How To Attract Your Dream Clients | The Client Acquisition Series

Episode art
Here are the two rules for attracting your dream clients.
Rule #1: Be attractive.
Rule #2: Don't be unattractive.
 
That's literally it.
 
The hard part comes when you actually look at what is “attractive” to your dream clients.
 
I'd bet you have a long list of alllll the things you want to see in their dream clients/projects, but very few people take the time to look at themselves and ask the most important question…
 
“Am I the type of person that would attract this sort of dream client/project?”
 
In many cases, that answer is, unfortunately, no. You're not anywhere close to being attractive to your dream clients.
 
In other cases, you might be attractive to them, but you're doing little to nothing when it comes to communicating all the attractive things you have to offer them.
 
In this continuation of our Client Acquisition Series, we dive into what it takes to attract your dream clients.
 
In this episode you’ll discover:
  • Why Guitar Center is the worst place to buy gear (unless they sponsor us)
  • How Mark closed a half-million-dollar deal
  • Why different clients need different approaches
  • Setting expectations in advance
  • High ticket vs. low ticket sales
  • How to become attractive to your dream clients
  • How to stay top of mind without being cringy
  • Why red ocean businesses struggle

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[00:00:00] Welcome back to another episode of the six figure creative podcast. I am your host Brian Hood, and I'm back with my substitute cohost mark Eckert. Hey buddy. How are you?

Hey Fran, how's it going, bud?

Good. I can't help, but notice that your mic sounds better. You don't sound like an equity piece

of again.

my 80, 40, 50, which is $700 is apparently making me a piece of I did not mind it. You were being

I hated it.

dude. Yeah. You're being really, really pretentious about the audio,

Oh yeah. I sent you the, I sent you the edited version and you're like, oh God, that sounds like crap.

Yeah. But it sounds way better to the audience. If I look like the good guy and you're bullying me

Bully Brian bully. Brian.

anyways, I got a SM seven B, so now I'm adorable again, sounding

You're lucky that we don't have that, that gear alert, although maybe we'll be bringing it back Easter egg.

Anyways. So I went to guitar center this morning because I didn't want to show up again with Brian being pretentious about my Mike. So I showed up to guitar center. Firstly, their hours have changed. What the It used to be like nine [00:01:00] now it's 10. I showed up at 10 and you know, you would expect they're open at 10.

They're going to open the doors at 10, not at guitar center here in north Charlotte. They decided to open it at like 10, 11. I had a consultant call like at 10, 15. So I had to push that back. I felt terrible, but anyways, it took me a half hour to check out and I was the only customer. There was nobody there.

I was like, dude, I just want to Mike and headphone adapter took me a half hour bro.

Half hour.

that sounds about right. And I'm looking up right now. If what guitar center stock is doing and it's fallen 12% the last month, 24%, the last six months, And for good reason, because their buyer experience is awful.

And honestly, like there's very few reasons to buy things physically anymore. Anyways. Especially gear like that, where you're not testing out ahead of time.

Guitar center, please sponsor this podcast and we will redo this intro. Uh,

No, we will. Yeah, we will delete this whole intro if you pay us money. No, we won't.

reach [00:02:00] out to me next week. I'm going to, I'm going to have to push back on you, Brian. I had a great experience.

all of a sudden, like years from now, you're going to go back to this episode and it's going to be like this hard cut with completely different sound so the other day at guitar center, this was incredible experience. I walked in and it was just it was like I was in heaven

just get a square reader. That's all I'm asking, getting like a square reader, dude.

Anyways, I'm

there wasn't 16 people playing stairway to heaven on all the guitar amps.

Let's

talk about money in music today, dude. How about let's let's help. Let's help the people out instead of talk about my terrible customer service experience this morning.

Well, we're not gonna talk about music. We're going to talk about relationships. So let's talk about dating and money, right? So this is a, this is going to be a continuation of our client acquisition series. last episode we did on the client acquisition series is episode 202 0 0, where mark walked you through like seven, seven kind of checklist items to talk through on any sales call.

And actually at the end of that call, you were going to a sales call, which was like a very I'd call it high ticket, like many [00:03:00] multiples of 10 thousands of dollars worth of value. And how did that call go? Afterwards.

Yeah. So it was for a licensing client uh, for that pitch. it was about a half, a million dollars plus a monthly amount. There'll be starting later this year and I landed it and I'm very excited that it's kind of cool because usually this is like a hundred emails or like 200 emails. But they'd kind of been stalking us for a while and uh, had some, had some people there that I knew and they were like, yeah, they're, they're the We need to utilize everything about that pitch. I actually got the confirmation at the end of the email. Usually people are like, okay, cool. Yeah. We'll, we'll get back to you and we'll continue the conversation. And they literally said, we look forward to working with you and I'm like, oh,

did you go through those seven points from that whole

absolutely every, every single thing?

So, if you want to hear how mark close to half a million dollar client, just go back to episode 200. that's actually a good two episode, 200, it's like a proven process on closing stuff. in the creative world, people are closing clients anywhere from a hundred dollars to [00:04:00] 50, to a hundred thousand dollars.

I haven't heard anyone going to the half a million, but you're the first on that. So great for that. So we're going to continue that whole conversation of client acquisition, and we're going to move kind of up the funnel. Bottom of funnel is cells. That was kind of like the last point before someone becomes a customer.

Is that sales conversation, I guess, follow up after that would kind of be really the last point where we're not going to cover that. We're going to move up a little bit and talk about the consideration phase.

When someone is considering you for whatever it is you offer for your service, for whatever outcome you're giving, when someone is considering you, what can you do to push that relationship forward? So many creatives make the mistake of just sitting passively on the sidelines, waiting for that person to come to them.

And, and it's a massive mistake. And it's just like, this. It's like, you go on a date with somebody, you have a really good connection, really good conversation.

And then you just ghost them because you're waiting for them to come to you. And sometimes it's because you're, you're immature and you're playing mind games and you're like, I will never text first. And sometimes it's because like, you're just scared to, you don't want to bother somebody or whatever. And I, and I think this conversation is going to be really enlightening to creatives who have that sort of mentality where I don't want to bother you.[00:05:00]

So before this call started uh, mark, you were telling me like a percentage of people that are like in passive mode, kind of waiting around. They don't need the service. What percentage of people are actually considering right now? And what percentage of people are actually buying right now?

Yeah. So I kind of my perspective on, on all of this is about 80% of people who know about you are just aware that you exist. 1% are actively ready to buy right now. And 19% are kind of eyeing you out. Seeing if you're the one and your entire job for the most part is to kind of make that 19% into that 1% and then feed that 80%, a little bit more awareness that you exist.

So our goal here is to take that 19% of the people that are in consideration phase. And we're trying to move them closer to the desire phase them actually wanting to work with you, actually making that decision to work with you.

So let's, let's talk about this. we brainstormed before this episode, a few different ways to do this, to make this actually work. But I think the, the whole theme is this you're leading the buyer. You're not expecting them [00:06:00] to take all these steps. You're actually leading them. and I think that's, that's the image I want people to have in their head is you're trying to guide someone to make a decision if they are considering you right now, it's your duty to help them along that consideration phase by leading them.

so mark real quick, what are some ways that we can help lead that conversation, lead that buyer to actually hire you?

Well, I mean, just imagine that you're, you're dating somebody, right? So if you're dating someone and you're not in a relationship yet, but you've been, you know, going out a little bit, a thing that's really important is for them to know that you're the one, so to speak because you show up, you stay consistent.

You text them, Hey, how was your day? Stuff like that? You just stay consistent and you show that you're worth something, you know? Um, it's not in like a weird way, but there's almost like a fear of missing out. They, if you come across desperate where, you're constantly braiding them of, Hey, you know, like you're just kind of annoying.

People can sense that, but if they know that you have a life [00:07:00] outside of them, you have other stuff going on, there's a fear of missing out. And, you know, that's when they're like, Hmm, there's a lot of value here. maybe this is it.

Think about it like this. Like when you're talking to someone new and maybe the they're like interested in you, like, they're like, okay, this is maybe going to work You can look at this either as a dating perspective or as a client perspective right now, like an actual freelancer, but there can, there may be considering you, what are some ways that you can show that you are worthy?

So I'm not going to talk about the dating side of things, but you can kind of equate the same conversation here. Our messaging is so important as freelancers and we are so bad at portraying the value that we provide as freelancers through our website, messaging through what we post on social media. and this is actually something we're really cognizant of on this podcast.

We have a whole framework that we talk about internally called E I E I O content. I don't know if I've explained this to you yet or mark,

Oh, you did.

This is the framework our editors use to determine what stays in the podcast and what gets cut out. And this is the framework most creatives need to have when it comes to posting any content [00:08:00] online, because stuff you post, either your personal profile or an email that you send out, if you are one of the few freelancers who actually have an email list or in in your social media posts on your actual business page, people will stock you.

Actually, you just talked about that, mark, how that client, that half million, our client, you closed, they were stalking you for a while before they

ever pushed the conversation forward.

most clients have known about you for a year before they reach out. in my experience, even just from production, like freelancing people know for like a year before they finally click apply or whenever the next step.

you, probably needed to do an EIO audit. So if a friend who doesn't know the old McDonald had a farm, EIO easy to remember, but I'm going to go through that framework really quick, because I want you to filter everything you post or anything you send your clients or anything that's public facing through this, because this is incredibly important.

So the EEI is the framework and the O is the filter. So III stands for entertaining. So like, you want to be entertaining. You don't want to just be boring, dry and drab. You don't have to be like a complete lunatic like mark. And he's like off the [00:09:00] wall entertaining, but like that's also his brand, but you can be entertaining in your own way, whether you're posting content, that's entertaining to people, sharing stuff that's entertaining to your ideal clients.

That's the first E I is interesting and this kind of a subset of entertaining, but just being interesting to people, posting stuff. That's interesting to your ideal clients. The second E is. educational, which is just talking about, if you are the expert at something you're going to build trust.

So if you're educating, you're building trust with people, and that helps so much with helping people feel comfortable hiring you, because if you are not showing your expertise, then why would they hire you? So talking through some of the projects, you've worked on, some of the things you've done showing that you are the expert education is a huge part of that.

And the final part of the content is the final I, and that is inspiring being inspirational. If you can share content, that's inspirational to your ideal client, that can help them move past roadblocks or things that are holding them back from hiring you or moving forward. So think about all of those things, right.

Then we have to look at that through the lens of the oh, Being on-brand on our podcast, especially back when we were the six-figure [00:10:00] creative, there were so many things we could have talked about that were just not on brand for the podcast that would have been entertaining or interesting. We get to talk about gear.

We going to talk about plugin settings, because it talked about so many things that don't ultimately matter for running your recording studio business. So all of those things, although they fit in the E I E I, part of the framework, they are filtered out because of the, oh, they're not on brand. So think through that, when you're posting that long political rant, that might be interesting.

It might be even entertaining, but it is so far off brand from your business that you're all you're doing is repelling your ideal clients. And, and again, sometimes I'm, I'm for taking kind of a polarizing stance on something, but it has to be on brand for what you do and what you stand for.

And it can't just be your opinions that are in no way related to your ideal client.

I just, w I have to bring this back to dating, you know, entertaining. You're funny, right? Expertise. You have your together on brands. You're there type, you know, these are it's all the same Like there, there,

[00:11:00] isn't really much. He's a nice Jewish boy. He's got a nice mother.

I got a nice fly that he's, well-traveled makes a lot of money plays date my son

if anyone knew mark is Jewish, he's allowed to do that.

I am absolutely allowed to mock my mother because I've been quoting her for now 28 years and

it's served me well

I

just didn't want to get any messages from people saying what this podcast one star, this podcast is.

no, I, I don't think any uh, person who's not Jewish could do that. Great of an impression of a Jewish

mother. But yeah, I think kind of going back, as I said, is whether it's like marketing or like a marketing funnel or it's being in a relationship it's building trust and proving to somebody over a long period of time or enough time that they are a right fit.

And they're not taking a risk by being with you.

brought up using time. I think that's. a good time to talk about using time as a tool. So many people are looking for instant results where we just want to post something on social media. We get a, [00:12:00] like, we get a follow, we get a message saying, Hey, can I hire you? And it never works that way. Like we have to take a long-term approach.

We have to use time as a tool. And I think mark you're really good at that. Especially as you've moved into kind of enterprise sales, where you're working with bigger and bigger corporations, who it takes an, incredibly frustrating amount of time and emails and back and forth and waiting just to close a client.

depending on what you do what your sale price is, you know the problem you're solving, the type of client, the type of market that you are targeting, and just an understanding of everybody involved, because you might not be talking directly to the buyer, they can have a partner, or if you're a wedding photographer, they have a husband or wife, you know the thing is, is setting expectations.

what I've noticed, this has been really interesting and I'll, I'll bring it back to specifically freelancing, but, this call this past week it was great. I did a great job and they were like, yeah, this is, this is for [00:13:00] us right now. They've known about me for what. I've also had calls with, you know, large companies that need to get a bunch of music from us.

And, I got off the call and I thought I everything up. I was like, why did they not just say yes? Why did they, like, why are they saying they'll get back to me. Like, did I say something wrong? Did I it up? usually it's not just me on the call. I have, you know, partner or somebody on it with me and I would call them and like, did I it up?

And they're like, no, these are all good signs. This is great. You handled it. Well, these are all good signs. And that was like a big perspective change. It's like, these are good signs. And so when I was just producing, it was a similar thing. A lot of times I was just talking to an artist, I specialized in working with indie pop artists.

Usually they were girls um, in a smaller city and they were great singers and they just needed a. And they were the decision maker. So a lot of times it would be an immediate yes. On that call, but sometimes I would have to follow up and I thought I everything [00:14:00] up. kind of like the less you are trying to get out of somebody, the more they trust you, And so a lot of times it could be a timing thing where they may not have budget or whatever, but a lot of times they're just not ready and there could be different reasons for that. A lot of sales processes will tell you, you have to kind of like ask specific questions and get through all of their objections to make them pay you.

I've never really been about that. If somebody is ready, they're ready. And if I haven't, if I haven't convinced them, by the time they're on the call, then that is something that I need to do to better project everybody. How helpful I am,

And part of it comes to how good you are at self filtering. So you're not getting people who are not at the right, the right period. Cause like there's so many steps that the person has to take before they're even ready for you. For the service you offer that. If you talk to them too soon, you're wasting both your time.

so some of it's just filtering people out the wrong step, but also. Keeping people top of mind, keeping you top of mind for that whole period is so important. And we probably need to talk about some systems behind staying top of mind during [00:15:00] that period. But it's worth just considering, depending on what your niche is, what has to fall into place.

Like an example would be like, if you are a wedding photographer, there's a whole process of like wedding planning that it's until they're ready to even talk about the wedding photographer. They're not even a consideration. There's a whole process. If you're like a mastering engineer is a good example in, in audio, you have to have the song written, recorded, edited, and mixed before you're ever ready for mastering

just understanding, like remove your ego from the project and realize that you are a stepping stone in their success. A lot of times as a freelancer, you are just one part of the puzzle that they are solving again, we just both come from music, so I'll bring it back.

If you know, you're producing artists, a lot of them need help with PR and marketing. So you could offer some stuff for that, if you're good at it. But that would be their next step. Maybe. if you're a photographer, maybe they, they want somebody to make a really, really awesome film from the wedding or, you know, they want some location spots or whatever.

Those are other [00:16:00] things you can do, but just understanding that you're one piece. And a lot of times you're just in an ingredient to the awesome meal that they are making. You gotta let it cook, baby. They got to get all the ingredients and that is okay. So just stay top of mind and make sure that you keep showing up.

You keep taking them out to coffee. You keep checking up and texting, how are you doing? Hey, here's something I found that I think could be really helpful for you. Anyways. Hope you're having a great day. As long as you just keep top of mind, people will reach back out

And there's two different top of mind methods that I want to talk about. manual method, more when you are working at a lower volume at a higher price where like, mark, you're not going to send like email marketing stuff to this person.

You just had a sales call with, for half a million or a project. You're not gonna send automated emails for that. You're going to manually follow up with that throughout the next few months until they have, they given you their hard earned dollars and you are there officially one of your clients, I'm assuming maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe you have the one, a mailing list as well,

No, they'd kill me. Yeah, of course.

They'll have private emails, dude. [00:17:00] Like they don't, they don't want to be bothered.

you're on the extreme side of like very high ticket, very low volume enterprise sales. But some, some freelancers are like, they're doing a hundred, 200, 300, 4, maybe $500 projects. And they're just turning those things out quickly, headshots or those types of things.

And doing mastering is actually that same kind of business model in music every freelance industry has that logo design can be that in some industries as well. And in that instance, you have to have automated systems for followup or else you're just going to fall on your ass either forget or ruin your life, trying to manually follow up with that many leads and potential clients.

Kind of to break down a little bit of that. So had a good buddy of mine on here, Daniel Cunningham. What episode was that?

Episode 1 76, how to use email marketing to land corporate clients as a photographer that was back in November 30th. Wow. November 30th, 2021.

So Daniel is a commercial photographer um, and he specializes in a lot of doing corporate work a lot, but he also has a lot of individual clients as well. And he has a thriving email list and,[00:18:00] it's kinda funny. He just kind of reminds people what he's up to and he gives them a little bit of advice sometimes through his email.

And it can be as simple as that is. You're just kind of tapping people on the shoulder here and they're saying, I'm still here. you know, the worst thing you can do with an email list is not use it. this goes for followers on Instagram too.

I think, A lot of people are arguing. Facebook's dying, you know, tick, tocks exploding all this stuff at the end of the day. If you have somebody's email, no matter where they end up on the internet, you can say hello.

Now with that said, there's a lot more friction for somebody to get on your email list, right? If somebody follows you on Instagram, they're giving you a little, you know, a little love tap. Hey, I like what you're doing. And so you even just posting that, you're active, you know, if you're a photographer and let's say, they're not on your email list, let's say you don't have any direct contact, but you somehow had a conversation or whatever, just showing that you're active and you're working on other projects.

It's kind of like one of those things where. If you're dating, it's like showing somebody you're not desperate. [00:19:00] It's like, Hey, I got hobbies outside of you. I play disc golf. I love croquet. I don't need you. And they're like, oh my God, I love you. it's showing, it's showing that like, you don't need them and that makes you higher value.

Other people are stating that you're worth something,

Yeah,

And if you don't have things to post it's time to check yourself and like, this is the come to Jesus moment. I had in 2011 when I was like living in Alabama, sad and alone, I was like, this is the thing I actually did. I was like listing out all the things I would want to have in an ideal companion.

And then I looked at those things and said, am I the person who would, this person will be attracted to? And the answer was absolutely no. I am not the person that. Did that person want me to be with. And so, like I had to change a lot about myself and that's when I got into a finished journey.

That's when I got into self-improvement journey. That's when I moved to Nashville from butthole, Alabama, probably not a real place. And I started, I started the journey of making myself a better person, something that was more interesting, more, more educated, more inspired, you know, like someone worth that has value to add to somebody.

And it's the same with your business. You [00:20:00] have to take that step, take that journey on being a more valuable, more interesting, more inspiring person to be around.

Yeah. And like, you'll see this kind of with everybody who's worth a over a long period of time is, you know, everybody has a different for me, for example, I had to come to Moses moment. Anyway.

I'm so sorry. I had to, anyways, I had a similar thing. I was down on my luck, went through a terrible breakup. I was broke. living with my parents and I was like, you know, I, this is the kind of life that I want business.

I kind of want success in music that I, that I want relationship that I want. These are all the things that these people would want out of me. I am eating a bunch of bullshit food. I don't work out. I'm sitting on the couch and crying every day. All right. I should I should pick up some books, find some people I look up to and start getting my together. It's the same thing in your business,

so the reason we're talking about this and the reason this is so important is because those numbers, you said earlier in this episode, mark, it was like 19% of people are in consideration phase. That means that like [00:21:00] 80% of people are not even considered.

To work with you right now, which means like if you have a thousand followers, that means 800 of those people are not interested or, doesn't care about what you're offering. If you have a thousand people on our email list, 800 of them are not even remotely ready for the service that you have to offer.

So staying top of mind is the way you turn that whole list of 800 people or 800 followers. You stay top of mind until they become that 20% that gets into consideration. And maybe they become one of the 1% that actually hire you. email list is a huge part of that. For me, email is a huge part of that for one of your businesses or maybe a couple of them, but social media is also another place. And I, this is the area I sadly neglect, I think because I don't think it's totally necessary, but for some people, social media is your only way of staying top of mind, one to many,

for me, all of it is, very, very important. here's, the thing is like there's 80, 20 rules, you know, stuff like that. And I understand that. I understand you know, the entire concept. The fact of the matter is, is I have different types of people that we work with. You know, for that pitch it's producers, [00:22:00] where are they?

They're on Instagram. I have people that are clients of that pitch, that licensed music, where are they? They're on LinkedIn or email. And I get an invite through a zoom call. And then they give me their WhatsApp. You know, I the whole thing is that in my opinion if you don't meet your ideal client where they want to be met at, don't expect them to show up where you want to show up. at the end of the day, let them decide where they want to get coffee. don't say, Hey, I want you to drive a half hour to come to me. it's like, no, I'll make it so easy for you to don't even worry about it.

You know, just walk out wherever the closest place that has coffee I'll show up. Don't even worry about it. and I think that's the main thing is like, that's why social media is really important to us. Um, It's why email is really important to us. It's why spending literally five hours on a very thorough email back to somebody stating all of their things that they had questions about, and proofreading it and sending it off to people that I look up to and say, Hey, is this appropriate?

It's [00:23:00] because no matter who you're working with, respect the out of them,

it all comes down to respect for me is like, if somebody's going to give me a dollar, the amount of trust they have put into me, holy I'm not going to break that trust. Like that means everything to me,

So what's a good, what's a good frequency or cadence for staying top of mind.

because so many people are like, I don't want to bother them. I don't want to be a

nuisance.

yeah, it depends. Like, what are you sending them? I think if it's quality stuff that helps them and is helpful, you can send as much as you want,

Yeah. Someone sent me um, some of the, to look over He was asking about like how to follow up with a, with a client of his, or a potential client of his. And I saw the initial email. He sent out to that person and was like, oh, I cringed because it was so much like me, me, me so much take, take, take, and no give I'm like, there is no way to follow up to that.

There's no way to follow up when you're being something. That's not a Go-Giver.

kinda want to write this down cause there's two things. If it's not helping them, don't even [00:24:00] bother.

I can't just say. Hey, just checking in.

that. Nobody owes you And like stop saying, you're checking in. It's creepy. it's like texting at 3:00 AM and it's like, why don't you text me back today?

Oh God, I saw that you read that. Why didn't you reply?

Yeah. Don't, don't be the double texter. Well, I've double emailed, but it's because like they, big told me that preface that they have like a bunch of going on in a month and a half and they just like barely got back to me. That's

fine. But yeah, I think another thing is this is something that I've I, so I go to therapy every single week. I think honestly, if you're in business for yourself, I think you should be able to talk to somebody

Wow, dude, you're so weak that you have to go to therapy. My gosh,

Let's cancel Brian. Nope.

that's the mindset that people have that need therapy. The most, that

we should be talking about

that for sure.

So I'm glad that you are open about that.

I've, gone to therapy since high school, bro. Like I just consider it It's just armor. That's how I look at it. It's armor for whatever the hell is going on in life. Anyways, he, has always kind of helped me on [00:25:00] understanding that a lot of the.

Stuff that I might be concerned about are generally kind of just like delusions. Like it's like, you're just worrying to worry. Because you've had crazy times in the industry before and yeah, there were times early, early on in your career where you were really worried about rent. you could catastrophize of like, oh my God, if I can't pay my rent, like what, you know, we both had like, experiences, like holy moments. I think that's kind of required in a way, if you're going to be full-time, self-employed everybody's going to have for the most part, a holy if you experienced that and you see, you know, little signs that may have related as a similarity, you might be like, oh my God, maybe this is, this is going to everything up.

And then I kind of just have to be reminded that this is not an issue. So if you're overthinking, following up with somebody and just asking how they're doing or whatever, a lot of times, if you're scared about it, it's kind of like a delusion. You're probably not annoying.

yeah.

you're projecting, you're protecting your, your insecurities on that other person who probably [00:26:00] hasn't thought twice of you, if I'm being honest, which is kind of a scary thought, it's like, it goes back to that grant Cardone quote, where it's like, I'd rather be annoying than absolutely unknown,

the underlying thing that's been really helpful for me, is. in a way it's kind of selfish if you don't reach out. money is just an exchange of value. So by you getting paid for something, it means you're helping somebody.

So if they have reached out and they have said, they may or may not need your help and you from your insecurities are not reaching out to them. You are doing them an injustice because you can really help them. So for me, posting on Instagram, I post every single day, I've been doing it for about a month now.

And it's been really awesome. I'm just showing up right. Taking everyone out to coffee every single day. That's how I view it. Well, 99% of people love the coffee. It's great. And then one person is like, I hate coffee. I'm only a tea guy,

He than absolute heathen, terrible human being.[00:27:00]

Right? Not everybody likes coffee. We don't like them either. It's fine. but the idea that I always have as long as one person likes it, as long as one person got value from this, I have done my job. I have helped somebody today because I'm not posting about look at all the things I've accomplished, but I just post advice.

That's it and things that I've learned and I hope it helps you too. That's it? just come from a place of you're helping and you're not trying to get something

Yeah. And I think, the reason you can do that, and the reason you are doing that, as you are going back to using time as a tool, you are staying top of mind, adding value, little chunks at a time, and it won't be for everybody. But as long as a few people at a time gain value from you, eventually you hit them at the right. time where they're ready to actually hire you or pay you or join your thing or

book a

sales call or whatever it is that you want from them.

I forgot where I heard this, but it was really good. It's healthy businesses harvest from the seeds. They plant healthy Businesses never hunt. You should never be hunting. [00:28:00] You should only be harvesting.

You should never be hunting. If you ever find yourself hunting, there is a genuine problem with your business.

And I get it. It's it just seems more straightforward and easy to just say, like, I want a client right now, so I'm going to go out and I'm going to send 50 cold emails and I'm

going to bother 50, 50 poor people to pay me. They're my hard earned dollars. And then if I send 50 emails and 10 reply to me and five guys on a call, I'm going to close two of them.

Like they think that's how it's going to be. And in some cases it can be that, that case when Anthony crap brought on episode 1 52, he talked about cold emailing is his main strategy and he's, he's

crushing it. But in most cases you're not Anthony

crapper.

yes, but I would actually like to push back on that because you have to look at the size of your market. So if you are doing cold outreach for an immediate sale in the accounting industry, there are millions and millions and millions and millions of accountants. Okay. If you're in the music industry, it's much smaller and everybody knows each other.

So you [00:29:00] have a window. In my opinion of how many people you can make a first impression on in a given time period for people to not put your name around. So the thing is, is that the smaller and more interconnected networks, the industry is, in my opinion, the more tasteful you should be about it for cold outreach.

Anthony's in a blue or market, like in a blue ocean, meaning like it's, it's a lot less crowded. It's a lot less bloody. It's not a red ocean yet. And so he can simply let people know that he exists and his offer exists. And it's enough for them to say, oh, I'm interested in that. That might be, that might be cool and reply and start a conversation with him.

So I guess you could, you could kind of say, it's almost like a hybrid of planting seeds in hunting, but as creative, like most people are in a pretty competitive industry and they're competing with a lot of different people. So the way to stand out is like, don't worry about going for the immediate kill instead, put crops down and nurture them over a long period of time.

Water them care for them, prune them sometimes. And then only when it's time harvest the fruit, [00:30:00] don't kill the plant.

this is kind of, we, I'm not gonna get too off subject, but I think this is just like a good mental model that I've always had within my career is invest in things. Don't be a speculator. And so I know that's a really theoretical, so I'll bring it down.

We're going to talk about your Bitcoin mining right now or what

Bitcoin, anybody reach out to me.

I will argue you to the death. It's dumb

anyways. Um, but,

I'm glad you're anti crypto as well. That's fun.

uh,

We're going to have

more hate from that single comment than all hate from the last three years of this podcast combined.

please. DME. I would relish in your hate police. It's dumb But the thing is, is that, Honestly, investing is pretty boring. You want it to be boring? It should not be this hype thing.

value giving is pretty boring. Right? I want an oil change. I go to a place that gives me an oil change. I will have a car years from now. They will continue to give me an oil change. Maybe it's not a good idea because things are going to electric. So maybe I'll think about electric, but these are all boring things, but they're [00:31:00] explainable, right?

People will continue to sleep. So mattresses are good. just things that people use, the reason I kind of bring this up is you like you yourself are going to be the best investment that you have over a long period of time. You are an asset that gives value. If you trick people into thinking that you are a Bitcoin of, I'm going to put in a dollar, I'm going to make a shitload back and I'm gonna be set forever.

And you can't deliver now, you are that person, but if you are a boring ass, grocery store, everybody's going to continue to buy food. People are not going to find you crazy, sexy, but they know that you're reliable and they will show up day in day to get their groceries. So what you want to do is that any leads that you have, anybody you are introducing yourself to just make sure that it's just very no It's good quality stuff. Long-term, don't try to pressure somebody into a big sale just for it not to work out. You want repeat clients over a long period of time, not a single client that pays you a [00:32:00] of money.

Yeah. And that's, that's the approach. I feel like most people can resonate with because I'm not sure if I followed all the analogies you gave there from being honest,

I'm sure one or two of you did,

and everybody could follow with Bitcoin,

Yeah.

I get the gist of it, but I liked the idea of boring. And so people like push back against that, but boring is sexy, man.

Like if you have something that is. Boring. That means you have stability in your life. again, I'm not telling everyone to be boring, but I like the idea of boredom because that means you are doing something consistent. You're showing up. And honestly like relationships can be boring sometimes because there's consistency, but you're showing up every day, you're doing what you're supposed to do.

You're doing your chores. You're doing the small things for the person that you love and care for over a long period of time, because that's what relationships do. And there's exciting moments and it leads to fulfillment. And there's a lot of good things that come from that. And we, if we take that to our relationships as freelancers, if you take that to our clients and we look at the, over the horizon the long period of time, instead of just the here and now, we're going to be so much healthier because we'll have a bountiful [00:33:00] harvest way down the line. And just think about that. Use time as a tool is a tool. If you look at things for the long-term, you're going to be so much better off.

I hope I'm proved wrong with Bitcoin, just so you know. Cause I'm still on that. I really hope I'm proved wrong. I just know I won't be anyways. That's it. That's my final words on

It was funny as um, anytime we record an episode of this podcast, when it finishes, we have an automation in our slack channel for podcast edits that the automation says a new podcast has been recorded. Check, click up, by the way, Bitcoin will crash in 2022. That's been there since like the end of 2021.

That was my prediction. And it is actually somewhat happened. I don't know how

low it will go,

I actually just saw something from Warren buffet

He said the only way for me to make money on Bitcoin is if I sell it back to you, it doesn't do anything. And Charlie Munger was like, yeah, it's literally a scam. I respect the out of both of them. And I think everybody should,

you know, what's funny is it reminds me, it reminds me of the.com bubble. When everyone was just dumping money [00:34:00] into.com companies. If you have the word.com after your name, you were like worth a hundred times more than any other company. And it was just ridiculous. And Warren buffet never jumped on that train.

He never invested in dotcom companies back then. And people were like, Warren Buffett lost his touch. it's just an out of touch old man. I feel like his exact same scenario around Bitcoin. It's like,

obviously there are.com companies today, but it just looks so much different than they did

back in 2000.

the thing is, I'm not talking like the idea of blockchain. There is some value there, right? Like my buddy has a company called beat DAP and they audit a Spotify and DSPs in real time for labels. And they use

blockchain to do

that. Basically they just see how much labels are getting by streaming platforms and then they report it and then they get money for them.

You can't do that without blockchain. So that's really cool. I don't really

know of another use case where this is useful.

I mean, there are like, I've seen this, there's like blockchains for real estate. There's a lot. There's like,

I'm not knocking the technology. I'm just knocking the hype around crypto.

yeah. I think as [00:35:00] soon as somebody moms starts investing in blockchain, I think this has gone too far. No offense to moms love moms,

it's, funny, like back when the Bitcoin craze happened, where it hits 17,000 or 20,000, the first time, like in 2017, everyone was talking about it. Every neck beard on my Facebook newsfeed was talking about it or, or Instagram, and I stayed so far away from it. And then when it crashed to like 3000, Noah's talking about it.

That's when I actually bought some up and it's like 10 X since I bought it.

go.

and that's our Bitcoin after sewed,

right? I liked that term after sewed.

It's the not here's here's the final question. How low will it.

go?

I don't know. eventually, eventually, zero Well, maybe five 5k maybe, but like, I think it's at some point

What about the, what about the whole argument that the U S dollar is backed by basically nothing anyways. So it's all Fiat currency

and then they can also create it whenever they want it there. When you, at least you can't create that whenever you want

okay. So can I explain NFTs it's based on that argument,

we've had an episode by NFTs.

[00:36:00] Yeah. So the thing is I'm in copyright and publishing like that, that industry, 190 something countries understand copyright and publishing and FTS. The idea is that you can prove that something was owned by somebody Let's great, but the amount of friction that any country would have to have to adapt using an NFT as jurisdiction for ownership and original idea as opposed to copyright I mean, you're basically saying that patents for pharmaceuticals it

has to have

all I'm going to say is like, rip your inbox. Like so many people actually mark the reality at like, you're going to have so many actually sits you up about this and it's going to be fun. So

good luck with.

you can also delete part of this. I don't care.

I'm not deleting any of it. This is just gonna be throwing the end of the episode

and people

can argue with you.

would love to be proven wrong and I'm all about people making more money from music, from graphic design, from everything, everything like I'm all about that. I [00:37:00] just, I don't see NFTs and this iteration being the play.

I think it's going to be a future thing potentially, but I think web three is just going to be gaming porn casinos. That's going to be at, am FinTech. I think people are going to take off their goggles and realize, oh my God, I need to eat. And oh my God, I want to be in a real relationship.

I think people should invest in my uh, my ICO Let me explain how it's going to work. Really. Here's how it works. You can't, you can't lose out money. You invest into my eye. My coin is always going to be called yet hood coin hook coin, I'll pay out 10% a year, for the rest of your life.

Until I stopped getting people to pay me. It's It's a pyramid scheme. It's a Ponzi scheme. It's a Ponzi scheme. That's what I'm

creating for you guys.

Wait a second. It's a Ponzi scheme.

no, no, no, no, no, no.

Put coin hood coin.

Get it

today.

or a Ponzi? No way. You're telling me that people get paid from the people that are investing into it and it doesn't [00:38:00] provide any value to anybody. Wait a second.

I'm going to get so much hate for that.

I'm literally going to be cut as cohost.

choosing to say, get the outta here. Get rid of that guy.

James is

big in a

it's it's gonna, like,

it's not

I'm just with you. He is not he's he's he's big into Airplanes and pilots.

Airplanes are dope. People will continue to fly places.

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