Uh, so how much

is that?

And welcome to the podcast.

Editors mastermind me only podcast for the business of podcasts name.

I am your.

It's for the evening, Carrie Caulfield, Eric, and you can find me@yayapodcasting.com with me,

Daniel Abin drought.

You can find me@rockmedia.audio.

I'm Brian and spring.

You can find me@toptieraudio.com.

And to my side is

Jennifer Longworth, a bourbon barrel podcasting.

Now, if you're not familiar in, Jennifer is one of our original Cohoes who took a

hiatus and she thought this topic tonight was so fun.

She wanted to join us.

So welcome back, Jennifer.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So on top for tonight is a conversation that, um, I think is had all over the podcast, editing forums this time

of year, since it's the beginning of the year, we're starting things fresh and new lots of contracts expiring.

We're going to be talking about raising your rates.

Let me look at my little handy sheet here because so, okay.

The first thing is why would you raise your rates?

Why not just keep clients, uh, the same pay rate?

I hope this is a pretty simple answer.

There's a lot of possible answers to this one, but I guess the two that just

kinda dumped in my mind, one inflation prices.

Just go up price of goods and services.

Always go.

And we're no different and too, like, we get better, like I'm constantly improving.

So yeah, like I'm just, I'm a better editor I feel than I was a year ago or like I'm

offering better service than I was a year ago.

Yeah.

And I think you kind of lead into one of the other things that I see as a common thread.

Like I'm raising rates because I'm adding video editing or I'm adding, I'm doing value added services.

And I think.

Kind of two pieces of that, right?

One is raising your overall rate by expanding the services that you offer.

But the other is just like the cost of the actual service, right?

So let's say that I've always added, or I've always offered video editing.

I could potentially raise my rates for that, but also just because I add video editing doesn't

mean that I can't also raise the rate for my audio editing as I get better as, as inflation happens.

As we add new capabilities and new skills.

There's a lot of different facets, I think.

And like for me, one

thing that I've added is quality check.

So now, before any show goes live, there's at least one other person listening to every episode.

That's just something that I've started doing to cover myself.

But it's also like, Hey, you now have a little more peace of mind to know that like your shows are going

to go out properly, like sounding the best they can.

That actually kind of plays into one of the things that I've been working on in terms

of my path in terms of pricing structure, right.

Is building in pricing for continuity, right?

So that as I start building out my small team and I have more redundancy than I'm providing a service

to my clients beyond just what I deliver to them.

Right.

Because as I get this built out, then they will know that there's a backup.

If somebody gets.

Things don't have to go down.

If something was to happen to me, we've got something in place so that the work can continue.

I mean, there might be a couple of bumps, but it's not just like, well, we're a hundred percent out of the game.

Cause Brian can't do anything for a week.

I don't know.

Jennifer, what do you think?

Well,

I think

that there's, you all have mentioned the good reasons to raise your rates, but we also, when we're in

a traditional job, we always want the boss to give us a raise.

Right?

I always want to think of a raise when you're your own boss, the only person in charge of giving you a raise is.

And at this time for you to get a raise due to inflation, due to increase costs, whatever the reason is, well, you have to do it.

You have to make that move.

No one can do it for you.

I'm going to be a little, maybe controversial on this topic in, okay.

Just don't want more money.

Like why do we always think that.

We shouldn't have more money.

I mean, I feel like even as a culture, like, we're always like, oh, well I want to raise because, or I don't want like too much.

I want just enough, but I feel like there's a mindset there where it's not okay to just want more money.

It's that scarcity mindset that the abundance mindset,

right.

There's a lot.

We could dissect that goes into politics and socioeconomics.

That probably be a little too controversial, but yeah, totally.

We deserve more money because we want it.

So

this is a concept that a client actually talked about on her show, which I don't know if that

was necessarily good considering she had a podcast editor.

Cause I'm about to ask her for more money, but

just be like, Hey, I was listening to this mic as a camera, which one?

And the host said.

I should want more money, right.

It's just okay.

To want more money.

And I feel like that's very true.

Like, um, I want to do more things and more things cost money.

And so I want more, I want more.

Sorry,

when I go on another cruise with my family.

Oh yeah.

That

I'm actually really glad that you mentioned that Carrie, because it kind of plays into some of the comments

that we saw when we asked this question in the Facebook group, the podcast editors, mastermind, Facebook group about

people talking about questions, about pricing because of the.

A number of comments in there that were related to things like imposter syndrome or feeling like I have to justify the value

add, or like even some of the stuff that I've talked about.

That's really more of a strategy than a why that I think is addressed by just understanding

that it's okay to want to, to prosper and to do.

Between you and Jennifer, we can probably just drop the mic and go home.

Cause Jennifer had that quarterback like, yeah, see you later.

You know, if you're, if you're your own boss, the only person to give you a raise as you like,

those two are gold right there in my day job.

It's okay for me to want more money.

And I don't have to justify why I want more money now, whether or not I get it comes down to a negotiation between

me and my boss and whatever structures are set in place to make that not happen, but that's not a bad thing.

I think that's really.

So I just want to take a quick second to welcome everybody that is going up and chat.

Thank you so much for being here.

If you're listening to the replay of this or watching the replay, be sure to join us every other Thursday at 9 0 5 Eastern time.

Pretty regularly, Helen King said, yes, it is.

Carrie is okay to want more.

Kayla says preach Carrie.

Totally cool.

Just want more money, Mike Wilburn.

Bravo and wanting more money, wanting to make money and then more money for what you dedicate umpteen hours to is a good thing.

Don't bill a NYSE the want to make more money.

I'm so tired of it.

And I'll ask outlets of life.

Andrea also says also your skills and expertise increase over time.

So your rate should too.

So it seems to be a common theme of like, yes, that's prosper.

Let's all.

What more money?

So the thing we do for our clients.

Is hello.

Ma'am if they, you know, hopefully.

If they're running their podcasts as a business, or they're profiting from their podcasts in some way,

we are giving them the means in which to do that because they do not have to edit their podcast.

We are doing it for them.

We making them sound awesome.

We were making it deliver a clear message.

You know, we're working with them to do all the things.

It is a transactional relationship, but as your client prospers more, you should also prosper more.

At least that's my belief.

And I think also to tie into that, I think there's a certain level of peace

of mind that we as editors might forget about.

But for those of you that have been following the show for a while, we used to offer different people,

the opportunity to edit the show for their portfolio.

And we've stopped doing that well, because honestly it created a lot of uncertainty as to whether or not we

were going to be able to deliver our episode on time.

Partly because we're just working with a new person every time.

But also partly because some of the people that thought they had the goods.

And now that we've got somebody in place who does this consistently and we pay him so he

can keep doing it, shout out to Alexandra.

It's very encouraging to get that episode every time and know that it's going to be right now.

There might be things that we would have done differently.

That's fine.

Like there are always stylistic things, but to know that we've got something that we can just take and publish is

great as we provide that for our clients, that's a huge.

And as we get better at doing that, and as we, as that relationship develops, there's no reason

that our value to them shouldn't increase.

Absolutely.

So I'm curious as first of all, I'm going to have this caveat, like I say, this, this is kind of a new mindset for me, so

I have not been great about raising rates until recently.

Right.

It was a conversation I didn't want to have, it was a conversation I forgot about like,

just one day it's January, the next day.

It's December.

So while I kind of have this mindset that, Hey, I need more glitter in my life and somebody has got to pay for it.

It's not going to be me.

It's easy to say that.

Right.

It's easy for us to all sit here with each other and be like, yeah, more money, but it's less easy to do it.

So.

My first question for you guys and for everybody else in the chat is, so how often do you raise

rates or is it not a regular practice for

you?

Not as often as I should.

I think it was 2020 when we last raise our rates.

Yeah.

I think ideally probably yearly, but yeah, I'm not consistent with that.

So for me, when it comes to new clients, I'm fairly good at keeping my rates updated for a while.

I was actually, every time I got a yes, the next client, I charged more and I feel like I've gotten to a good place right

now where there's, I'm getting enough, knows that I don't think it's time for me to increase my rates yet on that side.

So that's been pretty, pretty good.

It's the existing clients like Mike Wilkerson mentioned in the chat as far as like that uncomfortable conversation.

I know for me when I talk about mindset, cause Carrie, you talked about how it's easy to talk

a good game and not necessarily walk the walk.

I've got one client who I should have had the right conversation with at the beginning of last year.

So a year into the pandemic and I put it off because I was like, well, I mean, it's, it's a rough time.

I probably shouldn't have that conversation with her right now.

And then like, now I'm looking back and going, well, it wasn't rough for me.

Just because it was referred.

It doesn't mean that.

And I know it sounds stupid when you say it out loud, but that's the head trash you deal with for an entire

year going, oh man, I should've had that conversation.

Well, but I mean inflation and well, but now I'm like a year past that I'm going now.

I'm going okay.

We should probably be having a conversation about a 20% rate hike or more at this point based on how my pricing has

increased over time while this client's has stayed flat.

And now I'm going, can I have a 20.

Pricing conversation.

How do you sell that in to go?

Because 20% is not insignificant in my mind.

If I got a 20% raise at my day job, that's pretty nice

little race.

Mike Wilkerson said something really.

I think an important, if you don't initiate, then you'll get dragged into complacency and the feeling that you can.

Raise your rates eventually.

I think that's what you're saying, but you can't by the time.

So I actually experienced that, like one of my first clients, I didn't raise rates for like a year and

it was a lot, so it was, you know, it was one of those, you start out new, you're doing a low rate.

And then I realize that like the time it takes to do all the pieces for his show, I wasn't even making minimum wage.

And I put it off and I put it off and I let it go and let it go.

And I think like another six months went by and I remember talking to you guys about it

and y'all were like, yeah, raise weight rates.

And I think what I felt like I had to do was like, actually do the math forum about how many hours it

takes to do the work and show him that I was not, I was making like $3 an hour and that kind of.

Shocked him.

Not as much as it shocked me, of course, but then we renegotiated, but I felt like I had to

do that much justification of raising rates.

And I'm still not great at raising rates regularly.

Jennifer, what about you?

So I am not good at raising them regularly, but I am in the process of.

You know, doing the new people.

Come on, there's a new rate.

People ask me how much I charge.

I tell them the new rate.

I'm not even thinking about the old number now.

Like it's the new number?

Cause one of my people already pays that number.

I just do a little extra for him.

So it's like, oh, well he already pays it.

Somebody else's already paying that.

He just gets a little bit of extra love.

Well, he's paying us.

Somebody else probably will too.

Right.

Oh, wait, they're paying that now, too.

Okay, great.

But I'm not even having the conversation with the lower number.

It took a while from my base rate of, you know, my first show man, $25 or whatever, I've come a long way since then, but

the

the doubling and tripling the rate a few years ago.

Well, like, oh, now I'm legit.

You know?

So for those of, I don't see anyone, any beginners in the chat, but for beginners who

are listening and lurking, you know, it's okay.

Just start out at the $25, but don't stay there for long.

If you figure out what you're doing, have that conversation.

As soon as you.

Because Mike say, you're going to end up getting stuck there forever.

And I had a client who wanted to stay at the 25, 30 $5 level.

I was like, Hey, yeah, I'm raising it up to 50, which is not where I am now.

I'm higher than 50 now.

But at that point I was like, I'm going to raise it to 50.

And you all might remember my agony over that potential conversation.

I was just going to go to $50.

Uh, and they said, no, so I don't work for them anymore.

And that's okay.

Because now I have people paying me a heck of a lot more than that to do what I was doing before.

The thing I like to remind myself, because I remember that with you is

every client that you lose at the old rate.

If you've doubled the rates, you only need half of a new client to replace that.

Right.

So I understand that sometimes there are fixed costs that need to be covered, but a lot of what we do is really time-based.

So it's really more variable costs.

And so as long as your base costs are.

Losing a low paying client is not necessarily a bad thing.

I don't like it.

I don't like to lose relationships.

And I think that's my challenge, right?

To me, losing a client over pricing is like failing in a relationship.

And I don't know why that is because I'm not even sure sometimes I like people, but there's that?

Well, you start to care, right?

You care about your client.

You're listening to them like every week, sometimes multiple times a week.

So you.

Just like a podcast listener, have that sense of intimacy with them.

But it's like a false sense of intimacy because they're not listening to your voice, every email.

Um, so I don't think they're as connected.

Right.

And where, you know, since we have that intimacy, we're putting so much, we're projecting so

much into that conversation in our head.

Because they care and what if they're having problems and, oh, what are, we don't want to make it harder for them.

And so there's this whole emotional baggage we bring to it, right.

That they don't even have, or even think about.

And I think the clients I have raised rates on or changed rates based on the scope of work, it was like, okay, it was easy.

It wasn't as hard or as like, I didn't have.

Do all is hoop jumping.

I thought I had or justification that I thought I would have to because they were looking at it as a transactional

relationship instead of an intimate relationship.

Right?

Yeah.

I wonder sometimes if, maybe that's why it's so frustrating when we get crap audio to start with, and it feels like the

client doesn't even care because that starts to like, maybe at some point we become over-invested in the relationship.

To where we care more about the quality of what they put out than they do.

I broke up with clients once in there, their message to me was, oh, these minor

edits you do for us, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I was like, oh no, no, thank you.

We don't work together anymore.

And, and I don't even remember what the rest of the email said, but the minor edits I do

for y'all did you listen to what you said?

Oh man.

Yeah.

Here's my session with 275 edit points in 33 minutes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And Andrea has a good point.

They also don't listen to their raw audios.

They don't know what magic we produce though.

I have some clients who listened to the raw audio, so.

They do know what magic I produce.

They happen to be the higher paying clients, oddly enough, which is an interesting correlation.

So that's really.

I have new clients now.

And I'm listening to this about raising rates regularly.

I'm like, well, I'm more like have a rotating the word or a revolving door of clients coming in and out.

So people are pod fading or coming back on or whatever.

So they just come back and someone's like, oh, I'm ready to come back.

Now.

I'm like, well, it's twice as much as when you left.

So it's not like I'm raising rates on people regularly who are my clients.

They just there's just enough turnover.

Cause I had.

Six years ago when I started doing this, I had a really crappy little clients and I'm glad I didn't work with any of them

anymore.

So I'm curious if you get pushback from people who come back and you're like, well, I've doubled my

rates.

I'm waiting to hear back from that email it's happening this week.

We'll find out what happens.

Stay tuned.

What about you guys?

Have you ever been in that situation?

I think I'm going through that now.

Well that like returning clients getting a higher rate, but just pushback on a new.

And it kind of goes back to like the addition by subtraction.

It's a client that I do.

Audio editing was minor video editing.

I don't do any major ones, but I still like take their raw video, throw on the intro and outro, clean up the audio and

produce that along with show notes and like a descript captions.

So it's probably like pretty time-intensive, but they're one of the lowest paying clients because they've been with

us for a while and we liked the work that they're doing.

So we've just kind of like been going along with the lower.

Because of what they're doing.

And it just got to the point where it's like, we dread working on the show and it doesn't help

that we're also making so little money off of it.

So the rate is more than doubling.

So we're giving them, it's like the rate is like probably like 2.5, almost three times as much.

And then we're giving them a little bit of discount because they've been with this for so long.

We know like it's just not in their budget.

So it's more than double what their current rate is.

And so the response I got back is we're doing the budget soon, but it's probably not going to be feasible.

I've never really had a customer leave and come back.

I had one that had deposit show during a work transition, they came back or they restarted the show.

At that point, the rate had gone up by about 20.

But part of that was also, we went from monthly billing to per episode.

And I just shared with them when I agreed to do this with you and this kind of timeline, I have to make

sure that I maintain a certain amount of headroom in my workweek so that I can produce this show for you.

So in order to do that, I'm going to have to charge a little bit more because the income is more variable, but so is the workload.

And honestly, I'm thinking at this point, I'm wondering if double my monthly rate is actually the right price for intermittent

episodes that aren't on a regular schedule, because if I've got my week fully booked in essence, based on what my clients

provide me, and I've got a client that provides me a three track one hour episode that needs to be turned around in seven days.

Just like everybody else.

That's extra weekend work.

Depending on the complexity of what they do, that could be 3, 4, 5 hours of editing is especially

if it's like a host and two guests or something like that, where it's just a mess to deal with.

So I'm actually thinking maybe 20% isn't enough of an upcharge to have an inconsistent workload.

Yeah.

And so one of the things that I always say to like, not maybe to clients, but to other editors,

is that it's not so much that they're paying for.

Right.

It's that they're paying for a slot in my schedule to edit.

Right.

Because my time is the most valuable thing I have.

And I actually am kind of in the same situation you are Ryan where I'm, I'm getting ready to.

I have an inconsistent client.

I never know when I'm going to get a file.

And the last couple times they sent me something, they were like, oh, can you get this out?

A's.

And I'm like, what do you describe as ASAP?

Like there's only so much flexibility here.

If you give it to me on a Thursday.

And usually the answer is, you know, no, I can have it by this date, but I can't have it by this date.

And so I've come to a point where I I'm going to have to make a decision, whether to charge them

significantly more or to just drop them all together.

And there are so inconsistent though, and it's sometimes such a struggle.

That's the other thing.

They want me to cut out, like all the adjectives that they have a legal review department.

So like anything that's interesting gets cut.

And so it's incredibly sad to edit as well.

So it's not bringing me joy.

And it's inconsistent.

Marie Kondo would tell you that since it doesn't spark joy, you should let

it go.

Should we have that approach as business owners?

I don't

know, but it works for clothing,

paper.

I think it works for possessions.

I'm not sure it works the same.

I want it to work for, I want the work I do to make me happy.

Yeah.

Because otherwise, why am I, I mean, I could just go get a job somewhere else.

A lot

less stress that way for different kinds of stress, I guess

you don't have to own no, because when somebody calls to complain, they're not calling you.

Right.

Unless you're like, you know, a CEO or something of a company, I am being dragged out.

What is being dragged mean?

Like, I'm not sure

what the drag he's referring to is a feeling that we all have one you're doing the work too.

You're not being paid enough.

The work seems like it's not stopping for you're quickly losing interest and footing for the job because you're on

the cusp of being dragged and then you're being dragged.

Yes.

So it's just like that.

Yeah.

Not making enough you're putting in the work and just like losing interest.

Yeah.

I'm just being, you know, they're just, they've got my arm and they're just pulling me

along and, and my clothes are all dirty now.

Um, and it's also,

it's a disservice for you.

But it's also a disservice for your clients because once you lose interest and you feel this obligation and discouragement about.

You're suddenly like not putting in the same effort as you would like the shows that you really love working

on Mike, can I come work for you?

And it sounds like you're good to

work.

You need

to listen

to the last episode,

actually, I haven't, I'm sorry everybody I've had COVID so I've been away, but,

um, that's no excuse

types of people.

Yeah.

So that's, I don't know where I'm going with this.

I did want to talk just a second about something that I'm considering that doesn't have anything to do

with pricing, but I've considered making my minimum turnaround time for any show no less than the cycle between episodes.

So if you have an every other week.

I expect two weeks to turn around your episode.

And if you've got a once a month show one month, that way that inconsistent workload can be spread out differently.

I don't know if I'm going to go down that path, but it's something I've been thinking about because

time management is one of my biggest challenge.

I've started with three to five days, three to five business days.

Turnaround is in my contracts now because you know, stuff happens like you get COVID and sometimes you can't do a quick turnaround.

Um, sometimes some shows take longer.

Whenever I do my next updates, one of my policy changes is going to be how I handle rush.

So right now, like I asked for seven days, but the brush Libby doesn't kick in until three days before release.

And then there's like another upcharge if it's like within 24 hours.

But now like I've done so much, like I'm not even gonna consider.

24 hour turnarounds anymore.

I

have that.

I put it, I've been putting in my contracts now that just, this is a Steve Stewart thing.

Like he says, you have to buy his wife flowers.

I say you have to buy my family dinner at our favorite restaurant.

Now for 24 hour turnaround.

My favorite restaurant, which is really expensive,

it's called

the Fox hole and it's the one restaurant in her community.

One nice restaurant.

It's a one restaurant.

You'd get a steak.

Uh, I'm wondering if you guys can help me because we've established that I need to have this conversation.

So can you guys kind of coach me through how.

How to key up this conversation with my client.

That's been put off for over a year now, and this

is about the turnaround time.

No, no price.

I've got this client that I was like, okay, it's COVID, I'm not going to pass that cost on.

Now we're potentially looking down the barrel of a 20% increase, helped me get over my junk.

It

was a point that I thought of earlier and Mike, at some point brought it up.

But it's the longer you put it off, the harder the conversation is.

And not just because like, you've been doing it, like it's been so long, but also if you should have quote, unquote, should

have, like, you felt like your ratio had gone up 20% last year.

Does that mean that your rates should be now 40% over what they are?

Because you didn't do it last year and every year you're not raising well, yeah, I was thinking like 10, 10.

Sure, sure, sure.

Oh, okay.

Okay.

So now, so now you're having a conversation about 20% instead of temporary.

So if you are anybody listening, having a hard time, just know, like the, each year you put it off bigger, that

kind of the heart of the conversation is because like the more you need to raise just to kind of stay on par

you also present it as I have.

I don't know what, how you broach these conversations with clients, but, you know, could

you just kind of high ball him and be like, wow.

I, this is how much I've raised rates for clients over the past two years or whatever in the

past year and do the, give them the 40% number.

And if they come back and say that you can't do that, then give them the break, which is really what you're asking for.

And then they'll feel like they're getting a deal, right?

Like you're cutting them some slack and you'll feel like you're getting.

Want to play devil's advocate to that.

Cause I think actually you gave me, I had that idea at one time at one of our private meetings.

And you gave me some contrary advice that sounds like not to discount your service, not to devalue it like that.

Oh

yeah.

Cause I don't like to discount surveys at all.

So

I'm just throwing that out there.

Yeah.

I was just kind of a counter.

No, I don't like to discount, but I, I think negotiating is a little bit different

than this kind of, I'm not going to give you a coupon.

Right.

But since you're a valued client, I'll give you like, you know, a price that I like still.

Um, yeah.

Um, the other thing is, are you okay with losing them?

Brian?

That's a tough one because there are a significant part of.

Business revenue.

They're probably 30%, so it's not an insignificant.

So

that always makes me nervous.

Um, and that's one of the thing.

Yeah.

Well, of course, because one of the things I have one big client and I'm, I've been taking on more clients.

This is the, we don't have all my eggs in one basket.

Right.

Cause what if there's not an X project, but what if they stop podcasting and it's 30% of your business.

Now, what did they decide?

What did they die tomorrow?

I mean, we're in a pandemic that could actually, um, so what's the solution to that?

Would you be able to find a new client?

I mean,

potentially

replacement value, right.

Or replacement costs, how much time and energy would it take for you to replace that?

Yeah.

I mean, honestly, I don't know how to answer that because I don't have a good marketing

program, which is a completely different episode.

Your customer acquisition costs.

No, I really don't because I, I probably acquire one or two a year.

No, I wonder

how many people in the audience know their customer acquisition costs.

Steve Stewart.

That's a good way not to tell us what it is.

Just if you know

it, I mean, maybe mine would be zero because.

But now you still have to have a conversation with them.

You still have to write a contract.

You still have to like, um, figure out what it is they need.

There's still work that goes into getting a customer.

Cause I thought that, and I was schooled the other way.

Or you can be a moron like me and advertise.

Then that gets spend you lots of money and get you nothing.

I'm sure it didn't get you nothing.

I got you brand awareness.

Yes.

I've gotten my brand awareness, but it's the overprice brand away referrals,

everybody and experience as well.

Yeah.

So, and then you pass that you pass those costs to your customers.

I guess one thing I, as we were talking, I did remember, and I think we talked about it last week,

privately as well in terms of starting that conversation, if that's uncomfortable and you're a member of the podcast

editor academy, there's actually an email script in there.

It's under the sales scripts section.

And that's something that I probably should have remembered was available to use because that will at

least help take some of the emotion out of writing.

Email.

So you don't have to sit there and stare at a blank screen in fear.

You can instead take a look at what somebody else wrote and then tweak it to meet your needs.

So that's maybe one good way to start the conversation or at least to, to send the information off.

I don't know.

Yeah.

So what we did last time we raised rates was, went through each client, how much they make

getting Bubba, blah, kind of did the numbers.

And then we sent out an email being like, here's our new rate?

Here's the date that go into effect.

If you have any questions, if you want to get on a call to talk about it no more than welcome.

My initial reaction was like, I feel like this should be a face-to-face conversation.

Like I need to like talk to them on a phone call or I got a video call to explain this and our business coach.

And my wife was like, no, we don't need to do that.

We just send the email because this isn't a big deal.

Like this, our rates are going up.

So I think are really kind of on emotional way to start the conversation is by sitting out this email,

like I'll break down, like here's the new rates.

Here's when it goes into effect, do you have any questions?

And then they can reply being like, Hey, blah, blah, blah.

And then it kind of have that conversation back and forth.

Then I think the easiest way to start it is through just kind of sitting at email.

Brian, I'm

curious, I'm just thinking about like the mindset side of this.

So how many clients have you raised rates on?

Zero, but I've seldom raised rates without an additional value exchange.

So most of my, I had the one that went on hiatus and came back on a different production model.

Right.

So they went from every other week to whenever they could get one done.

And I've had a couple where adding value added services have impacted the pricing in a way that

out of scale with what it takes for me to do it.

So it's increased my.

As well as increasing my rate, but it's not just like your editing cost is going up to say

zero is a little bit unfair, but also true.

So really the only one that I've ever raised rates on just purely rates is this quiet that I need to have the conversation with.

I did raise rates on her from 19 to 20.

It's really that 20 to 21 and now 22 gaps that I need to close.

So there's

a chance that she knows she's lucky.

Everybody knows.

So, what is wrong for just raising the entity rates?

It's just an unknown.

I don't like things that I can't plan and strategize and having contingency.

I mean, you've known each

other.

I mean, if I can't write it down in my playbook and have like, okay.

In case of do this, it's tough.

Yeah.

And Bethany makes a good point.

Is she always tries to keep in mind that podcasting is not really an assessment.

We don't owe anyone affordable editing.

And she says, she's still working on getting her rates up to where she needs them to be.

And that's true.

So I feel like if you are a podcaster and you are paying for editing, then that is part of hopefully a business.

Or your hobby expenses.

Right.

And so that you can afford that.

So I don't think there's anything wrong with raising rates on just editing, but maybe another way to approach this.

Brian is doing.

I have one client who actually his podcast editing is paid for by fundraising that he does.

Um, it's through the university of Texas.

So like they also control the money.

Is it a situation where he only has so much left in the budget for the year?

So we had to figure out how I could keep editing for him and he keep the show going without me.

Taking a severe pay cut.

Cause I wasn't going to do that essentially.

So one of the things that we decided is that we would drop some services.

So now I only do editing for him and it works out that I'm actually making a little bit more

money because it was the other stuff that was more time-consuming oh, Mike you'll disagree with me.

There's surprise there.

So the one thing Mike said was he'll disagree with Bethany only that it is a necessity for the client

they're paying you because it isn't necessity.

And I, I agree with that.

I mean, they're getting something from it, right.

And they're not editors.

And then.

You know, but that, I mean, I guess that's a very nuanced conversation that we don't have time for today.

And then Mike's going to go ahead and disagree with me.

I don't know what happened.

Um, never worked backwards on a service that, um, I can't afford and then let's start pruning shears and whatever.

In this case, Mike, I was very glad because it was actually, I don't want to do that other stuff.

I just want to.

I got to do what I wanted and make more money at the same time somehow.

But I think that, you know, if you really want to keep a client, I don't think there's anything wrong

with just trying to find a creative solution to that.

Since someone bring up Steve's comment about I'm about to have the raising rates combo with.

So I'm about to have the raising rates combo with few clients.

They are invited to schedule a call before the new rate goes into effect in two months.

And then another email reminder, two weeks later, and a final the week before is the only way I can

stir up the courage to bring up the conversation.

It's like, uh,

you already are my client funnel

about it and it's out of your hands.

Yeah, no, I like that.

This is a question for Steve.

Is that something that you schedule at the time that you set your pricing in 11 months, send

this first email out or whatever that timing is?

Or do you send it out?

Like, do you actually send it out two months prior?

I'm wondering like, are you working up the current.

When you it's

random,

that's even better.

Okay.

I'm just, I'm trying to think, like, is there a way that I can get myself over the courage by like claiming the wind that I just

closed this client to get that prescheduled and forget about it.

So, I mean, maybe that's an idea.

So one of the things I've done to initiate conversations with clients more recently,

Is have my husband write the emails, take out all the, you know, I tell him to take out this, this, and that

it's much easier to like, be bossy to him than it is to like sit down and like look at it and write it myself.

So that has been a strategy that has been successful.

And I feel like Daniel.

Has that same strategy,

right?

His emails too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I call Carrie's husband

birthday.

I mean, you can all can like for like 25 bucks, he'll Rachel's raising rates emails.

Yeah.

I have a good system with my wife, with the uncomfort email.

So I'm much more blunt in my email, whereas she has much more empathy, but written in.

So like if somebody says like, Hey, I had COVID I'm so sorry, my stuff's late, blah, blah, blah.

I'm like, oh, okay.

But you're like, oh, I'm so sorry.

You had COVID.

But like, and just like much more.

I, you know, I didn't tell me this is interesting, cause I didn't tell my clients.

I ain't COVID at all.

Oh, sure, sure.

I'm just going to throw it out.

Like whenever a customer, a client, I sent me an email, I'm like, oh, okay, well here's what you need.

Whereas Michelle is just like much more conversational.

So like she'll start to process.

And then I'll go and be like, okay, wait this week, that will kind of go back and forth a little bit and then just send

it out.

So she's your John.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It's a lot easier for both of us to do this process.

So I don't know what that means for you, Brian.

It may be.

John can write the email for you to

I'll probably just have to start with Steve's template.

Yeah, there you go.

Which is again, podcast editor, academy.com.

That's just one of the things that's available.

And I should remember that it's there, but sometimes I forget, but I think the one question that I'd

like to ask for the chat is if you haven't had this rate conversation, when are you going to do it?

Yeah.

I'll pick it while we wait for that to come in.

I do want to point out Steve's comments.

So we're going back to him raising his rates.

And he says he hasn't raised rates in a long time.

So like don't beat yourself up.

Don't feel guilty if you've been pushing this.

I've been doing it.

I think Carrie said you were doing it.

This is something that we all do.

We all struggle with this.

I like, there's no reason to feel guilty.

This is just some advice and help that we're all trying to take in, in order to make sure that we're getting paid.

What we

deserve.

Another moment I had.

So in, you know, working for a corporate podcasting company, I was privy to like a sound designer team.

Who got an episode.

And they said, oh, I mean, the, literally the email they said was, this is 30 minutes beyond

what we agreed to and we need more money for it.

Like literally that was her email.

And that was kind of a mind flip for me.

Like, and then I guess the producer wrote back.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think Andrea mentioned earlier about, um, SAS companies raising our rates.

I use Dropbox.

I think a lot of people here do they raise their rates last year?

They didn't say anything about it.

They didn't justify it.

They just said, Hey, our rates are going up and we're going to pay it because we have to, I didn't

even know they raise rates.

And to be honest with you until you just

update my expenses spreadsheet, but yeah.

Oh Bethany, you said she had the same rates since 2018.

She did a two-step process.

They went up.

In January, I will go up a bit more in July and went over well.

Wow.

That's awesome.

That's encouraging.

That is, did you lose, I'm curious.

Did you lose any clients Bethany while we wait for that for Bethany?

I did mine, I think, like I said, in 2020 and went over well as well.

I think I had like one or two people kind of question.

But nobody left.

I mean, that's awesome.

I started doing it.

Um, last year I did one last week.

I still haven't heard back from him, unfortunately, and I didn't, I only raise it.

Well, I raised the rates 25%.

I have some wiggle room in there if he comes back to negotiate, but I still have a couple more I need to do.

And I'm just one.

I'm just putting off.

It's not a fun.

No, it's not a fun conversation at all, but it's a

fun outcome.

If everything goes well,

it is a fun outcome.

It is.

And like, this is probably honestly the one in putting off, this is one of the shows.

It takes me the least amount of time to do, even though the rates aren't super high, but I have, I

like, you know, it takes me like an hour to do her.

And so like, I put a lot of money in my pocket.

I do it myself.

And, you know, I get paid a lot an hour to do her show, but simply because they haven't raised rates in

so long, I feel like it's, it goes back to that thing.

Like, is it complacency, you know?

Um, oh yes.

Okay.

I'm dragged.

All right.

I just don't like people rejecting me, ultimately.

I think.

Because it's not one of those things where I hate the work or it's hard to do or whatever is this.

I don't want her to go somewhere else.

And I think that she's one that potentially could

Netflix just raise their rates too.

Everything's going up actually,

right.

There is the number one reason to raise your rates as a podcast editor.

If Netflix is raising their rates, then you need to write.

Otherwise, how will you listen through all those shows and find all of the errors in the dialogue

editing to make sure your skills are up to snuff.

Are we ready for the pod?

Next question of the day did, did, was there anything we needed to hit that we didn't?

Uh, did you want to come back to Bethany's response carry?

She said, no, some of my clients are still on hourly.

I was worried about them because I went from $30 an hour to $50 an hour, which is actually.

You know, I would go up from that when I guess she said she was getting her rates where they need to be all right.

I'll stop.

The flat rate.

Clients felt easier to pitch to, but nobody left me, which is, has me questioning that I'm still too low.

And yep.

Where is Brittany Felix today?

Because she would say, yeah, that's absolutely true because people need your rate.

What does she say?

50%.

Yeah, but if like they're still out until somebody says no, but everyone

keeps saying yes, you can still keep going up.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

And that's what I do with new clients, but I still would like to have the conversation eventually to get everyone on flat rate per

episode.

I like the flat rate perhaps.

So I do monthly because I don't want to spend the time calculating every month, the way, how much their invoices.

Hourly is eventually like this one client show.

If I were to charge her hourly, I wouldn't make as much money because it only takes me an hour.

Yeah, I do want to hit Mike's last comment.

Not only are they raising, he's talking about Netflix, not only are they raising their rates, they aren't raising the quality.

In fact, I would argue being a Netflix.

That the quality has actually degraded over the past couple of years, and yet the cost is going up, which

makes me feel like maybe I shouldn't be scared to raise my rates since the quality of what I'm doing is at minimum

as good as what I did before and in my opinion, better.

Right.

In my ever so humble opinion of my own abilities.

I think it's gotten better.

I don't think anybody argue with you on that

one?

Oh, you've heard the early stuff.

Is that what you're saying?

Uh, I remember when I thought I was so good.

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

Are we ready for quad?

Next question of the day?

Yes.

Are we ever, Jennifer says here our special guest, I need a number from one to five.

So nobody has a leg up on the question.

Number three.

It's

a magic number.

Oh, this is too easy.

All right.

If you had to teach a class on what's on one thing, what would you teach?

Change it because we all know the

answer and it can't be podcasting.

How's that

can't be podcasting.

So Daniel you'd teach karate.

No, I would be

hilarious.

I have no idea what I be doing.

Networking, like how and why?

And I did it at pod Fest origins, and

I've told her she should teach networking.

I would probably teach a class on how to use Excel to do things you never thought Excel should do.

Oh,

I can see that.

I would actually teach researching your family tree.

Ooh.

Yeah.

With a focus on understanding, um, how to gather information from a census dot.

Oh, wow.

Because they can tell a stories.

It's crazy.

Daniel, I'm coming up blank.

I'm thinking like basic PHP.

My sequel.

Very basic.

Yeah.

Outdated PHP practices.

Steve says personal finance basics in one.

Daniel.

I know there's a secret talent there somewhere we're not talking about it may not be suitable for a family show.

So

Steve, I would love to see you have a basic business finance class.

That's something I'm always wondering from the podcast editors academy.

Yeah, I suppose we're not supposed to host this show and ask other people to do stuff though.

That's what I do.

That's my skill.

That's what Carrie could teach a class on how to ask

you to do stuff for me.

Oh dear.

Well, Andrea says singing and Helen said I would teach people how to pick things up with your

feet valuables.

Mike Wilkerson said I would toss paper airplanes in Brian's class.

Most everyone would.

And he said he would teach people how to raise the rates of their karate instruction, karate, karate, course, whatever.

I can teach people how to raise their.

It was the joke based on Daniel's thing.

I

completely ruined the joke, which is probably why.

Sorry, Carrie,

if people are watching live, then they got appreciate the joke before it was ruined.

So you should join us two weeks and join us alive on the podcast.

Editors mastermind on Facebook, just follow the page and get notified when we go live.

And she's only 9:05 PM.

Eastern time.

Yeah.

And, and if you, oh, I

was just gonna mention, uh, I'm really excited about the episode that we have planned for next week.

We're still working out some of the details.

I'm sorry.

In two weeks, we want to talk podcast websites for podcast editors, right?

So what needs to be on your site?

What doesn't need to be on your side?

What are some basic best practices.

We're hoping that maybe we can bring on a guest who will do a live tear down of our sites here, like just a short

one, just to sell us all the stuff we're doing wrong so that you can all learn from what we've done wrong.

And then hopefully a way that we can connect people to that person to take it further.

If they want to go further, because building websites, that's not my core skill.

It's something I can do, but it's not a thing I'm great at.

We want to bring on somebody.

That's great at that to help give us a leg up.

So I'm really excited about.

I'm still working on the guests, but I'm really

hopeful.

And if you guys know any money that you would recommend, or that works on your website as a podcast editor in L a hundred, you can

cut this out in post, but just leave it in the chat and we will.

Do you the rest or email us at, uh, Amiya

podcasts, editors, mastermind.com and, um, Daniel, if they would like to

be a guest on the show, how do they go about I'm doing

that?

I get a good do is go to podcast editors, mastermind.com/be a guests.

Fill out the form.

I think it's finally, my email system has got itself sorted, so it's not automatically marking it as spam.

So there's a good chance that it won't go to my spam folder.

Before I see it is that

it is that all that

stuff we need to do.

I'm just lost.

I don't know what to do if it doesn't go to Daniel's spam folder.

Fair

enough.

Okay.

Well, we appreciate all of you being here with us alive.

Don't forget to join us for the next one in two weeks.

Cut that out in post.

I am Carrie Coffield.

Eric, you can find me@yayapodcasting.com.

I'm Daniel Abendroth.

You can find me@rothmedia.audio.

I'm Brian.

I don't know why you'd want to, but if you do, you can find me@toptieraudio.com.

And next to me is

the bourbon barrel podcasting.com.

And we will see you.

Uh, so