You want to make more money, you
want to feel better about yourself,

you got to listen to this
episode of the Inside BSS Show.

Hey, now I'm Dave Lorenzo.

I'm the godfather of growth and I'm here
with my partner and my friend Nicki G.

Good morning, Nicola. How are you?

Good morning, Dave. I'm great. How are.

You?

I'm doing absolutely fantastic and
I know you're looking at this goofy

headset that I'm wearing, folks.

We're trying out a new mic system and
I'm the Guinea pig and I'm wearing an

operator number one headset and
the cola will not let me forget it.

So today's topic is no guilt
or a lack of guilt or why

you shouldn't feel guilty when
you're running your business.

How guilt will weigh you down
in running your business.

So I'm going to tee this up for Nicola
and I'm going to start by talking about

how guilt will hold you
back and I'm going to share

kind of an experience with you and we
can discuss it and we can talk about ways

for our entrepreneurial friends
who are listening to remove guilt

from their lives or from their business.

So anytime I go to sell to someone and I

have the feeling in the back of
my mind that they can't afford my

service,

I used to kind of pull my
punches and maybe a few times

I would cut my pitch short and perhaps not

make my A level offer,

my top tier offer and then
drop down into some of the

lesser expensive offers,

and I would just go to one of the lesser
expensive offers in the first place

because I would feel guilty
that the person across from
me might not have enough

money to afford my services.

Then something happened to me a number
of years ago, more than 10 years ago,

which completely changed my feeling
about this, changed my mindset.

Here's the scenario.

Somebody gets on my email list and
they're getting a weekly email newsletter

from me and they call me and they say,

I want to talk to you
about using your services.

I need your help growing my
business. So I say, okay, fine.

We schedule the appointment and
my first question to them is,

give me some background on your
business. What's your revenue?

And this person says, my
revenue is like $150,000,

and my top tier coaching
program at the time was like

$45,000. And I immediately
thought to myself,

this person's doing 150 grand a year,

they're never going to pay
me 45 grand to help them.

This is crazy.

So rather than do the entire
discovery call the way I

normally would and ask all of the
questions that I would normally

ask,

I felt guilty doing that.
And then saying to them,

here's what you need to do. You
need my maximum intensity program,

which is $45,000 a year.

Rather than do that because I felt
guilty taking $45,000 to a person

who told me they only,

their whole business was
only doing $150,000 a year,

which meant they were probably
taken home, what? 45, 50 grand?

I was going to take their last
50 grand for me to coach them.

So rather than do that, I pulled
my punches and I said, listen,

I have $125 a month membership
club. You need to join that.

And they pushed back and they said,
no, no, no, no. I need one-on-one help.

I need one-on-one help. And I said, well,

my one-on-one help is really expensive.

And they immediately had a
visceral reaction and they said,

you don't think I'm worth
your top tier program?

And I said, what do you mean you don't
think I can be helped? And I said,

no, that's not what I have,

but you just told me you only make
your business is only $150,000 a year.

What could you be bringing home?
You're not going to pay me.

How much is your top tier
program? And I said, it's $45,000.

And they said, I just sold my business,

my other business for $18
million and you just lost

out on a $45,000 a year client.
And they hung up the phone.

And I immediately thought, well,

I looked at myself in the mirror and I
said a word that begins with A and ends

with whole. And I pointed right
at myself because I blew it.

And to me,

what I realized over time was that guilt

about taking money from somebody
who I perceived didn't have it,

that guilt that I projected
is what prevented me

from signing up that client.

And so many times it prevents
us from getting what we want.

Think about it another way, Nicole. Think
about it from a financial perspective.

I grew up in a house where my dad
worked for I B M for 40 years.

My mother worked for I B M for 18
years. They had nine to five jobs,

weren't entrepreneurs, and
they made a very nice living.

Put my sister and I through school,

we went to private
Catholic school growing up,

we lived in a nice neighborhood,
we lived a very nice life,

but we didn't spend a lot of money because
we were a middle class family and my

parents did everything they could to
give us a great life and it is a great

life. It was a great life. But there
was always this thing about, well,

how much does this cost
and can we afford it?

And we'd have to do a careful analysis.

A couple of years we drove to go on
vacation. We didn't fly because I don't

know, maybe the economy was bad or there
was a lot of inflation or whatever.

So what does that project on
me as a kid growing up? Well,

it gives me a feeling, a sense of money,

and my parents would call
it financial responsibility,

but it also instills a
level of guilt in me about

listen,

for years I drove a Toyota instead
of driving a Lexus because oh,

it's the same car. Why do I need to
pay for the additional brand name?

For years,

I opted to fly in coach instead
of first class because hey,

it's not our business class
because hey, it's not worth it.

It's just a little bit bigger of a seat.
The plane gets there at the same time.

But what I didn't realize, Nicola,

was how that guilt permeates through

the rest of my life and
the way I act and the way I

behave.
So picture this, right?

I go to an event and I'm the
keynote speaker at an event,

300 people in the event, I'm
the last person to speak.

Everybody's heading to the airport
afterwards and 25 people from

that event get on a plane.

Two of them are sitting next to me while
I'm sitting in the middle seat in coach

and I just got paid 15 grand to give a
talk and I'm sitting on the middle seat

in coach next to other people
who are in the audience.

What does that do to my brand?

So the guilt that we feel,

we need to release ourselves from
that and make decisions that are

best for us in our business and
not allow those feelings of guilt

to change the way we behave.
What do you think? I mean,

that's a lot of baggage that I just
unloaded here in this therapy session.

So you tell us about how crazy I am now.

You're not crazy,

and this is probably why we get
along so well is because there's so

many similarities even
in our backgrounds, Dave,

we didn't grow up with
a lot of means either.

Family vacations also included driving
in the car to places we didn't fly

anywhere.

Sometimes it was 12 hours to get to the
nearest beach from where I lived and

nowhere Pennsylvania.

So I'm glad you said that
because it really helps

put this into context. We can

have guilt developed in our lives
at a very young age and not even

realize it. You can also
have guilt developed later
on in your life as an adult,

but you've got to be aware that you have
it because when you start working in

business,

it is going to drive some of the decisions
that you're making and you've got

to be able to recognize it and stop it
because it is bad for your business.

I really face this head on when I
started working on my own and I knew

what my services were worth and what I
ought to be charging in the market for

them. But you face these small,

sometimes it was small business owners
and I would feel bad asking for the rate

I knew I should be charging.
And when you give into that,

you had a great example,

you lost an excellent opportunity where
you should have charged that amount

and you can have other
circumstances where for me,

it was ending up with a client that
was not a good client because of it,

because I undercharged what I
should have because I felt bad.

That's not a good business decision and
having worked with a lot of businesses,

I see guilt in other aspects of the
business. Maybe it's an employee.

This is one I see fairly often where
it's someone who they care for the

employee, so the owner keeps them there,

but they're a terrible employee.
They can't do their job,

so they keep finding
new positions for them,

but it creates issues throughout the
organization because they're identified by

the rest of the employees
who work with them,

their peers as someone who's not pulling
their weight but is there because the

boss likes them.

That also creates problems for the
work environment that you've created.

So if you are a business owner, you cannot
allow guilt to drive your decisions.

You are running a business.
We are capitalists.

That's why you have your own business.

You have to be focused on how can I
make money for my business and make the

right decisions? And that requires
removing the guilt from your decisions.

It can be very difficult, especially,

let me give you a particular
example with family run businesses.

That's where it's really prevalent
because you have the family

obligations pulling on your
heartstrings like someone was laid off,

I need to give them a job.

They're a family member and they never
seem to pull their weight at least most

often pull their weight like
someone who is outside of your

business and is someone you don't have
that kind of relationship with because

it's just a different dynamic and it
makes it very difficult for you to drive

the revenue in your business that it
ought to be achieving when you have these

issues of guilt that are
terminating the organization.

Every business, every family business
has Alfredo I love, we call 'em,

it's Alfredo from the Godfather.
Everybody's got Alfredo,

and it's just so much easier to pay
Fredo to go away than it is to give him a

job in your business. Just
give him a no-show job,

pay him to go away so that he doesn't
wreck the rest of your business.

There's another aspect of
this guilt that I think we

need to address today,

and that's when the guilt
creeps into how you price your

services. You should
price your services now,

and this is particularly important for
you as a professional service provider,

but if you're selling
products, it matters too,

and I'll cover both sides of the equation.

You should price your services
based on the value people get from

receiving your services.

You shouldn't price your services based
on what people afford because if you

price your services based
on what people can afford,

you're not doing yourself justice and
you're going to end up working harder than

you should to make the money that you
deserve for the time and effort you put in

and your profession.
Your current profession is full of people

who adjust their rates
and it's hourly rates.

I can't resist taking
a shot at hourly rates.

It's hourly rates that
they adjust because well,

people can't afford it.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going
to give you a pass on this one and I'm

going to address your brethren who
are criminal defense attorneys.

When I first started working with lawyers,

I worked with a lot of criminal defense
lawyers because a really good friend of

mine was the president of the Florida
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers

and then the National Association
of Criminal Defense Lawyers,

and he got me in front of
them on many occasions,

and I will tell you that there's nobody
I like having a beer with more than

somebody who's a criminal defense
lawyer. They have the best stories,

but it's ridiculous how
they'll adjust their

pricing to handle some of
the most complicated stuff.

I know people and the criminal justice
system only work because good lawyers are

willing to defend people
who do bad things.

So let's just,

if you're listening to this now and you've
got a problem with people who defend

murderers and rapists and people
who commit hideous crimes,

I understand that you may have
a problem with those people,

but if there aren't people out there
who are willing to defend these people,

the system may not work for you or someone
you care about when you're accused of

something and you didn't do it.
So we got to set that aside.

Suspend your anger about people who
defend criminals. Here's the thing,

I know a lot of people who are death
penalty qualified here in Florida who do

death penalty work,

who don't charge fees
that are worthy of the

heroics that they pull off, and they do
that because they think to themselves,

I got to perform this public service.
Well, no, that's guilt,

okay? You telling yourself that
you're performing a public service,

that's guilt. You're bringing
your baggage to this.

You can take one case a year that you
do pro bono and perform your public

service and then charge an S ton
of money for everything else you

do so that you get paid what you deserve.

Rich people commit crime,
poor people commit crime.

There's nothing that says you only
have to represent poor people.

You choose who your clients are and it's
a function of guilt that you choose the

crappy clients. So stop doing
that. I'm giving you dispensation.

That's what they say in the
Catholic church. I'm freeing you.

I'm giving you permission
to feel free of the guilt of

choosing crappy clients.
Choose better clients.

You are worthy of the better clients.

The crappy clients will find
representation. You can take one a year,

but the crappy clients will
find representation. Now,

when it comes to product manufacturing,

if you put a ton of r and d research
and development into your product,

if you put a ton of effort into your
product, getting it to the market, right?

You have a product that has to have
shelf space and you got to fight and claw

and scratch to get the shelf space,

maybe you got to pay the
vendors to give you shelf space.

That's how stuff gets in the supermarket.
Products pay for shelf space.

You deserve to charge a premium price.

If your product is better than everybody
else's product, you deserve that.

Do not feel guilty, do not
feel guilty. Other people,

especially people in procurement,

and these are people who I wish
would just find another job,

but people in procurement will play on
that guilt and try and get you to lower

your price. Don't do it for their reasons.

The only time you should lower
your price is for your own reasons,

and you shouldn't let guilt play into
that decision in any way possible.

I'm sure you want to respond
because I attacked your brethren

in the legal profession because you
charge the same way people in the oldest

profession charge. So have at
it, do what you want to do. Well.

My brethren on the criminal defense side
may not like my response on this one

because I'm going to agree with
you, Dave, mark, this day down.

I agree with you.

You should not reduce your rates
to take on clients because you

are one,

not recognizing the value of the
services you know that you provide,

which command a higher rate for
them. And two, I assure you,

you'll be buying a client that is
not going to be a good client to you.

You want more of your best clients.
You are not going to do that.

You're not going to get them in
the door by lowering your rates.

You have excellent clients
know why they're excellent
clients and replicate that

people will pay you what you deserve.

That is a lesson that I
learned the hard way myself.

You will find clients who will pay your
rates and will see the value that you

offer and you will have a much
more fulfilling legal career if you

do not lower your rates,

but you should do this in any professional
services space. Do not lower your

rates to get those clients. Look,

and this is with the exception
of you're starting out.

I get that everyone's starting
out. You got to make money,

but when you have a demonstrated service,
you're an excellent professional.

Don't do that to yourself because
this is how you're making money.

You deserve the rate that you're
charging. Now, aside from that,

we've got to just cut out the
guilt from running a business.

You are running a business,
you're making money.

It should not be an exercise in
what your feelings are about it.

It has got to be about doing what is
best for that business to make sure that

you are maximizing the value of it.

You're going to appreciate that and live
a much better life as a business owner

when you're focused on
it. So remove the guilt.

Yeah,

guilt has no place in determining
price or how hard you go

after you sell to go after a client.

And I see this all the time in people
who sell, and I've done it myself.

I just told you the story.

I wouldn't sell as hard to somebody
who I thought couldn't afford my

services. Now,

I sell hard to everybody and I
don't feel any guilt when somebody

says, Hey, I don't like to be sold to.

The way that I look at
it is selling is helping,

and if I don't sell to you, you
don't know that I can help you.

So I got to be a savage and do
everything I can to go after that client

because that client is better
off with me than without me.

And to put a bow on this entire
discussion before we wrap it up,

I talked about something
I can't remember, Nicola,

if it was on the Sunday special
or if it was in a regular

show, but do you remember, it's got
to be a couple of weeks ago now,

almost a month ago,

I talked about somebody who
wanted a consultation with
me but didn't want to pay

my consultation fee.
You remember that? All right,

so I got an email from this
person and maybe they're listening

to the show and it doesn't really
matter to me if they listen to the show.

I got an email from them asking me for
the link to my consultation page now

ready to pay to see if there's something
we can do, I can do to help them.

I replied to the person. I said,
yeah, sure, I'll send you the link.

I didn't send it to 'em this
week. I knew I was busy.

I was doing a little traveling.

You and I had an event we
did together yesterday,

so I knew I had a lot of stuff going on
this week, so I didn't send it to 'em.

I'm going to send it to 'em next week.

Remains to be seen whether
they'll actually pay it or not,

but good on them for recognizing
and taking the step to

say, Hey,

this is valuable and
maybe I should pay for it.

Whenever that happens to me
and somebody says, oh my God,

because as we're recording this,

my consultation fee is $850 and
you get an hour with me for the

$850, but you're not buying an hour.

You're buying 33 years of
business experience for that $850.

And I recognize that there are people
who just swerved off the side of the

road as they're listening to this
show and they're like, Jesus Christ,

this guy charges $850 an hour.

I'm a lawyer and I only charge $400 an
hour and I've been a lawyer for 15 years,

blah, blah, blah. It's not my problem
that you only charge $400 an hour, right?

I know people who are nine, 10 year
lawyers in the bankruptcy space,

they're charging $1,100 an hour. Now,

there are lawyers at Gibson Dunn
that charge $1,600 an hour, okay?

I feel bad that I'm only charging eight
50. I feel like I'm taking food out of

my kid's mouth by only charging eight 50.

So God bless me for doing this
service for you and charging less.

The way that I look at it is
my lifetime of experience,

if you ask the right questions, is worth
probably quadruple what you're paying.

So you should thank me that
you get to pay $850 an hour,

and that's not arrogance.

That's just recognizing
the value that I provide.

There are people out there right now.

I worked with one for
years and years and years.

There's a guy named Marcus
Buckingham. You can look him up.

He was the original author
on First Break All the

Rules and Now Discover your
strengths to bestselling books.

He was at the Gallup organization.

His office was right next to mine in New
York City when I started the Manhattan

Division of Consulting for Gallup.
And at the time that we were

working together when I was a little
baby consultant, he was getting,

at that time, he was getting, I
think $45,000 for a keynote speech,

and I was getting 1200
bucks to give a speech.

And at that time,

he's a great speaker and
he has a British accent,

which is worth 10 grand in and of itself.

The British accent
alone is worth 10 grand.

So his content was almost

identical to the content that I was
delivering because it was all based on

Gallup research,

but the experience he had and
the stories he shared were

far more valuable because I
didn't have that experience.

He had been at Gallup for, I
think at the time, 15 years,

and he had had 15 years of additional
experience working with dozens of

different industries using the things
that Gallup had discovered in those

industries.
And in that one keynote speech,

if there were 500 people in the room,

a hundred people could come away with
things that could transform their

business.

So the event planners that booked him
to speak and paid him 45 grand for that

talk, they could say, Hey, listen,

you're going to get transformative
material from Marcus Buckingham,

the author of these two books, who
has had all of this experience.

Or they could have booked Dave Lorenzo
who would share Gallup's research and at

the time didn't have
any of the experience,

but they could probably get $3,000 for
attendance at an event where Marcus

Buckingham was the keynote and they
could probably get like 50 bucks for an

event where Dave Lorenzo was the keynote
because of the breadth of experience

that Marcus had. Same content,
different level of experience,

different stories, different
impact on the audience,

and that's the difference
between value and

not delivering value, and
we shouldn't feel guilty.

Marcus never felt guilty
a day in his life.

Now he's charging a hundred thousand
dollars for a keynote speech because he's

got 25 years of experience, and he's
never felt guilty a day in his life.

God bless him, and I hope he's doing well,

and I hope he's listening to this
and thinking as he's sipping his tea,

I'm making a ton of money and he's
right, or I can't do a British accent,

otherwise I would've done
So. No guilt. We don't have guilt.

People are going to pay it, so
why are you not charging it?

I have to reiterate the
point that you made,

which I think is the
main takeaway here, Dave,

which is that you are not just paying
for that hour of time when we are talking

about the fee for speaker or it's an
hour for a consultation with someone.

It's not just an hour of time
of talking about an issue.

It is all of your experience that goes
into that hour because that is a lot of

value that you are delivering
in that short window time.

I've personally been burned by this,

and I tell you that from
experience because oftentimes
we learn the best lessons

from experiences, especially the ones
that did not go well for us. I delivered,

and I'll tell this in a quick story.

I delivered a pitch to a company for
a lawsuit that I wanted to handle

on their behalf.
It had been filed.

Sometimes you get the opportunity
to go to the Bakeoff, we call it,

and there's two others that are there.
They're pitching there themselves too,

and you've got to provide something that
the other two aren't going to provide

to have the best pitch. And in the end,

what happened was we didn't get the
business. This was several years ago,

didn't get the case, and I had delivered
a strategy that I thought was like,

how could someone have taught that?
I really thought this through?

There's no way that they thought
about this as much as we did,

and it comes to find out
that they used the strategy.

They just used the cheaper
option to employ the strategy,

so do not do it because that
value that was delivered in

that short period of time was immense.

It was years and years of experience and
thinking that went into that to have it

taken and used by someone else.
So do not sell yourself short.

You're running a business.

You need to be selling your experience
in those windows of time that you're

selling or with your product on the shelf.

You're selling everything that went
into you developing that product,

the way you've marketed, the
way you've positioned it,

to get that premium to sit
there on that top shelf.

I love it. This is the Inside Bs
show. My name is Dave Lorenzo.

I'm the godfather of growth, and you are.

Nicki.

T, and we're here every day
with a great new show for you.

We'll see you right back here again
tomorrow, folks. Hey, do us a favor.

I don't know how you found the show,

but I'm betting you probably found
it because somebody sent it to you,

somebody recommended it to you,
somebody shared it with you.

Do yourself a favor. Do
another entrepreneur a favor,

share the show with a friend,
share it with another entrepreneur.

It's good karma for you,

and you may just change someone's
business or change their life.

We'll see you back here again
tomorrow, folks. Until then,

here's hoping you make a great living
and live a great life. Take care.