John Ray Archives - Page 51 of 66

Psychological Dance Steps

February 25, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Psychological Dance Steps

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Psychological Dance Steps

To be successful in your solo or small firm professional services practice, there are a few “psychological dance steps” you must absorb. The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello. I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. To successfully build your professional services practice, you must learn a few psychological dance steps- I guess I would call them – with yourself.

John Ray: [00:00:15] You must understand the value of your intervention to the client. You must understand that it’s not about what I’m worth. The IT is the client’s perceived value of the outcomes you create for them.

John Ray: [00:00:32] You must not allow this realization to affect your confidence in yourself or the services you provide. Speaking of confidence, you must be told you’re too expensive on enough proposals to know your pricing is close to where it should be. You can’t be so needy for affirmation that you allow objections to cause you to discount to win business, and that move will fail anyway.

John Ray: [00:01:05] You must be bold enough to walk away from clients who you know are a bad fit for your practice, not just for you, but for them. You must be humble enough to acknowledge that you’re not the best provider for all clients. You must be grateful for the confidence clients place in you. Humble enough to recognize that you must always look for ways to deliver value, whether that benefits you or not.

John Ray: [00:01:40] You must realize that clients change, and you may not be the best fit for them indefinitely. And you must realize, of course, that you change as well.

John Ray: [00:01:51] And with all of this, you must give yourself a little grace and realize that you’ll never get it all exactly right. I know that’s true for me.

John Ray: [00:02:04] I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. If you’d like to find our episode archive, go to pricevaluejourney.com. If you’d like to connect with me directly, email me at John@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The title of this show describes the journey all professional services providers are on: building a services practice by seeking to convince the world of the value we offer, helping clients achieve the outcomes they desire, and trying to do all that at pricing which reflects the value we deliver.

If you feel like you’re working too hard for too little money in your solo or small firm practice, this show is for you. Even if you’re reasonably happy with your practice, you’ll hear ways to improve both your bottom line as well as the mindset you bring to your business.

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

John Ray The Price and Value Journey — **John Ray, Host of “The Price and Value Journey”**

John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.

John owns Ray Business Advisors, a business advisory practice. John’s services include advising solopreneur and small professional services firms on their pricing. John is passionate about the power of pricing for business owners, as changing pricing is the fastest way to change the profitability of a business. His clients are professionals who are selling their “grey matter,” such as attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, consultants, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.

In his other business, John a Studio Owner, Producer, and Show Host with Business RadioX®, and works with business owners who want to do their own podcast. As a veteran B2B services provider, John’s special sauce is coaching B2B professionals to use a podcast to build relationships in a non-salesy way which translate into revenue.

John is the host of North Fulton Business Radio, Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Radio, Nashville Business Radio, Alpharetta Tech Talk, and Business Leaders Radio. house shows which feature a wide range of business leaders and companies. John has hosted and/or produced over 1,100 podcast episodes.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Decision Vision Episode 157: Celebrating Three Years

February 24, 2022 by John Ray

Decision Vision

Decision Vision Episode 157: Celebrating Three Years

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Decision Vision Episode 157: Celebrating Three Years

Host Mike Blake took time to reflect and celebrate three years of the Decision Vision podcast by expressing his gratitude to Brady Ware, producer John Ray and his Business RadioX® team, the fantastic guests, and all the listeners. Mike also shared exciting news about a new professional direction. Decision Vision is presented by Brady Ware & Company and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Mike Blake, Brady Ware & Company

**Mike Blake, Host of the “Decision Vision” podcast serie**s

Michael Blake is the host of the Decision Vision podcast series and a Director of Brady Ware & Company. Mike specializes in the valuation of intellectual property-driven firms, such as software firms, aerospace firms, and professional services firms, most frequently in the capacity as a transaction advisor, helping clients obtain great outcomes from complex transaction opportunities. He is also a specialist in the appraisal of intellectual properties as stand-alone assets, such as software, trade secrets, and patents.

Mike has been a full-time business appraiser for 13 years with public accounting firms, boutique business appraisal firms, and an owner of his own firm. Prior to that, he spent 8 years in venture capital and investment banking, including transactions in the U.S., Israel, Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.

LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Brady Ware & Company

Brady Ware & Company is a regional full-service accounting and advisory firm which helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality. Brady Ware services clients nationally from its offices in Alpharetta, GA; Columbus and Dayton, OH; and Richmond, IN. The firm is growth-minded, committed to the regions in which they operate, and most importantly, they make significant investments in their people and service offerings to meet the changing financial needs of those they are privileged to serve. The firm is dedicated to providing results that make a difference for its clients.

Decision Vision Podcast Series

Decision Vision is a podcast covering topics and issues facing small business owners and connecting them with solutions from leading experts. This series is presented by Brady Ware & Company. If you are a decision-maker for a small business, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at decisionvision@bradyware.com and make sure to listen to every Thursday to the Decision Vision podcast.

Past episodes of Decision Vision can be found at decisionvisionpodcast.com. Decision Vision is produced by John Ray and the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

Connect with Brady Ware & Company:

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: [00:00:02] Welcome to Decision Vision, a podcast series focusing on critical business decisions. Brought to you by Brady Ware & Company. Brady Ware is a regional, full-service, accounting and advisory firm that helps businesses and entrepreneurs make visions a reality.

Mike Blake: [00:00:21] And welcome to Decision Vision. This is Mike Blake, your host, and our sponsor is Brady Ware & Company. This is going to be a different show, a short show. And, really, a thank you show.

Mike Blake: [00:00:34] So, we are celebrating our third anniversary of the Decision Vision podcast with the show. And, you know, something like, I don’t even know what number of episodes this is, like 155 or something. It’s a crazy number. And, you know, I just – I think it’s a good time to pause. I don’t want to – I don’t want to do this as sort of in passing because it deserves more than an in passing mention. It deserves its own airtime.

Mike Blake: [00:01:01] And, three years is a long time for a show to be on, especially a weekly show. We have now lasted officially as long as the Star Trek original series did. I don’t know that we’re going to have Decision Vision Con anytime soon, but, you know, good things can happen after only three years, and it’s hard to believe we launched this back in March of 1999. And, you know, where do we even begin, right? So much has changed since then.

Mike Blake: [00:01:30] And before we get into some perspective on that, I want to make sure to thank everybody that needs to be thanked and there are a lot of them. First, I’d like to thank Brady Ware & Company who has supported this podcast. They have supported my investing time into it. They have supported it by listening to it and directing people to listen to it. They’ve supported it financially at not an insignificant expense. Putting on a show like this, even though I do it for free, technically is still not cheap, and you can tell the difference between this show and a show that’s done in somebody’s basement, which leads me to the second group I want to thank which is the folks at Business RadioX, and John Ray and his team have been just tremendous partners with this. And it’s not just about turning on the microphone and recording things. And they’ve certainly done that, but, you know, they’ve done some editing. They’ve made me sound much smarter than I’ve sounded. They’ve saved shows because we’ve had guests that have come on and then say things that they regret. And in order to not have the show be deleted, they’ve managed to sort of edit it and make it sound natural. Some people get in front of a microphone and they’re terrified and it’s like a hostage tape. And then, there are other people that sort of forget they’re behind a microphone. It’s like they’ve had a couple of belts of scotch before they start going.

Mike Blake: [00:02:52] And John and his team helped kind of save the day and keep the show, for lack of a better term, the way that it needs to be. You know, they do all our scheduling. In some cases, they’ve handed us guests, especially when we’ve had some show holes. And, you know, sometimes it does have a little bit behind the scenes. Like even on The Tonight Show, they get guests that cancel at the last second, and all of a sudden you’re left without a show. And believe me, we don’t rise to that level. We don’t think we rise to that level. So, there are days that we kind of scramble for guests, but we also have a high standard that we don’t want to put a show on unless it’s something that we’ll be proud of. And they’ve been great at getting us guests, and they’ve been great at just letting people know that shows are up and that the show is out there and publicizing it.

Mike Blake: [00:03:40] And, I’m under no false illusions. I don’t think so. You know, we stopped counting at 30 million downloads about six months ago. I don’t know what that number is. Maybe, it’s 30 million and one, I don’t know. But the point is we would not have reached that without our partners at Business RadioX. And if you’re thinking – this is not a paid – they’re not giving us a break. They’re not giving us any kind of promotional credit. But if you’re thinking of doing a podcast for realzies and you’re thinking of doing it from a business perspective and attracting clients and representing your company and yourself well, your company and personal brands well, you know, I cannot speak highly enough of them as a partner. So, I want to make sure to thank them.

Mike Blake: [00:04:21] I want to thank our guests who have put in well over combined 150 hours of their time to share their talent and expertise with us. Some podcasts, some radio shows are just a person talking into a microphone. This isn’t that kind of show. I’m not that interesting. I would get hoarse after ten minutes. I get boring after five. So, thank God that we have the guests to do that. And I think that’s been a good format. It makes you really – it makes you appreciate the people that are on, for example, talk radio. And, without getting political for a second, you can appreciate the talent of people who can just talk into a microphone and be interesting for three hours. That is not easy to do. It’s hard to do it for three minutes, do it three hours day after day. I don’t know how they do it, and so thank goodness for the guests who are willing to come on, sometimes twice. I don’t know how we convinced them to come back. I mean, once they’ve never [inaudibly] never listened to the program but after having been through the experience, once they’re willing to come back. And, you know, I can’t thank you enough.

Mike Blake: [00:05:28] And then, finally, of course, you guys, as listeners, whether you listen once or twice or you’re a regular Decision Vision junkie, you know, you know who you are. I appreciate your social media comments. I appreciate your emails that you send to me privately. I appreciate your reviews and your constructive feedback. You know, we try to – my hope is that whenever the last show of this thing is, I don’t know if that’s going to be tomorrow or five years from now, I hope our last show is the best one we’ve ever done because each one is a little bit better than the one prior to that. And the feedback you give us, the energy you give us is what keeps us going. And, you know, it is not easy to put on a show like this on this kind of schedule, and I’m not asking for any kind of recognition or anything. I just want to acknowledge the fact that your feedback, your energy are what give me and us the energy to keep doing this and keep doing it at what I think is a high-level show that we can be proud of. You know, if there’s no listeners, then it’s just me talking into a microphone and paying somebody a lot of money to record me talking into a microphone and that doesn’t make any sense. So, thank you for letting us know that you’re having an impact. No, we’re having an impact on you.

Mike Blake: [00:06:41] So, in the last three years, we started this and we were, pre-COVID, we hadn’t gone into any Greek letters yet. And now, we’ve gone through three of them so far. I turned 50 during this period and I have the gray hair to prove it. I was [inaudible] on the other side of 50 when we started this. We survived murder hornets. Cryptocurrency has now risen to the level where it warrants multiple Super Bowl ads. The University of Georgia won the Football Championship for the first time in 41 years. I didn’t think that’s going to happen, and I was glad to be wrong. And, Matt Stafford of all people won the Super Bowl. I don’t think a lot of people thought that was going to happen. And Tom Brady retired, or at least they say he did. There’s now rumblings he may actually come back already, so we may be in a Brett Favre situation, but that’s a – but for many people, the long national nightmare is at least over and somebody else gets to be the GOAT in football terms.

Mike Blake: [00:07:41] But, you know, and it’s just been – it’s been a wild ride. It’s been a great, you know, a great three years. And we’ve got a lot more shows coming up. We’re going to come back and revisit topics that we’ve already visited. We’re going to continue to take topics on that are hard. We’re going to continue to take topics on that are thought-provoking, that may be emotionally provoking, that may provoke a very strong reaction in the negative.

Mike Blake: [00:08:07] But that’s how you make good decisions. You make good decisions by putting all the facts out there, all the feelings, all the views out there, and giving them all, visibility in the cold light of day. Letting those ideas go to war. The ideas, not the people, go to war and figuring out what is the best path forward. And that’s really what the Decision Vision is all about. It’s a show about ideas not telling you that you should do X, you should do Y, but rather here’s what we think you need to know in order to make an informed decision based on whatever circumstances or environmental conditions you’re confronting and serve as your constraints.

Mike Blake: [00:08:50] And then, finally, I’ll tease something. We’re not formally announcing it yet, but I feel like you guys have been on the journey enough where you guys deserve some inside baseball. So, my group will be spinning off, actually has technically spun off. We just haven’t announced it yet from Brady Ware. So, there’ll be a company called Brady Ware Arpeggio, which is the – Arpeggio’s the old name of my sole proprietorship. That’s the legal name. It’ll be known to the market as Brady Ware Strategic Valuation and Advisory Services, which I think is a very apt name, and we’re going to talk about – we’ll have a show as to why we chose to do a spin-off. That was a material decision why are we doing that. But once again, I’m going to be put in the position of running a company. I’ll be a material shareholder. And it’s both exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. And I think that’s probably about right. If it doesn’t scare you a little bit, you’re not taking it seriously enough. And if it’s not exciting you, why are you doing it? But that’s just me talking.

Mike Blake: [00:09:54] So, that’s sort of a state of the show. You may have been looking forward to content, but unless you’ve listened to every one of those 154 shows, and if you have, kudos to you. I haven’t. I don’t think my mother has either. But if you have, great. But for the majority of you that haven’t, there’s plenty of back catalog content that you can go enjoy and we will be back next week with a brand new show, brand new topic.

Mike Blake: [00:10:21] And, again, I just want to – I’ll just – I’ll finish like I started. You know, thank you for this opportunity to serve you, to be a focal point for your ideas, to help you think about things, to help you become a better decision-maker. I enjoy it. I find it personally enriching, and it’s an enormous compliment to me that anyone thinks that what I have to say is of value and the fact that as many of you do not just once but repeatedly. You know, at the end of the day, I think that’s what life is all about is making an impact and you’re showing me that this show is. And thank you so much. So, have a great week. Take care. And we’ll be back at you next week.

Should I Give a “Friends and Family” Discount?

February 23, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Should I Give a "Friends and Family" Discount?

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Should I Give a “Friends and Family” Discount?

Naturally, you want to help your friends and family, or possibly a charitable organization. Maybe they’ve been early clients, helping you get started in your professional services practice. Seeds of dysfunction for your business, however, can be sown with a friends and family discount. The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] And hello again, I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:04] A few episodes ago, I spoke about ignoring the pricing advice of friends and family. Now, let’s come at friends and family another way. Should you offer a friends and family discount if you’re a professional services provider?

John Ray: [00:00:22] A few years ago, I was sitting with a solopreneur bookkeeper. We were talking about our business and our pricing strategy. And after some time, we took to review her pricing, her clients, and the associated work requirements of those clients. She stopped and sheepishly offered, “Well, there’s one more thing I should mention.” Oh, boy, I thought, here comes the real problem.

John Ray: [00:00:48] She went on to tell me she had several friends who needed help when they’d started their businesses, and she’d offered to do their bookkeeping at a heavily discounted rate. These arrangements were still in place after several years. I asked her, “Do you deliver your completed work for them at the same time you do for your other clients?” “Yes, more or less,” she replied. “And they’ve come to expect that because of the fine service you’ve given them, right?” “Yes,” she said. “And how are their businesses doing now?” I asked. “They’ve done well,” she said. “And, of course, they haven’t volunteered to pay your normal pricing now that they’ve got established businesses, have they?” Well, we both laughed because I already knew the answer to my question.

John Ray: [00:01:41] For professional services providers, here’s a major problem with friends and family discounts. They expect the same level of professional service that you give your clients who pay normal prices.

John Ray: [00:01:55] This bookkeeper had spoiled her friends by giving them a premium service offering, which now they’d come to expect as customary for the price they were paying. The fact that they were paying discounted rates had been forgotten.

John Ray: [00:02:12] Now, if you’re a videographer, let’s say, friends and family come to expect unlimited edits on their treasured video even though you’re giving them a big discount. If you’re an attorney, friends and family assume you’ll go to the ends of the Earth to help them with their case. If you’re a social media marketer, the expectation is for the same number of posts and level of engagement as all your other clients. And while you’re doing this work for your friends, air quotes, an existing client relationship that you have blows up because you haven’t given them the level of service they expect for the normal price they’re paying. Or, maybe a great new client comes along and you can’t take them on because you’re too busy. The latter scenario was the space this bookkeeper was occupying. She felt like she was at full capacity and couldn’t take on more clients when in fact her time was cluttered with these special arrangements, which were getting in the way of taking on great new clients.

John Ray: [00:03:21] This problem shows up with CPAs, accountants, and bookkeepers, too. I caught the disease one time myself. I had a non-profit that I had volunteered with and whose cause I strongly believed in, and they needed some accounting work done. The previous professional handling the work had volunteered their time and the work required wasn’t tedious. Well, I offered to do it at no charge because it was my contribution to a cause I believed in. The work was easy and it wouldn’t take a lot of my time. I thought that was an easy decision. Well, the problem it turned out later was that they wanted their work done at specific times, which conflicted with the work I was doing for full-paying clients. Stupidly, I didn’t go into the job thinking about this particular issue. And as we went on, they assumed I would deliver the work pretty much on demand. Well, after a few months, we mutually agreed that they needed to seek another arrangement.

John Ray: [00:04:26] So be very careful, professional services providers. These discounts and the associated work, they look innocuous at the beginning but the seeds of dysfunction in your business get planted, just waiting to grow.

John Ray: [00:04:44] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. If you’d like to check out our entire episode archive, go to pricevaluejourney.com or your favorite podcast app. And if you’d like to get in touch with me directly, you can email me, john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

The Pricing Journey of a Professional Concierge

February 21, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

The Pricing Journey of a Professional Concierge

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The Pricing Journey of a Professional Concierge

On a recent show I hosted, Julie Hullett, a professional concierge based in Nashville, told the story of her pricing journey and how raising her pricing fundamentally transformed her business. The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

To connect with Julie, go to her website. The complete Nashville Business Radio episode on which she appeared can be found here.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello again, I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:04] Recently, I welcomed a professional concierge to one of my shows. Julie Hullett is her name. Julie Hullett Concierge is her business. She handles a wide range of personal concierge services for clients, everything from grocery shopping and delivery to paying bills, to running errands. She seems to do just about everything that a client might need to save time. She also does event planning and travel booking and has a relocation service. If you’re in Nashville, I encourage you to look her up. That’s where she’s based. She seems like she does a fantastic job for her clients.

John Ray: [00:00:42] Now, the interview we did was about her business and how she has grown, and she had a lot to say about how changing her pricing changed her business. Now, I didn’t bring this up. I didn’t ask the question. She brought it up on her own, which is telling, I think, because Julie understands how crucial raising her prices has been to the overall growth in her business.

John Ray: [00:01:06] Julie’s story illustrates the power of how changing your pricing can change your business for the better not just in terms of making more money, but in terms of working for clients who appreciate what you do, value it highly, and are willing to pay you for it. Let’s hear a little bit of my interview with Julie.

Julie Hullett: [00:01:26] Over time, my clientele has changed. Back to me running around and not making money, I wasn’t charging enough. And part of that, John, was because I didn’t understand the value of what I was offering. Right? And, as I saw that unfold and saw how much people appreciated it, I thought, “Well, maybe I’m missing something here.” And there was some fear around an increase because, you know, I think that’s natural with business owners.

John Ray: [00:01:53] Sure.

Julie Hullett: [00:01:53] But, guess what? I went up and my clientele changed, and I started getting a different set of clients who had different expectations and gave me bigger responsibilities. And I guess I kind of grew into the job, you know. And then, I became different. I evolved with it. And that’s pretty much my path. I mean, that’s how I got here.

John Ray: [00:02:15] And because of that change in your pricing, you attracted clients that valued what you do more.

Julie Hullett: [00:02:23] Correct. And that, you know, I realized what I had to offer people. Because, again, back to my very early comments, I’m really giving them their time back. That’s what they’re paying for. Because if I am doing the things we’re talking about like finding a therapist or taking the car to the emissions, then a dad gets to go to a soccer game with his son, right, or, the mom gets to take her mom out for a girls’ lunch and shopping. Or, you know, they’re doing things that are meaningful to them.

John Ray: [00:02:57] And you’re giving them something that’s priceless essentially is what you’re saying, right?

Julie Hullett: [00:03:03] Not to quote MasterCard, but, yeah, pretty much.

John Ray: [00:03:07] Let’s quote them. I love it.

John Ray: [00:03:12] So, what did we hear there? Well, Julie had a fear of raising her fees. That’s natural. We all have that. But she saw how her clients valued her services and she figured out where the client perceived value was and how much that value was relative to the low fees that she charged. Seeing that gap gave her the confidence to raise her prices. And then, that price increase actually attracted better clients.

John Ray: [00:03:40] Now, why would this be true? Because some clients may have looked at her early offerings, and maybe they thought the pricing was too good to be true. Or, maybe she hadn’t fully grasped the perceived client value, that time savings, and what they were able to do with that time. And she wasn’t talking about her services from that perspective.

John Ray: [00:04:02] She went on to explain the perceived client value quite well. It’s not that she is just giving time back, but she’s giving time back to do what? For dad to take, go to his kid’s soccer game or for a daughter to take mom out for a girls’ day out. It’s not just the abstract of getting time back, but the value of what clients are now able to do with that time, and those things that she described, those family times, they’re priceless.

John Ray: [00:04:35] You see, when you understand where clients perceive value, it makes it much easier for you to get over the fear of raising prices. And then, when you raise prices, you attract better clients.

John Ray: [00:04:51] Thank you, Julie, so much for sharing your story. Congratulations on your success. And keep up the great work.

John Ray: [00:04:58] Hey, and by the way, if you’re interested in Julie’s services, go to juliehulett.com. That’s julie, J-U-L-I-E, hullet, H-U-L-L-E-T-T, .com.

John Ray: [00:05:12] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. You can find our episode archive at pricevaluejourney.com. And if you’d like to get in touch with me directly, email me, john@johnray.co. Thank you so much for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Choices Are Powerful

February 18, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Choices Are Powerful

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Choices Are Powerful

Human beings prefer choices, and therefore choices are powerful. When you offer choices in proposals to clients, you’re not only harnessing that power to your advantage, but it’s better for the client, too. The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] And hello, I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:04] Choices are powerful. Human beings prefer choices which offer a sense of control versus receiving an ultimatum. If you’ve ever had teenagers, you know that’s true. It’s just the way we’re wired. It’s really true for all of us.

John Ray: [00:00:25] Here’s one area that this fundamental aspect of human behavior is playing out right now. That’s getting employees back to work or back to the office or whatever you want to call it. I suspect that a big explanation of why some companies are challenged by getting their employees back into the office has to do with a take it or leave it mandate that’s delivered from on high, the old command and control way of managing a firm. Conversely, it looks like those companies who are successfully dealing with those return-to-office issues are those that are offering options to their employees.

John Ray: [00:01:10] Options are powerful because they invite engagement. They invite a dialogue that’s focused on problem-solving between two parties. If command and control CEOs, instead of issuing edicts, asked questions and fostered communication, they might find workable solutions which engage their workforce. It’s one example for you as a professional services provider of why offering options is so powerful. Your proposal, now I prefer the term engagement options, but I’ll call it a proposal. Your proposal should have different options, three ideally, which provide varying levels of engagement. When you offer engagement options, you invite a dialogue which leads to better outcomes for both the client and for you.

John Ray: [00:02:10] Choices are powerful. Offering options is essential to maximizing the value you offer to clients.

John Ray: [00:02:21] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. If you’d like to connect with me directly, you can go to my website, johnray.co. You can also send me an email, john@johnray.co. If you’d like to subscribe to this podcast, you can find it on your favorite podcast app, and you can also find a complete show archive at pricevaluejourney.com. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Supply Chain Obstacles in 2022, with Jason Haith, OEC Group Louisville

February 18, 2022 by John Ray

Business Leaders Radio

Supply Chain Obstacles in 2022, with Jason Haith, OEC Group Louisville

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Supply Chain Obstacles in 2022, with Jason Haith, OEC Group, Louisville

Jason Haith, Manager of the Louisville branch for OEC Group, joined host John Ray to discuss the myriad of issues creating supply chain obstacles in 2022. Jason discussed the increasing difficulty in the ports on the west coast of the US, the complications added by the Chinese New Year, the contract negotiations with the ILWU, how OEC is addressing their own issues moving cargo, and much more. Business Leaders Radio is produced virtually from the Business RadioX® studios in Atlanta.

OEC Group

Founded in 1981, OEC Group had a vision to provide comprehensive logistics services to clients.

Today OEC Group serves destinations throughout the world and has grown into one of the leading logistics providers from Asia to North America.

Their annual cargo volume has consistently put us in the top position for Transpacific Trade.

With offices in over fifty countries, they take pride in being close to your cargo at all times.

Proximity of their OEC logistics professionals to your cargo enables them to stay on top of relevant market trade intelligence. Their Asia offices bridge the connection between you and your supplier, bringing additional insight to the entirety of your supply chain.

Company website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Jason Haith, Manager, OEC Group, Louisville

OEC Group is an incredibly dynamic International Logistics company specializing in the Asia and West Asia trade. OEC offers Full container, LCL, Airfreight, warehousing and Customs Compliance services.

Jason is the manager of the office in Louisville, Kentucky and has been with OEC since 2011.

Jason has a degree from The University of Kansas. He lives in Louisville.

Questions and Topics

The impact of the pandemic and where we are now
The Chinese Lunar New Year and its effect on the supply chain
The negotiation with ILWU (Longshoreman and dock workers union)
What can importers do to face some of these issues?
Address the issues ahead for business owners and consumers
What services does OEC Group provide?

Business Leaders Radio is hosted by John Ray and produced virtually from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® in Alpharetta. The show can be found on all the major podcast apps and a full archive can be found here.

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has grown to become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions with over $13 billion in assets and more than 190 banking, lending, wealth management and financial services offices in Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida. All of Renasant’s success stems from each of their banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way of better understanding the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

Julie Keyes, Poised for Exit Podcast

February 17, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Julie Keyes, Poised for Exit Podcast

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Julie Keyes, Poised for Exit Podcast

My friend Julie Keyes is an exit planning expert based in the Twin Cities area. In an episode titled “Your Price is Too Low,” Julie interviewed me on her Poised for Exit podcast about pricing for professional services providers. We chatted about why I use the word “journey,” imposter syndrome, conducting value conversations with clients, why it’s vital to offer options, and much more. The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello, I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. I was honored to be invited to join my friend, Julie Keyes, on her Poised for Exit Podcast to chat about pricing for professional services providers. We chatted about why I use the word journey in the Price and Value Journey. We talked about imposter syndrome, conducting value conversations with clients, why it’s vital to offer options and more. I’m grateful to Julie for inviting me on her show. Now, here’s our conversation.

Julie Keyes: [00:00:32] Ladies and gentlemen, we are here today with John Ray, who is a consultant, speaker and radio host of RadioX. John, welcome to Poised for Exit.

John Ray: [00:00:43] Hey, Julie. It’s great to be here and I’m just so honored to be on your show. I’ve listened to it a lot, and you’ve got great guests, and I’m delighted and humbled to be part of that pantheon you’ve had. So, congratulations on that.

Julie Keyes: [00:00:55] Well. Thank you. Well, I have to say likewise, you’ve had a lot of really great content on your show too, and I hope to get into some of that today because our listeners are really going to be interested in what you have to say because so many of us, of the people who are in our listening audience would want to know and hear a lot of the advice that you’re going to dispense for us today. So, thank you for being on the show. And it took us a while to get you here. You’re a busy guy, and I’m a busy gal, and oh my gosh. But thank you for your patience.

John Ray: [00:01:26] Absolutely.

Julie Keyes: [00:01:26] And yeah. So, I’m really looking forward to this interview. Thanks for joining us today. Let’s just jump right in. I’d like to talk with you about the work that you do in pricing and helping professionals price their services because I know that there are a lot of advisors out there who are not pricing properly regardless of their discipline. And I’m sure you see it all the time because it’s the work that you do. So, how did you get into that and why?

John Ray: [00:01:53] Well, because I wasn’t doing it right, right?

Julie Keyes: [00:01:57] I’m sure, yeah.

John Ray: [00:01:58] I mean, I’ve got a whole drawer full of t-shirts about mistakes in pricing. And you know, I did not learn pricing, and pricing strategies, and value and how to discern value. I didn’t learn any of that in business education and my career. You know, the last statistic I saw, it was like, I believe it was five percent of business schools in this country actually have a course, a course, any course on pricing.

Julie Keyes: [00:02:34] Wow.

John Ray: [00:02:34] So, if you’re educated, come out with your MBA, you don’t have great education on pricing or maybe any. So, you learn the wrong thing. You learn to do market surveys, or you just do it by the seat of your pants or what have you, and you went, “That’s wrong.” And so, I made a lot of those mistakes and I had to fix that. And so, I had to do a lot of this work on my own. And I saw this in my clients. And I was so passionate about it after a time. It’s like, “I see this over and over and over again. I want to help in this regard.”

Julie Keyes: [00:03:19] And that is — boy, you hit the nail on the head there. When I think about pricing and conversations that I’ve had – and it’s not my specialty right – but I have made some recommendations to clients that they need to adjust their pricing. And so many times you ask, “When was the last time you had a pricing adjustment?” and they’ll say, “Oh, three years ago. Four years ago.” Yeah.

John Ray: [00:03:42] Yeah.

Julie Keyes: [00:03:42] And I think, you know, with the way things are now, I think we really need to be cognizant of that. But it’s amazing to me that the schools aren’t actually teaching it. So, what are they teaching? Are they teaching people to just follow the competition around and price according to what they’re doing?

John Ray: [00:03:56] Well, to be fair, I mean, this is a relatively newer discipline, not how to price, but the philosophy behind it because so much of pricing is really tied up in behavioral economics. And that’s a relatively new field, just a few decades old. And so, you really have to get into behavioral economics to properly price, right. And so, I think that’s the issue of it all. But what’s at stake here is that pricing is the fastest way to change your bottomline. Now, this is an accounting fact. They teach you that in accounting. You know, it’s faster than improving your marketing or getting more clients or anything. This is an accounting fact. It’s not up for argument. So, if you can just work on your pricing, you will dramatically change the trajectory of your business.

Julie Keyes: [00:04:59] And probably have more fun and work fewer hours too, right?

John Ray: [00:05:03] Getting the whole idea

Julie Keyes: [00:05:05] And we’re going to get to a good story in a little bit about that. I know we are. So, I know that the name of your show is The Price and Value Journey, and I love that. But speak to me about journey. Why did you call it The Price and Value Journey?

John Ray: [00:05:20] Well, I guess there’s three elements to that. Price is obviously one. Value, let’s get to that real quick. So, this is about value that is perceived by our clients, right? This is not about value that we perceive. It’s not about what we think we’re worth, even though we’re worth a lot, right? You’re worth a lot, I’m worth a lot. Our listeners, the work they do is fantastic worth. It’s what our clients perceive, and how we get to that, and how we can price relative to the value that they perceive.

And then, journey is that we’re on a journey of trying to get this right. I mean, give yourself grace because the most common thing that happens when I work with a client on their practice and their pricing is, “Wow, I can’t believe I did that,” and as we talk and they learn, they just beat themselves up. “I don’t know how I’m going to do all this.” Well, here’s the point – it’s a journey, okay. You’re not going to fix all this today, or tomorrow, or next week or even next year. It takes some time to work these things through. And so, give yourself grace.

And pricing is an art; it’s not a science. So, that’s the other piece of it. You can’t look up in the book and find out all the answers. You have to do some trial and error and testing to get from here to there. And so, that’s a journey.

Julie Keyes: [00:06:54] And I love that you said you’ve got to give yourself permission because I think that we, as advisors, at least, when I first started exit planning six or seven years ago, I just thought that I had to get it right right out of the gate. And like you said, it takes a while. You have to figure out. I don’t know. It is definitely a journey. I guess that’s why I wanted to ask you about it because I don’t think that a lot of people who are pricing professional services view it that way. I think that they feel pressured to make sure that they get it right. And unfortunately, I think a lot of them are still charging by the hour. And I know you don’t believe in that, either. Neither do I. That could be another whole show, John, right?

John Ray: [00:07:34] How long is this show, Julie?

Julie Keyes: [00:07:38] Yeah, yeah.

John Ray: [00:07:39] Well, yeah. Well, I mean, you know, a couple of things there. I mean, yeah, pricing by the hour, I call it a red flag of poor pricing. You know, if you’re pricing by the hour, your price is too low. That’s just by definition. And again, there’s a whole explanation behind that, and we can address that some other time. But you know, the other thing is, is that to get from here to there – and by here, I mean struggling and stuck in your practice, and a lot of people are struggling and stuck, or they’re working too hard for too little money, and that’s kind of struggling and stuck to. And if any of those things describe you, pricing is probably a problem. But to get from here to there, it takes a shift in mindset. It takes a lot of deep perspective change about where value is, and how value is perceived, and how you look at your practice and how the clients look at your practice. And that takes some time. It takes some adjustment.

Julie Keyes: [00:08:47] It does. And self-awareness, I would think, would be a part of that conversation too, right? Figuring out like, why do I feel like I’m not worth a certain amount of money or why do I? And is that in line with what the client would really want or expect, right?

John Ray: [00:09:05] Oh boy. I think I heard the imposter syndrome get flopped up on the desk, yeah?

John Ray: [00:09:11] Yeah. That’s what we’re talking about, right?

Julie Keyes: [00:09:13] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I bet you deal with that all the time,

John Ray: [00:09:18] All the time. And you know, that’s a case where you’re spending with your own wallet. Nobody would pay that, right? Well, what you’re really saying is you don’t think you would because you don’t trust yourself. And I know that you, whoever you is, I know you do great work, but it’s not about you, it’s about what the client perceives.

Julie Keyes: [00:09:45] Yes.

John Ray: [00:09:45] So, let’s let the client decide how to spend the money instead of you.

Julie Keyes: [00:09:49] How do you figure that out?

John Ray: [00:09:50] Yeah.

Julie Keyes: [00:09:51] Sorry.

John Ray: [00:09:51] No, no. Instead of you selling to your own wallet is one way to put it.

Julie Keyes: [00:09:57] Yeah, that’s a cool concept. I mean, it’s a good way to look at it, [but how do you figure out what the client is actually perceiving? How do you determine that?

John Ray: [00:10:07] So, that’s a value conversation. And that’s not a term I came up with. It’s not a concept I came up with. You know, there’s some great work out there by people like Ron Baker who talk about having a value conversation with clients. And what that is is diving into their hopes, dreams, aspirations, all the intangibles that are behind the reason they picked up the phone to call you to begin with. See, when somebody calls Julie, lets say — can I use you as an example?

Julie Keyes: [00:10:42] Sure.

John Ray: [00:10:43] When when they call Julie to look for help with their exit planning, what are they looking for? There’s more to it than just the request, the tactic that they’re wanting help with, right? They’ve got a strategy. They want to exit their business in five years. Their spouse is all after them saying, “You’re spending way too much time in this business. You need to get out. It’s destroying your health,” or some other reason or set of reasons. Those are values. Those are client values. And so, what that means is it’s more what’s at stake when you counsel a client is more than just, “Oh, let’s do an exit plan,” right?

Julie Keyes: [00:11:32] Oh, yeah, yeah.

John Ray: [00:11:33] It’s about getting that person to a place where they’ve got a happier home life, their spouse, they can reconnect with their spouse, their health is better. Those are priceless values. And so, you price relative to just the plan, not just the things, the tactics that you help them with and the strategies you help them with, but the big picture intangibles that mean so much to them that are behind the request.

Julie Keyes: [00:12:03] Well, and don’t you also help your clients determine if and when pricing packages or levels make sense, so they’re not just quoting one price, but they’ve got different offerings at different levels. Let’s talk about that for a second.

John Ray: [00:12:19] Yeah, thank you. So, yeah. So, options are powerful. And there’s a reason why, you know, the car companies, for example, have a small compact car, they have a medium kind of offering, and then they have luxury offering. I mean, there’s a reason why there’s small, medium and large. The dominant one-

Julie Keyes: [00:12:46] Just like at the Dairy Queen, yeah.

John Ray: [00:12:48] Yeah, there are choices. Exactly, there are choices. And what that’s a nod to is the fact that we have different values for different products and services. So, let’s take coffee, for example. I mean, I’m a cheapskate when it comes to coffee, so I would prefer just to come to your office and drink your coffee. But if I have to, I’ll go get the dollar coffee at the gas station right? Then, there are some people that they want the Starbucks. They’re going to sit in line for the Starbucks. And then, the most expensive cup of coffee in the United States is $75. It’s served once a year in one sitting in one party, and it’s sold out. And these are people that highly value coffee. They think coffee is like wine.

Julie Keyes: [00:13:36] Wow.

Julie Keyes: [00:13:37] More power to them. I mean-

John Ray: [00:13:38] Sure, yeah,

Julie Keyes: [00:13:39] I’m not criticizing. It just shows different values. So-

John Ray: [00:13:42] Of course.

John Ray: [00:13:44] If you can offer different options for your services, then you’re more likely to hit people more how they might value you. And I promise you, your prices will go up by definition because most people are pricing based on the basic. Their price is not based on the dollar cup of coffee, and not on the premium.

Julie Keyes: [00:14:07] Right. And I think, like you said before, I think that people really do value the ability to make a choice, right?

John Ray: [00:14:19] Absolutely.

Julie Keyes: [00:14:19] And I saw on a show not too long ago where they were talking about how to place items on a menu at a restaurant, and the things that they want you to buy that are in the middle of the road, so to speak, is going to be right in the middle, right where your your line of vision is. So, beware the middle of the menu.

John Ray: [00:14:39] Yeah. Yeah, they’ve got a lot of little tricks on those restaurant menus, for sure.

Julie Keyes: [00:14:45] Well, we to have our own tactics, don’t we, John?

John Ray: [00:14:48] Absolutely. Absolutely.

Julie Keyes: [00:14:50] Yeah. So, let’s talk about a client or two. Could you share a story about not necessarily — well, you talked about struggling and stuck. So, you took them from struggling and stuck to happy and not working all the time.

John Ray: [00:15:08] Well, let’s talk about — I mean, a number I could point to, and some of them are humorous, some of them are sad actually, but let’s talk about some specific numbers because we were just talking about options. So, I worked with a consultant who I won’t mention what they do, but they had their thing, and it was kind of a one-time thing that they did for busy professionals, and they charged $800 for it. That was the only option. Well, you could look at it from the outside and see there was a lot more value than $800 to it. And once we got through talking through all that, what we decided was his base offering should be $1500, not $800. And we built on options from there. And it’s a good, better, best model.

Julie Keyes: [00:16:09] Of course.

John Ray: [00:16:10] Right?

Julie Keyes: [00:16:10] Got it.

John Ray: [00:16:11] So, better has a little bit more than good, and best has a little bit more than better, and best is you’re like premium velvet rope option. So, we got good to $1500, we got better at $3300 for his thing, and then best I can only get him to $5000. I told him it ought to be $10,000. But we could get him to $5000, and I figure we’ve done good enough job there.

Julie Keyes: [00:16:43] Wow.

John Ray: [00:16:43] Well, the first time he went and offered this, he called me back, and he was so excited. The client he offered those options to pick the middle option, which means that’s at $3300 versus $800. So, the better option. And that’s obviously about four times more revenue than he has received.

Julie Keyes: [00:17:12] He had to be cartwheeling then.

John Ray: [00:17:14] He was pretty happy, right?

Julie Keyes: [00:17:16] Right.

John Ray: [00:17:17] Think about this now[. There’s there’s a couple of things here. That’s three fewer leads he’s got to worry about converting.

Julie Keyes: [00:17:24] Oh, exactly. Yes.

John Ray: [00:17:26] So, suddenly, he’s got a lot more time on his hands to better serve that client. And here’s the most important part for me because I get this all the time from people about you’re just trying to ring people out, you know, ring clients out. That’s not the point here. The point is that’s serving clients better. The client picked what they wanted, so they received much more value than what he had been selling before.

Julie Keyes: [00:17:52] Exactly.

John Ray: [00:17:53] Yeah. So, they picked that because they saw value in it. And so, the client was better off. The consultant was better off.

Julie Keyes: [00:18:01] Everybody wins.

John Ray: [00:18:02] Everybody wins. That’s the whole idea here.

Julie Keyes: [00:18:04] Yeah. And that’s really the way things can be more sustainable, right, is if everybody is going to win. So, well, one thing I wanted to touch on really quick that you talked about in one of your recent shows was on consistency. And so, let’s briefly discuss consistency. Obviously, we could go on for that personal life, business life. We could go on for a long time about that. But as it relates to your work, let’s talk about that for a little bit.

John Ray: [00:18:35] Sure. So, consistency, I mean, everybody intellectually agrees that consistency is important. You know, it’s another thing to be consistent in a way that you’re building trust with clients. So, you know, there’s a lot of aspects to this. One is to be consistent about all the right things that clients care about. You know, not about maybe what you think is important, but what the client thinks is important. So, it’s about understanding what their values are, right? I mean, if you’re not delivering that report they’re looking for every month, but you haven’t asked about what report they’re looking for, you know, that’s kind of on you. You’ve got to figure that out, so you can be consistent about the things that are important to them in their minds.

You know, consistency is one of those things that sometimes I think we as professional services providers, particularly smaller firms, certainly solopreneurs have a problem delegating, right? So, if you don’t have a VA, go get a VA. Spend the money. I’m sorry. Go spend the money and get a VA that will help you be consistent, and you can download some of this too, right? They can help you with that.

Julie Keyes: [00:19:57] Yes.

John Ray: [00:19:57] Or if you’ve got a VA, and they’re not doing the job, get another one. Or maybe you need to reposition your people if you’ve got employees, but they can help the overall consistency of the firm and how it delivers what it delivers. So, this is where automation can help you. This is where systems can help you. This is where having a operations manual can help you. I dare say that most professional services practices that are small solopreneurs and medium or small firms do not have an operations manual.

Julie Keyes: [00:20:38] So, if something happened to them, there’s no way anybody could continue the business because they wouldn’t know what to do. Yeah, yeah.

John Ray: [00:20:45] Well, that is certainly true, but the fact that you haven’t done that means you haven’t sit and thought about your process very much. And just like how writing helps you clarify your thoughts about something, you know about this because you do a lot of writing, if you do an operations manual and a process flow, it helps you think more clearly about what’s going on in your practice and how things happen, right? And you can remove some of those frictions that make you inconsistent.

Julie Keyes: [00:21:17] Great advice. Great advice. I’m going to do that myself. I have some processes documented but some, I don’t. And much of that I was forced to do when I hired my first VA. And so, for those of you out there who don’t have a VA, this will force you to articulate your processes in writing, for sure.

John Ray: [00:21:38] There you go.

Julie Keyes: [00:21:38] So, give us a couple action items, John. We could keep going, but we got to wrap up. So, what are a couple of things that our listeners could do right away that would make a difference?

John Ray: [00:21:48] Go raise your price. So-

Julie Keyes: [00:21:48] Easy, raise your price.

John Ray: [00:21:53] Well, here’s how I’ll make it easy. I mean, if you haven’t raised your prices in — certainly, the person you described, the situation you described where they didn’t raise their prices in three or four years, I mean, look what’s happening with inflation. Raise your prices, please. So, you don’t have to go out and raise your price by 50 percent tomorrow, but raise your price. And in a one-percent price increase, nobody will even notice. I mean, they won’t care. But just go raise your price. And do it for new clients. Just do it for new clients that you get. You don’t have to worry even about your legacy book, necessarily, although you need to get into that, but raise your pricing for new clients. Start thinking about options. How can I deliver options? What’s my good, and better and best? And why am I delivering the best that I’ve got the velvet rope treatment for every client? Why am I doing that? Because if you’re doing that, you’ve got nice clients and good clients, but they’re not really paying you for the velvet rope treatment, but you’re giving it to them.

Julie Keyes: [00:23:13] Yes.

John Ray: [00:23:14] So, develop options in your practice.

Julie Keyes: [00:23:18] Wonderful advice. What’s the best way for our listeners to reach you? Because I’m sure they’re going to want to learn more?

John Ray: [00:23:24] Sure, folks can go to my website, johnray.co. You can email me John@JohnRay.co. If you want to listen to my show on The Price and Value Journey, you can go to priceandvaluejourney.com to see the show archive and of course, on your favorite podcast app, as the old saying goes.

Julie Keyes: [00:23:53] Fantastic. And we will have all of that in the show notes, John. Thank you so much for being on the show today. Wonderful advice. I can’t wait to hear what our listeners have to say about it. And for you, our listeners, you will be able to find this, of course, and all our other episodes on the Poised for Exit website available for download at any time. Thanks for joining us, and please join us again next time.

John Ray: [00:24:15] There you have it. I’d like to thank Julie Keyes so much for her kind invitation to join her as a guest on Poised for Exit. If your professional services practice has a bent toward assisting business owners with exit planning or you’re actually one of those business owners looking ahead to an exit, you need to know Julie and subscribe to her podcast. One thing I love about her is that she’s been a founder and operator of several companies, and she’s actually been through her own business exit. In other words, she’s got hands on expertise and experience to bring to the table for her exit planning clients.

I’m a subscriber and a regular listener to her show, and it’s terrific. You can find the show on your preferred podcast app, of course, but if you go to PoisedForExit.com, you’ll find not only past editions of the show, but a ton of great resources, including Julie’s book also titled Poised for Exit. There’s a ton of resources and information about Julie’s work at her website, KeyeStrategies.com. That’s KeyeStrategies.com. If you want to get in touch with Julie directly, email her at Julie@KeyeStrategies.com. Again, that’s KeyeStrategies.com. Thanks again to Julie for having me on her show. And thank you for listening to this edition of The Price and Value Journey.

Julie Keyes, Founder and President, KeyeStrategies, and Host of Poised for Exit

Julie Keyes is the founder and owner of KeyeStrategies, LLC in Minneapolis, MN, specializing in exit and transition consulting for business owners of lower middle-market companies. Julie has been an entrepreneur most of her life. As the founder and operator of several companies, she understands owner motivations and the balancing act they require to work both ‘in’ and ‘on’ the business.

Julie is a Certified Exit Planning Advisor and Value Growth Advisor. She works with business owners who seek to understand and maximize their exit and critical transition options. She founded the Exit Planning Institute Twin Cities Metro Area Chapter in 2016, serving as president until 2020, and is a faculty member for their CEPA program. In addition, Julie was awarded EPI’s 2017 “Leader of Year”.

Julie’s first book, Poised for Exit, helps owners of privately held companies navigate the process of business exit. Her weekly podcast, of the same name, provides content relevant to business owners and advisors alike and can be found on all major podcast platforms.

LinkedIn | Twitter | Poised for Exit

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.

In his other business, John is a Studio Owner, Producer, and Show Host with Business RadioX®, and works with business owners who want to do their own podcast. As a veteran B2B services provider, John’s special sauce is coaching B2B professionals to use a podcast to build relationships in a non-salesy way which translate into revenue.

Connect with John Ray:

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Julie Zweig, MD

February 16, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Business Radio

Julie Zweig, MD

00:00 /

Julie Zweig, MD (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 432)

Julie Zweig, MD joined host John Ray to discuss her specialties of sleep issues, hormone optimization, wellness, functional medicine, and allergies. Dr. Zweig left a large practice after twenty-one years to open her own practice so she could spend more time with her patients, enabling her to utilize all her areas of expertise and offer more integrated answers for her patients’ health issues. Dr. Zweig discussed the dangers of sleep apnea, how allergies and the gut are related, what functional medicine is, and much more. North Fulton Business Radio is broadcast from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Julie Zweig, MD

Julie Zweig, a physician in Alpharetta, is Board Certified in both Ear Nose and Throat Surgery and Sleep Medicine. She also has advanced training in aesthetics, hormone optimization, and Functional Medicine. Dr. Zweig had been practicing with a large group for over 21 years but has recently started her own solo practice.

Dr. Zweig grew up right here in Atlanta Georgia. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, her Medical Degree from Emory University, and her Specialty training at the Eye and Ear Institute in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Dr. Zweig enjoys spending quality time with her husband David and has three children. When she is not with her patients, Dr. Zweig loves to hike with her two very energetic Standard Poodles. She also loves Horseback riding and traveling. Unfortunately, she just lost the last of her 15 chickens.

Dr. Zweig is one of only a few Integrative Sleep and ENT physicians in the entire country, and to her knowledge, the only one in the southeast.

Company website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram

Questions and Topics in this Interview:

Why did you leave your big practice that you were with for 21 years?
Tell us a little bit about your practice and what you offer?
Tell us why you got interested in Sleep Medicine
How does it work when a patient comes in to see you for snoring or a sleep problem?
How do you treat Snoring and Sleep Problems?
I understand you have expertise in hormone optimization. Why Hormones… what are they? How do they help with sleep?
Can you explain what Functional Medicine is and how it related to Sleep and ENT?
What happens during a Wellness appointment?
There are quite a few Ear nose and throat and sleep physicians in the area as well as functional medicine doctors. Can you tell us how you are unique?
How can people find out more about your practice, both the more traditional side as well as the Wellness side

North Fulton Business Radio is hosted by John Ray and broadcast and produced from the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta. You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, Stitcher, TuneIn, and others.

Special thanks to A&S Culinary Concepts for their support of this edition of North Fulton Business Radio. A&S Culinary Concepts, based in Johns Creek, is an award-winning culinary studio, celebrated for corporate catering, corporate team building, Big Green Egg Boot Camps, and private group events. They also provide oven-ready, cooked from scratch meals to go they call “Let Us Cook for You.” To see their menus and events, go to their website or call 678-336-9196.

Golden Retrievers, the Need for Approval, and Pricing

February 16, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Golden Retrievers, the Need for Approval, and Pricing

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Golden Retrievers, the Need for Approval, and Pricing

The need for approval is hardwired in all of us as humans. You might call it a “golden retriever tendency,” and unless we’re always aware of it, it can get mixed up–to our detriment–with how we approach pricing and the clients we accept. The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] And hello again, everyone. I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. My wife and I have a Golden Retriever who is in constant need of chest rubs. Yes, chest rubs. I’m convinced he’s got an alarm clock in his head, which measures intervals between pettings because he’ll appear seemingly out of nowhere ready for his fix.

John Ray: [00:00:24] I won’t even get into the Dachshund in our home who has an advanced case of separation anxiety. We’ve got a cat, on the other hand, who, while happy to be part of the tribe, is quick to go her own way. She’s okay to be petted and she likes to play, but only on her terms and in her good time. She receives enough contact from us to be a satisfied cat.

John Ray: [00:00:50] If you’re a professional services provider, one of your most vulnerable acts is to price your services. There are moments like when you slide that proposal across the table that it feels like you’ve got a price tag right on your forehead. Will this person with the shopping cart stop, pick you up, and take you home? Or will they just leave you laying there?

John Ray: [00:01:16] The need for approval is hardwired in us humans. We are all seeking validation for who we are and what we do. As professional services providers, we often let that need for approval overpower our good sense when it comes to pricing and the clients we take on. We’ll take on clients at a low price because the subconscious need we have to scratch the itch of affirmation can be overwhelming.

John Ray: [00:01:45] To be successful in professional services, you must become comfortable with the idea that you’re not the best fit for everyone who comes your way. You must almost thrive on a certain number of rejections because, you know, if you’re communicating your value well, that those rejections are a sign that your pricing is where it should be.

John Ray: [00:02:09] You must internalize the idea that sending a poor fit client on to someone else is better both for that client and for you. Their needs will be better handled by someone else, and you won’t have a piece of business which will exasperate you in time. You must be self-aware enough to know when your hardwired need for affirmation is getting in the way of running a successful practice.

John Ray: [00:02:36] If our Golden Retriever was a professional services provider with his own firm, he’d price his services so that none of his proposals ever got rejected. He’d have a lot of clients and would carry an aura of success, but he’d be pricing too low, working too hard for too little money, and probably wouldn’t even know it. If he did understand what he was doing, he would still be happy because his need for affirmation would be fulfilled.

John Ray: [00:03:04] Our cat, on the other hand, wouldn’t have as many clients. The clients she did have, however, would be great fits for her service capabilities. They’d be paying fees which reflect the value she delivers, and all concerned would be content. In practice, we’d all rather be the cat, right? But to get there, we must be cognizant of our innate Golden Retriever tendencies which constrain our professional services practice.

John Ray: [00:03:37] I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. If you’d like to know more, go to johnray.co. Or get in touch with me directly, john@johnray.co.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.