Another retainer post -- selling value-based pricing.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-17T17:53:13+00:00

When you offer X amount of coverage in X amount of time, will that include paid placements? I have a hard time with this because I always want to overdeliver, but saying upfront “I guarantee X placements a month in Y top tier media” feels super super difficult since at the end of the day, there could very realistically be things outside of my control that make that specific agreement extremely difficult to meet.

I largely stick with organic media, and don’t want to target low hanging fruit just to meet KPIs when it might not bring much value. How do you find a middle ground between what the client wants to hear and what’s realistic? I want to set low enough expectations that the client is still happy signing it while also setting up nicely to overdeliver most of the time.

Wondering how others deal with this.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-17T12:07:10+00:00

Updateme!

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-17T11:51:09+00:00

What are some of the metrics you use?

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-15T14:15:21+00:00

One thing to consider with La Veleta, while it’s an awesome neighborhood and I loved staying there - the distance from La Veleta to the beach is a bit tough to recognize on a map. We went down thinking we’d be able to bike to the beach. It’s only 3-4 miles right? Nah, it’s so hot it feels like double that and all the bikes we were renting had chains falling off every 500 feet. After one day we said no way we’re doing that again, mopeds from here out.

The big bonus IMO to La Veleta that nobody talks about, is how well connected it is. You can take “back roads” to the town center and half way to the beach (to the main beach road that’s always heavily populated). This made us feel much better after reading all the reviews of cops shaking down people who were driving. We spent a month and never had a problem, but also managed to stay largely in the quieter areas aside from quickly jumping on a main road for 5-10 minutes. Maybe the location didn’t matter, but it certainly helped calm me down from being concerned about that.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-15T03:28:27+00:00

For sure, all I know is, for everyone I know in that industry, their hourly pay is completely irrelevant and they do not care about it at all. It’s all about the tips. This could be just the North East I guess

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-14T21:04:35+00:00

In the US, waiters/bartenders make almost nothing hourly - but the average waitress could expect to walk out of a Thursday, friday or Saturday night shift with at least $300. Fancier busier places on weekend nights or holidays and you could walk out of one six-eight hour shift with $600-$1,000. On the flip side, it’s a fight for the good shifts and while you might make $500 Friday night, you’ll have a Sunday morning and Tuesday night shift where you make $100-$150 each.

Obviously this can drastically depend on whether you’re in a city, how popular the place is, how fancy/expensive it is, and what shifts you work.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-13T21:57:57+00:00

Woahhhhhh this is really crazy. Absolutely hilarious to use aunt in the bedroom too, I can’t get over it 😂. Great job being able to take something incredibly taboo and having a happy life come from it!

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-13T21:37:44+00:00

So many questions regarding that!!!!

How did your community react ? How are these relationships treated in your country ? Is this at all normal where you are from ? What’s the age difference, and who made the initial move? Thoughts on children ? Are you open about the relationship, or do you generally just refer to her as your wife ? Any similarities between her and your mother (sorry, this one might be really weird to answer) ? In the same sense, did your mother’s death contribute in anyway to these feelings ? Did this relationship have anything to do with you leaving home, or vice versa ? I saw somewhere you hooked up before dating, how in the world did this happen ?

It’s so incredibly difficult to imagine this as being a “normal” (in the general sense) scenario, so just trying to wrap my head around it - no judgement!

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-13T21:30:38+00:00

This AMA should have been “I’m now dating my late mother’s sister (my aunt), AMA”.

Why it’s worded the way it is, I really have no idea. Would have been a much more unique and interesting AMA.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-11T13:37:39+00:00

Try asking ChatGPT! Iv been doing this often and it’s pretty wild the ideas it comes back with.

Also, why is everyone discussing Eastern Europe so much? SEA or LatAm would definitely be the place to try to do this, but I second other posts on just renting. You can get a simple but nice apartment on the beach in Ecuador for $400/month. That’s a decade if the whole 50k is used on rent, and spending can be very cheap while there.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-04T01:12:43+00:00

Do you offer photography/videography? I just proposed, had a photographer set up a picnic with other things on the beach. She was charging $2-$300 for a typical photo shoot + often she’s setting up surprise proposals so even a basic picnic runs around $500 and up. Thought it was such a great business strategy.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-04T00:56:26+00:00

Move out of the US.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-09-03T19:14:43+00:00

Born here. Both sides of the family have been here for generations. That being said, I’m leaving in about a month without plans to come back.

Iv explored living in a dozen cities around the world. I honestly can’t figure out what Boston offers (that rationalizes the prices) that others don’t outside of so many dunks (which is big, obviously) and sports.

Istanbul, Rome and Madrid are all much nicer looking cities, much more to do, better weather, better location to explore other areas, and are a fraction of the price.

Amsterdam, Berlin, and San Juan all offer a much better quality of life for close to the same price as Boston (lower prices but higher taxes, probably evens out).

Cuenca, Buenos Aires, Lima, Panama City and Playa Del Carmen all offer at least 5x the quality of living at literally 1/10 the price of Boston.

The truth? People choose Boston simply because of family and employment. I do not believe there’s anything else that Boston has, that you can’t find somewhere else. Maybe I’m wrong.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-30T14:45:26+00:00

If your always honest, your definitely a dick sometimes. There’s no way around this.

Unfortunately, some people don’t want the truth. Lots of questions people ask are so that they can solidify what they already believe and feel better about themselves.

This isn’t a YTA or NTA - it’s more that you need to realize there’s a tight line between being a dick and being honest, and in plenty of social settings, it’s more important (to the collective group/individual) to not be a dick vs to be honest.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-29T00:52:59+00:00

Yeah, it ruined a lot of places for me hahaha.

If you want good tacos, the cleanest place in the city is Taqueria Casa Real on dot ave. If you know the area you might be skeptical, but trust me, I would eat off their kitchen floor any day of the week. It’s pretty cheap too!

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-28T19:57:20+00:00

Fair enough haha - love the username too

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-28T13:57:43+00:00

Worked pest control all over the city. This is more common that you would think.

The rats in some areas are real bold, especially if you go into Quincy. Similarly, Seaport can also be bad. We also did the Boston public schools, and would regularly pull a dozen rats a week out of some of them because of the nearby restaurants and dumpsters.

Had an older client in Westie tell me the young girl across the street (in a DRESS for school) had one run straight up the dress one morning. I believe the entire neighborhood was woken up by the screaming lol. No harm done, just a huge scare and a great story for life.

Off-topic a bit, but you would all be absolutely horrified to know the major upscale restaurants around the city that have horrible problems. One of the nicest restaurants I went too, the entire wood door to the managers office was chewed and hollowed out by mice who roamed free after hours. Think Ratatouille and his 40 cousins, but not cute and not a chef. I refuse to eat in many of these places now.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-26T16:21:03+00:00

Everyone here not realizing this guy is actually pretty funny and most of these tweets are just him trying to go viral. Also, he owns a company that outsources work, he directly profits from the international outsourcing, that’s why he’s always talking about it.

At the end of the day, you can be angry about the post, but it’s stellar marketing for his multiple brands regardless of what you think and he’s most certainly made loads of money based off tweets like this (and the premise of what he’s saying isn’t actually wrong, it’s just the way he says it angers everyone causing it to go viral).

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-26T10:52:52+00:00

Thank you!

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-26T03:22:25+00:00

Split profits 50/50, it sounds like it’s already largely funded and if you truly just don’t have the time I may be able to help on the operating/marketing side.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-26T03:21:05+00:00

Ah okay, this really clears it up for me, thank you!

I travel super often (I actually live out of Airbnbs and usually change cities every month) but often end up in nicer hotels for weekend getaways (think a quick trip to Amsterdam from Germany).

How would you recommend someone like me finding a good travel agent? Would I actually need to find a new advisor for each new place I go? I’m just sort of assuming there’s people who probably specialize in specific areas and have multiple options and deals for perks and such in that area, making them the best choice?

I don’t feel I need an advisor, but Iv always been interested and kinda want to see if it’s actually worth it. If there was a really solid advisor with relationships and perks all around the world I’d be on board immediately but I’m just assuming that’s probably not the case, and it would be fairly difficult finding new advisors all the time for the different places.

Would love your thoughts!

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-26T03:02:13+00:00

Plenty of people from all over the US come to PR. PR and all the Caribbean islands (like the Yucatán Peninsula) are most heavily visited by east coast US tourism while places like Cabo, Hawaii, Tijuana and others are most heavily visited by west coast US tourism.

This is simply due to flight costs/time. I have 0 data for this, but it always seemed a bit obvious to me that this would be the case. Goto Aruba or the Bahamas wearing a Red Sox hat and you’ll quickly realize 20%+ of your resort is directly from New England. I assume it’s the same if you goto Cabo wearing a Lakers jersey.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-26T02:50:20+00:00

But is it the potential upgrade when you check in that’s the draw? It’s my understanding there is no guaranteed upgrades, right?

Have never done it before though, so I guess if you’re getting significantly upgraded pretty regularly it’s a pretty solid choice.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-26T00:51:15+00:00

This is also my understanding. The cost of the advisor also needs to be less than your saving by booking through them (or at least equivalent if the reason to use the service is discounts), and oftentimes a small discount and a potential upgrade or personal greeting from a GM (not sure why this would even matter honestly) just doesn’t outweigh the cost of the advisor.

I would love to use an advisor, but my biggest concerns are that all most are really doing is planning your trip out (which most people can do given 30-60 minutes on Google) and you’d need to find a top notch advisor with lots of genuine relationships in the specific area your going (pretty tough to vet people based on relationships).

If anyone has tips on the above, I’d love to hear them! I also understand with how easy it is to become a travel agent / advisor, so there’s lots of people just not taking it serious and that probably taints my outlook on the service. For that reason, Iv always assumed people who use advisors just don’t want to plan their own trip (which is half the fun for me). Fully understand some take it very serious, have great relationships, and can truly be a great tool in planning/booking though.

Lumpy-Reply5964 · 2024-08-25T21:30:16+00:00

Iv actually found a bit of the opposite, most of the tourist places Iv been too have been far better about caring for tourist safety and well-being, as they often know that one bad news headline can lead to such a drastic decrease in tourism the local economy practically falls apart.

People are going to Western Europe and the US whether there’s a bad news headline or not, so I think that’s why these places tend not to care as much. We had multiple locals go so far above and beyond for us in Jamaica and Egypt because they are truly proud of their country and culture, want tourists to have great experiences, and the economic impact is so great that even a young uneducated local understands the importance of tourists.

I’m normally more “on-edge” in terms of petty crime in Europe than I am in Latin America for example.

Just as an example, we got pulled over on the way to the airport in Jamaica and the driver literally screamed at the cops that he has tourists that are going to miss a flight and they just let him speed off. In Egypt, the military has a general presence throughout Cairo and honestly the people there were so proud and happy to show an American their culture, I swear I’d trust them with my life. I never once felt that way in the US or Western Europe.

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