Ditching Hourly

DH 384 Joe Pine - The Transformation Economy
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Welcome and Introduction
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Jonathan Stark: Hello, and welcome to Ditching Hourly. I'm Jonathan Stark, and today I am rejoined by very special guest, Joe Pine. Joe, welcome back.

Joe Pine: Thanks. It's a pleasure to be with you yet again, Jonathan.

Jonathan Stark: Yes, it's been a long time. I think our last talk on this podcast was in 2019. It was pricing experiences, I think was the title. So folks should go back and listen to that.

Joe Pine: That was just when the uh, uh, we came out with the third edition of the Experience Economy, I think.

Jonathan Stark: Makes sense.

Discussing the Experience Economy
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Jonathan Stark: And speaking of the experience economy, uh, I think it was the final chapter or the appendix was about transformations and now.

Joe Pine: The last two chapters actually were.

Jonathan Stark: Okay. And that, you know, as someone who's a, been a long time, uh, coach and consultant, I was like, oh, this is the chapter for me.

Introducing the Transformation Economy
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Jonathan Stark: This is this, this is what you know, and now it's, uh, you've got a whole new book that's specifically on transformations, the transformation economy.

I've got it right here. The transformation economy, guiding customers to achieve their aspirations. Perfect. I love it. Uh, so congratulations on the launch. I also heard that you had a hole in one yesterday, so congratulations on that as well.

Joe Pine: I appreciate that. My second one.

Jonathan Stark: nice, nice. For folks. I mean, the book just came out. I mean, it's about a week ago, right?

So, uh, give folks a taste of what they can expect.

Joe Pine: So, so it is somebody, somebody sent me an email. It's like, is this a sequel to the experience economy? And I say, well, it's more of an extension because again, the last two chapters were around transformations.

Understanding Transformations and Aspirations
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Joe Pine: It's something that I've known from the beginning when I discovered the experience Economy. But so the core framework is, is the same, which is the progression of economic value, which talks, how about how we've gone from an economy based off commodities to growing economy through an industrial economy based off goods to the service economy.

Then today we're in an experience economy where experiences have become the predominant economic offering. That's what people want today. Uh, and uh, and, and where goods and services, you know, become commoditized as a result. And, and, and so the, the, the fifth and final economic offering, this progression of economic value came from, from where I understood that customization is the antidote to commoditization.

Modernization drags you down, customization lifts you up. So I asked, well, what I discovered experiences is, what does customization turn an experience into? If you design experience for a particular person, exactly the experience that that they need at this moment in time, then you can't help but turn to what we often call a life changing experience.

An experience that changes us in some way. And that is a, a, you know, a transformation. So a transformation is where people, where companies, um, uh, basically guide you, right? That's the economic function. You deliver services, you stage experiences, you guide transformations to help people achieve their aspirations to become who they want to become, or businesses as well.

You can have business altering transformations just as much as life altering transformations.

Jonathan Stark: What kind of, I mean, I can guess at it because this feels pretty not normal, normal's not the right word, but it's just like, kind of like, well, yeah, you know, it's, it's like

Joe Pine: That's the reaction I want.

Jonathan Stark: Right. Weight Watchers or, um, aa or like, you name it, it's like they want to be, you know, healthier, wealthier, wiser. So what are the different aspirations?

I'm sure you have like a, a list.

Joe Pine: Well, there, um, there are a set of aspirations. I, I, I love your comment by the way, that, that, um, uh, well, yeah, that's, that's what I always like, you know, every once in a while somebody accuses me of being a futurist, and I say, I'm not a futurist. I don't tell you what's going to happen. I tell you what's already happening, but you don't yet see.

And then when I explain it, it's, it's, well, yeah, of course. That's the reaction that I want. Uh, because, you know, both experiences and transformations have always been around, right? They're not a new economic offering, just newly identified and, and, and, and laid out as distinct economic offerings. So it does start with aspirations.

In fact, uh, I'll say that the, the, you know, where the, where the customers of services are clients. The, um, customers of experiences. Our guests, the customers of transformations are aspirants, right? I'm not necessarily need to use that word with your customers. It's sort of strange you first hear it, but, but they have aspirations and it's, it's how do you, how do you help them achieve those?

So, uh, so I have a framework for that, not a list of them.

Frameworks for Identity Change
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Joe Pine: I always thinking frameworks, Jonathan, you know, every, if, if you ever see four things, there's, it's always at a two by two somewhere. And so there are four types of aspirations. Uh, one is, uh, well, it's basically based on whether they, they change you in degree or in kind, right?

So one thing to understand is that all transformation is identity change. You're changing somebody's identity, right? It's not like going from, you know, I was, I was, uh, uh, chilly. Now I'm warm. I was sad. Now I'm happy. Uh, it's, those are changes in state transitions as opposed to transformation. So you're changing identity.

Uh, either in, in degree, uh, and changing an aspect of identity you already have or in kind mean, you, you you have a new aspect of identity and both of those can be done in, uh, on a small scale or on a large scale. So small scale changes in degree or are refinements where, where you have some aspect and you, um, and you wanna be better at it in, in some way.

Uh, and so the, what companies can do is that they can, uh, enhance your, your abilities, right? So whether, you know golfing, you know, going to a golf pro, tennis pro, so forth, maybe you like cigars like I do, because it goes so well with golfing that, uh, that you want to learn more about them, become a better smoker, and understand them better, how they're made and so forth.

Um, and any refinement can also become large scale. Which, which really is ambition, right? So if you wanna become a single digit handicap golfer where you're already identify as a golfer, then that's an ambition. Or you wanna become a cigar aficionado, or, um, you hire a life coach, you know, just to be more present in the world.

It's far, you know, far more than you have today. Or you hire a speaking coach, uh, 'cause you wanna be a professional speaker, which you aren't today, right? Those are large level, uh, ambitions that you have. And so the key there is then to help them expand. Those capabilities, those abilities that they have to, to achieve that aspiration.

Then on the side of new aspects I of identity, there are cultivations where you want to cultivate a new aspect. You know, that, uh, I'm not a gardener, but uh, I've seen my neighbors that have good gardeners. I wanna be become a gardener. Right. It's not a big deal. It's only something I spend a few hours a week at, you know, but I take some courses, some workshops, go to some, you know, greenhouses and so forth, and, uh, and become a gardener, right?

No. Notice that's an identity statement, right? I am a golfer. Uh, I am a cigar smoker. Uh, I am a gardener, right? Those are, there are identity statements, and then when those are large scale, it's metamorphosis. Which again, big word, don't necessarily wanna use it with your customers. Uh, big scary word in fact, as, as transformation themselves can be.

But this is wholesale changes in identity and, and there are many times that we go through metamorphosis in our life. The others are much more frequent, but still many times, you know, you think about.

Real-Life Examples of Transformations
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Joe Pine: Um, going from high school to, you know, every, every step in school, right, is a, is a metamorphosis, you know, and particularly when you graduate from college, then you have a metamorphosis to be a first person with, with a job.

If you, if you leave your, your work and go and, and, and. Go to a startup or you start up your own company. That's a big metamorphosis if you get married, right? Big metamorphosis. If you have a kid, right? You become a parent. It's a huge metamorphosis and so on and so forth. I, I increasingly tell people I'm, I'm a big believer in, in not retiring.

Doesn't mean you can't change, change jobs or change vocations of what you do, but a lot of people, and I see it all the time, they retire and they're not prepared for it. Uh, and, and it's a metamorphosis and, and they don't know what to do with their time. And in fact, um, one of the biggest, um, um, catalysts for metamorphosis, I'm sorry I'm monologuing here, but one of the biggest catalysts for metamorphosis is, uh, is trauma, right?

In your life. And, and retirement can be trauma, but you know, you have a car accident and you're laid up, you, you get divorced. You, um. Uh, get cancer, you, your loved one, uh, uh, passes away and so forth. Um, and that often what happens is you think, I always think of transformations as going, you know, up into the right.

Uh, and, and what happens there is you immediately go down. Uh, and, and, and the key is, can I recover? Can I get back to whole, so to speak, or even a new level? Can I, can I transform trauma into more meaning in my life and be in above what you have? And, and again, those things apply to, all those things apply to businesses as well.

When you, where you do that and, you know, metamorphosis is where, uh, you know, the proverbial burning platform, right? I'm on a burning platform, there's fire all around me and I need to change quickly. Right? Or I'm, I'm gonna die, essentially. And that's, it happens a lot in businesses,

Jonathan Stark: I love, I love the word becoming. What do you want to become? It's not like, what do you wanna learn? It's not the same thing. It's like, I learned karate, but I became a black belt. And there's, there's like a, the identity thing is you, you said that all transformations are an identity shift.

Joe Pine: Yep.

Jonathan Stark: That is, that's a, an eyeopener.

So like in my coaching, I don't, I ask people what their objective is when I'm working with someone directly, but I've never asked someone what they're trying to become. And that is, that has got my gears turning.

Joe Pine: Yep. And often, often what you need to do is you need to ask them, not just once, but you know the technique of asking five why's, What do you wanna become? Well, you know, they say, well, I want this. Well, why do you want that? Why do you want that? What, until however many it takes, you get down to a truly core aspiration.

Get down to something that really has meaning in their lives is meaningful to them. Uh, and then that allows you to then, then treat the whole person of what they're really after versus just what they say. 'cause people often don't know themselves enough, right? They, they don't spend enough time with themselves and, and to, to, until you get them to think about it.

So it's a discovery process.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. And, and longtime listeners will be familiar with something I call the why conversation, which is a, a, a way to get a value price from a, in a B2B situation. It's, it's just a series of why's, like, why this? Why now? Why me? You know what, okay, you want to double your income. What are you gonna do with it?

Why do you want to double your income? You know, obviously you want more money. Everybody likes money, I suppose. But why do you, why do you care about that? You So questions. You ask these questions and I joke about it when I'm, when I'm, uh, having a conversation like this with a potential client, I joke that they're gonna sound like stupid questions, but, you know, kind of bear with me.

And we're just uncovering what the underlying motivations are. Is there more structure to it than that? Is it just ask why, why, why? Like, how do you know when you hit? How do you know when you hit paid dirt?

Joe Pine: Yeah. Yeah. Well, may you, you basically know when you hit pay Dirt, when you get this visceral reaction to them realizing it themselves

Jonathan Stark: Okay. That makes

Joe Pine: and you, but it's still an art. So that's not a science. It's, it's an art. Uh, and, and there are other ways to do it. You can. Um, you know, uh, one thing, you know, research shows that when you think of your future self, you'll make better decisions.

Today, I particularly financial issues, but I think often better is that you think about yourself and, and I remember Merrill Lynch one time had this aging program, it was probably, you know, 15 years ago, but had this aging program where they just take your face and just slowly age over time until it gets to be 65 to go, wow, right now, think about this person. life do you want this person to have at that? And that person is you, it's your future self. And then you, then you can say, well, I want them to, you know, have a rich life. I want them to be, you know, retired or not. Uh, and I want them grandchildren, um, uh, which don't always happen automatically these days.

Maybe something you need to work at, uh, and so forth. And so that's, you know, that's sort of another way, and I, I believe, strongly in visualize it, right? If you get them to visualize that person, uh, and, and AI today, you know, just as you can do that so easily, you just have 'em make a, you know, a stick stick figure, drawing.

Of who this person is in that and, and, uh, uh, have them create that and say, oh, yeah, that's, that's, that's who I want to become, as you say.

Jonathan Stark: So this is my mind's really, really grinding on this one. It's cool the, because you can, your i your identity, it's not like you have just one, you have like a whole bunch of different identities so you can aspire to different things.

Joe Pine: I call 'em, I call 'em aspects of identity just to get away from thinking about, you know, multiple identities, which, which often doesn't mean psychosis, but

Jonathan Stark: Okay. Yeah, we don't want that.

Joe Pine: identity. Yes,

Jonathan Stark: Right? So, you know, a, a father, a black belt, a golfer, an aficionado, cigars, let's say. Alright, so yeah, so they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. So you can have all sorts of aspirations and want to become all sorts of different things. That's actually really a fun way to think about it.

It feels less like, like, oh, I've got these goals and I'm grinding on my goals and this sort of hustle culture thing, which I'm not really a fan of. It's like, no, you're just like becoming something that you want to become. So, all right. So this is really cool.

Joe Pine: right. So think of it as a bundle of, I like to think of it as bundle of aspirations. You know, the people are a bundle of aspirations, but again, most of them not articulated.

Jonathan Stark: Right, exactly. That's, to me, that's, that's the core piece. So.

Pricing Transformations and Value
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Jonathan Stark: This is a show about, mostly for consultants and coaches, and the core subject, it's right in the title, is how to Price Your Assistance, let's Say, not Your Services. So how does that, how does, how does this come together for just, let's say like a business coach and.

How would you price something for someone? Um, like how do you even approach that? Like I can kind of, we've talked before about pricing experiences and I know a a thousand ways to price services, but if we're trying to move up the, the progression of economic value, did I get that right then? What's the approach?

I mean, I suppose you could still value price things because a guide to help you. Achieve, you know, becoming a, a single digit handicap golfer, you could, you know, it's gonna be worth something to that particular person. It's gonna be worth something different to someone else. So in theory you could, you know, price in different ways, but you know, as you were writing the book, did you come across examples, you know, maybe not Delta Airlines, but something a little bit more, you know, uh, one person shop, uh, examples that you could share.

Joe Pine: Yeah. Yeah. So I would say one thing is, is as you go up the progression of economic value, you should price based more off of value than off a cost, right? And, and, and the margins are, you know, are much higher than that because the value, that's a progression of economic value. The value goes up as you do there.

So, you know, with services you charge for your activity. And coaches generally do that, right? They, they or, or, or charge for time, which is what you do for experiences, you know, mission fee or membership fee. But, but it's, so, they may charge for time, but it's their time. It it, it's time and materials basically.

And that really puts you economically in the service business experience business, again, charge for time with, um, with transformations. The value lies in the outcomes, right? Inputs don't matter. Only outcomes. And so how do you, uh, charge for the demonstrated outcomes your customers achieve? In some cases, you can measure that, right?

And you know, like handicap in golf, you can measure what is your handicap in golf and you, so you can chart that progress. Uh, one time many decades ago, I, uh, was going to a golf coach, you know, like once or twice, well, once every week or two. Um, and way back then, I think it was like 30 bucks for a half hour session.

And, um, and, uh, he, uh, you know, it was, I was getting better with him. You know, it was good for me to be able to do that, actually get a, a, an actual swing as opposed to whatever I was doing at the moment. And, uh, and after, you know, several months of this, he, uh, uh, he, you know, he asked me like what I did for a living in that.

And it was, uh, sort of shortly before the experience economy. Uh, uh, uh, you know, came out and I, um, I was talking about writing that book and I said, oh, and there's this next stage transformation. I said, you know, you are really in the transformation business, you know, what do you mean? I said, well, I have an aspiration.

I wanna become a single digit handicap or golfer, and you're helping me do that. But you're charging me right at this service level, or maybe you'd call it an admission fee level of, of the time that I spend when I really want that transformation. And, and it just popped into my head at the moment. I just said, well tell you this, let me, let me, what if I paid you half the amount of the fee?

So $15. So you don't have to charge only at the transformation level. You can do all, all those three levels. You may charge for goods as well. Um, and uh, and then when I get single digit handicap golfer, I said, I'll write you a $4,000 check. You know, again, number popped into my head and, and, and the first thing he did is he went like this, right?

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. I love this.

Joe Pine: Right. He's looking at me. This is what I call the diagnosis phase, right? Is this person actually capable of the aspiration that he just stated? And, uh, and so then he said, okay, well here's what we gotta do. And he said, he said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna teach you, uh, uh, one, you gotta come every week. We're gonna come every week for a lesson.

I'm gonna progress you through a number of things. Um, and I don't care how much you play, play however much you want, but you have to practice at least three times for an hour. And I'm gonna give you a regimen. Here's what I want you to practice at, and we're gonna have to go out on the court. I'm gonna teach you co uh, course management and that sort of thing.

None of this that he'd ever said before when he was fat, dumb, and happy just to take my 30 bucks every week, right? But once his income becomes dependent on my outcome, then everything changed. 'cause what it is is really a catalyst. Uh, it's a catalyst to make sure you do everything it takes to ensure key word, ensure that the transformation takes hold and sustains through time, which is another aspect.

You gotta sustain it through time for it to truly, uh, take hold. And, uh, so you see that in a lot of businesses. You know, again, coaching business and other small consulting companies.

Guaranteeing Transformations
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Joe Pine: I know of a number of consulting companies and, and this is the most prevalent way of doing it actually, that, um, uh, is with a transformation guarantee.

Right, that I guarantee that you achieve your aspiration. And again, it's not generally the, the highest number is 25%. I mean, the nor the usual number I see is 25%. Sometimes I, I know at least one educational institution that offers another, actually several that offer a hundred percent guarantees right off your tuition.

You didn't get a job, you get a hundred percent off your tuition. Right. So imagine that and what that, how that changes what they do

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, just imagine, right? That would, that's a key piece I want to emphasize for the audience. 'cause it's such a great, the, the golf coach is such a great example that. He totally changed his approach

Joe Pine: Right,

Jonathan Stark: based on the align, the alignment of the financial incentives. So it was like. It's so imagine, dear listener, if you are currently for, you know, billing by the hour, probably not that many people are billing by the hour that listen to this show.

But when you switch, or maybe you remember when you switch from billing hourly to like just say fixed project fees, it completely changes how you approach the project because now every hour you work, you're losing money instead of making money. So now the other thing with the, the golf coach is it's in his best interest to get you into single digits.

Like in a weekend.

Joe Pine: Right,

Jonathan Stark: 'cause he doesn't want the $15 every more. And you know, he doesn't want the $30 every, every lesson anymore. He wants the 4,000 and he wants it sooner and you want it sooner

Joe Pine: right, exactly

Jonathan Stark: every, it's everybody's happy. The other way. He's just, I think you said fad. Nappy, just taking the money and he wants it to go on as long as possible.

Joe Pine: takes, right?

Jonathan Stark: Completely, completely different incentives. So, okay. So I didn't mean to interrupt. I just really

Joe Pine: no. It's beautiful.

Jonathan Stark: so now, when you said 25%, are we talking about like a refund or,

Joe Pine: Yeah, so, so it can be a refund, particularly like tuition. Generally it's a refund you pay upfront. Um, um, often it's the last 25%, which is pure profit, right? So you, that's where you really wanna get that money. So yes, you may, you wanna do it more, most efficiently, but you also wanna ensure that you do what it takes for them to, to get that.

Uh,

Jonathan Stark: That's nice.

Joe Pine: Yeah.

Jonathan Stark: So, 'cause I, the word guarantee scares people when. They take it to being a hundred percent money back guarantee by definition. And they, and, and whether it's a software project or, um, life coaching or whatever it is, um, the, the person I'll be talking to say something to the effect of like, well, I can do everything right.

And they can still not get the outcome that they're looking for. Nevermind aspiration, but like, like I could do everything, right. Building this software application for someone. For a startup founder. Um, and there's just, they're just wrong about the market. Like, I did everything right, so, you know, why should I have to give him a hundred percent, you know, if the goal is to like be the next Facebook.

Um, so they freak out because especially super common in coaching, just like the golf coach, he's like, you have to do this every week. He wanted you to practice more and more and more. And you know, I have, it happens from time to time where I'll be coaching someone and they're just like not showing up, you know?

So, yeah. Right. So like, that's where I wanted to go is because I know people are thinking, well, I can't guar, I can bring the horse to water, but I can't make a drink, so, so this to me is the big risk of selling transformation. So how do you tackle that?

Joe Pine: Yeah, so you want, you, obviously you want, you wanna mitigate that risk and there's a paradox involved that you can't guarantee a transformation because guess what? The customer transforms themselves, right? You can't do it for them. You're the guide, right? And, and, and the coach is just another CM for guide.

Uh, they have to do it themselves, and yet the best way for them to do it for them is to guarantee it. Right. And so and so, because again, it's that catalytic mechanism for you. You change your approach, you do different things. So in the, in this diagnosis phase, the first of three phases of transformation, uh, is often you want a triage phase, which is, which is when the golf coach went like this, that was triage, right?

Do I want this customer or not? You know, under those conditions. So do that. And, and like one consultant actually partnered with, um, there were, uh, several times in which we said, we'll do the work, but we won't give you the guarantee. Because of X, Y, and Z, right? And then you wanna change X, Y, and Z, then we can talk about, and most of 'em just accepted it on those terms because they wanted to do, do the work.

Um, and so then you have that, that diagnosis of where they are today and what they wanna become. And sometimes that that gap is very large. Um, and, and that phase is what I call encapsulated experiences that, that, that you, uh, guide them through.

Navigating Client Relationships
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Joe Pine: And generally it's not monotonically, you know, uh, uh, up and to the right.

Generally there's regress as well as progress. You have to be willing to sense and respond, and that's where sometimes you're spending more effort. And obviously you'd like clients where you didn't have to do that much, but it's, it's just a fact of, of life. But you may get to the point where they, you have to fire 'em.

The Power of Commitment
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Joe Pine: And one of the re and one of the ways to avoid that and, and I think it's really key to the whole process, is you need to gain their commitment to achieve that aspiration. And ideally in my, my is is you have a piece of paper that they sign. This is my aspiration. You're gonna help me do this. And I gu and I am committed to making this happen.

And make it sign, sign it, right date it. 'cause you can always bring that back and put it in their face. You said this, right? Did you meet it? Right? Were you fooling yourself? Were you fool? Were you lying to me? Were you fooling yourself? Did you mean this? And usually the shame alone will cause them to re recommit to, uh, to uh, doing it.

Um, and then that, uh, and so then at the end of that, that that, uh, phase of experiences, um, is where your still job isn't done. Even if they achieve the aspiration. Even if they pay the whole whole amount.

Value-Based Pricing
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Joe Pine: I know one solo cons, well actually he's a two person consulting company that I talked to last week, in fact, and he said he's often hasn't always done it, but he is often done that with clients.

He says, he said the amazing thing, right? Um, um, every time they've paid it all, and sometimes they've tipped,

Jonathan Stark: Nice.

Joe Pine: because they found the value. And I know others that will say, will say, you know, like, here's the base amount and then everything out that you, you pay whatever you want. And it's, it's just like a universal fact of life.

You pay whatever you want means some people will shaft you. Absolutely, but some, most people I know most, but most people pay you even more than you thought it was worth because they recognize that value. And you do get that. Uh, money on top. So yes, you're gonna lose on some absolutely, but you'll more than make up, uh, because you're, you're pricing based on the value that you get.

And sometimes it's quantitative. You could, you know, based on if you're helping them, lower costs. You said Facebook, if you, you know, I'll just gimme, you know, half a percent of your, your market cap for the next 20 years. I, I'd be very happy with that. And, uh, uh, and, and so sometimes you, you can do that as well.

The Turnaround King
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Jonathan Stark: So I was, I was talking to someone last week and they, they, I think it was a friend of theirs, uh, who was called the turnaround king.

Joe Pine: Okay.

Jonathan Stark: It was back in the seventies if I, if I'm getting the story right. And he, when a company was getting ready to, uh, go chapter 11, he would. You know, he would come in, he'd take a look at it and he'd, he would decide, he'd do the triage and diagnose and say like, yeah, I can turn this around.

Um, and I'm surely we get some commitments about the kinds of things he was gonna do. And, uh, and he'd take a piece of the company and he was just like, just fabulously wealthy from, you know, and, and you do it for free, so it's like a no brainer, right? So it's like, well, yeah, I mean, you're the turnaround king and

Joe Pine: Once you got that reputation,

Jonathan Stark: Right.

Joe Pine: for some reason the name Dunlap, uh, uh, comes to me when you say that, you know, seventies Turnaround King, but I don't know if that's his name or a company. He turned around, but anyway.

Jonathan Stark: I don't know, but, um, but it's, it's a baller move because you, you know, you need to have the cash flow to be able to get to a point where you can work for free for 18 months and then, and then wait for that company to build back up and for that equity to start to pay off. And, you know, it's, it's a long game.

Maintaining Progress and Overcoming Setbacks
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Jonathan Stark: But I do, I wanna jump back to something you mentioned. You said it's, it's not monotonic, there's a sense and respond cycle. So can you, can you drill into that a little bit for people just may, maybe with an example like the golf or a personal trainer or something.

Joe Pine: Yeah. Yeah. And, and almost anything you're gonna find that, that, that the, that you, you're, you're progressing, but there's always res, so the regress may become of what you said is that they have a lack of commitment. Right? You also have things like, uh, the, the, the, you know, the cares of the world get in the way, you know, the time happens.

Maybe they have some other trauma in their lives that they then, then can't do this. Or they, you know, in a business terms, uh, maybe there's a new competitor or something, you know, a new innovation though, you know, proverbial disruptive innovation that changes the path that they're on. And you gotta focus on that for a while before you get back to the, the core of what you're doing.

But you always have to be sensing and, and and sensitive to that. Right. Which, which one of the ways to think about, I think of that, that last, where, that last point where you say, okay, I achieve the aspiration, so I have to maintain it, sustain it, I achieve the aspiration. On the Turnaround King basis, I would always wanna say, well, you're not gonna get paid till three, six months.

You know, all of it till three, six months after you leave. 'cause you, it's like Jack Welch, you know, I think, I think he left GE in a horrible position. He, he, he left what he knew was a highlight. He knew his successor was gonna fail. Well then he failed because of that. Uh, but anyway, uh, so that's sort of the capstone, right?

You need milestones in between. Right. And the, the things, you know, series of milestones and, and on a big scale change, like particularly a metamorphosis, not so much on the others, but on ambition, any, you know, any large scale change. Um, what are the milestones it takes to be able to do there? And how are we progressing?

How are we doing on that? And ideally, you'd like a timeline on that. Um, another, I'll give you another example that, that illustrates something here too. This is a, a bigger company, but it was, uh, one of the weight watcher or type of folks. It was, uh, uh, profile by Sanford. They got, they sold it off.

Commitment to the Process
---

Joe Pine: Sand Healthcare sold us off to another company, so I don't remember the name of the top of my head, but what they asked you to commit to is the process, right, which included weekly live coaching.

Then with COVID, they went to virtual coaching. Now you can do either. Uh, and um, and, and, uh, you know, and they gave you meals to be able to lose weight. You have a weight goal, but they don't ask you to commit to the goal. They ask you to commit to the process. And the fact is, is that what? You don't leave one coaching appointment until you make the next appointment for the next week.

And if, and if they're, and, and maybe, yeah, okay, I'm on vacation and that sort of thing. But that, but that alone just, you always are re-upping that appointment. Keeps them committed to the process and then the weight loss will eventually come. You know it. And then it depends on the person, whether that's six months, 12 months, 18, 24 months, whatever.

But if you keep at this, then we, you know, we guarantee you're gonna get down to that point.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. Yeah, that reminds me of, um, uh, when I'm doing my doing, like I do these sort of like challenge workshops and, uh, there's a money back guarantee. If you do all the work, if you don't do the work and you just decided not to do it, well, then you're just wasting everyone's time and it's not fair to anybody else.

So, uh

Joe Pine: and maybe that's something you can measure, right? You ensure that they, they, they do the work in some way,

Jonathan Stark: oh. Yeah. Yeah. There's homework so you can

Joe Pine: fitness center gimme access to your Fitbit data, right? And then I'm have my AI analyze that and you know, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're going like this and now you're like this, you're, you know, let's get, we need to get back on that trajectory, right?

And again, you put that in their face.

Measuring Success and Transformation
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Jonathan Stark: So how clear upfront should people be? So guides, coaches, how clear upfront should they expect to have to be with guiding and transformation? In terms of the success criteria. So like for golf, it's really easy

Joe Pine: You got, you got a number

Jonathan Stark: When did you become a gardener? You know? So how, like, let's, let's use gardening.

So like, let's say you say, I really want to become a gardener. Okay, I can help you with that. How are we gonna know? This is actually a question I would ask in, in a real like a B2B software project. How are you gonna know when we're done? How are we gonna know when we're done? 'cause you could keep building software forever and ever.

Amen. Adding features and adding features, adding features is not gonna change your business necessarily. So how are you gonna know that I did a great job? How are you gonna know that this was a home run? And they'll say, well, you know, if we did blah, blah, blah, and they'll have some, they'll, they'll almost always have an answer.

So in a but in a gardening sense, like what would that, would you work with them to come up

Joe Pine: Yes, yes. I mean, the, the one thing, the one thing that immediately comes to mind, although it may be farther down the, the line than you want, you may want to, you know, uh, uh, finish earlier. But, uh, but, uh, but spring comes around and you feel no trepidation. Right. You look forward to spring. You know, my wife, who's a great gardener, uh, it always drove me crazy because Spring would come around and she'd hate it, not because of this region, but she'd hate it because she knew all the work that she had to put into it.

Uh, and uh, it's sort of like added on this, it's sort of like all at once, you know, in Minnesota where I live, it's like spring comes and boom. It's not a slow thing at all. So, um, so you, you, a lot of it is that feelings that they, that they have. And they're, and they're, I hadn't thought about what tests you might do for that, but you know, that's, that's like a, that's what I know for sure.

Right. But maybe it's like the previous, uh, spring or, you know, summer where they actually did become it, and then that, then they recognize it then, uh, and you might say then that they, they don't need you anymore. Right. So when you don't need me anymore. Right. You've been tra particularly at that lower scale where you have to worry about the sustaining of it as much.

Um, but they recognize they don't need you anymore. And come spring it's like, you know, I can do this myself. Right? Okay, well then now you pay me all the amount 'cause you're not hiring me. So it's, it's when you stop hiring me is when you get the tranche right. That last tranche of the guarantee.

Jonathan Stark: So you just, that just triggered a memory. I, I worked with someone on a custom engagement where it was around, um, increasing their productivity 'cause there was a solo operator, uh, feeling very. Um, like things were falling through the cracks and very harried and working way too much and feeling like not getting as, as much done as she could.

And she identified this feeling of just like a swarm of bees were just always around her head. And I was like, okay, I can make the bees go away. I know I can do

Joe Pine: Beautiful.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. And there was, um, the longer it took, the less I got paid. So it was a perfect example. Um, make the bees go away and the faster you do it, the more money you get. So, and it was, and it was so easy as, as long as you trust the person to, like, why would she keep wanting me to do stuff if the bees were gone? It doesn't make sense, right? So, yeah, so we would have a check in every month and it was like, how you, it's just like, oh my God, this is life changing. I can, you know, I feel like I'm not, things aren't falling through the cracks.

I, I'm not wondering if sticky notes with, to-dos on them are falling behind my desk and all of that stuff. So. Totally subjective. That's the thing that I'm trying to illustrate here. Completely subjective, but, um, but extremely powerful. It, it's, on the one hand it's intangible, but it's very tangible to the person

Joe Pine: Right, right.

Jonathan Stark: um, and transformative.

So, um,

Joe Pine: And particularly one-on-one. You know, where it's a person, you're you, and, and you, you, and one of the secrets of transformation guarantees, and this applies units of business, is that during this process, right, they do get depended on you. They do get, you get this, um, often a, um, emotional, um, um, not depend.

I, I don't. Little too strong a word, say emotional independence, but you, you get an emotional relationship with 'em. Where, where if they do not pay it all, then they feel like they've shafted you in some way. And again, there are people that are like, that will do that, but you get this relationship, it helps with that as well.

I love the fact that your income actually, you know, would go down the longer it took. But uh, and then I'd also say that once they got rid of those bees, then it still might be worth like, I don't know, monthly or quarterly or annually. Check-in. Say, okay, are the bees still away? Is there anything else we need to do here?

Is there is? And then that's also opportunity. Well, is there some other animal buzzing around your head? You know, your body that we can work on as

Jonathan Stark: right. We'll do the alligators next.

Joe Pine: That's right. Dipping at your heels.

Jonathan Stark: What about that, the backslide thing? So maybe, you know, you, you get your black belt, it's very tangible. You passed, now you have it, but eh, you stop going. You achieved your goal. You, you're backsliding. So you started to get into it there. Is that a, uh, is that a piece of this or is that, is that more morphing back into something else like service or

Joe Pine: It can't, it, it's, it, the, the answer to that is it depends. Um, uh, it, and it, so some people, particularly where you would call it a goal or an aspiration. Where they're absolutely fine is, I did it. I don't have to, I don't have to maintain it. Right. I did that. The, the, the goal is to be a black belt and, and they can always say that, but they got other things in their life they wanna become as well.

And so that's, that's sort of fine. But in other cases, you think about things like quitting smoking, you know, if I go or in weight gains the same way, right? If I go through some program and I quit smoking. Uh, and I, uh, you know, but I light up six weeks later. I wasn't truly transformed. And that's where you, you need that at that point, because it's more at the, at the, you know, that metamorphosis level.

So I hadn't really thought about this before. Jonathan. That's a good point, is that you higher the scale of you get up an ambition metamorphosis. Uh, although again, some ambition, maybe once and done is fine. Um,

Jonathan Stark: Everest, whatever.

Joe Pine: yeah.

Jonathan Stark: So I'm like, I'm like, I can't help myself wrapping a business model around it or like a, like an, like a, a, it's hard not to say service, but.

Joe Pine: I would say generically offering or economic

Jonathan Stark: good. Good, good, good. That's good. Yeah, so, right. So I want to come up with an offer or an offering that it's sort of like this, okay.

The transformation and then the kind of maintenance mode or something. And you could have a hundred people in maintenance mode probably, you know, depending on what you're doing. But you know, with the bees thing, I could definitely have a hundred people in, once they're over the hump and they've, they've.

They've seen the other side. They know they really, it's even better than they thought it was gonna be. But life gets in the way and things get busy and you tax season or whatever, and then it's like, ah, falling back into my old habits. But you could easily have like a, a group thing or just short, small check-ins, like yeah, you could really, that's pretty cool.

Creating a Sustainable Business Model
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Joe Pine: And, and one of the things I often do in those cases is that, is that you might then want to call that a membership.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah, exactly.

Joe Pine: where you're paying per month, per quarter, per year. You've got a membership in this, you've got access to me, right? If you is, it doesn't have to, you wait for the check-ins. If something's going on, then you check in with me and see if I can help and so forth.

And then, and then if that sparks, well that's a big issue, then, then let's do another transformation offering, uh, for it.

Jonathan Stark: Right. Wow. This is super cool. Uh, you've really, really got my gears turning.

Book Launch and Writing Process
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Jonathan Stark: Um, congratulations on the book launch. I mean, I, I've been on the substack for, maybe you could say a couple of words about the, that process leading up to the launch. Yeah. It, it was really, it felt like you must have a team of people.

It would seem like a lot of work.

Joe Pine: no, I, I do have a team of people. Doug Parker, uh, our managing partner, um, is great. He, so I decided. Uh, to write the book on Substack, I was heavily influenced by the category pirates. Have you heard of them? Uh,

Jonathan Stark: Uh, yes,

Joe Pine: yeah. Eddie, Ew and Christopher Lockhead. Katrina Kirsch. Right. The category Pirates.

Eddie's been a long time friend, and Christopher's just a great, great guy. Uh, and, um, they wrote about it in their book, snow Leopard, which is a collection of their substack posts. So their model is basically, we have a conversation, uh, we clean that up and put it on Substack and, you know, se series of Substack and then.

Um, and then every once in a while we, we bundle that together in this mini book. And the mini book is a chapter and a big book. Right. And we self-publish those. So it's a, it's a really great model. In my case, I didn't wanna self-publish. They encouraged me to, but I didn't wanna self-publish. Uh, I want, I wanted Harvard Business Review press to publish it.

Best publish business publisher in the world. 'cause they market it through HBR and all of that and, and don't tend to remainder their books. Um, and then because I wanted to reach. Right. I really do want to, yes, I'm giving up money, but I probably won't sell as many copies. But anyway, I really, I don't wanna reach the world.

I wanna have an impact on the world. I want people like you and all your listeners to embrace the idea, to ascend to the proposition that they are in the transformation business. And then do things differently as a role result, which as I talk about in chapter two, contributes to human flourishing in the world, right?

That's the real aim here is how do we contribute to human flourishing in the world? And, and so I wanted to do that. Um, they, um, uh, but they, I said, well, let me write on substack. So I did that for three reasons. So one. Um, is, uh, as a catalyst for writing, right? I've got people who subscribed. I've got, you know, 10, 12% of those people who are paying right, 20 bucks a month or $200 a year for it, or they're paying me write, so I have to write.

So it just kept me in what I call writing mode, right, for the, for a year until I, I got it done. Uh, and still to this day now. Uh, and, uh, and then secondly is I wanted them to make it better. I want, I've never gotten feedback on a book before. I've written it, you know, so, so I got feedback. Uh, a lot of small things they made, made better.

A lot of, uh, smallish new ideas that got into the book. One huge big one where I completely changed a, a framework based off of the feedback that I got, and developed a whole new. Uh, a new, wonderful framework and then three, you know, make a little money on the side while, while I'm doing it right. But the catalyst was, was the primary one.

So, so what I, so I just basically have to write it and, uh, I put it into a substack. I write in word copy or put in Substack, and then Doug Parker, he finds an image that goes with it. He adds buttons, you know, for paywalls and things like that.

Jonathan Stark: Yeah. Yeah.

Joe Pine: Uh, and then, uh, and then scheduled it, you know, to go out. So that's very, very helpful.

The other thing that they've been stressing recently of the category pirates, and I recommend them to anybody, um, is uh, is a hundred dollars books. Right. It says, if you look at how much books cost 25 years ago, guess what they cost the same today in, in nominal dollars, not real. Real dollars is they should be around a hundred dollars.

Right. And they're not, and uh, it's part of the, you know, the Amazon model. Um, and so they encouraged that and again, they said, you know, your book is worth a hundred dollars. I said, my book book is worth thou, you know, thousands of dollars if you read it and do it right. Maybe tens, hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Right. But you can't, you you can't charge that for it. So I did come out last week when we launched the book, uh, with the transformation toolkit and $495, right? But it basically has eight tools, one for every chapter plus one on exactly what we're talking about is charging for outcomes, right? Which I mentioned chapter one and chapter seven.

Uh, and, uh, and so it's $495. Uh, we, uh, that we did a launch event last week. We raffled one away. I thought of it too late. You know, we should have auctioned this, not raffled it. But anyway, uh, and then we brought two others. Uh, my friend, uh, Kevin d who illustrates all my ideas, did all the design on this and everything, so we did that together.

And, and so he brought two more and we sold those. And then we had one guy from Norway, one of our experienced company certified experts who bought one before we even thought it was for sale. And, and then since then we've had like, you know, eight others that have, that have bought it. So it's, it's, uh, uh, going well, but it's, it's like if you really wanna do this, and that's, that's where to go.

And, and, uh, uh, and then just give you just all the templates and exercises you need to make it happen.

Jonathan Stark: Great.

Conclusion and Resources
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Jonathan Stark: Well, where can people go to find all of that?

Joe Pine: Uh, you can obviously Amazon or Harvard hbr.org, uh, for the book. Uh, HBR. Also, just a trend just published last week. It was on the front page last week. Um, uh, an article I wrote adapted from the book on understand aspirations. So all the things we talked about at the beginning is in that article. So if you want a taste of it, go to hbr.org, search my name and you'll find that.

Um, and then, uh, website is strategic horizons.com, strategic Horizons with an s.com. Uh, and so you can work your way around there, but if you look at slash integration, uh, that's where you get most of the stuff. You get the toolkit, you get a one-on-one consulting offering, you know, the book and, and everything else that I do right there.

Jonathan Stark: Great. Well, thanks so much for joining me, Joe. This has been fantastic.

Joe Pine: That was a great conversation, Jonathan. Thank you.

Jonathan Stark: All right, folks. That's it for this week. I'm Jonathan Stark, and I hope you join me again next time I'm ING hourly. Bye.