 This is one of many work camps I've been to and spoken at, so I'm always excited to be at a work camp, it's fun for me. Somebody asked me why I came and I said it's for all the fields, because I like being here. So I'm very interactive, I try to get you guys to laugh a little bit, so shake up your, you know, loosen your laughing muscles a little bit so it won't be so, like, oh my gosh, it's a lot of stuff today. And we're going to talk about pricing, and contracts, and diversification, and so really more about the business of WordPress. That's what I've been doing for the last 10 years, and I've been a freelancer for the last 18. So prior eight years before I started with WordPress, I actually was doing everything from scratch in Notepad with HTML. I didn't even know what CSS was. Knowing that WordPress existed was a huge thing for me, and I was like, yay, I'm so excited that there's something else out there, and I don't have to sit here with all this crazy code all the time, and I can do this really easily and teach other people how to do it. So I wanted to tell you a little bit about myself. You've probably seen my Greengrass, this is my famous, you know, brand stuff, so you probably see this a lot. I'm actually an accounting founder, like I mentioned, and we're one of the sponsors this year, which is a big thing for me first year as a sponsor at WordCamp. I'm a stage hog. If you were at the opening remarks and you were there a little early, I was like, hey, everybody! So I do that a lot. I've even been to WordCamps where the speaker didn't show up on time, and I went up in front of the audience, and I was like, so, what does everybody do? And they thought I was a speaker, and the speaker came in and was like, what are you doing? So we got in trouble a little bit, and I'm a webmaster, so I love the web. I love websites. I love everything about building websites. A lot of the stuff when it gets to developing stuff, I don't know all that stuff. That's okay, because there's like a lot of guys that do, and I just say, hey, I need some help. I'm an expert marketer. I do love, love, love marketing. I like to see how one person can connect with another and share their idea, their wisdom, whatever it is, and really make that actual connection, not just that they're selling a product. Business guru, I do a lot of business coaching, and I think I'm somebody who should know. So I'll be in the happiest bar quite a bit today. If you want to come and hang out with me and ask me stuff, I'm always happy to give free stuff all day today, and then after work camp, then you have to pay. Alright, so we talked about the apocalypse. That's what I talked about. How to survive the apocalypse while being self-employed. And leaving politics out of this, do you think the last 10 years is kind of apocalyptic? Or do you think the next 10 years is going to be apocalyptic? And that goes not just for politics, that's why I'm saying that. I'm talking about that. The economy, the way that small businesses are working and growing or not growing. And depending whatever your affiliation or whatever it is, you have an opinion about one way or the other. Either you figure, last 10 years was horrible, next 10 years should be great, or you have the opposite opinion. But my whole thing is, it should not matter to you what is happening out there. You should be able to sell your way out of a paperback. Pretty much. And that's what I've done. And I have had a lot of different opinions on the economy and stuff like that given to me. But I say, well, then how did I grow a six-figure business? The economy was so bad. It's because I didn't care about what was happening out there. I didn't worry about what was happening out there. I found a product and a service that kind of transcended all that. And that's what I really feel like wordpress is. It transcends a lot of the stuff that's happening out in the world and you can really use it to grow yourself a business, a job, or even an entire lifestyle. So that's what I mean by the apocalypse. So we're going to talk about these few things today. And at the end we'll have a little bit of a recap. Diversification. I don't know how many of you think or have heard that you really should just pick one thing and focus on it. How I believe that. And do you believe you should have multiple revenue streams? You should have your main piece you focus on and then you have multiple orders. So we're going to go into that a little bit. We're going to talk about pricing. I get that question all the time. And then product pricing is consultation. How do you handle consultations? Cash flow management. This is almost sounding like an accounting thing, but it's not. Because cash flow management is something you should be doing. It doesn't matter what industry you're in or what business you're in. If you have a business in WordPress or in any kind of web or any kind of development, you should be managing your cash flow. And this is super, super hard to do. So I'm horrible at it, just entirely right now. But it's something that you have to always strive for. And then contracts, always get contract request questions. And then perseverance. Because we have to end on an inspirational note. Alright, so. Did anybody have any questions before we get into diversification? No? Okay, good. So let's talk about this for a second here. Diversification does not mean that you're going to take on more than you can handle. So think about the matrix, know thyself, Neo, know thyself, right? You have to know yourself. Can you handle diversifying today? Or is that something you want to plan for next year? So by the way, you should have a business plan. If you don't, come talk to me. We'll talk about it. And if that's something you need to plan for next year, you need to ramp up to that. But you need to know yourself, can you take on another piece right now? And I'm going to show you how. You may not think you can, but there's actually ways you can. And then add services. You don't want to add services that you're mediocre at doing. If you had somebody say, oh, yeah, I can do that for you. And then they do it for you. And you're like, I thought you said you could do this. I could have done that part of it. Because they added a service that they were not so great at. And they didn't basically outsource it to someone, which they probably should have done, and said, yes, I can do that service, mark it up a little bit to make some money, and then give you a stellar service. You wouldn't have cared that there was a markup. You wouldn't even have known there was a markup. But they were adding a service they were mediocre at, and then you were disappointed. I'm sure all of us have had that experience. So we don't want to do that. We do not want to add services because they're the only way to diversify. So let's say you're doing websites, and you're like, I have to add SEO. I have to add copywriting. Those are adding services to what you're already doing. If you're just doing design or you're just doing development, I need to add design. I'm just doing development. I've got to add this. You're adding services, which means you have to do more work. That is not the only way to diversify. There are other ways of doing that, which we're going to talk about. So don't think that just service adding is the only way to diversify yourself. The second one is, the fourth one to me, is to add a second full-time job. Mass screening is a fun part-time gig. Has anybody had been recruited for that? Like, okay, so you like wine, and you should totally sell wine. And you know your clients like wine, so it's a perfect match. But that's not really what you do, right? It doesn't really go with anything you do. Or you have skin, and your clients have skin, so you should totally sell the skincare, because it's like kind of what you do already. Which it doesn't really do with what you do. So don't get sucked into something being like, oh, it's just a fun little part-time thing. It'll make you some extra money. We have the same clients. Yeah, sort of. Not really, not at all. So just remember that you have a job. You made this job, so you've got to kind of stick to it as well. So what we are going to look at is adding a service if it makes sense. If you were like, you know what, I'm going to spend the next six months learning SEO in January, or the next nine months, and then in January I'm going to add SEO to my services. That's you putting in the commitment, putting in the time, and adding a service that makes sense. If you're saying, you know what, I need to add SEO next month, or in the next two months, I'm going to take the next two months, find a really great SEO partner, and subcontract them. And I'm going to add that service. So you're either going to do it yourself, but you've got to do it well, or you're going to hire someone to do it, and then they've got to do it well. And you've got to be prepared if they don't, since it's on you. So adding a service is good, but it has to make sense. Does anybody have any questions about that? Anybody have any stuff I've talked about? Any alternative sources of income? Has anybody ever done affiliate marketing? Okay. Has it been great, or in, or bad? Depends on traffic. What was that? Depends on my traffic. Depends on traffic, absolutely. What'd you say in the back? Meh. Meh? Okay. So I actually have always been like, no, affiliate marketing, stay away. Because it has really bad connotations sometimes, but that's not true. I have actually found that if you find the right pieces, affiliate marketing can be amazing for you. It can really be like almost this little supplemental income that you know is going to be rolling in for you. One of my favorite affiliate marketing partners is actually Commission Junction. They have so much, they're so diversified in what they offer you to be an affiliate for, that, and you don't have to use that service in order to be an affiliate, which is also a nice perk. I used to make probably around 500 a quarter, and it doesn't sound like a lot, but 500 every single quarter, it just shows up in your bank account because you have some blog posts about some things, or you have some links on your site that make sense for your clients, and they're getting helped, and you're getting a kickback, and they know that. Most people, if you're their client, and they know, hey, this is my affiliate link, I'd love if you check it out, they're like, oh, well, I'm going to buy it from you rather than just going to the website directly because I want to help you out because I like you. Right? And it does depend a lot on traffic. My site gets very little traffic, and I was doing pretty well. So it's not a hard and fast rule, there's no standards for it, but it's worth trying. So if you're not familiar with Commission Junction, definitely check them out and see if there might be something in there that you could offer. Also go back to the people that you use. I use Social Pilot, I'm an affiliate for them. I use Content Snare, I'm an affiliate for them. I use, there's so many different products that I use site route. Best affiliates ever, they're really great for their affiliates. So make sure that you're looking back at what are you paying for every month, and if you can get five affiliates with that every month, that could probably be your service freight, essentially, or maybe you're making more than what you're paying for your service. So look at who you already have a relationship with, who you're already telling people about. You're probably already saying, oh my gosh, I use Site Route, they're the best. Why aren't you getting 50 bucks for that every time somebody signs up? And then online courses, so a lot of people have a lot to share or they find out something really cool they could do or something really neat that they've condensed or whatnot. So like I did the same thing, I found that I have all these formulas for simplification of stuff, and I created an online course. That's a very simple thing. As web designers and people who know web designers, it's very easy to do that. You can make a course like two seconds flat, do some videos, and you've got a recurring revenue stream. You can keep pushing out to clients and other people that may see it, so that's a great way. And then author a book, and then you get more speaking gigs, and then you're in front of more people, and it gives you more exposure, but it's a way to diversify the types of revenue that's coming into your pocket every month, into your business area. Any questions about that? Alternative sources of income? Anybody have any that you want to add? Have I missed? Let's hire someone to run your day to day. This is the hardest one. That's why it's the third. If you have ever worked with a VA, a virtual assistant, how has it been for you? Great, we love it. Was it hard at first to give up some control, maybe? Yeah, a little bit. Did it take you a couple months? I did a lot of reading about how to do it first, so I thought that was pretty different. So you were a little more prepared on having procedures in place, and having manuals, that kind of stuff ready to go? Yeah, I'm real big on documentation. Awesome. Many easier, much better. Yeah, that's awesome. So if you're going to hire a virtual assistant, a lot of people think that it would be great, but then when you actually get them, they're like, what do I do? And they're like, give me something to do. Then it's like, okay, well, no, you can't do that. Okay, hold on a second. No, you can't do that either. And then you get to the point where your entire to-do list is still on your to-do list. So having documentation, the process is in place, is going to help you make that transition easier, but you eventually have to let go of some of that. And you know what? They're going to do it wrong. Up here. But you have to either say, no, they did it good enough, or they did it correctly, or maybe I didn't communicate correctly to them, or maybe I need to tell them, no, this is how I would like you to do it, and really educate them on that better. So it really comes back to you. Are you just thinking that it was wrong? Are you receiving it differently? Or do you just need to educate them and train them better? Which, first time, they're going to do it wrong most of the time. But it can free up your time. You can take on more clients. This is how you diversify. Yes, you're probably doing the same thing. You're probably still selling websites, you're probably still making websites. But if they're doing some of the work for you, and you're not physically doing all, it takes you a month to build a website, and you can only take on two or three at a time, and if you're making on half the work, how many can you take on five or six at a time? Because that person is helping you do that. Finding that person, I think, can be a little difficult, but if you at least make that decision to do that, it can be very rewarding and very profitable. And then the last thing for taking on that is they will help you reduce those menial tasks. Anybody in here have a client portal that they use? Anybody in here have a client portal that they do not use? That's what I thought. And I actually was very scared about this because my clients were like, listen, we need you. And I was worried that I was going to lose people because I was telling them, go to the portal, go to the portal. And every time I get an email with a request, because I have a VA, every time I get an email with a request, I have a canned email in my Google for work. I do not reply to them, I just send them the canned email that says, do to the high volume of emails that we receive every day. It's very standard, it's very cat, and I say, you know what, I really appreciate that you're helping us to make your life better, your life easier. And so if you can go to our portal, then everybody's going to win. Everybody's going to be better for everybody. And you're going to get a response within 48 hours, sometimes 24 hours. So I'm giving them this incentive, hey, if I just put this question in the portal or I just put this request in the portal, it's going to get done. So as soon as it hits the portal, I check the portal every morning, I assign all the tasks, respond to the ones that I have to respond to, but it's all done through the portal. And then the clients are trained to go through the portal. That means when I'm on vacation, when I go on my cruise in July, I can go to my portal in the morning, check what tasks are there, assign them out as they needed, and then go about my day. So it's something that I can still do, you know, while I'm gone and it's remote. And I don't have to worry about it. So if you're not using your client portal, please start incorporating that and forcing people to use it. And if you're not a client portal, I use Fresh Desk. It is full, really. So check it out. I'm not an affiliate, but it's free. Okay, so let me go back, actually. I have a research field in the corner that says, how have your competitors diversified? So maybe if you're, like, unsure, like, what could I even do? Check out what the other guys are doing, and maybe there's something there you thought, but they're doing this, but I could do the other part of this. Or I could do it cheaper or better or quicker or whatever if you have whatever knowledge you have. Okay? Oh. Pricing! Any questions about diversification? If you have questions about what you should do to diversify, come see me in the happiest bar. I'm more than happy to chat about that. Free consultations all day. Price is not about cost. It's about value. Okay? How many people think they're worth $100 an hour? I guess I'm good. I guess I'm good. How many think their people are worth $1,000 an hour? All right. How many people actually charge $1,000 an hour? That's what I thought. Okay. But the thing is, if you don't value yourself, you devalue the industry. You shall all tweet that. If you don't value yourself, you devalue the industry. And you know what that means? That means that later on, when you're up here and you're at six plus figures or you're at seven figures or wherever you end up at the top of your game, you're going to look down to the bottom and you're going to go, why are they doing this to me? I have this great product and they're undercutting me and I know it's going to turn out horrible and they're going to crash your burn and their client's going to freak out and then they're going to come to me and then I'm going to have to charge them more because then I'm going to have to fix it and it's going to be this headache that just keeps perpetuating. And so no matter what level you're at, you have to value yourself or you devalue the industry. So don't make it harder on yourselves later. Let's try and clean that up now and make everybody value themselves. There is an overinflated sense of yourself which you don't want but there is a timeline to go there. So you do not necessarily need to be the cheapest to get the job. I don't always think that's the right strategy. If you can do the level that they're expecting for the lower price, that's fine but you don't want to be in a bid war trying to say, well I know my competitors charge five thousand so I'm going to charge fifteen hundred for the same job because you're going to get end of game screwed than that. It's just an area on that equation because it's not going to turn out well for anybody. And then there's other people that overprice themselves out of their market. You have two markets that you're in. Maybe three, I'll think of what I want to share. The first market is that you are in your regional market. If you are doing websites for people out of your region, you are now in their market, their regional market, what they could get in their area for the same product for a different price. So if you're in New York City and you're selling a WordPress website and you're in Jacksonville, Florida and you're selling a WordPress website, two totally different markets, two totally different pricing structures, two totally different ways of selling and buying. Not that they're like some alien planet up there or anything but they do have different expectations and also different price expectations. If you say $5,000 to somebody in Jacksonville, they're going to go, if you say it's $5,000 to somebody in New York, they're going to go, all right, we'll see. Let me do some numbers and we'll get back with you. All right, it's good, right? And that's depending on where you are. Not saying $5,000 is like the hard and fast price but you get the idea, right? If you say it's too high a price here and the same price in New York, you're going to get totally different reactions. So then again, do not undervalue yourself. That's another one. All right, do not overinflate your value which we just kind of talked about. Don't say you can do something and then you can't. Under promise over delivery for them, sure. You want to make sure that you're saying, here's where I can get to, here's the people I can bring in to do X, Y and Z. That's what we've got. I can do it all unless you have the subcontractors lined up ready to go and you know they're solid. Do not work for free because they're poor and have to help them. They have no money. You're not valuing yourself. You're valuing the industry. So if you see a nonprofit come to you and they say, we're poor, we have no money. But we help all these people, all the way we do yet. And we just love you to help us. That is on your conscience to do or to not do. If you're like, you know what? This is my favorite charity in the entire world. I can't believe they're asking me to help them with their website. I am so on board with doing this. I will help them. I will be there. I will run their website. I will buy their domain name for them. I will pay for their hosting. You're in. Please do know, whatever you, let's say you charge, whatever you charge them, let's say you're going to charge a client $5,000 for that package you just offered to this nonprofit. Okay, does that make sense? You just spent $5,000 with that nonprofit. You just funded that nonprofit with five grand. Okay, so remember that when you're thinking about doing things for people for free. Does anybody ever ask you, it's a great investment opportunity. I really need a partner. I know anything about like tech stuff. And I, it's going to make a lot of money. It's totally going to make tons of money. Just like in a year or something. And everyone is waiting for this. Everyone wants it. I see something to build. Have you heard this? Have you heard this? Have you heard this? Okay, now the reason you've heard this is because they're looking for a freebie. Someone asked me to build a membership site for them. She's like, I can't make money unless I have this membership site. I can't have a membership site because I don't have any money. And she was in this test 22 and I had to help her. And I said to her, I'm really sorry. I don't have any more pro bono hours for this month. That's a really great one while you're two years out. I just stole it. So that's what I always give a couple of hours a month that I do for free. This is my free hour. And then I tell people, I'm sorry, I'm out. Maybe we could revisit this another time. Usually that debates everything that works. Well, she didn't take that for an answer. She didn't like that answer at all. So then I said to her, I'm sorry because I told her what it would cost and she was like, I don't have any money. I said, I don't have 10 grand to put into your business right now. I'm not an investment person. I'm a website builder. And I don't, I'm not an angel investor and I do not have $10,000 to give you because that's what I would essentially have done given her $10,000. Not in cash money, but in blessed wedding tears. Mostly tears. Probably some blood. So, think about that when you have that person ask you, well we're poor. Now if you feel like, I go to this sandwich shop every day and they really need a website and you can negotiate a free sandwich a week for a year. Do it. Just do it. Be nice, even if it's just a free sandwich every other week for a year. Figure out what's going to work for you and them and make a deal. Or just do it for them because you like them and they're nice and they're cute and they make good potato salad. I don't know. So, but don't, if it's just because someone's guilting you into it, you're devaluing yourself and you're devaluing. So don't do, don't overcharge because they can afford it. Plastic surgeons. Who else can explain? That really big engineering for contractors. Right? Oh, they went to the site. That's a good one. Marketing agencies. I call myself a marketing firm. Okay, am I some contractor? Right? I'm a firm. Some people are trying to charge me extra. No, I can see that a couple of times. But don't, just because you think they can afford it doesn't mean that's what you should be doing. So I actually was speaking with a lawyer the other day. Knew he was established. Knew I could probably get five, six grand out of him for something I normally charge a lot less for. And I gave him my, my price. I just gave him a regular, regular price. What I normally would charge. Anybody else who came to me for the same exact website. And he said, you know what he said to me? It was a 10-minute phone call. And he said, let's do it. Send me the contract. I'll sign it today and pay you. Done. I got my rate. I didn't try to overinflate myself so that I could get more from him because he had the money. He could afford it. Right? I was like, you know what? I'm going to be honest and fair with him and say, you're going to need this kind of website. I can do that kind of website for X amount of dollars. If Kathy came to me and said, I need this kind of website, I'd charge him the same amount. Yay! You don't want to know the price. No, I'm just kidding. But you know what I'm saying? And if anybody in this room came to me and said, I need this kind of website, I'd charge him the same. Because for me, yes, it doesn't have to do with value, but that's the value I put on that product. That's the value I put on that product. Not the value that everyone else is like, well, they can afford it. I can put 10 grand on that product. And it's, you know, if that's your business model, go ahead but tread lightly. Okay? All right. Let's go to the next one here. It's not working. Word for you to even tell them what your price is. You have to have a few things in place. Has anybody heard this? No, like and trust. Anybody been in a B&I or a networking group? Okay, this is their big thing. No, like, trust. If someone doesn't know you, then you can't vote them. If someone does not like you, you will never be able to quote them. Let me tell you. They won't even like 10 foot pole now. Nothing. And if someone does not trust you, you will never get their money out of their hands. I just want to be the one and wrong person to ask. What if I ask you for $5? Sorry? What if I ask you for $5? Sorry. Okay. What if I ask Kathy for $5? Kathy doesn't. What do you want it for? See? She has to know me, but she knows me. Now she knows like, well, what is it for? But she kind of likes me a little bit. But does she trust me enough to give me $5? I don't know. Do we have that kind of shook happy? Why can't you do $5 in the park? See? What do you know what I'm saying? Does that make sense to you? If someone asks you right now for $5, you have to have that know, like and trust. If I ask Nikki, I've known Nikki a long time. I'm going to single her out. Nikki, if I really needed $100 right now, would you give it to me? I really needed it. See? But Nikki knows me. She likes me a little bit. And she trusts me, though. She knows that if I told her, no questions asked, I need that $100 right now. She would say, okay, Liz, I don't know what's for, but I know that something's happening. I'm going to give it to you because I trust you. She worked really hard for the $100. That's her money. See what I'm saying? You're not asking for it for nothing because you're giving them this, but it's very close to the same thing. They're not sure. They have to trust you. I actually had a client walk into my office one day. We were in the middle of negotiating her deal and her contract. And she just walked in. She sits down. She goes, my last guy did. And I was like, okay, stop story. Here we go. And the last guy did this and the last guy did that and he took her money and he took advantage. And I said, I'm not that guy. I'm sorry that happened to you. I really am. I'm trying to help you. I'm trying to work with you. I even gave her a discount. Don't ever do that. Don't give discounts. You won't have to. I gave her a discount. I was really trying to get the job because I really wanted to work with her. I wanted to help her. I was devaluing myself at this point as you can tell. And she looked at me and she goes, well, I don't know if I can give you that money. And I said, well, I don't know if I can give you that service. And she goes, she was never going to trust me because she already been too burned by someone else. You know what she did three weeks later? She hired a firm who took more of her money but the man convinced her he was like one of those sales and he was sweet talking. Like, oh man, you look so party today like the whole deal. And then she asked me if it was a good deal. And I said, it is. You should take it. It's just like the wedding photography. You sit there and give them a price and they come back. Oh, Uncle Joe's going to do it for free. And then they give you the pictures and say, can you edit? And I just spit back the same price as I originally would have been. Yep. It's one of those things when that person doesn't trust you, they're never going to be your client. So you have to get to that level of trust. So when you're working with someone, what are you doing for them? Are you building a business? Are you taking something off their plate and giving them back hours in their day? Are you helping them with their marketing? Are you being their own personal married pop into marketing? No. So what do you think it is? Any ideas which answer is my correct answer? All of them are correct in a way, but there's one that I think is the most important of all of them. Yep. You can always make more money. You can never make more time. That's on my website, by the way. And that is true. People want to, they value their time, they value their families, and you're coming in asking for some of their money so that they can have more of something else that they really want. Whether it's a much better website. I really need that. I really want a much better website. I really would like more time with my family, so I don't have to sit here and try and figure this out. I really would like my marketing to be designed every single day and keeping me up at night. You're giving them something that they value. And this is typically one of the most, the biggest things I see that people value is their time. And they're not going to be able to do it any faster than you. You're going to probably be the fastest person they know in doing this kind of stuff. Well, the S is all on the wrong spot. Consultations. I'm going to talk about that in a minute. Any questions about what I've talked about so far? No? Oh, yes. In the first section we talked about the board of ministers and we talked about writing a book. Do you have any suggestions for self-publishing? Self-publishing for writing a book is your question. Yes. There are a lot of self-publishers out there. Like, you can go online once you've written the book and formatted it. And there are also local people that you can probably find as well. I have some referrals if you need something that will help you either ghostwrite a book, which is sometimes helpful. It is a little bit of a payout though, but you're doing this more long-term, you know, type of thing. If you write it, there's people that will help you just format it so that it's correct formatting so then you can get it published. There's a lot of online stuff, like there's book blurb and a couple other ones, book baby or something like that, but there's ways that you can just get it published and then you purchase the copies to then resell. So then you would have to ship them and you would have to do all that. Now if you want to go to Amazon there and you know to do that, but when you're selling a book, it's more for think of it as like when you buy swag to give out. You're buying it to basically give it away. Not necessarily to sell. Correct. Correct. Yeah, speaking gager's book signings. Credibility. It just builds credibility. I wrote a book, you know, that kind of thing. I'm on the process of that, so look at my book next year. But that's the kind of thing that I do myself. You just have to look for some online people that actually just publish it, you know, and you pay per book and so yeah. Did I answer your question? Yeah. Okay, great. All right, so let's talk about consultations really quick. I've got a few minutes. Okay, great. So some people ask me like do I charge enough for my fee or do I give a free consultation? That's going to be up to you. But you need to know these are hours that you are not being paid for. One of my favorite strategies is to take the consultation and say it's my hourly rate for a one-hour consultation. And then if they book with me, it's refunded onto their project. So now their project is minus one hour of my hourly rate, whatever the project total was. And the reason I do this is because it gets them committed up front. If they're not that committed, they don't even bother. They're like, oh, schedule it later. I'm really busy. And if they do not work with you, you spend an hour giving them all your ideas. You know you will. It's how it works. No one's going to buy a website from you if you don't give them any ideas on how you're going to do it. Right? This is the way it works. But if you spend an hour giving them all your ideas and they take all your ideas to just smell down the street and you're going to do it for $10 an hour, it's screwed. You know, it's gone. You know, you don't have that hour back. So I charge that up front fee for one hour. And then if you work with me, I'm already done. Don't worry about it. So don't give all your ideas at once. I had somebody ask me something and she was like, well, how would you do that? And I thought, well, I get this plug in and then I do this code and then I ask my developer to do this little thing and then I have to put that other plug in so that I integrate them and she doesn't want to hear all that. She wants to know it's going to work and it's going to look beautiful. So they don't need to know all the technical and I usually tell them I could get really technical here but the main thing is it's going to work better than that guys over there or it's going to work and you're not going to have to worry about this, this and this and show them the benefits of the features of it. And then I didn't experiment a couple of years ago and I tracked all my time for two months. The first month I tracked my time I didn't believe it. I thought the numbers were wrong. The second month I tracked my time I understood that I was being extremely bad. I was taking every single coffee invitation that came my way. When I calculated it I looked at how many hours were actually profitable meaning I got something out of it. Not necessarily monetarily but like I met somebody and we were like wow now we can work together or I did get a job out of it or maybe they introduced me to someone else so I discounted those hours. When I looked at the unprofitable number of hours I spent talking to people for nothing you're not going to believe me because I didn't believe 80 hours in one month for two months in a row so it was not a fluke it was how my life was being run and I looked at that and thought I just spent all that time two entire weeks for nothing and I know I wonder why I'm tired I don't have time for my family I don't have time to do laundry I don't have time for the dishes all this other stuff that's falling by the big side and so I set up a scheduling process you want to talk to me 15 minutes you go into my calendar I use Calendly I love it and you pick a time that's good for you I will call you at that time we will talk for 15 minutes I will give you general pricing if you're good with it I'll send you a contract and then we're done we're done you want to just pick my brain for 15 minutes if you want to talk about your cat for 15 minutes we will do that you have 15 minutes of my time I don't have to go anywhere I don't have to dress up I don't have to do anything right I'm in my home wherever I am I'm just 15 minutes phone call if you take every coffee invitation you get let's say someone's like let's speak for coffee it'll just be like you know 30 minutes an hour or something just real short just real quick and you take that and you actually think that you are taking out of your day how much time three getting ready getting there being there a few minutes early because that's what you do being there with the person it running over you driving back maybe getting stuck in lunch traffic now or school traffic whatever and then coming home and going and now you're home now you're back we're going back to the office right and in the meantime your phone is gone off your email is gone off your Twitter is gone off your Slack is gone off everybody wants a piece of you and now you have to deal with all of that that you missed for the last three hours if that makes sense so your time can be sucked up really easily with this so I say 15 minute phone calls or if I'm going to be at a certain location I will stay in that location and I will say here are the 30 minute time slots I will be sitting at this desk you can come in and out and out and out and out I will be here for two hours here are the time slots okay yes any questions okay go ahead ten minutes no fun no fun part budget budget budget budget budget budget budget budget budget budget budget budget horrible sickness so if you don't have a budget for your business shame shame or shame and you need to get one how many people have a budget for their house I feel like hand lanes this sound alright if you have a budget for your house you know runs pretty smooth right It's pretty like, all right, some bumps in the road, no problem, you can handle them, everything's rolling along. How do you give a budget for your business? You don't have one, you should get one. My budgeting is a little different. If you're talking to an accountant, they're going to tell you all these crazy things, but the way I budget, honestly, every three months, I look at all the cool crap that I signed up for and I unsign up for it. Because there's a lot of things I sign up for and that I never use or I use once and I was like, eh, I'm still paying. So if you sign up for my academy, don't do that. But until you're like, it's one of those things that you don't realize, your money's just like fitting out into these little things. The other thing is when I sign up for plugins that I use, but then ended up not using for some reason, and I've already paid the yearly subscription one year later, they're like, we're here to renew. And I'm like, no, wait, I'm not using that one anymore. Don't take my $150. So make sure you're following what's coming in and what's going out mostly. Free stuff that I use. My favorite free stuff. Calendly, Managed WP, which I love. There's a lot of other free ones too, but there's also some managed WordPress hosting things you can do. And there's a couple guys here today, so check those out too. Sometimes that's a better fit than the free ones. Find out what's right for you, don't just listen to me. And then Mailer Lite. They give you up to 1,000 email subscribers for free. Unlimited senders. So please listen to that. If you're using MailChimp or something else, they give you unlimited sends. I have the second tier package. It's $10 a month. I get up to 5,000 people in my list. And I send like 43,000 emails a month. And I still pay $10. So pretty awesome. Social Pilot, please forgive me. Social Pilot has greatly disappointed me. Actually, Facebook has greatly disappointed me. They took out being able to post from schedulers to groups. You didn't hear the snooze? I'm sorry for ruining your day. But Social Pilot has also been caught in this crossfire. And so now they don't let you post in groups anymore for scheduling. So I'm not using them anymore. I'm so sorry. SiteGround is my favorite hosting. They're not free, but this is the paid section. But they are really, really good. And I feel comfortable if my client leaves my service that they're taking care of SiteGround. I don't have to worry about the client being like with GoDaddy and being in a nightmare situation. And then Square is also my favorite for invoicing and POS and return. People that come back, you know, multiple times in analytics and do all my invoicing, all my recurring invoicing. They now have auto invoicing. So they do really great. They are a paid service, though. Okay, last thing, contracts. About five minutes. All right. Yes, you need one. Many people do not have a contract. I'm calling you out. I won't work without it. You won't work without it? That's right. If you're not going to sign my contract, you can't do business. Keep it simple. It's not going to be super complicated. I would advise talking to a lawyer, though. Everyone needs to at least talk to a lawyer. Is there actually a lawyer here today? Does everyone know that? Ryan? She's doing a talk later? She's here. You can talk to her. You can ask her simple questions, which she might answer for you. But I'm sure you don't work for free either, so, you know. But keep it simple. And keep it really simple, but do talk to a lawyer about it. Now, I had my lawyer drop a contract. I went back through, after I understood what each clause meant, and I reworded it my way. I then re-sent it to her, and she said, It's okay. You'll be covered. Because my clients are going to look at that and go, I understand what it means. I want to sign eight pages of nothing. But when I reworded it, they're like, Oh, that makes sense. Because I know what my clients want. Like the way they're going to speak and the way they're going to read it and hear it. So I reworded mine. Know what you want from your contract. My clients, to give me all their data, buy the 15th day of the beginning of our contract. So from day one to day 15 of our contract, if I don't have their crap, guess what happens on day 16? I charge them $100 every day until I get 50% of their content. That makes them move really fast. I've had a lot of bad experiences, and all those bad experiences have influenced my contracts and my policies. So as soon as a bad experience happens to you, don't go, That sucked. Moving on. Go, man, that sucked. Hey lawyer, can you write a sentence or two that will protect me from this next time? Because it will happen again. It's not something that's just a fluke. And don't forget your boundaries. My boundaries are client portal. Client portal. Client portal. Client portal. Also, if you like to send emails at midnight, but you don't want your people emailing you and expecting a response at midnight, use a delay sender for your email. So that it sends at 8 a.m. Not at midnight when you're actually writing it. So those kind of things. Keep those boundaries. Hire a lawyer. Trade or pay them. They don't need to devalue their industry. And then always be signing. Make sure you sign it, too. A lot of people forget. All right, last thing. We've got three minutes here. I don't know, something like that. You do not need to be annoying when you're trying to follow up. So, and if you think you're going to be annoying, if you have that thought in your mind, like, I don't want to be annoying. Guess what? If you have that thought, you're not going to be annoying. So I'd be like, am I crazy? You're probably not crazy. You think you're going to be annoying? You're probably not going to be annoying. And you only sell on follow up. Sometimes if you actually follow up, they're actually like, oh yeah, I forgot about that. And they were actually going to work with you. But if you don't do your part of that and you don't kind of reach out to them, they may just, you may have lost a sale. You didn't even know you were going to lose. Because you just forgot about them or you didn't have time or whatever. So we're going to talk about what you should do for that. Never, you don't want to not follow up because they don't need me, if they don't call me, then everything's fine. Like, they just didn't need me. Because you don't know the answer to that question. You're assuming that answer. And what does this say on my channel? You know what that is. So you don't want to assume that they didn't need you because they didn't follow up. Maybe their kid got sick. Maybe their friend, something happened. Maybe their business is really busy, whatever it is. So you want to have a process for this. I think about processes and formulas. If there's a process and a formula, you can replicate it. And if you can replicate it, that's more time out of your day that you're not spending doing menial crap that you don't even be doing. So you might want to use a CRM, customer research management, or client research management. You might want to use... I use Evernote Alerts, actually, as my CRM. I use Evernote. Each client gets a note. I type all their stuff in. The dates when I do things, if I call them, whatever. It's just easier for me, my brain. And then when I want to follow up with them, go to the top, hit the Evernote Alert. I'm going to follow up with them in three weeks or two weeks or whatever it is. Oh, by the way, my contracts are only good for 10 days. If I send you something today, on the 11th day from now, if you don't find it or send me anything back, we have to renegotiate the price. It's going to be higher. Google Calendar Reminders. Also, if you want to use that for your follow-up, I use those sometimes. So let's recap. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Diversification. Remember that? Know your value. Because when you value your... when you devalue yourself, I feel like Tony Robbins. Consultation process in place. Because if you're just throwing out consultations or you're going to every single copy, it's going to waste a lot of time. Have a budget for your business. And it can be a loose budget. It can be a tight budget. But know what's coming in and going out. Put everything in writing. Please. If you really don't put your business card for you and then you don't put it in the contract and they're like, I bet you're going to do a business card for me. I don't ask you about it because it wasn't in the contract. And they were like, well, I guess you just didn't want to do it or whatever. Then they may have a bad feeling about that. Like, well, she ripped me off. Because you were the one who said it, but they needed to put the contract and maybe you forgot. So then they're telling you weird things. So put it in writing. And then have a follow-up process. Again, another process. Okay? Any questions?