How Do Creatives Charge What They’re Worth? | Matt Morse

I get really excited about strategy. And I think one of the things that's been missing in a lot of the freelance movement, which used to be a freelancer and I pay freelancers all the time, I love freelancers. One of the things though with the freelancer movement is oftentimes people will take a project on without caring too much about the strategy. And anyone can make anything look pretty with enough time and effort and enough YouTube video viewership. But not everyone can create for one specific thing that, that moves the needle for a specific business objective.

Welcome to another episode of The Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Thibodeau, I think it's Thibodaux, Louisiana. It's not Thibodaux. In any case, I've never felt more a stranger than in rural Louisiana than any place I've ever traveled. A bizarre place. But thank you for listening. Joining me today, Matt Morse of 1851 Creative. Matt, welcome to the show.

Christian, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

Have you been to Louisiana?

I have, just to New Orleans though.

Yeah, as a young auditor, I was traveling the swamps, uh, going to retail locations to do inventory observations. And as I was driving these state highways, I was looking around and I'm like, they could tie your ass to a tree stump and they would never find anything. Uh, like, it's, it's, it's a bizarre place. It really is.

It seems like one of those spots that has a handful of documentaries made about it each year.

Yeah, I mean, everybody bags on Florida, and, and rightfully so. I mean, there's some weird people in Florida, but like Louisiana takes it to a different level. I'm sorry, I'm not here to, uh, disparage Louisiana. I love Louisiana. Matt, how did you— I'm just, I'm going to jump in and ask the question— how did you come up with the name 1851 Creative?

Yeah, good question. I'm, uh, I personally love the name, but I understand that when you attach a year to anything, it can be easily confused. So toying with the idea of a name change. I don't— don't quote me on that, but you heard it right here, folks. Yeah, 1851 is, uh, was the year that Morse code became an internationally communicated, um, communication method. And, uh, and my dad owned an agency in Minneapolis for many years called Morse Code. He asked me when I was 22, 23 if I would ever be interested in taking the reins someday, being trained up in the family business. And, I told him, "No, Dad, I'd love to be a pastor. Get your marketing agency business away from me." And, a couple years after pastoring, I decided I would love to have my own marketing agency, what I refer to now affectionately as a critical error in my life. And so, I named 1851 Creative as kind of a nod to him and the great work that he's done.

Okay, so is he still in business?

Uh, he sold Morse Code to a large global agency out of London and is currently in at the end of his transition plan, which will be in the next year or so.

Okay, so now, now I'm intrigued. Um, why I can understand a calling to be a pastor. Uh, I, I'm more curious about like the resistance to being in, in marketing and following in his footsteps. What, what was that about?

Yeah, that's, that's a great question. I, um, I think at that point, and, uh, and I think maybe a handful of people at least that I've talked to have experienced this when they have the beginning of their faith journey feels like it awakens one direction for them and tunnel vision towards ministry. I think I had a really shallow view of what ministry could look like and didn't associate the business world with being a place that I could effectively live out my faith. And so when I felt the call to go into ministry, I decided that the business world was not for me. And And I think some of that too was I love— I'm a really hard worker and I say that humbly, but like, I'll outwork anyone in the room. Okay. And there was a part of me that hated the idea that I could be handed something and I didn't want the silver spoon effect. So I think those are kind of the two, two things. But like I, like I mentioned earlier, critical error in that it would be a whole lot easier to have followed in his footsteps doing that than what I'm doing right now.

So you, you, you would make a different decision then going backwards or no?

Um, I'm not sure I would make a different decision, but I think where I, where I find myself right now seems to be exactly where my dad found himself 25 years ago. And, um, and the fact that he was willing and excited about me potentially taking the reins of Morse Code was something that I think I would have really enjoyed looking back at working with him and learning from him in that regard.

When you got back to the decision of, okay, I'm going to start a creative agency, you didn't think about like swallowing your pride and going back to him and say, yeah, I changed my mind, or was that still a non-starter?

I wish that the timing had worked out. He had already decided to sell it at that point. Okay. So he— okay. Yeah. He asked me before, like right before he was going to initiate or entertain some sales ideas around it, so. Okay.

Yeah. So what happened along your pastoral journey that redirected you? Was there something specific, some epiphany that you said like, "Mm, this isn't what I'm supposed to be doing"?

I think in full transparency, I was a better pastor outside of full-time ministry. And I think that was something that when you get paid to be like a professional Christian, there's a lot that comes with that. And there's a ton of head knowledge and I know all the right things to say and I know the steps to walk through to help people in certain circumstances. But I felt for myself that I was a lot more empty than when I started ministry. And so it was a wrestle back and forth for a couple of years. But I actually went to a retreat maybe 2 years ago and shared with a mentor of mine at the retreat, you know, what I was wrestling with. I have this passion for creativity. I love being able to tell stories and come up with creative and unique ways to do so. But I feel somewhat of a call to ministry. And he looked me dead in the eye and said, I don't know if you need permission to exit ministry, but it's okay if you're excited about creativity. God's not limited to using you just in the context of Western church. So at that moment, something clicked and I was like, oh, okay. I guess I can't stand that I didn't think of that. But I guess that is the permission that I needed. And from that point, I transitioned out of pastoral ministry. And into the creative business, which I'd kind of been doing on the side for many years and have my undergrad in, and found a lot more personal fulfillment in it. But also, it was interesting, my ministry opportunities went through the roof the minute I stepped out of full-time vocational ministry. I was able to go speak at a lot of different college sports ministries and out at at churches here and there, and even just the personal margin that I had within my life was made much more available to grab coffee with people and sit down and be intentional in a way that I hadn't been for a couple of years as a pastor.

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, I remember having a conversation with one of my ministers who had been a minister for probably 30 years at that point, and he made a comment that I found very strange at the time. This is probably— this may be 20 years ago. He said, you know, there's a problem with professional clergy. And I was like, this is kind of odd coming from a professional clergy. And he told me why, and we can go into those things if you want to discuss, but I was like, "Hmm, I never really thought of that." And then fast forward to 3 years ago when God called me to start a home church, and one of the things that I read was Letters to the Church by Francis Chan, and basically in that book he goes back to the first church in Acts and explores what the church was, and you look and you have vocational ministers. Like nobody's relying on the congregation to pay them for their livelihood, and although they may support them financially, but it's not— you know, Paul was still a tentmaker, and you know, these people had other jobs, right? And it is an interesting dynamic to explore for sure, because once you start paying people to say and do things I think that you should be doing yourself, um, it, it fundamentally changes things.

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think, um, I— we— my wife and I still go to the church that I used to work at, so there, there was an awkward period of, um, transition, but we love our, our home church. I, I would agree with you in the fact that the American Western church has made it easier than ever to show up to church anonymously, have no accountability, and do that every Sunday until you feel like you have checked enough boxes to be good for the year. And I think what I— in your example, in home churches, what I love about home churches is it creates a natural accountability in a community that for good or bad, you can't escape the, the 10 to 20 people that are right around you. And that's what you need, right? In, in every person's journey, wherever they're at, they need some sort of accountability. In business and faith, in sports, you're required to report to the things that you have or have not done. And have you done them well? Have you, have you skirted the lines? Um, but that's something that I really appreciate about some of the home church movement that's come up in the last 10 to 15 years, and personally, that's something that makes me really excited.

Yeah, I think the fundamental difference is it makes you a consumer when you're paying paid professionals. Like you said, it's like, okay, I'm going to show up. Someone's going to tell me what the Scripture says or what to think about it, and then they're going to go do mission work. They're going to go do the pastoral work. And I get to go on about the rest of my week, right? As opposed to owning that relationship, owning the discipleship, owning the responsibilities of being a follower of the Way. Like, you can have all the head knowledge you want. Is your heart changed? And I spent 30 years in a large congregation And I don't regret it, but you know, God has definitely expanded my understanding, and you know, even Francis Chan, I've heard him say recently, it's like, it's not about where you meet. It's not like home church versus other church models. That's not what it's about, and you can't get fixated on that. Oh, you don't go to a home church. Well, you know, you're missing the boat. Yeah, that's, that's not it. Uh, okay. Um, so in— you started 1851 Creative 2 years ago?

Uh, yeah, about, about a year and a half ago.

Okay. And what specifically, uh, do you do? What is the niche you fill?

Yeah, so 1851 is, um, obsessed with finding the one thing that makes any brand or organization different than the competitors in their space. So we're a brand strategy firm and a creative firm. We— I get really excited about strategy, and I think one of the things that's been missing in a lot of the freelance movement, which used to be a freelancer, and I pay freelancers all the time, I love freelancers. One of the things though with the freelancer movement is oftentimes people will take a project on without caring too much about the strategy. And anyone can make anything look pretty with enough time and effort and enough YouTube video viewership, um, but not everyone can create for one specific thing that, that moves the needle for a specific business objective. And so that's what we do, uh, we serve small businesses, um, mid, midsize businesses. We're trying to crack a little bit larger, but, um, one of the things I found in the last year is I used to be really critical of myself for one, for not having any clients of a certain degree, right? Like the revenue line for a certain client, like a Nike or a Gatorade or one of those organizations was something that I was really striving for. And I found in the last year, I actually love helping small businesses. Achieve their goals. And I think we're going to have a return at some point to the value of small businesses because there are so many big players that are trying to monopolize things. But I love being able to partner with a small business owner who has a certain objective and we can help figure out how to get them there. And that doesn't mean that if Nike came knocking, I would say, "No, I don't want to work with you." But I've found a lot more fulfillment fulfillment in working with startups and small businesses than I ever thought that I would.

Yeah, I have, I have so many thoughts on that. Um, I, I was having a conversation, I got a, uh, CPA reached out to me, uh, that had started his, his business a year ago, and, uh, he wanted to pick my brain, and so we hopped on a call And he was like, yeah, I've been doing this a year and I've got like 5 clients and they're all very different, what I do for them, etc. And I'm realizing this is not scalable. So I'm kind of looking for experience share around that. And I told him my experience with Core and, you know, Essentially what happened 3 years ago was we realized we needed to, uh, really have a target market. We really never had a target market. It was poorly defined. I thought it was well-defined, but it really wasn't. It was not narrow enough. And, um, we did this very high-level MBA analysis internally, which was Okay, go through your list of clients and tell me, who do you like working with and who values most what you do? And then we took the lists and we started comparing notes, and creative professionals were on everybody's lists. It was the one commonality. And so that's what we picked it. I said high-level MBA analysis, tongue-in-cheek. No, we did not. It was not who has the most growth potential. It wasn't, you know, who are the most profitable. It was who do we like working with and who values what we do. And it was like his eyes opened up like, oh, I, I can make that decision. And I think this is a commonality of all business professionals, creative or otherwise. Of the idea that, yeah, you have permission to build the business that you want, doing the work that you want, uh, getting paid what you want. Like, that's, that's completely okay. There's no— there's nothing wrong with that, right?

Right.

It's okay to say no to, to certain people, right? Um, and it, it also reminded me of a conversation I had with another agency owner who now recently on the show. I don't think it's been released yet, but she was talking about— she sold her agency and now does consulting and coaching for agency owners. And she was describing the 5 different types of clients. And the— I don't remember all of them, but I remember it was the squirrels, and, and the whales. And the squirrels are the ones that, that are, uh, small, they don't pay you a lot, and they're always changing directions, right? Yeah. And, and they suck up all this bandwidth, uh, trying to help them figure out what they want to be. Um, and then the whales are, are the, the one— the Nikes, the Gatorades that you're talking about. And there's this allure to them because they have that status, and there's usually larger dollars associated with them. But they also tend to drag you to the bottom of the ocean if you land them. So that's just my response to that. I guess my question to you is working— well, here's one more thought. You said you're a brand strategist and I'm glad you're on the show because I haven't had a brand person on here in a while. But I, I, my comment to brand people and people that say they're a brand strategist is, especially if you're working with small businesses, as an accountant, um, I don't want to pay for brand. Like, that does not— that seems like an extravagance. That seems like that's not necessary. And I guess I'm saying the word brand does not resonate with me. And it's still, even though I know better, even though I've accepted that the brand is necessary and spent a lot of money rebranding, the word still doesn't resonate with me. Do you encounter that dealing with small businesses where they're like, brand, that's not me, that's for Coca-Cola?

Yeah, all the time. I think to talk about kind of the different client subsets, one of the things that we've done to better qualify some of our clients is we've created a scorecard that allows us to view budget, timeline, what's their vision, who are the decision makers, do they know what they want, do we enjoy working with them, are they friendly? And we put all of this together And if they score below a 28, we, it doesn't matter what the project is, we don't take them on. If they score between a 28 and a 35, then we have the ability to say yes to that project. And so that's, that's been something that's helped us qualify some of these leads a little bit better. So we're not finding the squirrel that is changing directions all of the time, but What I like about some of the smaller businesses is that we are like, there's no one more invested in a project than the small business owner because that, that money feels tight closer to them. They could use that for an equipment upgrade or to bring on some extra help, but they're choosing to spend it with us. And so they're really invested in it. The downside is they might be so invested that you're like, okay, please back off. You, you don't know what we're, we're doing right now. And I'm going to explain it to you in terms that you understand here really soon, I promise. Um, but then on the other side of that, the, the whales can sometimes, uh, be so hands-off that you're like, do you even care at all about what we're doing? Does this— does the money that you're spending here matter? Because you've hardly checked in. And I feel great that you trust us to take care of this, but would love a little bit of affirmation that we're moving in the right direction, that you're semi-excited about what we're doing. So that middle ground is a little bit more what we get excited about, those who the dollar feels still important, but their investment feels, their time investment feels equally as important.

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 What I'm saying 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.

I don't want to skirt past the, the idea that you have come up with a scorecard for leads. I think that's brilliant. I get my first question that came to my mind was how do you obtain all that information in order to score them?

Yeah, it's somewhat subjective depending on where the lead is coming from, but we've got our, we look at the size of the company in terms of revenue and employees. And we take from there the decision makers into account. Do they know what they're talking about? Is this going to be a highly educational relationship, or do they have enough information that we're not going to spend half of our billable time on explaining to them how this works? Um, do they sort of know what they want, or are they coming to us and saying, hey, by Wednesday, can we get a video? We don't have a script. We don't have even an idea or a location that we want to shoot. Um, so those are things that immediately disqualify, but there's— we've broken up the categories to be all worth 5 points, and we can then judge based on those 5 points how we come out of our discovery meetings. And our discovery meetings sort of feel like strategy sessions because we want to wring every option out to give us the, the best chance to bring this project to the finish line. And care for it afterwards. So it is, it's a bit subjective, but more often than not, we were able to say like, oh, this client reminds us a lot of so-and-so that we worked with in the past. That was awesome. Let's, let's do this. Even if, if the score is a little bit close to that 28, or if, if we look back and we're like, okay, everything lines up and they scored a 35, but honestly, I just really don't like working with them, like they feel really arrogant and like they're going to be in the way, then we have the ability to your point earlier to say no. And there's a lot of freedom that has come with that both on the side of how we accept clients and how we turn away clients. We never burn a bridge. And I think that's some advice that I've learned that it's never worth building or burning a bridge. So we will always refer them to 4 or 5 other people they can go talk to so they don't have a bad taste in their mouth about our no. Um, but that's, that's generally the process, and, and it kind of ebbs and flows based on that discovery.

Do you tell them that you're, you're evaluating them and scoring them?

No, no, we have not.

Okay. Do you charge?

Would you say—

would you say— no, no, I'm just, I'm just curious. Okay, I'm just curious. Um, yeah, do you charge for the discovery call?

Um, it depends how warm the lead is. If it feels like we're— we've got a relationship that has that has been around for a little bit and we've worked with them a time or two before, then yes. But more often than not, we're not charging for it. It's just an exploratory 30 to 45 minutes of trying to figure out, are we a good fit for you and are we good, or are you a good fit for us?

So there's no deliverable that you give from that discovery call?

No.

So it's not really like a diagnostic or something like that.

Yeah, here and there we'll send a, if they feel like a qualified lead, we'll send them a one-sheeter of here are our recommendations based on what we learned. You think you need a video, but that's actually not the thing that you need right now. Based on all of what we learned about you, you actually need to increase or improve the experience in your store. First. So let's talk about how we can do a little bit of experiential marketing, uh, before we talk about a video.

Yeah, I, I, I find myself, uh, and my fellow small business owners get lost in the weeds on tactics so often. And, and the, the, the crackhead, uh, marketing agencies out there, the crackhead dealers are always coming up with new bells and whistles, new types of crack to sell you. And so there's this just like frantic energy and frantic, frantic, frantic energy that most business owners have is like, I've got to do something. But, and then it usually lands on whatever's their friend did and had success with, or what, what they perceive they should do. But there's really, you know, most business owners, small business owners, even ones that have been in business for a long time, don't understand marketing. And I would say marketing in itself is not complex, it's fairly simple. In its principles, but ultimately you're trying to predict and manipulate human behavior, which is wildly unpredictable. You just don't know. And one of the things I got so frustrated with in dealing with marketing agencies that I hired was they came to the table with, okay, we absolutely can fix this. And this is, you know, step 1, step 2, step 3. And, you know, it's, it's almost like I wish they'd say, you know what, we make no guarantees. And it's not because we don't know what we're doing, is because we can't predict what people are going to do.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think that's, that's a very popular experience, unfortunately. We actually go into most of our conversations and say, I cannot guarantee that this works based on the knowledge that I know about you and the knowledge that I know about the industry, I think this is going to work. But what I, what I ask of all of our clients is some flexibility in their expectations, that we have the ability to pivot based on analysis of what is working and what is not working. The things that we see that are working, let's throw, let's throw the rest of the budget there for right now until you, you come back and say, this is now our new budget, we want to try some other things. But we never guarantee that anything works. And I have learned from my dad actually that the more like consultant approach is the more often than not, it's helpful to say what you should not do versus what you should do. Because every marketer out there, every agency owner out there naturally thinks in terms of, well, this project is gonna cost X amount. Than that we can do these 3 things with our business. And that's just not a great partner. That's why agencies get bad raps all the time because they're very self-serving and are worried about the awards that don't really mean anything. You got to pay for anyways at the end of the year. And I want to reiterate, we're dead set on being a good partner. If we don't ever win an award for a creative piece of work, but we are good partners that help move the needle a little bit, that feels like a huge win. Huge win at the end of the day.

Yeah, and, and I think, I think just based on my experience, I am not a professional marketer. I've just had 29 years in, in the business, and I've, I have spent an inordinate amount of money on, on marketing. Um, like, I, I tallied it up. I, I had made a decision last year of like, okay, this is not working. And we're going to make a change in how we're marketing. And so I'd already made the decision, but recently I went back and quantified it as to how much money I had spent and looking at what I actually got for that money that I spent. And my conservative estimate is over the last 6 years, I have burned up $1 million. Which is a sobering number. If I had not already come to the conclusion that I was making a change, I don't know that I would've, I think I would've maybe continued rationalizing the money and saying that, well, we'll figure it out sometime. But the thing that I've tasked the team with is like, okay, we've done pretty much, Tried everything in varying scopes. Let's look at the data to see where we got traction and then test and iterate small. Don't build the whole thing out and say, okay, we're gonna try this strategy and now we're gonna go this direction and spend all this money. And I think, For a business owner that is looking for a return on investment, right, like us accountants, that's why we're horrible marketers, because you as a marketer can't say, well, if I spend $10,000, you're going to get $15,000. You, you can't do that with any— right, with a straight face, right? Uh, there are people that do say that, but like, if you're honest, you can't say that. And so we as accountants are like, well, if you can't prove the ROI ROI, then I'm not spending the money. But, but the truth lies somewhere in the middle, right? Like, there, there you absolutely should get an ROI on your marketing dollars, but it's not so simple as to say, uh, well, we're just going to run $15,000 in, in Google Ads and, you know, voilà.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it's really wise And I think one of the things that bugs me about our industry is that oftentimes the agencies can treat the client like they are, like they have no brain cells left. I mean, a lot of information that you as a business owner are hearing about marketing through social media and LinkedIn and wherever are the same things that we're listening to. And so I think that agencies that come into the conversation, it's one of my least favorite things. And I tell our team all the time, be curious, not judgmental. And it's a, that's a quote from Ted Lasso. And he's talking about the curiosity that asks questions more than it just comes in and judges. And I think agencies do that all the time. They come in and they're like, well, look at this little business who doesn't know anything about marketing and they're hiring us experts. Experts. And at the end of the day, if they're paying you, yes, you should be experts. But it's not that you are all of a sudden— like, I'm not going to be an expert in accounting if you hire me on. You are the expert accountant. You are the expert in your business, in your brand as it stands right now. And I'm coming in with the outside perspective and a small expertise in some marketing strategies to help you build that. And so I think when you're talking about testing, you're talking about iterations, I appreciate that approach as a business owner who wants to see something work because it drives me up a wall when some of these agencies are like, yep, come in and do connected TV. It's the hottest thing right now. That's where you need to spend all your time.

But that's the easy sell, right? Because it's got all the hype behind it. Crackheads. Right. That's what I said.

Yes. Crackheads. Yeah. I live in Denver. So I see it. I see crackheads in both my industry and my streets out here.

Yeah. And to clarify, because I've said this multiple times on the show, the crackhead is the business owner. The marketer is the dealer. So the problem starts with the business. And to your point, like if you said, well, okay, I don't know accounting, so I have to come in with this curiosity. The thing I find that is pretty much, uh, unanimous is that the business owner doesn't have a lot of clarity about who their target client or customer is and what problem they solve. And so the marketer can't be ultimately successful until that is known. And I, I think that's a gap that, you know, agency owners could absolutely charge for as, as a as a, uh, discovery process or, or something like that where, you know, you're going to pay me $5,000 and we're going to dive in and help you answer that question because all the marketing that you spend up into that point before you have that clarity is a crapshoot.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I thank you for saying that. As, as a guy who loves strategy and ideal client profiles and that sort of thing We use the triangle of differentiation, which is the idea that you can differentiate yourself in 3 ways: by what you do, by how you do it, or why you do it. What you do is the hardest because if you are an accountant, you are doing the exact same thing as 10 million other accountants out there, right? The next, then we move it to how you do it. Well, how you do it might be, you have a unique client experience with the discovery call is, or your discovery meeting is always over a cup of coffee and it's on you. And we talk about these 3 things and you care for them well on the backend and send them a Christmas gift. Maybe that's enough to differentiate yourself, maybe it's not. And then the most valuable one and the, but the hardest one to identify is the why you do it. Because to your point, a lot of people who are owning businesses, They have these flexible audiences that go from a soccer mom who bought the orange juice one time to, oh, well, maybe we should go a little bit more B2B in some nursing homes because they love orange juice. And so, so they flex all these different things and don't have the one touchpoint. Well, that's where we come— where I think we come in really strong is this differentiation. Well, why do you exist? Because people more often than not will pay more to buy something from someone who they believe in the why behind their doing it. Like, that's why we follow Instagram influencers all the time.

It's the Simon Sinek model, right? I mean, start with why, right? And yes, and the reality is, is to understand your why as a business is hard work. It's deep work. Um, and you may never be challenged to figure it out. Like, I, I mean, virtually every business owner that I know started their business, there wasn't some strong purpose behind it, right? There might have been some underlying passion or reason that pushed them over the edge to start a business. But like with mine, I didn't figure that out until probably I'd been in business over 20 years. That I went through that internal discovery of like, okay, why are you doing this? What is— why are you doing this as opposed to anything else? Right? Why are you doing it with the people that you're doing it for? You know, why them? And my origin story on— there's a second level. I'll just give you the surface level. The surface level is my family was in the oil and gas industry. We had a family business, and it was, you know, Dad and uncles and all working together in the same business. And family and business really just was one thing, right? I mean, when we were all together living in the same small town and all the weekends we were together. But the adult conversation, it never was— it was one conversation that moved locations between the business and the family. Well, the oil bust in '86 in Oklahoma and Texas, the business went bankrupt. And the— I was 16 at the time, and the family disintegrated because there was no financial glue, and everybody went off to go find their own, uh, you know, way to make a living. And I, I knew at the gut level, even at 16, like, it didn't have to end up this way. And as I went to university and studied accounting and finance, I realized that that didn't have to be the end result. And fast forward, my why and the reason why I created CORE was to keep families from having to experience what I did. Where the business collapse caused stress on the family. And that happens all the time. And that's my why. I don't want them to have to go through what I went through.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's a— one, it's a beautiful way to differentiate yourself, but two, it's a really strong— I mean, I have your book right here. I really love— this book. So, thank you for writing this. And, I know this is how we got connected, but it comes through in this. I read this and I feel from an author that they care whether they know of my unique situation or not, they care enough about it to put me on a path or at least tell me what my next knowledgeable step is to take to avoid an absolute crash and burn. So, I think Why is super important in defining your business. And sometimes it's really good for messaging too, because people love to know why you want to help, because there are so many more people in that situation or feel really close to that situation. And they're like, oh, if there is someone out there that cares uniquely for me in this way, then I don't care what it costs. I will make sure that I can get the resource. In, in my hands.

What, just briefly, you've, you've read the book Profit First for Creatives, uh, you said that you, you appreciated it and that it set you on the path. What, what was the biggest takeaway from the book for you? Like, if you, if you were telling another agency owner, like, you need to read this because this is what I realized.

Yeah, well, I, I think the, the formula that you've reverse engineered is something that has been super helpful to realize that profit is something off the top that people can take. I was not profitable before reading this book. Within the first month I was profitable, and that was because of the the piece that your profit comes first and then your revenues kind of back into whatever you've got left. And for years, and I've been taught for many years through business school and everything, that your expenses, whatever's left over after your expenses is what you get to take home. Well, guess what? When you're starting a business, it's expensive and you're not getting paid a lot. And so, there's nothing that you're taking home most of the time. But it helped me reframe the idea that I can take more money home. And that maybe means that I don't need this stock subscription right now. And when it comes around, when I need it for this specific project, I'll buy it for one month and then I'll cancel it. Like, right, I'll have the money set aside for that. So I think what I love about it is it feels super practical and it makes growth feel possible. I know a lot of people in this industry who are like, some months you're printing money and some months I don't know if you could pay people to work work for them. And that was my experience before this. And now, yeah, it's an up and down industry. Marketing is a luxury good for every company out there. I, I get that. But it makes it slightly more predictable in that even in, in the, the bucket that I have set aside means it's, it's some safety for me. And I don't put all my hope in it, but I know that it gives me some flexibility in some off months. It gives me some flexibility even when things are going great that Yeah, I can, I can take some out and go on a vacation with my wife and I can take some out and do this repair that I've been putting off for years, or I can just have a little more money to set aside, or I can buy the, you know, the new lighting for our video setup or whatever it is. It makes it feel like you're— you don't have to be stuck in this hamster wheel of like, gosh, I wonder what next month is going to look like.

Did you have any problems with— because I know a lot of creative professionals do— about the concept of profit? Like, you should be able to, and it's okay to make a profit. Did you struggle with any of those issues? Like, profit is bad?

Yeah, totally. And I think there was this wave probably 10 years ago. It started this whole free-to-fee concept. And I've heard it for many years where— Uh, if you're a, a new and young creative, it's okay to start for free. And then after your first deliverable, then you'll say, I'll charge them $200. And I think that has absolutely destroyed the, the industry for young freelancers to get in, because whether they're good at what they're doing or not, they are spending time on it and to some degree adding value to your business. It might not look super professional, um, and it might not look like you, you're paying a bunch of money for it, but they're adding some value. And I think people deserve to be paid for I grew up in that generation when I'm understanding what business is in college. It's like, yeah, if you can just get your foot in the door, any way to do so, at some point it'll work out for you. And so my mindset then was, well, I could charge $200 for my first video and then $225 for my third video, and at some point maybe I'll be making a living, right? And I don't think that is healthy mindset at all and something I had to do a lot of undoing on that. It's okay for me to charge based on the value that I'm bringing.

100%.

And it's okay for me to make money and do this. And money, people say the love of money is the root of all evil. And I think people hear money is the root of all evil. It's not. It's the love of money. And money is not a bad thing. Money is a beautiful tool. Tool that helps a lot of families and a lot of communities. And when stewarded well, is one of the greatest things you can use to be a good friend and a good husband and a good father and a good brother. And so I get excited about the idea that it's okay to be creative. Just because you're doing art and it's something people have said is not worth your full-time pay for years, I think that's something that this book and others like it are slowly just undoing for people, giving them confidence that art doesn't have to be, uh, you living on the street and eating beans. It can be something that you make a living with.

Absolutely. I, and I'll say, you know, one of the things I've come to realize is that you, you could have the best thing, whatever the thing is, and you say, this is so great, I want to help everybody, everybody should have this thing, right? And so you give it away for free. Well, here's the reality. The reality is that not everybody will take it for free. As a matter of fact, they'll look at it that it's free and say, well, it's worthless, right? And this dynamic that the buyer sets the value internally based upon what they pay for it And that kind of clicked for me because like, if you're trying to be altruistic and really help people and you say, well, I'm going to do this for as little amount as possible just to help more people, the reality is it has the exact opposite effect. You attract the people that don't really value it because it's cheap.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Someone offers you a free oil change, you're you're sitting there like, this guy's probably in training and maybe, or maybe isn't even in training. He's just trying to get a job and needs to prove that he can change the oil on your car. Well, I'm not going to try. I drive a 2011 Tacoma. It's a car that probably doesn't need to be changed by a professional, but it is because I see the value of going in and paying $80 for an oil change because I want it done right. And there is, there's value to that. So I completely agree with that. And I think it's— there's another conversation for a different day, probably, but the psychological effects of pricing is one of the most underrated things in all of this.

That's a whole nother— that's a whole nother conversation. Matt, how can people find out more about 1851 Creative if they want to learn more?

Well, you can go to 1851creative.com. And find some of the work that we're doing. We are launching a podcast here shortly and are active on social media at 1851 Creative on Instagram and Facebook. We are working on trying to put together some sort of cohort, creative cohort of sorts for individuals who are really excited about growing in community, not working, not worrying about trying to grow in a silo. Creative professionals of all different experiences. So hopefully that will be coming to a city near you in the fall. But yeah, we've— we are excited for any eyes that we can get. We're new to the scene, but I think we're really good at what we do.

Perfect. 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've heard, hit the little envelope button, sends us a text and tell us who you would like to hear and we'll get rid of Matt. Until next time, ta-ta for now.