You're listening to cubicle to CEO episode 263, this is a replay of episode 117, one of our team picked Top 10 case studies that we felt deserved in encore. You get to meet one of my favorite people today, Kim Kaupe is a true wonder woman who has made her mark on stages worldwide as a keynote speaker and the mastermind behind bright ideas only a fan engagement agency with a list clientele like Paul McCartney, Oprah, my personal favorite, Taylor Swift and the New York Mets, to name just a few, not to mention Kim's work has landed her offers from four out of five sharks on Shark Tank, a role as a judge for the Miss USA pageant, and spots on coveted industry lists like inks, 35 under 35 advertising ages 40 under 40, and Forbes, 30 under 30.
Today's conversation with Kim is easily one of the top 10 most valuable episodes we've recorded on this podcast to date. We're dissecting the case study of how Kim used creative negotiation tactics to turn a no we can't afford you response into a client actually paying $15,000 more than what they had initially offered. If negotiating makes you sweat, Kim's advice will give you an MBA and negotiation and under an hour keep listening to hear how you too can get paid over your asking rate when you learn how to problem solve pricing objections with your clients.
Welcome to cubicle to CEO, the podcast where we ask successful founders and CEOs the business questions you can't google. I'm your host. Ellen Yin, every Monday, go behind the business in a case study style interview with a leading entrepreneur who shares one specific growth strategy they've tested in their own business, exactly how they implemented it and what the results and revenue were. You'll also hear financially transparent insights from my own journey bootstrapping our media company from a $300 freelance project into millions in revenue.
I have been looking forward to this conversation for months. The this is, like, seriously going to be probably one of our best podcast episodes ever. So I'm just saying you probably want to break out your pen and paper to take some notes. One of my favorite humans on the planet is here with us today. Thank you, Kim Kaup, welcome to our show.
Thank you for having me. I'm an avid listener, so it's going to be very meta when I hear myself on this episode.
I love it. And how Kim and I met actually is through a mutual friendship. So we're both friends with Jenna Viviano, and this is what I love about online business and about entrepreneurship, is that you get to meet so many great people from all over the world through mutual friends. And so Jenna actually introduced me to Kim, and Kim had me on her show, coffee with Kim, which is an excellent show on LinkedIn live, if you guys want to tune in and pop over to listen in and, well, actually, to watch, because it is a live stream.
And I knew after that conversation that I had to have Kim on our show, because her background is, I mean, it is mind blowing, like every possible amazing thing you could think of that someone could do in in the business world. Kim has probably, you know, gotten in there, but Kim, I'll let you tell your story yourself. What was your journey from employee to entrepreneur or from cubicle to CEO?
So I was an accidental entrepreneur through and through. My big dream when I graduated from college was to work corporate job. I wanted to work in New York City. I wanted to work at a magazine. I wanted to work in publishing. And lucky for me, that's exactly what I did. I graduated college in 2008 flew myself from Florida to New York City and started working at Conde Nast, which is a large publication company that does Vogue and Vanity Fair. So if you can imagine Devil Wears Prada. I was Anne Hathaway, sort of in the mix, and that was an amazing two and a half year adventure.
I eventually switched over to an ad agency, thinking I would take on a more Don Draper John ham roll and have whiskey at four o'clock and daydream about big ideas. But I got that ad agency, and shockingly, it wasn't like it was on television. I know when we all think TV is real, it's not always real. And when I got there, I was like, Oh no, I'm miserable. Like, I've totally made a mistake.
And everything happens for a reason, or so they say. And at the time, my former co founder was sitting next to me at the agency, and I turned to her, and I was like, I think I'm going to call my old boss at Conde Nast and ask for my job back, because this place is awful. I've made a terrible mistake. Meanwhile, this is like day 10 on the job. And she said, Well, hold on, before you do this, let's go out to drinks. I sort of have a crazy idea, and it was there that she pitched me. On starting this company with her. And I was 25 years old at the time, definitely, you know, young, and probably a little too careless and no idea what I was doing.
And so I said, Well, Option A is call my old boss and cry and grovel and ask me my job back. Doesn't sound that great. And option B was, I don't know, try this entrepreneurship thing, it will statistically fail, probably in the next two to three months, and then I will go back to option one, which is call, mail, boss, cry, gravel, ask for my job back, but with the very funny story that for three months I was the CEO of a company that no longer exists. And so I went with Option B. But funny enough for me, that was in 2011 and I never had to call that old boss back, because the idea actually worked and the company actually worked, and it's called Bright Ideas only now. We've been in business since January of 2011 and we're a marketing agency that focuses on fan engagement for some of today's biggest entertainers, sports teams, celebrities. So it's been a really fun, crazy, wild ride.
Wow, I actually didn't know that story. Over 10 years you've been in business, by the way, which is a huge milestone. Congratulations. And if you heard the intro to this episode, then you already know some of the awesome people that Kim's company has worked with before, Paul McCartney, the New York Mets, Oprah, right? We all can admire Oprah from afar, but Kim has actually worked with her, so that's amazing. And also that company that you founded, that's the company that you actually pitched on Shark Tank and got offers from four out of five sharks, right?
That is correct. It was called something different. Probably any entrepreneur out there can feel me. We've been through three name changes, probably 30,000 pivots at this point. That's the one thing is, you know, in 10 years of a company, I kind of liken it to a Madonna. Or, if anybody's a fan of Taylor Swift, you have the different like Taylor Swift eras, you have, like the reputation era, the lover era. So I joked that over the last 10 years, the company's had three eras, sort of three names with different different folks, kind of cycling out of everyone. But our latest era is bright ideas only. So that's the one that we Oh, we love the most.
This is why I knew we would be friends, because the fact that you just use a Taylor Swift analogy is perfection. Yes, I don't know. Oh yeah. There it is on my back shelf. I have her lover album. I love Taylor's different eras. I love how she constantly reinvents herself. And I think that's so true. As entrepreneurs, you have to stay nimble, right? You need to be able to adapt to new ideas, to circumstances, to changes.
And we're, speaking of being nimble, you know, we're going to be talking about a really interesting case study today with Kim. And although her story and there's so much more that we could dive into, I highly encourage you to go down the rabbit hole and Google stalk insta stalk you too stalk her after this conversation for more of that today, our focus is on how she was actually able to negotiate a contract with a client and find truly $15,000 more than what the client originally came in willing to pay.
So she was able to negotiate this contract from $30,000 to $45,000 Kim, you can mention some of the clients that you work with through bright ideas only, but for the purposes of NDA and privacy, we will not be disclosing exactly who this client was. But Kim, give us the background. Set up the story for us, like, what was the situation? How did this client come to you? What was their original ask? And why was that 30,000 not something that you were just willing to jump on and immediately say yes to
Well, there's, you know, for most people, when you get approached by a potential new client, obviously your first reaction is, I'm so excited, like, yay. You want to work with me. This is great. And so at that point that that yay stage, they'll usually ask you, you know, can you put together a proposal based off of these 5678, things that I'm asking for, and you and your team, or just you, if you're a solopreneur, kind of gage, you put together a proposal. Okay, this is what I think.
So a client had come to us and said, you know, based on these things that I really want to do for this upcoming tour that I have, I really want to put together, like, this amazing package and this marketing. And, you know, here's the thing, like, what do you guys think? And so our team got together, sort of huddled up, evaluated, how many hours would that take? What are they asking for? What's the pricing on that? And got together and said, Okay, we're going to give this back to the client and and here we go. And we gave it back to the client and said, You know what you're asking for is going to cost $40,000 that's how much it's going to cost.
And I made a point to say that because we actually know at the time. So behind the scenes info that we would like. Only do it for something that is lower or close to that, but a mentor always told me, Listen, you always want to go in higher than you think, because most people are going to try to talk you down, and if they don't talk you down, great. You've won the lottery. You know, they didn't try to talk you down, awesome. But if you're not hearing no in your business, you're not pushing hard enough. And it's the same thing with contract negotiations. You should be hearing no one out of every three to four proposals that you send Period. End of story. You want people pushing back. You want to figure out where that line is.
Obviously, you don't want to throw out some crazy number that you can't deliver on. Of course, I would never tell anybody that always deliver on the proposals that you put in front of people. But really value your time, your expertise, because sometimes that can be difficult. You know, I've been in business for 10 years. How do you value 10 years worth of knowledge? What is that $5 is that $50,000 is that $10 like you kind of have to slowly start to figure out, and that's why your price kind of constantly has to change, what that actually looks like, and you want people pushing back on you.
And so for us, this client came back, and honestly, they were super disappointed. They were so sad. They were like, I want to work with you so badly. Like, I'm loving what you're doing. Like, this is so cool. This is so great, but Dot. Dot. Dot. Like the famous, the famous but, but I don't have that in my budget, like I just like, I'm looking at the piece of paper, and that's not what I have to spend. What you're coming in at is higher than than what I have.
And so at that point, we really had to make one of two decisions, and I wanted to make sure we talked about this here, because I think not enough, especially new business people, talk about this, that you have to look at things and say, what you have two options, either somebody can't afford you, and you say, Thanks, let me know when, when you can afford me again, or you have to look at this and say, How can I get creative, and how can I Let this work for me. And one of those ways which we're not going to talk about here, because we're going to talk about money and negotiations, but I did want to bring it up, is, and it's something that I've done plenty of times over the years in the business, is, is this going to look good in my portfolio? Would I be willing to do this for less as a one time only, sort of price, friends and family rate, if you will, because it's going to look good in my portfolio.
And I've done that countless times, by the way, with countless clients over the years, and they know it. I say, Listen, I'm going to give you a special rate this one time, but because you're Justin Bieber, because you're Selena Gomez, or whoever it is, but just know when we work together again, Selena, or when we work together again. Justin, I can't give you this rate, but it's valuable for me to have those calling cards in my back pocket. So again, not the case study we're talking about here. But I did want to point that out, is, if there is somebody that you think, Man, this would be so good. In fact, actually, right now, after 10 years and four months, I have a client that I'm working with right now below our going rate, because I will know it will be a great case study. So I'm still doing it 10 years later.
I want to say that is such great insight to add, because I think that it's really, it's something that only a wise entrepreneur would know, unless, unless, like the lucky listeners today are hearing it from you, right? But most of the time, it takes many years to really realize, oh, wow, this is how I can future leverage a decision I'm making today, right? Like, yes, the money in the bank is not going to reflect what I think I should be charging this client today. But to your point, if it's someone with a lot of cachet, someone with really great network that could send you referrals, if it's a client that you have been dying to work with your entire life.
Sometimes those opportunities you have to, you have to really weigh your decision and think, okay, if I'm taking, let's say, 5000 less today, will this result, though, and maybe 50,000 or 500,000 down the road, because I made this decision. So to your point, I think that's a really great just piece of advice to think on, but obviously you didn't go that route right with this client.
Obviously you actually did go back and try to negotiate, and ended up winning. Not only that, that 40k that you came in with, but actually it ended up being 45k and before, before you go into the details of that negotiation, I just want to back up for a moment, because I realized that not everybody listed. Saying, maybe familiar with bright ideas only, and how, like, what it is that you actually do with clients. And you know, we've thrown around some pretty well known names here. So tell us, like, what, what does it actually look like for a client to work with you? Who's working with you? Why are they coming to you? What does that product look like? Give us a story.
So they're they're usually coming to us for one of two things. They're saying, I want to make a physical product to either sell or engage with or give out to my super fans. So again, what to use like a concrete example, maybe Taylor Swift, because you you love it. You love a good Taylor Swift reference. So we worked with Taylor Swift when she was on the red album, and what we did for Taylor was Taylor said, I really want to do something special for my super fans. So not everybody, not every single fan, just the super fans. So what we said is, okay, let's let's brainstorm. Let's think about what we came up with. And we came up with the idea to do a 96 page mini magazine.
You can tell that she kind of blew that idea out when reputation came, but at the time, we actually, fun fact, the first time she ever did this was the red album with us. We put together a mini magazine that came with her album. It came with some collectible items, and we bundled it together and we sold it exclusively in Walmart. The catch was, we only created 90,000 of these packages. That's it. Not 91,000 there was no reprint. There was no Oh, but they sold out. Now we're going to make more. That's it, done, no more, never to be seen again, unless it's on like eBay or Reddit. So again, that those are sort of limited edition, really special only for the super fans.
We've done a ton of packages like that, for music apps, for sports teams. We've done the New York Mets Kids Club package for the last seven years. So again, you sign up for the kids club. What are you getting in that kids club? What's coming to you? And so that's sort of one side of the business, and the other side of the business is really marketing ideas, branding. Hey, we have this new tour we're going out with. Hey, we have this new album we want to work on. Hey, we have this new initiative we're thinking of. Can you help us think of cool ideas. How do we engage? How would we brand it? What does the website look like? What does the logo look like?
So there's really two arms of the business, depending on where people need us the most. And so while we do both with some clients, we're only doing one set with other clients. For only doing the other side and with The Select Group, we're doing both. So it really, really just depends. But we found that over the years, those the two areas that we excel in the most.
Alright, real quick, before we get into the episode, I want to take a moment to shout out the amazing individuals and businesses who voted for me in the Mrs. America People's Choice Awards, where I ended in the top three for most votes, spending a week in Vegas competing alongside our country's most accomplished married women who are my forever sisters, part of the Mrs. America class of 2024 and getting to represent my home state of Oregon on the scene stage legends like Elvis and Barbra Streisand once performed on was a once in a lifetime experience I will always, always treasure the following people in our community helped make this possible. So please go check out their links listed in the show notes below, in no particular order, a huge thank you to yoga and pilates with ivory Howard Veronica Romney, systems saved me light. Beamers, dishing up digital the abundance group, Linda Sidhu LLC, passion breakthrough, when heaven meets hell. Podcast launch with Lacey crib Nomad, copy agency, cum plum better belly podcast studio, sequin, Victoria Davis, dirty copy, Celia, Elizabeth, Johnston Hale, simplify BS and business babes collective, again, huge. Thank you to all of you, and please go check out their links listed below in the show notes.
Wow, there's so much thought right that goes into these products, into really, I don't even necessarily see you in the product space. I mean, yes, like what you're delivering is an end product, but you're really creating experiences, right for these super fans to interact with their favorite performers, their favorite brands, and to feel like they're part of something special, which they are, they're and they're creating these memories. And so I think that's so, so cool.
Again, I told you guys, like, there's so much we could dive into with Kim, but for the sake of time, if we pivot back to the case study. So this client came back to you, they said, Look, we'd love to work with you, but we simply don't have the budget. Right. For most people at that point, they feel stuck, right? They're like, okay, I guess, I guess it's not meant to be. We're walking away, because one of us has to give How did you creatively approach and problem solve this situation?
Well, I think what I've learned over the years, and by the way, for anybody listening, this is not a lesson that I knew out of the gate. This is like a hard and fast, I think it took me six, seven years and lots of bruises and lots of bumps to finally learn this, but hopefully, by hearing this for me, it will save you seven years of bumps and bruises. But what I realized very quickly is two things. Number one, the majority of times that you hear no is via email, you have sent a proposal. I'm sure you've designed it beautifully in Canva. It has all the bells and whistles. You sent it off. You're like, Oh, my creation is amazing.
And then you get the email back. That's like, wah, wah, no. And again, most people to your point, Ellen, say, okay, the answer is no. I either have to just take no or I have to do it for free or at a discount that maybe I don't want to do, or maybe I don't need to do at this point. And to that, I say, and I'm sure some people are going to cringe right now hearing this, but pick up the phone. You have got to pick up the phone and get to the bottom of the No. Why are you getting the No? What is the actual core thing that they are saying no to? And then once you kind of peel back the onion layers? Why? Why? You know what? Huh, okay, like, Tell me more. Tell me more. Get to the core of the know, then you have to put on your creative pad. You have to get super creative and say, Okay, I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're what you're doing. And how can I get creative?
So in this specific example, picked up the phone, got on the phone with the client, and said, I you know, I thought you loved this idea. I thought you were excited to work with us. Like, tell me more. Like, what's going on? Why do you have to say that? No. And they said, flat out, this was probably around November ish. And so they said, Kim, it's November. I my budget in the marketing department has been spent down over the year. And now, you know, I have to make this $30,000 that I have left go until December 31 you know that that's, this is my job. I'm Chief Marketing Officer like, this is what I was what I have left.
And I said, Okay, I hear you. What we are facing is you have a limitation, because that's kind of, if you think about it, like a piggy bank, that's all you have left in the piggy bank. You have $30,000 left in the piggy bank. And then I asked two creative questions that I encourage everybody to ask, which is, number one, is that the only piggy bank, and what I mean by that is, yes, that was the marketing budget, but was there a social media budget? Was there an ad spend budget? Were there other budgets to play with? So number one is that the only budget that you have, or are there other budgets?
And number two is, tell me more about the budget you have. And what we learned with that second question was, okay, that budget was good until December 31 Well, what happened on January 1? Well, the piggy bank raining, adding a little sound effect, it filled back up. And that was the next year's budget. And so what I said was, okay, I hear you. Let's get creative in these two realms. Number one, can you go back to your finance team and say, can I borrow against next year's marketing budget? Just ask the question, maybe you can. Maybe you can, but you don't know, unless you ask. And I said, Have you ever done that? And my client said, No, I've actually, I've never, I've never even thought of that. I never even thought about going and saying, Can I borrow against our future budget? So I said, Okay, that's, that's your homework check.
And then, then I said, and what other budgets are there? And they said, Well, now that I'm thinking about it, yeah, my counterpart in on the social media team, it's the same situation. They have a budget that expires on December 31 and I said, Okay, well, if we revamp our proposal, if we maybe include some some other parts of this initiative, and kind of figure out, what do we maybe we include some social media? Would your team be open to that? And the client was like, again, I don't know. I have to go ask, but I don't see why not the solution? Solution would basically be falling in their lap. And for our team, we only have to work with one you, instead of you and hiring a totally separate company.
So doing those two questions, we were able to drill down and see there is more money. You think there's not more money, but there is more money. And so that's why those two questions, I always say, if you're if you're kind of getting that No, keep asking questions and figure out where those creative ideas can come in. Oh,
that's so good. This is like a master class. You guys in negotiation. I don't know if you realize that you were getting an MBA today, but I have to say that is truly it boils down to being curious, right? I think that that is something that I say all the time to my community. You need to stay curious. Don't assume things because had you assumed, or had because they assumed? Right? They assumed this is it, because they had never thought to ask those other questions to themselves until you brought it to light. And so I think it's so important to ask questions, because, like you said, Kim, the answer is no unless you ask. So you might as well ask. Anyways, even if it is a no, it's going to end in the same result as you're currently stuck at. So you know, what's there to lose.
And then also to your point of getting on the phone. That's why I believe that if you are a service provider, a coach, a creative a consultant, anybody who works with clients one on one, like Kim was in this situation, your best bet as a sales generator is to get on the phone, is to do a discovery call, because that is the best way to really have a collaborative discussion. Because email, even if you're going back and forth, it can feel really one sided, because, you know, you're kind of processing your thoughts and formulating a response, and then they are whereas in a live conversation, it's a lot harder to feel like it's us versus them. It's really Hey, we're on the same team. We're playing for the same team, and we want the same result. How do we get creative? Like you said, how do we get creative to come up with a solution together?
Those two tips were gold. I mean, truly gold. If you guys can take those two tips away from Kim today and apply it to your business. I can't even imagine the results that that's going to create for you, and I hope we hear about it. I mean, if you seriously, if you try Kim's tactics, please write back into us on Instagram or or go, you know, follow Kim right now on Instagram and DM her and tell her, Hey, I tried this, and this is what happened. Because I think there's magic in making the ask. So thank you for sharing that.
Oh, absolutely. And I will say, you know, with that they, they were able to get back to us, and they said, You know what, holy moly, I heard back from the finance team. I can borrow against next year. Now they capped it. You can spend even the whole, the whole thing budget, in one month, but they said you can borrow a portion. You can borrow against a portion of next year. And then, sure enough, went to the social media team and said, Hey, I got these guys over here. They're going to be working on a bunch of marketing assets. Can they help you with the website design? Can they help you with some of the social media graphics, and can they help you? And the social media team went absolutely freaking lutely. We were going to have to put out a bunch of RFPs trying to find somebody to work with. Now you're just dropping somebody in our lab. Absolutely Here we go. We'll we'll pay for them from a portion of our budget, because we were going to spend that with another company anyways.
So again, we were able to kind of pull what what our client at the time, and the actual no to your point, getting on the phone, drilling down, staying curious, figuring out what that no was, which was, well, I only have this left. We found two other piggy banks to pull from, to increase beyond what we had even originally asked for, because then we started pulling in all of these other elements, like the social media stuff that, quite frankly, we hadn't even originally pitched. We could do it, but we they originally asked us about these specific marketing things. Because again, the person that we were talking to was the marketing person. They weren't the social media person. That was somebody who sat down the hall. But when they brought the social media person in on the Zoom call, on the conference call, it was like, Oh, you can do this. Too. Perfect.
So I would say, really, get creative. Get curious. Again, questions to ask can be things like, tell me what else you're working on. Tell me what else your campaign might need, and see if any of these answers are things that are in your wheelhouse that maybe your client just didn't even know that you did
absolutely and I think something you said earlier, before we actually started recording that, I want to pull back into the conversation, because I think it's so important, was getting really clear on what your client's actual goals are. Because, to your point, you didn't think to pitch social media at first. But maybe that's because you didn't fully understand the picture of exactly what they. We're trying to accomplish. And after better understanding that, you realize, oh, wait, you're missing this component, and we need to add this component in in order for you to get the best result right.
So I think for those of you, as you're listening to this and thinking how you can apply this to your business, when don't be afraid of the No, like Kim said, and when there is a no dig in, get curious and really try to get to the root of what is this client actually wanting? What does success look like to them? And how do you, as the expert, show up and provide them the best solution that is going to give them the best chance at having that success? So thank you for that just such it's such a good conversation. I really, I really can't stop saying that, because I think this is a necessary skill to master, right
Absolutely, and you really want to find out what their goals are, because I've also realized in 10 years of working with clients, and I'm sure I'm guilty of this as well as you and everybody else is, sometimes we aren't even clear. We think we're being clear about what we want. So I love analogy, so I'll use an analogy. If I came to you and said, I want to get a bunch of tattoos, and you were like, okay, and I just said, Yeah, I want to get a bunch of tattoos. Because, you know, this person I really like has tattoos, and so I wanted a bunch of tattoos, you might say, okay, like, I'm happy to give you the tattoos, you know, but if you actually get on the phone and you're like, Well, why do you want the tattoos? Well, what? Like, tell me, what are you trying to accomplish? What's your goal? And I said, Well, I really want to look like Angelina Jolie, and if I get a bunch of tattoos, then I will look like Angelina Jolie.
Then the person you're talking to might say, Well, wait a second, yes, that's true. If you get some tattoos, you will resemble Angela Jolie if we copy the tattoos that she has. But also, should we grow your hair long? Should we dye it brown like Angelina's? Should we put a red lip on you, because Angelina always wears a red lip. Should we put you in black? Because Angelina always wears black clothing? Like, there could be more to do, but you're only given the small piece of information of, well, can you, can you do these, you know, Chinese lettering tattoos on my arm, but you don't have the whole picture of, like, Oh, you want that on your arm because you want to look like Angelina Jolie. That's a bigger conversation.
So I think to your point, really getting on the phone, even if you think you know what the client wants, is like, Oh, the client emailed me. They want tattoos. Yep, got it great. Still get on the phone. Why do you want the I want to understand the whole picture. And even if that's all it is, even if the clients is like, yeah, you know, I want these tattoos. Halloween is coming up, I'm gonna, you know, be Angelina Jolie for Halloween, whatever, then you might say, Okay, I got it. But honestly, with the clients that I have dealt with, you'll never have someone be upset with you that ultimately you just want to hear their full story. Everybody wants to give their story. We wouldn't have podcasts if people didn't want to give their story.
So every single one of your clients, every single person you're negotiating with, wants their story heard. So you just have to be there to call up and say, Tell me. Tell me what you're looking for. Tell me the big picture. Tell me what your ultimate goal is, because then you might be able to say, Oh, now that I know your ultimate goal, I might be able, which was the case with us, I might be able to offer three more things to get you to your ultimate goal. But I never would have known that if I didn't ask.
That's such a good point, and you're a girl after my own heart, with your analogies, I feel like analogies should be the way we all. We all learn things. It's so much easier to remember big takeaways with analogies. I love it. I wouldn't expect anything less from you. Kim, thank you so much for joining us on the show today.
Thank you for having me. This is so fun.
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