Terry Rice
Appearances
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, sure thing. I spent the first 10 years of my career in corporate working at companies like Adobe and Facebook and some agencies. And then in 2015, I left to start my own company actually got fired to start my own company.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, and the thing is they have employees that are paying way more than that, and they have health insurance and all these other things. So it's like, look, I'm cheaper than hiring a 9-to-5 employee in most cases, and I'm also more expendable if you decide, hey, we're all done with this.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
And what's never happened to me before is I've never given someone a price too high, and they just said F you afterwards. They're normally like, okay, we can't afford that, but we can't afford this. Like, no one just dosed you as a result. And I'm not saying lower your price. Just either add something or take something away.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
And when you add something, it shouldn't take up too much energy on your end. And when you take something away, it should be in proportion to the amount of money that they can't afford to pay based on your original budget.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, that's a good question. Let me. Yeah, I'll fill this one out. My biggest failure was getting fired from Facebook. And this was about 10 years ago. And I went through an identity crisis where I didn't know who I was without a logo on my resume. So that was a super obviously challenging moment.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
And I was going through it because I had my first kid was on the way, like my dad passed away, like all these things were happening. But I just stuck with it. And everyone tells you that. But within 18 months, I was actually making more money than I made at Facebook and bringing in like $20,000, $25,000 a month. So I learned that I don't need a logo on my resume to be successful.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
And that's when I just really got scrappy in regards to building my own business, primarily doing digital marketing consulting, and then moving on to helping other entrepreneurs. And now I'm focused more on lifestyle design for high performers and have a program called Savage that helps people with that.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
I learned to own my identity as opposed to having someone else assign it to me. And I also learned how to encourage other people that are going through the same challenges because I've been through it before and know how to get through it successfully.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
I was cocky for no reason, like from a young age and even in a college because like I was a bouncer, I was an athlete and like that just kind of carried over to like my adult life. But when you do that, sometimes you're just like there's an insecurity that you're masking. And I should have spent more time addressing that insecurity as opposed to trying to sound cool all the time.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
And the funny thing is I had nothing to be cocky about. I mean, I had like no money. I sat at the bench under the division one team. Like, like there's nothing, nothing going on. It was just funny.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, you got to use the wedge strategy. And there's three wedges. The first one's going to be audits. So you do an audit, it's a lower price than your full service, but it gets you in the door. Another one's going to be training, training and workshops, and then afterwards say, hey, what else can I help you with? And the last one is speaking.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
So you're doing a private keynote for this organization, surveying the audience saying, hey, what do you want to learn more about? And then going back to the organizer and say, I'd like to teach you more about this stuff.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, yeah. So LinkedIn, I'm active, I post every day. And the best way to hop on my newsletter and follow my content is by going to the savage life.co. I'll say it one more time, the savage life.co. Love it. And we'll put it in the show notes. Terry, any final comments before we wrap today?
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Rudy, I'm so surprised you made it through this conversation, especially talking about personal training without telling people how jacked you are these days, man. I can't get over this. You're a testament to what happens when you put your mind to something and don't just talk about it. You're actually about it. So for everyone who's listening, I know you've seen him. Just shout him out next time.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Maybe it's on Instagram or whatever it is, because you're putting in the work, man. And it's so good to see.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, yeah, sure thing. And I'll start by saying this all happened by accident. And I'll tell you that backstory in a moment. But, you know, all the things, Walmart, Amazon, Google, like, you know, I can keep going, but hopefully that helps. And on my end, it's great to have access to companies that big because you have such a bigger impact. And as a result of that, you can make more money.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
So I'm looking forward to guiding people towards their process of getting these big contracts as well.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, I think the most important thing is to use the wedge strategy. And this was made popular by McKinsey. So just if you've never chopped down a tree before, the easiest way to chop it down is not by just hacking at it for hours. You want to drive a wedge into one side, just a small wedge, and then from the other side, pull it down. So what McKinsey does is they offer audits as a wedge.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
So instead of saying, hey, give us millions of dollars for this huge project, they say, hey, give us a smaller amount for this audit that we'll do. And then afterwards, they'll say, hey, look, if you want help implementing this stuff, then you have to give us a bunch of money. On my end, I accidentally discovered that strategy.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
So instead of saying, hey, give us millions of dollars for this huge project, they say, hey, give us a smaller amount for this audit that we'll do. And then afterwards, they'll say, hey, look, if you want help implementing this stuff, then you have to give us a bunch of money.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Years ago, this private equity company reached out to me and they said, look, we're about to buy this e-commerce company for like $40 million. We know you're a digital marketing expert. Can you just audit it to make sure we're not buying a lemon? And I'm like, yeah, sure. So I went through that process, give them the audit, and they're like, it seems like you've never done this before.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
And I was like, yeah, you're actually kind of right. They're like, can you give us a format that you can use over and over again? Because we want to use you to pre-qualify all our deals going forward. I was like, okay, cool. I got to create a system around this. So I did that. And that's why I'm encouraging everyone else to do this too.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Because once I did that, they're like, can you give us quarterly audits to let us know how we're doing based on your previous recommendations? Okay. So the cool thing about audits is you land one that can easily turn into four. And then on the back end, you could say, hey, look, if you want help implementing this stuff, I can consult you as well.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
So for anyone listening, that's the easiest way to get involved with big companies. Just offer them an audit, you know, smaller dollar value, prove your value. And then from there, you can ramp up to bigger deals.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, and that initial interaction builds that trust, making it so much easier to get big deals. And another wedge that I discovered on accident was working with marketing agencies. So I would do workshops on Facebook ads, digital marketing, so on and so forth for the new hires. But the thing is, agencies sometimes have a high turnover.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
So they're calling me back like the next month, the next month, the next month, train more people. And people tend to leave agencies as well. So when people go to a different agency, they would say, oh, yeah, bring that guy, Terry, in to go ahead and train us. So, again, I would do these workshops, but then I'd also stand with a retainer to consult them going forward.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
And they're working with big brands, right? They're managing these multimillion dollar contracts. So, therefore, I could charge in proportion to that as well.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, it's funny. One time this company reached out to me, they had like, it's like a small budget, like an $80,000 budget for some Google campaign. And they call me the day before it's supposed to go live and like, what should we do? And I'm like, yo, give them their money back. Like, I don't have time to teach you how to do this in a day. But that's what happens.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Like, if you can just fill that void for people, because this was a branding agency, they had no idea how to do direct response marketing. So if you can find an organization, in this case, an agency that already has access to these big companies, but they're missing something you can fill, then it's a done deal because they need you to retain that client.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
so there is and it's a great foot in the door like you said and they can lead to more contracts so i love that um yeah let's go let's go deeper on this real quick just a double click so with those big companies you're going to be sometimes surprised to your point at how much they don't know i'll give you a real example i went down to consult walmart like in their at their their headquarters it's a bentonville arkansas i went down there to consult them
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
And first of all, I was surprised that the snacks weren't better. Like it's Walmart. You have access to like literally everything. And the snacks were subpar. But other than that, like they suffered from groupthink. Right. So since they all work together, live together in this micro community, there are no new ideas coming in.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
So to your point, like you don't have to be necessarily smarter than the people that you're consulting. You just have to have a different perspective that they're unaware of.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, I'll give two options. One is a bit more involved, but speaking is a great way to get involved. So speaking is a great wedge. And if you're speaking at an event for a private company, what I would ask you to do is after your talk, survey the audience for feedback and ask what topics they'd like to dive deeper into.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Then go to the organizer and say, hey, by the way, 80% of your employees want to learn more about this. I'd like to consult you. So again, I'm kind of fast forwarding to that part, but speaking is a great wedge. True point. How do you get in front of these people? You got to work for it, right? So I think LinkedIn is a great platform, but I would ask people to practice strategic patience.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
So instead of just reaching out and saying, hey, Kevin, hire me, what I would do is look for people that are active on the LinkedIn platform and just start engaging with their content.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
engaging leaving good comments and by a good comment i don't mean facts or 100 i mean like in a good comment that shows your area of expertise and include a question with that comment because questions start conversations this is actually how i've landed speaking gigs and consulting contracts
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Just by going on LinkedIn and engaging with my target audience, these prospects, and within 30 days, you have an idea as it's going to work or not. So what I would say is look for people that work at that company. They don't have to be the person who hires speakers or hires consultants, just someone active on the platform. So you have an excuse to keep on engaging with them.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
As you build a relationship, you can actually eventually say, hey, by the way, as you may know, I do this. Do you know who I should speak to?
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
I think the most important thing is to use the wedge strategy. Just if you've never chopped down a tree before, the easiest way to chop it down is not by just hacking at it for hours. You want to drive a wedge into one side, just a small wedge, and then from the other side, pull it down. So what McKinsey does is they offer audits as a wedge.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, that's what I was going to say. You have to think to yourself, like, who will look good because they hired me, right? It could be an intern. You know, it could be an intern. Seriously, like, who's going to get credit for saying, look, I brought Terry in. I brought Rudy in.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
And I think if you open up your eyes a bit more, then you're like, well, these people are actually much more accessible than the person who actually hires people in my position. Like, go for people, like you said, the men.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah. Yeah. And then once you do start getting these deals, I mean, get loud about it on social. I mean, you don't have to like brag, but just say, hey, I'm proud I accomplished this. My client's doing that. So and so forth. So it creates a flywheel where you become known as the person who does this and then you're getting more inbound leads as opposed to hunting as much.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, it's risk reduction, right? Showing people, hey, look, there are other people besides me that vouch for me not being bad at this stuff. And the more you can do that, the better. And that's why those case studies, those many case studies on your LinkedIn work so well.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
And at the same time, like, again, like once you finally do get these clients, I'm skipping ahead a little bit, ask for referrals, right? So I have a newsletter that just only goes out to my previous clients. Once a quarter goes out saying, hey... Is there anything they can help you with? And is there anyone else who should be helping as well?
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
So create a system around this where you're getting these inbound leads proactively because you actually have that referral system set up.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
Yeah, I mean, you gotta charge a true value, first of all, and I know that's like a difficult statement to quantify, but I think the mindset sometimes going to these big deals is that, oh, I can't charge $50,000 or $100,000. I've never charged that much before. You have to think about the outcome of the help you're giving them, right? So when I went down to Walmart with their not-so-great snacks,
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
The information I gave them helped them sell more socks, shoes, like all that stuff, like millions of dollars. So if you want to, you have to just realize that the value of your knowledge is contextual. So if you want to change more, then you need to change the context in which you're offering that knowledge, right?
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
So if you can quantify the ROI, which I know can be challenging, then you would want to have like a five to seven X multiplier, right? Right. So maybe if they're paying you a dollar, they should make five to seven dollars. But that means you have to ask questions. You can't be afraid to ask questions either. Otherwise, you're going to have no idea how to price it out.
Living The Red Life
The Wedge Strategy To Land Fortune 500 Companies With Terry Rice
You can also just ask around to like, hey, how much did you charge for this deal or how much did you pay for this deal? But you got to realize the long term impact of your of your knowledge and not undersell yourself. So even when you come to that number, I'm going to ask you to charge that number that you're afraid of. and then add 20% to it. Like there's so much. Go ahead.