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Sit Down with Chase Jarvis

Lesson 40 from: How to Make Money

Ramit Sethi

Sit Down with Chase Jarvis

Lesson 40 from: How to Make Money

Ramit Sethi

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Lesson Info

40. Sit Down with Chase Jarvis

Lesson Info

Sit Down with Chase Jarvis

We are going to uh we're gonna do something fun so my friend chase jarvis is here he is one of the co founders of creative life he is the guy behind chase jarvis life he does interviews with tons of amazing people uh he's world famous photographer I think he introduces himself like that I'm chase jarvis world famous photographer on uh way always have a good time hanging out to chase's here chase welcome wait crazy going on let's do it let's do it that was just in the hot seat down you're in the hot seat it was a lot easier over there, right? I no see um well okay, so thank you for having me on your show on letting me a few questions can you please look in the camera and say I'm chaste jarvis world famous photographer that's so embarrassing no, I won't do it but I will say I'm here with uh my good friend roommate who won in the studio audience and all the folks at home know super super well I have been friends of them for a long time we've been on my show chase jarvis live is one of the...

most successful classes on creative I've money in business for creatives I have also gone on record saying that this man gave me more advice and help me make more money as a creative than any other business advice had ever received so and this little like forty five minute segment here I'm hoping to sort of replace some of those moments that I experienced and hope that you can generalize how the folks at home in the folks in the studio audience can just pick up these nuggets cause there's super tangible stuff like you can take this and make more money tomorrow I know if you saw there's a syriza tweets a couple days ago like I saw chasing her meat show and I hadn't closed the lead on yelp in two months and I closed to today the day after I watched this show I mean that's not like the measure of life changing success but it's just like it's just super tangible intact chewable so our actionable um before we do that I hear there's a little video that these folk in the booth who are also hugely meet fans by the way and no I didn't know that homer meets in the household but they're cute up a video that is reflective of the class that you can buy this class today but also your class money and business for creators is on sale today I think so I it's one of the top sign classes on creative life it taught me more than I've known about making money as a creative before so I think this might be a cute at that so let's take it away guys in the booth I'm rem eat satay author of the new york times bestseller I will teach you to be rich, I teach people how to take control their money, had earned extra income on the side and had a land, their dream jobs. I've helped over a million students to this, and I want to help you do it too way want to do the right thing. You want to be adding the maximum value, or do we want to be struggling like quicksand stuff I'm talking about today it's disguised as money, but it's really all about behavioral. Thanks to this course, I've got a notebook full of useful tips and ideas how to successfully grow my business, how to, uh, add value to my clients. I didn't understand that concept loving what you do and just following your passion is not enough. When people believe that you are truly their advisor, that you have their best interests at heart, you take the relationship to a whole another level. This course has made me feel so energized, so it's been like like ball boom. We're going to learn the ins and outs of resumes, interviews, natural networking negotiations, it's gonna completely revolutionize how I how I applied jobs, how I just keeping network in general by the end of today, you should be able to increase your rates by thirty percent. It's taken me from that plateau place and giving me the energy to really strive to get above and beyond when we are able to truly understand what people say, what their hopes fears and dreams are, and we can use it to help them and invariably way reaped the rewards of later. All right, man, I'm gonna apply for that thing. Um, that class is super super influential because that they're you're selling confidence like that's. One of the things when you roll into a meeting or when you're having to sell yourself like I'm chase drivers, some famous photographer yes, cut that cliff. Guys, I'm gonna use that forever against me. Um, no, but just like teaching people to walk in and say that in command what it is that they're worth super super super valuable. So I think if you bought this class it's actually gonna be in your in your check out anyway, I want to cut right to some of that the material that is a nice segue way between the previous, um section of this course and the one that we're going right now, which is creatives are notoriously terrible about representing their own and like their own interests, yeah is a genetic people who could draw well, suck it, negotiating man, they're the worst way were the worst. I'm like he's saying you're actually imagine you, you know, you really when did you realize you were artistic and that you loved it? Well, I knew it my whole life, I was actually sort of had a fear of being an artist because I was before that I was going to be a soccer player, professional soccer player, and then I dropped out of medical school and then I quit good quitter think I could've phd program in the philosophy of art teo ultimately pursue my dreams, but I was pursuing those things because that's, what everybody else wanted to do, so I had some I'm generally a confident person, but just there's a lot of societal pressure around, like, hey, I'm an artist and this is what I do for a living. I'm a photographer like takes kony's to put it out there, and so when I realised I'd got through that social pressure and I just started calling myself a photographer, my whole world changed as opposed to, I've got the camera on like, I'm a photographer like that, like putting it out there in the world was a huge change and the first I remember the first sale I licensed a picture for five hundred dollars is a pair of skis um, maybe I gotta look out for my own back, right? Uh, but it was I was nervous as hell to ask for that because I thought like, oh, I hope this hope this feature is good enough for this person and I I had it all wrong, and I'm sure you're going to remind me why I well, I mean, imagine you you grow up from a young age and you're like, I love this, but everything society tells you is you can't do this there's no money in our find a real job, uh, that's cute and then as you get a little bit more advanced good art school or wherever you go, you got to create a good creative live yeah, that's, right? The people around you who are your artistic peers have been, uh, dunked in this idea of this is just your passion. This is your craft, but you're going to get a real job, so not only are you hearing it from your parents, you're hearing it from the newspapers, you're hearing it from the people around you classmates, your friends how are you supposed to be the one who says no, I'm gonna be the best and I'm going to make more than enough money to be comfortable and to love what I do I'm gonna be the best it's it's almost impossible to do that for sure. So when you're in business it's a little different so business people it's not that they're born naturally more confident it's that the ecosystem is different and so I'm not saying jump from being an artist to a business person you can be both there was a question earlier about I'm really bad at writing copy I'm bad at writing content yeah, you're bad now, but that just means you're an experienced the same as for creative people you haven't learned the craft of representing yourself and being confident you learned the craft of photography or or whatever you haven't learned the craft of marketing and selling yourself and your products so those are things that can be learned yeah, right and I'm living proof I think you have to have a certain amount of talent as a photographer that's just be straight up you need to be in the same way a pro golfer can hit the ball down the middle of the fairway every time they stop up whether it's raining or not raining or ten people watching her ten million people are watching like you have to be good a graft but this whole other world of selling I often nowadays now that I've had a long, great careers that oh, you're so good at marketing and so good at selling yourself like I used to suck like let's be totally honest five hundred dollars and a pair of skis I mean that I would negotiate a pair of skis in there and just makes me it's it's like the albatross has been flying around on my shoulder for a long time why? Why would I just do a thousand dollars anyway? Like but entirely learned literally entirely learned and a lot of the stuff that I didn't have a name for or wasn't like I didn't there's no experience and I was struggling to find out are things that are in your money in business for creatives and you've named them you've, um you've given them basically life you giving people a path to learn them so let's talk about some of those let me give you an example right now, right? So you said I'm a photographer and you stopped there's something really subtle about what you did when we first start doing something new when we're uncomfortable, for example, think of like if you're a guy when I was in college, I dressed like every college student, you know, not that well and that well, actually I look at my old photos and they're like atrocious I just found my old college cache of photos and I'm like, oh my god so but when you graduate like I wanted to learn how to dress better so I asked one of my friends like, can you take me shopping and she's like all right, so she takes me shopping she taught me how to be more confident about what I wear but what happened the first time I put something on that was a little different than like a hoody I went out with my friends and then what's the first thing they see they start calling me oh you're trying to impress why you wearing that blah blah and you're already insecure I was insecure so now I'm sitting here like, oh my god like these you know, they think I'm a weirdo and that is a pivotal moment where you can decide to go back to the way you were or you can say this is my first time off course I'm uncomfortable wearing a pocket square or something, but I'm gonna stick with it and after two or three times I was like screw you guys, I love this and then you get more confident what you say there's no con sequences is no counts except your own confidence and so you said I'm a photographer notice how when you first start something you'll say like people say, oh, what you doing on this side now or what's your job? Oh, I'm a writer, but I'm also trying to do blah, blah, blah, blah baba or I'm a writer and I'm working on level one just on weak, weak, weak, weak, weak, weak like you're a loser totally I was having a dinner party and everyone went around saying what they did the most powerful people at the table were ultra crisp. Yeah, I'm a photographer, the people who had the least going on had the longest introduction I'm doing this and I also have this project on the side I've been doing this, and for the last two years I've been doing that it's it's we call a high competence trigger to be able to confidently say I'm an author, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm starting a business to help busy moms lose weight, silence it's incredibly powerful I would challenge everyone tow walk away today and just do that once, especially for something new. I'm an entrepreneur helping ambitious mothers lose weight, so I have to do that do it right now it's incredibly difficult to do, write sure and it's but it's very powerful and it's powerful more than just like uttering the words and the people on the dinner table hearing it or your client hearing it it there's some stuff that goes on in here. Don't you guys know anyone to stanford in psychology? So you're all getting analysed like nobody's business right now, but that's like there's a there's, something there's, a shift and you can start to say it the first time you say that feels little bit were you say would use them not quite so sure. And every time you say it there after and I encourage people that again, this is separate from the craft we're talking about you, you got your good at your craft or good enough, you always need to continue to work on there, but this whole world is hugely different from being good at your craft and it's being good at the craft of business or the craft of selling yourself, which is let's face it. Art is either right. Miro can draw a red line on a white canvas and himself millions and millions and millions of dollars and it's totally not the right approach. Say, oh, it's, just a red line on a canvas like, yeah, it just took him his whole life to figure out that that's valuable. And the reality is, is there's someone who is very happy to pay many millions of dollars to get that painting, so what's it worth it's worth what someone will pay for it that's a whole different world and that's the world that we're talking in here when I'm talking about here when I say I'm a photographer and when you put you actually go to the work of, like, getting a girl, putting up my work and putting up a portfolio and, you know, in the art case ah, a business card or leave behind like this shows your work and if you hand something it's like, yeah, you know, I really don't like this like this, like, boom misses the my my favorite picture of all time. My favorite picture, I have a new favorite picture every week. This is my favorite picture from last week. Like the confidence just specifically with putting out your name and saying what you are, putting it on a business card, printing it and shouting it from the mountaintops does incredible things to your psyche, and this goes for a photographer, designer, cellist like anything it's it's, if you can make a living, um, if you can spend time in the same way you spend time on your craft, spend timeto think about how you're selling yourself it is true is the number one changer of, uh, of money making more money is actually being good at that I thinkit's it ultimately contributes to living a rich life because it's one thing to love your craft it's another thing to be great at your craft but that's incomplete it's a third thing to turn it into a living and a living doesn't just mean again that you're sitting on your cash and swimming in it it means that you can invest in yourself you can buy better equipment you can reach more people you can hire an assistant to help you you khun impacts more of the world if you knew you were the best at what you do isn't it your obligation to tell the rest of the world so that's why we don't just want to settle for being great at our craft that's good but that's incomplete you want to take it to the world there's a hole I think this is I hope this is a really this is a key takeaway I'll just call it what it is this is a key takeaway that you it does not matter how good you are you could be the best in the world if you cannot sell yourself or your work you will not be successful in the term success like have a house in apartment a car, whatever you need to materially survive like north of squalor you just won't I'm telling you you will not and because no one's going to do it for you very, very rare cases have someone come along and an agent or waivers and discovery that is a crock of shit that just does not happen. You have to be able to first walk in the door with confidence, show people your work and say, like, I'm good, and this is how I can help you, though you know how long it took me to do this? It took me the first time I launched my four dollars, ninety five cents a book. I was utterly petrified, and again, you can see it in the sales copy. You can see me defending myself against charges of being a sellout and all this stuff prematurely. And in fact, some people did call me a cell if they were like two sides jumped the shark, I will teach me to be rich like all this b s and and I think to myself, those people I've been writing my sight for free for three years, I had not made a cent. It was very hurtful because I had the best of intentions, but I didn't have the skills to properly sell myself. I put it out there, people could sense the weakness and the cowardice in my copy and therefore the attacked, because if someone says, buy my stuff and it's the first time you've ever charged the natural thing for people to do is to push back it's a term called react it's if you take away someone's freedoms in this case free stuff they naturally push back it's the equivalent of saying mom don't tell me what to do so they got mad it took me three years to truly understand the psychology of selling three years and I'm not talking about like all like I went to lunch for you know, a couple times a week three years of day in and day out ten plus hours a day of like studying other people who had done it and finally being able to do this in one of my recent courses over a million people saw this course launch it was extremely high end course there were tons of qualifiers you are not allowed to join if this this this justice I was unapologetic about the price I was like this this is I mean it was many multiples more expensive than anything else out on the market and I said yeah because it's the best and I didn't just say that capriciously or to be arrogant I knew it was the best because I'd done all my testing out of a mill over a million people that saw it there were fewer than five complaints about price compare that to when I launched a four dollars and ninety five cent e book and I had like saying many all the haters how dare u but now what I learned the skills of selling and so not only did I feel good, they felt good this this idea that of artists needing to be introverted you could be introverted and still be a successful seller that's introvert expert doesn't matter I am, uh extremely extroverted, but it still it was it was ah head case for me to be able to be a seller and the same is true for introverts like it's going to be extra hard for you, but if there's literally there's a handful of things and so I want to kind of move into some of those things we talked a little bit about it um and you talked a lot about it, frankly, in money in business for creators and if you're just now joining me, I'm chase jarvis, I'm the co founder and ceo of creative live and I'm here with my good man ra meat and we're learning well, we've learned a lot because you've been on there for the last couple hours, but we've right in this segment right here we're learning about how to make money on better business for creatives how can you take your craft and turn it into a job a life that creates a rich life if you will um so give me some techniques, actually. Know what? Before you give me something I want to refer because you had vanessa van edwards is yes. Uh, I have had the good fortune of hanging with vanessa itself by southwest last year and from the back of a new but we're broadcasting live. Teo one hundred countries. Um, in what we called uber live partnership within us an uber and vanessa was she's like, here is the number one problem that creatives do when they say, okay, great. How much is it gonna cost for you to shoot my wedding? Say, it's five hundred dollars it's? Like, if you're if you literally haven't I mean it's laughable, but I see it all the time. I hear it. I mean, like and it not just with what the price is it's like? Yeah, I think I could do that. It's. Like, how unconfident is that sound, it's like the on opposite day that's confident. So this is it's. You know, it's it's uh, two thousand dollars for me to shoot your wedding. And if you want me to shoot an engagement session, that no, you know it's an extra seven. Fifty for that. The difference between those two things totally learn herbal skill right there totally learn herbal skill you can look at it and look yourself in the mirror, do it a hundred times and get it right and then that will literally quadruple the amount of money you make or you can charge and so I just got that tip from vanessa I'm I've gone past that but that was something that went all over the internet they were very, very happy but that's just one thing you've got like five others for me so let's talk about the pathology of pricing um I don't even know what that mean their I mean the worst mental barriers anyone can have comes up when it comes to pricing you could have the best product the best photos in the world you could have the best website you could have even become really good at writing copy but it all comes down to the moment where there's a value exchange how much is this? And if you don't master that moment none of the rest matters because I could go out in my head oh this is gonna be a five hundred dollars course and someone says how much is this? I see it's five hundred or like it's five hundred but I can give it to you for one hundred today like do you know how many people they go it's a thousand dollars course, but for the next two days it's one hundred dollars a special if you had the world's best material on anything, why would you discounted ninety percent ever? It's just telling the world I'm full of shit I don't value my own I p exactly of my own skills I value my own art when you you have that sort of intonation and again vanessa would have the right sort of psychological word for it. But if you're not exerting confidence, it's just a reason for people to negotiate with you. One of the reasons that so many people are nervous about charging premium pricing is that they've never actually been in a situation where they paid a premium price, so I have people they say ramin this's outrageous or the best word is dot is ridiculous that's why there's two words that always tell you have a serious problem customer, I'll tell you the two words right now that's ridiculous that's where number one can anyone guess the second word it's disappointed I'm disappointed in you I'm disappointed they would charge him exactly my mom who would never be disappointed in me but oh interesting you don't have indian parents so I do, which is wait disappointed and ridiculous are low competence triggers these are the sign of someone who's not serious about investing in themselves so the problem so what we learned from vanessa's you don't need to deal with that that's not the nose not the people in your tribe or your audience when it comes to pricing. Many people have never experienced premium pricing so if you've never gone to a restaurant that costs like let's say fifty bucks or a hundred bucks if you've never bought something that's a little more expensive we had somebody here who bought an expensive mattress or if you've never paid for anything that's higher than what you could get for a commodity prices why would you expect other people to pay you if you've never gone through the experience of putting price aside and focusing on value then why would anyone do that to you if I go into a mercedes dealership let's just pretend I have a mercedes I don't have a mercedes because you only know there's only two cars I can get you a honda accord toyota camry that's all the indian people get but let's pretend I had a mercedes if I went into a mercedes dealership to get my car serviced what am I going to get while I'm waiting who could tell me I'm going to get coffee super nice coffee they're gonna clean my car for me sure they're going to do everything right they're going to take care of their going to take care of kids whatever if I go into a subaru dealership nothing against subaru's but that's a very different market. They probably are not going to clean my car. The waiting area's gonna have no metal chairs or some kind of low budget chairs. It's a very different experience. If you have never experienced something at the high level, how would you know that the mercedes buyer is their car, which cost four times with a subaru costs the motor isn't four times better, okay, but the value the experience is well worth it for those people. So if you haven't ever experienced true value exchange true premium service, I'm not telling you to go buy a mercedes, but go see what it's like and realize that the people in that mercedes dealership or in that nice restaurant, they're not stupid, they're smart enough to it to be able to afford that. What are they getting out of this there's? An awesome segment on this in your, uh, money in business for creatives on chasers like actually, I think they gave us especially earl for your earlier class it's creative live dot com slash re meet also whether you could get that class right now, but that the I think it was their aura che service lie were you when you are? So you talked about the briefcase technique and you talked about a whole bunch of things try this is as concrete as I can be for those folks at home and folks in city audience try tripling your prices instead of like, oh, I want to make ten percent more like literally try and sell the same exact thing you're saying you're selling right now tomorrow when someone calls for your wedding thing whatever try and triple it well let's do a role play right now ok let's do a bad tripling of the price let's do a good tripling the price I'll buy performed so why don't why don't maybe the oscar you want to ask you you're ok great and then let's say we're ah wedding photographer and the the until now I've been charging a thousand dollars for the package so you call me up and go ahead I'll be the bad version first, okay hey there how's it going? I got a great referral from sally she's my cousin she said that you just in a knockout job on her on her her wedding and I was wondering if you could you know if you're available in october I got I'm getting married, I'm super excited and I really want a great photographer because only this only happens once, so are you available? And yeah, I'm looking at my calendar that looks like it would work great well I mean I don't know how much you charge this is a big deal for us were we don't have to worry about that I'm sure we can work something out okay that's good to know because I'm you know we're really on a budget and my we can work with you on that okay my hope is that you know we can be in the five hundred dollars thousand dollars range because that's basically what I budgeted and uh just we heard you were just awesome well thank you uh yeah I mean normally we don't do something like that I mean our normal rates or three thousand but I know you came referred so um how does how does thirteen hundred sound well that doesn't sound like five hundred or a thousand uh which is what I like my budget my absolute maximum is is seven fifty and uh actually I might be able to go up two thousand cause my husband like he saw the pictures and he just knowing doesn't care about photography but he's like these are awesome we need to get this dude so like I said we're usually three thousand but you know I do want to have a relationship and I know that I'm sure this is great exposure and you'll probably refer your friends well that's if we can cut a deal like I will tell five of my friends oh definite okay then we have a deal okay so look what happened I want to do that was so good I mean both of us like all the rage that we felt about pricing is like coming out in that so like no notice what happened first of all he's doing a concept called verbal tipping and this is from a great book called waiter rant and he talked about he's an undercover waiter he anonymous waiter for years and years and he talked about how the worst customers would come and they would say waiter you did an amazing job the food was outstanding the service was impeccable and they go on and on and on and he knew that they were going to be the worst tippers why they were verbal tipping verbal doesn't pay the bills he wanted to be tipped the best customers they're polite of course there curtis but they understand that there's a value exchange when I tell you when I was young we walked into a gym last week when I was a kid with my parents and I don't know why we were ok so we walked into a gym my parents they got some gym membership and walking and and there's these glass walls where the trainers are behind you know they're in their offices or whatever and I was like were those people and they go I don't worry about them they're just here to take your money so there's this concept of if someone charges a premium price there's somehow taking your money that's a very immigrant mentality now my parents don't think that way anymore I certainly don't think that way but a lot of us have these beliefs in our head that if someone's charging a premium price there somehow getting one over on us they must be ripping us off if they're just tripling their price for no good reason maybe they are but you probably can guess that someone who's charging a higher price in general is probably something else going on there like for me you could go by like a nineteen dollars e book somewhere you buy one of my courses you're getting a phone call from a train rep we custom build our own software we spend years developing and testing it there's a reason we charge more it's put it put it this way would you rather pay fifty dollars for something that's probably not going to work or would you rather pay five hundred for something you know is gonna work at that point? Price is a mere triviality. So what do we do? The good one? All right. All right. Uh hey, uh uh I got a recommendation from my cousin sally she said you were just awesome I mean, and her husband normally is not a photography guy always business guy, but he loved these pictures and I'm wondering about a wedding coming up I know it's little bit short notice it's in october but dying teo to see if we could hire you and I don't know anything about how much you charge it and ask my cousin but well uh first of all thanks I really appreciate the call we know sally so well she's a great friend of ours and she's worked with us on a number of proposals what's the exact date of the wedding it's the twenty first of october oh that's pretty soon let me take a look at the calendar you know what? We are booked that day but as I mentioned sally is such a good friend of ours that we can find a way to make it work and I would be more than pleased to shoot the wedding personally if we can find a way that makes sense for both of us. Okay uh well I have no like I don't want to get like too far down the path without talking about price because you know, I I don't have a ton of money to spend its not my again just limited budget I'm sure you understand and so maybe could tell me a little bit about your pricing absolutely happy to share pricing before we get to pricing let me just understand what it is you need so you're looking first of all what would an amazing a wedding photo album look like well, it's may only get married once theoretically it's like one of most important days of my life so be it being awesome is totally is totally critical and you said you've seen some of those other photos that we've taken amazing what struck you about those they were you were just in the moment it was like, you know, I've seen a lot of photos where it's just like stand and smile and you it's like you were just a uh you're a documentary photography working in a way I've never seen before this unreal well, I appreciate you noticing that you know, we don't we don't serve everyone we work with a select group of clients who are looking for a specific type of photography you'll notice that in the photos we did there's a lot of behind the scenes photography that's because we don't just send one or two photographers in our teams we actually send four or five they all work with six different types of lenses well that's got to be way out of my price range is that well? I mean it depends we certainly have different options but first it's just important to understand you know, this is something you do once in your lifetime and you've been through the wedding industrial complex you know that everyone's trying to charge you for everything ultimately if you think about a year a year from now are the flowers going to be something you remember? Is the tent color going to be something you remember or is it going to be those photos that okay, I'll buy it stopped, right? Eso eso notice what happened there? So that was just like a piece of your end, okay, so he so he's he's cutting as a bad customer he's asking price first price, price price. Now I'm going to tell him the price, but first I want to understand his needs and I'm asking for his needs, right? I legitimately want to know what is important too, because if he says price is important to him, I might just say, look, this is not the right fit for you someone comes to me and their first question is about price, I say, sorry, my materials not right. And for those folks at home, if you're just tuning in, we're with this girl, you need to be listening to everything he's saying, because that little key right there, if the first thing that comes out of someone's mouth his price uh, commercial photography, tens of hi and bye in course of ivory, but if that happens, I will say, I'm I mean, I just gonna go on a limb here, I'm guessing if like prices normally something we talk about always you know happy to be up front about it but if that's your number one concern I'm definitely not your solution I'm not a bargain photographer what we do is only work with the highest and clients in the world and that I can refer you to some other people if that's your m o and I'm not judging but just to start the conversation off like if prices you're number one criterion then that's where pride not a good match absolutely so he asked about price his answer was amazing I would absolutely think about how you can employ that and the psychology behind it of like I'm not trying to serve everyone I'm just trying to serve the right people and you know that there's a gating thing that makes like I want to be the right people yes that's the psychology the client right it's like yeah, I am I not the right people like I get I got extra money into the mattress here you're never going to trick someone into paying you too much you're never going to people are very smart respect them you're never going to trick him into overpaying never but there are a lot of mental blocks people have about paying for premium pricing I gave you the example of the immigrant thing there's a million others what I did in this example that we just did was he insisted multiple times what's the price what's the price and I said, help me understand what's important to you. And then I explained, I educated my client on why my service is different and valuable. So in the end, the price is a mere triviality, the journey to get there and the fact that I pointed out you're going to remember the photos. But by the way, that's brilliant like that for speaking specifically, two photographers like all this other stuff like, you're not remember the code of flowers, but these photographs were goingto literally last your entire lifetime. Yeah, and then you're all sudden, like, oh, she paid, like two grand for the cake. I'm in it for the photographer like, and they do start leaning forward. Okay, checkbook ready. So what do we see overall here? It's? Not just I mean, we're not just talking about photographers and we're not talking about wedding negotiations is not the point. The point is that there will always be people who want to come to you first for price price is easy, that's easy to lower your price. Anyone could do that that's why you're not going to do it, there's something to be said for being the best when you are the best you get disproportionate rewards so I spent all the time to become the best in the world that x y z. Now I get to reap the rewards by helping the right people and charging for that. But the key, the real key to all this is you can do all that you could be the best your craft. You could do this if you can't communicate that at the moment someone asks you for your price, whether they're asking you or it's on your website, you lose game over. So all this work that we're putting in tow our craft toe, learning how to market it all comes to a crescendo right here at that moment of purchase. And if you have done it, if you have learned and it will take time but you can learn it, we teach it in the course. We teach it on my website when you can learn that all of this becomes amplified so much more powerful and your customers can smell it with your weak, they can smell it and they will. They will run you over the coals if you walk in with confidence that's why I'm encouraging literally to triple your prices and if we're wrong and you start losing gigs, actually, what you're losing is you're losing crappy customers. And a soon as you try and appear to appeal to everybody like, I'm starting to talk, so I need to make any amount of money the first day rate I ever got paid and believe was two thousand dollars the first time, the very first, a lot every, any anybody ever. And this was one hundred eighty two years ago, so but the first time that anyone I ever got paid to go out on a commission I charged two thousand dollars you know what I said? Okay, well, what's your rate, this is a, uh, five days shoots. I need to know what your rate is and in that time was like, well, my day rate is two thousand dollars uh, the track, you know, sense of travel was obviously going to travel costs, and so I don't want you to miss al k budget because it's going to cost me time and money to get there and get back and they said, okay, well, um two thousand dollars to sixty shoot uh it's a twelve thousand ok, we can do that and you know what I said inside it and say like yes, I said, shit, I should have done twenty five hundred because anytime someone says yes, that easy, like I like it to be like gosh, I'm not sure I can afford this this is a splurge for me I wanted when I see chase drivers I want to think premium prosecute you mean product you want them to be grudgingly accept you like I gotta talk to my team all right all right all right. And when that's when you know you've got it right people are they again you're never going to trick someone into paying you too much is never gonna happen in the history of the world it's never happened but they're like got it all right he's worth it he's the best got it if you ever take a crappy low price simon says if you take this crap job this is like no other golden thing if you take this crap price right now next time I have more budget I'll then I'll pay you this is anybody heard that before head nods exposure will give exposure you should just laugh those people out of the room and if you do what you're actually doing the best thing you can possibly do because if someone says ifyou're the five hundred dollars photographer like oh we only have five hundred dollars like well you like my normal rate is like twenty five hundred and like well we have five hundred sort of and you say okay and they said but look, I promise next time in the thing comes along I'll pay the twenty five hundred you know what they say in their brain to themselves? That person is the five hundred dollars person, and when they get twenty five hundred dollars, what are they going to do? They're going to go to the person that turned him down twice at a thousand that's there going like, oh, there was one person whose twenty, five hundred like I want because there's a direct correlation in this like psychological mind of the buyer of up, like more dollars, higher value and that's the truth, we are going to take us to the phones right now because we're going out like five, ten minutes, and we should find out some questions for the folks in the studio on its butt before I'd like to go to the internet and I don't if you've got some questions, I've got some questions absolutely this one comes from rick, and he says what's your technique and methodology for assessing the right amount of content to include and of course or prada, I'ii overwhelmed versus under, well, great it all comes back to the research. So when your understanding your market, for example, I have a course called find your first profitable idea, I discovered that there's a huge amount of people who just want to have a profitable idea that's it, and so because that is their only concern I created a course that's, very simple, it's effectively in a book with a bunch of videos and it's, it's, it's, simple it's priced modestly etcetera. But then there are people who say I want the entire system. I want to learn what to charge, how to do marketing, how to grow, et cetera. I can't include that in the book I had to build a serious video course and that courses eight weeks long it's extremely comprehensive and the price is accordingly hire the investment so you want to understand what it is they want. If someone wants to lose ten pounds ten pounds that's it they're like their last stubborn ten pounds. Okay that's, a very real frase that product is going to be very different than someone who wants to change their energy on day to day basis or wants to lose one hundred plus pounds, it all comes back to what they want. Keep in mind you can help different segments, you don't have to start it's nice to start off simple and then you can build from there. I think that's great that's, great advice! You can actually create some variance in there based on what you're going to like, what you're going to do for them let's have another one from the internet? Yeah, this one's from rosie renard and she says, can you talk about the importance of your customer's language and how do you go about finding the phrases that help you connect with the audience? Yes, so we talked about that in the last last couple hours, I'd recommend if you have already taken a look at the video, I think you could buy it today the language is one of the most important things people focus on quantitative research oh, I need to do all these analytics that stuff is nice and we do that, but qualitative research represents something like ninety percent of our research words matter words matter the words they use we talked about what creatives respond to they don't just respond to like, oh, like become a better photographer they want to know about are people going to call me a sellout? How do I find high value clients not bottom barrel clients? Those are real words and so the way you do this, you asked them here's an interesting thing uh, we talked about asking you either find them on internet forums. You go to your peers, go to a local college if you have to there's a million ways to do it some people say remained, how do I find these people it's like so hard to find him? And my answer to them is if you can't find them now when you're not even selling anything, how do you expect them to find them when you are selling something? You find them by doing your homework by doing your research if you're selling wedding photography to start by googling wedding photography, look up the forums, look up the sights by within a couple of weeks you should have a pretty good sense of the lay of the land and people want to answer your questions if they can tell you're legitimately interested? Yep. That's good feedback. Uh, so in studio questions let's, take one or two of those we got it. We got one over. Geez, who pans up again? Before we go into that? I'm changed. I'm sitting here with three meet uh, this class you buy this class, you also in your checkout. We'll get your other class which I think is just the master classes it's like twenty hours of video or something. It's, you it's insane has things like the briefcase technique, which if you hadn't heard that that's rolling in and anticipating your client's needs there's like that much stuff is very important. Now back to you, my good man. Tell us who you are first s o I'm j I'm a fitness coach great, so funny you asked me that because when you guys were describing sort of the personal brand ah and rem eat described you as a photographer well, obviously you're ceo of this company so how do you describe yourself now? Great question I'm a photographer and entrepreneur it depends on what he goes system into I generally if I'm if I'm in a business setting on the ceo of creative live the world's largest livestreaming education company in the world you can test it too that's like yeah nailed it I used to say I'm a writer then people would say oh yeah my cousin's a writer to your cousin's unemployed your cousin right? So then I tested other things all of them were true I'm I'm an author I'm an author and entrepreneur you tested and in five days you can find out what people respond to and that is what you could go with all of them are true but you can always test your internet you go teo trade show our ah workshop or something and everyone's there if their their network you're finding out really quick what works and what doesn't you know and if there is one phrase I would encourage one phrase that is that separates you from like I don't just say I'm chasers on the photographer um it does depend on the setting but there's some like j service on the co founder and ceo of creative live, which is the world's largest live streaming education company yeah, like there's a just a one liner that any of world's largest like oh damn like I'm an entrepreneur that isn't that means you like tinker in your garage you know uh you got a you got a place um sell it, sell it uh more questions yeah, please keep so, uh I'm adam customer a custom furniture maker on you talked about bringing, you know, bringing awareness to your brand like you're the best in the world already I'm dealing with issues with treating a physical product to sell out to sell sure to sell to the tourists the country because so far my target's been local. Is that a viable way of bringing awareness to what you bring thio say, since I'm doing working with custom spaces bringing that into the rest of the world home sure, I think you should know yeah remediation china but also kicked up by saying that if you want to be in a certain place in the ecosystem like on a price, I would have my photograph, my furniture photographed in the most insanely hot environments you could possibly fathom restaurants like become friends with the restaurant trade out of cool chair that you made to be able to shoot there for a day and when I'm the customer and I go to your website I'm like, damn look at all the people fancy asked people buying his fancy ass furniture and I want to be like that, therefore I'm gonna buy that furniture like that's lifestyle kind of like put it in the environment that's awesome! You know, if you put it in your little showroom in your garage, no one gonna give a shit if you put it in a million dollar home around a bunch of other really fancy stuff, they're going to go like, I don't know what you think about, I think that's amazing advice. Um, you can separate yourself because remember, your competition is pretty they don't know what they're doing for the most part, and I don't like to assume everyone else around me is stupid, but most people are just not trained in marketing a couple things I'd recommend beyond that you're selling custom furniture, why would someone want custom furniture over getting something at any other furniture store? There's something going on there? And I want to understand what that buyer wants in my in my mind, the word coming to mind his heritage. So I'm thinking of what differentiates myself. Why did why did I buy a bag? Go look at this brand called gorka g h u r k or go look att erm ez for anyone in the fashion world. Why would you spend thousands on hermes scarf over some other scarf you could get at t j maxx there's a reason and what is partially just said tj maxx what you mean I love tj maxx? I shopped there, I shop here all the time so there's, like, if you look at any other brands, they talk about heritage. Of course their product is amazing and they show the way they constructed. Like what? What tools you use? I'm sure it's amazing and there's a reason that people would pay for that and you can see it in the in the setting you can see the construction, you can see what it makes you feel that separates you totally and completely different from any retail store hears the word narrative you have a narrative for your product and service like why're why should I care? Well, this you know this would has grown in my backyard I harvested, I'm ill it down. Teo yes, I think that's what regular tear like you have to tell that narrative and that goes for the same as the is a wedding photographer or ah uh, personal trainer like why should I care that you're different and I recommend a great narrative and a high price point those are two things that are really highly correlated with successful entrepreneur artist if you've got those two things together, that's awesome. Hey, kate, I'm loving this is it okay? If I just roll a little bit or you're going to shut us down producers, they are so good and generous to us. So thank you very much. I'm going to keep rolling she's shaking her head back there. Which someone's getting in trouble afterwards? Get what I want to tell you about a great a great website that has a great narrative to five mountains. T so there's, a lot of tea that you can buy, right? Lipton tea that's. What? I grew up my parents drink that stuff. I'm like. Come on five mountains. T it's uh, I think it's, based in san francisco. If I'm not mistaken, I get that green tea ship to my place. It's pretty expensive. Why? Why? The narrative they have about this tea is grown on this specific hill in whatever city it only grows one month a year blah, blah, blah. If you were the blind taste test me, would I be able to tell? Maybe maybe not, but I like to know that I drink a lot of tea. I'm like okay, like I work hard how I rationalize it, I deserve this tea. Maybe maybe not I just want it and so the way that they constructed that narrative compare that which is a very high price point to a retail t like lipton or even a mid tier tea like a david's t all those narratives are totally different and that is what you want to understand. Where do you fit on that spectrum? Yeah there's a the subaru buyers and a very different buyer than the mercedes buyer and you decide who you are actually selling too and if your narrative around the mercedes buyer and if you're competing on price like then you're literally a commodity so that's what like commoditization of something means is like the lowest price the best, most number of things the lowest price I highly encourage you to not do that I don't want to be salt that is a race to the bottom you need to be hired for your vision yeah for the narrative of your experience and so that your friends frank oh man that's the dude that shot jay jay z's last album color and he's going to shoot my port like there's a narrative there and the better and the more authentically you can weave in that narrative through an experience it's just like I can't resist it totally alright other questions yep back there in the back row my name is harness on a nineteen year old peterside student I built my own startup, and now we're convention capital great, and I'm curious, what are some of the insightful things in persuasion or behavioral economics that you recently read? Well, I studied a lot of this, I studied, uh, social influence of persuasion of stanford, I studied with bj fog, who invented the field of persuasive technology, so it's very fascinating to me. Some of the most interesting things are, uh, the ideas around food psychology, which have been incredibly fascinating. There's, a great professor at cornell who wrote a book called mindless eating, in my opinion, one of the best books on persuasion, and it doesn't matter if you're, uh, trying to persuade people everyone eats, everyone has psychology around eating this is a great example of the difference between what we should do and what we claim we do versus what we really do. So why, you know, a lot of us believe that we're very rational. Oh, I ate that because I like chicken, and I'm hungry, actually, you you ordered that because of a variety of factors that were systematically engineered to make you order it all kinds of things position the menu price, the price, the narrative, the narrative, absolutely there are restaurants ticking, I meant the chicken restaurant notice in expensive restaurants they spend a huge amount of time describing it, describing the provenance of the chicken you're eating, they literally say uh acme bird chicken they described the farm it came from who? What the hell? Who cares what pharma came from? Those buyers care very discerning by it's a very different buyer than the denny's bio organic chicken check exactly chicken breast chaco nineteen dot sorry six dot ninety nine totally if you have never if you've never gone to one of these restaurants, how would you ever know why they do it? By the way, I want to teach a new framework today that we've shared in one of my courses called success triggers and it is called the d to see framework there's a lot of people they say stuff like hbo, you're so stupid why don't you sell your individual episodes on itunes? I would definitely buy that for one nineteen you think you're smarter than hbo? They probably know something you don't know it's like saying chase jarvis, you're so stupid. What do you charge like all this month or wise this painting it's red and it's a million dollars that's so stupid I could do that d to see is disparagement to curiosity it is so easy to disparage something we don't understand I know because I do it a lot and I'm training myself to stop if I were to see that modern art I'm like this is so stupid a kid could do this d to see means I say huh what's going on here what is going on that I don't understand what is hbo know that I don't and when I started doing this in my own business like I saw a lot of people doing some very weird things online like they would do webinars or people say like I don't do webinar replace I do these live classes and you cannot get them again doesn't matter where you live I live in siberia different I don't care if it's important to you you will be awakened three a m ah lot of uk students are awakened three and they wait for my classes oh you mean you're not fair blah blah blah doesn't matter I'm not looking to be fair I want to help the best people so people look and they say that's so stupid ramidus so stupid why does he decide he's losing so much of money dtc instead, if you trust someone you might say, why does hbo do that? Why does chase jarvis do that? And that unlocks a whole world of being able to learn from the world's best and there's also an element of sort of like I'm comfortable defining my customer base my price based my and if you're uncomfortable with it no problem, there are other people down the street or I can give you a list of people that would call that would serve your you know, we would shoot your ad campaign or your you know, your brochure for much less than me just you're going to get a very different experience, but I'm happy to recommend I understand there's just like this, I'm already separating the experience that I can give versus the experience that that person can give and is based on price. And as soon as you try and appeal to everybody, you end up appealing to nobody because there was like, how much does it cost? How much do you have? Like that's? I'm not interested in that, but like ten thousand dollars, so if I say I'm ten thousand dollars like crash on the one thousand, but that dude who was going to charge me ten thousand dollars is still in my mind, I might think he's crazy, but the next time I do photo shoot and I'm er and I'm a company owner and I have a lot more money who's going to stick in your mind to do that was ten thousand dollars you like, huh? I wonder what I would get for that ten grand it's got to be something very, very, very different we got one last one generation good. I was just wondering how you go about picking your perfect client because there's a range you know what? It's the mom looking to get back in shape for the twenty year old guy that wants to get ripped? Great. So first I I'm very comfortable stereotyping and theorizing. I write it down on paper, and I write down the pros and cons of each ideally, I like to be in the market, but that's not necessary. Um, and then I talked to them and I do research, and as I discover what really drives them, what holds them back? I start to discover certain things that I think are really interesting to me or not part of it is just do I like them? Do I want to be in this market? For example? I could create a course on passive income. I could call it a passive I could make millions, but the type of people that search for passive income are losers. They will drive me nuts. They'll write meet horrible emails. You saw the with you, they won't even write y o u andi, I'm like, I don't want that in my life, so personally, I don't like that, but also from a business perspective, which audience is most likely to be most engaged most profitable? Most successful. Using this material, I'll give you an example. Here's, a subtle one. A lot of people tell me, ra, meet, create a productivity product. Why don't you create a productivity product? There's a reason. Even though we could sell a lot and make millions, we haven't created a productivity product. I'll leave it to you to think through why that isthe. But if you watch this course, and if you watch the creative live course, you will easily discover the answer to that. There is a reason we are turning down millions of dollars and not creating a product tv course, which will be easy for us. And the answer is very subtle in selecting your audience, both from a personal level and from a professional level as well.

Class Materials

bonus material with purchase

Ramit Sethi Interview
3 Negotiation Scripts
5 Negotiation Case Studies
Freelance Email Proposals
Freelance Income Roadmap
List of Freelancing Ideas
5 Resumes That Win
VIP Email Teardown
Updated Resource Link: I Will Teach You To Be Rich

Ratings and Reviews

AshPhoto
 

This course changed my life. After watching Ramit on Creative Live, I bought his book, then signed up for his newsletter, then bought several of his classes. You could say I am officially drinking the Ramit Kool-aid now, but I'll tell you why... His stuff works. You have to trust the system, but I've been able to create a rich life for myself by my definition of rich and I am so happy. It takes work, but I am so grateful I found Ramit in my 20s so I can truly enjoy my 30s over the next decade. Without this course, I would still be complaining that people don't want to hire me because my prices are too high and whining that I am not valued, when in reality, the problem was me. Thanks Ramit for always speaking the hard truths and giving people wake-up calls to get their act together and live the life they want... It's possible!

Adrian Farr
 

Ramit is a huge inspiration, he is not just a 'been there and made loads of money' kind of guy, he is a 'been there and made loads of money, and here's how I did it' kind of guy! Ramit really gets down to helping you understand not only how to make money but also how to save it too. I am looking forward to reading his book and plan to implement a lot of his systems into my own life.

YKR
 

I have taken a few business classes for creatives online, but this is by far the most comprehensive, most practical course of all. Especially for someone like me who loves Ramit's work but has not made a decision to commit to his full courses, this is a great introduction for what he can offer. He pushes you to think outside the box and see all the possibilities that we can have in a very clear, logical way. If you are unsure which class to take to learn about business, this is all you need.

Student Work

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