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allenmendezsr · 4 years

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Energy2green - Wind And Solar Power System - *#1 Home Energy Program

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Energy2green - Wind And Solar Power System - *#1 Home Energy Program

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From the DIY Workshop of Tomas Haynes Solar, Wind, Energy Enthusiast & Creator of Energy2Green.com

“The power companies know that their customers could invest as little as $200 and generate their own electricity and literally make their meters spin backwards and that’s precisely why they hope you never learn about my Energy 2 Green system!”

Hello,

For generations, we have been held hostage by Power Companies. Despite relatively little investment in new power plants and equipment, the average consumer has seen their electric bill more than double in the past 10 years! This far outpaces inflation during that same time period and no one has invested in any nuclear facilities for more than 3 decades so why have the power companies raised our rates so dramatically?

It’s simple: We absolutely NEED electricity and the power companies know it. They have been justifying price increases for years despite having over 300 years worth of verifiable coal reserves (most electricity is produced using coal), not investing in new nuclear facilities since the 1970’s, and relatively low maintenance costs! But today, the average household spends $1,000 or more per year on electricity and the rates will keep going up and up guaranteed.

Actually, if you produce more electricity than you use, the electric company is obligated by law to buy it from you at current market price! So imagine if instead of mailing a check to the electric company each month they could be sending YOU a check each month! And no you DO NOT need to invest $1,000’s in costly solar panels or windmills to transform your home into an energy producing “green home”!

That’s right, forget about spending $3,000 or more for factory made windmills and solar panels because if you can follow simple step-by-step instructions and invest just $200 then you can transform your energy-using home into an energy producing “green home”! You don’t need a degree in engineering, specialized and expensive equipment, or even a big initial investment, just the determination to STOP being held hostage by the Power Companies, a small but manageable investment, and the Energy 2 Green systems manual!

The winning designs were ultimately put to the test…by High School students! That’s right, high school students with no help from their teachers were able to use the instructions to create their very own solar panels and windmills! All eight groups of students (working in pairs) were able to reproduce the winning designs to create both workable windmills and solar panels at an average cost of just $200 and using nothing more than simple hand tools!

The Sun produces a range of energy which we can only see a small part of as visible white light. Solar panels turn another part, or wavelength, of the light into electricity that can be harnessed. A photovoltaic cell (PV Cell) produces electricity on the principle that electricity will be produced when two semiconductors are exposed to a particular wavelength of light. Groups of PV Cells are linked together to form panels, the bigger the panel and the more cells, the greater the amount of electricity can be produced.

Watch this video to see how a man managed to set up solar power in his home and what you could make, following Energy 2 Green Solution:

Many people have seen wind turbines at some point or another in their life, but does the average person know how wind turbines work? We hope to answer that question so you will understand what makes wind power such a great alternative energy. The concept behind the wind turbine technology is not that difficult to understand. The wind blows, which turns the turbine blades. These blades are connected to a shaft that turns with the blades, and attaches to a generator which creates electricity and sends it to a sub-station.

Here is a similar wind power system to what you could make, following Energy 2 Green Solution:

Electric Bill Drastically Reduced Or Eliminated Completely (depending on your electric use and the type of device you build)

Help Fight Global Warming Even if the Government Won’t! (if enough of us “go green”, we can collectively and effectively combat global warming and help preserve the planet for our children!)

Fun and Productive Project That Helps You Spend Quality Time with the Family!

Investment Literally Pays For Itself In As Little As 2 Months!

Save Up to $1,000 each Year On Your Electric Bill!

Solar Panels Can Be Portable So You Can Take Them With You Anywhere Like When You Go Camping!

Gas and food prices are skyrocketing with no end in sight. Wages have essentially stagnated. The housing crisis is nowhere near over and everyone is looking to cut costs and your electric bill is eating up $1,000 or more each year now just imagine that expense completely eliminated or drastically reduced to around $120 per year what else could you use that money for?

Paying off your credit cards?

A vacation—each and every year?

A New Plasma TV?

A Much Deserved Shopping Spree?

Investing in Your Child’s College Fund?

Investing in Your Retirement Account?

‘I didn’t order the Energy 2 Green manual just to lower my electricity costs and I honestly didn’t expect a huge drop – I was just trying to make my kids proud and personally do something about the global warming problem. We had a blast building our own windmill which was rewarding enough for me – but then I got my first full monthly bill after completing it and it was actually a check!, Sure, it was only for $4.58 and I gave the money to my children – but it was the greatest feeling in the world especially knowing me and my family were doing our part to help preserve this world!”

Detailed Schematics and Diagrams Showing You Precisely How To Build Your Solar Panels (generates up to 200-watts each) or Windmill (generates up to 1000-Watts!) Including the Precise Measurements You Need For Optimum Performance!

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Where To Find The Materials You Need For Your Solar Panels or Windmill!

Installation Instructions To Hook the Solar Panel or Windmill Up To Your Home!

Detailed Maintenance Instructions and Schedule for Your Windmill or Solar Panel!

Legal Information Regarding Your New Solar Power System or Windmill!

Pre-Construction Checklist That Helps Ensure Your Windmill or Solar Panel Project Goes Off as Planned!

Complete Background Information on Both Wind and Solar Power!

How To Contact Your Power Company to Make Sure You Get Paid Top Dollar for the Electricity you Generate!

Energy-Saving Tips to Reduce Electricity and Gas Use by 25% or More (the Energy 2 Green manual is a great investment for these tips alone!)

And Much, Much More!!

When you place an order below you will immediately receive a download link for the Ebook. The Ebook details how to create the Energy 2 Green system from easily obtainable parts, and shows users how to save literally tons of energy and money with the system. + You will also get the Bonuses!

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Why online books? Thanks to all the feedbacks from our readers, Energy 2 Green evolves and improves, and it’s happening REAL FAST. We want you to have the latest updates immediately. Every improvement, every new piece of information, and every new chapter, shows up automatically and immediately. You can visit the books as many times as you need and want. You will always see fresh information!

Watch Steve From Our Solar Information Center Website Demonstrate

NEW – Our 60 minute step-by-step online video training for making high quality Solar Panels! (note: You will not receive a physical DVD, the video segments can be viewed online.)

You will watch Steve construct a solar panel from start to finish in one weekend. I have found that if you can make your own panels you can save huge. It is easy to understand how in our video training series. Nothing is left out in the video. You will see the whole process.

After watching our video training, you will be able to purchase individual solar cells at less than the cost of a premanufactured panel. This makes the cost of using solar energy more affordable.

Don’t let anybody tell you Solar Energy is too expensive. Buy our Package and find out how to construct your own panels and start saving money on your utility bills TODAY!

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“I am 68 years old and living on a fixed income. Rising costs on just about everything from food and gas to my utilities were robbing me of having any money to spend on my grandchildren – something had to give or I was going to have to sell my house! An old buddy of mine from the army called me up one day and told me he built a couple of solar panels using your book and was now getting paid by the electric company each month – so I decided to give it a try. I know have built 3 solar panels for myself and sold almost a dozen to friends and family with the help of my grandchildren who love helping me make them – I can’t believe everyone isn’t doing this!! Thank You!”

“When work cut my hours, I honestly didn’t know how I was going to make ends meet. When I first heard about your book from a friend at work, I didn’t think it was for me. I can’t start the lawnmower half the time so I didn’t think I could possibly build a solar panel or windmill, but I had to cut costs somehow or risk me and my 2 small children becoming homeless! Using the stimulus check this summer, I decided to take a chance and believe it or not, me and my 12-year old son built a windmill! Not only did it help us save $100 each month, the electric company is now sending us a check each month! No, I’m not getting rich but at least I’m not worrying about that electric bill every month and my kids have a mom who is really doing something to help save the planet for them and their children! Believe me, if me and my 12-year old son can do it, anyone can!! Let’s all save the planet together and stop paying those greedy people at the electric company once and for all!!”

Step 1: Order the Energy 2 Green Manual for Just $49! (About ½ of what You Pay For Just 1 Month of Electricity!)

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That’s it doesn’t get much easier, does it? From the moment you order the Energy 2 Green manual, you will have instant access and be able to go out and buy the supplies you need to be generating electricity in your very own back yard within days possibly hours depending on how excited you are to get it up and running!

Don’t worry you don’t need to be a construction worker or have a garage filled with expensive tools and equipment to create your very own wind or solar power system! Armed with the Energy 2 Green easy-to-read manual, some simple hand tools, and the determination to free yourself from the power company once and for all you have everything you need to build your very own professional quality solar panels or windmill guaranteed!

And To Make Sure You Really “Stick It To the Electric Company” While Helping Save the Planet and Serious $$…

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Diagrams and Schematics!

Maintenance Tips and Schedules!

Energy Saving Secrets That Help Cut Electricity and Gas Costs Even More!

Pre-Construction Checklist!

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Energy 2 Green is available in PDF format, so you can literally hit the ground running and go out and buy everything you need today and get started immediately! Your order is 100% secure, completely risk-free, and we never share your information with any third party for any reason, all you need to do to break free from the power company and start saving the planet is…

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morrisbrokaw · 5 years

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BFA Update: Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme BFA Guidance for Employers

Rishi Sunak announced on 20th March 2020 that the Government will establish the ‘CoronavirusJob Retention scheme’. This means that:

• All employers can contact HMRC for a grant to cover 80% of a furloughed (i.e. laid off) employee’s wages, up to a maximum of £2,500 per month; • Employers must designate the employee to be furloughed. These people are not allowed to carry out any further work for the employer, but they remain employed. • The scheme is currently intended to last for 3 months, backdated to 1st March 2020. • The grant is available to all businesses, no matter what the size. To clarify ‘to furlough’ is not legal terminology. Whilst no specific details have been put forward yet (we are expecting to see something from Government shortly) the BFA solicitors view is that ‘laying off’ (as a specific legal concept) and ‘furlough leave’ should be considered to be the same. In both circumstances, you are saying to your employees that you have no work and that they are going to have to stay away from work. The only difference is: • Laying off means that you can have a contractual right to send them home without pay or on reduced pay; or • If you do not have a contractual right to do this, you are still laying them off/furloughing them, but you just need to pay them their normal full salaries. As far as the BFA solicitor is concerned, there is no difference between the two scenarios on a practical level; the purpose of the scheme is to allow you to send workers home with pay in order to avoid making them redundant.

Indications are that you would not receive this grant income until at least late April, so it is not an urgent short-term fix. However, if your situation is desperate and your business could not wait you should call HMRC who will look at providing funds to you sooner.

Frequently Asked Questions 1. Is my business eligible to claim the 80% up to £2500 per month for my staff? Yes – You will apply for a grant from HMRC. BFA will share details as soon as they are published by HMRC. We also recommend you look out for communications from HMRC sent directly to your business especially messages going to staff managing your payroll. 2. I have already laid people off am I still be covered under the scheme? You can backdate any payments to staff laid off/furloughed from 1st March 2020. However, the employee must genuinely have stopped working from that date – if the employee was still working for you, this would not count as furlough leave. 3. Does my business have to pay the “shortfall” between the 80% and the 100% that a person usually earns? Can I furlough my employees on 80% so that I have no liability? The Government’s guidance on this states that it is up to the employer whether or not to pay the remaining 20% (or excess above £2,500.00) per month). However, this is not the correct legal position; when an employer sends their employees home without work, they are still obliged to pay them 100% of their wages (unless there is already something in the contract of employment to the contrary, as in the case of the NCA). Withholding 20% of an employee’s salary will amount to breach of contract and an unlawful deduction of wages unless the employee gives their consent to doing this.

The entire point of the scheme is to encourage employers not to dismiss employees and furlough them instead. Employers are unlikely to do this if they have to pay the employee 100% to stay at home; they would generally rather have them performing work for them. As such, the intention behind the scheme is that it is reasonable to only pay employees this reduced wage whilst on furlough leave.

It is advisable to seek the employee’s consent to accepting 80% (maximum £2,500.00) of their wages each month, as this represents a temporary variation to their contract of employment. It is expected that the majority of employees will consent since furlough leave is a better alternative than unpaid leave, lay-off, or redundancy.

To seek an employee’s consent to being placed on furlough leave, employers will need to: i.Decide which employees to designate as furloughed employees. ii.Notify those employees of the intended temporary change. iii.Consider whether you need to consult with employee representatives or the union. For example, where the employer intends to vary the contracts of 20 or more employees, and it intends to dismiss employees who do not consent to the change in their terms, this would be classed as a redundancy. It is unclear, however, at this stage, whether the government expects employers to follow this process before placing employees on furlough leave. BFA Solicitors view is that you will not be intending to make employees redundant (as you will expect them to agree to the furlough leave), so that the consultation process will not apply.

iv.Agree the change with the furloughed employees. v.Confirm the employees’ new furlough status in writing. Ideally, the employer should advise how long it expects furlough leave to continue, however, this may be difficult in the current climate.

You may wish to put employees on furlough leave for an initial period, subject to review. vi.Submit information to HMRC about the employees that have been furloughed and their earnings through the new online portal (further details to come).

vii.Ensure that the employees do not carry out any further work while they are furloughed.

As above, if you do not have a contractual right to lay off the employees or to make changes to an employment contract, you should not unilaterally change an employee’s contract or pay without their consent. However, faced with the other alternatives, which are likely to be unpaid leave or redundancy, the majority of affected employees are likely to agree to be placed on furlough leave. However, if the employees refuse, your next step would be to:

a.Consider placing them on furlough leave anyway. Technically, the employees could resign and claim a breach of contract (a claim that would be unlikely to succeed if you carried out this process reasonably and appropriately, if there is a good business reason for placing employees on furlough leave), or could seek to bring a claim in the future for the difference in salary that they will be receiving.

b.Shortening working hours or reducing salaries, to which you would again be advised to seek the employees’ agreement; or

c.Make redundancies.

4. Is there a difference between weekly and monthly paid staff? No.

5. Some of the staff have contracts which include lay-off clauses but my management, office and field sales staff do not have this clause in their contracts. Can I still furlough them and how much do I have to pay them?

You can furlough all employees, regardless as to whether you have an existing contractual right to do so.The difference here is that you already have a contractual right to lay off some workers, meaning you do not have to seek a variation to their contract of employment as outlined above in question 3.

6. Will part time workers have the £2,500 cap reduced? The payment is at 80% of their wages, up to a maximum of £2,500.00 per month. This appliesto all employees equally, regardless of the number of hours they work.

7. I am part of the NCA, my factory staff are covered by a wage guarantee of 75%. Do I have to pay 75% or 80% to my staff?

If you have a contractual right to pay 75% of wages, you are only required to pay 75% of their wages. This new scheme does not place any additional obligations upon you, it merely offers employers another option if they are thinking about making employees redundant. This equally applies if you have already agreed with your employees to send them home on some other reduced wage; you have already entered into a contract with them so you do not need to alter your agreement to match the Government’s new scheme. 8. Section 6 of the NCA states we can send employees home without pay. Why do we have to pay in line with the guaranteed 75%? Does this not say we can actually send home and not pay?

NCA 6.1.8 No employees are liable to be paid for periods for which they are sent home The BFA Solicitors view of this is that if you are choosing to lay off your employees, you pay them 75%. If you sent the employee homes for any other reason, you are not obliged to pay them anything. 9. Who can be furloughed? Do I have a free choice who I can select for furlough or is there a strict criteria? There is no set criteria. As with any aspect of work, you should not select staff on any discriminatory criteria (i.e. their age, sex, race, disability) but based on your business need. 10. Can I change who is furloughed from week to week or month to month? Recalling them as it suits the business or the reverse laying them off again. The example here is that you might keep some office staff in but if one of them gets Covid-19 then you need someone to come back in to replace them.

Here there is an assumption that the furlough period can possibly be reactivated, i.e. put them on furlough now, bring them back in to the business, but then furlough again, although we recommend there would have to be a good business reason for this – this will be something that will hopefully be explained when further detail is announced by government.

11. If you have no work for the employees and, regardless of the grant scheme, cannot afford to pay them the wages what should I do? You could: •Negotiate laying employees off on unpaid leave or further reduced pay; or •Consider making redundancies. If you cannot afford to make redundancies, you can approach the National Insolvency Service to ask for their assistance in paying redundancy payments etc. if it would otherwise mean that your business would become insolvent in paying them.

12. Does this apply also when an employee is partially laid off? E.g. only required to be furloughed for one day per week.

No – the policy only applies to those employees who are fully furloughed, i.e. who are not working but kept on the payroll. In this case the employee would be on reduced hours not furloughed.

13. Do employees accrue their employee benefits during furlough? Yes. Your staff accure holiday at their usual rate and you will need to make provision to pay their PAYE, NI (notwithstanding the governments temporary suspension of these until the end of the current financial year). For all other benefits we are awaiting direction from government, including pension contributions.

14. I have employees who have holiday booked in the coming months what do I do? We are awaiting government guidelines with regards to holiday pay and whether an employee can be taken off furlough during their previously booked holiday or during the NCA factory closure periods. Clearly some provision will need to be made to ensure that staff do not have significant holidays accrued at the end of this current situation, which would in turn prevent a business from re-starting its operation.

15. Will employees qualify for additional state benefit support? Employees will remain entitled to the same support as they currently receive. The furlough scheme will pay the equivalent of up to £30,000.00 per year, so we do not believe that there would be additional benefits available to employees earning that amount of money (other than existing child benefits etc.).

16. Once an employee is furloughed can we ask them to do anything or do they become a worker again, for example – even if it’s just a phone call to ask where something is filed? As above, the policy only applies to those employees who are fully furloughed and not given any work. However, you will still be able to speak with/socialise (social distancing permitting) those employees, so I do not believe asking them a question would be a breach of this scheme.

The purpose of the furlough scheme is to help businesses, not hinder them, so there will be a degree of leniency and common sense applied to the scheme in order to allow you to continue to run effectively.

17. When staff are called back into work are their wages immediately the responsibility of the employer? Wages are always the responsibility of the employer; the scheme allows the employer to claim back 80% (up to £2,500.00) from HMRC. The employer is therefore responsible for paying wages whilst the employee is furloughed (albeit they can claim monies back from HMRC), and then still be responsible for paying wages when the furlough leave ends (with then no ability to claim monies back under the furlough scheme).

18. Can you rotate staff? This week group A work, next week group B, then C, then A, then B and so on, and still be within the law of the Coronavirus Job Retention scheme? Are they furloughed for the week they aren’t working?

As above, we would assume that the furlough period can possibly be reactivated, i.e. put them on furlough now, bring them back in to the business, but then furlough again, although we would suggest that there would have to be a good business reason for this – again, this will be something that will hopefully be explained when further detail is announced.

19. If I need to keep some staff working to support staff else-where – such as those still working in stores or warehouses – can I reduce their hours, still pay them at their full-time rate and claim the 80% on the reduced part of their salary?

You can vary your employee’s hours of working – you would again ideally seek their consent to this change, as it represents a change to their contract. You can then reduce their salary.

However, this is not the furlough scheme – that requires you to send employees home without work. In this scenario, you could not claim back the 80%.

20. If someone is “feeling ill”? members should send them home, and pay them SSP or treat that person as laid off? If someone is ill, they are sick. If they are sick, they are entitled to receive sick pay only. If you choose to send an employee home when they are not sick, you would have to pay them their normal full pay.

21. If someone is off with Covid-19 and therefore is being paid SSP, when they inform me that they have recovered do I pay them as a furloughed member of staff? If the employee is fit to work and you do not want them to work, you would to pay them their normal full pay. You could then place them on furlough leave if you wanted to try to reduce the payments due to them.

22. If someone is self-isolating due to illness or childcare issues should they be on sick-pay or if they would usually be laid-off with everyone else should they be paid as the rest of the staff.

If an employee is looking after their children, you do not have to pay them – time off for the purposes of child care is unpaid.

If an employee is self-isolating, they are considered to be sick and would be entitled to sick pay.

If the employee is ready and able to work, you would either have to provide them with their normal pay, or you could seek to place them on furlough leave.

In terms of childcare issues only, you will need to assess each case in your business, considering the employee and whether the business can manage without their services for a period.

23. If someone is already off and is being paid SSP, for reasons other than Covid-19, and they inform me that they are better what should I pay them? If the employee is fit to work and you do not want them to work, you would have to pay them their normal full pay. You could then place them on furlough leave if you wanted to. 24. If someone who has been furloughed gets Covid-19 oris suspected of it should you move them onto sick pay or keep them as if they are laid off?

If you place the employee on furlough leave, you may be able to place them on to SSP if they tell you that they are now ill – we will have to wait for the details of the scheme. However, practically speaking, the employee is not going to tell you if they are unwell anyway, so I think the chances of this applying are quite remote.

25. Can an employee insist on becoming a furloughed worker? No – an employee can request to go on furlough leave, but has no right to be placed on furlough leave.

Potentially redundant employees do not have a right to require their employer to place them on furlough leave as an alternative to redundancy either.

26. Can an MD/CEO/Owner lay themselves off along with their staff?

Any employee can be placed on furlough leave, as long as they are not carrying out any work. It may be the case that the CEO/MD will still be required to carry out some work, so they may not be able to satisfy this critieria.

27. Does it apply to all types of employees, regardless of length of service? Yes. 28. Can I ask an employee to still work “on the side”? No – furlough leave only applies to those employees who are not working but kept on the payroll. 29. My member of staff has a second job, can we both put that person on furlough? As we understand yes you can. 30. Can a member of staff who has been furloughed take on another job? Yes, that person could work for someone else. However, to remain in furlough paid by you they would need to be available at any time should you chose to recall them to work and remove them from furlough.

31. How should members treat the working rights of the individual at this time – should they write, consult and inform individuals or treat their staff collectively? As above, employers will need to:

i.Decide which employees to designate as furloughed employees. ii.Notify those employees of the intended temporary change. iii.Consider whether you need to consult with employee representatives or the union. For example, where the employer intends to vary the contracts of 20 or more employees, and it intends to dismiss employees who do not consent to the change in their terms, this would be classed as a redundancy. It is unclear, however, at this stage, whether the government expects employers to follow this process before placing employees on furlough leave. My view is that you will not be intending to make employees redundant (as you will expect them to agree to the furlough leave), so that the consultation process will not apply.

iv.Agree the change with the furloughed employees.

v.Confirm the employees’ new furlough status in writing. Ideally, the employer should advise how long it expects furlough leave to continue, however, this may be difficult in the current climate.

vii.Ensure that the employees do not carry out any further work while they are furloughed.

32. Do other employee benefits still accrue during the furloughed period? It is not clear whether the £2,500.00 includes the value of benefits or not. I would suggest that the employee will still receive benefits such as death in service and healthcare, but that things like pension and car allowance would have to be included within the maximum £2,500.00. We will have to wait for further details from government.

33. Can a factory put everyone on furlough mid-week – ie weekly paid staff placed on furlough today would get 100% for yesterday and 80% from today or do they have to pay 100% this week?

Furlough leave would start from whenever the employee was sent home without work. Any days spent working by the employee would not be considered to be furlough leave. You would pay the employee 100% of their wage in respect of the work they have carried out this week, and 80% of their wage from the date on which they were sent home without work.

34. Online operations remain a slightly grey area. It is clear that physical stores that aren’t considered ‘essential’ should shut, but not so clear about online distribution centres. Can we still run operations to allow our digital businesses to continue trading? Online retail is still permitted to operate as normal in the current climate. Parts of those physical shops which are open to the public should close.

Further guidance is here: https://ift.tt/3bkbkA3

35. Is the 80% contribution 80% of what the employer pays the employee in a given week or 80% of their usual wage. If the employee usually earns £400 in a week, and this week because we were on short time before the furlough they are only getting £350 but next week once in furlough they will get how much? Which option: a. 100% of a usual week £400 of which the government will re-pay the employer £320 b. 80% of a usual week £320 of which the government will re-pay the employer £320 c. Based on short time week -£280 of which the government will re-pay all or only £224 to the employee In the absence of any clear directives, I would say that it is a weeks’ worth of their usual pay.

For employees who work irregular hours, this might be based on their past 12 weeks’ worth of earnings (although please note the changes to other legislation on 1st April regarding holiday pay, to say that average earnings should be assessed over the last 12-month period).

PLEASE NOTE: The above information has been provided in consultation with Ben Stanton, Franklins Solicitors representing the BFA. They are intended as a guide to BFA members only. You do not have permission to share this document with anyone without the express permission of a Director of the British Footwear Association.

BFA Update: Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme BFA Guidance for Employers published first on https://workbootsandshoes.tumblr.com/

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topicprinter · 5 years

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This summer I wrote a post on growing my software company to $15M ARR (reddit thread) that you all seemed to enjoy. So I thought I'd share my latest writing.Back when I did web design people would often pitch me an idea for a business that would be "Uber for X" or "Facebook, but for Y" and I always struggled to explain how what they chose was an insanely difficult business and all the skills they would need to learn in the process.This article is my first draft of an attempt to lay out the roadmap to building wealth and the pitfalls and principles you'll encounter along the way.I'd love to hear what you think in the comments!------------In college I first heard Jason Fried from Basecamp talk about how making money is a skill—like playing the drums or piano—that you can get better at over time. That resonated with me immediately. I wouldn’t expect to be able to sit down at a piano for the first time and immediately play a concerto.We could outline the progression to mastering a musical instrument, so we should also be able to do the same with earning a living.What lessons do you need to learn to go from odd jobs around the neighborhood to owning a real estate empire? From working as a freelancer to selling your own digital products? What about from working at Wendy’s to owning a SaaS company earning over $1 million per month? That last one is my own path.There’s a reliable progression that anyone can take to earn more and build wealth. In fact, I like to think of it as a series of ladders side by side. Each one can climb to different heights in both the quality of business and potential earnings.-------------------------Ladders of Wealth Creation Diagram(this is important and explains the concept visually)-------------------------In this model the potential earnings increase the higher up each ladder you climb. They also increase as you move left to right to more advanced ladders. But the difficulty increases with each move as well.Each step requires that you learn new skills to overcome those new challenges. Let’s break down a few of those skills and opportunities at each stage:TIME FOR MONEYOur first ladder is trading time for money. This is how most people you know earn a living. It may start with an hourly job working for Starbucks, but then transition into a salaried position working at a company.At the most basic level you need the skills of:Showing up consistentlyBeing reliableLearning new skills on the jobEvery job, even the most entry level, require those three things.Then in order to take the next step up the ladder you will need to specialize in certain skills (design, copywriting, legal, becoming a nurse, etc) to gain a salaried position.YOUR OWN SERVICE BUSINESSIf you choose to make the jump to the next ladder of running your own services business there’s an entirely new set of skills you need to learn that build on the last step. Things like:Setting up a companyFinding clientsCreating proposalsPricing servicesHiring employeesEstablishing an online presenceAccounting, finance, business operations, etcLooking back there are so many things that seem easy and intuitive now (such as filing for an LLC with the Secretary of State) that were daunting to me at the time.This is also where many business owners expand beyond their ability and start to lose the lessons they should have mastered from the previous ladder like being reliable and showing up consistently. Which is how a friend of mine with no plumbing experience bought a small plumbing company and doubled revenue in the first year with two simple changes:Following up with customersDoing what he said he was going to doAs business owners we underestimate just how much there is to learn so we get overwhelmed and start dropping the ball on the basics.PRODUCTIZED SERVICESUp until now each sale has been made by talking to customers or an employer directly in person or over the phone or email. But to truly reach new levels of income you need to learn a different lesson: how to sell without ever talking to the customer.Our goal is to scale sales to new levels. That means removing every possible bottleneck. On the productized service we’ll remove the sales bottleneck, then on the next ladder we’ll remove the product delivery bottleneck.A productized service is when we take a set offering (e.g. search engine consulting) and bundle it up as a set offering with a fixed price (an SEO site audit for $1,000).A few examples include:A designer moving from designing websites at $100 per hour to charging a $2,500 for designing a 5 page website.A video editor charging $250 per video instead of $50 per hour.A handyman charging $50 per visit rather than an hourly rate.Because the project scope and price are fixed the service provider will make more on some projects than others, but the profits will average out.On this ladder we need to learn:Writing sales copy that can make a sale without talking to the customerDesigning a sales page (or hiring experts to do it for you)Processing online paymentsStandardizing systems to deliver repeatable quality with each serviceIf you choose to move further up this ladder you can add recurring revenue and employees to scale further and add predictability. For example, my brother-in-law Daniel used to edit any video for $30 per hour, but now he’s launched a recurring productized service to edit up to four vlog episodes per month for $1,000.First he answered the question, “how many hours will this take?” by moving from hourly to a fixed per video cost. Then he clarified exactly who it is for by specifying vlogs, rather than just any video. And finally he made it recurring by moving to a monthly price, rather than a per video price.Now he has a predictable income stream from a handful of clients and a waiting list for those who want to sign up when he has more availability.SELLING PRODUCTSA productized service works to remove the manual work from making the sale and selling a full product continues that trend by also removing the manual work from delivering the product.Physical products fall into two categories: handmade and manufactured.Handmade – Handmade products are great to get started because you can make a few without spending a ton of money, but then they are closer to productized services in that each one takes time to make, so you can’t scale seamlessly yourself.Manufactured – Manufactured products are hard to do at a small scale, but if you can sell enough of them you can make them in bulk and then you can scale an impressive business.A product takes far more work to create up front, but then each individual sale and the fulfillment of that sale happens without much (or any) additional effort from the business owner.Examples include:An ebook on how to learn a new programming languageA video course on new cooking techniquesA new tripod for vloggersAt this stage there are an entirely new set of skills you have to learn in order to sell products in bulk:Customer support at scaleGathering customers at scaleSupply chain (if it’s a physical product)Fraud as nefarious people use your site for credit card testing and moreThat’s just a few of dozens of skills you’ll need. With that intro to the ladders of wealth covered, let’s turn to principles that will help you navigate this new concept.8 principles to grow your wealth and income over timeExtra time and money need to be reinvestedYou can skip ahead, but you still have to learn the lessons from each stepApply your existing skills in a new way to build wealthThere’s a difference between working for a better wage and truly building wealthUsing an earlier rung on the ladder to fund the next oneMoving between ladders often means a decrease in incomeEach step is easier with an audienceIt takes longer than you think, but the results can be incredible1. EXTRA TIME AND MONEY NEED TO BE REINVESTEDOn a recent trip to Seattle I talked to my Uber driver between SeaTac and downtown Seattle. The conversation ranged from travel, our favorite islands in Hawaii, his love for music and gadgets, what he does for work, and why he’s driving for Uber on the side.He has a solid career working downtown for the City of Seattle and Uber allows him to earn a little extra on the side driving a couple mornings a week. It’s fantastic that services like Airbnb and Uber allow those on with a set salary to earn more on the side.So what was he spending this extra money on? Well, he loves gadgets and wants two things:To replace a broken speaker in his home theatre system.To buy a DJI Mavic drone.Those are both super fun purchases and it’s great he’s able to work extra to make those happen. But it reminded me of why most people don’t build wealth: increased earnings never go into wealth.All across society extra money—whether from a raise or working extra—disappears into lifestyle inflation or temporary purchases, when it could be put to work so much more effectively.The drone would be really fun, but there are so many small parts and fancy electronics that it’s bound to break after a couple years—and that’s if you don’t fly it into a tree before then.If you want to build wealth that thousand dollars should be spent on new skills or invested in the stock market, retirement accounts, or another business, rather than burned on the latest gadget.2. YOU CAN SKIP AHEAD, BUT YOU STILL HAVE TO LEARN THE LESSONS FROM EACH STEPAt ConvertKit we run one of the largest affiliate marketing programs of any SaaS company, bringing in nearly half a million dollars in revenue each month. But it’s a pain. None of the software available to manage these systems works well and as a result we spend at least one day a month doing manual work.My brother-in-law, Philip, saw this manual work and decided to build a better platform for SaaS companies to run affiliate programs. His new tool, called LinkMink, is gaining traction, but still early. After working on it for nearly two years he can’t help but feel frustrated he and his co-founder are only at a couple thousand a month in revenue.I can relate to this. 2 years into starting ConvertKit we were at the same level. It sucks how slow SaaS can be.But then I started thinking about Philip’s path. He’s got a bachelor’s degree in business, has worked as a designer, then as a software developer. Then he started working on LinkMink.His path has been:Hourly work for a company (in a wide range of jobs as anyone joining the workforce has)Salaried work at a company (both as a designer early on, then a web developer)Okay, so far this is great. On our income-earning ladder he has gone from the first rung to the second and done it quite quickly. In just four years going from an entry-level position to a fantastic salary.Somewhere in there he also did a little bit of contract design work, so he picked up the basics of invoicing, finding clients, and marketing your services.So let’s look at his next step, which was too… Start LinkMink.Starting a software-as-a-service app isn’t the next step on the spectrum. Hell, it’s not even in the next 10 steps!Running a SaaS company is incredibly hard with so many moving pieces: development, servers, customer support, legal, payment processing, etc. No wonder it’s taking a while!It’s not that he can’t do this or that he even made a poor choice in jumping to this step: simply that he has a lot of lessons to learn and he chose to learn them all here, rather than slowly in incremental steps throughout the journey.Because of that, he should set his expectations that this will take longer and feel harder than it does for other people.Those downsides are balanced by the fact that it can also have an incredible reward because recurring software is one of the greatest business models on the planet, which is why acquiring companies and investors will pay an incredible premium to own them.3. APPLY YOUR EXISTING SKILLS IN A NEW WAY TO BUILD WEALTHMy friend Patrick bought a house that needed plenty of work and immediately dove into renovating it himself. Since he works construction full-time he was well equipped with the skills to transform this fixer-upper.But the real magic and value wasn’t in the main house, which he is remodeling for his family, but in a detached 1-car garage that is accessible from the back alley. Originally this building was so run down that you wouldn’t even park a car in it, but after 6 months of work on nights and weekends Patrick renovated it into a beautiful little 300 square foot studio apartment.Just a couple hours after listing it for rent on Airbnb he had his first booking. His first month booked up immediately generating over $1,800 in revenue. When combined with his job working on a construction crew, this new revenue stream was a 50% increase in his monthly earnings.Because Airbnb already exists he has a product to sell (a cozy place to stay), in an existing marketplace, to a steady stream of buyers.The best part is that not only is this making him money while he works construction, and that the extra work he put in will raise the resale value of his house, but really that for as long as he holds on to it, he has steady cashflow to more than cover his mortgage no matter what job he does.4. THERE’S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN WORKING FOR A HIGHER WAGE AND TRULY BUILDING WEALTHWhile I love working on the computer and creating digitally, often I want an escape from that and to see projects come together in real life. Like many people I’ve been fascinated by tiny houses for years, so this year I decided to pull the trigger and build one myself. While it’s been a lot of learning and quite challenging at times, the break from sitting in front of a computer to start creating in real life has been so rewarding.Since I’m a complete novice when it comes to home building, I’ve relied on experienced friends like Patrick for the trickier parts, such as installing a double-swing french door.After finishing his own tiny studio and helping me build my tiny house Patrick said, “Maybe I should quit my construction job”—which is something he’s wanted to do for a long time—”and build tiny houses for other people.”While it’s a solid idea, and would certainly be more fun than working for a construction company, I talked Patrick out of it. Not because I want to crush someone’s dream, but because it would be a step backwards on our earning a living ladder.Patrick was on the first ladder of hourly or salaried work for a company. The next logical step would be to start his own company doing similar work. That actually takes him to the next ladder.Then if he were building tiny houses specifically he could specialize and sell them more as a product—not just labor for x dollars per hour, but actually selling the completed tiny house for a fixed price. Which would mean any efficiencies gained would be his to keep.Wait, those all sound like good things and steps forward, so why discourage it?Because Patrick actually has a solid footing on a much more advanced ladder: selling products. His Airbnb is selling a product into an existing marketplace. He’s making money while he sleeps! So instead of using his time and skills to create another hourly or project based income source, he should build a tiny house for himself, put it on Airbnb, and double his product revenue.5. USE AN EARLIER RUNG ON THE LADDER TO FUND THE NEXT ONEThe one downside to jumping ahead is that it often costs money before you will get money back. Because he did all the work himself, Patrick’s studio renovation only cost about $10,000. While it’s a great return, $10,000 is a lot to come up with!In the same way Patrick’s biggest obstacle to running another airbnb unit is actually initial capital to get started through buying land and building materials.That’s where the early rung on the ladders can help. You might stay at your software job longer to stockpile savings to fund your living expenses longer, or you might pick up extra shifts as a bartender to help save for your next set of building materials (which is what Patrick did). Often it requires extra work on one rung of the ladder to fund the jump to the next one.WHEN IS IT WORTH IT TO WORK FOR A WAGE?You may have heard the quote, “you shouldn’t trade time for money.” While true that there are better ways to build wealth, early in my career I found that advice quite discouraging. That was the only way I knew how to make money and apparently it was wrong!You should trade time for money, especially early in your career when it’s the only option available with your current skill set. So rather than writing off entire methods for earning a living, let’s break down five examples of when you should trade time for money:When you are just getting started. Early in your career, the important thing is to make enough to pay rent and buy groceries. Don’t look down on any job that allows you to do that. Once you have a stable foundation you can start to pursue better opportunities.When you are learning a new skill. If you can get paid to learn a new skill that will grow your earning potential you absolutely should! Let’s say I want to be a YouTuber and are just getting started. Working as a camera assistant for an ad agency would be a great way to learn more about cameras and video while still paying rent.As a step in getting to a higher rung or on to the next ladder. It always takes time, money, or both to move to a higher rung on the ladder. If you spend conservatively and save any extra money you can have enough to buy the tools, training, or time necessary to get to the next level.To build relationships and find mentors. The right people will shape your mindset and opportunities. You should absolutely trade time for money if it means expanding your network to people who can help you jump to the next ladder.When the work is rewarding and meaningful in its own right. If you found work that you find meaningful and fulfilling, you should do that. Even if some expert says you shouldn’t trade time for money. A lot of money is far from the only kind of wealth.The most important thing is that you aren’t just treading water as you work for a wage. As much of that money as possible should be saved and invested to help you jump to the next ladder.6. MOVING BETWEEN LADDERS OFTEN MEANS A DECREASE IN INCOMEI hope this has been helpful and inspiring so far, because I’m about to hit you with some bad news: while income increases as you move up any one ladder, it often decreases when you jump between ladders. Sometimes that drop may be only for a few months, other times it could be a few years. Let me give you an extreme example.In 2013 I earned over $250,000 from selling books and courses on design. My income head been steadily increasing for the last few years and I was damn proud of my blog and business. But then I decided to make the leap and switch from selling ebooks to starting a software company—one of the most difficult rungs on the product ladder.My income immediately and substantially dropped as I focused on ConvertKit. So how long do you think it took to set a new one year income record? A year? Two years?Nope. I didn’t earn over $250,000 in a year again until…2018. 5 years later!Software can take a long time to get going and for years after we got traction I still reinvested everything. Now, because of the exponential growth of ConvertKit (more on that later), I’m now earning far more than my previous record of $250,000.As you eye the next ladder to make the leap from a stable job to freelancing, or from a successful freelancing business to your next product, plan for a valley to follow your current revenue peak.This is especially hard when you’re used to being successful in one area and then you start over in a new area and lose the signs of progress and forward momentum.IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE ALL OR NOTHINGYou can start your blog while still helping freelance clients. Build the habit of writing while you still have your full-time job. Or do what I did and use book and course revenue to help fund building a software company.A side project is an incredible way to bridge the gap and cover the dip as you move between ladders. Just one note: I said, “a side project” not “side projects.”It’s so easy to get carried away with dozens of exciting ideas, working on each one as motivation and inspiration are there. But if you keep that cycle going it’s so easy to be spread thin between so many projects that will prevent you from making any one of them actually successful.7. EACH STEP IS EASIER WITH AN AUDIENCE.While the dip is always going to be frustrating, imagine that instead of making the leap alone you had dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of people cheering you on at each stage. Each person enjoying hearing about your journey and eager to help you make the next step.Sound too good to be true?It’s not. It’s called an audience.By sharing your journey publicly—and inviting friends, family, and complete strangers along for the ride—you will create your own fan club who are actively rooting for your success.That’s exactly what I did when I made the jump from selling ebooks about design to starting a software company: I talked about the entire journey through what I called The Web App Challenge. A public challenge to build a customer-funded SaaS product from scratch to $5,000 in recurring revenue in six months.While I didn’t hit the goal—only achieving just over $2,000 per month—the people who rallied around to support my public journey were incredible.That next endeavor that you launch, whether it’s creating handcrafted products for the farmers market, starting a new coffee shop, if you share your story and give people a way to follow your journey, they will. Some will buy your products, others will tell their friends, and still more will cheer you on.An audience is actually easier to build than we make it seem:Have a goal. The goal could be to make your first sale at a farmers market, write a book, renovate an airbnb, pay off your debt, landing your first four design clients, or just about anything else. The point is for it to be clear who you are and what you are trying to accomplish.Document your progress. This next step is a little harder—not because it’s difficult to document progress, but because it’s difficult to do consistently. Choose a cadence and write updates reminding people of what you are trying to accomplish and sharing your progress, learnings, and challenges on that journey. That could be through a monthly blog post or even just through more regular Instagram posts.Ask for help. Finally, understand that everyone wants to help, so let them! If you need advice on how to price your products or how to setup your business, just ask. If someone in your small audience doesn’t know, they most likely know someone who does. Throughout my journey I’ve been blown away by how many people step up with advice, introductions, and support whenever I’ve asked.So as you plan your next big step to build wealth I encourage you to set a clear goal, share it publicly, and give your community the opportunity to rally behind you and make it happen.8. IT TAKES LONGER THAN YOU THINK, BUT THE RESULTS CAN BE INCREDIBLEA few years ago my friend James’ grandmother passed away in her 90’s. She had grown up in the small town of Council in central Idaho. When she was 60 years old her husband, my friend’s grandfather, passed away. Leaving her alone. She was financially secure through two paid off houses, one in Boise, the other in Council, but she still had a long life ahead of her.She always loved cute little houses and decided to buy one to rent out as a new hobby to fill her time. A couple years later she bought another and rented it out as well. Then another and another.By the time I met her she was 80 years old and in the 20 years since she started, she had acquired more than 25 cute little homes throughout Southwest Idaho. None were very expensive, probably around $100,000 each, but combined they turned into quite the real estate empire. Each returning a great monthly cashflow that she rolled into buying the next property.In addition to this she bought a one hundred acre ranch on the Boise river outside of town.What had started as a hobby to pass her time and distract from loneliness turned into a real estate empire worth over $5 million.The takeaway is not necessarily to buy more houses (though that has been a great path to wealth for many), but that consistently reinvesting time and money into wealth creation rather than lifestyle inflation can have incredible results if allowed to play out for long enough.The unique shapes of increasing incomeI mentioned earlier that the further to the right on the income ladders you go the more difficult they become, but also the greater the upside. It may be hard to understand exactly why that is, so let’s explain it with three visuals:Stair stepLinearExponentialSTAIR STEPStair step diagramMost people will experience a stair step approach to income in their life. As they move from an hourly position to a salary that comes with a raise, which would be a step up in income. Then each additional salary increase will be another step. In some careers these may be small and often, in others they may be spaced out over more time and be quite large (residency to a full doctor or making partner at a law firm).You can also supplement a salary with an additional project (a rental property, buying an e-commerce site, a recurring consulting agreement) that will result in another stair step in your income.While this model isn’t the best possible, it is how nearly all wealthy people built their wealth. You won’t have unlimited upside, but over 40+ years it is one of the most reliable paths to wealth.LINEARLinear diagramEnough stair steps that are close together will simply look like a linear growth curve when you zoom out. So while a raise every few years will look like a stair step, a freelancer steadily able to increase her rate will look linear. In the same way that adding a rental property once is a worthwhile stair step, adding one per year is linear.The most common linear growth that I see in my work is in selling digital products: as traffic increases, so do sales. It isn’t exponential because traffic is still the bottleneck, but each new blog post or search engine ranking brings a few hundred more people to the site each month. Over time that drives more sales and income increases.EXPONENTIALExponential diagramExponential growth comes from when each sale of a product truly makes the next sale come more easily. It requires a product that you can sell repeatedly (whether physical or digital) that can be created at a large scale. Meaning you can’t be selling your time.Exponential growth often starts slowly, taking months or years to reach any kind of meaningful revenue. But fast forward a few years or a decade and the growth can be absolutely astounding.Software companies, marketplaces, and large e-commerce companies have an incredibly high ceiling and can grow insanely fast in their prime. But that usually takes time, significant skill, and meaningful capital.My own journey to building wealthThe one thing I can guarantee is that your journey won’t be linear. Mine own journey involved jumping all over the place. Let me show you:Woodworking (2003 — 13 years old). The very first way I made money—other than my parents paying me for work around the house—was making wood carvings on a scroll saw a family friend had given me, and selling them around the neighborhood. Each one making between $10-$40, depending on the complexity. While after that it would be a few years before I would revisit products, I still find it interesting that I had such an early foray into products.Most important skill acquired: the courage to knock on a stranger’s door and sell them something.Wendy’s (2005 — 15 years old). I was in a hurry to grow up and wanted to start taking college classes. I needed money in order to pay tuition. So I picked up the phonebook and started calling businesses asking how old you had to be to work there. Most said 16. Wendy’s was the first to say they’d hire at 15.Working the drive through we would compete with other local stores to set the fastest drive through services times. I worked the cash register and learned to type on it without looking in order to make sure I wasn’t the bottleneck.Most important skill acquired: how to work very fast.Freelance web design (2006 — 16 years old). I learned web design in high school and started to make money designing websites and logos. In 2007 I dropped out of college to do it full time. My biggest success was building a web application for $10,000.Most important skill acquired: how to find, work with, and charge clients.Lead designer in a startup (2009 — 19 years old). In 2009 I was hired on full time by one of my clients (a 14 person venture backed startup). I stayed for nearly three years, growing to lead their product design team. I spent my time designing in Photoshop, learning to code iOS apps, and working with a large team as the company eventually grew to over 80 team members.Most important skill acquired: an introduction to leading a team.Building and selling iOS apps (2011 — 21 years old). While working for the software startup I started building iOS apps on the side. Then I went out on my own to freelance and continue to build my own apps. As my first venture back into products since the days of selling handmade goods door to door, I had to learn to write a sales page, code apps, market products, and launch into the iOS app ecosystem.Most important skill acquired: building a product and selling into an existing marketplace.Selling my first book (2012 — 22 years old). After building quite a few iOS apps I turned to writing a blog and then eventually writing a book teaching how to design apps. The book was quite successful, selling nearly $20,000 worth in the first week! This launched my entire journey with building an audience and self-publishing.Most important skill acquired: how to build an audience.Building a software company (2013 — 23 years old). My next—and final—venture was to focus on software again and build the email marketing company I wish I had when I started growing an audience. Today ConvertKit earns over $18 million per year.Nearly seven years after starting ConvertKit it is what I’m still doing and plan to do for at least the next decade.Most important skill acquired: how to work relentlessly on one idea for long enough to reach its full potential.Over the years I’ve done so many different things, but each one was a step towards learning the skills required to earn a living and build wealth.Considering leveling up your income and wealth?As you’re considering making the jump to the next level, ask yourself these questions:What rung am I on in my journey to build wealth?Which ladder is this new idea on?How far is it from the rung and ladder I am on currently?What new skills would I need to close the gap between where I am now and where I want to go?How long will it take to acquire those skills and get initial traction?Do I have the runway (both in time and financial security) to make that jump without putting my finances in danger?These aren’t meant to discourage you from making a move. Instead, the answers to these questions will give you awareness to make you more likely to succeed in the journey ahead.Let’s close with one final example.The Patel Motel CartelDid you know that 50% of motels in the United States are owned and operated by people of Indian origin? One of my favorite articles I’ve read in the last year was in the New York Times and was actually written back in 1999, it’s titled, A Patel Motel Cartel?In the 1950s families from India started to immigrate to the United States. Because it was so expensive they often relied on money from family to help them get settled.Once in the United States they got jobs, earned more, and paid it forward to others in their family to help them make the same move. The money was never repaid, but always paid forward.But the real magic came with what they did next. Instead of pursuing normal jobs a family would pull together all the money they could (from their own savings and from extended family) and use it as a down payment on a small motel. The family would then move into it and run it full time. Spending their days and weekends working the front desk, cleaning rooms, and making beds.Over time as it grew into a meaningful business they would have some free capital to pay forward to another relative who would do the same thing.They worked hard hosting thousands of guests and carefully stockpiling money. Whenever the stockpile grew large enough it didn’t go into increasing their lifestyle, but instead into the next opportunity, which was nearly always another motel.By 2003, when the article was written, Indian immigrants owned half of all the motels in the United States. Not only were they continue to earn great revenue from each booking, but the land has appreciated over the decades to become incredibly valuable, making these families rich.My three favorite things are that they:Rallied together to make one family succeed, and in doing so raised the tide for everyone.Never paid back the money, but instead paid it forward to the next family member to create opportunity for them.Always poured the money into the next revenue generating asset (another motel) rather than inflating their lifestyle.While he doesn’t come from a culture where that kind of assistance and collaboration is common, my friend Patrick is well on his way to creating wealth through following the same model as he leverages his construction skills to build more Airbnbs.Philip is doing the hard work to launch a SaaS company—learning all the skills necessary to jump 3 ladders in a single move. His company, LinkMink, is now growing quickly and we even switched ConvertKit to their platform a few months ago.And I’ve used the skills I learned from each ladder to build a company to nearly $20 million in revenue. No matter where you are in your journey, whether you are searching for a job, living paycheck to paycheck, launching your first business, growing an audience, starting a side project, scaling your company, or looking for the next venture to invest in, I hope this article helps to serve as a roadmap of what’s possible.Building wealth is a skill. A skill anyone can master given enough time and a relentless desire to learn and work hard.

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

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survivingart · 5 years

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PRICING YOUR ART THE RIGHT WAY Part III: Constructing and communicating your price

In the last two blunders we discussed the importance of calculating ones base expenses and all-around financial needs on a monthly basis and the concept of added value. Today, I’d like to combine the two and take a deeper look into how various models can help us to set fair and consistent prices for our work.

First of all, we need to acknowledge a very important fact; the pricing model we use to determine our value shouldn’t necessarily be the same one we use to communicate that value to others. Not to be misunderstood, I don’t mean that we should hide such info or act as we’re beyond money — the main problem here is semantics.

While it might be preferable for a contractor that comes to fix our heating or helps us build our house to disclose his or her hourly price and estimated expenses, so as we don’t end up either broke or hospitalised due to a heart attack after picking up the bill, doing the same in the arts isn’t exactly the best way.

There of course are bad examples of how prices are communicated (or even, not communicated) — some galleries for example don’t disclose prices because they never know if somebody would be willing to pay more than they or the artists would like to get from any particular work.

But many techniques and practices in the arts revolve around a very important fact: the collectors and buyers of art are not looking for contractors and price breakdowns, they’re looking for remarkable experiences at (hopefully) reasonable prices.

And because of this fact, the communication of a price should not look like the tab of a restaurant, but more as an organic part of the whole artistic experience — even at christian churches, they have fancy rituals like tithing that are integrally connected with the whole ritual of mass.

So, first of all, we’ll take a look at the various internal pricing models to use for our art and then we’ll package them neatly and fairly so as to make our communication with potential collectors and buyers smoother and most importantly more professional.

PRICING BY THE HOUR

This model has a lot going for it — especially for anyone starting out — as it is the easiest to use in order to determine how we’re going to make the minimum amount we need to make, for our business and personal life to flourish and even eventually come to the point, where art becomes our full-time profession. But it has a lot of problems, too!

Setting it up is simple; we find a fair hourly wage (we calculated this in the first blunder of this series) and calculate how much time we spent on making the work. Then we just multiply both and hopefully what we get is a decent number that won’t make us starve to death. Easy.

This option may be good for any classical portraitists or realistic style painters and sculptors, as it reflects the labour intensive work of creating realistic depictions, and communicates the sheer number of work hours that one puts into making such works.

But it gets problematic for anyone that makes abstract paintings that only take about a day or sometimes a few hours to complete (especially if they’re big ones); this isn’t a realistic approach and a different pricing structure should be used if you work quickly — especially if the speed at which you are able to work is based on a lot of years of training.

Though you could brag to your fellow artist friends that your hourly wage is 400€! Just don’t tell anyone how many hours there are in a work day — or year for that matter!

There’s an issue with such an approach to pricing art though; you just don’t base the price of a Rothko on the number of man hours he and his assistant put into any particular work — and you don’t compare him to Raphael or Tizian either.

Also, if we just compare a Pollock vs. a Rothko; the Pollock’s price is inflated solely because of his story — let’s face it, the art part isn’t that great — but a Rothko actually is exceptionally well made and the concept behind his works only enforced his quality, effectively making him one of the most expensive painters of his era (and in my opinion rightfully so, but I’m a blotchy painting fan boy, so I’m not being unbiased here).

My point is: Any pricing model that depends solely on the work and/or materials input, but does not consider the added value of the artist’s skill, background, or any other trait of the creator, that differentiates them form anybody else who could’ve attempted to create a similar work (and the varying levels of success any one of us could have had — compared to the original creator), must be taken into account when pricing our work.

Art is a commodity (at least in our price bracket), but it’s never without the added value factor that actually creates the experience of it being art vs. just a pretty picture. If indeed all were making were pretty pictures with no stories and no added value to be uncovered by the right audience, we would be artisans — I’m not saying this is better or worse, but our goals and pricing structures should absolutely be different from those that don’t actively produce narratives around their work.

To put it simply; a decorative pretty flower print is worth as much as the paper and colour it was printed with, combined with the work that went into it and maybe a 10% mark-up because, I don’t know, the printshop manager felt like it.

A flower painting made to embody the profound sensual experience of the flower petal and that was actively imbedded into the then contemporary flow of culture and time — like Georgia O’Keeffe’s work for example — will be worth as much as the market deems this particular experience of artistic expression valuable in the context of not only her time, but ours and the totality of what we think has happened in human existence and how it all relates to the story her work is telling us.

As we have figured out in the last blunder on added value and worth, the reality is, this is how art is valued. To be honest, it’s how everything ever made is valued, at least by any average human that has their basic needs met — a person dying of thirst will indeed not give one damn about the perceived difference between generic tap water and a crystal flask of pure Evian.

(Fun fact: Try reading Evian backwards and think about this particular product being extremely overpriced — compared to other, similar quality products.)

So, pricing by hour is great if you work a decent amount of hours, but bad for anyone that works quickly. But there’s a variable we can use to adjust this issue:

PRICING BY SIZE

Similar to the hourly-based model, pricing by size focuses on the physical aspects of ones work, but unlike the former, does not base the value on the time spent creating the work and as such only focuses on the finished product — rather than on the process.

I find this perspective especially useful when making my abstract paintings — they usually take less than a day to complete but are equal in quality to anything more realistic in my opinion, because the time spent on one such work is incomparable to the effort spent on something as complex as mimicking natural forms.

But just because abstraction doesn’t take that long to create, doesn’t mean it’s crap compared to realism (my guess is, we’re opening pandoras box now); both realism and abstraction require a lot of learning, skill and attention to detail in order fo any one artist to produce a quality product, but often a realist work will take a long time to complete (especially if you put a lot of effort and energy into shading and texture work).

And because it takes a long time, the process is divided into a myriad of small steps — easy to do and simple to fix if done incorrectly (unless you spot a mistake in the proportions or composition only long after you’ve painted 80% of the work).

But the process of abstract painting (or sculpting, drawing, etc.) isn’t as segmented; you really only do maybe 10% of the amount of steps compared to a realist portrait, but as such the steps you have to take are larger and harder to fix if done incorrectly.

It’s not hard to fix weirdly painted eyes (even though it might have taken you 60 minutes to get them to that point), but it’s incredibly hard to fix a badly executed bold brushstroke — think of Cy Twombly’s pantings; I don’t like his work, but one can imagine that if the last stroke on his white canvas was badly executed, he couldn’t just correct it by painting over it — he’d have to start all over again.

You can think of it as risk, really; a slow, controlled process like realistic portraiture isn’t risky, just time consuming (think of all the videos of people drawing realistic portraits; they always segment the work into small batches and almost never work on the face as a whole).

But a fast-paced process like abstract expressionism (again, think Rothko, not Pollock), is quick, semi-controlled and chaotic; the percentage of bad paintings that are created and then binned by abstract expressionists is exceptionally high, but quite low for realist painters.

So, what the price-by-size model compensates for is exactly this difference; time vs. amount of risk. It would maybe even be better named as the risk-evaluation model, but I think such a funky name wouldn’t really cater to us creatives as I guess it makes a convoluted topic like compensation even more foreign — we’re not financial analysts, our games are played with crayons and paint tubes, not Bollinger Bands.

To give an example of a price-by-size approach: In Slovenia, a 50 x 70 cm painting averages about 400€ (I know…). 50 x 70 cm is 3.500 cm2 and to make it short, a square centimetre costs about 0.10 € total.

This 0.10€ can now be used to define prices of any other works we do, so a 100 x 100 cm painting would then cost about 1000€ (and yep, again that’s the average price in our beloved country).

But while prices for larger works are easy to calculate like this, it gets tricky for smaller ones; an A4 work would cost about 63€ (if calculated like this), but the average is about 100-150€, because to sell a work for 60€ is effectively akin to giving it away.

That is why a good practice for this model is to start with a base price; a set amount to which we then add our price calculations. Call it studio fee, or base cost or whatever you like, the point is to always start at 50€ or 100€ (or any other number that works for you) and then add to that the size calculated price (I usually make an average of my material costs and call that my studio fee — mine’s 100€ — then add the total material costs for that particular work and the size calculated price on top (effectively doubling my material cost reimbursement, which has many times helped me cope with unexpected material expenses I forgot to calculate into my price, but as it was my mistake could not add to the final sales price at the end).

The point is: Never forget to add you material costs to any model you use!

The smaller works will always cost more than you spent on them and as such, selling them will make much more sense, but the base price won’t affect your larger work as much (an A4 sized work will cost 200% more if a studio fee of 100€ is added, but a 100 x 100 cm sized work will only cost 10 % more if 1 cm2 is set at 0.10€).

Now, there are other ways of calculating price, these two are the main ones I use and therefore the only ones I feel adequately comfortable discussing as I have tried them extensively throughout my time working as an artist.

You could also price your work by value to the customer for example, but such a structure is more commonly used in design (because with design, the value created for the customer can be much more easily measured). So as far as visual art is concerned, I myself like to stick to size and time variables form my pricing structures.

But if you work with a lot of advertisement agencies or businesses that create a lot of value form you work, value based pricing is probably the best way to go; think if you worked on an advertisement campaign that used your paintings or a licensing deal, where a company would use your drawings or paintings as designs for their products.

If this is the case, the best way is to have a long and thorough conversation about what the company you’ll be working with has in mind, how much the audience size will be and what they wish to make (they might not give you this information on a sliver platter, but most will be willing to talk about it if you’re persistent enough and ask the right questions — or more importantly aren’t afraid to ask such seemingly unrelated and direct questions.

To really establish a good price based upon the potential value created by our art, we need all of the info we can get, because without it, it’s impossible to pinpoint the ballpark of how much we should charge — let alone an exact number.

COMMUNICATING OUR PRICES

We’ve talked about setting our prices by the hour and calculating them via size and base fees, and touched upon value based pricing. Now it’s time to tie it all together and package it up into an easily communicable and (this is important) easily replicable model.

The easiest and most straightforward way is to just add-up all of our expenses, base fees and pricing model of choice and end up with some rounded-up number, but a bit of tweaking can make our prices a lot more understandable and transparent to our customers.

I always divide my prices into two main segments; the value of the materials I use and the value I bring to the table (so the price of me making a painting, rather than somebody else).

To just touch upon material costs; it’s a great idea to talk about the materials we use and to give a little bit of context about how much they actually cost.

A lot of people do not know that high-quality acrylics cost a fortune and if we can explain to them that the paint we use is future proof (most brands say that they won’t crack or fade in direct sunlight for at least 100 years if not more) and the canvas of a high quality.

So, just quickly describing the value that such materials have, compared to the cheap ones, can not only make the higher material costs understandable to anyone who may not be aware of their prices, but also provide a lot of peace of mind to anyone, that has never bought art before.

From my personal experience, people do value the information that the work they are buying is made with quality materials, because while they are of course buying you and your story, that story has to be embedded into something (the art work) and it’s preferable that it ages better than an open milk bottle on a summer day in Florida.

As for the artist fee; this is where I use my price calculations and base fees to determine its amount. The important thing to keep in mind here is that nobody cares how you structure your prices — and as we said, usually telling people the exact mechanics of your pricing will actually devalues your work!

We all know that prices need to originate from some place (preferably a consistent one), but I feel that as soon as somebody tells me they charge 500€ for their work, based on some simple size calculation, it subconsciously devalues the experience of their art for me.

What I mean by this is that while all the pricing structures we use focus solely on the product and thus make determining the price much easier for us (especially when we need to give a quote on-site), the end goal of our art isn’t just to make a product.

The main factor is actually the experience that it provides for our customers. And if we do not address this experience as part of our evaluation for the customer, they will deem it unimportant — when in reality, it’s the most important one!

How I tackle this issue is by roughly calculating my price via one of the two models I use (mostly I do price-by-size, as most of my commissions are abstract paintings) and add my base fee and a varying markup percentage — this only changes if I am doing work for a friend (because I know they won’t sell the work and as such I don’t fear such price inconsistencies affecting my market price as a whole), but thinking about sales to friends and family and having a “discount” preprepared for such occasions just helps me stay consistent with my pricing.

So, after I have my price, I tell them the whole number as my fee; I don’t discuss the ways I calculate it, I do not defend it or try to persuade them in any way if the price quote I gave is too high. We might sometimes haggle a bit, but usually I only do so when making more than one work.

I feel a large order deserves a bit of flexibility but I would never give discounts to my customers (especially on commissions) — I might let some older work go for less than what I want if it turns out there’s no demand for it though.

Giving discounts only teaches people to ask for one every time we make business and nobody wants to be known as the discount artist.

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allenmendezsr · 4 years

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