 And I am from Atlanta. I'll give you the shortened version of my WordPress journey. I attended the first word camp in 2008 in Birmingham, Alabama. Felt in love with the whole concept. I've been using WordPress at that time for two years and I walked into a room full of my people. I was at home. A group of us came back to Atlanta and launched the first word camp in Atlanta in 2010. And I have been running heavily involved in word camp Atlanta for the last eight years. By the way, commercial word camp Atlanta is next weekend. I think we've sold out of tickets, but I know people. Fortunately for me, I am not the lead organizer of word camp Atlanta this year. I am on the organizing team and I am the speaker ranger. I mean the sponsor ranger for word camp Atlanta. In 2016, I had the opportunity to attend word camp US in Philadelphia. Mega, mega word camp. I attended and did some volunteer work with them for two years in Philadelphia. In 2017, I was asked to be on the organizing team for word camp US in Nashville. This year, I am the lead sponsor ranger for word camp US. So one story short, I volunteer for WordPress all damn easy. But I am glad to be here today and excited to share with you some of my thoughts about business. I didn't know that I visually was going to be standing so far for my slides. So at points I will cheat and use my paper. But we'll see how this goes and hope that my phone stays on because this is my clipper for the slides. So with that, what I would like for you to do is imagine. I want you to imagine it's 10.15 Thursday morning. You're sitting at your desk, headset on, phone at hand. You'll be talking to Phyllis in just a few minutes. It will be your first conversation. Phyllis sent you an email on Monday. She says she has a website that needs some changes. It's a simple website. Nothing special, she says. How you handle that upcoming conversation depends on where you fall in your business maturity. Between freelancer and CEO. Between weighing it and strategic. Between hot mess and favorite client. In the early years of our business, it is not at all unusual for you and Phyllis to both be on a fairly predictable, aha, I lost my connection, fairly predictable emotional roller coaster. I don't find it real damn awkward to have to walk up here and fix my phone. But it looks like that's what I'm going to have to do because every time my phone shuts down, my connector thing goes down. So, you and Phyllis are both on this emotional roller coaster. What I mean by that is in these minutes before your conversation, each of you has some thoughts about the upcoming call. I don't even want to know. You, in your head, are thinking. I really hope she needs more than just a few simple tweets on a one page brochure or something. My car is vibrating like a dick and says I drive it down the road. It's leaking oil and I think my dishwasher is leaking. Please let her need a big website. We call this experience hope. Just a few minutes later the voices in your head have changed. Please don't let her be a trainer. Please don't let her be a total screw up. We can call this experience fear. Two emotions in conflict with one another tends to make people a hot mess. You hope that they're a cool person and that they just come into an inheritance or maybe it's an alimony. Your fear is that they're batshit crazy. At the same time that you were babbling in your head about the call, Phyllis is going through her own emotional roller coaster. She's thinking or maybe she's talking out loud or okay. Please let this work. Please let them know what to do. We can also call this experience hope. The voices change. Please don't let me sound like an idiot. Don't let me come across as a complete fool. Please, please let this work. She also has hope and fear. She hopes that you can solve the problem for a price that she can comfortably pay. She's afraid that you cannot. What I want you to remember as you prepare for this call I mean my days because you can't see those words. What I want you to remember is that when people tell us that something is wrong or it doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what's wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always. Someone must stop this weirdness and I missed a slide. Sorry. Someone has to stop this hot mess weirdness. I'll get to them for a minute. Because you are the one who's asking for the money, you are the one who has to stop the weirdness. It is your job to break this hope fear tension, this craziness, this hot mess. Fear and hope are two or apart on the emotional spectrum. You got fear and hope. Having them at the same time makes everybody into this hot mess. And so it's your job to solve the hot mess. You've got to do all those things when I say out there that I'm standing in front of. It's a lot easier if I talk from a slide then in because I can't see it from over there. So it is your job to break down this hope fear tension, cope with the mixed emotions and deal with issues of control. I'm going to walk. Are you ready for me to pass? Okay. There's a remember. Remember when people tell you that something is wrong or that it doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. And when they tell you how to fix it, they are almost always wrong. In other words, you must take charge of the conversation. I'm going to say right in front of what I need to say. Y'all deal with it. Y'all, the people on camera, just deal with it. Because I, as you can tell, I've lived a lot of years. And my eyesight, this ain't what it used to be. So, you have to take charge. And what I think the approach here is to take charge as a consultant with a collaborative approach. And in order for us to understand what I mean by collaborative approach, we need to take a look at two other roles that you can play in this conversation. One is the pair of hands roll. Many freelancers in the beginning of their business see themselves as being hired for a particular skill. Developer, designer, copywriter, e-commerce specialist. The takeaway for this role is that if you view yourself as being hired for a particular skill, you're leaving the money on the table. The client, the customer, my preferred customer, gives you a list of their needs, you fulfill them, and that's the end of the job. By the way, communication is pretty limited, and this role lends itself to scope creep. Another role that we can take or look at is the expert. In the expert role, the customer says, you're the expert. I want you to fix it, take care of it, and keep me posted. I don't need to know all the nuts and bolts. Just take care of it. The downside to this approach is that you don't always get the information you need. It is very rare that a technical issue is just a technical issue. Invariably, there are humans involved in implementing the technical issue that they want you to fix, right? There are always people. And in your conversation about the problem, if you're getting misinformation, distorted information, or no information at all about the people that will be implementing this solution, then guess what? You, as the expert, are set up to be the skater. Has that ever happened? Sound familiar? I was having lunch earlier this week with a colleague who was describing this exact situation. It happens to be the administrator of the client, who is, of course, the go-between to my friend and developer. And so this poor woman who is caught in the middle between her boss and the person who is building the website is feeling quite frightened because she has been convinced to make this happen. And, of course, she is asking for something to happen that she doesn't really understand. It may sound simple on the front end. Can't you just make this thing on that map and look up here? And my friend, being the expert, is trying to explain very diplomatically that the API with this and blah, blah, blah, but they just don't talk to each other. Therefore, no, we cannot make that happen. This poor girl in the middle now has to go to her boss and say, or try to say, why it won't happen. The expert has its place, and again, it's not the best setup because the admin in her company is going to be the scapegoat for the failure. More importantly, to me and my friend, she's going to be the scapegoat in the setup. Make sense? So when I talk about a collaborative approach, we're talking about something different than the pair of hands that just simply follows the directions in the list of items that they are provided or assume a technical role all by itself. In a collaborative approach, problem-solving is a joint undertaking between you, the service provider, and the customer that is hired you. In this scenario, this consultant role, if you will, sorry, as the consultant are not solving the client's problem, you are jointly investing time and energy in discovering the problem and coming up with a solution that stays solved. The nice thing here is that the customer shares responsibility for the success or failure of the project. To repeat, in the pair of hands, the control is in the hands of who? The control is in the hands of the customer. The customer has dictated a list of needs and they want you to meet those needs. So the process is being controlled by the customer. In the expert role, we've established that not problems are rarely, rarely, rarely just technical. And you have been set up to be the scapegoat if things don't come to play. Makes sense? So we're going to take a look more in-depth about this collaborative consulting role. One of the things that you need to know as you entertain the idea of moving forward as a consultant in collaboration with your customer is that it takes more time than the way you are currently doing it. Perhaps the way you are currently doing it is you have a form on your website. The customer fills it out. They click your Calendly or Calendly or however the hell we say those scheduling things. And schedule time with you. And you dive right into the first conversation of problem solving. This works a little bit different. We're going to slow down the process. And when we slow down the process, it is going to impact your workflow and your cash flow. I have no idea what next comes here. Oh yes. So I need another set of notes and this is even harder to read from there. We're going to take a look at some case studies. To make all of this go from just head theory to practical application. So here's the situation. And because I'm going to read from my case study notes my white paper I can stand back here. You all can just pay attention to me. So here's the situation. Alice tells a taxi. Bob pulls over to the curb. Alice gets in. Bob says, where to? Alice hands him a piece of paper. He answers that. It's a list of instructions. Of directions. Turn left at the corner. Turn right at the next traffic light. Keep left at the fort. And so on. He doesn't identify the destination. Just step-by-step instructions. Bob isn't sure where they're going. So Bob's going to take three approaches and we're going to examine those approaches and the outcomes of each. In the first set up Alice doesn't know her way around very well. She's found these directions from somebody's website. Bob doesn't bother to ask where she's headed He just takes the directions and follows them. They get to the end of her printed instructions. But Alice is not where she accepted to be. She gets panicky and starts ordering Bob drive around the block. Maybe it's the next street over. And she begins to dictate to him how to find this place only the instructions at hand. Bob complies. Meanwhile, the meter is one. Sticking away. Her fare is skyrocketing. Bob has done exactly as he was instructed. But Alice is a satisfying. After driving around for a while they finally found her destination. She begrudgingly pays $120 for the ride. Gets out of the car and Bob drives away. Let's look at another approach. somewhat similar. Alice doesn't know her way around very well. She has found some instructions and some directions off of the website. When she hands them to Bob Bob asks where are these supposed to take us? One, two, three main streets she says. Bob says these directions are out of date. And besides that whole route is under construction it'll take us twice as long to get there. I know the shortcut that will get us there in half the time. Alice's scam alert is going off. And she tells him so that she doesn't trust him to deliver what he's promising. So he asks a follow up question. How much were you expecting to pay for this ride? She says about $100. Okay he says let's take my shortcut and I will charge you only $75. Deal? Sure. Bob gets to the destination fairly quickly and without incidents. Alice pays the $75 fare and gets out of the town. Bob drives away. In the third scenario they'll know the drill Alice doesn't know her way around she's found these directions off of somebody's website. And when she hands them to Bob he says where are these supposed to take us? One, two, three main street. Why do you want to go there? She says there's a flower shop and I need to get a dozen roses. Bob says look that shop is closed today. Well how do you know? She asks. Because my wife runs that shop. It's her bail. As luck would have it Bob goes on. I have a dozen roses in the trunk of my car I can sell them to you for $60. Deal? You think? Alice of course jumps out of the car. She gets her dozen roses. Bob gets back in the cab and drives away. Three different approaches three different outcomes. In the first scenario Alice pays $120 for a 60 minute cab draw. She's now standing in front of what we know is a closed flower shop. She spent money is late for her next appointment and still needs to figure out where she's going to get a dozen roses, right? Alice is feeling warm. Just a tad pissed. Alice is angry. She's out this money. She's spent an hour. She's wasted her time. Bob has driven around up and down blocks and blind Alice made you turns. Has been browbeaten with an insulting an insulting amount of micro-linkage. He has suffered undue wear and tear on his vehicle and his emotional well-being. For this heartache he grows $120 from which he must now deduct his costs. Bob is dejected. Scenario one, that approach seems like it was fail-fail for all parties involved. In the second situation Alice spent 45 minutes in the cab and is now standing in front of a closed flower shop. She spent less money but still needs to figure out where she's going to get a dozen roses. She's satisfied by the head ride but overall is extremely disgruntled. Bob minimized his cost with his short cut. Lessons some of the wear and tear grossed $75 which is less than the $120 but on the other hand he's reduced his cost. So arguably it might be a little more profitable taking another approach. In the final case nobody had to travel anyway. Alice has spent $60 she's early for her next appointment and is holding a dozen roses in her hand. Alice is happy. Bob has eliminated his cost completely sold a dozen roses for three times what he paid for them and has delighted a customer. Bob is exhilarated. Obviously Bob's behavior in these approaches depict the approaches the rules that we're talking about the expert the collaborative approach as a therapist turned coach I've witnessed these behaviors countless number of times over the last 30 years regardless of which career I was in people are people and they act in predictable ways to predictable situations I in illegal sarcastic way call these roles not pair of hands expert collaborative I call them robot technician agent just the term robot makes you cringe doesn't it and many for many of us in the early years of our development fall to this role frequently most of us did not come into this work with any kind of business or marketing background and so we pay up our shingle people come to us with a list of instructions we follow those instructions instructions and can't understand why the customer is so upset that we're not where they expected us to be been there? surely I'm not the only one surely not personal disclosure at dinner this past Wednesday I was talking with a friend and I was kind of going through my notes for this because he knows I've been struggling it and rewriting it a thousand times in my head and so I sent to him it's been quite interesting as I put this information together I had a client send me an email this week instruction number one followed on the hill by email number two and number three instruction instruction instruction and so I said to my friends you know I don't even like this client yes they pay me $150 for a month to do these little things but I don't like them unlike all the rest of my clients with whom I have a relationship he and I never developed a relationship he hired me two years ago when I was in the car traveling to work at Ashville I knew then that he was going to be an aggregation then I was being hired as a robot maybe a little bit of expert but mostly a robot but you know what $150 a month sounded real good to me at that time it still sounds pretty good to me but I don't like him so the takeaway here is I should seek to attract customers who need an agent who respect me and want to work with me in a collaborative role I should only take customers in that technician role when I need to catch there are always times maybe I want to take a special vacation and being somebody's technician is a good way to rank up a few bucks right avoid customers who are really looking for a robot a pair of hands there are times in my collaborative relationships where a pair of hands will suit the circumstances but in the long run the collaborative role is the most profitable of the three yes it takes longer it takes patience and perseverance your workflow will slow down your cash flow will slow down but the relationship when we talk about value in our work we tend to do it from our point of view I want to maximize value and my customers want to maximize value that's the common ground on which we feel away from getting worn see I have to ad-lib when I came to ad-lib this is very disruntling for me so in this collaborative approach as we talked about before it assumes a joint responsibility for the success of or failure with the process did anybody notice that when we were going through the case studies of Bob's behavior that he came up with a different price based on the role that he was performing in the pair of hands scenario he charged $120 for $60 in the second scenario when he became the expert he moved less and he charged less as the expert he knew a shortcut that eliminated some of his calls he charged $75 for 45 minutes in the third situation he didn't even drive anywhere he just got out of the front seat went to the truck, got the roses and sold them for $60 three times what he paid for so pricing is an interesting and we don't have time to delve into all the pricing methodologies today because it's too complex of a subject but I want you to know that pricing is based on the value the customer perceives it's not based on what I think I'm worth and what I think I'm worth and strategically positioning my workflow to obtain the dollar amount is a different thing but that has nothing to do with pricing pricing is dependent on the value to the customer but I'm compelled to ask you that you've got a sneak peek is hourly billing unethical and more we're not going to open that up for discussion now we'll table it to the happiness of the hour but take a look at it if I'm billing by the hour it is in mind financial interest to maximize the hours clients don't want to be billed by the hour even when they email you and say what's your rate they don't want you to bill them by the hour they're just trying to figure out what's what it's a hot mess and there are ways to respond without saying oh well well okay come up with some BS about why we price the way we price it so if it's in my interest to maximize and it's in the customer's interest to minimize out of the gate we are already at cross purposes think about it jumping to solutions is an addiction for many of us we're going to get Phyllis on the phone in that first conversation and we're going to start asking her what does she need and our brain is going to start asking or thinking of solutions right out of the bag makes sense you'll do that and you're excited by that because as they are describing what they need we are coming up with the solutions which means I am not listening to Phyllis I am not deeply listening deep listening known in the therapy circles as active listening is a hard task it takes a lot of mental energy to listen to the customer hear what they are not saying and ask good questions they go deeper they go deeper now Bob only asked one question when he says why do you need to go to 123 Main Street to get some flowers on the other hand we want to go deeper into that relationship without deeply listening without active listening you will not cannot have a collaborative relationship you'll stay on that roller coaster of the mixed emotions and you'll stay stuck in this hot mess our takeaway of course was clients who respect us do not make unreasonable requests with your permission I would like to ask you to do something we've been talking about a pair of hands being the least valuable approach we can take I want you to put your hands in front of you palms up and look at the lines in your hand these are not wrinkles I don't care how old I am these are creases most of us have one hand that is longer than the other it's hard to tell like this but if you take those two creases where your hand meets your wrist and line them up and bring your hands together most of the time one hand will be shorter than the other I want you to take this shorter hand and look at it if one of your hands was not shorter then choose your right hand I want you to look at it tell it to grove grove grove grove damn you grove did it change? let's raise it in the hand let's put it across to church I want you to stretch it stretch it out high and tight from your shoulders to your fingertips I want you to stretch until it is painful and you think that you cannot stretch anymore let's see if it works let it grow put your creases back together bring your hands back together let you experience growth stretch in your business stretch until it hurts stretch until it hurts some more and keep stretching you will be delighted with the experience and more importantly so will your customers