Evan Carmichael explains how to sell something you've never done: get your first client, even for free, and over-deliver. He raised blog post rates from $500 to $2,500 by proving results, then launched a $25,000-per-year program using early wins as proof it works.
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How to sell something you've never done before. So I got a great question from one of my YouTube viewers, love you guys, Drew, who wrote in to say, "Great video, but what if you can't feel confident because you've never done it before? How do you present a great idea to a business, for example, how to increase their customers or make a certain process much easier, which you know will work, but you've never done it before? Thanks." Drew, my quick Simple advice is go do it. Go get a little bit of experience and show them that it works, or start with one client, even if it's for free or even if it's at cost, whatever it is, just to get something under your belt to help you make your process better and show that it actually works, right? That helps give you a better reputation. Here's a couple examples from my personal story, and hopefully this helps guide a little bit of light. So I told this story a few times where I started creating blogs for companies. A company approached me and said, "Hey, we want you to write this blog post for us." And I said, "Sure, why not?" You know, they're going to pay me $500, I get a link to my website, it's from a big brand, so why not? And I over-delivered like crazy and I gave them way more than they wanted. I promoted it and I made videos and just way more than they ever expected. Than expected, and I had such a great impact that it was way more than they ever thought they would get. And they hired me, and they hired 9 other bloggers, and I was the only one that they kept from the start because of the results that I got. And then I started increasing my prices, and it went from $500 to $1,000 to $1,500 to $2,000 to $2,500. And now if you want me to write content for your blog, it's going to cost $2,500, but you're going to get way better results than hiring anybody else. And I can go to companies and say that with legitimacy. It's not just me knowing that it works, it's that I've done this, right? I've proven it. And I know, I know it works because I've done it before. Here are the examples, right? And so I'm not going to go off to some company and say, hey, I'm going to do this, it's going to cost $2,500. They're going to look at me and say, hey, I'm nuts. Show me some proof, and I've got nothing but just other people's work to back it up. You know, another example, okay, I've launched a new program off my website. It's a movement program helping entrepreneurs build their movements. I've built one around Believe, and I want other entrepreneurs to build it around theirs too. It's not cheap. It's $25,000 a year to sign up for the movement program. How can I sell that? Well, one, I've built my own. I'm modeling what I've done for myself to help other entrepreneurs do the same thing. And two, I've helped people in small ways do it already. So entrepreneurs in my circle, I've helped them with their movements. I've helped them find out what their one word is. I've helped them create their social media campaign. I helped them get started, and now I'm just formalizing it because people have come to me and have done, you know, meetings and one-on-one just because I wanted to help them. And now I'm formalizing the process to help people in a structured way. And so I have the experience to kind of back it up. And so my best advice is go out and start doing it. You should be the guy. You're the man to help entrepreneurs increase their customer base or make things more efficient, right? And that comes by building up reputation, by working with some companies, and it can happen quickly, but you got to get started. So even if your first customer is free or your first customer is at a really reduced cost, you got to get some experience and credibility, a track record. And here's a newsflash, you know, everything that you've learned is great up until now, but once you start working with a client, you'll get new ideas. You'll find that some of the things that you thought worked didn't work, and you'll end up with a much tighter, much better system. You do this a couple of times, you'll have the Drew methodology that then you can serve and charge a premium for because you've shown that it works for these companies. So you've got to build up a little bit of track record because for companies who are going to hire you, there's a huge risk factor, right? It's like, well, what if it doesn't work? I'm spending how much money? What if it doesn't work? I mean, the easiest way around that is to have some kind of results-oriented target in there, but they can be so hard to measure. And it's really trusting the company. But really, you just gotta go out and get some experience, do it a couple times, show that it works, prove it, have the Drew portfolio that people can look through and say, "Wow, look what he did. I want some Drew. I want some of that in my business." And if you can make that happen for a few companies, word of mouth will spread, right? Those business owners will tell other people, "Yeah, you know what? This guy Drew came in and he—" just changed my life. And you know what? Now it's not free anymore. Now it's $200, and then it's $500, and it's $1,000, and then it's $2,000, right? As you keep adding more value and as your time gets limited, right, because you're in demand, you can keep increasing the prices. That's how you build a solid business, believe. Those of you watching, I'd love to hear what you have to think. Leave a comment below. Let me know how you got your first customer, how you built this thing up. That your business is all about, let me know in the comments below. If you have other advice for Drew, I'm sure he'd love to hear it too if you want to leave feedback. If you like this video, give it a thumbs up below, click on my face, subscribe to the channel. Thank you so much, and I'll see you soon.
