What Super Bowl Ads Teach Small Businesses About Marketing

Originally aired Monday, February 9, 2026. Businessing is now a weekly show with a new episode every Monday.

Short answer: A good ad has to get noticed and be remembered for your brand, not just the celebrity or the joke. Show the product doing its job, make the next step dead simple, and picture exactly who buys from you. Don't ask people to do something they'd never do, like leave a big game to enter a contest at work. That money is wasted.

The day after the Super Bowl, I graded the ads as good, better and best. Then I quizzed you on whether you could remember who paid for them. Most people couldn't, and that's the lesson. An ad has to be noticed and remembered for the brand. I also broke down the biggest miss. It was a million-dollar contest that asked viewers to stop watching the game and use a work app to enter. In the Idea Slam, I answered two questions. I keep saying this year will be different, so why isn't it? And how do I raise prices on clients who are still on old rates? I closed with Olympic ski drones and why I wish our families could see what we do all day.

Businessing is the weekly show where small business owners figure out what to do next, with a new episode every Monday. Hosted by Pat Miller, founder of the Small Business Owners Community: owners only, nobody pitching, $19 a month.

Key takeaways

• Judge any ad you run by two tests: will people notice it, and will they remember it was yours?
• Show your product doing its job in the ad, so the memory sticks to your brand and not just the joke.
• Before launching a promotion, picture who actually buys from you and whether they'd really take the step you're asking.
• If this year looks like last year, list what you're doing differently each week, like doubling your sales calls.
• To raise prices, weigh how full your schedule is, how long clients stay and how fast they turn over.

Questions this episode answers

What makes an advertisement effective for a small business?

It has to get noticed and be remembered for your brand. Many big-budget ads get attention but nobody can say who paid for them. Show the product doing its job and make the next step easy, so the attention turns into customers.

How do I raise my prices on existing clients?

It depends on how full you are and how long clients stay. If you're nearly sold out and still need more revenue, you may need to raise rates on current clients. If you have room, raise prices for new clients now. If clients turn over every month or quarter, most will be on the new rate soon anyway.

How often should a small business raise its prices?

Often enough that you can say when you last did it. If you can't remember, it's been too long. Even with no growth goals, inflation means flat rates leave you earning less real money every year.

Why does my business feel the same every year even with new goals?

Because better plans don't change results, and changed behavior does. Look at what you're doing differently each week, like more sales calls, following up on old leads or raising rates. If your behavior hasn't changed, your business won't either.

Worth quoting

Better plans are not the answer to a different life behavior is the answer to a different life.

Pat Miller on Businessing

So if you're stuck in a rut and you're saying things haven't changed, why? It's because you haven't changed.

Pat Miller on Businessing

If you can't tell me right now, it's been too long. Raise 'em today.

Pat Miller on Businessing

But if they could sit and watch a drone on your average day, I think they'd be in awe of your bravery.

Pat Miller on Businessing

On the show

• Idea Slam question: Two listener questions: I've said this year will be different for five years and nothing changes; and how do I raise my prices when I have clients on old rates?

In this episode

• Show open and Olympic skiing news
• New workflow feature inside Gmail
• Super Bowl ads: noticed and memorable
• The good, better and best ads
• Ad recall quiz: who paid for that?
• The biggest miss: a contest nobody could enter
• Idea Slam: why this year isn't different
• Idea Slam: raising prices on old clients

Watch, listen and join

• Watch this episode on YouTube
• Apple Podcasts
• Listen anywhere
• Small Business Owners Community
• The Small Business Library (add it to your AI tool)

More on this topic: Getting clients answers from the Small Business Owners Community

Full transcript

And good morning. It's Monday, February 9th, and we are Businessing. This is small Business's weekly show. I'm your host, pat Miller. Glad that you're here. I also am fortunate enough to hang around with the folks in the small business owners community that we started back on June 1st, 2020.

Today's show sponsored by Gen Head and ng, and we are glad that they are on board. So what are we doing today? Well, on today's show, it is super bold Monday. In other words, as far away from pro football as you can. Teardrop emoji. I'm not sure how much you can call pro football last night. I mean, it was super exciting to watch the defenses dominate and the Seahawks really kind of crushed them, didn't they?

But I don't wanna talk about the football. This isn't a football show. This is a business show, and we're gonna talk about the Super Bowl ads. There's a lot that I have to say about the Super Bowl ads. I think there are some things that we can learn from them, and the one that I think they thought was going to be dominant was the biggest loser of them all.

Also in the news today, there's drama in the women's downhill skiing at the Olympics. Super inspirational story that's not about Lindsay Vaughn. Two ideas slam questions on the show today. I've been saying this year will be different for the past five years, and it's no different than it's been. What should I do?

And the other question for today, I know I need to raise my prices, but I've got clients that are here on the old rates. Do I keep 'em on the old rates? Do I rip off the bandaid? How do I raise my prices? We'll talk about that in the idea Slam and how seeing is believing for you and the people around you.

We will do all of that on today's show and more So the chat is heating up. Jump in and tell us that you're with us. Tell us about you and your business. We may give you a shout out on the air and a big old bag of free publicity. Where shall we start? Let's start with the news. The Olympics are off and running.

Did you watch the opening ceremonies? Abby and I watched the opening ceremonies and it was just beautiful. Uh, it was just beautiful what they did. And if you saw it, you saw the. The paint tubes come in and the music and the dancing and the style and the elegance and the gray. It was beautiful. And I realized, I wonder if I like modern dance.

And I just never knew because every two years now, opening ceremonies, closing ceremonies, they had these armies of people come out and do this interpretive modern dance. And I don't know how many times I turned to my wife Abby and said, isn't that beautiful? Oh my God, isn't that beautiful? And it, when the show was over, I thought, wait a minute, do I like modern dance?

And I just never knew. So we're learning things, but it was a beautiful opening ceremony. And then the competitions began and there was big time drama in the skiing, in the women's downhill skiing. Now we talked for a week before the Olympics that Lindsay Vaughn was coming back. Uh, the goat. One week before the Olympics crashes blows out her ACL finds the courage to come back and ski.

If there's a chance for me to win, I'm gonna compete. So she comes back and she competes and she crashes again. Broke her leg, airlifted to the hospital. Sad, sad, sad. Terrible stuff. Good morning, Theresa. Thanks for tuning in. So that was inspirational that she found the courage to come back and compete, but that's not the uplifting story.

The uplifting story is who actually won American Breezy. Johnson won the contest and it was the first medal for the Americans at the Olympics. Big deal, but that's not the inspirational part. I want you to internalize this. Back in 2022 on the same course right before the Beijing Games, breezy, crashed and hurt her knee on the same ski hill.

She came back to win gold this year on the same ski hill. Is that awesome? That's like Goosebump factory. Isn't that amazing? That just makes me realize what's possible. So congratulations to her. So she's having this amazing transcendent moment where she battles her demons and comes back and conquers the world and she's the gold medalist.

And then they give her the gold medal and it breaks the ribbon, came off the medal, the, the medal falls and it shatters into three pieces. Memorable stuff, congratulations to Breezy and best of luck Lindsay. Thanks for inspiring us all. Overall at last Check Norway. Shocker leads all countries with three gold medals.

Switzerland has two, but hey, US of freaking A, we've got two gold medals. That's not too bad. Overnight. I think it's overnight 'cause I didn't notice this yesterday. Overnight. Gmail snuck in a new feature. So if you are on Gmail, listen up. Look at your Gmail feed. Does your Gmail feed have this little, see where the arrow's pointing at the top?

Those little look like, I don't know, arrows. Do you see that up there? They're calling it Gmail Studio in the top right corner. And what does Gmail Studio do? Gmail Studio offers you workflows inside your Gmail. It's kind of like Zapier. So what I mean is if you activate, see how it says my flows and activities?

If you go and see the templates or look at the Discover tab, you can start activating it to do things inside your Gmail. Notify me when key people email me. Create a task when customers send a request. Send me news headlines every morning, summarize my recent meetings, a whole bunch of stuff, and this is significant for a couple reasons.

One, if you're a Gmail user, it just got more powerful, so check it out. I wanted to share that little button, but number two, this is what's going to happen. Every one of our software tools is going to start getting really smart, and it's gonna be so obvious that this isn't even a big announcement from Gmail.

I didn't get an email from them telling me it was happening. I didn't see a bunch of ads for it. These little incremental upgrades as our software can read context from one place to another. Let's see. Seor, good morning. Great to see you, pal. Do you see automation helping with leads or follow-ups?

Absolutely. Seor. Thank you for tuning in and yes, automation is going to be the key to what we're doing in 2026. Thanks for tuning in. So if you're a Gmail user, look up that icon and start playing around with it. I know I'm going to later today and it may even help me cancel my fixer account. If you're on Fixer, you know how powerful it can be, so I'm definitely gonna look into it.

Alright, today's lead story. The lead story today, super Bowl ads. We have to talk about it. The game last night was the game, but in our house, everything stops when the Super Bowl ads come on the air. I'm a gigantic football fan and I wore my Chicago Bears t-shirt yesterday 'cause I was making believe that they were in the Super Bowl and they totally could have kicked the Patriot's butt.

There's just no doubt about that. But we're big Super Bowl fans and when we watch the Super Bowl. Not only do we watch the game, we're there for the ads. And Abby and I both, as small business owners, we're always trying to pick up something we can learn. So before we talk about the ads, I think we have to set the table of what they're trying to do, because these ads are not like other pieces of advertising because it costs so much and because so many people see it, there's really, I think, two things they're trying to do.

One is to get noticed. Is it talkable? Do they get an outsized influence for running one commercial? They gotta get noticed somehow. And the second one is to be memorable. And that's where I think a lot of companies failed yesterday. So they're on that stage, $8 million for one commercial. They gotta get noticed and they gotta be memorable.

And some ads were really noticeable, but I thought pretty stupid to be honest. And some were really memorable. They didn't teach you anything about the product. So what ads were good? What did you remember? And let's find out, and this is gonna be interactive 'cause I'm gonna quiz you on some of the ads and I wanna see if you can remember which company did it.

We'll do that in a moment. And of course, in Pure Bears fashion, I'm gonna rank the commercials in good, better, best bears. So first the good ads. Let's talk about the ones that worked these, these worked. I thought the commercial that had all of the NFL tight ends that were relaxed, it was a colon cancer screening commercial, and they did a play on, if you're a football tight end or you gotta get a colonoscopy, you can just relax because now we can take a blood test and know whether or not you have a cancer screening.

And as a surprisingly young man to have this done. I've gone through that and it's not fun. So yeah, if there's a blood test to test for colon cancer, I am all in. I thought that was a really effective ad. It hit the football viewer. Lots of guys tuned in. Winner. Another ad that I thought was good. Good meaning, solid, effective.

Probably move some sales for them. Just good, just yes. I liked the row ad with Serena Williams. Did you see that ad with Serena? First of all, she looked fantastic and the entire color palette of the ad, just the whole thing looked very elegant and beautiful, and she looked fantastic. She looked happy, she looked positive, and it just communicated the value of taking that drug.

I just thought it was solid. So kudos to Roe and Serena. So those are some good ads. Now let's talk about the better ads. The ones that I thought were really solid and effective. I thought Levi's, but commercial was fantastic. And I think that's a sentence that's never been said in the English language ever.

I think Levi's but commercial was fantastic. I just invented a new sentence, hashtag new sentence. But it was really good because why do people like seeing other people in jeans? 'cause it makes our butt look great, right? Is there anything better than seeing somebody in a nice pair of jeans? You know what I'm talking about?

So they got around a conference table and thought, how will we sell jeans? I know. What if we just show butts? Here's the big ad buts. They sell themselves buts. And that's what they did. We're behind all of the stars. I thought it was just so simple and so brilliant. Thumbs up Levi's sell them butts.

Another one that I thought was just really effective, the apartments.com ad that really said, if you can live in it, it's listed on apartments.com. It showed off category leadership. It was really clear. It showed all the places that they don't list, but they were all ridiculous to make a point and get a laugh.

And Jeff Goldblum is so funny. I just thought it was really solid and really effective. Just like, yeah. Yeah. And the other better ad that I got a call out, 'cause this is my team, I thought Claude killed it. The Claude ad was the guy asks a question to a woman that's supposed to be his mother, how can I make, how can I communicate better with you?

And she's presenting back at a very robotic fashion. So it's clear to everyone. She's acting like a chatbot. Then she goes into sharing an ad in the room. Last night, Abby and my daughter Alex, are watching the Super Bowl, and when she started to read the ad, about 15 seconds or five seconds into her answer, they both go, what?

What? Because it was so heinous to hear an ad in a chatbot response, I thought that touched on a cultural moment that we're having right now. I thought it really stood out because that's not allowed. It would be like a doctor selling you something. They're getting paid to sell, that you trust the doctor's opinion, you don't want them to sell you things, and it was such a great demo.

This is how ridiculous it would be if your chat bot tried to sell you stuff and we don't do ads in Claude. I just thought it was fantastic. Just. Fantastic and a great shot at the Perceptual Leader, which is chat GBT. 'cause Sam Altman has come out and actually said, we're gonna have ads in chat, GBT.

Beautiful. Just ah, unbelievable. So we've had good, we've had better. Let's talk about best. And I wish the best ad was some revolutionary, whizzbang, unbelievable thing. But you know what? It seems like every year these guys crush it. I thought the best ad was the Google ad with Gemini, the mom talking to the kid, just visualizing what the new house would look like.

And they were kind of sad that they were moving, but this is what we can make our new house look like and look at how cool our backyard will be and all the puppy can have in my bedroom. And I just thought it was awesome. It was emotional. And Google is surprisingly emotional when they run big ads like this.

It was emotional and it also shut off that technology. I mean, that's what Google Gemini can do. Look at what we can do. Encased in all of this emotion. Awesome use case. Absolutely. Nailed it. Anyone that watched it went, oh, I get it. Gemini can do that. Okay, cool. That makes sense. Good. Better, best. Now let's talk about the misses.

'cause I thought there were a lot of misses last night. And I do have a biggest loser. A loser. That's so bad. I would think they know better, but it was just bad. The first miss is Sophia Vera was in three separate commercials, three different companies, and good for her. Glad she got paid. But who did she represent last night?

Three different companies. Same thing for the Backstreet Boys. Did you look at that and say, wait, is this the team? Wait, what? Eh. And as I predicted on this show last Thursday, lots of nostalgia. Lots of nostalgia. Everything was a flashback. Another thing that happened last night, and I found a tweet that just captures this, which I thought was so great, there were a lot of AI ads, a lot of AI ads, including ai.com, that didn't even tell us what ai.com does.

It just said, rush to get your handle, and it turns out you have to give them your credit card number to get your handle, and you don't even know what you're paying for. So lots of AI ads, and I saw this tweet and I thought it was just perfect. There are also a lot of AI ads, including AI ads, about not having ads in ai.

Let that wash over you for a minute. 'cause I thought that was incredibly profound. It was nearly Dr. Seuss level. There are also a lot of AI ads, including AI ads about not having ads in ai. Well said. There was a whoa moment. Did you see the commercial where the dog gets lost and everyone's sad? I just moved to the neighborhood.

I have no friends and now my only friend runs away. Kids crying. But wait, ring now has dog party search and we can activate all of the ring cameras in the neighborhood to find your dog. And now she has her dog and the girl that brings it to her is now seemingly her friend. And hooray ring. That felt good until.

Three seconds after. Did you have that moment where you go, wait, what? They can unify all the ring cameras and look for stuff and people and surveil us? What? I don't have the conspiracy theory hat on the desk today, but please tell me I'm not the only one that thought that. You go from Feel good finding dogs to, they're watching us, which I think if we think critically about it at all, Google and Gemini and all the ring cameras and all the everything, they're all watching us.

So be entertaining. That's what I think. Now's the interactive portion. I'm gonna ask you about some commercials and I want you to see if they pass the recall test. You can play this at home. If you wanna play it in the chat. Thumbs up. Would love to see your answers. But I'll ask you about a commercial and you need to tell me which company.

That commercial was for? I don't think you can do it. I don't. First one, Emma Stone in an ad breaking laptops trying to get her domain name broke. Three or four laptops. What company was that? This is where I need the Jeopardy music. What company was Emma Stone breaking laptops for? You don't know it. You don't know it.

Squarespace. Squarespace. First of all, you had my attention with Emma Stone. I'm not gonna lie, but Squarespace gets you domain names. I thought that was name check or name. Cheap and GoDaddy and like domain registrars. I didn't think Squarespace was the either way of the 30 seconds of that ad. 20 some odd seconds of it.

They didn't say anything about Squarespace. We just saw Emma Stone breaking crap. Squarespace is the answer. Here's another one. Was it funny to see Colin Jost and Michael Cha do an ad? It was, 'cause those guys are funny, but who did they do the ad for? You don't know it. You don't know it. You, Colin Jost and Michael Cha did an ad for DraftKings.

DraftKings. It was an in-game advertising commercial. So you may remember that Colin and Michael did an ad and yes, it was funny. Those guys are great, but if you don't remember, it's for DraftKings. What's the point? Now look at these smarty pants in the chat. Tyler, Squarespace. Abey Miller, Squarespace. Okay.

You know it, you, you're smarter than everybody else, but thank you for playing along and plus one point there will be lavish prizes for those of you that get more than one, right? So a way to go, Abby and Tyler. Here's the third one. Great ad. Funny, but do you remember who it's for? Andy Sandberg sang and danced as Meal Diamond.

Very clever. He's in the diner. He's meal diamond. Crazy clever. Who do you do it for? I think this one's a little more memorable than the others. 'cause you actually see him using the product, which I think helps as opposed to Emma Stone breaking laptops. Trying to get you to remember Squarespace. But Andy Sandberg was Meal Diamond for Hellman's, Hellman's Mayo.

Got it. In other news, I said at the beginning of the show that we have a Punka Tony Phil moment here in the show. Every or at home every year. So every year, Punka Tony Phil pops out of his hole and tells us that there's gonna be more winter every year during the Super Bowl. I watch to see which ads make Abby cry.

Every year there seems to be an ad or two that makes people cry and look at these smarty pants. Oh my gosh. Abby Miller. Got it. Stephanie Kern. Got it. Welcome to the show ladies. Thank you for playing. Every year there's this, you know, meter in the house, did a commercial, make Abby cry and it's usually dying dogs.

Or the kid grows up and goes away to college or they surprise, uh, a family member with their military person coming home. You know, those kinds of ads. But last night, no tears.

No tears. I mean, it's not a high bar. Abby will cry if there's a dog commercial that's too cute. It. It happens every year, but last year nothing tripped. The Abi Oter. And maybe it happened to you, but nothing here. No tears were shed. All of this is a buildup to The Biggest Loser. The biggest loser of last night, the commercial that I thought had all of the opportunity and none of the execution.

And I'll start with a quiz and then I'll tell you why I thought it sucked. Who sponsored the Million Dollar contest last night? You may remember Mr. Beast did it, but who sponsored it? Who was the corporate sponsor? I doubt unless you were triggered by it, that I'll explain in a minute that you know it was Slack and Salesforce.

Slack and Salesforce teamed up with Mr. Beast to give away a million dollars. And there's so many things wrong with this ad and this idea, it actually makes me mad. I'm got a lemonade stand outside my house to make enough money to advertise my business, and here comes Salesforce and Slack with unlimited resources.

They get the biggest influencer in the world to do the most beautiful looking ad of Mr. Beast walking through bank vaults and they just fumbled it. Here's how they fumbled it. The premise of the commercial, I'm Mr. Beast, I'm famous, you know me and I've got a million dollars, and someone watching this ad right now is gonna win a million dollars.

Ooh, okay, I'm in. That's a great hook. How do you win? This is where it all goes wrong. You have to figure out a secret code and there may or may not be hints to the code in this ad. They don't explain it, but there there may be hints. I'm not gonna tell you if they're hints. There might be hints. Okay? Even if you figure out the hints, this is the part that made me crazy to win.

You had to message him through Slack and message the Slack bot the secret code, but then it gets even worse. So not only do they not explain how to find the code, then they go to a work only tool like Slack to be the only way to register to win. Then it just keeps it getting worse. Like this is a marketing horror story.

Then. To enter, scan this QR code that they show on the screen for literally one second. I went back and watched it one second. They show the QR code. You don't know how to get the code. You probably don't have access to Slack, you can't find the QR code to enter Miss, miss, miss. All of those things are misses, but it goes deeper than that. Even the entire premise is the first person to send me the code wins, which means if you wanna win this money, you need to stop watching the Super Bowl right now because if you wait till after the Super Bowl, certainly someone else will win.

So last night they asked you. To get on your work conversation tool to stop watching the Super Bowl, to figure out a code that made no sense, and it may or may not have clues in the commercial, and to be the first one to do it.

Maybe if this was Taco Bell, that was noticeably absent last night, by the way, but maybe if it was a consumer brand like Coke or Taco Bell, I might give them a pass. But this is the biggest crime of all this is Salesforce.

Salesforce. How do they make their money, their Salesforce? How do they make their money By getting a big old company to take on Salesforce that they'll never cancel, that they pay by the seat. So you got a thousand people in your company. You have to have a thousand seats of Salesforce, which means someone in the C-level has to make the decision of we need this software tool.

Who makes that decision? C-level executive. So let's say a C-level executive is sitting on her couch last night, enjoying the game, being a human being with her family and friends. Is a C-level executive going to stop watching the game, rewind and rewatch that commercial relentlessly, then hop on her slack in order to win a million dollars?

Not a chance, not a chance, not a prayer, not a chance that that would happen.

I'm insulted on so many levels. As a guy that ran contests forever on the radio, I'm insulted on so many levels of how this was put together, all of these resources and completely fumbled football game, fumbled all of the execution. Imagine asking someone to stop watching the Super Bowl for a chance to win your contest that no one can figure out.

No one can enter and no one wants to deal with because it's Sunday. It's Sunday. Anyone with Slack doesn't want to be on Slack. It's the Super Bowl. What are doing? What are you doing?

Mm it It's like a bunch of ad agency people got around a table and just collaborated until this Frankenstein commercial was launched. Yeah. Okay. We'll get the biggest influencer in the world and you know what? And, and, and we'll hide a bunch of clues so that way they gotta watch it over and over again.

And then it's a race and everyone will go crazy. It'll be viral. Oh my God, it'll be great. That's what happened. Not stopping to think who buys their product. Not stopping to think. No one wants to think about work at all. Absolutely. Crazy to me that that happened. Such a waste.

I need a moment. The idea slam is coming up in today's idea. Slam two questions we get to riff on and man, I'm all warmed up now. Yes, Stephanie Kern. I, I didn't get it. It was odd. Wasn't it? Odd? I hope you're warmed up too. 'cause now I'm ready to idea slam. And boy, who knows what's gonna come out today.

'cause as you can see, I'm ready to rock. Question number one. I've been saying this year will be different for five years, but it's not. It's exactly the same. What should I do? And I know I need to raise my prices, but I have clients on old rates. Do I keep them on the old rates, raise their rates? Do I rip off the bandaid and change 'em across the board?

How do I raise my rates? Common question. Something we should all be considering. We will tackle them in the idea. Slam Businessing is sponsored by Gen Head Scale Systems, not Chaos built for early stage businesses. Gen Head systems are designed for founders, solopreneurs, and lean teams who need real momentum, not complex tools that require a full-time operator.

Everything is all streamlined and easy to use. You can act on it immediately, and this one system will replace like 10 tools across your system. So instead of going from one screen for CRMs to. This other screen for your automations and this one for your content distribution. All of it's in one place.

All of it's easy to use. It's all centralized inside gen head, less chaos, clearer data, better execution. Learn more about our friends at Gen Head at creatively enough, gen head.com. That's gen head.com. Thank you Gen Head for sponsoring the show today. And I didn't even put up your graphic. There it is.

Everyone look and admire at the glory that is Gen Head's graphic. Click the QR code and tell them thank you for sponsoring today's show. How about the idea slam time? Idea Slam time is fun. Oh, it's so fun. We're gonna help somebody who needs a hand, and this opportunity is here for you as well. If you're stuck on something in the business, if there's something you could need a second opinion on, if you've got a big project you wanna come on and promote and we can work together to make it better.

If success is important and failure is not an option, the idea of Slam is here for you. Let's talk about your biggest project. Let's put you on the show and have some fun. We have a guest tomorrow to do the Idea Slam. Very much looking forward to it, and maybe you can come on the show on Wednesday. Click the link in the chat or scan the QR code that we'll leave up here for a minute while we do the idea Slam.

Here's our first question. You ready? Whew, man, that Mr. Beast commercial made me bad. Whew. I've been saying this year will be different for five years, but it's not. You've lived this, right? I know. I'm gonna make these big changes in my life. This is my year and it's February 9th and it's like 2025 extended.

So what should I do is the question. Well, here's the answer. Making a change in your business is not any different than making a change in your day-to-day life. And if you've tried to make a change in your day-to-day life, you know how hard that is. You know that if you wanna get up earlier, you wanna read more books, you wanna walk on the treadmill more, you want to eat less trash, whatever it is, that's not easy.

Better plans are not the answer to a different life behavior is the answer to a different life. So if you say to yourself, this year is going to be different, what are you doing differently? What are you doing differently? December and January is the time where we make these big plans. Plans. Who cares? I don't care about plans.

I only care about your behavior. If you say, this year's gonna be different, and it's not different, it's really easy. You're not doing anything differently. Maybe you're doing a new strategy and it's not working, then pick a new strategy and do something else. But odds are you're not doing much different.

So if your plan was this year is gonna be better for revenue, I'm gonna make way more money this year. Finally, after five years, I'm gonna make some real money. Okay, what's your behavior show? Are you making 10 sales calls a week when you used to do two? Did you go out and double your networking? Did you join an organization that's full of your ideal client profile?

Did you double your advertising spend? Did you raise your rates by 50%? Did you call back people that used to work with you and don't anymore? Did you follow up on leads that said no? And ask them why? Did you keep following up even when they ghosted you? Did you change the way that you behave? Or did you make a pretty vision board and just manifest harder?

Positive mental images are great and I love them. Always have a positive mental attitude. One of my mentors told me that it moves the needle. It is important, but we don't need a new year to make a big change in how we behave. We need to make changes in our behavior to change our business. So right now, wherever you are, if you are sitting there saying, I need it to be different right now, then you need to change how you are behaving right now.

Today, at the end of the show, take yourself out for lunch and cut the crap. What am I gonna do differently to be in a different place six months from now? Strip out all the non-productive time. Stop doing the things that you know are just playing with your food and you're not moving the business forward.

Double your sales time, half your expenses, go to the rooms where your people are, strip away the products that aren't selling and double down on what does change your daily behavior. Your business will change, I promise you. I promise you.

So if you're stuck in a rut and you're saying things haven't changed, why? It's because you haven't changed. That's your challenge for the day. Second idea, slam question. I know I need to raise my prices, but I have clients on old rates. Do I keep 'em or do I rip the bandaid off and raise prices on everybody across the board?

What should I do? Tough question. There are a couple of different ways you can go here. They're all right, but if you were on the air with me, we could really have a conversation about this instead of just being a question in the email box. So I have to make some assumptions. I would ask you what percentage of your inventory is sold right now?

If you can help 10 clients a month and you've sold nine of them, you're 90% sold out and you still need to increase your revenue, you could increase the rate on that 10th person, but it's not gonna move the needle very much. So if all of your inventory is gone and you still need to increase your revenue, you may need to raise your rates on the people that you already have.

But if you've only sold half of your available inventory, you could just raise rates on all of your future clients. As of today, my price is now this for any new client. Another factor that plays into this is how long is your average engagement? Let's say you have nine out of 10 pieces of inventory sold, but your customer churn.

Your turnover is really frequent. I work with people for one month increments or 90 day increments. They're not annual deals. You could set your rates at this new level, knowing that within 90 days, all of your new clients will be on the increased rates. Thinking about how long they stay with you, thinking about how much inventory is already sold, thinking about your churn and how much it just naturally turns over will guide you towards, how do I handle a rate increase?

Think about those three things, and you'll make more money. And the pop quiz of the day for you watching this show, drinking your coffee, trying to find some motivation in your life. When's the last time you raised your rates? You, you? I'm tapping on the glass. Tap, tap, tap you. When's the last time you raised your rates?

If you can't tell me right now, it's been too long. Raise 'em today. Find something in your product offering and raise the rates. Don't care what it is. Raise something today because what is your work worth? Do your clients get what they pay for? Yeah, they do. You're worth it. Go raise your rates today. Don't make me tap on the glass again.

The fish hate that. But raise your rates today and if there's something in your life that you wanna talk about on the Idea Slam, I wanna collaborate with you in real time. It's fast, it's fun. I promise I won't yell at you. I won't have a Mr. Beast moment when we're on the air doing your idea slam, and we will collaborate with the folks in the chat that might have something to say as well.

Let's see. Jared's got something good to say. All right, Jared, so we're talking about there's no need to wait for a new year to have it as a starting point. What about starting in the first of next month? What about starting next Sunday? What about starting today? Hell yes, Jared. Jared. Everyone, listen to Jared. See Jared right here. Jared's smart. I agree with you. Jared, thanks for watching the show and thanks for tuning in and being a part of what we're doing. I really appreciate it. Let's look at Stephanie. I was pointing at you. It's been two years, maybe three. Oh, Stephanie Kern. Oh, why is this important? I'm having a little bit of fun with Stephanie.

I know Stephanie. She's incredibly talented designer, beautiful work, but why am I having a little fun with her? She's making 20, 15% less real money than she was two years ago. Even if you don't raise your rates, 'cause you wanna get wealthier, you have to raise your rates consistently or you fall behind the compounding.

Cost of living, the compounding interest, uh, inflation is gonna have you sink to the bottom of the swimming pool if you're not raising your rates, trying to keep up. And even though in, uh, inflation, I'm having a hard time with the word inflation today, even though inflation is coming down a little bit, if you haven't raised your rates in two years, that's serious stuff.

And Stephanie, I'm not joking around. I, I care about you. I want you to be successful. You gotta raise your rates, girl. You, you got to, you have to find something to raise your rates on because you're gonna keep on falling behind. Next time I see you, we'll, we'll have a talk. In fact, in front of all of the viewers of Businessing with Pat Miller, you're gonna raise your rates by the next time I see you right, do I need to tap on the glass again?

Do you need to have me tap on the glass again? Are you going to raise your rates? I hope so. Before we wrap up the show, we're gonna talk about a new piece of technology that if it worked the way it does for the Olympics, would help our family and friends better understand what we do all day. If you're like me, it feels like no one really understands what it's like to run a small business.

They say the loneliest profession in the world is to be a small business owner. Totally agree with that. And there's a piece of technology in the Olympics right now that I think if we could use it the way they do in the Olympics, it would help us feel a hell of a lot less lonely. We'll share that after this.

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Hello Canva plugin. So your social media not only sounds great, it looks great too, and they are obsessed with KPIs so you can know what works and what doesn't. If you're still sitting there with spreadsheets and trying to remember to post on all your platforms and what am I gonna say today? You're really putting marketing on hard mode.

It doesn't need to be that hard, especially when NG's giving us a two week free trial For anyone that's watching the show. If you hate doing social media, hello, like every hand went up. If you hate doing social media, get NG on your side. 14 day risk-free trial. Then the first two months have a big old discount, and then after that, you'll pay a whopping $29 a month.

To make your social media headache go away. The value is obscene. Click the link that's in the chat. Scan the QR code that's on the screen. Visit ng.co/s boc ng.co/s boc NG solves the I do my own marketing problem. There's a new piece of technology you need to know about. It's the coolest piece of TV technology I've seen since maybe the first downline in the NFL.

And if this technology were here in the room with me right now, my family and friends would finally understand what I'm doing for a living. Have you seen the drones on the ski hill? Is that the coolest thing ever? If you haven't seen it, when you normally watch skiing, you're watching the screen and pretend this is the skier.

The skier goes down the hill and swooshes, swooshes, swooshes, swooshes, and you're watching it from the side. Maybe you're watching it from head on and you see how fast they go. They go that, wow, they're going fast. But when they're in a drone following them down the hill, you get finally the feeling how steep that hill is and how they're going from way over here to way over, like really fast.

It changed how you watch skiing. It's fascinating to watch now. Unbelievable. These drones are going 70 miles an hour behind the skiers. Absolutely. Mind blowing. I've never skied myself. I didn't know that the hills were like this and that they were doing, I, can you imagine me on skis if we haven't met?

I'm six foot four. That's a lot of leg to break, so I'm not being on skis anytime soon. And with a drone, I now know, I know I'll be down in the lodge with a, a hot toddie. I'm not going up and breaking an elbow. Hell no. Those people are maniacs. And now I know because there's a drone showing it. This is what I want in small business.

I want right back here. I want a drone to sit here and watch what I do all day, and I want a drone to sit and watch you what you do all day. I think if our family and friends were to see that, they would finally understand because they think, oh, you've got a job. You've got a job. Oh, you're building a company.

Isn't that cute? If we had a drone following us around, we'd have a drone. Follow us into a networking room and how we have to work the room and how if we have to stand there all awkward and no one wants to talk to us and we have to go up to someone we don't know at all and say, hi, I'm Pat Miller, the Friday's off guy.

Who are you? And how terrifying that is and how we have to do that over and over day after day, room after room to try and find our clients. We have to sit here on a Zoom and we need to talk to people and say, hi, would you give me money? Yeah, I'd like more money than a new car costs. Could you do that for me?

And who the heck are you? You're a guy in his office, in your kid's old bedroom asking someone for more money than a car costs. And if we had a drone filming it, our family and friends would finally understand. Holy crap. How did you get the guts to do that? You're pitching a client asking them for more money per hour than a lawyer makes, or you're dealing with an angry customer or signing an SBA loan that's worth more than your house.

Normal people have no perspective how hard this is. They have no idea how fast you're moving the risks that you are taking, the guts it takes to build your own small business. But if they could sit and watch a drone on your average day, I think they'd be in awe of your bravery. Tenacity, just how dang hard you work.

Just so we're clear, I see you and I see how you're turning risk into reward and I salute you and I thank you for spending some of your day with me. Ski on.

Got a big thing going on in the SBOC. Since Friday, we've added six members to the SBOC since Friday. Six people in like over the weekend from New York, New York, Jacksonville, couple from Wisconsin, people all over the place. They're realizing, they're hearing, wait a minute, I don't have to grow this alone. There's a group of people that are working together to support one another where you can show up just as yourself. You don't have to fake it. You can ask questions 'cause you really don't know the answer and you're not gonna show up in a room where people are selling you crap. And you have collaborative brainstorms, you have coworking time, and there's a legal hotline, there's a tech support hotline, and there's just a group of people that have been there before to help you when you need it.

Yeah, that's the SBOC and we're two people away from getting to 150 people in the group. I'm just saying if you've watched this show and you've said, you know, pat Miller, guy's not crazy, I would like to not grow it alone. It's $19 a month. $19 a month. Come on, you're gonna spend more on that in the drive through today.

Click the link in the chat, scan the QR code. Maybe you'll be our hundred 50th member. I'd love to have you join the SBOC 'cause it's starting to take off baby six new members in the last three days. Absolutely incredible. And if you are in the Madison area, I'm inbound coming over there tomorrow afternoon, Madison, Wisconsin, SBOC, in-person member Meetup, and new member rally two to four tomorrow afternoon in Madison, Wisconsin.

It's the perfect time to join our owners only group. To get those trusted answers from real live people. We're gonna do one-on-one networking and then an in-person idea slam. Absolutely awesome. Join now. Click the link, scan the QR code. Find us@smallbusinesscommunity.com. Thanks for businessing with me today.

I hope you had fun. I sure did. I feel bad for poking on the glass and yelling at you, but it needed to happen today. I had things that needed to be yelled about, so I cleansed, sponsored by Gen Head at ng. They're fabulous. Thanks to the Gen Head team for producing us, and don't forget to like, subscribe and share the show.

If you share the show, you will get share mail from me, handwritten notes and prizes that are going out to those of you that will share the show with your network saying, Hey, you need to check this show out. I figure it's a business show referrals work. If you share the show with someone in your network, maybe post it on social media, I'll send you a surprise gift in the mail.

I'll do it as long as I can until I run outta stamps, uh, and prizes. But if you like the show, help us spread the word. It's the new daily habit for small business owners. We're back on the air tomorrow at 11:00 AM Central. I'm Pat Miller, founder of the Small Business Owners community.

Thanks for tuning in. Take care.