BOBC Podcast #134: Trust Is Fluid
INTRODUCTION:
So building your name, it’s just not the same thing as making a promise and keeping it. Confusing the two things: Well, that is what’s going to cost you. The trick is to understand intentionality.
BODY:
So I’ve talked about this in a lot of different forms and I think it’s incredibly important when you have an inflection point in your career. When you’re first starting out, you do whatever it takes, you know, you gotta make your way and nobody knows you. And you need your big break and we’re all hunting for whatever that might be in whatever creative form you’re trying to do.
You want the opportunity to make a statement with your art, right? So you’ll do whatever that is, whether that’s working for too little money, whether that’s doing crazy things, going above and beyond. It’s whatever that might be for you, that’s what you do, right? And so it’s a trust me thing, you know, Hey, whenever you’re ready, I’m ready to show you all that I can do.
Right. And you do that. And you know, one thing leads to another and you basically say, let me prove myself to you over and over and over again. And you do it right. And you show, Hey, if you give me the chance, I’ll come through for you. And you come through and you give me the chance and I’ll come through. And over and over. And I’ve given this example many times, but if you think of a great actor, you know, they weren’t always great actors and they needed to get their big break and then they work hard and they get their big break. And so they do all the things they have to do.
They take these crazy roles. They do this crazy work. They make sure that they’re just trying to get the opportunity to do the very thing they most want to do. But at a certain point, you make the switch. At a certain point, you’re not the unknown talent anymore. At a certain point, you don’t really have anything to prove. At a certain point you really are everything that you imagined yourself to be and that’s actually why you’re getting hired.
I say it a lot. Not everybody knows how to spend a million dollars. It doesn’t mean that you won’t spend it. It just means you don’t know how, right? You don’t know how to effectively spend whatever it is you’re asked to spend, and therefore you’re just not in the position to know the best way to do that.
As opposed to when you grow up, you absolutely positively do. You know, you have the experience of choice, the experience of, of knowing what will make you wise and what won’t. So therefore you are going to make better paths for your clients, and you’ll have earned that right. So that is becoming the actor that you’re known to be in your own head in the world.
And so then you have to act that truth. The issue becomes it’s very hard for all of us who have done everything that we possibly can to get ourselves on the stage. Whether you call that hustle, call that proving yourself to do that work, to make that switch, to not talk about like I have something to prove.
And what that does is that means that you create the very thing you don’t want to create. Because the reason that you’re making these, you know, statements. Trust me. I’ll come through for you. Let me show you. Let me prove to you, is because you’re doing it in the hopes of building trust. I will show you what I can do, and therefore you’re gonna love what I’m about, right?
So I will have proven myself and we’re in good stead, right? Because of that. But when you have nothing to prove, . And the client knows it. You know it. The world knows it. And then you say, let me prove it to you. It creates the very opposite of what you’re trying to create, which is trust. Why am I supposed to believe that you are everything you say you are, if all you’re doing is asking me to actually let you prove it to me?
And so, Make sure that I’m not being esoteric here at all, that I’m actually not being impractical for those that are listening, and I hope there’s a lot of you. And for those that should be listening, I hope there’s a lot of you to. Ask yourself, truly, how much do you get for your talent, wisdom and experience in your commitment to the process?
You can call that whatever you want to call it. An engagement fee, a design fee, , I don’t care, but it is money that you will have earned the second you get hired, the value of you, your firm being committed to whatever it is you’re asked to do, bake a cake, build a house, throw a wedding, you name it, that’s what you’re you’re take a picture.
What is that talent wisdom experience worth. Hmm. So how much have you gotten paid to engage? Meaning that if you got fired the next day, how much money would you have to give back? And you can call it a non refunded retainer or we can go down that road of whatever it might be. I don’t think that’s the same thing, but we’ll go there, right?
Because a retainer is what it is, means it’s against earned money, right? You have to go and do the work. So how many of you have businesses where you’ve been doing this for a long time? You’re seasoned, you’re known. And you take no engagement fee for which there is no going back. My bet is there’s less than 5 percent of you that are listening that do it and that do it at any meaningful level.
You might do it for what would be relative to your earnings, less than 5%. Right? So if you’re going to make, let’s call it. You know, $100,000 on a job, you’re gonna take less than $5000, $10000 to get started, a pittance relative to what you’re gonna go earn. So unless you think that what I’m talking about isn’t real for 95 percent of you, let me tell you to think again.
And what I mean by that, it’s like if you have nothing to prove, if you are confident in your ability to find the creation that’s necessary for the thing that you’re asked to do, whatever that might be, right, then you should be confident to say, Hey, your commitment to me means something. And therefore that is a more consistent statement of trust than it is. Let me prove myself to you when I have nothing to prove.
Well, because if you have nothing to prove, then why aren’t you getting engaged at a proper rate? So you just create confusion simply by the way that you do business. Before you ever open your mouth, you’re basically saying, I am all speculative here, meaning that I have to do all this work in order for you to feel like you need to pay me.
Yep. Maybe I spend hours, maybe I show you what I’m gonna do, whatever it might be, but then you’ll pay me. So the decision whether or not I am worth anything is always up to the client. Is that really the message you want to be sending? I don’t think so. And yet, and yet you do. I am not denigrating it for a second because it is what you needed to do in order to get here.
But now that you’re here, understand every time that you don’t take a meaningful engagement fee, that you don’t make your voice known. Then what you’re saying specifically is that my voice isn’t as important as yours. And yet it is. In fact, it’s the most important voice in the room. That’s what you’re there for.
If you don’t believe that, why are you in business, right? You’re not in business to be a voice in the room. You’re in business to be the voice in the room when it comes to doing what you’re doing and to the niche you’re doing. I’m not asking for a DJ to be the expert on lights, but I’m asking for that DJ to know music better than anybody in the room, right?
So if you’re not going to own that position for yourself, If you’ve earned the right to be there, then appreciate that you’re creating confusion and in the moment of creating confusion, appreciate also that that means that you are no longer in control. You are no longer in control of the way that you know how to do things and that you have abdicated your voice, your expert voice to those that are clearly not as educated or meaning not school, but simply having lived what you do.
They don’t obsess the way that you are about what you’re doing and you’re offering them the power of opinion where it’s not warranted or belonging, right? So it’d be like a brain surgeon asking which technique you should use when you operate on their head. Of course, you’re not going to be first in it because they haven’t spent the last 20 years of their life studying it, right?
But yet you’re asking the opinion and you’re trying to make it palatable for them to make an opinion about that. I don’t think so. So if you want to build trust going forward, after you have that place where you are a known quantity already. Um, The vast majority listening to this absolutely are. So if you’re a known quantity, then appreciate that what you should be doing is asking yourself, am I using my voice? Am I going first? Am I the one saying that this is what I believe so that therefore I am the expert in the room? It doesn’t mean you have to be the only voice in the room. It just means you have to go first and you have to be the one laying it all out for them.
And as you do that, you appreciate the value of trust is going to be what you say it is, as opposed to, Hey, if I just jump through as many hoops as you want me to, then you will trust me. The answer is no, they will not. And for those of you listening about this, that still do the former, appreciate the following. The better you get, the more known you get, about what you’re doing, and you still act with something to prove the worst your life is going to get, because then those who should be looking for the security of your expertise will not find it. And those who typically are looking for security of your expertise. They are people of incredible means, and that when they feel insecure as to the expert, not acting like an expert, they tend to go into those insecurities. Sorry to be a little woo woo about this, but it’s not right is that they tend to really act out when it comes to their insecurities because they don’t like feeling insecure. They don’t like feeling out of control, so they’ll just do the thing that makes them feel comfortable. And that is usually not what you want them to be doing.
That means they’re going to be, you know, doing things like putting their voice and making their opinion known when what you really want them to be doing is what, making an effective decision was.
So the whole point of this podcast, the whole point of everything is to really appreciate what is your role.
Your role is to lead the client at this level to what will be ultimately become their effective decision or decisions, right? I’m going to show you what is necessary for you to make that effective decision, make that effective decision and then move on, right? That is your job. And , the place of this is to make sure that the way that you present information is not up to them, it’s up to you because you’re the one who’s saying, if I give you all of this information, you will make an effective decision that we can go on. That requires trust. That requires your voice. That requires that you are the expert in the room. And that requires letting go of giving any illusion of power at all.
. And so it’s not as like, if you want to, then we will. No, no, no, no, no.
We would like you to. And then you will. We would like you to sign off on this by tomorrow. Therefore, today we’re going to give you this, right? We are the experts in the room. We are the ones telling the story. We are the ones guiding here, and that will engender trust because at the point that you are the expert on the stage, that is why you’re getting hired.
So I am telling you the best advice I possibly can give you is act like it, right? Because if you don’t act like it, then you’re not it. And when you’re not it, It’s gonna do the exact opposite of what you want, which is to give you the power that you need in order to make effective work happen. And when you make effective work happen, that’s where beauty comes.
That’s where art exists, where you’re able to drive the very thing that you want to have happen, happen. And that’s where trust exists. Because when you are the expert, you can make profound promises. If you do these things for me, we will be done by November 15th, right? That’s what this is because you’ve been down this path before and you know how to make it go.
But if you say, Hey, whenever you’re ready, we’re ready to go for it. And maybe we can get done November 15th. Maybe not. We’ll try super hard, right? Yeah, that’s not going to play. That’s not going to play anymore. And I hope that what happens is that if you make the commitment to say, anytime that I use the word, if, and if you are at this level, ask yourself why you’re doing it.
If you, right. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That means , you’re giving power. If you do this, that gives power, we would like you to, right? We need you to, please do this, right? Is the requirement for them to build to the place where you’re getting an effective decision. And oh, by the way, maybe you should reconsider whether or not your talent, wisdom, experience, and commitment to the process is worth anything.
Because if you are who you say you are, then the answer to that is, the affirmative, and it’s not a pittance, it’s an investment. You’re an investment because you’re going to get them to the place that they could not get to without you. And if you understand that, then you can build trust from there because everything else is a lie because you do know more than them.
Your voice is bigger than theirs in this circumstance and that you willingness to hide from that. Well, that’s just a lie of omission, but a lie just the same. So how about you start with the truth? The truth is that you believe that you can profoundly change their lives and that the trust that you’re going to earn is going to be the place where, they will give you that opportunity.
So you go first, they engage you and you go first and you go second and you go third, right? You lead the way. And from there, great things happen. But understand that if you think that intentionality of being flexible and giving customer service is about the client is always right, you’re done because in creative business, the customer is always wrong. And the job to say what will make them right. That’s up to you, not them. If you learn that lesson, life will be very, very sweet for you and you will take things to heights you could not have imagined. If not, um, one day you will.
So I hope that you focus on the forward and the focus on being the expert and you focus on the voice that you have.
So that’s my riff for today. Until next time.
