Most women negotiate as though they’re asking for a favor. But as behavioral economist and Decision Alpha founder Etinosa Agbonlahor explains, asking to be paid is not begging, it’s a conversation about the measurable value of work already delivered.

In this episode of Fearless & Flawed, Etinosa joins Serena Reynolds and Sara Ferrer to unpack the psychology behind pricing, negotiation, and financial confidence. She explains why your worth as a human being should never be confused with the price of your services, then introduces a practical “pricing house” built around your cost floor, your customer’s willingness-to-pay ceiling, and the competitive alternatives in between.

The conversation explores why low prices can signal low quality, how anchors quietly influence buying decisions, and why presenting multiple packages moves the question from “Do I want to work with you?” to “How do I want to work with you?” Etinosa also shares the story of a $600,000 pricing project that changed her understanding of what was possible, and why authority, outcomes, and implementation can completely reshape the value of an offer.

What You’ll Learn:

• How to separate your personal worth from the value of your work
• How to use the pricing house to identify your floor, ceiling, and position
• Why anchors and multiple options change how customers make decisions
• How the “tyranny of low prices” can undermine trust in your offer
• Why using AI to work faster should not automatically reduce your price
• How to recognize when a client is not the right fit, and walk away

The conversation also turns deeply personal as Serena shares how an abusive working relationship affected her confidence around money, and Etinosa offers an important reminder: pricing is hard because it requires women to unlearn years of conditioning, but discomfort does not mean the price is wrong.

Listen now for a practical, honest conversation about charging with confidence, building authority, and protecting your peace.

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."

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: 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: 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.

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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.

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.

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: 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: 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: 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?

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: 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: 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: 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: '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: 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: '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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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? 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: 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: 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: 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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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."

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

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: 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: 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.

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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.

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: 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: 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: 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.

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...

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: 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: 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.

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: 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: 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.

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: 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.