While my favorite Irishman and I were drinking beer with friends in Boston last weekend, I learned something that blew me away.

There’s a brewery in Massachusetts called Tree House that charges $96 for a case of craft beer.

One hundred dollars. For a case. That’s 24 cans of beer.

For context, a case of Budweiser runs about $20. That’s 5x less expensive.

And this isn’t beer you can buy at your neighborhood beer shop.

It’s the stuff you only get by schlepping to the Tree House Brewery 90 minutes outside of Boston. Driving another 90 minutes back home. Then drinking it while watching the Patriots get trounced in Houston. (Sorry, Bill.)

In other words, it’s NOT easy or convenient to get your taste buds on it.

But people line up for hours to taste and buy their brew.

(And the itty bitty brewery where we downed sipped Irish Red served by the guy who brews it? They charge even more! You could drop $106-156 for 24 cans, depending on rarity and quality.)

My sticker shock made me realize I’m clearly out of touch.

With beer culture, anyway. But by the time I got back to NYC, I’d put it into perspective.

First of all, I don’t value beer the same way I value vodka.

And second, I don’t value those expensive craft beers, because they don’t taste THAT much different to me than a bottle of Sam Adams. Simply because I haven’t developed a palate for the nuances that make a really great beer.

(But give me a Tito’s martini and I’ll spit it out because that stuff gives me a terrible headache. Make mine with Ketel One or Grey Goose, please.)

The same sticker shock (and hangovers) can happen in our businesses.

For example, many business owners start out hiring a Bud Light coach, instead of a Tree House coach.

They don’t know, don’t care — or don’t value — what the cost difference brings them.

So they may drink a lot of Bud Light off the coaching assembly line — with self-studies or group programs. They get some info, then eventually outgrow their taste for it. Or get tired of the hangover from not getting the results they hoped for.

And that’s NOT a bad place to start. 👆🏼

(I mean, hey, we thought we were ballers in college when we drank Bud Light instead of the much cheaper Old Milwaukee’s Best.)

Going through that experience as business owners gets us to a point where we learn a few things. But ultimately, we  realize that assembly-line advice won’t put us into a position to command fees worthy of our value — or optimize our business for the profit and happiness as we deserve.

So as our business matures, we begin to develop a taste for better solutions.

And that’s when we place more value on the coach who charges 2 or 10 or 100 times more than the $197 program(s) we started out buying as business “lights.”

Take Jill and Jen who have been in business for 20 years, are pioneers in their industry and have a celebrity clientele.

Once they got past their sticker shock, they viscerally understood my value because I helped them see THEIR value. In their words,

“There’s no question that Carolyn helped us reboot our sense of worth and value in the world… and the world did not take long to respond to that! Within two months of working together, we landed a huge new project that combined our passion and expertise in a groundbreaking way, and we now have a platform to reach a much broader audience.”  

So when a potential client has a case of sticker shock when you quote your price? Figure out if they’re still in the “light” phase of business — or just need a better understanding of the value they’ll get by climbing into the Tree House with you.

Want to create a “Tree House” offer and be able to handle any corresponding sticker shock?

Come to one of my 2020 Business Design Workshops in NYC! There are only 8 participants per workshop to ensure you get my personal attention to clarify and optimize your highest priority value stream. And seats are on sale right now for $100 off: https://carolynherfurth.com/bdw