Ep #149: Shut Up and Get Paid More

Transcript

[00:00:00] Speaker: In this episode, I’m gonna tell you why I think you should shut up a little bit more often and how you should be thinking about your labor as a fractional CMO. Let’s go.

[00:00:09] 

[00:01:07] Speaker: Hey, welcome back. And I was talking to a CMO last week, and they have this deal where they were working with a client, and they had this upside, and the upside was related to some work that they had to do. And there was two things at play. There was their base fee, and then there was their upside.

[00:01:25] And in the conversation, they were asking me, my thoughts on it. What they had done was they had stated their base fee. The client couldn’t afford it. They wanted to work with the client, so they cut their base fee down and said, ” But when I hit this outcome for you, I wanna be paid for that outcome, and then I want my base fee to increase.”

[00:01:40] And the CEO said, “Great. Sounds cool.” So there they go, and they start moving forward, and they thought they’d hit that target by December, and it was late May when they finally hit it. So it took them a full five months more than they thought it would take. Yet the CMO did what they said they would do, which is work at that lower rate, and then, they wanna get this upside for achieving that outcome.

[00:02:01] And a couple things happened. One was they told me that they have no formal agreement around any of this stuff, no agreement that their rate should be this, and at a certain point it will become that. They’re just in a month-to-month open-ended, not even in a contract. The only thing that was stipulated was if they hit a certain outcome, they would receive a certain capital a- award for that.

[00:02:24] So just so much is wrong with that, right? The first thing is yeah, it’s nice that they have that financial incentive, but they should also have written it on a document that says, “When we hit this,” and it’s photographable and there’s no room for interpretation, ” we move forward and I get paid this.”

[00:02:37] Because at this point the CEO can just turn around and say “We never had that conversation, dude. Here’s the offer for us to continue working together. I’ve really enjoyed working with you and I’m fine doing it at the continued cost and capacity, but I’m not gonna pay you more for the work that you’ve already been doing.”

[00:02:50] That makes sense if they really don’t remember it. And then do they not remember it or are they being manipulative, right? You have to have that consideration yourself and you gotta figure out where you land on it. And it’s it’s a whole emotional thing. We wanna do things unemotionally.

[00:03:02] We want them just documented and detailed in data. So to add to that, the next level of this is over the weekend, this CMO was , “I’m thinking before June 1st,” when they’re supposed to tell me, our ongoing agreement and all this stuff, this weird vibe I’m getting from this CMO.

[00:03:17] They say “I’m thinking about just sending the invoice for what they owe me.” It’s you wanna send an invoice to someone and the CEO’s on vacation. You wanna send an invoice to the CEO while they’re on vacation, for what purpose? To get what you’re owed, sure. But could it wait two days or three days before you send the invoice?

[00:03:31] And can you just wait? And I think the answer is yes, just shut up. So my recommendation to them was just shut up. Just shut up. Just don’t talk. Don’t talk, and wait to see what the CEO says on Tuesday when they’re back at the office, and then they state, ” Hey, here’s the offer for us to continue working together.”

[00:03:45] And they say, “Great, I accept it,” or, “I don’t accept it.” And then you say, “By the way, we have this agreement too. I’ll invoice you with net 15 terms on it, for my lump sum that’s due.” I think a lot of people get nervous around these things, and it’s just slow down, stop talking, think it through.

[00:04:02] The words you say are incredibly important, and if you say them wrong, you’re gonna get yourself in trouble. So shut up. Just we need to spend more time thinking than we do in in rehearsing what we’re gonna say than we do actually saying it. There’s more to this too. This is a theme that I’m seeing.

[00:04:15] And this isn’t for everybody, but for some of you, you’re too quick to move forward, and that movement comes out of a sense of nervousness or fear of loss or wanting to appease the client or whatever. I see it a lot. It’s these CMOs, folks can get sneaky with how they do agreements.

[00:04:31] And it’s I heard you say yes, and it’s not on paper, but I trust you, and now it’s 12 months later, and are you gonna remember that? And oh my gosh,” and “Now I’m nervous and now I’m anxious,” and that stuff. It just has to be on paper. We have to be adults. We have to write it. We have to agree to it.

[00:04:44] That’s it. That’s the world that we have to live in. I think this also has a lot to do with AI output, so hear me out on this idea. So- Forever when technology increases production or increases efficiency, the capitalist at the top of the business enjoys that increase in revenue. They get that efficiency as a reward for themselves.

[00:05:08] So think of it. When everyone was on typewriters and then computers, and now voice-to-text are we doing less work or somehow more work? We’re doing more work. My wife and I toured a house here in Philadelphia. It’s one of these homes from the early 1800s, and it’s all period specific. And the woman who walked us through was, , in period specific clothes, and it was just lovely.

[00:05:29] We went on an off day. It was just the two of us. We had a private tour of this home. And the home, I think most people would call it a mansion. There was, , three live-in maids. It’s just this incredible place. And it was just a middle class home, right? That was just a middle class home at that time.

[00:05:43] And the guy just… He had an office, and in his office, he just signed documents. The guy wasn’t a writer. He wasn’t a builder. He was just navigating trade. He was just making deals. He wasn’t doing the level of labor of building emails and doing marketing systems and writing code and technology and streaming on TikTok.

[00:06:01] And, his life was simple, and he afforded that incredible home. And then over time, we see a human can do more things. I watched a great video from the YouTuber Hank Green on this, and the idea is humans have this really weird thing where we just want more data, and there’s no amount of data that is enough for us.

[00:06:17] We can consume more and more. So when our ability to create more happens, it’s – we’ve lost this ability to enjoy the fruits of our labor because that fruit has just gone up to the capitalist at the top. So maybe this is a little anarchist for you, but I want you to stay with me.

[00:06:34] With AI tools, if you’re an early adopter and you’re able to get your work done faster, but it’s still in your– it’s still based on your discernment and your taste and your experience, things that can’t be bought, things that AI lacks. Last night, my wife and I were working on a project, and she was reading AI stuff as if it was canon, and I was no, that’s wrong.”

[00:06:52] , How do I even say that is so wrong? If someone said that to me, I’d fire them, it’s so wrong. But it didn’t take long for it to be incredibly right and incredibly useful. But it took my taste and discernment to get us there faster. So you have your taste and discernment. You can get the client there faster.

[00:07:07] You can leverage an AI tool to do something. And whatever it is, it’s research, it’s p- producing reports, it’s pulling together data, it’s summarizing potential risks, it’s writing email campaigns, it’s building email campaigns inside of software tools with Claude Code and Playwright. It’s something there is something that you’re able to do now faster than before.

[00:07:25] And I think that it is okay for you to enjoy the freedom that creates That’s it. That’s a big idea. So shut up. Shut up and don’t tell the client, “Ooh, that took me five minutes to do,” because it didn’t take you five minutes. D- do you know what I mean? It’s when the HVAC technician came over and he was , “Oh, whoops, I gotta turn this a quarter of a turn,” and it solved our problems with short cycling.

[00:07:45] It didn’t matter it took him five minutes. I paid him for his experience. I paid him for his discernment. He knew what to turn. I would’ve turned other stuff and broken stuff. And I think some CMOs are just too quick to share, “Ooh, that was, , really easy for me, and I set up this cloud project and it’s just done, and ChatGPT did it for me,” or, “I used this AI tool and it just did it.”

[00:08:02] “It’s no big deal.” It’s no, actually it is a big deal, and I want you just to kinda shut up a little bit here and not disclose where your efficiencies come from. That’s it. It , it’s n- it’s no one else’s business. And I’m not saying to lie, but I’m saying that for yourself and your family, you should enjoy the efficiencies that you’ve created.

[00:08:21] If you were in a marketing agency and a client hired you to solve a problem and you solved it and it took, let’s say, 100 hours, and then a similar company comes along and says, “Have you solved this problem? Could you help us?” You’re , “Yeah, we could solve it.” And instead of 100 hours, now it takes you 20 hours to do.

[00:08:35] Do you charge them 80% less? No. You should enjoy the efficiency that you created, and if the first one bought it for 100%, the second one should buy it for 100%, and you should find that as a margin in your business. That is a normal thing to do. That’s normal in business across the board. Also consider for a fa- for a moment that anyone who produces a hard good, probably the first one that they sold they lost money on.

[00:08:57] It took them 1,000 units to sell before they actually started profiting. In the same way, all of your work of tinkering and playing and watching YouTube videos and setting up your cloud code project and vibing out your latest, tool or whatever, it’s it’s giving you experience and depth so that you can do the thing faster for the client, and your time is therefore not measured in hours.

[00:09:16] It’s measured in impact, and you gotta charge by the impact So I think of the book, “The 48 Laws of Power.” I think it’s just such an incredible book. And one of the laws is to never say more than is necessary. Say, “I did this.” Don’t say, “I did this and I used AI and it helped me and I didn’t have to do, work very hard and I did it while my kid was playing volleyball and I was hanging out in the stands.”

[00:09:34] That’s not the conversation to have. Just sh- shut up. Just say “Yeah, I we have this thing now. I built this thing for us.” And there’s an edge here and maybe you’re gonna catch me and Casey, but you say don’t do implementation and I really do find this to be an edge.

[00:09:46] Generally speaking, I don’t want you to do implementation. I certainly don’t want you to be the technology team that maintains code. That’s silly. But on the other side, if you can get it done faster and less of your labor, less of your labor, I don’t care about other people’s labor. Is it less of your time just to get it done because you’re using an AI tool?

[00:10:04] Then that becomes a really interesting opportunity for you to leverage AI tools more effectively. So if you’re leveraging the AI tools and you’re getting more work done and you’re solving the problem for the client, I just wouldn’t let them see that it took you less time because they’re gonna devalue your work.

[00:10:19] It’s the story of the the guy who went to the dentist ’cause he had a s- a, a tooth that needed to get pulled and the dentist came over and was , “Cool. Hey, nice to see you. Haven’t seen you in forever.” And he’s “Just give me a minute.” Gets prepped, goes in, pulls the tooth, comes back and says, “All right, that’s it.

[00:10:30] It’s gonna be four grand.” And the guy’s “Four grand? It took you 15 minutes.” To which the dentist asks, “Did you want me to take longer?” That’s, right? It’s still valuable. It doesn’t matter how fast it happens in. I think a little bit of you can solve problems is important. I think of when I, open on my window right now I have four Claude code instances.

[00:10:47] I’m hella deep in, in the AI world and I’m, learning a lot. And one of the things that Claude will say to me is “Ooh, that project will take two hours. That task will take four hours. That one will take a half day and that one will take a week.” And I say, “Okay, do ’em.” And then within an hour of me approving stuff, it’s all done.

[00:11:03] It did a week and a half worth of work in an hour. And you think oh, the model’s broken. Why would it say that? It says it because it’s based on human training data. The data that it was provided was human data And if I’m delivering that outcome, am I gonna tell the client that it’s gonna take me one hour of my time or does it take me more time than that?

[00:11:18] So that you got to find where you sit on that, but I think that I’m giving you permission that you can enjoy the fruits of your labor and not have to pass that efficiency up. Already it’s more efficient to have you, someone with taste, discernment, and experience leading as the CMO. You don’t have to do a complete pass-through of everything.

[00:11:35] That’s silly. So just settle down on that. Also your price. Your price is what your price is. When you share what your price is, then shut up and let the client say something. Folks will come in nervously and say “Oh, my price is 7,500, but I guess I can go lower,” or, “Is that too much?”

[00:11:49] Or something that. Just state your price and shut up. That’s it. Just say less. That’s such a secret here. Have that pregnant pause. Say less than is necessary. I’m sorry. Never say more than is necessary. Probably should say what’s necessary, but you don’t have to say more than is necessary.

[00:12:03] Just That’s just between you and you, how the work happens. You probably think about it all night long, or you wake up in the morning with an idea or whatever. Is it really something that you want to be squeezed on price? So just… I think that you can increase your usefulness here while keeping your scope tight.

[00:12:18] That’s another kind of big idea for this episode. How do you increase your usefulness as a CMO, but keep your scope tight? I increase my usefulness by getting more done that other people would do faster and to my level of quality without wasting time hiring people. That’s it. There’s a line between building something to get us there faster and building something and then having to maintain it.

[00:12:40] Let me give you an example. If you’re working with a client and they’re , “I really wanna run this marketing campaign,” and yada, and you’re not a graphic designer, you could say, “Okay, cool. Let’s work on the copy for it. Let’s work on the big idea. Let’s figure out where we’re gonna go with it and the budget and who we need to hire.”

[00:12:52] And then I’m just gonna go for 30 minutes, go to claude.ai/design. I’m gonna mock up a banner or two and just see if I one. And I’m gonna bring that back and say, ” I’m not saying this is final, guys, but I wanted to get us started with something.” And they say, “Ooh, I this and I don’t that.”

[00:13:05] And you’re , “Totally cool. Great. Let’s hire a designer and pass this to them.” Now the designer knows explicitly what you want. And you might say to the designer, “Spin it up a little bit differently,” “rethink it. Start from the ground up if you want, but at least you know where we’re coming from.”

[00:13:17] That saves a tremendous amount of your time, and I think that’s a valuable thing to be able to do. So that increases your usefulness, but it doesn’t make you the tech shop. It doesn’t make you the developer. You’re not maintaining a code base. It doesn’t make you a designer. It doesn’t make you a content writer.

[00:13:31] It doesn’t make you a copywriter. It doesn’t make you the website builder. It doesn’t do any of that stuff unless you let it. So there’s a difference between getting something started and doing something. And all along the way you have to recite lines , “And I’m overstepping my bounds here. This really isn’t my role here.

[00:13:47] This is not really what I’m great at, but I wanted to get us started.” And if you can trim a week or a month off of the development of a campaign or launching a website or something, that’s a big deal, and it helps you justify your fees in an ongoing way. So just consider that. You can increase your usefulness, but I wouldn’t tell everyone the secrets of my shortcuts.

[00:14:06] I just wouldn’t disclose it. If they asked me, I’d be happy to share it with them, but I’m not gonna go into detail just for fun on how to do all of this stuff. You need to maintain the efficiency that you’re creating and capture that value and enjoy it yourself so that you can enjoy that luxury.

[00:14:21] You don’t have to pass that up. If you know a salesperson who has a quota, if they ever hit their quota, the next time, the next quarter, the next year, their quota miraculously got higher, got bigger. That, that, that is the– That, that serves the business. That serves the business owner what you wanna do is you just wanna win, and you wanna live a life where you can win.

[00:14:40] And winning isn’t about increasing the output required quarter over quarter because it’s just gonna be exhausting, and you’re gonna find yourself just in a tailspin of always producing more. So settling down, slowing down, and producing higher quality stuff, building a team for it, that’s where you wanna be.

[00:14:57] Okay. A mindset shift for you. Let me know how this lands with you. Hop into the Facebook group, cmox.co/community, and share your thoughts there. If you ever send an email to the team at grow@cmox.co, I read every one of them. Even the nasty grams, so if you hate this episode and think I’m an idiot, tell me.

[00:15:12] Give me something to laugh about. And then next if you wanna see if you’ve got what it takes to be an in-demand fractional CMO, if you’ve got the experience that’s required and what companies are looking for, just book in a call with the team, cmox.co/brainstorm. Book that in right now and we’ll tell you very honestly if we think you have what it takes to be an in-demand and successful fractional CMO.

[00:15:31] All right. Thanks for listening. I’ll see you on the next episode.