How Do Creatives Charge What They’re Worth? | Matt Morse

PROFITABLE TALKS...

In this episode of The Profitable Creative, Christian Brim sits down with Matt Morse, founder of 1851 Creative, to talk about entrepreneurship, ministry, branding, and the realities of building a profitable creative business.

Matt shares his unconventional path from pastoral ministry into running a creative agency, the lessons he learned from turning down his father’s agency business, and why small businesses are often the most rewarding clients to serve.

Christian and Matt also explore faith, vocation, accountability, and the importance of understanding your “why” as a business owner.

If you’re a creative entrepreneur, agency owner, freelancer, or small business operator trying to grow sustainably while staying true to your mission, this episode is packed with practical insights.

PROFITABLE TALKS...

•  Why many creatives struggle with profitability 
•  The danger of “free-to-fee” thinking 
•  How agency owners can better qualify clients 
•  Why most businesses misunderstand branding 
•  The connection between purpose, identity, and business growth 
•  The emotional realities of entrepreneurship and marketing 

Join our community of creative entrepreneurs and get a free copy of our No-BS Guide To Making Your Creative Business Actually Profitable delivered straight to your inbox. We’ll share smart, simple tips to help you keep more of what you earn—no boring accountant talk, we promise.  
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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:01.364)
Welcome to another episode of the Profitable Creative, the only place on the interwebs where you learn how to turn your passion into profit. I am your host, Christian Brim. Special shout out to our one listener in Thibodeau. I think it's Thibodeau, Louisiana. It's not Thibodeau. In any case, I've never felt more a stranger than in rural Louisiana than any place I've ever traveled. Bizarre place. But thank you for listening.

Joining me today Matt Morse of 1851 creative Matt. Welcome to the show

Matt Morse (00:34.872)
Christian, thanks for having me. I'm super excited to be here.

Christian Brim (00:37.238)
Have you been to Louisiana?

Matt Morse (00:39.374)
I have, just to New Orleans though.

Christian Brim (00:43.918)
Yeah, as a young auditor, I was traveling the swamps, going to retail locations to do inventory observations. And as I was driving these state highways, I was looking around and I'm like, they could tie your ass to a tree stump and they would never find anything. Like it's, it's a bizarre place. It really is.

Matt Morse (01:06.67)
It seems like one of those spots that has a handful of documentaries made about it each year.

Christian Brim (01:10.806)
Yeah, I mean everybody bags on Florida and rightfully so I mean there's some weird people in Florida but like Louisiana takes it to a different level. I'm sorry. I'm not here to disparage Louisiana. love Louisiana. Matt, did you I'm just I'm gonna jump in and ask the question. How did you come up with the name 1851 creative?

Matt Morse (01:35.63)
Yeah, good question. I'm a, personally love the name, but I understand that when you attach a year to anything, it can be easily confused. So toying with the idea of a name change. I don't, don't quote me on that, but 1851. Yeah. 1851 is, uh, was the year that Morse code, uh, became an internationally communicated, um, communication method.

Christian Brim (01:49.128)
You heard it right here,

Matt Morse (02:02.126)
And, uh, and my dad owned an agency in Minneapolis for many years called Morse code. He asked me when I was 22, 23, if I would ever be interested in, um, taking the reins someday being trained up in the family business. And I told him, no dad, I'd love to be a pastor. Um, get your marketing agency business away from me. And a couple of years after, uh, pastoring, decided I would love to have my own marketing agency.

Christian Brim (02:02.237)
Okay.

Matt Morse (02:32.159)
a, what I refer to now affectionately as a critical error in my life. And, so I named 1851 creative as kind of a nod to him and the great work that he's done.

Christian Brim (02:45.394)
Okay, so is he still in business?

Matt Morse (02:48.27)
he sold Morse code to a large global agency out of London and is currently in at the end of his transition plan, which will be in the next year or so.

Christian Brim (02:59.734)
Okay, so now now I'm intrigued Why hmm I can understand a calling to be a pastor I I'm more curious about like the resistance to being in in marketing and following in his footsteps. What was that about?

Matt Morse (03:20.834)
Yeah, that's a great question. I think at that point, and I think maybe a handful of people, at least that I've talked to, have experienced this. When they have, the beginning of their faith journey feels like it awakens one direction for them and tunnel vision towards ministry. And I think I had a really shallow view of what ministry could look like and didn't associate the business world with being.

Christian Brim (03:37.609)
Hmm

Matt Morse (03:47.722)
a place that I could effectively live out my faith. And so when I felt the call to go into ministry, I decided that the business world was not for me. I think some of that too was, love, I'm a really hard worker. And I say that humbly, but like I'll outwork anyone in the room. And there was a part of me that hated the idea that I could be handed something and

Christian Brim (04:15.19)
Okay.

Matt Morse (04:15.726)
I didn't want the silver spoon effect. So I think those are kind of the two things, but like I mentioned earlier, critical error in that it would be a whole lot easier to have followed in his footsteps doing that than what I'm doing right now.

Christian Brim (04:19.551)
Okay.

Christian Brim (04:31.84)
So you would make a different decision then, going backwards, or no?

Matt Morse (04:37.39)
I'm not sure I would make a different decision, but I think where I, where I find myself right now seems to be exactly where my dad found himself 25 years ago. And, um, and the fact that he was willing and excited about me potentially, uh, taking the reins of Morse code was something that I think I would have really enjoyed looking back on it, working with him and learning from him in that regard.

Christian Brim (04:47.413)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (05:06.08)
So when you, when you got back to the decision of, okay, I'm going to start a creative agency, you didn't think about like swallowing your pride and going back to them and say, yeah, I changed my mind or was that still a non-starter?

Matt Morse (05:19.866)
I, I wish that the timing had worked out. He had already decided to sell it at that point. So he, yeah, he asked me before, like right before he was going to initiate, or entertain some sales ideas around it. So.

Christian Brim (05:23.954)
Okay, okay.

Christian Brim (05:32.456)
Okay. So what happened along your pastoral journey that redirected you? Was there something specific that some, some epiphany that you said like, isn't what I'm supposed to be doing.

Matt Morse (05:48.856)
think in full transparency, I was a better pastor outside of full-time ministry. And I think that was something that when you get paid to be like a professional Christian, there's a lot that comes with that. And there's a ton of head knowledge, and I know all the right things to say, and I know the steps to walk through to help people in certain circumstances. But I felt for myself that I was a lot more empty than when I started ministry.

Christian Brim (05:53.951)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (06:00.382)
Mmm.

Matt Morse (06:17.742)
And so it was a wrestle back and forth for a couple of years. But I actually went to a retreat maybe two years ago and shared with a mentor of mine at the retreat, you know, what I was wrestling with. I have this passion for creativity. I love being able to tell stories and come up with creative and unique ways to do so. But I feel somewhat of a call to ministry and he...

looked me dead in the eye and said, I don't know if you need permission to exit ministry, but it's okay. If you're excited about creativity, God's not limited to using you just in the context of Western church. So at that moment, something clicked and I was like, okay, I guess I can't stand that I didn't think of that, but I guess that is the permission that I needed.

And from that point, I transitioned out of pastoral ministry and into the creative business, which I'd kind of been doing on the side for many years and have my undergrad in and found a lot more personal fulfillment in it. But also it was interesting. My ministry opportunities went through the roof the minute I stepped out of full-time vocational ministry. I was able to go speak at a lot of different.

college sports ministries and out at churches here and there. And even just the personal margin that I had within my life was made much more available to grab coffee with people and sit down and be intentional in a way that I hadn't been for a couple of years as a pastor.

Christian Brim (08:03.43)
Yeah, I remember having a conversation with a one of my ministers who had been a minister for probably 30 years at that point. And he made a comment that I found very strange at the time. This is probably. This may be 20 years ago. He said, you know, there's a problem with.

professional clergy and I'm like this is kind of odd coming from a professional clergy and he told me why and we can go into those things if you want to discuss but I was like hmm I never really thought of that and then fast forward to three years ago when

God called me to start a home church and One of the one of the things that I read was letters the church by Francis Chan and Basically in that book he goes back to the first church in acts and and explores what the the church was and You look and you have you know

Matt Morse (09:24.94)
Yep.

Christian Brim (09:28.342)
vocational ministers, like nobody's relying on the congregation to pay them for their livelihood. And although they may support them financially, but it's not, Paul was still a tent maker and you know, these people had other jobs, right? And it is an interesting dynamic to explore for sure, because once you start paying people to say and do things,

Matt Morse (09:44.558)
Right. Yep.

Christian Brim (09:57.715)
I think that you should be doing yourself. It fundamentally changes things.

Matt Morse (10:05.902)
Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I, we, my wife and I still go to the church that I used to work at. there, there was an awkward period of, transition, but we love our, our home church. I would agree with you in the fact that the American Western church has made it easier than ever to show up to church anonymously, have no accountability.

and do that every Sunday until you feel like you have checked enough boxes to be good for the year. And I think what I, in your example, in home churches, what I love about home churches is it creates a natural accountability in a community that for good or bad, you can't escape the 10 to 20 people that are right around you. And that's what you need, right?

Christian Brim (10:38.102)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (10:54.496)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (10:59.63)
in every person's journey, wherever they're at, they need some sort of accountability in business and faith and in sports. You're required to report to the things that you have or have not done. And have you done them well? Have you, you skirted the lines? But that's something that I really appreciate about some of the home church movement that's come up in the last 10 to 15 years. And personally, that's something that makes me really excited.

Christian Brim (10:59.754)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (11:27.582)
Yeah, think the fundamental difference is it makes you a consumer when you're paid professionals, like you said. It's like, okay, I'm going to show up. Someone's going to tell me what the scripture says or what to think about it. And then they're going to go do mission work. They're going to go do the pastoral work. And I get to go on about the rest of my week, right?

Matt Morse (11:36.974)
.

Christian Brim (11:56.219)
as opposed to, you know, owning that relationship, owning the discipleship, owning the responsibilities of being a follower of the way. you, you can have all the head knowledge you want, is your heart changed. And I spent 30 years in a large congregation kind of, and I don't regret it, but

you know, it God has definitely expanded my understanding. And, and, know, even Francis Chan, I've heard him say recently is like, it's not about where you meet. It's not like home church versus other church models. That's, that's not what it's about. And you can't get fixated on that. you, don't go to a home church. Well, you know, you're missing the boat that that's, yeah, that's, that's not it. Okay. So

Matt Morse (12:51.022)
.

Christian Brim (12:55.926)
in you started 1851 creative two years ago.

Matt Morse (13:00.942)
Yeah, about a year and a half.

Christian Brim (13:03.582)
Okay. And what specifically do you do? What is the niche you fill?

Matt Morse (13:10.99)
Yeah, so 1851 is obsessed with finding the one thing that makes any brand or organization different than the competitors in their space. So we're a brand strategy firm and a creative firm. We, I get really excited about strategy. And I think one of the things that's been missing in a lot of the freelance movement, which used to be a freelancer and I pay freelancers all the time. I love freelancers.

One of the things though with the freelancer movement is oftentimes people will take a project on without caring too much about the strategy and anyone can make anything look pretty with enough time and effort and enough YouTube video viewership. But not everyone can create for one specific thing that that moves the needle for a specific business objective. so that's what we do. We serve small businesses.

Christian Brim (13:45.268)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (14:05.002)
mid-sized businesses were trying to crack a little bit larger. But one of things I found in the last year is I used to be really critical on myself for not having any clients of a certain degree, Like the revenue line for a certain client, like a Nike or a Gatorade or one of those organizations was something that I was really striving for. And I found in the last year,

I actually love helping small businesses achieve their goals. And I think we're going to have a return at some point to the value of small businesses because there are so many big players that are trying to monopolize things. But I love being able to partner with a small business owner who has a certain objective and we can help figure out how to get them there. And that doesn't mean that if Nike came knocking, I would say, no, I don't want to work with you. But I've...

Christian Brim (14:39.978)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (15:01.612)
I've found a lot more fulfillment in working with startups and small businesses than I ever thought that I would.

Christian Brim (15:09.334)
Yeah, I have, I have so many thoughts on that. I, was having a conversation. got a, a CPA reached out to me, that had started his, his business a year ago and, he wanted to pick my brain. And so we hopped on a call and he was like, yeah, I've been doing this a year and I've got like five clients and they're all very different.

what I do for them, et cetera. And I'm realizing this is not scalable. So I'm kind of looking for experience share around that. And I told him my experience with core and, you know, essentially what happened three years ago was we realized we needed to,

really have a target market. We really never had a target market. It was poorly defined. I thought it was well defined, but it really wasn't. It was not narrow enough. And we did this very high level MBA analysis internally, which was, okay, go through your list of clients and tell me who do you like working with and who values most what you do.

Matt Morse (16:11.736)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (16:32.2)
And then we took the lists and we started comparing notes and creative professionals were on everybody's lists. It was the one commonality. And so that's what we picked it. I said high level MBA analysis, tongue in cheek. No, we did not. it was not who has the most growth potential. It wasn't, you know, who are the most profitable. was who do we like working with and who values what we do. And it was like,

Matt Morse (16:48.28)
This is

Christian Brim (17:00.7)
His eyes opened up like, I, I can make that decision. And, and I think this is a commonality of all business professionals, creative or otherwise of the idea that yeah, you have permission to build the business that you want doing the work that you want, getting paid what you want. Like that's, that's completely okay. There's no, there's nothing wrong with that. Right. it's okay to say no to, to certain people.

Matt Morse (17:19.352)
Right. Yeah.

Matt Morse (17:25.57)
Yeah. Right, right.

Christian Brim (17:30.463)
Right. and it, it also reminded me of a conversation I had with another agency owner who now recently on the show, I don't think it's been released yet, but she was talking about, she sold her agency and now does, consulting and coaching for agency owners. And, she was describing, the five different types of clients and

the, I don't remember all of them, but I remember it was the squirrels and the whales. And the squirrels are the ones that are small, they don't pay you a lot, and they're always changing directions, right? And they suck up all this bandwidth trying to help them figure out what they wanna be.

Matt Morse (18:09.358)
Mm.

Matt Morse (18:17.869)
Yep.

Christian Brim (18:25.118)
And then the whales are the one, the Nikes, the Gatorades that you're talking about. And there's this allure to them because they have that, you know, status and there's usually larger dollars associated with them. But, you know, they also tend to drag you to the bottom of the ocean. if you, if you land them. so I, that's just my, my response to that. I guess my, my question to you is working.

Well, here's one more thought. You said you're a brand strategist and, and I, I'm glad you're on the show because I haven't had a brand person on here in a while, but I, my comment to brand people and people that say they're a brand strategist is, especially if you're working with small businesses as an accountant, I don't want to pay for brand. Like that does not.

Matt Morse (19:05.366)
Mm.

Christian Brim (19:22.646)
That seems like an extravagance. That seems like that's not necessary. And I guess I'm saying the word brand does not resonate with me. And it's still, even though I know better, even though I've accepted that the brand is necessary and spent a lot of money rebranding, the word still doesn't resonate with me. Do you encounter that?

Matt Morse (19:25.667)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (19:49.208)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (19:51.284)
dealing with small businesses where they're like, that brand, that's not me, that's for Coca-Cola.

Matt Morse (19:56.492)
Yeah, all the time. think to talk about kind of the different client sub-sects, one of the things that we've done to better qualify some of our clients is we've created a scorecard that allows us to view budget, timeline, what's their vision, who are the decision makers, do they know what they want, do we enjoy working with them, are they friendly? And we put all of this together and if they score below a 28,

Christian Brim (20:19.904)
Mm.

Matt Morse (20:26.222)
we, doesn't matter what the project is, we don't take them on. If they score between a 28 and a 35, then we have the ability to say yes to that project. And so that's, that's been something that's helped us qualify some of these leads a little bit better. So we're not finding the squirrel that is changing directions all of the time. But what I like about some of the smaller businesses is that we are like, there's no one more invested.

in a project than the small business owner because that money feels closer to them. They could use that for a equipment upgrade or to bring on some extra help, but they're choosing to spend it with us. And so they're really invested in it. The downside is they might be so invested that you're like, okay, please back off. You don't know what we're doing right now. And I'm going to explain it to you in terms that you understand here really soon, promise. But then on the other side of that, the whales can sometimes

Christian Brim (20:56.351)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (21:25.964)
be so hands off that you're like, do you even care at all about what we're doing? Does the money that you're spending here matter? Because you've hardly checked in and I feel great that you trust us to take care of this, but would love a little bit of affirmation that we're moving in the right direction, that you're semi excited about what we're doing. So that middle ground is a little bit more what we get excited about. The dollar feels still important, but their investment feels...

Christian Brim (21:31.167)
Hmm

Matt Morse (21:55.15)
their time investment feels equally as important.

Christian Brim (21:59.223)
I don't want to skirt past the idea that you have come up with a scorecard for leads. I think that's brilliant. I get my first question that came to my mind was how do you obtain all that information in order to score them?

Matt Morse (22:16.13)
Yeah, it's somewhat subjective depending on where the lead is coming from, we look at the size of the company in terms of revenue and employees and we take from there the decision makers into account. Do they know what they're talking about? Is this going to be a highly educational relationship or do they have enough information that we're not going to spend half of our billable time on?

explaining to them how this works. Do they sort of know what they want or are they coming to us and saying, hey, by Wednesday, can we get a video? We don't have a script. We don't have even an idea or a location that we want to shoot. So those are things that immediately disqualified, but there's, we've, we've broken up the categories to be all worth five points and we can then judge based on those five points, how we come out of our discovery.

Christian Brim (23:08.586)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (23:15.01)
meetings and our discovery meetings sort of feel like strategy sessions because we want to bring every option out to give us the best chance to bring this project to the finish line and care for it afterwards. So it is, it's a bit subjective, but more often than not, we were able to say like, this client reminds us a lot of so-and-so that we worked with in the past. That was awesome. Let's, let's do this. Even if.

if the score is a little bit close to that 28 or if we look back and we're like, okay, everything lines up and they scored a 35, but honestly, I just really don't like working with them. They feel really arrogant and they're gonna be in the way. Then we have the ability to your point earlier to say no. And there's a lot of freedom that has come with that, both on the side of how we accept clients and how we turn away clients.

Christian Brim (24:06.07)
Yeah.

Matt Morse (24:10.614)
We never burn a bridge and I think that's some advice that I've learned that it's never worth building or burning a bridge. So we will always refer them to four or five other people they can go talk to so they don't have a bad taste their mouth about our no. But that's generally the process and it kind of ebbs and flows based on that discovery.

Christian Brim (24:30.816)
Do you tell them that you're evaluating them and scoring them? Hmm, okay. Do you chart? No, no, I'm just curious. I'm just curious. Do you charge for the discovery call?

Matt Morse (24:34.73)
No, no, have not. Would you suggest that maybe we do? Okay. Yeah.

Matt Morse (24:46.632)
it depends how warm the lead is. If it feels like we're, we've got a relationship that has, that has been around for a little bit and we've worked with them a time or two before, then yes. But, more often than that, we're, not charging for it. It's just a exploratory 30 to 45 minutes, of trying to figure out, we a good fit for you and, and are we good or are you a good fit for us?

Christian Brim (25:13.376)
So there's no deliverable that you give from that discovery call. So it's not really like a diagnostic or something like that.

Matt Morse (25:17.44)
No, not necessarily.

Matt Morse (25:22.764)
Yeah, here and there we'll send a, if they feel like a qualified lead, we'll send them a one cheater of here are recommendations based on what we learned. You think you need a video, but that's actually not the thing that you need right now. Based on all of what we learned about you, you actually need to increase or improve the experience in your, in your store first. So let's talk about how we can do a little bit of experiential marketing before we talk about a video.

Christian Brim (25:31.83)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (25:44.607)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (25:52.437)
Yeah, I I find myself and my fellow small business owners get lost in the weeds on tactics so often and and the the the crackhead marketing agencies out there the crackhead dealers are always coming up with new bells and whistles new types of crack to sell you and and so there's this just like frantic

Matt Morse (26:10.606)
Thanks

Matt Morse (26:15.885)
Yep.

Christian Brim (26:21.052)
energy and frantic, not yes, frantic energy. The most business owners have is like, I've got to do something. But and it usually lands on whatever is their friend did and had success with or what what they perceive they should do. But there's really, you know, most business owners, small business owners,

Matt Morse (26:25.134)
You

Christian Brim (26:50.098)
Even ones that have been in business for a long time don't understand marketing. And I would say marketing in itself is not complex. It's fairly simple. and it's in its principles, but ultimately you're trying to predict and manipulate human behavior, which is wildly unpredictable. You just don't know.

And one of the things I got so frustrated with in dealing with marketing agencies that I hired was they came to the table with, okay, we absolutely can fix this. And this is, you know, step one, step two, step three. And, you know, it's almost like I wish they'd say, you know what? We make no guarantees. And it's not because we don't know what we're doing. It's because we can't predict what people are going to do.

Matt Morse (27:45.622)
Yep. Yep. I mean, I think that's, that's a very, popular experience. Unfortunately, we actually go into most of our conversations and say, I cannot guarantee that this works based on the knowledge that I know about you and the knowledge that I know about the industry. think this is going to work. But what I, what I ask of all of our clients is some flexibility in their expectations that

Christian Brim (28:04.778)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (28:12.994)
We have the ability to pivot based on analysis of what is working and what is not working. The things that we see that are working, let's throw the rest of the budget there for right now until you come back and say, this is now our new budget. We want to try some other things, but we never guarantee that anything works. And I have learned from my dad actually, more like consultant approach is

Christian Brim (28:24.181)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (28:40.174)
be more often than not, it's helpful to say what you should not do versus what you should do. Because every marketer out there, every agency owner out there naturally thinks in terms of, well, this project is going to cost X amount and then that we can do these three things with our business. And that's just not a great partner. That's why agencies get bad raps all the time because they're very self-serving and are worried about the awards that don't really mean anything. You got to pay for anyways at the end of the year. And I want to

Christian Brim (29:07.018)
Mmm.

Matt Morse (29:10.166)
I want to reiterate, like we're dead set on being a good partner. If we don't ever win an award for a creative piece of work, but we are good partners that help move the needle a little bit, that feels like a huge win at the end of the day.

Christian Brim (29:23.444)
Yeah. And, and I think, I think just based on my main experience, I am not a professional marketer. I've just had 29 years in the business and I've, I have spent an inordinate amount of money on, marketing. like I, I tallied it up. I had made a decision last year of like, okay, this is not working. and we're going to make a change.

in how we're marketing. And so I'd already made the decision, but recently I went back and quantified it as to how much money I had spent and looking at what I actually got for that money that I spent. And my conservative estimate is over the last six years, I have burned up a million dollars, which is a sobering number.

If I had not already come to the conclusion that I was making a change, don't know that I would have, I think I would have maybe continued rationalizing the money and saying that, well, we'll figure it out sometime. But the thing that I've tasked the team with is like, okay, we've done pretty much tried everything in varying scopes. Let's look at the data.

Matt Morse (30:20.173)
Yeah.

Christian Brim (30:49.002)
to see where we got traction and then test and iterate small. Don't build the whole thing out and say, okay, we're going to try this strategy and now we're going to go this direction and spend all this money. And I think for a business owner that is looking for a return on investment, right? Like us accountants, that's why we're horrible marketers because you as a marketer can't say,

Matt Morse (31:14.478)
You

Christian Brim (31:17.142)
Well, if I spend $10,000, you're going to get 15. You can't do that with a straight face, right? There are people that do say that, but if you're honest, you can't say that. And so we, as accountants, are like, well, if you can't prove the ROI, then I'm not spending the money. But the truth lies somewhere in the middle, right? You absolutely should get a ROI on your marketing dollars.

Matt Morse (31:22.627)
Right.

Christian Brim (31:46.166)
but it's not so simple as to say, well, we're just gonna run $15,000 in Google ads and, know, wallah.

Matt Morse (31:56.46)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it's really wise. And I think one of the things that bugs me about our industry is that oftentimes the agencies can treat the client like they are, like they have no brain cells left. mean, a lot of information that, that you as a business owner are hearing about marketing through social media and LinkedIn and wherever.

the same things that we're listening to. And so I think that agencies that come into the conversation, it's one of my least favorite things. And I tell our team all the time, be curious, not judgmental. And that's a quote from Ted Lasso. And he's talking about the curiosity that asks questions more than it just comes in and judges. And I think agencies do that all the time. They come in and they're like, well, look at this little business who doesn't know anything about marketing and they're hiring us experts.

Christian Brim (32:27.008)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (32:36.863)
Mmm.

Matt Morse (32:54.604)
And at the end of the day, if they're paying you, yes, you should be experts. But it's, it's not that you are all of a sudden, like, I'm not going to be an expert in accounting. If you hire me up, you are the expert accountant. You are the expert in your business and your, and your brand as it stands right now. And I'm coming in with the outside perspective and a small expertise in some marketing strategies to help you build that. And, and so I think when you're talking about testing and you're talking about iterations, I,

I appreciate that approach as a business owner who wants to see something work because it drives me up a wall when some of these agencies are like, yep, come in and do connected TV. It's the hottest thing right now. That's where you need to spend all your dollars. I'm like, right. Right, right. Yes. Yeah. I live in Denver, so I see crackheads in both my industry and my streets out here.

Christian Brim (33:37.248)
But that's the easy sell, right? Because it's got all the hype behind it. Crackheads, that's what I say, crackheads.

Christian Brim (33:51.723)
Yeah. And to clarify, because I've said this multiple times on the show, the crackhead is the business owner. The marketer is the dealer. So the problem starts with the business. to your point, like if you said, well, okay, I don't know accounting. So I have to come in with this curiosity. The thing I find that is pretty much unanimous is that the business owner doesn't have a lot of clarity.

about who their target client or customer is and what problem they solve. And so the marketer can't be ultimately successful until that is known. And I think that's a gap that, you know, agency owners could absolutely charge for as a discovery process or something like that where

You know, you're going to pay me $5,000 and we're going to dive in and help you answer that question because all the marketing that you spend up into that point before you have that clarity is a crap shoot.

Matt Morse (35:02.742)
Yeah, yeah. Well, I thank you for saying that as a guy who loves strategy and ideal client profiles and that sort of thing. We use the triangle of differentiation, which is the idea that you can differentiate yourself in three ways by what you do, by how you do it or why you do it. What you do is the hardest because if you are an accountant, you are doing the exact same thing as 10 million other accountants out there, right?

Christian Brim (35:23.03)
Hmm.

Christian Brim (35:30.742)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (35:30.978)
The next then we move it to how you do it. Well, how you do it might be you have a unique client experience with the discovery call is, is, or your discovery meeting is always over a cup of coffee and it's on you. And we talk about these three things and you care for them well in the backend and send them a Christmas gift. Maybe that's enough to differentiate yourself. Maybe it's not. And then the most valuable one and the, the, but the hardest one to identify is the why you do it.

Because to your point, a lot of people who are owning businesses, they have these flexible audiences that go from a soccer mom who bought the orange juice one time to, well, maybe we should go a little bit more B2Bing than some nursing homes because they love orange juice. so they flex all these different things and don't have the one touch point. Well, that's where I think we come in really strong is this differentiation. Well, why do you exist? Because people more often than not...

Christian Brim (36:00.79)
Hmm.

Matt Morse (36:30.136)
will pay more to buy something from someone who they believe in the why behind their doing it. Like that's why we follow Instagram influencers all the time.

Christian Brim (36:37.298)
It's it's it's the Simon Sinek model, right? I mean start with why right and and the reality is is to understand your why as a business is hard work. It's deep work and you may never be challenged to figure it out. Like I mean virtually every business owner that I know started their business. There wasn't some strong purpose behind it, right?

Matt Morse (36:41.484)
Yeah, yes, yes.

Matt Morse (36:49.677)
It is.

Christian Brim (37:06.794)
There might've been some underlying passion or reason that pushed them over the edge to start a business. But like with mine, I didn't figure that out until probably I'd been in business over 20 years, that I went through that internal discovery of like, why are you doing this? Why are you doing this as opposed to anything else?

Matt Morse (37:25.688)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (37:36.585)
Right? Why are you doing it with the people that you're doing it for? You know, why them? And my origin story on there's a there's a second level. I'll just give you the surface level. The surface level is my family was in the oil and gas industry. We had a family business and it was, you know, dad and uncles and

Matt Morse (37:37.016)
Mm-hmm.

Christian Brim (38:05.352)
all working together in the same business and family and business really just was one thing, right? I mean, when we were all together living in the same small town and all the weekends we were together and, like the adult conversation, it never was, you know, it was one, one conversation that moved locations between the business and, and, and the family. Well, the,

oil bust in 86 in Oklahoma and Texas, the business went bankrupt. And I was 16 at the time. And the family disintegrated because there was no financial glue and everybody went off to go find their own way to make a living. And I knew at the gut level

Even at 16, like it didn't have to end up this way. And as I went to university and studied accounting and finance, I realized that that that didn't have to be the end result. And fast forward my why.

Matt Morse (39:25.005)
Thank

Christian Brim (39:29.406)
And the reason why I created Core was to keep families from having to experience what I did, where the business collapse caused stress on the family. And that happens all the time. And that's my why. I don't want them to have to go through what I went through.

Matt Morse (39:43.298)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (39:51.126)
Yeah, yeah, and I think that's a, one, it's a beautiful way to differentiate yourself, but two, it's a really strong, I mean, I have your book right here. really, I love this book. So thank you for writing this. And I know this is we got connected, but it comes through in this. Like I read this and I feel from an author that they care whether they know of my unique situation or not, they care enough about it to.

Christian Brim (40:04.884)
You're welcome.

Matt Morse (40:19.416)
put me on a path or at least tell me what my next knowledgeable step is to take to avoid an absolute crash and burp. So I think why is super important in defining your business. And sometimes it's really good for messaging too, because people love to know why you want to help because there are so many more people in that situation or feel really close to that situation. And they're like, there is someone out there that cares.

uniquely for me in this way, then I don't care what it costs. I will make sure that I can get the resource in my hands.

Christian Brim (40:58.708)
What, just briefly, you've read the book, Profit First for Creatives. You said that you appreciated it and that it set you on the path. What was the takeaway from the book for you? Like if you were telling another agency owner, like, you need to read this because this is what I realized.

Matt Morse (41:23.308)
Yeah, well, I think the formula that you've reverse engineered is something that has been super helpful to realize that profit is something off the top that people can take. I was not profitable before reading this book. Within the first month, I was profitable. And that was because of the piece that your profit comes first and then your revenues kind of back into.

whatever you've got left and for years and I've been taught for many years through your business school and everything that your expenses, whatever's left over after your expenses is what you get to take home. Well, guess what? When you're starting a business, it's expensive and you're not getting paid a lot. And so there's nothing that you're taking home most of the time, but it helped me reframe the idea that I can take more money home and that maybe means that I don't need the stock subscription right now. And when it comes around when I need it for this,

specific project, I'll buy it for one month and then I'll cancel it. Like I'll have the money set aside for that. So I think what I love about it is it feels super practical and it makes growth feel possible. I know a lot of people in this industry who are like, some months you're printing money and some months I don't know if you could pay people to work for them. And that was my experience before this. And now yeah, it's an up and down industry. Marketing is a luxury good for every company out there. I get that. But

Christian Brim (42:34.198)
Mmm.

Matt Morse (42:49.61)
It makes it slightly more predictable in that even in the, the bucket that I have set aside means it's, it's some safety for me and I don't put all my hope in it, but I know that it gives me some flexibility in some off months. It gives me some flexibility, even when things are going great that yeah, I can, can take some out and go on a vacation with my wife and I can take some out and do this repair that I've been putting off for years, or I can just have a little more money to set aside or I can buy the.

Christian Brim (42:59.638)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (43:18.914)
you the new lighting for our video setup or whatever it is. It makes it feel like you're, don't have to be stuck in this hamster wheel of like, gosh, I wonder what next month.

Christian Brim (43:28.788)
Mmm.

Did you have any problems with, because I know a lot of creative professionals do about the concept of profit, like you should be able to, and it's okay to make a profit. Did you struggle with any of those issues, like profit is bad?

Matt Morse (43:50.402)
Yeah, totally. And I think there was this wave probably 10 years ago, it started this whole free to fee concept. And I've heard it for many years where if you're a new and young creative, it's okay to start for free. And then after your first deliverable, then you'll say, I'll charge them $200. And I think that has absolutely destroyed the industry for young freelancers to get in.

Christian Brim (44:11.638)
Hmm.

Matt Morse (44:14.7)
Because whether they're good at what they're doing or not, they are spending time on it and to some degree adding value to your business. It might not look super professional and it might not look like you're paying a bunch of money for it, but they're adding some value and I think people deserve to be paid for that. I grew up in that generation. When I'm understanding what business is in college, it's like, if you can just get your foot in the door any way to do so, at some point it'll work out for you.

Christian Brim (44:20.458)
Mm-hmm.

Matt Morse (44:42.194)
And so my mindset then was, well, I could charge $200 for my first video and then 225 for my third video. And at some point, maybe I'll be making a living. Right. And I don't think that is, is a healthy mindset at all. And something I had to, to do a lot of undoing on that. It's okay for me to, charge based on the value that I'm bringing. And it's, it's okay for me to make money and do this and money. People say the.

Christian Brim (45:04.214)
100%.

Matt Morse (45:11.148)
The love of money is the root of all evil. And I think people hear money is the root of all evil. It's not. It's the love of money. And money is not a bad thing. Money is a beautiful tool that helps a lot of families and a lot of communities. And when steward well is one of the greatest things you can use to be a good friend and a good husband and a good father and a good brother. And so I get excited about the idea that it's okay to be creative.

Christian Brim (45:19.477)
Yes.

Matt Morse (45:38.946)
Just because you're doing art and it's something people have said is not worth your full-time pay for years. I think that's something that this book and others like it are slowly just undoing for people, giving them confidence that art doesn't have to be you living on the street and eating beans. It can be something that you make a living with.

Christian Brim (46:00.019)
Absolutely. I, and I'll say, you know, one of the things I've come to realize is that you could have the best thing, whatever the thing is. And you say, this is so great. want to help everybody. Everybody should have this thing. Right. And so you give it away for free. Well, here's the reality. The reality is, is that not everybody will take it.

free. As a matter of fact, they'll look at it that it's free and say, well, it's worthless. It's right. And this dynamic that the buyer sets the value internally based upon what they pay for it. And that kind of clicked for me because like, if you're trying to be altruistic and really help people and you say, well, I'm going to do this for as little amount as possible just to help more people.

The reality is it has the exact opposite effect. You attract the people that don't really value it because it's cheap.

Matt Morse (47:02.862)
Totally.

Mm-hmm.

Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Someone offers you a free oil change. You're, you're sitting there like this guy's probably in training and maybe, or, or maybe isn't even in training. He's just trying to get a job and needs to prove that he can change the oil on your car. Well, I'm not going to try. I drive a 2011 Tacoma. It's a car that probably doesn't need to be changed by a professional, but it is because I see the value of going in and paying $80 for an oil change because I want it done right.

And there is, there's value to that. I completely agree with that. And I think it's a, there's another conversation for a different day, probably, but the psychological effects of pricing is one of the most underrated things in all of business.

Christian Brim (47:49.142)
That's a whole nother conversation. Matt, how can people find out more about 1851 Creative if they want to learn more?

Matt Morse (47:55.234)
Yeah, yep.

Matt Morse (48:00.75)
Well, you can go to 1851creative.com and find some of the work that we're doing. We are launching a podcast here shortly and are active on social media at 1851creative on Instagram and Facebook. We are working on trying to put together some sort of cohort, creative cohort of sorts for individuals who are really excited about.

Christian Brim (48:22.038)
Mmm.

Matt Morse (48:26.67)
growing in community, not working, not worrying about trying to grow in a silo. Creative professionals of all different experiences. hopefully that will be coming to a city near you in the fall. But yeah, we've, we are excited for any eyes that we can get. We're new to the scene, but I think we're really good at what we do.

Christian Brim (48:31.286)
Mmm.

Christian Brim (48:47.776)
Perfect. Listeners will have those links in the show notes. If you like what you've heard, please rate the podcast. Subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast. If you don't like what you've heard, hit the little envelope button, send us a text and tell us who you would like to hear and we'll get rid of Matt. Until next time, ta ta for now.

Matt Morse (49:05.71)
You