Sara Ferrer: [00:00:00] Welcome to Fearless and Flawed. Today, we're joined by Etinosa Agbonlahor, behavioral economist and the founder and CEO of Decision Alpha, a pricing strategy firm that uses the psychology of how people make financial decisions to help business owners charge what their work is actually worth. Before going out on her own, she was director of behavioral science research at Fidelity Investments.

Sara Ferrer: She led behavioral economics work at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and she's the author of How to Talk to Your Parents About Money. 

Serena Reynolds: On our pre-chat, she said, "When women go in to negotiate, sometimes we make it feel like we're going out with our begging bowl. And no, this is not free money. I did do the work for this."

Serena Reynolds: So let's discuss. I told you on the call that I am [00:01:00] her ideal client, and I fully expect to be on her books by the end of this episode. 

Sara Ferrer: And the timing was pure kismet. Two minutes before Etinosa joined our pre-chat, let me tell you, I was mid-rant to Serena about how bad it feels when, when we ask for more money, we know that we've delivered above and beyond, and, and we feel crazy for asking.

Sara Ferrer: And then walks in this woman who does this for a living, and whose name literally means God's power is supreme. 

Serena Reynolds: I'm Serena. I produce podcasts and webinars that grow your business. 

Sara Ferrer: And I'm Sara, an email marketing pro here to convert clicks into cash. Together, Serena and I are two women in charge, digging into the fearless, the flawed, and the ever so fabulous journeys of female founders rewriting the rules.

Serena Reynolds: So let's dive in. Welcome to our show, Etinosa. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Oh, good. I'm excited for the conversation. Thank you for having me. 

Serena Reynolds: Before we, we get into the money stuff, let's start [00:02:00] with the name. You told us literally... it literally means God's power is supreme, and Sara nearly fell off her chair because she's just been saying the world needs more power names.

Serena Reynolds: What's it like carrying a name like that, and does it ever feel like a brief you have to live up to? 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Um, so there's a tradition of when immigrants come to the US, right? I'm Nigerian and I'm, and, and I'm American. There's a tradition when immigrants come to the US that they change their names from whatever language their name was in to an English name that's easier for the folks here to kind of get along with.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: And so my middle name is Grace, and so I had the option of like, "Do you wanna be called Grace?" And no, I don't wanna be called Grace 'cause my first name is so powerful and has opened so many doors for me, and I feel like every time somebody speaks my name, they're saying a blessing. They're advocating for me in some way, shape, or form, whether or not they believe in God, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So it's been very important to me to keep my name and to make sure I train everybody on every call I do, and I do so [00:03:00] many meetings and so many of these marketing things. This is how you say it, this is what it means, and we're gonna get it, you know, we're gonna get it right. So to answer your question, I don't think it's a name I have to live up to as much as it's a name that has worked very, very, very well for me in my life.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: And I think it's a blessing to have such a powerful name. I also know that my parents were not messing around when they named me. I was born under very interesting circumstances, and even the birth process was a whole journey. So I think that it's a name that's been a blessing to me and one that I'm continue to, you know, continue to get to see how it works for me throughout my life.

Serena Reynolds: And then you have me pronounce the N on my first hammer throw meet. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: You know what's interesting? So when you say it in a sentence, so it's from the Edo language, the Benin people in Nigeria, old kingdom, existed since back, back in the day. So when you use it in a sentence, you actually would say Etinosa say, which is Etin, power, Osa, God, say, is enough, is supreme, et cetera.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: But as a sentence and [00:04:00] as a name, I've been very intentional about how I want it to be pronounced, so there actually is not a wrong way to do it. I'm sure there's other people who say Etinosa for their names. I just don't say it that way. 

Sara Ferrer: I love that. And do you think that, you know, kind of tying the name to what you do, I think that there's some parallels here about you saying, "Hey, this is my name.

Sara Ferrer: This is how I'd like it to be pronounced," advocating for yourself. And then this is, again, a very, one might say, kind of very simple way to advocate, "Hey, this is my name. This is how you pronounce it." People are usually, I, I assume, curious to understand it, to get it right. But then you kind of take that same advocacy, and we know that you've spent more than a decade studying the psychology be- behind how people make financial decisions, and those are really usually very tricky conversations to have when it comes to money, and negotiating, and advocating.

Sara Ferrer: And so I wonder kind of, you know, at a high level before [00:05:00] we dive really deep in, like, what made you go down this path to say, "Okay, I'm gonna get into the world of finance and financial decisions and making people feel comfortable"? What kind of led you through that journey? 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So I've always been interested in how money works.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: I was the kid who, we all get an allowance, and I would store my little bills in, like, this, this storage container. I did a study abroad at Queen Mary University in the UK, and I remember my parents would send me money. This was back in the day, so it was like Western Union to transfer the dollars to the pounds, and I went to do my study abroad and I came back with almost 1,000 pounds that I hadn't spent in the three months I was a university student in London, that I could have spent it on anything.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So I think it's always kind of been ingrained- 

Serena Reynolds: How does any university student go back with money? I wish my daughter would learn that one. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: It, it's incredible. I don't-- I've always been that person who I've been intentional about money and I've been aware of, like, every Every bill [00:06:00] comes with trade-offs, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: You can do this or that. You, you're not gonna be able to do both at the same time. And so having that curiosity around money kind of has followed me throughout my career. And when I was in college, I was very interested in economics, just understanding how does this money thing work at a macro level, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Like, what is the government? What is inflation? What is the Fed? How does all of this stuff come together? And so my very first job actually was in book publishing world. I was an editor, assistant editor at, like, Simon & Schuster for a couple of years, and I did that 'cause I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do for another degree when I came out of college.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: And so I was talking to a mentor of mine. You know, I'm at this point where I can either double down and really build a career as an editor at this big house, or I can pursue what I'm interested in, and I really like understanding how money works. I have a psychology degree already. Like, how does this...

Etinosa Agbonlahor: You know, what can I do with this? Should I get an MBA? And he gave me this book called "Predictably Irrational" by Dan Ariely, [00:07:00] and it was basically the story of how our brains are wired in ways that intersects with financial decisions and leads to very sometimes predictable but very interesting outcomes, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: We do things like mental accounting. If you take your money and put it into a savings account, you feel very weird taking it out to pay for your credit card debt, even though it's all the same money, it's all the same pounds. Money is fungible, but we don't treat it as such, right? There's lots of different quirks in how our brains interact with money.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So that got me very interested in wanting to dive deeper into that. Ended up going to Warwick and doing a master's in behavioral economics, and then that led to working at a bank, et cetera, et cetera. But all of it stemmed back to an original just fascination with what is this money thing and how does it work?

Sara Ferrer: I love that. And did, did you find that in your journey, especially from a woman's perspective or, or in, in your studies, seeing, I'm sure that how men versus women view money, view, [00:08:00] um, talking about money. I mean, we know in business that many times-- I mean, it's known, right? This is not a belief. This is a fact that when men pitch an idea, they talk about what something could be and the millions it could make, while women tend to have a more cautious approach.

Sara Ferrer: How did you find in your journey, um, the differences in how, not just the genders, but are there certain communities or certain cohorts that speak money differently, they, they rise to the top faster? Or are there just some general high-level, I guess, bullet points that you could give our listeners in terms of what you've learned before we kind of dive deeper into the granule?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Yeah. So part of this is upbringing. There was some research we did a while back that showed that parents teach boys to invest, they teach them to take risks, and they teach girls to save. They teach them to be conservative [00:09:00] and not take risks with their money. Now, if you wanna build wealth, what do you need to do?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: You have to take risks. You've got to figure out both the savings and investing side of things. And so I think that women in general are kind of surrounded by this very cautious discourse that then leads to and then influences and informs cautious behaviors moving forward. I also think that because historically, you know, finance and the world of money has been a very male-dominated domain, it has been presented as something big and complex and, like, you couldn't understand it.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: And so women feel intimidated by the, uh, by the idea of, "How do I even invest my money?" But then you talk to the same woman about, "Hey, when you go into Sephora, do you go, do you spend all your money on one brand?" You're like, "No, you wanna try a couple different brands. You wanna see what the best kind of skincare routine is that's gonna work with your face."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Same thing. You wanna invest. If you want it to be diversified, you put some money into a mutual fund, it's gonna buy every lipstick brand for you. We do this already. It's intuitive. We just call it something different in the finance world. So I feel like there's [00:10:00] been this kind of a discourse around it, kind of...

Etinosa Agbonlahor: It normalizes a kind of caution and a conservative nature for women that we then lean into because we've grown up that way our whole lives. Versus if we started off with like, "Of course you're gonna invest. Of course it looks like this. Let me speak to you in normal terms what investing, what saving, what being, quote-unquote, good with money or understanding how to relate with money looks like," I think that we would have less of a very obvious gendered differential in the way people approach money 

Sara Ferrer: That is so true.

Sara Ferrer: I, I, you know, that was... Thank you for kind of shedding some light on that 'cause I, I definitely, you know, I'm, I'm married to, to, you know, my, my partner, my husband is very investment forward, right? Like, like no risk, no reward, you know? We're young, go for it. We have time to make it up if we lose it. I mean, again, not, not, not blindly investing, but the idea that, hey, you gotta invest in order to gain.

Sara Ferrer: While growing [00:11:00] up, there was a lot of saving money for a rainy day. You know, saving money, saving... And, and, and I think it's hard sometimes too when you think, well, what is there to invest if, you know, we're just trying to cover the, the basics, the foundation, right? 

Serena Reynolds: I'd like to throw in another. I've actually just done a little search here 'cause I didn't have the exact year.

Serena Reynolds: But apparently, in the US, women, it was 1974 that women in the US were allowed to have their own mortgage without a male co-signing. So let me let, let that just sink in. That's just, just over 50 years. Just over 50 years that a woman could have her own property. So we were... So my parents were of that generation that, that couldn't have it.

Serena Reynolds: Or, or my- I don't know how old my mom would've been at the time. But [00:12:00] yeah, I mean, we're already living in very different times, but we're still, we're still on the end of, of that tailwind. We, we're not clear of that yet. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Yeah. So there is, there's, you know, there's, I call it, there's kind of a triangle, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: There's the structural barriers, and then within that there's all of the things that we have to think about behaviors in form. So yeah, if you think about the fact that it's only been about 50 years that we've even been able to have access to some of these investment vehicles and access to the expectation of, of course you're gonna do other things with your money.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Of course you're gonna do, know m- how to do more with your money than just, like, balance the household budget. I think there's also some grace we can give women in, you know, still being at the forefront of figuring all of this stuff out. 

Serena Reynolds: Yeah. And I'm, I'm not a historian, but I think it was just after the Second World War that, that women were allowed to have more of a job, m- to take on more careers after Second World War, and, and they were, they were in the, the [00:13:00] factories and building bombs and parachutes and stuff like that, and less stay-at-home.

Serena Reynolds: But still, yeah, I mean, I could be very wrong about that history, by the way. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: No, I, I think it's accurate because- Oh, okay ... the men were off fights and the wars. Yeah. 

Serena Reynolds: Yeah. Yeah. So, so when you, when you think about that pressure or, or just, y- you know, like I, I'm, I mean, I'm coming at this from, from, from an angle.

Serena Reynolds: So I, I struggle really badly with asking for money, um, for, for charging my worth. Um, I'm, I'm very open about this. It's, it's one of my, it's, it's my Achilles heel in business There's, there's a number of reasons. One, I'm English and I think talking about money is just so taboo here. Um, you just don't do it in polite society.

Serena Reynolds: Um, I come from a creative industry, which means that when, when you sell something, you're not selling a physical [00:14:00] something, you're selling something that came from your soul, that came from your heart, and if somebody rejects it or doesn't wanna pay it, then it's not worth it, then, then that is, is crushing in it- itself.

Serena Reynolds: And then of course I have, you know, uh, you know, my, my, my mom, who was a stay-at-home mom for a lot of my life, who, who did odd jobs just to make ends meet in the family and as opposed to having a career, and she was a very bright, articulate woman, you know, who, who, who really could have had a very successful career.

Serena Reynolds: So yeah, all of those things kind of like filter down into me today, and my struggle with asking for my worth and feeling embarrassed to have that conversation around money with people. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: It's so interesting because I tell people to divorce the notion of it's you're charging what you're [00:15:00] worth from you're charging what the work is worth, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Those are two separate things, right? You're worth a billion gajillion dollars, right? You're a human being. What is the value of a human being? It's limitless. But what is the value of the services delivered to a customer? We can put a number on that. How do they value it? What did it help them save in terms of time, efficiency?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: What is the aesthetic pleasure of the work that you've done for them? What is the amount of ROI on the marketing you've built for them? All of those things are tangible things you can quantify and say, "This is the value I've brought to you." And so if therefore the work I've done has brought an extra 400,000 pounds in revenue, it makes sense that I'm asking you for 1% of that, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So it has nothing to do with what I'm worth. It is, has everything to do with what was the outcome of the work I did for you, and so we're gonna charge based on that outcome, right? And once you kind of separate those things, two things out, it makes it a little bit easier to not let all the fears and the anxieties and the worry about getting rejected kind of bleed into the, the [00:16:00] charging side of things 

Serena Reynolds: But when you work in a service industry, it becomes, um, it can be c- very complicated because everybody requires different things.

Serena Reynolds: Outcomes are different depending on different variables. So, so to, to quantify that upfront or to have this, I, I always find it very difficult to have that structure in place to, um, to when somebody says, "So how much are you going to charge me?" For me to be able to actually give them a number. So how, how do you do that in, in situations where things, where the goalpost moves?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Yes. So at Decision Alpha, we talk about pricing strategy almost as a house. So you've got your costs floor, which is everything it costs you to keep the lights on in your business, your insurance, your, your rent, whatever it costs to just make sure the lights are on every month, costs floor. Also in that costs floor is what does it cost you to deliver the service [00:17:00] to the customer?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Do you need to buy, you know, infrastructure? Do you need to do... Whatever it costs you to actually deliver the service, that all goes into that baseline costs floor. You cannot go below the costs floor, otherwise you'd be operating at a loss, right? Addition to the cost floor, you have your price ceiling, the tip of which is what is the highest anybody anywhere who's a customer of yours is willing to pay you for your service?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: We call that the willingness to pay ceiling. That is, this is the most you can ever get for the work that you've done. In between the ceiling and the floor are the pillars of what are your competitors doing, and also what are alternatives to your service? If they did not use you, what would they be doing instead?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Would it be nothing? Would it be having AI generate something? Would it be an intern somewhere kind of dragging and dropping things? What would they do instead of using you? Because all of those things are the comparisons your customer is making in their mind when they try, when they're trying to decide what your value is, and also what is the context.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So first of all, we have that house, and when you think about your pricing, you need to have a very [00:18:00] clear understanding of what is the house? What am I operating in? What are my costs? What is the maximum they're willing to pay? Now, when you go into the conversation about

Etinosa Agbonlahor: value, and this is why it's so important to have the prospect conversations, is you're trying to understand why do you wanna work with me? What is the problem that you're currently facing that working with me is gonna help you solve? What is it costing you right now in terms of that problem? 'Cause it could be we need to get more marketing done.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: We need an intuitive way to do it. We are tired of sending out emails, or we don't, we don't think our emails are being read by people. There's something about it that's just not resonating with people. We're paying somebody, you know, thousands of dollars every month to send out the emails. It's just not working.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: And so you go, "Right. Interesting. How much are you spending for those emails that aren't working in a year?" "Oh, we're doing about 12,000, 20,000 pounds on emails," "And it's not working? Great. Here's what I cost. If I- and here's what I cost. Here's what people who have worked with me traditionally get in terms of outcomes.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: We can help you achieve those outcomes. Would you be okay with that? Would you be comfortable with that? Let's talk about what that [00:19:00] would look like." And now we dive deeper. Now you know that because they're spending this much in price, it gives you some sort of range for like how am I gonna position myself to them.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Does that make sense so far? 

Serena Reynolds: It does. But I, I have to push back on this one. I have to push back on this one. So, so, um, emails that do not work, that means you have somebody that's already burnt by a system, by a process, by, by a bad experience, which means they are even more reserved to, to pay the premium or to pay the addition that you should be charging if you are actually getting results.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Mm. 

Serena Reynolds: So, so you- So 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: somebody's- 

Serena Reynolds: Push back already Yeah And if you go cheaper then you're, you don't wanna be value either 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Well, that's the interesting thing, right? Because they're sitting in, in front of you and saying, "We have something that's bleeding us every month and it is not working." And you are saying to them, "I [00:20:00] will deliver better results for you for the same price or a higher price."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: 'Cause it could be like, "Hey, you're paying this, you're getting this result 'cause you didn't invest in the right skillset. They can't do it for you. It's cheap because they don't know what they're doing. I will deliver the results for you, period. Do you want the results or not?" Right? We have to be comfortable with, "This is what it looks like to work with me and to access the level of value that I deliver.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: You can either be on the train or you can be off the train, respectfully," right? "Do you wanna be on the train? Let's talk about the outcomes you're going to get. You wanna be off the train, you're not my ideal customer profile, and that's completely fine," right? I think that we also get to this place of undervaluing ourselves because we feel like it's our ego telling us that everybody who comes in the room should work with us.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: That's not reality. Some people are meant to work with you and they're gonna, you're gonna have fun, you're gonna enjoy working with them. They'll refer you to everybody else in their network. Some people, it will suck And you're not gonna enjoy it, and in fact they don't see your value. They wonder why you're, you're wasting time to snack rush from you.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: You may not convert those people and that's okay. [00:21:00] Right? So you have to get to a place and an understanding and a comfort where this is what it looks like to work with me. This is the minimum that I charge. These are the outcomes I will deliver. If you want that, let's discuss and let's move forward from there.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: If, however, you're walking in already jaded, you're not quite sure, you're not gonna give me a fair chance to kind of talk through what the outcomes and the value is, maybe you would be better talking to somebody else, right? The privilege of you being a business owner is that you get to pick and choose who you want to work with and what you want your work experience to look like and feel like.

Serena Reynolds: I so need this conversation today. 

Sara Ferrer: Yeah. Can I, can I just, can I just s- can I just say an observation that as, this was a great conversation that just happened, this snippet, because I so much understand Etinosa's, you know, point of view, and I understood Serena going, "But, but wait, you've already burned through this cash."

Sara Ferrer: And, and what I'm seeing at a high level, and Etinosa, I'd be curious if this is something that you commonly see. Well, it must be, 'cause you had a great kind of pathway forward, is we often go, [00:22:00] okay, well, you anchored at a really low price with really shitty work and, and we're all concerned about that anchor, right?

Sara Ferrer: 'Cause it sounds like, well, let's say, you know, the intern's doing it and they did shitty work, and so now in the power of anchoring, and, and I'd like you to talk a little bit about that. And so we go, okay, well, the intern ch- uh, charged let's just say 500 bucks a month for something that Serena might be charging $5,000 a month for, okay?

Sara Ferrer: But all of a sudden we go, "Well, shit, the intern's doing it for 500. There's obviously no way they're gonna rise up to 5,000." And so before we even start advocating for ourselves, there's this internal like, well, they've already spent this money on this, and we've already anchored ourself at that lower quality work.

Sara Ferrer: And so can you just kind of talk us through that, that, the psychology of that, the importance of anchoring, the importance of not basing what one's, uh, uh, worth of work is [00:23:00] on someone else who obviously didn't work out? 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So let me ask a question. Have you all done any kind of like courses, training, whatever, any kind of like self-development programs?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Anything that you were like, "I'm gonna do this 'cause it's gonna help me achieve X, Y, Z." 

Sara Ferrer: Yes. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: How much did you pay for the last one? 

Sara Ferrer: Oh, the last one, um, I, it was, um, it was a Black Friday special, 199 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: 199. Now, if you found that exact same course and it was being offered for 19 pounds, would you have jumped at it or would you have gone, "Let me think about this"?

Sara Ferrer: Hmm. I don't want cheap, cheap, cheap because cheap, cheap, cheap tells me that I'm gonna get cheap, cheap, cheap advice. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Boom, exactly. In behavioral economics, and I personally have coined the term of the tyranny of low prices, which is that when you have priced very low, you're encouraging people to go, "It's so cheap that I'm gonna question the quality of what's being delivered."[00:24:00] 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: There have been studies that have been run that show that even with things like placebos, they gave people who had a headache, you know, pills, aspirin, and they had different prices on them. The prices that were so low, people ref- reported them as being less effective. They reported the aspirin as being less effective w- than when they were paying a little bit more for the aspirin.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Of course, it's all placebo. It wasn't really aspirin in the first place. But there's something about pricing that is a signal to the world about how we should be valued. There's been many other studies in this realm. So what I'm saying is your price is gonna be a signal to everybody around your value.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: We think that people are walking around with a clear sense of, like, what the value of our services should be. That's not the right, that's not correct. Nobody really knows, right? They're gonna look at your price, and that's gonna help them understand, okay, is it this? Is it that? Now, that said, when it comes to anchors- And for the audience, an anchor is basically a random number out in the universe that kind of influences the choices people make, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Anchors work because [00:25:00] people can't make financial decisions in a vacuum. So for example, I have a friend who runs a nonprofit charity. We met for coffee and then afterwards she sent me a nice handwritten note as well as an envelope in case I wanted to donate to her nonprofit. I, in my mind I was like, "I'm gonna write her a $50 check, it's fine."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Then I open up the envelope and she has suggested donation amounts that's at $100. Guess how much I sent her? 

Sara Ferrer: $100? 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Yeah. She didn't have to have a conversation with me, nothing. It was just that by the numbers, by the anchor she had, the lowest one being 100, I was like, "All right, guess this is what people are paying."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: And so I sent her a $100 check, doubled my donation right away, no conversation with anybody. That is the power of anchors. Now, when you go into a room and you're anchoring to what the intern did, you have to understand and decide, what is the room I want to occupy? Do I want to be in a room like, you know, like a Goodwill or a secondhand shop or, you know, where everything is all jumbled, you're h- carrying at the lowest price possible?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Do I see myself more as a higher ups? It's [00:26:00] high-end, it's premium, I'm not gonna sell as much volume, but I'm gonna do really good work and it's gonna cost a little bit more. How do I wanna position myself? What are the numbers I want people to think about me in conjunction with? And so when you are thinking and seeing, oh, the intern only charges, you know, £500, the value of my work and the outcomes I'm gonna deliver for you is so above and beyond that we're not even in the same room as the intern.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: We cannot have that conversation. I'm sorry you had that experience, but like, now you're in the right, let's talk about what it costs for you, right? So I hope all of that kind of gives you a sense of this is how anchors work, and also this is why it's important to differentiate yourself so that people are walking into the room and not going, "We're gonna compare her to like, you know, the thousand pounds we wasted on that person who wasn't working," versus, "We're gonna go in and we're gonna understand, oh, she's gonna revolutionize our marketing.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Let's talk about what that means." 

Sara Ferrer: Makes sense. It makes perfect sense. So when a client comes to Decision Alpha, and it sounds like you've given us some frameworks, you've given us, you know, some of the steps [00:27:00] You d- you look at the whole landscape, the whole ecosystem, to your point, you know, like what, what are the competitors charging, all this stuff.

Sara Ferrer: Like what, what's the, the ceiling? What's the floor? And then when it comes to, 'cause I think that this is, you know, s- I've known Serena for what, like eight years now, it... We can comprehend this. We can compre- all this that you're saying is fantastic. It's great. It makes sense. Yes. Yeah. And then you get into the negotiating room, and you go white in the face.

Sara Ferrer: Everything that Siosa has said is out the door. You start thinking you are the intern. You are not the intern. So how does... Can you walk us through when a client comes, um, and, and like the high level one, two, three, four of, okay, we've assessed the landscape, we've assessed what, what you personally are going to be charging, what you're gonna say you're gonna char- And then is there like a script for like how you present that information now [00:28:00] in the meeting or in the setting to make sure you're not rambling, to not, make sure you're not going back on what you said you wouldn't do?

Sara Ferrer: Like how does one execute the plan? Right. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So this is where the behavioral economics comes to bear because it's all about the story we tell around our pricing, right? We call it kind of like the, the choice architecture, how you present something is gonna inform what people choose. First thing I tell people is you never wanna give people just one option, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: 'Cause the research has showed that when people only have one option to choose from, 91 to 92% of them will go try and find alternatives. Because again, we like to make decisions relative to a reference point. So when we don't have anything to compare what you put in front of us with, we're gonna go outside and go see what everybody else is charging and then come back and say, "Sorry, we're gonna go with the cheaper person."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Right? Versus when you have at least two options, you see about 30% of people pick either A or B or like, and then a, and further 30 might go, "Okay, I still want some more [00:29:00] research." Present options. Give people more than one choice. You wanna move the decision from, "Do you wanna work with me, yes or no?" to, "How do you wanna work with me?"

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Right? You increase the likelihood of people choosing something from you. Now, you've presented the options. There's ways for you to think through, how do I even present the options to guide people towards the package I want them to choose? For example, I was speaking with somebody yesterday, and she was saying she presented a bunch of options to a pot- to a prospect, and they were- she gave them three options, and it went from 4,000 to 5,500.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: There's not a lot of differentiation in that. I said, "You need to introduce a 7,500 or an $8,000 package." She's like, "Oh, I do have an $8,000 package." Put it on the proposal then. If you want to show people that there is differentiation in your package and you want them to have a number that's high enough that they can aspire to and go, "Oh, there's people who are paying her 8,000.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: I only want the $4,000 package right now, but I understand that in the future there's room for me to grow with her and with the services that she offers me." So that [00:30:00] is if you have a package where you think it makes the most sense for people to choose this specific package, I wanna arrange it in a way that's gonna get more people when they're comparing across the packages to go, "This option is the best for me right now, and in the future maybe I can choose a different one."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Right? So you're thinking about the options. Other things that you might do could be introducing and partitioning the numbers you put in front of people. Research has showed that when you partition out your prices, it seems a little bit more fair. So instead of one big price, you might go, "This is the price of, you know, doing the work.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: This is the price of accessing the software, and then this is the tax on top of it, or GST on top of it." Right? You just wanna show them like it a little bit broken down. It doesn't mean you go hourly, it doesn't mean you, you know, create so many line items that they start to push back on it, but just like, you know, this is the work, this is the software, this is the tax.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Something simple but broken down that could drive, you know, people to be more likely to pick it up. So there's different things that we can introduce in how you actually display the prices and how you frame [00:31:00] it. But then overall, the thing that I see people do a lot that can lead to issues is that you just send a proposal, and then you're like, "Let me know how it goes.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Let me know which one you want." I, I, I've done this before, and I had a, a sales coach who was like, "That is not the way to do it. Don't do that." Have a conversation with your prospect and say, "These are all the options that we have, and here's how we came up with them, and let's talk about them. We're gonna co-create the package together."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So it's safer, you've de-risked it, and you've reduced the likelihood of them going over email, "No, thank you." Right? So you wanna be in the room with them when they're making that decision and thinking things through. Does that all make sense so far? 

Serena Reynolds: I, I wanted, I wanted to... I, I was trying to jump in when you were sort of like saying about the three packages.

Serena Reynolds: There's actually a lot of science behind this from a marketing perspective. So your, your lowest package shouldn't be- Shouldn't be dramatically lower than the package you want, and the package you want them to buy is the middle one. So y- you show a lot less value in that [00:32:00] first one, and more value in the second one, third one.

Serena Reynolds: And then the four- the third one, the, the top one, should be a very, very expensive package. That's how, that's, that's the science behind the anchoring of the three, the three products in a marketing perspective. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Yeah. And I think that's it. It's an interesting... It, it's partly why it's... When we work with clients, we sit down to understand the intuition behind why are you trying to sell this?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Which one do you wanna sell? Why do you wanna sell it? Because we've done it sometimes in a way where the one we actually want to sell is the most expensive one, and so it's still gonna be the one that's all the way on the right. But then we structure the lowest and the middle ones in ways that make them go, "Well, for a little bit more, I could just get the top one.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Why don't I just get the top one?" Right? So there's definitely ways to play about it. It all goes down to intent. Which one do you really wanna sell, and how do we present those values in front of customers to nudge them one way or another? But absolutely, yes. 

Serena Reynolds: Well, I mean, at the end of [00:33:00] the day, for the client to get the best results, they should go for the highest package.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: If that's what's best for them. Yeah, yeah. 

Sara Ferrer: It's, it's interesting because you said something when you had asked, like, "Does this make sense?" All of it makes perfect sense, and you had mentioned something that I thought was very relatable. I have a friend of mine who has, um, like a, a branding agency, and he was pitching this, this company that wanted to do skincare.

Sara Ferrer: And so he just sent me the deck because they wanted to do skincare for, like, tween-age girls, and, and that used to kind of be my bread and butter. So I said, "Send me the deck. Let me kind of see, like, what you've done." I said, "This looks great." And he said, "Well, the client is gonna be on vacation until early August.

Sara Ferrer: Should I just send the deck and say, 'H- here, here's what it is?'" And I said, "You know, no, because you've spent a week now working on the deck." And, but I think [00:34:00] this is very common. Like, we just kind of hope and pray after spending a week, two weeks, a month. Then we just hope and pray that Susie Q, while she's on the beach sipping a piña colada Okay?

Sara Ferrer: You know, maybe she's a little tipsy, maybe she's, maybe she's had a fight with the hubs. Maybe she's, maybe she, she realizes she hates her job, okay? And now she's going to read your deck and get back to you. So I really appreciate, but again, I think that that challenges a lot of people because there's a vulnerability to the face-to-face or to the, you know, the phone call of saying, "Well, now I- we're gonna walk through what I've presented."

Sara Ferrer: And I think sometimes it's easier to just kind of send it, put up that wall and go, "Tell me what you think." So I, I really appreciate... Again, what I'm hearing is you've got to have the strategy, you've got to know what, why you're saying what you're saying, and then you have to have the willingness, the willingness to present it, to be [00:35:00] flexible, but also to have the confidence to know that what you're presenting It's okay if someone says, "Oh my God, you've presented me with these three packages.

Sara Ferrer: This is so far out of what we could ever do. This is completely un- uh, unattainable." It's okay to go, "Okay, well, keep me in mind if things ever change." Or I mean, how would you-- W- what would be the advice if someone goes, "Oh, Etinosa, this sounds great, but gosh, now I gotta present it to them, and like, ah, that bottom number, I don't know.

Sara Ferrer: What if they balk at it? What if they go, 'Ah, God, this is absurd'? What if they make me feel like I'm being radical?" 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Yeah. I, I think that in any, in any journey as an entrepreneur, you're gonna run into the people who think you're insane for offering the prices that you offer. They're gonna, you know, you're gonna run into people who are like, "Oh my God, how dare you?"

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Right? I have a friend who's kind of a mentor. He's, he's almost 80 years old now, who's been investing in real estate since before I've been alive, and he says that if you write an offer that doesn't make you kind of giggle a little, doesn't make you a little bit embarrassed, doesn't [00:36:00] make you a little bit like, "Oh my God, I'm kind of...

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Why am I... This is, this is insulting to somebody." If you cannot write an offer and make that offer like that, you are probably gonna lose money on the deal. Right? Get comfortable with making offers that make you uncomfortable. So in the same way, get comfortable putting prices in front of people that makes you go, "Ugh, 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: ugh, 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: I'd love for them to accept this one.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: I think this is what the value is. I'm pretty sure about that, but let's see what they say," right? 'Cause it's gonna grow that muscle. I was recently at a conference where I sat next to this gentleman pretty randomly, and we start talking, you know. I'm like: "Oh, I do pricing strategy." He's like: "Oh, that's funny.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: I do coaching for, um, CEOs and, you know, I do some CFO work with, with bigger companies." We just accepted a pricing strategy project for about $600,000, and I convinced the owner to, you know, take on the $600,000 project, 'cause I said the money you're gonna make in the next year or two just from them working with you is gonna be above and beyond that.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: And I said to myself, that whole conversation has been worth [00:37:00] the $5,000 that I paid to be at this conference. Because now I'm like, I've never sold a $600,000 project, but now I know it's possible. The people who sold that project don't have two heads. So I went back to my hotel room that night and I sat down and I went, "What would have to be true For me to sell $600,000 of work in one project, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Doesn't mean that tomorrow I'm gonna start quoting on my client $600,000, I wish. But now I know that the world is bigger than I thought it was. Now I can expand my expectations. Now I can go, how do I start to feel out and grow? What does it need to, what do we need to do to get to that level, right? 

Serena Reynolds: All of this to say- I'm gonna ask this, what was he offering that was so radically different to what you were offering?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: That's the question I asked, right? Like, I'm trying to under- and so he talked, so I had a conversation with him afterwards, 'cause I did a post on LinkedIn about it, and he was so tickled that, like, it stuck, that that sentence he said stuck with him. So we hopped on a call, and he was explaining that part of what that company offered, so it wasn't he who sold the project.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: He convinced his client to go with that offer and to pick [00:38:00] up the $600,000 project. In the conversation that I had with him, he told me they got two offers, two, two bids to work on that project. One was for $50,000 and one was for 600K. The difference between the one that they chose and the one that they went with is the 600K one, they were going to, like, embed with the company, but they really sold more to the outcomes.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: You want to normalize, you want to reduce your salespeople running around discounting all the time. You want to make sure that you can really hit those revenue targets for next year. They sold more to outcomes, and they sold more implementation. We are gonna come alongside this journey with you the entire step of the way.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: We're not just gonna come in, do a project, and then exit out the back door. High level, that's what he told me, but I'm sure there's a lot more and a lot more detail. And also, the folks who sold the $600,000 project are leaders in the pricing space. They literally have written the book on pricing. They've been doing this since the '80s, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So there's also 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: the history. 

Serena Reynolds: So it's authority. Authority is that they're- They walked in with authority. That's what they've done ... 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: they are [00:39:00] also in a, they are in a different room than the people who sold a $50,000 project. They're in the higher ups room. They have the authority, they have the aspirationalness, they have all of those things working for them, versus the folks who came in and said, you know, "It's gonna be $50,000 and we're gonna deliver XYZ outcome."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: But all of that to say is that my understanding of how big the world can be for my business grew in just that one conversation. It's now no longer how do I kind of like scrape together all of these projects, is, oh, it can be bigger. It can look bigger. How do I move from the room I'm in now towards the $600,000 room, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So that's how all of that kind of comes together. It's also you just understanding the world can be bigger and more. You can do more. There's always more. 

Serena Reynolds: So, so one of the things I've learnt, and you just touched on it, is that whole authority thing. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Mm. 

Serena Reynolds: It's about owning your space- Mm-hmm ... owning your prices, owning that room, not [00:40:00] being afraid to mention, or maybe you should be a little bit afraid.

Serena Reynolds: Maybe if you're not a little bit afraid, you shouldn't be mentioning that price, as you said. But- But actually it's like saying, "You know, look, you know, I'm, I'm coming in here and I know that this work will make you X amount. If we hit our target, you are going to hit X amount. So surely you should be able to pay me 10% of that And that should, I mean, so, so I know one of the things that keeps coming up, um, in my industry quite a lot is, um, the use of AI, how AI is, well, replacing people.

Serena Reynolds: All I'm seeing personally is people that using AI efficiently are getting better at their jobs. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Mm. Yeah. 

Serena Reynolds: Yeah. Those that aren't using it efficiently are actually destroying [00:41:00] industries because the quality of work that they're coming out with is poor. You know, you only have to look on LinkedIn three posts down and somebody's talking about AI slop.

Serena Reynolds: However, AI is, is moving forward and we should be embracing it, um, properly. But that shouldn't affect your price. That shouldn't... Or I, okay, I use AI, so does that mean I should take a pay cut? 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Hmm. No. Again, was the outcome the same? Did you deliver value to the customer? Did the value- Oh ... save them money, save them time, make them more efficient?

Serena Reynolds: Well, exactly. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Did it make them more confident? 

Serena Reynolds: So I, I'm, I'm gonna say that it, it was d- by far greater. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Then we're still pricing to the value that they got, not to the effort that it took me to, to do the work, right? I was given this example the other day. I live in a building that has a lot of doctors, and we're all in the same kind of big building [00:42:00] group chat, and sometimes you see one of the doctors or the nurses go, the med- or the medical students go, "I cut myself.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: I need XYZ kind of suture. Does anybody have this kind of needle?" And then somebody else will be like, "Yeah, I have it. You can pop around and pick it up." Now, to the doctor, the five minutes they spent, like, kind of disinfecting the needle and kind of sewing themselves up or whatever it is they do to, like, fix that was probably if you asked them, "Well, what would you pay for the..."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Like, nothing. It was five minutes of my time. Like, it's fine. If, however, I cut myself and I had to go to the doctor and they had to do the exact same thing, I would pay whatever it took to get me to be back up to wholeness again, right? And so when you think about AI, it's kind of like that needle, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: When you are, you're not saying, "Oh, I only used one needle and it only took five minutes, and so therefore I'm going to reduce my costs." Like, no, the outcome was the same. Did you get sewed up or not? Could you have done it by yourself? No. Okay, then let's keep this conversation going in a more respectful and a more precise way, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: The intuition is the same. You're not saying it in, like, a flip way to your customers, of course. [00:43:00] That said, we have actually built, we recently built an AI pricing guide, and so it's like a chat thing that people can interact with, and it will ask them things about, like, their cost flow, their competitors, their alternatives, their confidence in the pricing.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Do you only show one price or multiple prices? Everything that we've talked about Built into that AI's, and it's, it's pay what you want. We're not really sell- trying to like, you know, make money on it. But it is a way for people who are, you know, I'm a small business, I'm just starting, I'm thinking through my pricing.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: It's a way for you to go away and have the conversation that you- we've been having, and get to a place where you come out with, "This is my pricing score. These are the three things I need to do. This is how I can chunk them up. This is where I need to pay attention to. This is where I'm all right." Right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So we called it Fred, in the tradition of the great British butlers. It's at fred.decisionalpha.co. So if anyone is interested in that, they can go in there and check it out. 

Serena Reynolds: I've never heard of a butler called Fred, even in the UK. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: I feel like if, if they were American, if they're American, there would be a Fred Butler somewhere.[00:44:00] 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Fred the butler. Yeah. 

Sara Ferrer: I, I appreciate that tool for people, you know. Because again, we hear so much about, well, AI can do it, AI can do it. And as someone who, you know, I used to own my own business, um, and you know, everyone used to say, you know, "Oh, well, go to Fiverr. Go to, um, go to w- whatever," all the other kind of, you know, like where, where you toggle what you're willing to pay and 99% of people are like, "$5 for this project."

Sara Ferrer: Um, and I can say that, you know, 99.99999% of the time you got what you paid for. Every now and then you'd get a diamond in the rough, but they were maybe $20 and they were $20 value, right? Like, it's not like you ever got a 5,000 value for five bucks, but you go, "Oh, that was kinda good for five bucks." 

Serena Reynolds: And so often- But they can't afford it.

Sara Ferrer: Right. Well, and that's the thing, like- They can't afford to be better for five bucks. Correct. Correct. And I think that, you know, what, what I found in my experience, and I think a lot of people find, is you've gaslit yourself. [00:45:00] You thought you could y- it's like, you know, you thought you could get more. You were, you were, you know, an ignorant mule and thought for five bucks you could get the champagne service.

Sara Ferrer: You didn't. Joke's on you. But I think that there's this belief that like, well gosh, with AI, like I can just get the best. And I, and my approach, and I think anyone listening maybe has used, AI is great when used properly, like Serena said. Do I think it can, you know, does it have the, the understanding in terms of the nuance, in ter- I, I have 

Sara Ferrer: u- 

Sara Ferrer: used something that, that's an AI tool that can do all that, but it still needs review and revision and- 

Serena Reynolds: The, the use of AI that I've had And now I'm a t- I'm tech.

Serena Reynolds: I am tech. I have to tell you, the gaps it leaves are enormous- Mm ... and you don't know it because it, it gives you that confident answer, and it's very, very confident and it, it, it like [00:46:00] says, "Yes, I've got you. I've got your back. You're brilliant. You're so good at this. You don't need any more than this." But there's a great big hole in here that's a crater size- Mm-hmm

Serena Reynolds: that anyone with any experience will spot this, and will know this, and will know how to fill it. With AI, they can fill it even quicker and better, but they know the holes, and that is what, what experience brings. And I'm not saying that one day AI won't surpass humans, 'cause I'm not sure I believe that, but at the same time, at the moment, it's AI and people working together that have a big impact.

Serena Reynolds: It's not, it's not a case, it's not a case of, "Oh, I can go away and do AI." Fine, go. Go. Go, go to Fiverr. Go and get your logo done off Fiverr, okay? Fine. That's fine. The, the expectation is there you're going to get what you, what you pay for. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: I think there's also like a, there's a maturity curve to all of these things, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: [00:47:00] There are some things that you do on Fiverr because you're like, "I just need something. I need a placeholder," right? And then the company's gonna grow a little bit, your business is gonna mature a little bit, and you're like, "Right, now we need to invest in brand design 'cause the kind of work we're selling requires a sophistication and an elegance to it that we did not need before," right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So I think there's also a maturity there. 

Serena Reynolds: I'm, I'm gonna chuck this in here. So, so, um, so you're, you're absolutely right, and now you need a brand design. Now, a r- a, a, a relatively standard brand design is expensive. It is not a Fiverr job, and it is not a ChatGPT job. It's expensive. It talks about your tone of voice.

Serena Reynolds: It talks about your audience. It talks about everything in between, who your ideal, who your ideal persona is, who you're selling to. Like, you know, when you're talking about kids brands, you, you kind of want to invite the child to be excited, but you also, you're, you're selling- The parents ... to the mothers, mothers and grandparents.

Serena Reynolds: You're, [00:48:00] you're, you're catering to their concerns, but covering the child's enthusiasm. Okay, that has holes in if, if you don't do it properly So, you know, that's just an example, and I... So, so, so price anchoring, when it is so low against AI or fiverr.com and, yeah, I mean, this is, this is a very, uh, hot topic for me.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Yeah. And, and I think there's something around how do you differentiate yourself and make sure nobody's thinking you're in the same room with Fiverr and AI and all of these other kind of low-price platforms. And sometimes the best way to do that is actually just to have a higher price, right? Like, your price is exponentially higher.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: It's one step higher, and so you're gonna attract the people who understand this is an investment and this is something I need to pay well for, and you're gonna repel everybody else who shouldn't be there. This was something that we struggled with at the start of the [00:49:00] business because part of what we do in addition to pricing strategy is we do financial wellness and behavioral economics, and I kept trying to understand, like, how do I describe behavioral economics to people?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: How do I tell them what it is and why they need it and da, da, da, da? And eventually I realized that I can just say behavioral economics 'cause the banks that are buying behavioral economics in transformations, they know what it is and they know why they need it. And so to everybody else who's never gonna be a client, it sounds like gobbledygook.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: To the people who actually know what it is, want it, and understand, oh, you need it because you want to drive higher savings, more diversified investments, better financial outcomes for your customers, like, we, we have been thinking about behavioral economics. We do need somebody. Like, let's have a conversation, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So by leaving the technical term in there, I'm attracting the people who want it. I'm repelling everybody else who doesn't even know what it is. So there's something around not everybody's meant for you, and by having your price where it needs to be, you're not gonna get everybody knocking on your door, and that's not a bad thing 

Sara Ferrer: Great point.

Sara Ferrer: Great point. I think, uh, like that is worth [00:50:00] really honing into. Like, it's okay-- It's kind of when they say not everyone's meant to be your friend type of thing. Yeah. You know? Kind of that whole thing, like I have a, a friend of mine used to always say, "Oh, she's my bestie. She's my best friend." I said, "Well, shit, everyone's your best friend."

Sara Ferrer: Her ex-boyfriends are still her best friend. Everyone's her best friend. And I said, "Stop it. Stop it," because now you're expecting something that's just not realistic and you will lose in the end. And so, you know, I, I think, you know, as, as we've talked about financial decision-making and, and, and, and, and behavior around finances, we always like to kind of throw a curveball at our guests, um, that is usually nothing to do with what the conversation has been-

Sara Ferrer: talking about so far. As we kind of wrap up the conversation, we play a fun round of we're gonna ask you a question from our previous guests. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Oh, cool. Okay. 

Sara Ferrer: Yep. They are in a completely different industry. Um, we ask them, "Hey, what would you ask our next [00:51:00] guest?" After you answer this question, I'm gonna ask you what would you like to ask our next guest?

Sara Ferrer: It doesn't necessarily have to do with what you do for work. It can be about what you enjoy on your free time. But in your case, our last guest asked: If every day you could have three hours in your day that nobody else has, okay? These three hours only exist for you. What would you do with those three additional hours every day?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Oh, that's a good question. What would I do with three additional hours a day? I would probably like to spend more time actually reflecting and thinking. I don't feel like I have enough time to turn things off and just, like, exist as a human being and hear my own brain. Like, there's always something going on.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: There's always something, like ... And I think that is a discipline and, like, just incredible things that come from when you allow yourself to be in solitude and just hear yourself think. So I would love to have, like, an hour or so to be able to just hear myself think and [00:52:00] turn all the things off. I'm assuming that alongside these hours come the discipline to do the things that we're talking about.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So assuming I, with the hour, I also have the discipline to do this show. I want an hour to be able to hear myself think. Would love an hour to, ugh, I don't know, more consistently, like, I don't know, meditate or something. And I want an hour where I just get to faff around and not do anything or accomplish anything, right?

Etinosa Agbonlahor: I literally just want one hour where I'm not doing anything useful. I wanna watch TV. I wanna, like, read a trashy book. I wanna, like, not exist to the world. That is what I would love. One hour of just, like, nothing's expected from me, and I'm not gonna use it responsibly. That's what I want. 

Sara Ferrer: Oh, it sounds very responsible to me.

Sara Ferrer: You went through the gamut, though. You went from, like, quieting the active brain, meditating, to just watching some trash TV. You're, you captured, uh, the entire audience- ... for all of those hours. But I love [00:53:00] that. It's very thoughtful, right? Like, focus on what I need or what I'm thinking. You know? Three hours is actually a really long time.

Sara Ferrer: It's a really long time. It is. It is. I haven't last time spent three hours doing one thing. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Just anything. Yeah. 

Sara Ferrer: I love that answer, though. It's very well thought out. What would you like to ask our next guest? And again, it can be about anything 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: What have you learned from your greatest failure? 

Sara Ferrer: Ooh, what have you learned from your greatest failure?

Sara Ferrer: Okay, I've been known to do this. I've been known to ask the guests what they're gonna ask the next guest, but then it's such a good question, I'm like, "Okay, Etinosa, answer that question for us" because I feel like there's a story behind it. Like, that's such a powerful question, I feel like you would give us a great answer.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Oh, man. I think, like, the, the greatest failure that's top of mind for me right now is I had a-- I have a real estate portfolio. I did some lending out of the [00:54:00] portfolio, and then the borrower defaulted, and I immediately went into, like, action mode. Like, "Let's do a lawsuit. Let's get all the money back. Let's run after it."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: And then I ended up spending more in legal fees than the person actually owed me. And so, and then I had to get to the point, you know, between conversations with my dad and getting really upset at the lawyer and just having, like, a day that just, like, stole my entire peace. Like, I literally had no-- I couldn't sleep, I couldn't do anything, and I had, like, these big business objectives and a conference to lead the next morning, and I'm like, "Can't sleep 'cause I'm so upset by this situation."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: What I learned was that if it will steal your peace, it's not worth it. Let it go. Now, am I out, like, lots of money? I am. But, like, the peace of mind I have from just being like, "I'm done. I, I need to walk away from this and let everything go," has been quite a lot and very worth it, and also quite painful.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: But if I had sat down with myself last year at the start of this whole, like, debacle and said, "Is it worth it? Is it worth it?" I would have gone, "Do you know what? Let me just lose the money and walk away, and, like, not let my ego take the reins and make me feel like I gotta get my [00:55:00] money back and whatever."

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Like, we've learned a lesson. Stop doing stupid deals, right? We, we-- let's stop loaning money. Uh, stop it. We've learned the lesson. Let's move on. So I think that what I've learned from this whole thing is if something is gonna rob me of my peace of mind, it is not worth it at whatever cost. Protect your peace.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Peace is price-priceless. And so, like, hopefully this hel- stops me from making even bigger mistakes in the future. So maybe it's an investment in, like, preventing a bigger lesson down the line. 

Serena Reynolds: Do you know, sometimes I think saying it out loud actually cements this into, into our, into our psyche, into our path.

Serena Reynolds: So Sara, let's throw that question at you. What would you, what would you, um, what have you learned from your greatest failure? 

Sara Ferrer: I will tell you, I have learned... First of all, I, I think the irony of a price strategist saying that peace is priceless is, um, is very interesting. Um, I will just say high level what have I learned in...

Sara Ferrer: I have learned that many times my greatest failure would, [00:56:00] was many people's greatest achievements. I'm, I'm incredibly hard on myself. I think most people are, especially in a business context. Oh my God, everyone else can do it better. They can do it better. I'm struggling. I'm not figuring it out. Everyone, if given the same model, would, would grow it exponentially.

Sara Ferrer: And then you go, "Well, holy shit, wait. Wait, I, I know something. I, I actually grew something re- I did a great j- That person who I thought could just turn it around in two seconds can't do shit with it." So my greatest failure, and I've learned this, is assuming that someone el- that, not someone, everyone else can do it better.

Sara Ferrer: And, uh, I've quickly realized that, uh, no, everyone has different skill sets. Own what you do, um, especially within a business context, an entrepreneurial context, and that no one has the answer to anything. You know, uh, in this context, you know, hey, someone else can grow it better [00:57:00] because they know something I don't.

Sara Ferrer: Usually if you're on the ball and you're, you know, you're determined People can't just make magic happen. It's just hard work, grit, and determination. So that is what I'd say is the greatest failure is thinking I was failing, when in fact I wasn't. It was just part of the process. 

Serena Reynolds: I'm still learning every single day.

Serena Reynolds: Every failure, every learn- every lesson learned. I mean, I mean, it's no secret here, my, my biggest, my biggest failing is actually how to price myself properly, how to do that side of things. Um, I fail at it very often. I've read every book. I've got every kind of theory, methodology in place, and I know what I'm supposed to do.

Serena Reynolds: And one day I'm gonna learn from it, and that's, that's, um, where I'm going. Probably straight after this call as I send an email to someone. 

Sara Ferrer: Did you [00:58:00] hear when Etinosa said you're building the muscle? And I thought that was very interesting. You're building the muscle, you know. It's like, okay, this is hard, this is painful, this aches, this aches, this aches, but the conversations you're probably having this year are light years ahead of what you had five years ago, three years ago, maybe last year.

Serena Reynolds: But you see, I'm, I'm like, I'm like you, Sara, in, in, in, in many ways, as you know. But also I doubt my value, okay? There is no... And, and I know, I know that that's not true, but I had a conversation earlier today, um, about a client. Now I have already delivered well above expectations, and I've got a call with them this afternoon.

Serena Reynolds: I'm looking for more deliverables because I don't feel as though I've done enough, because I want to deliver [00:59:00] more. I want to show, I want everyone to know how wonderful I am. It's me, it's in me, it's my problem. And, and completely well over, completely well over value that they've got from me already. And yeah, and I, I need people around me to pull me back and sort of say, "No, sit down.

Serena Reynolds: Stop it. This is, this, you, you, you've already worked like ridiculous hours on this. This is now... You, you, you're done." So one day I will learn. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Have you done a sit down with your customers to kind of interview them about what is the value you got from me? What did it help you do? All of that stuff '

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Cause, 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: okay.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: 'Cause then having that and just having a sense of this is the value I deliver, this is what they got from it, and this is how much work it took to get, deliver that value can sometimes help with benchmarking, you know, what's the price and also just giving you that confidence too. 

Serena Reynolds: Well, if, if I'm honest with you, if I'm [01:00:00] honest, if, if, you know, just take another few minutes just for me, this all stems from, uh, abusive work relationships.

Serena Reynolds: There, there's no other way around it, so I, I am far worse than anybody else I know and I, and I appreciate this. Um, but I had, um, I had a client that owed me... So like you said, your peace of mind is very, very, is, is precious and you're absolutely right. Um, but I had a client and I saw what I was making them.

Serena Reynolds: Six months and he didn't pay me and then when he did, and when he did he, um, belittled me. Okay, this, this is for everyone out here, for all these women out here. We've got this. He actually in front of my son told me I was useless, worthless, I don't deserve a penny of it and I made him thousands and thousands [01:01:00] and thousands.

Serena Reynolds: Literally thousands. That has, that has set a seed that is really hard to, to break away from. So it's like you pay me what you think I'm worth, don't make me ask for it Um, which is not great for business 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: It's very dangerous. Very, very dangerous Not great for business 'Cause people are looking for a price to determine your, what you're worth- Yes

Etinosa Agbonlahor: not the other way around, right? 

Serena Reynolds: Oh, I, I always prove my worth. That's- 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Yeah ... 

Serena Reynolds: that's nev- that's never a question. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: It's more about the before you've proven your worth, like when they come into the room and you're like, "Tell me what, you know, what you think I'm worth," right? I say, for example, I say Fred is, you know, pay what you want, but when you click through to go make that payment on Stripe, we have a suggested number.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: There is an anchor there for people to know here's what we think it's worth, right? So there is still that, like, that range. 

Serena Reynolds: But I was in an abusive, I'm going to call it out here, an abusive work relationship for two [01:02:00] years. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Mm. 

Serena Reynolds: Where that was, that was a pattern of, of abuse. So, you know, relationship abuses and, and all the rest of it.

Serena Reynolds: I mean, I don't know why or how I got in that situation or, or, or any of it, or how or why I even s- sat with it for so long. That's, you know, that's, that's for an, that's for another bigger conversation, but I'm not the only one that's gone through that And in fact, Fearless and Flawed, this whole podcast was, was, was a spinoff from, from that to help other women deal with challenging situations that we sh- really, really...

Serena Reynolds: Because the conversations I've had with, with some people are not the conversations they would've had with a man. And I've come across this persona, my industry, what I do, and, and how I work, I have come across this persona a number of times [01:03:00] 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: And now do you feel like you have the tools to go, "Oh, I've seen you before and we're not gonna work together"?

Serena Reynolds: Oh, well, I'm, I'm already drafting an email to somebody right now in my head about how I'm going to end a relation- a, a business relationship because I cannot, cannot deliver for them for their prices and their demands. Um, so yes, lessons learnt. Still learning. Still learning. Still learning to get over that.

Serena Reynolds: Still learning to, to ask my worth and not feel as though I should go and apologize for it. Still learning this. This is, this is going to be a constant battle for a very long time, I can feel it. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: And, and one last, and one last thing I would like to add is that this stuff is hard. So let's be very clear.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Like, this is hard. It's difficult. It requires you uncoupling everything you've learned as a child, everything you've understood as a woman trying to navigate this in the world, and kind of sit down and going, "Hang on, [01:04:00] but what is the worth of my work?" And I need to be confident about that, and I need to present the, present the price with shakiness and doubt and not being sure they're gonna say yes.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: However, we're still gonna have to do it, right? 'Cause we need to eat and we need to feed our families, period. Right? So even though we've had this conversation about you need to do it and blah, blah, blah, like it is hard, and period. If it was easy, everyone would do it easily. You wouldn't need a pricing strategist to help you.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: It's supposed to be hard. 

Serena Reynolds: So just to caveat- And, and, and just, just to remind you, just, just to bring this full circle, our mothers, I'm guessing all of our mothers, couldn't get their own mortgage when they were 18. When they first got a job, they couldn't get their own mortgage. I'm guessing that, that right now So, so, you know, we're, we're that next generation down.

Serena Reynolds: We still have their learnings. We still have their positionings. We're still, we're still raised with that. You know, you know, the guilt of, the guilt of leaving our child at home as we [01:05:00] go out and work, the, the guilt of working from home and having to justify working harder because you, you've got a child, so, so people are looking at you.

Serena Reynolds: All of these things that we as women face day to day as owners, as business people. To me, the, the money side of it is the one thing I really don't wanna deal with. So it... That conversation I shy, shy away from. I tend to have the other bigger, harder conversations. But yeah, I mean, give ourself grace here.

Sara Ferrer: Serena, you have Etinosa and, like, this is literally... No, and a pain point solved. Like, like, this... And you're not unique. Etinosa is in business because people need this structure. Like she said, it's hard. I appreciate, you know, I think you're being incredibly honest, incredibly vulnerable, and I think a lot of us have shame around that.

Sara Ferrer: But I think that the more we talk about it and the more that we're aware, but then we're also have the ability to resolve [01:06:00] or to start resolving or untangling the narrative through productive, strategic, you know, uh, uh, foundations that- 

Serena Reynolds: And saying it out loud makes a difference ... 

Sara Ferrer: And saying it out loud, but then also having the- 

Serena Reynolds: Saying it out loud, calling it out.

Sara Ferrer: Correct. Correct. And for any, uh, Etinosa, for anyone listening who's like, "Listen, I identify with Serena," which I think a lot of people do. I do in many ways. "I identify with Serena. Um, this is hard. I run a business, or I'm a freelancer." How do people get in touch with you? How do people say, "Okay, I want, I want Fred the butler.

Sara Ferrer: Uh, I want the AI guide. I want, you know, I, the, the, the market landscape is changing with AI." Um, how do they get in touch? What's the website? Drop the deets. We'll also have you on our website as well, but just give a, give a shout-out for how to find you. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Absolutely. So everyone who's thinking through this and trying to work through it, start [01:07:00] with Fred.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Go to fred.decisionalpha.co. Fred is gonna walk you through the questions that I would ask you in, like, a standard kind of initial conversation. You're gonna work through your costs, think through where you're at with your pricing, identify kind of opportunity zones, et cetera. Fred is gonna give you a report.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Now, if you're looking at the report and you're like, "Oh, this does make sense. It resonates. I do wanna do some of these things, and I need help figuring out how to do it," Fred is gonna have a link for you to book an audit with me. You book that audit. It's free. It's a 15-minute conversation. Come in, we'll have a chat, and we'll figure out where to go from there.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: So start with Fred, fred.decisionalpha.co, and then we go from there 

Sara Ferrer: Love that. And again, we'll have all the details on our website, so fearlessandflawed.com. So if anyone's like, "Okay, I, I, I need to see it visually," we will have that. And, um, I have to say, Atiosa, this, you know, we, we've talked to a lot of women over the last, what, year, year and a half, Serena.

Sara Ferrer: Um, this is the first time I think we've really had some meaningful conversations, not just the emotion [01:08:00] around money, but the pathway forward. Um, and I have to say, hearing you really talk about your journey and where you're at now, there's such a, a reassurance and not-- what you're saying is not just what sounds good.

Sara Ferrer: It's based on, it's based on facts. It's based on psychology, and you stated many times 30%, uh, people are 30% more likely if you do this versus that, and I think that that is the takeaway I know that I'm going to be leaving this conversation with, which is when things feel uncomfortable or uncertain, root it, root it some type of, of, of, of foundation that you can build on.

Sara Ferrer: And, and, and I would advise, as I'm sure you would too, that foundation is not I feel. That foundation is here's some numbers that now I'm going to arrange to, you know, what, what the floor is, what the ceiling is. And so thank you, 'cause I think many women tend to lead with feeling, and that, that's good in certain conversations.

Sara Ferrer: But when it comes to money, [01:09:00] it doesn't necessarily, it doesn't sound like that's a great foundation, 'cause then you go haywire, and the, the house that you're building blows away because it's based on feelings 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Yep. Our freelancers are guides, but they kind of are the ones driving the car. 

Sara Ferrer: Yes, you will crash and burn, baby.

Serena Reynolds: But as women, we do lead with, I think, I believe, I this. And they're really weak statements. This is fact. These are the numbers. Here are the stats. It's really what we're saying, but we lead with- 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Let me caveat. Yeah ... 

Serena Reynolds: you'll see that this will indicate too, it's much softer. We are softer. Not that that's a bad thing, but maybe we need to look at our male counterparts and think, okay, maybe they're not so wrong.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Yeah. There's always a balance, right? There are situations where you want a team to come alongside with you, but you don't want to feel like you're telling them what to do. So the I thinks and I feel and have you considered, da, da, da, da, da. It's like you want to scream, "Just do the thing," but like you have to go [01:10:00] about it in a circle.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Sometimes that's useful. And then there's other times where like you are the leader in the room, and so therefore it's not I think, it's here's what we're gonna do, let's get it done, right? So I think to your point, Serena, I think. To your point, Serena, there's a dance

Sara Ferrer: and there's a balance here. Etinosa, so you have been absolutely wonderful. We will, uh, we're gonna absorb all of this guidance and advice, and anyone listening, please check out Decision Alpha, and, uh, we wish you just the best. Thank you for spending this time with us and educating our listeners. 

Etinosa Agbonlahor: Thank you so much for having me.

Etinosa Agbonlahor: I really enjoyed the conversation.