Badassery Pays | Beatrice Gutknecht

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of the Profitable Creative, Christian Brim hosts Beatrice Gutknecht from Badassery by Bee. They discuss the concept of 'badassery' as doing things exceptionally and pushing back against social norms. Beatrice shares her journey of starting her business, overcoming personal and professional challenges, and the importance of aligning business strategies with client needs. The conversation also touches on the value of pricing based on the economic value delivered to clients.

PROFITABLE TAKEAWAYS...

• Badassery means doing things to an exceptional level.
• Pushing back against social norms can lead to unique business strategies.
• Aligning business strategies with client needs is crucial.
• Pricing should reflect the economic value delivered to clients.
• Entrepreneurship involves overcoming personal and professional challenges.
• Understanding the market and adapting is key to success.
• Value pricing can lead to better financial outcomes.
• Building a business requires focus and clarity on client value proposition.
• Networking and personal branding are important for business growth.
• The journey of entrepreneurship is filled with learning and adaptation.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.56)
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 Brooklyn, New York. I used to think that New York City was homogenous and it was just this big, huge city until I went to Brooklyn a couple of years ago and realized it was nothing like Manhattan at all. Anyway, thank you for listening.

Joining me today Beatrice Gutknecht with Badassery by Bee. Did I pronounce that correctly? Beatrice.

Beatrice Gutknecht (00:40.983)
You did. Thank you so much for having me on, Christian. It's a little bit dark on my side and it's bright on your side. Like, love.

Christian Brim (00:49.25)
That's that's totally fine. We only do audio for the podcast. This is just for you know, voyeurism purposes. So I like the name badassery by B. What what is that? What does that mean? What is badassery about?

Beatrice Gutknecht (01:05.595)
So bad-ass trade, much to quite a few people's surprise, it actually just means doing actions or in general to an exceptional level. So whatever it is, so the way that I, in general, with my life, with the business and how...

Christian Brim (01:21.154)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Beatrice Gutknecht (01:33.539)
my goals are with the businesses that I work with is like everything needs to be exceptional. We want to get you to an exceptional point and even to push back on those social norms.

Christian Brim (01:49.582)
Yeah, I love that. how did be a badassery by be I almost said Beatrice, I'm going to fumble on this one. How did badassery by be aka Beatrice? How did it come into being?

Beatrice Gutknecht (02:07.258)
Oh man, that is a story. Let's see if I can do a short form of it.

For a long time, I had been thinking about a lot of different businesses, partner at that time, they're like, you know, just wait, like get like a secure job and then you can do whatever you like. And I listened and same thing, like, you know, whenever I came up with an idea, they just kept on saying things until like, was like, you know what, maybe this idea is stupid.

Christian Brim (02:37.442)
Hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (02:50.05)
And then time passed, a lot of time passed and, you know, obviously no longer with them and discovered my voice and pushed back against.

Christian Brim (03:01.41)
Mm-hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (03:05.252)
Push back against the norms of like, you know, we need to do the things the shoulds. Like, you know, we should sound like this. We should take this action in life. We should take this action in business, be it like, you know, whatever the other businesses in that same industry are doing.

Christian Brim (03:12.023)
Mm-hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (03:25.494)
And that took a few different roles. I've been in real estate where I met my mentor. She pulled out my voice and that's when I started to develop it. And finally, after my mom passed away and five years later, my dad, and combined that with a military coup, I was like, you know what? I think this is time.

This is time to start Badass Ray by Bay.

Christian Brim (03:56.734)
Okay, pause. Were you participating in this coup or what?

Beatrice Gutknecht (04:00.886)
God, no, no. So I born and grew up in Australia and I moved to Myanmar when I was 20 something, 20 something. I'm getting old. can't even remember the age at that point. What the worse? God.

Christian Brim (04:19.662)
Okay, it works.

Christian Brim (04:25.984)
It gets worse. Don't worry about it.

Beatrice Gutknecht (04:30.138)
But I fell in love with the country and I, to me, Myanmar was home for 10 years until COVID happened and I was like, you know what, fine, I'm gonna learn Burmese, I'm gonna start learning Burmese, because the job that I had at that time, it was a hotel and I'm okay, COVID, no hotels, we're not doing this.

fine. And started up with a good friend of mine as a chief operations officer for startup ecommerce company was doing amazing, put together this fantastic marketing campaign, got it rolling, the sales started like, you know, within two weeks of that just to differentiate

that as a different e-commerce company from the others.

Christian Brim (05:35.532)
Right?

Beatrice Gutknecht (05:37.387)
Smack bang then, I found out that my dad had passed. I was trying to contact him and he never picked up and I was like starting to get worried and finally went through all the contacts that I had for him and.

Christian Brim (05:44.706)
Yes.

Beatrice Gutknecht (06:01.978)
Finally I found someone and contacted him. He's like, yeah, actually, you know, your dad and I, haven't been friends for like a couple of years now. And I'm like, look, you know.

It's I haven't heard from him and I'm really kind of worried. You know, this is this is his address. You know, there's this pub that he goes to every day, which is nearby there. Maybe you can like reach out to someone there in case they've seen him. And so he went to the pub and met with the owner. And they they got to the apartment, they let them in and

Christian Brim (06:20.536)
Mm-hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (06:45.7)
Finally found my dad. He called me and he's like telling me all this and I'm like, okay, know what else? And he's like, look, I don't know how you're not crying right now, but like I need to hang up and cry. And I'm like, I do too, but like, I'm just, you know, I'm handling this right now. yeah, so.

Christian Brim (06:47.277)
Mm.

Christian Brim (07:07.436)
Right.

Beatrice Gutknecht (07:12.236)
hung up and freaking... that was the start of a week of just... well actually a couple of years of just insanity because a week later...

Christian Brim (07:26.263)
Mm-hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (07:30.474)
one dude decided he wanted to take over the country and he staged a military coup.

shut down all the internet for a couple of days, so no access to anyone else in the rest of the world, which was perfect timing, because I needed to speak to these people, which at that time, you know, there were complete strangers who volunteered to go through my dad's apartment. Because again, COVID, can't like exactly leave the country because I didn't know I was going to be able to come back.

Christian Brim (07:49.506)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (08:01.555)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (08:08.772)
to go through things to keep, things to donate, et cetera. And they're like, yeah, we'll do a video chat. like, don't know if this is gonna be possible because like internet and international connection, which, you know, we take it for granted right now. You're on the other side of the world. I'm here. It's easy. But that was crazy. So after that,

Christian Brim (08:37.55)
So, well, so this coup happened in Mir Namar. Pronounce it for me again.

Beatrice Gutknecht (08:46.242)
Myanmar or Burma.

Christian Brim (08:47.742)
Myanmar, Burma, happened when

Beatrice Gutknecht (08:53.37)
2021, the 1st of February.

Christian Brim (08:57.216)
Okay, my wife and I support an orphanage there in Myanmar. Never been there, but one of our sisters in Christ has established it, actually created it. so, yeah, I would love to visit someday. Not right now, but sometimes.

Beatrice Gutknecht (09:21.262)
Yeah, sadly, it's not well known because there's always something going on, but the situation is still getting worse. The coup is still...

Christian Brim (09:31.436)
Yeah. Well, then they had the earthquake recently, you know.

Beatrice Gutknecht (09:35.514)
Yeah, I was last week, people were like messaging me as well. They're like, you know, I know that you, you're not there anymore. But like, you know, if you've made that connection to a lot of people, and thankfully, the people that I know weren't affected. But for the people who were, that's the exact same area where the majority of the fighting was or is.

Christian Brim (09:50.051)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (09:56.918)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, okay. So I'm to redirect this back to, you had a partner that said, you know, basically take the safe route. my, my wife, when I told her that I was going to start our business, actually cried. So I, I, I get that. Like the, the, the people around you as an entrepreneur,

don't understand you and often times think you're crazy. But but it's not just that they think you're crazy. Okay, you know, do your thing. It's a lot of times they actually discourage you because they're afraid and like they're trying to put that on you. Did you feel that?

Beatrice Gutknecht (10:43.61)
Mm-hmm.

100%, 100%, because he had bad experiences in terms of partnerships. And I saw that firsthand. from that, I would never actively try to get into a partnership because I've seen so many go bottoms up, bottoms up, is that the right word? But yeah, no, I just.

Christian Brim (10:54.286)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (11:08.642)
Tits up, bottoms up, whatever.

Beatrice Gutknecht (11:12.162)
Because of that, I think he just was like, know, this has already been done or this like he's always he was always trying to make some reason. Right. Like it was just he had his person and I wasn't that person. Like we weren't a fit, but we were just holding on to it.

Christian Brim (11:25.004)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (11:32.76)
Yeah, I mean, I think about that. You said you avoid partnerships and I don't disagree with you. My attorney and close friend describes business partnerships as marriage without the sex. And, you know, I don't think people go into partnerships, especially without a lot of experience like...

you know, I didn't have experience when I first did partnerships and they don't really understand the intimacy level that you're committing yourself to. you're, you're, you are married. Like your lives are together. Only you don't get to have sex with them. So.

Beatrice Gutknecht (12:21.914)
biggest thing I noticed is in the partnerships that I've seen, were the because they're either friends or whatever, there was a relationship and there was never proper, you know,

Christian Brim (12:35.884)
Dating right like like it. No, no, they never put anything in writing. That'd be like a prenuptial. You know you hey I trust you. You trust me. I mean I'm you know, but yeah, yeah. Or a lot of times they don't date like they don't really know each other that well like they know each other surface level, but you know, have you traveled with them? Do you know what it looks like when they're pissed off? I mean like. You know, do you know how they react to things?

Beatrice Gutknecht (12:37.146)
There's no written description.

Beatrice Gutknecht (12:48.57)
So that's.

Beatrice Gutknecht (12:53.946)
Exactly.

Christian Brim (13:04.776)
usually that's not there.

Beatrice Gutknecht (13:06.82)
Yeah. And then it goes badly at the end because there wasn't any writing in place like, Hey, you know, if we, if this happens, this is what's how it's going to go. No, then they end up getting super messy.

Christian Brim (13:23.042)
Yeah. And creatives are exceptionally bad at this. There's a partnership that I'm aware of here in Oklahoma city. And it was very high profile and it was two creatives that got together. And I don't know how well they knew each other beforehand, but they're the Uber creative types that, you know, that had this grand vision and they, kind of hype each other up and like, this is going to be awesome.

And then they actually go into business together and then they're like, well, now what do we do? I'm not sure how we do this. Right. And, and so, yeah, partnerships generally bad. I talk about that in my book, profit first for creatives, but okay. So going into business, you've been in it a couple of years. What have been some of your biggest challenges?

Beatrice Gutknecht (14:04.89)
Bye.

Beatrice Gutknecht (14:23.482)
So I think it was how I approached it at the beginning. It's just very much been an evolution based on like feedback and really honing and like seeing what makes sense and what aligns with me as well. Because when I first started it, Badass Street By B was a brand and marketing consultancy.

Christian Brim (14:29.006)
Mm-hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (14:53.076)
And I recognized very quickly, was like, if you're gonna do both, there is just way too much in both of those areas to be able to do them very well, unless you're an agency. And I recognized very quickly, I was like, this is not what I'm gonna do. So I honed in very quickly to Brand because that's always.

cool to me, regardless of what I've done beforehand, marketing, brand, et cetera. And that has further evolved. I guess the niche is really cool to me in terms of the operational implementation side of brand strategy because of my experience managing hotel, being a chief operations officer, like really being in

the operations in the sales, marketing, all the areas. And I saw that as a gap much later on that a lot of the strategists

that are quite active. They're either focused like, okay, know, I'm solely visuals focused, but they put themselves as brand strategists or it's like, hey, let's give you a 69 page document of guidelines, which no one's really gonna read, right? So it's been a journey really of.

Christian Brim (16:22.71)
Right, right.

Beatrice Gutknecht (16:28.578)
understanding what my A, not giving too much, which is not really feasible, to what is my position amongst other brand strategists. It's easy to help others, but to do it ourselves, holy shit.

Christian Brim (16:50.732)
Yeah. And I think that's a mistake. Most entrepreneurs make at some point is not being focused enough. You know, when I started my business 28 years ago, I bought a franchise. it was, it was easier to have a well-defined business model. Like I knew exactly who I was.

looking for and what we were doing and what to charge and how to market that. And that's one of the benefits of, of buying an already proven system, with the franchise. But as I grew over the years and left the franchise network, I drifted into that saying yes. And just really focusing from, from my standpoint, I was focusing on the top line. I just want to grow and,

ended up with a mess because we were like doing all these different types of services for all different types of people. And I talk about this in the book too, that like the decision to intentionally shrink to say, okay, we're gonna sell off this side of the business. We're gonna fire these clients like.

We're going to actually simplify what we're doing and shrink it backwards was one of the most gut wrenching decisions I ever made because it felt like failure. It was like I built it to this level and and and the funny thing is, I mean we we shrunk probably by 20 or 30%. When I look at the numbers from start to finish of that process, it was 10 years before we got back.

to where we had started from a financial standpoint. And there are a lot of factors in there. It shouldn't have taken that long. But my point is, it's easier if you have that type of clarity and focus upfront and don't deviate from it unless there's some strategic reason to.

Christian Brim (19:10.712)
So your experience is my experience, only you figured it out quicker. Well, I mean, you know, some people are dense like me and it takes, you know, some would say stubborn.

Beatrice Gutknecht (19:17.998)
Yeah.

Beatrice Gutknecht (19:23.738)
I think it's also looking at what the market is doing. It's so easy to be influenced by what others are doing in the market, like other people who have been there for 10 years. And they're like, they're doing it. So surely it should be fine for me to do that. Surely. Yeah.

Christian Brim (19:36.514)
Yes.

Christian Brim (19:45.186)
Well, it's interesting. like recently in the last two years, private equity has started buying accounting firms in the United States. Before that, they couldn't legally own accounting firms, non-CPAs couldn't. And so they changed that rule and all of this money has come flooding in. But what's an interesting byproduct of that is

You get you're getting people that have never been in the industry getting into the industry. And so they don't have any of the baggage, right? And so they're looking at things and just basically flipping over tables. They're like, this is stupid. We're going to do this. And yeah, because I think I think it's become even more so that

Every business is having to iterate quicker. You you can't just have a business and set it on autopilot and you know, it works that way for 10 years.

Beatrice Gutknecht (20:47.0)
Yeah, exactly. The markets are moving so fast and those people that are coming in with little to no experience or from a completely different industry, they actually have the advantage.

Christian Brim (21:03.404)
In some ways, yes. In some ways. You know, I think marketing is going through a similar birth pain in that, you know, technology, of course, is, you know, affecting it. But I think what's happening with marketing is very similar to what has happened

to other industries in the past where, you know, technology affects change and they don't really know what it is they're good at. And so, you know, they've got this business model that's been working and making money and then all of a sudden the ground shifts and they don't really understand what it is that's really valuable that they do. They just focus on the technology.

and it's like the sky is falling and in some ways it is, but you know, it's not the death of the industry, it's a change and it's going to be a permanent change, but as long as you understand the value that you bring to your customer or client and you provide a solution to that, that is...

makes economic sense. you know, if I provide this solution, you pay me this, I'm happy, you're happy. the sky's the limit because I just, I, I guess what I'm saying is I think the technology is highlighting the problem in the industry, not not, and in some ways forcing them to fix their problems than it is to just change.

Beatrice Gutknecht (22:58.178)
I think it's great way to see who's going to adapt.

Christian Brim (23:03.062)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Beatrice Gutknecht (23:05.454)
because I mean, there's ways, like, there's always gonna be people who don't want to jump into the AI pool. There's gonna be people who want that and the marketers who grab onto those people, that's great, right? But otherwise you're gonna want to like adapt, but adapt in different way rather than going into that whole modern, like just AI look.

which I see, you're on LinkedIn as well, like the feed there.

Christian Brim (23:37.806)
trash, trash. Or the other phrase that I've adopted is crackhead. It is crackhead energy. So you said badassery is fundamentally about doing things exceptionally and that you intentionally don't do what others are doing. Give us an example of that.

Beatrice Gutknecht (23:39.034)
it's

Beatrice Gutknecht (24:03.748)
So.

I'll take one of the examples of a client that I've worked with recently. What I saw firstly was that they blended in with the others in their industry. They were all approaching client at the same time. But the thing is, the time that they're being approached is... So this is a...

architectural hardware company. So door handles, cabinet knobs, etc. And... Sorry?

Christian Brim (24:44.462)
Exciting stuff. Exciting stuff. Sorry.

Beatrice Gutknecht (24:49.146)
It's very pretty, at least. So the time that they were being approached by customers was only when the houses were built by the builder. So it was builder grade doors. There was no flexibility. like, you know, say for example, somebody, one of their customers, they saw a beautiful entryway on

Instagram or something like that. They're like, yeah, I want I want this. But finally, if the builder grade door is there and they're like, actually, unless you knock the entire wall down, we can't do that anymore. So it was like, taking that back to the drawing board and being like, okay, but what does the whole process look like? Where? If say, for example, it's a perfect world, what would be the best time to approach

or to come into the picture so that that doesn't happen. Right? And we worked backwards to the point where it's like, hey, this is when the designer is drawing up the building, the walls, etc. like that, the entryways, this is the perfect time. It's like, okay. So if that's the perfect time, how do we make this

Christian Brim (25:51.95)
Yes.

Christian Brim (26:06.328)
Yes.

Beatrice Gutknecht (26:18.604)
architectural hardware relevant to them. Why should they care?

Christian Brim (26:24.43)
Mmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (26:26.188)
And finally, after much discussion and seeing like, okay, this is where their pains are, these are their desires, they want to stand out amongst other designers. It's also a busy industry. So they're always checking the trends, they're always checking like, how can we be the most prominent? So we reposition them as a resource for those designers.

Christian Brim (26:55.659)
Mm-hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (26:55.682)
and everything that they did from in the showroom to on their website to social media video was to support being a resource to designers and being considered at that early point in the journey rather than everybody else who is like, well, you know, we're just happy when

Christian Brim (27:10.39)
Yes.

Beatrice Gutknecht (27:21.144)
people come to us.

Christian Brim (27:23.148)
Well, yeah. And so, so like when, when I think brand that what you just described is not branding.

Beatrice Gutknecht (27:31.29)
It's a strategy. It's a position.

Christian Brim (27:34.88)
Yes, yes, but it didn't approach it strictly from a marketing standpoint. It approached it from the end user standpoint and the buyer's standpoint. And that is where I think most business owners get off track. And certainly creatives do is they're not focusing on what the customers

problem is, right? And so then your solution is going to be incomplete or imperfect, right? So you could have created a brand or they had a brand for the end buyer, which is great, but it was incomplete. Like now you're completely solving the problem.

because you've eliminated the sticking point of the design not matching the result.

Beatrice Gutknecht (28:43.652)
Exactly. That was a big thing. And changing the language, changing how the marketing put out their messaging and all that. then what they mentioned back to me at the end, were like, you know, we thought we needed to completely change our business and we've been around for over three decades. And I'm like, that's not...

Christian Brim (28:45.506)
That's brilliant.

Beatrice Gutknecht (29:11.114)
what you need to do. You already have the essences already there that just needs to be pulled out, super clarified, super honed down and repositions and everything needs to from the how people in the showroom talk to the sales to the marketing, every element needs to align together.

Christian Brim (29:22.147)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (29:33.134)
So when you pitched, when you go back to when you were trying to get this work, you were in a competition I assume with others.

Beatrice Gutknecht (29:43.684)
they approach me. Yep.

Christian Brim (29:45.378)
They approached you. well, that's easy. You just decide whether you want to work with them.

Beatrice Gutknecht (29:48.536)
Yeah, they just showed up in my inbox and I was like, okay.

Christian Brim (29:54.474)
Yeah,

Beatrice Gutknecht (29:55.739)
They saw like, so what I post on LinkedIn, that's leaning back into what you were just saying before, you know, like, my approach is always to do things that push back against those social norms, to consider how

Christian Brim (30:10.317)
Mm-hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (30:15.124)
I might approach like brand strategy. And he was saying like, you know, the content that I've seen from you on LinkedIn is very different in terms of its approach to others. And I'm interested to hear more about it. And so we started a discussion as to where they're at, what they've been doing, and if there is that alignment, right? Because at the end of the day, it is, we're working very closely together to make sure that this

goes smoothly, there needs to be that alignment.

Christian Brim (30:48.846)
Now I'm going to ask you the gut wrenching question. Did you charge them enough?

Beatrice Gutknecht (30:56.154)
Probably not enough.

But no, I'm happy because at the end of the day...

Christian Brim (30:59.896)
Yeah.

Beatrice Gutknecht (31:06.958)
their success and what they've achieved is more important to me. And I think there will be cases in the future where Badass Rebi will go international and that will come. It will come.

Christian Brim (31:21.432)
Do you think, let me rephrase the question, do you think that you could have charged them more? Would they have paid more?

Beatrice Gutknecht (31:32.62)
If they're listening, they're like, babe, yes, I probably could have charged more.

Christian Brim (31:39.18)
Yeah, why do you think that?

Beatrice Gutknecht (31:43.258)
Just the amount of work and them always saying like, you're putting in a lot of time and everything into this and they were surprised.

Christian Brim (31:51.85)
No, no, that's not why they would pay you more. They don't care how much you worked. Why do you think they would pay you more?

Beatrice Gutknecht (31:55.831)
Okay, so what do you think then? That's what I think. in that case, I'm...

Christian Brim (32:05.632)
Right, right. But, but when it comes to aligning that solution to problem and understanding the economic value of it, that drives, that should drive our pricing. Right. And so the, the, the answer there is they would have paid you more because you delivered more dollars to them.

Beatrice Gutknecht (32:22.01)
You're right.

Christian Brim (32:33.814)
Right. And, and, and I, go, have a whole section on pricing in the book and you know, it talks about value pricing and you know, flipping the script from time you worked costs, et cetera, how hard, whatever your skillset throwing all of those things out and looking at the, the value of what you delivered. And there's only one person that can define that value. And that's the customer.

Beatrice Gutknecht (32:35.002)
highway.

Christian Brim (33:04.482)
They're the only ones that can say whether what you did was worth it or not. But because we don't take the time to truly understand the value of what we do to the customer, we oftentimes leave money on the table. And it also reinforces this false belief that the better we are,

or the harder we work, the more money we'll make. That is not always true. Sometimes it's true, but it's not always true. And so we reinforce that belief. And so, you know, then you get trapped in, well, I just need to work harder or I just need to acquire more skills. But that's not the ultimate and those things may be true, but that's not what ultimately determines the price and the value.

Christian Brim (34:04.814)
Thoughts on that? I just dropped some knowledge on you, B.

Beatrice Gutknecht (34:06.49)
no, you're 1000 % right. Like I've heard that as well in previous, I don't know where exactly, but I've heard it before and this is a good reminder to be honest. It's a good freaking reminder.

Christian Brim (34:18.444)
It was probably me.

Christian Brim (34:24.15)
Well, I tell in the book, the story, our journey with that, and I'll recap it for you briefly. There was a book written by an Australian lawyer called Firm of the Future. And that book's probably 25 years, 30 years old now. But he talked about a lot about pricing in there and value pricing.

And so I went to my brother who is my partner at the time and I said, I want to try this out. And one of the one of the ways you can do value pricing is a hundred percent tip, which means you don't determine the price the customer does or the client does. And it's when you're done with the work. Now, there are a lot of caveats in here. I'm not saying that's the way you should price.

It's, you know, learn about it before you implement it. But in our case, I said, I want her to try this out. So we were doing consulting on the sale of one of our clients and we helped them with the tax strategy behind it. And, the business sold and we sent them an invoice, of zero and explained, you know, this is the value that we think we brought to the table. You decide what to pay us. And.

They wrote us like a $10,000 check. And I asked my brother, how much time did you have in that project? And he goes, I don't know, maybe five hours. I'm like, if you had been in your wildest dreams, charged them an hourly rate on that, what would you have charged? And he said, I don't know, maybe $500 an hour.

I said, so you would have billed him $2,500. He said, yeah. And you would have thought you got a good deal. Yeah. But you would have left $7,500 on the table.

Christian Brim (36:37.388)
Yeah, and it was very eye-opening. mean, and I'm not really pushing this 100 % tip. It's just the concept. It just is a good illustration of, in its purest sense, where the customer determines the value. So that was our journey. That was the beginning of our journey.

Beatrice Gutknecht (37:04.568)
That's amazing. And yeah, I've heard about that. Yes, it was Chris, Chris Doe. I've listened to a few of his podcast episodes and he talks about similar sort of strategies. Obviously, there is different ways, different approaches, including this one where it's like, hey, you know, pay what you feel like it's worth. And I do think that

Christian Brim (37:20.451)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (37:33.74)
it really also depends on how long that project goes. with...

Christian Brim (37:37.806)
Sure. And you're as the provider taking all the risk, right? And so it's really on a continuum. If you're taking all the risk, you should get all the reward. But there are ways to mitigate that risk. But to me, it's just illustrative of the concept.

Beatrice Gutknecht (37:42.596)
Mm.

Beatrice Gutknecht (37:59.781)
Yeah, I agree.

Christian Brim (38:01.846)
What are some of the financial struggles as a new business owner that you have encountered?

I mean that in the broadest sense of the term. Like I made so much money, I had to pay an absorbent amount of tax. That could have been one of your struggles.

Beatrice Gutknecht (38:13.882)
I think the time.

Beatrice Gutknecht (38:20.922)
I think it's the time. It's a long time and a long struggle to just really get to that first one and then that second one and then like for it to build up to the point where you're not, for me, like using savings, for example, because I knew that starting this and I had plenty of people again being like, okay, know, be just

Christian Brim (38:34.251)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (38:42.402)
Yeah.

Beatrice Gutknecht (38:50.862)
get a full-time job and then you can do this on the site. And I was like, if I have a full-time job, I will put all my focus on that. I will not be able to do this.

Christian Brim (39:01.624)
Burn the ships and go do it.

Beatrice Gutknecht (39:04.516)
So I would say the biggest struggle is the, it's a time. It's being in that uncomfortable zone. Sorry.

Christian Brim (39:12.312)
to get to profitability, the time it took to get to profitability or what do you mean time? Yeah. Yeah. And I'll tell you where a lot of people exasperate that problem is they don't have a clear idea of that customer value proposition, who they're actually targeting, who they should be working with. And so they take whoever because there's that

Beatrice Gutknecht (39:20.388)
to get to it, yes.

Christian Brim (39:41.59)
I want to get to that profitability quicker, but then that just makes it worse.

Beatrice Gutknecht (39:50.029)
Yeah, I didn't have that. I've always been very strict in terms of who I don't want to work with in terms of, know, I'll have a conversation in advance and we'll talk about, you know, where they're at, what's their situation, et cetera. And if there isn't a fit, like I will say it outright. Even it doesn't matter how bad I'm screaming on the inside going.

shit, B, you need this and I'm like, nope, no, this is not going to end well.

Christian Brim (40:24.042)
It's that crackhead energy, right? It's just the same thing. It's like, I've got to have it. No, you don't. No, you don't. Yeah.

Beatrice Gutknecht (40:30.35)
Yeah, you're right. You're right. So I think that's what made it kind of more of a struggle because like there'll be cases where I'm just like, you could have just taken that and I'm like, no, don't do it.

Christian Brim (40:45.102)
Well, I'm proud of you for sticking to your guns because that will pay off in spades as you go down the road 100 % because you're not going to have to worry like we did of getting rid of a bunch of clients that we shouldn't have had in the first place.

Beatrice Gutknecht (40:52.322)
I mean.

Beatrice Gutknecht (40:59.866)
Yeah, you have me right there because the people that I have worked with are some of the most amazing, truly, truly amazing people. And the energy that they bring to it, I'm so freaking honored to have worked with them.

Christian Brim (41:19.938)
Beatrice, how do people find out more about Badassery by B and what you do?

Beatrice Gutknecht (41:29.092)
There's three ways. First is LinkedIn on Beatrice Goodconnect. imagine it'll be on this show notes where you can be like, I'm not too figuring out how to spell her name. Number two, if you like the breakdowns in terms of strategies, tactics and breakdowns of how to implement in each department.

Christian Brim (41:35.126)
And it's good to connect. Yes, good to connect.

Christian Brim (41:44.888)
That's correct.

Beatrice Gutknecht (41:57.487)
I have a newsletter that goes out every Friday called the Badass Mub and that you can access from badassrebyb.com. And lastly is the Art of Branding podcast if you're more of an audio person.

Christian Brim (42:01.166)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (42:14.119)
Mmm. Yes, your podcast. I love it.

Beatrice Gutknecht (42:17.036)
which is currently in hiatus, but I'm looking forward to season three, which might be an interesting few guests.

Christian Brim (42:24.742)
I am always an interesting guest. Listeners, we'll have those notes, those links in the show notes. If you like what you heard, please share the podcast, rate the podcast, subscribe to the podcast. If you don't like what you heard, shoot us a message, tell us what you want to hear, and we'll get rid of Beatrice. Until then, TTFN.