Living The Red Life - Terry Rice : Landing Fortune 500 Companies using "The Wedge Strategy"

Episode Date: January 20, 2025

Terry Rice, a business consultant and expert in helping entrepreneurs scale their offerings to attract larger corporate clients. Terry shares his journey of transitioning from small-scale engagements to working with big-name brands, providing listeners with practical advice on how to navigate this shift. He emphasizes the importance of understanding corporate culture, simplifying complex knowledge to add measurable value, and positioning yourself as a cost-effective solution compared to in-house teams.Terry also reflects on personal challenges, including being fired from Facebook, which led to a transformative period where he redefined his identity and success outside of traditional corporate roles. He introduces actionable strategies like the "wedge strategy," which involves using audits, training sessions, and speaking engagements as entry points to bigger deals. Terry’s candid insights on pricing, confidence, and delivering ROI make this episode invaluable for entrepreneurs looking to elevate their business and secure larger clients.CHAPTER TITLES 02:35 - The Importance of Understanding Corporate Language04:32 - Breaking into Bigger Deals with Small Wins06:18 - Lessons from Walmart: Creating Value Beyond the Obvious08:12 - Why Simplifying Your Knowledge Wins Clients10:04 - Building Client Trust Through Transparency12:15 - Adjusting Pricing for Maximum Value14:22 - Charging Your True Worth: Context and ROI16:08 - Navigating Pricing Objections with Confidence18:14 - Lessons Learned from Being Fired at Facebook20:30 - Three Wedge Strategies for Breaking into Big ClientsConnect with Terry Rice:https://terryrice.co/SOCIALS - itsterryriceConnect with Rudy Mawer:LinkedInInstagramFacebookTwitter

What are like three or four just general tips if you had 30 seconds with someone and they want to get more into these big corporate contracts? I think the most important thing is to use the wedge strategy. Just if you've never chopped down a tree before, the easiest way to chop it down is not by just hacking at it for hours. You want to drive a wedge into one side, just a small wedge, and then from the other side pull it down. So what McKinsey does is they offer audits as a wedge. So instead of saying, hey give us millions of dollars for this huge project, they say, hey give us a smaller amount for this audit that we'll do. And then afterwards they'll say, hey look if you want help implementing this stuff then

you have to give us a bunch of money. My name is Rudy Moore, host of Living the Red Life podcast. I'm here to change the way you see your life in your earpiece every single week. If you're ready to start living the red life, ditch the blue pill, take the red pill, join me in Wonderland and change your life. What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of Living the Red Life. Today, my friend Terry Rice is joining us on the show. Terry, you may have seen in the past if you've watched my Amazon show,

Amazon Prime 60 Day Hustle, Terry's a guest. He's an editor and writer for Entrepreneur Magazine and like me and probably you, he's an entrepreneur and he helps businesses grow. And today we're going to dive into how he helped big businesses grow. So he's doing some Fortune 500 consulting or big billion dollar brands. And we're going to talk about, if you're in the marketing space, how do you line clients like that? So Terry, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

Great. Well, let's dive in. I know we've known each other for a while, but you know, if my audience listening don't know who you are, you mind just giving a minute overview of yourself and how you got here? Yeah, yeah, sure thing. I spent the first 10 years of my career in corporate, working at companies like Adobe and Facebook and some agencies. And then in 2015, I left to start my own company, actually, got fired to start my own company. And that's when I just really got scrappy in regards to building my own business, primarily doing digital marketing consulting, and then moving on to helping other

entrepreneurs. And now I'm focused more on lifestyle design for high performers and I have a program called Savage that helps people with that. Right. And obviously, I know there's a lot of things that you could dive into and we met through, you know, more on the entrepreneur side and obviously our relationship's growing from there. But for today, we're talking like you've done, you know, and every time I chat and catch up with you, you're doing another kind of consulting gig or something for like this big massive brand. And I know a lot of people in my industry, you know, even myself, right, we saw in doing the marketing consulting agency, we get a lot of small brands, but we always want to get the big brands because generally they have, you know, more reach, bigger contracts,

all of those things. So can you talk a little about some of the companies you've worked with and how they came about? Yeah, yeah of those things. So can you talk a little about some of the companies you've worked with and how they came about? Yeah, yeah, sure thing. And I'll start by saying this all happened by accident and I'll tell you that backstory in a moment. But, you know, all the things Walmart, Amazon, Google, like, you know, I can keep going but hopefully that helps. And on my end, it's just great to have access to companies that big because you have such a bigger impact and as a result that, you can make more money.

So I'm looking forward to guiding people towards their process of getting these big contracts as well. Yeah, great. So let's dive into the tactics side, right? Like this show is all about tactics and implementation and short episodes. So let's start with a bang. What are like three or four just general tips if you had 30 seconds with someone and they wanna get more into these big corporate contracts? Let's start at the top. What would three or four big tips be? Yeah, I think the most important thing

is to use the wedge strategy. And this was made popular by McKinsey. So just if you've never chopped down a tree before, the easiest way to chop it down is not by just hacking at it for hours. want to drive a wedge into one side just a small wedge and then from the other side pull it down so what McKinsey does is they offer audits as a wedge so instead of saying hey give us millions of dollars for this huge project they say hey give us a smaller amount for this

audit that we'll do and then afterwards they'll say hey look if you want help implementing this stuff, then you have to give us a bunch of money. So on my end, I accidentally discovered that strategy. Years ago, this private equity company reached out to me and they said, look, we're about to buy this e-commerce company for like $40 million. We know you're a digital marketing expert.

Can you just audit it to make sure we're not buying a lemon? And I'm like, yeah, sure. So I went through that process, give them the audit, and and they're like it seems like you've never done this before I was like, yeah, you're actually kind of right They're like, can you give us a format that you can use over and over again? Because we want to use you to pre-qualify all our deals going forward. I was like, okay cool I got to create a system around this so I did that and that's why I'm encouraging everyone else to do this too because

Once I did that they're like can you give us quarterly audits to let us know how we're doing based on your previous recommendations? So the cool thing about audits is you land one that can easily turn into four and then on the back end you could say, hey, look, if you want help implementing this stuff, I can get sold to you as well. So for anyone listening, that's the easiest ways to get involved with big companies. Just offer them an audit, you know, smaller dollar value, prove your value. And then from there, you can ramp up to bigger deals. Yeah. And I mean, even like we teach similar in a different way. Like we always, you know, even with our sales teams and stuff, we always follow like what I call a teach to sell method, right?

Where we're here to genuinely help show you everything you're doing well, show you all the gaps, show you things you should be doing. And then look, if we can be a part of filling those gaps for you and help you do that in a quicker, faster, more accurate way, great. Here we are. Right. And I like that's the only way I really like to sell. We don't pressure sell or anything. And it's kind of the same here, right? Same psychology of, hey, this is everything that you may be missing and why that can make a big difference and how much you can make if you implement those things. And if you want my help to do that quicker and faster and, you know, following my strategies so you have more certainty, then I can come in and do that. Yeah.

And that initial interaction builds that trust, making it so much easier to get big deals. And another wedge that I discovered on accident was working with marketing agencies. So I would do workshops on Facebook ads, digital marketing, so on and so forth for the new hires. But the thing is agencies sometimes have a high turnover. So they're calling me back like the next month, the next month, the next month, train more people. And people tend to leave agencies as well. So when people go to a different agency, they would say, Oh yeah, bring that guy Terry in to go ahead and train us. So again, I would do these workshops, but

then it also stands on with a retainer to consult them going forward. And they're working with big brands, right? They're they're multi, they're managing these multimillion dollar contracts. So therefore I could charge in proportion to that as well. Yeah, that's great. So that works for the bigger agencies that you know, like the New York agencies and stuff that have these big deals You know if they're getting a million dollar contract

They don't mind cutting you a check for 50 grand or whatever right to come in and make sure it's it's on track Yeah, it's funny one time this company reached out to me They had like is like a small budget like an eighty thousand dollar budget for some Google campaign And they call me the day before it's supposed to go live We like what should we do and like yo give them their money back like I don't have time to teach you how to do this in a day but that's what happens like if you can just fill that void for people because this was a branding agency they had no idea how to do direct response marketing so if you can find an

organization in this case an agency that already has access to these big companies but they're missing something you can fill then it's a done deal find an organization, in this case an agency, that already has access to these big companies, but they're missing something you can fill, then it's a done deal because they need you to retain that client. And I think that's so important because if you're listening and you're in my industry, you have this assumption that everyone's like a master and knows it. But when I've got bigger and started to see this happen too and been brought in as a consultant like you, there's a lot of these old school agencies like big New York offices,

and well-known New York agency names. They've been in the game 30 years and they're transitioning from TV, radio, paper ads when they have the big clients that are paying them three million a quarter or a year or whatever. And they're getting asked to do these newer things that we as digital marketers and direct response marketers and influencers know very well, and they don't really have a clue and they hire a bunch of college grads to try and do it and those people don't really have a clue either, you know, and then so there's that missing gap from that lead strategy.

So there is, and it's a great foot in the door, like you said, and they can lead to more contracts. So I love that. Yeah, let's go, let's go deeper on this real quick. Just a double click. So with those big companies, you're going to be sometimes surprised to your point at how much they don't know. I'll give you a real example. I went down to consult Walmart, like in their, at their headquarters.

It's a Bentonville, Arkansas. I went down there to consult them. And first of all, I was surprised that the snacks weren't better. Like it's Walmart, you have access to like literally everything and the snacks were a subpar. But other than that, like they suffered from groupthink, right? So since they all work together, live together in this like micro community, there are no new ideas coming in. So to your point, like you don't have to be necessarily smarter than the people that you're consulting.

You just have to have a different perspective that they're unaware of. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, look, that's the curse of every company as you grow as you get set in your ways. Even we, you know, we get past 10 million and into tens of millions. It's like, you always know you're missing things, but you're so focused on the things that are working as you should be. And sometimes it helps just someone comes in and reminds you you should be doing this or they

can help lead that bit that you know you should be doing but you don't do it and it's kind of like you know why people hire personal trainers right it's like even fit people hire personal trainers because it's like the personal trainer forces them to stretch twice a week which they know they should be doing but they don't really do it because they're doing all their other workouts so I do see a lot of value in that and I think that's important to understand and I just want to come back to the you know that's kind of like obviously going through the agency route and we talked about these audits to the bigger brands but I know people listening are like okay audits sound great I could easily do that on my area of expertise how the heck do I get a hold of them right am I cold

emailing on LinkedIn? Am I finding the marketing manager on LinkedIn? Am I going to walmart.com the website and then again, the help, you know, tab, what, what do they, how do they start that reach out process? Yeah, I'll give two options. One is a bit more involved, but speaking is a great way to get involved. So speaking is a great wedge. And if you're speaking at an event for a private company, what I would ask you to do is after

your talk, survey the audience for feedback and ask what topics they'd like to dig deeper into then go to the organizer and say, Hey, by the way, 80% of your employees want to learn more about this. I'd like to consult you. So again, that's, I'm kind of fast forwarding through that part, but speaking is a great wedge. Two point, how do you get in front of these people? You gotta work for it, right?

So I think LinkedIn is a great platform, but I would ask people to practice strategic patience. So instead of just reaching out and saying, hey, Kevin, hire me. What I would do is look for people that are active on the LinkedIn platform and just start engaging with their content. Engaging, leaving good comments.

And by good comment, I don't mean facts or 100. I mean like in a good comment that shows your area of expertise and include a question with that comment because questions start conversations. This is actually how I've landed speaking gigs and consulting contracts. Just by going on LinkedIn and engaging with my target audience, these prospects, and within 30 days you have an idea, is this going to work or not? So what I would say is look for people that work at that company. They don't have to be the person who hires speakers or hires consultants, just someone

active on the platform so you have an excuse to keep on engaging with them. As you build a relationship, you can actually eventually say, hey, by the way, as you may know, I do this. Do you know I should speak to? Yeah, I like that. I like that. I like that. So, and I think, yeah, a lot of them hang out on LinkedIn. And one tip I got, like I haven't done this a whole bunch, but one of my friends

that runs a big agency for like big, big brands is he says, you know, there's a lot of like the middle marketing managers where they need help, they're getting set KPIs, they're getting swarmed, they can't keep up and you build relationships with them. And if you have a good agency resume awards, they'll often kind of bat for you if they want help in a certain area. So he said he had a lot of success. Again, this isn't me doing it, but this is someone that built a big, like, big, big,

like multi-eight figure, nine figure agency. He said he had a lot of success, kind of, you know, getting his resume, not his resume, but his brand's resume, really good, winning a bunch of awards, having it make it look super prestigious. Cause then it's much easier when the marketing manager or someone takes it to the CFO or the CMO to get approval. It's like you look good. Right.

So have you kind of found that or any comments on that? Yeah, that's what I was gonna say. You have to think to yourself like, who will look good because they hired me, right? It could be an intern, you know, it could be an intern. Seriously, like who's gonna get credit for saying, look, I brought Tarian, I brought Rudy in. And I think if you open up your eyes a bit more,

then you're like, well, these people are actually much more accessible than the person who actually hires people in my position. Like go for people, like you said, the man. They really are just like nine to five, but they like to go home and watch Netflix. I'm not like as crazy busy entrepreneur as a lot of them. Yeah, yeah.

And then once you do start getting these deals, I mean, get loud about it on social. I mean, you don't have to like brag, but to say, hey, I'm proud I accomplished this, my client's doing that so and so forth. So it creates a flywheel where you become known as the person who does this and then you're getting more inbound leads as opposed to hunting as much. And one other thing that I found fascinating when I was chatting to my buddy

about this was he said one of the big things too, when they're bringing you on big companies is they want to have, have, they want your resume and like everything you've done and achieved and your awards and stuff and everything to look so good that if you screw up, they're not going to get fired. Cause that's the big concern for them, which I never thought about being an entrepreneur, right? But apparently he said, a lot of them, they're big worries. They'll bet vouch for you. You come in and flop or drop them ball and then they're going to get in trouble from the CMO or the CFO and get fired.

So just an interesting thing I would add there, which is kind of fascinating to me. Yeah. It's, it's risk reduction, right? Showing people, Hey, look, there are other people besides me that vouch for me, not being bad at this stuff. And the more you can do that, the better. And that's why those case studies, those mini case studies on your LinkedIn works so well, and at the same time like again like once you finally do get these clients I'm skipping ahead a little bit

ask for referrals right so I have a newsletter that just only goes out to my previous clients once a quarter goes out saying hey is there anything I can help you with and is there anyone else who should be helping as well so create a system around this where you're getting these inbound leads proactively because you actually have that referral system set up. I love that. And what about, you know, as we come to more towards the end of the day, we talked a little about, you know, using LinkedIn, doing the outreach, getting to the events, all of that sort of great stuff.

When you are doing the audits and then you get someone like a company goes, a big company, right, let's say a big billion dollar brand says, oh, yeah, I like it. How the heck do you charge? Right? Like, you know, let's imagine all the people listening are charging five brand a month in the markets and well Stuff do they throw out a hundred grand contract a million dollars? Like how do they structure these deals that were in a bigger setting? Yeah, I mean you had a charger true value first of all, and I know that's like a difficult statement to quantify, but I think the mindset sometimes going to these big deals is that, oh, I can't charge $50,000 or $100,000. I'd never charged that much before. You have to think about the outcome of the help you're giving them, right? So when I went down

to Walmart with their not so great snacks, the information I gave them helped them sell more socks, shoes, like all that stuff, like millions of dollars. So if you want to, you have to just realize that the value of your knowledge is contextual. So if you want to change more, they need to change the context in which you're offering that knowledge. Right. So if you can quantify the ROI, which I know can be challenging, then you would want to have like a five to seven X multiplier. Right. So meaning if they're paying you a dollar, they should make five to seven dollars. But that means you have to ask questions.

You can't be afraid to ask questions either. Otherwise you're going to have no idea how to price it out. You can also just ask around too, like, Hey, how much did you charge for this deal or how much did you pay for this deal? But you got to realize the long-term impact of your of your knowledge and not undersell yourself So even when you come to that number, I'm gonna ask you to charge that number that you're afraid of and then ask to add 20% to it like there's there's so much No, I mean it's so important too because you got to change your mindset when you're like you what you charge in five grand

Right now to a small business that spend in 15 grand a month on ads But when you go and work with a big company, you know, you, you charge it in 50 K could make them $5 million pretty easily. Right. So it's like wildly different scenarios and you have to understand that going into it. Yeah. And the thing is like, they have employees, they're playing way more than that.

And they have health insurance and all these other things. So it's like, look, I am cheaper than hiring a nine to five employee in most cases. And I'm also more expendable if you decide, hey, we're all done with this. So, and what's never happened to me before is like, I've never given someone a price too high, and they just said, F you afterwards.

They're normally like, okay, we can't afford that, but we can't afford this. Like no one just dosed you as a result. And I'm not saying lower your price, just either add something or take something away. And when you add something, it shouldn't take up too much energy on your end. And when you take something away,

it should be in proportion to the amount of money that they can't afford to pay based on your original budget. Yeah, love it. So last couple of questions that I have more for you personally now as well on top of the corporate side. I always love to ask these as we get to the end, you know, because as an entrepreneur, you've talked about this one area, but like many entrepreneurs and all of us,

you've learned a lot of wisdom through the years in many things. So I have a couple of more general questions. So I'd love to know, you know, you talked about the successes, these big brands, but I always ask everyone what's your one of your biggest failures and lessons from that? Yeah, that's a good question. Let me, yeah, I'll fill this one out. My biggest failure was getting fired from Facebook. And this was about 10 years ago. And I went through an identity crisis

where I didn't know who I was without a logo on my resume. So that was a super, you know, obviously challenging moment. And I, you know, I was going through it because I had my first kid was on the way, like my dad passed away, like all these things were happening, but I just stuck with it. And you know, like that everyone tells you that, but within 18 months, I was actually making more money than I made at Facebook and bring in like 20 25 thousand dollars a month So I learned that I don't need a logo on my resume to be successful I learned to own my identity as opposed to having someone else to sign it to me and I also learned how to encourage other

People that are going through the same challenges because I've been through before and know how to get through it successfully Yeah, I know the end of the day eventually, well, you are the logo, right? You build your own brand so big that you've got your own logo. So I love that. Next question then, again, a bit of a question where you go back in time and reflect back. If you could go back to your younger self and give yourself one piece of advice, maybe it's similar to what you just said, what would it be? Quit being so cocky.

I was cocky for no reason, like from a young age, even in a college, because like I was a bouncer, I was an athlete and like that just kind of carried over to like my adult life. But when you do that, sometimes you're just like, there's an insecurity that you're masking. And I should have spent more time addressing that insecurity as opposed to trying to sound cool all the time. Yeah. And I think it's important because a lot of people, I asked that question, they say the

opposite way you have to believe in yourself, right? But there's a big difference between like the outer surface. I think what you're saying cockiness and the underlying like belief in yourself. And sometimes you see, especially with athletes and stuff, the outer surface cockiness is to actually cover up the inner surface, but true belief that I think we all have to work to develop because I think a lot of people are great, but they don't actually believe that they're great. Yeah.

And the funny thing is I had nothing to be cocky about. I mean, I had like no money. I sat at the bench under the vision one team, like, like there's nothing, nothing going on as a funny. Yeah. Live it. Um, and the next couple of questions. So just, um, to summarize today, three tips to leave this episode for someone

that wants to maybe start pursuing these bigger clients. Yeah. You got to use the wedge strategy. Uh, and there's three wedges. The first one's going to be audits. So you do an audit, it's a lower price than your full service, but it gets you in the door. Another one's going to be training, training and workshops.

And then afterwards say, hey, what else can I help you with? And the last one is speaking. So you're doing a private keynote for this organization, surveying the audience saying, hey, what do you want to learn more about? And then going back to the organizer and say I'd like To teach you more about this stuff Love it. Love it. And last question where if people want to learn more from you get on your email list follow your content

LinkedIn, how do they find you? Yeah, yeah, so linkedin. I'm active I post every day and the best way to hop on my newsletter and follow my content is by going to the savage life Co. I'll say it by going to the savage life dot co. I'll say it one more time. The savage life dot co. Love it. And we'll put it in the show notes.

Terry, any of those final comments before we wrap today? Rudy, I'm so surprised you made it through this conversation, especially talking about personal training without telling people how jacked you are these days, man. I'm like, take it over the, it's like, you're a testament to what happens when you put your mind to something and don't just Talk about it. You're actually about it. So for everyone who's listening I know you've seen them like just shout him out next time next time he's on Instagram or whatever it is Because you're putting in the work man, and it's so good to see

Appreciate it buddy. Good to catch up with you as always. Thank you so much for breaking that down today I love this episode so many people asked me about this. It's great to condense into one thing and yeah, keep crushing it guys. Hope you enjoyed it. As always, keep living the red life and I'll talk to you soon. Take care.