Episode 56

Selling what you do differently

Changing the way you present your product can greatly affect how people see its value and price. When you’re faced with a sticky patch, lowering prices or costs might not be the right thing to do. So instead, what might happen if you took those constraints and reframed the experience for the customer?

In this episode, Carlos and Ben discuss the importance of creativity and perception in selling products and services, using the example of a restaurant owner. They explore how changing the presentation and packaging – not the product itself – can influence customers' perception of value. They also touch on the impact of physical and emotional exhaustion on an entrepreneur's ability to think creatively, emphasising the need for self-compassion and reframing one's perspective during challenging times.

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Transcript
Carlos:

share in the chat if there is anything that you are actually expecting from this conversation other than sharing symptoms and talking about parties that.

Carlos:

Might not happen.

Carlos:

it's share in the chat if you, you have a question that you came with?

Carlos:

'cause the, the title of.

Carlos:

Uh, today's episode is selling what you do differently, and we will set the scene around that and, uh, Ben will explain what, where that's coming from.

Carlos:

Uh, but if there's, if there's another question or if that sparked a question in your mind, or if there's something that you are struggling with at the moment that you'd like to share, please put that in the chat.

Carlos:

We'd love to talk to that, uh, in any way to see if that would help.

Carlos:

Um, but in the meantime.

Carlos:

Or should I say?

Carlos:

And no

Ben:

buts in lieu.

Ben:

In lieu of,

Carlos:

of other questions?

Carlos:

In lieu of other questions.

Carlos:

Ben, why is this, what, what is it about this topic that, that, um, was of interest to you?

Ben:

Well, I mean, other than just dipping into the pre-planned calendar of things that we talk about, this actually was something that came up just yesterday.

Ben:

Um, and I was having coffee with a friend of mine who, uh, runs a couple of restaurants.

Ben:

And, uh, these are not good times to own a restaurant.

Ben:

Very, very challenging.

Ben:

Very, very tough circumstances, obviously.

Ben:

And I think, you know, obviously the kind of context for it a little bit is, you know, for restaurants kind of particularly coming out of, of Covid, there was, you may remember if we cast our mind back probably a year or so ago, we were briefly sort of, uh, seduced by a kind of narrative that we were, we were kind of entering the roaring twenties

Ben:

or the equivalent of the roaring twenties, where we would sort of be kind of unleashed from Covid, uh, seclusion into kind of time of great abundance and growth and joy.

Ben:

Uh, now obviously things have not.

Ben:

Actually developed along those lines.

Ben:

And so for the restaurateur, somebody has, has a kinda restaurant, the kind of pain of that is kind of felt very, very acutely as it is for for many, many people.

Ben:

And actually one of the conversation I had with a friend of mine, which he started conversation started a couple of months ago where, uh, he was talking about how difficult it is just actually to work out prices for things because the, in, you know, the cost of everything that

Ben:

they need in order to produce their food was going up and up and up and up and up, but also kind of changing week by week, by week, by week.

Ben:

And at the time we were talking about it and he was sort of saying, you know, you know, really he should review his pro, you know, if he was doing it properly, he should review his prices every week, almost, because that's how much things were changing.

Ben:

But of course the reality of that is that that's hugely kind of sucks all of the life and energy out of you because nobody really enjoys doing that.

Ben:

And also he can't, as he was saying, it's not that he can change his prices all of the time anyway.

Ben:

You know, already customers were perceiving his restaurants to be sort of, you know, premium.

Ben:

The, the perception is they were already expensive.

Ben:

So how can you sort of change your prices when that is already the perception, when all of this is going on for everyone else?

Ben:

And then, uh, we had a, another, another catch up yesterday.

Ben:

And we were, we were talking about this and, you know, he was starting to sort of talk, you know, this, this, this perception, you know, what do you do when people perceive that your prices are high?

Ben:

What could you change around that?

Ben:

And in his case, obviously he is actually very limited in what he, he can't actually make the food cheaper because the food is what it is and you can't sell it for less because then there will be, there will be no business.

Ben:

So how do you kind of, how do you work with this sort of perception where people make, how do you work with this idea where people have a perception that you are making expensive?

Ben:

And I appreciate for people listening, whatever, it may be different.

Ben:

They may be think, oh, it's not like I have raw materials.

Ben:

It's not like I have ingredients, so maybe, you know, it doesn't apply to me because I'm not bound by the same constraints.

Ben:

But in a way, actually, I think lots of people struggle with the, the, the, the kind of idea behind this, whether the perception, whether it's true or not, this feeling, oh, you know, people think I'm already too expensive.

Ben:

What can I do?

Ben:

And actually what happens a lot of the time, and even if it's not a restaurant, that if it's just somebody doing right, they think, oh, I'll just make it less, because that will kind of deal with the thing.

Ben:

But of course you are actually just sort of penalizing yourself if you do that, if you have the opportunity to do that, ie just working on your own, but of course then you may be selling something where it's not possible to do that either, as is the case with, with a friend of mine in the restaurant

Carlos:

So the, if I was gonna try and generalize it a bit, I'm, I have an offer, I have a product, I have a service.

Carlos:

It's, uh, a certain price 'cause I believe in its value and, and it's, that's the amount of money it should, I should, I want to charge, I want to charge for it.

Carlos:

Uh, people aren't buying.

Carlos:

And so rather than having the default, uh, react response or reaction to, oh, just reduce the price 'cause maybe some people will buy, what are other ways that we can look at this situation?

Carlos:

So what I'm hearing with the restaurant, in the case of someone who has not only, not just fixed costs, but rising costs.

Carlos:

So essentially what I'm hearing is like, this is the price, this is the margin, and that's doing this.

Ben:

Mm-Hmm.

Ben:

To that, where it goes the other way.

Carlos:

Yeah.

Ben:

Yeah.

Carlos:

And so it's like not, and, and so that I'm getting squeezed there.

Carlos:

So if I do that and then it's suddenly, I'm like you said, I don't have an, have a business.

Carlos:

And already there's a perception that this is already, the price is quite high, which then there's always a question there.

Carlos:

It's like perception of who?

Ben:

Yeah.

Carlos:

There's a thing around working on, on the perception, it sounds like that's what you're saying.

Carlos:

How do we work with this perception?

Ben:

Mm-Hmm.

Ben:

What I, I was asking him like what kind of level his, his sort of restaurant was at, right?

Ben:

And he was, he cited another restaurant, which is also in Bright, uh, where we live, and it's a restaurant which is called Burnt Orange, uh, for those people who in Brighton.

Ben:

And, uh, I, I had asked him about the restaurant because somebody else had sort of spoke to me and I said, oh, I, you similarly priced to Black Orange?

Ben:

And he said, yeah.

Ben:

So I was like, well, what's the difference there?

Ben:

He said the difference there is Burnt Orange is all around this idea of small plates, right?

Ben:

So people are actually spending the same amount of money.

Ben:

But they are spending the same amount money, they're getting to it by these kind of, by sort of piling in a range of sort of small plates where they're a kind of more traditional in terms of the, you know, it's like you are paying for a kind of main, main dish.

Ben:

And so he was sort of saying the thing, you know, one of the things that sort of shifted is changing how you sell what you do.

Ben:

So, you know, at the moment they have to buy a whole load of ingredients.

Ben:

Those ingredients are translated into, you know, these 10 dishes and these 10 dishes cost this amount of money.

Ben:

And people would look at that and go, oh God, a main course for 20, I dunno, five counts or whatever it is.

Ben:

It's like, oh, that's really expensive.

Ben:

Of course that is, it is expensive.

Ben:

'Cause like, you know, that that's really expensive.

Ben:

And then by comparison, people look at a restaurant which is actually the same sort of price and go, oh look, those dishes cost nine.

Ben:

But of course you buy four of them, right?

Ben:

Or whatever, all three of them or whatever the number is.

Ben:

So actually you do end up spending the same amount of money.

Ben:

So I think the, the kind of the, the realization or the, the re the reminder that came out of that for him and for me is this point around perception.

Ben:

It is a perception and actually, uh, you know, which can, which can sort of harm you or sort of support you in a way.

Ben:

Because you know, if we acknowledge that it is a perception or the story that people are telling that those people are telling themselves or their existing customers have been telling themselves is that it is expensive, it's too expensive for these times, right?

Ben:

It's too expensive when all of these other costs are going up.

Ben:

It's too expensive when you know, all of these other things in the kind of market are changing, which is also a story that he has in his mind, because he's also being bombarded with that all of the time that, you know, people are gonna stop going to, oh, stopping and going to restaurants.

Ben:

Uh, you know, and also the kind of feeling that that's gonna happening.

Ben:

But then at the same time, he also acknowledged, oh look, actually we are no different to this other restaurant in price.

Ben:

But there is this perception that people in his mind will carry on going there because it's broken down, uh, you know, they, they're essentially taking the, some of the ingredients and they're bundling things up in a different way so that there are different things to buy.

Ben:

And the other thing that he was sort of talking about is, you know, they could do things like that and they could try things like that on a kinda one-off thing.

Ben:

There's, you know, there are experiments they can do, which don't require them to spend more money, but allow them to experiment with different ways for maybe the same customers or maybe new customers to buy and experience what they do differently.

Ben:

And there's other examples with that too, like in the restaurant example, he was talking about, you know, one of the other things which they know they can do is they can make the main courses sort of less money, look cheaper, be cheaper, and they make the, the specials a bit more expensive.

Ben:

And the thing around that is, that's then a signal, like in the way that we would sort of talk about it.

Ben:

For those people who are going there for a special occasion, who want to feel like they are, you know, maybe investing more than they might otherwise do.

Ben:

There's something that those people can buy.

Ben:

At the same time, is that there's something which feels more accessible, more economical, which other people can buy.

Ben:

And so all of these things don't actually require them to sell their things for less, but they do sort of start to send a different signal, start to send a different sort of, weave, a different story if you like, to either the people who are traditionally go to there or the people who, who might start to go.

Ben:

But it's just, you know, it was the kind of realization that actually the solutions were often found in just dicing up what they do differently, in selling what they do differently.

Ben:

Not something that requires them to reimagine the whole thing.

Ben:

Not something that requires them to all of a sudden buy a whole new set of ingredients in their case, all the things they're doing already.

Ben:

Just finding new ways of dividing that, dicing it up, presenting it so that people can come in at a level which feels more, uh, which feels, feels easier, which feels safer, which feels more economical for them.

Carlos:

There's a level of creativity here that, but playing within the constraints of the same ingredients and the same menu and the same, customer in a sense.

Carlos:

I also heard there's something here around a sense, uh, a feeling of choice.

Ben:

Uhhuh.

Carlos:

So I could get three plates, for instance, for nine pounds, or one plate for 25 pounds.

Carlos:

But then I get to, you know, I can talk, well, maybe I only have one plate of for nine pounds or two plates for nine.

Carlos:

So there's like an element of control, uh, I'm sensing around the customer's decision.

Ben:

Mm-Hmm.

Carlos:

But also from the business per owner's person per business owner's perspective.

Carlos:

Particularly like somewhere where with Burnt Orange where, because you are in the, the environment already.

Carlos:

So you go in with this like, oh, I'll, I'll be able to like.

Carlos:

Limit myself to maybe two plates, I won't spend 25 quid, but then you, in the moment, I'll have another plate and I'll have some wine.

Carlos:

It's like actually by providing that sense of control and choice, that I can go in thinking I won't spend as much, but the experience is such that, you know, particularly if it's a place like Burnt Orange, I like the idea of Burnt Orange, small plates, sexy dates.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

Um.

Ben:

Very good.

Ben:

You should tell them that.

Carlos:

I should tell them because it's.

Ben:

It's showed for a dish.

Carlos:

Exactly.

Carlos:

but it is that because it has that environment as well.

Carlos:

And so there's something around the perception of telling the story of like, we are doing this in a certain way because this is the kind of customer that's coming here and this is the kind of experience they're having.

Carlos:

So they're not just buying the food, they're buying this kind of nearly kind of playful space of, oh, I'll have a bit of this.

Carlos:

I'll have a bit of that because I'm with someone where maybe it's our second or third date or you know, there's a story that they can tell.

Carlos:

So, yeah, I'm so bored.

Carlos:

We're gonna have to mix it up now, man.

Carlos:

We're gonna try a different way of eating.

Carlos:

'cause it's really boring just getting the 25 pound special.

Carlos:

But that whole, you know, again, it's like, well why am the way I'm interpreting this is like, I'm not changing the, the raw materials, I'm just repackaging it in a way that feels more valuable or tell talks to the value better, given the current climate.

Ben:

Mm-Hmm.

Ben:

Yeah, I think that's right.

Ben:

And the thing that was coming up for me as you were talking there is that reminder, which it is, people are buying the experience.

Ben:

And of course in some ways it's easy for us to look at a restaurant and go, well, obviously people are buying the experience.

Ben:

But actually, this conversation started because a conversation I was having with a restaurant owner, and he's forgetting in that instance, or, you know, momentarily forgetting which raises another, which I'll come to in a second, he's momentarily forgetting that actually people are buying the experience because he's just dealing with the pressures at hand.

Ben:

And so I think it's easy for like lots of people who would be listening to this for example, go, yeah, but that's a restaurant that's going to a thing.

Ben:

They're buying the experience That's not relevant to me.

Ben:

But actually that is absolutely relevant to you because actually everybody is buying an experience of some form, whether that experience is a thing that you are kind of, you know, it's because you're working one-to-one.

Ben:

You know, maybe even over this medium, how you do, how people, you know, the experience of people sort of consuming and sort of, experiencing the thing that you do is a huge part of it.

Ben:

Which comes back to the other thing you kind of mentioned earlier with about the need for creativity.

Ben:

Uh, and this then of course raises another question, not one that I have an answer to here, but is a, is a, kind of, is a key one, which is actually the need, you know, of course the, the, the simultaneously the challenge.

Ben:

And the need of coming to these problems with a creative mindset, with the, with our kind of creative energy stocked up.

Ben:

Because when it's down, and actually, uh, the friend who I was talking to yesterday, he, he sort of described this as, you know, as business owners and you know, he's as a small business too, as business owner, you know, we have this kind of finite pool of energy essentially.

Ben:

And you know, when we are constantly bombarded with these stresses, with these struggles, getting the team to do anything, trying to get team, getting people you work with to assume some more responsibilities as not just all, all on you and whether this is true for whether you

Ben:

know you are just with your small business or whether it's you as you actually, you know, we do all have this sort of this tank of energy.

Ben:

And you know what happens is the tank can go down, down, down, down as we are kind of dealing with the, the kind of pressures of the day.

Ben:

And actually the, the very real challenge of being able to think about these things creatively come to these things creatively when our tanks are low which, you know, happens in the times of stress.

Ben:

So that was the other thing which really kind of came out of the conversation with him yesterday was, you know, this just reminder, okay, there will be times when our tank is low and when our tank is low, we actually necessarily come to these problems less creatively, come

Ben:

to these problems, less able to kind of tap into those sort of deep pools of kind of ingenuity, which we all have bubbling inside us.

Ben:

And so just kind of remembering that and then that kind of got me thinking a little bit about, well, what are the things that we can do that sort of allow us to kind of step into a place where I am even just fleetingly able to kind of tap in, tap into some of that kind of

Ben:

creative response so that I can bring this to bear on my pricing and my selling and just the day-to-day of running the work that I do.

Carlos:

So are you advocating entrepreneurs take acid during times of crisis?

Ben:

I mean, it's not for me to advocate these things.

Ben:

If people are interested, they drop me a line

Carlos:

Or drop me a tab.

Carlos:

Um, so I think on that there's, there's, uh, two aspects of round the depleted ness that I'm curious about.

Carlos:

There's the physical energy depletedness from just working hard and juggling life and just feeling energetically, oh, you know, just physically the energy's gone.

Carlos:

And then there's the emotional depletedness that I was curious about.

Carlos:

And the thing that's franked to mind is like this kind of existential worry that may be tied to this idea.

Carlos:

And I'm, I wanted to tie to this idea of money stories.

Ben:

Mm-Hmm.

Carlos:

And, um, perception, self perception or how we think people perceive us.

Carlos:

So if for instance, taking it to money stories, money is security and my bank balance is slowly doing this, and suddenly I'm feeling less secure, I have fear, then I feel less creative.

Carlos:

Or if there's a perception thing, like if I fail, everyone's gonna.

Carlos:

I think I'm a complete idiot.

Carlos:

And so that's now the pressure that's making me feel less creative.

Carlos:

So on the physical thing, there's something around, for me, self-compassion.

Carlos:

How can I say I'm too tired, I can't force myself to be creative.

Carlos:

And maybe with that releasing that.

Carlos:

Need to do something different.

Carlos:

Maybe something happens.

Carlos:

And then with the kind of the emotional side, the money stories, there's work there for any entrepreneur, it feels to just how can I be less, um, driven by that so that during times of crisis I can be more creative because I'm not worrying about the money unnecessarily.

Carlos:

And then with the perception and other things around the stories we tell ourselves, this is maybe a bit more woo woo is how can we flip our perception of just this whole entrepreneurial journey, the way we're looking at our work that just gives us another view of like, okay, I will be able to fix this.

Carlos:

Yes, okay, maybe I'll have to go into, and I dunno this, and so I'm just talking from a very external perspective.

Carlos:

I can go into 50 grand in debt, but I'll build, build bit back up again.

Carlos:

We'll, real well I've got a good business.

Carlos:

I just, we've just gotta ride out this wave.

Ben:

Mm.

Carlos:

And no, essentially tapping into a resilience to then be able to give space for the creativity.

Ben:

Yeah.

Ben:

And I think, 'cause actually the conversation I had with a restaurant only yesterday, we had that because he had actually been on a conference last week, a two day thing, which was supposed to be around, which, which was around business resilience, but it actually, it was really not blah, blah, blah.

Ben:

None of it was really about his.

Ben:

Resilience, how he's resilient.

Ben:

It's more external things around, you know, what you might do with your company so that it is resilient.

Ben:

And actually in truth, there's nothing really very useful in what they spoke about at the conference.

Ben:

You know, important to know your North Star as they would sort of talk about it.

Ben:

You know, blah, blah, all those sorts of things, which, okay, great, but actually none of it was really about his resilience or you know, how, how he kind of deals with those things.

Ben:

And it is interesting 'cause actually the last conversation I had with him, which was about six weeks ago, uh, we'd had, because he listened to, uh, a different podcast that I do.

Ben:

Uh, and I've been, I'd spoken on that podcast to, uh, my, uh, one of my, uh, meditation teachers, one of my Buddhist meditation teachers, and he'd listened to that and he had got in touch with me to say, and I knew him already, but he got in touch because he was looking for sort of resources or places he might go in Brighton because he was

Ben:

having, he was finding it really, really difficult, uh, I can't remember his exact words were like finding, being calm and present, something along those kind of lines.

Ben:

And uh, he was finding it really difficult because all of this stuff was going on and were there people I could point him to in the Brighton area.

Ben:

Anyway, we had a conversation, then we met up .And he was sort of saying that with all of this pressure that was going on in, in the kinda restaurant thing, he had done a cashflow projection, predict sort of projection.

Ben:

And he had realized that actually the business was, he was gonna run out of cash in six weeks.

Ben:

And, uh, so to your point around the kind of maybe do nothing thing, so that's six weeks ago, actually it was a bit more than six weeks ago, probably two months ago, he had said to me, though, the business is gonna run outta cash in, in, in six weeks, so over.

Ben:

So all of the sort of stress and anxiety and everything that kind of goes with that.

Ben:

Anyway, so we then meet eight weeks later, and I was like, so, well, hey you, you are still in business.

Ben:

And he goes, yeah, actually what happened was two weeks ago we had the best ever week we had, we'd ever had in the London restaurant, which is a new, uh, sort of like relatively new undertaking for him.

Ben:

And it hasn't changed anything.

Ben:

It meant that they didn't run out of money.

Ben:

But this point actually also in a way, stuff comes along and with all the planning and everything we do, you know, actually.

Ben:

In a way, there's almost nothing that we can do.

Ben:

And this sort of comes up quite a bit with quite a few companies I work with.

Ben:

We often really struggle with, or we're kind of very, very concerned about where money's gonna come from in the kind of immediate, but actually in many respects, we can't actually, there's almost nothing we can do about the immediate.

Ben:

What's gonna happen is gonna happen.

Ben:

And oftentimes something does come up, not all the time, but oftentimes something does come up and really what we can focus on is a bit, kind of beyond the immediate, in a way.

Ben:

But I, the, the slight sort of tangent that point because I think that what you are sort of saying there, actually, you know, there, there is a, there is a need and an opportunity and a responsibility for us to work out as the owner of the business to work out actually what are the things that I can

Ben:

do so that I feel equipped to deal with the kind of the changing winds of these things, with the sort of stress, with the kind of buffeting I get?

Ben:

What is it that I need to have in place for me so that I have some of those resources to ride it out, so I have some of those resources to know, no, in this instance I'm not gonna come up with an alternative?

Ben:

Or, or whatever it may be.

Ben:

But of course, this all comes back to a, a, a kind of personal resilience thing, which I think is, um, you know, is a clearly a hugely important, sort of area for anybody who's doing their own work.

Carlos:

well, I wanted to look at that through is this idea of there's facts, there's feelings, and there's thoughts.

Carlos:

And how this feeling of six month or six weeks worth of cash can skew the facts in a sense, or just skew, just, not even skew the facts, it just of help stop you from working with the facts and working with, okay, what can I do?

Carlos:

What needs to be done?

Carlos:

And, um.

Carlos:

maybe just emphasizing, well, the, creating these thoughts of catastrophe, catastrophizing that stops you from being creative.

Carlos:

And so, what I say, the fact is, okay, yes, you can't deny that there's so much money in the bank, and if it goes the same way, we will run out money.

Carlos:

That's a fact in terms of the, the data you have.

Carlos:

Then the feeling is fear.

Carlos:

All right, I'm just gonna, and then the thoughts are catastrophe and then how does that turn into, and then in that space of catastrophizing, how can you be creative?

Carlos:

And so I think I wanted to basically a, in the chat, there's a call we had yet last week on the Friday fireside with David Papa who gave a talk about fear.

Carlos:

And then there's feeling fear, which is healthy.

Carlos:

It's a signal to tell you that there's something wrong, and then there's believing it in terms of all the stories it's telling you about yourself and your what, what could happen.

Carlos:

And so I think here there's a.

Carlos:

How can we feel that fear but not be paralyzed by it?

Carlos:

Not go down the rabbit hole?

Carlos:

Because like you said, two weeks later, you don't know what's gonna happen.

Carlos:

You've still got six weeks of potentiality to occur.

Carlos:

So how, there's a mindset there, I, I'm hearing in terms of the resilience.

Ben:

Mm-hmm.

Carlos:

There's this thing about something will happen.

Carlos:

Not in a kind of a, I was gonna say a toxic positivity point of view.

Carlos:

Like, it'll be all okay.

Carlos:

It'll be okay.

Carlos:

You know, let it, but in a sense of like, there, there's still, there's still hope.

Carlos:

There's always still hope until the fat lady sings as they say.

Carlos:

So I think there's something interesting around the fear and, and then I'm trying to do lots of little plugs here 'cause we're gonna be talking on Friday about creative destruction.

Carlos:

Sometimes things need to die.

Ben:

Right, absolutely.

Carlos:

In order for something new to happen.

Carlos:

So maybe a business model, a a, a menu needs to die, whatever it is.

Carlos:

Not to get attached to the things that you thought always worked in order to be, to create new things.

Ben:

Mm-Hmm, yep.

Carlos:

And I think that's part of, for me, the resilient mindset is actually I can put, I can move on.

Carlos:

I can navigate a transition where in the past something, well, I had to stop one thing in order to do something new.

Carlos:

And I know it's easier said than done.

Carlos:

Maybe in the case of a person who had multiple restaurants and multiple staff, but just even having the mindset rather than the, uh, the flippant, you know, belief, oh yeah, I'll be fired.

Carlos:

It's like, no.

Carlos:

Some, maybe I will have to change something and that'll be okay.

Ben:

Yeah, yeah, I think that's right.

Ben:

The kinda willed and positive, positively intended ending, you know?

Carlos:

Mm-Hmm.

Ben:

Whether it's a menu, whether it's an idea about, whether it's a belief, whether it's a story, you know, whether it's a whole restaurant, which was my initial thought for him, which obviously is not very helpful, because how do you get out of that sort of fug when you are in it, essentially, and in a way you have to kind of will some kind of change in a way?

Ben:

Or, or you sort of surrender to what will be will be, or some kind of version of those things.

Ben:

But, you know, using the kind of tool of a kind of willed and deliberate ending in order to kind of positively sort of shake, shake the bottle to wake the drink, to borrow the phrase, you know,

Carlos:

That's a new one.

Carlos:

Shake Shake a bottle to wake the drink.

Carlos:

That sounds like a euphemism, but anyway.

Ben:

No, that's the advert for Orangina.

Carlos:

Alright.

Carlos:

Okay.

Carlos:

I'll remember that analogy.

Ben:

Please do.

Carlos:

That reference.

Ben:

Anyway.

Carlos:

So before we end, I wanted to just acknowledge a few questions and, and also some comments here that we had in the chat while we were talking, because we have, uh, Terry here, who, who works the first comment or question was one, the, wanting to be a ser of service to the

Carlos:

entrepreneurial community and trying to keep services affordable to struggling business owners, at the same time needing to, up their pricing model.

Carlos:

There's a local, uh, nonprofit partners who will pay for me to facilitate peer to peer groups, but the fee is low.

Carlos:

So this sense of, um, wanting to be accessible because I assume they're mission driven and they believe that they, these people need support, but at the, the, the price that they're paying there doesn't seem to be a sustainable business.

Carlos:

And we don't have a lot of information there.

Carlos:

We're gonna make a few assumptions here, Terry, but, well, I'll, I'll relate it to my experience.

Carlos:

When we were Startup studio, we wanted to work with like early stage entrepreneurs, you know, new basically wannapreneurs who'd never built anything before.

Ben:

Mm-Hmm.

Carlos:

And we were trying to sell this, this service of launching their first ever product.

Ben:

Mm-Hmm.

Carlos:

And of course, you know, they, that was their nest egg or it was just like the, you know, A is their nest egg, and B, it was a much smaller pot of money.

Carlos:

And so it was such a struggle for us to sell well, to get paid what we wanted to get paid.

Ben:

Yeah.

Carlos:

Because these people didn't have the money.

Ben:

Mm-Hmm.

Ben:

And what did you do about that?

Carlos:

Exactly, and what did we do about, switch business models.

Ben:

Right.

Carlos:

Well, the strategy would've been to find the, the funded customers.

Carlos:

In the end, we had a total business pivot because we, like you said, Terry, you know, we really believed in these people.

Carlos:

We wanted to help them, but we couldn't make, at the time.

Carlos:

We didn't have the right business model to be sustainable.

Ben:

Yeah.

Ben:

And so in a way, it's not that you rejected those people, and you said, sorry, I'm not gonna work with you.

Ben:

I'm only now gonna work with mining companies and bankers because they've got the money that I need, you went, no.

Ben:

What?

Ben:

What is it?

Ben:

How is it that we can bring to bear the tools, the interest, the resources, the skills, the knowledge that we have, and make it accessible to those people in a way that kind of worked for them, but works for us too, requires you to think creatively about how and where you meet those people?

Ben:

Uh, and so it kind of that feeling like the shift that you guys went, that gets you here.

Ben:

And it might be, there is something of course, similar in terms of what, um, Terry is, is wrestling with too.

Ben:

If at the moment the, you know, the way of delivering the, the way of helping those people isn't kind of meeting up with what they can do, then maybe, you know, start doing, starting to experiment with different ways of, um, offering your insight, your knowledge, your experience, your expertise to that audience in a way that does work better for you.

Carlos:

And then I think the other aspect for this is like, is what are people buying and who is the customer in this case with Terry?

Carlos:

And so, I'm making loads of assumptions here.

Carlos:

So it seems like Terry is selling to non-profit organization or these nonprofit partners who are then providing these services to the entrepreneurs.

Carlos:

I dunno what they're selling to them, but for whatever reason, these people aren't paying very much money because of the perceived value.

Carlos:

And so maybe there's an assumption that these entrepreneurs have no money, but that's an assumption.

Carlos:

If the outcome is clear enough and valuable enough and makes sense enough that is a stepping stone to greater things, whatever that may mean, whether that's actually more revenue because they start this business as we make a lot of money, or suddenly just a liberation in terms of their mindset,

Carlos:

whatever it is, the good feelings of solutions, we talk about Happy Pricing, there may be a price that they're actually willing to pay that Terry.

Carlos:

Would find acceptable.

Carlos:

It's just how, I dunno if he's explored that or he is talked about that, or you know, just try to tell the story of what that could be.

Carlos:

As opposed to, oh, I sell, I dunno.

Carlos:

Business modeling, marketing skills, whatever it is that a lot of entrepreneurs think they need, that seems like a commodity, like you talk to, Ben, it's like it's a commodity.

Carlos:

I could go to any of these places to get that service, as opposed to something different that's specifically valuable to me.

Ben:

Mm-Hmm.

Carlos:

And I'll talk to our pivot is the sense that yes, we teach people how to build websites, our launch podcasts, or create, uh, marketing plans and, and think about business models, yes, yes, yes.

Carlos:

And the thing that we found most important is to get excited about the work they're gonna do and embrace this journey of entrepreneurship that is emergent and creative, but also incredibly fun and interesting along the way.

Carlos:

And that, and connected as well, the community aspect of it.

Carlos:

So it's, it's, it's kind of maybe doing the same thing, but like you're saying, packaging it in a different way that speaks to the people that you really wanna work with.

Carlos:

And unlocks the purse strings.

Carlos:

Uh, okay.

Carlos:

I hope that's of some help, at least to you, Terry, if not anyone else?

Carlos:

Um, thank you, Leah.

Carlos:

She's now, it sounds like she's, she's thinking about how she could break down her premium offering.

Carlos:

She has, she has a coaching offering.

Carlos:

Leah's a part of our Vision 2020 program, into smaller plates to offer more choice.

Ben:

Mm.

Carlos:

What I would say to that as well is, uh, how do you take your customers on an increasing journey of value?

Carlos:

Where there's a increasing build of trust, but also an increasing build of commitment.

Carlos:

Because I think unless you are really committed to something and you feel like that's something you're gonna not only spend money on, but spend time on and you, you, you feel you deserve, I don't think, you know, that's my experience of people trying to pay a lot of money for either coaching engagement or coaching programs.

Carlos:

Like a am I, am, I do, do I deserve it?

Carlos:

Am I actually gonna be able to make, do the things that need to be done as well as do I have the money to pay for it and do I trust you?

Carlos:

Okay.

Carlos:

Any, um, closing thoughts before I let you go and curl up into a little ball and sleep?

Ben:

Uh, no.

Ben:

My only closing thought is the, uh, the energy of doing this has made my head hot.

Carlos:

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Ben:

I'll leave that with you.

Carlos:

Ooh, add on that cliffhanger, why is Ben's head hot and is that a good thing or bad thing?

Carlos:

Have a good rest of the day.

Ben:

Thank you.

Carlos:

Be safe.

Carlos:

Take care.

Carlos:

Bye-Bye.

Ben:

Bye-Bye.

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