Ron Caruthers 0:00
Well, good morning, everybody. We are on the make more, keep more podcast what we're going to chat about today, we've got my kid joining. He was a complete pain in the ass to raise. All right, good kid, but you know, just worked us. And he's turned into a really good negotiator. And he's going to talk about negotiating everything. And it's not just proud dad talk. But it was he's done a great job of negotiating everything, from leases, to law school tuition to job offers for all his friends. He's like the go to guy. And so he's got some really good principles. If we can get him on here to chat about that, I think you guys will really enjoy it. So before we get to that, Dominic, did we have any leftover questions from last week? Or anything that we have we needed to cover there? No, but I think a little you know, idea of what the show is might be good idea. So this is the make more keep more show I'm dominant camo isn't good advice. Ron Carruthers, in case you're joining in and trying to figure out what the heck are these two guys talking about? So usually, what the format of the show is, is I tend to talk more about the making more money side of things. And Ron talks about the how to keep more money. But you know, we know a little bit about both of those things, each of us. So we we definitely get on there. So the last few weeks, what Ron's talking about is the last few weeks, we've been talking about investments in a crazy market. We've had a real estate expert on we had a mortgage expert on. And we also let's see, we had somebody else on and I forgot what it was. But we've already talked about alternate investments in a crazy market. So that's the type of stuff that we cover in this show. In fact, we'll probably do some surveys coming up, see if you guys have any interest in some other topics that you want to talk about anything or you can throw it here in the comments if you want to. Because it's really open format. We just like to talk about all things money. So that's the whole purpose of this show. So negotiations are really cool. And I like this. I'm looking forward to this because I think the idea is, you know, everything's in negotiation. When you own a business, I feel like you know, it's whether you're negotiating, like you said, a lease or you're negotiating with a new employee, or you're negotiating sales, everything is some form of of negotiation. So I'm really excited to get this done. If so, did we have any leftover questions from last week? No, I was like it through these. We had some book recommendations and things which we said we were going to do a post for and we completely forgot. So that's on us. And we will get out a book by the way. Let's go through him for those right now. And then we will do a post on it. What is your all time favorite business book D. I've said it before I just I love the the hard thing about hard things, is the name of the book. It's by Steve Horowitz I think it is the hard thing about hard things is probably one of my favorite Ben Horowitz is the guy's name who wrote it. That's a that's a great book, really straightforward. Things. He has some great principles that I love. Like there are no silver bullets. You know, like basically, there's no easy way out and I'm a huge fan of that thought process. I think a lot of times people look for what's the next growth hack. I even hate that term. What's the hack that you're going to do that's going to short you know, shortcut everything. What's it going to, you know, what's the thing that you're going to do that you're going to do this one thing that's going to make me an overnight millionaire? And there's very rare of those things that actually exist. My favorite I think we got the bear finally on my favorite it for goal setting is the pledge. Brian. What's happening Little Bear Brennan see the dominant pledge because we get to you in a sec. Brennan. I love the pledge because I've never seen somebody break down goal setting in such a good fashion as Michael MASTERSON. His real name is Mark, Mark, Mark and Mark Mark Morgan Ford. And his other book ready fire aim if you're launching a business. It's not like product launch stuff like Jeff Walker. But it's the strategy and pricing and unit and how to get your team to move faster. So ready fire aim is another book of his that's fantastic. So anyway, Brent, good to have you, kid. How are you this morning, son? I barely waved at you.
Unknown Speaker 4:26
I'm doing fantastic.
Ron Caruthers 4:27
Okay. Just so you guys know we call him a little bear because he's like six foot seven, six foot six, somewhere in there and your stepmom Silvia, aka peach brownie. says that she says that she's five two and we all know she's lying about that by at least an inch and a half, possibly two inches. So the pictures of them if you go to beach brownies page are hilarious where Brennan can literally like rest his arm on her head. So yeah, so it's kind of funny to call them little bear Thank you for joining us this morning kid you are watching give him two seconds of background about you and and your where you went to school and career and stuff and then we'll dive right into negotiation stuff
Unknown Speaker 5:13
26 Did undergrad at Northeastern University, I did a major in finance minor in social activism. I started a company while I was there with a friend of mine. Graphic Design branding, web design, web development, just general design agency. been running that now for for four and a half years. That time, yep, four and a half years. And I'm starting law school in the fall at UT Austin.
Ron Caruthers 5:49
Nice. We're gonna be going to some Dominic, I think you're invited here. We're gonna have to do a podcast live from a UT. We're looking at the Baylor game or the TCU game or something like that. So hands down the funniest college stadium I've ever been to and I'm a big UFC fan. And I've been to you know, all of the UCLA, all those games up UT Austin game fest, college football experience I've ever done that cannon that they launch off will launch you out of your seat. So and then when Matthew McConaughey comes out on the field, you've never heard anything like 100,000. Don't on All right. All right. It's pretty, pretty awesome. So yeah, I am I am down any time and one of my favorite. I've spent a lot of time in Austin. And I have definitely drank my way through Boston or Austin, Austin, Boston, too. But Austin. So I know some really great bars. The luster Pearl will be one that you'll become intimately familiar with. It's a great bar. So anyway, it's already a good place to go. That's an interesting name for a bar. Alright, so. Okay, so Brennan negotiation. Tell us, why don't you lay down some of the basic truths about tell them some of the stuff that you negotiated? I did kind of while we were waiting here. And but why don't you jump down? I mean, you've negotiated everything from your internet bill to long term leases to your friends, job offers, am I leaving anything out?
Unknown Speaker 7:19
Tuition at school? Much Airbnb I've ever stayed in. Big ones, I think a lot of it, I think of as like a cost benefit analysis. If it's a $50 purchase, it's my time to do all the work that's needed for a successful negotiation to get that down. $10. But if I'm making a $500 or $5,000 purchase, yeah, if I put in two hours of work and get that down 20%, then it's a pretty good hourly return.
Ron Caruthers 7:53
All right. Fair. No, that's good. I mean, how do you look at that? So I'll, I'll ask the questions here. Because I think Ron knows, probably sees this more than I do. So from you, but like an Airbnb, like, I've never, it's never even occurred to me to try to negotiate like, what, what gets you to think like, and how do you go about that process? Let's start there. Because I think everybody like probably on here, imagine renting Airbnb periodically. So like, how does that work? How do you do? I mean, I figured it was just the stated website price. And that was it.
Unknown Speaker 8:22
Yeah, that's probably my specialty out of everything. So I've gotten some crazy good deals on Airbnbs. Yeah, the best being down 75% or so from the listing price, a place that was listed at 3400, down to 1150. And this will actually be very illustrative to like when we start talking about what makes a good negotiation, because that kind of uses all of it. Basically, I'll reach out to a bunch of places with a standard message saying, Hey, your place looks great. I'd love to rent it. It's outside of my budget. Here's kind of more where my budget is, is there any way we can make something work? And the real key is reaching out to a lot of places, because a lot of people are gonna say no, and that's, if you're familiar with sales at all, that's just how it goes. A lot of people say no, and that's totally fine. Because all negotiation is is just finding, finding a mutually agreeable way for everyone to benefit. So I'm looking for someone who is more focused on just renting their place and not having it sit empty than they are looking to, you know, maximize their profit for that particular weekend or that particular time period. So if I reach out to 10 people with that message of, Hey, your place looks great, love to stay there, but my budget is more like, you know, $200 a night and I'll take the $100 and I cost me four. Probably six. Well, if I reached out in 10 places, three or four won't respond. Another three or four are going to tell me Sorry, no one might say maybe one or two might say, Yeah, let's talk or they'll say, you know, I can teach you how I can do 350. Does that works? And then now you're negotiate. Now you're talking about, and again, a lot of people like when they come back with their first response offer, they're already down 50%. So, yeah, pays off. It definitely does. A lot of it has to do with being flexible. If there's one place that you want, really badly, the chances of you being able to negotiate that exact place down a ridiculous amount are very, very slim. But
Ron Caruthers 10:36
it's possible. So what do you think got you to a place where like, I think for me, like, I always think about negotiating. But I don't know, just a certain amount of like, I don't know, I don't know, if I want to ask, what do you what do you attribute that sort of? Like, I'm just gonna ask, let me just see what happens. Is it just, are you just naturally fearless? Or is it the year? Like, look? I mean, it's not that big of a deal. I mean, what's the mindset around that?
Unknown Speaker 11:00
I think the mindset is that I can ask them, they can say no, and that's everyone's prerogative. And so long as I'm very polite about it, no one should get offended. If I you know, if I send a very polite and kind message saying your place looks great. You look like I want to host based off your reviews. Unfortunately, I just simply and you know, I'm not lying, I simply, you know, I would never stay at a place for 800 bucks a night, just this point in my life.
Ron Caruthers 11:29
But $12 for $12 a night, and I would love to stay at your local crack babies. We missed you, man. We were trying to trying to delay everything.
Unknown Speaker 11:41
But yeah, if you're really nice, then you know, my messages I have maybe, you know, one out of 100 or two out of 100 will be a little hurt or irritated and say like, you know, no, how dare you even ask her like, you know, rude in any way. Usually, they're super polite. They say no, and just say, hey, sorry. That just doesn't work for me. Or, you know, I'm going to take the gamble and hope that I rent it for hire. But yeah, there's definitely a huge principle with negotiating of if you never asked the answer is always no. As long as you're asking, because way more often than 50% of the time, I can give you like a realistic number, maybe 70 or 80% of the time, people will at least meet you in the middle to something that for sure.
Ron Caruthers 12:32
So when you when you start out a negotiation, do you? Are you thinking like, I mean, how low Are you? Are you offering it up? Or are you gonna, like you mentioned in the Airbnb example, that you said, My budget is more like 200, which is a quarter of the 800 that they asked, right. But what is there a number that you kind of look at? Do you always start that low? Yeah, somebody's actually asking, like, would you start at 50% of the listing price? 10%? Like, where do you end? That's a great point. It's kind of what I was saying. It's so Umbreon. Or sorry, if I mispronounce your name, but like I probably just did, but like, how are you being insulting? Like, so how do you how do you know where the I know, you're, you can be really kind in the message. But how do you do it that way that everybody feels like, oh, man, this guy isn't trying to yank my chain here. He's actually trying to say something nice. Yeah, or, you know, offer something real?
Unknown Speaker 13:21
Yeah. A huge part of that is that it should not be based off of what you think the other person wants, it really just needs to be based off of what you want, or can provide. So for example, I was negotiating a place that was listed at 7400 a month. Cost of that was still way above my budget. So I'm not going to ask for half of that. Because even if they said yes, I would still come back and be like, Oops, sorry. And then I'm, you know, just a jerk. You know, whittled them down to 50% Oh, my God. So it first needs to come from what you want, you know, if you're negotiating a job offer, and you've already decided, hey, my skills are worth at least 90,000 a year, then. If your offer comes in at 50,000 a year, you know, even negotiating it up 20% to 60,000, a year is not going to do it for you. So why even bother, you know, even think of OH is you know, 25% too much you would come in and you know, have to have at least whatever, that'd be 60% increase. I think again, the politeness is really, really crucial. I will say that maybe a little more people are like a little offended if you ask but not really, like maybe three out of 100 are offended if I'm, you know, going for an 80% discount. But usually people are very, very kind so long as you are again, you can ask and they can say no and that's everyone's prerogative. But for example, that place that was 7400 a month, down to I think 24 2500. And the whole negotiation process just started with asking And then once we asked and just let them know, like, here's what we're looking for we work from there. So for example, I found out that while they were okay with the price, they were really worried about not renting on weekends while we were there. So we negotiated that we would come in on a Monday and leave on a Thursday so that we were only staying for three weekends, even though we're there for like that. We found out that they were really worried about the gas bill, because it was in Denver, and the gas is really expensive. So we said, Okay, we're not gonna, you know, we're gonna keep that to a minimum. There's just really working together to address not their position, but their interests behind that position of we need at least 7000 Or we need at least $5,000 a month, it was their interest behind that, which is what are they actually hoping for, they want to make sure they can pay their mortgage, they want to make sure that they are not giving up better opportunities for renters that are going to be paying four times, you know, a night what we would be paying. They want to make sure that we're indeed good guests that we're going to leave them a good review that we're not going to trash the place, which
Ron Caruthers 16:05
you do. You went to you went ahead and trashed the place anyways. Yeah, let me let me read one second, just because it's been a minute, just so you guys know you guys joining on. This is the make more keep more podcast. Dominic of real busy advisors is my co host. I'm Ron Carruthers. And this is my son. He was, you know, a bit of a pain to raise at times, although we love them dearly. But he's really good at negotiating. So at Brennan, Carruthers. And so and he's just this is his, like mad skill set. So besides doing graphic design and branding and stuff like that, which are you getting? Are you taking any more clients, Brendan, before you go to law school? No, you're done. All right.
Unknown Speaker 16:53
I'm done. I've got like two projects. I'm wrapping up right now. And I'm hoping to have those done in about three weeks. And
Ron Caruthers 17:00
wait, I thought I was gonna do our new logo for this show and everything. Hold on. No, I got somebody who's gonna do intro music for us. I was done at Universal. And I got this one mosquito trying to get me I got him. Take that sucker. I got somebody that I think's gonna do an intro song for us. Okay, so if you guys don't mind back to negotiation, since this is the make more, keep more podcast. Negotiating prices down is a great way of keeping more right just like paying less taxes or getting your mortgage right or anything else. But what I really want to hear about Brandon, if you don't mind is I know you've helped a ton of your friends negotiate their job offers up to make more. Where do we start there because sometimes as a financial adviser, like you can not rob a homeless guy. That's one of my favorite sayings. I came up with it. And I know it's a little insensitive, but it's like, hey, if somebody doesn't have any money, you could turn it on. And you can do whatever you want. But it's not going to do anybody any good. And sometimes we meet families that have the best intentions, and really need to improve their situation. There's nothing anybody can do. Until more money is coming in the door. Hey, Nikki. So Brennan, where do we start? If someone's going to negotiate a job offer? And Stephanie, I hope she's not listening to us and I'm gonna pay on her for watching this podcast Stephanie as my like, loyal, right hand everything. So hopefully she's not on but Brennan, where's someone start? And how? Tell us a couple of stories because I know you've helped Caroline, do it. I need help your friends and stuff like that? Yeah. And your stepmom says you got a lot of practice negotiating at home too. Guys don't even freaking start to tell me about it. But how did they negotiate their job offers?
Unknown Speaker 18:51
Yeah. And so for contacts, ought to go back and count? Well, over a dozen, I'd say probably closer to 20. Friends, I'm probably not like 15 friends for what helped negotiate their job offers to the point where maybe I'll start asking for them to buy me some dinners or something, because I just liked it. So that's fun. I like helping my friends. Okay, so that's the big question. Let me back up just for a minute and say that negotiation, a lot of people think of it as a room who says the number first, who's gonna blink first. You know, who has, you know, the bigger balls and is going to really hold their ground. And that's part of it. But maybe at most like 20 30% of it. Most of the negotiation is all the background work you do beforehand. That makes it so that you're not getting to the point where you're saying Take it or leave it and just really, really hoping that they take it but instead getting to the point where if you need to, you can say take it or leave it and you don't care either way because you You have other options prepared that make it so that you can say take it or leave it and be happy regardless what happens. And that's what like wheel negotiation and really powerful negotiators do. So they are beforehand, doing research about the job making sure that they are not just saying, Hey, you offered me 50k, and I want 90 But saying, Hey, you offered me 50k. And the market average in this, you know, in this industry is 80k. And also I come with two years of experience, and I, you know, have industry experience. And you know, like they're doing that background research that anchors their negotiations, and is not just making a battle of wills. But rather you are referencing something outside that has more power than just their wins. That gives your physician a lot more strength. Even more importantly, they're developing other options. I know that you guys talked about this on your podcast, you're tweeting about this, I'll never have this one of anything. And that's very true when it comes to negotiation. You should not just get enamored with one job offer and only pursue that. And then at the end of it really hope that they make you a fair offer, you need to constantly be developing multiple options. If they come in and you're looking for that 90k. And they offer you 50 or 60. Not only do you know that you're worth more than that, and you need more than that. You also can go in and say look, I also have an offer somewhere else for 80. I like your guy's culture better, but they've got better benefits. And you're just trying to at that point extract, you know, the best that you can get from both sides.
Ron Caruthers 21:34
That apart. Tell us one of the stories like tell us an example of one of your friends negotiations, if you don't mind, like how did it actually go? You can remain nameless, or you can name them, or
Unknown Speaker 21:49
that let's call when our friends. This is maybe a more moderate story. It's nothing crazy, but it did result in some benefits. This is a friend Ally. She was looking for her first job out of college. She, her and I are very good friends. So she and she knew that help some other friends negotiate and was just like, Hey, what should I do? This is the amount of texts
Ron Caruthers 22:21
are getting text to you start out me? Yep. A little cool.
Unknown Speaker 22:31
What do I do? And I was just like, get job offers. First try to get them at the same time if you can, and then come to me. So she did you got two job offers that came in and each other both for the exact same amount for 65,000. The first thing I said was just politely ask for more. You don't even have to name an amount. And frankly, it's better if you can just politely ask for more. You write back three sentences, a interviewer, thank you so much for your generous offer. It was so wonderful getting to know you and the team. I think that this is an amazing fit for me. You know, given the you know, you can reference outside things or you don't even have to you can just say, you know, is there any more you can offer I was looking for. And if you want to give a number you can that's more of a personal preference on you know, who says the number first. I personally like to because I'm usually shooting for like the upper range of something. Yeah, just ask for more. Sometimes they say no. Sometimes they say yes. I think it's always important to start with salary, because at the end of the day, that's how you make more. But what you're going to do after that you're going to see how they respond. And by the way, way more than 50% respond and do raise. Sometimes it's only you know, here's an extra 2500 sometimes instead as much as I had a friend a couple months ago who got an extra 15,000 literally just for a three sentence email that said Can I have more please? So that's a huge one. Once you start that conversation, you're also going to want to start talking about everything that's non salary too and there are a ton of things that can move on but I always recommend starting with salary first, because that is the thing everyone thinks of on negotiation. A lot of the time they will offer more but even if they won't once they're saying sorry we're really firm on salary we cannot offer you any more then you say okay, well you offered me two weeks vacation Oh 401 K match. You know I'm looking more for five weeks in a fight for Senate all of that is very helpful and asked me more than I saw benefits. The soft dentist how much time off do I get? What kind of expenses do you have for my personal like edification for personal and professional development? Are y'all giving me a signing bonus? Are you all you know, giving me what a health benefits are you giving me etc, etc. Those are huge, but again Now, all of this becomes so, so much more powerful once you have another offer, because then you can say, look, I really love your company, I want to work for your company, but this other company, they're offering you the same salary as you. Plus, they're offering me you know, three more weeks vacation time. I want to work for your company. But at the end of the day, I am looking out for my own self interests, can we work together and find something that works? That's another thing with negotiations, especially more tense ones that seem like you know, one side is going to win. It's like a zero sum game. You know, if you get more, they get less. You need to do everything you can to try to reframe it as we both want something and we need to work together to make that happen, as in my potential future employer really wants to stop recruiting and going through that process. And they already have indicated that they liked me and want to hire me. I really want more money and more job stability and more benefits. How can we work together to find something that strikes a deal where I will sign on the dotted line and feel good about the benefits that I'm getting as a result.
Ron Caruthers 26:14
We have Bretton if I can interrupt for a sec. This is the make more keep more podcast if you guys are just jumping on today. We got Dominic rope as advisors he's on every week, but we got my son, Brian Carruthers. And we got some questions in here. And you can follow him in at Britton, Carruthers, but he was too poor to afford the last s so tickets only at Brent and Kerr other. But we've got some questions in here. And one of them was Where do you go to find the research on what that salary should pay? I know when we were looking at renegotiating Stephanie's salary, which we're kind of in the middle of right now, because she's taking on some added responsibilities. We do indeed.
Unknown Speaker 27:00
Definitely call me.
Ron Caruthers 27:05
I think we lost Ron. Yeah. Yeah, like you can't hear us right now.
Unknown Speaker 27:12
Yeah, hold on. He's outside. I can get him.
Ron Caruthers 27:14
Well, well, actually. Well, Bronto figure it out in a minute. His air pods connect. So uh, yeah, actually. So that was a good question. Well, where did you start? So I've looked at Indeed, I've looked at we lost your audio Ron. Just so you know. So. But the but yeah, I haven't read I just get cut out. Yeah, your audio is gone. So I've been getting text messages and phone calls and all kinds of stuff today. Do Not Disturb is your friend. Oh, it's okay. Yeah, do that. Sorry about that. Yeah, what I was saying is we went to indeed, you know, what you mentioned having Stephanie call you? And my phone was like, Oh, hell no, that is a bad idea. Sorry about that, guys all next time on there to put Do Not Disturb on. But all I was saying was going to indeed, we went and looked at just what other job offers were and what benefits they were offering. What do you recommend for these guys to do their research? Is there a better place Brennan,
Unknown Speaker 28:13
I literally have just googled project manager, salary salary, try to include the industry. Location, especially if you're in a high cost of living area, like obviously, a project manager salary in Boise is going to be different from the Bay Area. And aggregate, you know, a few numbers, especially if they paint a good picture for you. Use your own discretion. But yeah, they're offering you you know, 80,000, and all the numbers are putting you somewhere in the one to 130 range, then yeah, you know, you're gonna bring in the Bureau of Labor Statistics number you're gonna bring in indeed, in the Glassdoor numbers, you're gonna bring it all in
Ron Caruthers 28:49
store, that's the one I was forgetting.
Unknown Speaker 28:53
That's, that's a big one. And especially you can look at the same company to a lot of them will have posted rain, sometimes even from HR because a lot of the way these companies work is that they say they're given from the top look, we need you to hire three people as financial analysts, we are giving you discretion to give them anywhere from a 75 to a 95k salary. Nice above that needs to be approved. They already know the benefits packages that they can offer anything above that needs to be approved. And they usually unless depending on how much they want you but they usually will offer you on the lower end of that salary. So they're gonna offer you five or 80k No, they don't even ask anyone else doesn't even really leave and look down on them. Like there's really no downside for you ask for more for them to give you a higher amount with no 95
Ron Caruthers 29:47
If the range was 75 to nine. Yeah, and I'll give you some context from the other side of this. So one of the things that I do a lot for clients is actually help them hire and grow croute. So I have actually like training programs on hire recruiting usually around salespeople, but any job position at all. And so I do this quite a bit like I actually go in and help companies, you know, everything from how to create the job listing to actually conducting interviews for them do a lot of the negotiation of the salary. And I'll tell you that most companies that I deal with, don't actually know what to pay people. So they're kind of taking a shot in the dark and the con, the context, or the comment that they usually make is, well, let's just kind of see what the market brings us when we start to interview. So they don't necessarily have a lot of idea of what they're doing. And I think what people do is candidates forget that. I mean, we just assume that everybody knows what they're doing. And they don't. And this can be these are really great companies. By the way, these are 50 100 million dollar companies that are that are doing exceptionally well have a lot of employees, but they don't know they're creating a new position, they're doing something new, they're trying to elevate their their team. And so they've traditionally paid their sales reps 50,000. But they want to take things to a new level, they don't know if it's 7580 100. And so this this concept that you're bringing up, I think is really critical that I will tell you from as a as a hiring manager, if you will, I mean, I probably hire with clients and everything in a non COVID year, anywhere 20 to 20 or so 30 people a year that I bring on with clients and you know, do hundreds and hundreds of interviews, and the person who comes in and says, Well, can you do more on the salary? Or can you do better on the benefits? And just ask that question. I don't usually respond well to that. But the person who comes in with says like, hey, so I you know, appreciate the offer. But I want to let you know I I've been doing some research. I have this other offer. Now the other offer you better make, you can't make that up because I can tell like there's something weird about like, you can tell when somebody's lying that they have another offer. And I'm my response is always when I feel bad. I'm like, okay, then you need to take that other offer. And you can just see the look on their face like oh, crap, now I'm screwed. Yeah, now I've done it. Yeah, no, I didn't did it. But But I think it's somebody comes in and says like, Hey, listen, I was doing some research and in this local market, and that we're where I live, because remote work is different. And sometimes that's the other thing, like with remote work I'm finding now is you might be hiring, your corporate headquarters might be in Miami or something? Well, that's about examples. That's a high cost of living, but like, your corporate headquarters might be in South Carolina somewhere, but you're hiring remote workers in LA, or Orange County and the actual again, it's not that they're trying to screw these people, it's they don't know. And so coming in with research makes me as a hiring manager go one. Cool, I like that you're well researched. But to you come in and you go, Oh, well. Alright, well, we had no idea now that may that may result in like you said, Me still saying I can't do that. But it at least frames the conversation in a much better way. And I think that takes away some of that fear of negotiating your salary when you just got to realize companies, no matter how great they are, don't always know don't always have a pulse on the market for what? What's fair, what's not. And yeah, of course, we're going to try to get up. I mean, why wouldn't we bring in? What was the back to ally for a moment? What did that? What did that salary end up going from in to at the job, she ultimately took
Unknown Speaker 33:20
step 5000. So up to 70. With, I think, an extra week of vacation time? Yeah, that's great. first job out of college going up from 65 to 70. That's an extra pocket change and for negotiating salary is that all your raises are always done are almost always done as a percentage of your existing base, which means if you know anyone here who's listened to your advice knows that compounding interest or compounding raise, that's gonna make a big difference over time, because, you know, starts with just a 5k difference, but now, you know, a 10% raise is 10%, up 70k instead of 10% of 6.5. And, exactly, if you're negotiating every time with your raise, even if you're just bumping it up, 5% that's going to make a big difference over the years over the span of your career.
Ron Caruthers 34:15
Yeah, it's a huge, it's a huge amount. We got another question Brennan, about negotiating a bill. Someone had a bill that they were like, hey, it might go to collections. Do you have any advice for that? Have you ever done that? I know. I know. We're gonna get the credit Queen on here. One of these days if we can keep her to keep her F bombs to under like one a minute. She's hilarious, but definitely got him out. This does. She's like sometimes you're better off having it go to collections because we'll just repair their credit on the back end. So I know she said that because they'll knock the bill down. Do you have any experience like with your friends or anything doing that and any any ideas for that?
Unknown Speaker 35:00
Tell me a little bit. And I will say, from what I know about things going to, like collectors or to. Yeah, like collection agencies read a little bit more about that. Because there are a couple extra rules there, for example, not admitting that the debt is yours, otherwise, they can nail you for the full amount, or once you negotiate a deal, if you break it, even by a little bit, one day late on your payment, the deal will be off if you negotiate your debt down to 80%. And then you break it by one day, back up to the full 100%. So if you're working with a collection agency, definitely definitely do a little bit of that background research. I do know that the way that debt collection works is that they are buying the debt from whoever the original debtor is. At pennies on the dollar, usually it's like three to 10%, depending depending on how delinquent you are 30 days out 90 days, 180 days, whatever. So any amount that they can get more than what they bought it for is a profit for them. So if you owe $10,000, and they bought it for 500, I thought you know, a 5% of the original 10,000. If you can even pay them 800 on your original 10,000 They're turning a profit there. That's one. Yeah, other than that, I don't really have any personal experience with it.
Ron Caruthers 36:30
I would just I would just add from chatting with Irene the credit Queen over on Twitter, like actually speaking with her, she was she was saying a good number for whoever asked that, because it rolled by is about 30 cents on the dollar. She's like these days, most companies. So if you've got a $10,000 debt, and you can get it down to 3000 3000. And usually they'll take a payment in full and then then you just go into credit repair after the Carnage is done. And then they can get a lot of those debts off there. So sometimes having it go to collections is actually desirable. So Burnett, what other what other? Did we miss any questions? Dominic actually, I saw a couple of I, we had one around, but I think he covered a little bit around negotiating fewer working days or more work vacation time, but I thought it'd be interesting, if you don't mind, like switching gears just a little bit since you're a business owner as well. Brennan, I think one of the big pieces of being an entrepreneur is having to negotiate. And, you know, again, it's a critical aspect of just owning a business from from every aspect of the business, quite frankly. But I think one of those deals you mean, you're in a service based business with your agency, you got to go in there and negotiate a deal, somebody comes in, you want to charge 10,000 For website build, and they were expecting to pay 1500? You know, that's an that becomes a negotiation of that sometime. And just to give some context, I work with a lot of business owners, and one of the things I work with them on coaching around sales and stuff is stopped bending over. And like just backing down on that stuff. Like you've got to be know, know, what your stuff is worth. And you also got to have like a sense of it. But what's your perspective on that? How have you used kind of your natural negotiation skills to also make some money on the entrepreneurial side? Like how do you handle that when you price a coin,
Unknown Speaker 38:22
first of all that is not backing down is to I know what my sites are worth, because I know what other people are gonna pay me. So, you know, I've had several times where I'll quote a website and say, hey, that's, you know, $1,000 and person will come back and say, you know, I can find someone online, you can do that for 4500. I'll say, that's fantastic. Like, congrats, like, you should take that and not like sarcastically, like, really, like, if that is your budget, you should take that I'm not going to do the work for 4500 Because I've got other people are gonna pay me 22,000. And I haven't done a website for 40 504 years, and I'm not gonna go back. But so there's two sides to you know, business ownership, you're negotiating with clients on prices sometimes and negotiating with, you know, contractors and cetera. On the client side. Again, going back to that idea of not trying to clash with positions, but rather focusing on interest is really, really huge. So for example, I quote a client, this happened five months ago, I quoted a client I think 33,000 For like a website overhaul design, etc, etc. Quite a bit of work. I quoted them that because they also wanted it done in a six week timeline. So I was going to have to work overtime a bit. I was going to have to work weekends. And it was going to basically mean that if any other good opportunities came up during that time, I would probably have to turn it down because I committed to this. So I present it now And I told them, I said, Hey, it's gonna be, you know, 33 $35,000 to meet it in that timeline. If you guys can double that timeline to 12 weeks, I can bring that down. Let me know. And then they said, Yeah, that's outside our budget. But you know what we thought we needed it by end of the year, that number, we actually don't need it by February or so that's fine. But great. Here's a couple. Also let them know, hey, this feature in particular is taking a lot of time out that feature, you know, they'll cut, you know, they'll chop 2000 bucks off? If you really are well, now, you know why, you know, it's so expensive. Really huge, just again, focusing on the interests of every party, the standing firm on your own, like, I am constantly thinking about my hourly rate. I think a lot of business owners focus on their top line revenue, which is fine for some businesses, and it depends on what you're in. But for me in a services business, I would much rather make 80,000 a year at a $250 hourly rate than making 90,000 a year at $120 An hour rate. Because at the end of the day, I don't want to work, what, two and a half times more hours.
Ron Caruthers 41:22
That's a really good point, right? It is what it is, as a business owner, what is your hourly rate? What's your minimum daily rate? What are you not? Me, Naomi, Naomi Campbell, the supermodel had a great line, you know, 30 years ago, I don't get out of bed for less than $10,000. And, you know, back then $10,000 was real money and probably be 25 to 30. Now that Yep, not even gonna not even gonna put clothes on. I'm gonna stay in bed and do supermodel things like drink champagne and probably cocaine. I think that's what supermodels were into back then. But you know, lounge around and Calvin Klein underwear and smart cocaine and drink champagne. And all right, you gotta pay me enough. But knowing your hourly rate is brilliant.
Unknown Speaker 42:08
It is also really important to know what your minimum annual salary you want. And so for example, if I'm really staunch about this 250 hourly rate, and I'm turning down a ton of business as a result, because they don't want to pay that. And then at year end, I realized I only made 22,000 in the year. That is a whole different ballpark. That is not alright, for me. I need to be making more than that. So for me, I think to myself, alright, you know, in order to live a comfortable lifestyle from you know, whatever that means for me. I need to be making at least 80,000 a year.
Ron Caruthers 42:45
And someone. Yeah, someone just posted Nordic sound was a great comment. Always negotiate options, not your value. Great. Great point. What did by the way, for a bunch of you just joining us. This is the make more keep more podcast. We do this every Friday at 8am. We got my son Brennan on today. That's the talk here. And the other one is Dominic, you see him every week. Nobody cares about you. Dominic Brennan, What books did you read? Like, where did you go? Because I know there's a couple of books that you recommend. What do you recommend for getting good at this?
Unknown Speaker 43:23
I've read probably about eight or so negotiation books. I was just looking this morning, racking them up, including the most recent one I read is called Never pay the first bill and it's specifically about negotiating in the healthcare industry. So if anyone hasn't really, it's really good. I did that because well as you guys know, I just had a big double jaw surgery a couple of months ago and did not want to pay that $135,000 bill that came in. So I read that book, but the two bucks by
Ron Caruthers 43:54
the way, Brennan I have to interrupt before you get to those two other books Dominique this was kind of impressive. Someone said get my way my name out your mouth. Port Brennan did an impressive skill which is jaw was completely wired shut and we thought we were gonna get silenced for a little bit and as I'm picking up at the hospital, he did not shut up once or shorter or were regarded for a day and I'm like Brennan that is actually I mean I'm kind of impressed here. Okay, what were the two other books so
Unknown Speaker 44:25
again if you have any hospital bills or any anything in the medical industry never pay the first bill but the to make
Ron Caruthers 44:32
for our person earlier it was a medical bill that they were looking at so definitely grab that I had never even heard about but yeah, good to know.
Unknown Speaker 44:41
About like, no, but it's, it's great. nine bucks for negotiating, that I think you can cover most of like basic negotiating principles are getting to yes, and never split the difference. And I'll briefly cover each 130 I can see each Getting to Yes is the principal negotiation guide book, it came out in like, I think the late 70s, early 80s, from the Harvard Negotiation project. It is, in an ideal world, here's how to be principled about negotiation. There is a ton of gold in there. It is also criticized for being very idyllic, and that it makes all these assumptions of like, Yes, this is how it should be. But is that how it is. But there's still a lot of good stuff in there that I have used time and time again, in my negotiations, things like working together as a team separating the problem from the person so that you're able to maintain good relationships with someone while also being very, very firm in what you want. Focusing on interest opposition's which we've talked about a bunch already today. All those kinds of things are all from getting to yes, I think they're the first ones to come up with the idea of the BATNA the best alternative to a negotiated agreement, which is basically like, if this negotiation doesn't work out, what are you going to do instead? Just the idea that the stronger the other options you have, the better your negotiating position is. That's getting to yes. Never split. The difference is by the former head negotiator of the FBI, Chris Voss. He also does a master class. And that one is really incredible. It is very, very practical. A lot of the stuff in there is like little tips and tricks that may be if you are a high powered attorney on suits and you're sitting in a boardroom negotiating a multibillion dollar deal. Worked it to know if you're trying to negotiate your car price down. I don't know if you really need to be focusing on like the exact way you and Nancy word. There are some important things in there. The idea of overlap between those is that it is extremely important to listen to your counterparty, it is extremely extremely important to understand what they want and to try and answer that. And especially never split the difference he really emphasizes on your goal should not be like whittling them down your goal should be to make this a fact finding mission find out what they want. Just find out everything you can about them. What you know what are your fears with this? What upsets you about this deal? What what do you like? Like what are you hoping for, you know, anything that you can get is really, really valuable there.
Ron Caruthers 47:33
Love it. Love it. Love it. And we appreciate all the all the alternatives we've got How do you negotiate with an escort and a pimp and all that? Hey, Brennan, you got your whole writing series ready for you when you graduate law school? Yeah. So you're gonna say we got about 10 minutes left here, y'all. And because again, there's been some good questions in the comments. I think we've got most of them. But hey, if you guys have more questions, feel free to ask. This is the make more keep more show on Dominic. That's Ron and the Berkeley sweatshirt. And the tall guy. Well, you can't really tell that but he is six foot seven twos are tall. Yeah. Is is Brandon Carruthers, who happens to be Ron San, but also an expert in negotiation. And that's what we're talking about today. So negotiation is great, because it's both but you know, make more and the key poor side of things, all of it. So it's all of it rolled into one in fact rolled in every show from now on for the rest of our lives. Dominic we're just gonna have Brendan on every week because the covers sorry, Brendan, I hope you don't have any ATM Friday law classes. Yeah. Who cares about that law degree? This is this is important stuff on the show. No. We, we keep coming back to is this theme that I love is there's Well there's two things that you said that I really love is one you know, never it basically just doesn't hurt to ask. I mean, what's what's the worst that can happen as they say no? Okay, well, no problem. And every once in a while I get somebody who gets a little salty about it. But you know, that's the funny thing is I think, I think that's at least for me, that's the fear is that I worry that everybody's going to be like your jerk for asking. Whereas your experience is like three out of 100 might be that way so it's kind of worth it but I also love your concept around just you got to figure out like some mutual benefit here like here's the you know, whether it's the Airbnb like look, I'm gonna rent this place off for a period of time so just work with me a little bit Oh, you're worried about your gas bill do we can work with you on that or we're no we're not going to trash the place like easing their fears. It gets into the salary like look, you want me I'm really good at this job. I just need market and if you can't do it in salary, I'll work with you on other benefits maybe like there's this give and take in a negotiation which which seems to make a lot of sense. What I mean any other given to dealing with the client thing like I can't do it for that you should take that lower offer if you can, but if these are the things that were important to you, this is we still need to go with it this way. I love that given to you Quick, any other give and take tips that you love or examples that you can share with us on that type of thing and just putting yourself in that mindset
Unknown Speaker 50:09
I give to clients, especially when they can't afford whatever, again, what you said, don't get your value that's very important. And when they can't afford whatever or don't want to pay whatever my value is, I try and help them out whenever I can. Because I think that's just good business. It's also I like being nice whenever I can. But I've had now three clients, who, before they became clients had come to me earlier could not afford me or just decided not to go with me. And all three, it helped out in some way find someone else, you know, oh, you know, your budget is a 10th of what I quoted you. Let me see if I can put you in touch with like a college, you know, from my alma mater, who will probably take that. Let me see if I can, you know, introduce you to some other people who might be able to do a part of that project that you started. And yeah, a lot of the time people don't come back, that's fine. I'm fine. Just helping people out doesn't you know, it's not off my back. Plus, I'm not just helping them. I'm helping future people that might work for me, you know, those college students or you know, the other friends with their practices.
Ron Caruthers 51:13
But maybe you're not working combat. You're creating goodwill.
Unknown Speaker 51:17
Yep, exactly. Yeah. They said, Hey, that was great. You know, we got our first logo from that student that you introduce us to. We just got, you know, funding from some venture capitalists, and now we're ready
Ron Caruthers 51:27
to be funding and Yep, exactly. I've got I've got a great question from Oh, Laura Sophia, which was, let me scroll back and get it here. I have as we're getting here. Yeah. Why don't you go ahead and ask that, and I'll give you my two cents on it. But I want to hear yours first spread? Yeah, go ahead. Well, you read it. combitech. Yep, I'll read it. Thanks for all Sondra texts of these over to me and the other screens, I can see these. Is it ethical to continue to charge XML for why when I found a software that makes it two times more efficient. So if I work freelance should I be honest, or continue to charge the same amount which is the market standard?
Unknown Speaker 52:04
The software being what that she can automate a lot of the work he can
Ron Caruthers 52:08
do she can do it potentially twice as fast. And sorry to assume your gender, but it's so Sofia, Laura, so we're gonna go with that are loads, Laura Sofia. So it sounds like she can turn around and she's twice as efficient. So if the works getting done in half the time, what would you say write it as cent charge
Unknown Speaker 52:27
the market rate or charge whatever? Yeah,
Ron Caruthers 52:28
that's what I'd say, I'd be up. And let me give you a perfect example of where this happens in the auto mechanic industry. There are published standards. So part of the whole joy of being a good mechanic is you can get it done in less than so you might only work eight hours a day, but you're getting paid 12 or 14. And again, is the works getting done. So that's, that's the concern I would have if you really feel bad, or they're a great client, give them a five or 10% discount. But I wouldn't cut what you're doing in half
Unknown Speaker 53:00
now. And again, whatever the market rate is, I, you know, for me, I think at the market rate, I don't think about the market at all, when I'm hiring people, because you're not, again, someone can come to me and say, well, the market rate for our website of the size that I'm asking for is $6,000. And you quoted me 30. I said, Yeah, because I do good work. And you'd like the work that I do. And I charge 30. And again, it's just not negotiating your own value there, people are hiring you because they like working with you, not just your work. They like the way that you communicate with them. They like I don't know, if they like the way you do things, or you're just convenient for them. They don't want to have to go through all the costs of some other contractor provider. So again, and like I said earlier with the negotiations with the Airbnb, I'm not thinking at all about am I asking for a 25% discount, I'm thinking about what can I pay? And what makes sense for me, and I'm going from there, it's the same for me, how much money do you want to make? And then can you make it work. And again, if you're raising your rates to a point where your annual salary is suddenly going below what you need to be, that's when you need to readjust, but always just think about yourself first. And
Ron Caruthers 54:18
let me let me jump in with one point. And that'll let you we talked earlier about if you're getting in the job market, you don't want to have one job offer? Well, if you're in the business market, you don't want to have just one client that wants to work with you. You need to create a big enough pipeline, that if a handful of people say no, you've got plenty people that will say yes, and we'll pay those rates. Yeah, at whatever you're doing or tonic. Sorry to cut you off, man. What were you gonna say? Well, yeah, actually, I'll go without point a little bit too is that's where like, you know, obviously I get a lot of people who approached me like how do I get into high ticket sales? How can I sell really big deals, and one of the things I tell them is first, lock down the bread and butter stuff. Have a steady stream of that so that you don't need that big deal. because if you just have one big six figure client, which I mean, it's great, but then you only have one client in your, you know, they leave you, you're done. But if you have six figures worth of clients, and then you land a six figure client, then it's all gravy. And so it's really that that idea of getting your, your mindset. Right, right. around that, but I also think, yeah, there's, I teach a concept and I'm gonna want to, I take it, it's a framework that other people talk about, but like I teach something called Spirit genius, like, in your sphere of genius, the thing that you're so freakin good at that you're, it comes easy to you, you actually deserve to be paid top dollar in that framework because you are so good at it. There's a lot of things I'm not good at. And so I hire people to do that stuff for me. And I think about the other day like we've I've replant, we had two homes back to back. I've tried to plant the lawn, probably, I think a grand total five times. And like, never get my lawn to grow and great. It turns out I'm not a landscaper. I mean, it's just my guess, right? So long enough to figure that out. The five, five goes at it, countless hours, tons of frustration. We hired these landscapers, they're awesome. They come in and might work or out of town. And my daughter was like, Oh, my God, you should see what the grass looks like right now. Like, like how good it looks. And that's that thing of like your sphere of genius. So did they charge me what seemed like a lot when I first heard the number? Yeah. But you know what? It's right. Like, it's, it looks good, like, and I didn't have to do it. And so I think where people get into that concept of like that, oh, Laura Sofia asks, is there is it ethical to continue? Yes, it is. Because they're not just paying you for the work done. They're paying you for everything else, they're paying you for less hard headache, they're less. And most of us don't care how long the job takes as long as the job's done. thing, right? I want the results. And as soon as you become results based, and your business, then you know, and you can pitch to the results and talk about the results, then the Yeah, the budget will be a factor. But then that's when you can say like, Okay, well, if that's how your budget, I can remove this particular feature, and cut down the price by 10 grand if you want, you know, and then we'll we'll build that on later or whatever, you know, and then all sudden, you have a long term relationship with the client, which is, which isn't a bad thing, either.
Unknown Speaker 57:18
I know we're wrapping up soon, I do want to jump on that the results oriented thing to anyone out there starting or thinking of starting a services business as the number one thing I've done is I changed from charging an hourly rate to a flat fee based off what's being done, because I realized, I want to negotiate my hourly, I don't want someone telling me Well, I don't think that your work is worth this much. And at the end of the day, they don't care if the website makes them takes 100 hours or takes 500 hours. What they care is that they get the website that they paid for and then it has the features that they paid for etc, etc. And that is the number one way you can also like negotiate up your hourly because if I told someone that's hiring me, yeah, you're actually paying you 900 bucks an hour. And $30,000 for actually only took me whatever, you know, 45 hours to make. I don't give a damn how much it took me to make. They want the website and they already agreed, yeah, that websites were 30k Perfect. In fact, the better that you get at your job, you'll be able to do your service better for less time. And your hourly rate should skyrocket because of that and people are going to know I want 1000 or $1,400 an hour but if you just focus on what they're getting, which is all that matters at the end, you're going to be able to negotiate really easily and again then you can just complete the tie that who how much does that thing cost? Oh, you really want you know that cool micro animation on that site? Buddy, that takes a lot of work. That's gonna cost but if you don't want that now we can bring it down and get more in your price range.
Ron Caruthers 58:57
Yeah, brilliant. Any final tips? We've got a few minutes over I saw question come up about any other tips for service provider companies from Deakin Jonas I think reading anything you want to add or dominant
Unknown Speaker 59:13
pay your pay your employees and contractors well as soon as possible get retainer clients that helps you plan for the future that helps the second that you know and can start to plan off of okay, I know that I've got $8,000 A month coming in. That's when you can start to say okay, I can take 5000 or that a month and hire someone else to you know address that start helping me out square retainer clients focus on diversification I'd say you know my best year I did revenue wise annually I was pretty hard on myself because yeah, you know, crossed as a one man shop cost $200,000 in annual revenue, but was only had I think five clients that year. And I was like that's a problem. When I don't have that much client diversification, I definitely want to get that up. I think that's important too, because then, you know, if one client tells me to go screw myself, I'm not like, oh my god, I just lost, you know, 20% of my revenue. So definitely try to focus on creating as many revenue streams or client, you know,
Ron Caruthers 1:00:21
streams as possible. If you guys have a couple more minutes, we got a couple of really good questions here at the end. And we're ardley l. We've got That's Ryan. All right. Well, don't shout him out because he's got personal stuff on there. Ryan, what's happening did Hey, man, we'll post this on my channel. And I think Brennan will be able to share it on his and it's good to see you. So Ryan? Well, not saying his name. He he negotiated a lower salary. He didn't really go through the process. Do you have any suggestions for him for next year? For anybody else on?
Unknown Speaker 1:00:58
Again, first thing is look at the market. Look at go to Hey, Ryan, for those who don't. I assume no one knows. Ryan is a childhood friend of mine, that my dad knows.
Ron Caruthers 1:01:09
I took I took Ryan and Brennan back to when they were kids like fifth or sixth grade. We were supposed to go see Casino Royale. It was sold out. So I took them in like sixth grade to Bora at that. Right. And that was absolutely hilarious at the time. And I was like Ryan, let's keep your mom a little fuzzy on the details here. Okay. Sorry. It's employee LED. Anyway.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:39
So anyways, first thing go to the market, you can find out what your company is paying from Glassdoor. So I always think people should talk to their, you know, their co workers also see what other companies are paying. And I always tell my friends, if you've got like a salary job, you should just constantly be like, lightly looking for other work, just to see what's out there. Again, if you you know, if you are getting messages from viewers, and they're constantly offering you salaries in the same field that are 40% higher than yours. I mean, why not just take one of those? Or why not? At the very least get an offer and bring it back to your company and say, I love working here. I want to stay here, but like, you guys gotta up your game. I don't love you, you know, 40,000 a year in losses?
Ron Caruthers 1:02:29
Right. Brilliant. What was the other question? Did you catch it? D? Yeah, there's any resources to start getting retainer clients was one of it from Duncan Jonas?
Unknown Speaker 1:02:41
Yes, that was a very early goal of mine in my business was trying to get retainer clients. First, any project clients you have, every time I finished a project, I'm always just like, do you all want to set up or enter? I just pitched them on the options. And again, it's like, you know, you don't need to sign right now or whatever. But here's some things you'll probably notice in a couple first couple months, once I've handed off the website to you, you're going to have to maintain it. And when you want to update it, there's a little bit of a learning curve. And then just pitch them on some options and like, hey, just for maintaining the website, you know, whatever, 500 700 however many dollars a month, I will just take care of that. We'll make sure it doesn't crash, we'll make sure all the software is up to date. Hey, if you also want my help, you know, uploading a couple blog posts, your mom's making a couple extra graphics, etc, etc. I think it's much more important just to get the retainer client than to focus too much on exactly how it ended, like I was way more willing to negotiate and to go lower on that. Because I saw the value and having that money that is consistently coming in month over month. And it allowed me to plan and have some stability and just know that hey, even if no projects are coming in, I at least have three or four or $5,000 a month coming in.
Ron Caruthers 1:04:05
Let me let me throw one thing out you guys ask for Deacon Jonas who was asking the question just ask your clients like Brennan said I went took my computer to a computer repair shop, talk to you. They did the work and they're like oh hey, just so you know, we automatically set you up on a monthly billing. So we'll be your computer guys we can do a lot of remote work for you just cancel a try for 30 days if you don't want just here's the data you have to keep in mind I cancel it. And I was like 29 bucks a month or something. I use those guys every month new printer. Hey man, I need you guys to do this. I'm having some some loading issues. It was Kaspersky going in? We needed a backup system. They went in and did it so all they did was just like we were super low key about it. Hey, man, we signed you up for this. If you don't want to just all you have to do is click this button or call us. We'll take care of it. super low pressure. How many clients do you think they get a month that bring their computer then. And now we're happy to work with them for 29 bucks a lot. So there's some asking if there is I'll give you another tip too. And this is actually probably a little more specific to agencies, but it Wow, actually really any service based business. Part of what I and I will wrap a wrap up here. Yeah, this is a big part of what I teach. But like for getting retainer clients, you actually. So usually what happens especially in service based business, somebody calls you up and marketing agencies in particular, they call you up to do a project and need a website built, I need a new logo, I need Facebook ads, I need whatever like they want up, they have a project that they have in mind. And again, same thing for you know, a plumber claim thing for Ron's computer guy, I mean, it kind of applies across the board, usually we have a neat, one of the things to do. Now, the plumber may not be a great example on this, but it's to offer some form of assessment, and use some form of like strategic assessment type of thing of like, hey, well, I'm here. What I'd like to do. So I'll give an example a few years ago, we got somebody reached out to us to do a rebranding project, they had acquired a company, they wanted to change the logo, change the name, change everything, come up with a new branding. And I said to him, I was like, Yeah, I start every branding project with a strategy session, we're gonna sit down, and we're gonna walk through your ideal buyer, you're gonna, well, then they were like, no, but we stayed in the logo. And I was like, Well, how you gonna know your logo is going to appeal to your audience, unless you know your audience, like we have to do this initial thing. If you can do some form of initial assessment on there, you can paint the value of all the things they need above and beyond the project. And then it becomes Yeah, I'll definitely get this project done for you. No problem. us doing this assessment session, we'll make the project even better. And then on top of that, then we may have some other stuff that we want to talk about ongoing. So there's, there's a bit of a formulaic response, just going back to Deacon Jonas, this question of like, how do you get retainer clients, you got to have a way a formulaic way of doing some sort of assessment that shows them a bigger picture than just that project that you're that they initially usually reach out to contact you for.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:06
Love. So before we wrap up, there is a myriad of companies out there, one to 10, one to 20 employees were the size of their needs, it does not make sense for them to hire a full time web developer or a full time copywriter or a full time,
Ron Caruthers 1:07:24
anything. Yeah, anything.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:29
But they do need someone for 10 hours a week, they do need someone for 20 hours a month. And that's where you come in and you say, you don't have to pay me benefits at will, you have to just give me 30 days notice or you pay upfront. I charge a higher hourly rate, because I'm not getting the benefits. But you are getting a huge benefit because you are not signing an annual contract with me. I am providing you flexibility to continue to grow your business. And you grow from 10 employees to 15. Perfect. Let's have another conversation, we'll ramp my retainer hours up from 20 a month to 30 a month. So if you're looking for a retainer client and you have a skill, look for companies that need that skill, but not enough to hire someone full time.
Ron Caruthers 1:08:15
Really, what's a great way to end it, y'all so we chatted about a lot of tips for those of you just joining this is the make more keyboard podcast. And we do it every Friday on Instagram Live 8am Pacific, this, this will be posted for those of you that join later missed the early part of it on my page. And then I'll make it so they can share it on their pages. But that's it lovely CJP it was good seeing you again. Your local crack babies. Ryan, Zach. Oh, good to see you guys. And Brendan, most honorable son number one. It was so good to have you on and then Dominic, I'll figure out who we're having next week. And we'll have another podcast for you guys. So yeah, seeing anybody and we get a lot of questions about whether we're going to post this somewhere else. Ron and I are actively working on how to rip the audio so we can get this posted other places just so everybody knows that is coming. We're like, we're like a fiber conversation away. Let me show you the view again, from where we're at. We're like a fiber conversation away from doing that. So we just got to reach out. Alright guys. Good. See it, everybody. And again, great questions. Brennan. Thank you so much. And we will see you guys. Alright, see you guys.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
