Building Your Money Machine

Make More Money by Getting Paid More for What You Know

• Mel H Abraham, CPA, CVA, ASA • Season 2 • Episode 143

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Your knowledge and expertise are worth something, and it's time to start capitalizing on it. You don't have to be a CEO or high-level executive to do it. In fact, all it takes is some strategic positioning and a unique value proposition that sets you apart from the competition.
 
In this episode, we're going to go through all the strategies you need to achieve this goal. We'll talk about how you can create a system that generates income and helps you scale your revenue to reach financial freedom faster. 

So if you're ready to make a real impact and take control of your finances, then this episode is for you. Don't settle for mediocrity when you can unleash your money-making machine and become a true expert in your field. 

IN TODAY’S EPISODE, I DISCUSS: 

  • How to monetize your knowledge and expertise for increased income
  • The importance of a unique methodology in increasing income
  • The four quadrants of the Standout Authority Matrix

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Mel Abraham  0:00  
How do you get paid more for what you know, let's face it, if you're trying to build wealth, one of the quickest ways to build more wealth is to have more income. So you have more income to put towards that? Well, one of the best ways to increase your income is to get paid more for what you do, what you know, and the things that you bring to your clients the way you solve the problems. And so in this episode of the Affluent Entrepreneur Show, we're going to talk specifically about your knowledge, your wisdom, your experience, and your expertise, your journey, whether it's in digital courses, whether it's in speaking coaching at service providers, professionals like this, how do you set yourself apart in a way that they see you as the premium provider, and pricing becomes no object? Well, in this episode, we're gonna break that down for you. So look forward to seeing the episode. Soon. This is the absolute Entrepreneur Show for entrepreneurs that want to operate at a high level and achieve financial liberation. I'm your host, Mel Abraham, and I'll be sharing with you what it takes to create success beyond wealth. So you can have a richer, more fulfilling lifestyle. In this show, you'll learn how business and money intersect. So you can scale your business, scale your money, and scale your life, while creating a deeper impact and living with complete freedom. Because that's what it really means to be an affluent entrepreneur.

Mel Abraham  1:21
All right, welcome to this episode, Affluent Entrepreneurship, this one's gonna be a fun one, because we're talking about something that is near and dear to my heart, because it is the way that I built my businesses. But it's also the way that I actually pioneered and built my wealth. And this is about how do you get paid more for what you know, how do you take your knowledge, your wisdom, your expertise in a way out into the world, where you're not seeing it as a commodity? Listen, if you've been exposed to me at all, you understand that the the athletes blueprint, one of the pillars, the very first pillar, the athletes blueprint is the Generate pillar, we have to have a system to generate our income. And so we can move our cash flow from a drip to a flood. See, the more cashflow we have the more ability we have to accelerate our path to financial freedom. And so, in that process, one of the things that we need to think about doing is how do we scale our income? Or how do we optimize our income in a way that we have more leftover to work with? And so this is about us understanding, well, what does it take to increase our prices? What does it take to, to do that, and one of the things that I've mentioned before, and we're going to talk about deeply in this, in this arena, is that in this episode, is this idea of a unique methodology. Okay, one of the things that I did in the valuation and the work that I did, and building my CPA firm and my financial services and my consulting, was that I created a unique methodology that when the market looked at me, they saw me differently. Now, there's a lot of different ways that you can increase your income you can, you can create more sales. But here's the challenge with that sometimes, especially if you're a sole, a sole provider, a sole solopreneur, and you're you're there and you're this personal brand. And you're coaching, you're speaking, you're consulting, you're doing one on ones, the only way to make more sales, a lot of times when it is driven by your active pursuit and your active involvement to to deliver it is to get on that treadmill, and to run faster, to run longer to run harder. But when we get on that treadmill, and start running faster, longer, harder for too long, there is a limit, and we're going to reach break down, we're going to reach burnout, we're going to we're going to crash and burn. Okay, that's it happened to me. The other way to do this is to find a way to charge more. Now, this isn't a pricing conversation. This is a value conversation in and I get it that when we charge more, we're talking about pricing. But the reality is that price is never an issue with your customers and with your clients. The issue is the value, the value, they perceive the value they receive, the value you articulate. It's it's that that drives us and so one of the questions is How do we change the perception of value the delivery of value in a way that the market sees it vastly differently. When it comes to services, whether it's a you might be creating a digital course, you might be creating an online program, you might decide you want to be mentoring and coaching, masterminds, speaking, professional services, like I've done, I've done all of it. I've created digital courses. I do mentoring, I do one on one consulting and coaching and mentoring. I have a coaching group. I speak all around the country and in the world. I facilitate I negotiate, I do all those things. The question is, am I the only one that does those in the area that I do them in? And the answer is no, I'm not. And in all likelihood, you're not either. But are you talking about it and delivering it differently than everyone else, that's the thing that will start to drive the distinction. And is what you're doing solving a pervasive need or problem for the client. So if, if I'm speaking about it differently, and I'm going to break down a actual framework for you, to tool them. If you're speaking about it differently, the market is going to perceive it differently. If I'm devil delivering the results, the market is going to see it differently. Here's here's the way you look at if you are and I come from the the bean counters, the accountants out there, yeah, most of us, we're ticking in time we're doing tax returns, people are coming out of tax season right now as I as I film this, and, and so a tax returns a tax return is a tax trend, at least in the perception of the clients if you don't do it, right. But the fact is, is that an accountant can provide more services more value when you set it up properly. The problem with most accounts is they don't. And so what they're doing is they're swapping hours for dollars, they become seen as a commodity. So they become part of a math equation that has no value to the customer or the client in any great length. And your only way to increase or scale your income your profits is to try and do more. Well, that hose is only going to take so much pressure before it bursts. And so what I want to do is say, say how do I scale my pricing? Let me give you a for instance, when I when I left my firm, when my firm broke up back in going back aways it was in the 90s, my partner was charging 100. And some both my parents were charging $150 an hour, I was charging $175 an hour. Today, decades later, they're charging 200 $225 an hour, I'm charging north of $1,000 an hour minimum, okay. And the reason for it is my positioning in the market and some of the things we're going to talk about here, so. So it's really about standing out in a way that sets you apart. Here's another another way to to understand it. Premium conversations lead to premium fees. But in order to be in those premium conversations, you need to bring premium thinking to them. So let me say that, again, premium conversations lead to premium fees. But in order to have premium conversations, you need to bring premium thinking to it, that means that you got to think differently than everyone else, you got to have the conversation differently than everyone else, you might be delivering the same service. I do valuations, there's plenty of people that do valuations. They have the same subject matter expertise that I do. But the way I talk about it, the way I deliver it is different. In fact, so different than I had an attorney call me up and said, Hey, Mel, I've got a project. This one I think is complicated. I think there's a fair amount there, I want you to go through the project, and tell me what you think it's going to cost, make sure you consider everything that's possible, and all the contingencies because I want to make sure that you're fairly paid. And so then he says to me, and just so you know, you're the only one we're speaking to, because people told us, you're the only one we should use for something like this. Now, pricing is no longer matter. Pricing is no longer a topic of discussion, simply can I deliver the result? How will I deliver the result? Can I hit their deadlines? And what does that look like? Okay, so they hired me into this project, which was a very, let's just say lucrative contract. The fact is, is that the knowledge base is out there in other people's heads too. But this is the thing that I want for you is the same thing where the market sees you differently, then, than everyone else in the space, you might say, well, it's saturated, well, you're having saturated conversations that you're not bringing premium thinking you're not having premium conversation. So I want to walk through a framework. And those of you that are listening, I'll kind of draw it out for you, verbally, but you can see it on my YouTube channel. And we'll make sure that we hook it up here. So you see you know where it is, and I'll make sure that you get access to the graphics too. But when we talk about this, I want to talk about a framework that I call the stand up authority matrix. And when we come to this, whether you're doing digital courses, whether you're speaking, whether you're you're writing, whether you're consulting, whether you're coaching, whether you're mentoring, doing masterminds, this is going to apply and this is your key to setting yourself apart and then we're going to talk about how do you create a unique methodology So that actually elevates it even more. So when it comes to when it comes to this idea of being a standout, there's two things you have to master. And the first thing you actually have to master is your knowledge. In other words, do you actually know the stuff, putting in the work to make sure that you are knowledgeable on the topic that you that you're talking about, or that you're delivering on is huge. So we got to know the stuff. And there's either those that have low knowledge and those that have deep knowledge. The second piece we got to manage, is our notoriety. There's those with no notoriety, and there's those that have great notoriety. So really, what we're doing is we're managing what we know, and how we're known. That's it. But here's where the this starts to play is that when we end up, we can end up in one of four places in in this model. And that is this.

Mel Abraham  11:02
First, if I have low knowledge, and no notoriety, these are the people that I affectionately call the task junkies, I don't mean them to be. It's not a derogatory perspective. It's just this is what they do. They're They're primarily focused on on doing stuff. They're focused on a checklist, they're focused on getting things done, they're focused on telling me what to do and working on a work program. They're not focused on, on creating the solutions, they just focused on tasks, okay. So the kind of compensation you're going to get typically is, is lower here, because these are, these are just people going off of a checklist, and they don't have a lot of notoriety. They're not known in the space, and they don't have a lot of knowledge that are being directed in the process. And in fact, what I say is that most of the time, they have no real focus, the focus is being handed to him. Now let's, let's move over to the right. Let's say that we have no notoriety but we have a vast amount of knowledge. We have done the studying we have done the work to understand it. These are the folks that I call the bookworms, they're really knowledgeable. They're the wizards behind the curtain. They know their stuff. There's these people that like like actuaries, they're not exactly an if you're an actuary, I'm sorry. But actuaries are not necessarily known for their for their personality, but they do a lot of number crunching, they have a lot of knowledge, they have a lot of expertise. So they're not known, but they have a lot of knowledge. Okay. And these folks, these folks that are the bookworms, they're, they're knowledge focused, they love the study. They love the data journey. They love the knowledge, okay. But then there's this other group. These are the folks that have low knowledge, but they're very well known. These are this is the only quadrant, this is the upper left quadrant. This is the only quadrant I want you to avoid. Okay, this is the people that that have no very little, but they can market the heck out of things. Okay. They're the ones that I call The Great imposter. And here's why. When we go out to the marketplace, and we don't have a lot of knowledge, but we have the ability, gift of gab, the gift of sales, whatever it is sales chat, we understand how to how to how to convert people and bring them in and bring them on as clients. That's great. So we get the sale. The problem with that is sooner or later, we get found out the Emperor's got no clothes, and we become the great imposter. There is no staying power when you have low knowledge, but high notoriety. Because sooner or later people realize there's no depth to what you know, or what you know, is actually false. It's incorrect. And I see this a lot in the financial space where there are people out there that are saying things that are absolutely false. They're untrue, and it's going to get people in trouble. The problem is that the public doesn't discern it doesn't understand it doesn't realize it until it's too late. Okay, so the great imposters, their primary focus is a marketing focus. They're not coming from a place of service. They just want to make the sale. And they're transactional in the way they do things because they know that their relationship with their clients is typically short lived. All right. Then there's this group in the upper right quadrant, the other ones that have great notoriety, they're the ones that have a deep level of knowledge. They've done the work, they did the premium thinking they've done the work to make that happen. These are the people that I would call the experts. Now, here's here's where I want you to play now a lot of people will say great, that's where I want to be as an expert. The problem with an expert The problem with an expert is that, you know, stuff. And there's a lot of experts out there, I can look at every other financial person that has certifications, and an education and training, they all have knowledge, they know stuff. That doesn't make them good at service. And it certainly doesn't make them a premium, what we need to do is play in a little narrow segment of this expert quadrant, that's that upper upper right corner of the expert quadrant. That's where we want to play. When we play in that upper quadrant, the cream of the crop, and the positioning that you have is no longer just an expert, but rather, it's a standout authority. When you become a standout authority, you will get people whether it's in courses, whether it's in speaking whether it is in, in consulting, there's a reason that I can I can get $25,000 for a keynote, okay. It's because of my positioning and the work that I've done to get to this, this point, there's a reason that there's people that that can get $100,000 consulting contract, there's, there's a reason that people are able to sell their online courses for three, four or $5,000. One, they get the they get the results, that's the that that is important for sure. They get the results. And it's good stuff. But they have positioned themselves properly. They've done the deep, deep thinking they have deep knowledge, they brought the premium thinking into a premium delivery. All right. And these folks, the standout authority, their primary focus is impact. How do I make a difference? How do I improve the human condition of my clients and my customers through the work that I do? So this is the game that I want you to play I want you to play to, to set yourself up to be that standout authority. Now, how do you do that? Well, here's how you do it. I think that everyone that needs to start to consider if you're creating digital courses, or you're creating knowledge based businesses, okay, where you're selling expertise, experience consulting, those kinds of things, coaching, you need to have a unique methodology. So I'll break down what it takes to build a unique methodology. And the key components of it to make it happen is going to set you apart, where we take pricing off the table, you have the ability to scale your your revenues and your profits, because the perception of value is much greater in the marketplace. And when you follow that perception of value with the delivery of results gameover gameover. All right. And so, so here's here's the thing, let's just look at how this unique methodology is built, it's built on four primary elements. And and what we need to have in place is this is first, realize that our unique methodology is to move a client from point A to point B, one of the biggest mistakes that many experts or many people make is in their courses, or in their, their coaching, or in their curriculums or their speaking is that they're actually trying to give them a to z, I get it because you have a lot of knowledge, you have a lot of experience a lot of expertise. And you know that it would serve them I'll tell you something. When I did my very first live event, it was we're going back aways we're talking 2000. God, it was a decade ago, over a decade ago, okay. And I did my first live event, I had 2729 people in the room, three day event, and I poured my heart and soul and all the knowledge I had from decades of entrepreneurship into their, into their, into their brains. It was such good content, and totally useless. Totally valueless. Because what I did is I overwhelmed them. I tried to give them everything from A to Z. But all they needed was a to b, they weren't prepared to take C through Z until they got to B and this is one of the mistakes that I think a lot of us make. We think that we want to give them everything and we do but they need to be ready to receive everything. It's the reason that college courses are broken down at one on one to a 131401 We need to make it and give it to them in a way that it sets them up for success. And the way you do that is you make sure that you know what their A is where they current their current reality is and what their B is what what the current pervasive need problem is that you need to solve once you know that that's what you're creating the your, your unique methodology to first and then we'll layer in and the rest to get them to point Z. But if we don't get them to point B, they won't get anywhere close to Z. All right. So, so the first thing is to understand what point A and point B is. Now, once we know that it's going to be built on four things, 20 points, 20. Thoughts, 20 insights, okay, two frameworks that you need to create, I'm talking about diagram diagrammatic frameworks, a single process.

Mel Abraham  20:28
And when done correctly, you can deliver it a lot of ways. Okay, so let's just jump in a little deeper into this. So what 20 thoughts, there's insights to see, this is the information that you can capture, I have a process that is a unique proprietary process of how I capture my knowledge, my wisdom and expertise, I work with my clients on this, in many, many cases, to, to build out their knowledge in a way that allows him to speak to what I call the four communication pathways. And so when we catalog our information in a detailed way that allows us to speak to all elements heart, and mind, logic and emotional in that way, it starts to allow us to make that happen. Now, I'm focusing on just 20 points, what are the top 20 points that someone needs to understand? To move them to point A to point B? Now, I may not use all the 20 points, but I'm gonna start there. Okay. So we figure out what are the key 20 points that we want to have in place. The second is, we need to frameworks. There's two kinds of frameworks that you need. And they're both diagrammatic, frameworks, visual frameworks, these are important. And I can go much deeper into this, this is something that I'm known for, I get brought into companies to help them build these. And, and do that. And so the first framework is what we call a process framework. This is, this is the process of getting the transformation. A lot of times this is a Venn diagram, or a quadrant model, something like that, but it's a it's a visual that says, here's how the process will work in a picture. Okay. And there's a lot of persuasion. And there's a lot of layers, when you do these frameworks correctly. The second framework that that you need, is what I call a value visual. It is, it is the reason why they should work with you. It is that if, if the process is the transformation, the valuate visual is the transaction, it's why they should be working with you and others what typically this is, is like a ladder, so they see themselves on a lower rung of the ladder, they desire to be on a higher rung of the ladder. And there's this gap in between. And since that gaps in between your process framework is the thing that fills that gap and gets them there. So what they're doing is they're they're self identifying their current reality, comparing it to their aspirational desire, and saying, How do I get there, and you happen to be that person. But the key is this when you speak to their current reality, at a level that they say, Wait a second, they get me. And when you speak to their aspirational desire, they go, Oh, my gosh, they know me. That's what starts to bring them in to have premium conversations, because now you're also drawing a picture for them. That allows them to realize, this person knows me. And and this topic much better than I ever imagined. That leads me to the third piece. So 20 thoughts, two frameworks, and a single process, you want to have a proprietary process that has certain aspects, and I'll talk about those in a second. That is the progression from point A to point B. Now this is the thing that happens is that your proprietary process is built on a couple of things. One, it needs to have milestones. These are the big rocks, but every milestone needs to have an outcome, what is the outcome and we have something called the proprietary process builder that helps graph this out for people and they build it into a template. So they know specifically, what's the milestone, what are we trying to accomplish? Why are we trying to accomplish it? Okay, so we know, each milestone and the why. The second, the second part of that is, once I know the milestones is each milestone is going to have a set of action steps, two to five or seven maximum steps they need to do to accomplish the milestone. That's it. So you're going to have three to five, maybe as much as nine maximum milestones that they've got to go through. They each have an outcome, and they each have three to maybe five steps. And the thing that starts to bring this to life is that each milestone will have one or two magic bullets, worksheets, templates, tools that make it easy for your client to implement. So now all of a sudden, I'm sitting with a client and say, Here's my insights. Here's the frameworks. Here's the value visual, which shows you where you want to go and where you are. And here's a proprietary process that we use to get you there that has milestones, action steps, and some magic bullets to make it easier for you. That leads me to the last piece. And the last piece of this is that you have multiple delivery channels. When you build your content, whether it's a course, whether it's coaching, whether it's mentoring, whether it's speaking, when you build it based on this unique methodology approach, it doesn't matter how you deliver it. I can go and speak into a keynote for 45 minutes or an hour and 45 minutes, I can do a three day conference, I can do a four day conference, I can do coaching, I can do masterminding, I can do work shopping, I can facilitate, I can do it in a online course, I can be on a panel, all of its already built in. So it gives me the flexibility to deliberate multiple ways to increase my ability to earn from the same premium thinking that I do. Your ability to deliver is going to be based on your story, your style, and the delivery that you want. It's how we connect. So if we look at this whole unique methodology, the information, the insights, this is the what the process framework that you're creating, is the how the value visual framework, where they see where they are and where they want to go, is the why the proprietary process that you create, is that if if they do it, here's what they get. And then the multiple delivery channels is the way that's how a unique methodology works. That's how you start to set yourself apart in a way that starts to to give you a position in the marketplace very different. We can sit down and we can talk through it. And we It doesn't matter how commoditized that industry is, when we start to talk differently about the same solution, they'll look at you differently. They'll price it differently, say I know it's the same solution. But there's something about it that Mel knows differently. He delivers it differently. His results have been great. I, I get it, I'm gonna pay more, but I'm good with it. So this is the way that you got to look at. If I'm going to create a course, if I'm going to do something with services, I'm going to take my knowledge, my wisdom, my expertise out there. This is how I'm gonna get premium dollars. This is why someone can get paid $100,000 for a keynote, this is why someone will get I've got a friend who's getting paid a million dollars a year for one on one coaching. I get paid well, if I'm sitting on on boards as a consultant getting paid, you know, multiple six figures. Because of my way I think about things the way I deliver things and the way I position myself. And I want the same for you. Listen, this is all driven by me trying to scale your income, optimize your profits, optimize your cash flows, so we can build your wealth to get you to to financial freedom faster. And one of the greatest ways to do is to take your knowledge and expertise and put it out in the world. It's one of the highest margin businesses out there. You can do it from a computer, you can do it from your phone. And and you don't have big offices, you don't have big overhead, your margins in a business like this is is 40% to 80%. It just depends on how you operate it. You know, it's not like a product business, we have all that overhead and you have inventory and you have manufacturing costs and delivery costs and all that stuff. I can deliver this with a zoom. I can deliver it with a zoom in a computer. It doesn't take a lot. But now all of a sudden you have this high margin business that's delivering for you. And the reason that people will pay premium fees is one, you brought premium thinking to it and you get premium results for your clients. I hope that this helps. I hope that you start to look at your world and say where can I take expertise out there? What can I do today to start to create whether it's a an online course a coaching program, speaking Doing something as a side hustle even. But even though it's a side hustle, you don't just flippantly put it out there, you bring premium thinking to it, you create the insight, you create the frameworks, you create the, the methodologies, the proprietary process. And now you deliver a premium in a premium way, because think about that. Also, on the side, hustle becomes highly profitable, you, I'm out,

Mel Abraham  30:22
I'm out, I'm gonna step step aside, I'm gonna focus 100% on that, because now I got a business, that's profiting 5060 70% of every dollar coming in. That is what I want for you. Alright, so I hope that this helps, listen, we're going to do more and more on some of these different pillars of the affluence blueprint to help you generate and scale your income, because that will drive your wealth creation, as well as some of the the wealth creation stuff to we're going to do all of it because it all fits together in creating that rich life that you want. Because remember, the critical outcomes for the affluence blueprint, that critical outcomes for me, is for you to live a richer lifestyle, which isn't about the money, but it's about the feelings and experiences and how you're living life. It's about creating a life that's based on a deeper impact and impact for those who serve, but also an impact to those who love to the right left, and who you become the one in the mirror. And it's a life of complete freedom. Yes, financial freedom. But that's a rudimentary freedom, I want you to have complete time freedom to decide what you're going to do with your time when you're going to do with it. And to have mind freedom to have the peace of mind to know that your loved ones are cared for, that you're taken care of, that your movements, your missions, and the causes you love, are taken care of. And in that you can go in peace. So I hope that says this helps, I hope this may be hits a hot button for you, that gets you up and says, What do I need to do next? How do I start to do this? Because remember, it doesn't take a lot to make a lot. Literally, an extra $500 A month can turn into millions of dollars over the right amount of time. Invested properly. All right. So if you have any questions, if anything comes up for you do me a favor, let me know. I'm here to serve. I'm here to support you. That's what this show is about money, wealth, business, even life. Let's make it happen. Okay, I believe that financial freedom is your birthright, we just need to go out and claim it. All right. And if I can help you in that way, reach out to me, I have a special website just for you called AskMelnow.com. It's where you can post your questions, you can leave me questions, and I'll make sure that I bring them on the show to get them answered on some of my q&a episodes. And if it's something that makes sense, I might even reach out to you and say, Hey, jump on the show with me. Let's coach this one live. Let's have a conversation and support you on this journey. You're no longer alone on this journey to financial freedom. And I look forward to seeing in another episode or on the road as I'm out there speaking or doing the things that we do. All right. Make sure you say hi and make sure you reach out until we see each other again. Always, always strive to live a life that outlives you. Thank you for listening to the affluent entrepreneur show with me your host Mel Abraham. If you want to achieve financial liberation to create an affluent lifestyle, join me in the affluent entrepreneur Facebook group now by going to melabraham.com/group and I'll see you there.

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