How To Use MLE To Price

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96
Chris Do
Published
May 18, 2019

Chris Do answers a Pro Member's question about pricing when you have set an MLE.

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Elena, bring yourselfonline, please.Hello Hi.Hey all right.I like your punctualityis like, boom, she's on.There's no hesitation.She's like a Tiger pouting.It's like, boom.Got it!OK, so Leanna has a questionabout minimum level engagement.Elena's pain is thatsometimes the clientwants to pay a smalleramount from your priceor pay in phases as yougo throughout the project,overthrowing the MLA proposed.Interesting so whatexactly is Emily and howdo we use it when we pricea project with a client?Please provide some clarityon the term, its meaning,how to calculate it.Oh yeah, it's very, very simple.You ready?Yeah, I have to takesome notes here.OK, so the firstthing you need to knowis what are your revenuegoals for the year?So at the end of 2019, how muchmoney are you going to bill?Let's say, like my goalis 40k for this year.OK, perfect.Then you take that number,you divide it by 10.And that's goingto give you four k,and that is your minimallevel of engagementbecause you only want towork on 10 projects a year.OK, so 10 projects.So when a client comesto me, do I say, OK, thisis a website you wantand my Emily is 4 k.So does it mean thatthe website that Iwill be taking onwill the price of itwill be 4K or at aminimum at minimum?That's how this works, becausethe M stands for Minimum.OK so if a clientcomes to you and say,I need you to design me anicon, yeah, fantastic to start.It's going to be 4,000.You're going to sayfor an icon and you'regoing to say yes, because Ican't take on new clients.I can only serveservice so many.So in order for us tohave a relationship,you need to be able tospend at least 4,000 with meon this or somethingelse like, OK, well,what if we didthis, this and that?And like, OK, nowthat seems more fairbecause just for meto design an iconseems like a waste of money.So the idea that smell is theyneed to spend at minimum 4,000with you for the year.That's the theory.I like it for the project.Mm-hmm So let'ssay that they havefour illustrationsthat they needto make that are $1000 each.Over the course of a year andthey could commit to that,then you can say, OK.Because for thepromise of future work,it has to be kind of in thedocument in the contract.Yes, that's what threwme away a little bit,because if theysay like, OK, 4k,it's too much for thatproject, and I wouldsay we can, you know,get to this priceover a certain period of time,let's say, like for six months.But it will be a promise.So I have to.Yes, get it in the contract.Yes yeah, and you could justtell them, look, in orderfor me to take youon as a client,you need to spend atleast $4,000 with me.Now we don't haveto do it all at onceand I generally justdon't offer that up,even at the beginning, becauseI've already established,I'm a little cocky becauseI want them to tell me,like, oh, that's too much.Can we do it over acouple of projects?OK, we can do that.I don't want to offer that upright up front because I wantmy money now becauseyou never know,it's hard to chasepeople down, right?So if they agree, yes, it'llhappen over the next sixmonths, we'll dothis, this and that.Eric, fantastic.I can agree to that.Let's get going.I'm going to chargeyou for half and thenwe will collect whenwe deliver everything.And so we'll justbuild you accordingly.Ok?how?How does this dovetailswith the value basedpricing if these aredifferent concepts?OK so, yeah, so you need toknow internally in your mind,I need to build this much, andall of us should know this.OK, now we know this,and we said to the teamrecently because we don't wantto do any more client work.We said that if the projectis not at least a quartermillion for us, we're noteven going to talk to them.Ring ring client calls, we haveabout $80,000 to do x, y and z.And even though Ithink I can make 60,000on that 80,000 project like itjust can't do it, I'm sorry.Just can't do it.Ring ring.You know, it's at leastthat's what I call.Let's see if we can findsome more money, Chris,and then we haveto talk about it.It's like we still don't want todo it, so we're saying goodbye.The last two projectswe turned down,and if I could have given it toone of you guys, I would have.It's not like I'm justthrowing in the trash.It's just the projects arevery specific and complicated.That, like we knowyour minimum is 250.We have 350.Can we do this?We talked it over and it's like,still not interesting to us.We're going to say goodbye.That's what that's for.It's for you.It's not a negotiation strategy.It's nothing else except to knowthat if you stick to your gunsand you do this, you'll hityour revenue goal for the year.OK Eleanor, remind mewhere you're from again.Well, originallyI'm from Russia,but right now I'min Connecticut.Oh, you are.Yep OK, I want to encourage youto set a higher annual goal.Well, yeah, that'swhat I was thinking,but I have to because look.How can you livein America on 4k?I, Connecticut, ithopefully is lessexpensive than Santa Monica,but gosh, you have to do more.I thought you were livingin like Poland or somethingwhere 40 decades,a lot of money 40k.Let's let's make it.Let's make it 60.Can we do that?Yeah, we can.Why not?Right?so here's the thing thisis the magic of numbers.OK, so your newEmily will be 6k.I want you to shoot for that.And even if you fail,even if you failand I love the wordfailure, it doesn'thave the negative stigmaas it does for most people.Even if you fail,you might make 45.You might do 52 and thiswill be good for you.OK I mean, a differentcall, I thinkI have to help you guys all.Break 100,000 a year, and Ithink there's work to be done,but I think youall can break 100K.No matter where you live.Because there's projectsout there for you.OK, so let's raise ourminimum level to six.Let's try to figure out whatkind of projects we need to do.Well, for six, itcan be a website.I would say.It could just be for discovery.Exactly it can be a discovery.Yeah Ben just reminded methe last project that webid for discovery was 85,000.Just let that sinkin for a little bit.and fundamentally, weare doing the same thingthat you are doing.We're working off thesame playbook now.Of course, ourversion of discoveryis a bit differentthan the way you do it.Of course, the way I dothis a little bit differentthan you do, but we're talkingabout the same exact thing.Imagine if we're all givenlike a box of crowns, paper,scissors and glue, andwe all get to make art.I'm using the sameraw components as you,so you need to knowthis, and I hopethat gives you someconfidence that, Oh my god,maybe I need to chargea little bit more.Maybe this is wortha little bit more.And if you're not sure,do me in his favor.Go watch the discovery videosbecause I kind of tell youhow I do it.Let me show youexamples, and youcould see the gap between whatI've been referring to as coreclassic, which is whatyou all purchase as coreand how we do it.It's a little bit different.OK, so just watchesit like, Oh my god,if somebody did that forme, that would be amazing.Well, learn it and thendo it for somebody else.You'll do great.I'm in the process of actuallyof watching all those videos,and I run like one strategysession for my current clientand it was great.So, yeah, I think Iwill be doing that.And you know, everythingthat we are talkingabout right now, like strategyand then deliverables, noteverything else, but I justdon't want to, you know,set high expectations formyself, like 60 or 100kand won't reach it.I better just get this likerealistic goal for myselfand then earn more.That will be like,why do you want to?You want to set a goal that youcan achieve that way when youpass it, you feel fantastic.Yes, exactly.So it's like, OK, OK, butmaybe like, I love it as much.

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