2011:

year HUSTLE
YOUR WAY

of
TO THE TOP
Free to Fee:
How Matt C. Negotiated A Free Project

the
Into A $6,000/Month Check From Me

BY RAMIT SETHI

hustle
 ......................................................

2
FREE TO FEE
......................................................

MOVING FROM “FREE TO FEE”

I could spend the next 5 pages telling you the 3 most important elements about moving
from free to fee, etc…

…But I’d rather just show you.

Today, the ACTUAL presentation someone used to go from free to fee. The only thing
is…the “fee” was my money. Lots of it.

This is going to be fun…and painful.

*     *     *

You’ve learned the tip of the iceberg on getting inside customers’ heads. Now what?

Hustling and scoring big takes more than just one step. It requires continuous escalation
till you get to your goal — in the case of earning more that might be your your 1st, then
2nd, then 3rd paying customer, then a system to systematize it and continue growing at
whatever pace you choose.

Today, my friend and former project manager Matt Cheney shows you how he escalated
from free to getting a $6,000+ recurring check, from me.

Before you watch the presentation…

www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com
 ......................................................

3
FREE TO FEE
......................................................

Don’t get lost in the details. This is not a video about convincing a personal-finance
blogger/author to pay you. It’s about using free to fee in your arsenal of techniques to
understand your client and understand how to systematically escalate your value so
you’re always getting paid more. Focus on how this applies to your situation.

*     *     *

THE ACTUAL PRESENTATION MATT USED TO

GET A $6,000+ RECURRING CHECK FROM ME:

www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com
 ......................................................

4
FREE TO FEE
......................................................

WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON THERE, AND HOW DO

YOU CREATE ONE? MATT EXPLAINS:

NOTES FROM THE VIDEO:

• Flattery is always good. :)

• Get in client/customer’s head. What am I, Ramit, really concerned about? If you

www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com
 ......................................................

5
FREE TO FEE
......................................................

don’t have a deep understanding, you will almost always fail. Even trickier, “fail-
ure” can be represented not only as being rejected, but (potentially even worse),
getting meaningless tasks and mediocre rates for months until you finally decide
to leave, wasting your time and incurring a huge opportunity cost. Better to fail
fast. Better still to not fail by getting in your customers’ heads.

• Refresh their memory with WHAT YOU’VE DONE. People forget to do this and
wonder why others get paid more for doing inferior work. That’s because they are
better than you at convincing others of value, which is critically important in pro-
viding value. Anyone who ignores this does so at his own peril.

• Mistake: He could have been more specific. It’s always tough to argue with #s.
So work with #s if you’re not already. For example, if you’re helping me “build
my brand,” I am going to fire you soon because your work is worthless. If you are
helping me drive 50,000 new visitors/month, or $300,000 new revenue, or even
saving me 2 hours/day, how could I fire you? How could I not give you a raise?
Because you are helping my business needs QUANTIFIABLY. (Same for consum-
ers, by the way…how many songs have you taught your client on the guitar? How
many hours have you saved them? Figure out how to quantify your services.)

DON’T MAKE YOUR CLIENT THINK

Offer specific suggestions. Don’t make the client think. They’re busy! DO NOT UN-

www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com
 ......................................................

6
FREE TO FEE
......................................................

DERESTIMATE THIS. They don’t want to read your email. They don’t want to talk to you
on the phone. They want you to HANDLE THE PROBLEM for them. The more of their
work you can do — the more of their worrying you can shoulder — the more you can
charge. This virtually never fails.

Pick 3 options and let your client choose. They want to feel involved…just not too
much.

Matt pitched me on greater output. He was inside my head — I had been thinking
about this a lot as I was approaching my limits of scale.

Read carefully: The point of this proposal is to SIMPLY GET TO THE CONVERSATION
ABOUT MONEY — NOT TO GET A HUGE CHECK RIGHT NOW. Too many people barge
into their client’s office and ask about raising rates. Their clients don’t want to be blind-
sided. They aren’t in the right frame of mind, so they say essentially, Get the hell out of
here. Instead, a proposal like this sets a gentle stage and context for a fruitful — and
very profitable — discussion.

AN IMPORTANT META-POINT:
Most people never realize that 80% of the work is done before you step
in a room. That’s why they spend their entire lives grasping for magical
tactics instead of changing their entire mindset.

Don’t do useless stuff for free!! Matt picked a service to offer that was already valuable

www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com
 ......................................................

7
FREE TO FEE
......................................................

to his target customer, me. Then, he figured out what was even more important and in-
creasingly shifted to working on that. For example, if he had continued answering tech-
nical-support emails, that would not escalate. If he helped me launch new products…that
escalates.

Don’t do free work for people who will never pay you unless you are doing someone
a favor. “Free work” for a cash-strapped 2-person nonprofit is volunteer work, and it’ll
always stay that way. Don’t delude yourself.

Don’t dead-end yourself. Free projects pay off when they give you experience and
skills that you can use again somewhere else. Choose carefully — your time is valuable.

YOU CAN LEARN THIS

The art and science of negotiation can easily be learned. From a mentor, a book, a
course. Earn1K Alum Trevor Jones found my Earn1K course valuable for him:

“I just wanted to thank you for the Earn1k course. Without even finishing
all the modules yet, I’ve made over $900 bucks in about 6 weeks tutoring
accounting students. It paid for itself in less than a month. Good stuff bro,
keep up the good work.”
–Trevor Jones, Earn1k Alum

Don’t forget this critical step...

www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com
 ......................................................

8
FREE TO FEE
......................................................

YOUR ‘HUSTLE’ HOMEWORK

Today’s To-Dos

I want you to complete an exercise today if you’re thinking of earning more money. I
know it’s long, but I’d rather have you spend an extra 15 minutes than skim yet another
page and walk away thinking you understand the concepts without REALLY applying
them.

In a Stanford psychology course, I learned about the psychological changes that happen
when you go from reading something to teaching something. It’s profoundly important
to stop skimming and start writing something on paper.

So somewhere, your forehead, a sheet of paper, or the comments of today’s post, an-
swer these questions (BE SPECIFIC!):

1. In your area, list 3 kind of clients to whom you’d offer to work for free.

1.

2.

www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com
 ......................................................

9
FREE TO FEE
......................................................

3.

2. List 3 kinds of clients to whom you should NEVER offer to work for free.

1.

2.

3.

3. It’s easy to get taken advantage of when you offer to do work for free.
What’s the first step you’d take to prevent that? What’s step 2?

4. List out your plan of action to prepare for your first free-work pitch. Your
list should have at least 5 steps, otherwise it’s missing something.

5. When will you bring up the subject of payment? What is the exact sen-
tence you’ll use?

6. Ok, you’ve communicated that you want to start getting paid. Your client
says, “Ok, why should I? Why should I pay you? The way we’ve been doing
it so far seems ok to me.” What is your response?

7. “Ok, I see your point. How much are you thinking then?” What is your
exact response?

www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com
 ......................................................

10
FREE TO FEE
......................................................

8. “I don’t think so, that’s too much.” What do you say?

9. You and your client negotiate, but she just doesn’t want to pay you, so it’s
a no-go. What’s your next step?

10. You and your client negotiate, and you end up escalating up to paid
work. Great. What’s your next step?

www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com