I Quit for Real Money: From Theater Kid to Pricing Genius | Erin B. Haag | Captivate the Mic

What do Broadway showstoppers and massive business profit margins have in common? A lot more than you think!

In this episode of Captivate the Mic, I am sitting down with the brilliant, beautiful, and absolute powerhouse entrepreneur Erin B. Haag. Erin grew up deep in the legendary New York theater scene—her dad was the technical director at the iconic Public Theater, and she was running lines with legends like Kevin Kline and working on star-studded productions in Central Park. But after a sharp wake-up call in conservatory, she walked away from the stage and built a massive career as a pricing and profitability strategist.

We break down how the fierce work ethic, high stakes, and deep psychological insights of the theater world translate perfectly into running a wildly successful business. If you are a female entrepreneur who avoids looking at your numbers, feels shame around your pricing, or struggles to understand your financial data, this episode is a breath of fresh air. Erin explains how she built and sold a Pilates studio for 40x her investment, built another company with an 82% recurring revenue model, and why she is now building an AI-powered pricing software to help you confidently scale.

Key Takeaways:

• Music is Math: Why an artistic or creative background is actually your secret weapon for understanding numbers and data.
• The Audition Truth: The powerful moment Erin realized she didn't want her financial destiny left to whether or not a room full of people liked her.
• Enforced Survival: How changing a business from transactional packages to a recurring subscription or membership model changes everything.
• Get On Board with AI: Why elite business networks are dropping spreadsheets and leaning into artificial intelligence to package services.
• Passion and Profit: Overcoming the false narrative that purpose-driven businesses cannot be highly profitable.

Guest Intro:

Erin B. Haag is the creator of Pricing Overhaul®, a proven method helping entrepreneurs shift their money mindset, restructure pricing for profitability, and pay themselves abundantly. With over 20 years of pricing strategy experience, she works with global corporations and small businesses to increase profit with ease. Erin founded Pricing Overhaul® Academy, certifying coaches to use her method with their clients, and she is also the bestselling author of Give Yourself a Raise: The Mindset and Math You Need to Get to Your First Million. Off the clock, Erin is a mom of 2 who enjoys travel, wine, and cheese.

Connect with Erin:

• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pricingoverhaul/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pricingoverhaul/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-b-haag-25a8406
• Website: https://pricingoverhaul.com/

Connect with your Host, Elaine Williams:
Check out Captivate the Mic Podcast on Elaine's YouTube Channel
Check out the Captivate the Crowd Website
Follow Elaine on Social- LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok
Want to schedule a free chat with Elaine? Click here to book a zoom date!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:02

I was one of the first Pilates studios to switch to a membership model. And that completely changed everything for me. So when I sold my studio, I then had a bunch of my colleagues who own studios. They're like, uh, how did you do that? And I was like, it's just math. And they're like, what are you talking about? So I started consulting with them and realized that every single business owner I was consulting with, the number one issue was their pricing. And if I could fix their pricing, I could fix everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Hi everybody. This is Elaine with Captivate the Mic, and I am so excited to share this fabulous, brilliant, beautiful woman with you today. Please welcome Erin Haig. Is it Haig?

SPEAKER_00 1:51

It's Haig, yes. You nailed it.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Erin Haig is with us today, and thank you for being here. Ah, thanks so much for having me. So Erin and I met through like a mutual connection. And when we did our first conversation, I was telling her about my my background in theater, blah blah blah blah. And then Erin drops this drop the mic moment where she's oh my dad was the technical director at the public theater, which is and I was like, What the public?

SPEAKER_00 2:22

The public, the public, and New York Shakespeare Festival and uh at the Delacourt and Central Park. That's like the holy grail to me.

SPEAKER_01 2:30

Like the public. I saw a couple of things there. I never got to see Joseph Pat, but so many that's where Hamilton started, right? That's where chorus line started. So many brilliant shows started at the public.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Yeah, my dad was the TD for Top Dog Underdog. That was like a huge Tony Award whatever. The list goes on. On and on. Yeah, I didn't mean to name drop, but we were connecting, and I was like, oh my goodness, I have a connection here.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

No, I it was just so lovely. And I moved to New York in 2000 and I got sober at the same time, which I would never recommend, but that was God's plan. And I remember my friend worked at the box office, so I got to go see a lot of the shows, and I was going to do that a lot because I didn't know what else to do because I was newly sober. And I remember after I'd been there a year, my mom came to visit and we got to see the star-studded performance show of the seagull. The seagull, I worked that show.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Which you worked that show in Meryl Streep, Christopher Walken, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catline, Natalie Portman, Marcia Gay Harden. I know I'm forgetting some. Yeah, it was just crazy.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Star-studded, and we were my mom is handicapped, so we could have touched Meryl Streep. She did a cartwheel in front of us. It was just being new in New York and getting to go see ridiculous theater for free. Oh my gosh. So anyway, so Aaron and I started talking about being theater kids and how when you grow up doing the theater, the show must go on and you learn to make things work. Where's the duct tape? We don't have time. Yeah. And you learn some really great skills that are great for entrepreneurship. Do you want to add on to that?

SPEAKER_00 4:19

I would say that people are when they hear that I was a musical theater major in college and that I was on a TV show when I was a kid, and I grew up in this family of theater professionals. They're like, And how did you become a pricing and profitability strategist? I'm like, yeah, I know it's crazy. And then I look back and I try to trace it, and I'm like, the first connection is math is music, and music is math. And I was musical, I was a musical theater major, so I'm a singer. So I learned sheet music and music theory. And then I was like, my dad was a guitarist and I would sing while he was playing the guitar. And then it's okay. So that skill set definitely ties in. But then when it comes to but you opened up your own business, and I'm like, yeah, but when you're an artist, you run your own business, you're like the manager of your own brand and you're going from job to job, unless you you have a gig like my dad did, where he was a salaried technical director for a major theater. But for actors, you go from job to job to job, and you're running basically your own brand and your own business. And ultimately, it comes down to artists in general. Whether you're a theater professional, whether you're a musician, a dancer, it doesn't matter. The hardest work ethic on the planet. I said to you, we would have our 10 out of 12s. For those of you who don't know, 10 out of 12s is tech right before the opening of the show. And for 10 hours out of 12 hours, you are setting the lights and the blocking and the sets, and it's a nightmare for actors. But 10 out of 12s would actually be like 14, 16 out of 12s. You know what I mean? We just you did what you had to do because the show must go on.

SPEAKER_01 6:22

I love that. You reminding me I did Summerstock one summer in New Hampshire, and we it was a bunch of actors living in a converted house, and some people had were in the barn, and we did children's theater and we understudied the main stage, but we were like roofing, and I was like 22, and they said, Hey, go drive that truck uh a few towns over to go pick up blah blah blah. Do you know how to drive stick like that? And I was like, No, and they're like, You'll figure it out. I figured it out, yeah. Such good experiences, awesome, Erin. So I would love to talk. So you grow up in with this amazing dad running lines with famous actors at the in at the Delacroix Theater, and then you were going to school for musical theater. Tell us about that.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Yeah, so I was a musical theater major at Webster University, so as part of the conservatory. Webster's one of the top-ranked conservatories in the country. I think there were like 20 of us that got in out of thousands who auditioned. So it was pretty cutthroat to get in and then really intimate and intense once you were in. And it was actually my experience working at the for New York Shakespeare Festival on the production of The Seagull. I was an assistant management intern. And it was a job, and it was intense. And I was running lines with Kevin Klein every day, you know, I was doing all the things, right? And I returned to school. I actually left the production early because if I wanted to audition for the show, which I actually believe that it was a chorus line, don't quote me on that. But if I wanted to return to the university and audition for the musical, I had to return by a certain time, which meant I had to leave my role at the Dela Court at New York Shakespeare Festival. And I chose to do that. And I auditioned and I didn't get in the show. And I just remember feeling one that it was intentional, that I was being punished, that I would have that the fact that I would even ask to come to school late, like they couldn't believe it because I had I was working this other opportunity. And I felt that I was being punished by intentionally not being cast in the show. Come on, I was a dancer, it was a tap show. It I should have been in the show. And they put me on costume crew. And I just remember it was that semester that I dropped out. And it wasn't because of that, it was just I had this realization that as a performer, you are not in control. You have to walk into a room and you have to get people to like you, and you have to get them to like you immediately in order to get the job. And it was this huge sense of holy crap, I don't want to put my destiny in the hands of whether or not other people are gonna like me. And it was Christmas and I quit. And I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. And my parents were like, What? It was like I came out as wanting to join the circus in a family of doctors. And what are you talking about? You don't want to go into theater, and I was like, No, I actually don't want to go into theater, I don't want to work this hard, this long, these hours. And I want to make money. I actually want to make real money. I didn't know what it was that I wanted to do, but I just I immediately knew it wasn't that.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

Wow, that's so powerful. I when I was doing Summerstock, I had auditioned for a show, and I even though I was a singer and I was way better than most of the actors with my singing, but I didn't get cast in a show and I had to do the lights, and it was so humbling and heartbreaking. Yeah, and I remember it's like when I first auditioned for the young Americans, I wanted to go to UCLA, I had this whole plan. And the last minute my friend came with me and she was beautiful. She was like runner-up from Miss Texas, and I was a better performer, she was so cute, but I was more talented, all the things I got most talented, and she they picked her and not me. And I remember it was that first time I was 16, and I remember thinking, oh, but I'm I had a better audition. Oh, but she's prettier.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

And I remember that was like uh and that's when I tried to go do something else, and I was like liberal arts undecided, blah blah blah blah blah. And now I'm using my two degrees in theater with my coaching, coaching women how to get over their fear, and yeah, I'm using a lot of the stuff. Thank goodness. But I wish I had gone to business school in hindsight. I did not go to business school, yeah. I did not.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

So what was what did you do after? Oh my god. I I was like such this lost little soul because when you're in theater, your identity is tied in it, and then when you're born into a family of theater professionals, it's literally all you know. And I was like, Who am I? And I was like, I'm really interested in travel and history. And so at first, I just was undecided major. I took a ton of history. I then signed up for a statistics class because I really missed math. I've always been really good at math. I've always really liked it. Right out of conservatory, I signed up for like all of these history classes and statistics. And it was actually statistics that I decided to get my degree in psychology, which theater and acting is nothing but psychology, so it makes sense. And I ended up graduating with a degree in psychology and a minor in music because I had so many credits from conservatory that I was able to get a minor in music. And I moved from our St. Louis campus to our Geneva campus. So I was able to do my studies in Geneva, Switzerland, my senior year. And it was really, yeah. So that is what I ended up graduating with.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

I love it. And then, so how did you get in? Because I've been in the entrepreneurial space forever. I was always house sitting and acting and working at a restaurant. I was always having a million hustle jobs, right? And and then I finally quit my corporate training job and just did captivate the crowd full-time starting in 2016. Okay. And what I have seen is a lot of the female business owners that I've worked with don't know their numbers. Yeah. Shame about their numbers. I have done a lot of work, and one of my clients is a financial advisor, and I'm learning. I love my job because I get I learned so much from my people, right? Yeah. So many female entrepreneurs are scared of the numbers and they have a lot of shame. I don't know if men, because I haven't worked with as many men with this, but how did you get into pricing in your experience to I hope you're wrong?

SPEAKER_00 14:48

But yeah, no, so I uh so I worked in corporate America in sales. I think also when you come from theater, you're very good at sales, and not because you're acting, but because acting is all about relationship building and sales is nothing but relationship building. And so I was naturally very good at sales. And then in 2008, so I started working my way up in the weight loss industry because hello, former recovering anorexic, thanks to dance. I think we've all been there. Um, so I had this interest in health and wellness, and I got into the weight loss industry, and then I was working for a network of cosmetic surgery centers in sales. And in 2008, I got laid off from that corporate job. I was young, I was making a ton of money, and I was just like, you know what? I'm done working for other people. And I had a friend who was in the musical theater department with me back at Webster who was a Pilates instructor. And she's Erin, you're a dancer. You should just become certified in Pilates. And I was like, sure. So I did, and I immediately, two months after completing certification, opened up a studio. And I had that studio for nine years. Wow. And over the course of the nine years, I tell the story in my book. It's too long to try to do a reader's digest version here. But it was through that I really learned that in order for this business to be profitable, I have to restructure my pricing. And I can't restructure my pricing unless I know my numbers. So it was just enforced application survival. And then when I sold my studio in 2018, I sold it for 40 times my original investment. Thank you very much. Oh my God. How did you do that? It was because I created a recurring revenue model. So every other studio out there was charging by the individual class or 10 packs or 20 packs, and it's just not sustainable. And so I switched my studio. I was one of the first Pilates studios to switch to a membership model.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Yeah. And that completely changed everything for me. So when I sold my studio, I then had a bunch of my colleagues who own studios. They're like, uh, how did you do that? And I was like, it's just math. And they're like, what are you talking about? So I started consulting with them and realized that every single business owner I was consulting with, the number one issue was their pricing. And if I could fix their pricing, I could fix everything. And so I've developed this IP, which is now trademarked. It's the pricing overhaul. I wrote a book about it. I have a certification in it. And that's just how it happened.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

I love it.

SPEAKER_00 17:31

Just very organically.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

I love it. And I think that's the best way. I was in this big mastermind when I finally quit my training job. And there were there were some people who'd been like mentors or healers or coaches, and they've been doing the work forever, but they didn't know how to market or scale, right? And then there were and then there were other people who were doing a newer thing and they didn't, it wasn't organic, and there was a lot of struggle. So I I yeah, I love the organic. Sometimes I feel like you make this step and then you realize, oh, I'm supposed to go here. I'm happy accidents, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:07

Yeah. Interestingly, three weeks ago I sold another company. I in 2023 started a retreat company organically. Not, it was never my intention, but it was born out of a need. My clients needed some in-person experience to come together after COVID. So I hosted a retreat and it did well and I made money. And then I did it again and it made even more money. And before you know it, it's its own company. And three years later, I was like, oh my God, this is huge. It had 82% recurring revenue. I had a retreat membership model in it. It's really perfect case study of the power of the price and overhaul, really. And then I just sold it three weeks ago for 20x my initial investment.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Wow. Yeah. Wow. See, I'm so excited to know you because I did at my first retreat. I've helped a lot of people. And then I did my own and I partnered with a family member, and I learned quickly that's probably not a good idea. And even if you've known somebody your whole life, you haven't. So that was like, oh, okay. Ooh, okay. And then luckily it was a very small group. So I learned a lot and I lost money on the whole thing, but I feel like I learned invaluable lessons. And someday I will have another retreat, but not with wow, that's so cool. And now what are you up to? What is your yeah?

SPEAKER_00 19:36

So I'm just reinvesting my time and energy 100% into pricing overhaul. And my main focus right now is in growing price and overhaul academy, which is my certification. So coaches, consultants can get certified in the price and overhaul method to use with their clients. And I am currently building a software application with AI integration for my price and overhaul method. So that is what's in the works right now.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Wow. Yeah. So does that mean you have a software and then AI can help you put in all your this is my business or this is my thing?

SPEAKER_00 20:20

And yeah, the AI piece is I'm learning so much because I've been up until this point, I grew this business on Excel spreadsheets. And then recently I was telling you I joined Genius Network and I went to my first meeting, and everyone's loving the price and overhaul method. They're like, it's brilliant. What tool are you using? And I was like, Oh, Excel. And they're like, What? Literally, everyone stopped dead in their tracks. You're using spreadsheets. And I'm like, yeah, they're great spreadsheets. And they're like, you have got to stop. That is madness. You have to create a tool with AI integration. So the tool is going to be my formulas, my calculations, my method in the app. But the AI integration is going to be like the prompts, the assists, the helping people in the creativity of how the packages are, how the offers are packaged, what are the delivery, the client delivery deliverables. Why can't I speak today? I love it. I'm still trying to figure out because I'm so new to this world of AI and I don't know anything about it. I'm just trusting the hired professionals.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

I love it. Erin, that's so great. I went through the whole thing, I don't know about AI, and now I love it. It helps me just brainstorm things, or I'll write something and say, can you clean this up a little bit? Uh I don't use it blindly. I yeah, I check things, but I've also been working on my sales calls and I'm in this program where we're learning, we're using AI, and just the little bit that I'm it has transformed what how my work, how I can talk about it. Yeah. I feel like I have a whole new level of just being able to talk about it in a whole nother way and clarity. Because I'm intuitive and I meet people where they are, and then we go, right? So yeah, so that's cool.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

I'm so excited about it. It's and it's just more efficient. What was interesting is I know that there are a lot of people who are very anti-AI, but the truth is AI is here, it's not going anywhere, it's just going to get bigger. And as one of the billionaires in this room said to me, if you are not getting on board with AI now, you will be left behind. Yeah, it's not from a business perspective, it's not even a matter of are you going to use it or are you not? It's those people who are choosing not to. They're going to be, I hate to say it, irrelevant one day. Soon in the very near future. You have to use it as a tool. There was an example that was given at this most recent meeting, and it was like, if Henry Ford had given people what they wanted, they would he would have tried to find faster horses, but he didn't. He invented the car. And at that time, probably people were very anti-the car. Oh no, we gotta keep the horse. And now it's a horse. What are you talking about?

SPEAKER_01 23:21

Yes, I love that. I was doing social media for my brother, who's a super genius car guy, and I learned so much. The Rolls Royce's were called Phantom because they were quiet compared to the other in the beginning. Cars were so fascinating. I'm so excited. So, Aaron, if somebody wants to know more about you, what's the easiest way for them to find you?

SPEAKER_00 23:44

The easiest way is on my website, pricingoverhaul.com. And on the homepage, they can opt in for a free sample of my book. It's available on audio and print wherever books are sold. I'm also on all the socials. So Instagram and Facebook at Pricing Overhaul, and then on LinkedIn, Erin B. Haig.

SPEAKER_01 24:08

I love it. I love it. And do you have one final super tip or golden thread you want to drop on us?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Yeah, I would say right now, because I'm in I'm in some really interesting conversations right now with some very high achieving entrepreneurs that's just shifting the way that I'm thinking about business. And I think ultimately it it really comes down to what is your passion, what is your purpose? There is a way to monetize it, and we get to have both. We get to run purpose-driven businesses filled with passion, and we get to have a lot of profit.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

I love it. Mic drop. I love it. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us here and sharing your beautiful wisdom. And it's so fun to talk about theater. And yeah, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Oh, thanks for having me.

unknown 25:11

Thank you.