#315: Quoting Higher Fees with Confidence

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 another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. With well over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries, few topics bring about as much doubt, fear and insecurity as pricing. In fact, pricing is the second topic I get the most questions about. The first being how to land more and better clients. I get questions along the lines of what should I charge for X? What should I include in the scope of work? How should I present my pricing to the prospect to the client? How should I think about my offers or options? How can I maximize what I charge and still land the deal? And how do I create the conditions that will make it easier for me to command premium prices? Those are just some of the questions I hear and they're a sampling of what we cover in today's episode. Joining me is my colleague Jonathan Stark, who's a thought after coach and consultant in the software development space. And in this episode, we're going to do something a little different. We're actually interviewing each other and we're running the same material, the same episode in each of our podcasts. High Income Business Writing and Jonathan's Ditching Hourly Podcast. Jonathan has had a big influence in the way I price and the way I think about my work and my value and the way I present my pricing. And I can't recommend his material enough. It was a treat to talk with him and make sure to check out his podcast and his website. I'm even including a link to his five page proposal template, which is fantastic. And that alone will get you thinking a little differently about your pricing and the way you think about your pricing. This was a really fun and in depth conversation that again, it's going to get you in the right mindset, it's going to get you thinking differently about pricing. I love the ideas that Jonathan brings into the discussion from the world of software development because as writers and marketers, I feel we have a lot to learn from the most successful software consultants. At the same time, you're going to notice that there are also a lot of similarities between our professions. So I think a lot of what you hear is going to resonate some of this material. You may have to sit with it for a little bit for it to really kind of sink in. I know that's been the case for me. But if you come back to it, if you really process it, think about it, and start implementing some of these ideas, I think you're going to notice a big, big difference in your income and how much fun this work can be when you're actually pricing your work the right way and earning what you deserve. Anyway, this episode is going to be well worth your time regardless of where you are in your business journey or how long you've been on your own. I hope you enjoy it.

Ed, good to see you.

Great to see you, Jonathan.

It's been a long time.

It has been. I'm glad we're back together and talking about fun stuff.

Yeah, exactly. So for the dear listener, Ed and I crossed paths years ago, like maybe 2015, and immediately recognized fellow traveler in terms of business models for freelancers, let's say. And it's been a long time since we talked, so I kind of thought it would be cool. So I reached out to maybe have a conversation where kind of compare notes from our two different worlds. I'm mostly software background, Ed, mostly copywriter copywriting background. So I'd be curious to know, just to start things off, what's the sort of state of the business in copywriting? What's happening right now in copywriting? I mean, geez, now that I say that. ChatGPT. Hello.

Yeah, it's an interesting time for. For you to ask that. That's definitely top of mind, I guess just to give listeners a bit of background.

So.

So the people I work with, they tend to be a mix of copywriters. When I think of copywriting, I think of sales copy. Many different definitions, but essentially we're trying to drive a sale directly. I also work with a lot of content marketing writers. They're writing content that's supporting a sale with a long sales cycle. Right. So educational content, in fact, I would say that's the bulk of the people I work with. But, you know, the terms are used interchangeably. You know, a couple of big trends that have been kind of top of mind for a lot of people in my audience is the fact that content marketing is no longer an innovative thing. It is a thing and it has been a thing for a while. So where at first several years ago you had to convince somebody that they need to do content marketing, now that's no longer a thing.

That's true. Yeah. That's crazy. Like, because if you think about it, social media, which seems like it has always existed, is not that old and it's sort of like web 2.0, which I would say, I don't know the years, I don't know, maybe it was 2006 or something. 2005 Twitter came out and the idea that there would be a mass market access to a mass market over a gatekeeper less channel that was like, I mean before that it was like blogs and email pretty much, if I'm not remembering it was incorrect. It was in like direct mail.

Direct mail. A lot of direct mail.

Postcards, letters. So now I think it's true. I've certainly seen the headlines that marketing spend is way down in traditional ad based media and way up in sort of like social channels and influencer marketing and stuff like that. So digital marketing?

Digital marketing, yeah, yeah, Content content specifically to like because we're trying to educate, we're trying to reframe issues, we're trying to provide proof, we're trying to provide case studies, success stories.

Yeah. So it's funny that you have not thought about that but. Right. I mean I don't think anybody would think, oh yeah, waste of time to be, I don't know, creating white papers or put having mailing list or blog or more honestly social media. So I guess maybe that's an interesting place to go. So for folks that are working with you that are making a living more in the content marketing area, what sorts of things are clients asking them to write? Like are they writing tweets, are they writing big articles for LinkedIn, are they writing things on for medium mailing list? Be curious.

Yeah, there's, there's definitely a mix but if I were to pick one that's the most common is blog posts. Blog articles that kind of repetitive, episodic kind of, kind of content. Which is, sounds great because gosh, there's, that's recurring but unfortunately that's the one thing that has definitely been commoditized. Not all across the board but because it's the one thing you, that's an easy entry point for a lot of companies and it's one of those things that they know they have to do. So that's kind of been. If you were to ask one project that's plain vanilla, that's the one.

Okay. So if somebody was like just going to get started and you know they're maybe they have a job doing copywriting and they decide they want to go out on their own like doing someone's blogging for the like a ghost blogging or whatever you would call it. Pretty common. I'm assuming the point of that is to increase the client's SEO, like their search engine rankings, so that more people are coming to their site. And then when they get there, they stay there, or at least they get educated or they start to bond with or connect with the client business. Yes, all of the above.

It's a great place to start. It's a terrible place to stay. With exceptions, right? Okay, there are exceptions. And just like with anything else, so the real top of the pyramid, there is going to be a very nuanced organizations that have a different story to tell and they need to work with a writer who gets it, someone who gets it, someone who can hit the ground running, someone who can bring ideas to the table, not just take orders. In fact, that's one of the common themes when I work with people is you have to shift from order taking, which is 90 plus percent of writers out there, to trusted advisor, someone who's got a seat at the table, essentially a part of their team can become or be perceived as part of their team.

Yeah, it's the same with software. So one of the big things I teach, I sort of called the why conversation, where it's extremely common, especially for newer clients. Like a client that hasn't spent a lot of time or money on software development, hiring people to do software development, where they have this big idea and they research enough to be dangerous and then they ask around, maybe get some referrals or referrals to like a marketplace like Toptal or Upwork or something, and they show up and they say, hey, I need somebody to build me some software. What's your hourly rate? Like that's. Can we jump on a phone call if the hourly rate sounds acceptable, which is madness because it's missing one of the number of hours, the most important piece, it's certainly left out of that conversation. But somehow they make a buying decision based on like, oh, this hourly rate seems reasonable and, and they make this huge assumption about how long it's going to take. But when they jump on the phone, and I was guilty of this as anyone back in the days when I was doing software projects, where in that phone call I knew that the outcome of the phone call was going to be me writing up an estimate for how many hours I thought it was going to take to build the thing that they told me they wanted built. And I spent the entire time in that, what should have been a sales meeting, really trying to uncover all as much scope as humanly possible. You know, like, yeah, I know it's going to have a login but is it going to have, is, is this software product going to be multi tenant or is this software product, does it have like an unusually high need for privacy or is there any regulations involved with this or whatever? Like, and I was always looking for, you know, like, can there ever be two companies on an invoice or is it always to one company? I was trying to figure out the object model, sort of like for the database. And then I had a calculation where I could, you know, if the database model was going to look like this, I uncovered all the business objects, then I could roughly say, well, I'm going to need at least two screens for every single one of these. There's going to be a list view and a detail view, and each one of those is going to take me about this long and come back and be like, oh, it'll be $75,000 for this. And I spent the entire time in the sales interview uncovering scope to come back with an estimate that was probably without exception, ultimately too low. Because the thing I didn't talk about because I was so focused on scope was I didn't find out what they were hoping to achieve because after it was done, so I never asked the question, once I deliver this, once this is done, what are you going to do next? What are you going to hope happens? Because nobody wants a bunch of code. Nobody wants a bunch of white papers. They want it to do something for their business. So they wouldn't even be considering writing a check for it. So changing the conversation in the sales interview, instead of like them saying, okay, it needs to have a blue button here and it needs to have a login system here and needs to send an email when they do this, it's like, okay, that's great, we can do all that stuff. We do stuff like that all the time. I want to understand why you wanted to do that. What is the purpose of this? What does a home run look like? I mean, you know, is it to raise a round of funding or is it to get a bunch of beta customers, like, in a system, to test a pilot or to actually get paying monthly active users? Because I would build the thing like what they're telling me to do, I would implement in three different ways for each of those different scenarios. And like you said, if you want to position yourself as a trusted partner instead of a pair of hands, you know, an order taker, then that's the point. Like, you need to do it early. Like, as early as possible, in my opinion. Oh, yeah, and get them to start seeing you as someone who understands the part of the business and that you're here to make their business better, not to do what you were told. And they're. If they're not an expert what you do, which is easier probably for me than for copywriters. But, like, people know they don't know how to write software, so they're hiring an expert in the first place because they know they don't know how to do it. So for them to tell me how to do it is like driving the cab from the back seat. It doesn't, you know, that's the wrong person driving, like, let me drive and I'll get you where you want to go. If you're just clear about where you want to go, I can get you there for sure. It might not look like what you asked me to do, though. And I see you nodding your head, so it sounds familiar. Like, what do people ask for when they ask for one of your folks to do something for them? And what should they. How would they pivot that conversation to appear more like a trusted partner and not an order taker?

Yes, it's a great question. So one key difference between your world and my world is that, as you just mentioned, in your world, most people don't know how to write code, right? So you're dealing with people who know kind of the outcome they want, or you can tease it out of them. They don't know how to do the thing. The challenge with content marketing and copywriting is many of them think they know how to do it. That's just typing subconsciously. That's how they're thinking about it. Now, they may know they can't do it well, but. But they know, like, writing is writing. It's not the same thing as writing code. So you have that challenge. The second thing I would say, this is so important, and few people do it in the world of writing. You have to basically draw a line, a dividing line between a problem aware prospect and a problem aware and solution aware prospect. Those are two totally different animals.

Interesting.

Okay.

Yeah.

So you, you or sounds like you're dealing a lot with problem aware prospects. They don't know what the solution is. They know if you tease it out of them, what outcome they want. But they're just focused on the problem and a goal, but they don't know the how, the solution. Most of the people that my clients are working with, my coaching clients, they're mostly hearing from problem aware and solution aware prospects. So the prospect typically thinks. They think they know what they need to do to solve the problem. The challenge is you need to learn how to ask better questions and how to listen more attentively and think more critically so you can steer the conversation the right way. So going to your second part of your question is how do you pivot? First you need to determine which camp are they on? So problem aware only problem and solution aware because they're two totally different paths. And if it's a problem aware only, then you need to ask a different set of questions, starting with outcome. What are you trying to achieve here? What makes that so important? How are you thinking about it? What do you think you need to do? I want to understand where they are today because depending on their answers, then I can steer them the right way and present my solution with a value context. One who is both problem aware and thinks they're also solution aware. Now I need to validate what they're thinking and how they're thinking about doing it. And it's just slightly different questions, but I can just better guide and lead the conversation that way rather than taking a backseat and letting them lead. Yeah, and then I can understand. Okay, so now I see why you're thinking about it this way. Is that an appropriate intervention? Is it an appropriate invention? Great. In my mind I'm thinking, how are you thinking about going about it? How are you thinking about it? Because many times they have the right intervention, but the wrong approach, the wrong plan, the wrong strategy, that's another potential entry point to add value and to change the conversation. So there's a few different pivot points there that you need to be aware of to guide them in the right path.

What's software developers who probably have never hired a copywriter or content marketer or anything like that, what's the initial contact feel like? Not with a client who would end up probably being not a great fit, but with a client who's probably could end to be a good fit. So a qualified lead kind of reaches out to maybe someone you're coaching. What does that outreach look like? Are they sort of self diagnosing and self prescribing like, oh, I know we need to do something about what? We need a lead magnet or we need more blogging. We need a combination of things. We need a sales funnel, we need better SEO. Like what's the thing that a good potential, like someone you would get on the phone with be like this might be a good fit. What's their initial ask look like?

Again, varies. But if we're talking about the middle of the bell curve, it's going to be we need X. And they might even tell you because we're trying to achieve Y where X is a deliverable, X is a deliverable. So they've identified an intervention. So here we have a problem and solution, aware client or prospect. And so it's usually going to be white paper. We need series of articles, we need someone to help us write our blog. We need to do a website refresh, content copy refresh. And so they've identified something. What they may not have done is ask themselves all the relevant questions as to a, is this the right intervention? B, is this the right approach? So I'll give you a quick example. We need a white paper. So a lot of people I work with write long form content. I talked about blogging a little bit earlier. There are opportunities there, but you typically want to get out of that commoditized segment of the market. Long form is a harder skill to master. So a white paper, five, 10 pages. Typically it's different flavors of it, but we need a white paper because we're trying to reframe the conversation that our market is having. We solve the problem very differently and think people are thinking about it this way. We need to show them that there's a different way of thinking about it. That's a pretty savvy prospect right there. But the mistake most writers make is they take that at face value and they don't dig a little bit deeper. And you don't have to be asked threatening questions, you just need to, okay, well, tell me more about that. It's really the art of asking great questions. And many times when you ask those questions, you realize that maybe that is not the best intervention. Maybe they have a messaging problem or a positioning problem. And if you have that problem, the best white paper in the world is not going to help achieve the objectives you had. So it does pay to dig a little bit deeper. Not only does it present yourself as a knowledgeable pro, but you want to make sure if you're going to work on this, that you have the right objective, that this is the right intervention, that they're going to be happy, that they're going to get the outcome they want. All these things, you know, so you can end up with a short term win, but a long term loss if you just take their lead and don't ask questions.

Yeah, exactly. So they say, oh, we needed 10 pages about this and you're like, great, off to the races, you go and do it and then you give it to them and they never even put it on their website, or they do put it on their website, and it doesn't drive any signups. It doesn't change the conversation. So, like, in a scenario like you just described, if I was a writer and someone came to me and was like, oh, we need a white paper. We know you do white papers in this space. How much would it cost? And I'd say, I might have a pat answer for that. I probably wouldn't. Let's just assume that this is a scenario where it's not productized. And you'd say, okay, be like, well, let's first make sure there's a good fit here, because I don't want to take your money if I'm not going to make you money. So what is this for? Like, what are you trying to do? And they say, we're trying to drive the, trying to change the conversation of the marketplace, position ourselves as like a more better solution to whatever it is. And I'd say, well, how will you know if that happens? And they would say they would have to come up with some answer that they probably haven't even thought about. They just, at least in, if the analogy holds, of my experience in software holds, they might not have even thought about how they're going to measure the success of it. They're just like, this is what you do when you want to do this. And I would say, well, how will you know that it worked? And in my space, there's usually A good client will always have an answer to this question. They won't usually lead with it. They usually take me some time to tease it out of them. But I want to know where the basket is. I'm throwing a basketball, so I want to know what meant. Because there's a lot of ways I could imagine trying to convince them retroactively that it was a good white paper. But if it didn't do what they wanted, then it really wasn't a good white paper. It wasn't a good engagement. And if I don't know what they want before I even start writing it, then how am I supposed to. It would just be luck if I achieved it in that scenario. If they said something like, I don't know, some amount of chatter on social media, and I'd say, okay, how do you know the conversation isn't the way that you want it? We follow these subreddits and they're all talking about solving this thing the wrong way. We're a better solution, but they're not thinking of us as a solution. Well, how Would you know that's changed? Well, these subreddits would look different. They'd be talking about us, they'd be talking about the problem in a different way. It's like, okay, that is something. And if I knew that all of a sudden I know I've got a bunch of like Redditors as my target audience, that's going to probably change. I'm really stretching, but I'm assuming that will change the way I think about what I'm going to actually do. It would change the deliverable. It's 100% for sure. In the software space, if your success metric is based on audience A, so the client's audience A or audience B and they're completely different audiences on the client's end, then almost for sure I'm going to build the software differently. If they're just looking to impress investors versus they want a robust product that can scale the millions I'm going to build it. It's going to be much more expensive to build the scale one than the demo as well one even though they might look exactly the same on the surface. So I'm imagining like it would help as a copywriter asking the question, what is the conversation you want people to be having? Where do you want them to have this conversation? Like everywhere. You can't say everywhere like where in these forums, in this marketplace. Well, you tell me like instead of a made up example, like I'm doing like, what would be an answer that you would like to hear from a potentially good client if they said we need this white paper to change the conversation and then you said how we know that it worked. Exactly.

So let's take it from there. How do we know if it worked? Okay, one thing, I should preface my answers by saying this. One key difference here, and this is really cool that we're talking about two different worlds because there's still a lot of similarities is that in my world you can make a really good living. And I suspect it's the same with you. By not digging too deep. Oh yeah, by just pleasing the person who's asking for this. Because honestly, if you just do that, you can make a very nice six figure income for a while. Okay. So the art of this is figuring out how much to push and how to do that masterfully. And that takes time, you know, that takes time to learn and you gotta practice. So I would ask, how would we know? Well, where did this stem from? Like where this. So this ask where did this start? And I find out that it came from the Sales team. Sales team is having a really hard time converting people from the initial conversation to the proposal stage. It's like they're losing people. That gives me something very tangible to hold onto. Now. I can dig deeper there. All right, so what responses or lack of responses? I need to know more. I mean, I'm not telling them this. I'm just thinking I need to know more about that void right there. There's a chasm. That's where things are falling through. So then they may not be able to tell me. Well, because with a white paper, that's not going to be what closes the sale. Okay, but can we come up with some sort of metric? And it might be kind of anecdotal from the sales team, but we need to define it that the sales team is able to tell us that they're. First of all, they improve that conversion rate from first conversation to proposal. And it's a yes or no question. Did the white paper help reframe the prospect's thinking? And it's a yes or no. And if we need to measure where they are now, which is zero, and then, you know, we're getting enough yeses, so that's where I would go. And I, But I will say at the end of the day, a lot of it is going to be kind of anecdotal, but we need to kind of come up with some sort of measurement. And then one thing I always like to do is I like to ask questions about what I call indicators of value, which is kind of what we're talking about. What indicators would you have to see to know we're making progress?

Yeah, exactly. Progress metric, success metrics, leading indicators. Exactly. Yeah.

But they may not be scientific, they may not be extremely tangible. I'm seeing more of this, I'm getting more of this feedback. Like to me, that's okay. That adds the qualitative element to this, which can be really powerful. I've found not everything needs to be ones and zeros. It can also be. I'm seeing Ed, trust me, I'm seeing momentum, like, great, right?

And it often is going to be pretty intangible. It's going to be. You're referring to it as unscientific. And it brings up a topic that I absolutely love. And I first learned about it in a book called how to Measure Anything by Douglas Hubbard, which is like a life changing book for anybody who is pricing things. And it's not about pricing, it's about measuring things. And he raises a fabulous point to my sort of engineering Mind measurement is always exact. It's like, and if it's not exact, it's useless. And his whole thing, it's kind of funny, it's parallel discussion to what we're having, but in a different realm. He said, if someone asked me to measure something, the first thing I'd say back to them is like, why are you measuring it? Because if I ask you how tall you are, you'll have an answer for me, but you're not exactly that tall. But the answer is useful for some reason. Like maybe I'm going to a tailor and I need to tell you, or I work at a store, I need to tell you if I have a suit that's going to fit you and you say, oh well, I'm eight feet tall, okay, I don't have any suits that are going to fit you. But if you say you're six feet tall, okay, so that's a good enough metric, it's a good enough measurement. So the measurement always just needs to be good enough for the decision that you're planning to make. So if the decision that you're planning to make is whether or not you're happy with this white paper, it's perfectly fine to measure something that's squishy and gray and fuzzy because it's the thing you're gonna measure. So let me put it another way. So like for people listening, whether it's copywriters or software developers, after someone hires you for engagement, there's a certain amount of money and time that is invested from both sides. And then at some point everybody feels like it's over. They're going to know, like viscerally know if they were glad they did it or if they weren't. And they might not know unless you ask them how they made that judgment call. But if you ask way up front, kind of like if they can project into the future, how are you going to decide if this was money and time well spent? A lot of times they can give you an answer, at least some kind of indicator like, oh, well. And it's so obvious to them that they would never have thought to mention it. It's like, oh well, if we just like if the sales team starts closing or if our sales cycle starts to decrease or our sale. I mean certainly of course, if sales go up, that's always going to be a good one. But a lot of times the white paper thing, the example I like to use when some copywriters on my daily list and so I'll get this question like, well, somebody sent in got a client. They. They want me to write them a white paper, like you said. I asked them why. They said, because our CTO is not perceived as a thought leader. We need the person to be perceived as a thought leader so we can attract more talent. We think a white paper is the solution. And they're like, there's nothing tangible here. There's nothing to measure. And I'm like, sure there is. You ask them how they know they're not a thought leader now. And they would say, oh, well, she's not getting invited to speak at these conferences, or she never gets quoted in the media or whatever the things they're looking at that tell them the baseline that there's a problem. So they're talking to you because there's a problem, or they wouldn't be talking to you. How do you know it's a problem? Oh, because of these reasons. And then you can decide back to your original point about is this the right intervention? Like, maybe a white paper isn't the best way to change this to improve this number. But if the answer is yes, you're like, oh, yeah, I can definitely get this person. I can write something perhaps with the person, perhaps on my own, that I believe will lead to this person getting asked to speak at these conferences and asked to interact with and getting quoted in the media. And that is the thing that my buyer is currently looking at to tell them that something's wrong. That's the needle on the dashboard they're looking at. That's on empty, right?

Yes.

So you're like, oh, I need to move this needle. There's like 10 other needles on there that a good white paper could perhaps move. But the one I need to move is the thought leadership needle. And that's going to look like getting invited to speak at conferences or that other stuff I listed.

That's a com. But I just to that point, in that example, this is a combination of two things. You got a deliverable and a strategy as well. Right. So it's like you could write the best piece, but you know, in your initial conversation, you should really try to understand. Great. So how are you looking to use this piece once you have it in order to achieve X result? Yeah, because if they think just rebuild it, they will come. That's not going to work either. So it's. That really gives you a new set of questioning. And then to your point about how to ask it, my favorite question is the Dan Sullivan question, by the way, which is it's six months from today. What would have needed to have happened for you to be really happy with the results with the white paper. And that really kind of shifts their thinking because now they're fast forwarding to June or July or whatever. It's like they're looking back. They're not here now, they're looking back from the future. So that's a really powerful way to get them to. I found to give you that answer.

Yeah, that's my version of the home run question. What would it look like if this is a home run? What would this look like for the business if this project is a home run? And they'll say stuff that you're like, whoa, that's impossible. Like you just disagree with the intervention. You're just like, that's not going to happen. I'm not willing to take that risk. It could happen. Maybe, you know, like for this to be a home run in the software world, something unrealistic could be like, we're competing with Facebook toe to toe with Facebook after six months. Like, no, that's not going to happen. Like maybe it's going to happen, but I'm not confident that I can contribute to that outcome. I think it's unrealistic. Or they can say something that's actually really easy and there's something that you know that they don't know that would be extremely easy for you to do that would get them to that outcome. So it could be that you can maybe come up with a parallel on your end with after this example. But it could be something like they need to do something that's actually very easy to do for you. Like they just need to get X number of meetings with like VCs or they just need to have some kind of proof of concept online that they can start to get beta testers and start to get feedback to iterate on early stages of the product. That's really easy compared to other things. That depends on which needle they're trying to move. That's a really easy needle. You could maybe do that with like a combination of Google Forms and Zapier and Google Sheets or airtable with some. There's like no code ways that you could perhaps move that needle for them in a way that is so cost effective for you that you can charge what looks like a low price and is well beneath the amount of value that they're going to get out of such a solution. Even if it's just a slapped together Frankenstein of a thing that moves the right needle for them and then everybody's happy. I guess the point I'm trying to make is like the importance of knowing what needle you're trying to move is so high that will actually affect how you do the thing. Right. It's not just a question of like, this is how I'm going to talk about it. And I would have built the same thing no matter what, or written the same thing no matter what. It will change what you build or write if you know that this is the specific needle that we're trying to move.

Absolutely. So I'll add this then, since we're going down this path. Great. Questions are so important because what you might uncover is that they need help planning out this white paper. Just to continue the example, there's going to be several decision makers involved, including the cto, several reviewers, and topic you can tell has not really been fleshed out yet. They have an idea, but you're not at a place right now where you can get to work. So to me, there's an opportunity here to carve out a separate engagement and to do a paid strategy session or roadmapping engagement for planning out this white paper. We call them white paper plans and you charge a separate fee for that. And the outcome is basically, we're now crystal clear on exactly what we need to write, what it's going to be about, how we're going to go about it, what it needs to accomplish, who's going to be involved, how this whole thing's going to play out. And you should charge for that. That shouldn't be part of the deal. Secondly, you could, within that engagement, whereas a separate engagement, figure out the second piece, which is great, we're going to end up with this amazing piece, but that in and of itself is not going to get you all that exposure that you're talking about. So how are we going to leverage this tool to make sure that happens? That could be its own engagement right there. So I'm a proponent, at least in my world, for splintering that off and not kind of wrapping it into just one big bundle, if you will.

Yeah, I mean, that's a great example of one way to split up three options on a custom proposal, which is what I advocate for custom projects. So it could just be the strategic piece and then they just have some off the shelf copywriter execute against the strategy that they come up with, the messaging, the positioning or whatever you need, maybe some sort of base level research, and then have someone, you don't need to pay, someone expensive like me. So that's the thinking. They could pick a price that suits their budget. And just have you do the really important strategic upfront piece. And then option two could be, like you said, actually writing it yourself. And option three could be like staying engaged. And this is probably like, maybe outside of the skill set of some copywriters, but, like, do something next downstream host white paper that is still within your skill set, but helps it gain traction after you've delivered it. Like, I don't know, maybe writing not scripts, but like webinar. Like, here's webinar.

Yeah, a lot of that is a. I was going to suggest webinars. That is a repurposing this content, packing it up differently, splintering off different pieces, very much within the skill set of many of my people. I think once you get into kind of public relations and getting some of this published out there, getting the CTO interviewed in different public, that's a more specialized skill set. But depending on what you have, I don't want anyone listening to go, well, I definitely don't have that. So this. Everything they just said doesn't apply to me. No, the whole idea is we're just giving you kind of a full spectrum here and you decide where you add value, where you fit, and come up with your options. So you're suggesting in the case of three options in a proposal, they build on each other. Right. So one could be the plan, only one is the plan and the white paper and us, an engagement where we get the word out and we make sure that this thing gets published, you get interviewed and you get the traction you want.

Yeah. So let's actually flip it a different way. Right. So if you wanted to. And you just mentioned the word specialized. So that is what made me think of it. I've worked with a couple of copywriters that increased their altitude of involvement with a client, which, by which I mean they more exclusively over time would just sell strategic level stuff like that first option that we just described. So the first. First option we just described is kind of like strategy implementation and then support, which is one way to slice things. Another way to slice things would be to have, like to just specialize in something like your initial offering. I'm trying. Well, maybe it's not that different, but just operating at the level of that first option and just doing positioning. So, like, you're still a copywriter. Let's say you're a copywriter and you keep on meeting these people, you're attracting these clients who don't have a white paper problem, they have a positioning problem, they don't. Or a messaging problem, like they don't know how to tell people what they are in a way that clicks. Like they can't. With symptoms of which look like you've got a sales team. It takes like a 45 minute presentation with a prospect for the prospect to even start asking the right questions or comparing you to the right alternatives or competitors. Like they just don't get it. That's not a white paper problem.

Problem. No.

Right.

That's the messaging problem. It's not elegantly explained. Like it should be much simpler. And that's a very common problem.

Right. So yeah, I see it everywhere. Right. But I know people who do this, they're like they start offering that sort of strategic only option in some form, whether it's on a customer proposal or on their website or whatever. And as a product I service and then they're like, well you know what? I don't really want to write the right paper. I don't like that anymore. I know a lot of people I can hand that work off to that are good and with the right direction they can do it. But the customer themselves can't give them that direction. And I'm going to move out of that doing business the hands work and just do the really high level upstream high impact strategy which for a copywriter would look like positioning and messaging. I think perhaps there's like some kind of. You could even. I could imagine a copywriter almost like doing a workshop with the sales team. Kind of like onboarding the sales team into the new how to talk about things in a new way.

Oh absolutely.

Engagement.

Absolutely. It could also lead to other implementation or execution engagements. Like what about taking this big piece and turning it into one pagers for the sales team to be able to use. Yeah. Not just for certain prospects, but also for themselves. You know, a condensed version maybe a map of different assets that are already there and how to make them situational. Depending on the situation, which ones to use which is going to work better so they understand what they're. It might seem like, well, they should know that. Well, you'd be surprised. You know, marketing and sales don't really talk to each other. A lot of salespeople know what they have access to.

Right. It's true. It's shocking. I mean it's. I'm used to it, so I know it's true. But it's almost like the sort of trope I see is that like the sales team kind of like resents marketing. They think it's like it's not doing anything and they could be right I mean, it could be bad, but it's like we're the ones that are out there closing the deals and they send me this stuff, I just throw it straight in the trash. It's no good. It's not. They don't understand the customer. It's almost like really seasoned copywriter could pivot into a business where they're much more of a consultant. Like just working internally with the customer on clarifying the vision and the mission and the goal, positioning and the goals and all of that stuff and just becoming more like a management consultant. Because it boils down to, I think a really good writer has to do all those things.

Yeah. You know, well, okay, so here's the opportunity as I see it today, and my thinking is evolving on this all the time as I see it right now, as of this recording, is that it's harder to present and position yourself that way as a writer or copywriter and get a lot of traction.

Oh yeah, you'd have to take the word copywriter off your website completely.

Oh, yeah, I know. But even if you took that off and you'll see where I'm going with this, it's very hard to get traction because it can feel a little too abstract. So to me, the biggest opportunity is meeting them where they are, getting to a discussion, asking great questions and pivoting the conversation to a certain direction and then at that point presenting these other options. Okay, so I'm not saying you can't do as a copywriter the. No, I'm not a copywriter anymore. Here's what I do. You can absolutely do that. But I find that most of the needs start as an identified thing again, solution aware. And then the big opportunity is to pivot that conversation, ask deeper questions and pivot as needed, and then present these other options. And it could be that that's a bridge, that that's a great bridge to this other side. Because I think that what I've seen is that people who go 180 degrees say I'm done with writing and I'm going to go in this direction and they start from scratch. They're having a hard time getting traction. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You got to bridge that gap. So there's a transition phase there, I think, for sure. So, yeah, totally agree on that. Made me think of the concept of niching into like attracting the right kind of buyers so that you're getting the kinds of people who are open to these sorts of conversations in the first place as part of that transition. So how much do you talk with copywriters about picking a niche, picking a target market, or honing in on who they can help best, who is their ideal buyer? Oh, my gosh.

We spend. I mean, that's 90% of the time. That's where I start. When we start working together, that's where we start the discussions. Because 90% of the time, it's either not specific enough or it's very confusing. There's. There's a problem with it. The hardest thing, I don't know if you see this with developers, but writers, this is more on the kind of creative side of things, right? Writers focus a lot on their craft, and they don't want to leave opportunities on the table. So the thinking is, yeah, but if I narrow on down to this, that means I'm not going to have all these other opportunities. And I think you talk. I think I learned this from you, this wording, which is that only limits what you pursue, not necessarily what you accept. You need focus in terms of what you pursue. Now, if something comes to you, that's not what you advertise, and as you listening to it, you realize this would be a great opportunity. I can absolutely help them. That's a different story. But you have leverage there. They came to you. They know you don't focus on their industry or their sector, but they're convinced because they came, referred or whatever that you're the one who can help them. Writers have a hard time understanding and listen, I get it, I felt the same way for years. Is that if you narrow it down, you're not narrowing down your options. You're making it easier for people to say yes. And I would rather have a smoother sales process with fewer people but end up with higher quality than to cast a wider net and just go through that mess.

Yeah, I'm so glad you said wider net, because I know that that is the metaphor that's in people's minds, but I want to talk through that metaphor for people who are in that, like, that fear, leaving opportunity on the table. When you say, like, why would I just fish with this single hook when I could cast a wide net? And I'm like, no, that's not the right. The metaphor is wrong in the. By being a generalist and appealing to everyone, that's not the net, it's the water. So Nike has a big net. Apple has a big net. You have a single fishing hook, whether you're in the ocean or standing next to a barrel full of trout. I actually looked it up. It's estimated that there are 3.5 trillion. I think it's. I can't even remember now. Trillion fish in the ocean. And there might only be a thousand trout in this bucket you're standing next to, but they're jumping into your hands. Would you rather have the thousand trout that you can see right there that are jumping into your hands, or would you rather be out in the ocean in a dinghy with a single hook? You don't get a big net. That is for big company. You always only have this little hook. And between those two options, I'd much rather be next to the barrel.

I'm with you. That is a great metaphor.

I wish I told it that I got to practice telling that one.

No, I love it. And I think is we put on our consumer hat too many times and always subconsciously think of those examples like the apples of the world. And that is the wrong thinking. You have a totally different business. Those are rare exceptions. Yeah. So you do need to narrow it down. It becomes so much easier and you're.

Able to do better work. Yeah. And that's true, too. Not to cut you off, but to just pile on your point from earlier. And if somebody, if a bass jumps out of there or comes flopping on the ground even though you're standing next to this barrel, fine, take the bass if you want. But I think what you'll find is that you stop wanting to do that because then you take on someone who's outside of your defined target market, your barrel of fish. You take on some from outside because you're still saying yes to everything that comes along. And you find, just like you said, you can't do as good of a job for them. You start actually being able to do a better job for the people that you focus down on. And you can't even do as good of a job with someone else. Like, if someone comes to me, that's a copywriter, I might work with them. I'll talk to them and say, like, oh, maybe I'll do this, or a marketer or a designer or an architect. I've done that. It's good. I've provided enough value that they're happy that they did it. But when a software developer comes along, I can read their mind. I can tell them what's going to happen six months in advance. It's not like this. Well, yeah, let's work together. But not my normal. Right. I can actually do a better job with software developers because I've been focused down on that. Yes, that's my background. But still, it's true. Like, I can help them with delivery, I can help them with sticky client conversations that I wouldn't be able to do as well with someone in a completely different space.

Yeah, well, okay, so here's the other big one we haven't really talked about, which is you can charge more. You can charge more. I mean, we've been talking about pricing, right? It's like if you narrow it down, you can charge more because you become, so to speak, the obvious choice. So I want everyone. That should be the question. How can I become the obvious choice here. And one, I think one question or one line of thinking that a lot of us don't ask or don't ponder enough is we always think of value. It's like, okay, the value, the value, the value. When we think of value, we think of adding.

Right?

Adding deliverables. Adding deliverables and adding things we don't think enough. I don't feel especially writers about what risk are we helping them avoid? If they go with us, they're not going to risk 1, 2, 3, 4, these things, and that is value in and of itself. They take a chance on somebody else who's just going to kind of follow along and just order, take and do whatever they want. Is that really going to give them what they. And if you plant enough seeds of doubt by asking the right questions, then you suddenly become an obvious choice from a risk perspective alone.

Hmm. Yeah, that's a hundred percent true. Big topic. I don't know if I know that we've got a limited amount of time today, so maybe we need to.

Actually, my next call, I thought it was at top of the hour, but it's not until 15 after. So we're good. If you.

Yeah, let's drill into this a little bit. So when you become the go to person in the space, so highly likelihood that a bad thing is going to happen and what if the bad thing does happen? It's going to be very high impact, right? The likelihood and impact of a risk is very high. So if you are perceived as the safest, smartest option for this tiny barrel of fish that you're standing next to, then they are going to attract people who are feeling the most fear, they're feeling the highest risk. And what happens when those people come to you is they're not considering, even considering anyone else. And this high risk is going to maximize this feeling of safety that they want from you is that is going to maximize the amount of money they're willing to spend. So it's going to have an upward pressure on what it's worth to them. So the value is going to be much higher to them. If it's a white paper or presidential speech or whatever it is that you write, then they're going to want to spend as much as they can afford to get you. And so the exact same deliverable. For someone who's like, man, it doesn't really matter. I could pick any copywriter. This is just not that big a deal. Then there's going to be this downward pressure on like why you, why are you so expensive? This other person's going to do it for the same amount because there's no risk. So they don't care. Right. So as you niche down and get better at becoming. I've never said it as the safe option, but that's exactly what it is. I always think of it as like you're the go to person for this particular thing, but you are the safe option. You're the smart choice.

Lowest risk.

So people who have really high risk are the exact same piece. Single fishing hook, whether you're in the ocean or standing next to a barrel full of trout. I actually looked it up. It's estimated that there are 3.5 trillion. I think it's. I can't remember now. Trillion fish in the ocean. And there might only be a thousand trout in this bucket you're standing next to, but they're jumping into your hands. Would you rather have the thousand trout that you can see right there that are jumping into your hands or would you rather be out in the ocean in a dinghy with a single hook? You don't get a big net. That is for big company. You always only have this little hook. And between those two options, I'd much rather be next to the barrel.

I'm with you. That is a great metaphor.

I wish I told it better. I got to practice telling that one.

No, I love it. And I think is we put on our consumer hat many times and always subconsciously think of those examples like the apples of the world. And that is the wrong thinking. You have a totally different business. Those are rare exceptions. Yeah. So you do need to narrow it down. It becomes so much easier and you're.

Able to do better work. Yeah. And that's true too. Not to cut you off, but to just pile on your point from earlier. And if somebody, if a bass jumps out of there or comes flopping on the ground even though you're standing next to this barrel, fine, take the bass if you want. But I think what you'll find is that you stop wanting to do that because then you take on someone who's outside of your defined target market, your barrel of fish, you take on some from outside because you're still saying yes to everything that comes along. And you find, just like you said, you can't do as good of a job for them. You start actually being able to do a better job for the people that you focus down on. And you can't even do as good of a job with someone else. Like, if someone comes to me that's a copywriter, I might work with them. I'll talk to them and say, like, oh, maybe I'll do this, or a marketer or a designer or an architect, I've done that. It's good. I've provided enough value that they're happy that they did it. But when a software developer comes along, I can read their mind. I can tell them what's going to happen six months in advance. It's not like this, well, yeah, let's work together. But not my normal. Right. I can actually do a better job with software developers because I've been focused down on that. Yes, that's my background. But still, it's true. Like, I can help them with delivery, I can help them with sticky client conversations that I wouldn't be able to do as well with someone in a completely different space.

Yeah, well, okay, so here's the other big one we haven't really talked about, which is you can charge more. You can charge more. I mean, which we've been talking about pricing, right? It's like if you narrow it down, you can charge more because you become, so to speak, the obvious choice. So I want everyone. That should be the question, how can I become the obvious choice here? And one, I think one question or one line of thinking that a lot of us don't ask or don't ponder enough is, you know, we always think of value. It's like, okay, the value, the value, the value. When we think of value, we think of adding, right?

Adding deliverables.

Adding deliverables and adding things. We don't think enough. I don't feel, especially writers, about what risk are we helping them avoid? If they go with us, they're not going to risk 1, 2, 3, 4, these things. And that is value in and of itself. They take a chance on somebody else who's just going to kind of follow along and just order, take and do whatever they want. Is that really going to give them what they. And if you plant enough seeds of doubt by asking the right questions, then you suddenly become an obvious choice from a risk perspective alone.

Hmm. Yeah, that's a hundred percent true. Big topic. I don't know if I know that we've got a limited amount of time today, so maybe we need to.

Actually, my next call, I thought it was at top of the hour, but it's not until 15 after. So we're good. If you.

Yeah, let's drill into this a little bit. So when you become the go to person in the space, that's exactly the effect it'll have, which is that you're going to start to attract clients who feel like the stakes are higher. If you're like the obvious choice, you know, April Dunford, you're obviously awesome. Like you're the one and you're the one that makes them feel the safest. People who feel very unsafe, in other words, they feel like they're exposed to very high risk. So high likelihood that a bad thing is going to happen. And if the bad thing does happen, it's going to be very high impact. Right. The likelihood and impact of a risk is very high. So if you are perceived as the safest, smartest option for this tiny barrel of fish that you're standing next to, then they are going to attract people who are feeling the most fear, they're feeling the highest risk. And what happens when those people come to you is they're not considering, even considering anyone else. And this high risk is going to maximize this feeling of safety that they want from you is that is going to maximize the amount of money they're willing to spend. So it's going to have an upward pressure on what it's worth to them. So the value is going to be much higher to them. If it's a white paper or presidential speech or whatever it is that you write, then they're going to want to spend as much as they can afford to get you. And so the exact same deliverable for someone who's like, man, it doesn't really matter. I could pick any copywriter. This is just not that big a deal. Then there's going to be this downward pressure on like why you? Why are you so expensive? This other person's going to do it for the same amount because there's no risk. So they don't care. Right. So as you niche down and get better at becoming. I've never said it as the safe option, but that's exactly what it is. I always think of it as like, you're the go to person for this particular thing, but you are the Safe option, you're the smart choice, lowest risk. So people who have really high risk are the exact same people who are willing to spend a pay a premium. Right. You're buying insurance, it's like insurance, it's called a premium for a reason. You're paying insurance premium. So you're going to get a premium from people who are sensing this risk and you're automatically going to attract those people because you're, it's like a magnet. So like if you're the safe option, you're going to magnetically attract people who are the most scared. And if you, then there's another dial you can turn here. If you have successfully started to do that, then you can dial up the buying power on the kinds of clients you're trying to attract. So the more money they have, probably the more risk they're experiencing. So in other words, it's usually it's more or less. I wouldn't say it's causal, but I would say it's correlated that the bigger the companies are, the more. Yeah, basically the bigger your clients are, the more risk intolerant they're going to be and the more money they're going to have to spend. So it's almost like an exponential potential for the safe option to start attracting bigger and bigger customers or clients and their fees can just go way up like in a non linear way. And my experience is there's usually a ceiling there where you, most people get perfectly happy with clients of a certain size and would rather just stay there than go up to like Fortune 50s or something because they're just so annoying to deal with. I just don't like those kinds of people. Like most people I think find that I work with anyway who like to be soloists and stay soloists and they don't want to hire a giant team. There's a place where they kind of dial up the size of the company and they're like, ah, that was a little too big. I want to dial it back down a little bit. But you can dial it pretty far up there and still be attracting 10 or 50 or maybe even $100 million client where you can work directly with the founder on their positioning, let's say, or their messaging for their sales team or their sales collateral. And if you're perceived as the safe one, the one that's not going to waste their time, the one that's not going to waste their team's time, the one that's going to deliver the best possible results in these particular areas that they know that you're well known for. It's like, it's kind of like the sky's the limit for your fees.

Totally. I would say there are two just in practice, two great opportunities that are often missed where you can help plant these seeds. One is in your discovery call. I would urge everyone to start developing and practicing some key messages around that. And I like to start it or I like to verbalize it. This way, when you work with me, here's what you can expect. When you work with me, you don't have to worry about X, Y, Z. Say it just like that. I mean say it in a way that feels natural to you. That should be planting seeds in the discovery call. Your proposal should also emphasize these things. Don't assume that the prospect's going to connect the dots. There's a lot of NLP that can come into play here in the conversation. Sure. But go ahead and say it outright and say it confidently. And going back to niching when you do that, it makes it so much easier.

So much easier.

The second point, and this is what reminds me of this. I have to remind myself of this stuff all the time. I heard an interview years ago with Tony Robbins talking about his coaching at the time. I'm sure he still does some of this. He did some one on one coaching for very select. I mean we're talking CEOs, top level athletes. And he said something and I'm going to totally paraphrase it here because this is my interpretation of it that really has stuck with me all those years. He said I'm the guy that CEO calls when there's a board meeting the next day and he feels that his job is on the line. I'm the guy that that top level athlete calls the night before the tournament because they're having some serious doubts. I'm the guy that that executive high net worth individual thinks that his kid is at risk of committing suicide and they need to have that conversation. They need to reach that person, that kid. So he described all these really high stakes situations and presented himself. He wasn't bragging like I'm the guy. What is that worth? So how can you. I think that's a useful exercise is I'm the guy who. Or I'm the gal who people, these people call when fill in the blank. And we all have that. You don't have to be Tony Robbins, but you need to be able to answer those questions for yourself or fill in those blanks.

Yeah. That reminds me of an interview I did years ago with a guy named Joel Pilger. And he did a little exercise that this reminds me of where he said, here's a great shortcut for figuring out your positioning. And I was like, ooh. I was all ears. Because a great. He's usually hard. So a shortcut sounded good if it was going to work. And I really liked it. And it's kind of what you just said, which was imagine you're at a cocktail party and somebody's, you know, you meet someone and they're like, oh, what do you do? Instead of saying, I'm a copywriter, I'm the fill in the blank. And if you're going to credibly answer that question with a instead of I'm one of many, then it replaced that with the one and only. So just one of many versus the one and only. You almost surely have to come up with something that is incredibly specialized. So you can be the one and only. Today you could be. Today you could be the one and only. Insert high specialization here.

Oh, I like that. That's a nice pattern interrupt. Because it takes all that mental trash out and kind of goes right to the heart of it, right?

And so like, live on that interview, he was like, so what? He did it to me. He's like, so what do you do? And I would normally say, I'm a business coach. And he's like, okay, now what are you? The one and only. And I just blurted out, I'm the ditching hourly guy. And it's so much better. Instantly I was like, oh, because it segments my audience if you're not billing by the hour. Because I'm not a business coach for Pizza Place. That's a business. But I don't coach those. It immediately segments down to people who are trading time for money. And it's like, oh, okay, it includes so much stuff. And it was right there in my head. It came right out. But it never occurred to me before he had that just one of many versus the one and only. But it does involve. It's a strategic decision by strategic decision just to keep. Not to go into what strategy is. But it means that you are drawing a fence around your territory. And you could sneak over the fence behind the scenes, but in terms of your, you know, like, take on clients that are from a different barrel of fish. But this is the territory you're going to publicly map out as your space and you're going to own that space. And this has benefits across your entire business. Everything from SEO to delivery to follow up to sales interviews and negotiation. What to write about what to speak about. It makes everything so much easier. So that's a great ex. People, anybody listening? It doesn't matter if you're a copywriter or software developer. What is that blank? What do you fill in there? Like, I am the insert thing here. And it just, it reframes your whole. All the tactics around what you might be doing to grow your business. It'll reframe everything.

Well, I'll add this like, you were able to say it very succinctly. Even if you can't do it as succinctly as you did, I'm the guy who. That's fine. You know, like, it doesn't really matter. Don't take it literally is what I would tell the audience. At least my audience. You know, just. I think it's still going to narrow it down tremendously.

Oh, 100%.

You know, how do I draw those fences around the specific area that is so powerful and that should permeate everything you do? I mean, I know we've been talking about pricing. All this has to do with pricing because that reframes the whole conversation before they even contact you, which is so important. I want, when somebody contacts me to already be pre sold to a certain extent. I kind of think of it as a gauge. 50% is not good enough. I want 70, 80%. I know that sounds ridiculous. It's just a number. It's arbitrary. But the point is 30%, 50%. No, no, no. You want to position yourself in a way that by the time you get on that zoom call, they're already hoping that you're going to ask the right questions and they're going to feel right about this. Yeah, right.

They don't want to go looking for someone else. You're their person. Like, they want. They just. It's yours to lose at that point. It's like, honestly, it gets to the point where you start saying no to fish from another barrel because you're afraid you're not going to. Because you feel that risk crop back up. Once you have that sense of mastery around hitting home runs reliably for clients, and you go back to the old way of like, hoping they're happy because you verged outside of your territory, you'll stop doing it right away. You're like, that feels terrible. I can't believe I used to do that. Like, how did I live? Like that? And, yeah, it takes time to get to that point, but that's where you end up. It's like, I don't know. I like using Dr. Metaphors. Sometimes they don't always apply though, because it's a different type of sale. But being a specialist, like someone who's been a brain surgeon for 20 years is not nervous how it's going to go with the next patient. They've already pre qualified the patient. They know how it's going to go. Like, they can't guarantee everything, but they know how it's going to go within a range. And I think getting to that point and then just going back and being like a GP would probably feel awful. It'd be like, ugh, you know, like this kid's sneezing on me and like he had a runny nose and this person's just coming in for an appointment, they don't even need it, they're just lonely. And, you know, all of a sudden you're just like a generalist again. And it's like, yuck, you know, like, how did I ever get anything done? Like, it might, I don't know, that sense of, maybe it's just me, but it feels like once you are like, you know, you get up to the bat and you're like, I'm definitely gonna hit a double and I'm used to hitting home runs, maybe I'll hit a grand slam. Going back to like, geez, I hope I get on base. Does not feel good.

No.

So you starts to get addictive and it's like a virtuous cycle in my experience.

Completely agree. So that's really why the goal should be create a new normal. Create a new normal higher than where you are right now, because that's what's going to set the stage standard.

So what's the key next step that the listener should take? The very first thing they should do.

You know, we kind of ended up here, but I think that's really the starting point, I think is really take a hard look at your positioning, which by the way, to simplify because it could be a confusing word in my world. It's about the perception you create in the marketplace. That's all positioning is. I think of it as four elements. What you do for whom, what makes you different, and why those differences matter to that audience. The for whom, Just a very simple way you need to be able to answer those questions. I would say, then distill that into, I'm the person you call when you know, like something simple or your exercise. And then I would say from there, turn it into some updated copy for your website. Because that's really the out market facing version of that thinking. And number three would Be to ask better questions. Ask better questions. Because the whole pricing thing is very tactical. It doesn't really matter if you have a great pricing process. If you're not asking better and deeper and more follow up questions to get to the heart of what the prospect really cares about, what they're trying to accomplish. Yes. What about you?

What would you say? I agree with all that stuff. So much so that I'm just going to tack a little tale on the end of it about pricing where you just left it, which is that whatever. If without being well positioned as the go to person for something, the safe choice, let's say the one and only, without that value pricing, which a lot of people look at as a silver bullet for increasing their fees, it's not going to do anything meaningful for your fees. If you give them a proposal that's twice as much as the next person and they see no meaningful difference between you and them, you're not going to magically make twice as much as you did yesterday. So value pricing is magical for people who are already the safe choice, the one and only. It's amazing for those folks, for folks who aren't, who are still commodity interchangeable cogs, you know, in the minds of their buyers. I know everybody's an individual special snowflake and you are, you're all different. I know that. But if your buyers don't perceive any meaningful difference between you and the next person, they're going to pick the cheapest one or the second cheapest one. And that's not the place you want to operate. And value pricing is not going to magically get you out of there. What will magically get you out of there is making some really hard decisions about who you're going to at least publicly say no to and who you're going to at least publicly say yes to. And making that shockingly small in almost every case, it seems shockingly small. But if there's 1,000 people in that market that you're targeting, you couldn't take a thousand clients in one year. You probably couldn't take a hundred. So like could you get a tenth of 1% or I probably said that wrong, but could you get, yeah, like less than 1% of this thousand people in this market? Probably. Right. Like it's not unrealistic. And then that is 10 good clients for the year. 10 or 20, let's say. That's pretty cool. It's like it seems like, oh well, there's 3.5 trillion fish in the ocean, there's only a thousand in this barrel, it's like, yeah, but you can only eat two.

So people lose perspective so quickly. Yeah, I get it. Because we think in volume terms of volume, you don't need that many. And that's the question. How can I get 5?

I only get a dollar from every person on the Internet. And it's like, don't think like that because you can't get that dollar.

Yes. Amen. Amen. So, Jonathan, where can I send people to read your stuff, connect with you?

I would just send them to jonathanstark.com and right there on the homepage is kind of like first time here. Here are the popular links. So it's. Yeah. Jonathanstark.com and I'll put in a plug for my mailing list, which is daily and yet continues to grow. People stay subscribed and I deliver a little bit of vitamin J into your system every day if you allow me into your inbox. I love it.

And not only do I want to connect and link people to your website, which is excellent, you got a great content. But also, if it's okay with you, I'd like to link to your proposal template.

Oh yeah, please do.

Which is awesome. It's free and I learned so much. I learned so much from what you share there for free. So thank you. I appreciate you.

Oh, I appreciate it. It's fun conversation. I want to. Where's the best place for folks to find out more about you?

B2B launcher.com so the letter B the number two letterblauncher.com and that's all things pricing and etc. For writers, copywriters and marketing strategists.

Perfect. Love it. Always good to do this more often.

We totally should. So thank you for the opportunity, Jonathan. It was great to have another chat.

Likewise.

Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And and just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, earn more in less time. The proven mindset, strategies and actions to prosper as a freelance writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com or you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.