318 | Why Higher Fees Aren’t About Confidence or Packaging with Allan Dib

0:00Allan Dib: Most experts don't undercharge because they don't have the skills. They undercharge because they sell the wrong thing. Right now a lot of smart operators are stuck selling their output, but their value belongs in a different box with a higher price. In this session I'm sitting down with Allan Dib, the author of Lean Marketing and the One Page Marketing Plan, and the man whose thinking has reshaped how founders and consultants price position and profit from their skills. Now, Alan is famous for his efficient marketing methodology and forcing clarity on what people actually buy and why some businesses capture value while others sell theirs for pittance.

0:38Allan Dib: And in our chat today, we dive into why clients never buy what you think you're selling and how that mistake keeps prices low. How to separate surface level demand from the real hidden motivations that drive buying decisions. the difference between creating value and actually capturing it and why most businesses confuse the two and how simplicity and risk reduction beat better quality every time when it comes to charging more so if you want to learn why higher fees aren't about confidence or clever packaging from one of the best in the game then don't miss this episode of the brand master podcast

1:17Allan Dib: I'm absolutely delighted to have Mr. Alan Dibb with us and I'm actually gonna hand it straight over to Alan because he's got an interactive presentation for us all right Alan I'm gonna hand it over to you my man away you go they didn't come to see me they came to see you I love it I love it well welcome everyone um thanks for joining um I I'm probably best known as the author of the One Page Marking Plan and I'm also of this book, Lean Marking. And so I love what I do every day. Every single day I work with clients all over the world to help them charge more money for what they do. So really this is, that's really the topic of today's workshop is how do you charge more for what you do?

2:05And so I want to break down a bit of a framework that I use with a lot of my clients and show them how to do that. But first, before we get started, I want to keep this really nice and interactive. It's kind of boring just watch a dude with slides and all of that sort of thing. So could you just type in the chat, where is everyone from? I'd love to know where is everyone from? And also, are you a business owner or do you work for somebody else? Just so I can tailor some of my presentation for you. Netherlands Consultant house malta business owner love it all right france slavinia new zealand ah just over the ditch yeah nice nice good work all right so uh let's start at the beginning it's probably the best place to start so a lot of times i'll be working with uh someone and you may you may use this information just for yourself or if you're consulting for a client so uh part of it is figuring out how do we charge more for what we do because you know uh high margins and high profits are my love language so i think about that a lot um so first let's start at the beginning uh i'd love you to type in the chat all each of you what do you guys currently sell i want to see what what's everyone selling at the moment what's the main thing that you sell to clients in exchange for being paid.

3:30We've got brand strategy, brand audit. Okay. All right. Consulting. Great. Head of brand and solopreneur. Nice. Okay. All right. So we've got consulting of various types, websites, digital marketing. Love it. Okay. So that's really good level one thinking. So So we're thinking about the thing that we do. Now, I want to kind of get to level two thinking because you can't make a lot of money until you get really clear on what you're actually selling. So here's how I think about it at level two. So level one, yep, got it. Brand strategy, consulting, all of that sort of stuff. So I'll share my iPad screen.

4:18Hopefully you can see it coming up. Yep, we've got it. All good. You got it? Perfect. All right. So when I think about it at level two, so people will tell me, you know, I'm a butcher, baker, candlestick maker, I sell brand strategy, I sell bread, I sell legal services, I sell whatever. The thing that I would like to get to is at level two, what do you really sell? and in my second book, Lean Marketing, I've got a section on this but really the only things that people ever buy are number one is time and convenience. There's only seven things. The second thing is money slash you could say wealth.

5:09They buy status.

5:14They buy sex and mating. They buy safety and peace of mind.

5:28And they buy leisure. And they buy freedom. So, and really probably the top three will cover the vast majority of things. but really if we want to be comprehensive, there's really only seven things that people really buy. And some people will argue with me, they'll say, no, you know, my buyers are very sophisticated, all of this sort of stuff. My clients are different, all of this sort of thing. But when it comes down to it, like I'll give an example, for example, no one buys insurance. People buy peace of mind and safety. We want to know that if the house burns down, we'll be covered or some terrible thing happens, we'll be covered.

6:10If we buy a cleaning service, we're really buying time and convenience. We want to save our time. If we're buying an asset of some type, we're buying money and wealth. So with that, I want you to go now to level two thinking and just take a moment to think about what are your clients really buying? And I'd like you to type that into the chat. So just have a bit of a think about it for a moment. What are people really buying from you at level two? So not the actual thing, but what are they really buying? So Helena has got freedom. Nice. Okay. Status, peace of mind, time, like that. What else? What are your clients really buying from you?

7:00Okay. Advantage. Advantage could be monetary advantage, could be time advantage, could be status advantage, more peace of mind, money and wealth from Matthias. Nice.

7:14Okay. All right. Well, good work. So here's how I think about it. Now, we've started at level one, which is the thing you do. Then we've started at, we've gone to level two, which is one of these seven things. Now I want to go to level three thinking. And so the things, a lot of the things that you guys mentioned there at level two is kind of the overt thing. So whenever someone buys something, I think about it this way, there's the overt thing that they buy. So they may be quite open with you in saying, hey, I want to rebrand my business because we want people to perceive us as more professional.

8:04We want better status in the marketplace. So they may be very, very open about that. Now, in almost any buying decision, there's also a covert reason. So there's overt reasons and covert reasons. And both covert and overt reasons fall into the same seven buckets. right so there'll be the the reason that they stake that they want to buy the things but then there'll be the reason under the surface that they're they're buying things so what and i kind of think about it uh let me let me think about it this way so i'll draw uh we'll come back to this in just a moment so i'll draw um and forgive my drawing if i know there's a lot of creative people on here so uh we'll draw the iceberg right so above is the overt stuff right so there's the stuff that they're telling you want we want more status we want more leads we want more money we want more profit all of that sort of thing then below the surface at level three thinking there's the covert stuff now i'll give you a trick that i use to get kind of get to the covert stuff and it's an exercise called the five whys so we think about so when someone's uh so when you put yourself in the mind of your client or prospect or whoever you deal with and we're going to ask why it's it's kind of a japanese concept it's called the five whys comes from the world of lean and i studied lean a lot so um for example uh where it came from like uh lean came from the manufacturing industry and a machine would break down and they would say why did the machine break down well it got clogged up with a lot of dust and then they go well why did it get clogged up with a lot of dust well it um it uh it the filter broke down and so you know all the dust got clogged up and that's why the machine broke down okay why did the filter get uh clogged up Well, there was a lack of maintenance.

10:14Okay, well, then we ask why again. Why was there a lack of maintenance? Well, the person who was taking care of it, they've been away sick. Well, so we finally kind of get to the root cause, and the root cause is usually different to the actual surface level thing. So using the five whys, I'd like you to think about just for a moment, what are some of the covert reasons that people buy and you'll see why this will become really important in a moment so we've got level one which is the thing that you do we've got level two which is kind of the overt stated stuff and then under the surface here under the water the big iceberg we've got you know the real reason and and maybe and i'm not saying that the overt reason is not real but the down here below the surface this is where you're really going to make the real money and where your messaging is going to really really cut through at a deep level so um i'd like you to just to think about at the moment for the moment and and use this exercise use the five whys to try and think about okay so let's say we're doing brand strategies as an example, a lot of people mention brand.

11:33So they may be quite open with you and say, hey, we want better status in the marketplace. We want better leads. We want to make more money, all of that sort of thing. What other things below the surface do you think, if we ask the five whys, what do you think might come up? I'd love you to type that into the chat right now.

12:03more leads more customers

12:09earn more money true better margins a lot of the time accomplishments yeah absolutely i think a lot of it will be tied to ego and status um how they're perceived um and you know you won't come up with a lot with a lot of this stuff immediately this will take some iteration it'll take some thinking but i want to show you in real life how some of this is implemented so this this was a really famous um ad from porsche so actually before i show it to you why do people buy a porsche why do people buy a Porsche 911. Anyone, anyone here? Status, status. Yeah. Okay. Status is definitely one, one part of it.

12:58Yeah. From an, you'll end up with sex. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think

13:07family car, leave it to later. Yeah. So if you asked the guy who's buying the Porsche, why are you buying a Porsche 911? Well, it's a German car. It's really reliable. It's fast. It's a cool car, all of this sort of stuff. But there's definitely stuff below the surface. So this is an ad for Porsche, right? This was a super famous ad. And they really cut to the chase with this one. So it's a little too small to get laid in, but you'll get laid the minute you get out, right? So they were really cutting, you know, they were speaking to the below the surface of what a lot of people buy a Porsche 911 for.

13:48Maybe not everyone, but a lot of people. So this is where I want you to kind of think about that level three thinking. So it's going to be very, very powerful in your messaging. If you can articulate something that your prospect or your client is thinking below the surface, and if you can articulate it in a way that's better than how they could possibly even articulate it, they're going to believe that you can help them get to the better condition from point A to point B to wherever you want them to go. So with that, I want to just take you through here. So here above the surface, we've got one of the seven reasons that people buy.

14:32And here below the surface, we've got seven reasons that people buy. Now, if we want to charge more for what we do, which is exactly what we want to do, and that's what we're all here for, a lot of the overt reasons that people buy here, the stated reasons, and then here the covert reasons, a lot of the overt reasons will be very much around utility. So it'll be the functional thing. So if I ask somebody, they'd say, I'm buying the Porsche 911 because it's a reliable car. German cars are really reliable. It's fast. It's all of this sort of stuff. And really, if we looked at some of the covert reasons, it would be, well, you know, sex and mating.

15:23that would be probably high on the list. Now, whenever we want to increase the value of something that we do, we want to use an amplifier. So before I get to amplifiers, I just want to illustrate value and price. So imagine we've got a scale here.

15:48I don't know if you've ever heard the phrase, value is what you get, price is what you pay. So I don't know if... So let's say we've got a widget and its value is... Actually, I won't put the dollar amount, but let's say its value is up here. And let's say price is down here. So it's being sold for$100, but the prospect values it at$300. So this is called the value price gap. And the wider this gap is, the easier time you're going to have selling something. Now, how do you think most people go about trying to create a bigger gap here between value and price? I'd love you to, I'd love you to. And I know kind of we're getting into some deep thinking here.

16:52So, but how do you think most people try to?

16:58Allan Dib: Covert level three? Yeah, close. Most people try to widen this gap by lowering their price. So like if I lower the price, my value proposition gets better and better and better. The problem with that is I can only lower the price so much. I mean, I can only get to zero, right? So if you value this thing at$300 and I'm offering it for$1, that's an amazing deal. You would grab that with both hands. Even at$100, it's good. Now, if it's at$299 and you value it at$300, you'll be like, it's kind of marginal. I don't know. Maybe I'll buy it. Maybe I won't. if the price is above what you value it we've got no deal right you'll be like i only value at 300 i'm not paying 500 for this thing right so the value price gap is the thing that's uh that you need to really think about and widen to a to a wider level but you want to widen it not by lowering your price but by increasing the value so if we increase the value of what you do so if we increase the value to$500 we've widened that gap but we've kept the price the same or we could even increase the price so this gap is super super critical to how much you charge now we've got we were talking about the the little iceberg earlier and here we we've got really the intrinsic value of what you do.

18:38So intrinsic or utility value of what you do. And then below, we've got kind of the internal value of what you do. So we've got below the surface, we've got... Sorry, we've got... Let me find the eraser.

19:05So we've got intrinsic value. And here below the surface, we've got perceived value. So what do you think we can charge more money for? Intrinsic value or perceived value? What do you think creates more dollars?

19:30Perceived, absolutely. because intrinsic value is the commodity cost of the thing. So everybody knows what the commodity cost of the thing is. The perceived value is the thing that we really want. Now, how a lot of people try to increase value, so they'll take the intrinsic value of the thing and they'll say something like, we're better, we've got better service, all of that sort of thing. Now, those things are expectations. Those things are not things that really increase value. There are four ways that you can kind of amplify the intrinsic value of something. So one is speed. So you can do it faster.

20:17And that's, I mean, if you just took nothing away, you could just do that right there. There are whole industries and business models that have been created by, hey, we just do the thing, but we just do it faster. I literally had this conversation with my web developer like two years ago. Like we were rebranding, we were rebuilding our website. And I'm like, how long is it going to take? And he's like, oh, it's probably going to be three months from start to end. And I'm going, Jesus Christ, you know, like there's no way I'm doing this for three. I said, look, how about we double the, how about a double what I pay you and we get it done in a week?

20:55And he's like stunned because to me, what do I value here? You know, this is something that I value very, very much. And most affluent buyers do. And he agreed. He's like, yeah, look, I think we could do it in a week. All right, cool. Game on. And so he didn't deliver in a week, but he delivered in about two weeks. And had I agreed on the three months, it would have been six months. I know that for sure. right? So I valued speed and so I paid accordingly. So speed is one way that we can amplify the intrinsic value of something. The next way that we can amplify the intrinsic value of something is ease.

21:41How easy is it going to be? You know, like, again, we look at things like Netflix, Blockbuster, Uber. Those are the same things as we had before. Like Uber is just taxis, right? but it's easier. We press a button, shows up. Netflix, we don't have to wait to stream it or whatever. We stream it on demand, but it's the same thing as cable, right? They're exactly the same thing as the thing before, but they're just faster, easier, right? So how easy is it to work with you? The next variable is risk. So how reliable do I believe that you're going to be, or what are the chances that I believe you're going to follow through with the thing.

22:25So one of the things that I was concerned when I was hiring my web developer is like, is he going to get it done? Is he going to get it done on time? Is he all of those sorts of things? So that's another lever that you can pull. And then the final one, which is kind of a little bit subtle, but is side effects. What are going to be the negative side effects of what you do? So if you can remove some of those, I'll give an example of that. so for example if i'm working with a nutritionist or a physical trainer or something like that um some of the side effects might be i don't get to eat my my will i not get to eat some of my favorite foods will i have to say goodbye to pizza and bagels for the rest of my life right so that's a negative side effect and so if you can say hey i can help you get fit and you don't have to give up your favorite foods so now you've increased the value of that for me because you've removed a potential negative side effect.

23:19Or if you said, hey, we can get you fit in six weeks instead of six months, that's increased the value of your offering. Or if you can make it really easy, if like, hey, I'm going to help you plan out every single meal, I'll have all the ingredients delivered to your door, you've made it significantly easier for me and hence much more valuable. if you've removed some of the risk if like you know i may believe that you're an amazing physical trainer but like uh there's a risk there that uh you know maybe i can't stick to the diet or you know so i may believe in you but i may not even believe in myself so if you can remove risk or make it easier or make it faster or remove some of the negative side effects you've made that thing the intrinsic value of that thing much much more valuable just a quick question on that on

24:12Allan Dib: that alan if i can please go ahead yeah would you would you say would you say trying to find optimization on each one of those would be valuable or would you be more inclined to pick one and double down on that thing yeah i think always pick one and double down on it and i mean And ideally, the ideal product or service is really instant, easy, risk-free, and has no negative side effects. So that's kind of the North Star. That's where we want to go. But a lot of the time, like I said, entire industries have been built on just one of those. Like, hey, we do the thing, but we just do it faster. Or, hey, we do the thing and we just do it easier.

25:01or hey, we do the thing, but there's a lot less risk for you. We'll take the risk. So you don't have to turn your whole world upside down. You can just say, look, I'm the branding guy and most branding guys or girls, so they will take six months from start to end to roll out this whole thing. I'm going to do it for you in six weeks or six days or whatever. Instantly, you're more valuable because you can now deliver at speed. And especially to affluent buyers, affluent buyers particularly value speed and time. Definitely ease as well. But less affluent buyers are really risk averse. They're kind of like, you know, you need to remove some of the risk and all of that sort of thing.

25:50But affluent buyers speed, I think, is one of the number one things that you can easily optimize.

25:56Allan Dib: And what would you say is the balance? So these are the kind of intrinsic thing. Sorry, there's a delay there. What would you say is the balance there? If I was to optimize for speed and I'd say, I'll do this for you in one week instead of four, the impact on perceived value there, what would you say the balance is there? it really depends on on your market like like i said some markets uh some markets have more time than money right so they're like i don't care i just want it cheaper right so uh so this is where you've got to be very clear on who your target market is right so if your target market um uh kind of uh people who just want the lowest price they don't care about anything else or whatever it's kind of like you know um uh like shopping at ikea oh my god like uh i would rather stab myself with a fork in the eye.

26:50You've got to go through a million things. You've got to load the damn cart. Then you've got to take it home, assemble it. You've got to, you're bleeding by the end.

27:02Allan Dib: You have to commit to two miles. It is just, I mean, to me, but there's a market for it. There are people who value money more than their time. They will spend a whole day to build a bookshelf. so and that's okay i'm not saying we have to cater to every single market but i recommend catering to affluent uh buyers because they're easier to deal with uh they're not gonna they'll pay you on time they'll be much you know they'll have realistic expectations they won't want the whole world so in my opinion targeting an affluent market and giving them what they want which a lot of time is speed and ease.

27:46There's your whole business model right there. Like, you know, you could end this webinar right now, go away and just implement that and you can charge much more for what you do. But let's get going and let's figure out under the surface, how can we charge way, way more than possible, than just above the surface? So that's some of the intrinsic music value amplifiers. Now, here below the surface, the real amplifier here of perceived value is story. So if you can tell a really powerful story about what it is that you do, why you do it, all of those sorts of things. Like, I'll give you an example.

28:35I think it was 1929 or something like that Actually before I do that What do you think is the most valuable painting in the world? Anyone want to type it in the chat? What do you think would be the most valuable? You're all artists here, right? Mona Lisa, exactly Everybody always says Mona Lisa Now isn't it interesting that in 19... I think it was 1929 don't quote me if I'm incorrect or whatever, but before 1929 or whatever, it was just one of the many paintings they had in the Louvre. There was nothing famous about it whatsoever. I mean, it was obviously done by da Vinci, and just like any other da Vinci work, it was valued, but nobody knew about it, right?

29:25It was hardly anyone. And then what happened is it got stolen. uh you know someone stole it from the louvre and it was so it was such not a big deal that people didn't even notice for like a few days after it had been stolen and then it turned into a national uproar because uh it started to become a a thing about national pride there was this intrigue about who stole it people thought some other country or some something had happened or whatever and so So this massive storm blew up and it was gone for a couple of years. And the dude who stole it, I mean, he had intended to sell it off, but he couldn't now.

30:06It was in every single newspaper. Everyone was hunting it, all of those sorts of things. So he just had it hanging in his lounge room for a couple of years and then finally gave up and just, I don't know, returned it or something like that. But the point is, the reason that it's so valuable is because of the story behind it. The thing that just, that's the thing that absolutely blew it up. And so if you've got a powerful story, and obviously, I mean, we don't have a lot of time today to go into deep storytelling technique. I've got a lot of really good material on that. But if you can come up with a better story, you can charge much, much more for what you do.

30:47I'll give you another practical example. So the iPod was what revolutionized Apple. And, you know, it wasn't the best MP3 music player out there. It wasn't the first music player that was out there. It was actually pretty average. And they came out and everybody was talking about gigabytes, megabytes, blah, blah, blah, all of this. and Apple came out and said, 1 ,000 songs in your pocket. Boom. That story told you everything you needed to know. We didn't care how many gigabytes. We didn't care about the specs. We didn't care about the CPU, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So if you can tell a better story, the perceived value goes up and perceived value, there's way, way, way, way, way more you can charge than just the intrinsic value of what you do.

31:45Because almost everything is a commodity. You're probably not going to come up, people talk about unique selling proposition and all of that sort of thing. There's almost nothing that's really unique in the marketplace. Almost everything is being done or being done by someone. And so really a lot of the value you're gonna be able to create in the marketplace is perceived value. And a lot of that is done with story. So I'll take any questions on that or otherwise I'll just keep going.

32:20Allan Dib: Anybody got any questions? No. No. So I've got, I've got one there. So, so when it comes to story, because obviously, you know, a lot of people, when they think of storytelling, you know, there's the whole idea of the founder story. I'm going to tell you all about my life. And then there's the customer story and you can align to the customer story. The example that you gave there is kind of baked into the customer story in terms of what they want in a very unique way. When it comes to consulting businesses, have you seen any really good techniques that work in selling that story to the buyer? I have.

33:09almost no one cares about your founder story and all of that sort of thing so you care about it your mom cares about it maybe your sister or whatever almost no one people care about themselves and so it's the story of you taking them from the place where they're in a worse condition and we want to take them to a place where they're in a better condition you can tell that story many different ways and there are a lot of storytelling techniques um but a really good way is uh through someone who's who was in a similar shoe shoes to them it was like hey john um you you remind me of another client we worked with um a few months ago a few weeks ago whatever he was in a similar position to you his uh some of the things that he went through he was he some of the roadblocks he went through and and so on so that's one way to tell a story and that that can be pretty effective so the prop the prospect and their problem is always center stage not you you're the you're taking them through that journey but they are the star of the show so uh so that's um That's a lot of how we create value.

34:27So is through these things by these intrinsic kind of amplifiers and then story, which helps increase the perceived value. So the Mona Lisa is now got so much perceived value because of the story behind it. now i want to keep going because um we can really put this on steroids and but before i do um i want to ask a simple question um is it true that even if you create a lot of value you may not capture a lot of value is that is that possible do you think that's possible like you can create a lot of value but you may not be able to you may not capture that value or you may not capture a lot of that value.

35:12Allan Dib: I think everybody kind of feels that way a little bit, don't they? Yeah. I mean, how many times have you done something for a client? You thought, man, they're really going to be blown away. And then they were like, yeah, thanks, you know, whatever. So, and it's, I mean, if you doubt this, just ask these three gentlemen. So anyone know who the the one on the left is uh one on the left here uh over here that's uh nikola tesla yeah that's it so this dude literally invented electricity the electricity that we use today created trillions of dollars of value um died dead broke like didn't have a cent to his name was in debt um like literally we owe him the electricity that we have in our houses modern their electricity.

36:05This dude is Tim Berners-Lee. He literally invented the World Wide Web. So if you go to a web page, it's because of something that he invented. And again, I don't think he's broke, but he works just as a professor somewhere. He's certainly not in the top rich, wealthiest people in the world, but he's created trillions of dollars of value. I mean, every website owes tim berners lee uh its existence um finally this guy um jonas sulk he invented the polio vaccine saved millions of lives all over the world again he didn't patent it uh and you know i think he did did okay but he was just worked as a doctor or whatever certainly nowhere near the value he created.

36:54So it's true that you can create massive value, but capture very, very little of it. So we talked already about creating value, which is a great first step. But now I want to talk a little bit about how do we capture more of the value that you have created? So there's five techniques I think about when when I think about capturing more value so first of all we can increase price that's kind of like an obvious one a lot of people tell you just increase price and there are a lot of techniques for for doing that so that's it that's a way to capture more value so we're capturing or value. We can increase

37:50volume and we might do that for example through an upsell, a cross-sell, downsell, maybe through a bundle. so we increase the the average purchase purchase price or average volume another way that i like to do it is ascension so we move people to the next tier up so let's say you might someone might be on the basic so you might have three plans you might say look i've got the basic plan i've got the standard plan and then i've got the premium plan and i highly recommend also you have here an ultra high ticket plan you have that for a couple of reasons you may not sell many but when you do it's highly profitable but the other thing is if you've got this ultra high ticket version of what you do it makes these look very reasonable by comparison so people will look at that get sticker shock and and then they're like oh well these look pretty reasonable by comparison whereas if you don't have this one this is now kind of your most expensive one and then people tend to go for either the middle or the bottom one.

39:04Anyway, I mean, pricing, we can have a whole six-hour seminar just on pricing, so I won't go there. The next thing that we can do is increase frequency of purchase. I used to be in the telecom business and a little dirty trick that we didn't necessarily really do this, but a dirty trick in the telecom industry was rather than billing monthly, they would go to a 28-day billing cycle. And you think, well, monthly 28-day, almost the same thing, except on a 28-day billing cycle, they get to bill you 13 times a year instead of 12 times a year. So they increase your frequency of purchase. Or if you're a hairdresser, if you remind someone to come in every, I don't know how, I don't need a hairdresser very often.

39:56So, but if it's every six weeks or 12 weeks or whatever, if you remind the person to come in, you can increase the frequency. So if someone cuts their hair, I don't know, eight times a year and you remind them and they come in nine or 10 times a year, you've increased the amount of value that you're going going to capture from that client. And then the final way is by increasing tenure. So how long someone stays with you. So, and especially, this is especially important if you sell something repeatedly over and over. So let's say you sell a design service that people buy on a monthly or retainer basis or whatever.

40:39So if your average life, if your average client stays with you for 12 months, but you can increase that to 18 months or 24 months or whatever, you're obviously going to capture much, much more value. So like I said, I wanted to cover really today about how do we increase the value of the thing that we deliver, you know, the intrinsic and the perceived value of the thing that we deliver, how do we, you know, by increasing this gap and then how do we capture more of that value because like we all would read you can create tons of value but not capture very much of it so there were a couple of things that i wanted to cover the final thing i want to cover off is that both in terms of capturing and in terms of creating more value that can be applied in two scenarios so the only way to make more money in your business is only two ways you can make more money from existing clients and you can make more money sorry that's uh handwriting is terrible but uh and you can make more money from new clients that's it they're the only two ways to make more money in your business from existing clients and from new clients which do you think most people go for definitely new definitely new i agree uh i I would 100 % agree with you on that.

42:07And this one is way, way harder. You know, we work with clients all over the world in every single type of industry. And I've never seen a client come on board and not be able to double or potentially triple their business by having no more new clients, just by really mining existing clients, by doing these things, by increasing price, by increasing volume, by ascension, by increasing frequency, by increasing tenure. So by capturing more value from what they're already doing for clients. So almost every business on the planet that, certainly every business I've seen can double or triple their revenue and not have to add a single new client because adding new clients can be expensive.

42:59It can be difficult. It's about 21 one times easier to sell to an existing client than someone who's brand new. So a lot of the early testing at least of these strategies, capturing more value and also amplifying things with story, with speed, with ease, with reduction of risk, with reduction of side effects. if you can practice these on some of your clients you've got a path to instantly doubling or tripling some of your revenue immediately like you don't even have to get any new clients and then when you when you've got the process down with some of your existing clients then then you can absolutely deploy it to new and i'm not saying don't go out and get new clients of course go out and get new clients it's sexy it's fun it's it's cool or whatever but i'm telling you this is where the money is made by increasing what's called your lifetime value.

43:59So, and you increase your customer lifetime value through one of these five accelerators.

44:06Allan Dib: Hope that was helpful. Absolutely. I've got, like I said, it's probably 1 % of what we teach in our programs and my books and stuff like that. So I've got this link, especially for you guys. My team has set this up. If you wanted to get the first couple of chapters of my book free, and we've got a ton of resources that help you out. So feel free to grab those, those especially for you. And I'm happy to hang around and answer any questions. Lovely, lovely. I'll just share with you guys because I like you. Thank you for that, my man. That was you preaching to the choir on so much of that there because we talk so much about a lot of this stuff where I really saw the value for us as brand builders.

44:51Allan Dib: One of the areas is on the consulting recurring pricing models and the offer models around recurring pricing. So, I mean, you work with coaches and consultants all the time. What are you seeing in terms of what really works for consultants and strategists to be able to put in front of their clients an offer that makes sense to have this kind of recurring pricing model? Yeah. so uh people kind of get hung up on recurring pricing and recurring models and i absolutely love recurring models they um they are you know the eighth wonder of the world but the thing that i think about most is lifetime value so um whether you like let's say you've got a recurring model and the client pays you let's say a thousand dollars a month stays with you on average for 18 months.

45:54So then your lifetime value is$18 ,000. Now, if you can bank that$18 ,000 upfront and not have a recurring model, that's totally fine. And in many cases, that's preferable because you don't have to chase money, bouncing credit cards, all of that sort of thing. So really, whether it's recurring, whether it's one-off or whatever, the number that you want to obsess about is lifetime value? What's a client worth to you over their lifetime? Whether you bank that value upfront or whether you bank it over time from a recurring model or whatever. The next thing that I'll say when I work with consultants and coaches and people like that, one of the biggest traps you get into is just doing a lot of unique work for each client.

46:43The people who do best and, you know, So a lot of the people I work with are even getting to bill a million to$2 million a month. Now, you cannot possibly do that if you're doing a lot of unique work for every client. So obviously we work with people who are a lot less, but they're some of our real high performers. We've got clients that are just doing six figures or whatever, or a lot less, that's fine. It doesn't matter where you're starting. But if you're doing a mass load of unique work for each client, like one client needs logo, another client needs website, another client needs SEO, and you're saying yes to that, you're not doing yourself a favor and you're not doing them any favors.

47:31So you're going to be doing tons and tons of unique work. You're probably going to do a lot of stuff in a mediocre way and not because you can't possibly be an expert in all of those things. like SEO. There are people who are just geniuses at that and they spend all day long trying to figure that stuff out. So there are people who are just experts at, you know, color. So right now you just cannot be too niche. It's like, I'll tell you a bit of a funny story. I work with a company that does sales training and they do sales training specifically for people who coaches and consultants and stuff like that.

48:12And I said to them, I go, what is, who is your big, your client that's crushing it more than any other, other clients. And I expected him to say something like, I don't know, some marketing consultant or business consultant, whatever. And he, he sort of laughed and he goes, well, I've got this client that coaches Mormons who are addicted to porn. So that's how neat. And out of all his clients, they're the ones that were crushing it the most. They're so niche. So what you want to do, you want to choose a niche that's an inch wide and a mile deep, meaning someone will clearly say, hey, that's for me.

48:55And there'll be a lot of people in that niche who need that. So I'll give you another example. There's a guy who runs a marketing agency and all they do is testimonials for SaaS companies. So SaaS companies need social proof on their website. You know, happy customers saying, I used this software and it was great. It changed my life. It reduced the time I needed to do stuff and all of this sort of thing. And that's kind of hard for most software companies to get, you know, you've got to interview clients, you've got to get cameras or whatever, and clients feel weird about doing that. And We will interview your clients on Zoom.

49:34We'll ask them strategic questions so that they say nice things about your software. We'll go and edit the reel so that we cut out all of the boring bits. And we just create testimonials for software companies. Boom, they're crushing it. So you want to be an inch wide and a mile deep. And so where we go wrong as consultants and coaches and strategists and all of that is we just say yes to too much stuff. and when you're too general and like it feels like counterintuitive to be niche like you feel like you're going to be uh you know blocking out a lot of potential market but what we want is for our ideal target market to say hey yes that's for me right so um the more specialized and the more niche that you can be the more you can charge and the more likely that your ideal prospect will say, Hey, that's for me.

50:27Wow.

50:28Allan Dib: It's been an absolute pleasure. And thank you so much for, for, for joining us. And I hope to see you again soon. If there's anything else that you want, I would imagine that if, if people send, if people go to that link, that will be kind of the entry point into everything else that they need from you. That's the best place to go. That's the best place to go. You, you, you get the first couple of chapters of my books and watch, watch how we do our marketing, you know? So we try not to be the plumber with, oh, nice. Thank you there, Michael. So we try not to be the plumber with the leaky pipe.

51:04So we try to do it well. And I'd love to hear your feedback at any time. So thanks guys. It was such a pleasure to talk to you and see you all and have an amazing day, morning, evening, wherever you are.

51:17Allan Dib: Cheers, Alan. Thanks again. And thank you everybody. And I'll talk to you all soon. ciao for now we really hope you enjoyed today's episode thanks so much for listening if you want to learn more brand strategy techniques to level up your skills make sure you check out brandmaster academy.com there's plenty of free resources and premium content for you to download and get you going if you enjoyed this content please be sure to give us an honest review on itunes stitcher or wherever you listened and make sure you tune in for the next episode of the brandmaster podcast