REAL AF with Andy Frisella - 419. Q&AF: Expanding Your Product Line, Positively Moving On From A Company & Working Towards Premium Pricing

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

In today's episode, Andy answers your questions on how to expand your product line in a business that relies heavily on one product, what's the best way to positively move on from a company that has been great to you, and how to work up to charging premium prices for your services.

What is up guys, it's Andy Priscilla and this is the show for the realest, say goodbye to the lies, the fakeness and delusions the modern society and welcome to motherfucking reality guys today we have q and af that's where uh you submit the q's and i give you the afs as always you can submit your questions to guys email those questions into ask andy at andy forsella.com that's dj hello children what's your instagram dj you guys follow me on ig at officially d johnson give d DJ a follow, guys. Now, sometimes we get some new listeners on the show. And if that's you, you have

to understand this is unlike any other show that you have ever heard. We have multiple formats of the show within the show. Today, you get Q&A. Sometimes you get CTI. That's more of our domestic extremist branch of the show. That's where we put up three headlines. That's more of our domestic extremist branch of the show. That's where we put up three headlines.

That's why it's called Cruise the Internet. And then we talk about how these fucking psychopaths running shit are fucking up our entire world. And then we talk about how we as individuals can be the solution. We also make fun of them a whole lot. So if you don't have a sense of humor, you probably should listen to the show. There was sometimes we have real talk. Real talk is five minutes to 20 minutes of me having some real talk and uh that's what it is and then we have full length and full length's more like what you hear on most podcasts which is like an interview um but on on this show it's more like a conversation okay so don't criticize me on my interviewing skills. I'm not trying to interview people And if you fucking still do well, fuck you. How about that?

All right Uh, we do have a fee for the show. The fee is very simple Uh, if you like the show, please share the show if it gives you good information share the show if you learn something Which you're going to learn today for sure. Please share the show. We don't run ads on the show The reason I don't run ads on the show is because I don't want to have to answer to anybody else when I talk my bullshit. All right.

So that's pretty much it, isn't it? Yeah. I think that's it. We got Q&A after that? Q&A. Don't be a hoe. Don't be a hoe. Share the show.

Share the show. What's going on, dude? Oh, you know. Monday. Happy Monday. Yeah. Yeah. what's going on dude oh you know monday happy monday yeah yeah all right let's get into it man yeah i got some good ones we're gonna start the week off right right right uh andy question number one i create and sell handmade wedding rings. Since wedding rings are very rarely purchased, how would I go about retaining customers? It's not something I can understand happening in this industry. I do my best to wow the customers, like sending them progress photos, the rings being created, but I don't feel like that's enough.

Do you have any advice or tips for me on getting my name out there more? Yeah, for sure. Continue to do the added things that you're trying to do to create value with the process. Make it a special experience. You're already doing that. That's amazing. That's what you should be doing until you listen to the show. Good job. What can you do to expand this? So this would be a situation where you would start to probably expand your business into other items that may be consumed on a more regular basis that would go along with such items that you're already selling. I don't know what those are, but in diversifying your offering to that same customer would be a good place to start.

And I would start thinking about what could I sell this person who's interested in this custom wedding ring what other things would this kind of person be interested in could i offer them and if possible what are the things that i could offer them that would be something that they would buy over and over and over again so i can maintain that relationship and through the course of the relationship, you should be working to continue to wow that customer over the top with the experience that you're already building upon with your wedding rings. All right. That way you're capitalizing on every possible opportunity for a positive story to be told about what it is that you do. So that's how I would think about it.

I don't know the exact answer. You're going to have to think about those things because that's not my line of work. And honestly, I don't have the mental capacity to really dig into it and try to figure it out for you. But that's how I would think. I would think, what else can I offer them? How can I create products that they will buy over and over again? What kind of things are these sorts of people into? And we'll continue to build upon that experience to increase the word of mouth that will, you know,

and there's a very good, there's a very good possibility that when you start thinking this way, that the wedding ring may not even be your main product offering three or four years from now. So, you know, just bring it to some note. Yeah.

Just widen your perspective of thinking on this. Because that's how that, this is how I would be thinking about it. Yeah. Uh, any question number two, I'm in a position now at my job where I'm very happy. I'm among great people and I'm treated with the utmost respect. An opportunity came along where I have a better opportunity to branch out on my own. Since I've been treated so well by these people and I've always been taken care of, I feel a little bit of guilt having to tell the owner that I'm going to branch off and move on.

It would be the absolute best move for my family and me. Do you have any advice for me on how to approach the situation and not feel as much guilt when I do have to cut ties? Look, I think anybody who's reasonable that runs a company understands that people change and that things change and that priorities may change. Sometimes people have their own dreams. They decide that they want to build them. And you, as a business owner, all of you guys listening should encourage that not try to stifle that i used to try to stifle it and it piss and it pisses me off that i used to be that way that i used to think that way um but it was only because i was so desperate to get our off the ground that like i took it personally like you didn't believe in me and that's not actually what the case was most of the time. So anybody who's a mature leader,

that was back when I was a less mature leader, probably an immature leader and a poor leader. But anybody who's a mature leader in a company will appreciate very much what you've done for them. They will be a lifelong friend of yours. They will probably support you throughout time. And I think you'll probably get a really good response if you just handle it with the truth. Like, hey man, I fucking love you, dude. I love working here. I learned more here than I've ever learned. I've enjoyed being around your family. I've enjoyed being around this. I've got this better opportunity. And I think that person, if they truly care about you, and if they treat you that well when you were that person, if they truly care about you and if they treat you that well, when you were there,

they probably do truly care about you. And if somebody truly cares about you, they're going to be excited for your progress in life. Yeah. So I think, you know, I think maybe, you know,

maybe, you know, because society is so fucking like hateful right now, you know, and so many people just are, are just totally selfish fucks. Yeah. you know, and so many people just are, are just totally selfish fucks. Yeah. You know, you might be anticipating, uh, that response based upon, you know, things that

you're experiencing in other places, but it sounds to me, if they're treating you that good and you've had such a great time, I don't think that these are people that are going to probably turn around and not want the best for you. Right. Right. So like, let me ask you this how many times have you seen where like an employee leaves for whatever reason and like you know you don't you may not know the reason why up front but then you find out you know maybe a month or two months down it's like well shit if he would have just talked about this we probably

could have fixed that that's that's a very common thing that happens yeah so i mean what's your advice to to like i mean how do you because i mean dude like that's the thing a lot of young people right now they they have a hard time having those conversations, whether it's just confrontation or whatever it is. they didn't have the courage to muster up and go have a direct conversation about the situation yeah right that's a very common thing dude i hear that not only i've not only have i had that happen here or in any of my companies but i've also seen that as a common occurrence uh in the community with employees where employees just won't have a constructive, constructive conversation. And instead just go and find some other shit to do. And they come in and they say, well, I'm fucking leaving.

I'm going to do this. And you're like, well, why? And they're like, well, I had this problem. And you're like, well, you could have just asked me. I would have fixed it. Yeah. I'll make $200 more over here a month. Yeah. But here's the problem. When you, when you are an employee and you can't communicate,

and that's the way you solve the issue is you go and find another thing, you have to realize that you will never be in a position long enough to cultivate the true fruits of that position and that true fruits of that career because that takes a decade or two decades to actually do and so when you are constantly jumping from you know one opportunity the next opportunity the next opportunity the next opportunity because you're frustrated and you you lack the ability to communicate the things that you are frustrated about, you're actually shooting yourself in the foot every two or three years because you can never get in long enough to actually be relevant

or an important part of that machine. You see what I'm saying? So it's super important for people, everybody out there to realize that most of your issues, most of the problems with your boss, most of the problems with your manager, most of the problems with your manager, most of the problems with your employees, most of the problems with your husband or wife, most of the problems can be drastically reduced or eliminated by having just a very simple conversation. And we tell ourselves these stories over and over and over again about how these conversations go and rarely do they go the route that we envision, which is usually the worst route. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So I would stress to all employees out there to be sure that you, when you start feeling like, oh, I got to move on, you should really analyze how hard the problem would be for you to be satisfied. See what I'm saying? Especially in this job

environment. Like you guys have been used to a job market for the last 12 years that's been very pro employee and with the economy turning the way it's turning it's going to become the opposite it's going to be you have to perform or you don't have a seat on the fucking bus. Right. Okay. So a lot of people have been coasting through their career path and they're in for a rude awakening when times are going to get a little tougher because companies will not keep anybody except the people who produce. And so like this idea of, I don't like the fucking way someone, you know, tweets, right? Okay.

And you leave jobs for shit like that. It's very likely that you're going to be without or off the bus or out of real work for a long time. Any fucking bus. Bro, it's a big problem. Nobody's hiring right now. It's a big problem. And so you're dealing with an entitled culture generally of the employee culture is very entitled right now.

Okay. They believe that they can demand anything they want and you have a drastic shrinkage in the job availability, which means that these jobs are more in demand. And when there's less jobs and there's more fucking talent pool, that means only the highest skilled people are going to get the opportunities. And so a lot of people who have been running around in companies stirring up shit because they think they can are going to find themselves sitting on the sidelines because they're not bringing any real value. And I say that as a matter of reality. If you are an employee or you're an entrepreneur, you need to make sure right now that you are driving tremendous value to that fucking spot that you're in because there's tons of talent that is coming available and that spot is becoming more and more valuable. And if you don't rise your value in that position right now,

there's a very good chance that your company could find someone that can do that job better. And this is an element of competition that we haven't had to deal with in our job culture since maybe 2000 fucking nine, eight or nine. Yeah, nine or 10, yeah. Yeah. So you have an entire generation of workforce that has never had to truly compete.

So it's going to be interesting to see what happens. Andy, our third and final question. Question number three. Andy, I started an online training service while being in college. I priced my plans at $45 thinking that people would want to work with me because that is a moderate to high amount for a plan. High price equals high value or so I thought. I did my research and put time into making the plans and I believe it's a fair price. I was wrong and I'm thinking about lowering my prices so more people would maybe want to buy in and then I can market through word of mouth getting more motivated clients. Is this the right approach or should I just stick it out at my original price point of $45?

Okay. Well, here's what you're learning is you can't fake it till you make it. It doesn't, you can't do that. Okay. Especially in an economy where people are becoming very selective about where they spend their money. Yeah. So the strategy that you should be thinking is the strategy that even Lane Norton, who was just on the show, utilized in the very beginning. He did a ton of work for free. He got

people really good results. And then he used those results to show what he's capable of doing. Then he was able to charge whatever price he fucking wants. And that's the plan that you should be looking to replicate. You should be thinking, and there's, you know, your logic is, is, is sort of right. Like, but you just don't have the experience or the results to show it. You understand? Yeah. It makes sense. Like you should have a high price. If you're offering high value, you may very well, and I'm sure you're not, but you may very well be the greatest fucking trainer ever but you also may very well be a college kid that doesn't know shit that's trying to make some money fucking training all right yeah so so testosterone even flowing hold on who are you more likely to be

at this point right okay let's be fair right the more likely answer which is the one i think that you're coming to young man which is okay yeah is that you don't have the experience to charge that money all right so i appreciate the hustle i appreciate the ambition i think you were thinking along the right track but we just got to do a little work first and the work is this go out find yourself 10 or 12 people that will fucking, and you need to make these people pay because people that don't have skin in the game won't fucking do it. Okay. So you need to charge these people. I will, instead of trying to find 50 or a hundred clients, I will go find three, make them pay something reasonable. All right. Pick the people that you believe are going to follow through.

Pick the people that are, that you can coach through legitimately and get some great results. All right. Help them get great results. Then take that result and leverage that into an actual campaign for you to get real clients. Then the fun really fucking starts because now you have multiple people that you must pay attention to simultaneously and get them great results at scale so that people will not say that your shit doesn't work. Okay. But you need a couple before you can get many. And then as you get many, you could start to up your price because you're getting

people such great results that your time is valuable because you can only do this for so many people at once. Yeah. So the price must go up or you are going to work yourself to death for no money. So this is how you need to be thinking about this. Be willing to work for a discount. Be willing to put disproportional effort into people in the beginning. Produce the amazing result. Leverage the result into a brand. Get the word of mouth going about how amazing you are. Then when the people do come and they pay your price, get them the most amazing results that

you could possibly get them so that your fucking time, it becomes a top dollar amount that you can charge. And then after you have hundreds of people out there, people will start to know you won't have to talk about how good you are you must have got trained by andy then you listen motherfucker i don't have to advertise my shit yeah i don't have to beg people to buy my shit i don't have to post rta live 4 000 fucking times on instagram i don't have to do these things i can show up to a place posting at one time and people will show up and the reason is is because for years and years and years, I've continuously provided more value than I've asked in return. And that's what you want for yourself. You want to get yourself to a point where people no longer have to be sold on you

because you've created a legend out of the fucking shit that you've done. And if you care enough and you do it long enough, you'll get to that point. And then you also remember this, that that entire reputation can be eroded very quickly the minute you stop holding that standard of being excellent. It's not a one-way ticket to the fucking promised land where you just have to get to stop working or stop being great. The demand gets harder. Your standards get higher. The amount you have to put in gets more, but it's

great because you become acclimated to it and it becomes automatic for you. And then you start changing motherfuckers' lives and become a legend. Okay? So go down that path. Don't be the typical college bonehead who thinks he's just going to fucking pretend because he happens to be in decent shape. Actually give a fuck, dude. If you actually give a fuck about these people

they will be damn proud to spread your fucking message well that was three you want a little uh special sauce on this one yeah is that really the time yeah we've really burned through three in 20 minutes yeah it's been three yeah we can do another one a little special sauce shit i must be on fire today a little special sauce andy i feel like i'm gonna give us some good fucking shit dude no i've been fired yeah but it's 20 minutes i mean hey sometimes that's all you can give i thought it was just three minutes all right andy special sauce question what mythical creature would improve the world the most if it existed today and why is this multiple choice no so do i get to make a creature up whatever you want no but like i'm saying where do i choose from maybe like dragons it

could be fucking yeah but do i get to say like dragon with like disappearing? Like does Obi-Wan Kenobi get to stop Donald Trump? What do you think Obi-Wan would say about Trump, dude? Yeah, right. Why you got to ask me this duke goofy shit so I sound like one of these dudes? That's the special sauce question. All right. Fuck, I don't fuck. Okay, I got a better one.

I got a better one. This might be a better one. A mythical creature, bro. Yeah. You know what a pretty badass mythical creature is no one talks about enough as a griffin so the mascot of my high school is a griffin oh okay it's half lion half eagle so it's got a fucking lion's body all right it's got wings and it has an eagle head isn't that from Harry Potter? No, bro. It's a mythological creature. Yeah, the griffin. Isn't that Harry Potter?

The griffindors? I never watched Harry Potter, bro. What? Oh, my God. You never seen Harry Potter? Yeah, because I'm not a fucking dumbass. I fucking actually read books and I fucking watch historical documentaries. And then I watch comedy, which you don't understand anything about.

All right. So Griffin's. Yeah. Okay. So Griffin would fucking Harry Potter over here, man. Harry Potter is a shit. And JK Rowling's like, she's with the shit too. She not woke.

No. All right. Good. Harry Potter's awesome. Buy some more harry potter shit announcing our new sponsor right right fucking griffin's pretty badass bro yeah yeah but you say you had a better question yeah i mean i mean i don't know if it's better let me not preface that um question what's the weirdest thing a guest has ever done in your home if you can count on anything oh man you know what dude i don't let weird motherfuckers in my house

you know saying or on my show there's a number of tests you must pass before you even get to be on the show right right you know so like usually it's pretty cool like okay yeah it's been never had no no weird shit i don't let weird motherfuckers around me do you know sometimes you don't know yeah like sometimes you know you don't know yeah but dude like i try to like you know when i when i book guests on the show i try to book guests exclusively to agree with everything i fucking say all right to make me look twice as smart all right let's be fucking honest um no i just don't you know i don't have weird motherfuckers on the show that's real like who the fuck we had on the show that's weird like you could bleep it out but i mean who we had well yeah i mean there was that

one guy he would have did some shit some weird shit in your house guaranteed man like what what kind of weird shit do people do at your house like i don't know like change all your toilet paper rolls something no come on like flip them upside down like the not the way people what do people do weird people do what's weird i don't leave my house bro i'm probably weird as have you ever had anybody ever just like completely destroy your bathroom yeah me yeah yeah me yeah i've done that oh you you have also you've done some weird shit and other people's house yeah i told a whole story about it on like the first real af it's the fucking dump protocol yeah why don't you it's on episode three joe why don't you just cut that in right right right fuck it's the greatest story ever told on fucking real af bro

so let me get this straight, just so I fucking understand completely. So the protocol for this situation is wife beater first. No, no, no. Socks first. Socks, socks. Okay, so you got two socks. Yep. Underwear.

Underwear, then your undershirt. Then your undershirt. But you got to wear a nice undershirt, see you can tear it this is like what happens to this if you like it's like a swimming pool oh man you're fucked dude you need to be on that show i haven't come into like episode four yeah that makes sense yeah you don't know the dumb protocol for real no seriously all right so look so so let's say we're out on cardio bro okay we're doing cardio and like we get all the way out and you have to shit yeah like you fucking have to that was that that's happened to us yeah i know yeah we had to call fucking chris to come get us at one time yeah

yeah that was fucking that was real emergency that was bad yeah did we both have to shit yeah we both did and that was the fucked up thing i know that was the closest i ever came to shitting my pants without actually i was close yeah that was close like i fucking fully expected when i sat down and seeing that my shit in my underwear bro and there was none in there well the worst part is that like an old hq there was only two bathrooms i know available i know i'm sure they i think one of them was actually fucking taken i know it was traumatized dude so listen let's just say we didn't have emergency evac uh-huh okay and you had to fucking take a shit okay all right and there was nothing to wipe your fucking ass with uh-huh okay but the clothes you were wearing what clothes would you

what would you start with for wiping your ass? Socks. All right, that's correct. All right. Yeah, the socks first. Now, what? Well, it depends. Hold on.

Hold on. What's the second thing you would use? The second sock. That's actually correct. That's actually correct. What's the third thing you would use? Probably underwear. Okay, that's correct. Underwear would go second, third.

That's correct. What's the fourth thing you would use uh i mean how cold is it outside what's the fourth thing you would use probably a t-shirt okay that's a dump protocol a man fucking knows it and he knows it instinctually i'm gonna say i've just been in bad situations that's right i mean so that came from a bad situation yeah i tell the story in episode three i'm just happy we're on the same page man it's not just me yeah no i mean hey listen chris is a hero bro he i think there's a medal for that one yeah save me for having to throw my underwear down fucking green park yeah

he did hey he did he fucking saved us too because we got the car that was like there was no words that were even needed yeah nobody's doing it not only that he drove back up real fast too all right so anyway that's uh that's the show yeah that's all i got man yeah you got the bonus of the dump protocol that's it everybody's happy. Share the show.