We Charge What We Need to Charge

In our latest podcast episode, we revisit our Q&A session with Ari Weinzweig, which went deep on the Zingerman’s approach to pricing.

Here are today’s highlights:

• Your business isn’t just what you do, says Josh Patrick. For most owners, it becomes who you are. Which is why retirement can be such a challenge.

• Seven out of 10 business owners say inflation is their biggest concern. Do you agree?

• It was small businesses that took Trump’s tariffs to the Supreme Court. Now big businesses are suing to make sure they get their refund.

• With most dating apps losing their luster, an accidental entrepreneur in Dallas offers an alternative.

Ari Weinzweig at work last May. Photo by Jaime Echt

THE 21 HATS PODCAST

This week, we’re replaying one of my favorite conversations of the year, a Q&A session we recorded in May at our 21 Hats Live event in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with Ari Weinzweig, co-founder of Zingerman’s Community of Businesses. If you’ve already listened to our conversation with Ari, I encourage you to listen again. It’s worth it. And if you haven’t heard it, well, you’re in for a treat. Much of the discussion focused on pricing, a topic that haunts just about every business owner. Specifically, Ari talked about how he learned to charge enough to run a healthy business and why he’d rather go out of business charging what Zingerman’s needs to charge than go out of business never knowing whether customers would have paid the true cost of great food and great service. (Spoiler alert: They have not gone out of business.)

• Not surprisingly, the 21 Hats Live participants had lots of questions for Ari, including how he and his partners decide whether to launch a new business, how he and co-founder Paul Saginaw have maintained their partnership for more than 40 years, how he and Paul are approaching succession, and whether he thinks of himself as successful, which prompted Ari to share that his mother never stopped pleading with him to take the LSAT. You know, just in case.

• We’re re-playing the episode in part because we took Thanksgiving week off from recording but also because it offers a little taste of what it’s like to attend a 21 Hats Live event. I’ve just announced that our fourth annual in-person event will take place in Cincinnati in May. Once again, it will be a terrific opportunity to connect with other owners who understand what it takes to build a business. You can get more information here.