Lessons

Lesson Info

Intro to Earning More

This is going to be one of the most fun things we talk about today uh we're going to be covering how to turn your creativity into income so we're going to be covering a bunch of stuff and let me just give you a quick overview of what we're gonna do today yesterday we talked about money we talked about how to basically dominate our finances automate our finances we went to the psychology of money but that's just the basics right? I cover a lot of that in my book I wanted to expand that and I wanted to talk about how to actually turn your creativity into income how to expand that pie and so there's gonna be a few things that we're gonna cover today we're going to cover the power of earning more how to find a profitable idea by the way I say that intentionally because what fifty percent of people watching here are working on ideas that are not making any money they're like oh if I just try harder I'll really make a million dollars doing this photography and they just have no profit over t...

he last six years I don't allow that with my students how to land your first three perfect clients perfect not bottom bearing bottom barrel freeloaders perfect clients clients who want to pay you are thrilled to pay you pay you on time and don't sort of negotiate you on every last feet okay, and then we'll talk about how to maximize your productivity if we have time, which is a little bit ironic the thie thing today okay, so I want to be very clear about what we're gonna do today what if you have a freelance business or a creative business? The first part I'm going to spend time talking about why earning mohr is important now you may think, oh, this is a relevant etcetera, but I insist on going through this because it's important to understand the psychology and have a strong foundation of how earning more fits into your rich life otherwise people just do this random company and so I'm going to be a photographer I love to write so I should be a writer and yet loving what you do and just following your passion is not enough fact we've heard that for years and years follow your path does that really work? I would argue no, just simply following your passion is not enough. So I want to really dig into the psychology of how earning more makes sense and how it fits into your life. And if you already have multiple clients, maybe you're even making six figures I still think that you're gonna learn a couple things and then we're going to go into how to find the right clients actual words to say I'm going to take people's ideas and tear them down if I like you all building back up and and we're gonna we're gonna actually take these just generic ideas that most people have, and I'm gonna show you how to reposition them so that you can quadruple your rates so that you can find better clients so that you can actually add value to them and they love to pay you. All right? So that's, what we're going to cover today, but I just wanted to make a clear point that if you don't have an idea yet or you have too many ideas or you actually already making six figures from your creative idea, I've actually carefully constructed today's presentation to cover all of these things. All right? I'm gonna move rapidly through the first part, and then we'll go into the real fun. All right? Uh, okay. So let's, talk about it anymore. Why? Yesterday we talked about the basics. We even did some stuff on saving money. We talked about the two headed savings approach and how that fits in my philosophy on big wins, quick winds and realizing that we're cognitive misers. Well, what what do we find? We find that most people for forty years of their lives will just complain about money, but they'll never actually take the time to read a good book. They'll certainly never consider earning more if you were if you recall I asked you if I went to one hundred random people on the street and said, hey, how could you improve your finances? What would ninety nine of them say save money cut back and then you say really has that work for you in the last ten years? No, but I'm really buckling down this year I'm really going to get it going okay? First of all, they're just depending on their own limited willpower and cognition they're not using systems like we discovered yesterday second they're not even thinking about the whole other part of the equation remember that ceo model cut costs earned more optimized earn more let me be really clear there is a limit to how much you cut right but there's no limit to how much you can earn in other words, you can't out frugal you're way too rich think about that how much can you really cut at a certain point now? The fact is most americans can actually cut a lot because you're sitting fat and happy and overspending on stuff they don't even know about. So there's a lot of fluff in people's spending in fact, if you give me three average person's spending in less than ten minutes, I could probably cut thirty percent off that now I could cut it that doesn't mean they're going to do it but there's a lot we can cut. However, if you start talking about earning more that's where most people's their eyes just glaze over what happens when we talk about earning more for most people, if I went up to the random person and said, hey, have you ever considered earning more money? What would they say? I can't do it. Why good enough, where they don't know how I can't do it because I can't do it because I don't have excising I don't have enough money to get started, they don't have enough of a network in the city. I'm and I don't have enough technical school, right? Very good, I don't haven't you could go on and on. I gotta cut her off because you could go on for fifteen hours. I don't I don't have enough money is a great one. People genuinely believe that to start a business, they have to quit their jobs, raise venture capital and start the next google I'm like, are you out of your mind? You don't even know what venture capital is and you certainly don't need it for your freelance editing business. Alright, no vc is ever going to give you any money let's be clear. However, there are ways to start without any money and I'll show you how to do that in fact, most people waste money on stuff they don't even need I'm gonna dig into that and make a bunch of people really mad because they've been wasting all their time on stuff they don't need to what our other reasons if I went up to someone and said, hey, have you ever considered any more what would they say drew? They would say I don't have the resource is can't have the ideas I get more specific when when you say resource is that such a broad word no one ever actually says I don't have the resource is where they actually say uh I don't have the manpower I don't have the you know, the office space I don't have like the actuals like physical capabilities to do it but no one ever says that I'm pushing back on you because today we're gonna learn how to speak like normal people it's funny that when we start talking about business we start using all these high level words but that's not how our clients speak nobody talks like that no one says I don't have the manpower I know I'm not blaming you I'm just picking on using easy example pick on everybody today all right? I'll pick on you guys on the internet too, but we're not going to speak like weirdos who were using all these high we're going to actually use the real words that people use because that's how we connect with people so again I'm gonna ask you let's say I go to one your friends think of when your friends who is just like I can't do it what would they say if if I came up to them was like hey man, have you ever considered actually trying to earn more money? What would they say use their words uh I'm playing with my friends I don't have the motivation okay, keep going I don't keep going uh what else? I don't tough question there are a lot of things people don't have think about it I'm gonna come back to you okay? What? We're discovering just withdrew and we're gonna discover it all day long is incredibly hard to get in someone else's head toe actually understand what's going on the words they use the hopes, fears and dreams they have this is the stuff that helps you connect with your clients and helps you actually serve them better than all these other commodity photographers commodity writers, commodity creatives and can actually help you deliver massive value this is how I charge one hundred times with my competition charges okay my hourly consulting rate you know what it is it's ridiculous I myself find it ridiculous it's three thousand dollars an hour okay? And I turned down the vast majority of clients I don't want to work with individuals on individual but I want to do this I want to speak to thousands or millions of people how did I get to charge that much from twenty dollars an hour when I used to charge that I'm gonna tell you I'm a walking along that path today but the point is to do that we have to start getting into our kind's had not in a deceitful way in a totally ethical way that they actually want you to do that think about it for example anybody here have a friend who's you know, in some kind of relationship distress or a partner who's may be going through a little tough career change do they want you to sit there and talk at the high level where they want you to actually listen and understand them it's totally ethical to listen to people you're not manipulating them it all we're going to cover ethics of persuasion today. What else? What do we have on the web if I were to ask you or your friend hey, have you ever considered any more? What do they say? We have let's see uh mr painter canadian creative affects three makita mgh eighteen sure annapolis or saying I don't have I don't have time is one of the best ones that is that's a real thing that people say your friend would say that I don't have time well, your friend is pretty young. He probably has nothing to do, so I don't have time is correct. That is a that is an actual phrase that people use in fact it's one of the top three barriers what else we have, stephanie be who says, I also think that people see someone savor meat and said, wow, I could have done that, but here you did such a great job why bother? Right? Somebody else there's someone already doing that, I can't compete, I don't no, no, no, no which is so ironic because actually if there's competition it's a good thing that means there's a market you don't often want to be the novelty player, what else? He's a really good along those lines keep it says I don't know where to start I don't know where to start, okay, but I bet you that person has never even picked up one or two books. How bout you read a book? That's my answer to that? What else? Somebody I guess says I'm not the most talented, I'm just okay. Yes, a lot of I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough and okay, so this is interesting what you just said I'm not good enough is kind of the high level barrier, but to really understand why we don't do things we want to get into the nitty gritty the actual words we use for today's gonna be a lot of persuasion and language rather than you know I know people watching, like ever meet how'd you get forty thousand followers on twitter? Tell me about your twitter technique no, I'm not going to tell you that because it's stupid in fact I'm going to tell you a lot of people who are onto are wasting their time. All right? I will tell you how deeply understand your clients better than even they understand themselves and that not some stupid traffic acquisition strategy is going to help you connect with your client's, raise your rates, deliver more value, get referrals and build a massive name for yourself that is a totally different conception, just like yesterday, people came in saying, oh, we meet what tactics are you going to teach me about saving money and what did where did we start? Psychology and that foundation made all the difference I so let's continue? Um uh, we start on, we start off yesterday with where do you want to be spending your money, right? And and this was challenging for a lot of people they hadn't actually thought about that they didn't even know where they didn't even know where they think they spent their money they don't even know where it actually goes and they certainly didn't know where they wanted to go fact, when I ask people they were like I don't know so we did that exercise that's in yesterday's thing and that'll be in part of the class if you join it but what do we know? We know that most of us have been conditioned for twenty thirty even forty years to say no new jeans, no buying a round of drinks for my friends no organic food, no way and all and on and on and on take a vacation don't even dream about it, but what if we could actually flip that around? Yes, yes, yes and yes, what if we could do that? We do that in a couple ways. Yesterday we talked about systems we talked about overcoming our limited willpower. Now we talk about expanding the pie about changing our psychology. And I found it so interesting actually did not expect this to happen yesterday that when I ask people, what would you do if you could kind of do anything and people have their dreams were fifty dollars a month that's not a dream that's something you could do by the next week dream. Something you could do by next year is five hundred dollars a month two thousand dollars a month, five thousand dollars in love. I know that because I have thousands of students who have done that. I'm actually gonna give you guys a girl. I didn't plan to give this out. There's no sign up for anything on this page, but it's a cool paige it's about people who've gone through my program and the results they've gotten earned one k dot com slash preview there's a whole bunch of stuff there about how people have gone through the ideas they've gone through and the psychological changes they've gone through. Now later on, I'll give you more girls where you can sign up for some free stuff, but I just want oh, expand the pie not just with your money, but thinking about how big you could be. Alright, so I love this, by the way, how can you afford all that? You're so lucky? Really? Did you see me doing the backbreaking work for ten years where I wasn't getting paid anything where I was perfecting my craft, where I was studying photography magazines or just writing stuff over and over and no one was paying me? I was living in a basement in brooklyn did anybody, you know, these are the kind of things as creative as we say, but what do people see? They see that results right by the way how many people here do that as well? How many people look at somebody like chase jarvis and say well we'll chase I don't know chase is definitely he's got it all I could never do that chase is very good looking and he's got all these fancy cameras right? How many of us do that anybody here isn't it interesting that we do that let's go to the web to who here does that they look at someone let's actually get them to name off who do they look at and say, wow, I can't do that because I didn't go to that college or I did I didn't uh have that kind of gear or I don't look that good anybody for me and I think this comes a lot about a lot from um sort of my financial background with my family I'll look at some of these bloggers who are super popular and who are able to sort of bring material things to them like fashion bloggers for instance and say like, oh, they have rich parents that's always mind where I'm like oh these people I can't do that I don't have rich parents right? Right? I call it the shrug effect you look at someone I could never do that I didn't go to that college but the fact is that guy who went to harvard or stanford or whatever he had a paper route he worked in a pizza place he just systematically built himself up whereas many of us get derailed other either logistically or psychologically let's go to the web. What do we hear from people there? We have a time we have bill gates and steve jobs gary vaynerchuk senkenberg jeremy coward in large a photographer's peter lick is well yeah uh tim ferriss who were coming pretty soon yes. So timid so let's talk about tim for st tim's a buddy of mine we were actually just texting today and yesterday and he uh it's so funny because I always tell people go look at tim's first block posts and go look at my first block post they're really not that great you can see inklings of what would later become but I mean, I actually love that when I started studying people you know, people that I really admired I went and looked at their earliest stuff because that's what I could connect with most and I mean, it was okay, but it wasn't great and as you actually trace that progression you khun see, you know, they got more sophisticated, they're thinking they started adding more emotion. They started being more, you know, technically sophisticated with designing stuff but everybody starts it someplace so I would caution us not to look at someone who's super successful and say I can't do it but instead, what was their path to getting there? Okay, so again, the ceo model I'm gonna go through this quickly revisited, uh, cut costs, earn more optimizer spending. And why are we talking about earning more? So clearly the people here are creatives. You've at least I dreamed about her anymore. But why? How many of us got into our creative area because of passion? Okay, okay. People are, like, really scared. Like I'm gonna attack them right now. I might ok. And how many of us got into it too? Earn more money to live a rich life, whatever that means to you. Okay. Lot of duplication. Okay. Good what's. Interesting is, you know, starving artists have the weirdest pathologies on earth. They're so weird. It took me years to understand and actually be able to talk to them because I just wanted to hit them every time I saw them. Like you guys are so weird. What is wrong with you on dh so it's funny that chase and I got along so well because but chase actually understands the business of photography and the smartest people I know who our creatives understand that the craft is critical, but it's one part of a business, right? So how many of us will say stuff like, um I really need to get more experience in photography like I need teo I need to take more photos I need to get that that next level of cameras before I can ex who says that I owe everyone look at that everyone now the truth is you probably do need to get better at your craft I'm not going to deny that, but we do what we know it's easy if you're taking four hundred photos a month to take eight hundred it's easy if you're writing for freelance pieces to write six it's easy it's harder to round out all those skills you're not good at business deeply understanding your client pricing referral strategies surveys customer research these are things we don't know we're not good at and so we focus on the same thing we've always done but and if you look at it, let me actually if you look can you get the shot if you look a tte you know let's say that people believe that I'm just gonna take I'm gonna write camera photography if you think that this is all of what you do, then of course you're going to want to do mohr mohr eight hundred photos a month, two thousand foot whatever, but if you realize that your business is actually this, then you're gonna want to add this monetization pr pricing and you realize that you need to get good at but does it make sense to do go from here to here, which is gonna take a lot a long time? Or does it also makes sense tow abdi's still sense that makes sense? Yeah, question you want that were more comfortable to stay within the zone that we know and it's a lot easier to complain about the well, I don't have time, I don't have business cards, I don't know photoshopped well enough and then just stay where we are and work on what we know because it's too scary that's, exactly right it's easy to stay doing what we know, which is I'm just using it as an example which is taking photos. Okay? We're improving our craft and you do need to improve your craft. Let me be really clear. Most people are not world class at their craft. You need to get better and not to the exclusion of these other areas. And I will explain by the way, that I have hired and I know of many creatives these air creatives who earn over two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year, a lot of money there, not the world's best at their craft, however they are, they understand that they're clients. Have other requirements then photo remember yesterday you were talking about investing in all these new cameras and I told you that my video crew they're always talking about buying you camera and I said do I give a damn what camera you use? No, I want my videos on time I want them to look good I want no mistakes I couldn't care less if you're using extra I don't even know what the cameras are I'm just a client who happens to pay them a lot of money so we do this because we actually this's what we do every day we wake up way reed photo magazines way watch chase jarvis we do it but if you actually look closely you've realized that, uh what your clients are asking for is yes, you have to have some base level of of craft and skill here some level it depends high, low depending but often what they really want are these things over here. What could those things be, by the way, besides just being amazing at your craft? What else could they be times of being punctual speaking to them in a language that they understand rather than give your crew came and said, we'll have these like hd like yeah, but unlike you, I care so it's speaking teo in a way that you appreciate um sort of physically being punctual as well is like delivering things on time what else? Who else has got one what does a client want besides just the technical craft being her being listened to correct what else? How about fears? What do I fear is a client sand that you have enough knowledge and skill that you will deliver it for their needs for their wishes if they want the family photo shoot but so and so is pregnant or somebody else has a disability or somebody has a disfiguration on one side but they want playful shots but they don't necessarily want that highlighted they somehow want to hear that you're going to deliver that lifestyle image or set of images that meets their needs and that you have the skills to dio what else? We have a lot of people timing in on the web okay but before we do that okay fear's what do I fear as a client no one ever thinks about this you only think about what I want and you don't even think about that what do I fear wasting my money looking stupid? I have looked stupid my friends were like, hey, how much you paying that guy? And I told him and they're like dude, you're paying eight times too much and how did I feel I felt really stupid? It wasn't even about the money by the way I'll tell you about feeling stupid you know, this store called lululemon, okay? So there's a little lemon by by my apartment and, uh, I was in there with a friend one day she's like, hey, let's, just go look inside or something, and so I'm like, all right, so we walk inside it's like, eleven o'clock on a saturday or something and she's like, off walking, you know, looking at some clothes, so I'm just what I'm gonna do, I'm looking at close to so I'm like holding up this jacket and I'm like it's a pretty nice jacket and across the story because, hey, idiot, you know, that's a woman's jacket, right? And I was so embarrassed that I never will went back in that store again. I was so embarrassed what I would prefer you don't like target they have these massive things that say, like women men, actually, I would prefer that if you if you're a retailer, you understand that men are petrified of going to the wrong side of the store. Any guys ever walk into a store in the first thing they say is like, that's, what guys do ok, so you have to understand the fears that clients have to does that sound ridiculous? Yeah, and yet I've never been back in that store ever what we got on the web I just have a call in about that because they'll make fun of me I'm very sensitive but I had no idea that men think that and so when you talked about knowing your clients more than they know themselves what if you were my client wouldn't women women and men are so bad at understanding the other gender when we talk about a deep deep level like and and I'll talk about how they were afraid of stereotyping were afraid of saying oh, women don't like to do this well actually it's pretty obvious that women don't like to do x y z but we're afraid oh, I don't want to be labeled as a sexist so we don't even scratch the surface and there's a way to avoid it what we do with our testing as I'll teach you later is we actually we'll come up with these very broad stereotypes and we're like really comfortable like ok I don't care from stereotyping or not because we're going to test it we're going to test it and find out if our stereotypes or right or not I'll show you exactly do that let's go to the web let's see we have um uh s chancellor saying the client's fear someone not getting what they were promised so what does that mean something to brush and I guess to brother let's say excepting brought answers today okay I'm gonna throw right back no broad answers today fair from anstey photos fears that you're under bidding and will cost me more than you had originally quoted. That's very good. All right, very good, becky would h says photo clients fear that kids won't smile or behave, and there the shoot will just be torture love that that is such a poignant pain point for parents, right? So good any parent is like nodding their heads like, oh, like I took my nephew and niece to get photographed, and one of them just puked all over the place, and and my sister was, like, gone somewhere? I'm like, oh my god, what do we do with this thing? I don't even know what to do so it's a huge fear that's very good. All right, let's, keep moving on here. We're going to dig into this tremendous detail today, but hopefully we've already started realizing we haven't even scratched the surface of what our clients want, right? All of us have been thinking, oh, I'm delivering photography like my clients just want a cd with all my image is wrong that's the last thing they want, they want something much deeper you deliver cd to them, you might as well just charge them fifteen bucks and move on your way because you are a commodity if you're selling a cd of photographs so our eight hundred thousand other photographers if you're selling block post so our eight hundred thousand other why why you putting your hand in your head miami shooting burner and I know I'm I'm throwing the money I might as well be attaching cash wrapping cash around the cd as I give that's right? And you exactly love this love love it I love anytime I get someone to put their hands like this or start crying I'm like yeah gotcha because you know you know that you've been doing this and it's easy to keep doing more of it right to keep doing more of this and then six yep it's of course it's scary and six years later say I haven't made a profit why right? Just like I was talking to a guy in the gym and he says he's a trainer he said, you know, you see these really huge guys and they'll do the same things they don't like bench press, you know, three hundred because that's what they know but you'll never see him doing like legs you'll never see him running on the treadmill because it's really hard when you're a huge guy to do that so we do what we know and yeah it's impressive you get in there, you get that bench going, but you're not rounding out your entire self just like you're not rounding out your entire business so we're gonna talk about that all right? Let's keep moving on hopefully we got off on a big tangent, but I'm glad we did because the focus on earning mohr is not just about your passion, it's not just about making money, it's actually, I think delivering massive value to clients and I'll talk about why I'm doing this class as well. Later, when we talk about should you work for free and all the creatives, we're going to get really mad. I'm looking forward to battling you guys because you guys are weirdos all right? So big wins, we've talked about big wins, big wins in our lives, which most people never do, right? They focus on lattis are things like negotiating your salary, finding a dream job, whether that is working nine to five or starting your own business, earning more money right? By the way you can earn more money by negotiating her salary? We're finding a dream job. You can also do it in many other ways, too. If we do these things, we don't have to worry about all the things that the vast majority of people worry about when they pick up a money magazine and feel guilty about themselves in my estimation, there about seven to ten big wins if we just get those right honor our statuses, cognitive misers move on okay so why turn our creativity into income we touched on this in terms of passion um let's just let's actually just keep going because we've covered some of that let's talk about our mental barriers now remember when I asked you what would your friends say? Did you come up with a better answer drew I would have said I don't want time I don't have time okay my big answer okay, so you basically ripped off someone on the web pretty much got it okay we're going to come back to this people online so I want you to start thinking what are our barriers to turning our creativity into income now by the way I would say I would define creatives very broadly right? You could say I'm a creative I can't draw worth a damn I'm serious but I create material courses blawg post maybe I speak sometimes to change people's behaviour that's creative in away, right? So anyone watching this lot of people but the reason I address that is a lot of people say, well I'm not creative I can't draw or I'm not a photographer but actually we're all good at something so let's let's take that and let's figure how to turn that into income okay again income to live a rich life tto add value to people it's not just about making money here this's about kind of like actualizing what we're good at