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About This Episode
Did you know that consistently undercharging in your business steals from your family? When you work with integrity and deliver high-quality products and services to customers, you should be paid what you're worth. In this episode, Nathan discusses how he learned this the hard way as a general contractor, and how he strategically invests in his businesses to spend more time with his family in order to leave a relational and financial inheritance.
Nathan warns listeners that he's "a little bit fired up" in this combination personal finance and business episode that applies to business owners, employees, and consumers. He was inspired by Episode 193 of the Real AF Podcast about charging friends and family.
How I Learned to Charge Full Price
Nathan used to stress over estimates, thinking his total was too expensive. He'd squeeze savings here and there, getting the number to what felt reasonable, but always ended up working for free the last week or two on jobs. Despite this, he never did crappy work because he knew delivering near-perfect products was important for business integrity.
A friend helped him understand that not charging appropriately actually steals from his kids, referencing Proverbs 13:22: "A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children." When building businesses and employing people, the result should be wealth for children's children if you're being obedient, growing professionally, and using talents God gave you.
The Family Cost of Not Charging Appropriately
Undercharging means working more hours—under vanities fixing plumbing, touching up jobs—instead of being home for dinner table leadership, family worship, loving his wife in front of kids so they know marriage is good, wrestling with kids, and chasing them around the yard. All the activities that help children grow up productive and God-fearing are sacrificed when you don't know how to price jobs correctly.
Nathan argues it's not wrong to make money or have profits left over after paying everyone, rent, insurance, and taxes. The business needs leftover money to grow, improve, continue serving people better. If you can barely pay everyone including yourself with nothing left for growth and improvement, you didn't charge enough.
Real Friends are Willing to Pay Full Price
Nathan strongly advocates that real friends pay full price for friends' businesses. Don't expect discounts. In a free market economy, if a business has been successful for a while, you can be confident the price is right—they wouldn't still be in business if they were selling something crappy.
He addresses the misconception that being broke makes you inherently moral. It likely means you don't value your time enough or don't know how to work well. People will try to take your time for free or less than it's worth, but real friends don't do that.
Nathan clarifies he's not advocating charging friends to help move or always making people pay full price. He does free work sometimes by choice, and he's able to because he charges full price everywhere else, creating margin to help people, donate to fundraisers, and invest in generational community projects.
Support Great Businesses: Vote with Your Dollar
Nathan criticizes the "use once, throw away" mentality and losing sight of quality. He's frustrated by good people, especially in the church, who think making money is inherently bad while wanting discounts from good businesses. When they get quotes from quality businesses, they hire cheaper alternatives and are surprised by terrible results.
Going to a friend's store, finding an item you like, then buying it on Amazon instead is shameful—they curated an experience and paid for you to find that item, but you gave money to a global corporation instead.
His call to action: Find friends with businesses you believe in and buy their products. Find businesses that stand up for the right things and support them. Pay full price. Tell friends about them. Conversely, vote with your money against businesses providing poor service—let the free market find them rather than being mean or giving one-star reviews.
"We've got to help each other. We've got to support businesses that are doing good things out there by paying full price."