Money Mindset: Think Bigger and Unlock Your Wealth Potential | Terry Rice Keynote

Morning, I was going to run out on stage. You saw how excited I was. But I didn't want to be out of breath. So just take my word for it that I am excited to be here. But raise your hand if you flew here. Lot of you, right? Yeah, I can imagine. And on my flight, there was a little bit of turbulence, so nothing heavy. But you know how you always gauge how bad the turbulence is? You look at the flight attendant, you're like, are you okay? Because if you're okay, I'm okay. But if you're not okay, I'm okay. Not getting snacks, but are you okay? They're okay. But either way, I would have been all right because of one flight that I took years ago. I was flying to London, and the pilot said, hey, by the way, we're going to experience some chop momentarily. Nothing to worry about. It's just a slight bit of turbulence. And they explained the science behind stirrup turbulence, which I'd never heard before. He's like, you know, the plane's not going to flip over. It's not going to do a barrel roll. The most any plane has ever dipped because of turbulence is a few feet. And just because of that, I felt much more confident going forward. But unfortunately, most pilots don't say that. They just say, buckle up, pray to whatever God you worship. We're going through this, right? So my goal today is to give you that same guidance to help you navigate your journeys forward, which I can't promise to be smooth sailing, but just have more information to take better action whenever you do face some advance some challenges on your creator journey. And my goal is to help you make a lot more money, too. There we go. Does anyone else want to make more money? I should ask that question, right? All right, cool, cool, cool, cool. But let's talk about. Why is this so important to me?

All right.

When I first started my business, I was actually a digital marketing expert, and I remember talking to this one person, and I told him my rate for an hour's worth. Sorry, a month worth of Facebook consulting. 500 bucks a month. That's what I was charging. Okay, guys, I get it. Like, you don't have to, like, scoff, okay? So I told him 500 bucks a month, and the next thing he said was, can you do it for four? I wish I could tell you that's where the conversation ended, but it didn't. Took the four. And by the way, it's not this guy. I know it looks like it. This is like the. Perhaps it's a Stock photo.

Right.

Okay. This is actually a really nice guy that was consulting, but that's the vibe I had. And that's what I want to help you avoid.

Right.

I want to make sure you get paid your true value. Stop making me laugh. I'm trying to be serious. So you already know my story well enough. I think the most important part here is the fact that I have four kids. And on my end. Thank you. Thank you. On my end, I see money as a way of having more time with my kids.

Right.

That's what money does. It buys you time. So on my end, I want to help you do the same thing by making more money, having more time, and just growing faster.

Right.

So those are the goals for today. Who? Here, raise your hand if you like photos of cute kids. There you go. So that's my daughter, Bree. I know. Yeah, yeah. And she is so excited about this Quick housekeeping note. First of all, if you do take any photos of me, please do tag me on social media at its Terryrice. And then beyond that, please use the hashtag creator network for all the events that you go through today. That way we can all share them and save them and spread our best prices that we learned while we're here this weekend.

Right.

And if you have a moment, if you don't mind providing feedback, my presentation, you can just scan that QR code. I have a bunch of freebies for you.

Right.

So that'd be amazing. And I will put the code up later on as well. But let's go and get started here. I want to help you build a money mindset.

Why?

Because to be successful as an entrepreneur, you just need three things. Take the right actions, leverage the right tools, and deploy the right mindset. However, and unfortunately, we over emphasize on the first two actions and the tools and just under index on the last one, which is mindset. But if you don't have the right mindset, you won't be able to get the full value out of the actions and the tools that you're using. That's what we want to avoid. Here's what else we want to avoid. This. This is the feedback I got when I told this person how much I charged for work. Different person, wow, you're cheap. Someone who approached me to actually work with my company, I gave him a rate that was so bad, they said, wow, you're cheap. Give me another example. One time I pitched myself to present at a conference and they loved me. They said no because my rate was too low. She said, you know what? You know we love you, we think you're great. But when they saw your rate, it was so much lower than the other presenters, it scared them away. And I was like, you could have just said no. Like, I didn't have to hear all that stuff. You could have left those details out. But anyways, what I'm saying is having lower rates can actually scare away high quality clients as well. So we want to avoid that. And the issue is sometimes we have a scarcity mindset, right? Take a picture of this. But it's helpful. A scarcity mindset makes you think there's a zero sum game, right? More for you means less for me. So how do I outcompete you? I'm going to charge less. I'm going to race you to the bottom. Let's see who wins. You don't want to win that race, trust me, because I've won it before and it sucked, right? So on my end, I did have a scarcity mindset because when I first started my business, I also had a newborn daughter, right? My daughter Lena. And I'm thinking, gosh, you know, like the future, her future is tied to the success of my business and I ain't doing nothing right now. It's successful. So I kept on lowering my rates, lowering my rates, lowering my rates. Take a second to read this and I'm curious if any of these thoughts have ever run through your mind as well. No one's going to pay me that much. Everyone else charges less. No one knows who I am. Raise your hand. Any of these thoughts ever went through your head?

Yeah.

Raise your hand if you didn't raise your hand because you're too proud.

There you go.

I got one. It's all good. So, yeah, that happened to me too. Like, you know, I'm not charging my true value, I'm charging 40 bucks an hour. But I thought about something. I remembered something when I worked at Adobe and was on Facebook all day. This is back in 2009, I think. One time I saw a contract for one of the clients that was working with Adobe and hiring music consultants. And it said that I bailed out at $300 an hour to companies like Delta, Amazon, Best Buy, so on, so forth. So I knew my talent was worth at least 300 an hour. I was not getting paid 300 an hour in Adobe or I would have stayed there. But I knew in my head I was worth 300 an hour, yet still was charging 10% of that. When I went independent and I knew that was an issue, I said, you know, What? No more draw a line. Going forward, I'm going to charge my true value. I increase my rates to 300 an hour. Did I lose some clients? Yeah, but I made a lot more freaking money too.

Right?

So that's what I want to encourage you to do, is draw a line and say, look, going forward, I'm only working with people who respect my time, energy, and talent. Because me haggling with you over my prices, I could be attracting other people who actually respect me.

Right?

So just say no.

Right?

And don't just say no. I want you to increase your prices. I want you to increase your prices by at least 10%, and I want you to do it this month. Why? Because the best time to increase your prices is at the beginning of a quarter. Say, hey, new quarter, new fees.

Right?

But here's what I want you to do. I want to say to anyone who's a current client or someone who's thinking about being a client, I am raising my prices next quarter. However, you can still lock in the current rate if you. You put down a deposit now and deploy the services next quarter. If you do that, if that's. If you just take this one thing away from here right now, you'll make more money. You will activate a lot of dormant leads and a lot of clients who are slow on renewals. Just do that one thing. I'm increasing my rates next quarter. You can lock it in right now. Growth mindset. Who's heard of a growth mindset? That's a pretty, pretty cool buzzword, right? So essentially it's saying, look, my skills are not fixed. There are new things that I can do. It's going to be challenging, but I can push through and achieve great things. So let's fast forward a little bit. About a year into my career as an entrepreneur, I got a job teaching at General Assembly. Raise your hand if you heard of General assembly before.

Yeah.

So General assembly. The school. Not like the United Nations. I was not, like, teaching diplomacy to diplomats and stuff like that. I was teaching digital digital marketing classes, and I was freaking good at it. Really freaking good. To the point where I appeared on Good Morning America talking about how good I was. There's some other stuff I talked about, too, but mostly myself, right? And I was teaching this digital marketing class, an accelerator, one week accelerator that paid $8,000 a week. So again, that same guy who was charging 400 bucks a month is now making $8,000 a week. And I taught that class over and over and over again. I taught it about 40 times over the class of three years. Right. So 40 times 8,000 is somebody helping? Three. Yeah. 300 grand. Yeah, roughly. Yeah. So it's all gone now because I have four kids, but we'll get to that later.

Right?

So anyways, I'm making a lot of money, but this one woman came up to me and she's like, hey, Terry, you know, thanks for teaching me how to do digital marketing, but can you also teach me how to run an agency? And, like, I don't know how to do that. She's like, well, you have an agency. Just show me what you're doing. Was like, that's a good point.

Right?

So I did that, trained her. She did very well. And then later she said, hey, can you also help my husband? He's a graphic designer. He needs some help. And I'm like, I know less about graphic design than I do about biz dev. But she's like, I trust you and I know you're going to do a good job because you helped me too. So I did that. I started doing some biz dev with entrepreneurs, especially if they're in my lane, because I felt comfortable. And it came to a point where I started delivering my workshops on the topic of business development. It was great. And I'm going to stop myself for a minute because this is the point where I normally tell you a different version of the story, but yesterday I had an amazing experience of this mastermind, and some really great people gave me the permission and the opportunity to be a bit more vulnerable and more open about a transition that I made from solely, solely focusing on digital marketing to going in on entrepreneurship. That event was my son dying. And as you can imagine, it hits you, right? So on my end, I'm like, literally looking at my son's tomb zone Tombstone. His name's TJ Terry Jr. So I see my name on a tombstone, right? And you can't go through that experience without thinking, how do I want to be remembered? How do I want to live my life? And I was like, you know what? It's not teaching people digital marketing. Because what I appreciated during the time when I was processing, trying to get my arms around it is the fact that as an entrepreneur, I didn't have to show up to work every day when I was in such pain. I didn't have somebody walking by my desk upset that we're out of everything bagels, right? Because I got real problems. And I was like, you know what? If I can give other people the same freedom to control their time and their lifestyle, and their revenue. That's a pretty good idea, right? So that's what I did. And I went back to General assembly because I took off for a while, and I said, you know what? I want to start teaching again. They said, great. Do you want to do that workshop where you teach people how to start a business? Said, sure. They said, do you want to do it at south by Southwest? I was like, stop by self. What? The last time I spoke in peer in public was a year ago, and that was delivering my son's eulogy. And I might cry again at south by Southwest. But I did it. I did it anyways. And I crushed it. I just did. I'm not being cocky. I just crushed it. Like, that's just how it is. That was years ago. People are still reaching out to me, saying how great it was, right? And I felt alive again for the first time in a long time because I was just deploying all the. All the. All the information, all the mindset, all the training I wish I had when I first started my business. But I also knew how to help people build their resilience, too, because of what I went through. So I started doing that, started picking up more clients. And this one guy heard me speak. His name is Todd Johnson. And he hired me for, at the time, my biggest contract ever. $25,000 a month. Again, same guy who's charging 400 bucks a month. X years later, $25,000 a month. His name is Todd Johnson. My son's name is tj. Todd Johnson goes by tj and you can ignore the coincidence if you want. It's on you. But for me, it means something to me.

Right?

You guys heard about the smoke in New York City because of those fires in Nova Scotia. So it had my eyes burning before I left. So if you see any, like, anything going on up here, any tears, it's just residual. We're all good. So why don't more people embrace a growth, growth mindset? I love the story. Try to tell it without messing it up too much. There's these construction workers. This one guy, every day he complains about his sandwich. Oh, man, peanut butter and jelly again. Next day, oh, man, jelly again. It's probably this guy, because they're not talking to him. They're like, why is this guy. Whatever. So. So at one point, one of the co workers says, like, why don't you ask your partner to make you something else? And he says, what do you mean I make my own lunch? You're all making your own lunch, too. So if you're unhappy with it. Change. How do you do that? Growth mindset. What's your challenge? It's this. I want you to create a new service or offer that cost 10 times more than your current offer. That was for effect. And if you want help with that, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Doing my workshop tomorrow, and I hope to see you there. Exponential mindset. You ever heard of this before? Exponential mindset.

Yeah.

So essentially, when you have an exponential mindset, instead of thinking in a linear fashion, like, oh, I want to grow by 10% this year, 15%, you think, how can I grow by 10x and do it even faster than I might expect to? So let's talk about that. So now we're in 2022. Things are going pretty well, you know what I mean? Like, I write for Entrepreneurial magazine. I have a podcast. I'm speaking on stages around the world. Things are going great. And then all of a sudden, my wife gets laid off. Her whole team got. Got laid off at her at a company, and I'm now the sole breadwinner for my family, right? And I was doing some research, like, how much is insurance for a family of six in Brooklyn? It is roughly a lot on the open market. So my crap, what am I going to do? And then I realized the answer was actually staring me in my face. My wife said, you know, when I get an idea, how about me and you start a new service? And the goal of this service is to replace one bill with it. That one bill is our daycare bill, which is $4,200 a month. I know, guys, you don't have to rub it in, right? So we created this, this workshop, which solved a very common problem for my audience, which is not having a good offer to deploy. But I said, you know what? You're going to run this thing. Because first, for months, she's been trying to get a new job. And a lot of people, and I'm sure you're going to experience this before, too, they're passing her up, right? They don't respect her talent. They're like, oh, you don't have this experience or that experience. Or honestly, sometimes as a woman with four kids, people don't want to mess with you. And I realize, well, hell, I'm a hypocrite because I have this very talented person sitting right next to me, and I'm not leveraging her. So I said, you know what? You're going to run this program. You're going to do all the marketing. You're going to do all the engagement and the sales, and within 10 days, we made $4,800 with this workshop that we created. But she said, you know what? I got an idea. You know, everyone in this workshop, they're going to need support afterwards. How about we create this accountability group they can join, and as a result of that, they can check in with you going forward to make sure they're on path to hit their goals. And I said, or they can check in with you. You can be their accountability partner. So we rolled out another program that includes the accountability program after you graduate from this one. So those two programs alone will bring in $100,000 a year, which is enough to replace the majority of our household bills.

Right?

But it shouldn't take a crisis for you to do stuff like this, because you notice every time I have this breakthrough, something horrible happens. Let's. Let's be proactive today. Can we do that? Raise your hand. Can be proactive. Let's. Let's do that. Yeah. Can we be proactive today? So how can you grow faster? It's a few ways you can buy time, and I wish more experts would do this. Just hire someone to handle admin tasks, right? Start writing down stuff you hate doing and then find someone else to do it, right? So the way I think about is pretend you bill out at $100 per hour anytime you're doing something that you would not pay someone $100 an hour to do. Stop freaking doing it. Find someone else to do it. Go on. Fiverr.

Right?

Don't waste your time, energy, and talent. You can also buy speed. Raise your hand if you're a coach or a consultant. A lot of you, not you guys, but a lot of coaches and consultants are hypocrites. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. Because the whole business model is based on exchanging talent and information for money to help your audience grow. Yet you will not pay someone else to help you grow. I never freaking got there. So I'm not saying you guys, I'm just saying the German. But pay someone right by. By speed. You can also buy attention, right? Buy audiences. So create e commerce programs you can promote via online ads. These are a few ways to grow fast. Someone's saying, hey, Terry, are there free ways to do this? Because I. I hear you. Yes, there are. There's a few, you know, affiliate marketing. You do affiliate marketing. So for example, if you are a convert Kit customer, you can become an affiliate for ConvertKit. Therefore, every time someone clicks through your link and signs up for ConvertKit, you get money for it. Is anybody an affiliate here? Who else is an affiliate? Good. Because you know what it offers? Recurring commission. So every month that person's using the platform, you keep on getting paid, right? So start now because for years you're gonna have that recurring revenue coming in. Also public speaking, right? So find masterminds or opportunities to speak in front of audiences. Because often that's one of the best ways to get clients, right? You're using your, but you're using someone else's audience, right? So oftentimes when you're speaking, someone might hire you. And I also want you to create a profit multiplier. What is that? Instead of selling to individual, sell to organizations, right? If you have an online course, don't just sell it one on one. Sell to universities, colleges, libraries. That's what I'm doing. I want to show you how to do it tomorrow as well. But that's how you can grow faster as well. A few closing thoughts here, and these are new to me, so I'm going to introduce them to you now as well. It's this. Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. I heard that yesterday from Daryl. And this tells me that if you don't, if you don't just pull up these things from your mind, like, you know, what is holding me back, what's going on in my mind that's not making me these. Do these things that are so necessary to grow, you're going to think, oh, it's just the way it is. No, that's the way you made it. That's the decision that you made. So I want you to make better decisions going forward. What else? I love this one. This from Bear Brooks. You know I was going to do this, right? Confront the emotion that holds you back from what you should be doing that hit me last night. I'll say it again. Confront the emotion that holds you back from what you should be doing. So we're all here to learn, right? We're all here to learn something. But if you don't confront that emotion, you won't take action on what you've learned. And one of my favorite quotes is, knowledge uninvested in labor is wasted. So if you don't learn today and apply tomorrow, you've wasted your time and your money. On a more positive note, I'm very glad to be here today. I appreciate this so much because by you listening to me, by listening to my stories. You allow me to expand the legacy that my son TJ has created. That and I wouldn't be here without him. I truly believe every moment I'm in is a result of what happened in my life and him dying. But he's going to live through my words. So again, thank you for that. Please do take action and like I said before, any pictures, throw them on. Please do tag me. Use that hashtag creator network and scan that. But guys, you're in an amazing freaking room to learn from the people on stage but also your peers here as well. Do not waste this opportunity. I know you have stuff going on at work. You might have stuff going on at home right now. Lock in as much as you can. And I want you to stay in every single moment until you receive the gift because if you do that, I guarantee you will and I guarantee you're going to be wildly happy with the expectation with the outcomes from this weekend. So thanks again everybody.