This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
The corporate gig where I undersold myself. Welcome friends and welcome Side Hustle School community. It's Chris Guillebeau, your host in this week's failure Friday segment. We're gonna hear from an industry expert who was invited to give a corporate talk at an oil company conference in Halifax. That would be Halifax, Nova Scotia, I believe.
And just one problem, he didn't know how much to charge. So he asked for much less money than the company would have paid. I guess it's not a total failure because he decided this is what he would take and they said yes, but then later as he'll explain, he learned that they would have paid a lot more. So an important lesson, no doubt. And this series is all about important lessons that we can learn from someone else's experience, something else that went wrong, a mistake or a misstep, or sometimes an outside external disaster that just kind of appears in your life or small business and you're like, what do I do?
And how do I navigate that situation? How do I come out better on the other side, recover and also regroup, perhaps. So in these updates, you get to hear directly from a side hustler who has struggled in some way or has gone through that kind of learning process. So hopefully we can take something from it. Either a point of direct inspiration as in, oh, I might get asked to give a talk at some point.
I need to know how much to charge. Well, I should learn from this. Or more just kind of general motivation of like, okay, other people are going through things. They learn along the way. They do adjust and regroup and they're okay.
They're better off because of it, as I said. And we can be better off as well. So whether it is that direct teaching or something a little bit more indirect, I always hope that you'll get something out of each episode. So today's episode, we're gonna hear from Bradley. He's from Detroit.
He had this challenge. He's gonna explain it a little bit. I'll come back at the end with a few words of wrap up. [Music]
Hey, I'm Ben. Well back, I got an exciting invitation to give a corporate talk at an oil company conference in Halifax.
It was a major event and I was really honored to be asked. This isn't what I normally do in case you can't tell, but what should have been a big win for me turned into a lesson about knowing your worth. When the invitation came through, like I said, I was excited. It felt like a huge step forward in my career, getting to speak in front of key players in the oil industry. But when the organizer asked me about my speaking fee, I realized I had no idea what to charge.
I mean, I'd done some smaller tests before, but nothing on the scale. And I wasn't sure what the going rate was for something like this. After thinking it over, I decided to go with them $2,000. It seemed like a reasonable amount. I'd never been paid for speaking before.
And that was enough to make the trip to Halifax worthwhile. I figured it would cover my expenses and give me a decent profit. I accepted my quote right away and I was locked in to give the talk. Everything went smoothly. The audience was engaged and the feedback was positive.
But after the conference, during a casual chat with one of the event organizers, I found out something that made me rethink the whole experience. So apparently the company had budgeted much more for the speaker fee. They'd been expecting to pay someone with my background closer to $10,000. When I quoted $2,000, they were surprised, but happy to save the money. It turned out I had drastically undersold myself leaving a lot of money on the table.
I was stunned. I couldn't believe I'd missed out on such a significant amount simply because I didn't know what to charge. It was a tough lesson and the importance of understanding the value of your work, especially in industries with deep pockets. What I learned from this experience is that pricing isn't just about what feels comfortable to you. It's about knowing the market and what your expertise is worth.
By undercharging, I not only lost out financially, but I also potentially undersold my own value to the client. Sometimes quoting too low can make you seem less credible or experienced and that's not the impression you want to leave. If I could do it over, I would have done more research, maybe asked for advice from others who've done this before or even tested the waters with a higher quote. The worst they could say is no, but at least I'd know I was aiming for my true worth. Since then, I've been much more diligent about how I priced my services.
I've learned that it's okay to ask for what you're worth. Sometimes the budget is there and you just need to be confident enough to claim it. I hope this lesson is helpful to someone else. [Music]
Bradley, thank you so much for sharing the story. As I always say, never confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
And really this actually wasn't even a defeat, right? Because you still got paid a couple of thousand dollars and now you know next time, $10,000, right? And just as a general note for anybody interested in the world of paid speaking, by the way, $10,000 is kind of a general floor. If a big corporation or major conference or something asks you to give a talk, they're generally prepared to pay $10,000 or more because that's the agency price. Like if you work with a speaking agency, they don't usually take clients for less than that except in rare cases.
Or if you're just getting started and they want to build up some testimonials and such, just think $10,000 plus for professional speaking or paid speaking. Of course, you might not be interested in speaking but hopefully, as I said in the beginning, you can take something from this episode and every episode, a point of inspiration or motivation for your day, for your goals. I think it's important to do one thing every day to get closer to a goal that is important to you. So I try to do that as well. And I find myself continuously inspired through making this podcast as well as everyone who's part of it, including our listeners.
So thank you for that. sidehustleschool.com/questions. There are also notes pages for every single episode. This was 2,841. I'll be back again tomorrow with another one.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Sidestleschool. [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
