What are you doing to scale up the value you generate?

What are you doing to scale up the value you generate?

An employee just asked me for a 50% raise.

I approved her request, but with one caveat…

That she focus on creating at least 50% more value for clients, instead of only on how she can be paid more.

Because what we earn as an employee or business owner is based more on the value we can provide than how well we negotiate.

In the short-run, you can haggle, change jobs, or raise prices.

But in the long run, when you create massive value– usually via scaled up people, process, and platform– you get massively rewarded economically.

Focus more on solving problems in the outward marketplace than inward justification of what you think you’re worth.

What are you doing to scale up the value you generate?

I charged $2,000 for a $100,000 project, yet the client was pissed.

I charged $2,000 for a $100,000 project, yet the client was pissed.

He wanted Facebook ads, but didn’t have any landing pages, videos, tracking,  or even a strategy.

It took me 3 months to build these components– but he expected leads the next day.

Moral of the story: Building something from scratch costs way more than maintaining.

I pay the maid $50 for housekeeping every week. 

Would you like to live in a 3 story, 6 bedroom house for only $50 per week?
You must get the house first.

If you’re an agency, make sure to properly charge for the building phase, which is 50X more effort than monthly maintenance.

You need to have plumbing first, to track your performance and disqualify nightmare clients.

Then ensure they have a strategy, meaning their GCT (goals, content, targeting).

If they don’t have a clear strategy, then you’ve got a risky, expensive build phase.  Set expectations and charge appropriately, or walk away.

And only then can you build your campaigns.

After these 5 stages comes “optimization”, which is the on-going maintenance and tuning. 

Clients want to skip this out of ignorance and impatience. 

Your job is to qualify and educate first– then charge appropriately.

Driving leads via Facebook is now about strategy, not about tactical tricks anymore.

Driving leads via Facebook is now about strategy, not about tactical tricks anymore.

Years ago, Facebook had a LIKE button on ads– do you remember?

Back then, fan growth was all the rage– and it was before there was a newsfeed or even mobile.

We could even drive 600 fans for a dollar– not a typo, since traffic was about 20 cents for every thousand impressions.

So we drove millions of fans for major brands, as well as some sales, though digital plumbing hasn’t evolved to where it is today.

Ten years ago, I thought paying $1 per thousand impressions was a lot of money. And now I think $6 per thousand is doing pretty well.

Curiously, even though the price of traffic is literally 5,000% higher than back then, the ROI is almost as good.

Why? Because the algorithm has gotten smarter (to optimize for us), the creatives are more effective (more video), and we have better strategies to measure and manage social.

Driving leads via Facebook is now about strategy, not about tactical tricks anymore.

Beware the Penny Cliff

Beware the Penny Cliff

Driving free leads versus getting even a dollar from someone are universes apart.

There is a concept called the “penny cliff”, where product companies who offer their stuff for free assume that they can get nearly the same number of subscribers at $1 a month or even $10/month.

Turns out that the distance between free and a penny is greater than from a penny to $10/month– because the psychological cost to decide to buy (no matter the price) is nearly the same, whether a penny or $10.

Free is not a good proxy for sales unless you’ve tested small paid offerings against that same audience.

Since if you don’t have the right audience, no amount of testing will overcome this.

And that’s why we shouldn’t make big bets without testing via the Dollar a Day strategy or against lists that we own.

I saw a successful entrepreneur last week sign a $900,000 deal to buy traffic without having a product for sale nor making sure the audiences were even a fit.

It’s a massive bonfire of money– spectacular to watch, except for the poor guy who invested the money.

You can’t make chicken salad out of chicken shit-ake– so test first, then scale up.

Here’s why your sales approach isn’t working…

Here’s why your sales approach isn’t working…

People don’t buy courses, they want results.

People don’t buy tools, no matter how many bells and whistles, they want results.

People don’t buy your fancy lifestyle, they want results.

If they can’t afford you, just give them the training on how to do it. You lose nothing, since they couldn’t afford you and would be a nightmare customer anyway.

And those who can afford you, gladly pay top dollar— without you ever needing to beat your own chest or explain what you do in detail.

Present yourself not as another expense- which clients seek to minimize- but as a profit increaser— which they want more of.

Show them how your product or service drives that intended result, step by step, so we can measure the investment and return.

Sell the sizzle, not the steak, say marketing gurus who know how to sell on emotion.

But I say just give them the steak and let happy customers do your marketing for you.

If it’s knowledge, distribute it for free via articles, webinars, social posts, and things that have zero marginal cost to you.

If it’s your time, especially one-on-one private consultations, charge dearly for it, since that’s very expensive— you can’t get that back or create an asset from it.

You’re a skilled doctor in what you do, not a used car salesman. So time to start acting the part.