The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 27 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Do: Service providers should never justify their high prices to clients
“One of my rules is never justify your price. So when they say, why does it cost so much, Chris? Because it costs that much for me to do it. I'm not saying you can't get it done for less, because I'm sure you can, but not for me. You have a right, and I encoura…”
Do: Budweiser's progressive campaign alienated its core because it was inauthentic
“And the classic example is, I think when Budweiser tried to do something that was non-binary, it said something that was quote unquote very woke. And there was a lot of backlash for that because we know that's not them. And they're just signaling, virtue signa…”
Do: Praising children conditionally teaches them to constantly seek external approval
“Because for them to, for me to be proud, it means there's times when I'm not proud. I'm always proud. I'm proud when you exist. That's all that needs to happen. You get You get love, appreciation, and joy just because you exist in this world. I bet you're prou…”
Chris Do: Effective pricing should make both provider and client slightly uncomfortable
“And I want to always be slightly uncomfortable, and I want the client to be uncomfortable with accepting the price. I don't want them to say yes easily. I want them to be a little bit concerned, consternated about it a little bit, and just like, ooh, it's a lo…”
Chris Do: Workers mistakenly assume they are underpaid without considering peer merit
“Everybody thinks you're being underpaid, and it's not always true. Right, so I just want to put that out there, and what we do is we're contextual learners, so when you hear Sally's making more money than you don't consider Sally's more experienced, shows up o…”
Chris Do: Charging higher prices enables superior client service without nickel-and-diming
“When you charge more, you could deliver a better client experience. You can go the extra mile. You don't have to nickel and dime them because they are like, oh, make it a little bit bigger, or can we try another option? You could be thrilled to do that.”
Do: Optimal pricing should make both client and provider slightly uncomfortable
“I want to always be slightly uncomfortable, and I want the client to be uncomfortable with accepting the price. I don't want them to say yes easily. I want them to be a little bit concerned, consternate about it a little bit, and just like, ooh, it's a lot, bu…”
Do: Prospective clients who claim they have no set budget are lying
“First of all, when somebody says to you, I don't know what my budget is, you tell me, you are the professional, they might say it in a more condescending way, it's a lie. It's a very easy way to figure this thing out. Because though they might not know the num…”
Do: Rolex throttles steel watch supply to force high-margin precious metal purchases
“They want you to buy so many of the precious metals and the stones, the ones that are 10, 20, 50, 60,000 dollars. If you buy enough of them, they'll let you buy a lower price Submariner, which is a wild thing. The margins are in the more expensive watches, and…”
Do: Consumers buy Nike and Adidas for brand identity, not product quality
“Most of us will lie to ourselves and say, well, I buy Nikes or Adidas because they're a better shoe. That's a bunch of BS. You buy it because your story is involved with theirs.”
Do: Eco-conscious consumerism is a luxury exclusive to those with financial means
“Being eco-conscious is a luxury of the people who have means.”
Do: Products requiring customer effort are perceived as far more valuable
“This is why I think people make it hard to buy their products, hard to take care of, because Like, we need some challenges in our life, and we feel like we have to work for it, it's worth more.”
Do: Internet trolls attack when content directly threatens their personal worldview
“I think a troll is someone who actually wants to like your content, But for some reason, their self story is challenged because you're saying something that would wreck their world.”
Chris Do: Service providers benchmark against low competitors instead of top performers
“The problem that we have is we try to find prices that are low and then lower itself to meet those lower prices. We very rarely say, what are the best people in my space? Similarly size charging. We always look for the low one, never the high one.”
Do: Breaking silence after quoting a price prompts client discount demands
“This usually is in a pocket of discomfort, the silence that we start to betray ourselves. We start to say, well what if we did this and that you start to negotiate down and they sense it like that. They know it. So they're going to ask for more and ask you to …”
Do: Frontline reps mistakenly sell from personal confidence instead of company authority
“The person who's out there on the front line between the client or the prospect prospect in your company, they make this mistake all the time. They sell based on themselves and not based on you.”
Do: Creative professionals mistakenly benchmark their rates against the lowest competitors
“The problem that we have is we try to find prices that are low, and then lower ourselves to meet those lower prices. We very rarely say, what are the best people in my space, similarly sized charging? We always look for the low one, never the high one.”
Do: Customers select the middle pricing tier 80 percent of the time
“We give them three options, and you can see everywhere you go from SaaS products to real products, People always give you three options, and 80% of the time they pick the one in the middle.”
Do: Pricing elasticity in creative work is higher than providers assume
“There's a lot more elasticity to price than you think, ok? It does help if you're in a hot market, in an industry where there are more buyers than sellers, so you have all the right side of arbitrage on that, ok?”
Do: Premium brand purchases are economically valuable tools for status signaling
“So the kind of watch you wear, the earrings, the car you drive, the zip code you live in all that stuff signals to other people how you see yourself. And you can say it's superficial, and it's vain, and it's all those things, and I would agree with you because…”
Do: Every great achiever initially overestimated their own abilities
“Everybody who's ever been great in, in this lifetime of theirs has once thought of themselves higher, better, stronger, faster, More intelligent than they were at that moment in time.”
Do: Narrowing target audiences makes finding customers more likely
“The clearer they get on the person that they're serving,
And what they stand for, the more likely it is they're going to find customers.
It's counterintuitive.”
Do: Focusing on boring work develops discipline and enables delayed gratification
“If we just focus on doing boring work that no one wants to do, we develop discipline, which is the delaying gratification, giving up the things that you want to get ultimately what you need in life.”
Do: Leaders should practice intentional incompetence to empower their teams
“When you're good at doing things, the tendency is for you to do everything. So I tell people I practice some form of intentional incompetence. I could do it, but I'm not gonna do it. Somebody else do this. And what's really cool is, when you work with people, …”
Do: Worthwhile content requires stating viewpoints that not everyone will agree with
“So in this world when it's the sea of same or the sea of flame, you have to figure out a way to say something that people are not going to be a hundred percent agreement with. Not to do to provoke them, but because you finally found something to say that's wor…”
Chris Do: Employees should ask bosses directly how to prove value
“So it's very important for you to ask them, if I'd like to make more money, what would I need to do to prove to you that I'm contributing to the company? And the answer will sometimes surprise you. People think, oh, it's do more X or Y, and it could be somethi…”