Had a chat with a old school butcher at Eastern Market who made me rethink my whole approach to pricing

So I was grabbing some pork shoulders at Eastern Market yesterday, and this guy who's been running his stall for 40+ years just straight up told me I was crazy for charging by the pound on my smoked meats. He said I should be charging by the time it takes, not the weight. It hit different because he broke it down with actual numbers, like how a 10 hour smoke is worth way more than the meat cost. Has anyone else switched up their pricing model based on something another biz owner said?

2 comments

2 Comments

blake_smith3d agoMost Upvoted

Yo, that's some solid advice right there. I switched to a time-based model about two years ago after a similar chat with a barbecue guy who's been doing it since the 80s. Now I charge a flat rate for a brisket that accounts for the wood, the monitoring, and the 12 hours of babysitting (plus the rub and trimming time). People actually feel better paying a set price than wondering why a small brisket costs less than a big one, even though they both took the same amount of work. Just make sure you track your actual costs for a month first, cause I learned the hard way that my first "time-based" price was too low and I was basically paying people to eat my food.

lee7333d ago

Wait, hold up... "basically paying people to eat my food"? That part really hit me. I can't believe you went through all that trial and error just to break even or lose money at first. That's the kind of mistake that would've made me give up, honestly. Glad you caught it though, because that time-based model sounds way smarter than the per-pound guessing game most folks do. Really makes you think about how easy it is to undervalue your own time without realizing it.