A short spoken guide arguing that beginners should accept selective free or very low-paying work to rapidly fill their schedule, collect five-star reviews and referrals, then create scarcity by telling prospects their schedule is full and charging a set rate. As paying clients arrive, the creator recommends letting free clients go or converting them at the new rate, and iteratively raising prices (example: $500/month → $800/month) while informing existing clients of the new pricing. Emphasis on upfront expectations (ask for reviews) and using demand to justify price increases.
Chapters
Should you work for free when you're first starting out? Yes, absolutely you should. But we're not going to do free work for just anybody and everybody. So here's the play. You're going to take on free work or very low paying work and absolutely max out your schedule to where you don't have any more time to serve more clients. But you're going to set the expectation up front that you want a five star review from every single one of these people. You're working for free. Now, as the referrals start to come in and more people start to see what you're doing, you're going to be able to honestly tell them, my schedule is packed. You're going to have to pay me X if you want to work together. And so for every paying client you get, you let a free client go. You go to the free client, you say, hey, it's been great working together. People are now paying me X for this service. So if you want to keep working together, we can at that price point. And if not, no harm, no foul. It's been great working together. Now some of your free clients are going to actually pay you money because they've had a great experience and they want to keep working with you. Some of them are going to go their merry way, but that's going to open up room now for those new paying clients that are starting to come your way. And by the way, this is how you raise prices too, because eventually your schedule is going to be packed with paying clients and you're going to need to raise prices. And so you say, I was charging 500amonth, now I'm charging 800amonth. And any new client is going to pay you 800amonth. Now as you start getting new clients paying you 800, you're going to go to those $500 a month clients and say, hey, people are now paying 800amonth for this service. If you want to keep working together, we can. If not, no harm, no foul. It's been great working together.
