Kevin Griffin: Welcome back to the show.
Everyone.
, it is commentary time.
I'm joined with Sean and Chad.
How you gentlemen doing today?
Chad Carter: Doing well, Kevin.
Hope you're doing well.
Kevin Griffin: Awesome.
Well, we had the opportunity.
Well, I had the opportunity to sit
down and actually talk to Brett Fisher
about his life and his business.
, Sean and Chad had the opportunity
to listen to the first cut of the
interview and we're going to sit down.
We're going to talk about some of
the big ideas that we pulled from
the interview and Hopefully lessons
that you all can learn along the way.
, so instead of me going first, I
want to save myself for last chat.
I'm going to ask you what,
what was the big idea you
pulled from Brett's interview?
Chad Carter: Yeah, there's a lot, right?
And he, uh, it was, it was
a really good, uh, episode.
I thoroughly enjoyed, uh, uh,
listening to you two go back and forth.
Um, but I guess the, the main thing
I'll talk about, uh, today is what
he mentioned that Venn diagram.
So when he was talking about getting
clients or even, I think he also kind
of fools with this or, or takes this
into account when he's talking about
projects, what projects he's going to do.
And this has been diagram and the
things he said was it needs to
be feeding me, not draining me.
He said that has to be
bringing in revenue.
And it needs to build an audience.
So those are the three things.
Um, and I just think that's kind of
a critical thing to keep in mind.
So, you know, uh, Stephen Covey, uh,
whole book had, um, yeah, multiple
books, but one was, you know, um, seven
habits of highly effective people.
And one of the habits there is
beginning with the end of mind.
Right.
And, uh, that's just like a principle.
I just hold on to a lot, try to
anyway, not always good at it,
but that's what I try to do.
And.
I think just trying to when you're
starting out or trying to determine, you
know, how you're going to go and create
side income, uh, and or grow your side
income to so it can be your main income.
I think this advice here on this whole
Venn diagram is really, really good.
Because if it's not feeding you
and it's actually draining you,
you can't keep it up long term.
It doesn't matter how disciplined you are.
It doesn't matter how hard worker you are.
It doesn't, you know, it's like, if
you don't, if it's not feeding you
and it's actually draining energy out,
you, it really cannot be sustained.
So I think that being in
there is super important.
And then of course, if it's not bringing
in revenue, it's not bringing the money.
Well, you don't have a business.
Uh, you're not going to be
in business very long there.
So it has to be a critical.
And the interesting thing is.
Um, I, I tend to go on premium
pricing versus trying to be the
cheapest on stuff, uh, because.
You know, there's no advantage
to be the second cheapest, right?
There's no advantage
being second cheapest.
And if you're the cheapest, well,
somebody, it's just always going to be
providing as much value as you can for
as little as you can, and you just can
get priced out, out of the game anyway.
And, uh, which is great for the market.
Uh, but as consultants and, you know,
providing value, it's, it's all about,
uh, determining where that value is and
having a premium price, but also like
in order to charge that price, you can't
just say, Oh, I'm gonna raise my prices.
But you charge a price
in order to do that.
You have to provide
tons and tons of value.
Something nobody else
in the market is doing.
That's, I think, where the key's at.
So it's not just about, Oh,
I didn't charge more money.
I'm gonna double my rates.
You have to actually provide value.
But the whole point is
revenue has to come in.
And if you have that revenue coming
in, and it's actually a premium
revenue, you can then hire a team.
You can then bring in other people.
You can actually solve
problems in more creative ways.
Sean Merron: And it,
Chad Carter: and again,
Sean Merron: at some point, right.
China becomes like a supply
and demand equation, right?
Like it's like, okay, I have
X amount of hours or X amount
of bandwidth or resources.
Right.
And so naturally you can
start to charge more, right.
As . , you get more clients, you
get more, you know, more revenue
potentially, or you reached a point
where your expenses are so high.
You need to raise your revenue
from all the demand coming in.
So it is interesting to try and figure
out what, what is the right price to
start with, where you're just trying to,
you know, you know, get, get, get a bunch
of, and we see this a lot actually, where
people come in new businesses, especially
in the, um, labor industry, right.
Manual labor.
Living fences, for example, down here in
Gulf Shores, it's like people will come
in and like be the cheapest contractor.
Right.
At first, just to get the business.
Right.
Or like mowing lawns, right.
Landscaping and stuff.
And then once they get it, they start
to realize, you know, like good clients,
bad clients, and, you know, now I have
the opportunity to really start raising
my prices and, you know, reducing the
amount of jobs that I want to take.
It's more becomes about
quality over quantity.
At that point,
Chad Carter: Yeah, I think
that's exactly right.
Because the thing is, if you...
Sometimes you have to, and he
mentioned this to you, sometimes
you just have to do stuff for
money, something for money, right?
Because you're just getting started out.
You can't say, I can charge this premium
rate because I have all the securities.
I have all this stuff.
I'm going to provide all this value.
It's like, we haven't really
proved that value yet.
You haven't, you haven't proven that you
can do that or that you will do that.
Um, and so unless timing is just right
and you have just the right person,
it's very hard to kind of charge this
premium rate and go straight into it.
So usually you have to
build yourself up into that.
Uh, but knowing Knowing that
that's your end goal when you get
started, is a really powerful thing.
Uh, versus just getting in, just trying
to get business and then spending a
decade working at these low rates, not
realizing that, oh, there's actually
a better way, a better way to do this.
Um, and the other thing he mentioned
that that third person, third piece of
the diagram was building an audience.
And if you, and again, I think this
is more from the content management
side, uh, of stuff that he's doing,
but in general, if you think about
the audience, it's all about.
You have this notion of a funnel, right?
So you have like what's called a
sales funnel and you have potential
leads that come into your funnel
and you kind of filter down, then
ultimately they become a client.
Or they buy your product, right?
Depending if it's a service or, you know,
an actual product that you're selling.
And in order to Um, in order to
actually make a decent amount of
money, you need to have a lot of
people coming into your funnel.
A lot of people coming in to know about
you, uh, to cause the best, the best
sales you can get are inbound sales.
When they call you up and like,
Hey, Kevin, I want to work with you.
I saw you online.
And I'll work with you and
you're like, well, great.
My fee is this.
And it's, it's like the hard parts
already done versus, you know,
people have to go out and call,
call and send emails everywhere.
I mean, it's just a totally
different, totally different ballgame.
So that's where that, that build
audience to me, it's all about
setting yourself up, uh, so that,
uh, lead generation is much easier.
Kevin Griffin: I used a couple of phrases
and one you're going to touch on is when
you get those inbound leads and coming
in, I call it acting the professional.
There was this point in my like
consulting, freelancing, Career where
I was just kind of guessing what I
was doing and I would go into a coma.
Well, maybe I could charge
you this, this and this.
And it was kind of a negotiation
with myself , to figure out
what I should charge someone.
And then much later in my career.
And it's what I do now.
It's the.
All right.
This is how much it costs.
You get X, Y, and Z.
And I, it's not even an option.
Like there's no negotiation.
It's like this, you want to
employ me for, for a project.
These are the terms.
It's not like I can go to
Walmart and pick stuff off the
shelf and go, all right, well.
You're telling me it costs this
much, but what if, what if I only
give you this that much, um, yeah,
consulting works the same way.
And you're talking about the Venn diagram.
I have another thing.
It's a, it, if it's not
a hell, yes, it's a no.
. The way that I gauge a lot of things
I'm working on because we just
have a very fine amount of time
and energy to work on projects.
And I know bright feels the same way.
Like if I'm going to start working
on something or make a conscious
effort to work on a project or
initiative, it's gotta be a hell yes.
If not, it's gotta be a no, because I
need to keep the room open for the things
I'm going to be very passionate about.
Sean Merron: I had something
like that recently.
And, uh, Someone was asking,
because I have a bunch of friends,
you know, business owner, friends
of people that are looking for
software technology at some point.
And I was asking for, for me
to help build them a system.
And yeah, it was like, okay,
what would make this a hell?
Yes.
Right.
Exactly.
Kind of what you said there.
And I was like, and you know, I
was like, well, this is the number
that comes to mind initially that
would, that I would, make it happen.
The project was exciting, but also
I knew that just time wise, right.
I'm fortunate enough to be at a point.
You know, in my career and where I feel
like, you know, I don't really have to
take on some of these, you know, jobs that
are kind of lower quality or trying to
like bid the lowest and all that stuff.
So really it's a point where,
Hey, I know like I can do a
better job, higher quality.
I can hire someone to help me and
I can really kind of manage that.
Um, but here's the price.
You know, and it is what it is,
but I know people get sticker
shock when they see that.
And this person did as well.
So it's I'm kind of glad
they did in this case.
And I didn't have to pick up that
job because I know if that didn't
happen, I would've got probably stuck
in something that I really wouldn't
have enjoyed and really wouldn't have
seen the value that, I really needed
in order to make that job happen.
Chad Carter: Yeah.
I think the key is.
Being able to be at a point where, you
know, you can provide the value, right?
Because, if you know that you can
bring in this company an extra
250, 000 a year, then charge them
50, 000 is a no brainer, right?
Even if it's a 10 hours worth
of work or something, right?
So that's crazy hourly rate.
It's like, it doesn't matter if you can,
if you know that you can bring them in
250, 000, you can easily charge them
50, 000 without blinking an eye because,
you know, the amount of value they get.
Is extraordinary, especially if
you can work it out where they
don't have to pay once they get
their first 50, 000 or whatever.
Like when you're confident and what
you can provide and you can provide
that type of value, you can charge.
Uh, really high rates, even when
somebody else's would charge, you
know, a hundred bucks an hour and,
uh, you know, charge them basically
a thousand dollars for that.
You're charging 50, 000.
It's like, well, that's 50
times what the normal radius.
Well, yeah, but I can guarantee that
you're getting, you know, pretty
much five times the amount of what,
of what I'm, you know, charging her.
So it's all about figuring
out what you can provide and
the value you can stack on.
I've heard before, and I think
it's really valuable is you
don't decrease your prices.
You increase the value, right?
Instead of saying that I'm negotiating on
my price, Oh, you're a hundred dollars.
Now I need you to really be 85 an hour.
It's like, no, I can't do 85.
Now I can't do 95 an hour, a hundred
dollars an hour or 200 an hour.
What was the number?
It's right.
And it's like, well, if you're trying
to negotiate on that, it's like, no,
but this is what I will do for that.
And again, in general, it's
a bad idea just for folks
listening to charge per hour.
So you want to charge per hour per value,
uh, and not actually do the, do the
hourly thing, because it's very difficult.
Cause at that point, as soon as you
started going down that path of charge
per hour, you are the commodity.
And then I can go and get, and get Sean
for 95 and Kevin for about, and actually
you can't obviously, but the whole point
is you can, you can go get somebody
else for just a little bit, a little
bit less if you're at the commodity.
So you don't price
yourself as a commodity.
Sean Merron: And I think a lot
of times, like I can see it where
problems are presented to me.
And I guess my thought.
Or my brain goes to
like opportunity costs.
When I talked to a lot of business
owners, they see it as, Hey, I'm
spending 20 hours a week in this, you
know, and yeah, they could value their
time to see how much it would be worth
to, or how long it would really take.
As I get more into private equity,
actually, this is something I
think about more is like, how long
would it take for me to regain my
investment, to make my money back?
Right.
Um, that's a, always a good thing to think
about when you're going to make a purchase
or an expense or build something, not only
how much time it's going to save you, but
how long it's going to take to get back.
Also, now that I have this time back.
In addition, now, what
new value can I create?
And that, that kind of shifts me in
a direction I want to talk about a
little bit, which is the more of the
like strategical prioritization stuff.
Cause this has been, so he talked
a lot about time management.
One of the things I kind of saw Brett
evolving into, honestly, as I heard
him talk was like from small consultant
shop or, you know, individual really
right into now he's kind of growing
back into, Hey, I have a team.
And I need to make sure that whole team's
aligned on the right priorities, you
know, going after the right objectives,
doing the right thing for the week.
He said something like this is
the big goal of the week, right?
That's what, where's he's
kind of at right now.
I kind of see him actually evolving more
into that strategical, like running
a whole, you know, a bigger company
kind of, kind of transitional phase.
Um, and I've been in large corporations,
I've been in small companies.
A lot of the time what happens is.
And I'm, you know, more
and more is just aligning.
You're trying to get alignment across the
board constantly on the right priorities,
the right things we should be doing.
Like I have engineers
that can do great work.
They can, you know, I can coach them.
I can build an awesome
engineering department that can,
um, you know, deliver stuff.
But the question is always, are
they delivering the right stuff?
Right.
And, um, you've heard the whole, or you
maybe haven't heard, um, but there was.
You know, a book in the past, I think
Kevin may have introduced it to me,
or maybe you, Chad, about putting
the important before the urgent.
Right.
Um, and ensuring that every
way or every week, right.
Every day, almost that you're
chipping away at the important stuff.
So I know me personally, like,
I want to walk away at the
end of the day, feeling like.
I was pretty productive.
Right.
I hit, I hit something that helped
achieve that big priority that
I know I need to work towards.
So in the morning, the first thing
I always do is like, I'm going to
go for the one big rock every day.
Like, that's my focus,
like do a big rock first.
Right.
And then maybe the other stuff that comes
up throughout the day, I'll chip away at.
Kevin Griffin: I know for me.
It's, uh, the, the type of work I'm
doing right now, full time at the end of
the week, it's Friday and I'll go, all
right, what did I accomplish this week?
And some weeks it feels like I did
nothing because there's no tangible
thing that I accomplished, but.
I put out 20 fires and I helped
other members of my team get on tasks
so they can get their work done.
it's the worst feeling in the
world to get to the end of the
day on Friday and realize I don't
feel like I accomplished anything.
This was a week, this was a wasted week.
What, what am I going to do with myself?
All right, I'll just start fresh on Monday
and it turns out it's the same thing.
Um, I could really learn from that.
You know, there's one big task that
needs to get accomplished every
week, and there's nothing to say.
And if you get it done on Monday,
you can't have another big task.
You try to get done that week.
Chad Carter: Yeah, something
I've seen around this.
I really like a lot is, um, three, three
tasks a week again, but they all support
the big thing, whatever the big thing is.
And then you take those three tasks.
If you can figure out how to break
those down to three things, you got to
get done that day in order to get those
three big things done for the week.
That also hits your main goal.
Then that's a great way to again, Some
that gets more into almost trying to
fine tune your daily calendar, you
know, though, and sound like Brett,
that's not really his, his gig.
And that's fine.
Um, he, he mentioned something about
the Pomodoro technique, uh, on this and
he, how he kind of shies away from it.
And I'm kind of the same way
I used to really enjoy the
Pomodoro technique, but the 20.
25 minutes was just, it was too short.
So I pretty much did like
three in a, three in a row.
And, uh, you know, it went like an
hour and a half and then, you know,
took a 15 minute break and that
seemed to work out better for me.
Uh, but then all of a sudden it
was just, I don't know, I, I kind
of got out of, out of doing that.
And I didn't, it was kind of a neat
thing, but it really didn't seem to
provide a ton of value to me personally.
So it's just interesting.
I, I definitely think I found myself
getting into weeds on what this is,
this, my block a day in my block a day.
And to your point, Kevin,
when something gets.
You have a fire or something happens
and you feel like the whole day's
blown down because, or, you know,
whatever, instead of just like, well,
no, I'm not going to, I'm not going
to pack my entire day with this.
I'm going to have margin.
This is why I'm trying to
get done this week, period.
And as long as you're disciplined enough
to actually start working on a Monday and
not leave it till Friday, you're good.
And if you don't have enough
discipline to do that, then you
need to work on, on that part.
Sean Merron: I like, I like something
I think Kevin, you've also said in the
past, um, making time to work on the
business instead of in the business.
And really I can see that
more as the strategical stuff
versus the tactical stuff.
That's again, corporate talk.
Even when you're just starting
out, it's like that, you know,
I, I remember Kevin, we had the
two frugal dudes podcast, right?
Like we constantly, I
had to think about, okay.
Is it really worth like building some
images to go put on Twitter, right.
And like, you know, spend my
time, you know, the little
extra time I had every week.
Is it, you know, is it
building little tweets, right.
That we can automatically schedule
and ship and ship out, right.
Or is it better spent, you know, going to.
Network and, you know, uh, build some
relationship with someone that we
want to have on our podcast, right?
It's all about, it's all about trade offs.
Everything's about trade offs.
I mean, think of software
architecture is about trade off
system designs about trade off, right?
I mean, that's all it is.
And then same with priorities as well.
I mean, you know, when you're trying
to think about how to spend your time,
especially in the beginning, right?
Like, you know.
What, what is the right
marketing channel, right?
Are we going to use YouTube
Instagram, you know, uh, Twitter.
Of course you want to use it all, but
where's the most value, um, you know,
spent where, where should we target?
Kevin Griffin: It's looking at any
particular task and asking yourself, is
this something that requires me to do it?
Like with two frugal dudes, we
didn't do a lot of our own social.
we had Nikita who did the social for
us and, uh, the real core benefit
we brought to the business was.
Being the face of the business
and interacting with the folks
and doing the networking, , but
I don't need to do social media.
You didn't need to do social media.
Um, and I know what bread like a lot
of stuff he does and he has his team
for he's asked himself that question.
Do I need to do the editing on the videos?
And the answer is no, you
can pay an editor to do the
editing on the videos for you.
So I probably didn't really allude
to this to the audience or in the
interview, but I have a very long
history with Brett and Brett and I
have known each other for way too long.
And so I knew Brett in the first,
technically the second job I had out
of college and, worked under him.
He was kind of a mentor to me as when
I was a young kind of technologist
figuring out what I wanted to do.
And we just stayed friends since.
And a part of that journey
was we, we formed a business.
So, and Brett did not talk about
it at all during the interview.
And it was a little
business called wind sitter.
we would develop basically monitoring
software for windows servers.
Cause it sounds really boring and
we didn't execute on it the way
that we probably should have, but
we had wanted wind sitter to be.
That thing that we still do our full time
job and then we have this thing on the
side that we're working towards and we
worked and we worked and we worked and we
worked on it and I think it's an important
thing to talk about Windsor was a failure.
It's went 3 years and eventually,
uh, Brett and I had a conversation.
Is this worth?
To keep going with.
And the answer was no.
So we took the little bit of money
that we made on the business.
We paid off the server bills that we had.
And I think we went out to a nice
dinner and that was the extent
of what we made on Windsitter.
I've had this unique opportunity with
Brett to kind of be side saddle with them
on a lot of the initiatives he started.
It's really nice now to
see him finding success in
something that works really well.
I wanted Windsor to
work, but things happen.
We learned a lot along the way, and I
think in the footnote of his current
business is actually Windsor because
his docker training that he's doing
now the work he's doing with Maven that
all stemmed from him trying to figure
out how to deploy no JS consistently.
In our production environments, we can
see where he is today, but it really
all started with Windsitter because
he picked up Docker as a solution to
a very particular problem that we had.
I'm super happy with where he is.
Chad Carter: Yeah, I think,
I think the key, what you
just said there is fantastic.
It's, it's a matter of, okay, yeah.
Winsitter was quote, unquote, a failure.
And actually the fact that you were able
to go to a nice dinner after a few years,
like you didn't go in debt for it, right?
I mean, you know, it's coming
from, yeah, there you go.
So, so from that perspective, it wasn't
actually a failure, but the key is,
even if it was, the point is what
you learned during those three years.
And that, that's kind of the
main thing in all this stuff.
So that's why I can jump back
to the Venn diagram real quick.
That whole, it has to energize you.
It can't drain your energy.
It's so important because
it's all about the journey.
It's all about what you're
learning through this
progress, through the process.
Okay.
He had, what'd he say?
Six or seven businesses over the 20 years.
Uh, and, and, and most
of them didn't work out.
This is the latest one is,
was working out well for him.
Right.
And that's, you know, uh, between
us, we have the same, same situation.
So the key is getting started
sooner rather than later.
Uh, so the sooner you get started,
the sooner you get some of these
failures, but again, don't, you
can't look at them as failures and
definitely don't look at it like, Oh,
this failed, therefore I'm a failure.
Uh, that messes up your mind.
You can't, you can't get into it.
Can't get into that, into that,
uh, pathway and I've been there,
uh, once it's kind of, kind of
drummed down for about 18 months.
I was just, you know, it's
like, well, I'm just out.
I'm just not, you know, just because
it actually came down to, uh, my
mindset of saying, well, this thing
failed, therefore I'm a failure.
I'm not going to do anything else.
It took me a while to kind of
come out of, uh, come out of that.
But the, the key is if I hadn't lost
those 18 months, I've been further, you
know, further down the road than I am now.
The key that I've realized since
then is it is about the journey.
Uh, it's about what
you're learning as you go.
So even if something is quote
unquote a failure, it's okay.
Cause that, the time that you
spent there wasn't for nothing.
You've actually learned what not
to do at least one thing not to do,
if not a bunch of different things.
Sean Merron: Yeah, and you've probably
heard the famous saying many times, right?
You don't win or fail.
You win or.
Learn, right?
I remember the first time someone said
that, I don't know why I never thought of
it like that, but it really is the truth.
I mean, that's the living example
right there with Kevin, right?
Like, you know, you don't,
the word fails pretty rough.
It's always just an opportunity.
It's teaching you something
and you have to try and.
Like kind of reflect, right.
Like on that, what you did and like,
get the lesson out of it every time.
What did I learn through that?
What actually was the benefit?
Cause there was some, there always is.
And it's going to ultimately
mold you into the next step
that you have on your journey.
Kevin Griffin: All right, guys,
that was a fun conversation.
I appreciate you hanging out with me
and discussing some of the finer points.
Thank you to the audience
for hanging out with us too.
And we'll see you next time
for another episode of the
multi threaded income podcast.