10 Essential Lessons: I Learned the Hard Way

0:00 Welcome to the podcast. I'm glad you're here. Today I'm going to talk about something. It's gonna be a little bit shorter than most of our episodes, but today I'm going to talk about something that's a little bit informational and might help you as an entrepreneur, people starting out.

1:04 story. So we build brand kits, we build brands, do social media, social media marketing, social media management, campaign advice, and we do commercials, like full-fledged commercials, or maybe even stop streets and the whole nine yards. And I also build websites in my proprietary platform I'm creating. Can't wait to launch that. Still building it, so it will help a lot of people, because WordPress, GoDaddy, all of these things, Wix, they're limited, and their creation components means that if you make a change, it might affect your website globally. So I've taken more of an Apple approach to building a platform. You know, kind of limit the customization, still custom to you, and be able to offer world-class services. That's the idea.

2:09 As a business owner, as an entrepreneur, once you begin to pursue the passions and the purposes that God has in your life, or you begin to pursue the company and the idea, you have a product, you have a service, you're going to discover there's no such thing as off the clock. So number one, you're going to have late nights. It's part of the process. You're not going to have weekends to yourself, and they're not going to have holidays. You're going to work on all these times. Now, you get to have the freedom to work when you want and how you want, but that freedom means that you may be pulling an all-nighter. You may be working two days in a row. You may be working through Saturday and through Sunday, even though I believe in a biblical day of rest. It does happen.

3:09 that to my business made sense. I didn't understand that it was a constant thing, constant thing. And I also face creative burnout in some instances, so I may have to take a different day of rest in the week so that I'm rested and can accomplish the goal and accomplish the deadline and make a deliverable that my clients are going to love. That's number one.

4:11 client and you're alone. If you're alone, does two things: lowers your credibility in the eyes of the client, and makes it easier for you to do two mistakes. Not understand what your client is asking, because you're in a monopic vision and you're in your brain and you don't have someone else to help understand and, aka, translate for the client. Or two, if the client doesn't value you or value people, they may run over you. And in business, being run over, having someone say, "Well, let's do it for cheaper," and feeling constricted, because if you're starting a business, you're going to feel like you're not going to make it. And I can guarantee you, you will make it. You will succeed. You will put in that work and you will succeed. You get those sales, you will succeed. But you don't have to break your back for clients that may or may not value you.

5:13 don't make good decisions. They make decisions emotionally, based off emotional contexts. And if you're a small business owner and you go to a meeting alone, you're going to feel caged, sometimes cornered, forced to make decisions that may or may not be good for you and your business.

6:16 your client know, and your customer know, this is the expectations. But if you overdo it, you're going to turn off sales. A, or B, they're going to sign the document not knowing what they're signing and not knowing the implications. So when you're like, "Well, your contract says X, and we've informed you, it's in your contract," they may not understand what that means. And when you get close to X, they may be like, "Well, I never agreed to that." And like, "Well, it's in your contract." But just because it's in your contract does not mean someone's going to read it, especially if it's 20 page.

7:16 so they know. If I charge them, if there's an extra additional charge, I can say, "Hey, this is coming up. Do you want to do this?" They say yes or no, and I say yes. Well, if I do this, it's chargeable, and this is how much it's going to cost. And then they make the decision whether it works.

8:17 clients operate based on budgets or based on a perception of how much something costs, and when it extends, you have to judge the difference. So sometimes you may find yourself, okay, here you go. But other times you're going to have to hold to that scope of project, especially if it's more than 15 minutes. I'm probably charging you. If it's more than three hours, or I have to pay someone else, so it's more than three hours of my time and I have to pay someone else, I have no choice. I have to charge you. I have to. There's, I can't waive it, can't do anything. I have to charge you. Maybe I'll give you a reduce, but if I'm paying someone else, I can't give you a reduced. It's their cost plus the upcharge. There you go. And we'll talk about upcharges in another time.

9:20 said they're going to do. They're not going to honor those kinds of things. If that's the case, which in most cases, you know, you can tell pretty much when someone's not going to value you. Usually speaking, when someone's not going to value you, it has a lot to do with the perceived perceptions of what your value is. And your prices do inform your value. Your prices do help people understand how much you're going to charge and things. But what they don't do is they don't instantly make someone who believes that they should be paying less for something understand the work.

10:22 So people may not honor your contracts because they don't value you. And just because they vet you, you think they value you, you offer them something that's of value, they may decide later they don't value you. So they're, by the client who want to add something post-production, great, they valued me, right? We had a great relationship. We worked well together. They didn't do much price haggling. They did have some concerns, and we would look to the product. "Okay, well, honestly, you may not need this. We put this in here for everyone because generally speaking you'll probably need it. Okay, we can remove that, and we can move this, and we can move this." And it was more fine-tuning the quote.

11:25 you're the expert," don't do it. And if you come to the table and you've been at the table one, two, three, four times, and the first couple times you're at the table everything was good, and all of a sudden now they want to renegotiate rates, they want to renegotiate things, that's because they found out they can't for you, or they have been told by people that they get advice from that you may not be able to solve their problem. And so you have to address client concerns. But if they are not going to value you, and you have those red flags come up, all those red flags I discussed, you, even if it's in your contract, it may not be something that they honor, okay? Such as late fees and things of that nature.

12:29 you right now. Please direct everything to legal. Here's my lawyer. Talk to them." One of them, anyway. And so that does happen. It's a real thing, and it sucks. But as a business owner, just understand that if you're walking into a relationship with a client, even if you have a contract, you may have to force yourself to honor those terms of the contract, and you may have unpleasant conversations. So be ready to have unpleasant conversations. And if that's not you, then you need to do number six.

13:31 other technical issues, gave them free advice, and immediately, immediately they're like, "How much it costs?" I'm like, "Here it is. This is how much it costs." They wrote me a check on the spot. I said, "No, no, I can't accept the check until you sign the contract." But they wrote me a check on the spot. I literally was at their office printing the contract, going over the contract terms, and signing things. And it was awesome. Great experience, because they really found value in what I offer, because I came referred. Word of mouth is the best advertising. And I offered them a solution to their problems, and I offered them free consultation.

14:37 be, and how I can add value to your company. You know, sometimes clients listen, sometimes they don't. That's totally up to them. But the advice is there. Sometimes it's free. And when they have a, you know, a retainer and those kinds of things, I offer free advice all the time, because you're on retainer, that's consulting services. Like, in my opinion, the consultation is part of it. And if it's, you know, a little bit longer, like, follow that rule of thumb, 15 minutes to three hours. If it's more than that, it's billable. I'll let them know before it becomes billable. I'll be honest.

15:41 or media. Don't take advantage of anyone. But the rules in the contract are there so you know how our process works, and if you have questions, I answer it. There are sometimes I'll modify a contract. I had a client who, there's a particular package they didn't want to put in the full amount. It was a little bit high, they thought. And even though it's standard for me to do that, you know, pay up front, it's package, it's bundle pricing, it includes this amount of hours and it's bundled in, I made the change, made the change the contract, built a relationship, felt it was going to go well, it went well.

16:46 part of the process. But if it's too much, I can bring it back to the box and say, "This is what we agreed on. This is the scope of work, and unfortunately that has to be billable, and I'm sorry." Just because, you know, it's over three hours or it's over 15 minutes, depending if it's change or if it's a new edition, or I have to pay someone else for it. If you pay someone else for it, I can't fund that cost. Unfortunately, I have to pass that to you. And just like any good business, it's their cost plus an upcharge percentage up, because you're in business to make money.

17:47 and I have that. What I don't have is street smarts, or what we would coin as business smarts. And so I know tax code, and I know how to operate a business legally. I don't know how to grit and grind a business and make business decisions and make things happen. I'm way too kind. Way too kind. And that's because that's who I am, but it's not how businesses grow. You're in business to make money. Now, that can be secondary to accomplishing a purpose and a goal, but I can't accomplish that purpose and goal without money. Money is a tool. If I don't have that tool, I can't help. I can't do what God's called me to do. I can't advance the Kingdom of God. I can't give to the Kingdom of God if I don't have money.

18:52 to do things. And, you know, so I decided that I'm not going to run this business alone. A, you're not going to run this business alone. If you have a big business, don't run it alone. If it's a small business and you're just starting off, find some people that you can bounce ideas off creatively, talk about, you know, people who are okay with a 90-minute call, 30-minute call, you know, they're okay picking their brain.

19:55 this alone. Your first hire should be an admin or someone who can complement your weaknesses. In my case, I didn't directly hire an admin. I hired someone who had a lot of business smarts. I could step in as a contractor, could step in and help me talk through some tough business decisions. Some are great, some are bad, you know, business adventure, it's a journey. But my first hire was someone that complements my weaknesses. In other words, I have a weakness, I have a hole here, they filled the hole.

20:59 might take a step back. But because it's an industry standard business practice in consulting and in marketing and in film and production, website designers are starting to adopt it a little bit more. I have it in there because it helps me know you'll be as committed as me, and I'm not going to be wasting a bunch of hours on something that's not going to come to fruition. But there are some things such as sales, and, you know, sometimes you have to test someone, and you find ways to be creative. Like, I won't hire someone if they're not true to their word. Won't contract them, won't talk to them. But I also want to give all my psychological secrets away, because I don't want people to know the right answers to the questions I ask, because I want you to have integrity, be ethical, and be able to operate on, not my level, but on a new business level.

22:05 work nine to five, punch a time clock in, they do minimum amount of work and leave. There are sometimes where you need to hire those people to fill a position, but if you're starting a new business, you need someone with grit, grind. "I'm going to work for you even if I'm unable to meet my contractual terms, and I'm sorry about that. You know, I know, I understand that I might not get paid because I didn't meet my contract obligations, okay, but I'm still working with you. I'm still fighting for you. I'm still making those calls. I'm still doing those things." And when that happens, that's the kind of person you need to hire, because in business, unlike family and friends, in business it's a money thing, right? It's an equatable activation. Either they should, and if you hire an employee, they should do two things: remove stress from you, or which also saves you money, it makes you money, or make you money. They remove stress from you so that you don't get burnt out and you're able to focus on more projects. Great, you're making more money. Or they need to be making more money. Customer service, their number one goal

23:06 is not to make customers happy. It's to keep customers from leaving, which keeps your revenues growing, right? Which is why you call customer service and you get late fees waived and all those kinds of things, because they want to keep customer retention. That's a customer service job, customer retention. And if a customer leaves, okay, why'd they leave? Get them on the phone, find out why they left, let's discover how to fix those things.

24:06 weaknesses, not a you. And then sales is tough. Sales is tough. Cold calls is tough. Word of mouth advertising, great. You know, offer, I offer a commission contract to anyone, friends, family, whatever. "Hey, if you send someone over to me, great, I'll send you a contract. I'll get you a percentage." Not a high percentage, but the way my pricing structure works, it's a decent amount.

25:08 the work. You have to do the calls. You have to send the emails. You have to brew social media. You have to change, too. There are some salespeople who have not adapted from after COVID, which is strange to me. Like, how do you not adapt? Like, it's imperative for you to adapt in the sales to make sales. Otherwise you're not gonna make anything. Like, if people are on social media, okay, adapt. Social media, help me with content strategy, getting people's DMs, LinkedIn, those kinds of things. And if you're not adapting, you're just doing cold calls or just doing emails. And even then, I don't have an email list, because I'm pretty much growing all that with this content strategy I have. It's a long content strategy. But you, I have, you know, customer lists, customer files, either purchased, found, created, and worked over time, and provide this information to you. And then if you don't work it, you don't make any money. And so the tough thing is, sales is tough. Main, cold calls is tough. It's, I don't recommend it for anyone, but if you have

26:11 the grit to do it and you don't live by fear, you're gonna get some success rate. But you have to understand, sales success rates start at zero, if not a negative number, and then you build yourself up. You learn from mistakes, you find out what works, and you grow, and you finally start making increment sales. And sales is an incremental grid that eventually you'll make lots of sales. Like, the grid will slowly grow and compound, but it starts nothing, and it could be six months until you get a sale. Not saying that's how you need to operate business, but I'm letting you know that is something I wish I knew.

27:15 went on and did my own thing when I wanted to do it, you know, 20, 30 years ago or whatever it was, I'd be nowhere, because any active obedience towards God is going to turn around your situation like that. And so I have a cheat code. I have a great exploit in life. The Holy Spirit told me to do it. I did it. I'm receiving financial blessings and benefit from it. So that's number seven.

28:16 removed from one of the small business commercial projects, is because they didn't actually need a grip truck. We were able to provide some of that equipment, and they didn't do a lot of interiors, a lot of exterior, so we were able to make it work. And God changed the weather and it was overcast. It's great, brilliant, very excited about that.

29:20 communication with God thing. Maybe I'll do an episode on that, because that'd be very helpful, but it'd be like tailored more to Christians in my audience. Then second, I'm trying to, like, target both. But it'd be cool if you could communicate with God, because you'd find yourself saved, sanctified, and set apart, and set on a path to heaven. There's only one way to heaven, and that's through Jesus Christ. It's Holy Week, okay? I can share this podcast anyway. It's Holy Week, I'm allowed. I'm a Christian. I'm a minister of the Gospel, okay?

30:20 to know my value. And I didn't get anyone upset about my prices. I got that. I was like, okay, well, you know, this is the pricing, and this is how much I'm gonna charge you, and, you know, I could get it done. And when they realized that timeline, my pricing was great, because most people, video editing, right? Video editing is a very complex thing, and a lot of people will dilly dally.

31:27 for the hills. Detailed enough so people know, this is the boundary, this is what, this is what we said this was. And you do something in your contract at the end that says, this supersedes all written and verbal agreements, because you could say X, Y, and Z, but maybe you didn't hear that in a meeting and it's not in your contract. Do not be held out obligated to that.

32:31 your clients, you're not going to receive grace and mercy from your debtors and everyone else. So come on, take a step of faith. There's a yin yin to it, you know.

33:31 Universe Standard hourly. Everything has a Universe Standard hourly, because the type of work I do is very specialized and in high demand, and my hourly, so like my hour consumption, like a video editor, I went on a tangent here, but a video editor could take 18 hours to do something that would take three. So that's why my prices are high. And clients at the beginning say, "Okay, I love your work, I want your work, okay, I'll pay the price." And then, you, with the exception of one or two, 99.9% of the time, boom, they get the price. Like, that's it. Like, "Yeah, I only worked on that for three hours." They're like, "This guy would charge us for 20 hours, and it'd be two times, three times that cost. We were expecting this." I was like, well, my hourly, and I work in an hourly. You don't inflate your numbers? No, I don't inflate my numbers. I don't find my numbers. In fact, if I don't track my hourly, then I'm going to stick on my budgeted contract amount, because I'll usually go over it, and I'll stick to that budget contract amount

34:34 because you're not going to get a refund. The budget contract, but if the budget hours is 30 and I go over that, it's technically billable back to you, and if I don't track, it's my fault, not yours, okay? But 90% of the time I track it. Start and stop, gonna call, have a break, stop, take a phone call, stop, all those kinds of things. I track every, I know how much I spent on a call with a client. I know how much I've done a client, and it's precise down to the second.

35:41 value that I can provide, that our business provides, that our contractors, employees provide. The value, because it's being honest. If you don't know something, say, "I don't know something." If you know something and they don't understand, help them understand. But yes, there's some people, clients, that you can't do that to. They may be red flag clients, or they might just be busy and may now, may not be the time. So it's yin and yang thing. But being open, being personable, being a human being of your business, talking to another human being, and a brick wall AI response, "Well, it's in the contract." That helps you build a rapport and relationship, which will get you more sales than not building a relationship. I guarantee it, okay?

36:45 but when I gave my two weeks notice and I started working on it early to, you know, be able to hit the ground running, I built a website in my platform. It took me a lot, a lot of time, 32, 48 hour days, not joking. And I pushed out a website, that website's giving me sales. I even made it so that it was like a better than Google slideshow, better than PowerPoint, better than a brochure, so that I can go in a presentation and pull it up. Well, here's all the stuff we do, here's what we do, here's the ads, here's the benefits, here's the bonuses, here's the things we do, all inside this brilliant, I would say Apple-inspired website, because that was the cream of the crop marketing experience and other. Like, I didn't just copy from Apple, A, they do some things that technologically wise I couldn't do, but take way too much time. But I even did a whole course on how to build landing pages and all those kinds of things, all those things that I know, but I needed to relearn because I had this time

37:48 period where I was not doing it full time. And so learning, growing, expanding.

38:48 and through multiple pages to discover this information that's not out from me, I may already have someone that I'm like, "Okay, you know what, I kind of like this space, but the other space was more informed, and to be honest, I'm gonna go with them, because they look like they have their stuff together."

39:50 a lot of rewriting, a lot of copy stuff. I can tell you there was a lot of testimonials in it, but it was history. It was, here's our service, here's our products, here's our design process, here's why we choose to do this product, here's where we source our materials, all those kinds of things. This is me generalizing it, but they didn't have any advertising. This goes up, SEO increases, Google triples, quadruples them because of the improvements they made, and they made over 30,000 sales over the Black Friday holiday, because they were credible. This is just their website information, and they became discovered as authentic, and they can, people, customers can love that experience.

40:53 but 99.9% of the time you can find stuff to improve on your own. Improve, you work on you. So your website is going to speak to your authenticity, your value. I have a website platform, right, called, you know, The Universe, I've been working on. I have pages ready to be released to talk about this is how credit cards are securely stored, payments are securely stored, this is how accounts by The Universe works, this is how all these things work, all breakdown, all ready to go when I release the platform. Share the authenticity and the value of the platform to other people. And that's the big point, is your website needs to be fresh, needs to be updated. You don't need to update it every year, but at the very least, the footer should not say 2014 when it's 2025. Shouldn't. And your website shouldn't look like it was made in the 2000s. It should. It's expensive to build a website now, don't worry, I'm working on that.

41:57 But if you need to update your WordPress theme, if you need to update your Shopify theme, like some of the biggest improvements you can do. Like, I had the client I talked about exited, to be honest, because of their strategy and the things that they do. They actually weren't a good fit for the platform, because all they had to do, without needing all the extra frills of the platform that kind of helped but didn't really help their use case, is just update their Shopify template. Big bonus, they didn't have to move over to the platform. Now, that's what I sell and that's what I do, and since then, you know, you help advising clients, "Hey, you know, you could save a lot of resources if you do this opposed to this." But because the platform, if you want customization, which I thought that's the level they wanted, that's what I provided. When, you know, a year down the line you're like, "Oh, okay, this would be better served keeping you in this platform, not all this custom code, and just updating your Shopify template, your WordPress template, your those kinds of things." And last thing,

43:02 the Holy Spirit has been working on me about content creation. It's tough. It really is literally tough for me to sit here and speak on a camera, stop my whole day, and talk to you, because it literally takes me about six hours to edit a podcast, because I go through listening to it, make note, also to make me sound credible, because when I first started, it's a lot of ums, buts, and those kinds of things, even though I had a lot of experience working with talent on camera. This is kind of like the first time I've been in front of camera this amount of time. And so it takes time. Building content is not an instant gratification thing. I wish it was, I really do. And it's about finding what people like and finding what help people grow, and sometimes it's about clickbait, but that's a whole nother discussion. But content creation is a organic social media reach content. People want to have, love to have

44:06 no promotional material, no ads. Want to have deliver it, and they'll come back, okay?

45:13 beyond, above and beyond what you know. Big revelations, or the Revelation, sorry, it's not Revelations, it's the Revelation of Jesus Christ. And if you read it from, not the mindset of the apocalypse, but the things that God's promised being fulfilled, you might have a few chapters, you might need to be like, you'll discover that God has a plan for you and purpose. I pray that you discover His plan, discover His purpose, be with you and everything. I'm the JumpCutKing. Like, share, comment, subscribe, hit that bell, and we'll see you next time right here on the Create podcast. Be blessed, and be at peace.