Gamifying Business for Success | Paul Pape

Hey creative, are you ready to discuss profits, the money, the ways to make it happen? The Profitable Creative Podcast is for you, the creative, how you define it. Videographers, photographers, entrepreneurs, marketing agencies, you get it. CEO of Core Group and author Christian Brim interviews industry experts, creative entrepreneurs, and professionals alike who strive to be creative and make money at the same time. Sound like you? Tune in now. It's time for profit.

Welcome to another edition of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Waldorf, Maryland. I wonder if that's where they invented the salad. Uh, in any way, in any case, thank you for listening. Joining me today, Paul Pape of Gamify Business. Paul, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me, Christian. The Waldorf salad was actually invented in Omaha, Nebraska.

Well, of course, that makes perfect sense.

And why do you know that? Because I live in Omaha, Nebraska.

Ah, okay. All right. Uh, have you been to Norfolk, Nebraska?

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, I have too, strangely.

Yeah, sorry.

I mean, great.

Yes, like it there?

No. Well, I mean, for small towns, it's wonderful. Uh, I guess its claim to fame was Johnny Carson was born there.

Correct.

But it is in the middle of nowhere for sure.

It really is.

So why were you in Norfolk?

My grandparents lived in Gothenburg, which was an even smaller town in Nebraska. So you had to drive through Norfolk to get to it.

Yes, I love it. I like to mess. We have a vendor there in Norfolk and I constantly abuse Nate with Norfolk. He just, yeah, anyway. Paul, tell us about Gamify Business before I go off the rails completely.

So Gamify Business is a strategy. It's basically a way to learn business that is accessible for people who don't understand standard business terminology. What it is, is I break down the mystique of the linear thinking that is business, and I turn it into something that is accessible for cloud thinkers, which are mostly creatives or entrepreneurs or creative entrepreneurs, into a form that is accessible for them so that they understand that business is an adventure instead of being a slog that they have to get through. And I use a framework of gaming because who doesn't like gaming? And business should be like a game, should be an adventure. And so we structure it in a way that it allows you to Give yourself milestones so you can give yourself rewards, therefore dopamine kicks, so that you actually enjoy doing your job.

I— this is fascinating. So is this a virtual product or is it a physical product or is it both?

It's a book. I start with book. Here's the thing. It's like we could be online doing more online things, but there is studies out there that say that we don't retain information as well virtually as we do if we have a book that has pen and paper. That's true. And so It's, it's, I do it this way because to sit down, to turn off the distraction, to sit down and really deep dive into who you are as a person, as a creative, as an entrepreneur, and have to actually use a pen. I mean, you can type it all out if you want to, but most people find that actually writing it out is, it sticks with you. It really makes you, because that decision to write and not have to erase it really makes you think about what you're going to put down before you put it down. Whereas we can type all day, delete, whatever, but this one really makes you do the introspection.

So, okay, I have so many questions. You said it's a book. It's a standalone one-volume book.

No, there's two.

There's two. Okay. Yes. And is that the extent of the product or is the product intended to elicit something else, some other purchase?

The— well, yes, they can be standalones because they are self-driven products. But the reality is, is I started this out as a coach and a consultant, and I was helping creative entrepreneurs to answer all the questions that they didn't get. Because for 20 years, I was a very successful— and I still am— a very successful artist. And I was on a platform called Twitch, which has a lot of gamers on it, but there are artists on there as well. And for 5 days a week, 4 to 6 hours a day, For 6 years I was on Twitch answering questions from creatives while I was doing my job, and I kept getting asked the same questions over and over again. And so eventually I decided, well, I'm just going to coach and consult on this. But, you know, everybody's like, well, you need a hook. I'm like, well, the hook is that I help creatives. That's my hook. But I was working with a client once and they were gamer nerds, but they were— they had a business that was fairly profitable. They were making about $1.3 million, which is pretty good, but they were only netting about $50,000. That's not good. That's not good. And so they hired me to come in and kind of help. And I'm like, sure, let's do this. And so I went out there and like I said, they were kind of gaming people. And I had asked them, I said, well, what is everybody's role in the business? And there were 3 of them. And they said, well, we do everything. I said, well, that's the best way to ruin a business because everybody has to have a lane. And I said, so how about tomorrow? Since I knew they were gamers, I'm like, tomorrow I'm going to come back and we're going to play Dungeons Dragons Business Edition. But instead of being a wizard and a warrior, you're going to be your role in the company. And the challenges, the monsters that we encounter, only the person who has the skill set in their job is going to be able to lead the campaign to be able to defeat the creature or to move to the next level. And so, we went and played that for about 4 hours. And as I'm talking to them, I could see 12, 13 years of business confusion vanish because they were— I was speaking a language that they understood because they've been gaming for years. And they're like, This is what business is like. Yeah, that's all it is. And we were having fun. We were laughing. I was giving out stickers and coins and all this stuff, and they were really, truly enjoying it. And it occurred to me, I'm like, this is a— this is the bridge. This is the way— the Rosetta Stone to talk to creative people about business. And not just— and what I found is it's not just creative people, it's anybody, because business acumen is not an Everest to be climbed. I mean, if you can run a lemonade stand as a child, you're an entrepreneur. That's what it is. It's just you don't understand scaling. But we, we throw out a lot of this mystique around it because I guess we don't want a lot of people playing in the same sandbox. But what I found is that I truly enjoy doing what I do and it's, it's fun. I have fun with my job. I literally enjoy doing this. And I found that a lot of creatives do as well, but they struggle with the success aspect of it. They like what they create, but they're having a hard time being profitable at it. And so they abandon it to go get a real job. And so if I could help to bridge that gap, to let them understand what it is in a format that they'll, they relate to and create an adventure for them in their own life, then they can be successful. And that's really what the impetus was on this.

Yeah, there's so much to unpack there. I mean, you are, you are exactly right in calling it an adventure and, and that there is no mountaintop like it is, it is the never-ending choose-your-own-adventure, right? I mean, it absolutely, it doesn't stop, uh, which is, is brilliant but can also be kind of intimidating, right? Um, I think also this idea that you talked about that, um, it, it's— I, I think, I, I don't think it's people don't want other people in business I think it comes from, uh, well, language. So, so, so taking accounting and finance as, as an example, right, uh, accountants use a lot of words that have no meaning outside of the profession, um, things like depreciation and amortization and accruals and, you know, those things. But it's no different than, you know, a doctor. They, they just have terms that they use, right? Um, but the— and so people get intimidated by the language, right? Um, and I, I don't think that a business owner needs to be, um, a, a professional accountant or professional marketer or professional attorney or HR. Like, you don't have to have the knowledge or experience that a expert does, but you do have to know enough. Like, you— there's, there's a certain level of competency that you have to have. I mean, and if you don't, you're going to get your head knocked off.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's what happens to a lot of them is that they— or they, they turn blind to it. They're like, well, I'll just ignore it and it'll go away. And in business, it doesn't. The only thing goes away is your business.

Yes.

It's— yeah.

Yes. So do you tackle finances in your book?

Absolutely.

Okay.

I talk about finances and we talk about taxes as well, which is— I love taxes. I love talking about— I talk about like not gamified tax. I just love— well, it's actually a game.

Yeah, I know. Well, it is, it is, it is a game. Um, whack-a-mole or hide-and-seek. I mean, it could be different, all kinds of different games. Um, so, so you, you talked about this, the— as an example, the company that was doing over a million dollars, but, you know, they had not very much to show for it. Um, what, what was the underlying problem in that business?

Like, the, the biggest underlying— it was a mismanagement of funds is what it was. They had, uh, they were doing the— they did the traditional route. They were hand sculpting for a long time, and then they were doing trade shows, and a, a businessman came up to them and said, hey, how would you like to scale up this business and we can get you into mass production and find you better elements? And they're like, well, we don't understand all the aspects of business. He's like, don't worry, I got you. And by I got you, it's he got him.

He got him.

And that, and that was really what the problem was. There was a lot of missing structure, and whenever they try to involve themselves more in the decision-making progress or process, they— he would basically tell them, don't worry about it, I've got this. And what happened is he ended up taking them, and it almost ruined the business. So we had to do a valuation on the business. That was the very first thing that they hired me to do is value out the business so that they could buy him out. And what we found out is the buyout was $0.

Like, yeah, it sounded like it. Not, not worth much.

No.

So he came in as a partner, like an equity partner or.

Yeah, he, he was, he owned a third of the business. He had signed. And that's the thing. They didn't know what they were signing away. They just thought, this guy's going to help us out. So here, we'll sign this contract. And he's like, yeah, I'll take 35% of the business.

Was he getting paid? Some income on the way because obviously the profits weren't much to split.

Yeah, that was the, that was the part that he tricked them into is every month reset their finances. So there was no carryover of debt. And so every month they're like, oh, look, we had $50,000 come in. Well, I'm going to take a third of that. Well, that's not how business works, right?

Yeah. You don't get a third off the top.

No, you get— see, at least you know this. But the thing is, is people who don't understand, you know, this is a person who is a husband and wife team and then her sister and then and they just basically, you know, they were just making things and then they happened to be selling them. They were doing really well on the Etsy scene and then they made a website and then they started doing this scale up and it became terminology they didn't understand. There became extra steps, extra people, extra cogs in this machine. And instead of being diligent and like doubling down on it, they're like, this person's going to take care of us. And we all know from business, the only person who's going to take care of you is you. Everybody else is in it for themselves. And so it was a lot, it was a hard lesson for them to learn. But what's interesting is working with them for 6 months, and it's been almost a year now since I worked with them, they're back up to earning, now they're profiting about $800,000. Yeah.

So it had a good ending.

Absolutely, absolutely. It was, it was well worth it. And they still come back, you know, to ask questions. I mean, it's like, because as a consultant or as a coach, I don't, I don't ever shut the door. I want to be able to help them out and You know, typically, it's just a question here or this, but I like to check in with them, even though they're not a paid client. Consistently, I do check in with them to see how they're doing, because I want to make sure that, you know, they don't fall down the same trap again. And then, and I don't know, some people say that's a bad, bad thing to do as a coach or as a consultant. But for me, I think it shows integrity. And, you know, I actually care about my customers.

Hey listeners, are you ready to turn your passion into profit? Then grab a copy of Profit First for Creatives. Click the link in the show notes to purchase a copy. And if you're not ready to make that full commitment, you can download a free copy of the first chapter. Check it out right now. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, I'm not going to go down that path. Like the, the, the, I, I don't think you're that, I don't think that's a bad business model, and I don't think you're doing the wrong thing in doing that. I, I, I, I think what you described, uh, was interesting on a couple of levels. Uh, you know, we, we've, we've talked about on the show the perils of partnership and, and where most people seek out a partner when they feel like they're lacking something, some, something like some area of expertise or experience, and, and so they, they look for someone to partner with that can fill that gap and Which is fine if there is true synergy, but oftentimes there's not. Like, I think most of the time business owners would be much better off doing what they did with you, which is learning what they needed to learn. Like, you know, it's— if you have to go find somebody else to supplement all of your incompetencies, you're going to be left with nothing. Like, I mean, right? When you're starting out, right? Like, now, I mean, um, because what you start out with, um, in business is, is zero, zero experience points. Like, you, there's not really any life experience that gets you ready for being an entrepreneur. Um, you know, you can have inclinations. You mentioned a lemonade stand. I mean, I know a lot of entrepreneurs when kids, they were really good at selling things or building little micro businesses, but that's in a protected environment. Like when you get out there and everything is you, that is a scary place. As a matter of fact, I was just talking to my business coach this morning, and I have a new person on my leadership team, And she has had to learn through experience the lessons of leadership. And I reiterated that as leaders, I use that term interchangeably with entrepreneur, you're presented with unknowns all the time. Like, if you're looking for consistency, stay in your job. Because if you're an entrepreneur, you're going to be challenged on a regular basis with the unknown. And you have to make a decision anyway. And that's uncomfortable because you don't know the outcome. You will make your best educated guess and you may get the results you want, you may not. But the only way to, to be an entrepreneur is to be comfortable with that, that lack of clarity or that unknown. What say you?

I think you're right. I think a key part of this is where you touched on you're going to make a decision and it's going to fall one way or the other and you're either going to get the outcome that you wanted or you're not. But the key is, is you have to be comfortable with both results. And the failure part of it typically ends up being a hard stop for people. They don't like to fail. What you've got to do is you've got to change that mindset to say either it succeeds or I learn. It's not I succeed and I failed or I failed. It's I succeed or I learn. And there is nothing wrong. And I don't care how big your business is. Failures are always stepping stones to success.. And we can't punish people for taking the risk of, or using an educated guess as best they can. But like your new leader, they're in a new position. They're going to flounder for a bit.

They just are.

You as the person on high who's their boss has to recognize that's going to happen. You can't be upset and fire them immediately. I'm in Nebraska. We have Nebraska football. If we lose one game with a new coach, we want to fire them immediately. I'm like, this is a game somebody's got to lose. We can't have that mindset in business. You've got to accept the fail part so that you can learn and get better at it. And great bosses, great entrepreneurs, great leaders are willing to accept that and run with it and use that opportunity to help the business grow and be stronger.

Yes, it is. It is. I like to— I've heard it described also as— because I agree, it is not failure. Unless you make a decision that destroys the company, which that's possible. But even then it's still data, right? Like that's the beauty of entrepreneurship is like, even if you run the business into the ground, that's not the end of the game. You get to start over, right? And now you have experience, you have data, and you can make a better decision next time. Yeah. So to me, it's only truly a failure if you don't learn from it. And that is the case where I think a couple of other points. One, you don't learn anything from success. Never. I mean, that, you know, I've seen profitable businesses. I've had profitable business where the profit will cover up the problems. Like, well, we're making money, but like, it hides the problems, right? Um, and in addition to that, I would say that, um, the, the— no, I can't remember what my second point was. All right, never mind.

You're, you're 100% right in that that we— that, that failure, the only time that you truly fail in business is when you fail to learn from it. I've seen, like you've said, I've seen companies run themselves into the ground and then start brand new. And the only thing that they change is the name of the business and it fails again. And I'm like, why? You're, you're, you're beating a dead horse here, guys. You keep doing the same thing over and over again. And that is literally the definition of insanity is you're doing the same thing, expecting a different result. Not going to happen. You have to learn and change. That is the hardest thing for any human being to do, is admit that they did something wrong and try and change.

Yes. Yes. Because our brains are hardwired for predictability. Like, if I start to tell you a story and I don't finish it, you flip out. Like subconsciously, like, I need to, I really, I don't care about that story, but I really need to know how it ends, like what happened, right? Right. And that's subconscious hardwiring. We're hardwired for predictability. We like to know when we do X, Y is the result, but that's not the reality of entrepreneurship. And I think a lot of people, I remember what I was going to say now. I think a lot of people get into a situation and they're evaluating their decision and they say, well, this is what happens if I'm right. This is what happens when I'm wrong. And they get terrified and stuck with the wrong. But the way I approach that, and this is the case with 99% of the decisions I am presented with, is What is the worst case? Well, the worst case is most, most of the time people don't define it like that. They'll, they'll just say it's bad in a general sense.

Right.

But like, walk it through like, okay, what if I make this decision and it doesn't work? What happens? What are the results? And like, are you okay with that? Will you survive? Will you live? Yeah. Okay. Then it's okay to take that and make that decision.. But people just get stuck in this, this fear of the unknown. Like, I don't, I don't know what's going to happen.

I love, I love the unknown. I mean, I built an entire career on, as Santa for Nerds, on not knowing what the next product I was going to make was like. And it was, it was, everything was different. I literally had a list I ran across the other day. I'm over 1,100 individually crafted objects that I've made me throughout my 20-year business. 1,100 things that I never knew what I was going to be making.

What is your art— what is your primary art medium?

Uh, that's a hard question to answer because it's everything. Okay. Um, so basically the term Santa for Nerds was given to me by a client because she's like, you're literally Santa for nerdy people. You— people ask you for anything and you just make it happen. Like right now, I'm building 60 miniature vacuum cleaners for a horror movie premiere, and that are fully functional vacuum cleaners. OK, and then I'm also, I just got a call last night from The Tonight Show, and they wanted me to create a trophy for doing the worm, who can do the worm breakdance move the best. And so they're like, we need it, and we need it tomorrow, today. And so that's, that's my business model. My business model is ask for whatever you want, I'll make it happen. But it's a weird business model to have. Do you— that unknown is great.

Do you— so, so you have a consulting business and then you have this Santa for Nerds business? Correct. And it sounds like that's primarily— is it primarily in the film space or no?

No, it's anybody. I worked with people all over the world. I've worked with museums and movie industry people. I've worked with regular people. It doesn't matter. It's just whoever has the need.

And is it generally so? So when I think artist, I think more traditional, like painting, sculpting, music, blah, blah, blah. But that's not what you do.

I mean, I don't— I mean, I paint if somebody wants a painting, like here's something I made. This is like carbonite. This is somebody who wanted to be frozen in carbonite from Star Wars. This is what they look like. And they're like, yeah, sure, I'll make you frozen in carbonite. That's one of the things I'm making. I have my own line of coffee. I mean, I like— I have a nerd wall which sits here, which is about 20, 21 feet long of everything that I've made or been associated with. So I've made— I'm in the Guinness Book of World Records because I helped the author Brad Meltzer create a secret decoder coin for people to decode on the subway. But I've also created action figures for the head of Disney Animation for his retirement. I have worked with television studios and I've worked with people who are financing retirement parties and they want to have a gift for that. I've done engagement ring boxes all the way to wedding cake tops. I mean, pretty much anything anybody asks for. And my mediums are all over the place. It used to start off with, you know, I was doing everything hand sculpted using clay mediums and paint, but now I've got 3D printers and lasers, and I do woodworking, I do metalwork, I do anything that you can imagine. I just, I have a giant bag of skills that I pull from.

A true polymath.

Yeah. Hey creatives, Delaina Ely here. I have a question for you. If you could pay yourself more, why aren't you doing it? For real. S corp is an option for you, the creative entrepreneur, to move your business to the next level, to pay yourself more, and to cut your tax savings down. Yeah, less money to the IRS. We want that, right? So why haven't you done it yet? What's going on? The reality is you probably have 50,000 questions in your brain. You don't know which way is up and down, and you're still too busy to do all those things plus also create, right? Well, the good thing for you is that Core Group is actually the place to be to get that S-corp election rolling. Yeah, we have an assessment. Let's see if you qualify. Come chat with me. Core Group, turning passion Into Profit.

Okay, so how— this is an interesting question. How do you price that?

Like, ah, math. I love this. This is a great question. This is the question that I get asked by every single creative I ever talk to, whether they're a client or not. How do you figure out what to charge? It's always the question, and the answer is math. So it starts off with the things that are immovable, which is material cost, profit. Those are immovable objects. Okay. The movable object is labor. Okay. Now, your pricing on labor, which is also a mathematic equation, is not immovable. That is— that or is immovable. That number that you have, that is what you cost. Okay. Now, your hours, that flexibility in hours, that's, that's the thing that changes on the pricing of of things. So once you have material costs, once you have profit down and you have a rough estimate as to how long it's going to take you at your hourly rate that's set in stone, there's your answer. Now, what's interesting from the art perspective is that artists typically, or creatives, get hagglers. People are like, ah, you want to charge $600 for this? I want to pay you $300 for this. And then how do people deal with that? That's the second question. That's a follow-up I always get because my hourly rate is pretty high. And so they're like, well, what if they don't want to pay that? Well, then I always ask them this question: can I come to your job and tell your boss to pay you half wage for the week for the same amount of work that you're doing just because they feel like it? The answer is no.

Okay, so, so I, I'm gonna ask a question, uh, maybe uncomfortable. Uh, do you feel like by following that methodology that you have left money on the table?

Oh, sometimes. Absolutely. It happens, especially when I'm dealing with television and movies, because budgets vary drastically. Like when I'm working one-on-one with people, it's pretty much what it is and I'm good there. But I have definitely in the past underbid myself in jobs or outpriced, outbid, outpriced myself and lost the job, which I could have done for less. But I thought, well, I know this company and they'll pay me X amount. And they're like, no, we're going with the cheaper option. And so definitely there are times when money is left on the table. And I've actually had companies at the end of the job be like, you way underbid this.

Yeah.

I'm like, well, thanks for letting me know. Great.

Can I send you another invoice?

And I've asked that question before too, because, you know, at this point, what's going to— what's the harm? And the answer is always, haha, next time. And that's the thing is always ask for more. And but be— but put the caveat not in the initial bid. Ask for what you want. But be willing to come down a little bit, a little bit, but still make your profit. It's all about profit. If you're not making profit, you're not a business, you're a hobby.

Yeah, no, 100%. And I love the fact that you build in the profit. You know, in my book, Profit First for Creatives, I talk about, you know, I have a whole chapter on pricing and the intentionality of profit, of course, is throughout the book. I would say your methodology is— and I'm not saying this as a critique, just as an observation— is an awesome way to establish your minimum, right? Like, sure. Yeah. And it also, you know, you have to deal with the marketplace. And just because you have a minimum does not mean that the market is going to accept that. Correct. But in the book, I talk about how, about the concept of value pricing and where ultimately, and this is, this is a true statement. Ultimately, the purchaser decides the value that we, we do not decide the value. They decide, yes, that is worth that much dollars. I, here's my money. And flipping your mindset into understanding the value received, as opposed to doing your pricing based upon your costs, is a way to unlock more profits. Because I think most, I mean, and this is true at virtually every business I know. We leave money on the table because we're afraid of charging too much. Like, there's that built-in fear of like, if I don't sell this, I'm not going to eat. Totally valid, totally understandable. But I think that if, you know, you mentioned like, you know, bump it up 20% and be willing to come down. Like, that's a great strategy because, you know, I think systemically small business owners, especially creatives, don't charge enough.

My father falls into that a lot. He makes handcrafted Frankenstein laboratory props. Okay. Really, really niche business. Love niche businesses. Yeah. And he systematically undercharges for everyone. He'll come in and he'll ask me, what should I charge for that? I said, I charge $6,000 to $8,000. He goes, I charge $1,500 because I was afraid nobody would buy it otherwise, which is that same mindset you're talking about. I'm like, well, yeah, the person, your avatar that you're projecting will not pay more than $1,500. The problem is, is your avatar is flawed because the avatar is typically a reflection of yourself. Absolutely. And so you're looking at yourself, you're like, I wouldn't pay more than $1,500. And working with the clients who had the million-dollar business, they had the exact same thing. I'm like, you guys are underpricing your work. They're like, Well, I wouldn't pay that. I'm like, good for you. You're not your client. Yes. Don't tell you— don't tell yourself what the customers will pay. I have been on both sides of this fence of undercharging and overcharging. And when I first started out, don't get me wrong, I was undercharging for every single thing I did because I had that desperation. The desire to eat— sure— outweighed the pricing. But then what happened is exhaustion kicked in.

Yes.

And I said, there's got to be a way for me to cut this, but I can't cut the income. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to double my price and I'll lose half my customers. That's exactly what happened. Doubled my price, still earned the same amount, but I worked half as hard. Yes. So I'm like, well, I still got the energy to work more, so why don't I start charging more? And then I started making more profit. And then I realized after a while, I'm like, I'm really undercharging. And so then my pricing went up even higher. And what I realized is that the customers didn't go away. The clients got better.

And that, that's really helped. No, 100%. But most people, you know, presented with that option of double your price, they're like, yeah, I can't do that. We had this conversation this year and I charged my head of client service as she was going through the fee review. I said, I told her, now she's a quintessential accountant. She's a high C on the DiSC, like, you know, once every, no, D-I-S. She's high S, so stability is her thing. Doesn't want to make anybody unhappy, like, you know. And I'm like, I want you to raise fees until somebody leaves because of it. And she was like, and so she came up with a number, and I'm like, nah, that's not high enough. And, and, and I said, try this. And she's like, oh God, that's a lot. And I'm like, I, you know, give it a shot. When you lose somebody, you've done it right. And a few months after we did that, there was a client that we send an exit survey, an NPS survey, and they gave us an 8, which for people who aren't familiar with an NPS is middle. They're neither a promoter nor detractor. But it's towards the high end. Only 9s and 10s are promoters. So this person was close to being a promoter, right? But they dropped because of the price, right? And I'm like, congratulations, you did it right. And but that's uncomfortable. Like, that's— I mean, that's— yeah, yeah, yeah. But to your point, it absolutely is true. I mean, I remember the very first EO Entrepreneurs Organization event I went to, the learning event, was Verne Harnish, who is the growth guy. Um, and he asked this group of entrepreneurs, uh, who all had million-dollar-plus businesses, and there were like 40 in the room, he said, how many of you could, uh, fire your team, um, get rid of 90% of your clients and make more money? And like all these hands went up, right? And what that showed me was, is that everybody gets to that point. Like they just grow and they're not sure why and they're working harder and they're making less. And it's like everybody ends up to that, gets to that point. I mean, yeah, like your client.

It's true. Yeah. To build onto that, I think that from a client's pers— if you want a good client, they've got to hurt in the purchase. They got to put some skin in the game. And I have found repeatedly that those who do not hurt are not going to be good clients. They're just not. They're not going to be good customers. They're going to be the ones who give you the reviews that are horrible. They're going to be ones who want something else. They're going to be scope creepers. There can be all of this. You've got to give them just a little bit of pain for them to agree that it is worthwhile. And that pain typically comes in the form of dollars or time. Those are the two other— that's the two things that are the main on that one. But absolutely, if you're not hurting, then there, there, there's no value in it. What you're creating is valueless.

It's a throwaway. Yes. I'll flip it around and say it this way. Perry Marshall, author of 80/20 Marketing Sales, longtime marketing and sales guru, he describes it as the bleeding neck, right? Like you find the thing that they come in and like, I need this fixed now, right? Sure. And that's a whole separate conversation of how do you find the bleeding neck, but like, you know, they have a bleeding neck. You can't do something to fix it that isn't painful, right? Like, you can't just slap a Band-Aid on it. You're going to have to start sewing without anesthesia.

Like, I got it.

I got it, right? And there is this strange human behavior that all of us have that the value that we ascribe to something is very dependent upon how much we pay for it. And that's kind of mirroring what you're saying. Like, if they don't pay much for it, they don't value it as much. That's just human nature. Yeah.

But I've seen people with bleeding necks and you tell them it's going to cost this much to sew them up and they're like, nah, I'll just bleed.

Yeah, you're just going to have to go out there and bleed out, dude. I don't know what to tell you.

And that's the hardest thing for especially creative entrepreneurs to understand is you've got to recognize that some people are not your clients. Even if they walk in the door with all intentions to buy, they're still not your clients until they're willing to put the money there. And that's where that pricing comes in and that uncomfortability. And literally, I have coaches all the time tell me you got to stare in the mirror and say, I'm $20,000, $20,000 until you believe it yourself so that you can say it with a straight face without going, I'm $20,000, you know, like nobody wants to do that. And so that, but that those people are like, we get in a whole argument about AI art and all of this. And it's like all the people who are picking up AI to do their artwork, I'm like, they were never your clients. They would never have been your clients. They are not interested in hiring you because if they're willing to take that shortcut to have a half good product, they were never going to hire you in the first place. So understand, even if they came to you, it's like we feel like it's that, it's that starvation thing again. It's like, well, I got to grab everything that I can, otherwise I'll never work again. And trust me, I had that for years. It's like, if I don't take every job that comes on my plate, I will starve to death tomorrow because tomorrow I'll never work again. And it's like, no, it's a, it's a wiring in our lizard brain that we can't get past. But we just have to, we just have to convince ourselves otherwise.

Yes. And I would say, you know, the best thing that an entrepreneur can do, I'll use my words, is get out of your own head and get in the customer's. I mean, because the better you truly understand their problem,— and the value of your solution, the more money you're going to make. And if you can find one problem that is common to many, now you've got a business. You don't have to— I mean, you can do it custom one-on-one, and that's totally doable. But like, if you can find the common problem that many people have, then you've got a business and it's scalable. But you have to get out of your own way. You've got to stop thinking in terms of what you do, my skills, and listen to what they're saying their problem is. But to your point, you know, it may not be your solution and their perceived value may not be worth your time. Like, it's like, well, Okay, that's not a problem I'm willing to solve. Like, and to your point, not everybody is your customer and it should be that way. Like your service offering, what solution you provide, all of your marketing, all your messaging, all your pricing should repel more people than it attracts.

Absolutely. I talk about in my book, I talk about your, your your 100, your core 100. These are the 100 people that you should be pitching to every single day, not the millions that we're asking to get likes on, on social media. 100 people. And those people will be your superfans. They will be the ones who actually want the product that you're selling at whatever price that you're selling it at. That's those— that's the key market that you should be selling to. Forget everyone else that like 100 out of a planet of 8.3 billion is such a minuscule number Like, why even bother? So we get hung up in this trap of seeing— well, first off, technology has ruined us in the fact that we see successful people or people putting on the airs of success constantly on social media. And so we view ourselves against that metric. And that metric is like trying to say, I want to be an actor, I'm going to be Tom Cruise. It's like, no, that's, that's two different things. You can be an actor. Actor. You can be Tom Cruise, but there's a gap in there of opportunity and luck and everything else that comes with it. Right. But you can still be the actor and be successful. It's just that you don't try and shoot for this unless that is literally— and let me tell you, to be Tom Cruise is a whole different game than just being an actor. You know, there's a lot of other stuff that goes into that.

You have to be certifiable to be Tom Cruise.

So, so you've got to really understand it. Shoot for your 100 people. Like, shoot, that's your client right there. Find those people in this world of billions and you won't worry so much about every post that goes out needing a million likes. Everything goes viral. We don't, nobody had that before social media. We didn't worry about our stuff going viral. It's like if we got viral, it was we need to go to the doctor.

That was it. Yes. Yes. No, you're 100% right. I It kind of speaks to what, what I, I talk about. Like, you, you have to define what success is for you and then build the business around it. You can't let expectations of others, including your peers, like other entrepreneurs, their success— I struggled with that for a long time because when I joined EO, I realized how pathetic in terms of financial success, I was, because I'm sitting around here and looking at these people. I'm like, holy shit, how did they do that? But it actually inspired me. It's like, okay, there's, there's more meat on this bone. There's more to the adventure. Like, you know, it— and, and if you want to choose to go on that path, great. But you don't have to. You, you decide what success— you, you get to determine the story. That's the beauty of it. Okay, I have some final questions. It seems like you based this on Dungeons Dragons.

Little bit.

The book. Okay. Did you play Dungeons Dragons? Absolutely. Was this as a child or as an adult?

Yes.

Okay. Because I played Dungeons Dragons. I was born in 1970. It came into its own in the '70s, right? And so I started playing it maybe 10, 11, 12, somewhere in there. Um, and then I stopped playing it as I became a teenager and like, I didn't think anything about it until I realized how much my old books were worth. Um, you know, that, that were out of circulation anyway. I last year, well, this year actually, I found an adult man and he He's an entrepreneur and he goes, yeah, I played Dungeons and Dragons a lot. Like, is that still a thing? Like, I mean, and, and he opened my eyes to the online gaming community around this. I'm like, I didn't know this existed. Like, people are still doing this. So is, is that your experience? Absolutely.

What's your experience? So my experience is the same as you. I was born in '75. So I'm just 5 years behind you, but same thing, '70s and '80s. And so, yeah, when I was about 10 years old is when I started playing Dungeons Dragons. And then I got into, as I got older, I got into MMORPGs, which is like online versions of this. World of Warcraft is one of them. But I fell into theater and theater's relationship to Dungeons Dragons are like, it's like this because it's all about the story. The campaign is less about hacking and slashing than it is about telling a beautiful story. Yes. A choose your own adventure, as you said earlier. Yes. And that's the beauty of Dungeons Dragons. And so, the catchphrase for my business is, "Business is an adventure. Don't be an NPC," which is a non-playable character. You want to be the hero of your own adventure. And that's the joy of playing something like Dungeons Dragons is you create a fictional version of whoever you want to be. And you get to make all of these decisions based on either dice rolls or intuition or talking to the dungeon or game master, and you evolve the story of your life. So why not reflect that into your actual life? I've got 3 boys now, huge gamers, all of them, every single one. They do a lot of online gaming, rarely into the board games or anything on paper and pencil. But once I actually threw out this like really quick, it was a 60-minute game of like Dungeons and Dragons light, and it was about 3 bears trying to get the queen bee and there were scenarios that you'd play. And the boys ate it up. They loved it. And what they realized is that it wasn't 3 bears trying to get this, this queen bee. It was Dad the storyteller telling the adventure. So every decision that they made made the story fuller. And that, that type of thinking about the game or your life or your business really helps to make everything that you do more well-rounded, more fulfilling. So, the second book that I sell is this one right here, The Game Master's Guide to Business, which teaches you strictly how to tell the story of your business, how to tell the story of your life in a way that attracts customers because it is all about storytelling. When we were cavemen sitting in caves, we didn't talk about business ROI. We didn't talk about ROAS. We didn't talk about anything like that. We talked about the stories about the great hunt. We talked about all these things. And that's how we passed information. Down. And we are programmed to take information like that, to take those stories and remember them better. No matter how much book smarts you've got, you'll remember the stories told by others far longer than you will the information you got from books.

Yes, yes, 100 times yes. Have you read any of Patrick Lencioni's books?

Yes.

Yes. That's, that's the beauty of his— it's not It's not that his business acumen is better or worse than anybody else. It's that he tells it in anecdotal stories and that's what resonates with people and people remember it and it's like easy to apply. Yes. How, if I wanted to purchase the Dungeon Master's Guide, I'm sorry, the business. Yes. How do I purchase this if I want to?

You can go to gamifybusiness.com. And all the books are there. If you go to gamifybusiness.com/podcast, you can actually download the first 2 chapters for free, which introduces you to the process of gamifying your business. Sounds like it's a lot, but it's not. It's fun. It's all about fun. It's about having an adventure. So, and if you're interested in hiring me for the art to be Santa for you, you can go to Paul Pape Designs, which is also my social media handle since I've been doing that for 20 years.

I love that. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, I don't know what's wrong with you, but you can, you know, shoot me a message, tell me what your thoughts are, and I'll maybe get rid of Paul. Until then, ta-ta for now.