Why Your Clients Care Less About Pricing Than You Think

Today, we tackle a situation that every established business owner eventually faces: what happens when a client comes back after years away and your business is completely different from the one they remember? We share real examples of our own experience, including a recent inquiry that forced us to revisit old pricing, old processes, and old assumptions. Along the way, we break down how we qualify leads, communicate value, navigate pricing conversations, and ensure we're working with clients who are the right fit for where our business is today.

Highlights:

00:00 - What happens when a client returns years later and your business has completely evolved.

04:45 - A shocking look at a suit we sold nine years ago reveals how much business owners can underestimate their value in the early stages.

07:00 - Why your goal should be better leads, not more leads. 

10:50 - What ChatGPT should never replace in your business.

13:00 - Why we never lead conversations with price and how to communicate effectively with luxury buyers. 

15:15 - The exact pre-qualification strategy we use when a prospect's expectations may be years out of date.

19:00 - How planting the right expectations early creates flexibility, trust, and stronger sales conversations later. 

25:15 - The approach we take when past clients return.

28:10 - Why you need to stop overcomplicating your pricing conversations.

30:30 - A final mindset shift on pricing that helps business owners stop apologizing for growth and start charging with confidence.

Resources + Links
Apply for Luxury Clothier Collective Mastermind  HERE
More resources for custom clothiers HERE
Watch on Youtube

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Appointment Only in IG: @appointmentonlypod

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm speaking about collective we, not just Danny and I, but collectively, we as custom clothiers and business owners, we ourselves are so much more in our own heads about our own prices than the people that are sitting across from us about to spend their own money. They care less, oftentimes, when you're working with the right people. This is Appointment Only, the podcast for custom clothiers and entrepreneurs building profitable high-end businesses. If you want control, profitability, and freedom from what feels like an endless hustle, this is for you. We're Kenny and Danny, twin brothers from day one and business partners for more than 15 years. We're sharing insights from our own experiences as luxury custom clothiers who built our own business from nothing. The highs, the lows, and what we've learned along the way that will help you build a high-end business you actually enjoy running and isn't running you. Clothier Coaching's official podcast. Appointment only starts now. We're between appointments right now, and we are having a conversation amongst ourselves. We figured why not bring you in on it. What the hell do you do? This is what we can do now. We can have be having a conversation in the main room and say, let's go put on headphones or go ahead and move this to the next room. Let's take this to the conference room. Maybe that's what we'll call our little studio here, the conference room. That's right. What the hell do you do when you were? And this has happened a number of times, certainly this year, but in years past as well. And I'm sure it's happened to you too. When someone comes back and they work with you again, but they haven't seen you in years. And oftentimes, well, in our case, we're at least one, but oftentimes many business iterations down the down the pike from the last time they worked with us. And by business iterations, we also mean price increases. Price increases. So the scenario is we we get reached out to by a former client who you who bought clothes either at one point in time or was a consistent buyer. We say former client because not everybody, just because you bought something once is a client. There's a big difference between a client and a customer. And if someone bought something once, we can really consider them to be a customer. As soon as they continue to come back, they're a client, but we only consider someone an active client if we've worked with them within the last, I don't know, nine to 12 months. If it's been a year plus, I consider them a former client. My assumption is they're not going to continue to buy because they for sure have more needs that we didn't address. And they're either not able or willing or wanting to meet those needs, or they're going to find some someone else who is going to meet those needs for them who costs less. And and they're in the queue for us to contact down the road. It's not like we will cut off communication after it's been 12 months. I don't go no contact with former customers or clients, but just as far as our when we when we speak about this stuff, when we use these terms, I want you to understand what we're talking about. So it's been a period of time, more than a year, multiple years, this person gets back in. Hey, I need I need more stuff. And you're looking at this inquiry and you're looking up their order and you're realizing, oh man, the last time they bought clothes, I was so far back price point-wise. What am I supposed to do with this person? The reason this is feeling fresh is because this has now happened to us a couple times this month. And we're going to talk to you about what we do and what we have done. But we got an email yesterday from someone who is not somebody that we've worked with in the past. We worked with a family member of this person, and he had mentioned, you know how this goes? They say, Oh, it was a couple years ago. This guy says, You worked with my brother a few years ago. I'm thinking, this name doesn't sound familiar. There's no way. To me, the name it was ringing a bell. It's a unique last name, but I'm trying to put a face to the name, and I am having a still time. So a few years ago, and you know how that goes. People say, you know, my sleeves are, my sleeves are six inches too short. And then you get a look at them, and it's like, oh yeah, maybe we could, maybe we could lengthen them, but actually it's probably not. You know, the way that people exaggerate. So this guy said, and he's not, he's not trying to exaggerate, he's just not really realizing how long it's been. My brother bought a suit from you uh a few years ago. So I look it up, it was nine years ago, a few times three, nine years ago. And boy, were we a couple business iterations back. Yeah. We worked with this guy, sat down with him in Chicago in our hotel. We let him buy one suit. I don't even want to tell you how much he paid for this suit. Well, I think people are curious to hear. Well, drum roll, please. Do you know? I don't know. I'm trying to drum roll. I'm gonna set my drink down. Well, maybe the editors can drum roll so we can get a proper. There we go. All right. So let me look up the last name. Sorry, you're not you're you're getting the the inside scoop, but I'm not giving you I'm not giving out names at this point. Uh, okay, let's see, QuickBooks. No, that's worse than I thought. Okay, hang on. No. Okay. I'm embarrassed to even say this. When we worked with this person, he bought a three-piece suit for $1,400. Oh, that hurts. A three-piece suit. That hurts. For $1,400. And we sold it to him out of town. We were staying in a hotel. We were off the clock. We were sitting down with him for an entire morning of a business trip. And we allowed him to pay 50% up front. The end. I quit. Oof. And you know what? You should quit on me too. You know, I think that it's a testament to a couple of things. A, let's just enjoy how far we've come. Yeah, that's a good perspective. And the things that we absolutely would not be putting up with or letting people get away with now. Let's also not forget where we came from and understand that there may be some of you listening who sound like who feel like that actually sounds pretty good. And let me tell you right now, as we as we're probably here nine years down the road, I am embarrassed at that price point. I'm embarrassed that that was not for a two-piece suit. I would be embarrassed for that being a two-piece suit now. That was a three-piece suit, and we were out of town and we let it happen. That's horrible. But anywho, I feel sick to myself. I think I'm going to pew. This guy's brother reached out. This guy's brother reached out yesterday and wants to work with us now. So imagine my concern. Imagine my concern going into this with him. I'm not just going to go ahead and get him scheduled. There are quite a few conversations that we need to have. And that's something that I think many custom clothiers don't do correctly. Is I feel like they allow themselves to be qualified by a potential client, but they don't do any qualification for themselves. So they're not doing their own qualification of these incoming leads because they assume, oh, well, it's a referral, so I need to honor it regardless. Or they're just happy to get the lead. They're just, they really want to meet with this person. You know what I'll say about this? You know what I'll say about this? I too am always happy to see a lead. There's this thing that happens in my stomach. Oh, yeah. You know the feeling, right? When you s when you get that notification on your phone. Today. New lead. Oh, ooh. Oh, that feels good. Yeah. Although it doesn't always materialize. It quite often does not. But that that I that probably will never go away. I mean, we've been doing this a very long time. We're in our 15th business year. And I still get excited every time I see new lead icon pop up. But I've said this for years. I don't want more leads. I want better leads. And that's what we're building our business for. That's what we're focused on as we run this business and as our business iterations have changed. It's been more focused on it, isn't about volume and more, more, more. It's about better, better, better, which means fewer, fewer, fewer. Right. So there has to be a level of qualification that happens when when before you work with somebody. You have to make sure that they understand what the expectations of them are. Not just that they understand what their expectations of you should be. You need to have an understanding so that you're going into your appointments or your meetings or your dealings with your clients confident that this is going to yield a result that you are happy with, which is our responsibility as business owners. But I think there's really, as we look at sort of this situation that we find ourselves in, that we've been finding ourselves in, that I know you've found yourselves in as well, there's really a couple different ways you can go about it. And it's sort of case by case. It's not a blanket one size fits all approach for getting somebody to get from your old business structure to the new way you're operating your business, from your old prices to your new prices, from your old process or your lack of process to the way you're running your business now. But there are a couple ways you can go about it. And in this particular case, this email that we're telling you about, this is gonna require some pre-qualification conversations on the front end. We're gonna have to sit down. The three of us, Danny, me, and our good friend ChatGPT, are gonna have to put together a nice, concise, clear, direct email that spells out the process, the prices, and the expectations before we even continue down this road. And it's it's going to start like our prompts to Chat GPT are really gonna be like, hey, we want this to be friendly, we want this to be approachable. But the information we want to be received from this email are, and it's gonna be, you know, our our our prices have gone up since your brother worked with us last. So I'm not sure what he's communicated as far as what to expect price point-wise, but here's a link to our new pricing page. Understand that, you know, there's a range in fabrics and we have order minimums now. So, you know, I think he his lead said he wanted a jacket. Well, I forgot. Well, and that's the other thing is his lead is his lead is for a jacket. That's another thing that's different, is now we enforce very strictly order minimums and a jacket doesn't hit it. So that's another part of the conversation that we're gonna have to explain to him is, you know, yes, we can do this, however, here's the cost, and you can't just do a jacket. So there's quite a few things that need to be uh checked off that list. Let me let me just take a let me just take a crack at an email response to this guy. And then you can take a crack at it. Well, and I want to just share one thing before we start cracking. Okay. Is I want to talk to you about Chat GPT for one second. Chat GPT is a great resource, it's a great tool. However, I would strongly advise you don't allow it to be your new mouthpiece. It is very, very obvious when you're using Chat GPT to write your emails. And we primarily still will sit down and write a really, really well thought out, clear, straightforward email. And the way we use chat is by putting it in and say, make sure this sounds really nice. Make sure there's no way anything I'm saying could possibly be received in a negative way. That's how we use it. We don't say, write me this email to this person, send right that's that's a big mistake. And I really feel like if you're running the luxury caliber business that you want to be running, the least you can be doing is you can be the one communicating to your clients. They can tell. They it doesn't, it doesn't matter if they're a good writer or not, or how smart somebody is, they can tell when chat is talking about. And I think it's important too to not rely too heavily on Chat GPT or, you know, fill in the blank of your your AI of choice because it we need to stay sharp. We want to stay sharp in in business, and we need to stay active in our responses and in our communications with not just our clients, but other people that we're in business with or alongside. And I I do think that there is going to be as life continues to unfold and AI continues to uh become better and better, there is going to be an element of people feeling like they can turn their brain off at times. And we don't want to be in a position where our brain is ever turned off. We always want to stay sharp, we always want to stay diligent, and we can utilize what the tools at our disposal in AI to help us do our job better, but we still have to do the job. And it is obvious when somebody has their brain turned off and they're allowing chat or whatever to do the job for them. So before we get into responses, the other thing I just want to make clear here is some of you are probably saying, Well, I thought you were so direct. I thought you prided yourselves on your communication. Why not just tell them your prices have gone up? Well, the reason why we don't just lead with that and say it like that is because we don't want to lead with price. We never have and we never will. In our minds, the cost, the price is a factor. But as soon as we start leading with it, we turn it into the most important thing. And we don't see price and cost as the most important thing when we're selling our luxury custom suits. We see performance, we see the fabrics, we see their needs, we see versatility, we see mix and match, we see our own expertise all as more important than the price tag. So if we were to just come out and say, here's what it costs, now all of a sudden we're funneling everything we do, everything we say, every element of our process through the diffuser of price. And that's the opposite message that we want to communicate. So that's why we don't lead with it. Because luxury buyers, they don't make decisions based on price exclusively. In fact, price it might play a factor in certain decisions that they make, but they make decisions based on the result that they want. As soon as they identify this is the company or this is the person who can help me achieve this result, it doesn't matter what it's going to cost. It doesn't. As long as they can afford it, which the definition of afford literally is do you have access to the amount of money that this costs? So assuming that it's not going to be an astronomical, you know, seven-figure dollar amount to buy a suit, they're going to spend the money that it's going to cost because you are the one who has communicated effectively to them. You are the one who they know can help them meet their need. And the price almost becomes a non-issue. Not every time, but often when you're working with the right types of people. So as far as upfront communication and qualifying them ahead of time, Danny's gonna give this a shot here and just a off-the-cuff response. This is like pretend we're speak texting into the notes app for the first draft of this email qualification. And that's what we're doing here. And then after we've given this a try, we'll talk about how we more frequently transition people from old business into new iteration of business. So for now, we're just we're spitballing. What should his name be? Let's have his name be uh Dan. Sure. Hey Dan. Thanks for reaching out. Nice to hear from you. We do remember working with your brother. That was actually nine years ago. Wow, time sure does fly by. As far as an upcoming appointment goes, yes, we will be able to schedule something at the time that you are in town. Oh, that's the other thing. Timeout. He's looking ahead to the summer and he's he's only, I guess he doesn't live here. So he was trying to get in our calendar for a time in the summer, which is no problem. He's giving us lots of availability. What we're doing though, however, is if we're scheduling him, it doesn't matter what comes in, we got to see him. So if we're going to promise that we're gonna be here ready for him and agreeing to this order, that means we have that day is no longer available for us. So, you know, there's a reason we have an order minimum. It's because we need to make sure that our time is used as best as possible. Okay, so back in the game in. Yep, time in. Yes, looking at our calendar, we should be able to find a day and a time that works well for your fitting. Before we get to the scheduling, we do want to confirm a few things. First of all, we want to make sure that you're aware of where our prices currently are. Here's a link to our pricing page on our website. Additionally, we do enforce an order minimum with every appointment that we take on, period. Oh, period. I'm literally like that's perfect. My brain is like acting. I'm like thinking I'm speak texting into the phone. Yeah. This is how we do it, guys. This is what we do is we speak at first, then we sit down and we comb through it. There isn't go ahead and put a period there. If you're copying this, go ahead and put a period there. We do have an order minimum for every appointment that we take on. That order minimum is at least the equivalent of a full suit. You mentioned you were looking for a jacket, so we're most of the way there. Period. Period. Maybe we should be voice texting this. We could get this email sent before the end of the approach. We're most of the way there. Uh please confirm that you've taken a look at where our prices are and that you're committed to doing at least a trouser to go with the jacket. We would recommend, based on your needs, that we actually do a couple of jackets, which will hit the order minimum as well. Up to you, and we can figure everything out when we're together in person. Please let us know if this sounds good and we will send you our availability. Perfect. So that's what we'd start with. We'd run it through chat to make sure. Period. Period. And I was gonna, the only thing I was gonna add was that I was gonna suggest on the front end that we actually do that at least two jackets, not just the one, because uh it's he was already listing some specifications and there's some reasons why he wants to do it custom versus but he can't find it anywhere. So anytime somebody's putting those sorts of things out there, it's really important that they have, you know, at least a couple. Because what happens if they leave it on a plane or if they're they rip it accidentally? Now they're right back to where we started, which was they have a need and they don't have anything. So it is important to get ahead of that. And that is what we would have be having those conversations about. And we're planting the seed also, not just knowing that he doesn't have anything and he's looking for something specific, so you could actually use more than one. We're planting the seed of some flexibility. You know, we'd recommend what we require of the order minimum that it be at least the equivalent of a full suit. So pair of pants. You also could probably use an additional jacket. But if he responds and says, Oh, those are great points, sounds great. Let's, you know, let's get something scheduled. Exactly. We know that we have planted the seed of some financial flexibility, which is which is great because we're gonna be able to meet more of his needs, but we actually can then take him through a real process as opposed to coming at him and say, our prices are different. Here's the least expensive uh sport coat that we'll sell you. Does this date work? Because now we're capped. Right. And we've already communicated this is this is what it's gonna cost. So he's gonna come in knowing this is what I'm gonna spend. We are not gonna have any success actually talking about meeting his broader needs. But if we leave things a little bit more fluid and we say something along the lines of what I said in the pretend draft of you got to be able to add a pant, we'd also recommend a jacket. And he seems relatively open to that, that puts everybody in a much better position. It communicates to us that he's flexible, he's open, and he's interested in hearing our recommendations because we are the experts here. We're not just order takers where we someone says, I want this, we say, okay, and we get them out. And you're not either. You're not an order taker either. And this this whole pre-qualification situation, this could be applied to whatever line of work you're in. If you're a landscaper and you did somebody's entire backyard redo 10 years ago and now their sister is reaching out and they want to use you, you better be having a conversation about what that might cost this year, given to today and what is going on now versus then. Especially if you're getting the sense that, especially if you know that that person 10 years ago was price conscious. You know, you need these you owe it to yourself to get this information. And there's nothing weird about it. There's nothing uncomfortable about it to them as they're receiving it, but it is really important to you. And you also go into the meeting then with more information where you're not wondering, oh my gosh, am I gonna just spend the next however long with this guy? Get to the very end where we're talking about price, which is also something that we train you out of in million dollar manual. We talk about the perfect place to talk price and why it's the perfect place and why every other place you're talking price is wrong. But when you get to the end and there's no guarantee that this person's committed, you don't know if they're gonna be okay with the number because you haven't talked about it. And the only information they have about your pricing is almost 10 years old. So it prevents that from happening. The other way, the more common way actually, that we handle this situation where somebody is coming back in and we haven't worked with them for a while. The everything that we're doing, the quality of what we're selling, the average cost of a suit, the way that we are encouraging different sorts of added pieces, everything looks totally different than the last time we sat down with this person. What we typically do is not have all sorts of conversations ahead of time. Because one thing that hasn't changed in the entire time we've been in business is we have not changed the way that we expect people to be committed when they come in. They don't think they're getting a consultation. And the prefitting email spells out the fact that we take payment in full now, which is different than what it was up until 2020. So that is the one change. If somebody hadn't, we haven't seen them since 2019, that's one piece of information that might be new. So they get that information ahead of time. But going into the appointment, we just have the knowledge of the fact that there are some things that we need to be able to communicate in a way that feels like uh it's giving them the information they need without belaboring the information. So most of the time we just send them the same email that we send everybody else. It doesn't matter if the last time they worked with us was eight years ago, they get the same email that everybody else gets. And we assume that they, not unlike us, have continued to make more money than they did, and they are ready for where we're at today. It doesn't have to be more complicated than that. And from the from the moment they pull into this neighborhood where we're operating now and walk into our new shop that was designed so intentionally, there's nothing about the way our business presents that even resembles the way that it used to look, as far as the overall vibe, the energy, the way we're we are dressed, what we're wearing, the fabrics that you see in our fabric wall. There's nothing that's the same. It feels like a totally different business. Even though we're still here, we're still doing the stuff, it's still us, but everything's changed. And when we see them and we're we're catching up, we are communicating to them like this is a it's a little bit of a different business now. And instead of taking them through the whole sales process as it's as it's spelled out from start to finish in million dollar manual, which is still when you're working with someone for the first time and you're, you know, at a certain level and you're working towards getting to that, you know, million-dollar point, that is still the way to do it, in my opinion. But instead of doing it like that, we do mention price early. With a lot of wedding appointments. Oh, yeah. It's yes. Season two of Appointment Only is I think when we're finally gonna get into all this wedding stuff. We've been no we've known that we need to do. We're gonna do an entire series about the wedding industry, how to do it, how not to do it, why we're not crazy about it, the ugly truth behind it. But that's a whole that's a big, that's a big undertaking. Because I want to be careful about how we say certain things. Because I still, we still do wedding suits. Oh, yeah. Not nearly like we did. We still do them for the right times types of people who are in the right headspace to work in a business like ours. We do wedding suits for people who want to get their wedding suits from us. What we're not doing is doing wedding suits for people who want a custom suit for their wedding. We have enough red tape in the scheduling and in the qualification where if all they want is a custom suit, there are 10 other places that they will likely find themselves because they're easier, they're less expensive, they're more catered to people on the hunt and in shopping mode. Even in this neighborhood, there's one right across the street you could go to, there's another down the street, uh half a block. You got options. You don't need to be here. So if someone's here at the arguably the least convenient and the most expensive place they could buy their wedding suit, they've got to really want it. Yeah. So using this sort of wedding thing as an example, let's say for this example now, we're working with someone named Ken. Okay. Let's say we did Ken's wedding suit in 2019. Okay. Ken reaches out and he says, Hey guys, it's been a while. Hope you're doing good. Uh, I got my wedding suit from you. It looked great. Here's a photo. I'm starting to need some things for work, and I want to come in and get some things going for you. Let me know what your availability looks like. Okay. That's a lead that I would love to see personally. And it's a lead that we see a lot of that type of thing. Now, because we've already worked with Ken, there are certain conversations we don't need to have with him. This is also not the time where we're gonna say, Hey, by the way, our prices have increased. Ken knows. Ken knows and he's ready for it. And he's gonna come in and he wants to work with us. He's choosing to because he's already done it and he knows it's worth it. So in this situation, we would just schedule Ken. And when he comes in, we would do our thing, we'd get him remeasured, we'd sit down, we'd be looking through fabrics, and as we're looking through fabrics, that is when we would mention the price. Yeah, we would mention it. I I mean, we've said before that so many people are dumb, but also so many people are smart. They can put the pieces together. When you have somebody reaching out after it's been X number of years, their assumption is that it's going to cost more. Their assumption is not that it's going to cost the exact same as the first time they ever went through the process. You're still in business, they're still working. I don't think anybody reaching out to us after a period of years is making less money than they were making when we worked with them the first time. Like we've all grown, we've all moved, we've all done things different in our lives and in our jobs. And the assumption is that when you do something years down the road, it's going to cost more. And their experience is going to be elevated because, yeah, we're going to charge them a lot more, but we've done things differently to our business as well. So I love it when we work with somebody from 2017, 2018, 2019. Because when they get a the when they get a peek into what we're doing now, they are thrilled because it's it's much more streamlined. And yeah, it's more expensive. Of course it is. But the the end result and the the experience leading to the end result are elevated too. Everything is elevated, including the price. So that's typically how we end up doing it. We don't generally need to spell everything out ahead of time and do all this pre-qualification, although we still will and we still do, and we're not afraid to. But usually it's up to you to take a look at what you have incoming and make the executive decision on here's how I'm going to handle it. And I would encourage you to handle, especially the price thing, because that's sensitive and that's important. And a lot of times we ourselves, I'm speaking about collective, we, not just Danny and I, but collectively, we as custom clothiers and business owners, we ourselves are so much more in our own heads about our own prices than the people that are sitting across from us about to spend their own money. They care less, oftentimes, when you're working with the right people about what something costs than we care about talking about the cost because they're doing this so infrequently. They're buying clothes for work so infrequently compared to the frequency in which we're working with people who are buying clothes. We're working with people who are buying clothes every single day. And we have price conversations every single day. Depending on how many wedding clients that you're working with, we're having so many, what feels like pulling teeth, financial conversations because we're dealing with wedding budgets and awkwardness surrounding that. And it's top of mind for us. But when we're working with somebody who has experience with us before and they're coming back in, they probably the last time they bought suits was the last time they worked with you. They're expecting to spend money. That's the plan. So we're so much more in our own heads as the people providing them with the thing about the money. And they're like, yeah, this is par for the course. I'm I'm planning to spend money. Like this is my, these are my work clothes. Of course I'm gonna spend money. It's just one of those things, and it it has to be trained out of us as custom clothiers, as business owners, this this fear of talking price or fear of uh having financial conversations. Well, and what I don't understand, and I I understand it in the in the extent that we we did used to do it like this, but what I don't understand now is the uh sort of the pushback that we get when we talk about this. In what world is it better for you to be because you don't want to have a certain conversation, whether that's ahead of time via email or as you're just kind of at the beginning of the appointment, why not throw it out there when you're in catching up mode? I mean, that's all you're doing. Hey, you know, just so you know, this is what we're doing. It's casual, it's chill. Yeah, it might feel a little awkward, but it's really good for them to have that information too, because the alternative is that you don't know what you're getting into. You don't know where this is gonna go. They also have no idea what they're getting into or where this is gonna go. They've probably made some assumptions, some of which may be correct, some of them may not be correct on what things are gonna cost. But you're going through the entire whole process and everybody's waiting for the other person to speak first and to give the real information, and everybody's wondering how this is gonna end. That is so much worse than being in control of the messaging and communicating what you need to communicate and allowing the opportunity for that person to receive that information and make an educated decision. You're in a much better spot when you stay in control, when you can communicate the information about your own business. And all that to say, there's really one of two ways that working with somebody in today's day and age that you have previously worked with in a past iteration of your business are gonna go. Either you're gonna understand, okay, I'm gonna need to have some explicit conversations on the front end as I qualify this person to make sure we're we're on the same page and we're gonna go to the finish line together, or you can just do your thing in the way that you normally do it and just assume this person is smart enough to put the pieces together. We worked with somebody in 2018, I want to say, I think. It's either 2018 or 2019. We're either way, it's been a long time. And it was two of our locations ago, so multiple business iterations ago. And we reached out to this guy over the years quite a few times. We never even got so much as a response back. And uh we randomly reached out to him the other day and said, Hey, we moved, we know you have needs, you want to come in? And he responded, and he's we have him scheduled for the end of next week. The way we're gonna go into that is we're just gonna do our thing. It is what it is, it's gonna cost what it's gonna cost. If he would have come in at any point between when he originally placed orders and any other time we tried to get him back in, he would have spent a lot less than he's about to spend the end of next week. But that's the deal, and he knows it. And we're not gonna, we're not gonna make this all about cost because that's not where his brain is at. He's a professional guy, he's in finance, he's good, he can afford it. He knows what he's getting into. And we're just gonna do our thing and it's gonna cost what it's gonna cost. And we're gonna take him through our process and we're gonna give our expert opinions and uh advice, and we're gonna take him through an awesome afternoon. And it's the best feeling when you're looking in your calendar and you're like, oh, that's gonna be a good meeting. Yeah, I'm gonna make it. I'm gonna make some good money there. Oh, that person is gonna make some good money. That's how we're feeling about this. I'm not nervous about how this is gonna go or if he's gonna be okay with the fact that he's not gonna buy a $1,500 suit. Whether he knows it or not, he is gonna be okay. Yeah, and he's gonna experience the all-around elevation when he comes and sees us here. And he also told us the last time he bought suits was the last time he bought suits from us. So he has had six or seven years to prep for the amount of money that he's gonna spend. He'll be fine. He'll be good. He's a professional, he has he's gainfully employed, and he has been ever since we worked with him the first time. He's gonna be fine. And that's how we typically do it with people. And that's how you can do it too. You do not need to feel obligated to lead with price increases. I think that's part of why everyone's always so scared about raising their prices, is they feel like they have the obligation now to have that conversation. To tell everybody. Everybody, oh, now I need to tell everybody I work with that my prices cost more now. No, you don't. It's your business. You can do whatever, you could raise your prices every day if you want, and your and your product justifies it and you're increasing the value you're providing. You know, obviously that's I wouldn't recommend it. Um, that might be tough, but it's you can do whatever you want. This is your business. You don't have to lead with price. In fact, I think if you are, it's costing you money, whether you realize it or not. So that's what we're thinking about in between appointments. And we wanted to bring that to you as our regulars. And if you have anything you want to talk through or have us talk about on the podcast, please let us know. Shoot us a DM. You can learn more about us and about our clothier coaching options in our bio on Instagram. Thanks so much for listening. Your appointment's over. We'll see you for your next one. If you're a custom clothier and you want to be more profitable, less stressed, and work with more of your target demographic client who spends more and buys more often, we share our exact strategies on how to do that and our resources available now on clothiercoaching.com, including Million Dollar Manual, our playbook for turning your six-figure business into a custom clothing business that makes more than a million dollars every year. For higher touch, more direct access to us, we have a small mentorship group called Luxury Clothier Collective, where we're actively helping clothiers around the country become their markets leader. If you're serious about finally building that profitable luxury custom clothing business you've always wanted, this is your next move. Join the wait list and we'll let you know when enrollment opens again. Thanks for listening.