- Close more gigs
- Speed up your sales cycle (i.e. how long it takes to close a client)
- Charge what you’re truly worth
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363. Spa menu vs Doctor
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Brian: [00:00:00] One of the things that sucks about freelancing is that you just don't know what you don't know, and you end up sucking at something that you think you're actually good at. If that's not you, if you feel like you're good at everything. This is a hundred percent you. You are not good at everything.
Brian: And so this is the case that I've seen with the clients that we work with. We have, again, we work with over 200 clients. We help 'em with client acquisition. One part of client acquisition is sales. And one of the things we do with our clients is we review their sales calls or their discovery calls to see how bad they truly are.
Brian: And there's been many times where we're getting them some great leads. They're getting good discovery calls with people that are like really good qualified leads for their niche, and then they end up not closing them. And once we dive in and look at their calls, we realize they're making this mistake
Brian: or a version of this mistake, and you're probably making a similar mistake to this as well. they're following the mistake of what I call spa menu pricing. have a good discover call with someone, it's gonna be a good fit, and you give them sometimes quite literally, a PDF or a slide of, was essentially a spa menu. If you've ever been to the spa and they're like, here's the menu of options you have here at this beautiful spa.
Brian: You can do this treatment or this treatment, or this treatment. Mr. Or Mrs. Customer, what do you want? That's how you're treating it. So you're giving them a low or medium and a high [00:01:00] option, kind of like the tiered pricingbut what ends up happening is you give the client analysis paralysis,
Brian: they're confused over which option even makes sense for them. I've seen the, the argument that when you present tiered pricing, that the question's no longer should I work with you or not. It's which option should I go with? But that's mostly bullshit. When people are presented with multiple options, they are slow to decide.
Brian: They make no decision whatsoever sometimes, at best, it slows down your sales cycle where they're trying to mull over the options and figure out which one's best for them, or you end up crushing your close rates overall because they're making no decision. And if you firm me on this podcast before, I'm a broken record, when I say this, a no decision by the client is by default.
Brian: A no, always a hundred percent of the time it's a no. So at the very least, we always try to get our clients to make some sort of decision, even if that decision is no. Because if you don't make them make a decision, it'll always be no. And when you give them a bunch of different options to go through, they're going to have more no decisions because they're going to go mull over their options for weeks and weeks and months and months until it's just phases out into a no.
Brian: the reason for this is people hate making the wrong choice. It's bad enough when I go to a spa and I'm about to [00:02:00] spend a hundred, $200 on something. And I'm like, I don't know which option makes sense for me. I don't want to pick the wrong one, but when you're selling something that's thousands or tens of thousands of dollars, that's the amount of money at stake for your clients.
Brian: It is a horrible thing to put them through.
Brian: You're basically telling them, you are the expert at the service that I offer. Therefore, you will make the decision, and I hope you can choose the right one. That's essentially what you're telling them. Worst of all are the people who just choose the cheapest option because it's the lowest number, but it doesn't actually give them the outcome that they want.
Brian: That's why I hate tiered pricing. I hate spa pricing. I hate doing anything that just doesn't give them one option. That is the solution. People come to you because you are the expert. You should not be giving them a choice for what they do. You should be listening to them with your ears, deciding with your brain on what makes sense for them, and then prescribing them a solution.
Brian: And again, that's a single solution. So if you do this right, it'll not only position you as the expert because you are the expert, Let's just use web designers for an example. Web designers, you're working with business owners, and you might be working with multimillion dollar, 10 million, 20 million, a hundred million dollar companies, billion dollar companies.
Brian: They're the expert in that domain. [00:03:00] However, when it comes to web design, if they're hiring you, it's because you are the expert at your domain. And when you prescribe a single solution to their problems and not, Is mortgage board to things that they could choose from. It'll position you as the expert.
Brian: it'll speed up the time to close because they're just trying to decide yes or no on the option you've prescribed them versus.
Brian: Which one should we choose? Take weeks, months, we hear. Sometimes it also will support premium pricing because you are presenting this as the answer, like the answer versus an answer, and that's an important distinction when you're just saying, this isthe answer, do you want it or not?
Brian: Versus Here is three potential answers. These are all potential answers,which implies that there's like a billion other potential answers out there that you can go shop around for. So you can charge a premium rate when it is the answer for the client, and it will ultimately increase your close rates, which is what we've seen with our clients when we make sure they're following this process, I'm gonna outline today or a version of this process, their close rates go up.
Brian: before I get into the episode today, if this is your first time on the podcast. Hi, I'm Brian Hood. This is the six Figure Creative podcast. The six figure Creative as a whole is a team of like 10 people now. We have some awesome, amazing people as a part of the [00:04:00] team.
Brian: We've grown a lot over the last couple years. And my goal with this podcast and with the company as a whole is just take a lot of outside influences from other industries, other niches, other business models, and bring them to freelancers and help you adapt them to your business in a way that makes sense for you.
Brian: Because I preach that we should not be inbred business owners. Inbred business owner is a non-diverse gene pool that we're going to, we're just looking to other designers for how we run a design business. We're just looking at other music producers for how to run my music production business. We're just looking to other copywriters for how I should run my copywriting business.
Brian: It's a horrible way to run your business because most freelancers don't know how to run a business. So we look at outside industries like the SaaS industry or the online marketing world, or just the general business world or the agency world.
Brian: People who have truly have good business acumen and they have come up with great processes or best practices for solving problems. and then we bring them back to this community. So if that sounds like something you're interested in, you're at the right place here at the Six Figure Creative Podcast.
Brian: so let's dive into this. We talked about. Diagnose and prescribe. We're not giving them a spawn menu of options. We're trying to diagnose like a doctor, diagnose the problem that they're having and come up with the solution, not a solution.
Brian: The solution to the problems [00:05:00] based on what skillset and what talents and what packages or package you could put together for the clients. And before I even get into this. If you offer a truly customized thing, get really good at, on the fly, coming up with packages that make sense for the client I call this modular packaging.
Brian: There's probably something in the podcast backlog, but modular pricing or modular packaging is when you just take up modules, like think of like little square building blocks of things you could offer a client, and you just have those in your pocket that you can pull out to build together really quick, rapidly a solution for the client on the call.
Brian: Along with pricing. Preferably if it's too much to do that, you can always put it together after the call, but you're gonna have a lower close rate if you do it that way. So let's dive into this first diagnose. I'm not gonna go over the full discovery process. I have past episodes on this, and I'll give you resource for where to learn a better, likea really good discovery process that works well for freelancers.
Brian: But the first part of this is just clarifying your current state for the people you're talking to when you're on a call, figure out the current state. Where are they at right now? Figure out the future desired state. Where do they want to be?
Brian: AKA? What do they want? What do they need? Always discuss a timeline at this point, by the way, have a list of questions to figure out what are their [00:06:00] goals? What do you want with this project? What do you need with this project?
Brian: One really ninja thing to do here is always discuss timeline. When you figure out their future state, when they're talking about all the things that they want to happen, you discuss timeline. So you can use it for the close later, we'll come back to this, but you figure out their current state. where are they at right now?
Brian: The things that they don't have that they want, things that they have that they don't want, where do they want to be? And then sit there and make sure not only you understand the gap between point A and point B. Make sure Mr. And Mrs. Client understands the gap between point A and point B, because when you understand the gap, you know what package to build out with your modular pricing, or if you just have a standard productize offer, you know how to position the offer for the client and then if they understand the gap, they can understand how your solution.
Brian: Bridges that gap because any freelancer you are offering a bridge from point A to point B and that point A to point B, that bridge is the gap. And if you can't figure out a way to close that gap with your service, you will not make the sale. Now there's a really good, sales process that I have our clients follow and I recommend to other [00:07:00] freelancers.
Brian: It's called The Closer Framework. It's by Alex Zi. he trains tons of sales teams, tons of salespeople. It works freelancers. You have to use some adaptation to your, process. You have to come up with your own questions for each one, I think I've done probably an episode on this, maybe I'll do another one in the future, but it's a really easy way for you to just make sure you're hitting all the points on the things that I've talked about in this.
Brian: Just a good solid framework, especially a first framework to follow for a sales process. Now at this point, you understand point A, where they are. Now you understand point B where they wanna be. You understand the gap from point A to point B. You understand how your solution could be there. Now, before you even get to the prescription, need to decide, Can you actually help them? do you have this capabilities? Do you have the skillset? Do you have the talent? Do you have the maybe team, if you're a smaller agency, can you actually help them? And is this the kind of project or the type of client that you actually wanna work with? If it's not yes to,all of that, then you don't have to prescribe a solution unless the solution is, Hey, I'm not a right fit for you.
Brian: Let me actually refer you to a friend of mine or someone that I think will be a better fit, but decide if this is gonna be a good fit for you or not before you get [00:08:00] into the prescription process. But now we move to prescribe, and this is the part that most freelancers screw up. seen tons of freelancer calls, In a lot of different industries, you're pretty good at the discovery process. You are pretty good at understanding what the client wants, what the client needs, understanding what that gap is. You're not great at presenting the gap, making sure they understand the gap as well, but you generally understand the gap.
Brian: So that part's not a huge issue that I see. But the prescription process is the issue, which is why we're having this episode in the first place One clear solution to the problem. And you could say something like, based on everything you've told me here's exactly what I recommend to get X, Y, and Z, X, Y, and Z just is the goal that they want or the pain they want gone or whatever.
Brian: And you can, again, word it however you want,
Brian: And then explain what's exactly included, do this briefly. So you could say something like, it includes, A, B, and C. It's everything you need to make sure that this outcome happens. The mistake I see freelancers make here is they go into really meticulous, minutiae details of all the crap. feature, vomit that you're doing for your client ultimately. The client doesn't care about a lot of that stuff, and generally if they do care about it, they'll ask you about it.
Brian: So what I have most people do and [00:09:00] suggest everyone do, almost all of our clients do this, and almost everyone listening or watching this show should be doing this. When you're talking about what it includes, what you can do to help solve their problems,
Brian: all the things that will make the outcome happen or the pain go away, or the pleasure that they're going towards happen.
Brian: You make it really short, short and to the point. I'll do X, Y, Z, A, B, C.
Brian: Then you can ask 'em if they have any questions about any of those things. Because what happens is you end up boring them. They check out, they zone out, they start peeling around their phone or their computers. They just start getting a blank look on their face because you're giving 'em a lot of information, like you're just brain dumping word vomiting on them.
Brian: Too much information of things they don't care about. but when you give them a short version of thisand they're able to just ask the questions about the things that they're curious about. Now you can spend times on the things that they're truly interested in.
Brian: Now you get massive bonus points here if you can tie the package or the elements of the package, specifically back to solving each and every pain point or goal that they brought up on the call. So when they brought up this goal, you took great notes, this pain point, you took great notes, and now you know.
Brian: Here's the pain points they have. Here's the goals that they [00:10:00] have and all the things that I just said in this package. Here's how this solves that pain point. Here's how this helps you reach that goal. and this not only helps them understand how your package is, again, the solution, not a solution, the solution.
Brian: it also shows that this is truly what they need and not just some canned thing. Even if this is a productized service and you position this correctly, it's not just some canned thing that they can go get off Fiverr.
Brian: Now there's a phrase that I lovewhen it comes to the pitch. It's sell the vacation, not the trip. And that basically means when you're trying to sell the vacation to somebody, you're not talking about going through TSA, checking your baggage, waiting in line, having that four over layover in Fort Lauderdale, you're not talking about.
Brian: Sitting in a middle seat between two smelly people that are both sleeping on you, that's the trip to get them where they want to go. But when you sell the vacation, you just talk about what they're gonna be doing sipping, drinks by the beach. having a food tour in a, cool location, having a cooking class.
Brian: All the things that they want in order to relax or unwind or explore or adventure. Not all the crap it takes to get there.
Brian: So when you're talking to the client through all the things you're gonna help them do, spend [00:11:00] very little time on the nitty gritty details of it and focus all the time you can on the vacation, the outcome, the result. And once you've done that, once you've done the pitch, they understand what it all is, how it solves the problem, how it fills the gap.
Brian: Before you talk numbers, just confirm that there's alignment. Say something like, Hey, does that sound good to you? Is that sound what you're looking for?
Brian: And you'll get like,you'll get a range of answers. It can be anything from a, yeah, I think so In which case it's an absolute no. or you'll get like a.
Brian: Hell yeah. That's exactly what we're looking for. And that's obviously enthusiastic. If it's enthusiastic, it feels like they truly are saying this is what they're looking for. Go to numbers, talk numbers, talk pricing. if they seem some hesitancy, just ask the question so it doesn't sound like you're super confident.
Brian: Like, What is missing here? I just wanna, before we go any further, I just wanna make sure this is actually what you need and start diving in, digging into what's missing. Maybe where you didn't explain something correctly. Maybe they misunderstood something. Because if you go into pricing before those things are addressed, you'll always get objections on the pricing and you will never actually understand what it's from.
Brian: You'll think it's pricing objections, but it was actually, you didn't explain your, package properly. you didn't help them understand the gap in their own life or [00:12:00] business or whatever it is that you're selling them.
Brian: But when you go in and start talking about pricing. When there's still unmet objections, that you didn't even know existed because you didn't stop and discuss, You're gonna start thinking your prices are too high. But in reality, it was just you had unaddressed objections during the sales process or discovery process that were never discussed.
Brian: But at this point, if they're all in, they seem enthusiastic? Talk numbers and shut the fuck up. I'm gonna give my, podcast editor some fun on edits for this section ' cause we censor the show. If you're pre episode one 50, we didn't always censor the show.
Brian: lot of freelancers when they get to the numbers part, you're so uncomfortable and scared to talk numbers. You start doing this long, drawn out justification of your pricing. Just so that you can then give a price and then you end up talking more about how you're trying to justify it. And their brain's already turned off 'cause they heard the price and they're thinking about the price and they're not thinking about what you're saying.
Brian: Horrible way to do sales. Just give the pricing and shut the fuck up,shut the fuck up. Something like, awesome. So the investment is 10,000. If you're ready, we can lock in your spot, get you started by July 15th. Put the timeline in.
Brian: Remember earlier where we talked about, [00:13:00] always discuss the timeline in the discovery process. Now you have the timeline written down in your notes. That's the timeline you're shooting for. Awesome. So this is gonna be 10 grand to get started, and if you're ready, we can lockin your spot and get you started by, July 15th, which is what you guys wanted.
Brian: Notice how I shut the fuck up there. I'm serious. It's gonna feel very uncomfortable, but it is a very powerful thing to do because most freelancers, when they can't just shut the fuck up at the pricing discussion, you end up negotiating against yourself.
Brian: You start bringing the price down. You start bringing up things. you start sweating. You start fumbling over your words. Is always best. If you just shut the fuck up,and let them process.
Brian: this is especially important for my freelancers, like music producers, mixing engineers, people who work. What I consider like business to consumer, where you're talking to unsophisticated buyers, people just, just like a very emotional purchase because those people, you drop a $5,000, $10,000 price tag on them for an album.
Brian: And that's the highest number they've heard since they bought a car. So they just need time to process it. Anything you say [00:14:00] after that, they're just not processing, they're just thinking about the number. And some people it's just an absolute, there's no way some people will be like, okay, whew.
Brian: Sticker shock, but they get over it and some people are like, great, but you can address it based on their reaction and what they say and what questions they have.
Brian: If it goes on too long and you're just like, I can't bear this anymore, you can just say, Hey, what questions you got? But the reason for the silence and the shutting of the fuck up is just simply so they can process it. Because when you start just. Word vomiting. After that, they're not listening to you anymore.
Brian: Now, if there is truly a price objection, instead of presenting a spa menu of low, medium high price, this is where you can put a, down sell in there sometimes, right? If you have one where it's like, Hey, 10,000 doesn't make sense, like your budget's only 3000. you have 3000, here's what we can do.
Brian: We can do X, Y, and Z to match your budget. It's not exactly what you wanted, you know it's not 10 songs, but it's three songs, or
Brian: it's not a new brand and a website. It's just a new brand.
Brian: This is where you start putting those sorts of down sells in. But I want you to be very careful with this. I don't do down sells. Never have. [00:15:00] Probably won't. Because the danger of down sells is you present the down sell before you've actually established as a pricing objection. And so what people will do is just throw the lower number of the lower package, whatever out there way too early because they don't want to deal with overcoming objections, waiting for them to get funds together.
Brian: Taking the long approach versus the short approach. You just end up using your down sells as a crutch. Be very careful with it, but it is an option if you want to see like a really good example of a well run discovery call process that covers kinda all the stuff I mentioned in this episode.
Brian: I would encourage you to just go apply for our coaching program clients by design. if your application's approved, I just encourage you, funnel hack. There's a lot of stuff that in our funnel that you can take away. As far as our application process for you would just be a pre-call questionnaire, like the questionnaire people need to fill out before they get on a call with you, so you know whether or not it's gonna be a qualified lead or not.
Brian: Look at our, call process, our follow up process before calls remind you on the, all these things you can kind of like funnel hack and, take away for yourself. And then if you get approved and you get on a call, see how it's run, take notes yourself as you go through it.
Brian: then there's an added benefit of getting your own problem solved if you [00:16:00] move forward with the coaching program like. We will literally do the same thing I'm talking about here. We will figure out where you're at now, where you're trying to go, what's the gap? Here's how our process helps you with that gap, and you can make a decision move forward.
Brian: even if you don't, it'll still be valuable free to go through to see exactly what I'm talking about on this episode. if you want to apply for that just to at least start funnel hacking. Let's go to six figure creative.com/coaching. fill out the questionnaire and get on there.
Brian: And if you've never heard me talk about this before, essentially what we do with our clients is it's very customized. We look at your business, we come up with a full, essentially a pitch that we give you as a client. We give you a, a, client acquisition roadmap that we pitch to you. You can approve it or reject it.
Brian: If you approve it, we'll move forward and coach you. If you reject it we'll part ways, you, us nothing, you're out $0. We make it really low risk for people so that they can see what it's gonna be like to work together before we actually work together. And then if we work together, it's a month to month fee.
Brian: Cancel any time. We don't sign you on the long contracts or anything, so just go check it out. Highly recommend it. We have hundreds of clients now and it's turned into a really cool community with lots of interactions, lots of different backgrounds and industries represented.
Brian: And again, that's six figure [00:17:00] creative.com/coaching. That's all I got for you this week. I will see you next week on the Six Figure Creative Podcast.
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