Happy New Year. Let’s make some money.

How did you react to that last sentence? I hope it was Hell, yeah! But money is a funny subject. Some of us have a messed up relationship with money and with capitalism in general. It’s possible that this relationship might be the biggest obstacle between you and your goals for the year.

Capitalism is far from perfect. It’s often been called the worst economic system except for all others that have been tried thus far. But it is also hailed as the best system of cooperation between strangers ever devised. I see truth in both these statements. Capitalism is awesome. And imperfect. It will never be perfect and we have to accept that while we try to improve it at the same time.

The Fire Keeping You Warm

I’ve long thought of the wood stove in my living room as a good metaphor for capitalism. The fire is trade. It is the fuel of cooperation that creates value and wealth, lifting people out of poverty, spurring innovation, enriching lives and warming the world.

But the same fire also destroys. Hence the iron box that contains the fire and makes useful its benefits while reducing the likelihood of it killing us while we sleep. In our capitalist metaphor the box is law, in both judicial (legal) and social (conventions and mores) forms.

No box and the house burns down, whereas too safe of a box strangles the fire and loses most of its modest heat up the chimney.

It’s impossible for us to all agree on what type of box should surround the fire. Some want the thinnest metal of property rights and not much more. Some want to make sure that nobody can ever be burned by the stove. Tribes form around box preferences. Arguments arise over Christmas dinner as the strong-box relatives fight with their light-box cousins. Each tribe characterizes the other as being at the extreme—sealed-boxers and anti-boxers.

Whatever your view on the box, it is just that—a view. It’s not “right” and it certainly isn’t the truth. It is simply the way you think things should be, based on the tradeoffs you would make.

Through elections and other more violent means, the world moves back and forth on the box. Every once in a while the box aligns with your view of what it should be, but that never lasts. You’re never happy for long.

So while we argue over the box, let’s not get carried away and start thinking that the fire is the problem. Trade is the fuel. And in trade, both parties are better off than they were before the trade.

Trade today is mediated through money, therefore making money is a sign that you are creating value in the world. It’s not the only sign and it’s not necessarily the most meaningful sign (whether it is or isn’t is personal to you) but it is one of the tests you must pass to prove that you are creating value in the world through your for-profit business.

You can make more money in 2025 by claiming more of the value you already create (increasing your prices), and also by creating more value in the world (increasing your effectiveness). This will seem counterintuitive to you unless you’ve already done it but the path to increasing your effectiveness is through increasing your prices first.

Are You Charging Enough?

Are you charging enough for the value you already create for your clients? Or have your own conflicted ideas around money and capitalism caused you to undercut yourself, to let most of the value in the trade accrue to the client?

Has your relationship with money made the sales function difficult for you? Does asking the client to pay you well make you feel like you are taking from them instead of creating value for them and proposing to share in that value creation?

Learning to charge more is as much about learning to have the proper conversations with your clients as it is about learning new pricing techniques. 

Learn to have those conversations first. You will raise your prices as a result and your improved effectiveness will follow.

Are You Creating Enough Value?

The counterintuitive part is that better conversations not only lead to higher prices but to increased effectiveness (which drives even higher prices) because the way the conversations become “better” for both you and the client is they move away from a focus on solutions and costs (what you typically think about) to a focus on value (what the client really wants). This shift in the conversation then changes how you think about and scope solutions for your proposal, unleashing unexpected creativity in how you propose to create value.

It’s as true in business as it is in other domains of life: the answer to so many challenges lies in better conversations.

Better Conversations in 2025

I don’t set goals for the new year so much as I select themes, and it seems to me that having better conversations would be a great theme for 2025. Among other positive outcomes, you’ll make more money.