When was the last time you actually looked at your prices and asked whether they were still working? Mid-year feels like the worst possible time to have this conversation, which is exactly why it's the best one. You still have 5 to 6 months of bookings ahead of you to actually fix what's broken.

So today we're walking through why creatives avoid pricing audits in the first place (emotional resistance is real and I'm not above it), the patterns I see almost every single time I run one, the 4 inputs that actually have to be on the table, and how to roll a mid-year change out without losing the clients you actually want to keep.

In this episode

• Why pricing audits get skipped, and the emotional resistance underneath it (fear of losing clients, fear of the answer, fear of the work involved).
• Why the data is hard to look at alone, because the answer you already suspect is the one that's going to feel uncomfortable.
• The almost-universal pattern I see every single time I run a pricing audit: at least one offer mispriced by 15 to 30%, and it's usually the offer the owner felt most confident about.
• Why you're probably charging way less for your time now than you should be, because the skills, processes, and efficiency you've built in 3 years aren't reflected anywhere in your pricing.
• Why high mispricing also exists, when a too-high price kills your close rate and a too-low price kills your burn rate.
• The 1 or 2 offers an audit always surfaces that should have been retired 6 months ago.
• The 4 inputs the audit actually needs: close rate, effective hourly rate (revenue divided by hours you actually work, including admin and sales), refund and redo rate, and category-level revenue trends.
• Why "I'll just raise my prices by $200 across the board" is the wrong move, and what you'd miss by skipping the deeper inputs.
• How to roll out a mid-year change without losing the clients you want to keep, including staged pricing, the 3-month transition for retainer clients, and the scripted, unsentimental conversation that has to be the same for every client.
• The cost of waiting until December: pricing decisions made in November don't hit cash flow until next year, and every booked month at the old price is revenue you can't get back.

Links & Resources:

Website: Firestorm Finance | Bookkeeping for Creative Entrepreneurs

Podcast Home: Podcast | firestormfinance.com

Book a Discovery Call: Contact Firestorm Finance | Bookkeeping Support for Creatives

Listen & Subscribe:

1. Apple Podcasts: Creative Minds, Smart Money: Finance & Business Tips for Creatives
2. Spotify: Creative Minds, Smart Money: Finance & Business Tips for Creatives

Social:

1. Instagram: @firestormfinance
2. Threads: @firestormfinance
3. LinkedIn: Samantha Eck
4. Facebook: Firestorm Finance
5. YouTube: @FirestormFinance
6. Pinterest: Firestorm Finance

A few weeks ago when we talked about prepping for maternity leave, sabbaticals, and big life changes, I promised we'd come back to the 3 cash buckets that hold all of that together. Today's the episode.

If you have one savings account with no follow-up, that's usually the tell that you're going to lose sleep over cash this year. One account doing three jobs at once works fine until Q2 taxes, a slow season, and an opportunity all show up in the same month. So we're walking through the cash architecture that fixes that, why physical separation does the work that willpower can't, and how to build all three accounts without overwhelming yourself.

In this episode

• The tell that someone's going to lose sleep over cash this year, and what "I have a savings account" with no follow-up actually means.
• Why one account doing three jobs at once feels heavier than three accounts doing one job each, and the mid-year moment it usually breaks.
• Bucket 1: the tax reserve. What it's for, why it's untouchable, the 25% vs. 30% conversation, and why your tax number is based on net income (not revenue).
• Bucket 2: the emergency fund. Three to six months of operating expenses for when something breaks, when you take medical leave, or when a family member passes and you need time.
• Bucket 3: the opportunity fund. The savings bucket for hires, equipment, courses, and expansion, the stuff that costs more than $30 and turns "no" into "let me check my forecast."
• Why physical separation between accounts creates the clarity automatically, even when your willpower is fine, because one number doing 3 jobs is what makes the math feel heavy in the first place.
• What changes when this is set up: the tax bill arrives and the money's already there, a slow month doesn't trigger a credit card, and you start calculating risk against what's actually in each bucket instead of one big pile.
• The build order: tax reserve first, emergency fund slowly over time (even $10 at a time), opportunity fund last.
• Where this gets nuanced (your entity type, owner pay structure, deductions, state, revenue growth) and the parts of this conversation that belong with your CPA, not me.

Links & Resources:

Website: Firestorm Finance | Bookkeeping for Creative Entrepreneurs

Podcast Home: Podcast | firestormfinance.com

Book a Discovery Call: Contact Firestorm Finance | Bookkeeping Support for Creatives

Listen & Subscribe:

1. Apple Podcasts: Creative Minds, Smart Money: Finance & Business Tips for Creatives
2. Spotify: Creative Minds, Smart Money: Finance & Business Tips for Creatives

Social:

1. Instagram: @firestormfinance
2. Threads: @firestormfinance
3. LinkedIn: Samantha Eck
4. Facebook: Firestorm Finance
5. YouTube: @FirestormFinance
6. Pinterest: Firestorm Finance