the ultimate guide to the “a ha!” moment
Step 1. Become aware that you’re searching for an “a ha!” moment.
Step 2. Turn off the computer. Put down the paint brush. Close the journal. Drop the pencil.
Step 3. Walk away.
Step 4. Keep walking.
Step 5. Do something you love: Read a book. Listen to music. Make love. Drink coffee. Sip tea. Take a nap. Talk to a friend. Play dress up. Go see a movie. Take your time.
Step 6. Breathe. Repeat steps 5 & 6 as needed.
Step 7. Accept your “a ha!” moment. Even if it doesn’t look like you thought it would.
if it works for William Shatner… or – why I chose “name your own price”
If it works for William Shatner, surely, it will for me.
Right?
About halfway through the development phase of my last digital guide, The Art of Earning, I was in an all-out mind battle about what to charge (or to charge at all) for it. This wasn’t a “pick a high number and stick a 7 on the end” kind of deal.
This was a deeply personal book but one I knew could help a lot of people.
And I wanted it to help a lot of people.
In the shower – where else? – it hit me. Name your own price.
Here’s why:
Free is great but investing in yourself is better.
I love free content. And I produce a hell of a lot of it. But at some point, free content becomes something you consume mindlessly. You might find an idea or two “nice” but act on the main principles? Honestly answer the questions contained therein? Nope. No way.
It’s too easy to think the answer is in the next piece of free content.
Investing in a product – even as little as $5 – helps you pay attention to the ideas at hand and take concrete action based on those ideas. Investing in a product is very much about investing in you & your business.
Ben Bernanke isn’t the only guy concerned about inflation.
You don’t have to be chief of the Fed to be concerned about price inflation. While there are many stellar digital programs that deserve to be priced in the top-tier of information, there are many which do not. There are some 50 page pdfs that deserve to be priced at $50, $100, or ever $200. That’s the kind of value they provide. That’s the exception, not the rule.
The Art of Earning is not those books. Yes, I believe that if you apply the principles to an active reevaluation of your relationship with money, you’ll have the capacity to make tens of thousands of more dollars per year quickly. But you’re going to have to do a heckuva lot more work to build your business than I did to write that book.
I could have made the price much higher. Maybe I still will. But I’m happy with the price as it is.
Everyone needs an exercise in gratitude.
Especially me. Had my money workout not been so total & complete, it would be easy for me to look at the smaller payments that come in as proof that people just want things cheap, that a steal is even better than a deal.
But honestly? That’s not my reaction. It’s been one of gratitude. Seeing $5, $7, or $8.44 payments roll in has left me feeling warm – not cold. I haven’t been focused on the difference between the “real price” and the price paid, I’ve accepted the enormous gift of trust & hard-earned coin those customers have been willing to part with.
I’m sure the next question is: will “name your own price” work for me?
Answer: It might.
For name-your-own-price to work for you, you need:
- A product you can afford to have lower profit margins on. A digital book is a great way to experiment with this model because it’s almost all profit. How could you incorporate a high profit margin product into your business?
- A reputation of high value. Generally, I would not recommend this pricing structure for those just beginning in business. I have a collection of ebooks and a reputation as a coach & blogger that allows me to trust my customers with pricing a valuable product. Are you building a product/services line that represents high value?
- A way to capture the leads. I won’t kid you, The Art of Earning has been a great lead generator. Traffic to the blog, sales of other products, speaking gigs, and coaching clients are all up up up since the release of this book. I had a wide & strong platform to support the buzz that I generated through this book and knew how I was going to channel that buzz. If 500 new sales came through your business in a month, how would you continue the customer relationship?
I’m planning interviews with some other entrepreneurs – both product makers & service providers – who have tried this model of pricing. What questions should I ask them? What questions do you still have for me about the name-your-own-price model?
***
By the way, if you haven’t yet, you can pick up The Art of Earning – and name your own price – right here.
Early Adopters: yep, you’ve got ’em. Now put them to use!
Social media has transformed our world into one great big small town, dominated, as all vibrant towns used to be, by the strength of relationship, the currency of caring, and the power of word of mouth.
— Gary Vaynerchuk, The Thank You Economy
This, you know. Social media gives you the best opportunity to talk to fellow business owners and loyal customers since, well, the last time you strolled down a thriving main street.
Best of all, social media doesn’t mind if you’re in your pajamas.
We also know that social media contributes to tipping points and even revolutions. It connects neighbor to neighbor and grandson to grandma.
Social media has reinvented word of mouth by creating word of type, swipe, and tap.
But before there can be sharing, there has to be something to share. And there has to be people who want to share it.
And this is where Early Adopters come in.
What is an Early Adopter?
They’re the people who wait in line for the latest iDevice. They’re the people try out new software before you’ve even heard of it.
According to The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development:
“Passionate, early users of new technology or products who understand its value before mainstream markets.”
Yes, they’re most often associated with tech.
But they’re also the people who try out the new restaurant in town before the reviews come out. Or the newest microwaveable meal at the grocery store. Or the salon that just opened. Or the doula that just started her practice. Or the artist that hung her first show.
Early Adopters rely on curiosity to fuel their purchasing decisions far more than brand names or customer reviews.
But Early Adopters do more than just buy your stuff.
Early Adopters want to help you and (here is the best bit) want you to be successful.
— The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Customer Development
Whether your business is 30 days old or 30 years old, you can harness your own Early Adopter community. Your new widget or service may be a hard sell for those who are used to using something else but, harness your Early Adopters, and you’ll be able to make your initial offering much more palatable to the masses.
Game? Here’s how you do it:
Use Early Adopters to make in-progress products better.
Create an email list for people who are specifically interested in a new product. Email them regularly with content tangential to the development of your product. Ask for feedback, opinion, and personal experiences. Create a conversation that informs the development of the product you’re working on.
Use Early Adopters to get feedback on in-use products.
Since Early Adopters are those most likely to “get it,” utilize them to provide the feedback that gaps your designer experience with the user experience of those you’re selling to. Survey the first wave of buyers and seek to understand how they’re using the product and why they wouldn’t live without it anymore. Adjust sales copy, your positioning, and your product/service based on a careful analysis of this feedback.
Use Early Adopters to produce more.
We spend too much time in development and not nearly enough time in testing, deployment, and analysis. Create a first run product that is high in quality but lacking in bells & whistles. Sell these products (or services) to an invite-only list (see point 1) and solicit feedback so that you can create a second run product with the features, bells, & whistles your wider audience actually wants. Then you’ll be creating your next first run product instead of banging your head against your desk wondering why the first product didn’t sell.
Reward Early Adopters for giving you a hand.
Reward? On this budget?! A mention on Twitter, an email conversation, or sending them a preview copy of your next product are all great – and cheap – ways to reward your Early Adopters. Luckily, they don’t require much more than acknowledgment and the very first heads up on what you’ve got coming next.
I know, I’m an Early Adopter.
Start finding your Early Adopters today.
Run a sales report, create a Twitter list, thank them by name on your Facebook page, create your “Sneak Peek” email list… do something that helps you identify these key people in your business.
But first, leave me a response below and tell me what you’re going to do with them!
Bursting the Business Bubble – or – thinking bigger than you thought you could
By the beginning of this year, I had achieved each of the big goals I had set out to achieve with my business:
- Earn enough to stay at home with my daughter.
- Earn a full-time salary.
- Earn enough to allow my husband to quit his job.
- Earn $100,000 in a year.
The first two goals always seemed doable. By the time I started working towards the third, the outcome was already in sight. Frankly, the fourth one crept up on me without my noticing its tip-toe steps.
When I reached that point, I felt a little lost.
Overwhelmed.
Out of my element.
Fearful of stagnation.
Not to mention, those are all earning goals and – whilst I love making money beautifully – there’s more that I want to accomplish with my business!
Sure I could keep producing, keep earning more bit by bit, keep serving my clients… but what was I working towards?
Ease? Elegance? Comfort? Yes.
But I suspected I could do that and still work towards something bigger than I’d ever dared to dream of before.
I posed this question to several of my business models & mentors in the first quarter of 2011:
How do you set new goals when you’re completely outside the realm of your experience?
The people I asked – Danielle LaPorte, Marie Forleo, Amanda Steinberg – they all offered solid answers. But still, I felt lost.
I could feel my power tingling like magic on the tips of my fingers. But I didn’t know where to channel it, where to cast the spell.
How do you move forward when your goals are behind you?
As a solopreneur, my business relies on ME for its vision & execution. My experience is all I have to go on. My brain, all I have to rely on.
That’s limiting.
What I really needed was a team to hold my vision and push it all around the edges, expanding it to the point – maybe, past – of bursting.
But a team full of employees, a physical location, a list full of others’ needs… that’s limiting too.
What I created was a whole new (to me) approach.
Instead of either trying to go it alone or hiring a team, I created relationships – both formal and informal – that could hold and expand my vision without weighing me down.
Carrie, formerly my “virtual assistant” is now exercising her own expertise as my personal Business Manager and Assistant Editor for Scoutie Girl. We “meet” weekly to discuss my ideas, work out systems, and discover new ways to execute my mission. She’s working on everything from scheduling to communication management to event planning.
I’d say she offers me the use of an extra brain – but it’s so much more than that since she brings her own outside perspective to this business.
She believes in what I’m trying to accomplish and knows that she’ll be better off in her own business the more I’m able to achieve in mine.
I’ve also been busy cultivating informal relationships. My bubble-bursters include other entrepreneurs, thinkers, and activists who want me to succeed every bit as much as I want them to succeed. I suppose, really, we’re mutual bubble-bursters. We help each other push past what is on the surface to more fully realize our complementary visions.
These are not just people I rely on to promote my products or retweet my posts. These are people I trust with my mojo and momentum. I trust them to challenge me, not just stroke my ego.
I’ve met my bubble-bursters through Twitter, my blog, random emails, conferences, and referrals from clients. Potential bubble-bursters are all around you but you have to do the work to build trust.
If you struggle to find your voice & vision outside your beginners’ bubble, it’s time to sure up your relationships with those in & outside your business. Make sure they understand your passion and the change you want to make in the world. Ask them to push you when they see you settling – and sometimes, even when you’re not!
What can you do today? Set up some Skype or coffee dates with people who you already consider in your circle and just talk shop. It’s not so much about asking for advice as it is becoming aware of how your bubble-bursters react to your ideas & concerns. It’s about allowing someone else to hold a bigger dream for you than you can imagine – and creating big dreams for your friend in return.
Are you ready to burst your business bubble?
if money is power, who are you recharging? reflections from Blogher 2011
Money is power.
It’s not just cliche. There’s truth. Gut churning, denial busting, world rocking truth. You know it: with money, comes power.
You also know that this seems to be most often exploited: get money, exploit power selfishly.
But there’s the flip side: get money, use power for good.
Last week, I returned home from Blogher with much the same reaction as I had last year. It’s not my scene but I dig the camaraderie, the exultation of women of all ilks, and – maybe just a little – the shock & awe of the experience.
Tara Mohr, Megan Auman, and I came armed to present a different way to generate income from the immense work people put into their blogs. Our panel was well-received and I know we got quite a few people thinking. But I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the spectacle of swooning put on by blogger & corporation alike.
BlogHer is sponsored by BIG corporations: McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Proctor & Gamble, and Ford to name a few. There is a lot of money being waved, sparkled, and confetti-ed about. And while I understand the role that big corporations play in our economy (and government, healthcare system, technological evolution, etc…), I couldn’t help but think about the New Economic model I’m helping to build.
Money is power. Potentially, your power.
If the power just flows back & forth between individual and major corporation, we end up forfeiting choice. Corporations can choose to honor our will or not. We don’t have much say. If we claim the power – cash – for our own, we have infinite choice in the good it can do.
Starting a business, sustaining one, growing one isn’t just about earning a living – it’s about claiming power.
You – just like the on-fire women I met at BlogHer – have a vision for this world. Maybe you want to leave it a better, more heart-driven place for your children. Maybe you want to eliminate poverty. Maybe you want to see college students make better decisions. Maybe you want to get healthy food on more tables, end bullying in school, or help girls learn to express themselves through writing.
I like you. I’m down with your goal.
Sisters, brothers, you’re going to need money to get there. Courting corporations, investors, or your Grandma Jean is probably not going to get you there. They each have their part to play – I’m looking at you, Grandma Jean (just kidding… I don’t have a Grandma Jean!) – but it’s your ability to earn your money and earn your power that’s going to give you the charge you need to create real world change.
A few don’ts:
- Don’t compromise on your vision because it looks to big. Find ways to generate the resources to pick apart the puzzle one piece at a time.
- Don’t be intimidated by those who seem to have it more together than you. Trust me, they used to be right where you are.
- Don’t underestimate the power of starting small. We all start somewhere. Starting at the top is no better than starting at the bottom.
Do allow money to motivate you. Recharge yourself.
Not in the more, more, more-is always-better way but in the earn-more-to-do-more way. Feel confident about making the offer, charging what you’re worth, and developing new products by equating those things with furthering your mission.
Putting your mission out into the world – whether through blogging, designing, making, writing, engineering, develping… – is a drain on your batteries. Make sure the effort that you’re putting out is allowing power to flow back in – not just allocating it to outside holdings.
***
Want another account of BlogHer? Take a look at this article by Tara Mohr on Huffington Post: Why Blogher Got Me Angry.
the economics of gifts: it’s all about how you wrap it
This is a guest post by Catherine Caine of Cash & Joy.
Unless you work for a mint, or in the high-risk world of currency forging, you don’t make money.
You receive money.
And the people you receive money from receive something from you, too: the work they’re buying.
Some people call this an exchange, which would mean that both halves are equal – the money is worth the same as the offering it is purchasing.
Unless you’re buying something with very direct equivalence (like $50 of casino chips), it’s not really like that. It’s more like simultaneous gifts.
And so now I get to write something rather delightful.
The economics of gifts
To be successful, a gift needs to provide more value to the recipient than it cost the giver.
It’s frustrating as hell to give a gift where this doesn’t happen – like when a toddler gets much more satisfaction from the $1.35 wrapping paper than the $38-no-batteries-included toy it held. (“Why did I bother? I could’ve just bought her a cardboard box!”)
We feel like we’ve been played for suckers if we spent more than we received. (And we are receiving something: in the case of presents. It’s usually the experienced or imagined delight of the recipient, plus the social status benefits of being an excellent gift giver.)
As the example of the toddler demonstrates, we’re a bit irrational about this. We should be happy that the baby is enjoying our gift, because they are! But it feels wrong to us anyway, because they aren’t valuing it the same way we did.
Ideally, what should happen is this:
Giver spends x on gift.
Recipient feels and expresses x + 2 satisfaction. (Or better, x + 5. Or 10 times x!)
Giver is satisfied and proud of themselves for giving an excellent gift.
So if most business is a mutual exchange of gifts, what does that mean?
There are three assessments of value that matter deeply in your business.
I bet you want to know what they are, right?
What you get compared to what you give.
There are two ways this can go awry.
One is the province of extortionate sellers, who charge as high as the market will bear and devote most of their effort into selling the bejeezus out of a mediocre product. No-one reading this falls into that category, so we’ll go to the other problem:
Making an offer you’ll regret
Low-charging business owners often end up resenting the hell out of their clients.
A new coach, Steve, makes an offer: one hourly session every week for ten weeks, for $500. For the first few weeks it’s wonderful. Money in the bank! Clients! Hooray!
But after six weeks the money has long gone to pay the mortgage, and Steve starts feeling put-upon. “One more month to go? These bozos are grinding me into the ground!”
It doesn’t matter that he initiated the offer. He still feels like he’s being taken advantage of, and he resents it. Zillions of client relationships have been damaged or destroyed this way.
How it should go
What you deliver should feel like it costs less than what you get. This is best expressed as, “All I had to do was…”
All I had to do was three hours of consulting and I got $500!
All I had to do was assemble this necklace and I made $95!
All I had to do was spend a weekend to write this resource and people are paying $27 for it!
You feel blessed and energised when you make a successful offer like that. Everyone wins when your most blessed and energised self is doing the work.
What they get compared to what they give
The same calculation happens in your buyers’ mind. They hate being taken advantage of just as much as you do, and they want to feel like they made a smart decision.
They balance the cost (the money they pay, but also the time, emotional investment, awkwardness and switching costs) against the outcome. Notice I didn’t say “the thing they bought”, because in their mind they’re not buying the resource as much as they’re buying the outcome they think it will deliver.
There are two ways this can go awry.
Sucka got played
The buyer handed over their hard-won money for what sounded like a beakerful of pure, undistilled awesomeness, and it completely failed to meet those expectations. This can happen because:
- The marketing of the offering was better than its delivery
- The seller wilfully or accidentally overpromised
- The buyer had their own misconceptions about the outcome
In all of these cases, the buyer feels exploited. (You’ll note that in the last example, this isn’t in any way the seller’s fault – it’s entirely due to the buyer’s internal assessment. The seller will still get blamed.) Even if the offering delivers some of the outcome, or a different outcome, the buyer will not feel like they got value for their investment.
Guilt and resentment
The buyers handed over their money and received an incredible amount of value in return. So much value, in fact, that they feel like they’re taking advantage of the seller and thus feel in debt to them.
Reciprocity is a huge trigger in our behaviour – it is actively uncomfortable to owe someone. It’s manageable when you have a shifting dynamic: if your friend pays for parking, you buy the popcorn and the balance is achieved.
But in many businesses, the sale is the end point – after the sale, there are few opportunities for the buyer to give something important enough that they feel like they no longer owe anything. The buyer will generally try – by recommending potential leads, or sending long and loving testimonials – but they will still feel like they owe the seller.
And then they start to resent them.
Again, it’s a weird quirk of human nature: “How dare you give me so much in exchange for so little! How dare you!” But still: an unaddressed balance that can’t be resolved will create suspicion, guilt and resentment in your buyers.
How it should go
The buyer receives an amazing (but not overwhelming) amount of value in exchange for their investment. This is easily expressed with “All I spent was…”
All I spent was $95 and my feet have never been so comfortable!
All I spent was $800 and my business vision has never been clearer!
All I spent was $5 and this gelati is om nom nom nom…
Your buyers can happily sink into the outcome they’re purchasing when they feel they got a great deal, and will happily tell others about the wonderful resource they’ve found.
The fair deal
So the third assessment of value is comparing the two: whether the buyer feels they got the best of the deal, or whether the seller feels they they got the best of the deal.
Ideally, the answer is: they both do.
Because they’re not comparing the same things, this is totally possible. The seller is comparing the simple, worthless act of creating something they can do quite easily against the very very valuable food-purchasing money they made for it. The buyer is comparing the imaginary, come-and-go worthless money against the very very valuable outcome they received.
And so you can have both parties walking away feeling like they came out just slightly ahead of the other. Not so much that they feel like a scumbag, but just enough that they feel rather smart.
It’s a lovely way to do business.
If you’re looking wistful at this point…
…because it does sound, indeed, like a very lovely way to do business and you wish that you could experience it, then here’s how.
If you feel like you’re getting screwed over
Raise your prices.
You can do this by simply adding a bigger number to the price tag, or by offering less for the same amount: like three laser-focused sessions instead of five, or the necklace without the matching earrings.
And revise the outcomes to ensure they’re clear and concrete for your buyers, so it’s easy for them (and you) to see the value in this deal.
If your buyers send you long emails saying, “It’s frustrating, I wish I could pay you back for all you’ve done…”
Raise your prices, and/or offer premium versions.
Offer a premium upgrade to the people who send you those emails so they have an opportunity to redress any imbalance they perceive. They get to give you more money, and you both feel better. WIN.
If you’re not getting many sales
Don’t drop your prices – clarify your outcomes.
Actually, increasing your prices might help if you’re woefully underpricing yourself – your potential buyers might be feeling that mismatch. (“All the information I need for this important outcome for $12? Suuuuuuure.”)
One thing to keep in mind
You are not calculating the value in the same way your buyer is. You cannot set the price according to what YOU would pay, because you’d pay nothing – you already know how to achieve the outcome they want.
So set the price in line with the outcome, and find ways to deliver it so you’re proud of how easy it is to make the money. That way you and your buyers both benefit.
***
Catherine is an expert on business magnificence. She writes fairy stories about marketing at Cash and Joy, and offers a free 30-minute Marketing Check-Up to her readers. The volume of insight she crams into one of those sessions defies all known laws of thermodynamics.