Most operators think pricing is a marketing decision. It is not. It is one of the highest-leverage operational decisions in the business, and most owners have never run a real audit on what they actually charge.

In this episode, we walk through the 3-part pricing audit: the cost audit, the anchor audit, and the margin audit. Three questions, asked in order, about your own business. Most operators have never sat down with all three in the same conversation. When they do, the answers are almost always uncomfortable. They are also almost always profitable.

We unpack:

Why the cost number most operators carry in their head is roughly half of the real number.

Why anchoring your prices to your competitors locks you into a self-referential loop where everybody is making the same mistake at the same time.

Why almost every small business has one or two offers quietly subsidizing the rest of the portfolio, and how to find which is which.

The episode closes with three operational moves you take this week. Run the cost. Reset the anchor. Set the floor.

If this one lands, the next episode to listen to is The 5 Numbers That Tell You If Your Business Can Run Without You. Margin per offer is one of those five.

Notebook of a COO is operational thinking for entrepreneurs and small business owners. No hype. Just operations. New episodes every week.