She set out to make $2,500. She made roughly $8,000 by raising her prices once.

Misha Laney has run Aloha ʻĀina Juice Cafe in Lihuʻe for thirteen years. Best açaí bowl on island. But she was charging well under every other juice bar on island, and had been for years. Her last price bump was a small one, about a year earlier. The way she describes her old pricing method is "throw shit at the wall." Meanwhile she was on the floor four days a week in ten-hour shifts, running two cafés, and taking home almost nothing after the bills.

The leak wasn't that she didn't know her prices were low. It's that she couldn't bring herself to move them. "I can't consciously charge $20 for an açaí bowl," she told me, even though every competitor already did. She grew up on her dad's line, "we're hard workers, not smart workers," and she carried it. Even her own niece, whom she mentored and who now runs her own juice bar, had told her straight: "Girlfriend, raise your prices." She still hadn't. When we first sat down she was honest about where she was at. "I've actually been in a space where I've been spiraling."

Misha and I go back to Catch A Wave, the local business contest she won in 2019. When I offered her a 90-minute Owner's Map, her fear was the one every underpriced owner has: raise prices and the customers walk. What got her to yes wasn't a pitch. She wanted someone from outside the business in her corner. And I took the risk off the table with the Win Your Money Back guarantee: when you hit the goal we set, I hand back every dollar you paid me.

In those 90 minutes the Owner's Map found the biggest leak fast. We picked one target to start: $2,500 in extra revenue in 60 days, from pricing alone. Week one she wrote every new price by hand. By late May the new prices were live in her register. And the thing she was terrified of never came. Nobody batted an eye. One lever, pulled by hand, done.

By late June we pulled the numbers up together in Square, her point-of-sale system. Across roughly a month of sales, and it wasn't even a full month of the new prices, the extra revenue came to roughly $8,000. She set out to make $2,500 and more than tripled it. Because it's a higher price on the same bowls, almost all of that is profit.

Here's the part I love. The guarantee said when she hits the goal, she wins her money back and I refund every dollar. She won it. When I told her the refund was hers, she said, "No. I paid you for your service." I offered again at the end of the call. She said no.

That's the whole story. A thirteen-year business, one Money Leak she couldn't see past, and roughly $8,000 back in her register from a single change she made herself. No customers upset. No new costs. Just money that was always hers, finally in the till.

Most owners on island have a leak like this one, and it is almost never where they think.

The 5-Minute Money Leak Check asks seven questions about how your money actually moves, then shows you the two places yours is most likely hiding. It's free, and your Snapshot comes up on the screen when you're done.

If it turns up something worth sitting down over, I'll offer you ninety minutes to put a real number on it. I'll be real, if that goes well I'd love to talk about working together. The check is worth your five minutes either way.

→ Take the 5-Minute Money Leak Check

Greg
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