A (0:05)

Wake up.

B (0:06)

Your competition is asleep.

A (0:07)

It's you against the world. And if you want to win, we need to get a few things straight. Your business is a mental war. Your success is a mental war. And making money is a game. And the game of money starts in your mind. This podcast exists to help you weaponize your brain through advanced marketing mindset and money concepts. To have what others don't, you need to know what others won't.

B (0:28)

Your future fortune awaits.

A (0:29)

Welcome to the War Plan podcast.

B (0:41)

Hey, my friend. Welcome to the War Plan podcast. Josh here. So yesterday I went on a date with my wife. We do almost every single Saturday, sometimes during the week, too. And we ate at this nice restaurant. And then across the street was this little shoe store called Golden Goose. And a lot of ladies love Golden Goose, Basically super expensive shoes. But what's fascinating about Golden Goose shoes is that they're beat up. You know, remember back in the day when they started selling blue jeans that had holes in them? And then all the old people would be like, that's ridiculous. Why would you pay even more money for jeans with a hole in them? Right? But people just kept doing it. That's what these shoes are like. And it's so interesting because there's like scuffs all over them and tears and rips. It almost looks like dirt, dirt smeared on them. And they cost, you know, hundreds of dollars for the cheap ones and thousands of dollars for the expensive ones. And Ashley has, I don't know, a few pairs of Golden Gooses. We didn't buy any on our date. However, I told her, I said, I have to talk about this in our podcast because I had also recently watched a short clip from Rory Sutherland, who's one of my most favorite people to study from, and he was talking about how pricing is a feeling. Pricing is not a number. Pricing is a feeling. He told the story of a coffee maker, this manufacturer that made this machine that made coffee, and they had a new model. They had some breakthroughs in technology, they had a reduction in cost, and their new model had more features than their old model. So they released it into stores and no one bought it because they were able to price it at the same price as the original model. And logically speaking, if you're sitting in a room with a bunch of Harvard MBAs or 25 year olds in suits that think that they're smart, no one's going to argue with you if you say, let's give even more features, lower the price. It's a slam dunk. It's A home run, right? If you could find a way to wash someone's house for $100 instead of $1,000 and it was still profitable for you, somehow, that could be good. But what you got to remember is that pricing is part of your brand. Pricing is part of the feeling that's with something. I think the reason it's so hard for local business owners to understand this is because in most cases, you are not your customer. I'm publishing this week as well a podcast with Tommy Mello. And Tommy has a garage door company. You should listen to it. It's powerful. He gets emotional a couple times, talks about family. And Tommy built this company from nothing, and he's cashed out hundreds of millions already because he sold a majority stake of his company to private equity. Like, he's got a lot of money, and this is a big deal. And part of what I asked him in the podcast was, how did it change you? Are you different now? What was it like getting a wire transfer for nine figures? And he started telling me how the first thing he did was bless all these people that helped him on his way. Then he started talking about how he's building this McMansion mega dream house thing. But the reason he's doing it is he said, josh, I'm buying experiences. I'm buying experiences. And that's the key takeaway is your price when it's appropriately accounted for. But it's also associated with an above average experience. And there's lots of little things that are different. All of those things together create a feeling. So here's my challenge for you in this short podcast episode is what feeling is created in your customers when they buy from you. And if you are operating your business right now solely as a transaction and nothing more, it's going to be very difficult for you to get premium prices, to get unstuck, really, to even grow your business, because you're just. You're a commodity. You know, when they trade pork bellies, no one really cares what the story is of the farm that the pork belly came from. It's just how many pork bellies are there available and how much demand is there. That's the price. That's it. But when you think about a service company or a local business, it's way more elastic. You do not have to be like a. Be a commodity. Homeowners don't know what things are supposed to cost. They only know what they feel like as they interact with your business. They also only know what they feel like based on, you know, doing business with you so they have an idea of what they feel like before they make the decision to hire you. And then they hire you and you're creating feelings while you're working with them. And then afterwards they have more feelings. Right? So pricing is a feeling. Pricing is not based on logic. It's not based on reason. It's not based on how long the job took you. It's based on what your customer thinks that it's worth. It's based on the feeling that they experience. And if that's hard for you, start testing it because you are not your customer. And people value really weird things. I think it's kind of crazy to spend a thousand dollars on beat up golden goose shoes, right? But the people that buy them, and there's lots of them, you have two choices. Number one, tell yourself a false story that they're all idiots and that's unreasonable. Or number two, understand what's going on with the behavioral psychology of humans because you do the exact same thing in other areas of your life. Shoes might not be your thing, but there's some irrational purchases that everyone makes. I hear people complain. Bill gates had a $50 million house. That's outrageous. And yet the same person that's complaining has a $30,000 car, but they only make 30,000 doll. Who did the unreasonable thing? You see pricing and purchases and commerce. It's psychological, it's emotional, it's all of these things. So you probably need to raise your price yesterday. Go ahead and get that done. That'd be great, right? And if you're struggling with it, just remember it's not a permanent choice. Raise your prices on the next 10 customers and see what happens. But don't just raise the prices. Enhance the experience or the feelings that your business creates along with the price increase. And just have fun with it and experiment because it's the number one thing that you can do to put more money in your pocket. That's it. I hope that was encouraging. Take care. God bless.