Can Automation & Productization Boost Profitability Without Losing Your Edge?

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[00:00:00] Galen Low: Welcome to our panel discussion on whether automation and productization can boost profitability without sucking the soul out of your team's work. Uh, we do events like this every month as a way for our members and our VIP guests to engage directly with the experts who contribute and collaborate with us here at the digital project manager.

Uh, for folks who don't know me, I'm Galen. I'm the co founder of the digital project manager. I'll be your host for today. Um, also got with me an incredible group of very talented strategic leaders who have been transforming the face of agencies and the professional services industry at large. We've got Melissa Morris, Joe DiPaolo and Brian Kessman.

We do have some VIP guests in the audience today. So if that's you, welcome. Um, this is just one of a series of monthly sessions that we hold for our members who get access to a number of other benefits, including our entire back catalog of session recordings like these ones, uh, our library of templates, uh, resources, and mini courses, as well as our flagship [00:01:00] certification course, mastering digital project management.

Uh, you can join in on the fun by heading over to the digital project manager. com slash membership Michaels. Already posted it in the chat. Thank you, Michael. Um let's dive in. Uh, today we are exploring whether the concepts of productization and, uh, productization and automation. automatically turn your teams into mindless assembly line workers, or whether it may be actually the key to keeping your team's unique artisanal differentiator alive and well within a pressurized commercial reality.

Um, so first I thought maybe we could meet our panelists. Um, I'm going to start with Melissa. Melissa, you are the founder of Agency Authority. You've been doing Almost weekly live LinkedIn sessions where you're sharing your knowledge and your stories from, uh, leading agency client services teams. I'm just curious, like what's been one of the most interesting and thought provoking sessions you've had so far.

[00:01:59] Melissa Morris: Yeah, they've [00:02:00] definitely been a lot of fun, but I would say one of the most interesting and it's. Always such an interesting and hot topic with lots of different opinions, but it was on time tracking.

[00:02:08] Michael: Ooh, time tracking. See, look

[00:02:10] Melissa Morris: it already was, ooh, see, we get spicy over there on LinkedIn with me. So coming out.

[00:02:16] Galen Low: Awesome. Two things that start a fist fight, Agile versus Waterfall and time tracking.

[00:02:21] Melissa Morris: So true.

[00:02:23] Galen Low: Amazing. Amazing. Uh, I'll shift over to Brian. Brian, you are the founder and principal consultant at Lodestar Agency Consulting. Uh, and you, you've been all up in my feed, basically giving knowledge away for free all the time when it comes to productizing value instead of productizing services.

Um, I'm wondering, what's the most surprising reaction you get? When your concepts like start to land with some of the naysayers in the agency world when it comes to productization.

[00:02:49] Brian Kessman: Uh, yeah, great question. Uh, so there's, there's an aha moment that happens. Uh, and, uh, it's, it's when they realize, I think that there's a whole different [00:03:00] way to think about productization, that it doesn't have to really mean losing the ability to deliver customized or high touch services to clients.

At least the way that we do it. It's not about standardization. It's about creating structured flexibility. When you see that approach and what that can offer it, it really lets your firm meet your clients exactly where they are with their needs. And there's ways that we do this, where you can deliver better work, not templated work, better outcomes.

Um, we kill, well, we, we aim to kill the inefficiencies that you'd see with the traditional ways of customized scoping, uh, and, you know, building everything from scratch. So that's when really they start to see the potential there and they piece together the benefits. So it's, it's that aha moment. And then we're all,

[00:03:49] Galen Low: I love that.

I can't wait to dive into that more because it sounds very appealing and probably the opposite of what a lot of people think when they think of productization.

[00:03:56] Brian Kessman: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Very cool. Very cool.

[00:03:59] Galen Low: Uh, [00:04:00] last but not least, Mr Joe DiPaolo. Uh, Joe, you are the chief strategy officer and the head of product at Xcelo, um, which is a professional services automation platform for those who don't know Xcelo.

Um, but actually your background in digital product leadership is like really extensive. Um, I'm just curious, like what got you into digital products and how does that translate into what you do at Xcelo? Yeah.

[00:04:22] Joe DiPaulo: Sure. Um, I'm gonna date myself a little bit, Galen, but I came out of school in the nineties and it was the, you know, dot com boom at that point in time.

And I was lucky enough to start working at a startup. We were building digital products. I was a product manager and really the rest of my career is somewhat history. I've spent the last 25 years working on digitizing workflows and products and bringing things to market that hopefully help our customers and their users do their business better.

Um, you know, what I found is super important in my role as we're looking at building product and technology for the market is [00:05:00] really deep market research. Understanding our customer base, getting good feedback from from customers and users, and that's ultimately what I bring to Excel. It was that that kind of approach to how we're thinking about our product, getting an understanding of what's going on in the market.

You know, like Brian just talked about flexibility that we can provide our customers, not kind of boxing them in, but giving them a product that helps them operate more effectively, deliver their product, differentiate themselves while being more efficient. So That's, uh, that's, that's been my hope. What I can bring to Accello anyways.

[00:05:31] Galen Low: Boom. I love that. I love that ear to the ground approach. Um, you know, especially when it comes to like SAS products and you've kind of lived it too, right? Like working at a startup, you go, you kind of know that it can be messy. Not everything's perfect and tidy, you know, like, like some products may assume.

That's right. That's right. Awesome. Love it. Um, all right, let me set the scene a little bit. If you'll indulge me. Um, I would say this. I'd say that we're living in a time where teams are being asked to do [00:06:00] more with less. I think we're seeing thinner margins. We're seeing fiercer competition. overhead is getting more difficult to manage.

Um, and at the end of the day, even like with the best talent, like getting work done in a way that can help your people grow and thrive in their respective crafts is getting pretty tough. Um, but sometimes when our teams hear words like productization and automation, They kind of think it's like selling out.

It sounds like industrialization. Um, and they don't really want to be part of an assembly line in a factory that makes generic widgets en masse. They are craftspeople. Um, they are digital artisans. They are masters in the making. Um, so then it comes down to this question, like, what is the answer? How can we keep our people doing what they do best?

Well, the commercial marketplace is like closing its grip around us. Like, could we harness the power of productization and automation in a way that keeps our people doing gratifying work? As well as doing it at margins that allow our businesses to thrive and [00:07:00] grow or is mass production without personality the only destination for the professional services industry?

So that's like my thought starter and what we're going to dive into today. Um, yeah, hopefully I haven't overpromised there.

[00:07:13] Melissa Morris: It was heavy, but I think we're ready.

[00:07:17] Galen Low: Well, we'll find out. Uh, I thought maybe I would just kick things off with another big heavy question and maybe hear from each of you. Um, Professional services business.

Professional services as a business model, like, is that even automatable or productizable? Like, we talk often about, you know, unique requirements and like ad hoc client requests. And, you know, you are at service, you're servicing your clients and their needs are always different. You know, how can you automate that?

How can you productize that? Um, yeah, what does that even, what does that even look like from a feasibility model? Maybe I'll start with Brian.

[00:07:56] Brian Kessman: Yeah. Um, so I think a good place to [00:08:00] start is what I was touching on before with two. Well, I don't know if I said this, but I see two types of productization, right?

There's two ways to do this. I think there's productizing services, which I talk about the differences between these two quite a bit. So productizing services, think about this. This is how most people think about productization and Usually defined as we're bundling existing capabilities and to fix packages.

But when you do that, you're not really changing anything else except for how you package and sell your offerings. And so in order to do that, the method starts with more of an inward focus, and that's a key piece. We're looking internally for repeatable, predictable services that we can productize and even automate if there's the opportunity, usually things that don't require deep inside or human intervention.

Um, and so These are also usually the most commoditized areas or price sensitive areas of a firm. We can increase efficiency, which is great, but it does also reinforce commoditization when we take this approach looking at [00:09:00] productizing existing services. So what I'd say instead to combat commoditization and the traditional business model, all the changes that you need to productize our value, or think about this as productizing your expertise or in, in a more tangible form productized solutions.

And so to me that the word solutions there is really important because it's, it's, we're talking about a business model shift. Um, so still professional services, but the goal is moving away from selling transactional services to selling more transformational results, transformational solutions. And so this doesn't start with the inward focus.

And this starts with an outward focus, right? Identifying the outcomes that the agency's clients are looking for. And then when we can do that, We're able to really reimagine how the agency can now deliver those outcomes based on its unique strengths, not its commoditized offerings. And, and so we would think in terms of not services and [00:10:00] deliverables, but we have to break down the agency's expertise into, I refer to these as more modules, right?

With different ways that the agency can produce different types of outcomes. And when we have all those pieces on the table, we snap those modules together in different ways. to create different structured frameworks and solutions to meet the most common client scenarios. But each also then has a different scope or different pricing options.

And when we do this, it, it leads to huge benefits. We see greater deal size because we're not selling hours. We're not selling effort. We're not selling a deliverable or capability. You get better win rates from this. It's more appealing to clients. There's so many other benefits. But it allows us to balance the repeatability for the agency with flexibility and that customized approach for clients.

It really creates the space for teams also internally to, I think, properly perform their strategy and creative work that usually gets sidelined because of the limited time that they have. But this time is already built into the [00:11:00] solution and it's paid for and it's guaranteed. And so from there we can.

Just the foundation, right? That's just the start. And there we think about where can we integrate AI, where can we automate, but it's more at from a strategic angle, right? Because we've developed. high margin solutions for your clients most compelling challenges or most critical challenges.

[00:11:20] Galen Low: That's so much I love about that.

A, because I think it really puts the challenge forward, like to say, listen, we need to deliver outcomes like doing a thing that it says in this document isn't enough. Um, but also it's empowering because it's like, okay, you guys are all craftspeople. You're like artisans, you are masters of your craft. Um, and we are going to, we're not just going to bundle a bunch of offerings and we're not going to.

Follow this race to the bottom of like, you know, um, uh, like commodified widgets. We're actually going to package the value that is, that is the actual thing that we're selling. Um, but also, you know, the trade off or maybe the, the, the sort of price of that [00:12:00] is that, yeah, like we have to be serious about what we're doing because we're making promises about.

The transformation that we're going to deliver.

[00:12:07] Brian Kessman: That's right. Right. And when we think about it, we're not limited by the list of capabilities. The menu of capabilities you'd normally see on an agency website. We're not tied to that anymore. When we take this approach, we can think very differently and bigger picture.

So, yeah, it is transformational in itself. in helping agencies be more transformational for their clients.

[00:12:26] Galen Low: Boom. Love that. Melissa, you and I, we've chatted about like process and like team leadership, you know, I know you take things, you know, uh, at a sort of a very human and, um, sort of team. Oriented approach.

What are your thoughts about like the automatable productizable aspect of agency world, professional services in general?

[00:12:48] Melissa Morris: Yeah. I think there's three things that an agency is considering when they're moving towards productization of their service. And that's going to be your niche, your specialization, and then frameworks, which is what Brian was [00:13:00] touching on a lot as well.

And your frameworks can feel almost modular. I, I think you, you know, we agree. Like you have this piece and we plug it with this piece and. We have it put together and the thing there is, is when you are specializing in terms of your niche, who you're focused on, who you serve and how you're serving them, they don't feel like it's not custom and speaking just to them because you know, that audience so deeply, you know, their needs so deeply, you could have almost the same conversation and they feel heard because they have the same needs.

And so I think getting away from the idea that productization and automization means. lack of personalization, um, and feeling disconnected from our end user. I think it's quite the opposite because I think the more we can get in that path and really deeply understand and create service offerings and packages and framework and understand that transformation so deeply that person feels so heard that it starts to become a really easy [00:14:00] guess.

And then now you have this. Client getting these easy yeses. And because you have all of these things in place, scaling that up is really easy to get templates, processes, SOPs, and the tools and workflows in place to support these, these offers.

[00:14:15] Galen Low: I love that idea that the modularity doesn't make it feel impersonal to the client on the receiving end.

And actually part of the value of being in professional services is that you have the perspective to see shared problems and deliver solutions for them. Not generic solutions, but. the right tool set to solve some of those challenges.

[00:14:34] Melissa Morris: Yeah. And I think, you know, over time you're even showing up even better because I am seeing this time after time after time I'm getting feedback.

I understand my own internal processes when I have a productized service offering are getting even better. They're getting more refined. The resources I can provide to my clients and my end users are getting even better. So it's not just internally, I can scale and I can make more money. You're actually creating a bigger and better transformation for [00:15:00] your clients as well.

[00:15:02] Galen Low: I love that. I love that. I love that. I love that. Sorry. I'm typing into the chat as well. So good comments going on here. Uh, Joe, I thought maybe I'd throw it to you as well. Just in terms of like, maybe from that automation angle, you know, obviously what you and your team does is, um, a lot around professional services, automation.

Um, like what are some of the, like. Challenges that folks face when wrapping their head around automation, uh, and maybe even the extents of it. Like where does, where does it end where it's like, actually don't automate this.

[00:15:32] Joe DiPaulo: Yeah, I think, I mean, I've really aligned with a lot of what Brian and Melissa have, have set here.

Obviously, you know, professional service business is there to deliver some expertise or something unique to the market. And it's really important that, that companies are able to, um, leverage their uniqueness and, and build differentiation. into how they're leveraging technology, whether that's productizing it.

And, you know, um, you know, using that to put together packaging, like Brian [00:16:00] said, that's gonna gonna benefit them if they can maintain that differentiation. And then Melissa's talked about frameworks, and that's really where a tool like, like ours, like Excel, it comes into place where if you can build things so that, um, you can deliver a better customer experience or make things more repeatable or honestly, um, take care of some of the more, monotonous things that you have to do from a business perspective to operate um, and do that efficiently and effectively and in a repeatable way.

You can focus on the things that are going to, uh, allow you to deliver value to your customer and, and deliver outcomes that are meaningful. And that's, what's going to earn you repeat business. And that's, what's going to, uh, allow you to continue to. Um, you know, present meaningful outcomes like Brian said.

So I think that's, uh, um, you know, certainly we're looking at it from a, from a tooling and operational support perspective and making sure businesses and, um, leaders and professional services organizations can focus on their core competencies and the things that drive differentiation.

[00:16:58] Galen Low: I like that. It's funny because like [00:17:00] Automation is not necessarily new, and yet that mindset around automation and generative AI today is kind of similar, right?

It's like, how can we use it to elevate ourselves? And I think, you know, I see the comments in the chat and it's like, you know, yes, we are dealing with, we've got a panel here of folks who are incredibly intelligent and proponents of Doing automation and productization the right way. Uh, I, I just added a little comment there, but we want to beat it up because we want to find all of those rough edges.

We want to find all the edge cases. We want to be able to, you know, have a fruitful conversation about where it is the answer and also where it might not be. Um, because again, it's one of those things, just like any emerging technology or a trend, you know, it's going to. There's a wrong way to do it too.

Um, there's a, there's a sort of unachievable expectation that some folks might have. Um, but we're just trying to ground that and sort of make it practical for folks. Um, love all that. Um, Actually, maybe in the [00:18:00] spirit of that, I wondered if we can go down the path of like, the trade offs, right? You know, like, just like no medicine, uh, is, is is void of having some kind of side effect.

Um, you know, what are the side effects here when it comes to auto automation and productization? Um, and like, are we just like. Where is that fine cliff's edge, right? Where you could slide down and become this commodified widget factory. Uh, where have we seen it gone wrong? Um, and like, yeah, what is the trade off in terms of like culture?

I know we're saying all these things like, yeah, we're empowering people, we're packaging their value, you know, we're creating great client experiences. You know, we are, um, you know, delivering insights based on how we know we can solve shared challenges. But like, where is the give and take? Um, and maybe I'll pick on Brian

[00:18:49] Brian Kessman: again.

Yeah, sure. Um, maybe, maybe I'll start. So I want to answer your question, but I also want to start with identifying a key risk of this model as well. And [00:19:00] that's going to be. market misalignment, right? If you build your solutions and they don't resonate with clients, you've built the wrong solution, I think, you know, thinking of the SAS world, right?

Equally, but that's what we're doing. We're really applying a lot of the SAS playbook to the pro professional services space. And we can't have market misalignment. And so, um, we want to make sure there's, uh, what I refer to as a solution market fit before we start to really. redesign the agency's offerings.

And so, so that's a key piece, but I think there's, there's some misconceptions that, that are also, uh, tied to trade offs. I think one, there's the misconception. I think we talked about it before, which is, um, that productization means cookie cutter deliverables, or that it means that the work's going to become repetitive and then boring.

And that's not why a lot of people have joined the agencies. Um, and so. What we're actually doing, though, is, and I think Melissa said it before, is we're creating repeatable frameworks for solving similar types of problems, not cookie cutter work [00:20:00] in any way. And you said it, Galen, every client is very different.

And because every client is different, it might be a similar flavor problem, but the work will still be different to solve it for that client, for their dimension of that problem. You know, we'll, we'll go ahead and we'll create baseline solutions, but we're not creating standardized solutions for me, there's a difference in the baseline solutions and the programs and the products.

So that you're not reinventing the wheel. We're not starting from a place where we have to, you know, create something from scratch. Again, it's the snapping together of those different baseline offerings that then we can still customize. Um, but again, balanced with the repeatability and when you apply different pricing approaches, you know, offering different tailored options for further customization or the idea of an add on.

If you truly need customization, there's always the option. You can be as creative as you want with how you. Structure your scopes and your pricing. But again, you're not starting from scratch. We're not pricing time. We're not selling effort. We're no longer operating in a [00:21:00] commoditized space. And what that does.

It drastically changes the client relationship and business model and it future proofs the firm, setting it up for further automation to adopt AI for impact rather than efficiency and get paid for it, which is really the challenge today, I think.

[00:21:16] Galen Low: Could you, um, could you throw us an example? Um, I'm also looking at Maggie's question here, just like clarifying what we mean by packaging value.

Um, you know, it's something that kind of gets thrown around. Um, but like, yeah, as an example, maybe for, You know, from an agency model, like what is the, what is the pitch, I guess, I would say in terms of the value and like, how does that translate back into like these sort of repeatable frameworks?

[00:21:42] Brian Kessman: Well, so it's going to depend on what your agency does, right?

There's an example, uh, that I would point you all towards. I think it's method one. com method ones in an agency that focuses on indulgence brands. And they have, I believe, nine different solutions that came out of the program. We worked with them to help them do [00:22:00] this. And so they have, they represent this really well on their site.

And you can see they're not talking about effort. They're not talking about services. They're talking about solutions and each solution talks about the outcome. And that's what we want. Their expertise was, uh, knowledge around indulgence brands and their challenges in going to market and increasing market share.

And so take a look at their offerings. Was I right with the URL with the website? I don't know if anyone's looking. Um, so, but you'll see that that's what we're talking about. So for them, you'll see offerings related to conversion or to awareness or but those are generic, right? Generic API that you see in a lot of these.

We go much deeper and they have and you can see that on there.

[00:22:45] Galen Low: No, I, I appreciate you, uh, sharing that example with us as well. Um, , I'll leave it with, uh, someone backstage to, um, try that URL, um, Brian, what was that again?

[00:22:56] Brian Kessman: Yeah, I mean, go on to the next question. I'm gonna get the URL and I'll, okay. Okay.

[00:22:59] Galen Low: All [00:23:00] right. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Yeah, I mean, maybe, uh, like, uh, uh, maybe I can go to, to Joe as well and Joe, and just in terms of like the rough edges and the trade offs around, you know, on the other side of the coin, like automation.

Um, like what have you, what have you seen in terms of like some of the tradeoffs that you might need to manage expectations around when you're telling people like, this is not a magic bullet. Those don't exist. You're going to do this, but like you might see this as well.

[00:23:26] Joe DiPaulo: Yeah, I think Brian's exactly right.

I mean, if agencies and organizations need to focus on their, their value at any, any technology that they're leveraging, that's going to You know, reduce or create friction with their value proposition or change how they interact with customers or, you know, do something that changes the way the customer perceives how they're delivering or the value or the outcome they're getting for that.

That's certainly going to be problematic, right? I mean, that's obviously what we're trying to avoid. And I think, uh, you know, when Brian's, when he talked about implementing his [00:24:00] methodology, um, it's, it's, it's focused on eliminating that, right? It's focused on figuring out how to. Um, you know, continue to have your, your, your value prop that you can, um, you know, make sure customers understand and you're leveraging technology to help you do that.

I mean, that's that's when it's effective, right?

[00:24:17] Galen Low: I like that. It's like, it's almost a transparency in the pitch, like to begin with, it's like not same old stuff, but like, we're using this to, uh, as an advantage. Um, we're not trying to hide it. Um, and we're not going down a path of like, yeah, now we are just a automated factory, but you know, here's how we're using this technology.

Love that. That's super cool. I wonder if we can like dive into some of the like, Practical stuff, right? I know we've been talking sort of like high level about, you know, operating models and like, you know, how we can take some of these ideas to market. But, you know, when it comes to actually implementing these things, you know, I know there's a lot of folks who work in organizations with a lot of tooling, right?

And maybe to a certain degree, right? [00:25:00] These frameworks, these methods, these, um, you know, repeatability, um, Automation even, um, but, uh, maybe it's not all like it, it's not all necessarily like orchestrated. It's not like this, like very well practiced choir necessarily. Um, Joe, one thing that I've seen you talk about is like this notion of like an operating system for growth, for profitable growth, um, which, you know, means a lot of things I thought maybe.

I could let you kind of explain what that means to you and why that's important.

[00:25:31] Joe DiPaulo: Sure. So, you know, as you said, I work for a company called Excello and our goal is to deliver a SaaS platform that's for what we call professional services automation, right? Our goal is to help professional service orgs, uh, basically operate more effectively.

And the way that we look at that is we want to help automate the quote to cash process. So that's everything You know, how do I manage my customer relationships? How do I send quotes out? How do I [00:26:00] brand those effectively? How do I manage the work that I'm delivering? Whether that's a You know, really in depth projects, you know, to the, to the lowest level of detail, or, you know, it's more role based or recurring, um, to Brian's point, we try to be flexible in the way that we offer that.

So you can have different templates and different approaches to doing that within the system. Um, you know, we have components for managing resources and understanding utilization, um, and invoicing and financial aspects. So really, when we look at our product strategy and our product development efforts.

You know, we think what resonates with clients is how do we help them optimize their business? How do we help them get insight into, um, you know, from the data we collect into that, that they can leverage to help them make decisions and ultimately, you know, identify risks and figure out how can I optimize, how can I grow more profitably?

And that can be, you know, a relatively small you know, agency that just wants to have some foundational kind of technology to [00:27:00] help them do that. Or it can be, you know, medium and large size businesses that are just hitting a ceiling. And like you said, Galen, lots of times we find customers that will have Many different kind of tech technologies that are somewhat siloed and independent, and we're trying to solve for that problem and and really cover that full full life cycle.

And again, our feeling is, you know, if we have some frameworks for helping people operate, if we can create some consistency and repeatability, but again, like what Brian said. You know, our goal is not to, like, lock people into a specific way of doing business, but hopefully help them augment the way that they're doing that.

Now they'll get those better insights. They'll get more information. They can operate at a more effective way. And ultimately they can focus on their value prop instead of. How to send an invoice or what time or something along those lines that were mundane. And really, that's our goal at Excel. And again, like I said, that's that's driving our product strategy.

It's how do we help our customers? Grow effectively and profitably. Hopefully [00:28:00] that success. And

[00:28:00] Galen Low: I was Joe's, uh, Oscars, uh, music cue. Now,

[00:28:04] Brian Kessman: what

[00:28:07] Galen Low: I'm picturing is like, you know, there's like backbone, right? It's like, you know, quote to cash model that kind of like takes you through, but you know, you're attaching whatever your business, like whatever makes your business unique, you're attaching.

Into that, not necessarily having this, like, you must buy this one tool that's going to take over your business and you must run your business this way now, which by the way, I've seen a lot, right? Like, you know, we're in the software selection process and we're like, gosh, like our business doesn't work this way.

Like we'd have to change the way we operate in order to take advantage of this tool. Sounds to me like the operating system bit is like the, like the almost invisible layer that things are plugging into.

[00:28:42] Joe DiPaulo: Yeah, that's exactly our goal. And so we, we support a lot of different industries, a lot of different sizes of customers.

And again, if we can be somewhat invisible, like you said, on the back end, but helping them, helping them scale and optimize, that's, uh, that's the goal. I love

[00:28:56] Galen Low: that. I, I wonder if I can take it because like, um, [00:29:00] in terms of like, when we talk about scale, we talk about, you know, tools and technology. And I wonder if I can just jet in the people bit, right?

Because, um, I think we've all seen it where. The problem is not the technology sometimes, maybe it is, but, uh, I think a lot of the time it comes to like change management and culture, um, and how people receive this and maybe I could just kind of fast forward into this idea that like, yes, we can put all these solutions in place and yes, all of this sounds good to our clients, but you know, how do we get buy in, I guess, uh, how do we get buy in from our teams on changes?

Like, Hey, we're going to like start. some automation. Um, we're going to start, you know, selling our, our, our offering in a more productized way. Like how do we drive buy in for changes like that? and keep our people inspired to like keep doing great work. And I'm gonna pick on Melissa for this one because you're my like people person person.

[00:29:58] Melissa Morris: You're like behind the scenes she's not friendly at all [00:30:00] but she's

[00:30:01] Galen Low: actually a robot but it's a very friendly one.

[00:30:06] Melissa Morris: Yeah. So I think anytime we're rolling out changes at an agency, you do need to be careful and sensitive to the team. And one thing I always tell the agency owners we're working with is, okay, you have come to me.

You've come to agency authority. You've asked for help because you're butting up against your systems. You're butting up against your processes. You're feeling the bottlenecks. You're feeling overwhelmed. So are your team members? Um, and so I think really first being sensitive to the fact that they are also feeling a lot of the pain that the agents own agency owners feeling.

Maybe the project manager who's brought this up is feeling it's likely it's being felt a lot of places, right? So I say there are 2 key things to getting the team on board. It's education. And training. And that might sound like the same thing to start, but I want to clarify a little bit more by what I mean on education.

And that's with the why are we doing this? Bring them in [00:31:00] and help them understand what is the desired outcome for these changes that we're implementing. It's not to micromanage. It's not to give you something else to tick off your list. These are the goals. These are the direction that we're moving the agency in, and this is why it's going to help keep them updated on what progress is looking like.

Sometimes I'm working with a project manager and agency owner. We're having tons of conversations, right? We are talking about the tools, we're brainstorming, we're experimenting, and now it's ready. And we bring it to the team and the team is like, Oh, that's great. You've been working with Melissa for weeks, but we have no idea what's going on.

We don't know what's happening. Keep them in the loop. Bring them up to speed. So we always send an email to our primary point of contact that says, put this out to your team. Let them know who we are, what's about to happen and what's going on. Educate them. Training, train, train, train. So many times, um, you know, project managers, Agency owner, whoever's rolling out leadership.

It's like, well, we did the training call and I just [00:32:00] don't understand. There's a lack of compliance with the tool. Well, one hour training call or 90 minute training call is not going to be enough. There are additional things we need to put in place. We need to make sure we're doing reminders. We need to do frequent trainings.

We need. Practice documents. We need to offer them videos and need to keep in mind, too, that depending on who's on the team, there could be varying degrees of comfort with technology. People may have worked in project management tools or CRMs in the past, and some may not have. And so also being mindful.

And then, of course, being mindful of any accessibility needs or challenges that an individual on your team may may need some extra support with. So the point there is, is let's loop them in on the desired outcome. That does not mean they need to be involved in every decision along the way. Um, you know, I think too many cooks in the kitchen is a very real thing.

Um, but let's keep them updated and feel informed when appropriate, get their feedback and then training and commit to training and reinforcement of the [00:33:00] new team. Love

[00:33:01] Galen Low: that. And we have a call out for ad car in the chat as well. Um, and the thing I wanted to call out is because I think I love that sort of baked into that process with the way you work with your clients.

Um, and also for folks who've been paying attention, like a lot of the like talking points and messaging about what we're doing and why. Um, you can borrow from what any of the panelists are saying from the first few questions, right? It's like, yes, here's why we're doing this. Um, and it's about, you know, these frameworks, it's modularity, but it's not taking away from your craft.

You know, the idea is that you hopefully are able to, you know, Quote, unquote, do your craft harder, which is not the words I mean to use, but it's the only thing that's popping into my head. Um, but yeah, like deepen into doing the things that you love doing. Um, and you know, Joe, even to the point where like, uh, like the, like sort of, I don't know, less sexy business things are kind of like they happen, you know, like let's automate those.

Um, and let's like focus on, um, let's focus on the work. Um, but I think that's, I think that's super cool. [00:34:00] You're someone else, you know, you're, you're directly interfacing with organizations who are, you know, taking some of these ideas around productizing value and implementing them, you know, what are some of the challenges that you see them face with their people and how are they overcoming it?

Is it similar to, you know, what Melissa is saying? Uh, you know, how, where have you seen people? Kind of stepping it

[00:34:22] Brian Kessman: nicely put. Um, I think, uh, you know, this is true whether you're driving change and adoption for a business model, for software, for process, it's, it's, it's all comes down to, it all comes down to people.

And I think a couple of key questions, I agree a hundred percent with. everything Melissa said. Um, and and as another layer to that, maybe it's how do we answer the questions that's on everybody's mind, which is how is it gonna impact me? How is gonna impact my role or my work? Or what do I need to do?

What do I need to learn? What do I need to worry about? Um, and these are points that Melissa was was sharing before. Right. And so you share the vision or the [00:35:00] outcomes. Um, but there is another thing that we've used, which also works. And, uh, it's creating a pilot team, just carving out a small group to really test the change, but specifically with people who are open to experimenting that aren't going to fight it, but they're open to it and excited about it and willing to test and work through potential challenges.

And we provide the right support. And as Melissa was saying, training and education, key pieces But also is having them share back what they've learned where they failed, what their successes were with the agency because it gets other people excited about it. It creates credibility. This is approachable.

We can do this. And ultimately, I mean, the real thing we're doing is trying to create an environment where people who are going to be impacted by the change are also involved in designing that change. Because we don't ever want the experience to be something being done to any group, right? Where I think the first example that Melissa shared was kind of that thing, right?

Here's our change. Here's what we're doing. But it should be something [00:36:00] where everybody has a say or can participate in. And I think, you know, the approach that Melissa shared is a great way to do that.

[00:36:06] Galen Low: I like the feedback loop and like that. It is kind of an experiment for any, you know, it's a new thing at an organization.

It's a new way to work. Um, yeah, I, I, I think that's a really good, like it's a strong, a strong model. I was going to like, I'm going to go into like futurist stuff in a bit, but I actually thought I realized I made Brian kind of like give an example on productization and I, I wonder if maybe I haven't given enough time and if I can put Joe on the spot to kind of think about like.

What an automation could look like, um, to folks working in a professional services environment. Like, what is an example? I know we talked about sort of like billing. Um, we talked about some of the sort of business admin, but like, I feel like boots on the ground, like working on a project, uh, maybe you're a project manager, maybe you're a specialist on that team.

Um, you know, and, uh, we're, we're coming in and we're saying, Hey, listen, we're going to automate parts [00:37:00] of your job. It's going to be great. Um, what is an example of what you might automate sort of and why,

[00:37:07] Joe DiPaulo: you know, I think one of the things is that I was talking about with a customer this week, that's sort of fresh from my head is just resource planning and understanding upcoming work in the pipeline.

And you know, you can automate and better understand people's schedules, their skillsets, their roles, and then try to figure out how can I effectively. Best leverage my team, drive interesting work to them that they're aligned with, um, those kinds of things. And as teams grow and get bigger, that becomes harder and harder for agencies do.

And I think, you know, technology can certainly help, uh, help with that and and also find the right going back to the value proposition and delivering that for your customers. Find the people in your organization that are going to help you do that the best. So, um, That Galen is just something I had a conversation with yesterday with a customer.

So that's why that's what came to mind. But that's certainly something that can be automated and like [00:38:00] you said, sort of be behind the scenes, but help a project manager or a director looking across their, their business and wanting to see how am I going to most effectively use my, my team.

[00:38:09] Galen Low: I really like that example because I think a lot of us kind of like, I think of like whatever RPA and like process automation to be like, cool.

Like. Approval workflow or something, right? Which I'm sure, you know, we can do that too, but like, that's where my head goes to like, okay, yeah, something like, you know, a straight line administrative headache, um, let's automate that. But I love this idea that it's like, we can automate, you know, um, something like resourcing at scale, um, and something that is very people oriented around like, okay, what do people want to be doing and can I put a little process or automation in place to kind of like.

Remind me, um, of like how I can resource a project, how I can be there for my people. I think that's actually really neat. That's a good one.

[00:38:50] Joe DiPaulo: Good. I can keep going if you want, but I'll let

[00:38:53] Galen Low: you, uh, I'll let someone ask the question in Q and a time to be like, Joe, can you go into that a little bit more wink?[00:39:00]

Um, but I thought, you know, like, I think just to kind of like draw it all back. I mean, you know, I know we started with this question, like, can we still our edge, you know, and keep doing really high quality sort of like masterful creative work in a professional services environment and also be looking at productization, be looking at automation to make our businesses more efficient.

Um, you know, is this going to stamp the soul out of, um, everything? Um, I know we kind of like bias towards the answer being no. Uh, and I know we all have our own, you know, personal biases as well. Um, but I think the other thing is like, Like, is this, is this going to be the new norm? Like, I know some folks are going like, okay, well, like, yeah, automation, uh, productization might just be a trend, right?

Current state of the market. But like, I think a lot of professional services organizations and like companies in general right now, like everyone's needing to do more with less. [00:40:00] Uh, and some people could be like, yeah, it's just a temporary thing, but then we'll get back to it. Like, we'll get back to prosperity again.

Like the economy won't. Well, scrunch us so hard or actually, is this not temporary? This is the new normal. Every business is going to need to explore this to stay competitive. Um, maybe I'll pick on Joe again.

[00:40:20] Joe DiPaulo: Yeah. I mean, for me, I think it's the new norm. I mean, I think there's, you know, consistently higher and higher expectations from, from customers, more focus on profit and financial metrics.

And, and, um, You know, being able to, to do more with less kind of, as you said, Gail, and so I think it's, uh, you know, businesses are going to have to continue to evolve and continue to take advantage of, you know, automation the best way they can and, you know, leverage, keep, keep delivering value and finding that, that balance.

And, uh, it's certainly, I think, part of any, um, operators responsibility and day to day type of activities as they're, as they're moving their business forward. So [00:41:00] that's. That's, as you said, a little bit biased, but that's my opinion and I'll stick with it.

[00:41:06] Galen Low: Fair enough, fair enough. Uh, Melissa, your thoughts?

[00:41:10] Melissa Morris: Yeah, well I would be so brazen as to say it's not new. It's actually a new iteration of what product decision looks like. Uh, but this notion has been around, I mean, it was referenced in the late 1980s, um, really exploding and changing in the late 1990s when hello, internet, social media bloggers. And now we've moved on to Google ads and influencers.

Um, and really this idea that I have a business and it depends on the geography that I'm in, it's just not the case anymore. And so now that we have. Increased audience because I can reach anybody in the world. That also means I have increased competition. Um, this means it's more difficult for the end user to discern.

Well, what's this copywriter going to do instead of this copywriter going to do? I'm not just going to go to the, you know, handful of agencies that are nearby in town, interview them all and make a [00:42:00] selection. I need a way to far more easily and quickly start to discern who is the best fit for me. And when someone has a product I service and I can very quickly understand the scope.

The deliverables, they have frameworks, they have a specialization, they're niched. I'm like, I know what works for me. And so I really think it's helping with the decision making process. And that's not going to go away. If anything, I think we're going to continue to see new iterations of it, especially with everything rolling out with AI.

Um, so definitely, um, this, this is here. Yeah. And I think it's things you need to be considering and looking at how they're going to impact your agency and how you need to move and adjust and adapt to this, this new iteration of a productized service offering.

[00:42:45] Galen Low: I like those notions that like, yes, a, it's not new.

Um, be actually your framework might not blend you into the pack. It actually might make you stand out. You know, that's actually very cool. We talk about wire cutter a lot internally. Like if a method to arrive at [00:43:00] their review of that, you know, waffle iron, you're thinking of buying like, that's what makes them unique.

And if you were to transpose that into professional services, yeah, I know it's a stretch, but I do

[00:43:10] Melissa Morris: love waffles though. So I'm kind of resonating,

[00:43:13] Galen Low: you know, Good, good framework for, uh, reviewing a waffle iron. Yeah. Who doesn't need it? Brian, what do you think? Is this, uh, are people going to get left behind if they're not thinking about this now?

[00:43:25] Brian Kessman: Uh, yeah, I think that's a hard yes. I think building on what Melissa was saying, this is, uh, this is just a natural evolution of professional services. We're seeing so many different industries evolve as a result of market conditions and A. I. And and business models just are not sustainable. If you were especially billing by the hour, right?

Not anymore. And so this changes the business model. If you do it right, right, you're not just rebundling services and selling them differently, but you're you're rethinking your value. Thank you. And and there's more change to come, as Melissa was saying. But I think it's important to reframe the the idea that it's limiting in any way.

It's [00:44:00] more liberating because of your focus and the efficiency and the effectiveness. And you could just get better at it over time. And you could still you could still scale the business, right? Because you're solving problems that your firm is especially good at. And you can now start to solve similar problems for other markets for other industries.

You could go to different industries and apply similar frameworks, but to different problems. So there's still ways to expand and find interesting work. I mean, this is how professional service firms are going to future proof their business models. And, um, and to your first question, is this, will they survive if they don't?

Um, I don't know, uh, because there, there does need to be some change, right? Um, the firms that will continue selling time will be highly commoditized. Uh, and their margins will struggle and there'll be a lot of challenges. So, so I think what we're talking about here is really the foundation, just the starting point.

For sustainable growth in the years ahead.

[00:44:59] Galen Low: [00:45:00] And it actually ties it back to what Melissa was saying at the beginning about time tracking. I mean, it doesn't mean that you won't have to track your time, but in that model where you're like justifying that, like the quarter hour you spent on this thing is worth money.

Um, yeah, maybe we can get away from that. And it's like more of a value model. I appreciate that. Um, all right, we've only got 30 minutes left, um, and I promised 50 minutes for Q and a. So I'm already behind. Um, but before we get in the Q and a, I just wanted to share just a few announcements and some bonus resources for today that we have for you for joining us live, um, and attending.

Um, so first of all, Joe and the team at Excello have put together a pretty comprehensive guide, um, to help you just like unify your operations and enhance the visibility of real time data and drive profitable growth. Um, it's available for free. And it should show up on your screen now, um, in some way, shape or form, I think a modal, probably a pop up.

Uh, feel free to follow that link to download the white paper. Uh, if you're tuning in on mobile or if you're like scrambling to find the right browser tab for this call before the link disappears, don't [00:46:00] worry, we're going to be sending it out via email immediately after this event as well. Um, the other thing I want to say, yeah, Michael.

Okay. It slides out. All right. It doesn't show on my screen as a host. I get it now. Um, if you're enjoying this conversation, um, we do this all the time. So I'd love to see you at our next event, which is actually an exploration into, um, we're actually talking to three project managers who've rebuilt their careers after a layoff.

Um, I know that's been a very sort of common occurrence, unfortunately. Um, but this is kind of an optimistic take on, um, you know, what it can mean for your career. You can RSVP, uh, using the link that Michael has just posted or will be posting in chat shortly. Um, and if you are a guest today and you want to continue the conversation by becoming a member of our community, again, feel free to come check us out the digitalprojectmanager.

com slash membership. And then the last announcement is selfishly, um, I really like feedback. Um, so whether now or after the Q and a, um, we're going to post the survey in the chat as well. Um, if you could take a minute to let us know what you thought of today's session, um, [00:47:00] maybe submit a topic that you'd like to see us cover in the future.

That's what we're all about. You know, we like that feedback loop. We want to hear from you. We want ideas of what you'd like to see in the future and how we can improve. Uh, Michael is going to post all of that stuff in the chat. And I am going to shift, uh, into a bit of Q& A, um, and I think I'll start with, um, this question about, like, getting started with automation.

Um, so, the question is, when starting automation, What's the rule of thumb or like some heuristics that you follow to not waste too much time on a red herring? Uh, and maybe I will I will direct this at Joe first because I I'm sure uh, You have a perspective on this but yes, I could definitely see where that could go, right?

It's like oh, let's automate everything and you start spending all this time trying to automate stuff That just really doesn't make a difference

[00:47:51] Joe DiPaulo: Yeah. I mean, for me, again, it's, it's really having a clear goal as you start looking at something, right? You have to, um, find something that's going to be [00:48:00] meaningful for, for your organization.

That's going to have high impact and then hopefully define some, some way that you're going to measure that a return on investment or, or prove that you can, you've delivered value by implementing that kind of automation. Um, you know, so that would be kind of my recommendation. And then, you know, I'm, we've talked about it previously in this conversation.

I mean, I think all this stuff should be iterative, right? You've got it. If you can start small. Um, you know, Melissa was talking about this with education and training and change management. If you can start small and identify kind of a key area that, you know, you can either measure or get value from early and build on that.

Um, that's, that's going to be super helpful. You'll, you'll get it. Um, you know, get support within your organization and, and you'll get value out of it from a, from a business perspective.

[00:48:45] Galen Low: Is there such thing as like too granular when it comes to goals? Because I think, you know, some folks, maybe me are thinking like, oh yeah, looking for efficiency gains of 15 minutes per task, blah, blah, blah.

Like, are we, is that too narrow of an experiment or could that actually be worthwhile?

[00:48:59] Joe DiPaulo: [00:49:00] Um, I think it could be worthwhile, but I'd encourage people to start a little bit bigger and then, you know, have have more of a strategy and then kind of work down to the to that lower level of, uh, of goals. So I think that you've got to understand the strategy and the value prop of your business and where you can be impactful.

And I think starting there and then working down is going to be the most effective way to think about automation and technologies that you can take advantage of.

[00:49:23] Galen Low: I like that. I like the sort of iterative nature of it. Brian, Melissa, anything you want to add on to that?

[00:49:31] Brian Kessman: Uh, no, I thought, I thought Joe covered it pretty well.

I have something very similar. Um, so I think, you know, it ties to the value prop, ties to the business strategy and just how do you prioritize the, uh, the most impactful opportunities that'll give you the quickest impact.

[00:49:48] Galen Low: Love it. Love it. Love it. Um, actually this next question probably goes to Brian as well, but of course, anybody, uh, Jocelyn's asking, you know, maybe this is a bit specific.

But if we are [00:50:00] productizing services at an agency and no longer selling hours for effort, is time tracking still relevant? He mostly came back. Uh, and how does it fit into a productized framework? Um, this notion, I guess, of, uh, time tracking, let me know if I've interpreted that right.

[00:50:20] Brian Kessman: It's a, it's an excellent question.

And I think that there's, there's philosophies around this. So the beauty about going to, uh, to a productized model where you're no longer selling out, which is that, yes, you can eliminate timesheets because we know they've never been accurate anyway. Uh, and also you're no longer billing by them. Uh, and so they're no longer a measure of performance.

Uh, your ability to deliver the outcomes that your solutions promise is the measure of performance. However, it is still wise to use timesheets. To [00:51:00] establish the baseline level of effort for your new offerings. And so we always advise continue tracking time for six months a year until you're comfortable that you've seen all the variations of your different solutions and find an average across your different teams.

Uh, that deliver those solutions. And then now you know what it costs your firm to deliver. But that really shouldn't play into your pricing. It shouldn't be cost plus, right? We just want to know what's the bare minimum that we need to cover our costs internally. Um, and then what's our capacity for how many of these products or solutions can we deliver in a year?

So that's our product capacity for the year. And that determines our revenue and how much we need to sell for that year. So that those become your new revenue. metrics, your new KPIs. And it's all about accountability. So much more so now than it is about utilization, which is, of course, the culture that spreadsheets create.

Mhm.

[00:51:57] Galen Low: No, I love that. And like, we, we do that as [00:52:00] well because we have a bunch of folks from like agency background. So we're like wired to time track, but we use it as data more than it's like a sort of justification of somebody's value. Um, and far fewer conversations with clients going like, Hey, like, what was this hour for?

And no, I'm not going to pay you for it. Right? Like, uh, it's just like a, uh, a measure of our, our sort of operation. Yeah.

[00:52:24] Melissa Morris: Yeah. I would add to that also that I think there is opportunities, particularly in agencies, at least the agencies I work with, where they're often moving and scaling quickly these periods of time, uh, of quick change, scaling and such.

I think it's another good opportunity to bring back that time tracking, because you may often be in a phase where you're pushing certain team members to capacity. Others are not moving to capacity. You may be needing to hire are the price point, like, you know, as we're looking right now, people are requesting higher wages, um, and such, you know, with the political and economic landscape.

[00:53:00] And so trying to continue to make sure that things are in alignment there as expenses are going up, do we need to do a price increase? Are we still okay? Capacity wise, do we really need to bring on a new designer? And then something I always remind people of. Especially being sensitive to that. We can't always just up the rate.

There are other ways to improve profitability and that is Titan scope. You can increase the rate and you can tighten scope. So that's something else you could start to look at in your time sheets is this piece takes a considerable amount of time. But what value is this really bringing to the table? Can we do this in a little bit different way?

Could we find a new tool? Could we use some AI? What can we do to tighten that up? And then we can keep our price the same. We don't have to bring on a new team member. Um, and we're still delivering the quality product and transformation that we promised us. I

[00:53:45] Galen Low: love that. I love the sort of capacity planning angle.

It's like an operational level as well. Yeah.

[00:53:51] Joe DiPaulo: And Galen, if I could jump in, I, I, I align, I don't think that, um, companies should be thinking about pricing or doing some of those things based on hours, but I [00:54:00] do think there's a lot of valuable information here and I think it's an area that we're seeing. AI drive benefit to, um, agencies is that if I know certain types of tasks or certain types of work take longer than, you know, my framework calls for, that's something that I can bring back into my business and figure out how do I optimize this?

How do I tighten scope as Melissa said, or how do I account for this and manage that effectively? And having that data is important to leverage and do things like that. So I think that's where you get the value, not necessarily driving it as your main KPI, but leveraging that as a tool to help you do your business better or deliver better.

[00:54:34] Galen Low: Love that. Love that. I'm going to try and sneak two questions in. So, uh, because there's one that I really like. Uh, both actually I really like. And I'm like, can I squeeze them in? I'm going to try. Um, uh, I'm going to start with Rachel's question. Um, because I think it's really apt. Um, her question is, uh, how would you recommend that project managers upskill their automation skills?

And I like that it's sort of like, at this sort of level. I know we've been talking high and operationally and at a business level. Um, but, yeah, I think it's a really good question about like, [00:55:00] You know, what skill can an individual on a team or a project manager? Um, like how can they level up on automation?

I'll crack that open to anybody.

[00:55:12] Melissa Morris: I'll take that one. So often I see, um, people when AI automation, they think, how can we be leveraging this in our business? How can we be leveraging this in our business? And I think this is coming back to something Joe said earlier. And what we've talked a little bit about here, what is the desire?

outcome. Don't bring in a I and automation for the sake of bringing in a I automation. Don't look at your project manager and say, go learn about a I what problem are you trying to solve? So I think that's where we look first. Where are we finding inefficiencies in our agency? Where are the bottlenecks that are happening?

Okay, now let's go see the automation and the a I that can come back and support that. So I'm always a big fan. Workflow first tool second and so many times people get that flipped. They go and find a [00:56:00] tool and then they try and cram their to do list in it and cram a bunch of tasks in it and they just feel frustrated and it's not saving them time or they they're tool hopping and they're bouncing all around.

Oh, this tool doesn't work great. But if you're really clear on your workflow and you're really clear on what a tool needs to do for you and in this case, what would automation do for you? How would I make this move? faster. Now we've got something to work with. So please don't task your project manager with going and getting, you know, more on me.

Say here are problems that we have in our agency. Can you go research ways that automation in a guy can support that? And then I usually encourage agency owners to look to your own tools first. I see sometimes agency owners, they have like two project management tools. Okay, that can start to get cumbersome and it can start to get confusing.

So look to your own tool stack first. Get deeply knowledgeable on that. And then if it really doesn't fit the bill, now let's go exploring outward.

[00:56:55] Galen Low: I love that. I I'm going to try and sneak in this one last question. [00:57:00] Maybe we can do the fast, uh, yay or nay. Um, because I wanted to get into Jared's question.

We've been talking about productization and automation, specifically, I think productization, um, Jared's question is, can we do a two pronged approach? Like, is it okay to do both where like you have a set of productized, uh, value and then maybe some really custom projects? Um, maybe I'll start with Brian and we can do a quick A or an A.

[00:57:24] Brian Kessman: Yeah, uh, it's, it's problematic. I think the goal here is to divest your price sensitive, lower value, commoditized offerings or find the partner or do something, but it's also not flipping a switch. It doesn't happen today, right? So it's more about the vision is only start to offer the higher value services.

And, uh, solutions and start to continue to build those out, uh, and start to retire some of your price sensitive offerings. And it takes time to get there. So it's not flipping a switch. I totally get the challenge of that. You know, starting tomorrow, it's impossible to do that, right? Especially if the bulk of your business, like many agencies have is is in execution and [00:58:00] production.

But that's been the problem. So we want to shift away from that to more, uh, strategic or advisory type of offerings or something else that's higher end.

[00:58:09] Galen Low: Like it's a journey, not a flip switch, uh, switch flip. Uh, I know we're out of time. Um, maybe I'll wrap it there. So I just want to say to everyone in the audience, I know some folks have left to the next meeting.

Um, but if you're still around, I just want to say a big thank you. Uh, thank you for being here. Thank you for being a part of this. Of course, uh, thank you to our wonderful panelists. Thank you for volunteering your time for this. Um, and again, we have posted a feedback survey. It's in the chat. I think it's pinned somewhere.

Um, let us know what you thought of today's session. Submit a topic, uh, that we should cover in the future. Um, and I'll let you carry on with your, the rest of your Thursday. We decided that it's not Friday. It's actually Thursday, even though we all joined the call thinking it was Friday. We're almost there.

Uh, thank you again, everybody. And, uh, we will see you all the next one.

[00:58:56] Joe DiPaulo: Thanks. Gail. Appreciate you having me.