Dave Ramsey (21:33)
This is the Entrez Leadership Podcast, one of the top leadership podcasts in America today because of you people. Thank you for spreading the word for us. Thank you for subscribing and following and sharing the link and telling people to listen to this crazy man on the microphone that's been doing this a long time. Question of the day from Toronto, Darcy says, we're at the point where we would like to raise our rates in our digital marketing and advertising agency. We can easily do that for new clients. We'd like to raise them for existing clients as well. How do we communicate the change without losing too many clients and how much should we raise them by? A lot going on there. I think the first thing you've got to do, yes, everybody gets raised. No one gets a pass. And I learned this in the rental real estate business and I still do it to this day. We raise rents every single year on every property. You're kidding. No, sometimes $25. But we're going to do we never leave it the same because leaving it the same over and over and over and over again, the longer it stays the same, the more entitled the customer feels to that rate. And then when you do move it 10 years later, after you've been keeping it low for the good customers, they have an absolute duck fit because they feel an ownership in your rates. Advertising on this podcast or on the Ramsey show, we take in tens of millions of dollars a year in advertising revenue. Churchill Mortgage has been with me for 30 years on the Air Zander Insurance has been with me 25 years on the air. I go up on them every year and they're excellent customers. As a matter of fact, both those guys are personal friends now. But I go up on them every year, just sometimes not much. Sometimes we make other concessions in the deal. Maybe give them a few more spots here or there. We may bonus them some stuff, but the actual card, the rate card goes up every year because we don't want to get this mentality that this is a fixed price and it's good forever. And well, I'm a good customer. I deserve the. Why would you go up on me? I'm a good customer because we go up every year. That's what we do. There's an entitlement thing that happens in a service business if you don't do that. So yeah, you gotta go up on everybody, certainly the new ones, and then the others. Now then the question becomes how to communicate it and how much to go up based on your email coming in. It's a good question, Darcy. I like it. I don't know how much. You've got to look at the rate and you got to look at what other. What some of the competitors are doing. How do you flesh out? I mean, are you cheaper than everybody else in the market? Then you got a lot of room to go up. If you're the most expensive in the market everywhere, then you're not going to go up much. It's more symbolic if you go up. But I would just, you know, the way I would communicate it then is the truth. And the truth is, hey, we're a small business and collecting the right amount in a high inflation environment is the only way we get to stay open. And so we have to raise some rates to remain profitable because our costs have gone up in this high inflation environment. And I'll guarantee you your costs have gone up. I'll tell you, the one that went up the most was your payroll. Cause mine is. And it's not necessarily cause we hired more people. It's because we're paying people more than we ever have before because the marketplace demands that. And that payroll cost is higher. So I'm gonna pass that on to my advertisers. I'm gonna pass that on to you people that buy a book from me. I'm gonna pass it on because I've gotta make a profit to keep paying the people that work here. Otherwise I have an unstable, unsustainable situation here called an unprofitable business. We don't run A not for profit, at least not on purpose. That's not our goal. And so, and it's not, that's not a greed statement. It's just the way it's the philosophy of life. So I would just tell them the truth. Hey, we're a small business. We haven't gone up on our rates in a long time. But this inflation's kicking our butt, our payroll's kicking our butt, the cost of labor's kicking our butt, the technology cost in a digital world's kicking our butt. And so I'm sorry, but we've got to go up on our rate. X and if they get mad and leave, that's going to be part of life. You're going to always have attrition of customers in business. You never have any. No businesses have 100% customer retention for 25 years. There's no such thing. If you do, something's wrong. Okay? In the apartment renting business, if you've got an apartment complex with 300 units, you need some vacancy. If you don't have any vacancy, it means your rates aren't high enough. If you're 100% full year after year after year on your 400 unit apartment complex, your rent's too cheap. Your rent should be going up, going up and should be pushing the edge of the market. That pushes some people out all the time. And sometimes the people that push us out are sad. You didn't want to lose them, but it's just how the math worked out. And so you're going to lose a customer and you're going to lose some you don't want to lose, you're going to lose some you do want to lose. And by the way, if you have a high maintenance customer that takes up all your time because they're a butt, this would be a real good time to deal with them by jacking their rate. You need to get paid for that maintenance or let them hit the road. One of the two or both and you're okay with it either way. So that's a maintenance fee because you're high maintenance, you're apprentice, you're a problem child. And you know, you don't have to say that, but I mean that's how you structure the rate on the thing. And I'm perfectly fine doing that. There's nothing unethical about that at all. And so I prefer not to deal with them at all. So when we've got high maintenance customers, we just send them on their way, we let them go bother somebody else because they take up 80% of our time and they make us 4% of our money. And they're not worth it. So hit the road, Jack. Now that's the thing and that's what you're doing. So you communicate it by telling the truth. My costs have gone up. I'm a small business. I can't absorb all this. I'm sorry, but our rate's gonna go up. We've studied the market. We're gonna try to not go up as much as some people are, but we're only going up this much. And this is what our new rate is. And just send out a note. Some of your key clients, you may want to call them and talk it through with them. That's fine. And then every year, do it again. Don't let it go another 12 months. Every 12 months, you need to go up on your rate so you never get back here again with this feeling of, oh, I don't know about my old customers, how are they going to react? They're going to react because every year it happens. It's just part of the deal. Every year they go up on me, but every year they provide me better service and I make money off of the service that their digital marketing makes me more than it costs me. And so long as I do that, then their service is free, ultimately. And that's what you're going for. It's a really good question, Darcy. Really good question. Thanks for joining us on the Entrez Leadership podcast. Without our mission statement, Ramsey Solutions wouldn't be the company it is today. A mission statement clarifies who you are and who you aren't. So you and your team have clear direction for all your decision making. To get help creating your own mission statement. Download my free mission statement builder@entreleadership.com mission or if you're listening on Spotify or podcasts, just click the link in the description. Thanks for hanging out with us, America. This is a podcast by Small Business for small Business. You small business people are heroes. You are the backbone of the US Economy. Most people in America work for small businesses. They don't work for large corporate America. And they're really happy about that too, because corporate America will piss on you. They'll step on you like you're a roach and they'll just leave you your carcass in the street. They don't think anything about it. Small business people are family people. They love their people. They take care of their people. Not all of them, but you got a much higher probability of being treated Right. Working for a small business than you do working for goobers in corporate America. So I'm happy to serve you. I'm happy to be one of you. I'm honored, I'm proud. You deserve to win. You deserve to be successful. I want you to make so much money, all your dreams come true. You work your butts off out there. I know who you are. I've worked with you for 25 years. And I am one of you. So thanks for hanging out with us. Ashley's in Fort Worth, Texas. Hey, Ashley. How can we help?