Chris Do:

This is a very special episode of The Futur Podcast. About a year ago, we lost my business coach, mentor, and my friend Keir McLaren. We started our relationship working together, while I was trying to grow Blind and continued throughout while I was launching The Futur. Recently, we came across an archive clubhouse call, where Keir joined us. Listening to it, now you can hear Keir's business intelligence and savvy, but you can also hear how much he cares about what he's talking about and who he's talking to. He can be frank and forward at times, sometimes a little rougher around the edges, but you can also hear him laugh and have fun with the people in the room.

He wanted every single person he talked to succeed. He wanted to help people lead better lives. We're sharing this today, not just as a memorial to his friendship, but also because Keir gives some great advice to the folks who are taking part in the call. It might be some advice you need or advice someone you know needs, or maybe it just sparks something for you. With all that being said, I hope you enjoy this conversation with Keir McLaren.

Both Keir and I coach, we both have a very high hourly rate. We're together here, two brains are better than one. We'll do our best to solve your challenges and your obstacles tonight. I'm going to queue you up now, and Shawn, start off the night strong. Start with a problem and we'll get into context after. Okay, Shawn?

Shawn:

Sounds good.

Chris Do:

You're at the template. Go.

Shawn:

Okay, so for a company who has grown exponentially each year, from the time they started, but has not yet been profitable, meaning everything they get, they invest back into the company, what is the thing that I should be focusing on to build a strong foundation, so that we could become profitable, even though we're increasing income every year?

Keir McLaren:

That's a big question, Shawn. Well, first of all, let me ask you this question. Are you paying yourself?

Shawn:

Yes.

Keir McLaren:

Are you paying yourself a way that takes care of you and your family, in a way that's acceptable?

Shawn:

Yes, we're very comfortable.

Keir McLaren:

Okay, and are you paying your top people?

Shawn:

Yes.

Keir McLaren:

Okay, and do you have an end game? Do you have something in mind? Is this to build, so that you're going to be in business 10 years from now, or you building this still just to sell it? To merge it?

Shawn:

I'd love at least another 10 years. Who knows what happens after that? My immediate goal would be to be profitable enough to at least have runway, because we make enough, but it seems like still every other month or so, payroll comes around, and then I have to scramble to collect on receivables, and I feel like I'm doing something wrong, when it comes to the accounting side or how it is we manage our money, because we've grown, I just don't have that runway.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. So, are you charging... This is something that Chris specializes in, but are you charging enough for your services? What's your gross profit? Are you in the motion business or the art business?

Shawn:

We're branding and marketing agency, so we have a $10,000 minimum level of engagement for a branding project. Those would be our one-off type big projects. But, then we have 12 clients on retainer, which pay us anywhere from 2,000 to 10,000 a month, for marketing services.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. Well, I'm going to say this, just off the top of my head, and I don't mean to be insulting. It sounds to me like you're not charging enough. I've worked with other people in the branding business. To reflect back on Chris, since you all know him, I remember there was a time when we were doing videos and doing Blind that we wouldn't talk to anybody that wanted to spend less than $50,000, not because we were being jerks. There's an amount at which you can't make money. In other words, your overhead, your fixed cost are such a high part of what you do, does that make sense? I know that we're the [inaudible] here, that you have to have a certain amount of overhead to do a $2,000 job, even though you'll lose your shirt on it. You know what I'm driving at?

Shawn:

Right.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. My guess is you're not charging enough, so if you do a $10,000 job, what's your gross profit on that job?

Shawn:

See, I don't know. That's one thing that I'm not good at tracking.

Keir McLaren:

All right, well, let's talk about that for a minute. That probably will help a lot of people. This is an unusual, by the way, I asked a very famous person who's a friend of Chris's and was a client of mine, "Are you making any money?" And here's what he told me. "Well, I asked my accountant if I could put a pool in the backyard and he said yes, so I guess I'm doing okay." But, the truth was, he wasn't doing okay, when we finally dug through all the numbers. So, you have to actualize your job. What I mean by that, it's a simple term. If you took in $10,000, you got to put your cost against it. If you have a cost of goods sold, do you know what that means?

Shawn:

Yeah.

Keir McLaren:

All right, so when you sell something, let's take something simple that we all understand, or let's say you do a graphics job or a branding job and you charge $10,000, and then any amount of money that you had to spend to do that job, goes against the cost of the job. If you're using QuickBooks, it's really easy. The next category down is cost of goods sold. You have to apply that and subtract it from the gross. So, if you hired a bunch of freelancers and spent $4,000, not counting your overhead, you're probably losing money. You should be making at least, at least 50% on your gross sale because you've also then got to figure all your overhead against that job. I know this isn't precise, but you can pretty much figure what your overhead runs, as a percentage, and I'm guessing yours is high, because your numbers are low.

Shawn:

Right. We have nine employees.

Keir McLaren:

Yeah, it's got to be tough making a living at those prices, with nine employees. My guess is that when you... A lot of us do this, people will say, like Chris and I used to tease each other about what we charged for consulting. We all talk about the gross numbers. I've had clients do a $400,000 job and lose $100,000, for this very reason. It's not the gross price of the job, it's the net price. That's all that really matters in this business, in any business. So, generally speaking, when Blind was in its heyday, we were probably... If we did a design job, and Chris can correct me if I'm wrong here, but I don't think I am. I think we could make 80%. I mean, that's pretty darn good.

Chris Do:

That sounds about right.

Keir McLaren:

If we did motion and stuff, we could make somewhere around 50%, 55%. I'm going to tell this story, because I think it's crucial. When live action started coming into popularity along with animation and such, we didn't consider that live action, you can only make about 20% in. Okay? And Chris's wife, who's at least as smart as Chris, and sometimes she's at least nicer than Chris, she kept complaining to Chris, saying, "You're telling me all we're doing. We were doing the same numbers even more than the year before," and she said, "We're losing money," and Chris and I are going, she can't be paying attention. We're doing, we're doing great. But you know what? At the end of the year, we weren't doing so great because we didn't figure that in. We were looking at those jobs, as though we were making at least 50% gross profit, and some of them we were barely making 20%. So, you need to know these numbers.

And then, what'll happen is you'll get scared because everybody thinks... Chris is an expert at teaching how to do this. If I charge more money, I won't get the work. Well, if you keep losing money on your jobs, you won't have to worry about getting work because you'll be selling real estate. So, you have to get a handle on this. It's really not that hard. Just figure out what your overhead... Look at last year and just do some percentages, and you'll know your overhead, I'm guessing, runs pretty high as a percentage, because you're just not grossing that much.

Shawn:

The hard part for me is understanding what it takes to actually produce, because my salary or my payroll is consistent, it's about 40,000 a month that we're paying out to our staff, but they might be working on three or four projects at a time. And so, figuring out what it takes involved in one project, where they might be doing three or four projects at a time, that's-

Keir McLaren:

Okay. Now, someone who is high-tech would argue with what I'm going to say, but if you're doing 40,000 a month in salaries, what are you doing basically, on average a month in gross sales? I could figure it up quickly if I could do that, but you told me you have these retainers for X amount, and so on and so forth. So, what-

Shawn:

Correct. Yeah. Last year we just crossed a million dollars, and that's gross sales for the year. But, that's more than just our salaries, that's other overhead expenses too.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. That's what you sold? A million dollars worth of...

Shawn:

Correct.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. And so, if you're doing 40,000, just basically in salaries alone, does that count your salary?

Shawn:

No.

Keir McLaren:

No, I knew you were going to say that. Okay, so just do the map. I mean, so you're spending almost a half a million dollars just on salaries, as though there's no other cost, and you're not counting yourself. So, if you have any cost of goods sold at all, and I'm guessing that you probably do, and if you're actually paying rent, and stuff like that, you're way over the percentage. I mean, you're at, what? Almost 500,000 just in salary, of around a million dollars. So, right there, you're already at the threshold. Am I being clear?

Shawn:

Yeah, no, that makes sense.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. So, what has to happen is, you have to... I'll tell you another thing too, and Chris and I have been involved in this in a couple instances, these retainers, if you can't keep your time, you're going to get screwed. In other words, when you give a retainer, that's got to be time against work, and if you're not keeping your time, what happens is, to keep the work, you do more work than you're getting paid for. You know what I'm saying?

Shawn:

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Keir McLaren:

Yeah, you have to do that. So, my advice to you is, my general advice, you need to take some of these classes Chris gives on The Futur. But, my general advice to everybody is, if you do a job for $10,000, your gross profit on that job has to be somewhere in the vicinity of $50,000. And then, when you take your expenses out, you should be around 25% or 30%. That's why... Let me say this. The reason these businesses succeed is because the profit margins, compared to what I call regular business, are so staggeringly high, that allows people like me and you and Chris, at one time, to be completely incompetent about how to run a business, because the margins are gigantic.

I mean, your local supermarket works on 1.5%. Can you imagine? It's got to sell like $300,000 worth of groceries every day just to stay in business. And so, what that has encouraged is, a lot of very good artists and good creative people open businesses and they have no clue on how to run a business. They do know how to do art, and most of the people I've ever worked for, they're really good at it. So, if you can just do some basic math, and then you're going to have to start charging more, looking for better clients and whatever, whatever, and you've got to do that slowly. But, Chris does classes and he and I have talked many times about the difference between cost, price, and value, and you just have to learn how to sell value. Chris, is this enough on this?

Chris Do:

I think so. I think so. First, Shawn, thanks for asking that question. Let's summarize some of those points that Keir brought up. Okay, so let me just tell you guys a couple different things. These are basic business concepts, that won't sound so basic if you're a creative person, because we just don't talk about this in school and we don't like these things, so we tend to just go back to craft. If you're going to be a business person, you need to make at least some percentage of your brain, so that you can understand the business, itself. It's not about how much money you bill every single year, it's about how much money you keep, after all that work is done. So, you do... And I hate the numbers myself, I really do.

You do need to have some high level knowledge of what's going on, and the things that Kier talked about, you need to know what your gross profit is, your net profit, you need to know your cost of goods sold. If you don't know any of these terms, just type it on the internet, cost of goods sold, COGS, and you need to make sure there's enough profit margin. This is one of the critical lessons that new business owners do not understand. It's a mistake I made in my teens and in my early years, running a business, which is, I mistakenly assumed whatever a client paid me to do a job was profit. I know that sounds so stupid to think like that, but that's what I thought. I didn't even account for me working on the job, itself. I just looked...

If I got paid a hundred thousand dollars, I made a hundred thousand dollars, and now you know, after the short discussion, that is not profit, especially if you have not factored yourself into the cost of good sold, because if you think about it, if you had to hire someone else who's comparable in skill level as you, to do that work, would there be any money left over? If you can't answer yes, then there's zero profit, there might be negative profit, which is you paying to do the job. If you're just starting out, sometimes you have to do that just to get some work, and I understand that, but once you start to mature into year one or year two, you have to be profitable, because there will be no business left. That's what we're trying to do, we're trying to elevate the financial discussion for creative people. Elevate your financial IQ.

So, Shawn's been growing and he said, we're growing exponentially. All I think is you're just adding more salaries to your overhead, to your payroll. I would rather run a business, especially for you, Shawn, with fewer people, with higher profit margin, because at the end of the day, it's what you bring home. And so, we'd have to get into discussion about how you're charging, how you're pricing your work. If I were coaching you, we'd sit here and we'd really grind through this, so you can start to look at how you price your projects a little differently. Okay, I'm going to bring Dessi Bashir.

Dessi:

Hi, Chris, hi Kier, and hi [inaudible] and hi everyone here. My name is Dessi, I'm from Indonesia. I run a business, so I am a share holder and I'm also an executive there. My question is actually very simple, because I heard Chris spoke at the beginning about the four questions that Keir asked when they started meeting. I just want to know these questions. When we first started out business, we have a lot of questions and I think for me, I have a thousand questions, but I don't know which question I should ask first.

Chris Do:

Her question is, what are great questions to ask? She's like, what are the three questions you would ask any potential client?

Keir McLaren:

Okay, so I do remember that incident. I had forgotten it and completely, until you just brought it up. First of all, I work on principles, I don't always ask the same questions, but the first question I ask any entrepreneur is, do you want to be in partners with this person? Most entrepreneurs don't make good partners, because that's why they're entrepreneurs. They don't want to collaborate. So, the first question I ask is, how well do you know this person? Are they honest? Do you want to be in business with them? Do you want to see them every day? So, I ask that question. I happen to know, in fact, this had to do with flame machines, I think Chris, if I recollect correctly. The particular machine that was used and still is, to some degree, in finishing particularly advertising work is enormously expensive. And so, we talked about the price of one of those, and I think it was, maybe I'm wrong, around a couple hundred thousand dollars.

And so, this person that had come to Chris had said, "Okay, we'll need four machines," or something like that, and it so happened I had clients that were using that machine. I knew how expensive they were. Not only expensive, the people that know how to work them are expensive. So, I said to Chris, "How much business is this person doing now?" And he told me, and it was just like the question that we were talking to Shawn about, yes, they could get more business, but every time they did, they'd have to buy a new machine and get an expensive operator. So, I said to them, "This is like a treadmill. You're never going to get off this treadmill, if you go into this business, because you're the guy with the money, you're going to be putting in the money and it's going to get eaten up. There'll be no profit left, there's no profit now."

And so this person has a machine and an operator, I think this person was also an operator. I said, "But, you can't win this game. You can't buy enough machines. That's just the truth at the prices that they go for." So, those are the questions. If you're trying to make a business decision, you just look at the business part. If it's a partnership, do you like this person? I don't know about you all, I've been married, I'm on my third marriage, so I know something about good relationships and failed relationships. When you're in the business partner with somebody, you're in it with them for a long time, so if you don't like them, if they're irritating you now, believe me, it's not going to work.

And then, look at the money proposition. If the money proposition is right, let me say this, this will help you too, in your hiring. If you hire somebody and pay them $100,000 at the typical rates, we're talking here about profitability, you make $200,000, you're right where you started, except you got another person. So, you have to really generate more money if you're making decisions based on that, than the person's salary, which is foolhardy. So. The number one question is, do you like this person well enough to be in business with them? Number two, do you trust them? Number three, is there money to be made here? And if there isn't, walk away.

Chris Do:

So Dessi, thank you for asking that question. I have some things to help draw this, maybe simplify this, what Keir just said, because he gave you a very specific example in my time in life. And so, you might think to yourself, "Well, if I'm not trying to get into a business relationship, those series of questions didn't really help me." So, I've done this now, for a number of years, and there's a general formula, a framework if you will, that you can use. So, everybody that wants to learn how to ask better questions, I'm going to tell you right now how to do it. Okay? Now, what you need to do, is you need to get clarity on the question and the criteria in which somebody is going to make a decision. A lot of the questions I'm going to ask is to get clarity on the question and to figure out how they're going to make a decision, so let me break it down for you.

Now, this is me looking at Keir, looking back at me on that first day that we met together, my question was, should I go into business with this person? The only words you have to go on is I need a binary answer, yes or no, so you know that part, it's not like which is your favorite color, which is a lot of options. So, there's either yes or no answer in there somewhere, I'm going into business and this person. So, now you can see, Keir's first question is, do you trust this person? Because if the answer is no, you don't need to ask any more questions. So, the first question is this giant cleaver, and it cuts all possibilities and it has the options. So, if there are a hundred options at least, that just chopped 50 of them off the table.

So, my question was, should I go into business with this person? Well, I do trust this person. Do you like this person? Okay, we're eliminating more options here. I can trust him and dislike him, I might still want to move forward, but he's highlighting a pain point for me, and what he's really doing, he's just getting me to say out loud what I already know inside my heart. And then, Keir gets into the business part, which is, how profitable is this business? In theory, you're in business to make money, not just to hang out with friends. So, he's going to quickly assess, is this business profitable at all? And it's quickly revealed, it is not profitable because it's capital intensive. On top of that, by asking his next question, if we got more work, what could we do? Well, I had to buy more machinery and hire even more people.

So, the business is even scale. It's a capital intensive business, with really high paid individuals to do the work, and there's not a lot of those people that you could hire creating a scarcity, in terms of talent. So, Keir may not remember this, but I do remember the exact words he had asked me. He says, if it goes perfectly in the best of all possible worlds, "How much money would you make at the end of the year?" And that forced me to say what I was I was afraid to admit to myself. He said something like, "Let's just pretend for round numbers $50,000. So, after a year's worth of work, I stand to make $50,000," and he says, "Based on the math that we've shared together, you have to invest $1 million into this business to make it work. So, you're going to get a $50,000 return against $1 million."

He says, "Is there something else you can invest $1 million in and do better, or at least make the same amount of money?" He said, "I think there is, a mutual fund would pay you that. No risk, scales, no personalities, no issues. Do you know what you need to do?" You see how simple that was? Keir took apart the question I gave him, broke down each part of the question and prioritized it in real time, because if the first part isn't true, we don't need to talk anymore.

So, when you meet somebody, you got to learn to understand the question first, and if you've been hanging out with us, you know how important it is for me to hear your question, a question properly framed as 50% of the solution. Formulate better questions. Learn how to ask a really good question, then just be quiet, and let the other people do the work for you. So. You'll see a lot of times when people ask a question, it's vague. I'll ask them to reframe the question, because I'm looking for the answer. I hope that helps. Thank you very much, Dessi. Okay, so now I think we're going to start with Nathan. Nathan, hit this one out of the park, just start with your question.

Nathan:

I just want to figure out how to get over this initial hump of being able to niche down enough, where we can still get business, but at the same time, be able to be broad enough where we can actually find the clients and be able to start something.

Keir McLaren:

Nathan, what business are you in?

Nathan:

We just recently opened a business in branding consulting.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. Where would you rank yourself? If ten is the best branding company in the world and one is someone who thinks logo is branding, where would you be?

Nathan:

I'd say that our job is a 10, but we are just so new, that I don't know where to go. It's what Chris said, learning how to work a business. I don't know how to deal with a lot of this stuff.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. Well, how do you decide who to call upon or where do you find people to call upon?

Nathan:

At the moment, it's more based off of people that we know, based off of connections we had in the past, with real estate agents and certain companies.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. Can they pay the amount of money that you need to charge?

Nathan:

I guess not really, at the moment. I'm not going to lie.

Shawn:

That's okay. Lying [inaudible]. Okay. So, the thing is, the first thing you have to do, is figure out where you stand in the pecking order. So, if you're somewhere in the middle, probably Pepsi's not hiring you to rebrand their new diet free, soda free, sugar-free Pepsi. You got to figure out what niche you can work in and be successful, and some of that has to do with your credentials, it has to do with the work that you have. I'm assuming that if you opened a business, you guys brought some work.

Keir McLaren:

I'm assuming that if you opened a business, you guys brought some work from where you were, right? I mean, you've got to have some work that you're showing. So then you have to figure out what are those people paying. It's very hard to make a market where there isn't one. And unfortunately right now, as Chris will tell you, this business goes through changes. Like everybody right now is a brander. They weren't branders five years ago, but they're branders now. So the competition and that niche is ferocious. So what are the skill sets that you have? In other words, what I'm asking is you're trying to narrow your niche down, but are there any other choices given the skill sets of your staff and your crew there? I mean, can you do motion graphics? Can you do animation? Can you do advertising? What are your skill sets?

Speaker 1:

So me personally, I'm more on the side of communications and things like that with potential clients and that sort of side. My partner, he's more on the technical side of actually creating websites,

Keir McLaren:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

Working with,

Keir McLaren:

All right.

Speaker 1:

And design.

Keir McLaren:

Then I think I can give you some advice that might actually help you is look, Chris and I have a friend and he's a client of mine and he has this unusual talent, which he knows tech, and he's also, I would say maybe a B minus designer. I hope he's not on here tonight. And he's got a great personality. So he does really, really well in the tech niche because he can understand what they're talking about. And there are a lot of small tech companies all over America, startups and stuff like that. So if you can combine that, like he just won an Emmy for a little thing that he did. It was for one of the big Texas high-tech companies.

So what you have to do is you've got to have something unique. And that sounds unique to me because a lot of artists don't know tech from anything, and it's very frustrating for customers. Customers that have to have a combination of tech and design, communication and things that you guys do. So I would look at that as a niche. I think you can find, are you in Los Angeles? What part of the world are you in?

Speaker 1:

I'm actually in Massachusetts.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. I used to live in New Hampshire, so I have something. Yeah, that Boston Beltway, there got to be companies there that aren't the gigantic ones that would love to meet someone like you and your partner. That's where I would look.

Speaker 1:

Okay, thank you.

Keir McLaren:

I hope that's helpful, but you have to have something unique. This is a question I ask everybody that I work for. Okay, let's forget the marketing. Let's forget all this nonsense. You're now in the room with the person that can hire you. What is it you're going to tell them as to why they should hire you? If you can't answer that question, all the rest of this is just nothing. And you'd be surprised. I get blank stares. Most people spend time worrying about how they're getting in front of a customer and they spend no time figuring out what they're going to do when they get there. But when you get there, you got to have something to say that makes you different enough that meets their needs to get the work. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it definitely does.

Keir McLaren:

You got to. And this would be a good niche for you if your partner's techie because there's a need out there for that combination.

Chris Do:

What you're concerned about is a concern that many, many people have. Even my good friend Sean Tabagahein who was just up here right before you, he, and I will get into debate about this. When I say you need to specialize my friend, you need to find something you're good at that you can be best in town, best in state, maybe best in the country or best in the world. But the fear that most creative people have is if I pick a niche, I'll lose out on all these types of clients. And Drigo's nodding at me right now, he's like, yep, we heard this before. We'll hear it again.

Before I'm dead, a creative will come up here, I'll be on my deathbed, they'll wheel me in, it's a clubhouse. They'll put the mic up on me and it's like, yeah, so what's your question? Somebody's like, so should I niche or not? Because I'm afraid of losing clients if I niche and the answer will always be the same, it'll always be the same. You do need to specialize because when you have repeated exposure to a problem, you develop expertise. When you dabble in things, it might look pretty on your portfolio. It might be good for your creative soul, but it's not going to help you to get work.

Keir McLaren:

I'd like to speak to that issue, Chris because I think there's an easy way to help people. If you figure out, let's say that your average client, my math is terrible, so I'm going to use an easy number, like $25,000, which I think that a lot of people here are startups. So just figure out how many clients you need to make a half a million bucks, make it 50 and then you need 10 clients. So here's the problem that Chris is speaking to. Everybody isn't your customer, but the good news is you don't need everybody. If you only need to make $50,000 per client, that's 10 clients. If you're looking to make a half a million, that's less than one client a month. You don't need everybody. You really don't. And that sometimes eases the fear. So you're not looking for everyone. You're looking for actually a few people who can pay what you need to make and they can afford to pay. That's all.

Chris Do:

Okay, so we're going to move on to Tyler. What's your question?

Tyler:

My question is, when you were starting the process of your other creative endeavors like The Futur, in addition to running your main primary source of business or your main primary agency, what type of changes did you have to make personally and professionally to create the bandwidth and creative energy to put the work in?

Chris Do:

Running one business is tough. Running two is really going to test you. It'll make your hair fall out, and that's what happened to my hair. Really true story. Okay. So when you have your primary business, it's going to require all of your attention to run that well. And as you're becoming interested in another business, it's going to divert attention from that primary business. And sometimes I'm speaking very transparently here, this question has been asked before, but I'll try to add different nuance and context to the story, is that the primary business bored me and maybe because at that point I'm in the business now close to two decades and the challenges don't seem as exciting to me. And it's just more of the same. And early on in your career you'd think if I just work with that client or that brand, if I just do that video with Michael Jordan, my life will be set and everything will be the land of milk and honey.

Afterwards the road will be paved with gold. It'll be amazing. And you actually do that project, that dream project, and you get that high and your friend's like, good job. I can't believe you did that. And then it starts to fade away and your life does not change. It improves, but it doesn't fundamentally change and you keep doing that year after year after year. People don't understand this about me because they see me on YouTube and they think, what does that Yahoo know about design or even running? Do you do business, bro? It's kind of the things they'll ask me. Who's this wanker on TV? What they don't understand is I've been in the trenches working on some of the most high profile projects and I'm speaking from a place of experience that chasing those shiny projects after a while, at least for me, the luster goes away.

And then you start to ask yourself, what else do I want to do with my life? If the pursuit was about doing cool work and making money check and check, does that mean I just slip away into retirement? So the desire to do something different was born because I had this conversation with myself. I don't want to just do this anymore. I want to do something else. And if I remember correctly, everybody around me was like, you're foolish. This is working well. Work on the business. Don't get distracted by this. But you know what, I've not failed too many times when I've trusted my instinct. Of course I've failed, but I have an instinct. I want to move in this direction and I start to move the company that way. So what happens is, if you can think of a sliding scale where on the left side is 100% Blind and on the right side is 100% The Futur, I'm not foolish.

I'm risk tolerant, but I'm not like a reckless person. So what I do is I keep the company focused and I actually have had many management meetings with the team. I said, okay, I need to work on this other thing because I'm not sure how long this main thing is going to work. If we're on the Titanic, we can see the iceberg. I believe it's there. You can't see it yet, but it's coming. So what I want you to do is do your best to keep this ship steady. I'm going to build us another boat. It won't look like I'm doing anything, but I'm going to build another boat because when we need it, when the ship goes down, we're going to need to be able to jump to the other boat. Do your best to run this company as profitably as you can to extend the runway so I can build this other thing.

So the side business, The Futur starts with just me and several volunteers. They never even got paid and they just volunteered to be part of this thing. So it was kind of like a ragtag crew. We're making it work. And at some point I feel like the business model is going to work and that's when I start to divert more resources from Blind towards The Futur. And right now, Blind is paying for everything, the building, the computers, the people, me, my salary is paying for everything. So Blind is subsidizing The Futur's existence because we're running negative profit every single year. And it was in 2018, December of 2018 during a management meeting where we're looking at sales and sales aren't great where I'm telling everybody, I need you to all call your contacts, your friends, your business relationships, call old leads, new leads, any lead, we need some leads.

And after I said that, Matthew's in this room right here, he said, Chris, why are we doing more of this? Shouldn't we be focused on The Futur? What would happen if we actually put our resources in The Futur? Because even though we can do this job for Xbox for $400,000, what will keep, it's probably 100K. Super complicated job. So we'll run a 25% profit margin on that. But if we develop one course for The Futur that's sold well for $100,000 every year, we'll make more money on top of that. Plus we have IP, plus we are our own boss. And isn't that something worth working for? And when he said that, I was a little stunned because I was thinking, we need sales, we need to support Blind. And it took me a minute or two and I said, okay, everybody, just make a few phone calls.

Do what you can in the next two days. We're now going to shift our energy towards The Futur. All of us. Let's figure out to make this company profitable. And I said, the challenge for us will come January of 2019 is for us to never take on a client job again. And that was the last time we took a client job. It's been two years. Knock on wood, we don't do client work anymore. We just build the Futur. So short answer is a sliding scale. Test and try and fail in small ways that it won't bankrupt the whole company. If you hit pay dirt, go all in on it, then that's when you make that calculated risk and you go for it. Now Keir, feel free to share any dirty dark secret. I'm an open book.

Keir McLaren:

There's something you said. There's a couple things. First of all, I see Matthews here, so I don't want to forget this. One of the things Chris has always done is hire really talented people. Matthew is one of the people that he hired. I remember when he came on board, I think he was an intern maybe at first out of art center. So part of it is you got to have really good people and he has Greg another really good person. So that's part of it. He surrounds himself with top-notch people so. Then he doesn't always listen to their ideas, but he will listen. That's important. But the most important thing he said was, and I remember it just a little bit differently than he does, is he figured out, and we all figure out at some point that the out there, I know we're not on video, but what's external to you will never make you happy and will never fill the void.

It has to come from inside. So I remember the story a little bit differently when he was so frustrated and I said, okay, well what do you want to do? And he said, I want to teach. I really want to teach. And I go, okay. And if you remember Chris, we tried to get Art Center to take some of the space in the building on Olympic and they were like highfalutin and weren't interested. Do you remember that? He tried a lot of different things to get into teaching. And finally out of utter frustration, I think he decided he was just going to do it and figure it out himself. And then he needed to know a lot about this sort of thing we're doing now. And he had a person that he worked for, Jose he worked with for a year or so who had a lot of deep knowledge about how all this sort of internet, this stuff works and Jose still around and he still does good work.

So what I'm saying is it didn't go from Blind to The Futur overnight. I think there was at least a year or two with a variety of different versions of what became The Futur that were tried. And the truth is they didn't work, but he didn't give up. He believed in himself and he wanted to teach. And so now his goal is to teach, well, like a billion people or something like that. I don't know. I wouldn't be shocked if he reached the goal. So you have to believe in yourself.

If you're looking, if you think doing something for some movie stars, if you think that's going to make you whole, you're going to be in for a big disappointment because in the end, if you're not doing what you really want to do, what's in your heart, you'll be miserable. And Chris and I and I'm sure some of you in this room know a lot of very successful people. You see them on the news, you see them in the New York Post on page six, they're miserable, they have lousy lives and you don't want to end up being that person. So whatever your dream is, that's what you should be doing. Whatever that is.

Chris Do:

Thank you Keir. So I have the numbers here. While Keir was talking out, I'm pulling up the numbers. I'm going to tell you the numbers so you understand. And today I try to live as transparently as possible and I'm an open book for just about anything. So I started a company with Jose in 2014. So we started making content in January of 2014. That entire year we had gross sales of $15,000. That's not even enough to pay one intern. I didn't quit. 2015, that entire year we made a bunch more money. I shouldn't say we grossed a bunch more money, $42,000. That's enough to hire a junior designer. Jose and I, we couldn't figure out our business model together. So that's when we split. So in 2016, The Futur is born and now I'm running the company without a partner. I get to do exactly what I want to do and I make a horrible partner.

Anybody who works with me will know this. 2016, we made $144,000. So now you can see each year we've grown the gross revenue by 300%, still less than what I would make as a creative director. So if I just went to work for somebody, if I just got a job at an ad agency, I probably make 300, $350,000 just by myself. And this is the entire company here, 144,000. 2017, we gross $536,000, still growing 3X. So this is feeling like it's becoming real. So this is even before Matthew raises his hand and says, Hey boss, what if we do this instead? So in 2018 we do $1.78 million, a little tiny education company, we don't even know what we're doing, but we're doing it. Now this is four years into running the business now. This is not enough to support the entire team and the overhead of the company, but we're getting close. We're within striking distance now.

And so in 2019, in order to be able to support the entire team that was going to transition from The Futur, I mean from Blind to The Futur, $3.1 million. It's a legitimate company now. We can bring everybody over. We're not paying fat salaries. It's a startup, bootstrapped startup funded by me, but now it's paying off. So Keir's exactly right. I tell this story about 2018, but it begins in 2014, so four years. And the thing that I try to tell people is this, if you are not driven by a mission and a purpose and you're not convinced it's what you want to do, you're not going to have the stamina to play this game because for three or four years I made less than what I would have if I just got a job somewhere. So just keep that in mind. And there were a lot of things that we tried that just did not work, but we never gave up. Okay. Mike, what's your question?

Mike:

What would be the first steps like to leave the stage of becoming a one man agency? I mean, I've been working with design for 12 years and I have this agency for six and I'm still a one man agency.

Keir McLaren:

What is it that being more than a one man agency in your mind will do for you? Why do you want to do that, I guess is what I'm asking? If you've been doing this for a while, I'm guessing you're fairly good at it and I'm guessing you make a decent living. So I'm just wondering what's motivating you to maybe grow? Because grow means have more people. You got to have more business of course. Growth generally means more people. So I'm just wondering why.

Mike:

My plans are not being a huge agency, but I'm looking for having enough structure to work with big brands, not only small entrepreneurs or small companies. So I believe I need more structure, more people, more brain power to being able to work with big brands. I might be wrong.

Keir McLaren:

No, no, I'm not saying you're wrong. I think it's just the motivation. So to do that, you're going to have to hire somebody, at least one or two somebodies that are pretty good, and they're going to probably, if they're good, they're probably going to ask for serious money. If they're good enough to get you in front of the big brands, Chris, feel free to jump in here at any moment and that's going to cost you some money. So you just have to figure what the end game is here. Again, I talk about that a lot. You're making X now, so you hire somebody. I don't know, when Chris was running Blind, I think the creative directors started at 130 and one year we had an incentive program. I know a couple of them made 200. Do you have the wherewithal to do that? Do you have the wherewithal to bring people on that are high enough quality that you can use their skills, their real, their work plus your work to get into the bigger clients?

Mike:

I believe not two people, but I believe I could bring one big brain I'd say.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. Well, I'm never one to say no because I've seen many people. If you're willing, I think this is where what Chris said earlier, if your willingness to suffer financially and every other way to do this, then give it a shot. You can always go back to being on your own. The thing that I would look for personally is somebody who could already have some contacts in that world and can get the meeting. Somebody that's worked for Microsoft, not work for them, but done projects that can say, yeah, I know the producers over at Chiat/Day or at BBD&O or whatever. I can get us the meeting. That's what I would look for.

Mike:

Would you go with a designer or someone with a business background?

Keir McLaren:

Well, for two people, I would think you go for the highest, the most highly talented designer you can get. Chris again, if you disagree, you're in this in the day-to-day business, but you don't really need a business person to tell two people how to run a business. I don't think, I mean maybe I'm wrong. It's pretty simple. You get X amount of business, you do the work, you collect the money, and you go have a drink. I mean, it's not complicated.

Chris Do:

But I think I know what Mike's asking really. And as a creator person myself, I'm going to ask the question for you, okay, Mike, and then if I don't have it right, just say, yo, that's not the question I want to ask. The issue as a creator person, you don't have enough opportunities. You don't have any marketing plan. You don't know how to bid, you don't know how to negotiate. And so there's a hole there and you feel like I got to fill that hole even though I don't have any business. So you bring on somebody, the first person that smiles at you and says, I'm a marketer. I'm a business person. I'll get you a business. And it seems like the answer to all of your prayers magically appeared before you. And that's probably why you're saying to yourself, maybe I need to hire a business person. Am I right or am I wrong?

Mike:

You're right.

Chris Do:

Am I right? I mean, it was like,

Keir McLaren:

We hired a bunch of those. Hey, Chris. But here's the thing. I hate to be harsh with people. I try never to be harsh, but this is a business to make money. And if you're making money that you need and your creativity isn't being expressed then... I used to work for Neil Berkeley, a guy that Chris and I know he makes pretty well-known documentary films, and he had a motion studio that did a lot of reality TV. Like he did all of the Housewives, the Housewives of fill in the blank. And that's how he supported his movie making. And he actually makes money making those movies. You've probably seen a few of them, but the bottom line is here's what he tells someone when he brings them in. If you're coming here to get your creative needs met, you're making a huge mistake because this is grind it out work and we do what the clients want and we do this and we do that.

If you've got other ways to get your creativity out, whether you're an artist, a painter, in fact, one time we almost bought an old Volkswagen bus to let people remodel and drive around the country in. So what I'm trying to say is this is a business and it's very difficult unless you're a Chris Do. I think Chris, you used to do maybe one project a year because you wanted to, but if you're in the grind like you are, Mike, it's going to be hard to get your artistic needs met simply from what you do. It's really going to be hard because you've got to deal with clients and they're going to tell you what to do and they're going to complain when you do it.

So I know that's not an answer artists like to hear, but when Bergamot Station, which is up the street from Chris's, it used to be this old, now it's fancy, it used to be an old falling down building. It was like an old railway siding, like the wind came up, the building would blow over, and they used to rent out these little, literally five by eight rooms and they were like a 100 degrees in the summer. And artists would get their easels and go up there and they'd do their painting. And I used to say, I said to some of Chris's employees, if you want to be an artist, go rent a room up at Bergamot Station, go to the art store and get some paint, because that's not what we do here.

We do art for money. That's what we do. So if you hire someone, my advice would be to hire a good artist, a good person who when you walk in and the people see their work, they go, wow, we want that kind of work. I wouldn't hire a business person, to be honest with you personally. I don't think they can help you.

Mike:

Thank you.

Chris Do:

Thanks Mike, for asking that question. Okay, so this is the question that Yvonne wanted to know is when do we hire a business coach, before starting a business or already in business for years Keir?

Keir McLaren:

If it were me, I would wait till I was in business because unless you have some money, because I charge somewhere in the neighborhood of 750 to $1,500 an hour. I mean, it depends who I'm working for. Obviously there's clients that are here that don't pay that, but I've had them. I never changed my price. Once you hire me, you're grandfathered in. So if you can afford to pay someone like me three to four or $5,000 a month for two or three months when you're starting, it probably makes sense.

Keir McLaren:

... or $5,000 a month for two or three months when you're starting, it'd probably makes sense. But my experience is most people can't. If you can, it makes sense. But the kinds of folks that go into these kinds of businesses generally don't have a lot of capital. If you have it, sure, it would make sense. Absolutely. But if you don't, wait until you get started, and then the questions better. One of the problems you have when you're giving advice to people that haven't done it, it's like they don't even know what the questions are. And so when you talk to them and try to explain to them what they're going to face, they look at you like, nah, you don't know what you're talking about.

I'm not here to sell Christo's classes. Believe me, he doesn't need my help. But yeah, you need to know some basics, and you need to have some idea of what your plan is. I've been in a couple businesses, like my ad business I went to from being in the radio business, and then selling radio time, I took five clients with me. You know what I'm saying? I didn't start with nothing. And that's what I would advise you to do. So at least get a start. Don't just open the door and hang up your shingle and wait for the business to roll in, or you're going to be extraordinarily disappointed.

Chris Do:

Okay. Now we're going to go to Seman, and then we're going to go to Steven. And Steven, I think I know you from the Instagram, so you're up after Seman. Okay, Seman, ask your question, please.

Seman:

Hi. Thank you for choosing my question. My question is, how do you set healthy boundaries with your employees who are also your friends? For example, they treat you more like a friend than a boss.

Keir McLaren:

I got that one. That's a good question. I also consult with a big camera company, Keslow Camera. You guys probably know it if you're in the film part of the business. And everybody's promoted from within, so this is a very common problem of trying to be the boss of people that you are friends with, or were your fellow worker bees at one time. And it's real simple. You have an obligation to yourself and the company, and your job, to run the business the way it needs to be run. And if they're really your friend, they'll listen and they won't try to take advantage of that. If they do, they're not your friend. I can't make it any clearer than that. If you go to someone and say, "Hey, Sally, you've been coming in to work a little bit late every morning." And they go, "Hey, come on Seman, we've known each other for years, girl."

You go, "That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking to you as the boss, or the owner. I need you to show up on time. And if we're such good friends, you'll understand the position you're putting me in. Because I'm telling you, Sally, if you don't start coming on time, you can't be here. No matter how good of friends we are." Just tell them like it is. And if they're your friends, they'll understand immediately that they're putting you in a horrible position. Because all the other employees are looking and thinking, well, yes, Sally does what she wants because she's friends with Seman. It ruins morale in a company when that happens.

Seman:

Sure.

Keir McLaren:

I want to say this too, for some of you. You all worked in places where there were bad employees, and you didn't say anything. And when they left, you breathed a sigh of relief. Most of the people that have to put up with bad employees working at the desks next to them don't say anything. But it's your job as the owner or the boss to weed those people out. Just because your other staff isn't complaining and coming to you, doesn't mean that they're not being disturbed and bothered. And I can tell you, this stuff ruins morale, so don't tolerate it.

Seman:

All right, thank you.

Keir McLaren:

You're welcome.

Chris Do:

Thank you very much. Who else did we want to bring up on here?

Speaker 2:

We have Marino Marjo.

Chris Do:

Go ahead. There we go.

Marino Marjo:

Hey, hey. My question was, what is the biggest mistake and most common mistake made by people starting their own creative business?

Keir McLaren:

Not understanding how to price their services.

Marino Marjo:

And what is the best way to do that then?

Keir McLaren:

Okay. You look at the marketplace, and it's easy to figure out if you know people in the business you know what people are charging. You've got to charge somewhere near the going rate or you devalue yourself in the marketplace. Good businesses don't want to do business with the cheapest person in the market. And unfortunately, a lot of us struggled financially to get where we are. And so we were always looking for a deal and figuring we'll sell ourselves cheap. But I can tell you right now, high-end buyers don't want to do business with people that do that, because they know that those people aren't the people they want to work for. If the average person's getting $50,000 for the work that you do, then you should try to get $50,000. But again, to go back to something we said to someone earlier, you have to have something to tell the buyer as to why they should hire you.

If you can't figure that out, keep working before you go into business on the answer to that question, because that's the only question that matters. I put you in front of somebody, I introduce you to somebody, and they're a legitimate buyer, they'll pay your price. What is it you're going to say to them that's going to convince them that... Because in most of these jobs that you guys do, there's at least three bidders now. There may be more. You're up against two other people. And generally speaking, the way Chris and I used to figure it, is that means we should get one out of every three jobs. If we can do that, we're about hitting what we need to do. If we can do better than that, that's great. If you're in front of me, I'll ask you the question. We'll make an example of you, I hope you don't mind. Whatever you do, tell me in two minutes why I should hire you instead of four other people. What is it about you and your company and the way you do things that are important?

Marino Marjo:

We work in a creative way. We do creative marketing that sell more tickets than any other agency does in the shortest time.

Keir McLaren:

Okay.

Marino Marjo:

In Belgium.

Keir McLaren:

Okay, I like that. Okay. Now, I'm going to introduce one of my few brilliant strokes along the way learning. You need a retellable story. You need to put the facts that you just gave me into a story. When Bon Jovi went on the road all over Europe, it took them a month to sell out, or a week to sell out, or whatever. When we handled the promotion, the place sold out in two hours. You need to have a story. Because here's the other thing, I can't emphasize this enough. Generally, the people you are talking to are not the final decision-maker. Does that make sense? If you're dealing with an ad agency and you're dealing with the creative director, he'll make, or she will make you think they're in charge. But I guarantee you, they're not in charge of anything except the creative. Somebody has to, what I call, sell that up the line.

Those people you're talking about in Belgium, like selling tickets for events and doing those kinds of things, they've got to talk to someone else. If I'm confusing you, please speak up and tell me to say it a different way. I got 100 ways to say-

Marino Marjo:

100%.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. So now they're with the big boss, the guy who decides, the guy who's got all his money invested in all these tours and all these artists. And that guy or gal looks at him and says, okay, why should we? Well, they sold out more than anyone else. What do you mean? Who did they sell out? What did they do? Tell me something. Give me something here. Because my butt is on the line. If we don't sell tickets here and we don't sell them in the way they're supposed to be sold, then I got problems.

So you have to put that story in their minds and in their mouth. Well, you remember when such and such, the tour was going on a year ago, or six months ago, and ticket sales were down because of COVID? Or whatever, just be creative and say, you may not know this boss, but they handled the such and such ticket promotion. And as you remember, that thing sold right out. Because they know how to do that. They have contacts, they work with the promoters. They know every college fraternity in town. Whatever your gig is, that's what you got to say. That's powerful. But to say, well, we're great communicators. Nah, that ain't going to get it. That's what everybody says.

Marino Marjo:

And how does it sound when I say, for example, the year before we got hired, they did two weeks to sell 400,000 tickets. We sold it in 2.5 seconds.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. And is this an act that everyone would know?

Marino Marjo:

In Belgium, yes.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. So you say, okay, I used to work for Giorgio. He's the one that discovered Daft Punk, and he also invented disco. I have a little bit of knowledge about European music, but not a hell of a lot. Yeah, so that's what you say. Let's use Daft Punk, I know they're German, but as an example. Remember, last year it took them this, we handled them this year. They handle them this year, boss, and it sold out in 10 minutes. They know what they're doing. We should go with them. Those are powerful stories.

Here's the trick to all this gang. Is, look, don't be afraid to say that. Don't be afraid to say that you're good what you do. Don't be afraid to tell people. Don't be afraid to take a position. This is one of the most important things I try to teach people. Put yourself in the position of the person who's going to hire. The person that you're talking to, their butt is on the line when they hire you. They're taking a chance. And you have to give them a reason to take a chance on you. Listen, here's the sad part, they're not looking for the best, they're just looking at someone who ain't going to get them fired. And that's got to be you.

Marino Marjo:

Thank you very much. Brilliant.

Keir McLaren:

I hope that helps. Okay.

Marino Marjo:

Yeah. Especially for my field, being in video production. I look at a couple different video production websites. It's always like, we deliver on time, we drink coffee, we tell cinematic stories. But hearing what he just said, it's just like, how can I tell the story to a client that they make me remember my company different and all the other video production companies that tell cinematic stories? By telling stories of how we helped those clients. So when they pitch us to their boss, it just all clicked for me. That was great.

Keir McLaren:

Good. Good to hear. I want to continue this for a moment. There's another part of this that's really important. And when you talk about websites, Drago. It's like, all the websites tell them what I do. And I use this analogy. In America, or United States of America, I should say to be more precise. We have this holiday called Thanksgiving where everybody comes and stuffs themselves like pigs. Let's say that you're having the family over and all your friends, and you're having 40 people. And you have a house like mine with one bathroom and one toilet, and the toilet's all clogged up. Not a good situation. And you got 50 people coming from dinner. So the plumber pulls up in front and you go out to greet him because you're going crazy. "What are you going to do about this?" And if the plumber was an artist, here's what he'd say.

"Hey, look at the new plumbing truck I got. It's shiny and it's got all this and all that." And you're thinking, "Dude, can you clean out my toilet? I don't care about your truck. I don't care about where you went to plumbing school. I don't care about any of that. I have a problem and I need you to fix it." So whenever you're talking to clients, remember, that's the gig. They don't care that you went to art center. They don't care about any of that. They have a problem, they're looking to get it fixed. Don't talk about yourself, talk about them. If you listen, they'll tell you what they're looking for. But most of us don't listen. We start telling them how smart we are, how easy we are to look... How much we like the shirt they're wearing, and all this malarkey. Be quiet and listen. They'll tell you what they're looking for. Talk to them in terms of how it helps them, not in terms of you. Because the truth is, they don't care about you.

Marino Marjo:

A follow-up question to that. Before you mentioned, don't be afraid to take a position. How do we take a position without talking about ourselves?

Keir McLaren:

Well, you take the position, you tell them briefly, you establish who you are. You don't have to tell them a lot. I think this story might be apocryphal, but it's pretty close to true. I remember one time Chris was going downtown, and the big developers from all over the world were buying up downtown. And they wanted someone to do their real estate ads. And real estate ads, if they're not the most boring ads in the world, they're darn close to it. And I remember Chris had an idea and he told them, and they said, "Well, that's not what everybody else does." And he said something to the effect, "If you want what everybody else does, why did you call me? I don't do that, I do something different. If you want something different that actually works, you should talk to me." And I believe you got the work, Chris.

But that's the whole point. You don't have to go into a long thing. Most of the people you're talking to, they've already looked at your website. They know what kind of work you do. So what is it you're going to tell them about your work that they can't figure out from your website? All of you, while I'm rolling down all of... Oh my goodness, there's so many of you here. What is it that you're going to tell them? I have a branding company that the guy started off, he was one of the early contributors to the Starbucks brand, and they work with high-end stuff. And the person that sells for him is a really good person, but she'd start every conversation with 20 minutes about how good they were. And I said, "You don't have to do that, just ask them if they've seen your website."

It's got Pepsi, REI, all the big people. We're not here to tell them how good we are, we're here for this reason, and this reason alone. Are we a good fit with each other? And can we do what you want in the timeframe you want, for the money that you're willing to pay and we need to make? That's what these meetings are about. These things, do they still call them this? What do they call them? Capabilities meetings. What the hell does that mean? I've never been able to figure that out. Go into the meeting. Listen. Hi. And I say this to people all the time. I get calls you can imagine.

And I say, like I said to Chris the first time I met he and Jesse, his wife. Why did you call me? Basically, what do you think I can help you with? And then they told me, and I just listened. That's what you need to do. Okay? We're not door-to-door salesman in this business. We have talent, we have to respect our talent. We don't need to pitch you on what we do. If they start asking you, well, how did you do that certain effect? You're in the wrong meeting.

Marino Marjo:

Thank you for that.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. Sophia, what's your question?

Sophia:

Hi. I would really like to know how one could build better relationships with people who are key players within their niche. I find that when trying to build genuine connections with people who are a lot more advanced and holding a lot more stakes within the niche that I serve, it's a little difficult to get ahold of them. Because there's a lot of gatekeeping. So I'm just curious if you have any tips or ideas.

Keir McLaren:

That's a good question, and I don't think there's a terribly easy answer. But, I don't know, can you share with us what your field is, but what you do? [inaudible] That's very helpful for me.

Sophia:

It's branding, packaging, and publication design for food, beverage, hospitality, and retail.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. All right. Well, I know they have conventions. And I know that one of the places you can meet people is to go to the convention with the idea of meeting someone to try... Nick is good at this, going to these conventions of things. So you can do that, you can send them a note. But one of the real tricks is, again, you don't need to know everybody. If you can find something you have in common with them. And I've been through this exercise with lots of clients, just to go on someone's LinkedIn and read it very carefully. Where did they go to school? What interests are they in? Look at their Facebook, just Google their names. And you'd be surprised if you can find anything that you have in common. Because what you're always trying to do, Sophia, in that arena, is you're trying to make it not just business.

I actually have a client that's in your niche. And one of the things that they've done, and you may have seen this, it's called Retail Voodoo, and I don't think I'm giving away any trade secrets here. But what Diana has done, is she's created an interview website where she talks to top women in the branding and the food field. And it's amazing how many people these high-end women with vice president of Fritos and stuff will go on that interview show and talk about what they do, and what's it like to be a woman in the industry, and how they got where they are, and so on and so forth. Now, you shouldn't really copy them, I'm just bringing it up because you can find it online anytime. But those kinds of things are creative ways to create situations where you can get to know people.

The idea of this endless emailing them and trying to figure it out, I honestly think the gatekeepers are wise to that, and they'll keep you away. But if you can come up with some interesting... This is always the thing. The crazy thing about this, Sophia, is all of you are really smart. Apply your intelligence. I see it, looks like you have a camera there in your photo. Apply what you know, your passion and what you are interested in to some sort of interaction with people. Try to set up situations where you can participate with these people in maybe something you can create. Do you know what I'm saying? And you're in it for the [inaudible] long haul.

You don't need to know everybody in the business. If you get six clients this year that are good size, you're probably going to live very well. Instead of taking the MailChimp approach and trying to get to everybody, pick out the top 10 or 12 people that you'd like to meet and focus in on them, and come up with some really creative... I already told about Joe and the ice cream, didn't I, Chris, today? Did I tell this?

Chris Do:

You did not tell that story.

Keir McLaren:

Okay. All right. Chris and I know a guy, he's one of the best guys in this, his name's Joe Montalbano, he's a producer. And Joe can get the meeting. Joe can get the meeting. Joe was working for a client of mine, and in that town that the client was located they had this boutique ice cream. Joe came up with this idea, we'll package this ice cream and we'll send it out to these really high-end people. And they have these boxes where it doesn't melt, and that sort of thing. So everyone said, "Oh, that's not that good of an idea." And Joe said, "It's a good idea and we're going to do it." So they did it. And it worked, they got some meetings. One of the people they were trying to get to was this really high VP at Apple, and they didn't get any response.

One day Joe got an email from this person saying, "Give me a call." And Joe called this person. And they said, "You know, your ice cream came, it's a great idea. But I was on vacation and the air conditioning didn't work in my office. So when I came back there was ice cream melted all over my desk, all over my papers, all over everywhere." And Joe's thinking, "Well, I guess I'm not getting the meeting." She said, "But I really liked your initiative, so I'm not sure your company does the kind of work that we need, but why don't you set up with my secretary a meeting." That's creative. That's what you need to do. Come up with some creative idea to get yourself in front of these people that you want to get in front of, and take your time. Again, you don't need everybody.

Sophia:

That's actually very, very helpful. Thank you so much.

Keir McLaren:

You're welcome.

Chris Do:

Sophia, I have a lot of... Maybe not a lot. I have a few suggestions for you that are in keeping with social media and what you can do today. Here's the thing, a couple things you can do. You know everybody's on social networks now. And the way that you can get to them is a lot easier than it used to be. Most people have their DMs turn on, you can DM something, very thoughtful message, something funny, something memorable. And that can be the beginning of a long-term relationship with them, so at least you pop on their radar. That's just old school marketing done in a new way. And you can hit them up on Twitter, and you'd be surprised how many people in the tech space will respond to you on Twitter. And you have to do something different to stand out an eighth of an inch, as Eric Garrison would say, so that they'll recognize you. And just be respectful of their time.

Because I get a lot of people who DM me, and what they do is they give me 17 paragraphs, and then I just don't even read it. You want to get to the point. What is it? You admire something that they do. You're asking about a job. Whatever it is you want to do, just get to the point. And spend all your time thinking about how to craft those two sentences. Put together two really good sentences to capture their attention. And I've seen brilliant email marketers send me something. I'm like, "Yeah, that was good. I'll respond to this one." I know it's a sales pitch, but I'll respond. Here's another thing that you need to know. I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Okay, Sophia, so go ahead and take yourself online. If you look up to somebody and you admire them, what do you think they want from anybody in any relationship? What do they want? What can you offer them?

You have some value to give to the world, and you need to know what it is and you need to frame it for them. And in case they have that need or they want that thing, then you can begin a relationship. For example, I forget who it was who was just up here, maybe it was Mike. I forget the person's name. But if you can run marketing campaigns that sell out in two and a half seconds, that's a pretty compelling thing that they might want. So you'd have to do your homework. But most influential people right now, what do they want? They want more influence.

Sophia:

More influence, absolutely.

Chris Do:

Right? Influential people want more influence. They want exposure. They want maybe more followers, whatever it is they want. And you can offer something like that. Because here's what I know. When somebody approaches me and says, "Hey, will you do an Instagram Live with me?" There has to be a hook there, because otherwise I'm like, "No. No." Earlier today somebody was like, "I want to help sell your book." Okay, you have my attention right now. Let's do the live together. And so here's what you don't know also. A podcast, the metrics for podcasts, they're not published anywhere. So nobody actually knows how big or small their podcast is. If you approach someone, like say an author that you love, and you put together a really thoughtful email based on reading several of their books. And said, "I would love to interview you. There was this chapter on page 45 in this book that really got me intrigued, but it just ends there, and I want to know the rest of that story." And it's a fantastic way for you to build a relationship with somebody that you admire and look up to.

And I don't know why more people don't do this. It's just, invite people that you look up to. It could be an entrepreneur, it could be a marketer, it could be an evangelist, it could be an author or business person. Just interview them. For example, if you really like Keir today, and you want to hear more from him. If you have any kind of social platform, reach out to him and invite him and figure out the hook. What's going to interest Keir? Keir already said this before when he got fired up, what's in it for him? Look at that through that lens, not what's in it for you.

And people send me a message, "Oh, it'd really help me out today if you did this." Well, what's in it for me? Everybody says the same old thing over and over again. Now there's even better way to do this, is you can go to them or they can come to you. The come to you takes a long time, it's a lot of work. It's what I do now because I'm not so good at approaching people. I'm horrible at it, actually. If I build a platform that helps people to sell books, authors are reaching out, CEOs and founders of tech companies are asking if they can be on our podcast. If you build a big enough platform, you're going to have access to these people and they'll just come to you. A couple different ways to do it there. Anybody else want to contribute to this?

Speaker 2:

I think you hit it there. What's the hook? And-

Speaker 2:

I mean, I think you hit it there. What's the hook? And for me, I've been asked the past couple of weeks to come on podcasts and it's kind of always the same questions about things. And the ones that have gotten my attention are the ones that are asking me something different that I haven't gotten a chance to speak about. They're also just more interesting for me to talk about versus coming on and talking about the same thing over and over again. So the ones that do get the hook-up front, they talk about something different, especially if you're already consuming somebody's content, you know what they haven't talked about yet. So I think it's a great way to leverage a relationship.

Chris Do:

I think one of the coolest things about Clubhouse is you're going to have a wide range of people from all different backgrounds, all different sectors, and if they're up on stage and you're in the audience, you just touch their icon, you hit them up on Twitter or Instagram and you send them a message and say, I love that part when you spoke about X, Y, and Z. I love that part when you said Keir, to have a repeatable story and I'd like to learn more about that or whatever it is, be specific about it and then call back the conversation so that they know you were paying attention. Something else that somebody will do to get my attention is to write summary notes of the conversation. Say, here are the three big takeaways. They mention you. So now a door is open. It's not everything, but it's the beginning of something. I'm going to direct this next opportunity. I'm going to give the mic over to Mo. Mo.

Mo:

Hello, Chris. I have a question for Keir if that's okay. Keir, I wanted to ask you very often mentors and their mentee have a symbiotic relationship as both learned from each other. And I would love to hear over the years, what are some valuable lessons that have impacted, made your life better that you've learned from some of the creatives that you've been coaching or people that you've been coaching? Thank you.

Keir McLaren:

Well, one of the things I learned right away at Blind was like most of you, I've been a writer. I am a writer. If I put down my profession, I put down writer. I can't make enough money just writing, but I put it down anyway. So all of us in high school, in English, we were beaten up about plagiarism, remember that? And you make sure you didn't copy someone else's work or out of a book. So I come to Blind and I walk around and he was one of the first real motion people that I dealt with. And I see all these books and all this stuff, and I see people basically copying other people's work. And I said to him, "Is that considered plagiarism?" He goes, "No, here, we call it reference material." And I got to tell you, that freed up my writing quite a bit to realize that using other people's material was okay, at least in that arena. So that's one of the things I learned.

I think the other thing I learned as a creative is what most creatives, and I felt this about myself, and I don't know how you all have felt, but I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, and it's known for a lot of things, but creativity isn't one of them. Even though Andy Warhol and different people came from there, and you feel a little bit isolated, like you're different. I remember I wrote this poem when I was about 16. It got published in the local paper, and it was about civil rights at that time. And I remember this lady at this drugstore had said something, I can't remember the poem now, but it started off like, "I Like You brother or something like that." And she said to me, "Why do you hate your brother?" And I go, "It wasn't about that." It was a metaphor.

So I learned from all these creatives that I think we've all traveled a similar path. It's really hard to be different, and most creatives are different. I mean, you didn't take the safe way out. I call all of you and myself, we're sort of pirates sailing the seven Cs. We take a chance every day on ourselves. We bet on ourselves, and most of us end up winning. So I learned that I wasn't alone and I learned I could talk about these things with the creatives that I work for. To be honest with you, I've always ended up being sort of friends in a way. And I've seen how hard they work that it's not magic. I'm going to use Kyle Cooper as an example. If any of you know him or know his work, he's one of the greatest.

He brought the movie title business back, and in fact, he was featured at one point a number of years ago on the cover of the New York Times magazine section, and I worked for him when he was doing Benjamin Button. The titles worked for all that. And I mean, he sent his assistant to the library. He must have had 50 books on aging in reverse stacked up. I mean, what I learned was that great creativity comes from a lot of hard work and preparation. The muse doesn't come down to me and then inspire me to write a good article. I have actually got to do the work. And so, those two things, knowing I'm not alone and seeing how hard the greatest creatives I've worked for, I worked for a guy and he has won the Emmy for sound design. When he hired me, I didn't even know what sound design was. I thought it's when on radio where the feet clumped to make it sound like a horse or something.

I'd go to lunch with him every week and he'd stop in the middle of the lunch and his name is David Van Slyke, by the way, Slick Sounds if you're ever looking for a great sound designer. And he'd say, "Did you hear that sound keir?" I go, "David, what? I didn't hear anything." "Yeah, listen carefully." And there'd be some obscure little sound coming from the street or the kitchen. And I realized that this was his life. Different sounds, and I don't know about you, but I've never lost the wonder about creative people. I've never lost that. And so, to be exposed to these people all the time and realize how hard they work, how talented they are, and most of them are pretty isolated.

Most of you are probably pretty isolated. Most of the people I've worked for kind of feel like it's them against the world. And what I try to do is break that down a little bit. I introduce clients to each other. I try to be a friend to them. And I don't know if that's answering your question, but I benefited immeasurably from... This is why I came to Los Angeles. I came to be a writer and I decided that for whatever reasons, the kind of writing I did didn't really fit what Hollywood bought, but what I was really looking for was a creative community. And I feel like I found it. I hope that helps.

Mo:

That's awesome. Thank you very much.

Speaker 2:

What's a question that we should be asking you that you don't hear enough as business owners?

Keir McLaren:

This is a hard one, it's not a hard one for me. It's really about how to have a meaningful life. If you think your business is going to give you a meaningful life, I suggest you think again, that isn't what life's about. It's about all the personal stuff. It's about what makes you happy. It's about looking inside yourself. It's about some recognition, and I think I'm a spiritual person, not a religious person per se. But it's like we're all called to do something, all of us, each of us, and we need to figure that out. And then Chris, I believe, was called to teach. He's had many successful businesses. If you can get in touch with that... What I do here, I love this. I mean, I can't tell you how much I like doing what we're doing right now. And you have to find that you can't find it outside yourself because I tell people this when they hire me.

If you just want to make money, I'm not your guy. Because making money, to be honest, I know that sounds like a little pedantic right now to some of you, it isn't that hard. Having a life, that's hard, having a family, that's hard. Not being addicted to either your work or to sex or to drugs or to alcohol in this town, that's hard. If you're interested in having a life that works with your business life, your external world, I would love to work for you. But if you just want to run a business and make a bunch of money, that's to me completely boring, I have no interest in that whatsoever. So that's the question that it always starts off on business, and I think Chris can attest to this. It always ends up on life. I think Nick can attest to this. It starts off on business and then we combine life. I want to make sure that when it's all said and done, that you built a meaningful life for yourself, as well as had success at your business.

Chris Do:

Okay, so Keir, is it okay if I let Juan speak now?

Keir McLaren:

Yeah, Juan is actually a relatively new client of mine. So yeah, I think...

Chris Do:

Okay, we should let him speak. You're lucky you have friends up here, Juan. Let me just tell you that right now.

Keir McLaren:

He's going to say something nice about me.

Chris Do:

Yeah, it's getting ready to bounce you out of here. Okay, go ahead, Juan.

Juan:

I'm trying to get some bonus time with Keir, he's so expensive. But we just thought, my question really relates to this. If you look in my bio, I'm a recovering graphic designer and photographer that was offered an opportunity to be an entrepreneur with my partner. I'm struggling with that. So my question was to Keir, what did you hear about my story and my partner's story that said these guys are creatives that can lead a business with the opportunity in front of them?

Keir McLaren:

Well, I thought that your business was enormously interesting. Juan and his partner do something that I didn't know about called the Professional Disc Golf Association. It's kind of like golf in what some of us might refer to as Frisbees, but that's not what it's called in their business. And they're enthusiastic and they've done pretty well, and they have enormous opportunity and they actually listen. They pay attention to what I say. So I like that. That makes me feel good. No, but because you guys have a lot of potential and you're honest with me and with yourselves, and that means we can make this work. If people are just making stuff up, I got no time for that. So that's the reason. It's like you're doing good work. And the other thing is working for you is like shooting fish in a barrel because the things that you need to improve are so easy to fix. You're going to make me look great, I think in the end.

Chris Do:

Now, if it were anybody else, Keir, if it wasn't for your client, I would've bounced Juan out for interrupting and for asking a self-serving question. Like tell me more about what you love about me and my business.

Juan:

Oh, that's okay.

Chris Do:

We have to set up some boundaries here people.

Juan:

A lot of creatives don't see themselves as business owners and I'm struggling, man. I love being creative, but now I have to manage a team of 13 people and hire people. So I wanted to know what is it about a creative that serves as a good business person to lead a company to become the full potential of that company? So yes, the question was based off of what did you hear about me? But really, I think it's something we all struggle with.

Chris Do:

Okay, that was a much better question. Whatever you just said, it was too many words for me to repeat versus, Keir, tell me what my best features are and how handsome I am, Keir. What do you think, Keir?

Keir McLaren:

Well, clients do ask those questions. Let's be realistic.

Chris Do:

All right. I just have to be real about calling that on one out.

Keir McLaren:

I know, I get it.

Chris Do:

Okay, very good, Juan. You have connections, people in places as they say. All right, just because your name is Gucci, I have to call you Gucci. What's up?

Gucci:

So Keir, my situation is that I've been in-house, I work with a friend, I've done a lot of work in implementing strategies that Chris Do has taught over the years. I've been able to create this amazing network and all this. And now I have people calling me up, asking me to basically just do phone calls and consult. I'm basically asking, how do you then price consultant or consulting when you're not a consultant? How do you work out that valuation? Because obviously if they execute on your advice, they could yield a great profit or they might not.

Keir McLaren:

Well, I'll tell you how I do it. I'll tell you how I started doing it is I had a friend, a wife actually who did consulting and she worked for some of the big eight consulting firms like Arthur Andersen, I think they call it Accenture. They have a different name for their consulting now. And I found out what they made a day. So I just divided that to the hour and that's what I started charging, okay? Because I figured in my business, I can't come in for three days and fix your problems. I prefer to come in once a week for many weeks. So that's how I did it. And over the time, I think you might appreciate this. I remember once I was charging very little.

And so, I told somebody what I was charging and they heard me say something that was twice that, and they said, "Oh, that's what you charge." And then I had that beat and I went, "Yeah, that's what I charge." And then after that, I just kept going up and I got knowledge. So right now, I would say in general, if you're going to consult someone for an hour, and even if you're just starting out and you have some specialized knowledge, $500 an hour isn't out of line. Chris, you can speak to this as well. I don't think that's out of line. Now, every client's different. If someone's going to be with you for a while, then you can charge a little less depending on what kind of time. But I would say 500.

But again, you've got to sell them on the value. Do you know what I'm saying? They've got to have a reason. What I tell people is, let's say when I was charging $500 an hour a few years ago, that really comes out to 2000 a month and it comes out to $24,000 a year or something like that. And I'm usually around for years with people. And I'd say to them, "I can't make you any promises, but if I can't make you or save you $24,000 this year, then you shouldn't be hiring me." But I've always been able to do that because not that hard to put people on the right road. You know what I'm saying? So I would say $500 an hour, Chris, if you have different thoughts, share it. I would say that would be a place to start if you've got a specialized knowledge that will really help people improve their business.

Chris Do:

Thank you for asking that question. So here's what I'd like to do. I'd like to just on behalf of the entire group, thank Keir for doing this, for hanging out with us, for sharing some of his knowledge. And now you guys get a glimpse of the person who's taught me most of what it is that I know in terms of business. And those 13 years have really formed my business mind. And I like to describe to people, I know it's like people say this all the time, but it was kind of like me getting my master's degree in business. And it ranged from very small things to ginormous things to life-changing things and just how to keep my relationship together and be a better husband, father, and a human being. And so, Keir and I would get into these discussions often where he would look at the business aspect and he would look at the human aspect.

And I love that balance because there are a lot of people out there who really would just say, "Let's make more money. Who caress what we have to do to get there? Let's go make more money for you." And I made more money with Keir. Actually, the first year I worked with him, I doubled my revenue. And some people don't know this, but when I first hired him, I went from $2.1 million for that year to $3.9 million in that first year. So that's how I knew I'm onto something here. I'm going to stick by this man and see what else I can get. And I tried my very best to be the very best possible student that I can. I'd like to just take a moment to share a little bit of that, and then you guys can give him a round of applause and we'll get him back on.

Here's the story here. Oftentimes Keir would say to me, "Chris, you're a really good student." And I thought, just because Keir, I pay you to give me advice. So of course he's going to say that. And I just kind of kept saying no, he's just saying it, it's just flattery. And then one day he just really looked at me like, "No, I'm serious about this. You're a really good student." I said, "What makes you say that?" And Keir said, "Because I tell you to do stuff and that for the most part, you just go do it." And I didn't take that at face value saying, "Well, everybody does that, Keir."

And he's like, "No, they don't. I'll tell people for a year and then they'll decide, I'll try that one thing." And I just thought that was the strangest thing. Why hire somebody and you heard him, it's going to be thousands of dollars over years. It doesn't seem wise to pay someone to help you change your life, your business, your mindset, your habits, your routine, your personnel, everything, and pay them and not do anything. So Keir, before I let you go, I'd really like for you to expand on this because you've worked with so many different clients, all different sizes and shapes. What's your take on what makes for a person who's ideally suited to hire a coach like yourself? What is it about them?

Keir McLaren:

I think the one thing that's really crucial is they have to be willing to change because why would you hire and pay me? If you can get where you want to go without me, why would you pay me? So it's like the ability to change. And since I've worked with you, you've always had that. Most people spend a lot of time telling me, number one, why they can't change. Number two, how everybody else does it. This is an aside about Chris. If you work for him and your reason you can't do something is because no one else does it, you're close to your last day there. This might not be your last day that you're working your way towards the door because you were open. You were open to change. I mean, you wanted to change and you wanted to be successful. And fortunately, that first year you had a lot of success, and you give me the credit, and I certainly appreciate it, but you also did the work. I mean, you do the work. Most people don't.

Most people, they just simply don't do the work and they aren't willing to change. They want to do it the old way. You know why? It's fear. They're afraid to change. They're afraid to fail. You're not afraid to fail. If you're not afraid to fail, you should be working for the post office. You should be working for someone else. Because I'll tell you what, the one thing about you, Chris, is it's unique. You're one of the few successful people I know who has not failed. Most of them have failed at least once. You have never failed to my knowledge. If people aren't willing, it's the most important thing. Because if you could do it without changing, well, you don't need someone like me, you'd figure it out yourself. Does that make sense?

Chris Do:

Yeah.

Keir McLaren:

I mean, I don't know if that resonates with you, and that's why people will hire me and for the first year, they'll basically tell me why they can't change, literally. And now every idea will not be a great idea.

Chris Do:

What did they say back to you when you give them an idea?

Keir McLaren:

"Well, I don't know. I was talking to my cousin, Joe. He's pretty successful and he doesn't think it's a good idea." I go, "Well, okay. No, if that's what your cousin Joe said, it's fine by me." So here's the thing that people do, people will apologize to me when they're late. I work for them. I'm like a teacher. I get paid whether you show up or not, I get paid whether you change or not, okay? That's just the reality of my work. It's the best job in the world. So people don't get that, they really don't. It's amazing to me, and I've worked for some pretty darn talented smart people. They'll do that. They'll tell me what somebody said and what do I care about? Who are all these people? Who are all these people saying this? Why don't you hire them? But anyway, I've been fortunate. When you work with smart people, if you're smart and you're willing to change, I can help you. If you're not, I can't. I don't think any consultant can.

Chris Do:

Okay, Keir, I'm going to play the applause in a second here. I want to thank you on behalf of every single person here, and that's it.

Keir McLaren:

And I'll leave quietly.

Chris Do:

Okay, so Keir, thank you.

Keir McLaren:

Thank you everybody for showing up. I really appreciate it. I love talking to you all. Hope this helped. Bye-bye.

Stuart Schuster:

Thanks for joining us. If you haven't already, subscribe to our show on your favorite podcasting app and get a new insightful episode from us every week. The Futur Podcast is hosted by Chris Do and produced by me, Stuart Schuster. Thank you to Anthony Barrow for editing and mixing this episode, and for the intro and outro music. If you enjoyed this episode, then do us a favor by reviewing and rating our show on Apple Podcasts. It will help us grow the show and make future episodes that much better. Have a question for Chris or me? Head over to thefutur.com/HeyChris, and ask away. We read every submission and we just might answer yours in a later episode. If you'd like to support the show and invest in yourself while you're at it, visit thefutur.com. You'll find video courses, digital products, and a bunch of helpful resources about design and creative business. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next time.

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