May 4, 2020
Transcript
Crystal Washington: Hello, I’m Crystal Washington, Technology Strategist, and Futurist
Karen McCullough: and I’m Karen McCullough, the millennial evangelist who helps you deal with change. And today we want you to rethink it forward
Crystal Washington: And by rethinking it forward, we mean that there are things that have worked for all of us in the past that aren’t going to work for us in the future. And if we’re, to be real honest, you’re not even necessarily working for us right now.
Karen McCullough: Not now. Right. So I’ve been thinking about this one a while, Crystal, and really I want to present it to you and maybe we can have a discussion on this whole idea of doing everything for free. I think in our very first episode we talked about helping is the new selling, right? I think we did that like six weeks ago. Yes. So when do we start charging? You know, that’s the big question. Now free is great, but we’ve got to live, we’ve got to eat. When do we charge?
Crystal Washington: Yeah. Mortgage companies don’t take IOUs.
Karen McCullough: No, no. So this whole thing about free actually started with tech companies. They called them freemiums. And I think if you have signed up for DocuSign or any of these apps, um, I think I just did Prezi right now and they give you two weeks for free. You have to put in your credit card and then after two weeks they charge you. Right. So is that kind of what you think is going on right now? Or should we start charging?
Crystal Washington: I think it depends on the type of company you have, but more importantly, it depends on where your customer base is at, right? Cause I mean we’re speaking to people right now that are across industries and so it’s a little bit different. A lot of tech companies are doing freemiums right now that hadn’t done them in the past because there’s so many people needing technology right now. They know that if they capture them, you know, even if they extend it to a month, people are going to stick with them because they’ve become used to their platform, especially non-techies if you’re going to invest in learning a whole platform, you’re going to stick with it. So I think for me, yeah, it makes sense for the rest of us. I think it’s a matter of just asking our customers where they at, what are their finances looking like? You know, Karen, we have a peer, uh, that’s a speaker named Barry Banter and he posted something that I found to be really interesting, whereas he suggested that for some of us what you do is you might do some work on the front end with the agreement from the clients that they can pay in the fall. So there’s all different ways to do things and, and some of them, he said, you know, sometimes you’ll make that suggestion and they’ll say, well, you know what, let’s give you a partial deposit now. The rest then, yeah. So I think just really knowing who our client base is and what they can afford. What is the saying? I think you can’t get blood from a turnip or something, but at the same time you have to make a living. So I’m a big fan of how can we find a solution that works for the greater good. The greater good is us because we have to live and our customers, we also want to make sure that we’re offering things that are reasonable.
Karen McCullough: Right. I have, um, so on a lighter note, I’ve been taking yoga classes for free and I’ve really enjoyed them. And this great instructor, she’s nationally known, um, made an offering. And uh, last Sunday we could take her yoga class for $20.
Crystal Washington: Yeah.
Karen McCullough: And she had, I’m not exact, she had like 120 people sign up. And so that’s probably not the fee that she normally gets, but that was a nice fee presented. That’s something that she’s been giving it for free for six weeks and now she presented something and that really opened my eyes to give for free and then nibble, you know, give a little niblet you don’t have to put your full fee. And so if you’ve got an online course, you know, when you want to get some revenue from that online course and you’ve given some free ideas and suggestions, maybe now you put it out at a reduced price because people are, we’ve been doing this for so long. I think going on the second month, almost the third month is that I, how long I’ve been in here so long, I have no idea what even day it is. We want to learn and we want to invest in ourselves, but we can’t afford what it was. Um, someone that I follow, I don’t want to give his name out, but uh, I love him and his initials are DM. Okay. Donald Miller. I follow this guy all the time and I’ve taken his online course and I’ve gone in and worked with him upfront in a workshop and he just offered something very, very minimal price. And I’m really looking forward to taking it. So everyone is doing this right now and I think it’s time if you have something of value, if you have, like you said, if you have a following and people are interested in you offer them something at a reduced price, I think now’s a good time.
Crystal Washington: Well, and I also think we have to be very, very careful to not assume that customers or clients don’t have the funds right now as well. So it’s this tricky balance. So for instance, I’m in a women’s business group and one person in there said that she put out her normal freemium. She normally, she has a model where she does freemiums and then people upgrade from there, but this time she said she, she put in there where she just put, I appreciate tips of any amount and it was because she made, I want to say it was something like it was several thousand dollars in a couple days just from people tipping based on the quality of the information she was sharing. They just went in and tipped her and there were so many that it was actually a significant amount of money. The other thing is we want to make sure we’re not falling into a lack mentality because there are some customers who actually have more money than before. Think about this.
Crystal Washington: The people who haven’t been laid off, maybe they’re working from home, maybe they always worked from home, right? They’re making more money, but they can’t leave the house. Many of them, they’re not spending on restaurants. They’re not so their expenses have shrunk. They’re making same amount of money. Keep in mind, some businesses are even growing right now. So for instance, if you work for a plexiglass company, congratulations, you win. Or if you work for some type of, uh huh, some type of service that services people in healthcare right now, I have a friend that works for a company that sells software for managing patients and in they’re booming right now. Don’t assume that everybody is tight. You actually might have an opportunity to expand and make more money right now depending on who your clients are,
Karen McCullough: and for those of you that don’t have an opportunity to make money, I want you to think about things. So I’m pretty excited. I just saw this on TV and I cannot wait.
Karen McCullough: So many people are worried about their roots and their color of their hair and their hair and so now some salon that I hope my salon, whew, I hope you’re listening. They’re mixing up the chemicals for each person’s like gray hair and whatever. That kept me there. They have these little kits and they’re depositing for a fee. And I would pay quite a bit if I got mine on your front porch and you can now color your hair. So we’re thinking it is brilliant. So people are, I just read where women are baking sourdough bread, this famous sourdough bread and they’re selling it to their neighbors. My sister Pat is thinking about making pizzas and selling them. She has a huge following. She’s a great pizza maker, so I’m not going to make my Meatballs.
Crystal Washington: What about your meatballs? Karen, you’re known for your Meatballs.
Karen McCullough: Im not making my meatballs for people. I’m going to work on a new online course. I’m going to work on something that I enjoy. I love meatballs but i love them just for me and my family. But um, I’m thinking about a new online course. What?
Crystal Washington: I think he brought up something amazing. The fact that, so people might’ve been listening to us right now, Karen, and some of them don’t have businesses, but if you wanted a side business, this is the time. One of my girlfriends who has a corporate job, she’s working from home right now. She, her, her family basically put her in charge of making masks, right? So like literally a family member, uh, one of her parents, cause only parents do this to you dropped off, uh, the materials and she had a sewing machine and they’re like, okay, we need you to make mask for everybody. So she made mask and never really considered herself much of a seamstress or anything like that. Craftsperson. And they were beautiful. And so people started asking her about them and so she just did a little post on Facebook. Never, you know, she’s not a business person in the sense that she, she has a huge following for her offerings posted, Hey, I have these mass available, here’s the price. She was immediately overwhelmed with orders. Right now she’s probably still chained to her sewing machine because she got so many orders so fast. And so this is a great way for you, even if you have a full time job, if you’re one of those people and it’s not everybody for sure, it has a little bit of extra time right now, bill it. And you might be able to make a little bit of extra income.
Karen McCullough: I just listening. Um, I am a fan of Gary Vaynerchuk. I don’t know. Um, I like Gary the, I’ve been watching him for years and he did an entire session on-sell stuff. He said, go through your house right now and sell stuff. And then I just saw our friend guy and his whole thing was ongoing through the garage. I’m selling stuff. So this is the time, I think for all of us to start thinking about how we can bring some money in if we don’t have a salary right now or if we don’t have a paycheck. Even if we do, this is the time to be innovative and creative and start thinking about what you can charge for, how we can bring in the money.
Crystal Washington: There’s always something. Everybody has a talent, so I don’t care who you are, even if your talented, just mowing the lawn. There’s someone near you who does not want to mow their lawn and you can reach out and help them. Or maybe they used to, but now with their kids at home, they don’t have time anymore. So whatever talent you have, there is something you can do that you can monetize if you have the heart to do that, if that’s something you want to do.
Karen McCullough: Well, crystal, I can tell it’s time to go cause the sun’s going down and I’m getting darker, darker, darker.
Crystal Washington: Oh, we lost Karen. We’ll see you all with a couple of days.