And I have a budget of $100,000 per day to spend with you. But first, you have to make me $10 million dollars– and only then I’ll pay you. +++That’s what someone basically said to me a while back. I’ll take the risk and you take the profit. I’ve been hit up thousands of times with a similar pitch… +++I’ll give you 20% equity in my company if you can grow my idea into this billion-dollar company I assure you it will be. Drop Content Factory and all your people, since this is the biggest thing you’ve ever seen. You fund it, promote it, hire people for it, and run it. I provide just the idea, which is the most important part, of course. I need you to sign a super secret NDA before I can tell you what it is. +++You gotta admire the hustle of the folks who don’t have money, knowledge, or the team to drive their business. And they can’t pay your fee to start, nor are they serious. If you’re an entrepreneur or agency, you know the “partner” hustle. But don’t miss the key point– that if you are driving profit, the budget is unlimited. And if you’re just an expense, then your budget is limited. AGENCIES like to charge an hourly or monthly fee– which is usually an expense– something the client wants to negotiate down. They trade time for money. ENTREPRENEURS want to maximize profit– since they know a rev share or related performance deal has a larger upside and aligns interests. The way to balance both models, so you have fair risk and reward on both sides, is to have a pilot phase allowing your agency to test– risking their labor and your money, discounting their fee, and spending enough to get some data. Then if the pilot is successful, move to a performance model, since both parties now have an idea of what’s possible and have experience working together. You want to date before you get married. Save yourself the headache, lost time, and wasted money by following this PILOT + REVSHARE model in growing your business.

As a powerful, profitable entrepreneur or agency, you should be selling performance. Nothing wrong with selling time, so long as you understand the pros and cons. Easy money but limited upside. My friend, Naveen, calls this chasing pennies, instead of going for dollars. But if you want a performance-based deal, you must explicitly be able to measure the business result, have the competence to achieve it, and have documented process. If you’re selling monthly service packages, that’s consulting, which is selling time. If you charge by project completion, you might still be selling time, if the cost is based on labor instead of profit. When the client sees you as an expense, the budget is limited. But when they can directly see the profit from your actions, the budget is unlimited.