Ditching Hourly

Hello and welcome to Ditching Hourly. Back in the early 90s, I was in a rock band in Boston. At the time, the Boston rock scene was booming. There were hundreds of bands. There were at least 20 rock clubs that hosted live music every night of the week. And not just one band per night. It was common for a club to have four or five bands every single night. So my math's not great, but I think that means there are about 500 potential slots per week that a band could compete for. But not all of these slots were created equal. Some were good, and some were not so good. There were basically three factors that combined to make a given slot better or worse. The first was the time of night. Later in the evening was better, closer to being the headliner was better. The second thing was the proximity to Saturday. So Monday night was not nearly as good as a Saturday night. And the third thing was the size of the club. And the bigger the club, the more prestigious and therefore the better. So going on at 8 p.m. on a Monday at a small club was a crappy slot. Going on at midnight on a Saturday at a big club was a great slot. And of course, you couldn't just pick and choose your slots. There was a pecking order among the bands. So booking agents would give the best slots to the best bands, where best equated to the ones who drew the most paying customers. As a band first starting out, you'd take the crappy slots to get better as a band and build your audience. If you started drawing more people, the booking agents would notice and they'd give you better slots. Okay, so given all of that context, let's do a thought experiment. What do you think the optimal path would be from the crappy gigs to the great gigs? From being a nobody to a rock star? There used to be, and maybe there still is, a cool little bar on Lansdowne Street in Boston called Bill's Bar. So let's say your band lands the 8 p.m. Monday night slot at Bill's for a month straight. You only get five people to show up to your first gig, but after a couple of weeks, by the fourth gig, you bring in 30 people. The booking agent notices you're pulling more people and offers to promote you to a better spot. Hooray! He gives you three options. Monday at 10 p.m. at Bill's, so a better time. Wednesday at 8 p.m. at Bill's, a better day. Or Monday at 8 p.m. at Bunratty's, which is a better club. Back then, I would have picked the better club. Unfortunately, that would have been a dumb move. Why? Because choosing the bigger club is a self-centered, ego-driven choice. It's nice to tell your musician friends that you're playing a bigger club, but that's really the only upside, if you can even call it that. Moving to the bigger club is bad for the fans. Doing something that is bad for the fans will result in fewer fans. And therefore, it will make it harder to keep moving up the ladder from nobody to rock star. If faced with this choice today, I'd pick the first option, Monday at 10 p.m. at Bill's. In other words, I'd take the same bad day at the same small club, but a better time slot. By virtue of being the second band instead of the first, the room's going to be more crowded for our set than it ever has been. Because we'll have our fans, plus stragglers from the first band, and people coming in for the third band. So there'll be more energy and more fun, and more people are going to come back. Wash, rinse, repeat. As the booking agent keeps offering better spots, I'd keep choosing better time over the other two factors until we were headlining Mondays at Bill's to a small but packed room. We'd be the headliner on Monday nights at a small bar. Once there was a line out the door for our headlining Monday night gigs, then I'd try to start moving closer to Saturday. Headlining Tuesday night, then headlining Wednesday night, then headlining Thursday night, and so on until we were headlining Saturday nights at Bill's with a line out the door every weekend. Only then would I consider headlining Saturday nights at bigger and bigger clubs. Okay, so you're probably wondering how any of this applies to your business, and I promise that it does, and I'll get to it in just a sec. But first, there's an important nuance to taking this approach that might not be obvious. Namely, that by the time my band started headlining Saturday nights at big clubs, we'd have been headliners for a long time. Being a headliner is different than being an opener. It takes different skills. You do different things, and you need practice to get better at it. So the approach I just described is the path that would give you the most practice being a headliner. If you took either of the other paths, the bulk of your experience would be working as an opener, which isn't what you want to do. You'd be building the wrong skills. All right, so why am I telling you about how to become a rock star in Boston in the 90s? All right, here's the thing. There are similarities between trying to become a music rock star and trying to become a consulting rock star. Later at night equates to more senior buyer. Closer to Saturday equates to higher value projects. Bigger club equates to bigger clients. In the consulting world, you probably start out working on low value projects purchased by low level employees who work at small companies.

Rockstar consultant, start by working your way up to doing low value projects for the CEOs of small companies. Then work your way up to doing high value projects for the CEOs of small companies. And then work your way up to doing high value projects for the CEO of bigger and bigger companies. To get to the highest level rockstar consulting fees, you have to work with CEOs. Working with a CEO is different than working with a manager or other lower level employees. It takes different skills, you do different things, and you need practice to get better at it. The approach I just described is the path that would give you the most practice working with CEOs. If you take either of the other paths, the bulk of your experience would be working with gatekeepers, which isn't what you want to do. You'd be building the wrong skills. That's it for this time. I'm Jonathan Stark, and I hope you join me again next week for Ditching Hourly. Bye. Hey, Jonathan again. Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like value pricing your work instead of billing for your time? Or positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space? Or maybe productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal? Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes you to get ready for work in the morning. Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word and I'll refund your purchase in full. To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to jonathanstark.com slash call. C-A-L-L. That URL again is jonathanstark.com slash call. Hope to see you there. Hey, Jonathan again. Do you have questions about how to improve your business? Things like value pricing your work instead of billing for your time? Or positioning yourself as the go-to person in your space? Or maybe productizing your services so you never have to have another awkward sales call or spend hours writing another custom proposal? Book a one-on-one coaching call with me and get answers to these questions and others in the time it takes you to get ready for work in the morning. Best of all, you're covered by my 100% satisfaction guarantee. If at the end of the call you don't feel like it was worth it, just say the word and I'll refund your purchase in full. To book your one-on-one coaching call, go to jonathanstark.com slash call. C-A-L-L. That URL again is jonathanstark.com slash call. Hope to see you there.