Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
Studio Sessions
33. Price Your Work Based On The Value You Create: Part 1
We break down how to charge higher rates based on the value you create rather than just time and materials. The conversation covers real examples of value-based pricing and pricing strategy, including how to qualify clients, set price anchors, and identify which projects are worth taking on. Throughout part one, we explore why most freelancers and agencies default to commodity pricing and how to shift away from it.
We discuss the importance of expertise in value-based pricing and when to walk away from projects that aren't a good fit. Using examples from video production to woodworking, we look at how different businesses and industries approach pricing models and what it takes to successfully charge premium rates as a creative professional.
We also dive into client relationships and what it means to be a true expert versus just a service provider. From marketing directors to business owners, understanding who you're talking to and their relationship to the problem you're solving is crucial for implementing value-based pricing in your business. -Ai
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider giving us a rating and/or a review. We read and appreciate all of them. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you in the next episode.
Links To Everything:
Video Version of The Podcast: https://geni.us/StudioSessionsYT
Matt’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/MatthewOBrienYT
Matt’s 2nd Channel: https://geni.us/PhotoVideosYT
Alex’s YouTube Channel: https://geni.us/AlexCarterYT
Matt’s Instagram: https://geni.us/MatthewIG
Alex’s Instagram: https://geni.us/AlexIG
What you do at Inateck is you take the specifications from the customers and you bring them down to the software engineers. Yes, yes, that's right. Well then I just have to ask why couldn't the customers just take them directly to the software people? Huh, well, I'll tell you why. Because engineers are not good at dealing with customers. Because engineers are not good at dealing with customers. So you physically take the specs from the customer Well no, my secretary does that or the facts. So then you must physically bring them to the software people. Well, no, I mean, sometimes, what would you say you do here? Look, I already told you I deal with the goddamn customers, so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills. I am good at dealing with people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?
Speaker 2:Hey, it had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summons.
Speaker 4:All right, so let's not get too far from here because we are going to talk about value today. Money talk, money conversation, if I don't die.
Speaker 3:So first, before we get started, anything interesting in the last couple of weeks. How have you been enjoying the new space?
Speaker 4:The new space has been great. Glad everyone got to see a studio tour, which is a pretty unconventional little piece of video for us, for the channel, for those listening. The video version is on the YouTube channel. It was nice to record that episode in the space as well, even though we it feels good to be back, it sure does.
Speaker 4:So I wouldn't say anything super new, but, yeah, wrapped up the studio working on a new video on my YouTube channel, had some other deeper realizations about what I've been doing this year that we won't get into right now, but uh, you know I'll talk to you, uh, either in another episode or just on our own. That kind of kicked me in the, in the butt, um, this last week. Good or bad, it's a good realization, but it really brought me down, Just really brought me down. Uh, you know, not like, uh, you know, stuck in that, in that uh, feeling of being a feeling of down, but just sort of, uh, you know, just a a realization of part of what I was, I've been doing this year. Uh, and that's maybe something we can talk about if we do like a year review, uh episode a little bit later.
Speaker 4:Uh, essentially, uh, to tease it, uh, I would basically like kind of categorize my year, which I sometimes will try to find a term to define what the predominant element was and what I was doing. Like the year of self-discipline, I feel like this was the year of experimentation and indulgence. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:Big indulgence year, but I didn't know, I didn't think about that as much. So definitely self-discipline and decisions that came from a place of sacrifice waned, and decisions that were more from a place of indulgence, that I wasn't aware I was being indulgent. Uh came in and that was kind of the kick in the, I think what we should do, but that got me down.
Speaker 3:This is just having this thought right now, but I think what we should do is our year in review episode. Yeah. Um, and then and I mean, yeah, that might date it a little bit, but we'll try to keep it kind of high level, Sure, Um, but then I think we should also do our. We always have the goal setting kind of meetings, I mean we've been doing it for six years at this point. Maybe we should do that one. Yeah, so we'll do those kind of release them back to back. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Maybe I.
Speaker 3:Yeah, maybe I don't know, maybe we could even have like Cody or somebody on. Yeah, maybe I don't know. Um, I don't know. Obviously, the first of all, the technical aspect of having three people Right, and yeah, we can, we can discuss that.
Speaker 4:But screw Cody, let's leave them out, just leave them out.
Speaker 3:If you watch this episode, you can.
Speaker 4:I don't want him. He's too busy achieving his goals. He's too busy living life, um yeah.
Speaker 3:I think that'd be a good back to back, yeah, but then again I don't even know if it's hyper useful, cause I think maybe some of that stuff is stuff that we want to keep off camera.
Speaker 4:So well, you know, for me, obviously, as the person who just vomits all of my emotions and feelings, uh, and tries to you know, deploy interestpection.
Speaker 3:We're pretty out there. I think I would talk about that experimentation and indulgence and how.
Speaker 4:that would inform what I hope to do the next year. But I definitely hope to get back to more decisions that come from a place of sacrifice. And that goes back to what we talked about pleasure versus joy. Pleasure is you indulge in something quickly to get that hit of pleasure, dopamine, whatever Whereas if you, I think, make decisions from a place more of sacrifice, you will achieve joy because you've delayed gratification and you're. I don't know about building confidence, but you're just showing that you don't cave to temptation repeatedly, and I think I have.
Speaker 3:Discipline equals freedom. Yeah, in a sense. Yeah.
Speaker 4:So we're unpacking a little bit more than I thought. No big deal, but that would be a big thing that I would talk about just with seeing how this year went diligent, less disciplined decisions, the experimentation, um and and and use that in a more disciplined approach in 2025.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's uh, we'll, we'll try to do that, we'll do the double back to back, and then I mean, yeah, maybe we even cover in the next episode and get it get more into the weekends, but today we're talking about value.
Speaker 4:But today we're talking about value Damn it, we're talking about value, which which, similar to sort of the epiphany of of decisions that came from a place of indulgence, talking about money and working with, with clients or brands or whatever, from a mindset of the value you create versus how much it costs for you to make something for them, was a huge epiphany for me and something that, when I first got my head around, the people that understand you know, value-based pricing and all that it. Um, it was like something you always knew, but you didn't have the framework or the, the machinery to understand how to do it work or the, the machinery to understand how to do it.
Speaker 3:Notes um. So there's a couple of things that I do want to discuss in value-based pricing maybe we set the context a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yes, so I think this is something that, like, matt and I both kind of had our own ideas about it and then, um, I learned a lot about it from matt. I mean, this was probably when you were actively doing your business as like a commercial facing entity. Right, this is Midland Pictures, this production company, and you kind of Omaha as a marketplace, especially in like the you know, 2000s, early 2010s, I think was a very it didn't really have an understanding of that value-based pricing aspect or that model or framework, um, of the world. And you've seen that change a little bit. But, um, you know, we we had discussions on it and recently there's been some things that have come up where, like, I'm like, okay, I want to revisit this, re familiarize myself. Obviously it's not like a let's get familiar with the nitty gritty, like, I kind of see the world in this way anyways, um, and that I mean if you've watched the show, I think you have an understanding of like we take craft very seriously on like, uh, like if, if I always say if you work to develop a skill set or a craft that always will have value, if you're good at something on a very intricate level, then that's going to have value. If you have expertise.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the market is going to do what the market does. Trends are going to come and go. Quality typically has value over any period of time. It's about as safe of an investment as you could make, and one thing I also want to talk about at some point is what that means, though, because I think the issue you know, last last episode we talked a little bit about youtube and kind of um, the trend culture of like, grind culture or things like that. The trend of grind culture, pardon, yeah, and um, hustle culture, yada, yada, yada. I think you had a lot of people that came out of the woodwork and like, oh, you got to be charging based on your value. And then you'd have people that have been doing videography for three months, trying to value price.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you know, while I respect you respect the idea of like, go out and earn your money um, I do think there is a level of expertise that is required to operate on a value level, or else you're just you're, you're. It's kind of scammy, you know, approaching somebody and being like you're gonna pay me for the value and it's like, well, there's no value there, especially with AI, this is going to get even worse, right Cause a lot of people are going to be like, well, you're, you're paying me for my, my time and expertise, and it's like what do you mean? You're just using, like chat, gpt to think for I definitely want to talk about what that actually means, but I guess maybe first just introduce to me, as if you know, it's a new thing to what, what is value pricing?
Speaker 4:So, when you think about really pricing anything, um and my focus on understanding value based pricing comes from a place of, like you said, running a production company comes from a place of, like you said, running a production company Somebody comes to me and they need a video for something that they're trying to accomplish. We can approach pricing the cost of that video from a place of a commodity-based mindset, which is all right. What are the time and materials that are going to go into this, which is all right. What are the time and materials that are going to go into this? How do I calculate what it's going to cost me to make that thing? And then how do I add, you know, 10%, 15% margin for profit or whatever on that and go from there.
Speaker 4:And that's what a lot of people traditionally do, you know, especially in like services industry HVAC, plumbing, you know drywall, things like that you know. You like you need your garage drywalled. Here's what the you know they might even line item stuff. Here's what the materials cost, here's what the labor is and this is what it's going to cost you. Sometimes those places might say, well, we can do, you know, like, high-end materials, high-end finishing work, and it's going to cost this much, or we can just, you know, do the less expensive option, so that you have, you know, maybe some different choices to make.
Speaker 3:Kind of a commodity-based. So all of that is just.
Speaker 4:But then there's people that want to have that work done but there's things that they that they don't want to experience in that process. They don't want to experience it taking a long time. They don't want to experience poor communication from the people who are doing it. Maybe there's an extra level of attention to detail because that person just really cares about things being done at a high level. The finishing work is really high, high quality. There's things that they value in that process that the person performing the service could charge more to help that person who's paying for it receive even more value. So the value-based mindset is really asking yourself what is the value of the result I'm going to get for the person or business who's going to hire me? What do you mean by value can be twofold. It can be sort of ethereal value. How is that person going to feel when they see the finished product? What's it going to do to their energy, their confidence? Are they going to be able to show it off to their friends and that has value to them to be able to do that or the value of the solution that you create.
Speaker 4:Let's say you're a lawyer and a person is being sued for $100 million and your legal expertise gets them out of it or shows that they're innocent, what's it worth to pay to save yourself from having a $100 million lawsuit levied at you? Is it worth $100,000? Is it worth a million dollars? Would you pay $10 million to not owe $100 million? Same thing in video. So if a client wants a video and there's a specific thing they need to do we need to communicate our brand's values, our mission, et cetera, or we need to sell X amount of widgets how can you have a conversation that tries to ascertain if we are successful in doing this? If we work together and produce a video that achieves this goal that you have and does what you think it's going to do, what does that look like revenue-wise?
Speaker 4:Let's say it increases your revenue by half a million dollars. Well, if I'm charging based on commodity, I might have normally thought to charge you $10,000 for that video, but now that I know it's making you half a million dollars or a million dollars in extra revenue over time, I think you should pay more for what I'm doing because of the impact I'm having on your business. The value that I'm creating is much more than what the commodity based pricing of this thing that I'm doing is so you're re-engineering your mindset as the person who's performing the service to think about with the client. Well, what's this going to do for you? How do you want to feel? What's the impact it's going to have on your business?
Speaker 4:What does this do to your profits? What does this do to your brand lift? What does it do to the awareness of your brand? What does it do in all of those categories? And what's that worth? You get people to think gosh, if you made a video that achieved brand lift, expanded awareness, increased revenue, all of these things, it makes them think, wow, I would pay a lot more for a video that did all of that, versus what often happens initially. Hey, I think we need a video. I don't know what it's going to do, but I feel like A lot of people have a video.
Speaker 4:We need a video, yeah a lot of people have a video. We don't have a video. This looks cool on their website. Bob the roofing guy he's got a video. Maybe we should do one too.
Speaker 3:It sounds really silly too, especially if there's younger people listening to this. Yeah, that maybe haven't had professional experience, yeah, or operated in these like political kind of fields, and when I say political I mean the interplay between people and egos. But a lot of stuff is just bob has one, I want one, right oh, that's the level of thinking I hear out there.
Speaker 4:that video is good to have.
Speaker 3:We should do a video. Yeah, it's kind of in the zeitgeist, like video or like it's somehow made it Video as a concept has made its way into this person's influence group.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And it's we need a video.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Go, find me a video. We need a video, yeah, go go find me a video, yeah.
Speaker 4:So what that does then is when the person who thinks they need this thing kind of sees it as a luxury, Like we don't need it.
Speaker 4:I mean, we're still getting phone calls, we're writing estimates Like we're making money and we're profitable, but it'd be cool to have a video. Well, they're not really thinking about what the value it brings is. So what they'll do is then they just have somebody maybe they have a small marketing team or you know a business partner or you know the, the, the office manager, who also posts to their social media for them like, hey, can you just like figure out, like what it would take to get a video made? So they're going to Google Omaha video production company and they're going to find a few companies. They're going to look at their website. They're going to see, okay, these guys, you know, these guys look good.
Speaker 4:They're going to email them or call them, say, hey, we want a video, how much is it? And they'll get maybe some quotes or bids or an estimate or whatever it is, and they'll most likely go who did I like most? What's the vibe of their digital storefront and how inexpensive is it? And they'll maybe make a choice based on that and call it good. Or maybe, if you're fortunate, you were referred to them and so there's an extra level of trust or sort of mitigated risk because bob got a video from these guys and he had a good experience with them.
Speaker 4:They were on time and they were nice, which isn't the most important, most valuable thing for your. You know your video company, um to to be, and you, oh well, they're a little bit more expensive, but let's go with them because Bob really liked them, and so that's kind of the general vibe of how things happen in video production in this capacity. And obviously you have other situations where there's an ad agency or a marketing firm or whatever and they are working directly with clients. They're doing all the creative work, the design work. That company is like hey, we have a problem, we're not selling enough of this thing. Okay, well, this is what we think you should do to sell more of that. Then you start getting into an understanding of what the value is of solving their problem. But what we're talking about is we should have a video. There's no problem that's being solved. There's no. Well, there's no stakes there. There's no, there's no sense of immediacy or urgency. And maybe, certainly maybe, there is.
Speaker 3:Maybe it's, maybe the problem is insignificance or a feeling of like inadequacy on behalf of them in their social group.
Speaker 3:And now that is a problem that if you can identify, um you, that problem might be worth a heck of a lot to that person. People buy $150,000 cars, people buy million dollar homes to fill that void. So that is is you know that I would say that that is a problem. But yeah, I mean, a lot of times it's just like, well, this isn't working, what can we do? Ah, we can do a video, okay, and so they come to you like, hey, I need a video. So maybe we start with how would you deal with that? But then also, I'd like to get more into, like the, what the alternative is right.
Speaker 4:so you know, to wrap up, the way ideally someone would approach a potential client is thinking about why they want something and, again, what the value is of the solution as opposed to what it's going to cost you as a business in time and materials to make a video.
Speaker 4:So when you shift your mindset from commodity-based pricing to value-based pricing, it changes how you interface with this potential client. So you may have someone reach out and go hey, can I get an estimate on a five-ish minute video that communicates to people what our business stands for? Typically you would start going through, you would break down what it's all going to take to do that when really, in a value-based mindset, you want to start asking questions Well, why do you want the video? What do you hope it's going to accomplish? Why are you interested in working with us specifically? And you start to ascertain whether or not that person is a value-based buyer or a price buyer. And if you are coming at it from a value-based mentality but they're a price buyer, where all they care about is the lowest bid, honestly you don't want to work with them because they're not going to. It would be very difficult to shift their mindset from price-based purchasing to value-based purchasing.
Speaker 3:But, matt, that's money, that's money. What do you do? Why would you turn down money?
Speaker 4:Seriously, yeah, I mean you would turn down that because the dynamic is not favorable to how you want to work and what's going to end up happening is you know your value and you know what you can do to impact their business, and they're going to just treat you as someone who takes orders.
Speaker 3:It's also going to erode over time.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:What your perceived value to the marketplace is if you start taking jobs like that.
Speaker 4:And then the video that you make is going to be nickel and dime to death, into being something that's just a mediocre run-of-the-mill thing that doesn't really help you move your business forward to attract more clients. Because, hey, we saw this incredible video that you made for this guy's roofing company and their sales skyrocketed. The brand trust was lifted, their awareness, the way that you guys rolled out that video on the website, on social media, on a YouTube channel, whatever it was this had a serious impact on their bottom line as a business and we want in on that for our business. We want you to do work your magic that you worked with them, with us business. We want you to do work your magic that you worked with them, with us. And that person is then coming at it from a value mindset because they see the value what you did created. Tell us what we need to do to get in on that.
Speaker 4:Well, first of all, you know, let's have a conversation. Why do you want this? What are the issues you're having with your business that makes you think something that we're going to do is going to help solve those problems, and you literally try to put a monetary value on that solution and from there you work backwards to go. Well, if this is going to have not only an impact on revenue but just on the confidence of the business owner, the vibe of all the employees, I mean, all of that stuff, what's that worth? And let's say it's a half a million dollars Well, a video that you might normally charge $5,000 for now it's reasonable to charge $50,000 for it because the person who's gonna buy it goes yeah, I will spend $50,000 any day of the week to generate a value of half a million dollars. So if you can get in the room with clients that are thinking in that way, you can really have more of a collaborative spirit where you're working together to solve a problem. They recognize and see your expertise, the magic that you have that can be brought to bear on their problem and it's a way more fulfilling, way more enriching experience overall for everybody, versus the commodity-based relationship, especially in the world of video, because many of us lead with our creativity. We lead with our visionary thinking. We see the business and what they're doing currently on their website with their existing video, whatever, and we have thoughts.
Speaker 4:You could be doing this better, not only just with the appearance of it, the style of it, the look and the feel of it, but the actual plan or strategy that's being deployed to take that video and put it in the right places in front of the right people to have much more impact. Now people can make run profitable businesses that are a production company that films events or films, you know, makes just sort of like, creates a paint by numbers kind of template for a brand video or a commercial or whatever, and they can can create essentially a product that a company can buy. You put them through that paint-by-numbers workflow and spit out a video that they can then use. There's nothing wrong with that. Wanted to collaborate with someone to think of a unique solution to a problem, um, and really see the value that it created, uh, and get paid based on that value to be much more profitable than traditional commodity based approach. You know I was. I was sold on that entirely.
Speaker 3:Is there like a science to that? Like you? I mean, like you said, if it could generate five hundred thousand dollars and you took ten percent of that, you know, obviously you could pay five thousand for it.
Speaker 3:You could pay, you know, fifty thousand for it is there like a science to how you go about finding that number, or is it just more of? Uh? I mean, obviously you do want to cover cost, right, you do vision, envision, what like? What does this look like? If it's the best and that doesn't always mean it's the most expensive, it's not like you're saying, okay, we got to spend at least this much and then work backwards. You're saying, okay, we want to do this. Obviously like could this concept be executed cheaper? But then also you are coming in with a yeah, with a price. Is there, is there science that you've learned, or is it just kind of intuition? Obviously, too, like one person's five hundred thousand dollars value is another person's fifty million dollars of value?
Speaker 4:right, there's difference in scale of the company I would say that there's a science to it, but I think it's really the conversation with, ideally, the person who writes the checks for that business, major stakeholders in that decision?
Speaker 4:yeah, A decision maker. So a lot of times what happens is you're working with a marketing director, someone that's not you know, someone has a limited budget, that they're working with you know annual budget or whatever and it's really the wrong person to be having this conversation with, and that's one of the I don't know if it's a downside, but that's one of the things that you have to contend with if you're going to come at your work from a mentality of value, value-based pricing pricing if you can't talk to the person who makes the decision and also knows what the problem is or knows what the symptoms of the problem are and has, I guess, also too has a stake in that problem being solved.
Speaker 3:Because, right, that marketing director is probably on salary, right, they're probably like they want to do the most the easiest execution and the most reasonable and within budget. Because if the company is sacrificing, say, x amount of value by not doing something a certain way, they still get paid their salary, they still might get their year-end bonus. All of that is kind of accounted for. They're not a major stakeholder in that decision, whereas the one who's really feeling the pain is the person who's got shares that are losing value or that, you know, sees the road of the next five to ten years and sees, oh wow, we need, we have a problem here that needs to be solved. Those are the people that are really going to be like you know what this problem needs to be solved more than we need to meet that budget, and they're more likely to be able to find the money.
Speaker 4:And and so a person in my position would be in the room with that person and ideally saying well, you're at, you're asking so many questions that they're telling you the details of the issue. Well, what would, what would the value be if that problem was solved? Yeah, and, as you know, a business owner, they, you know, they they might not like have a scientific way of calculating that value, but they can give you an idea. Well, I think if we solve that problem, it could mean an extra half a million dollars in revenue. Or it could mean, honestly, it could mean we all just feel better about what we're doing. You know, there's sometimes there's those intangible values that you can't, it's hard to put like a number on it, but you just have to kind of what's your gut instinct tell you, um, and then you can have conversations about the risk.
Speaker 4:You know, if we do this, we we're making a bold move, this is risky, this is a leap of faith we all have to take, and while the solution is worth half a million dollars, well, we're going to charge 50 grand for it. And if that person's like, well, I don't have 50 grand, or I do, but it's really risky, et cetera, et cetera, okay, well, how does not doing anything play out? If we all feel like this is the thing, the category of thing we have to do. We have to make a commercial, we have to make a brand video, we have to do a documentary film, we have to whatever it is that you come up with that's going to help solve that problem, um, you have to acknowledge that, yes, yes, there's a risk.
Speaker 4:We could do this and fail, yeah, but what's the alternative? And if it's, let's take the risk, because the alternative is slow failure. That person who's the decision maker can better make the decision. Yeah, and it's often difficult for people in a position that I would be in as a business, because value-based pricing, also of confidence, discomfort talking about money, difficulty asking the hard questions of someone that they perceive in a position of authority or a position of the almighty client that's the other thing too is if you go into the room and you're like this is my job to lose, you're in a bad spot already. You essentially want the person that contacted you about the work to convince you to do it. Yeah, because typically there's more wrong with the situation or the dynamic that that they wouldn't have made the contact if they didn't think.
Speaker 3:I mean, in most cases, sure I wouldn't try at a certain level, that's how that works generally is ooh, this is painful. Reach out to this.
Speaker 4:And that's what you talked about with expertise. Now, if you're going to start having a value conversation with potential clients, you have to clearly understand well, how did they contact me If that was a Google search and I came up? They're not thinking in terms of value, they're just thinking in terms of commodity. So for you to go in and all of a sudden start having a value conversation with the marketing director, it's a little bit of a clash, yeah, before we jump into expertise, like I do want to go down that rabbit hole, but I just something you said I've like I've always, something I've always kind of liked about.
Speaker 3:I want your opinion on this, like I've always liked the idea of sometimes you just got to throw the fish back yeah sometimes it's not the best fit and, like you know, obviously, if, if they're having a price conversation, yes, you want to be like, hey, I don't think we need to work together, but sometimes they might have the scale that you need and they might have a problem that you feel like you can like that or like theoretically you should be able to solve, and they're reaching out to you.
Speaker 3:But then it's your job and this comes with expertise. But it's a little bit different to almost identify like am I really your solution or are you just looking for something you want to spend money on it and I get it? You could totally be the person who's like well, if they want to give me $100,000, I'll take it, but if you don't, how's that going to look? If you go and you take their money, you don't solve their problem, right, and then you know they're going to go off. They're going to tell everybody like yeah, it was a waste of money.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's just going to be worse for you in the long run. Yeah, so sometimes you just need to ask the right questions and be able to identify is this the right situation for both of us? This a good fit? Yeah, convince me. I like what you said.
Speaker 3:Convince me yeah to work on, and that is not the way no 99 of people think about this stuff and I'm like the whole reason that your business, if you're in this kind of service, exists in the first place, is to solve problems and to have an expertise. And if you don't offer that, if you haven't, then why are you in business? Yeah, you don't offer anything to the marketplace now.
Speaker 4:Now I I think that that some people, if they, if they genuinely want to just perform a service and they want to figure out absolutely that paint by numbers, approach like hey, we make event videos, it's a three camera thing. We put them in the back of the room like it's all very regimented and controlled.
Speaker 3:We're locked in at this profit number every year as long as, like, we depreciate our equipment over. Yeah, that is it's.
Speaker 4:It's a different thing it's a different thing and you certainly can do that and run a profitable business absolutely to me it's, it's.
Speaker 4:And this is where it the difference ends up becoming, you know again, someone that just performs a service and gets these, these series of tasks done that create an outcome, versus someone that brings some magic and some artistry and something special to the mix. Um, you know, I could hire a person who, uh, could build me a bookshelf, and that person could charge me $500 because it's this material and it's plywood, and they put it together and there's no special joints and there's no finishing work, the wood selection, all that. Or I can hire a carpenter who's really choosy about what projects he does or she does, and I tell them what I want to feel, what I want it to look like in the room, how long I want it to last, all that stuff, and they prescribe to me what I need and I will gladly pay a premium for that. The other analogy, too, is when you go to the doctor. You don't show up and say, hey, look, doc, figured this out. I've got pancreatic cancer. And here's what we're going to do. Yeah, you're going to administer chemotherapy. Then we're going to do a round of immunotherapy. Here are the drugs we're going to do. Yeah, you're going to administer chemotherapy, then we're going to do a round of immunotherapy. Here are the drugs we're going to use, these are the days I'm going to come in, et cetera.
Speaker 4:And I have been in the room with clients that are like, hey, we need a video, this is what it's going to be. Um, I need this. I need footage of this person. And I'm like, well, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a second. What are we doing? Why are we doing? Why are we doing it? Like a pipe down video guy, you're just here to be told what to do. We don't do that with a doctor because we look up to them.
Speaker 4:We sense their expertise. We don't have the knowledge of medicine to self to properly self-diagnose and treat ourselves with complicated issues, so we look to them for their expertise to not only diagnose our problem but to also prescribe a remedy. And I always wanted to be perceived of as the doctor in that situation with video, not just someone that showed up and was told what to do.
Speaker 3:You have tools like Canva and tools like the iPhone camera and stuff like that that really degrade the service of like a visual art and you have plenty of people. When you were given the bookshelf example, you have plenty of people who are like it's just holding books Right, like why, like why would you pay more ever for that? Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and well, the answer is there. You know, if you think that way, there's nothing wrong with that. No, but there are, like there are people, yeah and you know, I were probably two of them Right who would pay a little more just to have something a little more elegant. Yeah, that like. I heard this amazing quote this morning. Actually, it was like a designer's job is to elevate a person's expectation of what a thing can be. That's right. So I want to look at something and be like, oh my gosh, that is so much better than anything I've ever seen in that realm of item or experience. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Man, I never even imagined that, and now I have this new plane of looking at the world because of how you know, beautifully well designed. This thing was yep, and that's what you pay for. And you know what, if you just want a bookshelf, go get a bookshelf and there's always going to be a market and there's always going to be people that serve that market.
Speaker 3:You can go to target and get a book, walmart, get a flyboard bookshelf for 30. Or you could pay a thousand dollars for like a you know intricate oak. You know hand stained carve, you know.
Speaker 4:Each piece of wood was sourced by a carpenter to be, you know the best grain that doesn't have any knots no major issues. They use, you know, their amazing tools to handcraft it, to edge it. You know all this stuff, and then they're, and they're, you know, adding, let's say, 10, 15, 20 years of experience in carpentry to get you this.
Speaker 3:And it's like you know what Both do the job. There's 8 billion people Like. The reality is, there's 8 billion people in the world. There's always going to be people who want that and, yeah, there's always going to be people who want that and there's always going to be people who want the, the alternative, and um, I mean, yeah, you have to decide what you want to be and you know we both agreed. It seems like on the, sometimes you just got to throw the fish back. It's not a good fit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, really quick, before we get go back to, we can go back to the expertise, but um, did you, do you remember that? May? That video I sent you of the John Mayer album cover? Yes, so it was like this, one of John Mayer's album covers. I think it was um, born and raised. Uh, he got that hand painted and hand like the type was hand drawn and intricate. The whole video is on YouTube. We'll put it in the show notes.
Speaker 3:But essentially, this person, uh, he hired this artist to hand detail everything, painted it on glass. He was like a sign artist and the whole process on you. I'm sure it probably took 100 hours, maybe more, and you know, 30, 40 years of experience on top of that. A hundred hours, yeah, um, and it was. Every detail, was just so, and most people just completely overlook it. And you know, it's just an album cover. Oh, that's kind of cool, move on.
Speaker 3:But he paid for that, the record label paid for that. They probably paid handsomely too. I'm sure it costs probably over a hundred thousand, $200,000, if not more than that. And the thing that I learned when I watched that is just there's somebody that's willing to pay for quality. You just have to find that person and align with that person. But it's also your job, or your work has to attract that or attract that person. But or it's also your job, work has to attract that or attract that person, right, ideally. And but it's up to you if you want to fill that market or not. And there's, you know, there's always going to be somebody filling both markets and you need to decide if you want to fill that market, if you want to fill the other market, and then you have to obviously establish the expertise to be able to fill that, because that's a very stingy market, sure, every detail.
Speaker 3:It's like steve jobs hiring, like paul rand for the next logo, and he's, you know he's looking at every detail. He's like we need to change the the da da, da, da um on on when he's doing the computer design. But then paul rand is this person that he looks up to. And paul rand just comes and he's like this is the only one I got, and steve jobs is like it's perfect. Yeah, and like this notoriously picky guy respected him enough or looked up to this guy enough that he was just like you know. I mean, he's literally like freaking out about this. How square can we make the computer? And with his design team. And then paul rand comes in with this logo and he's like I made one. He's like this is our meeting, like do you want it or not?
Speaker 3:like you already paid me, I guess, and steve jobs is like it's perfect. So, yeah, it's like a level of respect that the client has for your work. Um, if you can establish that, then you know, and the expertise to back that up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that's the hard part when you start out that path, or maybe if you shift from commodity-based pricing, you're frustrated with the dynamic, with the client. You are getting results, but they could be better if you were more trusted and your expertise was more brought to bear. More brought to bear. You need to get results. You need to really make sure that you are understanding what's needed, that you are looking at what other people are doing, analyzing other successful video projects with other companies, that you're paying attention and you know what's missing for this company, like this is exactly what they're doing wrong or overlooking. Or this type of video telling this story about this employee or this customer, or this type of ad about their product or whatever, is going to be the thing that has a huge impact. You hear about it, of course, with iconic ads from the last 30, 40 years. I won't go into any of them. People know the advertisements that they've seen that either immediately had an impact and got them to buy the thing or to fall in love with that company or brand, or the consistent exposure they had to that company or brand that got them on board with making their first purchase or whatever. And that's the difference.
Speaker 4:Commodity-based pricing and making the IKEA bookshelf of bookshelves is a way to grow a business, scale up, have 10%, 15% margins and maybe not have as much stress and pressure to deliver those big results. Results. And when you're someone that comes at it from a place of value, uh, you know, if you're going to go that approach, then the pressure's on for you to deliver now, even if it didn't work out, the idea that you had the way that, that you and the business owner decided to um to go. If what you made is still high quality, it's well made, it's well thought out, there's craft and expertise there, but something didn't connect or didn't resonate. Um, you know you need to iterate on that, um, but you can at least still look at it and go. We missed the mark with something, but this was still a really well-made thing.
Speaker 3:You're not always going to, you're not going to bat a thousand, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:I mean Apple. You know we look at Apple and you know they certainly have made products in the post. You know, steve or the Steve jobs and post Steve jobs era that, just you know, didn't resonate or they didn't resonate right away and it needs more time. You know, sometimes that's a thing with a partner, a business partner, a client. This isn't going to happen overnight. Yeah, this is something that we have to chip away at. You know, if it's a you know brand style videos versus a commercial, like, we have to take where you are now, which this is what people think of your brand and we want to them here. Yeah, it's going to take a lot of work. Yeah, it's not just one video and it's done it's overhauling your website.
Speaker 4:It's changing your this. It's not making t-shirts and swag and all this dumb stuff anymore. It's, um, highlighting these stories from your company that you just take for granted, but those are the types of stories that a potential customer is going to see and it's going to make them. You know, love what you stand for, trust you. You know all these things that that that lead to loyalty, brand loyalty.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:But how do you also tell those stories? Authenticity, obviously, like you know that big buzzword, but you want it to come from a place of truth about the company. But you're helping shine a light on it where it wasn't shown on it before, versus crafting a propaganda piece. That's bullshit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, versus crafting a propaganda piece.
Speaker 4:That's bullshit, because you know that if you talk about oh, you know, we give to charity or we volunteer in our community, or we do this or we do that as a company, that that'll tug on the heartstrings of viewers and accomplish the goal that we want. So there's that too.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So like do you ever feel like a client will come to you and when you give them the value-based proposition or you're giving them the hey, this is what it's actually going to cost, do you ever feel like there's a gap in your expertise to be able to pull that off? I mean, obviously you can't really feel that way, but have you ever felt that way? How do you contend with that? You know, a bit of imposter syndrome might creep in when you're giving somebody like a hundred thousand dollar you know invoice, or you know a hundred thousand dollar, yeah, yeah, your RFPs, you know $75,000 higher than the next best one. It's like are you? Are you looking at them and being like I am $75,000 better?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you have to be, but yeah.
Speaker 4:I just haven't, really I haven't.
Speaker 4:I mean, there's definitely been times where I've put a proposal together, especially as a YouTuber, where I didn't have a value conversation with the client.
Speaker 4:You know what they're asking for is a relatively low time commitment and what I can charge is not some big exorbitant you know rate. So, and I can also just from their email kind of get a sense like I'm one of a hundred influencers they're reaching out to, so so I'm just going to throw out like even just like a drop a price anchor and be like well, what you're looking for, you know ranges in price from, you know, $5,000 to $15,000. Is that something that you want to move forward with? And if they're like, yes, I'll go. Okay, now let's have a value conversation because this, this price anchor didn't scare you, yeah, so now it's worth my time to invest in fleshing out this relationship, yeah, to invest in fleshing out this relationship. And there have been times where I have thrown out a price anchor, because one thing I don't like doing is writing proposals when someone has spoken like they understand the value and understand the problem.
Speaker 3:This is so big. Ultimately, I'm a price buyer. Understand the value and understand the problem. This is so big.
Speaker 4:Ultimately, I'm a price buyer just kind of going along with taking my lead in the meeting and I've written proposals.
Speaker 3:Either just a charismatic person or a heady price buyer.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've written several proposals where I put my price options out there and they're just like they don't even reply sometimes, and so I've wasted enough time with that. And not to put the blame on them, the blame's on me for not sniffing it out Like you have to practice the craft of having the value conversation to where you Price anchors are the most like important thing I think that you cause.
Speaker 3:it's a way to immediately identify if you, if you, should be spending your time with this person and you know if, if they say yes, they're okay with that, and then you know, down the road they're like uh, yeah, this is way more than what I'm looking to spend yeah I mean maybe, yeah, which is not worth your time, but it's a lot less likely to happen If you, if you go to somebody and you're like, hey, this is what it's looking like, is that okay with you?
Speaker 3:And they say yes. Typically the people that say yes are you're in the right ballpark, right.
Speaker 4:You've, they've, they've, they've crossed that first obstacle to, in your eyes, warrant further conversation. I mean, the big thing too with me is the biggest thing with dropping a big price anchor or putting a proposal out where, yeah, I know this is incredibly expensive. I just have never really been scared when there's a possibility that it might actually happen. Yeah, where imposter syndrome creeps in, I want to feel that, oh, I've got to step up to the plate here. Yeah, to feel that, oh, I've got to step up to the plate here, Whether it's the risk, the investment of it all.
Speaker 4:I need to step up to the plate and bring my A game, yeah.
Speaker 3:It's on me now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I'm excited about that. I want to collaborate with someone, a business, a brand, where we are working together. I am bringing my skills and expertise to bear on your problem and we're going to swing for the fences with this. Swing for the fences with this and when I know the value that it would create if it works, if we hit a home run, if we knock it out of the park, you guys, it's gonna do this for you. Imposter syndrome isn't even possible, because I think about what I'm getting paid in relationship to the value that this could create do you think people are just like so caught up in the dynamics of business, Like almost I call it playing business? Yeah.
Speaker 3:I think there's a lot of adults out there that just play business. They love to play business. Sure, there's people with successful companies that play business. It's just something that they enjoy doing and they think that all of these little decisions that they make are very important and things like that. And at the end of the day, they're just playing business. Do you think that people get caught up in that, where they've almost built so many layers between themselves and what?
Speaker 3:Business is pretty simple. You have a market, you have a product or service that serves that market, and then what is the value exchange there? And if you're on the side of the person providing that, you have to make sure that your costs are covered so you can continue operating right. And on the other side, that's what they're trying to do too. They're just trying to make sure that their costs are covered, and they've encountered some kind of a problem or maybe a potential for more growth, and so they're reaching out to, you know, either explore that potential for more growth or fix a problem that is affecting them, being able to service their bottom line right.
Speaker 3:And like I hate, like I don't want to oversimplify it, but I like to break everything down to like what's the core of this? And at the end of the day, that's kind of what it is, and obviously there's so much more intricacy in between. There there's like what does your customer look like? What is your relationship to that? How is your brand viewed in that customer's mind? What's the quality of service, what's the cost of that, logistics, whatever but do you think it like a lot of people get caught up in things that aren't really important and then when you, when it comes down to you're sitting with them having a conversation, or you know you're here to service something they've almost lost sight of what's actually important, do you ever feel like that is something that?
Speaker 4:I don't know that I've ever had it where I feel like they've lost sight.
Speaker 3:Maybe not lost sight, but they're trying to solve a problem that isn't really their problem, or they're haggling over something. Yeah, I think people can miss self-diagnose for sure. It's just like going to the doctor. That isn't really their problem, or they're they're haggling over something.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think people can miss self-diagnose for sure. It's just like going to the doctor. Doc, I think I got pancreatic cancer. Well, actually you've been eating a bag of Skittles alt for the last five years and your problem is inflammation from eating 500 grams of sugar.
Speaker 3:Have you been to the doctor recently, so? So I think you know. Have you been?
Speaker 4:to the doctor recently.
Speaker 4:So I think there's certainly situations where a business can miss self-diagnose and our job is also to just listen, like what's going on, what are the issues having, like business training and understanding that person's perspective is really helpful because sometimes you know you've got to crawl into their business and they have to trust that if they show you these things, their numbers, their what, this converting, you know whatever likes on instagram, whatever it is, whatever these metrics are that aren't what they want them to be, that you can hopefully identify what the root cause of that is. And that also helps instill confidence in coming up with this prescription that's going to solve that problem, that's going to cure the disease, that's going to fix the thing that is going on. This would happen to me when I would do tech support for Apple. You know someone calls in oh my gosh, my computer won't turn on. Uh, it's really hot underneath. Um, it's making a weird sound.
Speaker 4:They will rattle off all these things and you're like, oh my God, like like it's the bride you got to take it into the Apple store. It's like da-da-da-da, like nine times out of ten, dude, I would just go well, let's restart your computer. And I would go when was the last time you restarted it. I don't know if I ever have. Okay, well, let's restart it. And yeah that you know that can certainly lead toward doing the wrong thing for them and them potentially paying a lot. Then you're at risk of not getting the results they want. Then they hate you for the investment that they made.
Speaker 3:Yeah, how do you, how do you get into that? Get into that like hey, what you called me for isn't necessarily what you need yeah and you can pay and because, yeah, I I feel like I did a terrible job of like presenting it, but you sure you got it. Yeah, I mean the apple thing. Like you understood what I was trying to get at, um, the idea of like, how do you, um, I understand you're worried about this, this and this?
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But what's causing it? Like these are secondary, there are like these are symptoms for you have a bullet in your life.
Speaker 1:Right Like how do?
Speaker 3:you have that conversation.
Speaker 4:I mean again, it just, it just comes from that value conversation continuing to ask questions. Yeah, um, it just comes from that value conversation, continuing to ask questions and probing. I think that's really the responsibility of the person who wants to solve a problem for someone and charge based on the value of that solution. You have to have what typically is an in-depth conversation to understand what the issue is and how to fix it. This is just like when a business hires consultants. You know like, hey, we're hemorrhaging money. It's like office space. What would you say you do here?
Speaker 3:So, about an hour into filming, we decided that we still had a lot to cover. Uh, so rather than cut it into two recordings, we decided to keep going and release the clip or the podcast as two separate episodes. So what you just heard was part one. Part two will be released in two weeks, uh, at the regularly scheduled time time. So, as always, thanks for listening, thanks for watching, if you're watching, and we will see you soon.
Speaker 2:It had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer in some ways.
