EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Welcome to the very first episode of Things. Reasons. This is the independent show for Australian IT leaders. You’ve been with us since Cloud Reset. Thank you very much for sticking around. Uh, but we haven’t gone anywhere. We are back and we’re bigger than ever. We’re sharper than ever. 

We’re in an amazing new studio. Lots of things going on. I’m Naran McClung. You are  

Jono Staff. Talk us through it. Mate, it is excellent to be back in this fantastic new studio and yep, going independent, bigger than before, and it’s important to just let our listeners know what the show’s all about. If you’ve been following along, we’re about cutting through the noise, and this is not the polished panel version, not the LinkedIn post, but the conversation that everyone has after the meeting, when people drop the script and say what they really think. Each episode we’ll unpack what’s really driving change in Australian IT technology shifts talent gaps, budget pressure, vendor plays, and leadership calls. We’re going to talk about things. 

What’s going on in our industry that we need to pay attention to. And we’re gonna talk about reasons why things happen, what drives decisions, and who stands to benefit. If you are tired of industry theater and want clear insight, unfiltered conversation, and the occasional laugh that hits a little too close to home, you’re in the right place. 

Let’s get started.  

This sounds like the conversations that you and I have, if we were sitting in a cafe, it was the end of the day, and we’re talking about what’s happened, what’s going on in the industry. Back and forth. It feels like somebody’s thrown us in a studio and we’re gonna be doing that. And that’s, that’s doesn’t even feel like work, really. 

I don’t think so, no. Alright, let’s get into it.  

Let’s get into it.  

 Okay, new segment. It’s called What’s on the Table. Now our listeners can’t see what’s on the table, but you and I can, the first thing that I want to talk about is Telstra, uh, selling Versent Group, which is, uh, Epicon Telstra Purple Digital Cloud, access Products, et cetera. 

Essentially, Telstra’s Cloud Services arm retaining 25% for some reason, don’t really understand that. Um, what are your thoughts on it?  

Well, I think it’s pretty interesting. I know, uh, I know that, uh, there’s been rumors of this sell off happening for a while and, uh, probably more than just this piece.  

Hmm. 

So I think there’s more to come, uh, based on what I’m hearing around the traps, but, uh, what does it mean? Look, hopefully it means, uh, Telstra getting back to its core.  

Yes. And this is the connected future. 30. So this is Telstra’s five year strategy, FY 30, double down on core connectivity, radically innovate the network, shifting from selling bandwidth to treating the network as a product, prioritize, connectivity, scalable bandwidth, higher security, et cetera, et cetera. 

See any problem with that? That seems reasonable.  

I think it does. I think it’s very hard to be great at everything. Mm. I think Telstra’s been trying to do that for years. Yep. And uh, and frankly, you know, the experience for customers in the market across those range of services is probably fair to say mixed. 

Yes.  

So I think Telstra getting back to its core. Uh, what it’s good at as a telco fixed asset business and looking to modernise the way that, uh, they bring network services to market, which is, uh, fundamental in any IT solution really. Uh, can only be, I think, a good thing. Yep. Uh, for Australian business. 

Yeah. Look, I’m gonna take it a step further because frankly this is an independent show and we can say we like, um, I think our business wins more business off Telstra than just about any other service provider, and that tells me that there is a little bit of disharmony out there to the betterment of perhaps more specialist players, players that commit themselves to a handful of things. 

One or two things do them very, very, very well. And don’t profess to be all things to all people. And I think if Telstra have decided that that’s their future too, well then great and better for all of us.  

Yeah, I think like anything, the, the market decides right, supply and demand. Um, and sometimes, uh, the arc of logic can be long, but it always, uh, it always comes home. 

It does. Now this is another thing on the table. So let’s talk a little bit about,  📍 Accenture . And so these large IT service providers that have predominantly scaled with people. Billable hours and the advent of generative AI delivering more capability with less. We’ve seen massive staff cuts right across not  📍 just Accenture , but the other big players as well. 

Um, and the market’s sensitive to it, right? It’s sensitive to an IT service provider that is perhaps overstaffed in a world where generative AI can deliver amazing outcomes for us. And just on that too, more recently, right, with chat GPT five. Playing around with agent mode. I don’t know if you’ve played around with this, right? 

You tick the little plus and it says agent mode, and you give it a task. And I gave it a task recently to analyse, uh, tenders in the Australian market. This thing fired up a virtual machine. It was like a power user. It was like trawling the internet. It was showing me what it was doing. At the end of it, I’ve got this curated spreadsheet of results. 

After like 37 minutes of crunching, I shudder to think how long that would’ve taken a human being to do that. Now that’s just one example of something that can happen there Now with this technology, these big organisations that have a million people. What are they gonna do with ’em all?  

Well, I think it’s really interesting and like we were saying before, the market decides. 

Mm, the market decides. And if I look at even the stock price for Accenture, which is a people driven business. Yep. So it’s a human capital business. They’ve got over 700,000 employees. Their stock price has dropped by over a third. Yeah. In the last 12 months, and there’s a lot of talk saying that, well, this is the market speculating on what agentic AI actually means for these human capital businesses where they’re exchanging people’s time for money. 

Right. Uh, very, very interesting. I think the future is these organisations need to pivot and, and lean into AI and disrupt themselves because, uh, somebody else is going to do it. And, you know, to your point, uh, low code, no code. Options to develop your own AI agents. Um. And the output that you can get. It’s actually astonishing. 

Really astonishing.  

No, it certainly is, and I think we’re already seeing changes in charging models. If it’s less about billable hours by the person, human beings scaling into the future with thousands and thousands of people. If it’s not about that, then you’re paying for outcomes. Outcome driven charging models. 

Um, which I love, right? Which means back to the original point specialist players that do certain things very, very well, say to a prospect, I’m gonna deliver you this outcome. How I do it is irrelevant, right? If I’m a technology business that scales properly with automation, programmatic methods, and generative AI, then if I can deliver you an outcome for a price, make a profit, and not be dependent on people when my business needs to grow. 

I’m in a better position and I think it actually is gonna drive much more innovation in the market. And how is that a bad thing?  

Well, I’d say some people think it could be particularly people who. Might be impacted by this. Right? So one of the things that, uh, is gonna be interesting to see how the IT consulting industry and various professional services industries deal with this in general. 

You know, things like entry level jobs, okay. Grads. Internships, you know, if agentic AI can do the work of, you know, five grads for, for one agent or something like that, you know, what is the pathway into these industries and how do you, uh, leverage AI  

Yeah.  

To develop the next generation of talent  

Yeah. 

In this space. Mm-hmm. So I think there’s also an, an opposing view here. Where people need to be starting to ask some questions. You know, if you look 10, 15 years into the future, uh, how are we going to grow the next generation of leaders mm-hmm. You know, and do that alongside AI and be more productive and get better outcomes for the market. 

I think, uh, nobody’s really got the answer to that yet.  

Yeah. Look, I think universities are gonna pivot. Um, if I think back to my university degree many years ago, let’s not focus too much on how long ago that did you graduate? Yes, I did. I’m not sure where you’re going with that, but I certainly did. That was a very software development focused degree. 

Now I do no software development at all, right? And so I didn’t really get anything out of that at all, other than a piece of paper did help me get my first job. My point on this is that I, why can’t graduates come outta university as super skilled, prompt engineers? Why can’t one graduate represent 10, 15, 20 people for output by virtue of the way that they can derive outcomes from generative AI. They must be playing with it. I mean, we did our Caudit piece, um, some time ago. We’re talking about Cogniti with, was it Sydney University?  

Uh, it was, yeah.  

Yeah. Right. So amazing leaning into that technology. I wanna think that the graduates of the future come out, tooled up, ready and capable of, of deriving amazing outcomes with this tech. 

Right. Particularly if the degrees are still gonna be software development oriented. I think that’s where that’s gonna have to pivot anyway.  

Yeah, I think, uh. I think smart graduates who are looking at their future need to be thinking about how do I leverage AI Yep. And lean into it to be more productive and, and better equipped to hit the ground running and bring value into, into the market. 

That’s what’s gonna grow your career. Yes. Um, and I, I question, you know, with the pace that AI is developing in terms of the, the capability and the ease of, uh, use and adoption  

mm-hmm.  

I think the, the challenge is gonna be for some of these bigger ones, just to get back to one like Accenture, where they’re taking a huge hit on their share price. 

And you know, this technology’s obviously quite disruptive for their business model. Yeah. Um, will they be able to pivot fast enough? Right. And maybe there’s going to be a whole new market for, you know, AI driven consultancy. And that might be the place that attracts the smart new talent. How interesting it used to be where, you know, you would, you would cover an internship at an Accenture. 

Yeah, yeah. May, maybe not.  

Alright, so we’ve got generative AI putting pressure on staff and we’re seeing like upwards of what it, 12,000 layoffs with TCS. You got Wipro, Capgemini, Cognizant, all aggressively trying to invest in AI platforms and facing market skepticism of the amount of staff that they have. 

But yet we recognise that skilled staff are needed to bring this to life. Case in point, OpenAI launching their own both direct and channel consultancy piece to see enterprises embrace their technology and it wasn’t enough perhaps. To have the tech and they will come build it and they will come. 

They’re taking the bull by the horns and saying, you know what? We’re gonna help you implement this. So there’s clearly a need for human beings to turn this stuff on. So you’re kind of damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t. You need the people to turn it on. You’ve got too many people in your business. 

Your market says you need to adjust because of generative AI. You’re getting pulled one direction in the other direction. What’s a business to do?  

Well, it’s, uh, it, it is, it is, uh, a pretty dynamic space for sure. Mm. And there’s lots of different points of view about how to deal with this. I think one thing’s for sure is that the big, uh, consultancy providers are under pressure. 

Mm. They are reducing headcount, whether whether they’re, uh, publicly acknowledging that that’s due to agentic AI or, or agendas around AI. Mm. You know, is, is remains to be seen. But I think, uh, I think they are reducing headcount. They, they’re leveraging AI to do more with less. Mm. Um, because their industry’s being disrupted and the market’s demanding it. 

If you can get an outcome from a consultancy, uh, for half the price, because. They’re leveraging AI.  

Yes.  

Uh, I know, I know which one I’m gonna buy.  

Alright, well look  We mentioned Accenture. Right in the face of downward pressure on staff numbers affecting stock price, market skepticism, et cetera. 

They’ve just bought CyberCX now. I mean, yeah.  

Incredible move.  

Right. So did they do that to buy people, capability? All of the above. What’s going on there?  

Yeah. I’m not sure what the motivation is. Obviously CyberCX is, uh, is a very, very well known brand in the industry around cyber.  

Mm-hmm.  

Uh, and it seems like every time, you know. 

The government or mainstream media wants somebody comment on somebody getting hacked. There’s somebody from CyberCX there. Mm. Uh, talking about it. 

Right. 

I think there’s a lot of brand equity. Mm-hmm. Uh, associated with that. It’d be interesting to see, I know they’re talking about, uh, maintaining the brand. I dunno who’s gonna be leading the deals, you know, is Accenture pulling CyberCX through into their customer base? Or is it uh, the other way around? Yeah. 

Is this about attaching other consultancy services around CyberCX?  

Right. Um, I wonder with these acquisitions, the strategies around staff retention, okay. 

Buying capability is one thing. I think your point on who leads the deal is interesting. Um, I mean, you can’t put everybody in golden handcuffs for 12 months or 24 months, et cetera. And there must be a whole strategy around retention and culture and all the things you need to do, career paths for top talent to stay in a business. 

I’m always super skeptical. Of any business that acquires another one that is so central to the human beings that come across. Alright. Because human beings often aren’t that happy with disruption. You know, like if I think of all the acquisitions that have happened over the last sort of three to five years, I mean, you see an exodus, don’t you? 

You always see an exodus of staff when that happens. Um, I do wonder how that’s gonna affect them.  

Yeah. It’ll be interesting to see how they maintain, uh, the culture. And, uh, and how those two organisations are gonna bring that together. Yeah. Uh, certainly the, it’s a huge change management piece. Yeah, that’s right. 

It’s, it’s a really big move.  

And look, again, going back to this point of scaling with technology, I think the cyber security space particularly is one that really lends itself to tech and scaling with tech, uh, and being perhaps less dependent on human beings going forward.  

Yeah, I think that’s right. Uh, time will tell as to whether or not this is a good thing for the industry and CyberCX’s customers  📍 or Accenture’s customers. Yeah. Um, yeah, I, I think, I think it’s a watch and watch and wait. Yeah, watch and wait. Big move and it’s not gonna happen overnight. Um, but again, the market will decide, uh, whether or not they’re doing a good job.  

Yeah, I, I agree. And I think we’re gonna see more challenges, right? 

We’re gonna see these sort of cloud native, generative AI native challenges emerging in market, delivering very specific outcomes. I love these charging models that talk to, paying for the percentage that a human being would’ve done to deliver the task, wrap a managed service around some agents, um, and deliver to that promise. 

You know, I think we’re gonna see more and more of that going forward as well.  

Yeah. And ultimately, look, cyber security is a very dynamic landscape. The bar is getting raised continually on Australian business all the time. It feels like there’s a new standard you need to comply with. There’s new tools you need to buy. 

Um, I think, I think it’s kind of like the wild West out there.  

Yeah, it still is. There’s still a lot of self-leveling going on. And I mean, we’ve spoken about this before, right? I mean, how many CISOs have you seen that just aren’t. Right. I say that respectfully, you know, I don’t wanna stand in the way of anybody’s career aspirations, but you put your, your CISO hat on one day when it suits you, are you really a CISO? 

We see so much staff movement there, and I think not all SOC providers are created equally either. Right. I mean, just because you have a service and somebody perhaps maybe if you’re lucky, stares at a screen occasionally. I mean, not all services are built the same way. I mean, we know that there’s massive disparate disparity, sorry, in the way organisations treat threat intelligence and triage incidents, and we all manage to the same metrics of response and closure. 

I think the combination of the skills piece and service expectation, it’s all still in flux and it’s all still going through a natural self-leveling.  

Yeah, absolutely. Um, one thing’s for sure you’re never going to do away with smart people. Yep. At the front of those solutions who need to keep up with the latest attack vectors and threats. 

Yep. Uh, to keep you safe. So it’s, I think it’s always gonna be a combination of clever people and best of breed technology to keep you secure. Yes. And what was working last year isn’t gonna work this year. That’s right. You’ve gotta be very dynamic as a business and embrace change in that space if you wanna stay secure. 

Yeah, I think that’s right. And I think the evolution of the, of the MSP in market is one that, uh, is embracing more tech, more ai, more machine learning, more agents leaning in, um, moving up the value chain as well. You know, if I think about our SOC analysts, for example, they spend more time doing proper threat hunting now than you know. 

Uh, trudging through incidents and triage, et cetera, where tech can do 80 to 85% of that for us now accurately. That’s where we need to be, right? I mean, that’s, that’s what a good SOC analyst should be doing is that proper human led work that you just can’t, uh, necessarily replace entirely with technology. 

Yeah, absolutely.  

 if I think about what that means for our IT community, for the business community, thinking about, you know, how do I stay compliant, how do I stay safe? 

Uh, maybe you are already a CyberCX customer. Maybe you were thinking about it. Uh, I think it still comes back to the fundamentals. You’ve gotta do the due diligence to find a partner that you can trust. These solutions are led by people. You need clever, experienced people at the helm of these services to keep you safe. 

So I would encourage you to think about doing the work, really doing your due diligence, meeting the people that are involved and, uh, and not just buying off the brochure.  

Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly. Okay, 

 so Jono, I’m gonna address the elephant in the room here, right? So yes, we are here launching Things. Reasons. great, thank you. Loyal Watches and listeners for Cloud Reset. But the most important thing we need to address is the fact that you and I don’t work together anymore.  

Not in a, not in a official day-to-day capacity. 

No, that’s right. I left you.  

Why did you leave me? What did I do wrong? I felt like we had a good thing going on. You know what I mean? I don’t feel like I insulted you. Maybe I did. What happened?  

Well, uh, like all good things, eventually they come to an end. Right. Um, and I’ve, I’ve just got a great opportunity to, to go out there and build something. 

I’ve been doing this IT caper for just over 20 years now and I felt like the time was right and there’s no better time to do that than when you’re on top. Okay. And we’re certainly on top at Macquarie.  

Mm-hmm.  

Uh, perhaps you will stay there.  

Well, I’m gonna stay there for sure. I’m very happy where I am. 

Um, you know, I don’t, it just feels like a power complex problem for you. I don’t know what it was. You know, you, you sort of, you need more, uh, autonomy. I mean, talk us through that. What’s going on there?  

Well, it’s, I think there, there’s just lots of, lots of stuff going on in our industry and, uh, you know, joining a growing business like ASE is just a, a great opportunity to build something. 

And, uh, and, I think the market’s ready. Mm, I think it’s time to disrupt the managed services space. Alright, well look, so watch out.  

Congratulations on your job change. You know, clearly we do still work together. Um, our organisations will work together as well. Um, there’s almost no overlap between them, so I love what you’re doing, uh, and I hope that yeah, we can continue to work together. 

Clearly we’ve got this. So for as long as people keep watching and you will  

Right, then we won’t have a problem. No, it’s excellent. Um, and we are fully independent and if anybody’s wondering, we’re bootstrapped, um, feel free to send money. Naran’s starting a GoFundMe.  

We we’re not allowed to do that. Are we? 

We can’t ask people for money. No, no, not yet. Not yet. Okay. May maybe later. Okay. Right. Okay. Good.   So we’re gonna continue to have guests now as the opening show, right? 

The launch of things, reasons. It’s just you and I talking today. But that’ll be the only time we do that potentially because every other episode I think we’re gonna have a guest. Um, they’re gonna be different people all walks of life. It leaders, all it adjacent topics of interest for us. Um, I shudder to think where we’re gonna take this Jono. There’s certainly a great many topics that I’d love to explore. Not gonna go down any of those rabbit holes right now, but I do know that when we get the guests on, we’re gonna ask, uh, the quickfire three questions and keep that consistent quickfire. Three questions. Yeah. I guess I’m the test dummy today. 

That’s right. Okay. Are you ready for this? Uh, I was born ready. Let’s go.  

No, I expect honest answers from you here. Okay. Our listeners demand transparency from you.  

Let’s do it.  

Okay, fine. Alright. Question number one, what is the one piece of advice that you would give your past self before taking on a major tech initiative or challenge? 

Wow. So, um, yeah, there’s been, there’s been lots of these, there’s been lots of challenges, I would say professionally. Personally, let’s stick with professionally, I think professionally, uh, big tech initiatives or challenges? Well, big tech initiatives are basically challenges I’ve never been afraid of jumping in the deep end. 

If I was gonna go back and give some advice to my past self, uh, it would probably be to trust my instincts more and act faster so when I know something’s right and I’ve, I’ve got a good feel. For, uh, the direction that I need to take, whether it’s implementing a project, learning a new skill, uh, changing my career path. 

Uh, I think don’t get back into that.  

I think I’d, I think I would, uh, I would move faster. Mm. Typically, if I look back, I knew what I needed to do and I probably waited usually a few months longer than I should have. Yep. And I think, uh, time is such a precious commodity. Okay? So don’t waste it if you, if you want to get ahead and you’ve got a good feel for where you need to go and what’s gonna make you happy and what’s gonna work. 

Yes, I think move fast.  

So that feels like the privilege of confidence. Clearly you’ve built that up over time. What you are saying to your younger self is to accelerate that and trust your instincts sooner as opposed to 20 years down the track when you’re a bit longer in the tooth.  

Absolutely. Yeah. Move fast. 

Um, time is a precious commodity. Mm-hmm. That 20 years has gone by very, very quickly.  

And I’m guessing you, you can’t be too afraid of failure to, right. This idea of fast fail, put something out there, um, you know, McKinsey’s three horizons thing, you know, say I’m gonna work on three things. I don’t expect all three of them to work. 

You pull two of them down and maybe one of them becomes a thing.  

Yeah. I think, I think, I think that’s right. Um, be confident, get after opportunities and what, what’s really the worst thing that can happen. Really,  

I don’t know. You lose your job, have no money, end up homeless. I don’t know that, that would be the worst thing. 

Okay. Alright. Thank you. Question number two, what’s something you used to believe in, in tech leadership that you no longer do?  

Ooh, okay. Um, wow. There’s a few of these. There’s, there’s a few different places you could go with this. Uh. I used to believe that the people in charge had all the answers. 

Mm, they had more than you.  

Yeah, that’s right. And uh, and you can, I think I’ve, I’ve quickly found out that everybody’s making it up as they go along to varying degrees.  

Where you going with that? Where you going with that?  

Let’s all be honest with ourselves. Oh, let’s, you said be honest. Let’s be honest. I think, um, I think everybody is, is feeling their way through. 

Uh, the industry. Mm-hmm. Um, it’s changing all the time. You know? Look at AI now in the last, what, two, three years? That’s just exploded. Yeah. People have to pivot. I think. Uh, I think just watch out for people who pretend like they’ve got all the answers because no one really does.  

Yep.  

But I think if you are curious and, uh, and collaborative and you’re a little bit vulnerable, you can show real leadership, uh, in the, in the sector. 

And make a difference and just don’t assume that anybody’s got all the answers.  

I really like that. You know what, if I was to say something to younger Naran, aggressive, argumentative, you know, knew everything, overly arrogant, et cetera, et cetera, way different than the current day version. If I was to say something to him, would say that the people that had the jobs that you aspired to, to your point, um, they just had the job. 

Right. And so when you eventually ended up in a position like that yourself, you realise, you know what? I can do this. There wasn’t anything special about this at all. And yeah, okay. You go through the usual motions, the first six months, difficult. You have to endear yourselves to new colleagues and peers, et cetera, and really figure out the, the ins and outs of the job. 

But there’s no difference between you and the person that you aspire to or the job that they have, that you don’t currently have. Uh, and you learn that, don’t you, over time. And I think you, you derive confidence from that.  

I think that’s right at, at the end of the day, I think all business, not just tech business in our industry is just people talking to people making decisions. 

Yes. It’s like 90% of it and some talking about things with reasons. Yeah. And all, you know, and, and yeah. Uh, leadership tech leaders, I think everyone’s, everyone’s just doing their best to varying degrees. Yeah. Um, and you’re the sum of your lived experiences. So the more experiences you can get. Uh, the more wins you can have, the more losses you can take and keep going, the the better leader you’ll be. 

But you need to stay, I think, vulnerable. And remember, you don’t have all the answers.  

Alright, fine. So here’s what I took from that. Everybody’s talking bollocks. Um, we just have to accept that they are. Which leads me to question three. What’s your gut check for spotting a good partner or walking away from a bad one? 

Okay, I assume we’re talking about, uh, you know, tech partners, right?  

Yes.  

Okay. We are, we’re both happily married for a long time. Yes. So, uh, for now, we, we’ve done all right in that department, tech, uh, tech partnerships, how to spot a good one. I think it comes down to, uh, a few things. Mm-hmm. I would be very, very, very interested in the quality of the team that’s managing the partnership for you, so your partner, account manager, account manager, the presales people, the, the technical customer facing people, anybody who’s wrapped around the partnership, uh, I’d be very interested in their capability and their drive and their willingness to advocate. 

For you and for your customers. Mm. Um, I’ve seen some great tech, you know, and great vendors, but the team not so good partnership fails. So number one thing is you need great partner account managers and a team around them. Uh, the ones that I’ve worked with, you know who you are. And, uh, I’ll be doing business with them forever. 

No, I can’t help but where they go. So what I heard from you, we just talked about generative AI and we talked about big IT firms shedding staff because the tech does all of it. You’ve said the opposite here. You what you are after is the human connection and you wanna give you to that. Absolutely.  

Yeah. 

So the quality of the people makes a huge difference. Be discerning around that and push to make sure you get the, A team Got it. Around your partnership. Yeah. Uh, the second thing is obviously, uh, make sure that the tech the tech catalog drives outcomes for your customers. Yes. It has to be aligned to your strategy, to your customer’s strategy and what you’re trying to achieve. 

Don’t just select it because the rebate’s better than the other one. Don’t just select it because they’re offering you a, a bigger market development, funding prize, you know, actually do the work and, and pick great tech. Yes. Uh, that’s the, the second thing, and I think the third one. Is, uh, flexibility. 

Mm-hmm. So the ability to, uh, the ability to change programs to suit your business and your sales motion, I think that’s really important. Uh, for example, if you are a, a reseller of the tech versus a solution, managed service provider of that tech where the tech’s a component of, of outcome-based services that you’re providing, that changes the way you do business with these partners and their expectations on you and then your customers, and you don’t want unnatural. 

Uh, tension or friction in the partnership where they want something that you don’t want and you can’t deliver? Yes. I think that’s a, a, a recipe for disaster. So the three things, uh, great people, number one tech that gets you outcomes for your customers because otherwise what are you doing it for? What’s the point? 

Yeah. And the third one is make sure that the programs are aligned with, uh, the way that you do business so that there’s no friction.  

Yep. I love all of that. And I just wanna touch on one thing you said before about, um. Being prepared to be vulnerable, which sort of goes to transparency and honesty, and I think. 

People underestimate the power of honesty in a conversation. Um, when you can show up to a prospect and say, look, you’ve asked us to do this thing. Um, yes, it’s in our wheelhouse. No, we haven’t done it before and let me tell you how we’re gonna do it. And there is never a downside to being that open and transparent. 

You’re gonna deliver the outcome. To your point, your customer’s gonna get what they want from you. Tell them if it’s the first time you’ve done it right, be very open and transparent. It gives you. Um, a little bit more mileage as well. It gives you a little bit more flexibility. Um, you’re gonna be agile, you’re gonna think on your feet. 

Maybe things aren’t gonna work straight away, but the customer knows that you’re gonna work hard. You’ve told them it’s the first time you’re doing it, they’re gonna get the outcome anyway. I mean, when is it not a good thing to be really open and transparent?  

Yeah, absolutely. Like I said, um, 90% of this game is people talking to people going into rooms, making decisions, and you need to be doing that in, in good faith. 

Alright, thank you. They were the three questions.  

All right.  

Very well done.  That was episode one. Things. Reasons. Thank you so much for tuning in. We are super grateful. You’re gonna find this podcast everywhere. You find your podcast, Spotify, YouTube. We’re gonna be blasting LinkedIn. We absolutely want feedback as well. 

We love questions. We’re gonna bring that back. I loved it when we had the q and a session. Yeah, we’ll have some fun with that.  

Have some fun with that. So thank you very much for tuning in. We do have a string of guests lined up to join us on the show, so look out for more. And yeah, just subscribe and stay tuned. 

Thanks very much for listening, everybody. First episode of Things. Reasons. with Naran and Jono. See you again next time.