#320: How To Price Your Way Into Abundance w/ Max Traylor
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
book people talking writing podcast retainers thought business read episode adult coloring book period max talker hand clients turn ed dude service listen
SPEAKERS
Law (55%), Speaker 2 (38%), Speaker 3 (5%)
Law Smith
0:00
According and sweat equity podcast and streaming show number one comedy business podcasts in the world pragmatic entrepreneurial advice with brewery or odd dog jock. Wow, that one that one deepens the only one that's work. We got max trailer back on talking more about his book agency Survival Guide and how to productize consulting service and do other things better to volume 30. But before we get into it, we got a humble brag we're 2021 best podcast in streaming entertainment studio, eastern United States media innovator award winner by corporate vision magazine. Don't you remember growing up looking at corporate vision? I remember finding corporate vision magazines out in the woods. Like Where did you get that that in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue? Those that's my childhood. Listen to us on iTunes podcast subscribe rate review, that's Chico gets us up those business category rankings because it'd be really funny. If we're up there with Tim Ferriss one day. Yes, we don't think Ferriss. I agree Spotify on there and Tim Ferriss Oh, the place for me though, all the places podcasts are published. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. Try expressvpn.com forward slash sweat gets you three months free of an annual plan. A virtual private network, a computer in the sky. Don't be tracked by big data. Google knows what you're doing. If you're incognito mode. Don't fuck around with it, try Express vpn.com forward slash sweat gets three months rate off an annual plan. Who loves you, but I do my best who loves you and giving you three months of your life back? Let's get this party started. About my sweater lady. Nice. Lady Woody. Woody.
Law Smith
2:20
Woody, have
2
Speaker 2
2:22
spiked coconut water. Yeah, in my fridge because I like coconut water. And I figured well, you know, I might as well be hydrated.
Law Smith
2:30
You are fancy. Coconut water. Ooh, la la. I don't know. I just walked down. I walked down. Let's go to bedsheets? You know? It's one underneath the comforter. What? Do they cover? cover it for out? That is your furnitures not from IKEA.
2
Speaker 2
2:49
Yeah, I don't know. I don't handle any of that. I don't know any of that. I just I just try not to look at the credit card statement because it upsets me.
Law Smith
3:00
90% of 1950s Dad, you really have a younger a younger body. Right? Like Yeah, what do you have for dinner? steaks and cigarettes? Oh, man, totally my wife. And I could really use more of on my steak. You know, she hurt my hand slapping her around the other night. Am I right guys? To The Moon, am I right? The The thing with booze. Everything I think's gonna go back bad transition. Why right now? I had like five thoughts to lead into it. And they are like, pick me. But like, they all result in jail time. They all play out like garbage. But I'm saying the aluminum is going to make a comeback. Because the plastic stuff. The same good. This plastic stuffing good. And I think I think a lot of companies have to act like they care give a shit. But like their studies now with a bottle of water if it's left in sunlight for too long. There's like correlations to cancer. whether that's true or not,
2
Speaker 2
4:04
we lost our way when they started to make paper straws. Like, oh, that straw. The straws are not the problem
Law Smith
4:10
that well first off, it doesn't work. A pay per shot doesn't really work. Let's just start there. Like the utility of it is to look like inhaling works once one time, you'll get something through there, you know that? Like if you think about it, like we should be chopping down the trees. Or I mean like to drink our liquids and not
2
Speaker 2
4:31
give anything get yourself a really heavy duty never going to degrade super, you know, heavy plastic straw is like your straw, right? You wear it on a necklace and you just kind of you
3
Speaker 3
4:44
know, we're getting that's how it's gonna end up. We're all gonna be carrying around our basic, you know, I got my silverware as my silverware I you know,
2
Speaker 2
4:52
we could do it. We could do it. We could do a company. It's called my stroke at that time. We'll talk after this email. Back and forth about it. That's a great idea.
Law Smith
5:01
We can't have anybody steal it, you know? That you know, I think all three of us are kind of the anti of that I like I you know, I'm a big believer if not pure rally and stuff. Sure I'm a big believer rows of build up the build up the immunity eating fruit off the ground not because I'm growing food off the ground all the time because cheap no hungry, but sometimes I take my kids through their throat on the ground and then put it back on the table mine didn't even fall off I just I did it purpose natural or food it's better natural salts haven't gotten sick. Like a year that is
2
Speaker 2
5:38
science in action. Boom, my friend and you definitely don't have any, you know, unwanted shrubbery or weeds growing inside you because you probably got plenty of that. You don't get syphilis. I don't know. I know it's not good.
Law Smith
5:54
Yeah. What the gut biome stuff connected to your brain and nerves. I think we don't know. Enough about that shit. Thoughts? Yes. Thoughts on our business podcast thoughts about her? Yeah, there's a billion of those things below. So before we started, he was saying he has he has guests at his house in his pool. Right now he did the power move to come into the interview.
3
Speaker 3
6:20
But also shadid the power move of picking their laptop and taking us out there. So we can visually experience what you're going.
2
Speaker 2
6:27
I was. I can we can do this outside, but there will be additional noises I do. I do my podcast outside as much as as much as possible.
Law Smith
6:38
We're gonna do one outside. But yeah, like a substitute teacher. Maybe when it's not balls hot outside. Also, that might be more appropriate to do when it's November maybe, dude, I can barely do it in this room that has some light. I'm a total I sweat all the time. I run hot man. The show's called sweat equity. It's so why this is a coincidence. Yeah, I my hands. No, no, I'm a hands and feet sweater. That everybody tells me some stupid remedy. I've looked it all up. Nothing doesn't work. I looked into it when I was a kid. None of that shit works. I'm not putting botulism Botox shots in my hand every month. 30 shots some people are doing that shit. Also can't use your hands. Right. And they don't I can't use them. But they're they don't sweat though. I don't want to brag too much. I'm pretty good at fingering girls. Right? But not anymore. Yeah, I don't want those calluses. I have no control. I wear dice gloves at the gym. You know?
2
Speaker 2
7:39
What? So I don't know what you guys want to cover today. But I did. Our I did re listen to our interview. So I know what we covered last time. Oh, boy. I can avoid repeating myself. So that's good. Which we weird. We
3
Speaker 3
7:54
have a tough time with love literally busting out your book.
Law Smith
7:59
I got you. But I read it like he's
3
Speaker 3
8:00
like cramming. Yeah. Definitely saw a bookmark in there. That was not all the way to the end. That was for no one that was not for
Law Smith
8:09
that pages. Interesting. How about this? Okay. Oh, sorry. You want some proof? Guys? He wants to prove how about this? I've got can't wait. That means that
2
Speaker 2
8:17
we were worried. We were worried that people would get you reading it last time catching the act. No,
Law Smith
8:23
I look, there's a picture of me because I took it. Right? Because I'm lazy.
3
Speaker 3
8:30
But here's, here's one thing. I'm having the book open to page seven. And
Law Smith
8:37
the date on that. What's the date? bitch? What's the date? July 11. Boom, you should be further along. Yeah. What's my day as we record this? And what the 20th Thank you. Thank you. I was prepping because I thought you were coming on last week. you're on vacation. But now didn't matter.
2
Speaker 2
8:56
I enjoyed I was ready, man. I was ready. I brought the whole rig about the whole setup. And just old people in Cape Cod. They weren't prepared for what I was bringing
Law Smith
9:05
but to shower you with compliments. Eric things have a man crush on you. And you know what? I mean? I think like I think you're just jealous. Like I might like other guys to listen. It's a bromance law stands up after these podcasts with directions all the time. That has nothing to do after your podcast was especially strong. It was I took a blue chew boom No, you did it. It was all natural. I just like people that have figured out shit and then can't put
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Speaker 3
9:34
it I haven't I haven't figured anything I mean it in the most highly complementing sort of way. The right now I'm I'm I take it as good as you should.
Law Smith
9:44
It's it's not it's a mediocre deck, so it's not bad. It's been a long time since someone's had a crush on me. So I a professional bromance crush a professional crush. I get some of those. Yeah, ah You know, I wish I was gay. We talked about that a lot on this show probably once episode on average, you know, we think our lives would be a lot easier that way. me buddy but you know we are we live and we doing this and we're doing this this is the show. Yeah just I we like it works in our man. General warts and all seven minutes and Yeah. Are we doing revamping it?
2
Speaker 2
10:24
Well, we were ranting. Yeah, we're, we're Yeah, well, we prime the pump. Gentlemen. What do you want to? What do you want to tackle? So one of the world's problems? Shall we conquer today?
Law Smith
10:36
So your book? Love You totally read all the way through? agency Survival Guide? Well, like I thought, so it's not very long. It's correct. Like it? Is it pretty
2
Speaker 2
10:50
there's actually blank get this. There's actually blank pages in the back because I am getting to 100. Yeah, to get to 100. Yeah. So here's
Law Smith
11:01
so that was, that was the game within the game? While I'm reading it? I'm like, exactly. Well, and then you
2
Speaker 2
11:06
notice this shit. Oh, yeah. And then you notice a lot of pages just have like, questions you didn't
Law Smith
11:12
ask yourself, you did the joke. You did the joke that they do on family guy when Brian Griffin writes a book. And then like, it's like, he writes it all like that, like you fill it out, basically like a self help book?
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Speaker 2
11:25
Well, I don't know about you guys. But when I was going through school, we had the period trick. Where you quoted, you're like, the teacher would say you need to write a five page paper and we would code we would tell the computer to put two spaces after each period. believer in that anyway. And some people would put like three and four. So it make like a three page paper, a four page paper, I almost did the period trick with the book, or you do the, you know, line spacing. Oh, it's, it's Yeah, but that's a 1.1 years. I wanted to be I wanted to be as short as possible. I can't stomach reading books. And so I wrote 30,000 words. And I read it, and two thirds of the words were trashed. So I took them out. And we're 1000 words. You know, I mean, 10,000. And the greatest compliment I've gotten is from business people that have said, I've actually read your book, because it's so short. Yeah. Yeah. about that.
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Speaker 3
12:25
novel idea. But you know, your book about marketing and getting the point across and as little bit as possible. And it's a short book. Hey, how
2
Speaker 2
12:32
about that? Yeah, so I, you know, I didn't think anybody would read it, first of all, but it turned out to be the greatest business asset for me, because it is so short. And I finally got my first negative review on Amazon, which Sorry,
Law Smith
12:48
dude, I had to laughter So he's drunk with power. reviewing our trash.
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Speaker 2
12:56
But But, but it turned out to be a compliment for me, because it said that it was too short. So all the positive reviews are the exact same as the one and more that definitely you couldn't you couldn't it says 100 pages.
Law Smith
13:08
Yeah, can't long. Why would he deduct any What? What was the rating?
2
Speaker 2
13:13
Yeah, he's like, I'm glad it was a discount. Like, I praise that they get like $2 like, Who is this? A bunch of Karen's running around? Oh,
Law Smith
13:19
wait 10 bucks on Amazon, because I tried to give you a review. And it wouldn't let me because it thought I did sell because I took a picture of us holding the book from here. And I thought it was doing self promotion for the show to analyze. But and then it wouldn't let me. And then I tried to submit it again, without that picture, just a normal picture. And then it was like, What did it say? It was like, it's because it was like the first time they're like, I don't know, if we're gonna let this one go. And I was like, What the fuck? Well, you have a bad reputation, and I didn't buy it through Amazon, you send it to me. So it's like, I don't have that, that link. So you get flagged, it's hard for me to do it. So I'll, I'll buy used one and I appreciate the thought and you made you made my day. Well, I genuinely do like it. And, and as Eric knows one of the goals for my this year, so I have a book written. And I was like, Oh, I'm gonna, this is a this was I'm gonna copy and paste Max's book. Well, you can go perfections enemy of good, right. So it's like, I would try I am going to trash it on the way I would, I would. I would probably get into it. I'd start writing like, okay, it's got to be this. It's got to be, it can be kind of a little bit too. grandiose with it. When it really the idea of writing the book was the benefit you're getting out of it is what my business mentor was telling me. You need to write a book. So you have this kind of power move leverage to be like, I wrote a book and then or send it to people, or like it's just a great quill or great arrow in your quill of like, you know what You're doing for your career.
2
Speaker 2
15:01
Yeah. And you know, the ironic part is I talked to a lot of people that are like, Oh, I don't have time to write a book. You look at their website, they've been writing blogs since like they were born and it's all like, half ass kind of, you know, it's not like it's not like perfect stuff, right? Now they're telling me they can't The only difference between the blogs and the book is like putting two covers in between it and, and having the balls to do it. That was the thing that got because I invested in a book four times and tried to write a book four times before I wrote this one. And the mind trick was finally, it's not done. You notice that says volume 30 on it. Yeah, that's because I said, Well, shit, it's never gonna be done. I'm never gonna be satisfied. So I'll give myself permission to update the book every year. And then I was like, Oh, well, I don't need to include, you know, all these new ideas that I get every day. I just said like, Alright, this is these are the friggin ideas. And we're gonna see what happens. Yeah, and then now I've gotten too lazy to to update it. So there you go.
Law Smith
16:02
All right, write that mediocre review wave. That's the feeling good about it. Were you kind of did like my dicks too big to have sex with this. This chick that's too short. Like you basically did like a humble brag. I got my negative review service t shirt. But
2
Speaker 2
16:19
one star you're not a real a one star review? Because it's a one. Oh have like 100% five star review. It's
Law Smith
16:27
all bullshit. Oh, dude, that that that's about to go down where that stuff's about to get exposed. Big time. Like Yeah, there's so many fake reviews out there.
2
Speaker 2
16:36
Yeah, fake fake reviews. You need some you need some really passionate Karen's that the drag you down and then then it's then it's all right. Yeah, but
Law Smith
16:47
that's you know, you made it. You know, you got you got to like, a little bit of a level when you got a hater. Yeah, I was a B student. You know, the A's students were weird. I agree. I agree to talking to a C plus right here. That was all I got. C pluses but you know, Yeah, dude, my people didn't see I was like, Fuck, yeah. That's how I get A's in math. Everything that was so is p dad stopped hitting me. I so yeah, it's funny. You say that the comparison or contrasting the blogs that the book kind of thing? Because that was the method I was thinking. I was like, I should just write them as blogs, put them into national musings altogether. And just put that as a book. And then I'll get the SEO value out of that.
2
Speaker 2
17:35
I'm gonna we got booked tomorrow. Yeah, with train. I'll tell you what, you got to go through it. I think I think you're going about it the wrong way. You're a talker. I didn't write I didn't write the blogs that became the chapters in the book. I spoke them I you know, I'm a I'm a podcaster too. I just turned the microphone on. cracked a beer. Exactly. And gave myself 30 seconds on each topic. And then that was it. And now I've got all this video content short snippets of video content again. I am you know, I'm a I'm a I'm challenged by having multiple human beings running around. So the things the ideas that I have videos together and releasing the video series like that hasn't happened yet. But I but I have it all. Yeah, but but point being like, you got to do it your way. Oh, sometimes you just take the shit that you say on video. Book.
Law Smith
18:27
Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 3
18:28
he's definitely a talker. So we did this. The last podcast we did. Were just the two of us, right? We finished the podcast like, Man, you know, I feel like I talked a lot that time. And we use the otter.ai transcription service, which breaks up the amount of time that one of us was talking the other one was just the two of us how much time? Timer? I thought I knocked the lot. 99 percentage? Yes, percentage.
Law Smith
18:57
I was going at 20. But probably not.
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Speaker 3
18:59
No dead on 79%. It was 79% loss.
Law Smith
19:05
Yeah. Look, anyone me brevity is the soul of wit non verbose. That's your the
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Speaker 2
19:11
opposite. Right? I'll tell you what, those weren't the numbers from our interview because I rewatched our interview, and it was 98 to two.
19:19
Yes. That's no actual as what I'm saying is like, I was like, wow, I was really chatty Cathy that say, Well, let me do it all the time. 21% of the time, it's just the tools. Or somebody else that I was stabbing in on?
Law Smith
19:34
Yeah, it was, but it's one of those things were kind of like, what are we going to talk about? And I'm like, I always feel like it's better. Like if you do improv, you don't want to have two people barking,
3
Speaker 3
19:44
right? Well, look at this. I mean, look, I recognize the podcast wouldn't be anything. But if you weren't a talking head that could just rattle off for minutes on end while I tick around on computer. You're doing two things at once, which I can't do, right but that's as I like it. That's how it works so for people
Law Smith
20:01
listening airglow my my Eric's editing in real time. As we're doing it, we don't do it afterwards. So he's he's hitting the switcher while we're doing it. Oh,
20:11
black guys, I just I stopped editing. No a waiver happens happen we
Law Smith
20:17
put the otter.ai transcripts on our site for every episode. Yeah. And we don't even edit that to be grounded. Correct? Because we're just like, we want keywords. That's it. Yeah, I dig it. So. So for writing the book, though there's two, you're right. That is the way I do it. A lot of the time, I will dictate in otter.ai while I'm driving because I go, Okay, I've got this hour to two hours every day I have to be driving in the car every workday, right? So I'm gonna utilize racial slurs against bad drivers.
2
Speaker 2
20:53
While we cannot look what am I in all agree, we can all agree you have the material and you understand the business case for a book. The real question is, why aren't you doing it?
Law Smith
21:02
I am. That's I'm saying I'm working on it. But I feel like I don't I don't want to put it out there like everyone on the planet is working on that right? No, no, I don't. That's why I don't want to put it out there like that. Goals list. We did that episode of our goals for the year. I did my goal list for the year. It's out there. I but I don't want to Front Load the credit. I hate when people go, Hey, I'm going to run a marathon this year. I'm training. I can't have another Mimosa brunch. And you're like, Oh, good. But those people end up running the marathon? No, they don't. Oh, that's I'm saying they say they do it like two weeks later. years over. I don't like I like the accountability part. But I don't like the front loading of credit for the thing you haven't done yet.
2
Speaker 2
21:44
Yes, I hate that as well. So I'm kind of the opposite. I have had to I have to hack myself into doing it. So I'll publicly announced that I'm doing something that I know I'm probably not going to do so I publicly announce it. And then I always come through Well, you come through that. It's like under pressure. If I if there's a date, and people know and I'm going to let them down like I will come through I will do my best work. So if I have an idea, sometimes I'll just like, make an announcement and then I'm like, Oh shit, I guess it's happening now.
3
Speaker 3
22:13
Yeah, but that's just you knowing yourself that it's like, if you don't do it that way, you probably ain't gonna do it. You know? Or it's like, if I put this on Facebook, Instagram. Now I have to do it.
Law Smith
22:25
Yeah, well, that yeah, that's the accountability. I totally get. I get it. I'm cool with that. But it's not you didn't do it to get Cheers. You did it in the you use that in the way it should be to be accountable. I'm just saying like, I don't go I on this show. I'll talk about it. But I'm not going around. Like, I'm working on my book. Just, you know, like, that kind of thing. Right? I don't like that. Like, did me You're like, yeah,
2
Speaker 2
22:52
look, if you want to get people to pay you more, you should tell them you're writing a book and you should tell him about all your credit. The biggest, like I we talked about this last time, but I've got I've got some clients that are like doctorates, and like PhDs, and and they don't talk about it. And I'm like, Look, you got a pricing problem. Your doctor, can you got a PhD in predictive analytics? You can predict the fucking future. And you're out you're charging $100 now or No, sir. Right?
3
Speaker 3
23:21
If he's going by Dr. Ken, that's probably a problem. Yeah. Doctor genius.
2
Speaker 2
23:26
But he doesn't he doesn't. He didn't even call himself doctor. Yeah, I started referring to him as Dr. Ken on calls. A brand new client hit us up. They're like, Oh, the good. What is the good doctor think? And so anyway, the point being is people play down there their credibility and used correctly. Not in showboating, but just to let you know, just to let people know that, you know, hey, I did get my doctorate and this and that, you know, that's why I that's why I'm really
23:51
good at helping people law, it was gonna abuse the living shit out of that.
Law Smith
23:57
No, I absolutely. I agree. I think my buddy Eric's uploading our my book to the
2
Speaker 2
24:05
I'm really excited because we just did our 300 and 20th episode of sweat equity, which is our podcast, so my business partner slapped me around. Is that what number we're on? Did you know what number it was gonna be? Well, no, because I don't know. Hold on. You got 317 out. I was 309. Before because
Law Smith
24:23
he didn't know he didn't know we got we recorded one right before this. Coming out a week later. He's off by one year only. I'm assuming you're only guests. Oh, man. Wait, we just had no
3
Speaker 3
24:33
one. Standing in the corner this whole time making notes being nice guys, man.
Law Smith
24:37
He's a GAMP Don't worry about him. He's like from Pulp Fiction. Yeah. Oh, yeah.
3
Speaker 3
24:43
As soon as I unstrapped that buckle, he's gonna let you have it. Dude. Zip that
Law Smith
24:49
thing up. All you have to be Quiet on the set. You can leave it
2
Speaker 2
24:54
but yeah, use your you know. So it's okay to use your use your credibility and you your accomplishments. And if you are writing a book tell people you're writing a book that I use. I got like, for three months, I got all my all my business calls by interviewing people for my book. I didn't even look yet. But yeah, okay.
Law Smith
25:12
Yeah, I've been thinking about that as well, just as not really calculated for that. But I do know that will spark up a lot of talks because it in the COVID era, it was one of those things where, for better or worse, I even tried to be a little bit proactive to reach out to people see what's going on. Make sure I like calling people up just randomly because I have to drive to gigs, or whatever. So you have all this weird time in the car and like alive as well call people I haven't talked to, but I want to talk to you. And when it COVID happens, like the kind of disappeared in a way so it's like, kind of starting to reach out to people again, for that kind of thing, just to say What's up? And I was thinking about that with the book, as we probably just will transcribe episodes. Yes, I know. But so so what do you got? You had you had two weeks to prepare Mr. Law. Mr. Law like a deal, dude, this guy. Hi, jack. He says, You can't you guys. You guys could let it burn.
2
Speaker 2
26:12
We're burning candles here. I got I mean, what are we talking about friends lined up in chairs outside my office doors when respectful
Law Smith
26:19
people are in the pool as we speak. Okay, your noodle. There's chicken fights going on. hotdogs are burning, and you got nothing. We're doing slow mo video was catching the football in the pool. And we're gonna sing it dude. Perfect. Come on. Plan. So I love the book. I don't think you've limped into it. Like you kind of have been describing the process. Right? No limping. I think what I really took away is the how concise. A lot of the meaningful parts were. So there's a lot of good nuggets in there that I can't pull up on my phone right now. But no, but there's a lot I can't recall because he didn't read it. I read it. I just can't retain it. But I'm saying what's the difference? Reading Comprehension part of essays.
27:10
I read it every night before I go, right? I can't tell you what I'm basically or every night,
Law Smith
27:18
but I it if anything for me personally, it's something that it's good to go through this. I earmark some stuff that as I'm working on productizing things for where to use Max is word law. He didn't make it up was that what does that mean? Making something and make it up? Oh, man. I didn't know he's gonna ask Professor questions. Remember that? things in steps? I know. There you go. I know. I know that. We did all the caveman definitions. Yeah, no. No. Remember, I was there. Remember? My short term memory sucks so bad. You think it's changed? Smoke weed? It's a talker. And we've got the listener. Yeah. So memory now. So good. Well, that's, that's also the thing of like, why I'm not like, trying to weave in. I'm writing a book into every conversation because I know you told me five times. Already five years ago, he said, read an overshare. And I Oh, and I'm already like, I'm like, I'm sick of myself. I'm writing a book. I got nothing. I used to be a good listener. Now. I'm just like, blah. When's it my turn? I deem it thirsty for stage time in real life. When are we going to catch a break? So so your your book is good. I think you've really kind of, I think you undersold it? Yeah, turning the tables on you. Hmm. But I think I sent it to you in the mail, saying about the like, as it's not, I think we started this episode with you talking about the hidden blank pages and stuff.
2
Speaker 2
29:03
That's not like that's just for Amazon because they wouldn't let me. But let me let me give you let me give you a little secret that this is supposed to be a compliment.
Law Smith
29:12
I really liked it. How about that?
2
Speaker 2
29:13
Yeah. No, I and and you made my day? You did it. Because like I said, the audio listeners max the audio quotes, made my day air quotes all over the place. Yeah, but it. It's surprisingly, like, there's a lot of I'm not a self conscious person, by any means. But you write the thing, and you ship it and you're like, man, I wonder what like now it's there. It's like a thing. It's like more than, you know, like a blog that's kind of excusable, and you just got to get over that because nobody, nobody cares, right? No, but there's so many shitty books out there, right? And so many people are gonna think your book is shitty. It's really about just finding one person that says hey, this was great. This was was different. It was, it was short. Thank you. Cool. So so it's it's a, it's a huge compliment for me and I and I appreciate it. But let me give you a tip because in the vid in each video, I needed a formula. And the formula was a story analogy rule. For each of the topics, I remembered the story of like when I discovered it. And I started the video that like when I was walking in my dad's office, or when the client fired me or like when something happened. And then some analogy because I use analogies a lot to like, make it fun and approachable. And then, but it always had to come in the end to a rule, and I didn't put a lot of the rules in the book, because it ended up sounding pretty redundant, but the rule like pulling everything into one sentence that's like, Okay, what do you need to know about this? Uh, you know, free is not valuable, you have to be able to translate something into, like, What the hell are you trying to say? And that was a really, that was a really good exercise. And I think that the book is a result of that kind of thought process and always, always bringing it to a really fine point. And then don't say anything that doesn't need to be said. I mean, the cutting board was sharp. Yeah. And I didn't need to say it. My editor was circling things to explain more. She didn't she didn't have anything to delete. She just said like, okay, I like this. explain that a little more with like, give me some things. I don't even know what you're talking about at this point.
Law Smith
31:30
It's called literary edging. Yeah. You know, he's a content, though, just though, but, you know, I thought. So. We're used to like, we're used to an editing cadence like that, right? That I didn't notice that because you'd be like, that you start getting into a thought or an idea. And then it would end with a Ernest Hemingway like really short sentence. And then you're like, most books would go into a lot more about that. After that, and it was just really give you six stories. Nobody cares. next idea, right. And so one thing like I was really like by, for example, the part about when you're going from, you're going from being just the marketer to the strategist, and making kind of making the vague that you should make, right. So one, one big takeaway I really thought about for a while was, you know, be the strategist, and then be able to serve out the service side and get the Vig on that, from the service from, you know, an agency or something.
2
Speaker 2
32:42
I left my I left my agency in 2014. And I told them, because I was doing sales and strategy at the time. And I said, Hey, I'm still going to do sales and strategy. I'm just going to charge for the strategy. And I'm going to give you the implementation work. And I want 20%. And I could, and I and they they couldn't say oh, well, there's not enough margin, because I would just sell it for I would sell it for whatever I wanted. Because I did the strategy, I was in charge. And so if I knew they were selling it for 10,000, before, I'd sell it for 12,000. And I'd get and I get 20% residuals, I made more money that year that I left my agency than I'd ever made before. And half of it was rip passive residual digital scalable, residual income. The only thing is service businesses are unreliable, and go through a lot of this.
Law Smith
33:34
Yeah, that's my next question. Right? Did you manage them? Like when that when you made those deals? Because I'm trying to think that the answer is negative? I don't usually go here's, here's the preferred partner, here you go, they're gonna do it. Here you go. How'd that how'd that turn out?
2
Speaker 2
33:51
Well, so when you directly refer somebody, or you're in a in an advisory capacity, and you say I, you make a direct recommendation, I think you should work with these people. When it inevitably becomes time to change vendors, or fire those people, you are also on the chopping block, right. And so I learned that to preserve the relationship and for my ability, as I got better, as I got better charging for strategy, and I actually took strategy from project work to retained business, I realized that it was much more it was much better for me to distance myself from the implementation. So instead of making the recommendation, I would teach them how to evaluate vendors. vendor evaluation, became a part of my service. How can I be a vendor when I'm teaching you how to ask the right questions and evaluate vendors? Now when it comes time to fire them? Guess who gets a phone call? Not you, right? I get a phone call. Yes, you do. You're doing the firing doc.
Law Smith
34:55
Well, but the question so bad when anybody comes on this podcast. Does a question like that? Like, are you listening basically, but we always choose. I don't know what the answer is. I must say something, but I know we're gonna be first. I was like, Yeah, yeah, not you receive at the shop, you got to go strong. But we are so strong every time someone matters. Are you listening?
2
Speaker 2
35:21
You're like me when I was a kid, like I would always raise my hand and volunteer. Max, by the way is younger than both law and yeah, I remember bigger child like, three years ago when I was in grade school? No. But what like I say, when you're in a position, look, the Holy Grail is when you are telling your clients who to spend money with and how much right? And you can't. The ironic part is you can't tell them because then you're on the chopping block as well. You have to you have to remain a unbiased adviser and you want the phone calls when they say, hey, I want to stop paying these people. What do you think? Am I going crazy? You know, has it just been? Is it just me? Or, you know, are they slipping here? On Can you can you help us evaluate, you know, whether we should be switching vendors, whether we should be in house, whether we should bring this role in house, like you want to be the person supporting them in those really important decisions. And some of the most important decisions in organization makes is is who to work with and who to pay and how much to pay them. I want that phone call.
Law Smith
36:34
Yeah. Yeah, that I mean, that was one big takeaway, cuz I just kind of mold that over for a while. But then I was like, I mean, the books linear in a way of like, kind of like, have you like you were saying, kind of discovering an idea building on that idea, then building on this idea. And you admittedly put fail you'd like any failures in there? Like, you know, a lot of the stories were you echoed him in our last episode. So if anybody's listening go back, but I really took away a lot of good stuff. But now, three out 30930 and the other you watch it all the time? Again, I start every day with Episode 309. Right now, your wife's like, stop making the kids watch this. Okay, we get it. You're on a famous podcast. Look, I don't want to keep you from the pool. Basketball jam. Whatever party you got going on. We're here man. I know. I know. You prepared. I want to go.
2
Speaker 2
37:36
I know. I know. I know. You got to I know you got a you know, you got your notes there and you got it. I gotta
Law Smith
37:42
get to but I'm saying I look part of the show is just to shoot the x's not a max wants to chill. Oh, you know? Yeah, you need we need to get you away from stuff I forgot. You actually have to leave Max and I can sit and talk for hours. Yeah, what time you got to leave? I got a heart out. 750 Really? Yeah. Yeah.
2
Speaker 2
38:04
Well, well that I might I might leave you with this. But it might it might spark more discussion. I was thinking about you know, what, what didn't we talk about last time we talked a lot about raising price race. We talked a lot about perceived value. None of those things work if you don't have more opportunities than you can service your pipeline needs to be overflowing if it's not and you let fear and hunger take over. You are never in a position to raise your prices you are never like you need to be you need to be talking to your clients going look I got clients knocking on my door that will pay me twice as much as you're paying me. Right. So let's figure this out.
Law Smith
38:45
Yeah, want like your hot chick
2
Speaker 2
38:49
people carrying on bottle retainer idea? Yeah, right everyone's like I want retainers. For somebody that knows how to fill the pipeline retainers are the enemy. Yeah, you want you want that business turning over so that you can charge more and or do less and or do less you want to be able to charge more and do less that's the name of the game and a professional services business and you can't do that with long term retainers. It just doesn't it doesn't work. So take those long term relationships make it more short term. Sprint's quarterly is nice and during COVID you know I think companies are a little bit more receptive to shorter term engagements but it gives you the opportunity to upsell and people are people are just clinging on to the the safety of retained where I can guarantee you I got my IT guy
Law Smith
39:42
no i can i can predict revenue that you're that's what you're trying to get to for so long. When you're you know starting out and you're like I don't want to be able to predict I know but I'm saying like that I'm saying the reason the angle. The reason you get a boner for retainers is is also you never looked back. Like Why was I so excited to get retainers when I'm we're really kind of growing this thing up it's really nice to have those retainers at certain points it's dollar
2
Speaker 2
40:10
Yeah, I mean but if you're if your objective is I mean we want to we want to give it we won't even get into people's goals and planning because if people don't plan I found but in a professional services business, it's time for dollars so your objective should be to make clear progress over time in the amount of money you are making per hour on the whole and retainers are a surefire way of bringing that down you will inevitably do more work to keep the account because you're not out there hunting and killing for yourself you're clinging on to the one you know meal you got you know, insert analogy but anyway that
Law Smith
40:55
no you're 100% right with that. We'll tease that out. We'll we'll we'll chew on it next time you come on look, you can you talked about periods at the beginning the period strategy will have Yon like a period once a month bam. I can read laws my Yeah, by the way, is a joke I wanted to slide in earlier and I couldn't get it in sorry. Oh, cuz I really thought you're talking about a period. Not like a point. I think we got it. I know but that I'm just reiterating how dumb my literary literary dots Yeah, I have done my brain is at first blush on some things. And you're writing a book, right? It's talking back to color and got no periods because I'm not that kind of guy to pop up. But for periods. Well, I do speak. I do speak and run ons. So I like that idea. A pop up book would be a coloring book. They say it seems the adults nowadays do an adult coloring book business coloring pop up adult adult coloring book. It's a pop pop up coloring dog can do whatever you like right a Corolla you want Sure. Any other brilliant ideas? Yep, I think I bet that would fucking crush by the way. Yeah, probably. Probably right coloring but I'm doing a I'm doing an adult coloring book an adult adult coloring book. I'm saying yeah, it's all it's all the naughty bits.
42:21
We naughty getting adult I call them naughty bits of marketing.
Law Smith
42:27
This is this is gold. Perfect. All right. See, this is what was the thing that we were talking about earlier that I like don't you're not you have to listen to your own voice. You're the editor. You gotta listen to the beginning again. Alright. Your Man, I love you so much. Thanks for coming back on. So much, man. Like a good period. I'll be back next a fireman boom.
42:55
Alright, buddy. Thanks.
