How To Grow A Small Creative Agency w/Eli Altman

what's up everybody happy Thursday to you today thank you for your patience for sticking in hanging around because it's gonna be worth your while today we're gonna be talking about how to grow a small creative agency with my guess and what are we going to do we're gonna talk about how to do work that you love we're gonna talk about how much to charge and the best way to attract clients so you're gonna want to stay for the whole thing from beginning to end and there's a little surprise that then we're gonna give something away but you have to stick around for that who am I talking today well he's a creative director at a hundred monkeys it's a naming and branding studio some of the projects they've worked on it's Nokia ozo inkling indivisible which was formerly we are the people dolby atmos maybe you've heard of that I know I have crisp and standard deviant crisp is like just a nice word to say and I struggled just to make sure I pronounce it right not see it correctly he's also written two books two to two books not just one I have him right here with me his first book is don't call it that and he was very gracious he sent me his latest copy the third edition which I noticed it it grew in size so there's more in here and we'll talk about that a little bit and his his second book what we're gonna focus on mostly today is a book called run studio run run studio run Who am I talking about I'm talking about Eli Altman from 100 monkeys i com you know welcome to the show okay that intro now just III know I've told you this but I just want to tell her audience might close my eyes you sound exactly like my first boss Kevin Jones I don't know there's time you talk I'm like you know I I love Kevin Kevin is the best boss ever rad I've only had a handful of bosses but he ranks up there even if I had a hundred bosses saying I did that 100 bosses he'd still be the best boss so every time you say something it takes me back to like 22 years old first job out of school and there's something about it even your expressions are similar he was a writer super fun easygoing guy well maybe I need to do one of the like you know 23andme or ancestry and figure out if we're actually related you might be but maybe there's just only so many different types of people oh yeah it's a good point yeah so I'm super happy to have you on the show you're well-known in the industry for naming which is a super specialized art I've dabbled with it and I've not done very well at it thankfully I've had your book to kind of refer to to guide me through the process but it's one thing to read a book and it's another thing to actually do it agreed okay now we're all sheltering in place I see you have some things in the background where are you today I'm in my guest bedroom in Oakland California and how are you managing and Oakland fine you know I guess our company had been working from home some days of the week before all this started so I feel like we got a real extended practice run and so the transition was like kind of seamless so we've been everybody's been working from home since like mid March mm-hmm and yeah so far so good I mean I feel bad with like businesses failing left and right but I I have nothing to complain about okay good we don't either but we there's a lot of empathy for all the businesses out there that are struggling and the ones that are going to struggle because of what's going down with this economic shutdown but really enough of the doom and gloom we're here to like provide solutions and help you get out of this hole perhaps and so I pulled some questions from the book itself and I don't mean I'm not gonna read all these things but there's a lot of questions that you posed at the beginning of the book but let me start first with why did you write this book run studio run why well when I took over as creative director at 100 monkeys I was scared because it was a lot of responsibility people were relying on me for their livelihood and I felt very good about my ability to deliver a quality creative product but I did not feel good about my ability to run a business and you know part of that's because the places I had worked before then you know design studios had kind of a similar approach where it was like really all about the creative work and didn't feel like there was a ton of energy put into the way the business actually operated how people were given new responsibilities what were paths for career growth how do you keep people around or attention right like all of these things I felt like I really liked well I had been working in the industry like I didn't feel like I was any smarter with regard to those things for having that experience and so you know my first thought was like okay well cool somebody wrote a book about this and so I'm gonna go find that book and I'm gonna read it and then I'll feel better about myself and I couldn't find it I I found lots of business books those exist there's lots of those they're not geared to the creative community and so you know it became this kind of exercise of like figuring out what the Venn diagram was or something were you trying to figure out okay well what's the overlap what's what of this is applicable to the type of business that I run you know what can I get away with what can't I and so that just kind of started to be down this journey where I I read a lot of business books and read sort of what I could find of creative business books there's like one by Adrian Shaughnessy oh it's like lucky enough to speak it brand new with called studio culture I believe which is really just more interviews about like people and like what's your studio and had to get started it was like a little more background was useful and so really like I wrote the book because I couldn't find the book and so I just wanted to like share all I'd picked up from reading a ton of business books some great some terrible and most in between hmm okay so it seemed like you wanted to bone up on your business acumen you were looking for a book about business for creative people specific you couldn't find it so you did your deep dive into the business world right yep okay so then then I have to ask this other question is well why should we why should we listen to you of all people well nobody has to listen to me but I guess if you're gonna if you are going to listen to me you know I didn't write this book right when I started figuring this out or right when I got to that problem it took me doing this for probably nine or 10 years where I got to the place where I felt like okay like I I have something to share with people for the vast majority that time it was just me learning you know the first thing I wanted to do with our business was to stabilize we had a very feast or famine cycle at a hundred monkeys where yeah sometimes we were doing awesome and we thought we were geniuses and then the business would dry up and we thought were idiots and you know everything felt like this kind of reactive cycle where when you're doing great you don't really put a ton of energy into you know building your brand into finding the right work into you know like getting out there speaking events whatever it is but then when stuff starts to go poorly then you switch into reactive mode you try to do all these things but it's kind of too late because it's you know very little of it is this kind of like instant feedback so you know I think the first thing I did was kind of establish the processes that we have at 100 monkeys which we kind of continue to modify and you know an update today just about like how we do our work and what we do and what we don't do and where we flex and where we don't and all these things and you know I did that in an effort to sort of stabilize our business and it worked I didn't know who's gonna work but it did and then I just continued to read continue to listen to podcasts continue to sort of take everything I heard and run these little experiments and I think the main takeaway I got from that was that when you run a small studio you know it's not this big ocean liner it's a it's a little boat you can turn it around really quickly you can implement changes you and you know like when we got on slack as a company or something we were basically like fully there in a week you know if you're some massive studio like that's that's a big undertaking like switching your underlying sort of communication software is a lot of work and so I just slowly implemented these changes I got us to a place where we were one consistently possible then had you know consistent growth year over year over year you know more stable growth then you know we were sort of too reliant on some you know big clients then I tried to diversify our client flow so we're dealing with sort of a wider array of more diverse clients um and you know it's it's something that I or I don't think anybody will ever perfect like I'm never gonna get to a place where I feel like like yeah I'm the master at this but I felt like I got far enough along where you know people who are running other studios were coming to me and asking questions about you know how to handle certain things and you know by the sort of third or fourth time you're like having the same conversation or sending the same email you think okay well maybe there's a better medium for sharing this hmm I see okay so it sounds like it's it was a long process of you looking to gain the knowledge to putting it into practice and then hearing problems being repeated and developing solutions for them that ultimately transformed into the book itself right yes okay so as I promised to our audience at the beginning of the show here's a question that I get a lot so this is me trying to be the audience and asking you for your wonderful ideas and the pearls of wisdom that you're about to bring upon us right now okay so the first question is how do I get my first client this is a question we get all the time I just got a school or I've transitioned from doing engineering or I was a scientist or something like that and I found that my true calling is in design I don't have any clients so is this catch-22 how do I get my first client yeah I mean this is a problem with a lot of different effective ways to approach it you could approach it from a networking perspective where it's about meeting a bunch of people who potentially meet the thing that you're trying to offer you could approach it from a putting the work out there that you want to do you know type of approach where you know you do you're your own client and you make the type of work that you want to be doing for other people and you know and showcase that and share it with people and put it in front of people who might actually need it you can do the community approach where you look around in your local community for businesses who you legitimately think you can help and approach them and say hey like here's how I think I can help you what do you think so you know I think a lot of it's just about getting out there and trying things as opposed to the perfect approach like don't let the great be the enemy of the good here to me if you're if you're after your first client you know don't worry about pricing don't worry about like having a perfect process making a beautiful proposal like worried about getting the work and then like that will put you in a process where you'll start to think about all those other things as as they come up so I find that like a lot of times when people have the you know find themselves in that position the questions like really more about getting started than it is about specifically like who that first client is or what they're doing okay so do you think people are overthinking it Eli probably I mean I you know I think people find themselves in that situation for a lot of reasons and you know you're staying like first client but say you were working at a design studio for four years and then you decided to go out on your own right and start your own studio okay like the process for finding your first client in that scenario to me is vastly different from I just graduated from school and looking for my first client right wrong if you're leaving a studio you should be building relationships that whole time okay you know you should think about the clients that you really like to work with the people who you like as people think people you want to spend time with the projects that you really enjoy like the work that you really like doing and that should answer a lot of those things for you if you're at a school it's much more about like switching from hypothetical to real I know there's a lot of different types of programs maybe some designs schools are better than the one I went to and they put you in more contact with people who are doing real projects before you know you step out into the real world so you get some sense for like how to have those type of interactions how to start to develop as a business person you know and a creative but you know some design schools are purely theoretical and you know you're just learning about the Bauhaus for four years and then they you know drop you on the street and go get it I mean in that situation you have sort of a lot more foundation laying likely to do before you know you find yourself with that first project because people have to know who you are and what you care about in the work you want to do you know you likely need to build a portfolio have a presence start to have those conversations with people but like you know I think one thing that sort of makes me feel better thinking about that situation is that like this is work that you will never stop doing even you will you will do that for the rest of your career for like as long as you want to do it and so it's really just about like working out that muscle about communicating with people about sharing your work about being passionate about like the work that you want to be doing as opposed to this kind of rain catcher approach where it's like well I'll take whatever comes my way right which is fine but like we'll kind of get into the problems with that approach a little later I imagine right so one of the things that you're saying is you got to just try something Shamir is saying I think he's got cold feet that's what he's saying and you you had said this right before we went live on air and you wrote this blog post that said I suck at marketing and creative people hate selling themselves it makes us feel gross and makes us feel wrong there's something that's deep inside of our mind our body and our soul that says if I have to go out there and talk about myself in a certain way I just don't feel like I'm me anymore so can you help talk us through this like what you really feel and how you might potentially get around that yeah so I like self-promotion makes me incredibly uncomfortable I I just don't like personally being the focus of attention and I think the little way I found around that is I do like it when my work is the center of attention like if people are talking about like my book or a company I named or a project I did I feel really good about that in a way that I don't feel good or would not feel comfortable if that were like about me personally you know and and whatever we can get into the like the deeper psychology behind like why that may or may not be but I think you know when it comes to this type of thing about like finding your first job or something like that like you can do the same thing you can keep the focus on the work you know if you're going to someone in your neighborhood you know like a shop around the corner you think like you think you can help show them like show them what you can do make them a new menu you know just like say hey like I come here a lot I love what you do I love your food you know I thought like if you did a menu like this it might sort of attract more people or be more fitting with like the aesthetic you're building or you know or whatever and then you show them something and then like from that point on it's not really about you anymore it's about what you did and you know to me that's a much more comfortable place to operate within as opposed to like keeping that focus on a personal level yeah awesome okay so I have some things I want to say in the kind of recap but I also because there's a comment in here who's it this here somebody's like your book is amazing everybody should get a copy of the book so you guys know a bit of a print aficionado here and I I like these this the old thing called paper and ink and there's a very nice print quality to this it's on a brown crafty kind of paper it's good in the hand it feels very soft and what is this is this foil stamp yeah uh-huh see I knew it insider tip about the paper that's actually what they make that sort of fake leather tag on Levi's jeans out of whoa no wonder has such a nice feel it's got a nice hand as they say in the business alright and then you look inside it's a it's a two-color it's it's what was kind of a golden brownish color yeah with black and it's got a nice vibe to it he's really well designed guys it's very easy to read some things are not just being a super nerdy book kind of guys like it opens well you can highlight it you could write in it and those things matter to me and some books they print on glossy paper and your fingerprints get everywhere and it just I grossed myself out I'm just gonna say that so these kinds of books hold up well look at that it's like a designer worked on this and it just designer did work on this both of them actually designed by moniker in San Francisco Brent Nate - good friends of men excellent excellent so you guys just for the print quality in the design you could tell it's like he cares and something that you don't you may not know is there's a little extra TLC when you order a book and there's little things that Eli will throw in a note or a card or a sticker or some random but you never know it's one of those like gift bags you just don't know what you're gonna get sometimes he'll sleep at a hundred dollars I'm just kidding about that but that would be nice if you did that from time to time it'd be a good story side effect of kovat I am my own shipping and receiving department there you go so should I the author at this point okay so let's talk about a couple things I want to make this as tactic tactical as possible because I know people but when I asked the question who here is still looking for their first client say me in the comments a bunch of people typed in me so they're all looking for the first client so let's go over some truths we all hate to sell ourselves we hate talking about ourselves and so what we need to do is to shift the focus away from talking about ourselves the idea of self-promotion and I think it's a bad label because it's like I'm going to promote myself but if it's about value giving maybe it'll be a little different and maybe that's the new name that we need to call it because some promotions like I'm gonna talk about me I'm talking about my projects I want to talk about how great my studio is and what we our core principles and beliefs are and at times that could be a lot for somebody to take in it's like I don't really want to do that so instead of talking about you why don't you talk about somebody else why don't you try to help people you could think about what can I do to help another person in the world and just leave it as that as an act of generosity you talked about when you're working for somebody you should be and we've talked about this before play risk ape-like you're an Alcatraz or something NorCal reference there your now coach as you want to get out of the big house so you should be building relationships with clients with people at the office you should be sitting them on those very important new business meetings so you get a firsthand education as to how new business is won and subsequently lost and you should be setting up your side game planning the escape you get the life vests ready you're getting the tools you need to dig your way out of prison and you're figuring out what day the weather conditions are favorable tides and and sharks or whatever and you're preparing for that moment to get out of the big house and so that's what you should do because to jump without a plan is you escape out of prison without a plan you might get out but you're not gonna last very long so it's kind of really important okay the other thing that you can do is if you're a student and you got out of school and you're ready to start on your own without any experience so one of my tips for you is call up one of your professors call up all of them and say look I got a school and I'm looking to set up shop are there clients or people that I can talk to and if you did a good job in class there's a good chance I'll we refer you to somebody and people forget a lot of times especially in design school your professors are working professionals or they are well-connected because guess who calls them for referrals all these big companies like Google and Apple and Microsoft so they have clout so I would definitely do that the other thing that I would ask you to do is when when you go and talk to somebody when you build a relationship when you start that conversation don't do this with the intent of asking for something right away it's a brand new relationship start the conversation before you actually need something because I get hammered with this all over the Internet hey Chris loved the show by the way here's what I do can you hire me and I just feel like everything else they said above that like love your show and big fan it just isn't it doesn't mean anything you're trying to flatter me which won't get you anywhere and then you're asking for something right away build a relationship it takes time to do that and I'm just curious now I know that you're a third generation creative business person but a second generation person who's running the studio your dad is the founder of the studio right 100 monkeys so there was some business there I'm the first piece of new business that you got out on your own and were able to secure like data did it look at this your boy did good dad so I started naming when I was very young like too young we're like we would be on a long car trip or something and my dad always had this like yellow legal pads and the Pens like in the back of the car and so my brother and I would would you know he would give us a little brief and we would start coming up with names in the car and then we would give him our list and he would like circle what he liked and gave him back to us and we were trying to do sort of more of that and so you know that's absolutely not me doing it on my own but basically what I was waiting for was my voice to get low enough so somebody so I could do a project over the phone and nobody would ask me how old I was and that happened when I was 16 I did a project for excavation company in Sacramento mm-hmm I was like the first project that I did on my own and so essentially like how it started for me it was like I I took the projects that were like below the threshold of what 100 monkeys could take before I went to school and like that was my deal I had to win or lose those on my own they were referred to me just like you know and then and start from there and if I could sell it I could do it and I never stopped there hasn't been a you know three month period in my life where I'm some thing now at a hundred monkeys we do between 75 and 90 naming projects a year Wow some of whom have you know many names within those prod like projects for doing architecture colors for something so yeah I mean that's that's kind of that's where it started mmm so it's it sounds to me like your dad has been training his Padawan learner the whole time in the car everywhere legal pad ready to go pitching names back and forth talking about it so you got a first first-rate education just in in the real world so when you send that your dad or the company would refer work away that wasn't a good fit for them I'm gonna assume scope and and budget right okay so here you are a 16 year old kid or a young adult I should say out of respect for all the 16 year olds are watching as a young adult when you got one of those jobs how much was that how much did you get paid cuz I remember when I was working at 16 I made three dollars and 25 cents and had to say thank you for that yeah I made too much money for a 16 year old just tell us the amount the first project I think it was like a thousand dollars Wow but that was just the first one I mean that that first year I probably did once I once I like had the confidence if like who had that under my belt and knew I could get away with this like I just kept going I mean I probably did like 12 15 projects that year and so you had like wait my job before that was fixing bikes at a bike shop right doing $10 an hour this is maybe 1999 in California mm-hmm that's still pretty good job for a 1999 power you're like moving up in the world at 16 or 14 or whatever how old you were doing the bike repair shop thing but yet that was a skill-based thing and I was just like putting boxes on the shell that's all I was doing well before that I was a little league umpire so I had like over-involved parents like yelling at me which I think like that's also look at thinking back on it done that actually ended up being like a really useful job because you can like if you can be 12 and have adults yell at you and like not cry about it then like nobody's going to stop you man it seemed like you were engineered to be the CEO of a company I mean you're basically dealing with the worst kinds of clients parents yelling at you for making a bad call and there's no bin in that right yeah it's out this is amazing so you're you're this young guy you're you're being an umpire for Little League you're doing bike repairs skilled job and then you're naming things and you're making Bank you're making Bank as a 16 year old did you did you go out and spend that money like an irresponsible child tell me you did please I mean a portion of it absolutely mostly like straight back to the bike shop to be honest oh yeah it's like you know I got deals on bike stuff so just like you know building a you know beast of the Santa Cruz bullet which they don't make anymore but you know you get the picture and yeah that's kind of my earliest memories of where that went but I like I you know I my parents were very good about like teaching me about money and helping me sort of start on that education for myself and so like I even back then and like I I invested a large portion of of what I made because I think they knew that me just like holding on to that amount of money was gonna go terrible places I'm sure they were right well I got to tell you my story is very different than yours my first real job as a creative professional was working an ad agency and I had an expense account I was getting paid decent money actually more money than I thought I was gonna be earning first year out of school and I got everything I went to to the record store you know you remember the record store you old-timers I'd buy CDs I'm like I never heard of this band I don't know it's kind of in this area covered looks pretty cool I'll just buy it and if I didn't like it eventually I'd give it or sell it back to like use a CD shop you remember that get rid of it that way I was buying every single toy I don't even care about a fan of it like I bought the The Mighty Ducks I'm like I don't even know what they are I'm just I'm in a store I'm gonna buy it so I was very responsible and to this day have boxes and boxes of toys still many of them still inside the box unopened and I don't know I went a little bananas you probably made money on that though maybe maybe some of these are mass-produced so it's really not highly collectible I'm gonna tell you guys a little story about how I got my first job and a couple sales for the very first time I'm like years into the business already prior to that I had what's up I was plugging in the headset and I guess that replaced the audio for the mic yeah so you booked promotion yes now you wanker all right let's do this all right you guys will do this this is take two Jonas almost lost his job here to get a copy of Eli's book or maybe Jonah did this because you slipped him a 20 lie so I had to do this twice you we're giving away a couple of copies of this book run studio run and in order to qualify you need to ask a really smart and just a question that we haven't seen too often and tweet it and use this hashtag hashtag run studio run this is the critical part without that we came and find you so hashtag run studio run and for the best questions Eli's gonna send you a book and we'll figure that the rest of it out now all right Jonah we're back right audios okay back yes all right I want to tell the good people how I sold my first job because we're talking about how to get your first job and so there's a couple of stories in here the first job really was me years after starting the company and prior to that I had sales reps I had executive producers who did the work that I hated to do those stuff that Eli's like makes me feel gross now I was at this really amazing fishing lodge and I was having a conversation with the the manager he was a part owner of the lodge itself I really loved it there and I was just having a conversation with him and one of the guys that I was fishing with he said Chris I think they need help they really need to bone up on their website and their their logo and and all their merchandising and all that kind of stuff and we were just chatting you know you have a lot of time free time when you're fishing he says I'm gonna go talk to him and I'm gonna go get the business for you and if when I do you just give me a cut of this and I was thinking to myself dang it because I didn't have the gumption to say something this other person his other human being who was more outgoing than me gonna approach the owner/manager and pitch the business so I was watching outside through the patio through the window looking at him talking and you could just see them talking talking and I was like oh that's conversations taking a really long time he eventually comes out and like so what happened he goes I think there's something here I'm like so did you get her or not he goes no so he kind of walks away I'm like this is it I was given an opportunity I thought the door closed but the door opened right back up again so I marched myself into that room and I asked for the business and sometimes you just have to be willing to ask and I gotta tell you I wanted to throw up in my mouth I walked over and I say hey I love what you do you guys must get ton of this a ton of business and you must be booked up all the time and he goes no actually that's not the case at all our seasons are getting shorter we're realizing that people who can do this who can afford to do this they're getting older and older and they're less able to go some of them are actually literally dying our clients are dying because of that old I said well I know you don't know me from Jack but this is actually what I do I do branding I do marketing I'd love to help you I really believe in this place if at that point in time just makes sense I'm gonna reach out to you and let me know if you need something and that as many people who were fans of the show you know that was the beginning of a relationship notice how I framed the whole conversation it wasn't built on an assumption that things weren't working I made the opposite which is I assume things were working and allowed the other person to say naturally we might need help so what I was doing is I was looking for a problem I wasn't being condescending or presumptive and that's really important all right I don't know what we're talking about now I have more stories but I'm not gonna tell all those stories right now because this isn't really about me I'm gonna talk about the next part which is how do you find work that you'll be excited about how do you do that because that's really it's one thing to get work and it's one thing to get the work that that you want to get up for in the morning yeah I mean I think the most important thing here is that every project you do should be a learning opportunity on this front for you I think I've I've enjoyed projects that I thought I wasn't going to enjoy at all and I've learned to hate projects that I thought would be super exciting and engaging like I mean part of it is like this kind of big company thing where people think oh well if I get to work with like you know Nike or something like that that that will automatically be awesome like spoiler alert it probably won't mostly because of massive bureaucracy and the fact that the people you're dealing with like aren't the ones making the decision on the product and like you know all sorts of reasons but like so one like it's a learning opportunity what you think are the projects that you'll really enjoy may or may not be the projects that you really enjoy so like one don't rule stuff out if you haven't done it before I think that's a good place to start you know we tend to think about this as like a tripod of you know good people good project good money like take any two if you can find a project that has any two of those three things then you're probably in a decent place or it's probably a project like worth exploring and you know so a big part of this too is about having interests outside of design because like okay so if you're really into design and you're reading about it and studying and getting into it that's awesome and I'm sure it really like helps in your professional development but other designers probably aren't your primary audience they might be there's situations where that could work like for example like for me we work with a ton of designers but the reason we do is because we don't do any design like we do naming and writing and that's it like we don't open illustrator ever and so you know I think a big part of it is is like having those interests having the things that you're passionate about that you can dig into because one like that's where work doesn't feel like work if you're researching something that you really care about that you're passionate about that you would be learning about anyway then that's never gonna feel like we're for you you're gonna put way more energy into that so like for example like I really like soccer and guitar and so like if Gibson came to me and they wanted me to name a new line of guitars I would do all that research like I'm not gonna tell them this but like I would do all that research for free like I probably already have right um and and like the idea of doing more of it or like sitting down for a couple days and learning as much as I can about guitar sounds like a dream so like that I want that I want that project and you know back to the pyramid it's like or you know the the tripod it's like okay so you know good project for sure and then if I like the people I'm dealing with and or they're willing to pay me good amount of money to do that then awesome you know we're there but you know I think early on it's just about being open to opportunities that you know we have clients where they like functionally do something pretty boring um but they're really nice and they're really appreciative of our work and they think it makes a really big difference yeah and that's fine like I don't I don't begrudge them for not like making spaceships like that'd be cool if they did like you know we we named overture the supersonic jet from boom you know when that project came in yeah that was incredible like of course I wanted named a supersonic jet and you know that wound up being a project where like all three of those things were in place where they were they were good people who cared about you know cared about our work and wanted us to do the best work we possibly can who paid full freight who flew us out there and let us watch them build a supersonic jet to hangar I mean it's like I'm you know I'll never get to do that again probably but like that put me in a position where I got to learn about and study something that was like incredibly interesting to me and so you know to me it's just about having those passions like outside of the creative work that you're doing and to really dig into those things that you really care about and if you do that like you'll do amazing work just because like it won't feel like work to you and you'll put in a ton of time and energy and thought you'll be more passionate when you're on the phone with clients you'll listen better you'll care you know it's just like all this that's like hard for you to do normally with the project that doesn't matter will immediately go yeah hmm okay I I see Ricky chiming in here Jonah I don't know what Ricky is saying cuz I think he's talking to you in a separate Channel Ricky's also a guy that works with us at the future yeah you want to get your answer on the question you asked Eli oh the same question how do you find work you'll be excited about and it's not gonna be that different as Eli was talking about this I was thinking about the same thing and you're into soccer and guitars right so I'm into a bunch of weird things like comic books I'm into skateboards or skateboarding and I love mixed martial arts just as a spectator so you guys don't have to challenge me on the street all right I'm just letting you know right now and here's the interesting part we were working with Spike TV the the first network for men so to speak and we were doing some projects for them for them rebroadcasting the shield with Michael Chiklis and I had found out that they had just acquired the broadcasting rights to this new show show called The Ultimate Fighter and I think they're already into season two or three and I was a fan and I told my creative director at that time will you let our client his name is Terry will you let him know that I'm a big mixed martial arts fan and I just found out that they are now producing this TV show and I want to I want to work on anything let's just let me know and then sure enough he mentions that on on a different call for a different job and he says they want to talk to you Chris this is fantastic so I am met at this point probably had done 15 years of research and at one point I had watched every single UFC pay-per-view that they ever made up into UFC like 100 so you can just calculate the dollars that I've paid just to watch these things between 40 to 60 dollars for the pay-per-view including the VHS like box set I went to eBay and bought VHS tapes of things that were no longer broadcast on pay-per-view so I I knew my fighters I knew their backgrounds I knew the the backstories and everything so when I got on the phone when I was talking to Terry about this I could just sit here and rattle off everything that he needed to know and so he felt like he had a true partner in crime in this and we wound up doing several seasons of The Ultimate Fighter doing promos for them and it worked out really beautifully again I would have liked you probably done a lot of that work for free here's that here's some of the cool fringe benefits just like you I got to go to a couple of UFC live events and have amazing seats like on the floor and go behind the scenes with a press pass meet Dana White and then Joe Silva at the time and to do shoots with some of my favorite fighters like BJ Penn back in the day so you when things line up you could do work and you could do work for lots of people but if you could do work for projects and people you believe in and things that you're passionate about I think it goes from a 9 in terms of a passion to up their team and everything above 10 is is free for the client it's a bonus right yeah and like you think about this rule also applies internally within an agency organization like when I'm staffing projects at a hundred monkeys if I know people are really into something like we get a cool beer project I know Liam on my team absolutely loves beer and knows everything about it like Spence you know all of his time like trying new beer like of course I'm gonna put him on that project he doesn't have to pitch me for that like I I know you know I know he has that skill so it's one of these things where maybe you think about your interests like outside of what you're doing is like superfluous or not a big part of like your work or what you're doing but no like being clear about what you're interested in excited about pays benefits if you're at an agency pays benefits if you're on your own yeah so it just means you have to be passionate about a bunch of things and naturally just the law of averages eventually you were gonna find things that are overlapping and that's that's a beautiful wonderful thing I want to give a shout out and thank you to Harris who's giving us a hippopotamus hat turn with a thumbs up very specific and then Shiva I hope I'm saying this right I'm not gonna try the last name Shiva saying they're in aerospace engineering and boom is one of the companies they want to work for partly because their design language is so cool so there you go look at that okay let's see what else here and now I have to ask you this question because I think you and I we both live in California and we have access to one of the most vibrant thriving economies in the world a California alone it ranks up there and like world economies just by itself and so there's a lot of opportunity here and that's why I think a lot of people flock to California and why there are so many opportunities so we're talking about like projects because we love them and we have enough things that we can choose from and say no to some things and say yes to other things whereas people in other parts of this country in the world don't have that kind of opportunity so what happens when you get a project that you don't know much about we're indifferent about prior to this moment I'm not that you hate but just indifferent how do you work yourself up so that you can get excited about it you have an answer for that yeah my first real job out of college I was working as a brand strategist at a meta design um my creative director there told me that like basically it doesn't matter what project comes across your desk like I need you to figure out a way to be interested in cat food that was his example right and it kind of stuck with me mostly because cat foods gross but like also because like if you really dig it and do your research like yeah yes just about anything is interesting and like bonus that's kind of your job like your job is to figure out the reason why that thing is interesting and to help people see that and understand that so every time like you see an ad for a product that you maybe hadn't thought about before but now are sort of seeing or thinking about new light or you know it's just kind of interesting or engaging on its own like there is a way to become interested in anything and your job is to find it that doesn't mean that the people in the client are going to be nice to you you know that doesn't mean the project in to pay what like you know there's plenty of other to this equation but like the if the question is about interest like there's a way to find it even if we're talking about the most like jargon latent like you know CPG just like you know put in all the business acronyms about like synergy and innovation and things like that like you know it's your job to cut through all that stuff like you're not there because you're an expert in those things like you're there because you're an expert in what you do so like make them understand it's you in human terms asking dumb questions like get to a place where you you can really understand what's going on because I think you know and I find this with like junior people on my team the number one reason like people find themselves in that situation is because they're afraid to ask some questions which aren't even dumb questions but like they're afraid to ask about like the jargon and the acronyms and like the pieces that really like inhibit their actual understanding of what's going on so like if you're in a place where you're doing work for a project and you don't fully understand like exactly what you know what the company is doing what you're asked to do execute on you're in a terrible position you need to step back and like get to that place where you legitimately get what's happening understand the ins and outs how it connects to the different pieces how that business might grow in five years like you need to really understand it and you know like a great example of this the author John McPhee if you don't know who he is look him up he's a lot of pieces of New Yorker he writes a lot of books he wrote an entire book on oranges entire book starts started out as a as a as one piece in The New Yorker that people found so interesting that they got him to write two more pieces about it in The New Yorker and then that wasn't enough so he wrote a book okay like I did that yeah about oranges and I tell you I've read all the articles in the book and it's fascinating 100% like do you know that all citrus are actually the same fruit and you plant the seed from any citrus and any other citrus might pop up like randomly yeah Wow so you can have an orchard of orange trees and then a fruit will pop out well if you let them seed right but that's not what most people do and so like anyway I mean like or that the oranges on the south-facing side at the top of the tree will be sweetest you know like it's just it's fascinating how like when you really dig into something like there's so much there he's written books about like geology about shipping about Switzerland about all of these things that like when you really dig in and do legit research and and try your hardest to understand something I promise you there's something interest ah I see that was the point of the orange story and the prolific writer okay you're saying basically if you dig deep enough if you're curious enough you will find something that's gonna be interesting about this that other people are gonna be like well I didn't know that I think this is where people say that you you find the extra in the ordinary and you find it or you make it extraordinary and that's what it's all about okay I have to share some things but I also want to make sure because people are messing up our game here so I want to make sure one more time if you guys want to win a copy of this book and we're just giving out a few copies okay so don't get all crazy on us you need to go on Twitter find instated before I'm gonna say it right now because it says tweet a question using the hashtag run studio run run studio run and the best questions as determined by Eli will win a book and he'll send you one okay and if you say to yourself you know what but I don't want to enter this I just want to get the book I'm gonna point you here you can look up Eli you can DM em or something like that but you go to 100 monkeys calm and I'm sure you'll find your way to ordering the book somehow it's alright you lie yeah also my sign is Eli Altman calm okay sorry but any of that works you can find it on other monkeys too yeah and so will will drop the Eli Altman dot-com address in the description below and anything else that's related to this so you guys go ahead and check that out after the show we'll make sure it's up there now here's the thing that I want to say if you work for Nike if you work for Tesla and you do good work what do people say they're gonna say of course it's nice it's Tesla it's Apple it's gonna be good but if you work for mail mix and some cat food thing and you actually do something that cuts through the noise and it's fresh and different and and unexpected in ways people are gonna say you're a genius you're really really good you make a food interesting and I don't even like cats I hate cats let's just say that's not true but that's that's what's interesting is like the the weirder the the worse the project is the more unknown and weird and the challenging it is I think that's where it separates the pros from from the pretenders one of my mentors Kyle Cooper used to say to us all the time he says there's no such thing as bad projects just bad designers just bad creatives you didn't push past the pain point and you find a way I'm not talking about working for companies that you have an ethical dispute about or moral dilemma I'm just talking about companies that you're indifferent about or didn't know anything about sometimes it all lines up for you and it's a slam dunk no problem but the real world consists of projects and people and companies and things you know nothing about and may not be that interested in but it's your job because they're paying you to show up and do the best that you can to bring some magic to otherwise boring and overlooked category right I resent I mean right look if you want to be an expert at the same thing like do a job where you do the same thing every day the thing about doing our type of work is that every client that comes in the door is a new opportunity to learn how a new company operates how a new product sells you know everything like that and like that learning opportunities open for you you have experts in front of you who are willing to answer your dumb questions and I've learned about so many industries that way and it's just by my curiosity and like having that baseline and interest is the valuable skill not having you know a fundamental knowledge of those things walking through the door which is awesome and that would help but like that's not gonna happen every time yeah all right so we're getting to the really big juicy question I saved them for last for a reason I also want to thank all 500 plus people who are tuned in life and just say well hello good morning good evening good afternoon whatever time zone you're in you from all over the place so here we go here's the big one and the big ones here is okay you lie how much should you charge for whatever project this project whatever that might be okay that's the big one I want to hear your thoughts on this because we talk about this a lot on our Channel so I guess it's the big one cuz everybody cares about making money and they want to make the most money they can for doing the least amount of work I guess is like is is the principle I mean you know capitalists arguments aside I think there's a lot of fundamental questions that come out of this question that are as important if not more important and so to me the biggest underlying question here is like one what do you need so you know do you need to like put food on the table do you need to you know keep the lights on payer internet bill and like if you're in a position of need then you need to make sure that your needs are met so starting it like the lowest possible level like that's what's important okay once your basic needs are met then you know the question starts to shift a little bit and you think about one what your time is worth which is another really important question where I think a lot of people really undercut themselves by undervaluing their work and so you know one classic example of this is like you know people who businesses that do like Groupons offering like 50% off cupcakes or something like that and then thousands of people fled their orders and they realized oh it takes me it costs more money than that for me to make the cupcakes so now I have all this business but I'm actually losing money at the same time so I'm very against time tracking overall and doing it on every project I think it's a waste of time but fundamentally knowing how long certain projects take you which means having processes for those projects so it's not just like randomly doing a bunch of stuff presenting seeing if it works like so knowing how long something takes you how much time and energy it takes you asking yourself the question if every project I did were this project like would I make money would I be happy with where my businesses and how I'm doing for myself um you know none of these are like financial answers to the questions because people are all around the world you know with areas different like low cost of living areas high cost of living areas different fundamental needs people whose partners work who don't who aren't reliant on this money right so like you know I'm not gonna be able to tell you pricing for your particular situation but I can tell you that one if you do a good job on a project for a certain amount of money those people are gonna refer you to other people and those other people are gonna ask that person to refer them how much you did the work for and you're likely gonna have to do that work for the same amount of money or maybe like a little bit more so like your pricing begets your pricing and so knowing that you're making money off of the projects that you're putting out there is incredibly important because the likelihood that you'll do more work for that amount of money is is much greater I mean look we have clients who come back to us like five years later and I can say like hey look times have changed like we got an update here but you know if somebody turns around needs another project hey I love what you did they're like can we do it for this you know for this project they're gonna expect that for the same amount of money so like track time on a couple projects get to a place where you have an understanding like how long your process takes you know and then do the math on what that means for you know for money factor in everything like there's a great book called your money or your life by Vicki Robin which like really extends this thinking about like how much your time's worth to the nth degree factoring in everything from like getting groceries commuting like all of these elements that like if you weren't working you would handle a different way and you know let's also not forget that like coronavirus and all this really affects you know a lot of these things like right now we're talking about like do we really need an office anymore right not cuz we can't afford it but because like I'm paying a bunch of money every month for a glorified storage unit because nobody's in the office so okay cut that out like our expenses just drop by thirty thirty-five thousand dollars a year okay you know do we need to make as much on projects anymore maybe not maybe I can take the pro bono project that I thought was interesting you know just to do it because I know we're in a good place so you know it's a really intricate question but I think that the root of this question is having a legit understanding of how much your thymus work and once you feel good with your answer to that question all the other questions answer themselves someone asked you to do a project for less than you're worth no you know you won't make money on that you can tell them that like I you know this is an interesting project I would love to do it but at that rate I'd be losing money on it and it's a business so I can't do that that's a much better answer than like oh I don't think I could do it okay we're gonna spend some time on this one because our channel we really do talk about business and money and we're talking about how to run a studio so let's let's get into this thing here I think the problem is what you just said was you should have some kind of idea in your mind what your baseline is like what a cost to just live your life and run the studio and to keep the people that you have employed insured and healthy and and well looked after and so that's just the baseline but the baseline isn't really what you price your work on because otherwise you're just selling to selling your life to breakeven I think or maybe out of deficit but the problem is a lot of people in our community there are solo practitioners there are one or two people bands so to speak agencies where they're working mostly from home so what they mistakenly leave out of the equation is their own living expense their computer their software their hardware their own mortgage or their rent and they just like my life is free meaning my life has no I mean it has value but there isn't a tangible value I can put on something of my time and I'd love to do this stuff anyways I'd love to draw I love to make things I like to program so when a client says to them I'm gonna pay you $80 for something that should be six hundred or a thousand dollars I say a thousand now you and I would say well that's well below what it's gonna take for me just to live doing this work in fact I think I'm gonna be paying you for this project given how long it's gonna take and but then what they do in their mind is they tell themselves a story and a story that they tell themselves is I'm not doing anything anyways and $80 is better than $0 so this is a mindset issue that I'm hoping you're gonna shine a golden ray of light on our face and like baskets in your infinite glory and wisdom how do we overcome this as a community as a culture a culture of creatives I mean part of its opportunity cost that if you're spending your time doing that you're not spending your time doing anything else and that could be something that you want to be doing where you don't make money or that could just be you know like time that you would be spending on another project so that's one piece of it but like you know you really do to your point Chris like need to think about the holistic picture of how much your life costs and that's not strictly like we're not talking about oh this is a business expense you know first is like this is a personal expense because you know you take home that money and then you spend it on your personal stuff so like if you're working for yourself it's actually a lot simpler it's like a straight pass through so you know like think about all your meals as business meals then you know do like do whatever you have to do cause like the money that you're making doing your job is like specifically what's paying for that stuff so like this gets into just basic financial management budgeting like personal finance like these things are incredibly important when you're running a small studio because other people's livelihoods are based on you understanding this and like making reasonable decisions about you know about these things like so reviewing your expenses on a regular basis I mean one of the things that I have in the book is like you know regardless of how small you are you should have a bookkeeper like don't spend your time with that like it's it's too complicated you know it's there's too much going on receipt tracking like all this stuff like that's not what your time is for you can sit you can sit there and think like you know oh well I'm not doing anything anyway you know to Chris's point but it's like that's an opportunity and so that's an opportunity cost would you rather spend that time you know improving your website trying to find more work reaching out to people in your community like like you could spend that time in a productive way and so I think you know really thinking about your schedule thinking about how you really want to be spending your time is fundamental even before you get to the you know the question of like how much times you're you know how much your time is worth because once you get to that point where like okay you know that you're making enough money on projects to live and to survive and so you can like feel comfortable at that level like then it's about who's worth your time and if more people you know if more people are coming to you then you have the time you know to do the work then that you're in a great position and you have options and those options include hire people to do additional work which by the way takes more time because you know you need to train those people and like get them to a point where they're delivering work that you feel good about but over the long run that would pay the dividend if you and your studio being able to do more work for more people or up your rates charge more for your work you're in more demand so if supply goes down and you know demand stays the same or if the man goes up in supply stays the same which is actually what's happening here then like your time is is fundamentally more valuable and so you need to adjust your pricing accordingly um and you know I think part of this like is for us like just to be completely transparent like we do sliding-scale pricing if there's like we do pro bono projects and if they're like local companies that we think are doing cool things or companies that are like trying to help the planet like we will work with them for free or for limited amounts of money because we care about that that's important to us and it's important that we make time for the people in our community and because of that that means that when we work with big multinational organizations with large budgets then like we need to make up the difference there so not only are they paying for the work that they're doing like they're paying for some the you know small local work that you know that we're executing to and so it doesn't have to be like this kind of one in one out I made enough money for this project to break even moving on you can do it that way and that's fine but you know you can also have a couple big clients that are like really paying the bills and that frees you up to you know be able to spend more time doing work that you're really passionate about and then starts with like angle your portfolio towards the work that you really care mmm okay I have a bunch of questions but before I get to my question Zachary Brown is asking this question I think it's a good question Zachary so good for you then is it possible for you to overcharge for your work does such a thing exist it is a good question ah I would say as long as you feel like you're not abusing the relationship then no you know look like there's a reason why we charge big companies a lot of money we deal with so much more bureaucracy and international screening and legal checks and running things up the ladder and taking time to make decisions like the number of things that are like more complicated and more time-consuming and more annoying about those projects like absolutely merits them costing a lot more money than working with a restaurant you're damn right like yeah fundamentally that's just true I mean there are small businesses that like to make projects pain in the ass but like we don't have to get into that um so but the real thing is like if you have a high paying client that should be a relationship that you really care about right if they're in a position to continue to give you more work then and you like working with them and they like your work and are willing to come back then that's an important relationship for you and like should you treat people in relationships with respect yes absolutely so that likely means that you're not price gouging them you know but like like I said I mean if they feel value for what you're putting on the table and they feel like it's worth it I'm not gonna tell them otherwise but I also just want to make sure I'm doing right by the people involved and that it still feels like an equitable relationship yeah very good very good question so I'm gonna add to this and then throw in some of my own questions if I can remember all the questions I had to but the question was really simple it's like is it possible for you to overcharge so when you look at it from your point of view you could probably answer yes because yesterday you charged next to nothing and then today you're charging a whole lot and you're fundamentally the same person giving the same quality of work and care and attention so to you it might be like yeah I did overcharge them and you might feel really guilty and sheepish about it but what you don't realize is there's a buyer and seller to to this equation that somebody doesn't buy something unless they fundamentally believe it's a fair price ask yourself this question what was the last time unless there was a gun pointed to your head or somebody was extorting you where you actually pay for something that you thought you were overpaying for now there are grouches in the group I'm sure that overpaid for a very expensive steak for example but nobody forced you to do that but as you're eating your God is the most overpriced a kind of rate but you still pay for it and you'll probably go to it again it was good so what we have to realize is that value like beauty and fairness is in the eye of the beholder that you have a sense of value and they have a sense of value so a transaction happens only if both parties feel as if they got more than what they gave that's the bottom line because if I pay you more than what I'm getting I don't feel so good okay so they agreed to pay you ten thousand dollars for something that you just charged a thousand dollars for to somebody else so that's a ten to one ratio and they have a bigger problem to solve and so they are feeling like if you can just take care of this problem for me I'm not gonna be a happy person so then you owe it to yourself and your client to do everything within your power within reason within the scope of what is being asked of you so that you deliver up to that expectation and a good way to handle this is you could just really have a conversation with them and ask them what are your expectations cuz I'd love to work on this project with you now here's the thing III think I read this in in Blair enza's book pricing creativity or in a blog post somewhere what he talks about this we all own cars and we all have different levels of insurance some of us have fault only or and some of us have got insurance where if you drove drunk into a ditch and burned a house down it would be all covered and your premiums are super low but you pay for that level of comfort I remember there was a classic line in movie fried green tomatoes with Kathy Bates it's arguing with somebody in the parking lot right and I think she smashed into him something happened in a parking lot and she says and she was arguing with a young person she goes I don't care I have more insurance than you and that's what we're talking about like each person gets to decide how much level of insurance protection or value that they see in the project itself so it would be hard to say unless you were really swindling people unless you were really tricking people and doing something very dishonest they're only gonna pay what they think is fair so let's be clear about that now one of the big challenges that people have and you said this you basically will give your work away as a form of supporting some for cause business and so in essence you're as they would say stealing from Peter to pay Paul but your team needs to get paid so on this job they didn't get paid so there's large corporation who can't afford it you charge them more and this gets into individual needs and values but also the elasticity of supply and demand creative people that I talk to they just don't get this concept how can something be fixed in their mind be elastic can you help break that open a little bit for us Eli yeah I mean I think what you just said is a really good answer to that question which is essentially like if they're deriving value out of you know out of the work that you're giving them and they feel like they're getting good work for that value like that's that's different for everybody right so like if you do a project for a big company and they have a massive marketing and sales apparatus then like even though you did the same work their ability to profit off of the work that you did for them is significantly greater than you helping a smaller business you know with the exact same amount of work yeah right so that's the instance of you doing the exact same amount of work but having significantly different impact because of what your client does with that work yes and so if I'm helping a non-profit you know or order like a small local business like you know they're not like taking on Amazon the next day you know like right there they're fighting small battles like they're trying to fill tables and and so it's almost like you so you could look at that as like the work that we did in that situation is less valuable like you you could think about it that way even though it's the same amount of work it took us the same time or whatever if in fact those things are equal or you could look at it as they have less leverage they have less ability to turn the work that we did into money for them and when you get into it like the only reason big companies pay us good amounts of money is because they think they can make like you know massive multiples on the amount of money that they're being charged for that work like that's why they do it it's not because they're nice to us or we think like they think that that we're worth it or that like that's a good creative cost no it's because like they think they can leverage that into begins for them if they didn't they would not hire us now are you sure it's not your deep bassy voice that convinces them that you're an authority on this and they should pay you more honestly I can't quantify that Chris no no fundamentally no nobody hires me for voice work well maybe you should think about that James Earl Jones does a pretty good living doing this it's true something I think about okay if you borrow the model if you borrow the model from how artists and illustrators and photographers work which is a lot of times they price their work based on usage which means how many times will this impression be seen and this is perfect so you pick up on your example there if you do design for a t-shirt for local skate shop let's talk soccer soccer team let's just say a local soccer team they're only gonna print so many of these things at the rally at the championship only so many parents will buy this so the potential for them to make money back on this to recoup their investment is modest so you might be able to charge them a thousand dollars but for the same kind of work that you put out nike who's doing a different kind of level of soccer club promotion is printing a hundred thousand units to start and they're they're printing it on on soccer balls or footballs and in the rest of the world or on mugs and caps and all kinds of things then you can see well the number of impressions that are being made go way way way up and this definitely needs to be factored into your thinking now I think most reasonable people can hear this and understand yeah that makes total sense it should cost more because they're just gonna make more from it and this is what we mean when we say price the client and not the job the job is to effort and energy and time you put into something versus the client they have a very different eat if you can understand that you just need to abstract it for your line of work whether it be naming website design how many impressions what kind of usage mileage will they get out of this and your price should reflect that and be warned be warned about this that under charging a really big client is also a sign that you don't know what you're doing and actually is a red flag for a lot of companies when you come in one fifth of the next three competitors there's something wrong with you and at that point they don't go for the cheapest bid because they're not looking to take a big risk and you at that point represent risk one last little point and we have one giant question left and then we're gonna let you go because I think we're eating up most of our hour and a half together already okay the degree in which you can be replaced reduces your leverage now not that I've done a lot of research on this but I just don't know a lot of successful naming companies so you are really niched in there you lie and that really puts a high value on what you do and everybody needs to know this because they always worry about being a competitor to sources like Fiverr if you could get an eli ultimate on Fiverr who does great naming research as thoroughly he's gonna be in trouble so just remember the your the ability to reproduce or how meet let me say this your your job and value is reduced by how interchangeable you are so I want you all to think about that right because that's what people worry about so much they're like well if I if I don't take this job for $200 they're just gonna give it to somebody else that could be a problem with your specialization how well your niche or your Louisville experience and expertise and if that's the case work on that that's something you can work on you can develop over time maybe not today but tomorrow and eventually you're gonna get there last question sir last question how do you develop a portfolio that tracks clients you want to work with it's kind of related right totally all right I think my biggest individual piece of advice on this is like you are creative and your clients are not and because your clients are not creative essentially what they're looking for in your portfolio it's like they're seeing the projects you did and imagining their logo in the corner instead of yours or instead of like whatever you did or you know sub in whatever subspecialty you do photography whatever like they're just putting that within their context and if they like it they want it and if they don't like it they don't and so you essentially like your work begets your work the type of work that you do and share and like here in that you don't need to share all the work that you do remember that but like you know the work that you share with people is going to be the best approximation of the type of work that you're gonna get you know if you're massively famous and people are willing to take a punt on you doing work outside of your area of expertise like that's why Kanye gets to do fashion like you know like that type of thing like you know if you're in that level people are willing to let you play in a space that's not your sandbox but for the most part people see your work and they're like do I want that like do I want that for me and it's very self selecting like you know we have clients or potential clients who come to us and see our work and they're like well you know I don't know if I woulda named a brewery that yeah and like yeah you can name a brewery whatever you want you know it's a industry where there's like a you know a lot of creativity is allowed at the table but like in the end we did work that our client really loved and uses and we feel good about it so we promoted it if they ended up picking a name that we didn't feel so great about I probably wouldn't promote it and so then that person who's looking for that like boring down the middle beer name isn't you know the the example that they're looking for isn't gonna be there and so they're not gonna hire us it's very self selecting and I think you know like you need to remember that you're not trying to appeal to everybody I think this is something that like people in branding design should get more than people in other industries like if you're selling soda I think it's like a harder argument to make but I still think it's fundamentally true but you are not trying to sell to everybody and what that means is like yes your work like really needs to work for and turn on certain people and because it does that it's fundamentally gonna turn off other people and that's okay that's what it means to be a specialist that's what it means to have a niche that's what it means to have like a point of view on you know what it means what it takes to stand out in a particular area or industry right and so like show the work that you want to get and if you don't have that work already make it up like you know share like share a demo project you're much better off doing that then you are like you know taking on work for free from other people just do what you're passionate about and share it and get people interested because when somebody in a relevant industry or in the industry that you're targeting sees that and likes it then they feel like you already have the chops they feel like you already have the ability to demonstrate the capability to do the type of work that they're looking for so just like share the work you're passionate about and as that evolves update your portfolio like don't make it a repository of everything you've ever done nobody's coming to you for Bret no he wants to see that you've done 500 projects maybe you have and that's fine but like share your best work and share the work bit like that if somebody came and said I want the exact same thing for me you'd feel good about that and if you set yourself up that way then you're gonna be working with people who like your work and will be happy with when you you know with what you deliver mm-hmm excellent excellent okay so you just described something it's like first everybody needs to hear this is that just because you did it doesn't mean as you live alone your portfolio or should not exist in a company website because your work acts as two things and it's kind of weird the dichotomy here which is I'm gonna get it closer to my mic here so I can get deeper my voice compete with you here I'm feeling a little unconscious right is that your work is both a magnet to draw people in and a filter to keep certain people out so when the holes to the filter are so big anything gets through you have a huge problem already okay and if the magnet is so weak that's another problem so think about that your work is both a magnet and a filter to draw people in and keep some people out and that's how you know you're well positioned because we we set this million times it's not of course just a saying this but if you try to be all things to all people you'll be nothing to no one this is really really important you need to think about that okay now I think we've taken up a lot of your time and I think we've had a really interesting and different point of view in adding nuance to this discussion that we've had many times on the show so I'm gonna let everybody know this episode may be made private and unlisted if this doesn't get 10,000 views by Monday then we're gonna pull it off okay I'm fair warning I'm just letting you guys know if doesn't get 10,000 views this video is gonna be gone otherwise you could only see this in cut down snow and we're gonna get ready to wrap up here so first of all I'm talking to you live this is his second book run studio run I want to say Run Lola Run but okay run studio run and it's all the wisdom and knowledge that he's had in running a naming and branding studio for a number of years and he's put it in this book because he felt there was a need for creative people to understand biz his principles and the things he's learned he's sharing he's paying it forward and if you guys want to get a copy of this book I'm gonna tell you how and this is it this is it this is only for people who are watching this live because when this episode is done when we wrap up in a few minutes Eli's gonna go on Twitter he's gonna go on Twitter and he's gonna check for the hashtag run studio run so all you johnny-come-lately you didn't show up for this the not the 500 people who stayed here for this but go on Twitter ask the question use the hashtag run studio run and if two people ask the same question I'm gonna assume that Eli is gonna pick whoever tweeted it first so if you just copy and paste you're not gonna get rewarded for that he's gonna send a couple of years a copy of his book you can also order the book if you just want to just fast-track this whole thing we've now added it to the slide there Eli Altman comm just go there and and Eli before I say goodbye to you I want to say thank you very much for doing this if you want more of this you guys there's a podcast episode that we've done together and I did one on his podcast as well which whenever it's up we'll know how else can people find out more about you you lie I think we've covered it hundred funky Eli Altman calm I'm on medium too that's linkable through our site and yeah it's been awesome it's always fun talking Chris well thank you very much round of applause for Eli everybody okay alright guys congratulations you made it to the end of the episode this hour and a half jam-packed information filled episode reward yourself by hitting like commenting and subscribing to the channel and don't forget to hit that Bell for notification so that's what the sparks are for thank you very much for being part of the one-billion mission here another hashtag one be -1 1 billion minus 1 thank you fam thank you beautiful people thank you for being a part of the donation see you guys later that's it have a great weekend bye everybody Jonah you get it right [Music]