2011: year of the HUSTLE YOUR WAY TO THE TOP Get Inside Their Heads: How To Avoid No and Score Big Wins By Deeply Understanding Your Prospect BY RAMIT SETHI hustle
2 MOST PEOPLE DESERVE TO FAIL Today, learn why the vast majority of freelancers DESERVE to fail and then how you can be in the rare 1% who earns $1,000+. You ll learn: 1. How to crush the No instinct of your customers 2. Why getting to Yes, I ll pay you happens far before you ever ask 3. How to get deeply in your customers heads 4. How I charge a consulting fee of $1,200/hour I know you ve been thinking about the different skills you have that you might be able to turn into income. Take a second and think about your potential offering: You want to be a freelance project manager? Or a graphic designer. Maybe you re good at communications or soft skills? Even engineering. Now that you ve got that in your head, let s tackle today s lesson on why most freelancers keep hearing No, I wouldn t pay for that over and over and how you can find customers who will help you earn your first $1,000. DO YOU NOTICE A PROBLEM WITH THESE IDEAS? A short while ago, I asked readers to do the following quick exercise on the IWillTeach blog:
3 WHAT WILL IT TAKE TO GET YOUR FIRST 3 FREELANCE CUSTOMERS? 1. My specific customer is someone with this problem:. 2. My prospective customer spends time researching the problem / solutions in these 3 places: 1. 2. 3. 3. One way I can break in to one of the places above:. 4. My opening line in an email to them:. People spent a lot of time writing detailed responses on the type of freelance businesses they were going to try to do. There was just one problem: Nobody wants your services!!!
4 But Ramit, you might say, I swear there are people who want to take dance lessons / hire a freelance tech person / get social media marketing help for their small business! True. They might accept your dance lesson, or tech help, or marketing advice, if you offer it as a volunteer service. For free. But are they willing to pay? You know that uncomfortable feeling you re getting right now? Where you have an idea of what you want to offer, but aren t really clear on how to get clients to: Pay you a competitive rate (over $25/hour MINIMUM, and in some cases well over $100/hour) Pay you consistently (so you re not just doing one-off projects and constantly looking for clients) Refer you to other customers who will pay You re going to learn how to do exactly this. HOW TO OVERCOME THE AUTOMATIC NO When people get approached as customers, their default response is no. NO, I don t
5 want it. NO, I don t want to pay for it. NO, I don t want to pay that amount for it. Think about it. What if someone pitched you on paying them to be your personal trainer ($75/session), personal chef ($800/month), or project manager ($900/month). What would you say? The default answer is no even if you really WANT a personal trainer! But there s something even worse about the responses on my blog post: They made the mistake of thinking about themselves first, and their customer last. Today we re going to go over how you can get around no by truly understanding supply and demand, and using it to turn your freelance service into a freelance business. Many times, you can get around no. Every successful freelancer has to figure this out, otherwise their business would be a charity. But it would be easier to fight an entirely different battle altogether one where people actually want to say yes to you.
6 RAPID CASE STUDIES: AVOIDING THE CARDINAL SIN OF FREELANCING The first step to getting around no is to get inside your customers heads not just people s heads, but potential customers who are willing and able to pay you. This will help you understand the supply-demand relationship between what you can offer (supply) and what the market really wants (demand). Supply = what you offer. Most people can write up a fairly standard page on what they offer. Demand = what people want and are willing to pay for. Nearly 50% of the freelance ideas I ve seen completely neglect this. It s natural, after all you re so busy thinking about your own features and offerings that you forget about the one person you re really trying to serve: your client. What do they want? Why? What are they afraid of? How will they find you? What have they already tried? HERE S A CONCRETE EXAMPLE: IDEA: Promotional video commercials for local nonprofits. On first thought, it seems like an OK idea, right? Non-profits can probably use all the help they can get!
7 WHY THIS IS TERRIBLE: Local nonprofits are not a target customer for high-budget, resource-intensive creative video work. They may accept it gladly as a gift, but don t EVER EVER think that this will become a business that will get you to your first $1K. No matter how good you are at commercials, no matter how easy it is for you, you ll never make $1,000 doing this. BETTER IDEA: Promotional video commercials for engaged couples to Save the Date for their wedding. WHY THIS IS GREAT: Think about a newly engaged couple. SIT DOWN AND THINK ABOUT THEM. Really! They re in love they want to enjoy their engagement and tell all their friends about it. She wants to show off her ring! He wants to get dressed up, but not do something too girly. And they re willing to spend money it s their special time, after all. In fact, they re ACTIVELY LOOKING FOR WAYS TO SPEND MONEY to show how special their engagement is. Since their wedding will be many tens of thousands of dollars, a $500 or $1,000 project is nothing. My friend Chris has actually implemented this idea, and he s well on his way to $1K+ because of it. Do you see the difference? The engaged couple in the above example actually wants what you re offering. Instead
8 of trying to convince them to do it at all, you can spend time helping them pick the best video options. Compare this to the non-profit (or many other freelance ideas), where you ll offer something they don t want and waste 6 months trying to convince them to pay you. Not gonna happen. NOW LET S TACKLE ANOTHER ONE: REALLY BAD IDEA: My specific customer is someone with this problem: A low-to-mid income parent looking for ways to supplement his/her interested child s visual arts education ( My kid really seems to like art, but I m no good at it or Have no time for it. mentality). WHY THIS IS TERRIBLE: Do you see it already? The answer is right there in the description of this idea. This customer will never, ever pay for this service because (1) they don t even know they have a problem, (2) they re not aware of any paid solutions. There s also another thing OH YEAH, they are low-to-middle income. Even if they wanted to use this service, they can t afford it! If you re thinking, Well Ramit, that s really harsh how do you know? then you have to put yourself in your customers head. Think about a low-income mother or father. Of all the challenges in their
9 day, do you think they re thinking of a way to supplement (??) their child s visual arts education? How much would they pay for this? If your target buyer is a low-to-mid income parent and you are selling something that is not part of what most people consider to be absolutely core childraising activities, then seriously consider offering it as a charity and forget about getting to your first $1K. Honestly, it s a noble idea. But it s simply what someone thought about off the top of their head (supply). There is no demand, and if your immediate goal is to earn $1,000+, you should steer clear of this and focus on another idea. Later, you can donate part to charity or expand for community service. BETTER IDEA: This person would be better off targeting higher income parents who have both capacity AND willingness to pay. Think like a parent. Are most parents concerned only with their children s unfufilled interest in visual arts? Maybe some are. A very few. But for most, it s not a core concern, and they re concerned about a lot more things. (By the way, parents are willing to pay a lot for their kids well-being. Just not for this.) Get inside your customers heads: What do they care enough about to pay money for?
10 HOW I GOT INSIDE MY CUSTOMERS HEADS This one is counter-intuitive... When I first started I Will Teach You To Be Rich, I could have started writing about all financial topics under the sun. There are literally hundreds of thousands of topics, and millions of people that I could try to cater to. I didn t do it that way. Instead, I intentionally excluded certain groups of people because I knew that I didn t want to write for a mom with 2 kids looking to save money on coupons. It s fine to be a mom with kids, but I don t understand them very well (I m not a mom), nor are they my target, nor does my writing style really appeal to them. It takes guts to decide who you re NOT going to serve. But picking the right customers will help your income skyrocket A lot of people emailed me saying they wanted to offer computer services as their freelance idea. This is a great area. But who are you targeting, specifically? Are you just selling blindly to everyone? Or, have you determined a specific niche? Who will you intentionally exclude? If the answer is no one, then you re in grave danger. The secret to commanding rates as high as mine is in defining a highly specific niche, and intentionally excluding everyone else.
11 Cater to the lowest common denominator, and you ll have to price your services that way too. Cater to your niche, and your service becomes not only unique but scarce as well. Uniqueness and scarcity work hand-in-hand to drive up your rates. HOW I CHARGE $1,200/HOUR How I charge $1,200/hour I ve never revealed my consulting rate publicly, and I rarely take on consulting clients. But I want to share the number with you to illustrate how it can be done. I currently charge clients $1,200/hour for highly targeted consulting services to grow their business. They see these fees as an investment in solving their business problems, and they re willing to pay an extraordinary fee to get there. I require them to sign multi-month agreements (because you can t get much done in a month). I require that they meet me in person (and charge them). And they eagerly pay. Again, the key here is that I only target a very specific type of customer who knows they have a problem, and have a willingness to pay to solve that problem. I don t consult for
12 everybody, and I turn down 99% of requests, even when people are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars. The takeaway here is that nobody starts out earning 4-figure hourly rates, but getting there starts with finding people who know they have a problem, and have the willingness to pay. Business is about finding people who: 1. KNOW THEY HAVE A PROBLEM AND 2. HAVE THE WILLINGNESS TO PAY. REPEAT: Business is about finding people who: 1. KNOW THEY HAVE A PROBLEM AND 2. HAVE THE WILLINGNESS TO PAY. Does your freelance idea have potential customers who recognize they have a problem?
13 If you asked them, would they say, Yeah! That s been bugging me for MONTHS! I would do ANYTHING to get rid of that (or fix that or get MORE of that )? If you asked them about their willingness to pay, would they say yes! in so many words? Will they have tried to solve their problem by buying other services/products that just didn t work? Will they have a dollar value in mind even if it s low suggesting that they know they ll have to pay? Or will they look at you blankly because they d never, ever pay for the service you re mentioning? WHAT YOU VE LEARNED TODAY: SUPPLY + [THE MISSING PIECE] Supply and demand. Everyone has tons of ideas (supply) but ideas don t sell I want to teach people how to do online marketing. I can teach artists how to market their art. I will help small businesses start their own blogs. But what about demand? Where s your paying customer?
14 Who needs online marketing, and who s willing to pay for it? Do most people even know what online marketing is? Or are they mostly mom-and-pops who think this should be free? Does that artist have any extra money to pay you? How many other artists are out there who are willing and able to pay for your services? Does that small business really need a blog? Why? Where exactly are you going to find this business? And how are you going to find more businesses like that? AFTER READING THIS, YOU CAN DO 1 OF 2 THINGS: 1. Skim this, say, that was interesting, and not adjust your own freelance idea 2. Sit down and carefully re-adjust your ideas to earn more so you re targeting customers who know they have a problem, and have a willingness to pay Here s what a couple of our Earn 1K alumni had to say: I m now being paid $1000/month for about 5 hours+ work a month. My next goal is to make this client very happy with my work and get an awesome referral (with my help) from him. Justin Lam, Earn1k alum
15 It isn t just throw something in the air and see what happens, it s weeks of building things and trying things that totally changed my view. Everything is a test. Just because a pitch didn t go through doesn t mean I suck emphasizing that system made it doable for me, and that s what I got out of Earn 1K. April Dykman, Earn 1k alum A HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT This course is all about taking action. I don t want you to just sit back and passively read strategy after strategy. I want to make sure you get something out of this even in just a few days. Today, take a few minutes and email me your answers to these questions: 1. Why do so many people focus on their services (supply) but neglect the market (demand)? Your three best guesses here. 2. What s one example of what we talked about today: an entirely me-focused freelance offering? 3. How can you apply the principles of today s lesson to your own freelance idea? (Get really specific.)