Crafting Predictability in Creative Work | Gabe Marusca

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of the Profitable Creative, host Christian Brim speaks with Gabe Marusca and discusses the challenges of balancing creativity with client acquisition. He emphasizes the importance of having control over one's time and the need for predictability in creative processes, particularly when working with clients.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Creativity can be stifled by the pressure of client acquisition.
• Having a waiting list can provide predictability in client work.
• Control over time is essential for creative thinking.
• Cold calling and emailing can detract from creative processes.
• A structured approach to client acquisition can enhance creativity.
• Predictability allows for better planning in creative projects.
• Creative processes should be intuitive and enjoyable.
• Balancing creativity with business needs is a common challenge.
• Finding clients shouldn't compromise creative integrity.
• Establishing boundaries can help maintain creative flow.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.518)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you will learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Springfield, Massachusetts. Only been to Boston. I don't think it's far, but I haven't been to Springfield, but thank you for listening. Joining me today is Gabe Maruszka of Authority in the Wild podcast. Gabe, welcome to the show.

Gabe Marusca (00:31.864)
Thank you so much, Christian, for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.

Christian Brim (00:36.012)
Absolutely. So I've been a guest on your show. But tell your tell our listeners what authority in the wild is about.

Gabe Marusca (00:47.182)
Sure. So it's a podcast that started as a creative experiment if you want, driven by curiosity and so on of learning and trying new things. And it turned out to be a very profitable one, profitable creative process that now acts as my main source of clients. And it's a podcast, interview style podcast like this one, where I interview authority figures like you.

Christian Brim (01:00.058)
Mm-hmm.

Gabe Marusca (01:17.548)
to gather insights for those watching and listening that can apply right away in their own business and life.

Christian Brim (01:25.21)
I love it. it was a creative, what sparked the creative idea of doing a podcast?

Gabe Marusca (01:32.686)
So it was quite random. I was being part of a coaching, individual coaching program to be able to record on camera because I was quite shy and quite introverted, let's say, and I wasn't able to literally like sit in front of a camera and start recording. So I was going through this coaching program and while doing so, I was still having these moments like turning on the camera and I'm like...

what I'm doing here. And back then I was in Thailand for those that listening, I'm also a digital nomad and I was in Thailand just meeting a group of people to do a hike. And one of the individuals was a guy from Czech Republic that was vlogging in the moments, very like, and he seemed also very creative, like the way he hold the camera, the way he speak and so on.

Christian Brim (02:21.753)
Mm-hmm.

Gabe Marusca (02:29.358)
I was like, wow, he seems so young and he's so confident and so on. And after talking to him, I realized that he was his way of breaking this, if you want, social anxiety that he was going through and was like challenging him to record every single day. And that was quite inspiring. And after that conversation with him, he invited me to host a live video session on Instagram.

Christian Brim (02:44.015)
Hmm.

Gabe Marusca (02:57.55)
I was like, me live? no, no way. And eventually I say yes because he was like, I don't have all the followers, no one will watch probably and let's just do it. Yeah, exactly. And it's funny that that live recording turned out to be so full of energy for myself. Like I enjoyed so much.

Christian Brim (03:06.608)
Nobody's gonna see this.

Gabe Marusca (03:25.314)
that I told myself, I see myself doing this all the time. yeah, like long story short, after that I was like, how can I put this into practice? And I'm like, maybe podcasting, video podcasting and so on. yeah, and I started learning everything I could because it was like middle of December and I wanted to start in the beginning of the year, next year. Everything I could in two weeks about podcasting, invited some people and...

One of them is the one and only Chris Do and when he said yes, he told me actually having a strong online presence or a podcast launch already. I was like, if Chris said yes, like everyone can say yes and I will just do it. Please.

Christian Brim (04:09.296)
Okay, pause, pause. I have been on a quest for the last two weeks to find a connection to Chris to get him on this show. So now I'm going to ask, can you make an introduction to Chris?

Gabe Marusca (04:24.834)
Yeah, absolutely. I love to. Of course he has the less say for that, but he's a very down-to-earth individual and such a cool guy that when he said that I was like, wow.

Christian Brim (04:26.999)
Okay.

Christian Brim (04:37.338)
Well, that's why I want him on the show because, you know, everything that I see that he puts out there really resonates with me and what I'm doing here at the Profitable Creative and what we're doing for creatives. I'm like, I've got to get him on the show, but he's he's got a lot of gatekeepers. So if you can put me in touch, that'd be awesome. universe manifests things. So why did you choose the name authority in the wild? Like what and the topic? What?

Gabe Marusca (04:57.432)
We love to.

Christian Brim (05:06.702)
What went into that?

Gabe Marusca (05:08.416)
Actually, I didn't start it like that. Like the original name of the show was the Nomad Soloprenor because you know, I was both a soloprenor and nomad. And slowly, slowly I was like, I don't see myself being a nomad for my entire life. And actually now I'm in the process of settling down. I was like, maybe I should rebrand the podcast as well because I'm not truly a soloprenor anymore either because I have like a small team of contractors that I work with. My wife is part of the business. So I'm not truly a soloprenor anymore.

And I thought how I can find a name that's not just unique, but to kind of tell what's there, right? Like, and since I already started interviewing, not just nomads and soloprenos like I was doing at the beginning, with some exception, like special guests like Chris was, I was like, all right, so right now I'm currently interviewing a lot of authority figures, experts in their fields and so on. And

I host raw conversation unscripted and so on. I was like, hmm, I love as well nature and how can I mix all these things together? And that's how I led to this name of authority in the wild, basically capturing the wisdom and insights of these authority figures as raw as possible in their own habitat, if you want.

Christian Brim (06:30.671)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. It reminds me. I don't remember. You may not be old enough. There was a, a, show when I was a kid and, Sunday nights there was, the, world of Walt Disney. was a, hour long show. And then there was, it was mutual of Omaha sponsored it. And it was a wildlife show. And, that, that is what just.

came to my mind because it's the, you know, in the natural habitat. I love that. I love that. Okay, but this, the podcast you said was accidentally profitable. So that's not what your main gig is, correct?

Gabe Marusca (07:23.214)
Correct. I run a consulting business and the podcast, it's kind of the main source of leads currently. And it, as you mentioned, it was kind of accidental because some of the guests, like sharing what they do, they got interested and we chat and then they become the clients or listeners that just connected with me, they turn out clients at some point in the process.

Yeah, the main thing that I do, it's a consulting business where I enter as if you want, fractional executive in businesses and help them implement three systems, the acquisition system, client acquisition system, client retention, and operation side of things. So I plug into their own business and either bring my own team of contractors or working with their team in order to basically implement the three main pillars of a business to be profitable.

Christian Brim (08:20.864)
And what types of businesses do you work best with?

Gabe Marusca (08:25.792)
Mostly individuals that found their base businesses that are willing to be authorities in their space, meaning that they are willing to build personal brands and so on. And most of them are experts that spend a lot of times in the corporate world and they want to escape that to build their own thing. And they start the process, they start applying what they learn and so on.

But because they can see only from the lens of the corporate person, they don't have the skills or sometimes the resources to build those three pillars that I mentioned. So, and they are part of many industries, like I work from yoga coaches, for example, to creative professionals that do service-based businesses to as well even product-based small businesses.

Christian Brim (09:25.72)
And so you're working with them when they're just starting out or fairly new? Is that? Okay.

Gabe Marusca (09:35.072)
It's a mix. So most of them, they have few years in the industry. Like they left corporate four or five years ago, they already have some results with their clients, but they are mostly trapped into the fist and famine cycle. are chasing clients, implementing, chasing clients, implementing for their clients rather than building systems and so on. And I have a favorite quote from James Clear, which is, goals are good, you know, for setting direction.

Christian Brim (09:41.007)
Okay.

Gabe Marusca (10:04.578)
but systems are best for making progress and they don't have those systems. So that's when I come in and some of them are just new from the corporate world. They put some money on the side, they are ready to build the business the right way from the start. But those are kind of minority from those that I work with. Most of them, they have already a small track record with clients outside corporate.

Christian Brim (10:09.2)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (10:31.844)
Yeah, my experience with creative entrepreneurs is they resist processes because I think they find them restrictive maybe. But I've had several guests on here that have essentially said the same thing, which is if you don't have processes, you actually are less creative. the processes give you

the space and the predictability to be creative. What would you say to that?

Gabe Marusca (11:06.542)
I just can't say I love it because indeed that's the thing, right? Because if you are trapped in quote unquote creativity mode in which you just build for your clients and you have these creative processes in which you just sit and brainstorm and so on, can feel intuitively good. But then you end up in the position in which you're like, my God, where my next client is coming from.

And then you start doing that thing that you don't truly enjoy, which is like knocking on doors, phone calling, cold emailing, whatever you're doing for early generation. And you don't have any sort of control or predictability. And I was in that situation like, and I wanted control over my own time to have that space for creative thinking, to have that space and predictability that I know that if, I don't know, this project ends, I know.

Christian Brim (11:36.495)
Mm-hmm.

Gabe Marusca (12:05.806)
that another one comes in because they have a waiting list. So that's kind of what I'll say to that is often we think like if you just are full mode into creative, even if let's say you're a web designer or a videographer and you're there playing with your favorite tools and so on, but the day ends and you realize like, wait a second, I have done nothing today when it comes to lead generation or

I didn't document my processes in order to, my process in order to build actual standard ability procedure or something that I can fall back to when I do it my own on my own or when I need help, because that's another struggle. As you know, most people, most creative people face in which they, they don't have a clear process to execute things. They just act on, on that creativity juice that is not always flowing, you know, like

Wait a second, what was this next step here in order to do that?

Christian Brim (13:07.032)
Yeah. And I don't think it's just creatives because I can think back at the beginning of my business. I had purchased a franchise, so there were processes that were built in the franchise model, but not everything had a process. I think, you know, even if it's just yourself and you don't have contractors,

process gives you the structure to get predictable results and and that's I think key if you're gonna have a business like Otherwise, like you said you get you you end up reinventing the wheel multiple times and it's like, know, you don't have to do that but if you're going to go beyond yourself and Involve someone else be it an employee or a contractor

you absolutely have to have processes or you can't hand it off. one of the things I see, you know, I get your opinion on this. I, I see a lot of creatives that are project work driven and I think that's kind of, you know, the nature of the expectation of the customers, like their clients.

that they want to hire them for a specific project. You mentioned websites. like, you know, I, I have a website I want built, so I'm going to hire you to do it. I see a resistance to productizing their service. Like, rather than be a custom scope of work for each project, finding a problem that you can solve.

that you can repeat and standardize, know, 80 % of it is the same and only 20 % of it is custom. What's your experience with that?

Gabe Marusca (15:15.918)
It's funny that you ask that because not sure if you know, but I was a web designer and I had the same resistance. I was like, how can I, I will be able to serve clients best if I, I don't know, function on a standard step-by-step process. But after years of like struggling with that, I realized, wait a second, but actually repeat kind of the same process.

Christian Brim (15:36.293)
Mm-hmm.

Gabe Marusca (15:43.572)
in order to drive consistent results through their websites. the thing is that creativity, still, and you can still build unique websites, even if you productize, because if you think about it, like what are the steps, right? Like you learn about their business, you have an intake from probably in which you gather as much information as possible for them. And then you follow a certain process like your wireframing, your creating the first iteration.

And so on, because people, when they think productization, they assume they're like, wait a second, I'll get a templatized style website, or I will get something that is not uniquely mine and so on. But that doesn't have to be the case. You still have the freedom to create a unique website. Even if it's based on a certain standard wireframe that you know that works best for a certain industry. For example, I have that type of service. around 10 % of my business, I still do websites.

and focusing on speakers and thought leaders. And it's, kind of the standard in the industry. is a certain section that every single landing page needs to have or certain pages and so on. So when people think about creative process, implant creative process in productization, I'll suggest to like, leave creativity aside for a second. Think creativity about how to create those steps.

And where to insert flexibility because if it's a, let's say you create websites and you want flexibility for both you and your clients. And you can have three pricing tiers. One, example, a templatized style website, one for a custom based website and one for like, I don't know, you give them the, your entire time and so on, maybe like plugging into their own business, but that's the higher tier.

one and you can use price anchoring to sell the one that you actually want to sell probably, which is the middle one. yeah, it's in theory, it's simple in practice. You need to do it like, because it's one thing to say like, all right, I will just follow this process and I will succeed. You need to try, you need to go and try with one client, improve at the next one, improve on the next one, improve on the next one. And you'll end up with a process that it's successful.

Gabe Marusca (18:08.09)
because it's tested with multiple clients and then you can like confidently charge more and in the same time deliver fast and actually get predictable results for both you and your client.

Christian Brim (18:20.856)
Yeah. And, and even in your example of the website, the, the, the structure gives you the space for the creativity in the sense that like, if you know that, and you pick speakers, that 80%, 90 % of all speaker websites have these components, right? If you process and standardize that and productize it,

to sell that gives you all right now, what do you want it to be different? How do you want it to be creatively unique? You don't have to worry about that other 80%. You can focus on the 20%. Whereas if you don't have the process and you don't have the productization, then you're reinventing the wheel every time.

Gabe Marusca (19:13.326)
Exactly. And imagine if you're a creative listener, like, and you're building website, imagine that if you allocate a certain amount of hours on the things that you know exactly how much time it will take, because you have those steps and you know that like getting information from clients is getting you this amount of time. Creating the wireframe based on the structure that you have is this, this, this. And you arrive at the space like allocating

a flexible amount of hours for the creative process. But you know that you have like a ceiling if you want. You cannot go past that and if you go past that it's like a question mark for yourself like should you be flexible in the future? Should you charge more? Because in theory it's taking longer than you predicted and that's why I if you rewind a bit back and you think about the thing that I said that

Christian Brim (19:45.21)
Mm-hmm.

Gabe Marusca (20:07.15)
You need to test this because at the beginning you won't be able to tell like the creative process is taking this amount, getting the wireframe done is this amount implementing that into the system that you probably use and so on. So testing is I think the best way to identify these times.

Christian Brim (20:26.128)
So let me circle back then to the question, so how did you overcome the resistance of productization? What allowed you to move past that self-limiting belief?

Gabe Marusca (20:44.654)
my body because it gave up. Like I overwork myself. I wasn't able to serve all the leads that come in and I was bad at saying yes. Sorry, saying no. And I was saying yes to everyone and end up burning out. And that time allowed me to rethink everything and to literally find ways to get out of that. if you want...

Christian Brim (20:49.7)
Hmm.

Gabe Marusca (21:13.28)
the quote unquote annoying thing that I knew the solution for a long time, but I was resistant to that. And when the life's strike, I was like, okay, I need to do something because I cannot continue like this. cannot like put my health in this situation. And yeah, and that comes because if you're creative, you reason it probably the fact that that is one of the struggle. The other is like hiring help because you think you are the best at what you do. Surprise, surprise, you're nuts.

Christian Brim (21:18.063)
Hmm.

Gabe Marusca (21:42.058)
No one is the best. And like all those things that I was struggling before burning out. After that, I was like, I need to actually leave my limiting beliefs and leave my ego aside and start asking for help. Start implementing systems, start documenting better and apply that documentation to building processes. And one thing as you know, leads to another and...

Christian Brim (21:43.727)
Right.

Gabe Marusca (22:08.61)
that led us well into consulting because I was seeing that a lot of people struggle with this because it's not in our nature to from the beginning to start writing down every single step that we do.

Christian Brim (22:19.92)
No, no, no, it's not. There, there, there are shortcuts if we'll, if we'll accept the help, right? You know, I bought the franchise. That was a shortcut. Um, you know, I, I think I was talking, I was at my mastermind last week and one of my colleagues, uh, has a AdWords agency and, which is kind of surprising to me. didn't know those still existed, but

Gabe Marusca (22:28.482)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (22:49.584)
And he's exceptionally good at his craft. And this year he hired two people and he had been about documenting the processes so that he could get these people engaged. But his problem, what he presented with was, I still feel like I'm still too involved, that I'm the bottleneck.

things keep coming through me and I can't turn these things over because I can't explain thoroughly how I do things to someone else that they can do it like I do it. And, you know, my experience sharing advice to them was, well,

It reminds me of a conversation I had with my daughter who is a figurative oil painter. And when she first started out, she said she got exasperated with me when I was asking questions about how she's actually going to make money doing this. And she said, well, I don't know, Dad. I just want to paint what I want to paint. And I'm like, well, OK. You may or may not make a living doing that, right?

But after she'd been in business for a couple of years, I asked her the question, okay, how would you compare yourself to say Andy Warhol, who was a creative that was uber successful in business who involved others in what, you know, he had a production line of, and, and, you know, her response was that that to her,

that diminished the creativity of it. And I'm like, okay, because to me, that's the distinction. You, as a business owner, have to decide, are you going to be the artist where only you can do it? Or are you going to accept that there's an alternative where other people involved in the process and it's not just you, and you're much more successful financially as a business?

Christian Brim (25:09.902)
Like, cause that's where this guy was. Cause, cause to your point, yeah, you, you may be great and you may have a great process, but it's not like no one else can do it. And if they get 80 % of the way that you, that you do, and you have a, a standardized outcome, you have a, a expectation of quality, all of these things. Is it okay if someone else does it differently than you? Right. And, and.

That is a hurdle most entrepreneurs get stuck at. They just get stuck there and they can't get over themselves. to me, you just have to be real clear and understanding. It's you that's limiting it. It's 100 % you. And if you want to be the artist, you can be the artist. But just understand that you're limiting yourself.

Gabe Marusca (26:06.03)
100 % and couldn't agree more. I smiled because I was like, that was me. I was like, all right, so why this individual that I just hire and I build this process for is not doing everything the way I said. But then if I like remove that lens and looking from the perspective of a person that it's third party, it's not me, it's not the contractor and so on, I realized like, oh, wait a second, this work is actually pretty good. And if I look again at it.

wait a second, it's actually better than the way I was doing it based on my process. And to your point, like, because it was 80 % done the way I prepared the process, but the other 20 % was the, the only individual creative process in the way of the thing. And yeah, it, it shouldn't be perfect. That's another thing, like, especially as creatives, you always, you're driven by perfectionism. You are driven by the fact that we want to be like,

spotless, whatever we are creating, even a business, even a process, even something that doesn't necessarily involve the classic creativity of art or something else. And that's not okay because we're limiting ourselves, like you well said. And as entrepreneurs, as creatives, if you want to be profitable and if you don't want to end up in a position in which we don't have energy anymore to do anything else apart of work, that's not a nice place to be.

Christian Brim (27:35.056)
No, you said your body shut down. that's that you don't want to get to that point. you mentioned something earlier that piqued my interest and I want to go down that rabbit hole. you use the term anchor pricing. I, I love talking about pricing because, that's kind of my hobby. for the listeners, what, what does anchor pricing mean?

Gabe Marusca (27:38.773)
Exactly.

Gabe Marusca (28:06.414)
I'll try to use an analogy here. So it's coming from anchor, right? It's anchoring to something. So when someone sees, let's say your pricing table, they, let's say they see the bigger price first, which is standing out, it's big and so on. Let's say it's 10K for the purpose of this example. And then you have a price that's around 7K or even better, like 6K, let's say.

and you have another one that's five and if someone looks at those prices they're like wait a second that 10k seems so expensive but the packages when they look at them like the between the five and the six are quite similar and even the the bigger one has just some extras on top of the six one which one will you choose probably the sixth one because it's almost similar to the other two

Christian Brim (28:38.106)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (28:51.695)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (28:58.469)
Mm-hmm.

Gabe Marusca (29:04.248)
but it's way better deal than the five because it includes more things, but less ideal than the 10 one that it's way less appealing due to the fact that it's almost double, but doesn't include double. So that's how you anchor the idea into someone's mind that, all right, this is expensive and this is less expensive, but offers more. And at the same time, when it comes to pricing discussion, like for example, if you ask someone like about their budget,

Christian Brim (29:08.111)
Mm-hmm.

Gabe Marusca (29:33.514)
Or if you say yourself, fact that, all right, so for what you're looking to get, we normally charge, let's say 20K. And they'll remember that 20K, that's the anchor. But afterwards you say like, we can do this and this from everything that you want. And you focus of course, on the things that you want the most, but then you offer a way smaller price. They will see that as

Christian Brim (29:48.079)
Mm-hmm.

Gabe Marusca (30:02.31)
more affordable option because they have in mind the 20K. But for example, and here's the trap, like often I don't like to ask about the budget because if you ask about the budget and they say, let's say if you offer the service for 15K, you uncorrid it at 20K initially, but you ask first about the budget and they say like, we have around 8,000 to invest in this. Now imagine how hard it will be for you.

almost double that because it does the anchor. Exactly. And yeah, kind of does the principle around it. You want yourself to be in control, to anchor the price. And in the same time, to make sure that you deal with this conversation also ethically, because for example, let's say if someone from the get-go, they say their budget, you still help them if you want, but of course,

Christian Brim (30:35.6)
because they're anchored at eight.

Gabe Marusca (31:01.226)
in your own rules and conditions. Because let's say if you're normally charging double than that, you won't offer all those services or outcomes that you normally do for the half of the price. also, yeah, here we can, I'd love to discuss more about if you want like as well about let's say stage pricing or a way to still offer help, but maybe breaking the price in multiple

installments rather than all price upfront and so on. And that's another way to, anchor it because often you'll find this objection like, all right, but that's quite out of my budget. And you can use this approach in which you can split the pricing into multiple installments and because you can anchor as well to the outcome they want. And in a way that's all right. So you want this outcome over this amount of time. And if you split the

Christian Brim (31:33.838)
Right? Right.

Christian Brim (31:53.252)
Yes.

Gabe Marusca (32:00.526)
pricing, three installments, you work three months together. And by the end of the first month, you already see the experience of working together. You will see some sort of results. And here you make sure that you have some tangible results that you can offer in that amount of time. Because that for them will make it a bit, a no brainer to invest because it's just, let's say a third from the total investment, but they also experiences. And the point is to reduce, reduce, free, not it's a friction point, but to reduce.

the effort from them and as well the commitment if you want, because everyone is like, all right, but I'll get return of my investment. that's basically the biggest question that most of us have.

Christian Brim (32:42.394)
Yeah.

Yeah, I, my best example of anchor pricing that I have is movie theater popcorn, where you go in there, small, medium, large, and the, don't know how much it costs currently, but let's say the smallest five bucks and then the medium is like six bucks. And then the largest six 50, right?

And so the, the, the, the anchor price of the $5 drives the value of the two above them. And it, you know, it's, it's like, you don't ever intend to sell the small popcorn for five bucks. Like nobody buys that and that's okay. So you're, you're actually intentionally putting pricing out there on a product that you have no intention of selling. Right. It may sell and that's fine if you, if you do, but like logically,

Gabe Marusca (33:35.649)
Exactly

Christian Brim (33:41.68)
from from the buyer's perspective, it doesn't make sense to pay $5 for a small when I can pay $6.50 and get a large right. And that Rory, are you familiar with Rory Sutherland?

Gabe Marusca (33:57.55)
It sounds familiar.

Christian Brim (34:00.044)
He's he is an author. He wrote Alchemy. He's a director at Ogilvy there in the UK. And basically the whole book is it's sensibly around marketing, but how humans act completely irrationally, like the the the idea that we're rational beings and make decisions rationally is a farce. And he goes through

you know, example after example of where an economist would say, this should happen because this is rational behavior, but humans act entirely differently, right? And I find his work brilliant, but you mentioned the budget. And I thought immediately of a post that Chris Doe did recently, where he said the client had come to him for a budget of a hundred thousand and they had quoted him like 115, 120.

And the, the, the buyer, the client was pissed. We told you that our budget was only a hundred thousand. And Chris's response was, understand, but my experience tells me that there are going to be changes to the scope of work during this time. And every time you do that, we got to go back and revisit the scope and we got to negotiate pricing again. And.

it slows down the whole process. And so rather than do that, I put in a contingency. I know this is going to happen. And therefore this speeds up the process. You're going to get what you want. And there's not going to be any of this back and forth. And after a minute, the client said, you know, you're right. And paid the 120 or 115.

I guess what I would take away from this listeners is that pricing is not rational. It's based upon human behavior, what they value and to your point and like people that come in with ultra low budgets, they may not understand the value of what you're doing, right? I mean, they may not understand the value to their own business of what you're doing. And so they've anchored their own price at some absurdly low number.

Christian Brim (36:20.368)
And so you may have to do some educating to help them understand what impact your solution is actually going to give them. But don't, my overarching advice is don't under price yourself. 90 % of entrepreneurs leave money on the table because they're afraid and they won't price aggressively enough.

You have any final thoughts on pricing, Gabe?

Gabe Marusca (36:49.23)
Yeah.

Yes, show them. Like I recently have a conversation on the podcast, An Authority in the Wild with Anthony Pieri and he shows in the consulting world, he's a consultant as well, and he shows the prices upfront. Above the fold, for those that don't know, is the first thing that you see on the website, which is kind of unheard. And the reason is like, he's not, that way he's not losing time with those that cannot afford.

It's automatic positioning as a premium provider. And in the same time, it's easy for someone to make decisions, the sales process is easier and so on. And to your point with education, you need to make the buyer understand already before they jump on a call with you, what they're all about. Because trust now is built through this type of interactions like media content, podcasts, YouTube, social media posts, and so on. And through that content.

you have the power to educate them what the process looks like, who exactly you're working with, how the outcomes look like after working with you and so on. And when you get that information for free on all these platforms, when they jump on a call with you, you don't have to convince anyone because they know who you're, what you're all about, what service you provide, what are the results.

Christian Brim (38:09.732)
Yes.

Gabe Marusca (38:16.059)
and so on, because if you're doing during the sales call, you do the hard work and that's usually like dressing objection and so on.

Christian Brim (38:21.029)
Right.

Yeah. I Perry Marshall, author of 80 20 marketing and sales. I've been involved with his cohort for quite some time. And one of his tools is, is he's called it different things over the years, but it's latest iteration is the power promise. And it, follows a simple, methodology. It's if this, if, if then else, right. And, and.

If you qualify, like if this is your problem. So there's, there's a distinction right there up front of like who you're serving. If this is your problem. And then the second if statement is what their skin in the game is. All right. So like you're going to follow our process. You're going to do X, Y, Z, whatever it is. Right. So there's, there's, there's two conditional statements.

then is the outcome that you deliver, right? And then the else is our skin in the game. And it's usually in terms of some type of guarantee or, you know, what we'll do if we don't achieve the outcome. And if you go to my website, I have, you know, christianbrim.com, I've got my consulting, power promise right above the fold. And it's, it's like, this is, this is who I'm looking for.

This is what I need from you. And if you and I work together, this is exactly what you're going to receive or else I'm going to give you your money back. so having that clarity in your messaging and in your pricing and in all of these things is it smooths the sales process.

Christian Brim (40:17.814)
for sure, but it also is your marketing because you're not going to attract someone that doesn't resonate with that. Like, well, that's not my problem. So I don't need Gabe or Christian.

Gabe Marusca (40:28.918)
Yeah, exactly. And what's funny about clarity is that it comes from shipping, trying things, not just from thinking about it. Because often we sit in front of a blank paper, it's like, let's find our unique selling proposition or let's put together something that help us stand out. But if you don't have enough skin in the game to actually test things and ship, ship, ship to others, it's so hard to gain that clarity. At least that's what I found. What do you think about it?

Christian Brim (40:57.904)
Absolutely. mean, the power promise is so the USP, the unique selling proposition that that's the old way of thinking and it's still valid. But the way Perry morphs it into a marketing tool that you actually put public facing because the USP is usually an internal thing that like this is who this is who how we're going to craft our messaging. This is

You know what drives it, but he just took it to its conclusion, which is, okay, this is what you're going to put out there. so.

Gabe Marusca (41:36.054)
Yeah, exactly. And you need both. it's so easy after, especially like after you deliver things, after you test, you get those insights, you see patterns, you see what people react to because that's another thing. Like you can actually test this messaging in your conversation with your prospects and to see in your emails, in your DMs and so on, and see what actually drives interaction, how people behave. Because at the end of the day, you cannot predict until you test.

Christian Brim (41:55.811)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (42:03.564)
Mm-hmm. Nope. We're predictably unpredictable as humans. Gabe, how do people find authority in the wild or you to work with you? How do we find those things?

Gabe Marusca (42:08.672)
Exactly.

Gabe Marusca (42:18.318)
So if you search for my name, I am everywhere, both my website, gabemaruszka.com, LinkedIn, I'm quite active, feel free to connect, send a message, tell me where you find me and for those listening and watching until this point, I have a surprise as well for you. So I prepared a shirt gift that will be valid just for those that tune into this episode. So make sure to check the links down below.

Christian Brim (42:35.288)
Ooh, I love surprises.

Christian Brim (42:44.656)
Perfect. Listeners will have those listener links in the show notes if I could speak. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast, share the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, shoot us a message and we'll replace Gabe. Until next time, ta ta for now.

Gabe Marusca (43:01.528)
You