It's a Friday afternoon in 2019. I'm sitting at a desk inside a banking Texas, staring at something that has been bugging me for weeks. Not a number yet, a pattern. And I kept noticing how much cash it was just sitting in our branches, idle, parked, earning nothing. That was my job. I read numbers all day. So I started digging. I built spreadsheets. One got so massive I had to close every other program on my computer just to open it. And when the picture finally came together, I realized how much excess we were sitting in. $14 million. And listen, that was my conservative number. I confirm it, I wrote it up, and I walk it upstairs. You know what I got for finding $14 million? Good job, Johnny. That's it. A good job in a handshake. Here's the thing: a handshake is not the story. The story is what happened in my car that same season. I was making $75,000 a year, and I have been rehearsing for weeks in the car, in the shower, walking into the building, how to ask for a $10,000 raise. $10,000. I had a whole speech. I had a backup argument for my backup arguments. I was nervous like I was asking to marry somebody's daughter. Do the math with me. Because I couldn't see it back then. I have found $14 million and I was scared to ask for $10,000. That's less than a tenth of 1% of the value I have just put it on the table. And I thought it was a big ask. Why? Because an employee doesn't price against the value he creates. An employee prices against his paycheck. And the paycheck was $75, so 10 felt like enormous. The $14 million never entered the equation. It wasn't my money, right? My anchor was my paycheck. Now here's why I'm telling you this. If you own a service business, you left the paycheck years ago. You are the owner now. But let me ask you something, and I want you to actually answer it. Who set your prices? Not what is your price. Who set it? Because somebody did. A specific person on a specific day sat down and picked that number. And I will bet you money that person doesn't exist anymore. I'm Johnny Terra, by the way. I'm a CPA and a partner on a multimillion dollar firm, and I coach owners and service business trades, practice, and agencies how to build companies that don't own them. Today is one big idea all the way down. Your prices are anchored to yesterday's identity. And the fix is not courage. The fix is a calendar. Say with me. By the end of this, you will have a system with four steps, one sentence to say to your clients, an assignment you can finish this week. Let me tell you where my anchor came from, because yours will have an orange story too. I limited taxes from Brazil at 20 years old with $200 and zero English. $200. For a while, my whole net worth fit in my pocket. And when you start there, every dollar looks huge. $20 was a fortune. $100 was a serious meeting with myself. And a few years later, I signed a car loan at 18% interest. 18. Because nobody taught me better and I didn't know I was allowed to ask for better. That's what money looked like to the version of me. Expensive, scarce, and is slightly out of reach. So when I started my firm, you know, nights and early mornings out of a pantry, 5 to 7 a.m. and 8 to 11 p.m. around the bank job. Guess who set the prices? That guy. The $200 guy. I charged what I felt huge to him. That guy. And the clients say yes so fast it made my head spin. No negotiation, no questions. Yes, when can we start? And I remember thinking, I was winning. Look at all of these yeses. Hmm, my friend, a fast yes is data. Every instant yes was a client quietly telling me, you're the cheapest quality option I've ever seen. I wasn't winning. I was praying for those bargains with my own sleep. I worked those pantry years at a price set by a scared kid who once thought 20 bucks was a fortune. And I call it hustle. Hey look, I want to be careful here because I'm grateful for that kid. The hustle got me started. It was a catalyst. It opened the doors. But the hustle was never supposed to be pricing department. Here's the line I want you to hold for the rest of this episode. I was an owner from 5 a.m., but I was an employee at 8 a.m. Same in, same day, two different anchors. At 5 a.m. in the pantry, the value I created was real. At 8 a.m. at the bank, I priced myself against the paycheck. And the pantry price came from the 8 a.m. brand. You do this too. Let me show you what it looks like from the outside. There's a sole CPA in town near me, a good CPA, sharp, careful, the kind of person you'll want on your side. Charged $1,000 for the piece of work. A thousand. And the client, a business owner, had happily paid $5,000 for the exact same work before, somewhere else. And considering money well spent, happily, five to one. The market had already voted on what this work is worth. He just never looked at the results. His number came from an old salary divided by hours, plus a little courage. That wasn't the price. That was memory. And I hear the other version every month from owners I coach. Somebody will say, and they will always say the exactly like this. I know I need to raise my prices, but this client has been with me for so long. Listen to that sentence. They already know. The knowing is not the problem. They've known for years. What they're really saying is the person this client hired doesn't feel allowed to send a different number. The price isn't protecting the relationship. The price is protecting an old identity. So here's the idea underneath all of this. And it's the one thing I will tattoo on the inside of the office door if you'll let me. You're not underpriced. You are just under-anchored. Value anchors migrate with identity. When you were an employee, the anchor was the paycheck. When you started the anchor survival, whatever kept the lights on, right? But today, today you have a track record. You have judgment. You've seen 500 versions of your client's problems, and you know which 20 details actually matter. The value you created move, it moved years ago. The anchor didn't. Because prices don't migrate on their own, okay? Somebody has to pick them up and carry them. And here's where everybody gets the fix wrong. Everybody thinks the fix is courage. Oh, get brave, feel worthy, then raise. So they wait to feel brave, and the feeling has no deadline, so it never comes. And the price sits there for five years, ten years. I've seen 15. I train my whole team on one sentence and it applies perfectly right here. What's scheduled to be measured gets done. You don't reprice when you feel brave, you'll reprice when the calendar says so. We take the biggest emotional decision in your business, and we make it boring. And I mean, that is the highest compliment because boring is what actually scales. The system is called the annual reprise ritual, and it's the whole thing tests and rests on one idea. Your price has a birthday. It was born on a specific day set by the specific person, usually a scared early version of you. Fine. Things with birthdays get review on birthdays. So four steps. Step one, give your price a birthday. Open your calendar and pick a date. One date, once a year, reoccurring forever. I will point you to the early October if you run on a calendar year. You've reviewed in October, you've announced in November, new price is taking effect January 1st, and your clients get 60 days of runway, which is respect. But honestly, pick any date you will keep. The date does the heavy lifting because now repricing is not a decision anymore, it's an appointment. Nobody needs courage for an appointment. Step two, on that date, run the three client test. Pull your three newest clients, not the oldest, the newest, the ones you price the most recent, with the most current version of you. And ask one question for each. Knowing everything you know now about what you actually deliver, you know, the judgment, the speed, the problems that have never happened because you're there. If this client walked in today, what number would you quote? Write the number down. Three clients, three numbers. Now compare to what they actually pay. That gap right there is your anchor gap, measuring dollars. Not a filling, a number. And most owners who does this honestly find the gap is 20, 30, sometimes a hundred percent. The test works because it sneaks past your identity, right? It doesn't ask, what am I worth? Which your old anchor answers. It asks, what would I call a stranger? Which your current judgment answers. Two different departments were just routing the question to the right one. Step three, do the napkin map. You know I love this part. Let's say your price is $100 and it costs you $70 to deliver. Your profit is $30. Raise the price 10%, just $10. New price, $110. Cost is still $70. Profit now is $40. Alright, follow me here. A 10% price increase just became a 33% profit increase. That's not a trick, it's just mathematics. Nobody sits still long enough to do it. And I run it on the other direction because this is the part that kills the fear. At those margins, you could lose one client in four after the raise and make the exact same money, working 25% less. The nightmare scenario, a quarter of your clients walking out, leaves you even with your evenings back. And while you have the napkin out, look at the bottom three clients, the ones they priced in another era. Some of them, after real cost in real hours, you're near zero. You may be under. And I'll tell you what I tell every owner who finds one of those. If the price only works because you work for free, that's not a price, that's a donation. And donations are beautiful at churches, of course, in its own purpose. Not hiding in row nine on one of your clients' list. Step four, send the one sentence. Don't send a letter, don't write three paragraphs about inflation, the cost of your feelings. It's just justifying an essay, is the old identity talking, and it apologizes for every line. One sentence, warm and plain. Hey, starting January 1st, my price for this work is this new number. Everything about how we take care of you stays exactly the same, and I wanted you to hear from me early so you can plan. That's it. You're not asking. Asking is the employee brain. That is me in that car, rehearsing for $10,000. You're informing months ahead, like a professional. Which is, by the way, exactly how insurance companies work. Your software, your landlord already talk to you. And for the one or two clients where it's genuinely complicated, a long story, a hard season, you pick up the phone and be a human being. But that's you choosing case by case. A discount you choose is generosity. A discount you never chose is just a drift with a friendly face. Okay. Objections round here because I can hear you arguing with me through these speakers. And I said most of these myself. But Johnny, this client has been with me for so long. Again, I love loyalty, so honor it on purpose. If you want to get grandfather your day one client at a special rate, do it, write it down, make a decision with a name on it. What you don't want to do is let every old client sit at 2019 prices by default, and you call the drift loyalty. Loyalty is something you choose. A drift is something you forgot to look at at. Johnny, they will all leave. Step three already answered this. One in four could leave and you still break even. And in all my years of reading PLs, I have never once seen a quarter of a client's base walk over a 10% move delivered with 60 days of notice. You know who does the leave? A donation client or two. And let me be straight with you, and that's the system working. Hey Johnny, my market won't pay more. The CPA from earlier, his market was already paying $5,000 happily to somebody else. His market was never the ceiling. His paycheck memory was the ceiling. So before you tell me what your market won't pay, go find out what the market is already paying. Because I promise somebody with your skills and less scar tissues is already charging more with a straight face. And then there's the real one. The one underneath all other three. Who am I to charge that? Mm-hmm. My friend, I know that question from the inside. That's not a pricing question, and no spreadsheet can answer it. That's the $200 kid asking. That's the 8 a.m. employee asking. And raising prices pull you out of your comfortable zone precisely because it's not really about money. And it's the moment you admit out loud on an invoice that you are not who you were. Some people never send that invoice because the math is so hard. Because the identity is also hard. I want to tell you what's actually on the other side because it's just not a fatter number. The owner who reprices on schedule serves fewer clients and better. The donation rolls come off the list, the panic leaves the margins, and the 10 extra hours a week stop being a fantasy. And then one Tuesday, you notice you're home at 6. Actually, home, phone in the drawer, and your kids don't need an appointment to get you. That's what the anchor gap was costing you. It was never just money, it was the evenings. And I look back at that kid who lended with $200 and honestly, I thank God for him. The grit, the 18% loan, he survived the pantry. He got me here. And I don't say that lightly. He just doesn't get to set my prices anymore. That's the difference between honor where you came from and billing from it. So here's your assignment, and it fits inside this week. Two moves. The first one, before you're out of the car and off the treadmill, open your calendar and give your price a birthday. One recurring date, once a year, forever. 10 seconds in a repricing store being someday. And second, run the three client tests before Friday. Three nearest clients, what would you quote them today? Write the gap down in real dollars. You don't have to raise anything yet. Just measure it. Once you see the number, you can unsee it. And I'm pushing you to do it this week because I care about your success. And here's the belief I want to leave in the card with you. You are allowed to be paid like the person you've become. Look, everything I make is free and they're gonna stay that way. I have a weekly letter on Substack, one system a week, including this whole ritual written down. And so the whole backlog is sitting there, take a lot of all of it. Time is going to pass either way, my friend. We'll get you started. Systems will set you free. God bless, and I'll see you next month.