Proud to Pay
Good morning- I hope you’re all organizing yourselves for an all out assault on the week, ready to make good choices and good money.
Let’s dive in.
My studies of branding over the years have led me down some rabbit holes.
Most recently, I’ve been studying and doing “tear-downs” of several individuals' careers, seeing if I can’t identify where the smartest moves were, the most interesting tactics, and the most aggressive branding strategies.
This has been a really enjoyable process, and has taken me down some enjoyable paths.
Perhaps none of them were as interesting as a rapper I discovered as part of this exercise, an LA Crip named Nipsey Hussle.
Despite my having little interest in the musical style, I can appreciate hard work and an ingenious angle.
One of the guy’s smartest moves was introducing something into his selling strategy that he called “Proud to Pay.”
An audacious move, it won him lots of criticism as well as respect and admiration- here’s what he did:
In a world where the main commodity is largely free these days (the music), Nipsey found a way to re-monetize the game by taking what would normally be a no-cost digital “mixtape” release, and going physical.
He opened a pop-up shop in LA, selling the mixtape and a ticket to an upcoming show- even telling people that the mixtape for sale would drop for free the next morning at 8am.
The price tag on the mixtape: $100, limited to 1,000 copies.
In short order- they all sold out.
While the internet argued over whether or not this was a ridiculous move or a genius one (sometimes there’s a fine line), Hussle took his act on the road, using the same angle as he toured the states, selling $100 mixtapes in many major cities.
In one of them, a well known “hustler” who respected the angle bought $10,000 worth himself.
By the time he returned home, the rapper was wealthier by hundreds of thousands of dollars, and, probably more importantly, had the entire hip-hop world saying his name as they dissected his strategy with either a positive spin or a negative one.
The rapper also ran a successful clothing brand with ties to industry giant Puma- his launch of a profitable brick and mortar store in one of the most notorious gang areas of Los Angeles is another wild educational tale you can dig into if you like.
The lesson to be learned from this is that the people who don’t really support your brand will always take issue with what you charge, whether it's $10 or 10,000.
(I recently had a guy send me a three page email trying to get me to sell him on the purchase of a print booklet that was priced at $10- I’m not gonna waste my time on someone who writes three pages of text before dropping an insignificant amount of money)
The ones who really do support you will understand that the value of your work is in the work itself- some people see a cassette and think: “a tape is worth whatever the market says- usually 8-12 dollars. That’s what I’ll pay.”
True supporters will understand the material on the cassette represents a lifetime of struggle, skill, experience, lyrical and musical composition, engineering, marketing, and a myriad of other things just to be manifested into a little piece of tape and plastic.
As such, they will be Proud to Pay the price you’re asking.
You can listen to constructive criticism, but ultimately, listen to yourself and your real supporters.
Chances are good you’re not charging enough because you’re worried what people might say about it.
Nipsey Hussle would charge $150 for a hoodie and know that his supporters, his real fans, would wear it not only to support him, but as another way to “flex.”
Everyone in the neighborhood that was in touch would know that he could afford to drop $150 on the hoodie- this was an integral part of the strategy of charging a premium.
Ultimately, as I’ve hammered home countless times- you don’t need millions of adoring rap fans to run a successful business.
100 truly dedicated supporters who will spend $1,000 with you over the course of a year is a six figure business.
Triple that number, you’re still talking about only 300 dedicated, and you’re doing a quarter mil.
If that doesn’t light a fire under your ass, I don’t know what will.
Mr. Hussle was shot to death a few years ago over an argument with another individual, the leading cause of death for rappers in the USA (actual statistic, not my opinion).
RIP, and thanks for the lessons- keep your horizons broad, because you never know where you’ll learn something.
Now get out there and make your clients and customers proud to pay you.
