#236: Adding Priceless Value to Your Clients

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey there. Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia, and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. Just a quick reminder that you can find detailed show notes for this episode@b2b launcher.com Episode 2, 3, 6 and those notes always include a summary of our discussion here, as well as any links to resources we might mention during the show. So I recently watched a docu series called Stories from the Cutting Edge of Recorded Music, and it was fascinating. As a guy who loves music, just I love this kind of material. Love to hear the backstory behind these bands, the music they make, and how it all came about. In fact, if you love music, I strongly recommend it, especially the first few episodes. Just really interesting how all this stuff came about and how the things we take for granted today, you know, were often the result of just a handful of things that just kind of came together serendipitously. One of the many insights that I walked away with, especially after the first couple of episodes, was the value of a music producer, and specifically the value of a great producer and the value they add to a recording and how he or she can help make or break a new album and turn a good artist into a worldwide sensation. And I'll give you two examples. The first was George Martin, who was the producer for the Beatles. Paul, John, George and Ringo were great musicians and outstanding songwriters, there's no doubt about that. But in the hands of George Martin, they became the biggest musical sensation ever. And here's what I found incredibly interesting. John and Paul would play a song for Martin, a song that was already good the way it was, but rather than just accepting it the way John and Paul had written it and just going with that version, which, frankly, I mean, would have been good enough, Martin would make a few suggestions, a few little tweaks in there. I don't want to diminish it. Some of them were definitely minor tweaks, okay. But some were quite a bit involved. So in some cases it would be just to go into a different key. In other cases it would be adding a whole string quartet, which at first the Beatles were very hesitant to do. It just didn't sound like anything that they would normally do or that it made sense. Sometimes again, it would be minor stuff like changing the way they sang the chorus. But no matter what the changes were based on Martin's suggestions, one thing was clear. The results were transformational. You see, Martin was a classically trained musician. He. He was also a bit older and generally more experienced than the Beatles. So he'd bring perspectives to the studio and to these already amazing songs that John and Paul just didn't have. As great as they were, the collaboration, and you could see this in these episodes was just pure magic. And it turned a band that would have no doubt been successful without Martin into one of the most important celebrated musical acts in history. Another example I love from the documentary was from Tom Petty, a true rock and roll legend. So Petty, in this particular episode was describing how he walked into the studio one morning with the song Free Falling in his head. He just. He kind of. He was actually driving down Ventura Boulevard, which he talks about in the song, and it just kind of came to him. And he described how he walked into the studio and he played it for his producer, who immediately loved it. But then the producer asked Petty to drop one note in the main riff of the song. The main riff is everything, right? So apparently he had an extra note somewhere in there, and he felt that removing that extra note would make the song better. So Petty played it without that note, and they both immediately realized the song was now 10 times better. @ that moment, they knew for sure they had a huge hit in their hands. And that's exactly what happened. Free Fallen became a massive rock and roll hit. So what's the point here? What does this have to do with your writing and copywriting business? Well, here's the connection I instantly made when I watched these examples. George Martin, Tom Petty's producer. They were both probably being paid by the hour, or maybe it was a fixed fee arrangement. I mean, who knows? Okay, here's what I do know. The value they added to their clients as producers was immeasurable. And most of it came in the form of a few tweaks here and there, a few edits, a few suggestions and ideas. Again, some of them were more involved, but most of the time that magic wasn't happening. And sure, they were working the whole time, doing their thing, their producer thing, adding what we might call an average level of value during most of the day. But if you kind of think about it as a chart or a curve, the huge spikes in value, the huge spikes in that curve came sporadically. One tweak, one idea, one suggestion, one question questioning what they were doing and why, and maybe offering and having a discussion and collaboratively Coming up with a better solution. And when you think about it, one of those per day or even one per week was enough to justify their fees 10 times or even 10,000 times over. These stories also remind me of the seemingly small contribution that Sean Parker, who's one of the co founders of Facebook, made to Facebook's branding in the early days of the company. So legend has it, and you see this in the movie the Social Network, that Parker suggested to Mark Zuckerberg that he dropped the from the Facebook originally, the company and the platform was called the Facebook. And he just said, hey, it's much more elegant that way. Zuckerberg apparently agreed, dropped it, the rest is history. About 12 years ago, I had a similar experience, except it was me giving the advice to someone who in this case wasn't even a client of mine. So I was at a conference and I walked out of a session in the middle of the session just to make myself a coffee outside the meeting room. And I was planning to go back inside, but at the coffee station, I serendipitously ran into an investor of a business that I knew well. So I knew the business and I know this gentleman was an investor in the business. And I can't get into the details of who this was and how it all happened, but I introduced myself to him. I knew who he was, he didn't know who I was. And I give him a bit of feedback about something I felt their company should be doing. And I had nothing to lose and I wasn't nervous or anything. I just had to get it off my chest because it's something I had been thinking about. And so I told him and I explained why I felt strongly about my suggestion, and then I backed it up with some quick facts, just showing them, look, based on my experience, and here's my experience, and here's why I'm qualified to give you this advice. But I wasn't nervous because I wasn't really. It was just an opinion. I just wanted to share an idea with him. Well, I could have never imagined what happened next. He immediately understood the value of my suggestion and. And he even said that he'd been thinking about something similar to what I suggested. So he said, look, do you have a quick minute? Can you come with me real quick and talk to Rachel? Rachel was one of the executives of the company, and we had a quick conversation with Rachel and he said, look, tell her what you just told me. And I did. And it's amazing what ended up happening. I happen to know that this piece of Advice and insight I gave that business has helped generate more than $5 million in revenue for that company over the past 12 years or so. Now, look, I didn't do the work, okay? I did not implement what I suggested they implement. I merely talked to the right person at the right time and offered just some simple ideas that to me, were simple but ended up becoming transformational. In this case, I happen to know that there was a real tangible financial value there of over $5 million over the past 12 years. The fact that I didn't get paid for that doesn't really bother me. Okay, here's where I'm going with this. This is how I would encourage you to think about yourself and your business and the value you add to client engagements. You see, 95% of the time, you're probably adding a good amount of value to your clients. You're doing the work, you're delivering a quality product. But it's in the 5% of the time and effort that you deliver massive value. And sure, it may not always be to the extent of the examples I gave you here. I wanted to kind of take it outside of the business and give you some interesting and in some cases, extreme examples. Okay? But that's not the point, okay? Don't take what I'm saying in the examples I'm giving you. Literally everything here is relative. And by the way, don't get hung up on the implementation of what I'm suggesting, okay? So right now, I just need you to keep an open mind. This is not a formula. This is not a process I'm teaching you. This is a mindset shift. One that will more than likely take a few weeks, months, even years to fully develop. You might be in a place right now where you're ready to receive what I've just shared with you today. So much so that it just maybe it's already clicked and you're ready to run with it right now. You just get it. It's like, oh, my gosh, this was the missing piece of the puzzle. And you're able to start making that shift in your thinking and in your business right away. But in most cases, if you're not there, don't feel bad. This is the sort of thing that takes a while to really sink in. I know for me, that was exactly the case. I remember first hearing about this stuff six, seven years ago. And at first it was confusing. Keep in mind that I was already doing this stuff. I mean, this advice that I gave to this gentleman was 12 years ago. I had no idea Back then that, you know, there was such a thing as, you know, most of the time you're adding average or decent value, but sometimes just one little tweak, one little change, one little suggestion can have a way disproportionate value to that. Eventually, okay, I understood it conceptually, which is still not good enough. So eventually started kind of clicking. But then I just didn't know how to put it into practice. But I didn't give up on the idea. I didn't let go of the concept. I just left it in my head, just kind of marinating in there. I just knew that, okay, I kind of understand. I'm not sure how to put it into practice, but I trust that there's something there. And it wasn't until about two years ago that it finally clicked all the way. It took that long for me to fully understand and carry this out in my business. I'd even say that there are more layers to this I don't yet understand or feel comfortable with. But that's okay. What I've learned is that this shift that I'm describing here is a journey, not a destination. So wherever you are on your journey, my point today, comfortable with, but that's. I'd like you to start thinking of yourself as someone who delivers. Journey, not a destination. So wherever you are on your journey, my point today is this. I'd like you to start thinking of yourself as someone who delivers amazing value. At the same time, I want you to understand that this value doesn't get delivered evenly. Okay, so what do I mean by that? You might work on a project for, let's say, 20 hours. Okay? One specific project took you 20 hours to complete. But within that project, one idea, one thought, or one tweak that took you, let's say, one minute to execute could turn that deliverable and that project into an outstanding piece that will make the client incredibly happy and make a real difference in their business. Okay, so now I'm not talking about that. This tweak is going to turn this, I don't know, white paper into something that's going to generate millions of dollars for them. Okay? I don't want you to take the examples I've given you literally. Those are extreme examples, because I needed you to understand where I'm going with this. Okay, But I'm talking about you worked on it for 20 hours, but I bet that there were a couple of things that took you just one minute to come up with or to do that have a disproportionate level or amount of value delivered. It was this idea, this way of saying things or just reorganizing the way you explained this thing, or coming up with this particular illustration or example, or thinking about or coming up with a story that illustrate at this point, okay, those things took you nothing to come up with. But that's where 95% of the value that you delivered lies. Okay? That's how I like to think about my value as a coach. So when you're a coaching client of mine, not everything I share with you or give you will have a monumental impact on your business. But if, over the course of a few months working together, you can walk away with some ideas, a handful of insights, strategies, or approaches that turn your business from ordinary to truly extraordinary, I've done my job. How long that takes doesn't really matter, does it? Okay, so over the course of a few months, if we're talking about six or seven things that maybe you gathered from me in a quick conversation, or they were part of a training that I pointed you to as part of our work together, or you tried something and based on what we had been talking about, you stepped outside of your comfort zone and you went for it, or I got you thinking a little differently, okay? All those are going to have a disproportionate level of value and return on your investment in terms of our work together. So bottom line is this. I want you to stop thinking about hours, okay? I want you to stop thinking about how much time you spend on a project. Definitely want you to stop thinking about per word pricing. Please don't get hung up on this stuff, okay? I don't want you to just agonize about whether you should charge, I don't know, $3,500 or can I get away with $3,800? Okay? A $300 difference. That, let's face it, we've all been there. You're losing sleepover. That kind of thinking is going to keep you in a place of struggle. I see it every single day among writers, and it's not fun to watch. And I know it's not fun to be in it. I want you to think differently about yourself and your value. And again, it might take some time for that to sink in. I know it did for me. But once it does, you'll never be the same again because you'll understand that you don't have to deliver amazing value all the time within a client engagement. Just one or two little ideas, tweaks, or shifts will make 95, 98, 99% of the difference. You have to trust that that's the case, and you have to think about that. And you need to be confident about this. This has been Ed Gambia. Thanks for listening.

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