Jasmine Star (00:00:00) - Welcome to the Jasmine Star show, where we talk about life. We talk about business. And today we get to talk about the ultimate version in human form of creativity. Now, I know that sounds like a very big statement, but I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, overextending the amount of words that I could use to describe the person who is sitting next to me. But before we get there, I like to introduce people in the podcast because podcast guests are people I know or I have experienced. So let me set the stage. We're in Beverly Hills. I've been invited to go to a mastermind and like the nerd that I am, I'm sitting there in the front row with my notebook out and I am there to learn. Except for the fact that when this gentleman walks on the stage, I didn't take a single note because I was so enraptured in the way that he spoke his storytelling, his cadence, his brilliance. And so here I was. I've identified as being a creative, and what I saw was the complete counter opposite of somebody who's so strategic, high creative, business owner, iterative and like king of pivots and keeping it all together.

Jasmine Star (00:01:04) - Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Chris Doe to the Jasmine Star show, brother. Let's go.

Chris Do (00:01:09) - Oh, God, what an intro.

Jasmine Star (00:01:10) - I mean, it's just the truth. That was my story, bro. Wow.

Chris Do (00:01:13) - I'm like, who dis? Where is the person I thought I was here?

Jasmine Star (00:01:17) - I'm so happy you're here. I'm so happy you get to break down business and creativity. And how many times a person can change and still embody the core of who you are and like, continue to grow in business. And I think that's what I want to talk about. So a little bit of backstory. This show is for entrepreneurs. And my focus is the business of your business. Ooh, the business of your business. Because what I've identified and learned and like people tell me, is like when they hear about somebody else talking about their business, they're able to contextualize their business in relation to yours, different even or the same. And then when you talk about how you've marketed your business, they start thinking, oh, contextually.

Jasmine Star (00:02:00) - So this show is about getting disparate pieces. And then at the end of the show, we get to connect it, and then we take an action item, because on this show, we're like one piece of action every episode that's going to change your business. So when I look at your business. So a little bit of a side note, okay, Chris and I are mentors. It is our second year together as mentors for a small business challenge hosted from the UPS store and Inc magazine. And so we work virtually with our mentees. And then each of us has three mentees, and then one is selected to go to a city for a big show. Well, last year, Chris and I met for the first time in person in New York City, and in between recordings, Chris and I got into the business of his business and I was like, ooh, I like what this guy is doing. So to bring everybody up to speed, can you describe your business? We'll get into your origin story, but let's add some context and then we.

Chris Do (00:02:52) - Okay. Well, my business is in education. Not that different than yours, I believe. And we we exist to serve mostly creative people who are looking to ditch their 9 to 5 and are in their 5 to 9 but don't know how to scale. And so we we like to think that there are these skills that they need to learn to be successful entrepreneurs, things like marketing, negotiation, sales, pricing, those kinds of fundamentals that you would learn in business school. And if there's an equivalent in the universe, there's the D school that Stanford does. Yeah, the school for business. Yeah. And then we want to be the B school for design. We want to be the exact opposite of them. Yeah. So it's this concept that they understand the importance of creative lateral thinking, divergent thinking for business operators. And so they think they can teach business people left brainers right brain kind of strategies. Yes. I think it's a lot easier to teach right brain or left brain strategies because there's a couple of fundamental things.

Chris Do (00:03:48) - If they were to execute on they can live an entirely different life.

Jasmine Star (00:03:53) - So then the creative finds you and says I want to make a business for my creativity. Yes. Okay. Got it. Now what does the structure of your business look like. Like when we had spoken there was different levels and variations. What does that look like for you right now.

Chris Do (00:04:10) - Okay. There's a couple different things in which people can have a relationship with us. The easiest way is to consume some of our content on social. We produce a lot of YouTube videos I write for for LinkedIn, or I write on LinkedIn, and then I create content on Instagram. It's how people get to know you, and hopefully they can use some of the free content to level up, and also to kind of have a trial with you to like, do I like this person? Do they know what they're talking about? Okay. And so then they graduate to some form of there's a transactional moment that happens.

Jasmine Star (00:04:39) - Okay, cool. So for the sake of this context, nobody knows who you are.

Jasmine Star (00:04:42) - We're just gonna pretend nobody knows who you are. Not that following matters, but that the quality of the education that you're producing. What is your social following, like your top three channels? What are the sizes of that? Because I think an audience member is going to be like, oh, okay, now I get why he's talking about education.

Chris Do (00:04:56) - Okay. So our biggest following is on YouTube. We have. I think about 2.5 million subscribers. The next biggest followings on Instagram. I'm at nine, 64, 65, something like that. 965,000 and then LinkedIn is my next biggest following, which is 500 ish thousand. Okay, so those are the stats. So we're going.

Jasmine Star (00:05:14) - To pause there because between those platforms we're looking at maybe 3.5 million subscribers, not including other people who can find your content organically or getting touch, especially as the algorithms change. But we're talking about you have created education, also known as content, out on free social platforms, as a way just to kind of give people an ambush a taste.

Jasmine Star (00:05:37) - Am I about am I about his brand? Great. Then what happens next?

Chris Do (00:05:42) - Okay. And then some of them get excited and they ask, and this is what I really believe in. If you teach people, they're going to become excited about the things that you do and they're going to look it up. You don't even have to sell. That's right. So then they can they then there's a number of kits, courses and things they can buy from as little as $19 as to as much as like $5,000 that they can buy. And some of those people consume that. And so what's next? Now I want more of you. We have okay.

Jasmine Star (00:06:08) - So so right now we're talking about a product suite. Yes. And the product suite at the lower end from free content points into what's the lowest ticket. Up to 5000 in this particular arm of the business. Yes. What does it start at. What's like the I think $19.

Chris Do (00:06:22) - Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:06:22) - Great.

Chris Do (00:06:23) - Ooh there's like a template or a kit okay.

Chris Do (00:06:25) - It's a self-guided thing and those sell really well. My chief operating officer generally writes those because he likes to write. I like to produce instructional videos and things like that. So we play to our strengths. Okay. And so if it's like an instructional booklet, you can think of it as like a really hyper specific PDF digital booklet that you can download by. And they're usually templates and things that you can use and you can apply immediately. One of the examples is something we call it the perfect proposal. So having been in the creative service business for over two decades and working on this, we've refined what a proposal should look like and most creatives don't know what that looks like and how to speak in a professional way as a presentation. So we put that together. It's a keynote presentation. There's a PDF guide that you read, and then you fill it in and people make real money. And here's the secret, the not so secret secret. You already have the secret sauce. You just needed to believe in yourself.

Chris Do (00:07:20) - So the proposal, the way it looks and how it's laid out gives you that confidence to add a little bit more money into your bid. And for them, that changes their lives.

Jasmine Star (00:07:30) - How cool. But specifically, now when we contextualize that from a business perspective, you went to the consumer, right? So this person buys this and then it doesn't result just in a proposal. It results in self confidence. Yes. And that ROI alone is worth more than the 2030, $40 that they spent on that kit. Amazing. So that's the first point of entry into a business. And then from there, they could move forward up into $5,000 for different types of offerings. Okay. And then people get to that point and they're like, I'm fully bought in. What's next? Yeah.

Chris Do (00:08:00) - So we run two coaching communities once called the accelerator Group, which is for people who are between 0 to $200,000 in revenue a year. They have to be a creative person, because that's the group that Ben Stephanie runs, because it's a very specific way that they've structured the curriculum.

Chris Do (00:08:16) - And then I run something that we call the Future Pro Group, which is for people who are around $100,000 to about $1 million in revenue, and they want to scale up at this point. They have systems in place, they have portfolio, they know how to talk to clients and work with clients. But then they hit some kind of ceiling. They've hit a peak and they're they're starting to level out, and they want to learn how to scale from there. That's where I can come in and give very strategic, tactical things, designed business models for them, help them to figure out their offer, and then off they go. And that's usually how that works are.

Jasmine Star (00:08:48) - So the business of the business is free content, low ticket paid offering. Move up a product suite, get them to the point of what's next. And then depending on where they are in the business, there's two offerings zero or well, we'll say like low five figures to 100,000, 100,000 to 1 million. And the level of your involvement in that is really just at the high end of your product suite.

Jasmine Star (00:09:14) - Yes. Incredible. Ladies and gentlemen, Chris Doe. There it is. So it's like I just, you know, I want to do on the podcast because you and I share a similar belief and the similar belief is share your best stuff, give them a taste and then move them into different offerings along that. Okay. Can I take a second and read something from your website? Of course. Okay. Quote I've been running a successful design business for over 22 years, with a combined gross billings of over 80 million, and have since launched a second seven figure business that has been growing over 300% in revenue year over year. So if you had to pick two things that have impacted your growth the most, what are those two things?

Chris Do (00:09:55) - It's a.

Chris Do (00:09:55) - Good question. The first, business is so different than the second business. Do you do you want me? Talk about the second business of the first business. Well, let's.

Jasmine Star (00:10:01) - Identify now that we know what the product suites and offering, what did you identify as a second business for the listener who has no idea what they're listening.

Chris Do (00:10:07) - To? Okay.

Chris Do (00:10:08) - So this has a little bit to do with my origin.

Chris Do (00:10:11) - I use let's go there. Let's go there. Yeah.

Chris Do (00:10:12) - I used to run a production and post-production company. We make commercials and music videos for some of the biggest brands and bands in the world. And then somewhere in my early 40s, I decided, you know what I want to teach, and I want to see if I can do something else besides doing this service for hire work.

Jasmine Star (00:10:28) - Okay, pause. Chris says, I want to do something different. And he is in his 40s at this point in time. So there's a lot of people watching, listening, and they hear all 40s. Some people say, that's so young and some people say, that's so old. And Chris is saying, I'm going to start something new at this age. Risk willing to take the risk. Okay.

Chris Do (00:10:49) - I love risk, by the way. And as you know, all profit comes from risk.

Jasmine Star (00:10:53) - Hey, if that's not a quotable like, let's just bring that up on the screen.

Jasmine Star (00:10:55) - All profit comes from risk. Okay.

Chris Do (00:10:57) - Yeah.

Chris Do (00:10:58) - So in creating commercial work, the biggest breakthrough was to have a sales process, to have reps or agents that work for you to understand how the game is played. And when you get to a certain level, the game is very different than what you might have thought in school. And so one of the biggest key decisions that I made was to hire a business coach who helped me to go from $200,000 per job to unlimited amount of money. And I didn't realize something, and it was the lesson he taught me. He said, I think you think you're a major league player. But you're a minor league player, and when the budgets open up, they can literally hire anybody in the world. So now you're not just competing with people in the United States, you're competing with the world. So what we have to do is to level up your game so that you can be a major in the majors. And that was like a shock to me because I didn't understand that, because before what was happening was we would win jobs up to about $200,000.

Chris Do (00:11:54) - That was not a problem for us. But when the budgets got to 300, 400, I was like, why are we losing now? We're only winning about 20% of the gigs. And it's really depressing because we're pitching for work. And then you're like, well, we could have done that, but we didn't. Then you look at your bank account, I'm like, well, that reflects there too. So he taught me how to pitch, how to have the sales conversation. It's something that you don't learn in school. You learn in real life. Now, luckily for us, I'm a good student, but we also had a lot of opportunities. He calls them at bats. So in those days we're getting probably new business calls like three times a week. And we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars per call. So you get good or you go broke.

Jasmine Star (00:12:32) - So when you talked about the 300% growth year over year, yes. What were the two things that impacted that? Was it the coach or was it the sales component? What.

Jasmine Star (00:12:43) - Okay.

Chris Do (00:12:43) - Now we're talking about the second business. Yes okay. It's easy relatively. I want to give some context here to grow 300% year over year for a number of years, because at the beginning we're like doing $30,000, right? So if you do $100,000, you're 300%. And our whole thing was, can we continue at this growth? What I learned in the second business, which is unlike the first business, is we're moving away from.

Chris Do (00:13:03) - And the second business.

Jasmine Star (00:13:04) - Is the business. You you described the digital resources up into the coaching education company.

Chris Do (00:13:08) - Yes. And so the second business is really built around working with customers versus clients. And there's a big difference.

Jasmine Star (00:13:15) - I'll explain.

Chris Do (00:13:16) - That okay. So in the first business we're dealing with only a handful of clients. It's high ticket high touch white glove experience. It's very bespoke solutions. And you're selling one off things to people and that's it. And so it has to be very focused on a client per se. The second business is a product based business not a service.

Chris Do (00:13:35) - And so the products we're selling lots of copies of the product to a much broader audience. It's not bespoke because we they could not afford it to be bespoke and we could not produce it in a bespoke way. So now we're building a very different business model. And the key here was learning to create content, to build an audience. That's the game changer. We have this debate, and the thought experiment that I have with people is to to do this, because this literally happened with me. So I had a business partner. His name is Jose. He's the one who actually encouraged me to make content. And at some point we had divergent ideas on what the company should be about. I had my version, he had his version. So what we had to do was we had to go our separate ways, and what we did is we chopped up the company into what I thought were equal parts, so that no one would feel cheated out of the separation. Okay. Something that my dad taught me, it's like if there's a cookie, you and your brother, one person cuts it, the other person gets a pick.

Chris Do (00:14:31) - So I was like.

Chris Do (00:14:32) - Like to the micrometer.

Chris Do (00:14:33) - The cookie is going to be in half because I was the one who's going to cut it. And then my little brother was like, oh, that's a bigger cookie. I'm like.

Chris Do (00:14:38) - Shoot.

Chris Do (00:14:39) - The sandwich, the cookie, the cake. You have to do it like that. So I was the one who decided, okay, I'm going to cut the company in half, you pick. And so I went back and forth like, oh, I don't want to cheat myself. I don't want to. I want to make it super fair. What do you want? So here's the thought experiment, because it actually happened in real life. I said, okay, so we have one product that generates all the revenue for the company 100%. And then there's the audience, which doesn't generate any money for the company but is worth something to. So I said, do you want to keep the product and the revenue, or do you want to keep the community and the channel doing so? This is a tough decision, right? Because all the revenue was coming in from the product.

Chris Do (00:15:19) - And my business partner said, okay, I don't really have capacity to create content, and you're much better at that than I am. So I will take the product and the revenue, and then you take the company and.

Chris Do (00:15:31) - You allow the.

Jasmine Star (00:15:32) - Community and the channels. Yeah, the community channel.

Chris Do (00:15:34) - Sorry. Thanks for clarifying. Okay.

Jasmine Star (00:15:36) - So I'm writing notes. Chris, this is amazing.

Chris Do (00:15:38) - Okay. So let's see.

Chris Do (00:15:39) - What happens here. So the first couple of years in which we separated, I was really worried because they're like what happened to the other guy? And now I'm starting over from zero because I have to create a new brand. I had to build the audience up again. But the channel I get to keep. Okay, so we make the announcement. Jose is no longer with the company. We're going to go do this thing on our own. And what I found was we were able to grow the audience right back really quickly. And now we needed a product. Because we're making no money.

Chris Do (00:16:08) - We're selling the product for Jose. He takes all the revenue. Okay. So once we created a product, something miraculous happened. The stickiness isn't in the product. It's the connection that someone has the the customer has with you. So now I can theoretically create an unlimited number of products. And if my relationship with them is good, they will buy the product because of me, not because of the product. And this is a really interesting thing because a lot of people think, well, what you're doing isn't really valuable. This content, this free content that you keep putting out, I said, well, good luck trying to launch a product without this community. So then the debate comes in like, what is more valuable, the product and the revenue or the brand and the community? And I bet 100% every single time, ten out of ten. It's always the brand in the community.

Jasmine Star (00:16:56) - So somebody is listening and they've bought in like they know it and they see it. And then the story they tell themselves is, but that's not me.

Jasmine Star (00:17:06) - Like, so you're saying that as a director of it, you can create a product because of you. And then people hear, but I'm not whatever X right. So I'm not captivating, I'm not articulate, I'm not creative, I'm not pizazz. And so Chris can do this because it's Chris. And so how do you respond to the person who believes that content can be the key. But they don't believe that they can create that content?

Chris Do (00:17:29) - Well, I will tell them I believe what you believed. I believe I really that's where I was. So I'm 42 years old, my friend and then my partner said, let's go make content on YouTube. I'm like, I don't do that. I'm behind the camera talent. I'm not in front of camera. And he he kind of made an ultimatum. He's like, we don't do this unless you're willing to step in front of the camera. And he was very generous in his offer. He says, look, I'll do most of the talking. You just sit there when you're ready to speak, you speak.

Chris Do (00:17:56) - And what happens is you have all these ideas, these limiting beliefs about what you can and can't do. And so the first, I think 3 to 5 episodes, I barely spoke. My jaw was really tight. I was super self-conscious. And I literally told the team, when you're editing the videos, if you see me walk by the studio, turn it off. I can't hear it. I can't see it because I just don't like my face. I don't like my voice. And literally I will fire you if you don't do that, because I just it kind of it was so gross for me. It was so cringe for me to see myself. And so I'm saying this to you because a lot of people do feel this way, but you you expose yourself to the things that you don't like, and you build up a tolerance for those things, and eventually you learn to be okay with it. And at some point you actually like it.

Jasmine Star (00:18:40) - I once heard it described as the mountain of cringe, and we climb the mountain of cringe, and it's a slog and we hate it.

Jasmine Star (00:18:47) - And then somewhere along the ascent, you will get to a plateau where that's where the haters dwell. And so I wonder, before you reach the pinnacle of whatever the pinnacle is. And like I probably it's debatable whether you would agree that you're the pinnacle. But some people can look at 2 million subscribers on YouTube and a million on Instagram and all of those other vanity metrics, and they say, oh, he must be at the pinnacle. And whether or not you feel you're there or not is not debatable. There was a point along the climb of, like the Mountain of Cringe, where you're asking your team, turn off the computer. I can't see myself. And then you have to say, what I'm going to repeat back. What I heard is you have to be comfortable in the uncomfortable, and until you find a way to enjoy tiny bits of it along the way. And then I wonder, did you ever get along that place where your greatest fears became manifested in what people were saying about the work that you were putting out?

Chris Do (00:19:36) - That's a.

Chris Do (00:19:36) - Great question. I don't think I had so much fear about the things I was putting out. I just had my own high standards of myself. I don't really put too much stock in the opinions of other people, and that comes from the confidence I got from doing design work for two decades and for teaching that. But the moment there was a breakthrough moment for me, which was I had a video and I couldn't watch it, and it was pretty early on in my YouTube days and I asked my wife, honey, can you just look at this? And she goes, why? Just look at it for a second and she goes, okay. And I'm like, do you see anything weird? She goes, no, I don't get where this is going. Is it? Does that look like me? Because of course it looks like you. Does that sound like me? She goes, yeah. And I was like, I can't trust my wife. Boys come over and my boys are like, small at this point, you know, they're very young.

Chris Do (00:20:21) - I said, boys, I need you to do something for dad. Come on. Okay. Yeah, dad, I said, I want you to watch this, and I'm going to come back in a minute because I couldn't even watch it. And then they're like, okay. And I come back and said, does that sound look like dad? And they're like, yeah, dad. What? And they just ran away and like, went to play video games or something. I'm like, okay, so here's the thing in my head, I sound different in your head. Voice sounds different than what you hear when it's played back. Yeah, in my mind I look different because when we look in the mirror, we only see certain parts. We don't see it like frozen in time, like the whole face. But I was thinking, wait a minute. My wife and my children theoretically love me and accept me for exactly who I am, how I look and how I sound. Maybe I just got to get over myself.

Chris Do (00:21:03) - And I think the world already sees you. For who? You. Are an accepts your voice or they don't and you can't really change that. So now it's the journey of self-acceptance. So my wife and my children see me exactly like this person who I thought, this cannot be me. I'm just going to have to be okay with that. And that was the big unlock for me.

Chris Do (00:21:22) - I love that.

Jasmine Star (00:21:23) - Whole thing right there. Just radical self-acceptance. And, you know, depending on the spectrum where you say, I don't give too much credibility or space to what people think because I have higher standards than what most people would have an opinion about. And then it was you. You became your greatest opposition on the mountain of cringe crazy. And you overcame that through radical self-acceptance. Yeah. Oh, I love that. Okay, so how do other businesses take this approach? Right. So you had one business that was client driven. Yes, hundreds of thousands of dollars per phone call. And then that business you decide to divide with Jose and he takes that business, the client facing business.

Chris Do (00:22:06) - No, no I'm sorry. There's two different companies. That company, he has nothing to do with that company. I ran for almost 20 years. Got it at that point. And then this new business that we're embarking on together, this is the future. The other ones, the different company.

Jasmine Star (00:22:19) - Got it. So the future started. You and Jose? Yes. And then you guys divided. Yes. And you kept the future community and content. Yes. And your big belief as you begin to market that is content. Yes. So as you're looking at the marketing structure for the future then versus today, are they same or are they different? How is marketing changed in the time that you have been leading the future?

Chris Do (00:22:45) - Okay, that's a very good question. The marketing has gotten more sophisticated, although we're not pros at marketing. I always tell people I'm the worst marketer in the world, I really am. Well, I'm.

Chris Do (00:22:55) - A really good no, no, I'm I'm just putting it out there.

Chris Do (00:22:58) - I think I'm a great content creator, and I want somebody to come in like my fairy godmother and just handle all the marketing so I could just teach. I do love to teach. And I wanted to clarify one thing. When we create content, it's not a taste, it's the full thing. I don't believe in gatekeeping. I think that's a term that people use. So when we do a whiteboard workshop, I think you should be paying me hundreds of dollars, if not thousands of dollars to watch this, but I just release it for free, which creates concern for my team because they say, Chris, if you release this, what will they buy? This should be a course that we produce is I don't care. And so I'm trying to like figure this thing out myself. And I'm still working through Jasmine, which is how much free content do we create. Because I do believe this. It does hurt the sales of our products. And the reason is, if you can't keep up with the free content that we create, why would you then spend money to buy another educational product that you're not going to be able to watch or implement? This is a problem for us.

Chris Do (00:23:56) - So when you see most content creators and I don't I don't know who fits in what category, but I think what they do is they give you a taste and they say, then there's a prompt and said, if you want the rest, come join this and enroll in this program. I believe in this this idea of like just giving in a generous spirit and people find a way to give you back somehow. It's not immediate and it's not 1 to 1, but some things will happen. And I think being able to do the mentoring with you, with the UPS store and Ink magazine, is the manifestation of that, because I don't think anybody calls me up and says, hey, would you like to mentor these three entrepreneurs if they don't watch the content? I'm almost certain that no one from the UPS team took a course for me, right? They just saw the content. Maybe they looked at the social following and said, this person seems to know what they're talking about. Maybe we should invite them.

Jasmine Star (00:24:49) - Okay, so. I'm going to repeat back what I think I heard your team says if you show it all, what do they buy? Yes. And your response is, I will show it all and people will figure out what to buy, how to buy.

Chris Do (00:25:05) - Or they buy.

Chris Do (00:25:05) - Or they will buy less. But I'm okay with that. So there's always this friction that exists, right? And I won't say my team is they're not bad people. No, of course not.

Chris Do (00:25:14) - They're in.

Chris Do (00:25:14) - Charge to make sure we make.

Chris Do (00:25:16) - Money. Yes, that.

Chris Do (00:25:17) - There's still a way for us to move forward as a team. And it's a difficult thing and it's something they speak the truth. I know that, right. But I'm just like, I'm trying to live on this reciprocity principle in, in and try to acquire or build up as much karmic equity as I can so that when I need to ask them for something, my community that they will give.

Jasmine Star (00:25:36) - And they I mean, they do you have a wildly successful business.

Jasmine Star (00:25:40) - And then there's also another element there that I want to speak to the person who says, well, Chris can do that because Chris is making multiple seven figures, eight figures, whatever. But there is a level that somebody consumes the free content, and then they know that it's always there versus the person who buys or invest, you know, 100, 500, $5,000. They show up differently. So it's almost like they're putting it on themselves that there is a lot of free content. But I want highly specified what I believe that what you and I can do is we sell time, we give education, but what we sell is time, because the amount of education that you are creating is so voluminous that someone's like, I could figure it out. If I only focused on his content, I could go back and pick out the pieces that I need for my business. But what you offer is a paid solution to say what is the specific question you have? This is the specific answer. So I'm going to give you the content that you could probably sift and find by myself and tens of thousands of others.

Jasmine Star (00:26:34) - But right here, this is the path of least resistance and gets you to the end result. Someone's like, okay, I trust that I'm going to get the end result from you because of your free content. Now I want to go from like point A to Z in the quickest amount of time. You sell time. Yeah. Cool. Okay, so I want to go. You talk a lot about the sales and negotiations of value based pricing.

Chris Do (00:26:52) - Yeah.

Jasmine Star (00:26:52) - A big topic on the podcast is pricing. People love pricing. Okay. So when somebody comes to you and says very broad question, how do I price, what do you immediately say? What is your distillation? What's like a framework that somebody can listen to the podcast and say, okay, I understand his pathology and pricing. What what is that?

Chris Do (00:27:10) - Okay. My answer is it depends, I love it. What are you doing right now? So can you channel this person and we can have a conversation about it.

Chris Do (00:27:19) - Oh yeah. Because there's not not like.

Chris Do (00:27:20) - A template answer for this question. Yeah. It depends on where you're at in your journey, what your confidence level is, your level of expertise and how driven ambitious you are. And and I think and people often mistake me for this. They think all I care about is value based pricing.

Chris Do (00:27:37) - I don't well.

Jasmine Star (00:27:38) - Define value based pricing. Right. Okay. Let's let's start there.

Chris Do (00:27:40) - Okay. There are essentially four pricing models. So I'm sorry. We're going to get super nerdy everybody.

Chris Do (00:27:45) - This is this is a show for nerds dude.

Jasmine Star (00:27:46) - We're business nerds.

Chris Do (00:27:47) - We're self-proclaimed. We love it okay okay.

Chris Do (00:27:49) - Number one is typically called pricing for inputs, which is selling time and materials. This is generally what contractors do. Like if you have a contractor working in your house, they come up and they work on something for six seven hours. There's a rate and then materials plus markup, time and materials. This is how most creative people price. And the reason why it's it's very easy. It doesn't take any kind of degree because you just measure your time and you set a rate and then you charge the client.

Chris Do (00:28:16) - There are some challenges with this in that the client assumes all the risk. And what I mean by that, because they're like, well, why would they assume the risk? Because there is no limit as to how long or quickly you can get the job done. So when you price based on time and materials, what does the client focus on? Well, they're focused on how long you're working on something and they're thinking it shouldn't take this long, even though you might have a legitimate claim that it kind of takes that long, and I'm doing it as fast as a person can do it, because you're selling them units of time. Yes. So that's what they want to manage. And so at some point they become really uneasy with this and they enter into a different dialogue with you. They say, look, can you flat bid this? Yeah. Which will take us to pricing model number two, pricing for outputs. So now they say, you know what? I don't want to assume the risk anymore.

Chris Do (00:29:06) - You assume the risk. You're the professional. How long should this take. You just charge me a flat fee. I don't really care if you do it in one hour or you're doing 100 hours. As long as the job is done and done is to my satisfaction, right? There's a certain metric of quality and completion that you have to hit. So now we're called pricing for outputs. So now you have to, with your experience, figure out what it's really going to take to do this job. And then if you guess wrong you're going to eat it. Yep. So built into this. Now that you assume risk is you have to pad the estimate okay. So now the estimate is like well I think it's going to take 20 hours, but there are unforeseeable circumstances and I need to put in an extra 25%. And the the buyer assumes that you're going to add the markup because now you're assuming the risk. All they care about now is a. Flat fee. And this is generally what happens when you get a little bit more mature in your business, because you've done it enough times.

Chris Do (00:29:58) - You know what it should cost. This is really cool now because you're incentivized to complete the job to a certain quality, but to do it as fast as possible not in terms of cutting corners, but investing in higher quality team systems and processes tools. You're going to innovate. You're going to do everything. You're going to automate many different things because now you're incentivized to spend less time. So you're pricing for outputs. Number three is pricing based on value. So what we realize is if you want to make money, you don't price for the job, you price for the client. And what I mean, people have different tolerance for risk. Some people will have more riding on the outcome of what you do. So if you build a website, let's say that if it's possible and it's not 100% possible, that every site that you build is pretty much the same, there's a very strict process that you go through and you're going to make something. There's only so many human hours that go into it. You know what the expenses are.

Chris Do (00:30:55) - But what happens is you're not accounting for the factor that some companies, they live or die based on their website. In some companies, the website doesn't even matter to the business at all. So what you're saying is, I don't really care about your business. I care about what I make and my profit when you do a flat fee based on these people. So if a person has an e-commerce store, like, say, they're starting up a fashion brand, or maybe they're a realtor and how they get new referrals and clients is based on their website and how it performs. There's SEO, there's conversions, there's dwell time, there's all those things that matter to them. Well, they have a lot more riding on the success of the website than the person where it doesn't matter at all. So they're willing to pay more because they have a direct return on investment on this. So this is where you get to value based pricing, where we look at the business. The stakes, what they have to gain, what they have to lose, their pain points and their dream outcome.

Chris Do (00:31:52) - And we start to understand that. And we put a value against that and we charge some percentage of value created. This is sophisticated. It's difficult to do, but it is for many people, the Holy Grail. We think we're done here, but we're not done here. There's a fourth model, which is a version of value based pricing that is based on how you might describe as royalty based.

Chris Do (00:32:18) - Oh, okay. So now I love language.

Jasmine Star (00:32:20) - Mr..

Chris Do (00:32:21) - Wonderful okay.

Chris Do (00:32:21) - So now what we're saying is we're not going to charge you any money upfront. We're going to just charge you at cost. And we want to be tied to the performance of this. And they're like, okay, great. So we share risk. This is the first time we're entering into something that could be truly referred to as a partnership. We have skin in the game. If it doesn't work. You spent the least amount of money and we make no real money. We've just broke even. And so now I'm really incentivized to make sure this works.

Chris Do (00:32:52) - And now the relationship continues because now I want to optimize the site. I want to make sure that the image is right. I'm looking at SEO and we're not performing well. So now I'm invested in the success of your business so you can consider a joint venture, but it's like a royalty based thing which most people understand. The more units you sell, the more conversions you have. We profit from the difference between before you hired us and the and the gains appreciated. So I have a friend who runs a company and they're purely performance based. They say you spend no money up front. We only take a percentage of the delta difference between where you're at and where we take you, and we work for free until we get to that point. And they have, I don't know, almost a thousand employees. So clearly that model works too. And then there's there's one more version of this, which is a subscription based model. So the subscription based model is, you know what, we're going to take all the conversations about money off the table.

Chris Do (00:33:48) - We're going to say that the success of our clients comes from a regular working relationship with us. So now I'm not selling time. All I'm doing is I'm focusing on every single month what I can do to continue to deliver increased value to you. Then what this does is it alleviates me from constantly looking for new business. And this can work on small levels and can work in really big levels. What do I mean by this? Let's take Netflix for example. Netflix I think is like under 20 bucks a month. The amount of money that we pay is so small compared to the value of entertainment that we get.

Chris Do (00:34:22) - Correct, that.

Chris Do (00:34:23) - We no longer think about, that we don't own anything. There's no tangible parts. But what Netflix has to do is continue to think, well, we need to have hit shows. We have to create series that people want. If we don't do that, then the customer is going to leave. And so they're just trying to constantly improve their catalog so that you'll continue to pay.

Chris Do (00:34:43) - And that's how they grow their business. So this can work. Also say if you're a web designer, instead of charging $80,000 a front to build a website, which means the client takes more risk. We can say, you know what? We're going to do a program. It's going to be, say, $6,000 a month. So the clients, okay, I can afford that. We can build the site in a month, but we're going to build it. And you're on a contract for a year, after which you can cancel. So the first year they're like 72 grand, right? So they're making eight grand less than they would if they charge upfront. But what happens is the clients become accustomed to working with you. So they continue to pay that $6,000 every single month. And then you continue to tweak things for them, give them reports, analytics, and try to innovate things. You're obsessed about your client's business and how they're doing. And so in this way they're like, that's the easiest amount of money ever spent.

Chris Do (00:35:37) - Yeah.

Chris Do (00:35:37) - And then over multiple years now you're way on the up side of the revenue and profit.

Jasmine Star (00:35:44) - can I ask a clarifying question between pricing models three and four. So I'm going to repeat them right now for the audience, because as president of the Nerd Club, I write notes. Number one was pricing for endpoint time and materials. An example was a contractor, two was pricing for output. This is done of the satisfaction of the client. But then the creative assumes the risk. And so you're essentially padding your pricing. Chris had, you know, uses a benchmark. You're probably patting at 25%. But then you or more or more, depending on client needs or risks associated. Three was pricing for value. You're not pricing for the job, but you're pricing for what the client values the most. And then you want to look at what the like, what the client stakes are. You want to look at what is the value that's being created. The more value, the higher that you would be able to price.

Jasmine Star (00:36:28) - And number four is pricing for value but a performance percentage thereafter. and then the fifth was subscription. Now I want to focus on pricing value okay. Now is there a point at which a business person is pricing for value. And then at what point do they become so good and confident that pricing for percentage of performance comes into consideration? Like you have to prove that what you can do works to that way so that you can say, I'm not going to charge you anything upfront. This is how I know I'm so good. You're going to get a deliverable. Have you seen a pattern with businesses or creatives that do this? Like is it after a certain amount of years? No, I get it. You're like, it's so much depends. It's like on the talent, on experience. But like, is there some sort of benchmark that somebody can say like, oh, I'm ready to do no risk to you value percentage exchange.

Chris Do (00:37:21) - Yeah.

Chris Do (00:37:22) - There's a there's not a hard formula. And I would encourage people to have a diverse.

Chris Do (00:37:27) - Pricing models that you're not all taking every risk on on every, every single client.

Jasmine Star (00:37:33) - It's interesting.

Chris Do (00:37:34) - It's important. Like in the financial market, you don't want to put all your money in tech stocks, because if techs go upside down, you're kind of screwed. So you you diversify your portfolio so that it insulates you against from wild swings in the market. So when you're pricing, you don't want to take on only value based price or subscription or whatever because it can go upside down. Yes, you can have a variety of different models that work for you so that there's a level of risk tolerance that you can take. So that's.

Chris Do (00:38:00) - Gangster.

Chris Do (00:38:00) - There's a couple of companies I have equity stake in. They've not done well. But I don't need them to do well to stay in business, because I only have a handful of those things and it's okay for me to take that risk. But if they do well, instead of getting paid 20 grand, I'm going to make $1 million. That's worth the risk.

Chris Do (00:38:15) - To me, that's a pretty good ROI, and every person needs to determine what is the amount of risk that you can take. And that depends on the season of life that you're in, if you're single, if you're married, if you have kids, you have to support your parents. That's right. Then you probably would probably do something between pricing outputs and value based pricing. And you probably don't want to do royalty only because that's kind of risky because you have a partner in this. Yep. If they're not good operators, if they have supply problems, if they have quality control problems, that's going to come back to reflect on you.

Chris Do (00:38:43) - Yes it is.

Chris Do (00:38:44) - So this is kind of an important thing to kind of understand.

Jasmine Star (00:38:46) - That was good. No thank you for that clarity. And it makes it so much more incentivizing. Like you don't have to feel stuck in a certain way of doing things. You can diversify your own business client portfolio. Yes, I love that. I want to go back as we kind of like kind of start closing the conversation as you went through and you describe the types of businesses you run and diversifying the pricing of how you, you know, you said you had equity and they're not doing well.

Jasmine Star (00:39:09) - But that's okay because you have other forms of revenue in your diversified portfolio. You had made a mention that the marketing of your business has gotten a lot more sophisticated. Yes. So can you talk about that sophistication?

Chris Do (00:39:22) - Yeah.

Chris Do (00:39:22) - So initially the way that we launched a company was we made content, which I'm comfortable doing, and we had one product, so it was very easy. It's like one channel, one product, one offer. So that was pretty easy. I would get on YouTube and I would say something like, hey, we're working on a new course. The first course I ever authored is called like topography. It's what people are like, great, teach us about design. And that was pretty easy. We had the classic six figure launch, and now that product that sold originally for $79, it's now made over $1 million and it can happen. So that's a lot of transactions and gets $1 million. Now we had more products and we had more products. So now it's getting a little bit more complicated.

Chris Do (00:40:00) - The product mix. And then now we have to figure out what how do we educate the customer as to what the right product is for them. God. And so it starts to grow and it starts to evolve. And can other people offer products besides myself? So when we bring in a teacher that they don't know, this is where I think the brand and the community is very important because by extension, you say this product is good, I like you, I trust you, it's all by this other product. And if the experience is good, then that trust continues to move forward and then you have the power to say, oh, there's other thing that's good. And this other thing or this tool that I use is good. That's why I think the brand, the community is so valuable, it's way more valuable than the transactional product that you create. And I always tell people like, well, when we get into the debate, I was like, is brand worth anything? Because everybody's so focused on performance marketing, right, right.

Chris Do (00:40:51) - So we'll I'll tell you how it's valuable. Your brand is only valuable if you can command a premium over an alternative. Let me explain. So there's bottles of water. And they're all coming at different price points. So when you can buy Crystal geyser for like $0.39 a bottle making up that number and you can buy, oh, I don't know, Fiji water, which is like 250 a bottle. That's the value of their brand. That's right. It's water friends and vast similar. Right. That's the thing. So if you make a notebook, if you make a handbag, if you make a cap, if whatever the difference is between what a commodity price point is and what you're able to charge, that's about your brand. And the brand is valuable if you extend it to something else.

Chris Do (00:41:33) - Amen.

Chris Do (00:41:33) - So if I make another product that they don't know me for, and people are willing to buy that other thing, then I know that the brand has value. So where we're getting into with marketing is now we have a team and we run different marketing funnels or customer journeys that are very sophisticated with follow up emails, abandoned cart things and some targeting.

Chris Do (00:41:55) - Although we're not very sophisticated at it, we try our best.

Jasmine Star (00:41:59) - Interesting when you had said, oh, I wish I can have like a fairy godmother or, you know, someone. Okay, so pretend I'm your fairy. You're Latina fairy godmother. What is the godmother do like I wave a magic wand. And what happens in your business? And I'm asking this question because I think the future, no pun intended, is we know what we need. And it's like the gap between knowing what we need and where we are is just a bunch of series of tests. But if the Fairy Godmother were to wave the one, what does it look like?

Chris Do (00:42:26) - It looks something like this, where I get to focus on doing what I think is my zone of genius, which is to teach and to build community. And then they can take care of all the marketing things, like whether it's about here's the call to action, here's the video sales letter, here's the email sequence that we will do for you.

Chris Do (00:42:43) - That then will take all interested parties and bring them gently through this thing. That's a very nurturing path, so that they become customers so that you can continue to do what you do.

Chris Do (00:42:52) - So.

Jasmine Star (00:42:52) - You know what needs to get done, what then becomes the gap finding the fairy godmother. Because what you.

Chris Do (00:42:59) - Just listed, I think so, yeah.

Chris Do (00:43:01) - We have a problem. Jasmine. What we do is in the past we've hired people to run ad campaigns for us. Yes. And they work at a small scale?

Chris Do (00:43:10) - Yes.

Chris Do (00:43:10) - As soon as we put more money into it, it just goes upside down. So instead of spending a dollar to acquire a customer, and now it's like $12 and it's like at some point it makes no sense whatsoever, right? My argument with the team is if we're going to spend this much money to buy a customer, why don't we just discount the product and just give the savings to the customer versus just spending money? I know that's not the right mindset, but I was like, this is wrong.

Chris Do (00:43:33) - One of the problems that we have, and it's a unique problem, it's a good problem to have is we have a warm audience. There's lots of trust and there's lots of goodwill. But when we bring people in, what they do is they try to treat our company and our marketing as if we have no audience at all, then they create content. Why do we need more content? Oh, we need to generate more emails. And we have 100,000 people on our email list. So they apply a cookie cutter formula that doesn't work for our audience and for what we do.

Jasmine Star (00:44:00) - So are you trying to because this is this is like, what I literally it drives my husband crazy. I will talk to people about marketing all day, every day and twice on Sunday. So. Are you saying that you would like your fairy godmother to cultivate the current warm audience and monetize them in a deeper way, instead of trying to grow new eyeballs? Because that journey is much longer and harder.

Chris Do (00:44:22) - Yeah, because it's also redundant.

Chris Do (00:44:24) - So we've we literally spent a good portion of last year doing this to the detriment of our company. We're down $1 million in revenue last year. And I said, well, we're spending more money. There are more bodies at this. Why is our revenue down? It's the opposite. So what what they were doing and no fault to them. I think it's a pretty traditional safe playbook to play by, which is let's create a webinar, let's generate all these new emails. Yes. And then none of them, I don't want to say none of.

Chris Do (00:44:49) - Them, but a percentage.

Chris Do (00:44:50) - Of them converted. Yes. I said, why are we doing this? I don't understand, because every day I'm posting content. There's people literally commenting and saying and engaging with me. Why don't we just follow up with them? Why don't you jump in their DMs or tell me what the call to action is so that you can identify who's interested and then just nurture them along the path? So we switched it around.

Chris Do (00:45:09) - We let some of the marketing people go. We moved some people around and said, you know what, we need to really focus on warm outreach right now, not cold marketing. That doesn't work right now because we don't need that.

Chris Do (00:45:20) - Oh, I love this.

Jasmine Star (00:45:21) - This is literally old school grassroots. We're going 1 to 1. Yes. Because we have that. And so you and your business are leading the marketing like you're the person who made that call. Yes. Like, got it.

Chris Do (00:45:35) - Well, because.

Chris Do (00:45:36) - The numbers are undeniable and they're like, well, Chris, do you think this will work? Well, I know that doesn't.

Chris Do (00:45:41) - Work, right.

Chris Do (00:45:41) - That's pretty clear, right? Our overhead is like this. Yes, but our revenues like this and our profit is even like this. Yes. So I don't care what we're doing is we're not doing that again. Yes. That would be silly for us to do. Right. And if we zoom out and we say, what are we really doing? Here's my breakdown.

Chris Do (00:45:56) - I'm sorry if I heard any feelings that people who work for me or have worked for me is like, Chris, you're a jerk. I'm like, then send me a DM later. Okay, here's what was happening. There was a team and they were making content and they were teaching the content, and they're running the webinars. And then the idea was then to sell them into my coaching program.

Chris Do (00:46:13) - Okay, okay.

Chris Do (00:46:14) - Okay. So on paper, that doesn't even make sense. If people show up and you're pitching it and then they go to my program like what? This is a bait and switch. Yes. Conversely, if they're here to sign up for my program and they see you like, well, why are you selling? Because that's not a different that's a different teaching style. We don't even follow you. Yes. So on paper like that, it makes zero sense to me.

Chris Do (00:46:35) - Yes.

Jasmine Star (00:46:35) - Okay. What about having that team point them into the digital offerings?

Chris Do (00:46:39) - That would be great. Yeah, yeah, but.

Chris Do (00:46:41) - That's not exactly what we were.

Chris Do (00:46:42) - Doing. Right.

Chris Do (00:46:43) - So it's like strategic, right? Like, did you send ten people to fight 3000? Well, we kind of know that's probably not going to work out well. Right. Those ten people are going to get slaughtered. Right. So it has to be designed. It has to be thought through. And here's my theory. There are a lot of people out there. I'm not talking about my team that I think enrolled in a marketing class where if you are given a very specific problem, you can run it through this template and you'll get good results.

Jasmine Star (00:47:08) - There was a time that I'd existed.

Chris Do (00:47:10) - I think some people are still coming out of these programs.

Chris Do (00:47:12) - 100%, because they're.

Chris Do (00:47:14) - In my DMs all the.

Chris Do (00:47:14) - Time, 100%. Right.

Chris Do (00:47:16) - And then the problem is what happens when the client is two degrees different than than what the template was designed?

Chris Do (00:47:23) - Well, what happens.

Jasmine Star (00:47:23) - When a flight takes off from New York to LA and it's two degrees different.

Jasmine Star (00:47:27) - You end up in Japan, honey. That's what's happening.

Chris Do (00:47:29) - Yeah.

Chris Do (00:47:30) - That's what that's what's happening. And I think what what we are seeing is and this is just purely conjecture based on no evidence. Okay. We have a bunch of really smart people who have degrees that they don't know how to find a job. That's fine. There's a lot of those things. Humanities. Right. Okay. And then there are marketers who was going to market you a template.

Chris Do (00:47:48) - Yes.

Chris Do (00:47:49) - But you're not really understanding.

Chris Do (00:47:51) - The nature of the thinking of it, the creativity that's involved.

Jasmine Star (00:47:54) - Content. Yeah.

Chris Do (00:47:55) - You're not a marketing nerd.

Chris Do (00:47:56) - Yes.

Chris Do (00:47:56) - You're not obviously a follower of this podcast.

Chris Do (00:48:00) - Right? Clearly.

Chris Do (00:48:02) - And they're just trying to push something through an assembly line. It just doesn't work. And that's right. We saw this time and time again. So sadly, like every year I'm like, what kind of thing are we going to try that's going to fail.

Chris Do (00:48:13) - But I'm willing to try.

Jasmine Star (00:48:14) - That's not sad, brother.

Jasmine Star (00:48:15) - That's the game. That's the reason why the future wins is because you continually ask yourself, what are we going to test and what are we going to learn? And those are the innovators. That's how you stick out. And so I love asking about you looking into the future and being like, I see the problem. And then mapping to that because people hear it and then they start thinking, oh, this guy who's at my version of the penultimate success is doing this. I better do the same thing. And then I understand the way that you think about what you need to do next, and then people get to see when they get a DM. After leaving a comment on one of your YouTube videos asking about cultivating that journey, they say, oh, I see his test. I'm a recipient of the test and then I get to watch the results. I want to say thank you for sharing that, because that's giving us a look on the inside of how the sausage is made. So thank you for that.

Jasmine Star (00:49:05) - You are so gifted. You're so brilliant. I look forward to seeing the test and I look forward to. Seeing you become your own Latina version of your fairy godmother, or find the right person for you. How do people go deeper? Where where do you want to send them? Okay.

Chris Do (00:49:20) - If you're interested in some of our offerings, go to the future. Com. The future is spelled with that in E. It's for tours if you want to f, but you are. Or you can find me on social media everywhere, on every channel, I think at the Chris Doe. And that's about Doe.

Jasmine Star (00:49:33) - At the.

Chris Do (00:49:34) - Chris Doe.

Jasmine Star (00:49:36) - Ladies and gentlemen, you just experienced a sliver of what this man does and believe, and he said it from his own mouth. He gives 100% of his best stuff. So why don't you go take a look at it, see what it's like to understand what it is to build a brand, have pricing strategy, pitches the whole nine. The future and at the Crystal.

Jasmine Star (00:50:00) - Thank you for being here. I appreciate your freaking brilliant and what is such an honor. For those of you who are listening, if you have a key takeaway, be sure to capture it on a story tag at the Chris Doe and myself. Jasmine star, we want to see what you're doing and how you're taking this actionable, practical advice to market and grow your business. Like always, it is an honor and a privilege to host The Jasmine Star Show. If you would like to get a sneak peek of a conversation that happened after the cameras were turned off and some of them were actually going, I didn't ask a great follow up question that our videographer had asked. Which was which pricing model did you use when you first started? Because what we hear is pricing models one through five, and then we wonder, where do we fit in the spectrum? If you want to know Chris's answer, if you could leave a review at the Jasmine Star Show, screenshot the review. We're going to send you a sneak peak video to go through.

Jasmine Star (00:50:46) - Chris just spit in hot knowledge coming in hot. Leave a review. They make a big difference. Again, thank you for listening to Jasmine Star show.

Max Tucker (00:50:54) - All other.

Chris Do (00:50:54) - Questions are.

Jasmine Star (00:50:56) - Yes, well.

Max Tucker (00:50:58) - I'm Chris, you don't have to whisper answers. It's behind me I don't.

Chris Do (00:51:02) - Know, there's no such thing.

Max Tucker (00:51:04) - So I'm trying to do the value based pricing for. Yes. but like, how are you recording this?

Jasmine Star (00:51:11) - Yeah, just. Yeah, I want to.

Max Tucker (00:51:12) - Actually, like, calculate and then communicate the metrics to like, show the value to either prospective client or current client.

Chris Do (00:51:21) - It's really easy.

Chris Do (00:51:23) - Yeah. You want to write this down. If I had a paper I would.

Chris Do (00:51:27) - Be recording.

Jasmine Star (00:51:27) - It too.

Chris Do (00:51:28) - So we'll just tell you okay.

Chris Do (00:51:29) - All right. So the way that you do value based pricing is you first need to understand the client's goal. And the goal is not to make a video assuming we're talking about video based business. Right. So the video is just a vehicle.

Chris Do (00:51:43) - So what is the goal that they want to achieve. So when when when they say hey your name is Max, right? Max I need a video. Your first question is I'm curious as to what the reason is that you believe you need a video and they're going to say some things like, well, what are they going to say? What do you think they would say?

Max Tucker (00:52:01) - how much is going to cost.

Chris Do (00:52:02) - No, no, no. Like what is the reason why you think you need a video.

Max Tucker (00:52:05) - Oh what, are they going to sit back.

Chris Do (00:52:06) - Yeah. What are you going to say back to you.

Max Tucker (00:52:08) - Oh, to like grow my social media presence. Okay, so my my gym apparel line.

Chris Do (00:52:14) - Wonderful. So the goal of the video is to sell more clothing. What is. What is your hope? That? How many more units do you think you will sell? This is the. Now we're getting into it. Right? So first you need to understand the goal. Then you have to put a container around it.

Chris Do (00:52:31) - Like how do we measure success for you. So if we.

Chris Do (00:52:33) - Say like okay, so.

Chris Do (00:52:35) - Right now you're selling $100,000 a month, what is it that you hope to do in the future based on all your marketing efforts? And so they're going to say something like, well, it'd be great if we got to 130,000 a month. So, so then you repeat back to them and say, so the net difference is $30,000 a month in new revenue across the year would be about 360 K. Is that a realistic goal for you? Right. Yes. And you believe that videos would do that okay. So now you have them telling you the value to them. And then you then can ask them something like this. Just shooting off the hip here. Just say like what percentage feels fair for you to spend against that $360,000 goal? And then what are they going to say? What do you think I would say what percentage?

Max Tucker (00:53:17) - Oh, about 15, 13%.

Chris Do (00:53:20) - Yeah, something like that.

Chris Do (00:53:21) - So let's just do simple math, say 10%.

Chris Do (00:53:23) - So if you do value based pricing then that would be about 36 grand for the video. And you say like most consultants, marketers would charge you anywhere between 10 to 20%. how does 10% sound to you? And this is a Blair ends term discounted for uncertainty.

Chris Do (00:53:44) - Because there's no.

Chris Do (00:53:45) - Guarantee here, right? Because if you want to guarantee, it's going to be really close to 100%. Yeah. So they start to understand this and you're kind of priming and framing the conversation. The reason why I repeated $360,000 several times. Because that's the number they become obsessed with now.

Chris Do (00:54:01) - Okay.

Chris Do (00:54:02) - Now if you don't have this conversation and you go in there like, hey, I'd like to charge you ten grand to do the video, like, get out of town. That's too much money. Because absent context, we don't understand if a price is good or bad. So it's important for you to help guide them through the thinking process so they can tell you what the video is worth to them. And you have to be prepared.

Chris Do (00:54:22) - Some people the video doesn't matter at all. So they're going to pay very little and it's okay to work with them as well. Like I said, some people the video will mean a lot to them and some of it won't mean anything at all. Oh, because Jenny told me to make videos like okay, so not that important. Like, no not really. Okay, so we want to get in and out. For how much? Three grand. Well, I'll tell you what I can do for three grand. I can shoot you on an iPhone. We can do this. Is that is that worth it to you? Yeah, because it doesn't matter to me. So what people think is, especially in the creative space, I want to give you the Rolls-Royce version of what I do all the time, because that's what makes me feel good. But that's got no connection to their business goals. So that's where people across their wires. And is video production how you make the majority of your money.

Chris Do (00:55:08) - Soldier. You should switch your soul. Jab. Sorry. I hope this is not.

Chris Do (00:55:13) - Impact your relationship. Okay.

Max Tucker (00:55:15) - Zac Brown. You started with. And that was my next question is like when you were in like your company. Yes. Were you, were you implementing, value based pricing or were you doing more of the, like flat rate.

Chris Do (00:55:27) - Mostly flat rate with a hybrid of value based pricing? I'll show you what I mean. I didn't get a chance to say this on the show, but I've charged as little as a few hundred dollars for a logo to over $100,000 for a logo, and it wasn't any more work or less work because I always tried to give them my best work. And so we just need to find the right client to charge $100,000 for it. So when you're working with a telecom company. Well, they're doing $250 million in revenue a year. And so when we started talking to them, we knew we can ask for more than 100 grand, which we did.

Chris Do (00:56:01) - And they said yes. The irony is, the logo is barely different than the current logo that they were using. We did all this exploration and that's what they paid for. What a lot of designers don't understand is when they see the finished product of Pepsi or one of these big companies like that's terrible. Well, they didn't live through this whole process of six months of developing ideas so that they can feel satisfied that you turned over every rock. You look beyond every corner, and they're satisfied with exploration. They're paying you to feel good about the decision they're making. Not for the form that it takes.

Jasmine Star (00:56:33) - So freaking.

Chris Do (00:56:34) - Good. And it's very.

Chris Do (00:56:34) - Different.