A couple of years ago, there was a, a shop that was opening a, an auto detailer business. So they would clean your car inside and outside and make it look spic and span. And we didn't have a fancy car. We had a Toyota matrix and you know, we loved it and we. We wanted to get a clean because frankly we do that once or twice a year anyway.
And I figured it would be easier to spend the money, to get someone to do it than to spend money, spend all my afternoon on a Saturday cleaning it up and doing all those things. So what I did was I noticed there was a, a shop around the corner that was opening up and I brought it to them. Well, first I called them and I said, Hey, you know, we've got this car. We'd love to we'd love to have you detail it. Is this something you would help us help us?
Do you know, you've got a grand opening event coming up. And he said, yeah, you know, we can totally help you do that, but how, how bad is it? How bad is your car? And I said, well, what do you mean? He's like, well, how dirt, how dirty is the car? And I said, well, it's, I think I probably cleaned it a year ago, but we, you know, and it's not bad, but we do have a dog. So some of the backseat has some dog hair that's kind of embedded in.
And whatnot, a short, short hair dog, but a dog nonetheless. And you kinda, you know, a little Hampton hot kind of reluctantly said. Yeah. You know, I guess yeah, sure. Bring, bring the, bring the car in and we'll, we'll, we'll give it a clean for you. And it kind of was like a reluctant side, like, I guess, I guess we'll do this for you. No problem. Which kind of struck me because number one, it was a brand new business. So how could he be burned out and exhausted already about doing cars?
Number two is if your job is to clean cars, why would it matter? I mean, obviously it matters that we, our car was not atrocious by any stretch. But why, why would it matter if it was dirty? Cause that's the point. That's why people come to you and if, unless you only want to clean cars as a whole different thing. So, so what would it kind of taught me was a few things. I think one, we have to do work that we're motivated to do.
Now. That doesn't mean you're going to love your work every single day, but if you're not motivated to do the thing that you are hard to do. Then you're going to burn out and your, and your clients are going to notice that your heart's not in it and they're going to feel it. And it's going to feel like a slog for you. And it's going to be feeling like a slog for them. And number two is you have to price your work in a way that is exciting to you and sustains your business.
So there's no point in being overworked and under and having a price that doesn't excite you. So you don't want to show up, even if you would for double the price. If w if you were, if you'd be excited at double the price, that's the price you need to charge, and that's the bar you want to deliver. And it needs to sustain you obviously.
So you need to be charging at decent rates anyway, to sustain you, whether you're doing it at scale or whether you're selling one-to-one services, it doesn't matter. The work has to sustain you and has to be at the right price. That's going to excite you and make it worthwhile for you. So you bring your best energy to do the work that already motivates you.
So you kind of need to be aligned both in how you're charging and the type of work you're doing as well as ideally the type of client you're helping. And so these are some of the factors that are, that are considered, you know, why is this important? Actually the finish the story. He was at a business about four months later. So he'd cleaned my car and it was, it was all fine.
And he was out of business and I'm not surprised because opening a business that you're not passionate about or that you're not at least driven to succeed in and excited about a challenge. If you're not, if that's not how you feel, then you're not going to be able to sustain it. And you're not getting your clients and customers are gonna feel it. They're not going to come back.
So you have to build a business that you can sustain over long periods of time that your clients want to be a part of that they don't want to cancel on, and you have to price it in a way that is valuable to both you and them. And that allows you by having this alignment of what you do, who you do it for and how you price and being sustainable for everyone, you end up being, building a business that you can become great at. And when you're great. You'll get more opportunities to get.
People will talk about you and referrals and all that stuff. So it becomes this kind of flywheel or perpetual, you know, motion. So all of these things are, is, look, you've got a choice to run the type of business you want. You got into marketing because you were interested in it. Whether you're a designer, developer, strategist writer, it doesn't matter. Now you get to apply it to any industry you want, or maybe you just do it broadly and you just pick the type of client you want to work with.
But you get to work with the types of clients you want. And if you don't like the project they're going to take on, or don't like the type of client you're going to help, it's up to you to notice that and make a change as soon as reasonably possible. Otherwise, you won't be able to sustain the business first and foremost, and you won't be able to do great work and you won't be able to charge a premium and you won't be ever excited about the work you do. And that's a choice.
You have a choice as an independent marketing professional. Do the type of work you want for the types of clients you want to work with, and that's doing things that light you up and they usually requires a degree of risk and trade off. So you have to say no to certain types of work and yes to others. And that's a challenge for a lot of people, but I just want to leave that with you because I think it's an important metric.
So if something feels off, if you're feeling burned out, if you're feeling not aligned with either what you do, who you do it for, or you're not excited when to put together proposals, when someone comes to you. Because the prices don't excite you, you know, a lot of times it's a matter of just charging enough that you get excited, which, which then excited, meaning that that's a good amount of money I'm worth, it's worth doing this for me, which means you're going to up your bar.
You're going to, not that money is a motivator. It really isn't. But at least you're going to not feel like you are being overworked for what you're charging. And that's a whole different kind of mindset. You're in this to make money and to do good work and to build the business you want and have a good lifestyle. So you have to charge appropriately. Otherwise you won't be in business. You have to do work. You like to doing otherwise. We won't be in business and you have to do work.
You like doing it for that for people you like working for, otherwise, you won't be in business long-term. And so I just want to keep that in mind as we go about this, you'll do great work. If you pick the type of clients that you want to work with and you do the kind of work you want to do, and you charge the amount of money that is right for you. That's all for now. Thanks.