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Chris Kiefer (00:00.82)
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Pursuit of Purpose. My name is Chris Keefer and today I have Joel Pilger on the call with me. Thanks so much Joel for coming on.

Joel Pilger (00:11.714)
Good to be here. Thanks.

Chris Kiefer (00:14.648)
So I ran across Joel back in 2019 at the Ben Design Conference. He gave an amazing keynote. And I wanted to, without giving a bunch of context, if you don't know who Joel is, you can look him up on Instagram. He is the co-founder, I believe co-founder of RevThink. They do some amazing consulting work in the creative agency space. But I wanted to start out with my first question for you Joel.

I heard you say in another podcast you were on recently that in 2001, you went and you had some coaching with Dan Sullivan and the strategic coach program, which I think is like, when I heard that I was like, what, that's like Dan Sullivan, I feel like now because of his books, which again, for those of the, those people that know Dan Sullivan, this is like his latter half of his life. I think he said that he wants to write like 100 books in the next 10 years or something like that. But who, not how.

Joel Pilger (00:51.342)
correct?

Chris Kiefer (01:10.932)
What was the other one I just finished? 10X is easier than 2X, but he's got some legendary business books and I feel like I can't believe that I'm talking to someone who was in like Dan Sullivan in 2001. So my question is, well first of all, how has that journey of like seeing him, I don't know, I'm assuming you've probably read his books now, but I'm assuming that also those books were probably stuff that you were learning back in 2001.

Joel Pilger (01:24.362)
Hahaha.

Joel Pilger (01:39.274)
Yeah, I was running a creative studio at the time and was bumping up against a bunch of what Dan would call a ceiling of complexity and got introduced to him, strategic coach, a lot of his thinking, went through the program and honestly just having that outside perspective of not only Dan, the other coaches, but the other members, like the other people I was in the program with, other entrepreneurs, was very transformative.

for me. So I've been a fan and a devotee of Dan's ever since.

Chris Kiefer (02:12.828)
And you were actually coached by Dan? Or I don't even know how big he was back in 2001.

Joel Pilger (02:16.666)
Only briefly, yeah. Yeah, a little bit, right? We had some interactions with Dan, but over the years, right, like you have to be in the million dollar level or the five million or whatever now, I think to get personally coached by him. So I'm not in that league anymore.

Chris Kiefer (02:33.784)
Yeah, that's awesome. And I'm curious, like one of the things I heard you say was being aware, and it was that and another coach, just the idea of focusing on your strengths and I don't know if you'd say it this exact way, but delegating the weaknesses to people that are good in those.

Joel Pilger (02:52.574)
Yeah, yeah, I have sort of evolved that concept in the creative space and I teach it as identifying your genius or operating in your genius zone. And the concept basically being, it's actually an old idea that comes from Adam Smith and some old, you know, the division of labor concept we know about in economics. But yeah, the principle is your success is intrinsically tied to you being able to know what your genius is.

Dan calls it unique ability, but focus on it and delegate everything else. It's just absolutely critical and most people get stuck big time entrepreneurs get stuck on that.

Chris Kiefer (03:33.052)
And so what would you say your zone of genius is?

Joel Pilger (03:37.646)
Oh, mine, I mean, mine is it's teaching, advising. It's also marketing, interestingly, because it's just something that I love doing. It brings me energy and it also produces really big results. I could elaborate on all those things, but that's the essence of it.

Chris Kiefer (03:58.524)
And do you think that, cause I've talked to a little bit, the zone of genius term is something that a business coach of mine has used. I didn't realize the, Adam Smith, I'm gonna actually ask my coach about that. So it's been around for a while, it sounds like. But I'm curious, as I've talked to people about this, some people are more hesitant to believe that everybody has one. Or like, I don't really know, I don't really have any talents. Like do you...

Joel Pilger (04:22.085)
Oh.

Chris Kiefer (04:26.676)
Do you, is that just flat out like, nope, you haven't explored or dug deep enough, or you haven't been exposed to enough things to discover it? Like, what would you say to that?

Joel Pilger (04:37.506)
I would say in my experience, right, I have to speak from my experience, that when I work with creative entrepreneurs, they are doing so many things, it's ridiculous. I literally had a workshop yesterday, I have about eight creative entrepreneurs in it, and we made a list of all the activities they do to run their business. And the winner was a guy who said, I have 43 things that I do to run my business.

And then we basically processed with him to narrow down what are the two or three things that are your genius. And there's a way that we do that. It's asking the question, what do you love? What brings you energy? What produces massive results? And so you start to just get really honest about it, but I will also share this helpful little nugget. It's often the thing that you go, eh, you know, whatever. It's just what I do. But other people...

would say, oh, Chris, when you do that thing, dude, that's freaking, like you do it at such a high level, you're amazing, you're incredible, and you think, eh, I don't know, it's not that big of a deal, because for you, it's normal to perform at a really high level when you do that thing.

Chris Kiefer (05:53.98)
I can speak like I would say literally two years ago I was in the marketing director role for a painting company and I was doing a lot of automation stuff. I have an engineering background and I can say that is the a hundred percent in line with my experience where I was talking to other marketing directors or marketing managers for other companies around the country and it was like

Yeah, so we just plugged this thing here and connected this API to that thing, and now we're automating our data of our click through and all that stuff. And I was just like, yeah, if you watch this video on YouTube and go do this thing, it's like, that's how we did it. We didn't hire anybody. And they're like, I'm gonna go, they go away, try it. And then they'd come back a month later and be like, dude, can you help do this? And so it was after a number of people started asking.

It was like, oh, wait a minute. And then I have a business coach after, you know, leaving my other job. And it's like, oh, I am definitely like somewhere in this weird space of analytics, data, still creative, because the solutions and automations are very creative. There's 101 ways to do anything, but it's like architecting this perfect, like, you know, symphony of data and things getting passed around to make it all work. And then you have to make sure that it's not fragile. So anyways.

100% agree with all that and I think that's, it's cool to see you helping people discover that.

Joel Pilger (07:14.57)
Good.

Joel Pilger (07:20.182)
Yeah, it's just essential for long-term success. That's all right, I just was gonna say, it's really critical for anyone's long-term career.

Chris Kiefer (07:22.066)
Next question I have is, oh go ahead.

Chris Kiefer (07:27.388)
Yeah, the next question I have is...

Chris Kiefer (07:33.596)
Yeah, absolutely. And I guess the other thing I would build on that is the fact that it is so easy for you is also part of the reason why you finding it and living into that is the, you're able to do more with less energy expenditure, right? As opposed to someone else doing it.

Joel Pilger (07:52.018)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, and you might also think that I'm not worthy, right? Like, this is too easy, this is too fun, this is too exciting. I should take on more of the hard work or the grunt work or the things that are tough and difficult. So, you know, you have to give yourself permission to actually, like, enjoy and love what you do.

Chris Kiefer (08:17.588)
Totally. So another thing I heard you say was, and then we were gonna go deeper into a couple topics, but the other broad thing I wanted to get right out of the gate, so your dad was an airline pilot and you got to travel a lot as a young kid. How would you say that affected like who you have become? And then the other, maybe this is the first thing you could say is I'm curious, what is the earliest memory you have of traveling, whether that was around the country or internationally?

Joel Pilger (08:47.806)
Well, yeah, it affected me a ton, I would say, because my parents exposed me to such a large perspective from an early age. So I've always been very egalitarian, very pluralistic, meaning when you're a kid and you get thrown into a country where

everything's different, right? Like, why do they do things that way? Why do they think that way? Why would they say it that way? Why is the money all shaped different? And why are the signs all in different letters and things? When you go back to America, to your little suburban bubble, you sort of realize, you know what? The way that we do everything is all made up. It's just the way we do it. So you become very like sensitive or I don't know.

Chris Kiefer (09:29.243)
Hmm

Joel Pilger (09:35.282)
open and considerate of, you know what, there are a thousand different ways you can do life. And there's a thousand ways that something is good, something is better, it's all just opinions. It's not a lot of like, oh, this is the right way to do life, the wrong way to do life, the right way to do government, the wrong way to do government. Like it's all opinions. So that was a big part of, I think, what that did for me. In terms of a

earliest memory, I'm thinking of the first time my parents took me to Europe. And I can remember being there for several weeks. We were in the UK, we were in Germany, and it was a really eye-opening experience. And probably the most fun memory I had was somehow I was bored and started carrying people's bags in and out of the hotel that we were staying in London. And before I knew it, they were giving me tips.

and I became like the resident bellhop of this little hotel and everyone thought it was cute because here's this Yankee kid, you know, taking tips and helping people with their bags. And yeah, it was just one of those crazy things. I guess I was just always entrepreneurial and sort of a hustler from an early age.

Joel Pilger (11:20.838)
Alright, in theory I'm back.

Chris Kiefer (11:23.044)
Okay, I can hear you. The last thing I heard, and it probably, I don't know when it cut out on your end, but the good thing about Riverside is that hopefully it's all saved locally, and well, as long as your browser didn't, your browser didn't crash, did it?

Joel Pilger (11:37.647)
It seemed to do fine. It said, you're back online.

Chris Kiefer (11:41.191)
Okay. So anyways, yeah, the last thing I heard you say, and you can kind of overlap and I'll have our editor clean it up, but you said you realized that a lot of the stuff that like in our world is just made up.

Joel Pilger (11:42.874)
You know what I'm gonna do?

Joel Pilger (11:54.425)
Sorry, bear with me one second here. I'm gonna actually switch over to a more stable connection.

Chris Kiefer (12:07.4)
I see that we're microphone buddies too. Got the nice, is that the MV7 also?

Joel Pilger (12:12.873)
Yes, of course. Okay, so let's see if this connection is MoBeta. Hmm, sorry, bear with me.

Joel Pilger (12:40.609)
Okay, let's see, this is now through my 5G, so hopefully this will be more stable, more robust. Can you still hear me?

Chris Kiefer (12:56.104)
Now it's your, you're good now? Okay. So yeah, the last thing that you said, if you want to like recap this a little bit, but you realize that everything in the world is made up or like just its ideas and opinions. So kind of go from there forward.

Joel Pilger (12:58.395)
I think so.

Joel Pilger (13:13.945)
Yeah, this idea that being a little kid and getting exposed to a larger world where you realize the way that people do life is really matters of opinions and preferences. It's not really there's a right way to do life or a wrong way to do life or even a right way to do government and the wrong way to do government. It's all just made up stuff. I think it formed me to be a more, I don't know, open-minded or inclusive or, you know, curious.

person and then you'd ask me about what was maybe a memory that sticks out to me. And I would have to say it is the first trip I went to Europe. I remember we were staying at a hotel in London and for some reason during the time that everyone was, I don't know, downtime, I said, you know what, I'm going to help people with their luggage. And they started giving me tips. And before I knew it, I had like a part-time job.

as a bellhop at this hotel, helping all these Brits come in and they're like, oh, look at the cute Yankee boy. He's gonna help us with our luggage. And I'm getting shillings and all this sort of stuff for my, and I just realized it was one of those stories where I look back and think, I guess I've always kind of had this entrepreneurial itch that just had to be expressed and explored, so.

Chris Kiefer (14:21.76)
Ha ha ha!

Chris Kiefer (14:31.508)
How old were you, do you think, at that time?

Joel Pilger (14:34.233)
I think I was six or seven. Yeah.

Chris Kiefer (14:36.328)
Okay, yeah, because I the reason I asked that question, we have a six year old, four year old, two year old and a three week old. But I were Natalie and I love to travel. We traveled a ton with our first kid. We went to Hawaii, Europe, but then we haven't done anything with our second, third and fourth. And we still are like we want to. And I heard somebody the other day say, which was in line kind of or echoed what I heard you say, which is your kids like

whether or not they remember the trip, you are still impacting their development as in their experience of how they interpret the world. And I love just the examples that you rattled off of why are the letters different on that sign? Or why are they doing that? Those things, kids are asking why all the time, but you get, I guess my assumption is that my kids,

Like they stop asking why about the street signs because it's just like adults, right? You, once you, it's the, or the purple cow thing, right? If it's just the way that it is, then you stop looking at it. But I feel like potentially what's going on there, this is me trying to put like a different spin on it, is the kids are for a longer period of time at a younger, highly developing age, asking why about the same stuff that maybe they already asked why about, and they wouldn't traditionally if they were still in their bubble.

But anyways, yeah, I'm curious if you have anything else to add to that.

Joel Pilger (16:06.553)
I would just add that I think there's a tendency, I've seen some people the way they parent to say, oh, I wanna create like safety and security and I don't want my kid to suffer any harm and all that and I get the intention behind that. However, the other side of that coin is I found out tremendous value in the way I was raised, the way I raised my daughter to teach, I was taught, my daughter was taught to be flexible, to be dynamic.

to like figure stuff out and not everything is just the way it is because it's the way it is and that's served me well through life. I think it's served my daughter well as well.

Chris Kiefer (16:50.56)
That's awesome. So getting into your areas of expertise, one of the things that you talk about frequently and you've got some great episodes that you've gone deep on this, but pricing and pitching. I'm curious for, well, one thing in particular we could dive into and you could expand out if you want, but I heard that you say that not always, but frequently you will suggest

You give a conservative, a middle of the road, and then give me all the money that you have and this'll blow your mind. Kind of give the when to go with one idea versus a couple or even coming into a pitch with multiple options, the good, better, best type thing.

Joel Pilger (17:26.161)
Okay.

Joel Pilger (17:38.393)
Okay, so I'll answer that question because this is one of my favorite topics, by the way. Within the context of the people in my industry, right, these are creatives, they run a business, they're going to a client who says, hey, we have this project and my client, let's say the creative studio is trying to figure out, well, what's the budget and what should we charge, right? This is a common problem. Anyone listening, you're pitching, you're proposing, you're bidding, whatever, on a project and your client...

is wanting to spend as little as possible, but they also want the best possible result. What I find is that, first of all, the client almost always has a budget. They will tell you, oh, we don't have a budget, just send us a number, which is a fool's errand. Okay, because I say that proposals are where projects go to die. When you respond in that situation, you are guessing. And what I would say is, experts don't guess.

Experts diagnose and they prescribe. So whenever you have somebody say, you know, just send me a proposal. That's my trigger where it's incumbent upon you to say, look, I'm not in the proposal writing business, so let's continue having this conversation. Let me ask you a few more questions. Let me help, let me understand what we're really trying to accomplish here. And often the person will say, well, I still don't have a budget. I don't know what this costs. Can you just send me numbers?

And when you can't get a number out of somebody, sometimes they'll give you a range, but often they'll just say, I'm sorry, I don't know what the number should be. Can you please send me a bid? I would generally say, let me get with my team and come back to you with some ideas. Hang up the phone, I walk across the room, I pretend like I'm having a conversation with my team. Maybe I do, maybe I don't. Call the person back in an hour and say,

Okay, based on everything you told me, I think there's like three ways that we could potentially tackle this problem you're trying to solve. And I'm gonna use the words gold, silver, bronze, just for convenience, right, as labels. And this gold idea, by the way, it's probably way more than your budget, because it's $200,000. But check this out, if we do this, it would be this, that, that. And the person is like, oh, whoa, you're like, it's okay.

Joel Pilger (20:03.697)
The silver approach is more like $150,000 and it's gonna look like this and do that. There's another thing called bronze. I'm concerned it's not really the best solution, but it would totally solve the problem. It's 100,000, it looks like this, that, and the other. Which of those sounds like the direction we should go in? What you'll find is you'll always get a response. No one will say, I don't know, send me. Still, right? Usually the response you get is,

Chris Kiefer (20:28.356)
Yeah, still. Yeah.

Joel Pilger (20:32.981)
Oh my God, I had no idea who I was talking to. I don't have, I have $10,000. And you say, you know what, okay, we just saved both of us a lot of time. It's nice to meet you. Let me refer you to a freelancer or somebody who can maybe help you on that kind of a budget. But usually you get an answer of something like, oh my gosh, I love that gold thing you talked about, but I really can only afford something in that silver range.

And what I tell people, because people are like, oh, what do I do, what do I do? I say, you celebrate, because now you know the number. Now you know the number. That's the whole exercise. Once you have a number, now you have something to work with, and you're eventually gonna get the conversation to a place where you are seeking alignment, like on the phone, on Zoom, called, okay, so.

Chris Kiefer (21:09.256)
Yeah, and then you go back in here, you can work.

Joel Pilger (21:27.697)
for your 150,000, we're gonna do this, you're gonna do that, and here are all the parameters. And when the person says, yeah, I guess so, can you send me a proposal? You say, well, if I send you that proposal, are we good to go? If there's any sort of, well, we'll see, it's like, look, what else do I need to answer for you right now so that when I send this to you, we're good to go. Like if there's an objection or a concern, let's address it. Because the proposal,

is the verbal conversation, right? It's not a piece of paper. The piece of paper is some sort of codified manifestation of the verbal agreement that you're reaching with the person. So often the resistance is, well, I gotta go talk to my boss. And you're like, oh, so you're not the decision maker. Now that we know that, let's get the boss in the conversation and hammer this out right now, okay? Because you're trying to eliminate this confusion.

Chris Kiefer (21:58.848)
the end.

Chris Kiefer (22:11.798)
Hmm

Joel Pilger (22:27.957)
I'm not talking to the right person. I can't get good answers to my questions. So those are some overall principles that I recommend.

Chris Kiefer (22:36.3)
Do you, in that situation, do you recommend that, and I don't wanna put the wrong labels on how I'm describing things, so you can correct my language if it's not accurate, but I would say saying like, oh, you're not the decision maker. That's like an, I would say, a intentional, like, intentional usage of words to basically allow the person to say, well, no, I am. Like, oh, you know.

But you're also saying, cause they might have told you they were the decision maker before or loosely, but you are trying to deliberately say like, oh, like this, we should have figured this out a long time ago, I don't even know why we aren't talking with all the parties that need to be involved. And it's just kind of a hard line in the sand of, let's get everybody here before we continue cause this is how I operate, is that correct?

Joel Pilger (23:27.557)
Yes, and I'll even sometimes recommend that a creative agency even pull the policy card, meaning, well, look, when it comes down to it, us presenting our ideas and our proposal and our solution.

Chris Kiefer (23:37.504)
Hmm.

Joel Pilger (23:45.269)
we have a policy that we can really only have that conversation with the decision maker. So let me know when we can get that call scheduled. I really look forward to meeting your boss. And by the way, of course, I'm going to make you look great and you're going to be the hero so have no worries. I'm not trying to cut you out of the loop here. And it's yeah, it's ultimately just trying to get to who's the person.

who can really understand the value of what you're proposing and you can ask them proper questions so that you've really understood the problem and you really know the value of the solution that is now possible. And often when you talk with that decision maker, you discover something new. You discover the problem is way worse than they thought or it's way more valuable to solve in a new way that they haven't yet considered. Because in my world, people will often call

one of my clients, a studio owner, and they'll say, hey, I need a video. And the mistake is to jump into proposal mode and like, oh, here's a video, we can do this, we could do this, we could do this. The better outcome starts with asking a question, why do you think you need a video? So just practice that. Like the next time any of your clients call you and they say, hey Chris, I need a blank, just ask them. Really?

Chris Kiefer (24:43.584)
Hmm.

Chris Kiefer (25:07.772)
Why? Yeah.

Joel Pilger (25:08.525)
Why? Why do you need a blank? And why do you think that? And then you start asking other questions. Why now? Why me? What have you tried before? What if you're wrong? What if you pushed it off? What if this? What if that? And all of a sudden you'll get somebody who either gives you great information and you're really solving the problem or they're saying, I don't know those answers. We got to go talk to the CMO and your answer should be great. We do need to go talk to the CMO or whoever that you know true decision maker is.

Chris Kiefer (25:38.684)
And so would you say that the suggestion is always determine a budget prior to a proposal? Or, and again, I think I'm trying to be careful with the word proposal, but prior to you going to the drawing board to come up with an idea to present, you should have a number that they're trying to work within, correct?

Joel Pilger (25:57.689)
Yes, yes, yes.

Chris Kiefer (26:00.804)
And so the other thing I'm thinking is like, so like for my business, I do these automation consulting packages for home service companies, mainly painting companies. So a lot of overlap in what you're saying, but you would say that, again, it'd be like early on, be like, and do you guys know, first of all, well, first I understand why they think they need automation to begin with. We're diving into all that. What have you tried? I love all that stuff. But you're saying,

then it's the, I love the idea of like, so if I send, if we, if I were to send you over a proposal, I guess I would even say, because generally I do a video, like a PowerPoint with walking through everybody on the call. So it's like a lot of discovery, uncovering all the problems. And then it's like, we go back, work, come back a week later and say, here's the solution based on our conversation. But we would want to have in that discovery process, identify a number.

Why did they, I'm assuming like, well, why do you say your budget's 50,000? Why is it not 75? Where did you come up? Like what makes you think this costs $50,000? Do you go down that route also?

Joel Pilger (27:08.685)
Yeah, yeah, I was just having that conversation with a group of owners two days ago where we were saying it's really great to, again, be friendly, but when someone says, yes, okay, we have a budget of $50,000 and we need a video, and there's that moment when you say, and where did the $50,000 come from? Because it's amazing how nine times out of 10 the answer is something like, I don't know, or I was just given this number, or...

Chris Kiefer (27:32.undefined)
There's no...

Joel Pilger (27:37.465)
we're guessing or somebody else did something like that a while ago and that was the number. It's like, okay, good to know. It's just great information to help move the process forward because ultimately I would say this, it's your job to guide the client to the proper budget because once you help them see the value of the solution, what you're really doing is saying, hey, I see an outcome or a result out here.

that's worth $500,000 and a good investment to capture $500,000 is $50,000. There's some sort of a, right? And I know it's not guaranteed you're gonna get that result, but we always deliver, we never fail, we will help you get the best result possible and we think it's X.

Chris Kiefer (28:27.132)
Yeah, yeah. Do you think that this applies, this is gonna be an absurd way to take this, but I work with a lot of residential painting companies. Obviously, I'm not saying that you have to speak definitively on this, but if you were thrown into an estimating job of, like you show up to John and Sue's house, and you're trying to understand their, because there is a lot of similarities to what you're describing, but at the end of the day, there is a little bit of just like,

you know, this is the material and the labor and stuff like that. However, there's always ways to be like upselling, like do you want your trim a different color? Like do you have any siding issues, anything else? Like just like ways that we could do three coats of paint or there's definitely room for upsells depending on the budget. How much of these like sales tactics do you think are applicable?

just across the board to anything that requires making a proposal and coming back with the diagnosed or the recommended prescription.

Joel Pilger (29:31.937)
I'm gonna say it varies wildly because the more that you are selling a commodity, whether that's a service or a product, you do not have that flexibility to the extent that you are selling something that is subjective. Oh, there's an old saying that I'm gonna think of here in a minute. But there's a, in my industry, the fact that

I have creative companies that are developing creative solutions. They're doing visual effects and animation and they're designing a new brand and launching a new product. The deliverables that they're producing are highly subjective. And because of that, there's all these variables that we can play with to make something even more.

enticing, more impactful. Well, is that worth an extra $100,000? I don't know, maybe, but when it's someone like a painter doing a bid, if we're honest, it's really time and materials. And as soon as you start doing any kind of a value proposition play called I'm better than the next guy, they're gonna be like, hmm, you're pretty much all the same. The only thing that's different here is price. And sure,

I can pay you more, you're upselling me on paint the trim. Sure, I can do that, but the next guy can also do the trim and charge me more. So there's not a big differentiation there.

Chris Kiefer (31:00.38)
Yep. And what about the, I would assume, and I kind of liked the idea of using this as an analogy. The goal is to get yourself out of selling a commodity. Regardless of what you do, any way possible, find out how you can be unique, different, specialized niche to be like, we're unlike the rest, correct?

Joel Pilger (31:22.169)
Yeah, absolutely, your goal is definitely to be irreplaceable. And the other thing I would say is to get out of the commodity trap. So a simple rule of thumb is, we call it the value pyramid inside of my consultancy, and that is imagine all of the commodities that you might currently sell. And that could be, it's things like you sell your time, you sell equipment, you have office space, you even just have...

bodies that you throw at things, right? You are, these are all things that are easily replaceable and just you're buying them based on price. When you start combining those things, you'll often combine them into something you call a service.

service is more valuable because you've done the work of finding those combinations to create something that's more valuable. Well now if you have multiple services and you combine those, now you're creating something more like an expertise or a strategy. It's more sophisticated, it's more complex, but you've created that offering. And then if you combine multiple expertises, you're even getting up into something like vision where you're creating a category that

and there's only one place to get it. And it's the one, you know, it's like a monopoly almost at that point. So I would just encourage people, if you're selling commodities, find a way to combine them in a new way to create a new service or a new product. That's one step.

Chris Kiefer (32:50.216)
And then, yeah, so just go one step up the pyramid whenever possible. If you're in the service business, can you make an expertise? If you're in the expertise business, can you? So just trying to put those puzzle pieces together.

Joel Pilger (33:00.781)
Yeah, yeah, bingo.

Chris Kiefer (33:03.961)
One of the other things I heard, which I thought was awesome is, and I think I'm quoting this correctly, but you want to take every dollar your client has to blow their mind and create something that they never could have created on their own. Tell me more about that.

Joel Pilger (33:19.917)
Yeah, I have a very, it's a bit of a controversial stance on pricing where, again, this is in the creative world where what I tell creatives is, I think there's an ethical argument to be made for, it's really your job to get every dollar that the client has out of their pocket because they have a real problem.

And money is the thing that unleashes you to create the most value. They're going to get the largest return on their investment. If you really understand the problem and you're going to essentially take every resource they have and make something with it. And one of the resources they have is money. So,

when the client gives you more money, you can solve the bigger problem. You can take them further. You can produce something that's never been done before. And so in that sense, when you think, oh, if you are, I don't know, if you're taking the easy road, or maybe you're lazy, or you're just going with the assumptions, you're not challenging the assumptions, and the client says, I have this much money, this is my budget, and you just accept it, you might be shortchanging

the client on a bigger and more amazing result because you just said, ah, I don't want to argue over this. I'll just take that money and do the best we can.

Chris Kiefer (34:50.273)
Hmm. And you said, another one is, the people don't have a sales problem, they have a positioning problem, which is all tied right up in this. Where, what is that? Or what is the, I understand what that statement means, but what's the solution? How do you solve the positioning?

Joel Pilger (34:58.333)
Right.

Joel Pilger (35:05.285)
Oof.

Joel Pilger (35:09.133)
Well, I'm gonna lump positioning as, under the more general topic or area that we call marketing. What I find is that in my space, there are all these companies that, when you ask any business owner, hey, do you have a sales problem, right? If I ask a room of owners, hey, who here has a sales problem? Every hand goes up. And what's ironic is the person who's running the million dollar a year studio,

the person who's running the $10 million a year studio, the person who's running the 100 million, all their hands go up. And the guy who's running the 1 million looks at the lady who's running the 10 million and he thinks, wait, you've got a sales problem? Like if I was doing 10 million, I don't have a sales problem. But there's this thing, because here's what it is, sales is so difficult, it's so tenuous. You are in this constant battle to...

what you think your job is, oh, I need people to pick me. Please pick me, pick me, pick me, pick me, right? Here's my thing, pick me, pick me. And really the problem is solved better when you get under the hood with great marketing, meaning you've built tons of awareness, you have a clear positioning where people know who you are, what you're about, what makes you different.

what your mission and purpose and all this stuff is. And so you have this kind of steady stream of opportunities and potential fits that are coming at you. And therefore you have a steady stream of sales. So often when somebody comes to me and they go, we just have a sales problem, right? We're not closing enough deals or we don't have enough sales. I will often say, let's go take it back a step.

and look at your marketing and your positioning because that's really the foundation of all of that.

Chris Kiefer (37:08.976)
And the going deeper into that, I've heard you say that basically you want to, it's like the, uh, I feel like there was a book that's called positioning. I could be wrong, but it's about literally there's a space in someone's brain. And when they think of X, they're like, Oh, we need Joel because he that's what this is literally what he does. Am I saying that correctly?

Joel Pilger (37:35.385)
Yeah, I think the dictionary, almost definition of positioning is a marketing strategy which aims, where you're aiming for your brand to occupy a specific position in the mind of your client relative to other competitors.

Chris Kiefer (37:58.828)
Tell me more about that.

Joel Pilger (38:01.893)
So the, really the theory kind of goes like this. If you were to like do a cross section of your client or customer's brain, so to speak, metaphorically, you would see it full of what? I gotta pay the bills, I gotta get to work, I, you know, my kids having trouble in school, I'm thinking about everything from food to sex to sleep to, right?

person who just cut me off in traffic, there's this incredibly noisy cluster inside of our brains. And then a thing hits my desk called, hey Chris, or hey Joel, we need to launch this new product. And when I get that proposal or that brief, let's call it, ideally, you wanna be the first thing that just pops into my mind.

Why do you pop into my mind? Well, it's because you've been sitting there the whole time. And when I go, oh man, I should call Chris. He's the perfect guy to crush this. That's very different than, I'm looking at this creative brief and I'm like, hmm, maybe I should go over to my shelf and look at all of those resumes and right, and proposals that I've gotten over the past few years. That's not, like you don't wanna be on the shelf. You wanna be in their brain.

Chris Kiefer (39:29.88)
And what's the for can you apply? I'm assuming that again for commodities, you're out of luck. There's no way this is happening for a commodity.

Joel Pilger (39:39.677)
Correct.

Chris Kiefer (39:41.undefined)
And so maybe for services, but the higher up that value pyramid that you get, the easier it is to do what you're talking about. Is that correct?

Joel Pilger (39:49.009)
Correct. Yes, you nailed it.

Chris Kiefer (39:51.516)
And so the like I'm is this is making me think of, you know, Alex Hermosy. He has a value. I don't know if he calls it the value equation, but this, when I heard you talking about this, this is what made me think, oh, this is, this is I've lived this or experienced this directly. But he says that the price is value or it's a, it's a numerator denominator. The numerator is the value of this thing.

to the person you're selling it to, multiplied by the confidence that you're gonna be able to get that result, divided by the effort it's gonna take on their part, and the time until they get the result. Have you heard that before?

Joel Pilger (40:36.461)
Yeah, yeah, I think that formula is brilliant.

Chris Kiefer (40:39.58)
And the thing I love about that is that it goes to show you the, as far as expertise goes, when you become an expert in something, you are opening the door for systems, processes, this like, we do our brainstorm and then we have, you know, like the iterations and then we come back, like whatever the process is, you get more efficient at doing things, even creative things. And you're

It's like, why does one agency get paid five times the amount that a agency that started yesterday? Cause they've got a track record that they can deliver on what they're saying. So that in the numerator there, the confidence is way higher. Um, and I've, and the other thing I love about it is that if you can deliver, like theoretically someone could swipe a credit card and it immediately is in the solution is, is done in there. Now you've minimized the time to result to almost near zero.

and that shoots the price way up, right? So I'm curious if there's anything that you would add to that formula or modification or validation of like, yeah, that's just like something else in your world.

Joel Pilger (41:51.781)
Well, I would say Hermosy's formula is, I think it works brilliantly, mostly in the context though of B to C. One thing that shifts is when you're B to B, okay, so imagine you are, let's say, a associate director of marketing at a big brand, and the CMO comes to you and says,

Joel Pilger (42:21.137)
get the message out there, go. And here's the creative brief, here's the initiative, whatever. You're not spending your money. But what you are spending is, you're exposed to certain risks called, what if I blow it? What if I waste all this, my company's money? What if we don't get to market on time? Like there's all these, like I have this responsibility, I've got to fulfill this. So the dynamic shifts a little bit. And what I've observed is,

that in the B2B space, the variable of trust, right? Okay, so expertise is like, yes, it's critical, but it's combined with trust that generates that confidence, meaning you've not only done this before, but I not only like you, I know you and I like you, but I trust you, and that is often the tipping point of you're the right.

Chris Kiefer (43:14.668)
Hmm.

Joel Pilger (43:20.709)
vendor, you're the agency for me to award this $400,000 initiative to, it's very different than if you're buying, I don't know, a $40 gym membership, say in Hermosys formula.

Chris Kiefer (43:34.328)
Yeah, yeah, totally. So yeah, I like that. I think that the, well, I'll jump to the other piece that I think is fantastic here is this, you mentioned that say you deliver the result, the process to get to the result is just as important. So you can't just like, if you, I'm trying to think, this actually, there is a real estate investor that I just heard yesterday speak.

on talking about your fundraising and gathering other people's money. And your duty, if you want to be successful in this, is to communicate with all these investors and tell them how things are going. Even if things are going bad, you need to be giving updates and explaining why things aren't going well. And you could have the end result be less than desirable, but the process and the communication along the way was good. And that person would still be willing to invest with you again.

because they knew what was happening. And so I'm thinking that that's, I guess I'm assuming that it's the same thing going on psychologically or whatever inside of the client's head or the investor's head of just like this is an enjoyable investing experience because I'm not left wondering what's happening. Or likewise, if I'm working with a creative agency and we write the check and then.

I haven't heard anything and all of a sudden the deliverable shows up, even if it's amazing, that's not a great process. Cause I'm just like, what the hell happened in three months? Like, did you guys like, where did this come from? There's just so many questions and it doesn't also, I guess there's a part of me that feels, I don't know if you would agree with this, but people want to be involved to the level they want to be involved. And if you didn't even give them a chance to be involved, you could be really screwing up future projects with them because they're like, what do you,

Like this, you know what I'm saying?

Joel Pilger (45:30.753)
Yes, well in my space there are many creative people that are so convinced that they're being hired to produce the project, they forget that they're actually being hired to produce the process as well. I learned this the hard way because I did a, when I was running my creative studio, we did this project for Ford, working with their ad agency and it was this amazing spot.

Chris Kiefer (45:45.332)
Mmm.

Joel Pilger (45:55.261)
30 second commercial was all computer animated. It was very groundbreaking. And I was just out in the weeds getting this thing done. Oh my God, it was so hard. It was so new technology and new software and all this kind of stuff. Spot gets done, it turns out great. And I remember the creative director from the agency calling me and saying, Joel, just wanna say the spot turned out great. It turned out awesome. And I was like, yes. And he said, and we're never gonna work with you again. And he told me point blank.

man, that process was like, I couldn't sleep. I have gray hairs. I just wanna let you know, man, like your work's great, but we'll never work with you again. And I was just thinking, like I equate it to, imagine if you got on a plane that was gonna go from New York to Los Angeles and the airline just says, well, as long as we get you there, what do you care? But guess what? If it's like,

turbulence and it's a mess and it's noisy and the experience is horrible and you're worried that the plane may not make it there. Are we going to run out of fuel? This whole idea of like, well hey we just we got you from point A to point B. That's that's the deal. That was the assignment. You're really missing you're really missing the point.

Chris Kiefer (47:08.809)
Mmm.

Chris Kiefer (47:12.508)
I love that. Did you say you're selling the process, not the result? What was the tagline there? Not the project, the process, not the project.

Joel Pilger (47:17.653)
Oh, the project, yeah. Well, meaning, yeah, you're selling the project, but the process is arguably even more important than the end result, the project.

Chris Kiefer (47:28.98)
Totally. The last one I think we have time for before we go books and questions is the art of diplomacy. I was like, I need to commit this to memory. I wanna say it, but I'll let you say the tagline because it's amazing. What is the art of diplomacy?

Joel Pilger (47:44.289)
Okay, the art of diplomacy is a, it's a hard learned lesson. And I call it, it's the art of telling the client to go to hell in such a way that they are looking forward to the trip. So what this is, is this is part of what we have to learn in master is we're not in business to cheat people or to screw people or anything. We are.

genuinely good humans trying to do good in the world. So once you gain enough confidence that you know what the hell you're doing and that you actually know more than your client, more than your customer, you realize, oh, it's my job to guide them and lead them, maybe often against their intentions or wishes or momentary whims or whatever it is. So it's just like if you went to a doctor, right? And you said,

Hey doctor, I got this big pain in my side. Give me a bunch of ibuprofen to make this pain go away. He's probably gonna gently tell you to go to hell as he properly says, schedule an appointment, let's do a diagnosis, and by the way, I'm gonna prescribe you an appendectomy, and by the way, I just saved your life and you're welcome. So there's a posture of confidence of, hey, I know you think I'm an, you know, you're just.

Chris Kiefer (49:03.593)
Mmm.

Joel Pilger (49:09.969)
barking out orders and that I am some sort of order taker, but no, I'm actually an expert. I'm a professional. And the reason you came to me is because I'm the expert. So let's like, let's slow it down a little and let me do my work.

Chris Kiefer (49:24.428)
Hmm. I love that. I think there's a It's a I feel like Why I just have to go down deeper on this would be how what is the suggestion or how does someone practice? Saying that because I would say that I've been in situation with clients where it starts out good They're enjoying the result and then all of a sudden they start making almost demands of like we're gonna do it this way We don't like this. We're gonna you know, and but it's never like

It's like the frog in the boiling water. It always starts with like, I guess we can do it that way, whatever. It doesn't matter. And then it's another one and then another one. And then at a certain point, I feel like, okay, I don't know how we got here, but this seems so out of what we even set out to do. I don't know what or how we got, I mean, I know how we got here is because I didn't say this earlier, but I wish, what is your feedback or suggestions on, how do you...

Joel Pilger (49:55.607)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Kiefer (50:22.156)
It's almost like you don't wanna make too big of a deal out of a little tiny critique. Be like, hey, I'm the expert. And you're like, I was just curious, you know? But if you don't do that, I almost feel like you're at risk of going down the path where now it's like you almost blow up the project because you didn't stand your ground earlier, if that makes sense.

Joel Pilger (50:42.441)
I'll try and make a really crisp answer. What you have to do is of course, understand the deeper problem, create a roadmap and basically inform the client of here's the process we're gonna be going through. And there's often a calendar, right? It's not complicated, it's a schedule with milestones and approvals and all this mapped out. But the trick is this, you have to anticipate everything in advance.

So you're always telling that client, hey, remember, three weeks, three days from now, we're gonna be doing this and you're gonna be doing that. And remember when I told you at the beginning of the project that if we get off track, here's what's gonna happen. Overage, change in scope, delays, whatever. I'm warning you so that we can stay on track. And then when you have those milestone meetings, you're always saying, this is where we were, this is where we are.

this is where we're going. Because it's the managing the expectations so that anytime the client goes off the rails, you can quickly say, hey, let's take a look at that. Remember we talked about that. I'm happy to go off the rails if you wanna spend more money. Do you wanna spend more money? No, I don't wanna spend more money. Of course you don't. So let's stay on the plan. That's the easy answer, the short answer.

Chris Kiefer (51:46.294)
Hmm.

Chris Kiefer (52:04.008)
This gist of it. Yeah, but basically you're, you are, I would say you're almost giving, you're earning the right to make the statement because of the number of times that you've proven, look, I've anticipated what's gonna happen. I know I do this all the time. Remember how I said this, well, this is gonna happen. Well, I'm telling you now, if you do this, this is what's gonna happen and neither one of us want that. Yeah.

Joel Pilger (52:26.213)
Yes, yes, and you might even kick off a project with the phrase, you see this date here, this milestone right here, that's where things will most likely go off the rails because you're gonna ask me to change this or this or this, and that's gonna be a change in scope. And they're like, what? You think that's where it's gonna go off the rails? And you're like, yeah, but I'm gonna make sure that doesn't happen because I've warned you in advance. I see it coming, I see it all the time. I'm the expert, trust me.

Chris Kiefer (52:55.112)
Love that, it's super valuable. So, last couple wrap up questions. Give me three book recommendations please. And these can be on whatever topics or interests you have.

Joel Pilger (53:06.965)
So let's see, I'm gonna go all business here. A classic is good to great. Jim Collins just never ceased to be one of those things that you refer back to many, many times. My other favorite one from, this is maybe 20, from 20 years ago that I'm rereading all the time is Never Eat Alone by Keith Farazzi. The absolute just devastatingly good book about the power of relationships and building a network. And...

and all that. And then the one I'm reading right now that's kind of breaking my brain is oversubscribed. I don't know the author, but man, it's that idea of how we use, we put out signals and we receive signals from people in order to create, generate scarcity and to basically build a business that's always at capacity rather than constantly starving for sales. Yes, Daniel Priestley, yep, thank you.

Chris Kiefer (53:57.876)
Ah, Daniel Priestley, does that sound right? Yeah, oversubscribed, interesting. That sounds super fascinating. But basically it's like the supply and demand. You wanna make sure that the demand is always high.

Joel Pilger (54:12.573)
Yes, and the supply is restricted or something. It's under your control.

Chris Kiefer (54:17.04)
Yeah. And give me a movie recommendation. What's your favorite movie?

Joel Pilger (54:22.357)
Ooh, well, I've got a whole list, but for some reason when you were telling me that you were gonna ask me a favorite movie, I thought of Cast Away, which is Tom Hanks and directed by, oh, it's gonna come to me. I can see his face.

It's the guy who directed Polar Express and he also directed Forrest Gump. Anyways, uh, thank you. Zemeckis. Thank you.

Chris Kiefer (54:46.836)
I'll get it for you right here. Robert Zemeckis. Yeah. I'd be curious, I bet you've got, do you enjoy movies? I have to share this with you just because I'm, I would say, I would not consider myself a film snob. Like I'm not, like I appreciate good photography and stuff, but in general.

Joel Pilger (54:57.296)
Oh yeah.

Chris Kiefer (55:12.076)
I just want to be entertained. I'm looking for some action, some humor, whatever, just like a good movie, good use of my time. And there's only so many of the really big name movies, they're blockbusters, you get through those and then you just have this massive list of movies. So a friend of mine and I came up with this thing, this was back when we were in college, on IMDB we do a 7.3 is the cutoff. And so.

Joel Pilger (55:38.422)
Okay.

Chris Kiefer (55:38.656)
The thing that's fascinating, and I'd be curious if you have any favorite movies that are below this, but I tell people this and they're like, Oh, well, you know, I'm kind of, I'm an indie film person. So that's your system's probably not going to work for me. But the whole concept is if a movie is above a 7.3, you can bet your, your money that you're at least going to enjoy the two hours that you spent watching it. It might not be your favorite, but it's going to be like, worth it, right? If it's under a 7.3,

Those are the movies I love having people find and tell me about because those are the gems, like the diamond and the rough that, it's like, oh, I never ever would have stumbled across that, but I'm gonna add that to my movie list because you're recommending it. But the thing to just make it fun is that if you give me a recommendation, Castaway, by the way, is a 7.8 classic movie, but so you're good there. But if you gave me a recommendation below a 7.3,

everybody in the world gets one mulligan to use. It's like, I know it's below 7.3, but trust me, you're gonna like this. And if I like it, then you get your mulligan back and you can keep making sub 3, 7.3 recommendations. But if I don't like it, then your sub 7.3 recommendations are no longer an option anymore. So anyways, I'd be curious if you've got any movie that you're like, this is a great movie, and I bet you anything it's below or whatever, because those are the ones I want. Those are the ones I wanna know about.

Joel Pilger (57:04.557)
Right? I know, I'm looking at my list here and I'm thinking, are any of these below? What about, what about Swan Song? That's an Apple TV movie that just absolutely, yes.

Chris Kiefer (57:18.365)
in 2021.

Ooh, that's a 6.8. So there you go. Do you like that one? Swan song.

Joel Pilger (57:25.081)
Oh yeah, really good. Yeah, it's science fiction, but with tons of heart. Like.

Chris Kiefer (57:31.628)
Awesome, okay, I'm gonna add this one to the list. I'll send you a message once I watch it. Awesome, well thank you for taking me up on that challenge and thank you also for your generosity with your time, Joel. This was super fun. And yeah, oh, last thing is if people wanna get in touch, what's your recommended preference on how they reach out to you?

Joel Pilger (57:36.049)
Okay, nice.

Joel Pilger (57:51.989)
Probably on LinkedIn you can find Joel Pilger. That's like just, if you search at symbol Joel Pilger, you'll find my LinkedIn or my Instagram. That's probably the best place to find me.

Chris Kiefer (57:56.192)
The easiest.

Chris Kiefer (58:02.628)
Awesome. Thanks so much Joel, appreciate it.

Joel Pilger (58:04.805)
You bet, Chris.