Lessons

Lesson Info

Money Myths

First myth myth number one when it comes to money and price you so stuff you don't sell stuff we spent all day yesterday talking about this you don't sell stuff you sell experiences you sell meaning many of you spell cell connection with other people is so community you sell ideas you so beaut you sell things that represent people's most core values you rep you sell things that represent what people want to see in the world and yesterday I can remember hearing a couple comments from online but well what if I only sell this what if I only sell that how does that change someone's life and this is exactly this is speaking exactly to that it's exactly to that assumption that all we sell is stuff that it's just a trinket no when you learn to see your trinket as something that has really meaning to someone that has something that has real value to someone when you bust that myth when you bust that assumption that all you sell is stuff you khun create a new relationship with the work that you...

're creating and therefore create a new relationship with the people that you're selling it to and therefore create a new relationship with the people who are paying for it remember people pay for things that they value they pay for things that mean something to them so if you're selling anything and people are paying you for it they find meaning in it they find beauty in it they find a new idea and they are happy to part with that cash myth number two is that people are only looking for a good price and I hear this one all the time that may be true in a certain market it may be true when it when we're talking about certain items and there are certain brands the compete on price where the person that you or the company that's offering the lowest price will win out but you know what there is ah whole other market there is a whole other conversation there's a whole other group of people in the products that they want to buy where price is not the issue or it's not the main issue people aren't only looking for a good price oftentimes people are looking for quality they're looking for particular materials they're looking for a point of view they're looking for um you know, just something that is unique something that's special you know let's take the pc market for the personal computer market as an example here if all people were ever looking for was a good price, wouldn't del still be a thriving company instead we see people paying three or four times as much toe own a mac and these are people you know, maybe it's even you you value that product, that particular type of computer so much more than the other type of computer that you're willing to pay four times as much we make decisions every single day where price is not an issue see, I know this market really well and so I know that the vast majority of you spend ah lot of extra money on produce at the supermarket because you buy organic, right? Yes, I know you do that's red and you even more so you value buying fresh produce over say, buying the bargain can of veggies, green beans, potatoes, corn right? And so there might be some things that you compromise on price on at the supermarket but I'm betting produce isn't one of them you pay sometimes eighty cents or eighty percent more just tow have the organic produce that you want because you value that or maybe you don't even go to the supermarket maybe you go to the farmer's market and you pay the farmer eighty percent mohr for their produce because that supports your values that farmer appreciates that transaction you appreciate the transaction you feel good about it. Going to the farmer's market is fun right shopping the farmers market is fun it's not on excursion in pain that you have to go and spend this money on this particular product no, you make a choice a positive choice a fun choice to go to the farmer's market as opposed to the supermarket and so people aren't on lee looking for a good price. People, in fact, are looking to support their values. They're looking to get excited about the things that they're buying. They're looking for what they want, not compromising based on price here's another myth also maur if my prices are lower than the rest of the market, I'll sell more if my prices are lower than the rest of the market and I see this on the big indie craft marketplaces online all the time, and we're going to talk about how where you sell your goods later in the day affects your price dramatically. But just in general, there is a big assumption that if my prices are lower than everyone else's than the other jewellers than the other textile designers than the other ceramicist, then I will sell more than they do. But that's not true that's not true people don'tjust buy on price like we mentioned before, people might be buying based on aesthetic they might be based they might be selling are buying based on something that's different, something that's new something that they've not seen before. And so artificially keeping your prices low based on the market can often result in you making compromises in design, making compromises in material making compromises in labor, and that ends up in you being very burnt out as a maker and the other thing that can happen here is that when people do compete on price so when you are at that bottom of the market there's a lot going on in there and it is just straight up hard to compete and a lot of times when you raise your price up out of the market you suddenly stand out people actually are looking at your items you feel better about what you're selling because maybe you just have a little bit more energy because you don't need to produce a cz much but regardless you stand out and actually raising your prices can make make it easier to sell mohr in fact in my own business and I realize it's not exactly the same as yours but in my own business every time I've raised my prices my hourly rate prices for courses by prices for books my sales have gone up I haven't sold mohr because I charge less ice elmore because I charge mohr which kind of stinks when I'm trying to take a break but but this is this is a quality problem to have it if you have quality problems I'm happy to help you out with those that's what we're going for here is quality problems not the stinky kind of problems all right? This myth is avoid making mistakes what does this have to do with money? This has to do with perfectionism the dreaded p word how many of you are perfectionists oh it's unanimous here I'm imagining maybe pretty unanimous in internet land as well yes makers artists, designers, writers, coaches well we all tend to be perfectionists I'm a recovering perfectionist myself I'm a virgo I'm very much into you know making sure things are right but here's the thing I see makers, artists and designers spending months if not years perfecting a single product on ly to take it to market and not sell it because it isn't what people wanted if you remember back to yesterday afternoon and meghan talking about her embroidery of the month club and having put up a landing page to find out if there were even people who were interested in that product that was her ability and that was her making a uh taking a chance and saying I've got this idea it's not perfect yet but I might like to take it to market what do you think and that could have gone either way she might not have gotten the raving response that she got she might have thought well, that was kind of a mistake oh well and thrown it out and that would have been fine but instead because she was willing to take that chance willing to make that bet willing to make that mistake she was able to instead make more money more money for me in my own business this takes the form of adoration so when I have an idea again, just like meghan, I start small in silicon valley and lean startup terminology. This is called a minimum viable product. A minimum viable product is the smallest set of features that someone is willing to pay for. And so you take your minimum viable product to market and you actually sell it. It's a test? Is this worth something to people? Is this something people want to buy? And so instead of testing a product and making it perfect without earning anything, you test a product making money, you test the product and you actually generate revenue. So for me, you know, there's, the art of earning book that comes with purchasing the course. That book was a seed of an idea. It was a seed of an idea that I could be talking about this issue. I could be offering training on this issue. I could be offering courses or consulting on this particular idea. But instead of putting together a big program, instead of putting together a three day workshop on the idea, I started with a single e book that a book took me about two weeks to write. Most of it was written on airplanes, so I wasn't doing anything to begin with, and I put that book out into the market really, really quickly. And it's been by far the best selling product that I have, so I've made money on that e book, but beyond that I knew this was a topic that people were interested in and not only that, but they were interested in my perspective on this topic and so then I was able to keep iterating and knowing that I could take it step by step by step by step, making it bigger and bigger and bigger until here I am on the stage of creative live talking about money and earning and making money beautifully and so that process of being willing to make mistakes instead of avoiding them has earned me night a nice sum of money and it can for you as well, you know so well yesterday we talked a lot about meghan almonds jewelry she started with a sin simple single strand of these black steel leaves many, many years ago, and that necklace has grown into a giant, enormous collection of things like this honking piece I'm wearing today or the long ones I was wearing yesterday. But, you know, not not having taken that first step in putting one idea out into the marketplace perfect or in perfect, she would've never been able to create the collection that she has now, so a big part of making money beautifully is to get over that perfectionism and put out a great small first step that may or may not be a mistake and use that as a jumping off point to create a whole new revenue stream for yourself. All right, I've already talked a little bit about this one, but this I could never talk about this one enough, so the myth I won't make a lot of money because I love what I d'oh I won't make a lot of money because I love what I do so here's the thing when I was growing up, I was told you don't have to make a lot of money do what you love to dio you don't have to make a lot of money do what you love to dio well, that sounds great until you think about the story that's going on underneath that the story that's going on underneath that is if I love what I do, I won't make a lot of money. And so even though my generation and I'm I'm on the custom of gen y and gen x even though my generation heard that story over and over and over again, so many of my friends so many of my peers made choices to make money instead of doing what they loved, I know my friend molly may har from strategy oi knew that she loved psychology I knew that she loved people, but instead of choosing to go into that field, she went into hotel management and she enjoyed that for a while, but it was a choice of a job, a choice of a career, not a choice to follow her heart. And so years later, she dropped that and became a life coach, and now she does better than she was doing before loves every minute of it has the opportunity to work with amazing women going through quarter life crises, and yeah, and so she is living this idea that you can both love what you d'oh and make good money doing it. It is possible, and I think all of us need to really take a look at this idea, the story that we've been telling ourselves for years that we can do what we love, we don't have to make a lot of money. What if you did have tto make a lot of money and love what you d'oh? What if that was the question that you posed to yourself? What if the ultimatum wass you must live a life of abundance and do what you love? What if that was the ultimatum? What if that's what our parents had told us over and over and over again, I think we'd all probably be doing pretty different things where we would have started off doing pretty different things as well, so it is possible to both do what you love and make good money doing it and I want to say at this point to but good money can mean whatever you want it to mean I started off today by asking you what your sales goal was for this year that's sales goal can be whatever you want it to be the importance is putting the number on it and knowing and finding a way really to make that number happened doing what you love to dio here's one of my favorite mitts it's not okay to talk about money right? Talking about money is in polite that is not a conversation for polite society good women don't talk about money with each other you don't talk about raises you don't talk about salary god knows you don't negotiate right right yeah no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no the on ly way I realized I could be making more money was because I had friends that started talking to me about it way back in the day when I first started my business the main way I earned money was through web design was not an awesome web designer so let's not talk too much about that but I you know I still put out a pretty good product and one day a friend of mine came along she had found another web designers website ah web insider that actually put her prices on her web sites, which I highly recommend, by the way, but anyhow, that's a conversation for another day. So this web designer had put her prices on her website and to my friend just gently pointed out, have you seen this? Do you see what this this person is charging? Because I think maybe you should look into that. And what I realized is that for every job I did, I was leaving about a thousand to fifteen hundred dollars on the table. Ah, thousand to fifteen hundred dollars on the table. So right then and there I made the decision. Well, that's silly, I'm going to raise my prices and so I raised my prices, and then the people that started coming to me said, you know, you really should be charging more for this, but okay, if that's all you're going to charge me like, okay, I can learn a lesson, right? I could I could learn from that time with smart cookie, so I'll raise my prices again happens again, and it happened and it happened again until I got out of web design. I was just by the very nature of having conversations about money, about talking about what other people were making, doing the same thing as I was doing, I was able tio five times ten times my revenue each month to the point where I went from making a couple thousand dollars a month to making well over five figures every single month, so talking about money is huge on dh we find this I think this is so important, especially for makers, artists and designers when you guys were out, it shows when you're reviewing other people's work don't hesitate to say, why do you price things the way you price them? How many of this are you selling? Sure, you might run into someone every so often who was a little uncomfortable answering those questions, but most people want to help and the greatest place that they could help you so often is by talking about money if we talk more about the way we price our reasoning behind the way we price, how many we fell of this how many people are on our email list? How many people are buying through twitter how many people are buying through facebook? We could make a lot more educated decisions and those educated decisions could lead toa less work and more money that's what I see over and over again when we talk about money when we talk about these really tough subjects people start working less and making more money and that's the holy ground except that it's a findable holy grail all right here's another one making one hundred thousand dollars per year is inconceivable inconceivable I so again here I'm just going to keep using myself as an example because I've been all over the place with my money story, so I had an idea for whatever reason growing up that people like me people who you know go to school a lot, get useless phds think about things just way too much read too many books that you know, we pretty much eke out around thirty to forty thousand dollars a year I don't know where I got this idea I really don't, but I just assumed that that was kind of my earning potential thirty to forty thousand dollars a year maybe fifty if I was lucky I don't know if it had to do with me being a woman I don't know if it had to do with me studying something esoteric and school I don't know if it had to do with my family dynamics, but I just assumed that basically, you know, at the time median income in the united states was about all I could hope to eke out to me the very idea of approaching the six figure mark wass in fact inconceivable. So it wasn't until I started breaking things down it wasn't until I started raising those prices and then realizing where those numbers were going that one hundred thousand dollars a year was more than possible in fact, it could be downright easy as long as I played my cards right here is how you play your cards right? You figure out your goal now your goal may not be one hundred thousand dollars a year. It might be twenty thousand dollars a year for five thousand dollars here or your goal might be half a million or a million or more that's fine too but you got to break it down. You've got to break it down. So what does that mean? You have to earn per month or per quarter? What does it mean? You have to earn per month per week per day. And then once you've got those numbers, how many items do you need to sell to make both numbers? Do you have the items in your shop in your store to be able to make those numbers? Are you doing enough craft shows? Are you doing enough trade shows? Have you called enough wholesalers? Have you grown your mailing list enough? Once you take a goal like one hundred thousand dollars and you break it down into its component parts, you start to be able to make the checklists the action plans that makes one hundred thousand dollars or whatever your goal look not inconceivable but entirely possible. It makes it look like the inevitable ending point of a step by step by step by step journey and so for everyone out there today all of you listening watching online I would invite you to pick a number pick a number that feels inconceivable to you and break it down what would your business have tto look like to make that number not only possible but inevitable? What would it take to make the number in your wildest dreams not only possible but inevitable? Break it down look at the action steps, figure it out, start asking different questions instead of wondering how you could get your prices any lower start asking questions about how could I get my prices to be ten times as much that's an interesting question that's a problem that you can tackle that's something that khun stretch your brain and get you moving in that direction instead of in this direction alright people can't afford what I need to charge people can't afford what I need to charge who are these people really? Who are these people? Yes let's just talk about the reality of this. The reality is that there are different income brackets in this country there are different income brackets all over the world and this country especially is ripe with income inequality but people find ways to afford things all the time think about the last thing you saved up to afford or the last thing that you splurged on in fact I'd like to know what was the last thing you guys splurged on? Yes I went to general beads and I got four hundred dollars worth of materia fantastic that's a great example for hundred dollars of materials and you splurged why why did you splurge because of this class even I got really excited and I just wanted to make some stuff exactly some art beautiful babies exactly no that's a a fantastic example when when was the last time before that you spent four hundred dollars on anything I had to fix my car ok well seven hundred yeah, so that that wasn't really a splurge that was just forced well of course yeah but but that is often what what happens we see the this you know it isn't until there isn't there's something that we really really want something that we're really really excited about that we can justify spending the amount of money that we spend on the necessity but it was worth it good yes because I wanted to burning man so okay and what was the last thing you find the one that meant the most to me was a plane ticket home to maui to see my family fantastic so it was like uh yeah yes this four hundred and twenty five dollars is worth it because I could see all my favorite people eat my favorite food being my favorite place so yeah yeah and I mean that's such a great example because most people would say well I could never afford going to hawaii right? That's out that's out of that's out of mind that's out of my budget I just that doesn't even seem possible but you made that happen because that was important to you there were reasons to be there for you individually sasha what was the last thing he splurged on a weekend workshop about sensuality that is a fantastic and I know that's a huge area of interest for you both professionally and personally huge. Yes, meghan I've bought the adobe creative cloud for teams even though I'm just one person I really why later origin whether I went teo a mud bath spot up in calistoga and it was a really great day I had such inspiration I drew and sketch and all sorts of new designs so it was it proved to be very worthwhile fantastic to have any splurges from the natty absolutely new let's see triscuit says I spent one hundred fifty dollars in a thrift shop d c t designs thank you says that I splurged on pre ordering the oh I sport on pre ordering recordings of this workshop that was truly that was virginia but somebody else had purchased thie meditation course we have some photographers in here organ see about two new lenses for my camera for a thousand dollars yeah way have of course cassandra sandro says the burberry coat that she splurged on with nine hundred dollars so I hope it's keeping you warm yeah and you know what I love about all these examples to is all the different price points we had one hundred dollars we have nine hundred dollars we have four hundred dollars for hundred dollars I don't want to know how much the adobe created it was so you know there's all different price ranges all different budgets and all different values and people can afford what they really want what's really in alignment with their values on what they really think we'll get them where they want to go that's why people buy these classes that's why you bought those beads I'm not sure why you bought the team version of adobe suite but I bet it's the same reason and you were actually going somewhere but that plane ticket is where you wanted to be it represented all of that re connection with family and friends and the place that you love in the food that you love it represented all of that to you it had that huge meaning people can't afford they make ways to afford great meaning in their lives I think more today than ever before you know we are out of that hyper consumerist the nineties and the odds where we just bought stuff stuff stuff stuff all the time we build houses we build mcmansions we've build storage units full of stuff that we didn't need those days are over and thank you goodness because now people don't buy more stuff but many, many, many more people are willing to spend good money on what they really want not just the latest trinket from the big box store but that one item that's going to make them feel like a million bucks a day in and day out that one item that changes their house into a home that one item that brings their family and friends together people are affording things all the time people can afford what you need to charge you might need to look in different places for them you might need to change the language that you used to talk about what you create you might need teo switch from the craft show circuit to the trade show circuit you might need to do all sorts of stuff to find those people that can afford what you need to charge but I guarantee you there is a market out there for you that can't afford what you need to charge so that your business is sustainable this is the last myth for today and that's cheap cells and I realized this is getting a bit redundant now but for good reason I could not tell you enough times that making things cheap doesn't sell making things affordable hate that word doesn't sell it's not why people make a decision do you want people to make a decision about your worth work based on the price do you want people to make a decision about your work based on the price or do you want people to make a decision on your work based on what they see in it, what it allows them to accomplish, how they use it, what it really means to them those are the things that get people to buy? We spent all day yesterday talking about ways that we can talk about and relate the story of each of those things on items, use and items meeting and items experience those are the things that get people to click the add to cart button that get people to pick up your item off your booth and handy their credit card. Those are the things that make riel change for people cheap doesn't sell value sells value doesn't have to be cheap we say oh that's such a great value what we mean by that we mean that the value to us is greater than what we have to pay for it and so whenever that's a great value we happily hand over money. We happily hand over the credit card and we feel really good about the transaction regardless of the price value doesn't have anything to do with price and it has everything to do with the effect a product has on us with what we can use it for with what we can accomplish it with what it means to us and so when we ground our prices in those things as opposed to materials overhead labor as opposed to artificially low prices in the market place we can actually get people excited about buying from us, we can get people to feel really good about the transaction and when your customers feel really good about the transaction, guess what? You feel really good about the transaction and so all of those and this is so true for so many people all of those negative feelings that come from just accepting the money, those negative feelings that come from just accepting the money, they go away it's not magic, it takes a little time, it takes practice, but what better way to practice by then? Having people give you money a lot, right? My selling a lot by having lots of transactions to practice those happy feelings with so cheap doesn't sell value cells meaning sells experience sells intimacy, sells connection, spells cells I want to talk about one more thing before we start diving into some questions because I'm betting that there are questions and that's shame, shame. There is a lot of shame that gets in the way of our money stories and the one place that I hear this most often is that when I ask a maker an artist, a designer to double their prices most often they say to me I'm not worth that or if they don't say exactly that to me, I know that's what's going on in their head. I'm not worth that. I know because I've said that I don't know how many times I'm not worth that that's shame talking that's shame it's you assigning value to yourself, it's you saying I'm bad? I'm not good enough, I'm not a brilliant artist enough, I'm not an experience crafts person enough, I'm not a real designer, I'm not worth it that's shame talking and we have all sorts of reasons for shame around money. Most of them are societal and we're not getting rid of them any time soon, so instead we have to reframe this script, we have to stop saying I'm not worth it and realize our own self worth. We have to realize their own self worth so that we can increase our net worth increase our self worth so that we can increase our network worth. So how do you do that instead of saying I'm not worth it anymore? You say the work is worth it because that's what I never hear from people, the work isn't worth it or almost never ask yourself is the worth where is the work worth it? How do you figure that out you run the numbers, you look at all those things that we talked about yesterday you say, what is what is a trip to hawaii? To see your friends and family and eat the food and be in that place really worth? Is it worth four hundred dollars? Of course it is. Is it worth a thousand isn't worth two thousand? Probably it may take you longer to achieve it, but it's worth it? Yes, it's hard to put a number on this meeting stuff it's hard to put a number on all of the soft things that go along with pricing, and in the next segment, I'm going to help you do exactly that, but we have to stop saying to ourselves that I'm not worth that. I'm not worth one hundred thousand dollars a year. I'm not worth five hundred dollars an hour. I'm not worth the labor that goes into this piece and start saying I am worth it and the work is worth it and find ways to reinforce that message for yourself over and over and over again, best if those air transactions where people are happy to give you that money where you are, putting yourself in the position to have happy transactions over and over and over again is the absolute best way to reframe and practice reframing that script for yourself and so that's what I would encourage all of you to be doing.