BOBC #3: Value Delivery, The Journey Is The Destination And Pricing From The Top Down
INTRODUCTION
Every creative business takes a journey with and for its clients. The points along the way are its value. No doubt, the goal is inevitable if the journey is profound. In this episode, will will talk about the importance of value delivery, subjective and objective and getting paid what you need. The implications will result in the 3W’s — where were you, where are you and where are you going. Of course, there is a story to help. Let us talk about Sandals Resorts and Wonder Woman. Listen in…
BODY
Welcome to the podcast again, this for this week. I hope it’s a welcome back. And this week we’re gonna be talking about taking a journey. Every creative business takes a journey with and for its clients, the points along the way.
Well, that’s your value, and that’s what we’re gonna be talking about today. The importance of value delivery and the importance of the journey. Because the goal, it’s crazy important, no doubt, but the goal is inevitable if the journey’s profound. And so in this episode, we’re gonna talk about value delivery, getting paid what you need, and then the result is gonna be really figuring out the three W’s.
Where were you? Where are you? And where are you going? And of course, we need stories. Stories will help us understand. I always do that for me and I love telling them. So, in this episode, in order to land all of that, I’m gonna tell you the story about Sandals resorts, and Wonder Woman and how both have to be there for your business to be successful.
So I hope you listen and thank you so much.
Welcome back. If this is your first time listening, welcome, welcome, welcome. And if you’ve heard the, uh, first two, that’s terrific. I really do intend these first three podcasts to be a three-legged stool, if you will. So the first part of the stool is my talk about Dick Fosbury and what it means to me, which is as the earth shifts underneath your feet, you choose to, to approach life differently.
That is for your own life and for your creative business. And to find that expression of yourself that is uniquely yours and the images go over the bar backwards, close your eyes and just pray. You’re gonna land safely and know that prayer is gonna be answered. And then the second one is really to say, okay, if you’re gonna really do that for yourself, you’re really gonna be iconic. You’re really gonna say, this is who I am, this is what I’m about right? Then you own the power of niche, and you own the idea of an outrageous promise and outrageous demand. And that is what it means to be truly authentic and from being truly authentic then you’re giving yourself permission to create joy, and by creating joy, you transform your client and yourself.
Now, the third leg of that stool is, what does that mean? Right? What does that mean for you? What does that mean for your business in the sense of value? . And so what that means is you have to give up the notion that the end is the beginning, right? The end is just the end, right? And so when you see what I mean, think about how you sell and what you’re about. Do you show a picture of the journey of the steps along the way? Or do you show the finished product? Do you show the picture of your cake, of your wedding? Of, of your decor, even of your band playing, right? Or do you focus on every step you got to get there, right? Might I tell you that? In the past, all you could do was focus on the end, right?
Because you didn’t have the wherewithal that to really be a wonderful storyteller, pre-social media, pre, pre way, who could possibly listen to you as you walk through the path with your client, right? But that day is gone, right? And you don’t need a pandemic to tell you that the journey, if it’s profound, makes the end inevitable.
And so that is not going away. And, if anything, it’s becoming more apparent that we have to invest in the journey, right? Invest in what that is in order for us to make the end. Inevitable. And so what that offers us is an insight into value. Into value delivery.
If, for instance, you’re the kind of business that says, Hey, gimme 50% upfront and 50% two weeks before I show up. Well, you understand that that’s a story, right? That you’ve just told what you said, that everything in the middle doesn’t matter, right? And but it does. It’s everything. And so what we’re talking about today is value delivery and the importance of value delivery and why. If you don’t align what it is that you do, when you do it, then you don’t get permission to do the next thing, right?
And then what happens is that someone else is gonna define what that next thing is, right? And when you’re in that place of having even an argument about what that next thing is, the journey becomes profoundly more difficult. And so what we want to do is make sure that you own the journey, and make no mistake that the journey is not your clients, it’s yours. They just get to go along the ride with you, it doesn’t make a difference who your patron is, it doesn’t make a difference if it’s their wedding that they’re having, ’cause it’s not their wedding, it’s their wedding through your eyes, right? How many of you have seen a same story, told many different ways. Seen a movie, told remade different ways. And some of those remakes you like and some of those remakes you don’t like. Right? Well, because the story is told through the storyteller’s eyes. And that’s you. That’s you, the creative business owner. It is your journey that you are taking a client on with you.
That doesn’t mean they don’t have tremendous influence on what it is you’re going to do, but it is not their story. If it was their story, they would tell it themselves, right? But they need you. And so when you have that inside you, when you know that to be true, then what happens is that you earn permission to take the next step.
Right, and that means you have to get paid for each step along the way, and you have to appreciate that value delivered means you have to be paid for that value. And that doesn’t mean just dollars, right? Dollars is a very easy way to say, Hey, that’s an acknowledgement of, of being paid, but, hmm dollars should be seen as a holistic energy, right?
Because a great decision with less dollars is often worth more than, more dollars worth a terrible decision. I think we can all kind of relate to that. Yeah. Right? If you have a pain in the butt client, right? To use a technical term who pays you a lot of money, but really doesn’t ever make your life fulfilling, right? Or a great client that’s pretty much outta your way, but doesn’t pay you as many dollars, right? Most people choose the latter anytime, every day. So what does that have in terms of implications for you and what does that mean about your business and how can we kind of drive home what that is right for yourself?
Well, it’s the story of Sandals, resorts and Wonder Woman, and you’re like, okay, what the heck are you talking about?
Well, Sandals is a wonderful, wonderful hotel. Um, and it’s a hotel. It’s an all-inclusive, started by Butch Stewart, um, back in the sixties, early seventies. And what it’s about is showing that the power of value delivery has deep implications for how to run your business.
What I mean by that is that at Sandals Resorts, and God bless, I hope they come back after all these, all the destination properties come back, uh, given what’s going on in the world. And I’m confident that if anyone can come back, it’ll be sandals. And a few facts that you have to know about Sandals is that Sandals has raving fans, people that come back year, after year, after year, and it’s a couples resort, so they have a family resort called Beaches, but sandals is only for couples.
And those couples come back year after year, after year after year. That’s the first part. So you know, they’re creating something of value or else people wouldn’t come back, right? So the other part about Sandals, which is really important, is that you pay for the vacation upfront. So if you’re gonna book your vacation for the spring or the summer, you’ll pay for it when you book it, maybe in November or December, a hundred percent.
So you would think that it’s all inclusive. Those two facts should really just get your juices going as a business, right? So you paid it all up front. And it’s all inclusive and people come back for year after year. So that tells you that that value that they paid for it is worth it for them, right?
Because they come back year after year. So you would think that it’s an all inclusive, right? That no one would basically pay any more money when they go down, right? They wouldn’t do anything other than, uh, what they already paid for. ’cause it’s all inclusive. And we go back year after year. And you know what? You’d be wrong.
On average, yes. Some people don’t spend any money when they’re down on property, and you certainly don’t have to. You can have a wonderful time, but on average, people spend 40% more than what they already spent. So just simple math. If you spent a thousand dollars and it’s not cheap, it’s not a thousand dollars to be at Sandals, right?
You paid a thousand dollars in November, you’re gonna pay another $400 when you’re down there on average, right? And so, think about that from a hotel perspective. Most hotels, they don’t get paid until the end, until the finish, right? And the reason I bring this up is that you can see what exactly what I’m talking about.
Most hotels get paid at the end when you’re finished climbing the mountain, right? Sandals says Uhuh, you’re gonna pay for it before you ever go there. And then when we climb the mountain together, you’re gonna pay me even more. And they’re right. That’s the point that the proof is in the pudding.
Year after year after year, people come back and you have these raving fans and that’s value delivery, right? Paying people what they want, when they want it, and getting, receiving that feedback that, yes, that’s valuable to me. So Sandals think about how for, you know, to use a business term, think about Sandals cash flow relative to other similar type of properties where you pay for it at the end.
Okay. They have all the money. So they can do a lot of things. They can use that money that they have, that they can for six months. Right. And they can build in these wonderful experience because they actually have the cash, right? Relative to a hotel who takes the money at the end, they don’t have it.
So think about the implications of their business and what Sandals can do as a business, but most hotels can’t, right? Because those hotels just don’t have the money. Right. Versus sandals who does. Yeah. So appreciate that. Yeah. And of course, Volume is volume and sandals needs volume. Just like every hotel.
We’re not talking about that. We’re talking about just the underneath structure. Right? And so that should tell you something about what I’m talking about, right? Is that, wait a second, I want to identify what’s valuable about my business when, right? And so that’s a lesson you wanna have a little thing to do, um, have a little thing to do, which is meaning having a little thing to do is like, have a little exercise, take out a sheet of paper on the one side. Point 0, right? Is the, before the client ever talks to you, and then at the very, the other end of the spectrum is a hundred, right? And that a hundred is when you’re finished. Whether you’re, you know, closing up the, the van for the last, or you’re picking up the last flower, or you’re all going home, right? Whatever that might be. That is the spectrum of your journey. And then assign those steps that you take in order to get from the beginning to the end, and assign a value, not a dollar value. A percentage value, right? So how much is that? How much is your reputation worth? How much is the design worth?
How much is the production, pre-production work worth? How much is it worth for you to be there in person? Right? What is it worth? What’s it all worth to you? Right? And so assign a percentage to each one of those areas, right? And say, Then, okay, that’s my value. And you can group them as you want, right? Doesn’t make a difference, right? But that’s, and, but you can’t group them all together into one number, but you group them into logical places, right? So maybe the design process is worth something. The production processes worth something, the reveal is worth something, right? And that percentage is yours.
Now, ask yourself if that’s how you get paid. In dollars and or in decisions. My very strong suspicion is that you don’t, right? And that’s really important, right? That’s really important for you and has deep implications because at the end of the day, right, it’s up to you to get that value. It’s up to you to get that value for when you’ve earned it, right?
And when that happens, then you appreciate that. What it is in order for you to get that value has another implication, which means that you can only get that value if it’s coming from a place of this is what you need to do, what you do, if you’re trying to figure out what it costs from the bottom up.
Remember that conversation from last time. If you’ve listened back to scarcity, you only do this so many times a year for so many people. You need to get the money that you need dollars and need for you to do it the next time. And that implication means that the price that you need is what you need, right?
And that’s the second part of the exercise, which is to go figure out. You need to go out and ask yourself two questions. How much do you wanna work? How much do you need to live your life? And that is not how much do you need by way of budget? Oh, I can only afford X number of cups of coffee a week. Right?
No, it’s what you need to live your life to feel really good, right? What is your, what are the expenses that you need for yourself? And presume for a second you have no business expenses because that becomes the just a, that’s just an add-on to the number. But let’s say you need a thousand dollars to live your life the way you want to, right?
And you only wanna work 10 times a year. The price of your projects have to be a hundred dollars, and what we’re talking about is, well, now that I know it’s a hundred dollars today, what we’re talking about is, well, how do I go get it? I go get it because that a hundred dollars, it gets broken up with the percentages that I assign.
If you don’t do that work, what you’re going to be doing is trying to figure out how to go from the bottom up, which is like, well, if I got this event, how much money could I possibly make? But that doesn’t, that may or may not result in you getting the a hundred dollars that you need. It might be more, it might be less, but the implications of that are huge.
’cause if you got less, then you’re being depleted. Right. If you got more than what would be is that you wouldn’t feel very good about yourself, right? Because you’re, you’re getting more than you need to do the event that you’re doing. Right? So that’s the, the exercise for today, right? Is go how much do you need to live the life you wanna live? And if you have expenses, employees and rent and all the rest of that, just add that on and, and you’ll get your number. So for instance, if it’s a thousand dollars that you need to live your life, but it costs you a thousand dollars to get it, and you only wanna work 10 times a year, well, you need $2,000 and you only work 10 times a year, the price is 200. And today we’re talking about, well, how do I go about and get the 200? The 200 is the right number, right? That’s the implication of niche. That’s the implication of scarcity. That’s the owning who you are, right? Because that’s what you need to do, your very best work. And at the end of the day, isn’t that what this is all really about?
What do you need to do your best work? What do you need to take the journey that you most need to take, right? In order for you to deliver on that outrageous promise and that outrageous demand? What is it that you need? Right? And so that’s the underneath of all of this, right? Is what is the value you need when you need it, and two is what is it’s gonna take for you to do your best work, right?
Those are those two things going hand in hand, and that gets you to Wonder Woman. Right, and here’s the reason that Wonder Woman matters so much, right? Because before a client ever contacts you, They have a vision of who you are, right? And for them, you’re Diana Prince. For them, they love you. They believe in you. They see all your work. They have what? It’s out there, but they’ve never talked to you. They’ve never invested in you. They’ve never come to this relationship with you simply because they don’t know you. Right? So then the question is, is what’s gonna take for them to not only know you, but hire you? Right?
And that is a very simple statement. You have to be Wonder Woman. Because think about it. If you underwhelm them with being Diana Prince, right? If you’re not even Diana Prince to them, of course you’re not getting the job. But more implicit and more important is what happens if you’re just Diana Prince to them.
Well then remember what they’re gonna look for. They wanna be blown away. They wanna be blown away. They want to say, oh, I thought you were Diana Prince, but you’re really Wonder Woman. Right. Awesome. Well think about that in the context of what we talked about today, right? And how that really has deep, deep import. Right? Well, you can only be Wonder Woman if you know what it takes to do your best. You can only do your best if you get permission to do your best. You can only have permission to do your best if you then earn it every step of the way. Huh. And that leads to the final exercise for today, which is the three wss, which sounds so easy to say. So incredibly easy to say and it is so hard to do.
The challenge, even in this time when you’re slower and when you’re out there, is to have everybody in your organization, whether that’s one person or a hundred, and you of course, right, do the following in every single communication. Talk about the three Ws.
Where were you? What’d we do yesterday? Where are we today? What’d we talk about today? And where are we gonna go? What are we doing tomorrow? Right? Every single communication that you have, and you will see that that exercise is the manifestation of everything I’ve spoken about today. Because if you are convicted in the three Ws, or if you are convicted in the journey you’re going to take, that requires that you understand value delivery. That requires that you have an opportunity to do your best and earn that permission to do your best because you will then be by. Definition the guide, right? ’cause it’s only the guide’s job to say, where were you, where are you, where are you going? Not, not those who are being led. Right? So that is where we end.
Yeah. And so go ahead, please go be Wonder Woman and enjoy your vacation to Sandals whenever you get the chance. And uh, thank you so much.
