[43] How to Raise Prices, Outsourcing, and Other Listener Questions
This is Bootstrapped Web episode 43. It's the podcast for you, the founder who learns by doing as you bootstrap your business online. I'm Brian. And I'm Jordan. Alright, Jordan.
Speaker 1:Let's do this.
Speaker 2:Today, we're answering listener questions, a little q and a. That's right. Into yeah. And if and if you enjoy this and you wanna hear your questions answered and discussed and kinda turned over and chewed on, then send us your questions. But before we jump into that, why don't we do a little update?
Speaker 2:Brian, what's been happening since last time we spoke?
Speaker 1:Man, I don't know. This this, like, product, this course launch that I'm working on, product ties, it's it's coming along. I'm I'm really excited about it, but it is stressful, man. I am, like, in that crunch time. I've set a date, October 21.
Speaker 1:I hope I stick to that. I don't know if I can or not at this point. I have a lot of work to do. I've written all the lessons, which is, like, well over a 100 pages of lesson material, but now I'm producing all the videos, which is a lot of work, like recording and editing. Right.
Speaker 1:You know, I've got, like, HD video set up here, so it's it takes a lot to to kinda edit these things. So I'm working, like, later at night than I usually do. I'm working on on the weekends. Really trying to it's it's crunch time. You know?
Speaker 1:And and the thing is, you know, again, with with with the kid at home and and all, it I've got these, like, short windows of of work time, especially, like, the windows of time when I'm here in the office away from from the house that I'm just I really need to be productive. And I I feel like I am productive. It's just I don't have enough of those hours. And that's that's kinda stressing me out a little bit.
Speaker 2:But Yeah. Hear that. I think the nature of it. So you're producing videos, like, with with you on screen, not not just screen capture.
Speaker 1:Right. I kinda wish it was it was just screen capture. But, you know, I I it's me speaking to the camera.
Speaker 2:Lot of work.
Speaker 1:It is a lot work. I think it adds a lot of quality. I I like the way that it's coming out. And I'm mixing in, like, you know, other, like I am mixing in, like, screencasts and the the video footage. So, you know, there there's a lot of work that goes into that.
Speaker 1:I mean, aside from that, of course, I'm I'm recording, like, an explainer video. I've been writing these guest articles. I'm I'm I am a guest on other people's podcasts. So doing a whole crunch of of, like, publicity stuff and and still producing the course. And I'm, like, scheduling out the launch sequence.
Speaker 1:Right? So I've got, you know, some things planned for that over the next three weeks. It's it's it's crunch time, man.
Speaker 2:I think that's I think it's the nature of it. You know? There's just you look out into the future and you think about, okay, these things you need to do. And then once you get into it, there's just there's just so much to do and so many little things. And hopefully, a lot of it is is doesn't need to be redone in the future.
Speaker 1:Yes. Right?
Speaker 2:So you can continue to sell this, right? That's the point of having this digital asset that a lot of it, a lot of the work that goes into the course, you won't have to do again. And then you can just focus on the marketing, which is, you know, ideal.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. And I and I do keep that in mind as I produce each of these pieces, especially, like, the the the the prelaunch sequence and and the marketing videos and whatnot. I am trying to make them kind of generic enough that they can live on for a while and I don't need to update the details. Right.
Speaker 1:So that kind of stuff. But, you know, the it so much work is going into this. I am letting email kind of fall by the wayside. I guess that's a little bit of a good thing. I'm pretty disciplined when it comes to, like, not checking email, but that does mean that people are waiting a little bit longer than than usual to get a reply from me, which I I don't love that, but so I am letting emails kinda pile up a little bit if it you know?
Speaker 1:Like, last night, like, I came home, and this was, like, after dinner, I spent an extra two hours just just catching up on email. So after that, you know, I I I told my wife. I was like, you know, after this this thing launches, I need to take a break. I'm I'm thinking, like, the October, I'm gonna take a short break, take a couple a couple of days off, you know, hang out with with my daughter, my wife, do something relaxing, maybe just sleep in or or you know?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Unplug. I think that's good. It's it's healthy to do, and it's also healthy to have that to look forward to.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. And then, I mean, on my mind as well, Restaurant Engine, I like I still put in a couple of hours a day, you know, doing some sales calls, working with my team, maintaining that. But in November, it's it's a big push in Restaurant Gonna kinda revamp, some of the stuff we're doing with the with the sales process. Last week, we talked all about webinars, so I'm gonna implement a lot of that stuff.
Speaker 1:So looking ahead to November, I've got a lot of things planned for Restaurant Engine, but right now, it's it's the course that I'll take a short break. I'll be refreshed and have a good ending to the year, hopefully.
Speaker 2:Right. Jump back on Restaurant Engine.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Very cool. Yeah. Well, luck good luck with all of it. Sounds like hard work, and, you know, it it should pay off.
Speaker 1:Cool. So, what's up with you?
Speaker 2:So, I think a pretty similar situation, that you're in. Right? I have two projects that I'm looking at. I have cart hook, and I have consulting, and And I'm in the same boat. It's reversed.
Speaker 2:Right now, you're working on the the info product side and not the restaurant engine side. And for me, it's the reverse. I'm spending a lot of time on CardHook, very focused on it, and building out the systems there. And then once that's in place, next month, I'm looking to focus more on the the consulting and info product side of things. But for Cardhook, I've gotten to this point.
Speaker 2:I don't know if it's just me or if this is a natural thing. What happens to me is I go through these cycles where I'm you know, my average productivity, and then it dips. And then I get so frustrated with myself that it hits this point of, you know, maximum frustration and I just say, fuck this. And then I, you know, go a 100 miles an hour. So I'm at one of those points where I got frustrated with myself for not making enough progress as much as I wanted to.
Speaker 2:And now I'm kind of in overdrive and this whole week have just been tearing it up. And was really inspired by our episode, funny enough, but our own podcast on outsourcing. And so I've I've had all these things on in my mind, and this week, I just said, screw it. Let's just let's just move. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:So I'm talking to a bunch of different developers. I talked to my cofounder. So now now there's a lot happening all of a sudden. My cofounder's building out these these really important features that we that are necessary in order to capture some of the bigger clients. A lot right?
Speaker 2:A lot of bigger guys that came up along the past few months and wanted certain features that we didn't have. I didn't wanna build them for individual people because it didn't make sense. Now it's time to make the current client base happier and to be able to attract bigger clients. So he's working on those features and the onboarding stuff and different things on the back end. And now I'm hiring a developer to build out more integrations with new ecommerce platforms, and then that leaves me in the middle to work on the marketing.
Speaker 2:So I'm redoing the marketing site. I've got this sales funnel built. I've got a whole plan for advertising and landing pages, and I've got an AdWords guy who's, you know, doing research. So just kinda gearing up to, you know, get after it. Awesome.
Speaker 2:Combine that with some cold email approach. So that's really been the past past week or two just just getting really focused on what should I be doing, what do I need to put in place this month so that a month from today, these things start to run on their own and start to capture leads and sales and free trials, you know, on their own in a more consistent way.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And, you know, it it's like you said last week, you know, talking about building assets. The stuff that you're working on right now, it like you said, it's gonna run on its own and continue to to produce without you. And I think, you know, once you start getting to outsourcing, as you've been doing, that does kinda, like, force you to be productive. And that it it forces you to really make a plan and put that plan into action.
Speaker 1:Like, your team instructions, you know, tell them, like, look. This is the plan. I've come up with it. Now now you go do it. And it and it kinda of forces you to, like, commit to that.
Speaker 1:Whereas, when you're doing everything yourself, you you can kind of afford I mean, afford is the wrong word, but, like, since it's all you, you you can take a day off and and do it. And I'll do it a little bit later or or I'll change up the plan a little bit. It's it's just me doing all the work. But when you give it to someone else, now you have this this, like, responsibility
Speaker 2:Mhmm. To to your team. Know? Put the spotlight right right back on you. So, you know, I talked to my cofounder.
Speaker 2:He's got a full time job, but he does the development work and he's like, okay, cool. I'm ready. You know, give me the details of the new features and I'm ready.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And then it's just, okay, now it's on me and it just turned the spotlight back on me and magically, you're more productive that way. But we've talked about this in our pressure episode. It's just human nature. Indeed. Yes.
Speaker 2:And now, you know, while while taking a lot of this action on card hook, I can't help but start to at least think about what I'm gonna do in the future, for the consulting and the info product. So right. I can't keep my mind entirely focused on one thing. That just seems unnatural to me. So while I have a month of work to do for Cardhook, in that time, I also have a month to think about the right strategy so that when November comes around, I'm not starting to think about it then and saying to myself, okay, what should I do on this front?
Speaker 2:I already have my plan in my mind. I'm writing things down. I have different options. You know, I have, like, a bunch of pieces of paper that have, like, little funnels from, like, Facebook ad to webinar to this. So just mapping that out in my brain and on paper now while I'm doing work for Cardhook so that I'm ready to ready to go.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that and that's awesome. I I'm in the same exact position as well with with Restaurant Engine. I I have I know exactly what I wanna start doing there starting in November, but I'm also acknowledging, like you are, that, okay, we have these plans. They're swirling around in our heads.
Speaker 1:The easy thing to do is, like, stop what we're doing and just work on the shiny new thing. Oh, we just got this idea for a funnel. Let's go do that. No. Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:We're we're we're saying, okay, we were gonna do that in November, or we're Right. Or we're planning to do that in December. It's it's on the list. It's on it's in the calendar. That will happen, but we're staying focused on the plan at hand.
Speaker 2:Right. And in a in a way, I think it's it's energizing because by the time November comes around, I'm you know, you feel like an arrow in a crossbow that's just all wound up. You just you just want to work on it already. Yep. So that that'll bring some momentum.
Speaker 1:Cool. And with with that momentum, should we shoot into this episode and start answering some of these questions?
Speaker 2:Let's do it. Yeah. We both kind of reached out to to our networks and asked some listeners, and, you know, people came back with some very interesting questions. A lot of things that, you know, that we don't normally think about, a lot of things that are the same issues that we think about each day.
Speaker 1:So And if you
Speaker 2:want you
Speaker 1:Yeah. And, you know, and if you guys have any questions that you'd like to ask us, we we will be doing an episode like this again. So you can always ask your question. Go to bootstrapweb.com/ask, and tell us all about what you're working on. Give us your your URL and so that we can actually take a look and tell us what's what's kinda challenging you, and maybe we can give you an idea or two.
Speaker 1:So let's, let's get into the first one. This is, from from my buddy, Matt Maderos. He's the host of Matt Report. Really awesome podcast, especially if you're in the WordPress space. It's kind of like the WordPress business podcast.
Speaker 1:You know? Pretty cool. And, he and his company, recently launched a WordPress plugin called Conductor, which is which is pretty awesome. It literally lets, like, drag and drop content, you know, throughout your your website no matter which theme you're using. So it's pretty cool.
Speaker 1:I actually worked with him as kind of a informal adviser, giving them some some feedback and whatnot. So, that's at conductorplugin.com, and his podcast is at mattreport.com. And Matt says to us, he says, gents, I'd love to hear your thoughts on product launch and specifically promoting a launch. For example, if you're going to launch a product, are you of the I like that word, ilk. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Are you of the ilk to package it all up with a 101 get giveaways, an iPad mini, and a 50% off coupon? Or soft launch it, make it known that it's available, but kind of just grind it out and find that qualified customer? So a couple of things here to to unpack this question a little bit. I guess the the first part is, should we do, like, a big anticipation splashy launch day, or should you just kind of open you know, go live on your website and and then start to build it up piece by piece? What do what do you think about that, Jordan?
Speaker 2:I'm thinking that I'm just looking over at the conductorplugin.com website, and and it looks great. I couldn't help it. That that sounds like something yeah. I use I use the Divi theme from Elegant Themes, and it it's a lot of that drag and drop content because I don't I don't do code. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:And it is liberating for a marketer to have that type of control over the design and layout. So I think it's an awesome product. Yeah. And I think it's one of the biggest selling points of the Divi theme. So to think that you can apply it to other themes all of a sudden really opens up your mind.
Speaker 2:So I freaking love WordPress. It's just never ending the innovation and creativity. It's like right as you get to a point where you're like, man, I really wish I could do this. That that's when people start to hit on it and start to offer it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. But, you know, I mean, I I think he's kind of referring to his launch of Conductor, which which just kind of launched recently, or it's kind of in the process of launching right now.
Speaker 2:I know. I just couldn't couldn't help but talk about it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Oh, totally. And and I mean, I, you know, I kinda know Matt, and and he has built a a really great audience. He he's got a fantastic podcast. He actually has a a number of WordPress related podcasts.
Speaker 1:So something like over, like, a thousand YouTube subscribers, and they've got, like, a a private membership area. So he does have a sizable audience that he's launching to. And since that's in place and since he spent the last few years building up that audience, then then yes. I would say a big launch event would would really apply well here. And I I mean, that doesn't necessarily mean, like, if you don't have an audience, you shouldn't do a a launch event.
Speaker 1:I think you should. I the the the example that comes to mind is Gravity Forms a few years back. When that first launched, you know, I I don't think many people knew who Carl Hancock was. You know, he he runs Rocketgenius, the company behind Gravity Forms. But I remember it was like a huge launch event.
Speaker 1:He he reached out to all the other big name companies in WordPress, and they all started promoting Gravity Forms. And all of a sudden, within a matter of, like, thirty days or something, like, this product, Gravity Forms, just all of a sudden, it's on everybody's radar, and it became, you know, one of the biggest selling WordPress plugins out there. So I think I think it, you know, it does make sense to build up a lot of anticipation there. But a big but here, you know, Matt Matt, you're you're talking about adding in, like, all these extra giveaways, like an iPad mini or a 50% off coupon or or you know? I wouldn't throw in extra unrelated giveaways, like a free iPad or whatever it is.
Speaker 1:I if you are going to add in some kind of bonus incentive on the launch day or in the first twenty four hours or something like that, it should be related to the actual product. So, maybe it's like a it's an extra educational guide on on how to, you know, use your your WordPress site. I mean, something better than that. But, you know, I mean, it's pretty common to see some kind of, you know, launch day discount on on the actual product. But I wouldn't I wouldn't go and go out and say, like, here's our our product, and you can also get these other products from, like, five different companies that are kind of unrelated.
Speaker 1:But
Speaker 2:Right. Yeah. I think that'll attract the wrong type of person. I I think what what he wants to do and I agree with you. If you have that type of an audience, even if you don't have that audience, but even it's even more reason to do it with an audience to do to do a launch.
Speaker 2:And, right, once you get the launch going and that helps you build momentum, then it's available, you know, to for purchase. But if you're launching a product, why not build that anticipation? I think someone who's done it pretty well over the past few weeks is Derek Halpern with with his his WordPress plugin for courses. I think it's called Zippy courses. Right?
Speaker 2:So I think he did a really nice job, and everything he did was focused on building anticipation towards solving the pain. And and and that's that's what I think Mac can do, especially he's got the audience. He's got the ability to communicate and send out his message. You you don't need coupons and giveaways to drive interest. What you need to do is sell the dream that that this is gonna solve.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and that that's what I think that's what Derek did a great job of where he just kinda talked about it and then built anticipation and then opened it up to a few people and then is now talking about the success that those people are finding and just slowly building more and more anticipation until the boom, it's available to the public, get it now, event.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Totally. And and also in that prelaunch period, couple weeks, even, you know, multiple months, that's that's a great time to be as you're as you're being very vocal and public about this thing is coming, this thing is coming, you're also getting feedback. You're asking for feedback. You know, you should be getting on the phone, getting on Skype calls.
Speaker 1:We talked about in a previous episode doing doing that customer research. That's kind of what I've been doing over the last few weeks with this upcoming course is anybody who enters their email and expresses interest, you know, in that early access or gets on the prelaunch list or whatever you wanna call it, email them and ask them to get on a phone call with you. And I've been doing these calls, and they are so you you get so many insights from them, and that's how you're gonna find that that qualified customer. So so you can even begin that, like, customer research before you launch as you lead up to it, and then you can continue doing it down the road, especially as you see who is actually paying money for this thing. And that'll probably change over over time.
Speaker 1:So you'll never really stop doing that customer research. But Yes. But yeah.
Speaker 2:But I think the big opportunity he has with an audience is to is to make the hypothesis on who the qualified customer is and then start talking about the problem. Yep. And then and and that will help people identify whether or not this is something that's interesting to them. And and then you'll get fewer people than if you were doing giveaways and and iPads and and that sort of thing, but you'll get the people who have the problem. Right?
Speaker 2:In the WordPress world, right, there are there's the development developer audience, and then there are the people like me who are incapable of doing things on WordPress and and look to plug ins to help us overcome those shortcomings. Mhmm. So if, you know, if he's got a big audience to then identify, hey, we've got this thing for people who don't want to code, but will allow them to configure their their content in a certain way, drag and drop, really simple, works on any theme. Right? That would make me perk up while at the same time it would get someone like you to say, not for me.
Speaker 2:Who who needs that? That's just a bit of code. And then then the right people will start to come forward. Maybe it's a smaller number of people, but it's a it's a it's a better group.
Speaker 1:Yep. Well, let's let's move on to the next one. This one is from another Matt. This is Matt Ward. He he runs the artofthekickstart.com, and and he's also the host of the business and bootstrapping podcast.
Speaker 1:So Matt writes, hey, Brian and Jordan. Just heard your episode today about consulting, outsourcing, and productizing today, and I loved it. Thank you, Matt. And, and then he goes on to say, I recently pivoted to Kickstarter, crowdfunding, and product based businesses with my site, the art of the kickstart. It's a podcast and blog all about helping inventors and entrepreneurs launch startups via crowdfunding.
Speaker 1:So right now, I am consulting for two different Kickstarter campaigns, which is going well, but I need to be able to get more clients in order to make it a more sustainable real business. Would love your advice, feedback on my site and approach, and ways to build a better funnel and possibilities for productizing the business.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So so interesting. The the the whole Kickstarter thing is a bit of a mystery to me. Yeah. But what, you know, what what comes to mind for you, right, from from that email, from that?
Speaker 2:You know, I I definitely have my take on it, but what what do you think?
Speaker 1:Yeah. You know, I think I I mean, me as well. You know, Kickstarter, it's something I've I've seen it out there, but I've never really taken part in it or really you know, it's it's hard for me to kind of relate to a lot of the pain points that that happen with Kickstarter campaigns. You know, in in terms of productizing it, of course, you'd wanna, you know, start focusing on on what your customers are saying and the questions that they're asking and the challenges that they have. But, you know, perhaps it's something around, I'll help you optimize your Kickstarter page, write the copy for you, or help you produce a video.
Speaker 1:Or maybe you do that, and I'll and I'll do I'll give you an audit or a feedback and give you some, like, 10 to 20 actionable things that you can do with it. So those are just some ideas. But the other idea the other concept here is that, you know, you're asking, right now, I'm consulting for two different Kickstarter campaigns, but I need to make it into a more sustainable business. I mean, you you have two clients already, so that's that's fantastic. And it sounds to me like it's just an issue of being patient with it.
Speaker 1:Right? I mean, you you know, two two clients is is actually huge because it's so hard to go from zero clients to one client. Right? That's a huge leap to get over, somebody to actually pay for your service. So right there, you you validated something.
Speaker 1:So now it's a matter of building on top of that, Understanding what was it that actually sold those first two clients. Like, what was that thing that that was in their mind? Like, maybe the the key question that they that they asked you and then the question the the answer that you gave them that kind of sealed the deal. Like, usually, you can kind of feel that out in those in those presales conversations. And then once you once you get on to the third, fourth, fifth client, you start to see that pattern.
Speaker 1:And that's how you that's how you figure out not only how to productize the the business and nail down exactly what that service is that you'll be offering, but it also helps you market it, you know, in your copywriting and and and communicate it better.
Speaker 2:Right. And and if you can if you can show them success, then you can use that and leverage that in your marketing and in your message and and moving forward. So I think the disconnect in my brain on the Kickstarter front is that and I could be completely wrong, but my assumption is people come to Kickstarter or a similar platform because they need money. So you're inherently dealing with an audience that doesn't have a lot of money to spend, which doesn't sound like a very healthy place to be, but I I could be wrong on that. Right?
Speaker 2:Because at the same time, they they are investing a certain amount of money and and people know that in order to be successful in a Kickstarter campaign, you do need to spend some money. You do need to create the right video and write the copy and a bit of a prototype or or something to that effect that adds value and partner with a charity. Right? All these things that people add on to the the Kickstarter page to really make it effective. Where where my brain goes is it's a great opportunity to to do the content marketing of of blogging and, and being a resource, as a podcast and a blog, and then and then figure out from these two clients what is the most painful piece, what are they trying to achieve, what are they willing to pay for, and then focus on that and standardizing that.
Speaker 2:Right? If I were doing this and and I'm concerned about my invention or my product and going overseas and the specs, all these things that I'm worried about, and then I look to Kickstarter and I say, my god. I gotta I gotta do that perfectly if I wanna succeed. If someone came to me and said, look, $2,500, your whole page, your video script, all the pieces that you need, I'll help you settle out the tiers, what you'll be giving away for each each commitment tier, and just a done for you. Like, I've done it before.
Speaker 2:My clients achieve this much over the average Kickstarter campaign, and it's worth your $2,500 because I'll take it off your plate and it'll increase your odds of being successful. You know, that that to me sounds like something, more lucrative than, are you having problems with your existing campaign? Let me try to fix it for you. Because how how much are people gonna be willing to pay for a fix it service as opposed to a done for you? Like, you focus on your product, I'm gonna make your Kickstarter campaign and page amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I know how I know how to do it. Here's the proof. And you read my stuff on the blog. You listen to me in the podcast.
Speaker 2:I know what I'm talking about. I'm the expert. You you wanna pay me the premium and get it done right.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Exactly. I I I would agree with that. You know, certainly build on the audience that you're already building, which which is a fantastic way to to start and get that customer feedback, build your authority in that space. You know, it's really about figuring out what is it what is it about Kickstarter that somebody who wants to start their fur their very first Kickstarter campaign, what is their biggest challenge, their biggest hurdle, or the biggest pain that they need to overcome?
Speaker 1:Like, is it is it that they're completely overwhelmed? Like, they heard about Kickstarter on some TV show and but they have no idea how to use the Internet or or how to how to use Kickstarter. Or is it or they're maybe they're a little bit more savvy. They just need ways to actually optimize, and they don't wanna, you know, put their put all their efforts to waste. So it's really just about understanding that those pain points.
Speaker 1:You made a good point, Jordan, about, you know, these these might be clients who don't have money to spend. That that may be true. That that may not be. There there might be some I'm thinking of, like, the, you know, like, physical product manufacturers. If they're planning to invest in in building an actual thing, you know, maybe they're they have money to invest in this.
Speaker 1:Maybe not. I I don't know. But, you know, one idea when it comes to pricing could be maybe, charging as a percentage of of the money raised on Kickstarter. You know? So it's like, if you make money, then I make money type of type of thing.
Speaker 2:Anytime you can have, like, a no lose commitment type of thing, that's that that can be helpful. It might be a little risky, but you can take a little something upfront and then something on the back end. Bonuses for certain levels reached. And one tactical tip that comes to mind is people on Reddit are freaking crazy about Kickstarter and these types of campaigns. And a lot of guys that are successful in their Kickstarter campaigns do AMAs.
Speaker 2:And those AMAs get a ton of attention and comments. And that comment section, that is that's the gold. That's Yeah. What you write about, what you talk about, what you offer. So there's a ton on Reddit.
Speaker 2:I would look for AMAs done by people who have successfully, launched Kickstarter campaigns, and then just look at all the questions that that people are asking them on what they did right, how did it work, what did you do. Yeah. That would that would be great resource.
Speaker 1:That that's an awesome tip right there. Like, literally, like, every question or every popular question can be a blog post. You know?
Speaker 2:Yep. That's that's exactly it.
Speaker 1:Alright. Let's let's move on to the next one.
Speaker 2:So next one is from a buddy of mine, Alejandro Ruiz. So it's a guy I met online a few months ago. Very cool guy. SEO, consulting. So smart dude.
Speaker 2:So he's he's asking about lead generation and specifically on Facebook, and more specifically, how to automate it. Right? So this is I mean, I don't know how much you go to Facebook, but ads are now, obviously, a very big part of Facebook. They're in your news feed. I actually end up clicking on them a lot because I see very relevant ads, and people are retargeting because I went to their site.
Speaker 2:So I'm kinda into the whole Facebook ad thing. As a user
Speaker 1:Every time I log into Facebook, I see a cart hook ad. I don't know how that happens, but I don't know. Good. Good.
Speaker 2:Good. Okay. So what Alejandro was asking about is, like, how do you automate lead generation from Facebook? And this is an interesting topic. This is one of the things that I think about all day because this is I I plan on using this as a strategy in November when I start refocusing on on on consulting and info products.
Speaker 2:So I think the big thing with Facebook, and this might be obvious to some but not to others, is not to go for the sale directly from Facebook. Right? People on Facebook are not on Google where they're typing in SEO Memphis, Tennessee. Right? They're not looking for a solution the same way.
Speaker 2:On Facebook, you're peaking their interest in pulling them away from Facebook into a different place. But to ask them to go from Facebook to a sale or to a consultation or to a big commitment is too much of an ask. I think Facebook needs to be a much slower burn approach, which is the classic offer something of value, lead generation, lead nurturing, leading up to an offer. So you can do the lead magnet into an autoresponder. You can do the Facebook ad into a webinar.
Speaker 2:You can do Facebook ad into an automated webinar. So any of these things can be automated, which is great, and Facebook advertising, once you get past the annoying roadblocks, can be hugely powerful. But that's how I would go about it, and that's how I've done it for the course and that's how I plan to do it again for consulting next month. The only wrinkle is that my offer, I plan to do a phone consultation instead of a sign up or fill out a form.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and, you know, when you say lead generation or or kind of, like, lead magnet, of course, what we're talking about here is some form of education. You know, you you wanna be giving away something educational. You're not trying to sell them on that very first ad. They if they've never seen you before, never heard of you before, it's about here's something that you can learn from that's tailored to your interest.
Speaker 1:So, you know, maybe it's, since since you're selling SEO, it it can be, you know, how to how to drive more traffic to your website without paying for ads and, you know, by boosting your organic search rankings and that that kind of thing. Right. And then, you know, in in terms of automating that, of course, you can have an auto that can lead to an automated email autoresponder. You can set that up with Drip or Mailchimp or any any of those, Aweber, whatever. It can even just be as simple as, like, one video.
Speaker 1:You know, video especially on Facebook, it's, like, a very visual medium. So going from a Facebook ad into a video of you giving some really solid tips, you know, like things that will actually make you think and so that the viewer will come away like, oh, I actually learned something. This guy this guy Alejandro actually knows what he's talking about. So I'll Right. I wanna I wanna enter my email here and and keep getting these free tips from him.
Speaker 1:You know?
Speaker 2:Yes. And what I've what I saw recently that I I thought was great and very efficient, I saw a Facebook ad. Right? And the ads themselves, it's it's all about imagery. It's all about testing out different pictures, images, graphics.
Speaker 2:It's all visual. I don't think people look at the copy nearly as much as they do in in in other ad mediums. So it's really about the image. I use Canva. That's my designer hack of choice to make good looking banners.
Speaker 2:And I think they have, like, a a standardized Facebook ad for News Feed. You just open that up and you can just create the background, create the button, create make it look good, and then test out different versions.
Speaker 1:I have noticed that Facebook ads tend to be, like, close ups of people of people and, like, people people's faces and smiling because that's what you're used to seeing in Facebook, your your friends and family. You know? So
Speaker 2:Right. And that's what you want. You want them to feel this affinity towards you and this connection. And that's why I think you're you're right that video can be hugely powerful. So what I saw this past week, I saw someone run a Facebook ad to a landing page that was just a a fifteen second video of themselves with an opt in.
Speaker 2:They're saying, in in this video, I wanna give you I'm talking about how to how to create online courses that, that sell and how to make sure that your idea is going to be a successful online course before you go through the trouble to make it. So just opt in here and check out the video. That's it. You enter your email address in. The next page is bang.
Speaker 2:A four minute video on, you know, going through the thought process of, you know, how to make your online course successful. And then in the email that sent to you as a confirmation, it's like, here's the link to the video. I hope you enjoy it. I'll be back soon with more with more info for you. So that's it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Boom. Quick four minute, you know, fifteen second video, four minute video, two quick landing pages using Leadpages and then they're on your email list, and you set up an email autoresponder after that, and boom. You have a new a new funnel.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and, you know, I like, then how do you actually connect this to making an actual sale? Right? So, of course, it's all about providing value and education upfront, getting them into an email autoresponder, continue to send more value. Maybe it's sending some recent articles over over a couple of days.
Speaker 1:You know, it that can lead into an an offer over email to get on a free consultation with you, but you then you can also run retargeting ads on Facebook. So you can track, like, okay. This person has already opted in or this person has already clicked on the ad once. That that that tags them as someone who who can now be retargeted with a different type of ad. And and maybe that's when you introduce an ad pointing to a free consultation, because they've already had one or two interactions with you by now.
Speaker 1:So that's that's how you can kinda connect, like, you know, on Facebook, friends and family, okay, ad from a stranger. I'm gonna get value, and then a week or two later, it's it's asking for some kind of like, a free consultation.
Speaker 2:Right. And that's that's the ideal. That's how you go from complete stranger, and this has happened to me a bunch as the subject over the past few months. You go from complete stranger, you click on an ad, you get value, and then all of a sudden you're being retargeted in Facebook and outside of Facebook, and you're getting emails. So if you if you give good value and you have that repetition, all of a sudden this world this person is now in your sphere and you are familiar to them, and you have a just a much higher likelihood of getting that conversion you want, whether it's a conversation or a free trial or, you know, a purchase of sorts.
Speaker 1:Yep. Cool. So let's, let's move on to the next one.
Speaker 2:Cool. So this one is from my man, Julio, out here in Portland. He's part of my my PDX MicroConf mastermind, even though I've never been to MicroConf. But I'm really, really seriously I've been saying this for two years. Going this time.
Speaker 2:You know, if as long as I don't have another child, like, two weeks two weeks away from from the date like I did last time. So Julio, who I've met up with a few times, smart guy, developer, here's what he's asking. Do you have any tips for validating an idea whose audience is primarily offline? Right? That's a big challenge.
Speaker 2:So I've tried calling, but it's a hard slog. Not only is it cold calling, but these people often don't pick up because they're they're busy working. It's the same reason they're not online to begin with. So what what do you do in that situation? How do you validate?
Speaker 2:How do you sell? How do you reach this market? Fortunately, we have the luck of having an absolute expert on our hands here in in in Brian Castle who deals with restaurant owners, in his business. So what what do you think? How do you right.
Speaker 2:He's asking specifically how do you validate the idea, but I think more generally is how do you reach these people? How do how do you get in touch?
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's it's it's tough. There's there's no getting around it. This is a hard thing to do. But it it can be done.
Speaker 1:It depends on the market. I don't know, you know, which market he's he's working in or or or what he's talking about. But, I mean, you'd be surprised with restaurant owners. Right? Like, I was I'm surprised I'm still surprised by that.
Speaker 1:Like, we don't do cold calling. You know? I I tried it a little bit. I tried some cold emailing as well. It that didn't work at all.
Speaker 1:And, you know, maybe I can try it again sometime. But really, everything that we do is inbound, and you'd be surprised, we actually do get leads, restaurant owners coming into our site, and we've built that up through content marketing. Now granted, this is probably a very small sliver of the the worldwide marketplace of or the worldwide population of restaurant owners. I'm sure 90 of them would never read a blog or never subscribe to an email. They're they're just not in like you said, they're offline.
Speaker 1:They're not online. But it's such a huge it's such a big enough market that if we can get 2% of them, you know, to come into our sphere and a percentage of those people to actually request a consultation from us, then we can make that phone call because they've asked they've asked for it. So we do make a number of phone calls every single day.
Speaker 2:But not cold.
Speaker 1:But they're not cold. These are leads who have filled out a request a consultation form Mhmm. From us. Now granted, it's taken us a couple of years to build up to the point where we're getting, you know, a regular flow of these leads coming in. And you can jump start that in the early days by doing paid ad campaigns, which we've done a little bit.
Speaker 1:We're doing more. But really, it's it's been mostly about organic content, bringing them in. That kind of gets us into their inbox on a weekly basis. And then when it comes time for them to need a website or or whatever it is that you're selling, you're the first name that comes to mind. They come back to your site.
Speaker 1:They fill out that that request of quote form or request a consultation, and then you call them up. Now the other issue that we run into a lot is, like, for restaurants, they are very busy, especially around lunchtime and dinnertime. Obviously, you know, like, sometimes we'll we'll call up a restaurant and they'll be like, this this is my lunch rush. I gotta get off the phone. But but a lot of times, they'll say, well, but call me back in, three hours.
Speaker 1:You know? Mhmm. So it's a we we do need to be mindful of of what time of day it is and because we're we're calling from different time zones as well. And there's myself, and I'm on the East Coast, and my teammate Ashley who's in California. You know, we're we're both making these phone calls.
Speaker 1:She she's doing them more than I am. But so so I've actually structured, like, her work schedule around the optimal times to call restaurants on the East And West Coast. So so, you know, that that's something else to to keep in mind.
Speaker 2:Right. I I think he's got a he's got a bit of a trickier. I mean, your answer was essentially, it's really hard to do it, and we have found a way around it by doing inbound. Right?
Speaker 1:Well, I I I think the answer well, at least for us is that inbound can still work even for a completely offline audience.
Speaker 2:Right. Because there's still enough people out there, and there's the whole what what is it? Customer Safari? What's what's her
Speaker 1:Yeah. Her thing? Yeah. The sales Safari.
Speaker 2:Sales Safari. Right. The message boards and, you know, going and figuring out where they are online. Because, look, I I have I have a friend who owns a restaurant. He's not online nearly as much as I am, but he's not like in the stone age.
Speaker 2:You know? He's still online. Yeah. He just it's just more limited. It it they're not as receptive as people who live online all the time.
Speaker 2:But I think go ahead.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, the other the other point of this is we get a lot of people who are not necessarily restaurant owners themselves, but maybe they're consultants to restaurants, maybe their brother or their or their mother or father owns a restaurant, but their techie son or daughter, will go online and happily find the right solution. So so we get a lot of that. So, like, referrals to from the more web savvy will come in inbound, and then they'll recommend us to to their parents or their or their brother-in-law or something like that.
Speaker 2:I think Julio's situation is a little trickier than he's trying to validate. Yeah. Right? So it does not make sense to spend time and energy on inbound and building up a web presence and content before it's validated. So it's it's a bit trickier.
Speaker 2:So what what I what I have done for appraisers who are not, you know, super web people is I found a resource in the Appraisal Institute, an online resource that basically has all their contact information. So I hired a VA to go and scrape the emails and then I cold emailed a bunch of appraisers all at once. And and that's what I would recommend to Julio as well. It's it's a little trickier if they're not very email focused, but making the cold calls completely cold, I think is just really low likelihood of success, especially for someone who's not, you know, a natural cold caller, which I know I'm not personally. I don't think Julio is either.
Speaker 2:If you don't have the stomach for that, it's really hard to be successful if you don't have that mindset. So I would I would still go email. I would just figure out a way to get their email addresses. Yeah. And So there are right?
Speaker 2:There are state resources. There are, you know, people in in these types of fields, they have to register their businesses. You can try to get emails that way. You can go to message boards. You can go online.
Speaker 2:You can go to magazines that they I always like that. I always like looking where people are advertising, whether it's a trade magazine or just a local magazine, and then calling up the companies who are advertising because they're just used to getting phone calls. They're ready for phone calls. Yeah. The whole point the whole point of spending money on ads is pick up the phone and call me, so they're much more receptive to it.
Speaker 2:But I think the the in that you need is you need some type of a hook on either I'm working on this thing. Would you be interested in talking to me about it? Or I have nothing to sell. I just wanna talk. Right?
Speaker 2:You you can either completely disarm, like, I don't have anything to sell. I'm just a developer and I'm doing research in your industry, and I'm talking to a bunch of other people in the industry and I'm trying to really identify, you know, the parts of your day and the parts of your business that are really annoying and difficult, and I'm building software for it. You know, do you have a few minutes to talk? Yeah. Like And and that's that's very disarming.
Speaker 2:A lot of people, when given the opportunity to talk about themselves, will take it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and, you know, one one other thing I would be careful of here is is this market is completely offline. And if they're if if the market is too small and that you cannot even run a a low budget ad campaign and get a few a few new leads in the door, like, looking back to Restaurant Engine in in in the very early days before it even launched, before I even started building anything, I did run a few $100 AdWords campaign to a to a very rough landing page just to get people on the phone and get a prelaunch list going. And if I couldn't even get any restaurant owners to click on those ads in the sidebar of Google, you know, I probably would have decided, like, this is not the right thing to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I I hear you. I I think I would go dirtier in the validation phase and instead of doing the PPC to landing page. And I think you're right that if you can't even get traffic, you can't get people to sign up there, then you might but you barking up the tree.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I mean, it's gonna be it's gonna be an uphill battle when it comes to actually marketing the product, you know. Right. And then, like, then you come to the conclusion that, like, look, these people are there. Of course, the market is there, but the only way to truly reach them is to build a an in person sales force.
Speaker 1:And if that's the business that you wanna get into, great. But if it's not, you know Yeah.
Speaker 2:That that's tricky. Yeah. I I would say that the landing page with PPC is the next step for Julio. And the first step is just just forming a relationship with, you know, five, six, seven, eight people in the industry that you can get on the phone with. So if that means you need to dig and look for emails and look for who's advertising on Google and who's advertising in print and just I would use email to try to open things up, and anybody who responded, I would try to get them on phone.
Speaker 2:And the whole point would just be to get into a normal conversation for thirty to sixty minutes with at least five, six, seven, eight people, and then work with them. Okay. So this is what you mean? So this is the part that's painful? Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna go to the drawing board and I'll come back and I'll show you what I've come up with that might solve your problem and then just go do some wireframes and then show those to the five, six, seven, eight people. Is this what you mean? Would this solve the problem? Would this make your life better? How much better?
Speaker 2:How much time would you save? How much more money would it make you? And then once you said yourself, okay. I actually am on to the right thing, and when I show people the wireframes of what it can do for them, they are excited, then I would take that and all the information you glean from the conversations and relationships and put that on the landing page and then start that that, like, prelaunch process.
Speaker 1:Right. I I think what you're describing there is kind of like the, like the idea extraction process starting with the pain point, starting with the the customer in mind without any kind of like, I don't know what I'm gonna build yet. You need to tell me what to build. And I think that's really, really smart. But what I can I'm not sure, but I from the question, I'm I'm I'm assuming that he has, like, some kind of gut idea for the type of product and and customer that he wants to build.
Speaker 1:And that was the same for me with with Restaurant Engine. Like, I had the idea, and it's not a completely new thing. Of course, I I knew that, of course, restaurants have websites and they need new websites, and there are other services that do this. So in that sense, I wasn't inventing something brand new. And if you are completely inventing a new type of solution to a to a new problem, maybe, you know, you you do need to do some validation work there.
Speaker 1:But what I did in those very early days was, again, I I ran, you know, some some PPC campaigns to a to a very rough landing page, just throwing some words on the page, like, here's how it works. And then I wanted to get on the phone with about 10 of them, which I did. And that was just to see if a, they would click on ads and I can get people incoming it to enter their email, and b, to see if they, like, even understood what it was that I was offering, you know, to see if they could, like, digest, like, the concept and and to get their feedback.
Speaker 2:Were used to people were used to buying a website.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and, like, I just wanted to hear from them in their words, like, how do you see this product? And then, of course, I asked a lot of questions, like, what's the most painful thing about your previous web developer and and all all this other stuff. But I wanted to make sure that they weren't completely clueless as to what I was conveying here in this in this page. And when I had some really meaningful conversations and learned, you know, exactly what what the nuances of their pain points were, I I I felt confident enough to go ahead and and then build it out.
Speaker 1:And and then and then, yeah, and then, you know, and then it goes from there.
Speaker 2:Interesting. Alright. Cool. Well, I I I like that one. That's tricky.
Speaker 2:You know, it's it's applicable not not to only the beginning phases. Yeah. But those those those tactics and reaching out, it's it's definitely stressful in in in the beginning phases to kinda give yourself some confidence that you're spending your time and energy on on the right thing. And that's very closely related to the next question
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Another Portland local, buddy of mine, John Hooley, who's a developer, and and he's asking, so I'm curious how other bootstrappers evaluate opportunities. Right? How do they assess risk and reward and decide how much time and money and energy to invest? And this is obviously relevant to to anyone who's bootstrapping because your resources are limited, your finances are limited, and your time is limited. So you you have these decisions to make on what opportunities to pursue and what to ignore or to let pass.
Speaker 2:Or if you say yes to everything, you're not gonna get anywhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So so whatever you're doing, if it's consulting or product, so how do you assess an opportunity that either presents itself or that you have an idea for? It's, you know, it's a mixture of your gut feeling and and some hard numbers and and looking at the market. You you have any thoughts on this specifically?
Speaker 1:You know, it is tough. I think for me, in the last couple of years, I struggled with taking on too many different projects and too many different startups at the same time in like, during the same year. And and I really suffered from that. And and the problem there was that, like, some of them actually did okay, but they were just okay. And if I didn't focus on just one of them, then they wouldn't go beyond just okay.
Speaker 1:And and and things kinda start to stagnate. So yeah. I mean, that's that's kind of, like, actually the biggest risk is taking on too many things at once. So I would just kind of focus on like one big thing per year, and I know that sounds like a long time, but that's really what it takes to launch one big one one business. And if you're really just starting out as a bootstrapper, maybe you're doing client work right now or you're in a nine to five, you know, you you shouldn't be thinking about building the next Mailchimp.
Speaker 1:You should be thinking about, maybe starting with a WordPress plugin, or starting by selling an e book, you know, something relatively small. And writing an ebook or or developing a a plug in that actually solves a problem, that's by no means tiny. That that takes some work. But it's it's getting your feet wet with something and getting people to pay for something that you've built or, you know, productizing a part of your freelance service and and seeing if people will pay for that. You know?
Speaker 1:And and then that's kind of like stepping stone number one. And and then that can, like, fund your your next product, which which might be building a SaaS or building a mobile app or something like that. So, yeah, I I think as a bootstrapper, self funding, it's about taking, you know, one small step into a slightly larger step into a slightly larger step. It's not trying to hit the grand slam home run right out of the park on day one.
Speaker 2:Yeah. For me, the the more I think about it, the more I hesitate on pretending like anything I say is is worth a damn of advice. It's just it's impossible to know. Everyone's situation is different. I I really go with with a combination of my gut and, you know, and some math.
Speaker 2:But even even that's misleading. You know, the gut is notoriously misleading, but math itself, I I flipped a few times in my career between this opportunity presents itself and how do I evaluate, right, whether I should do it or not. And I used to think to myself, is it doable within a reasonable amount of time so that I'm not going off track for six months? Can I can I test it? Can I figure out a way that within a few weeks, I can at least get a hunch of whether or not there's something here?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So right. So and and if it's just too big that it's gonna take a a few months before getting any sense of whether or not there's anything there, then I historically haven't done it. I I've said to myself, how do I test this? How do I before diving all the way in, how do I figure out a way to dip my toe in?
Speaker 2:Whether that's like going to Craigslist and offering it as a service. Don't laugh at that. That's a great strategy for validation. And and then I've also flipped between that and if this isn't a multimillion dollar opportunity, then don't then ignore it. Then don't look at it.
Speaker 2:Because, you know, you gotta know what inning you're in. I like that saying from, you know, my my brother's father-in-law, very very successful guy. He always talks about your the inning that you're in in your career. You know, if you're 22, you're, you know, you're in the first inning. You could swing away.
Speaker 2:Go for it. But if you're a little later on, you got two kids, you're in your mid thirties, you know, like like we are, you kinda have to be more careful when you're at bats. And so I used to look at them and say, if this isn't an idea that has the potential to make multiple millions, then why am I messing around with it? Because if my if my goal is is millions of dollars, then why go after that? Now sometimes that has worked out, and sometimes that's wrong.
Speaker 2:Because you don't know where ideas can go even though they they feel small in the beginning. So there's you know, what I'm saying is I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. When it comes to this, I don't think anybody does. It's impossible to look for advice. You just kinda have to go through these things, and then use your gut.
Speaker 1:You know But go ahead. Well, I, you know, I think this question the place to go for advice, read Dan Norris' new book, The Seven Day Startup. He's Really? Yeah. I mean, he I think it's free.
Speaker 1:You know, he's he's going around really promoting it right now, and it's really worth the read. Now I I haven't read all of it, but I've I've heard him go on different podcasts and kinda talk about each chapter individually. The the ideas really apply here. And and I think what he's saying here, and it's kind of the story of his business, WP Curve Right. Is when you're bootstrapping as a bootstrapper, you're in this unique you have these unique limitations that other people, other companies don't have.
Speaker 1:Like, you have to figure out if it's viable, and you have to do that quickly because like John is saying in his question, like, doesn't have the time to to risk a whole year on something if it's not gonna work out. So I mean, in Dan's in Dan Norris' story, like, he literally launched WP curve to paying customers in, I think, seven days. And I actually had Dan on an early episode of this podcast when he when he talked about that story in-depth. And, I mean, literally, what he did was he put up a landing page, live WordPress customer support, buy now. You know?
Speaker 1:And it was just Dan, and he had live chat on the website. And then at night, it's it's a twenty four seven service. At night, he had the the cell phone by his pillow. He took live chats, you know, just bootstrapping it. You know?
Speaker 1:And and so and doing that, he got 10 paying customers in seven days. And then from there, that was enough for him to develop it further, hire start hiring a team, and then scale it up. And now they're adding, you know, lots of customers every every month. I think they have a team of over 20 people. They've built it up.
Speaker 1:It's it's growing rapidly. So, you know, the the thing is, like, I think the the concept behind his book, seven day start up, is you have to go in with these limitations, like, something that I can validate with paying customers in as quick as, like, a week. And that means, you know, starting with something fairly small, but that that can eventually grow into into something bigger. I know that's a little bit vague. But
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let me right. Let me let me ask for some clarification on it. So the the what what's the gist of what he's talking about? Is it is it that you need to validate or ignore validation and just put something out there and offer it right away?
Speaker 1:I I my sense is it's it's the latter. It's like putting something out there and offering it and seeing if people will pay for it. You know, like, let's say you you you're studying the the email marketing niche, and and you're saying, like, look, there can there can there's an opportunity here to build a competitor to Mailchimp that will do automated email responders and, you know, it it it would work fantastic as a SaaS. I think there's a lot of money here. It can turn into a multimillion dollar business, but it will take a year to develop even just a prototype because it's so complicated.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's that that's crazy.
Speaker 1:You know, like yeah. That that's a huge opportunity. That that could be a fantastic, huge business. But if you're bootstrapping, you have to say to yourself, like, no. That doesn't meet my criteria of something that I can viably tackle this year.
Speaker 1:But Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, have to mitigate the risk.
Speaker 1:But if you start with a maybe productizing one of your services, doing doing the work manually, getting 10 customers to pay you a $100 a month for something, that's something that you can build on. And then you can hire a team. And then a year from now, two years from now, your your business is has grown, and now you're in inning three. And now you have money that you can invest into building that next Mailchimp or whatever it is that comes along then.
Speaker 2:Yes. So I I always see when when someone you know, when I hear the I've been working on this for three months, and I'm almost ready to launch. It is just a heartbreaking thing to to hear. So I think, I, you know, I think what we're what we're circling around is is speed as a necessity. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You can't you can't mess around for months on something before it brings in money as a bootstrapper because you're get yourself into a bad bad situation. Yep. So you do you do need the ability to figure out whether or not this thing is viable, whether you wanna call that validation or putting up a landing page that says buy now and then telling the people that buy it's just about ready. I'll get it to you as soon as I can. Or, right, or emailing your current customers or reaching out to people cold or whatever it is when you have an idea.
Speaker 2:I guess you need you need speed in order to figure out whether this thing is viable.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Cool. So we have one more question here, and and this came this is actually two different people, and they both replied to my email newsletter this week. And they're both kind of asking about outsourcing consulting projects. So the first so I'll I'll read both quotes because they both kinda relate to the same question.
Speaker 1:So the first one, he says, you know, I've I've had two time I I've tried two times to hire or or outsource some of the work of a consulting project. But since I have very low prices compared with my competition, it doesn't allow me to hire very good developers. So how could I start to increase project prices without losing clients? And that's a that's a that's a tough question for sure. But let me read the next the next quote here.
Speaker 1:And that is, you know, one of the challenges that I'm facing is around pricing projects that I'm mainly outsourcing. In the past, I've added a small percentage on top of the development costs for my own, quote, fee, but I'm not convinced this is the best or fairest option as I tend to spend a fair bit of time communicating and orchestrating the projects. So I'm not exactly sure if I understand his his challenge there correctly, but but I I think I do. And so what the second person is kind of saying is, like, he okay. He's got these costs for the the developers that he's outsourcing to.
Speaker 1:And let's say, you know, the the devs that he'll hire on a project will cost him a thousand dollars. Then based on that, he'll go and and price the project at with some small percentage on top of that, like, 100 or $1,500. Now I think the problem there is, you know, you're basing your your quote to the client too heavily on on the cost of outsourcing. And maybe maybe he's implying here, like like, he's saying to his client, like, well, I'm going to source these developers and outsource your project. No.
Speaker 1:I mean, the way that I've always done it, not to be completely hiding the fact that you're that you're outsourcing or that you have a team working with you. I think that's perfectly fine. But the the point is when you're work when you're in those conversations, you and your client, it's you're hiring me or you're hiring my company, and we will deliver this solution to you, and you don't need to know about how I get that done in our back office, You know? We have a team. We have our processes.
Speaker 1:We have our own internal costs. But my conversation with you, the client, is about what is this project and how valuable is it to you? And I'm gonna price that project based on the value. So, you know, I I wouldn't let the client in on on all the all the all the math that goes into, you know, well, I'm doing the the communication and the development cost this and then the design cost this. No.
Speaker 1:I mean, the whole project as a whole cost $15,000. You know? And that's all they need to know. And and if that if that client will receive an additional $100,000 this year in sales because of the fantastic website that you're delivering to them, then that's a no brainer value proposition right there. So you have to take it from from that point of view.
Speaker 1:And I think that speaks to the first question as well. So, like, how do you begin to increase your prices? He says in the in the beginning that he currently charges very low prices compared to to the competition, and that sounds like you're competing based on price. And in the consulting game, especially web development, that is a you're you're not gonna win when you
Speaker 2:You can't.
Speaker 1:When you compete on price because you're you're competing with oDesk. You're competing with guys who will who will work for $2 an hour. You know, it's You're not you cannot value. The the value cannot be I charge less than the guy next door. It frankly, frankly, when when when I was doing freelance web design, I won a lot of projects because I came in as the highest priced bid.
Speaker 1:And and you have to kinda have the track record and and the confidence to go in there saying, look. I know exactly what you need. I understand your business goals. You have to consult with them on those business goals and understand, like, where they're coming from, what are the most important point number one, point number two, and how are you gonna drive that home and present a proposal that that that says, look. This this is what this project is worth.
Speaker 1:We've done this for for clients again and again. Take you know? Gone gone these results.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is this is obviously a really, really tricky piece of freelancing and consulting, and and there's a huge, huge number of people that that deal with it. So let's start off with the caveat that this is easier said than done.
Speaker 2:Yes. Right? When when you're in a situation and you're getting some work and you're and you need the money and you're worried that if you bid $2,000 instead of 1,200, that you're gonna lose the project and you really need the $1,200, that that's real life and that's that's more difficult. But that doesn't mean that you should be satisfied with being in that situation. And so everything we're gonna talk about now, we're a bit dismissive of the fact that it's it's difficult, and it's easier said than done.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know, I I I think that you have to of course, in in your first year of of freelancing or consulting, your rates will be lower than what they are in your second or third year of of consulting. Like, you should be raising your rates. Of course, at a certain point, you'll reach a ceiling, but I think by that time by by the point you reach a ceiling, you're you're well beyond that dollar amount where you can afford to outsource, you know, part or or all of the project.
Speaker 2:Right. I I think the biggest thing that that we're talking about is the difference between, selling a solution to a business problem and selling technical ability or a technology or or or your hours. I think that's the that's the biggest thing. This is this is something I came across in a very interesting way when when going through Sam Ovens consulting course. Okay.
Speaker 2:So Sam is a is a smart, cunning, wily businessman. He's a character. He is a character. So one of the one of the real pieces of, you know, really, really great insights that that he brings to this is that he completely ignores the this situation entirely. He completely ignores this reality or ours or anything because he he does not assume what the other person knows and needs.
Speaker 2:He just you know, so a lot of the students in in the course, they they kinda had difficulty reconciling. How do I charge $10,000 for a WordPress site that I'm having someone on oDesk build for $350? You know? And, you know, it's like such a big disconnect that it almost feels like unfair or wrong or immoral in some way. And that's that's kind of Sam's genius in in finding prospects that need the business solution more than anything.
Speaker 2:Right? Right now, I'm looking for a JavaScript developer to, you know, develop a Shopify plug in. Like, I'm not gonna give anyone that much money because it's a very defined thing that I know I can find someone to to do for me. But when someone has a business problem or needs more customers or something, the the value that it provides them is the most important thing. So if you take this company and their website that's in the stone ages, that doesn't produce leads, that has terrible copywriting, that doesn't do what it needs to do, and bring that into the future, into the modern approach to web marketing and lead generation and nurturing and all content marketing.
Speaker 2:Even if it costs you $500 for some dude on Odesk to build it for you, it's still worth a lot more than $10,000 to this business. Yeah. So, you know, when you hear people struggle with these things that it's almost like they they have to break free of this situation and these types of clients and these types of projects to get into a situation where they're selling something where the price is high, but it's still very low compared to the actual value.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And that that's a that's a great point, especially in the WordPress world. I mean, yes, I mean, these solutions are are cheap. You can get a WordPress theme. You can get you can get a couple of plug ins for a couple $100, or you can hire a developer.
Speaker 1:You can outsource to a developer. It costs a couple $100. And then if you if you have those clients paying $5.10, $1,520,000 dollars for a site, it it can be difficult to wrap your head around that, you know, that this guy is saying, like, is it is the fairest option to to raise prices? You know?
Speaker 2:And Right. The fairest option is to make as much freaking money as you possibly can so that you can hire even better quality people and continue to solve bigger problems Yeah. And then make even more money. That's the fairest thing to you and to
Speaker 1:your Yeah. And and, you know, the other thing to keep in mind here is that it's not just the cost. It's not just those hard costs of hiring the developers or paying for that plug in. That's not what what you base your price on. You you are still providing other types of value to your client, like just the fact that you're reliable.
Speaker 1:They're hiring you to deliver this high quality site, to do the quality assurance testing, to communicate clearly, to understand their needs. I mean, all of that stuff, the project management, the consultation, that's really what they're paying for. They're also paying for your your track record of doing this for years. You know how how to, build a team. I mean, if they were to go hire those same developers, they wouldn't even know where to begin to even look for those developers or those resources or those plug ins.
Speaker 1:So they're hiring your expertise and your background in this. Like, it's what you do. You know? So it's, there's there's a lot more value that goes into develop delivering a $10,000 WordPress site than just the cost of of the hard pieces of that site.
Speaker 2:Right. And I think an additional part of this conundrum that that I always like to to talk about is to if you if you're trying to sell into a very sophisticated Silicon Valley startup, you're gonna have a much harder time making a lot of margin because the you know, these people are as sophisticated as you are. And they know as much as you are, and they just need to get something done. So what I like to do in the the situations I look for as much as possible is as big of a gap in knowledge and sophistication as possible. So right.
Speaker 2:The people that I've done some consulting work for, they look at what I'm doing and what I'm talking about as magic. They don't even know the first thing how in the world this gets done. It's completely, completely beside the point that it's a WordPress plugin that does it automatically or that it's Leadpages that connects to Aweber automatically or it that's not relevant. What's relevant is what are you providing in terms of a solution how much time is it gonna save them and how much money is it gonna make them. And if if that gap is really big between their expertise and yours in this world, that's a good opportunity to make more money because you're you're really adding a ton of value from where from where they are currently.
Speaker 2:So, right, for me to build a sales funnel for an insurance agent, I don't know anything about insurance. He doesn't know anything about sales funnels. But if I get him clients and each client is worth an average of $8,000, then I can charge him $15,000 for a sales funnel, and he is gonna be ecstatic with the results.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I And that that's how you go beyond how many hours you spend on it into how much value you're providing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I mean, I think that's a good point, especially when it comes to building, like, marketing funnels and whatnot, and and websites. I I think these guys are probably in the web design development business. I I would I would push back on that a little bit. Like, there are more more savvy clients who like, I've had clients come to me in the past saying, you know, we'd we'd like you to use a WordPress theme.
Speaker 1:Or sometimes I've had a client say, like, we found this theme on ThemeForest, and Right. And we want you to be the web designer to set it up and and implement it and make just a couple of design tweaks, and they paid $8,000 for that contract. You know? And so, like, they understand that,
Speaker 2:like mind blowing.
Speaker 1:But, like, they understand that they're hiring me not not to just push a couple of buttons, but just to be the reliable person who's taking care of it. You know, like
Speaker 2:And adds the expertise in.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And and and, you know, to and, like, communicates it and and offers recommendations and and things like that. So and and these, like, tech startups
Speaker 2:That's amazing.
Speaker 1:Know that, like, they they know that they can go and get a Squarespace site done for $8 a month, but they but they they just want somebody to be on top of it. That's they they have the budget to spend, you know so in in other words, what I'm saying to to web developers out there, just raise your rates. People will pay it.
Speaker 2:Right. And and price based on value. Yes. And go after go after the people who it's most valuable to.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 1:So I think that that wraps it up. This was another long one. I guess they I guess they're all long these days. So
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know. It's good. Cool. Nothing wrong with it. And, yeah, I think this is, this is cool.
Speaker 2:This is fun to to go after. You know, in all of these things we all deal with, we all think about. You know, it's so it's good to just talk about and I think it's good for people to hear our perspective on whether or not they I mean, no one's gonna agree with everything we say. And the two of us don't agree, you know, among ourselves. Sometimes I don't agree with myself, often in the same sense.
Speaker 2:So I think it's just good to kinda hash this out and then and then get to work testing and implementing and yeah.
Speaker 1:Totally, man. Let's let's wrap this up. To as always, you can dig into backlog to to the backlog of episodes, and I cannot speak anymore. The backlog of episodes are available at bootstrappedweb.com. We've got a newsletter there as well.
Speaker 1:You can get new episodes sent to your inbox, which we actually have to start hooking that up.
Speaker 2:Yes. And and we've got, we've got videos. Right? We're recording these podcasts over video now. Yep.
Speaker 2:So you can check out the video at bootstrapweb.com for each of the episodes. And if you enjoy the podcast, we really appreciate a review on iTunes. It really helps us out in the rankings. Brian and I, you know, I I think a year from today, we're we're gonna drop everything and just be full time podcasters.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Any day now.
Speaker 2:And we any day. And we need your help, so give us a review. Yep. Alright. Cool.
Speaker 2:Get back to hustling.
Speaker 1:Yep. Alright, man. Have a good one.
![[43] How to Raise Prices, Outsourcing, and Other Listener Questions](https://img.transistorcdn.com/LDB_Cv9bHAA2vtoSPkZCpkdHPF6fAqfl7PL-PG7_c-M/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:800/h:800/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9jMjkw/MDYxZDQ0MWIxYTUw/NTMzMGI2NTExZWMx/MWQ1Yi5qcGc.webp)