Breaking Free from Mindset Barriers | 22 Minutes of Insight

Welcome to another edition of the Ask Evan Show. This is episode number 6, and I'm here to answer your business questions to help your company grow. So let's kick it off. First up is Shannon. Shannon writes in, she's from my newsletter list, she writes in to say, Evan, thank you. I've been told on more than one occasion that I'm not asking what I'm worth. I had a publishing company for 7 years, but I never got to the point of taking a salary because I wanted to offer my authors twice the royalty of standard publishers. Now that I'm working as a freelance editor and blogging specialist, I'm really having a hard time asking for what I believe I'm worth. I work in the sewing industry with a lot of stay-at-home moms, so I find myself empathizing with their situations and lowering my prices to not offend anyone. My father told me a couple years ago that I was afraid of money. I'm starting to believe that maybe he was onto something. I always feel like I'm caught somewhere in between my dream of success and not wanting to take advantage of others, My question: do you have any suggestions on how I can value my services properly and not feel guilty? Thank you, Shannon. Shannon, I really feel for you because I feel the love in what you're doing. I feel the passion in what you're trying to accomplish, but you definitely have issues around money and the mindset of an entrepreneur. And I mean, I have an entire Zuga guide on mindset and how to make sure you have the right one and what to do. But for this case, look at some of the things you're saying, okay? You find yourself empathizing with their situation and lowering your prices. It's okay to empathize with people, right? That's great. That's an amazing skill to have, but that doesn't mean you have to lower your prices. You say you're lowering your prices to not offend anyone, like being charged what you're worth is going to offend somebody, right? They may not be able to afford you, And that's— there's a lot of people who can't afford what I do, but I don't believe that my prices are offensive, right? And so that's right, just in how you use your language right there, you're limiting yourself. You believe that by having a high price, it's going to offend people. It's going to make it hard for you to ever be charged what you're worth. Then you ask, how can I value my services properly and not feel guilty? Like, you should feel guilty for getting what you're worth, right? Value your services properly makes you feel guilty. So that means you're never going to value your services properly. What you first have to understand is that you are adding a lot of value to somebody's life, right? You're helping make their lives or their businesses better. You have to really truly fully believe that. Until you do, you're not going to be able to charge that next level of pricing. You're not going to be able to charge 5 times what you're currently charging. You're never going to be charged what you're worth. So it starts, it starts with yourself understanding that you add value, that you are worth something. I don't know where this comes from back in your history. Maybe it's from your parents, maybe it's from a childhood experience, but this comes down to being, to having a sense of worth and to having a sense of self-confidence and being able to ask others to help you, right? So it comes from you first acknowledging that you are important, that you're creating valuable work, and that you're worth something because you're having an impact on people's lives. The second component to this is I have a feeling, and looking at your, your, your history here, because of this mindset of yours, you then tend to work with other people who don't have money. You surround yourself with people who don't have money because that's the belief system you set up for yourself. So you attract people who are in that similar mindset to you, which is going to always hurt you, right? If you're targeting— who's your first group? Traditional authors who weren't making money, you're trying to give them more money. And now you're working with stay-at-home moms in the sewing industry. These are people who don't necessarily have a lot of money. Maybe they can't afford your services, right? You don't need to decrease the price of what you're selling so that you can attract this market. You need to go and find a different market, right? If you are a top-end, high-caliber— what— editor and blogger, if you're really a specialist like you call yourself, then maybe stay-at-home moms who are doing sewing websites, maybe they can't afford you. Maybe it's just not the market, and that may hurt. That may hurt you. That may feel like, you know, I love these, I love this group, I love working with these people, but if they can't afford to pay you, then you have to just find another way to stand. And you can always have a portion of your business that helps support these people, and maybe it's for a reduced fee, maybe it's even for free, But you need to live too, right? It's great to have a charitable heart and to want to help people, but you have to make money. And the more money that you can make, the more people you're going to be able to help. So you have to make sure that you are around, that you're surviving, that you're thriving, that you're successful and happy. I came across this with my business. I sell to entrepreneurs. I sell to people like you, right? I love entrepreneurs. I empathize. So much with entrepreneurs because I was that person making $300 a month and eating beans for lunch every day and not being able to survive and wanting to quit and feeling like garbage when my business didn't work out. And I don't want to see other people go through that. I want to try to help them. I could be with entrepreneurs 24 hours a day talking business. I love it. I just can't get enough of it. But here's the big but: entrepreneurs don't have a lot of money, right? You guys don't have a lot of money. So selling products, selling coaching services, selling anything becomes difficult because that $100 that I'm asking you to spend, that's critical to you, right? That's not like going to IBM and saying, "Hey, I need $100 for a campaign." That's like— that's maybe food for you, right? That's a big deal. And so the way that I've modeled my business now is at scale, right? Instead of helping one entrepreneur at a time, I'm helping millions at a time. I'm making YouTube channel videos that can reach millions of people. I work with big brands that are trying to reach the entrepreneur community. And I can charge Microsoft and I can charge Dell and I can charge these big companies who are trying to reach entrepreneurs. So for you, maybe find another way to stand. Who else is trying to reach this community? Who's a bigger company that you can work with to help them reach the stay-at-home moms, the sewing community? How can you write for them? And you can still have a portion of your business that relates to helping out these stay-at-home moms because that's your— that means something to you. But if that's always your core and these people don't have money, then no matter how much you love them, If they can't afford you, they're not going to be offended by your prices, they just can't afford you. And so it's not on you to drop your prices to meet them, it's on you to find clients who will pay you what you're worth. So maybe a long answer, but I think a really important one. To recap, 1, understand that you are worth something, that you add a lot of value, that you're helping people, that you are a valuable person. And believe that and look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that and read the quotes of customers who have had such a great experience working with you and read that over and over again, remind yourself of that. And then to start going after customers who can afford you, who can really pay you what you're worth because once you start charging the dollars that make you feel like a— feel like a— respected human being, you know, like to work at such low prices beats on your confidence. So to work with the right clients will help you rise up, will help you become a way better entrepreneur and give you greater abilities to then go and work with these entrepreneur part-time moms who are in the sewing community that you love as well. Okay, next up is Harshit who wrote in to say, I'm not worried about competitors as there are only a few and they lag far behind. Us in terms of technical competence. The main challenge is to reach new customers, or in other terms, our customers don't even know that the service providers like us exist. I'd be grateful if you can give me a few tips for the same, so how to reach them. Thanks, Harshid. Now I've gone back and forth with Harshid a little bit on email to get a better understanding of his business. Basically, he helps companies with really, really old technology come into the modern era. And the company that used to provide it is out of business. They're not around anymore, and companies are struggling to figure out, do I do it myself? Do I keep with this old technology? Do I upgrade? What to do next? And so a couple of thoughts here, Harshit. First, first, I hate being in a shrinking market. Just as a general rule, there's opportunities, but I hate being in a shrinking market. So you're helping transition companies from old technology, the specific old technology, to new technology. And once all those customers are gone, that's it, right? There's no one else who has that old technology. They're not making it anymore. So just as an overall feeling, I think you should be focusing on a bigger market, not just upgrading these old guys. But anyway, that's my first thought. I hate being part of a shrinking market. If you're trying to grow a business, be in something that is growing, that's exploding, and try to be the best in the world at it. But to answer your question, what I would do, because these guys are hard to reach, there's no distributor to go through, it's hard to make alliance partners to reach these guys, I would use the media. I would position yourself as an expert. I would create content for all of the major publications, articles, magazines that your customers are reading. Because you don't know how to reach these guys individually, right? There's no directory you can call up and say, "Hey, here's what we do." Right? It may be hard to get a trade show for them. It's hard to find that alliance partner or distributor or supplier. So your best bet is to use the media. Position yourself as an expert. Write content regularly talking about the importance of upgrading, how to do it, the steps involved. You can use case studies. Each one can be different angles, different stories, different things you pitch to companies so that when they come and read these articles they feel like, "Yeah, that's my problem. I want to talk to these guys." So if you have this problem— this is for all of you guys, all you entrepreneurs watching— if you have this problem where you have this huge, you know, potential audience but they're scattered everywhere and there's no easy way to connect with them, you don't have a directory, it's hard to take out advertising again, so how do you reach these guys? Use the media. What publications are they reading? What YouTube channels are they watching? What TV shows are they tuning into? And create content, position yourself as the expert, talking about exactly what you do, the problems that people are facing, the, the best results that you've achieved for people, case studies. Continue to share that loop, and as people get exposed to it, they'll come to you. You want to create a pull where they want to come to you and reach out to you instead of you trying to find them one by one. Okay, next up, 2. T-O-U Yang from my newsletter list wrote in to say, "Hi Evan, Tu here again. You are the man." Thank you, Tu. I appreciate that. "I have a question about friends and family angel funding. Can founders take a small salary from the investment? Is it common to do this? I know my product works, but I still need to work full-time to pay my bills until I find some type of partnership to generate revenue. If I receive funding of $20,000 to $50,000, it's too small and will go towards product development." 'But if I receive $100,000 to $250,000 and up, then I can see using a small amount of salary, product development, and more. Would love to know your thoughts. Thanks again, Tew.' This is a great question. And when you are looking for funding, angels especially hate wanting to see a lot of money going to salaries. Now, you are expected to make a living from this, but they hate that it's coming from their own money, right? And they're thinking, if you can't find a way to make this your full-time thing, if you're not that committed to it, then why should I give you dollars to go out and do it, right? What angels want to see is that you are already working on this full-time. You're in it. You're invested. You're all in on this. It has to work. That's when an angel wants to give you their money. The thing to think about here is, yeah, okay, you can take out a small salary the bigger the percentage compared to how much you're asking for, the more eyebrows you're going to get. I remember in my VC days, I had a company come, they pitched us, they want $500,000 for their business. There are 4 founders, each of them were going to take a $100,000 salary and the last $100,000 would be used to grow the business. Are you nuts? You think anybody's going to fund that? What are you smoking, right? But this was a real plan that people were trying to push through, and so obviously they got rejected. The more money you ask for— so yeah, great, it'd be great to have $250,000 and pay yourself a $25,000 salary, and you know, it's only 10% of the total funding, it's easier to swallow. But to get $250,000, how much of the company are you going to have to give up? Are you even worth $250,000 at all right now? Angels will take a huge cut cut of your business because it's the riskiest time. If you don't have your product done, if you have zero sales, that's the riskiest time to get angel investment. They may not even think your business is worth $250,000 as a whole. So that's your challenge. Angels see so many deals, see so many opportunities, see so many people coming at them, and the people who you're competing against They're doing this full-time, right? They're making sales. They're out there hustling. Your best bet, honestly, is to go out and find a way to make this happen on your own, to bootstrap it up, to get something, to get customers coming in. Not to the point where you're making it big, where you don't need help, you know, that's why you're going to an angel, but they're going to kill you on your valuation, and if you're not working full-time time in the business, then honestly, if you're meeting angels right now, I would just ask them for advice, not ask for money. Just get on their radar screen, let them see your hustle and your drive, ask for their business advice, and if they really like you and you keep them posted with your progress, they're going to want to invest with you. But honestly, I think you're too soon right now. You have to find a way to get this thing off the ground yourself, start getting some paying customers in so that you can— you You can leave your job because they want to see that you're working full-time at your business. It kind of sucks, and I know maybe not the news you wanted to hear, but being from that industry, having helped raise capital for entrepreneurs at different stages, it's probably your best bet. Bootstrap it up. You can make it. Just find a different way, man. You don't need to spend $50,000 to get this business off the ground. Find another way, a cheaper way. Bootstrap it up. To get some money in the door so you can pay yourself a small salary, you can quit your job, do this full-time, and then go get angel investors. Next up, Sire3000, one of my YouTube fans, commented on one of my ODesk videos, wanted to know, "Hope you can help me with this one, man. I don't live in the US and I want to know whether I have to pay any taxes to the IRS as well as I will have to give the government of my country. Hope I have made myself clear enough. Thanks in advance for your attention." So you only pay taxes in your country, and the companies will only collect taxes from people who are in their country. So an example, if I'm selling a product in Canada to Canadians, I have to charge them tax, right? If I am hiring somebody here local in Canada, I have to pay payroll tax. But if I'm hiring somebody from the Philippines or from Pakistan or from Europe or wherever, then I'm not paying their taxes. They're paying their own taxes in their own country, and they're not paying taxes to Canada, right? If I hire— if I hire Christina, who's in Montenegro— hey Christina, how's Montenegro? Hope it's super sunny and warm— she's paying taxes there, right? So wherever you reside, that's where you pay your income taxes, and wherever your employer resides, that's they're not paying those income taxes for you. So if you are on oDesk, you're trying to get a job, you will only be paying taxes to your local government and not to the IRS. Okay, next up is Dennis from my newsletter list, writes in to say, "It's true, I wake up this morning to do something that I don't like, but what else is there for me? I don't have enough capital to start my own business, not enough salary to support my desire of freedom. Where should I run to, Evan?" Yes, I have great ideas on how to grow economically, but these tough handles in life can't allow me to reach there. Help me realize my dream. Brother Dennis, Dennis, I feel for you, man. And when you are waking up every day and going to a job that you hate and sucks and you know is beneath you and you know you have your ideas you want to take off and you don't know how to realize them, it's soul-crushing. It feels terrible, right? You feel like you want to do so much more and you're you just can't get out of this rut that you're in. To help you get started, I'm assuming you know what you want to do, you have your idea, you have this passion you want to follow. To help you get started, to go from where you are now to taking your first steps to starting your business, two really important things. One is if you're going to have a job, and I talk about this in my ZUGA guide, Work to Learn. Christina, we could pop that up there. If you're going to have a job, You want to do something where you're going to learn. So whatever your idea is for whatever business that you want to start, the job you take should teach you about that role, right? If you want to start something in the auto industry, go get a job in the auto industry. Don't get a job in the computer industry or in the cleaning industry or the food service industry, right? Get a job in cars to learn about the industry, to make mistakes while getting paid, to make important contacts and connections. To get as close as you can to the founder of that business and work with them and learn from them so that when you go and launch your own company, you'll hit the ground running. You'll have— you'll make a lot less mistakes. You won't need as much money to do it. So you're getting paid to learn about how to become an entrepreneur in that business. And you may find out that, you know what, this business isn't for me. You may find out that this isn't what I thought it was. I hate this industry. I don't want to be here. And you've just saved yourself a really expensive lesson. So that's one. Whatever job you're in, find something that is related to the industry that you want to join. Second is get started. Small. Start small right now. Okay, so you can't afford to quit full-time? Great. You can't afford to open up your own store? Fine. What can you do now for half an hour a day to start? I don't know what your business is, but there has to be a way to spend half an hour every day, and don't give up on your dreams. You have half an hour every every single day to do something on your business. You can find half an hour today and tomorrow and the next day, every single day to focus on your business. If you can't find half an hour in the day to work on your business, to reach your dreams, you say are your dreams, then you don't deserve to have your dreams. They're just going to stay a dream. You have to put the time in, and half an hour a day you have. So what can you do for half an hour every single day to start working on your business. Start talking to potential customers. Start building your website. Start making some leads and some progress and, and learning from people and making connections and going to trade shows. Start building it up until you get to the point where you have something that you've created enough value where someone is willing to pay you. And maybe your first jobs are free because you need experience, or maybe your first jobs are at a really low wage, minimum wage, whatever. You're getting experience. And as you add more value, as you add to your portfolio, you can start adding, adding, adding the bills up. And ideally, you keep your job until you build your business up to the point where you can afford to pay yourself full-time. You're not making it rich, right? You don't quit when your business is making you $1 million, but you want to be able to make— you survive, something to survive on, right? You don't want them to shut the lights on for you, you know, because you haven't paid your electricity bill. So, one, take that job where you're learning something. And then two, start small. Start part-time. Build something up now. You can get this started. If the dream is important to you, the dream is really important to you, instead of sitting in the car driving to work every day, talking and thinking about how much you hate this job, make sure you're spending time every day to move closer to your goal. This should inspire you. And if you don't have the time to do that, then you don't deserve the life of your dreams. It's a harsh way to end Ask Evan #6, but some real truth, real talk there for entrepreneurs. We're done. Thank you guys so much for watching another awesome episode. Let me know what you guys think. If you have a question, leave it below in the comments. You want to see more videos just like this? Subscribe to the channel. Thanks for watching. I'm going to have some clementines and I'll see you soon. Don't forget to click here to subscribe to my newsletter to get actionable, inspiring, motivational, believe advice every single week to your inbox. Hi, I'm Jason J. Ros Fonseca of RiseOnline.com and I want to say Evan Carmichael's newsletter is consistent, fun, inspiring, and it's the only newsletter I prioritize and look forward to, period.