, how are your conversion rates? Let's look at, you know, the full funnel. Do you have things to support your current customers on your website? Do you have things to support um gathering feedback and all the like there's a million things that you can do with a product that don't make sense for a one-time project. And so I think that's the big mindset shift of like what what is this thing anymore? You know, like what is this thing we're trying to do? Uh, and I think that's kind of the core of it. Pedro Miquellasso: Yeah. Uh, so if we're doing that, if we're an agreement that that helps like frame it, um, And this is where like building it into the business, uh, and why the value path is a thing. Like if everybody's just sitting labeled as a customer in your system, it's it's like it's not naturally not a development activity. They're they're a customer. They're sitting in the bucket like and maybe there's an evangelist or champion stage, but like to go from here to there, a lot of stuff needs to happen. And but when we can put it out into into the four stages after after the deal, one, Mhm. value creator, adopter, uh advocate and champion. Like all of a sudden, you're going to sit in value creator stage and like until you've confirmed that people are actually one, creating value, two feeling like they're creating value. Right? And honestly, like you don't have to go faster. Like in these when you build the partnership from this perspective and you're up front, like, like I am at the beginning of any any even discovery call, like, look, I don't want. There's no reason I should be doing these things for you. Like first and foremost, like HubSpot exists as a product to make it easier for you to manage yourself, right? And if you think you don't have time, I understand it. First priority is help people find the time that they have to be able to manage this stuff on their own. Um, and just when you start out, when you show up like that, like first, all of the rest like you don't have to work hard to figure out like, okay, this is what we decided that's going to be valuable for this person and this person and this person. We're we're sitting here as long as we need to to realize that value so that then adoption can be focused on. And that's when you start doing things like teaching and coaching and you just start adding on all these things that are very much not support and break fix. Aaron Wickers: Right. Pedro Miquellasso: And it and it changes the dynamic from like, here's a bucket of hours and now I'm I'm I'm a user and I need help and I'm like, should I should call Aaron right now, but how much is that going to cost? Like is this is this my one hour that I want to? Like let me build up five problems so that I can get the most out of the one hour that I'm about to be charged. Like that dynamic is what we're talking about when when it's capability versus dependency, even if it's like the capability to ask for help, right? Is taken away in that moment because I know I might get in trouble if I waste like the hour on this ask, right? And it was because I missed the training last week. Aaron Wickers: Right. Aaron Wickers: Yeah, I just I'm I'm very much of the mindset that like either a relationship works or it doesn't. And a really good way to make sure that it doesn't is to set up these like you're basically just gatekeeping the thing that they're already paying for, you know, like and you you feel locked into that because what are your other options? And I feel like there's just so much unspoken like tension in that relationship that like it just doesn't it doesn't make sense to operate in that way, um, because everybody is just trying to CYA all the time and you're not getting the value. Like you're not even if you get what was sold, that doesn't mean you got value out of it, you know? Like and so there's a lot of people being sold managed services and they get those services, but but it goes nowhere, you know, like they they hired somebody to do GTM, but um, nobody within the company owns the prospector agent in HubSpot. And so it's just been turned on and nobody is acting on it. And you're just like, okay, well, who's fault is this? Um, and I would argue that it's the fault of the person who made you dependent on them to even know that that was a thing to do, you know? Pedro Miquellasso: Right. Yeah. And I will say it's it's there's two. I I think both sides have some responsibility. That's why we're like this this is value first first and foremost. We're trying to get leaders to move in a different way. Like you don't have to and you're actually being irresponsible if you sign up for these big managed services contracts because you're choosing that over adding capability to your organization, right? And um it's interesting to to see like and that's kind of like from an individual like coach perspective, those are the the clients that show up are the ones that do take responsibility like, look, we signed up for this, we worked with this agency, they knew how to do this, but not this stuff, right? We want it built out right and we want to be taught how to do it and like they start to get it, right? And they understand it's not on HubSpot either as the platform that's just like, hey, like you can do all these things, but if you don't know how your business works, HubSpot is not going to solve for that and neither is AI, by the way. Right. Um, And like that's where there's just this this change like happening where you just can't deny this this moment of just dependency in the old way like just melting away. And and if we can um, because sometimes you even see like really great relationships are based on these contracts and it's like, well, like what can we find for them to do because it's they've been a great partner, we don't want to just end the contract, but we know we could start building this stuff ourselves. We we're we're handling AI in a different way, but these guys aren't. So what since we've we're coming at it from a managed services perspective, it's so hard to like So that's where the proactivity, I mean, it needs to come from both sides, but it's never been easier as a as a partner, as a coach, as a consultant to turn this gear on. Like this the same capability that they can add, you can add too, right? So like what if an agency has been stuck in this mode and let's say they're waking up, like what steps can they take first in your in your opinion? Aaron Wickers: Um, I'm going to say this with my whole chest. I I mean it, but I don't mean it it comes from love. Uh, talk to your sales people. Those first conversations, like we've talked about them some of the other shows that we've done on this, you have got to set expectations from the jump. Um, so making sure that the entire sales organization understands the shift and why it's happening and is on board. Um, and is able to have those value first conversations just right out the gate. Um, because that's that frames the whole rest of the engagement. Um, and I think the other biggest piece is in the sales process, make sure that you engage all of the decision makers, all of the all of the people who will have to work in this system uh on a daily basis, like all the stakeholders that are going to want to know what's going on in this system. Everyone needs to be involved in some way, um, to understand what's being built, how it helps, um, you know, what the expectations are for you're using it and you can't get there if you've got blind spots. So, so yeah, I think it the critical point is is at the very beginning and then everything else becomes a little easier if that's done right. Pedro Miquellasso: Yeah, I I think that's a it's a great first step because they're often closest to the issue, to the friction that everybody's feeling right now and I'm sure they're saying like, I don't want to have to explain all these hours. Like I have to lie. Like and I have to I feel like I have to lie because my compensation is based on us selling contracts in the old way. Right? So at this point, this is one of those moments where everybody knows it's broke. But nobody like it's such a complex it feels complex, right? And you'll never get there if you can't get everybody in the room, which traditionally again, like even this capability if you want to consider like internal communication as a capability, right? The ability of AI to help create documentation that you've never had before, to all of a sudden create common language and now our teams can align and realize, oh, we're all feeling what like this. Okay, can we just change then? Like what if my compensation looked like this instead, right? Like having bringing everybody into the room, just like you would, I think just like you have to do when delivering client work, like there's no more like not like not being transparent to everybody that this is going to impact. Like you're just not going to get away with that. And to bring these people in, it's never been easier to build different communication like assets to help people who aren't usually in these conversations be a part of them in the way that they need to be, right? And all of this, all of a sudden, everybody can support the role of like yeah, we can show up differently. Like we can help them figure it out on their own because guess what? When they do, that's the part that you can't measure. Like when those moments happened in Hubspot, but now with AI, it's like, oh, man, this is easier than I thought it was going to be. Like measure that. Like you can't and what's happening with AI is everybody's starting to feel more and more that every day. So like the capability to have fun at work. Like if I'm not looking forward to the meeting that we have every week where you just read read us whatever's been done the week before because that's what the contract says we got to do. And everybody can feel how like forced and obligated that that moment is like there's less and less obligation for businesses to have to sit through that stuff. Like and they're having to make choices like we could be using AI to like to learn or to add capability or to create value for our organization. Meanwhile we're stuck in a contract with you guys and yeah, this is the way it's always been, but it's just not I might not be able to articulate it out loud, it just doesn't feel right. Aaron Wickers: Right, right. Aaron Wickers: It's like part of like I can like picture this in my head in like a movie but I can't think of the movie, but it's it's like everyone has been operating under the assumption that everything was dangerous. Everything's dangerous, everything's out to get us. And then all of a sudden like you realize it doesn't have to be. Like it it just really and then everybody's kind of like looking at each other like, do we, do we not, do we not have to do it that way? Like everybody's kind of waiting for other people to like give them permission to look at this a different way. And that's what we're here to do, everyone. There is a different way. Pedro Miquellasso: Yeah, exactly. And that was that's such a good that was the the reminder I needed. As thinking earlier about like adding capability as it relates to creating value with the thing that you sold, right? With what they've invested in. Like, I'm looking from manufacturing and industrial industrial. Like the concept of free training like just lost on the on everybody. Like we're going to sell you a $200,000 instrument. Maybe you get the first training free. But every time after that thousands of dollars. So guess what happens? Uh, new new employees come in. They don't get trained. They use your equipment. It doesn't work. Guess whose fault it is? Right. Like it's yours. It's the $200,000 piece of equipment not working because the person doesn't wasn't trained on how to use it. Right. And like just amazing to me because what also would happen and again, this is like the CYA society of like, oh, if we don't have like the highest expertise of training and there's no certification and there's nobody checking it, then they're going to be able to point back at us when they get fined because we didn't train them the right way. And it's just like, well, everybody's on their own, right? It's just a system designed for disempowerment. Right? And AI inherently says, F that. Right? And even in those spaces, like industrial and manufacturing, bless their hearts they got to work with Microsoft co-pilot. Um, but even that's enough like to say like, okay, things are different. Right? I might be able to ask for this now. Um and anybody who's there to help them pivot out of this out of this moment and empower people, like that feeling if you can ignite that feeling and be like, oh, I can do this on my own. Like humans, like man, that's one of the best, that's one of the highest value moments that you could evoke another human being.

Aaron Wickers: For sure. Pedro Miquellasso: And the sooner that happens in your engagement, the better off like the rest of the engagement is going to be. Aaron Wickers: Right. Aaron Wickers: Because you can like see it when like the light bulb goes on. Like it's very cliche, but like you can see it on their face. Like, oh, I didn't even think about that or like, you know, like it starts to click and yeah, I mean, I I live for those moments. Like I would do that, I would do that for free. Like just sit and nerd out with somebody and try to get them excited about the technology and the things that I like to do. Pedro Miquellasso: Yeah. And again, like partnership as the word is important and it's like every organization is on their own maturity level right now. But that's where like again, you get to add in options to the process that just you couldn't before because it you couldn't make the math work, right? So one thing we do out of a scoping engagement is like, okay, here here's the coach only. Like it's just you've got all the resources. We've identified all the resources who can do this stuff. You need to be able to so here's the coach only like monthly. All the way up to implement it for you. Right? And even that level of transparency like when you have not identified any internal resources and they tell you up and down, we want you to do this for you, just having that always always on. Like there's a moment where if we decide to be capable, we we can be. We're not locked in, right? The whole like in scope, out of scope conversation changes, just all of the friction and dependency, you know, of of past, it just melts away. And surprise, you get more trusted, more fun relationships coming out of this.

[36:20] **Creating Collaborative Growth vs Managing Transactions** Pedro Miquellasso: So, that was uh commitment number six. Uh, next week we will be uh finished with our commitments with the last one talking about we will create collaborative growth rather than manage transactions. Um, like if you're open to helping others add capability, now watch the growth happen in a way that just like oh, it's so it's so powerful. Um, so I'm excited to to dig into that with you. Aaron Wickers: For sure. Pedro Miquellasso: And as always, I appreciate uh our conversation today. Aaron Wickers: Yeah, thank you so much. It was great. Pedro Miquellasso: Thanks so much, everybody. Have a great day.