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Pitch Your Business

Lesson 18 from: How to Make Money

Ramit Sethi

Pitch Your Business

Lesson 18 from: How to Make Money

Ramit Sethi

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Lesson Info

18. Pitch Your Business

Lesson Info

Pitch Your Business

We ended by talking about putting our client first we ended by talking about the value of premium services, premium pricing of setting boundaries and not trying to appeal to everyone remember one of the things I said was in a world of infinite choice if something is not made for me, I'm gone and we want to emphasize that now we want to get really specific, so instead of saying I'm a web designer, we talked, we went to that whole exercise of how you pitch me, how you picture photographer, we're going to do what I call idea tear downs and I'm going to take your ideas and I'm going to actually show you how to break him down and improve them and pitched them in a little bit of a better way. So what I want people to do is now start riding out there ideas or here in studio pitch your best pitch of what you do, I'm a wedding photographer or whatever it may be get as specific as you can, and then we're going to actually walk through how to improve that both the way you describe it remember how...

I used to I told you how a split tested I work from home I work from home office and I got massively different results we're going to split test uh the the way you actually introduce yourself and then even your pitch so this is ideas tears own idea tear downs let's take people from the audience first and we'll get people from the web in a couple of minutes who's got their idea their business their pitch that they wantto put up for a tear down thank you my idea and then we can sort of work through this okay so right now I'm working in online marketing and I write for whatever my client wants me to write about my dream I think would be writing for a lifestyle magazine for sort of hip urban women in their twenties and that's sort of the audience that I would want to be writing for okay so what is the first thing that a client who's your client my client would be the editors of these publications even online or um I'm not sure if that matters this far is like nation down online or sort of sure everything matters but let's just say pick one online okay what do they think when they hear your pitch um I think that they think that I am a commodity that I'm someone who is going to put words on the page are you a commodity? I would like to think that I'm not I mean that's sort of a strange question are you asking am I a commodity right now in the way and yeah yeah ok and how about your pricing is a commodity pricing um yeah okay you want to get above that? You want to sort transcend that so that you could charge a premium price, really? Spend time on amazing premium value and then get known as someone who's the specialists in this field. Right. Okay, when I think as an editor, when I think about someone coming to pitch me for some lifestyle thing, I think exactly what you said. I think you're right on the money, ok, she's just going to fill up my page and what what is the point of putting content on the page? Why do I want content on the page? I think that you want teo sell what it is that you like, have online, right? So you want to be known for having exceptionally good content for this audience? Um, okay, maybe why the why? Remember, I'm an editor? What? What is my boss breathing down my neck about, um, sales as faras competing with other either sites from how do I make money selling and correct. So what do I care about in terms of the content? You have to be good enough to to sell toe to sell ads, right? My customers, not even the reader it's advertisers. So that's very, very important to realize if you're sitting around saying, I need to make amazing content but this this magazine that you're pitching is online magazine is selling ads they don't really care how good you are you just seem to be good enough so they can keep those pages going right makes sense so you have two choices one is you can try to write material that's going to get tons and tons of page views ok two you can sidestep the entire game and find people who do not make money through ads who make money through other engaging ways what might what ways might those be? I've been struggling to figure that out well I don't sell ads you are selling products correct the site uh huh and what do I need to do in order to keep people engaged to continue? Teo sort of turnout is a bit of a crude word but continue to have engaging content correct so I'm just one example of someone who has a business I don't sell ads because I just don't care about it but I want to create amazing content like ninety eight percent of my stuff is free it's engaging you sign up for my newsletter you're going to find better stuff there then you find in most magazines at least that's my hope so are there am I just an equals one or are there more people like me? I'm sure they're more people like you perhaps pressing yeah perhaps people who are in the young women space so what could you do if you now we've kind of narrowed it down to who could this person be? We know that they make money through different ways besides adds product ization or whatever and they need a way to engage what would your pitch be now let's say I'm a uh thirty four year old woman of a twenty something online magazine making money by selling products what's your pitch to me so I understand the based on your business model your am I correct in assuming based on your business my perception of your business model that you're making your money through selling x y and z products three of sight yeah great having read your sight for you know a long time and looking at your readership through comments and various things I've noticed that your readership really appreciates x y and z um I think that continuing to sort of hone exceptional content around these areas would help you too continue to engage these people so that when you launch your next move on you already telling me stuff I already know I'm way smarter than any random picture I'm an editor of this already know all this tell me what I don't know um that I am a person who can deliver this content based on my past history with magazines in the space x y and z good all right so so you're going with the experience round okay? Fine so you just told me you didn't show me what I would do it to show me you say actually, let me show you these three of these articles, you know, the average leadership for articles in this magazine is one thousand mine averaged nine thousand and here's why? And you really want to get married? Don't say like, you know, I took I took a different approach instead of just writing about common things actually took a very polarized approach now, it's not right for everyone, but for this audience, I knew that it would be really resonating, and so I did that. And as a result, this one article got eighteen thousand views, which was the number one shared article ever on their side. So you're showing me you're not telling me that's something that most creatives do terribly like, they tell me all this stuff, they don't show me, I'm like, prove it or just get out of here. The other thing is, I think that s o I'm the editor and what what are my hopes, fears and dreams? I think you're hoping to continue to have this product that then sells sort of like paid materials, I think that you fear one looking silly in the space, okay, um, you know, being known for producing sort of subpar content content that's not hip we're sort of with it um and also losing readership and sort of going from being in a good place to sort of being good. I'm also fearing having to deal with some new freelancer that I have to train all this stuff I deal with them being not good at writing, not missing deadlines, etcetera idea with having to pay you a lot of money. How would you assuage my fears? How would you pitch me on saying so let's assume that I've agreed yes, I have this problem. Yes, I want to create engaging content. What are you going to pitch me specifically to get your foot in the door? Um that I will have things and before deadlines no, what else everyone gets everything is like saying I'm going to breathe oxygen, right? Oh, totally it's assumed that yeah, of course you're going to get it in before deadline, right? What else? Take my risk away. You know my fears take my risk away that's a new song coming up your fear, working with a new person and just take it away make it risk free to me here I will give you this article of front um and then once can I do your whole thing where it's like I don't normally do this my rates of this but since we're starting on a new sort of business relationship, I love to provide this article for you see how it goes, track those results and then continue with other things, so we're going to get into spec work in a little bit spec work or free work can make sense in certain cases, much to the anger and chagrin of creatives everywhere, it actually can make a lot of sense. I've done a lot of free work. People who work for me have done free work world like masters have done free work, but they don't just willy nilly give away free work for anybody, and I'll teach you how to distinguish between those. If you know that to an editor, you are considered a commodity, but you need to prove that you're not a commodity. You need to do a few things. First of all, I would start off like seita see tier one, two, three, tier three and I would start, like, get really amazing pieces for my writing portfolio. I would be able to show that my articles get ten times the views of other peoples, and I would also just becoming more interesting person, right? So if you want to write about lifestyle for women's stuff, you'd be doing crazy fun stuff, so I do that. Then I would have to time building up my own personal brand because when you go to an editor you look I've thirty five thousand twitter followers I will be pointing them all these articles a k a more page views or higher engagement whatever um then as you come to the tier one editor or tear to you say look I did this I did that here the results baba listen my normal rate is x but we can discuss that later I'm really like what you're doing I've done all this work but I'm ready to take it to the next level and so if you permit me I'd like to actually write one article I believe that it will triple your click through rate so I'll believe that'll x y z your revenue whatever the numbers you discover our if it doesn't work let's walk away no hard feelings revisited on one side yeah exactly but we can discuss the details later everybody see what what just happened there so in that short exercise we discovered who's the client what their hopes fears and dreams fears especially and then you found a way to do what's called riskreversal you took all the risk on yourself a lot of people really uncomfortable with this why should I take all the risk that's the name of the game the editor can choose you or anybody else and especially when you're competing in a highly commoditized field which you are you really do have to take the risk on yourself, improve it over time your goal is to separate yourself from everyone else who's charging, you know, x cents per word and be able to almost dictate your fees but to do that, you have to think creatively and understand the people, your clients and their business models very good let's go on to a couple of others. Anybody here in studio or we'll go online. Yvonne let's do it so you're my client and I'm your photographer and go uh, I'm your prospect, my prospect. Okay, so this is for wedding photography and you're the bride and the groom um and we're meeting for the first time. Thanks so much for taking the time to meet with me. I know that you've got tons of options out there, so I'm really honored to be here for you to show you what I do. I brought along a couple of albums so that you can see actually hands on what might work looks like these air real bride and groom's these air not stylized shoots these aerial wedding days um first of all, it may sound strange it may sound weird, but I really love weddings I love all the details, it totally excites me it's thrills me its paws right there, I I I don't even care about anything you just said you haven't talked to me about me at all how do you know what I want? How do you know I have a very specific vision in my mind and here you are blabbing on done I'm walking out of here you just ramble your way out of a sale let's try it again but no you're doing a great job this's going this is when I talked about everybody should be able to walk out of today and improve your rates thirty percent minimum minimum this will happen to you let's try it again okay so I know you have lots of options thanks for taking the time to meet with me I want you to know that I'm totally there for you I'm gonna give you my cell phone I'm gonna give you my email you have everything directed any time when I show up to the shoot why am I not talking why are you talking so much? I'm not asking you questions I'm the most important person in the room right now by the way I say that all the time in every room I walk I'm the host no I myself stopping to strike again okay what are you looking for in a wedding? Finally someone understands me I love it okay so actually round of applause for that because that that's a huge change huge and it's you know what don't be embarrassed it's literally thousands of people right now are watching this and they have never realize that they've done that their whole career their whole lives and they wonder why doesn't anyone pay me or how come I get all these meetings and I never closed a deal because you talk too much and you don't actually listen to me you talk about you you you I called the ii syndrome it's like a fourteen year old girl all she wanted was talk about herself blah blah blah I want this okay in my mind I think that I really care about you I know I just exactly and I bet you know what? I bet you're a wonderful photographer I bet you really do care about me but as I said in the last segment the only thing I see is your behavior I don't see all this stuff in your head and so what you're showing me right now is you don't care about me you care about you you're just another photographer who wants to sell and shove her shit down my throat so we're going to ride again you did an amazing job now you ask me we're going to pick it up, you said rem eat tell me what you're looking for in a way, okay? And I'm going to pretend I'm the woman here, okay? So uh you know I'm just like I want a really beautiful wedding that photos that capture our love and I want to just remember this day forever great this is the most important day in your life and you should take this make take this decision very seriously I respect that and I want to provide all the information I possibly can to help this help you make this decision okay stop returning for you very good very good good however did you notice my answer what would you say about my answer big super vague right it didn't mean anything I said I want to express the love whatever I said it was like super generic do you understand what I'm talking about emotion yeah but not that you don't really know what I'm talking about it's and yet you went you just railroaded me again ask me listen to me you don't know what I'm saying but you keep on talking let's do it again I want you to really get inside my head all the stuff we talked about you could do it you're going to an amazing job so I just gave you a super vague answer that meant nothing all right I'm setting these traps for you to show you what you'll encounter with these clients how to truly understand them let's do it again so I wantto have a day of beautiful lush love or we show our love for each other whatever are you guys planning on having a big wedding? A small, intimate wedding? I think it's gonna be it'll probably be about one hundred people get in the middle of that. And do you think you're gonna be outside and like a farm? Or you're gonna be inside in a hotel, then you were plenty to be outside, like a farm type environment. Yeah, okay. And are you gonna hire a stylist and our details really important to you? Flowers and tables and antiques? They're important. We're on a little bit of a budget, but, you know, I'm still kind of looking for a stylist, so I'm I'm in the middle of doing that, but yeah, we're gonna have some help but it's not going to be really over the top. And how much time have you got between now, when's? Your date? August. Whatever. Okay, so we've got lots of time. That's a great thing that you're starting really early, um and bridal party wedding party. Big small. Okay, so let's, pause here. I like what you're doing. You're asking a lot of questions. Don't you have a comment? No, because I work with wedding, so I just have a different perspective listening, so you got into the tactics quickly. And I love that you're taking what I'm saying you're asking the wrong questions does everyone feel a little bit like like if you were the client you feel a little bit more comfortable than when we first started and you were just kind of talk it's great if it were me I'd probably get into the tactics in a couple of minutes to sort of logistics I would say something like this I would say you know I have a million questions for you and I want to know everything about the wedding but first I kinda just want to know how did you two meet and the reason I ask is that it really helps me understand the context some people they actually met in a bar and they don't tell their friends some people met online some people met at college and that really helped me start to think about what kind of photos you're looking for so if you don't mind if you could just share that story see what I've done there I started off on a totally different foot emotion and by the way what do you think the bride wants to talk about all day long how they met their relationship right yeah she'll talk about the barn and all that stuff later so I do that okay so take that run with it so you said hello whatever I said I want to have a really vague answer take it pick it up from there okay so thanks so much for taking the time to meet me um so I want to know who you guys are like like how did you two meet what's your story it's going to help me understand more about what you want we met in college and you know we found love we reconnected eight years later and here we are and you're ready for the big step that's so exciting congratulations eso you've got another eight months before so you've got lots of time to plan what do you guys like to do what what what are the things that you do in your spare time you like to go we go rollerblading and we go kite surfing cool so you're super active so is your wedding going to be a lot more um of a standup affair move around engaging your guests or you're gonna be having a quiet intimate ceremony excellent excellent now you're starting to ask the right questions you're starting to get inside what I do my life when you I saw you saw me not as soon as you picked up on the rollerblading and kite surfing you knew that this is gonna be a a particular type of wedding so what you do is you tease that out you ask a few more questions so I'm really excited about my life you know I'm excited about this life I'm about to build together I want you to understand it because as I said earlier so few of us ever feel truly understood now you're starting to understand me and you say and I love what you did you peppered it with a meta message okay what I call met a message which is he said the reason I'm asking you is blocked so instead of just asking you actually want explain why you're asking the reason I'm asking is it really helps me understand you know, some people met here some people here it's so interesting so you're into kite surfing sounds like you're gonna have a pretty active wedding is that am I reading that right? And the reason I ask is that and they answer you say, well, the reason I ask is you know certain weddings are in a church there vory sort of solid or like solemn but if it's active you want to think about different photos you really want to capture that moment you want to not miss anything yeah, it might involve some different equipment but really fundamentally we're talking about capturing the right moment for you I see your eyes you're like yeah you're like about to pay me to do wedding photography don't do it'll ruin your wedding? So the point here what have we done hear tell me what you've learned from this little exercise you tip me upside down that's for sure um I am my pitch started me focused and that's one hundred fifty percent backward you need to focus on you first which is so logical but when I was in the hot seat I went tell them who you are established your credibility convinced um I need we all feel the need to let me tell you who I am but that's not what connects with people again in my book I will teach you be rich I could have sat around and explain the differences between different types of stocks or bonds or asset classes no, I talked about you. How do you start making your money work for you when we talk about when someone comes to my site goto I will teach you the rich dot com slash creative life I'm talking about you and when you send it for my emails it's all about you know you want to earn more you want to find a dream job you want to interview more you want to get better telling stories this is how you do it. A lot of people sent it for my emails just to study the marketing er which is fine but I love what you did. You were able to correct that carefully let's do one more from institute and we'll go out got it uh who else? Yeah, okay, who else don okay, all right let's do it on seven context who are you who who might it be another bride is that okay? Yeah alright I've never done a pitch for force like ever I don't know how to do it so that you would be a destination bride specifically with a small intimate wedding uh fifty people are okay great very specific I love this this is so specific and I'm gonna be I'm calling you because I may be thinking about doing it in hawaii is that ok? Ok, great so we're on the phone take me through it. Um oh god I've never done a pitch um I never have they call and I just talked with them you do? So they so I call you just answer the phone and you don't do any proactive pitching I know never had like I said before I don't know how to sell I can't stand it says this I feel now like okay today do they pay your rates before I raised them? Yes, but as soon as I raised them now how interesting. So perhaps there's some kind of disconnecting the value how much did you raise in life? A lot. Are you gonna be comfortable saying, um I went from my lowest package was just under a thousand and now it's sixteen hundred for for what? For a wedding sixteen hundred for a wedding that freakin chief and they still bet wait, I don't understand how is this even possible? Sixteen hundred for a wedding and I'm considered expensive that's for ceremony only, but that's it best in congress so clearly there's something wrong happening for sixteen hundred that's like pennies for someone who's paying for a wedding in hawaii ceremony? Uh, no. Okay, if you if you were a bride and groom. What I find this most time with brian groom has actually picked up phone contact me. They've already exhausted countless hours on google and most I'm mid toe higher price point actually, for ceremony only. I'm almost is expensive. Disney disney's. Only nineteen hundred. Okay, good to know. So this sets the context for the press. So you're some of the top most part of your range were you've lost clients as you've raised. Great. Perfect. So I call you. Go ahead. Uh, usually sorry. Aloha. And would you have you selected a date yet? Yeah. I'm gonna be in august thirteen. Okay, perfect. So, uh, what specifically are you looking for in regards to your wedding? How can I help you? Great question. I'm looking for blah, blah, blah. And I really wanted blah, blah, blah, whatever, and then I would answer that, okay, and then I just I just have a conversation you're an okay this is a key look what's happening here so people believe and we'll discuss this tomorrow two people believe like when you go into an interview they believe that what you're doing is there you're there to answer questions wrong so wrong as I talked about in day one with the presidential debates you're there too convey your message so if I say I want a beautiful wedding somewhere on the beach in nice weather and I want everyone wearing sundresses you're going like we could do that I bet you I bet you say we could do that we have a nice beach we have of this whatever that is that correct? You answer my concerns yeah, I can yeah okay, but really you're not really getting deep at all you're just skipping a stone on the water you really want to get much deeper there's so you've seen so many weddings you know so much that I don't miss my first and maybe on ly wedding you need to you did show me a vision of what I can have the reason I'm just guessing in this forty five seconds we're doing this the reason you're not able teo cell at the higher rate which by the way, I find like not that high but I don't know the market like you do is you're just answering my question ins that's intellectually lazy it's not your fault because you've never been exposed to this but if you just answer my questions I'm not even asking you the right questions I'm telling you what I think I want and you gotta listen but you need to also say well let's also think about this you know when you have a ceremony one of the things I know from working with sixty brides over the last twelve months is when you get there you want to be ableto feel comfortable with your pastor or whatever one of things that we do especially here is actually let you meet three of them three days before and you can have a discussion to find out who's comfortable for you blah blah, blah whatever it is that you discover as you interview your old clients and you find out why did they choose me that's what you start offering mohr of to your clients you know, because we did d'oh at one point I put my head out my ass and I did go back to my time. Why did you pick us? Because of what they say prices are online reviews and our awards okay, so the price part means you're dealing with the wrong clients but the other two are very good and it doesn't surprise me that as you raised your price, everyone went away why because by definition, there price sensitive so you're not you're you're simply basically putting your stuff online you're saying you're being lazy, you're saying, come to me, I'll just answer the phone, all right? And you're not actually even going out there proactively and practicing your pitch, okay, so exactly so a lot of us do this. A lot of creatives do is we're going to cover this thing today is we kind of just put up our website, put up our twitter account like, okay, I'm here no, you're out of business in six months if you don't actually learn how to be proactive. So my suggestion to you is, first of all, go and look att are there people more expensive than you in your space? What do they do differently than you do? Why are they better? And I bet you they're actually technically better at certain things. What are they better? That's one okay, I don't know, I just noticed something, and also what are the other value? Add items that they offer? I'll give you an example, so I stayed in different types of hotels, right? It might be a low on one might be a very high end five star hotel what is the difference between a five star hotel in a ramada inn? Who could tell me bed's exactly and that's targeting comfort why did they target comfort at a high end hotel? Why whom I who stays at a high end hotel luxury clients I don't care about money I'm there on business perhaps and I'm really tired because I've been traveling for so long it makes perfect and grew incense so for your client what what are the things that they're offering? They're really busy so they don't have to deal with this right? So then they want to be there I want have comfort they don't have security they want to know that you're being communicated with what's the worst fear of bride many, many fears but what's the worst fear in terms of um dealing with her vendors that somebody's gonna screw up correct scruple just not show up you're going to say, look, I have a dedicated phone number it's available twenty four seven or whatever it is you discover and so I think to use you can probably you're at sixteen hundred right now. My guess is if you did these things you could within six months you could be it probably I'm going ballpark because I don't know your market, I'll say twenty, five hundred thirty five hundred dollars I know that's crazy on ball parking here, but I'm just going off other statistics of students I've helped that said like there's no way like ice charge twenty dollars an hour the market charges twenty five no kidding six months later they come back to you that I'm charging eighty dollars an hour it's possible but I'm guessing you're here on the craft part you're probably not tops also you're certainly not even touching not even thinking about him because all you're doing is answering the phone so how do you do this you go back to your clients realise that the clients that got you here I think there's a book the clients that got you here are not going to the clients to get you there or something like that the ones who were here were price sensitive fine fine let's put them aside but let's at least glean what we can from them why else did you join or you said my reviews how'd you find marriages or you were googling etcetera so learn what you can from them and then go study the other competitors and see how are they finding people what do they offer it's a does that make sense it does I yes yeah any other questions on that that that last comment threw me for a loop to study my competitors because I think for years I did study my competitors baste my business and my pricing off my competitors and then I looked exactly like my competitors and so it was I had to compete on price now my things I want to not do anything my competitors are doing because they're on the same, though. I mean, I know photographer after photographer and company cummings it shut down because they can't hold it anymore. So I get what you're saying, just study your competitors because if they're charging more than you and they're still in business, they might be doing something right. You never have to be like all, mike, I'll give you examples. You guys know those long copy pages you see online. They're like back pain, solve your back pain forever with one pill or whatever. About four years ago, I started studying long copy, studying it in depth like hours a day actually would print out the best sales pages in hand, write them and just change my product on inserted into theirs. I would never publish them, but I would just want to study it. It's a very esoteric type of writing. It also has generated a lot of revenue from different businesses over hundreds of years. Now the thing is, what's the first thing you think of when you see a long copy page, super scam me, right? Like all these blinking lights and by now and stuff, but they also have things that worked really well. Very well, like much better than shorter pages in many cases, and I studied and I took the best of that. Some of my pages are forty seven pages along have a forty seven page along sales page, but it converts extremely well and I took the best of what I found, and I also put it in my own style. It's classy, it has pictures of me on the today show it's doesn't use these emotionally sort of extortion techniques it's just a good page and it worked beautifully for me because I studied the best of my competition and I also blended it with who I am, so you don't have to do what your competition does. We have to know what they do, okay? And it's always a good idea to study people who are ahead of you because you can learn a lot. Ok, let's, go to the web and see what we've got over there. May we have a ton of pitches here in a list? Do we want to go through these pretty quickly? Do is greet off for five, and I'll pick one. All right? S o kim, you patrice start a personal hair stylist business, many women of color don't understand how to care for their own hair and in my community, their women walking out very damaged hair. Want to go to their home and walk through beauty cabinet products with them like how a stylist would go through a closet we have ah let's stop there that's really good what I love about that is it's specifically targeted women and I think those women of color super niche love that the more niche the better and just to give you an example of a niche um it's a photography example let's say that I'm ah young mother I just had a baby boy I don't know why I'm being woman today feel very in touch with my found inside so I'm a young mother I just had a baby boy two days ago now I have I want to get what do you do when you're young mother you want to have a picture of your baby right get photographer you're looking around now do I want to choose uh you know jim jones who takes photographs of you know baby's llamas and tables or do wanna pick richard milling house whose spy a photographer that specializes in newborns between the ages of one day and two weeks and in fact he knows how traumatic giving birth is so he'll actually come to you in the hospital or in at home and by the way here's his portfolio beautiful photos of baby boys and baby girls whom I'm going to choose the second one and what price am I willing to pay for richard, anything it's a mere triviality because rich has deeply understood my needs as a new mother versus other duties taking pictures of zoo animals and kids nitsch is power so I love that it's women of color I also that thing about going to their house okay that's interesting I'm not sure they really want that I would do a little bit of homework, but I bet you they want to know how certain celebrities look make their hair looked like that so it could be ah now this is what I would discover research like what do you think about when you look at other women's hair? They're like I don't understand how she gets it to look like that so all of a sudden you position the whole thing is like hair like the celebrities or you know I don't know what the phrases but ethnic hair like celebrities bone if that is aspirational for your market and you can show him how to do it great let's go into a couple others our cool we have one from samuel john and this is the future and it's looks long so small big small business video marketing experts is his pitch. Many small businesses want to adopt video into their marketing strategy but don't have huge budgets or understanding I want to help small businesses with their video marketing part one affordable video marketing consultation and production services part to create an online education platform to help small businesses learn more about video marketing so they can do it themselves. This is great all right, so everyone here in studio if you were the client and you heard that pitch what's the first thing you would do like affordability it's not valued so good he's so good I would negotiate the shit out of him because and you know what he deserves and he deserves to get paid ten dollars an hour for what he does because in his pitch he's said affordable like five times he's so afraid of charging for value he actually may not actually be technically good I don't know if he is or not I'm not picking on you because I don't know you but he's so afraid of charging for value that he's bending over backwards to say affordable, affordable, affordable which is just inviting the worst type of clients worst it's like putting a big old candy bar in your in your kitchen counter and then the next day complaining that answer there you did your fault so what mikey say instead by the way small business owners what he just said they have it as part of their marketing strategy why always ask yourself so that they can blank the bride wants a beautiful wedding so that she can blank conversion rate expert wants to improve his conversions so that he can blank what is it? Video? What is a small business owner want video for why anybody know, huh that at the end of it is to highlight something so that they can get more customers and make money get more customers is one make more money is another those two aren't necessarily correlated but they usually are saved time cut costs etcetera there's only like four five really for most business owners, if you haven't even done the homework of figuring out why do they want video? Then you have no chance you've already lost thank you, sarah so most creative by the way I love this I love this pitch because literally I would be willing to bet thirty percent of creatives do exactly that they go in they pitch video solutions or social media solutions or a wedding photography without saying for blank I can help you with video so that you can do blink so if someone came to me there like I can help you like for example, people coming to the spell check thing I can spell check your thing this just happened right now while I was on lunch emails coming in hey meet you got to spelling errors in your e mail by the way, if you're looking to hire someone to do spell checking, I'm available delete because they never explained why this is valuable to me because it's not valuable to me they can't tie what they're doing to my goals it's not going to make me more money credibility that's questionable people already know I'm indian so already one spelling bee contest question what they going to do nothing so that that is an example of how you khun you need to radically reshape what you're doing by actually talking to small business owner saying like before saying hey, what kind of video solution are you looking for se are you actually have you thought about using video? Why why not? Are you interested? Is it on your mind like that let's do one more okay let's do one more let's go ahead and say graduating this is mtm mag graduating college students in the kansas city metro area age twenty to twenty five entering the job market that need to understand the facts and fictions about drug testing that is my original niche I brought it down to spent years in the industry and want others to understand the facts on drug testing before worry why do I want to understand what does that mean? Why don't want avoid being positively drug tested? Why don't want to understand it? Actually most people don't want to understand anything if I had I'm not kidding look, if I had written this it would be called and that's what I thought I would have said understanding facts, figures, compound interest, automation and psychology and guess what people would have done very few people actually want to understand something they want to result they want to be rich they want six pack abs they want to be have a happy relationship in fact more specifically and that they want their husband to turn over in the morning and smile really specific people who read my book want to be able to buy a round of drinks for their friends without worrying really specific so I don't really think and by the way at twenty to twenty five do they pass the pace certainty technique no in either case I don't have the money nor do they have the willingness twenty one year old don't pay for anything all right so I would really reconsider that but also take this is a mean these idea tear downs are fun but they're not meant to be really critical they're meant to show you that you need to radically change the way you think about your businesses and the reason I want to talk about this here I would rather have you like feel like oh my god I can't believe you said that to me now then waiting nine months spending all this time and money on it and realizing that it doesn't pay that's if you are good at what you do you need to be getting your material to the world the world that listens to you as quickly as possible and you don't want to sit around wasting your time on a futile opportunity instead of going down a path that will maximize chances of success. So we got a little bit of clarity from mgm mag who said yes, I'm looking at selling peace of mind and getting past the worries of drug testing it is for the many americans have to worry about getting hired so about how to pass a drug test basically maybe or maybe not, I mean, if they want to know how to pass a drug test that I feel like that's gonna be something that would probably shut down pretty quick if there's any I mean, what do you say? Hey says or he or she there's a lot of misconception about what drug testing can or cannot do, and many people stress out about this, especially creatives that are him perhaps more experimental, I mean, okay, so you know what? I may be wrong and that's why you should always test what I have to say I'm very open with that, but can anyone in this room sitting here imagine some dude who's been smoking out for five years being like I'm very concerned I'm going to go buy this information product for seventy nine dollars to understand the logistics of drug testing target demographic and I I mean, I've been drug tested recently for work I applied to this job and in portland, oregon you never get drug tested for anything on so I had this thing and it was like, oh, they're gonna drug test you know, it's not a big deal I'm really sorry I'm sure this is the most amazing exchange I've ever I love this thank you, sarah of a graphic and I'm not going to say it so I love this I know I love the any I'm sure you're a nice person, but, uh okay, look, this is pretty it's pretty funny, so I mean, it just doesn't pass the sniff test of parting that doesn't pass the test of like, like, would someone who who's in this market actually be concerned? No, would they actually proactively go search for information? Maybe on google would they actually pay it's very unlikely? And you're not even promising anything the promises so weak to teach people to understand wrong, you've got to go deeper and actually even when you and I had a little back and forth when you first started talking, so much of what you really want to do is make me understand why you're so good but really I don't care about understanding you, I want you to understand me so that's a whole re shift and reframe and how we behave with our clients, okay?

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Ramit Sethi Interview
3 Negotiation Scripts
5 Negotiation Case Studies
Freelance Email Proposals
Freelance Income Roadmap
List of Freelancing Ideas
5 Resumes That Win
VIP Email Teardown
Updated Resource Link: I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Ratings and Reviews

AshPhoto
 

This course changed my life. After watching Ramit on Creative Live, I bought his book, then signed up for his newsletter, then bought several of his classes. You could say I am officially drinking the Ramit Kool-aid now, but I'll tell you why... His stuff works. You have to trust the system, but I've been able to create a rich life for myself by my definition of rich and I am so happy. It takes work, but I am so grateful I found Ramit in my 20s so I can truly enjoy my 30s over the next decade. Without this course, I would still be complaining that people don't want to hire me because my prices are too high and whining that I am not valued, when in reality, the problem was me. Thanks Ramit for always speaking the hard truths and giving people wake-up calls to get their act together and live the life they want... It's possible!

Adrian Farr
 

Ramit is a huge inspiration, he is not just a 'been there and made loads of money' kind of guy, he is a 'been there and made loads of money, and here's how I did it' kind of guy! Ramit really gets down to helping you understand not only how to make money but also how to save it too. I am looking forward to reading his book and plan to implement a lot of his systems into my own life.

YKR
 

I have taken a few business classes for creatives online, but this is by far the most comprehensive, most practical course of all. Especially for someone like me who loves Ramit's work but has not made a decision to commit to his full courses, this is a great introduction for what he can offer. He pushes you to think outside the box and see all the possibilities that we can have in a very clear, logical way. If you are unsure which class to take to learn about business, this is all you need.

Student Work

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