How I Went From Charging $500 to $100,000 For A Logo (PRICING DEEP DIVE)

most creative entrepreneurs are stuck in a pricing trap and they don't even realize it You know how I know It's because not that long ago I released a video called 40 brutal business truths that I wish I knew when I was 20 And one of them was price the client and not the job And almost unanimously they were asking for a deep dive So in this video I'm going to do a deep dive on how you can price the client and not the job And this is the exact strategy that I use from charging tens of thousands of dollars for creative projects to hundreds of thousands of dollars for the same type of work I'm not just going to talk about the what the why but exactly how to price a client and not the job to create greater value and impact for the clients and to make more money while doing it What does even mean to price a client and not the job And if you do that isn't that unfair And taking advantage of people's needs and their vulnerabilities There are different ways to price things depending on who you are and the relationship that you have with your client and the level of experience that you have Most of us unfortunately just get stuck in one way and that's to price based on time This is not always the best option because it doesn't account for your level of experience your creativity and potentially any fame that you might have So if we take two artists one that just graduated from school and one that's 20 years into the business and has a reputation has exhibited their work in galleries and can make a print and sell that print for a lot of money If we just measure their time at working on something then in theory the person who has more experience is going to make less money than the person who has less experience We know this We've done this We've worked with people who are inexperienced Maybe you are this type of person And it might take you four times as long And so then here's the problem with that you're rewarded for taking longer to do something rather than the result that you achieve Now I already know stop Don't don't write the comment but you're gonna say this but Chris just charge more per hour This creates a temporary solution but it doesn't really resolve the thing It's like putting a band-aid on top of a wound that requires surgery It's just a quick fix but not really addressing the real problem Now here's how I want you to think about this There are two things that are the largest contributing factor to make it super simple for you One is time effort and energy Now we're familiar with that but the other one is called expertise And so we most always focus on just time And the reason why we do that is because we have a long history kind of post-industrial revolution in calculating value measured against time Marx's theory of labor is about charging only what is essentially the labor required to make something which is a whole different conversation I want to get into right now So let's take these two components Now we can talk about time So there's things like that I'll do that you'll do and we'll say like it takes 5 hours for both of us But what is your experience relative to what it is what we're trying to solve What is your level of expertise It's hard to argue that somebody who's been doing this for 10 20 or 30 years has a distinct advantage and can bring tremendous amounts of value over the person who's still in school or just a recent grad Not always the case It's not an absolute rule So if you're simply just pricing projects based on the time and labor that you put into it even at a higher hourly rate you're not capturing the full value of the impact that you're going to make on the other person's business And nine out of 10 times this leads to and I know you know this is true because you felt this First of all there's a cap to how much money you can make because as you save raise your hourly rate raise your day rate but eventually you do reach a cap There's only a reasonable amount of money that people will pay for an attorney for groceries for whatever it is that you want to buy because in their mind this is how they were taught to think And it's really hard to overcome that when you're still selling units of time And inevitably this will lead to you feeling burnt out that you're working smarter maybe not harder but you're making less money or when they're trying to compare you against someone else's And now you're What's your argument there You're just saying the the amounts of time You're not measuring the results or expertise And if you keep doing this it might lead you to feeling resentful that you're doing way more creating way more value than what you're being compensated for And that's going to create these feelings of that's not fair But before you complain about it not being fair ask yourself who volunteered for this As my business coach would always say there are no victims in life Chris They're just volunteers You volunteered to create this system for yourself and to accept terms that are favorable and relative to the value that you create Obviously this is going to lead to things like cap on how much money you can make because there's finite hours in a day finite hours in a week that you can actually work This is the money trap of equating time with value And honestly I think the thing that pierces my creative soul is it devalues what contribution that you can contribute to the world Your work becomes a commodity to be measured against time Let me summarize If you're pricing the job measured in units of time then you're not really capturing the real value of what you put out into the world Look you're probably still not convinced So I'm going to tell you about the consequences if you continue to practice pricing projects this way Number one is you start to attract budget clients That's all they care about They're price shoppers and they're not your ideal clients cuz they're always talking about cost versus value creation They never look at things like an investment They're not willing to pay more for higher quality work which puts you into this horrible position which is you become an order taker instead of a strategic partner or a creative alure It's like you're bringing something that's unique and special filtered through your specific set of skills in your Liam voice your specific set of skills and your point of view your your life experience your your cultural influences These are things that no one else can do But you're still measuring this all against units of time And inevitably you hit a ceiling and there's only so much money that you can make And here's the thing You have to ask yourself this question If you lost the ability to work tomorrow how long can your life be sustained without your ability to produce income This is how we stay trapped being poor forever that we're never able to get ahead So you're working harder to make less money And then you just start to unfortunately feel that burnout You lose the joy of your craft and you just become resentful of the world your peers and clients and it's just a dark bitter place to be in So the result you're overworked you're underpaid and undervalued Hey before I go any further is any of this resonating with you Where do you struggle with applying valuebased pricing Let me know in the comments below Let's shift away from all the doom and gloom the negative nies or the negative Ned talk Right You've heard me say this before Price the client not the job So what does that even mean First of all most of us are looking at the job as a list of task and units of time And what we do is we generally provide estimates based on how long we predict this will take That's what it means to price the job Now if we were to shift the focus away from what we do to to the outcome or the result that we create for the client we start moving in the right direction And here's the truth No one really buys your time They buy an outcome They buy a result They might be interested in a benefit but they rarely ever buy the thing that you do I recently have this problem Our pool's leaking So we got an estimate from a pool repair person and then they're giving us a bid on the materials and the labor and we we accept it But here's the problem As they're doing all this work they're doing all these tests the pool still leaks So at this point I'm really frustrated because I'm like I don't care how much time you put in it I don't care what kind of pebble finish you put on it Did you solve the problem And this project has taken a crazy amount of time It's been 3 months since they started this project cuz they could not find a problem Imagine the frustration you would have as the as the homeowner hiring a person and regretting every decision you've made up to this point So I don't really care what you do I don't really care how long it takes but I do really care that you fix the water leaking problem because water is going to destroy the hillside it's going to erode our property and it's just wasteful and it's something that keeps us up at night So instead of the pool person saying you know this is what we're going to do for you just say we're going to solve the problem And the problem is and the problem I care about is get me back in the pool Let me sleep easy at night because I don't want a leaky pool anymore Let's do a little bit deeper dive here We need to understand something Value is subjective Just like beauty and fairness right What what is fair to my child is not fair to me what is beautiful to my friend Mo or what is beautiful to me is totally different And so there is no objective way to measure value It's only subjective So you really need to understand the person who's standing in front of you what their needs wants dreams goals and whatever their business outcomes are You have to have a conversation with them Every client has different things that at stake a different level of urgency and what they're willing to pay for what they feel is fair and how they perceive value And the only way you can do that really and the reason probably why many of you aren't doing this is because you're afraid to have this conversation You don't have the language skills or the tools or the frameworks to be able to have this I'm not saying this is easy otherwise everybody would be doing it But it's worth learning how to do and to pursue this Now the the classic example of this is let's say I'm an identity designer I design logos and identity systems for people The amount of time that I could spend on it could literally be the same I'm the same person so I'm bringing the exact same set of skills my expertise and experience to it But the two prices could be vastly different depending on who I'm talking to So if it's a local mom and pop business the logo and identity system is really not that important to the growth of their business Why is this Because generally speaking neighborhoods support local businesses and they're not thinking about global franchises and building businesses in franchises and things like that They're not looking to expand So if the logo is handdrawn and poorly current and not super legible it doesn't really matter In fact in a lot of cases for a local business that adds to the charm and how quaint it feels and it's like it's our local business The minute they become super slick and corporate even though their business hasn't changed starts to communicate and to signal to other people something's going on under new management Maybe they're going to care about the thing a little bit less And you know this because you've done this You will go out of your way to pay more for lower quality things because you believe in that local business Let's flip this equation on the other side Let's say now you're a local business owner but you're no longer small medium-sized business Maybe you have seven locations and you're starting to expand beyond the state lines This is really important now because when you're expanding into new markets your identity your marketing your messaging and your overall branding matter a lot because it has to do the hard work of making it feel that people are familiar with you the quality of your service and and your your products and you have to communicate that story quickly to a bunch of strangers So the same amount of work to two totally different clients means that the value is vastly different in even just looking at one one metric which is printing costs So the local business is going to spend a couple thousand dollars to print napkins maybe menus and take takeaway flyers and things like that right Whereas the the franchise business that expanding beyond state lines and potentially going nationwide they're going to spend in orders of magnitude more just to print these things So a poor decision on one side not a big deal Couple thousand bucks we'll wait to use all of this and we'll print again a mistake or a poorly thoughtout design for a franchise a bigger business means oh my god we're gonna destroy tens of thousands of dollars worth of printing and do this again We have to pull it off all the shelves and we have to retrain the people how to use the system And we see this happening all the time I don't know if you know this but those dollar discount stores you often wonder to yourself how can they afford and make a profit on selling things for a dollar The reason being why they can do that is because a shampoo company has decided to you know what change the label So they can no longer sell that shampoo So instead of throwing it into the ground or burying it or burning it they sell it to these discount stores for less That's the price of getting it wrong And that's why they will invest a lot more money to hire the right kinds of people I'm going to say something I know it's going to trigger a bunch of you You've seen these large scale multinational multi-billion dollar companies do a logo refresh Pepsi Jaguar whoever they do this And some of you sit back and like wait a minute that's all they did I could have done that And I'm not gonna argue with you You could have done it And you might have even done a better job But what you don't understand is why Pepsi or these multinational brands pay so much money and take 6 9 10 months to produce something that you could have done in your bedroom Number one you're looking at the end And when we see something finished we can replicate that really fast We can make little improvements And yeah it's subjective like if it's better or not Sometimes objectively most of us could agree that what you do would be better What you don't understand is number one they would never hire you to do this because first of all you're not even on their radar Number two is you represent tremendous risk to a multinational company like this They're going to spend millions of dollars to print this to roll this out to train people There there's so much cost involved in rebranding the the PR firm that has to talk about it all the kinds of things that they're going to spend to support the roll out of a new identity system So when they hire you one person you look like a tremendous amount of risk and if you get it wrong it's going to cost them way more what it is to pay you Number two you present also your flight risk What if they gave you half a million dollars You could just disappear to Puerto Rico and they were like "What's going to happen We got nothing and you just disappeared." And this happens all the time Okay Now number three is you're not seeing the visible work the amount of research the trademark research and the positioning They understand how this logo is going to be applied across a thousand touch points across a bunch of different verticals and the three five 10year plan as to how this is going to impact their products and how they're positioned against their competitors These are things you don't even know about or to be able to have a conversation with So what what you're not seeing is all this invisible work that supports this final creative embellishment And if you just continue to focus on what it looks like and whether or not it's good or bad or why you could have done a better job and not even going to argue with you there then you've missed the entire point Why should you even care about anything that I'm saying Well first of all if things are working for you you don't need to do anything different I'm not here to shame you I'm not here to tell you you're less than because at times pricing hourly does make a lot of sense especially when it's a change order So you have your initial bid and then you make some changes Okay I'm going to just do the hourly cuz it's too complicated to figure out what that means in the moment right We get that But if you feel like you've hit that ceiling it's probably because you're using a pricing model that is not reflective of the value create in the world And therefore you're going to continue to attract price buyers the tire kickers the budget buyers and that's not going to do anything for your creative soul nor your pocketbook I told you the what and the why in terms of why it's important for you to price a client and not the job Let me tell you the how Buckle up cuz this is going to get deep Number one is I'm going to tell you this There's only so much you can learn by watching a video like this without actually having someone to guide you But there's a great resource that you can read It's called Pricing Creativity It's written by Blair Ens He talks through this entire process and he's well known in this space about positioning and pricing He's got a new book called The Four Conversations So I highly recommend you read those books And if you want a super nerdy book to read read Ron Baker's book Implementing Value Pricing It's going to blow your mind I've not even finished reading it because the ideas are so dense and so powerful But okay let me give you the YouTube cliffnotee version of what it is that you need to understand about pricing the client and not the job Now there's a general sequence that we all go through when we meet a new client and they they kind of frame us up to fail They're like "What's this going to cost?" Or "What do you charge per hour What's your day rate?" Okay Now I do want to say something because people who try to do this on me are going to fail all the time Number one you need to have this conversation with the decision maker someone who has stake in the outcome of this You can't talk to a mid-level manager and you can't be doing this in a subcontracted way For example if a client hires an agency and the agency hires you as an independent contractor or freelancer do not try to value price them It's not going to work okay because it's not going to work because they are taking all the risk They're managing this and they need to make a lot of profit because they're taking the risk And one day when you're in that position talking to a natural client some young person is or independent contractor is going to value price you You're going to say "I'm not standing for this I'm taking all the risk I'm going to pay you a day an hour or weekly rate and we're going to be good with that." Okay Now having said that typically what happens is when people ask us "What is the cost?" That's a signal already because you're just thinking about the expense and not the value that you bring So you have to kind of ignore that just for half a second Now the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to tell you how one typically prices and then I'm going tell you a better way to do this Okay The first thing we do we get on the phone with a client is we start to talk about scope Like what is the end product going to look like And you've heard this What is the scope of work An so and let's just take for example a website A website's pretty easy for us all to get our heads wrapped around So there's some design and there's some coding or development that has to happen There's probably some visual design some information architecture some user experience stuff that you need to do So we get into the weeds really early and we start to kind of think oh there's 75 pages it's an ecom site So we're going through all the the variables to this and we're kind of just adding in our mind And then we probably don't talk about the price at all We get off the phone and now we promised a bid or an estimate and we're going through some kind of anxiety right now So even hearing this if you're starting to hyperventilate it's because like you've been there You know that I have no idea what to charge them Now you if you're more sophisticated you could probably run through a an Excel spreadsheet or something like that and start to figure out time and price and you add all that kind of stuff up and then eventually you get to a number Say it's $17,000 and 17,500 Let's say that's what it is So you send this bid this proposal to your client Guess what happens Nothing Crickets chirp And then you follow up and you follow up and nothing happens And eventually you get them on the phone and you're you're going to ask them like "So what happened?" "Oh it was just too much money I didn't think it was going to be that much money I thought it was going to be like three grand And you're like and if you had hair you'd pull it out And that's kind of how this process goes The reason being is you don't understand this one concept Absent context nothing is too expensive and nothing's too cheap What is the context for this website Cuz you're selling what it is that you do not the outcome or the result that the clients are buying Remember how I talked about that They buy a result They don't buy what you do Okay So the reason why we can't get beyond the price conversation into the value conversation is because we did it in the wrong order So if you read Blair's book Pricing Creativity he's like take this order and flip it backwards The first thing you should do is ask the client what outcome what result are you looking for Okay And then you should have a real conversation about this So we start with outcome We ask then how will you measure success What are the success metrics like So we want to move away from the abstract into the tangible and the quantifiable Even qualitative things are measurable to a degree Levels of joy Like you can say well how do you measure levels of joy Chris Well you know what You might have seen this at the airport You go to the bathroom and on your way out they have like three signs A angry face a me face and a happy face And you just jam it with your elbow if you're so kind So that is saying you know we're satisfied with the way this is maintained this this bathroom So you can definitely measure everything but what's important is to ask the clients how will you measure success What is important to you And if successful what impact would this have on your business Would it generate new clients Will it help you convert to more money Will it help you build an awareness or engagement for your brand And those are important things So based on their success metrics and what it will do you now need to assign some kind of value to it So that's the third part is what is the value of doing this if it's accomplished Let's say you are able to summarize the value that you were able to generate by building this new website for them You can ask them what price feels fair to pay against the value created And I'm going use Blair's language here discounted for uncertainty because I'm not going to guarantee that this is going to happen So you're taking some of the risk as am I So a fair price generally for consultants who do the kind of work that I do for clients like you is roughly 20% So when you said if this were to happen you would generate $100,000 new revenue in year one So would $20,000 feel like it's a fair amount to pay relative to the potential upside to this And most rational business people would say yes of course They have an 80% upside swing So $20,000 So this is where you've just price anchored them You've actually price anchored them twice once through success once through the success metrics because that's a really big number and then the value that that's going to work out to be and then now doing a smaller number than that See now you've given them context The result that we're getting is X The value that you're getting is X So then therefore the price is relatively modest compared to the value So now you've landed $20,000 And you ask them this question This is very important If you were presented with a solution that did X Y and Z for you in X amount of time for $20,000 would you be confident to move forward Would you feel joyful to get this work underway And they're going to say yes or no And you need to really listen to how they say yes because there are many false yeses and there's really just one no So if there's hesitation if they stretch out the yes or they add an upward intonation to the yes that's a problem and you need to identify it then So then you can ask them this question What might be giving you pause Is there another stakeholder who's not here today that might have a different opinion about this So you're able to address this and you're going to surface this right then and there And you do your best to address it there or you follow up with answers in case you don't have it Now when you go away to your dungeon I mean your design studio you can work on the bid knowing that you need to land the bid at 20k So instead of sitting there doing the spreadsheet and punching in how many hours it's going to take versus the rate you're going to talk about the results they want and the things that you're going to deliver So now you're going to do the scope but you've already got a verbal buyin from them that $20,000 is going to be the right amount And if you've done this the proper way when you send this through it should be a pretty quick yes and all they need to do is to get started is to give you that 50% check And that's how you price a client and not the job All right let's have some real talk You've watched this video You've watched many videos like this before and you've not been able to to move forward or you've tried and failed So let's talk about some of the common mistakes that you're going to do when you're doing value based pricing when you're trying to price a client and not the job Okay let's get into it Number one is you have to be much better at talking about business and you have to have some basic business vocabulary because this is not some uh way to trick the client into paying you more And I see this mistake being made all the time You'll see a creative person and it's very agenda driven It doesn't matter what the clients say in terms of the outcome or results they want It always conveniently lands at what the thing it is that you make a logo a website uh social media management And this is when you're not acting in the best interest of your customers you're just acting in your own selfish needs So this will fall apart And that's number one mistake that people make when they're trying to implement value based pricing is that they're more concerned about their own well-being than the well-being of their clients You're supposed to be of service to them And I can't stress this enough that you have to be okay with saying no and walking away if the result that they want is not something that you can deliver In a case like this once you identify that you have to pull yourself out kind of recuse yourself to say "This is not my area of expertise I do not have great confidence to tell you right now in all honesty that I can do this Would you like a referral Would this be helpful to you?" And if they say yes then go look for it Otherwise don't do it Okay Cuz sometimes people are like "Well you don't know what you're doing Why do I need a referral from you at this point?" And that's totally okay And you have to act as if you're a fiduciary for the client You have to make sure their best interest is your number one priority The other mistake that you're going to make probably is you're not comfortable talking about money or business It it makes you feel skittish and you transmit this to them So no business owner is going to start talking about value and give you all their business insights when they think you're a poser You don't really understand this And this is like an opportunity for me to give you a Blair Hens quote here which is those who don't talk about money don't make it So there's an easy solution to this which is to take a low stakes job one that you don't care anything about one that you don't even really want and try to have this type of conversation See how you feel okay Versus waiting for like the ultimate client to come to your door and practicing it on them for the very first time The other mistake that people make is they're not curious long enough They're not asking real genuine questions to surface what the real problems the real results and outcomes that they want and they're just rushing through the process Uh this is like you just kind of phoning it in going through the motions and people can feel that They're like "This is a waste of my time I can tell where you're headed to this which is just to say a much higher price at the end that you really don't understand the business needs and you're going to shove some kind of solution down my throat." And nobody wants to do that Next is you choose language that is very self-centered versus neutral and objective What do I mean by that Notice in the example when I said to you before if you were presented with a solution that solved these problems now I'm using very neutral objective language here If you were presented with a solution versus if I showed you something that did this if we could do this for you would you be willing to move forward Because now you just inserted yourself back in it that this was then some long convoluted sales process that you're going through So up until the very end keep it as neutral and as objective and remove yourself from the solution because we're looking at this not at them We're looking at the solution with them We're looking together towards the future and this is how you build trust This is how they start to develop a feeling like I think you should be that person Chris I think you could do the work You're like do you think so Well good news is I've done this for many people So let let me take a crack at this and see if if what I can produce for you is something you're interested in moving forward with but you remove that kind of selfish language Lastly this is going to be difficult for some of you is to submit a simple proposal They don't need to know your bios They don't need to see your awards and accomplishments And you know why I'm saying this Cuz we've done this ourselves We include too much junk in there to prop up our budget to make them feel really good about it Or we're just super lazy I don't know what it is So both of them are not good We need to respect the client's time If possible create a one-page proposal simple cover letter and so at most it should be two pages Thank you for the opportunity Looking forward to working with you What you're going to find in the next page is X Y and Z And then show them what they're going to get what they're buying and then a price That's it All right You know the what you know the why you know the how and you know the things you need to avoid to make these common mistakes that people have when they're trying to implement valuebased pricing The reason why I know all this stuff it's not through some theory or reading a book It's applied knowledge And I want to share a story with you that just happened very recently in the last couple of weeks here So here's how this works Okay I have a friend who runs large scale events for for like a thousand people And every time I go to one of his events I see that hm the design could be a little sharper considering all the amount of energy effort and resources he put against the event It it could be more aligned around his brand and create a feeling an experience for people So I casually mention to him backstage I say you know for the amount of money you spend the design could be much better He goes "You think so?" I'm like "Yeah." So when I saw that he was interested with his eyebrows raised I said to him kind of cheekily "I'd love to help you but I'm not cheap." Now why would I say that this right then and there because our relationship wasn't one where he thought of me in a certain way and I wanted to anchor him to let him know to work with me it's it's going to be a premium price cuz I'm not cheap I'm preparing him for that conversation that I know will happen Okay So a couple of months later he reaches out because this is an annual event I wasn't expecting a sale right away He goes "Chris I've been thinking about what you said." I'm like "What's that?" "Well I'd like your help I think you get what we do." I'm like "Fantastic." And so now we're exchanging text messages and this is going to shock you This is going to blow your mind because I'm I'm able to close this even via text Now I texted him um here's what it's going to look like And I said to him historically speaking when we do strategy work it's 30k When we do messaging it's this price And I just gave him a little laundry list of things that we're going to do And the total price was around $70,000 He goes "This looks great Chris Send me a proposal." This is all via text not even via conversation So I work on the proposal I break it down Literally translating what was happening in text into a more formal document I added a third page So cover page bid and then assumptions because I don't know what he knows So there's assumptions like you'll do this This is how I work This is what it'll cost Okay I sent it over to him via email Then he texts me back He goes "Got your proposal This is a lot more than I wanted to spend I thought it was going to be like $15,000 He goes "Can we get on a call?" And I'm sitting there thinking "Wait a minute I just told you in text what it's going to cost I just sent the proposal to reflect literally what I said was like the difference was like a,000 bucks That's all." So we get on the phone and I'm prepared to do whatever And here's the shocker He says to me "Hey Chris Actually after looking over this I'm good with this I like what you wrote here I want it all I guess I'm okay with paying you $69,000 Here's what I said This is going to shock you Are you sure Cuz if you're not comfortable we can remove things He goes "No no I want it all." And why did I say this Because I'm detached from the outcome I'm acting in the best interest of my client here Even though we're friends and we've worked in a different capacity together we've never worked like this before I wanted him only to hire me if it gave him joy So if the price was a problem I'll find things to take out I'll do a little bit less That's totally okay But he says "Let's move forward." And he asked me "How do we start As soon as you send a check for whatever the price like say 25% up front I'm ready to go." And and we start getting to work And he's enjoyed every part of the process This also ties to another concept I want to share with you that if you want better clients just charge more And we've been riffing We've been brainstorming He's like "I love this work my gosh do you teach people how to do this So now more doors are being opened up Not only am I doing this work for him but he's interested in me teaching him or other people in his community how to do the same kinds of things So more opportunities are being open Here's the best part The best part is this I just closed a $69,000 job via text message and I got paid $69,000 to do this work Based on what you might say not on time I never sat down and thought well I need a designer art director a retoucher I don't care about any of that stuff I just knew relative to the kinds of things he's trying to accomplish This is the amount of money he was ready to spend And here's the best part Come July when this event happens and we roll out all the design we've done for him from the screens to the pop-up banners to the registration forms to the merch the badge and all that kind of stuff there's going to be over a,000 people at this event this is going to be the greatest advertising marketing platform for me I even told them that I told them as we were getting started I'm motivated to do a great job for you But I'm even more motivated because I know when everyone sees this they're going to ask you who did this and it'll be me So I have a lot writing on this I cannot fail you and I will not fail you And it's going great By the way how is this even possible Number one and this is something we don't talk about enough is cultivating relationships that are multi-year not from job to job Okay We need to understand that because a lot of credibility and trust and authority had been established in the many years in which I've got to know him This is really really important So by the time we get to the conversation about work it's very permissionbased right I said "Hey for the amount of money you already spend this experience could be much better." So I just planted that seed in his mind I just needed to be able to ask in the most polite and gentle way and saying "If you're ever interested let me know." So I didn't even say "Hey when are you going to hire me?" because a lot of a lot of you guys will do that Just be super aggressive with the ask Do it with nuance and do it with generosity and make it permissionbased Now a lot of this wouldn't have happened if I didn't understand the larger context of what's happening here This is a multi-million dollar endeavor This is a big business thing for him to get a thousand people to show up and people to enroll in this mastermind So there's a lot at stake here And here's the other thing that I know about him because we've had conversations about this He sees himself as a visionary pioneer in the space in which he's working in because the kinds of events that he's competing with are super boring and predictable He's bringing a lot of creativity energy and excitement into this And so he wants to stand out from the competition and he's got the right person to help him stand out from the competition This is really important So I knew then if I were to price this whole thing based on the hours that I would work on this the bid would be like what $15,000 kind I guess that's the amount of money he said at the beginning But he knew there was a big gap between the kinds of things that we could do versus the kinds of things he's been paying for And that's important He's an educated buyer who is very particular about the kinds of things he wants to be associated with Let's tie a ribbon around this If you recall back to the beginning of this video how we price things based on time and expertise How I was able to do this was because of the perceived expertise that I brought into this conversation that he can recognize that I've been well positioned to and through the multiple interactions he can see I'm not a fresh graduate I'm a person with multi- decades of experience doing design and creativity at the highest levels That's what made this possible If you want to master pricing the client and not the job to understand valuebased pricing as I mentioned before it's not going to be just a one video or one book you're going to read You're going to need guidance support and there's going to be a lot of nuance around how you actually execute this But here's the quick win You understand the concept you can apply some version of this but if you want a deeper dive I'm going to invite you to join my coaching community It's called the Future Pro Group So if you want some support and access to exclusive content multi-ours of conversations around valuebased pricing I do bi-weekly calls You're going to join a group of over 300 creative entrepreneurs where you're going to get the support and the guidance that you're going to need to have real business transformation If that interests you click the link in the description Can't wait to see you on the