Pricing Is Personal: How Your Money Story Shapes Your Personal Brand with Jacquette Timmons
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Description
If you’ve ever pulled a price out of thin air, matched a competitor without context, or quietly dipped into your savings to sustain your business, you’re not alone. Many entrepreneurs struggle not with numbers, but with the stories and habits they’ve learned about money. Financial behaviorist, coach, and creator of Pricing Made Human®, Jacquette M. Timmons, understands this deeply—and built her work around helping people see the emotional and behavioral patterns tied to their financial choices.
In this episode of Branding Room Only, Jacquette and I unpack the real drivers behind pricing, business development, and confidence. She shares how a blunt question from her CPA—“When are you going to stop mortgaging your life?”—forced her to confront her own money patterns, even with an MBA in finance and years managing high-net-worth portfolios. We explore how upbringing, identity, and the desire to be chosen show up in how you charge, negotiate, follow up, and build a sustainable business.
If you’ve ever hesitated to raise your rates, struggled to explain your value, or felt vulnerable during a pitch, this conversation gives you language, context, and strategy to shift how you approach money. You’ll walk away with new insight into your relationship with pricing, the role your personal story plays in your financial decisions, and what it takes to protect your financial future while growing your brand.
Chapters
1:41 – What personal brand means to Jacquette, how she (and I) would describe her, her favorite quote, and the musical genre (and DJs) that gets her hyped
4:46 – How Jacquette’s childhood experiences and environments shaped and influenced her
8:35 – Jacquette’s surprising early career path and how curiosity about human behavior fueled her focus on money psychology
15:16 - How Jacquette helps her clients navigate their relationship with money
17:24 – The pivotal question that inspired Pricing Made Human® and how one moment of truth redefined Jacquette’s business philosophy
24:23 – Two mistakes people make when it comes to pricing or knowing their value
26:53 – How business development triggers our insecurities
29:55 – The “five and five” exercise and how relationships influence money and business decisions
32:26 – Examples of Jacquette’s impact on clients’ relationship with money in business development
36:49 – The connection between confidence, money, and how you show up professionally
38:48 – How Jacquette approaches business development for herself and what she wishes she’d done differently
43:12 – What I learned about money and business development from working with Jacquette
45:52 – How Jacquette refuses to let the world steal her joy
47:19 – Jacquette’s commitment to focusing on money’s human side and warmth as her magical asset
Connect With Jacquette Timmons
Jacquette Timmons is a financial behaviorist, speaker, author, and the creator of Pricing Made Human®. She has over 38 years in the financial world and 24 years spent helping individuals, entrepreneurs, and professionals make confident, purpose-driven financial choices. With a background that blends a marketing degree, an MBA in finance, and experience working with high-net-worth clients, she brings a unique perspective to financial coaching. She merges creativity, empathy, and strategic thinking to guide others beyond the numbers and connect with the emotional and behavioral aspects of their financial journey.
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Transcript
Paula Edgar: Welcome to Branding Room Only, the podcast where your personal brand gets a front-row seat. I'm Paula Edgar, and if you're here, it's because you know your brand isn't just about what you do. It's about how people experience you. In each episode, you'll hear stories, strategies, and lessons from leaders and influencers who built their brands and made their mark. And I'll share the tools you need to do the same. Let's go.
Hi, everybody. It's Paula Edgar, and welcome back to Branding Room Only. I'm super excited for my conversation today with my guest. Let me tell you who she is. She is Jacquette Timmons. She is a financial behaviorist, speaker, author, and the creator of Pricing Made Human.
You use money every day in all sorts of ways. I know I do, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you know what you have, what you tend to do with it, or why. For more than three decades, Jacquette M. Timmons has helped people uncover their blind spots and rethink their relationship with money, pricing, and business. When someone once asked her, “When are you going to stop mortgaging your life?” in 2003, she had to rethink her own relationship with money too. I can't wait to hear about all this.
But quick little side, Jacquette is also the reason that you see me right here in front of you. She is my coach, so everything that you see that I do that you like, she's the person who's involved in it.
Jacquette, welcome to The Branding Room.
Jacquette Timmons: Oh, my goodness, Paula. I am so excited to be here. Finally, finally. We've been talking about this for such a long time.
Paula Edgar: Yes, yes, yes. Okay, so I got to ask you the questions I ask everybody.
Jacquette Timmons: Yes, I know.
Paula Edgar: What does personal branding mean to you? How would you define it?
Jacquette Timmons: A couple of ways. One, what is it that you're known for? So as you were just describing in the intro, I'm known for helping people with their relationship with money. So it's what are you known for? It's also who you are, right? Who you are in terms of your own self-knowing, but also how do others see you? Then the third would be what's the impact that you are having or making? To me, it's the confluence of those three elements that make up your brand.
Paula Edgar: See, I already told you. She uses SAT words in the first sentence. Confluence. Go ahead and Google it. Okay. How would you describe yourself in three words or short phrases?
Jacquette Timmons: Curious. I'm a gatherer. I like to bring people together. I'm also loyal, which is why I think I'm the holder of secrets.
Paula Edgar: Oh. I mean, that's not mine. I'm going to take host privilege and give you my three for you—thoughtful, strategic, and empathetic.
Jacquette Timmons: Thank you. Thank you.
Paula Edgar: Yes, yes. Like my husband, Taj, always says, “ Jacquette's just the nicest person.” I'm like, "I know, right?"
Jacquette Timmons: He's my buddy.
Paula Edgar: He is. Y’all are similar. Do you have a favorite quote or motto that you like to tap into?
Jacquette Timmons: I do have a favorite quote, and I actually used it in my book Financial Intimacy. It's by Toni Cade Bambara.
Paula Edgar: Okay.
Jacquette Timmons: It is, “Relationship begins with the self in the self.”
Paula Edgar: With the self in the self. Yes.
Jacquette Timmons: I use that to open up the part of the book where we're talking about your relationship with money because I think it is a really great way of just anchoring the fact that everything that we do, everything, every change that we want to make on an individual level, with our families, with our community, larger scale, it begins with how well do we know ourselves?
Paula Edgar: Where our trauma lies.
Jacquette Timmons: Where our trauma lies. Exactly.
Paula Edgar: Don't get this started. We're going to turn this into therapy sessions. All right. Now, this I'm very curious about because I know you have a very eclectic music following. What is your hype song? What is a song that when they're going to get full Jacquette M. Timmons, what's playing in your head?
Jacquette Timmons: It's not a particular song, but it is a particular genre of music. I love house music. There's just something ancestral about the bass and the drums. I love it. So it would be that. I do, though, have three favorite DJs.
Paula Edgar: Okay, go for it.
Jacquette Timmons: Louis Vega, Timmy Regisford—actually four—Black Coffee, and Jihad Muhammad.
Paula Edgar: All right. Since I don't know who any of those people are, we're going to put them into the show notes because they should go ahead and get an amplifier because we want people to find the mixes.
Jacquette Timmons: Yes, I love them. Yes.
Paula Edgar: So tell me where you grew up and tell me how you think that shaped what your brand is.
Jacquette Timmons: Oh, my God. So significantly. So I grew up in two places. I was born here being in New York, in the Bronx, in the West Bronx, up the hill from Yankee Stadium. My mother and I lived there until I was six.
A little backstory is my parents separated when I was two, but they didn't get divorced until I was 13. That's a whole nother conversation. But my mother was a professional musician, and she traveled a lot. So when she was on the road, I stayed with a babysitter, Mrs. Johnson.
At some point, my mother just made the decision that she wanted to retire from being a professional musician and sat for the civil servants exam and got called by Social Security. They gave her three choices—Baltimore, Green Bay, Wisconsin, or Olean, New York. Green Bay was too far.
Paula Edgar: And cold.
Jacquette Timmons: And cold. Where we ended up was cold too. But yeah, too far. Baltimore, she felt like that's just another city. I might as well stay in the Bronx. She didn't want to raise me here by herself as a single parent. So we ended up in Olean, New York, which is a college town.
It was perfect because not only was that an option that they gave her, it was also a place with which she was familiar because she sang several times at St. Bonaventure. So she already knew a couple of people and a couple of pretty prominent folks there.
So we moved there, but in hindsight, it was traumatic for me. Because where we lived in the Bronx, where I went to school, it was everybody—Black, white, Spanish, everybody. I then go to a school where I am one of two Black students. Not in my grade. Not in my class. In the entire school.
Paula Edgar: Wow.
Jacquette Timmons: It was so like, oh my God. Then add on to that, having a mother who was just very different from everybody else's mother. So at a time when, at an age, I should say, when the last thing you want to do is be different, I was.
I think that that's probably why I'm a gatherer and like to bring folks together because I think that definitely influenced me in that way. I think the curiosity piece probably was amplified by the fact that I'm a single child. So just growing up and having to entertain yourself and figure things out, like, okay.
So I'm curious and I ask a lot of questions and I drove my mother crazy. She would get to the point where, and I knew where she was getting to a point of being frustrated because then she would say, “Okay, Miss Rona Barrett.”
Paula Edgar: LOL. Share the connection because there are a lot of generations that listen to the podcast and they're not going to know.
Jacquette Timmons: So for those that don't know, Rona Barrett was a celebrity columnist back in the day in the 70s. So her calling me that was like, "Okay, you've gone a little bit too far." But I think that honed my skill of being able to not only to listen, but to sense. Because I would know that once she said that, okay, don't ask anymore right now.
Paula Edgar: That mommy EQ.
Jacquette Timmons: Yeah. I think it also helped me, that curious lens also led to wondering what's missing and looking at situations and problems and figuring out, well, what's the piece that's missing here? So I think that those are all of the ways in which the places that I grew up shaped me.
Paula Edgar: I love that. I love the connections that you made to them. Tell me about your career path. How did you end up here right in front of me? What's been that path?
Jacquette Timmons: I really wish I could tell you it was intentional. It was not.
Paula Edgar: You didn't design your life to be sitting right here? That's me and my podcast.
Jacquette Timmons: Although design plays a role in it because I wanted to be a shoe designer.
Paula Edgar: Oh.
Jacquette Timmons: So yeah, I wanted to be a shoe designer.
Paula Edgar: Of the things I thought you were going to say.
Jacquette Timmons: I know. I know. I wanted to be a shoe designer. I graduated high school early at 16 and went to FIT at a time when they didn't even have a shoe design program. But as a part of your curriculum, you had to do a co-op. So I reached out to every single high-end shoe designer to do my co-op, and I ended up working at Salvatore Ferragamo.
Paula Edgar: Okay, shoes.
Jacquette Timmons: Yeah, right? But once my co-op was over and a little bit longer after that, I started working at Bloomingdale's. I worked behind the counter at Clinique on Thursdays and the weekends. So I would sneak downstairs and watch The Cosby Show because it was like, oh, my God.
But during the week when I didn't have classes, I would work in the showroom. Estee Lauder at the time owned Estee Lauder, Clinique, Aramis, and Prescriptives. I give you that backdrop because one day I was secretly shopped. The person who secretly shopped me was the head of human resources for all of Estee Lauder.
Paula Edgar: Ah.
Jacquette Timmons: She liked me. She was like, "All right, so what are you doing?" We're having this conversation behind the counter at Clinique at Bloomingdale's. It was my last semester. It's like April or so. I tell her that I'm about to graduate and how I want to go to business school, but not right now.
She's like, "Oh, come and talk to me when you're in the office on Monday." I went and talked to her. She hired me. I started off as a secretary because that's what we called them back then. Two months later, she goes, "I'm going to Bankers Trust," and you're going with me.
Prior to that, the only thing I knew about Wall Street was what we read in The New York Times because we had to read that in school and what I saw on the news. But I had no idea what Wall Street was. By the way, I thought these people at Bankers Trust, they don't know grammar. Where is the apostrophe?
Paula Edgar: Not you trying to edit. Who is the graphic that's trying to? They can't read.
Jacquette Timmons: Oh, God, to be young and just, I don't know. But I got there, and that was ’86. Then in ’87 was the crash. I didn't have the language back then to even know that this field of behavioral finance and economics existed. But I was fascinated because that one event happened, and there were two dramatically different responses, or I witnessed two dramatically different responses.
There were some people who lost a lot of money for themselves and for their clients. If they could have, they would have jumped out of a window. I'm not being dramatic. Then there were other people that were very calm. I was just fascinated by, well, why are there these different reactions? Why are they not talking to one another? Why are they not bringing the other folks to their side of the table?
So that was the thing that planted, I think, the first seed of curiosity. The second seed was working in the private bank and eventually getting on a team where I was managing money for high-net-worth individuals and recognizing, huh, yeah, they've got a couple of more zeros and commas behind those zeros than my family. But they ended up having the same questions, the same challenges, the same desires for their children as my mother wanted for me.
So it planted this idea of, oh, some people walk around thinking rich people don't have problems. Not true. Then there are other people who walk around thinking that people who don't come from a great set of means don't know how to manage their money. Also not true. Because my mother was incredible. She saved. She didn't have any debt.
I have this story of calling her one time from my dorm. “Mommy, can I use your credit card to buy something at Bloomingdale's?” And she's like, “Put it on layaway.” I'm like, “Mommy, that's not the kind of store Bloomingdale's is.” She's like, “Well, I guess you're not getting it.”
Paula Edgar: That part, which resonates because I get a lot of “Mommy, can I” calls.
Jacquette Timmons: Oh, my God. Oh, my goodness. So that created the foundation in terms of the industry. Then in ’95, I ended up going out on my own. That was actually encouraged by one of the people that was on my team because Bankers Trust was involved in a little bit of a scandal. It had nothing to do with us. It was on the institutional side, but it did have an impact on the private bank.
We were building up a new business unit because our president had gotten fired. It was like, all right, what are we going to do? So I was interviewing internally. One of the guys says, “You should just start your own business.” I was like, “I can't do that.” He’s like, “Well, why not? You've been a part of building this up from scratch.” I was like, “Huh, maybe I can. Maybe I can go after people who don't have millions of dollars. I can go after people who have just a couple of hundred thousand dollars.”
So again, naive. I branched out on my own. That's how I started my business. That was in ’95. I got my first speaking engagement in 1996, my first coaching client in 2001.
Paula Edgar: And here we are.
Jacquette Timmons: And here we are.
Paula Edgar: Here we are. You reminded me of something that you said when we first started working together, which is that you want to have—no, you're going to have money problems. You just don't want to have the same money problems as you had before. I was like, I want to have rich girl problems.
Jacquette Timmons: Exactly. Yes.
Paula Edgar: I like that. Yes. Yeah, because there is, I think, the brand of if you don't have access to a lot, it makes the perception that you are fiscally irresponsible. You're right. That is definitely not the case across the board. There are definitely some places where that's the case, but not across the board.
Okay. So I know what you do for me as my coach. Tell the people what your work is, what it encompasses in terms of you helping people navigate money, and describe the coaching that you do for everybody.
Jacquette Timmons: Yeah. So what I love is that my coaching is not therapy. The reason why I love that it's not—it feels like it. It feels therapeutic. But I love the fact that it's not therapy because if I were a therapist, I wouldn't be able to be friends with my clients. I love the fact that that is something I'm able to do. It's not therapy. But even though I have my MBA in finance and have managed money, it also is not financial planning. It's in that space in between, where I'm helping people either discover or discover on a different level their relationship with money.
How do we convert that into a strategy where we are aligning their choices, especially their daily choices, with their goals and their vision? That's true whether I'm working with someone on their personal finances, like a couple, or someone on their business and their personal finances.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. So I'll just add, Jacquette is also a foot in your back.
Jacquette Timmons: Yes.
Paula Edgar: If you think that you're going to get away with not having done the thing, it is, as an entrepreneur, the accountability. Like the shift in terms of when I worked on my own to when I worked—I've worked with other coaches before, but working with you has been this much more consistent in terms of how I show up. I feel consciously okay if I'm stepping back from something because I know that it's going to come back because you're going to be accountable.
So I have Team Paula, and Jacquette is like the core piece. Actually, you have helped me fill out all the rest of the members of Team Paula. So when you say that you are a convener, you're also a connector, which is a really important part of your value add and the strategy piece.
Okay. So Pricing Made Human.
Jacquette Timmons: Yeah.
Paula Edgar: I want to talk about this because you know more than most—thinking about what you're going to charge people is probably the biggest problem for most entrepreneurs. They're like, "Well, I don't know how much." You have this whole thing where you're like, "We're going to figure out exactly where and what and how" with effort.
Jacquette will ask me questions like, “Well, what is your goal for the next quarter?” I'm like, "I don't know. I didn't think about that." I was like, "Oh, I guess I should think about that, huh?"
So I love that it's taking the places that are blind spots from folks to help them. But talk to me about what made you create this and what does it entail?
Jacquette Timmons: So, like a lot of things, experience, and in this particular case, a little slap on the hand. So you made reference to a particular question that was asked of me. That was Mr. Berthoud, who was my CPA at the time. May he rest in peace.
It's 2003. That timeline is important to know. So I go into his office really, really excited because I'm like, "My numbers look good." At this point, I've been working with Mr. Berthoud or have been working with him for 15 years on my personal taxes, eight of which was my business. So I'm like, "Okay, he's going to be really proud of me."
We're having the meeting. At the end, he takes his glasses and he brings them down to the tip of his nose. He looks at me and he goes, “Jacquette, when are you going to stop mortgaging your life?” I am mimicking that emphasis because that was what he said and how he said it.
First of all, whenever an elder takes their glasses and brings it down to the brim of their nose, whatever they say next is something you're not going to want to hear.
Paula Edgar: But you need to hear it.
Jacquette Timmons: But you need to hear it. Because Mr. Berthoud was an elder, I didn't say what was in my head. But I looked at him like, "I don't know what you're talking about." I was really confused. Like, where is this coming from? I just came down the stairs all happy-go-lucky, and you have busted my bubble.
So I'm on the Long Island Railroad coming back to Brooklyn. I'm like, "Well, maybe it is time for me to find a new CPA because I don't know what he's talking about."
Paula Edgar: All indignant.
Jacquette Timmons: All indignant. About two or four business days later, I've got a business bill to pay. I don't have enough in my business account to pay it. The reason the timeframe matters is we don't yet have online banking. So I've got to go down to the branch. I do. I get a withdrawal slip from my personal savings account, a deposit slip for my business checking account.
When I get to the teller, that's when the light bulb moment goes off. I'm like, "Oh, that's why he asked me that question—because this is my pattern." Whenever my business needed money, I would dip into my savings. I would sell securities. I was increasing my debt. When I started my business, I didn't have any credit card debt.
So he was right. If I didn't interrupt that pattern of behavior, I would end up mortgaging my life. So how it connects to how Pricing Made Human was formed—and that was over a bit of time—the investment part of my business was regulated. I didn't have to think about that. I was like, "This is what you got to do."
But the speaking and the coaching arms are not. So I was just picking numbers out of the air and woefully undercharging in the process. So when I began to really just assess what was happening with me, that's how I was able to break down, oh, there's something to this pricing.
So many of us are taught to approach it as if we are a consumer goods company—take what it costs you to make it, add some profit over that, and then come up with a number. The reality is even for them, that doesn't work. But for us especially, it doesn't work. It's omitting the emotional and the personal elements that we're bringing to the table.
So Pricing Made Human came about because of that. It is looking at your relationship with money, with yourself, with your business, and with the people that you want buying from you.
Paula Edgar: I mean, I will never forget you made me reverse engineer, and I was like, "Holy crap." Because I thought I was doing okay. I was like, "Wait a minute." It's such an important piece in thinking about the time and effort and energy you put into creating something, not just the delivery. I was thinking delivery time only. I was hourly Paula. Jacquette was like, "Nope, we're not doing that." It has been. I also have, if you get on my nerve, client, charge too. So there's that.
Jacquette Timmons: Yeah, exactly.
Paula Edgar: Which also made me think, like, you're like, "If it's something that feels light to you, then that's the price. But if it feels heavy to you, make sure that you're getting it." It has changed so, so much in the work.
Jacquette Timmons: Awesome. The other thing I want to say is that it also invites people to look at—because presuming you have more than one offer, which I hope people do—it also invites you to take a look at what's the job of that offer. Not just in the life or the business of the person buying from you, but in your business.
You know, is it the thing that you want to be the signature offer, the thing that contributes the most to your bottom line? Or is it the starting point, the feeder, or is it somewhere in between? That's where being trained as a money manager brings in the portfolio mindset because it's inviting people to look at their offers as if it were a portfolio.
To just be really clear and honest with themselves. Does this offer represent the percentage of your pie that you want it to or that you need it to?
Paula Edgar: The need part. I ain't telling you, Jacquette, it is like the mirror that I've literally paid for. But still, I'm like, because we don't self-interrogate the way that you are interrogated if you have a coach that's doing it well. It often will feel like she's waiting for me to have the aha, and then I have the aha, and I'm like, oh, that's what she's doing. So I guess what you're saying, Mr. What's the name for you?
Jacquette Timmons: Mr. Berthoud, yes.
Paula Edgar: It's the same thing that you do for me on a consistent basis.
Jacquette Timmons: Yes.
Paula Edgar: I'm like, "Oh. Yay, got you." So, I mean, going into this piece, I wanted to have the conversation with you because I know a lot of entrepreneurs or entrepreneur-minded people listen to the podcast or people who are thinking, "I want to do that." You really can't be, I think, a good and effective entrepreneur without having a business development strategy, right?
Jacquette Timmons: Yes.
Paula Edgar: Assuming that you need money.
Jacquette Timmons: Right.
Paula Edgar: So what are some of the things that you see mistakes people make when it comes to pricing or knowing what their value is for business development and in that entrepreneurship lane?
Jacquette Timmons: One, just focusing on the numbers as if you only need to have one plus one equal two. That's a problem. I think the other thing is that the question, “What should I charge for this?” is a universal question. But the answer to it is not.
I will take even just my block in Park Slope. There are five coffee shops. I don't even have to walk a block. There are two on my block between 7th and 8th. They're right across the street from one another. You cross 7th Avenue, there's one, two, and then at the next corner, the third one. All of them charge a different price for a black coffee. All of them charge a different price when I want to get fancy and have a dirty chai iced latte. They charge a different price for that.
So if you're someone who's looking at, oh, well, person A or person B or person C, they're doing the same thing. What are they charging? You might be setting yourself up for financial failure because you don't know what went into them coming up with that number.
So as an example, the brownstone that's on the same side of the street as me—that brownstone was inherited. They don't have the same financial pressures as the one across the street, which has always been a commercial entity. So I think the thing that makes it difficult is focusing on the numbers and thinking that you've got to match your pricing to what the people around you are doing. You're doing that very blindly. So those are two key mistakes.
Paula Edgar: I love that because I hadn't thought about this part of it, but it's a true thing in that this is where branding comes in, too. Like the differentiator, because of the experience I might have at Coffee Shop B, I might prefer them even if the coffee is lesser. Or there is the je ne sais quoi of the “you” of it, that unique value proposition that does differentiate. It's why you often see people charging more money because the experience of it, even if the product is similar, is different. So I love that as a callout in terms of thinking about that.
Jacquette Timmons: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paula Edgar: So what are some of the hesitancies, challenges, problems that people have—I'm telling my me—it's business development and thinking about it even in that way. It's developing your business, right? Getting more, hopefully, and getting the same. What are some of the reasons when you're thinking about the behavioral that people have when it comes to business development?
Jacquette Timmons: You know, like money, it is going to poke at every insecurity you have.
Paula Edgar: Tell me more.
Jacquette Timmons: It is just going to bring it up to the surface, right? You think about it from a business development standpoint. You are vulnerable because you're putting yourself out there. You're pitching. You're making a case for what it is that you offer and why somebody should choose you.
You are trying to, as you're making a case—I shouldn't say trying to, but as you're making a case—you're also reinforcing, “Here's what I'm promising you. Here are the results that I am going to get for you.” Other people are doing the same thing. So the vulnerability and the self-consciousness come up because you want somebody to choose you.
Paula Edgar: Yes.
Jacquette Timmons: So the branding part, it plays a key role in, well, why does someone choose you over somebody else? Because sometimes your price could be higher, but they'll choose you because they enjoy working with you more.
Paula Edgar: That part. That part. That part. The piece about the vulnerabilities is something that I don't think that I really realized until I was working with you. Because you basically were like, "You cannot rely on just people referring you." But I was like, "But it's worked well so far."
The good thing about having a strong brand is that people will refer you. So that's always going to be a piece of the pie. But just to keep it real, I was a cheerleader in high school, right? I'm not used to having to ask for stuff. Like, people are coming to me. “I don't know your name. You know my name.” It is what it is. So I'm like, "You mean you want me to ask people to hire me? But it's me." It's also freeing, too.
Jacquette Timmons: Yes. Because then you are controlling what you can control. Like, you can't control when someone refers you. When you are referred, you can't control their decision timeline. You can't control that that referral and that decision timeline matches up with your cash flow needs.
So that's why from a business development standpoint, you do have to have some structure and some systems in place around who are you going after, how are you going after them, what's your follow-up process.
It's really interesting because there's an exercise that I do with clients. It's called five and five. Yeah, yeah, you know that. You know that exercise. So five and five for folks that don't know, it is an invitation to examine the relationships in your life, both with the people that you know and the people that are running around in your head, and how those relationships impact your business and your money.
Well, here's how I came up with that. I came up with it because I realized that the absence of my relationship with my father was affecting my business development because I wanted them to choose me.
Paula Edgar: Right.
Jacquette Timmons: I wanted them to choose me. I would freak out when—very rarely do you have a discovery call or whatever people call that initial call—very rarely does someone sign there. So you've got a follow-up process. That follow-up process would be like torture to me.
The longer it went, the more desperate, if you will, I became, at least emotionally. When I realized that, I was like, "Oh, my God, okay, the reality is you have to follow up. But I needed to institute a follow-up process that allowed me to maintain some dignity."
Paula Edgar: That part.
Jacquette Timmons: Right? And didn't project onto this stranger my family issues that have nothing to do with them.
Paula Edgar: All of the trauma that we all come with.
Jacquette Timmons: Exactly.
Paula Edgar: I mean, that is such a good related point, having people think about it. Because I'm just thinking, if somebody is listening and they're not an entrepreneur, we all have the want-to-be-chosen piece of this all. That can be for a stretch opportunity at work. That can be for a lot of things. That could be dating.
Jacquette Timmons: Yeah, absolutely.
Paula Edgar: Actually, it is dating. 100% it is dating. It is why I've often said I am a serial relationship person or I'm just not. So it's like when I was out on the streets, it was I was outside or I was inside. There were two of those things because similarly, I wanted to be the person of choice, chosen, and period, hard stop. And that is it. Or the chooser, to make the decisions. So basically, we're all—I told you it is like therapy, so there's that. I'm going to send this to my therapist. “Look, I have grown. I'm doing better.”
Okay. I want folks to hear some of how you have impacted some of the people you've worked with. So can you tell a story about an entrepreneur or somebody else who you've helped navigate that piece, and they've had an epiphany around money? Tell me this.
Jacquette Timmons: Yes. One of the things I want to really emphasize is that none of the epiphanies happened overnight. I share that because I think sometimes, especially when we're talking about money and business, we hear these stories that are positioned as overnight successes.
Even though we know very rarely is that true, the overnight piece—that’s the piece that gets glorified. So one of the people that I'm thinking of when I say that actually sent me an email last year and said, “I reached a million dollars in savings, and it's because of you.” I was like, so touched and really appreciated that she said that. But it was also like, "Okay, I'll take it. But you did the work. You did the work to make that happen."
So that's one. Another would be actually an associate. When I did a talk for a law firm, a lot of people have this idea that you have to do—especially if they have these huge law school student debts and everything else on top of that—that you have to either pay off debt or save.
During the session, I pushed back and said, I don't believe in that. I don't believe in either/or. I think I believe in both/and, which may mean that it takes you longer to get out of debt. It may mean that it will take you longer to build up the savings that you want. But if you do a little bit of both, you're going to—at least while you're paying it down—feel like not all of your money is just depleting you of energy because it's going somewhere else.
So she too sent me an email, like maybe two years after the session, to say, "Thank you so much because I didn't stop saving." Then she gave me her amount that she had saved. So that was really cool.
Then another is a woman that took—and for those who are wondering, I do work with men—but it's the women that I'm thinking of right now. She took the pricing masterclass that I hosted in June. I asked, "Well, why are you here?" Here's why. I appreciate the repeat business, right? But she took the masterclass in December of 2020, became a one-on-one client in 2021, and was now back again. I was just curious, like, what's going on? She's like, "My business is not the same. I need help again."
Paula Edgar: Good for the self-awareness piece of that, right?
Jacquette Timmons: That is what I wanted to get to. I think also just recognizing that just like overnight success is not real, believing that your business is static is not real either. It will grow, and it will grow because things environmentally have changed. Hello, 2025. It will grow because maybe your clients have changed or their appetite for the offers that you are creating or delivering have changed. So it doesn't stay the same.
Paula Edgar: No, it does not. One of the benefits of collaborating with you in a coaching relationship is that I feel steady consistency when things are unsteady. The one thing that we can be sure about is that things are going to be shifting, right? It's never going to be always the same. I mean, we have had great times. We have had hard times.
Jacquette Timmons: Yep.
Paula Edgar: But consistency there is like, the work we do reminds me that this too shall pass. Also this this too.
Jacquette Timmons: Right. Exactly.
Paula Edgar: So that on its own. I remember when I used to coach clients, I used to be like, "I don't want to be your crutch. I want to be your partner." I like that in our relationship. It's very much that. Because there are times—shocking, shocking—that I push back to Jacquette. When I'm like, "Girl, you sure? Because," she's always usually right in the end. She's just a kind person who doesn't say, “I told you so,” but that's why I stop coaching, because I'm an I-told-you-so person.
Jacquette Timmons: I do not do that.
Paula Edgar: Okay. So what I was just talking about is really how I've stayed confident as an entrepreneur. I want you to talk about the connection between confidence, money, and how we show up in our professional lives generally. What are your thoughts about that?
Jacquette Timmons: I think that our confidence is stronger when we feel financially safe and secure. What I want to say with the caveat is financially safe and secure doesn't mean that everything is perfect, but it does mean that you feel confident and safe in your game plan. Like you're not just sitting there being passive about what's happening, whatever that may be, but that you're taking an active role in either bringing about the result that you want or an active role in, “I don't like this result. So let me do something to change it.”
Paula Edgar: Yeah, had some of those.
Jacquette Timmons: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Paula Edgar: The frameworks that we have talked about and the systems help with the—and I know you work with more than just women. But I remember when I came to you, it was really thinking, "I want to have an understanding of all of this because I don't come from money and I don't come from a family of entrepreneurs. I know that I am not best at this piece." That was a very vulnerable space for me to be in because I'm not used to saying I'm not good at things. But it was a game-changer because I was able to say, "I'm not good at this. Help me."
Again, things I don't often say. I didn't feel bad about the vulnerability. I think that's why everybody I know who's been coached—and there's a bunch of us, we are the Jacquettes—that it's always that feeling of, I know that I'm going to be supported wherever I'm showing up in this path. That's an important piece.
So tell me what you do for yourself, though. How do you approach business development for yourself?
Jacquette Timmons: Oh, my goodness. It's always a work in progress. So I think one of the reasons why I was able to hone in and suggest to you that you don't rely on referrals is because I know the cost of relying on referrals.
Paula Edgar: That's a whole nother podcast.
Jacquette Timmons: Because so much of my business is that way too. But I also realize how vulnerable the space that that put me in. So yes, it is still mostly, you know, referral, but I am getting better myself at being intentional about, okay, who am I going to reach out to? What am I pitching to them on the speaking side?
Even on the speaking side, I've hired an attorney that also acts as a talent representative. So I'm looking forward to seeing what that unpacks or unlocks in 2026. But also, like on the coaching, I'm trying to get more strategic about when I'm doing social media to make sure that I have a call to action that isn't just buy this or do this, but it is something that can help people not only have a better understanding of what I do and how I do it and why I do it, but gives them a way of coming to their own, “Oh, I didn't know that.” So I'm working on those sorts of things too.
Paula Edgar: Definitely have seen that in the shift in your social. Like there are a lot more reflective questions and calling with like, yeah. It's helpful because that's what drives engagement more. Even if people aren't actually engaging, which is something that somebody talked to me about recently. I'm used to getting social media traction. But brand-wise, thinking about the fact that there are a lot more people who watch and don't ever engage. That pick-me, choose-me thing, I'm like, "But why are you not engaging? Hello? Did you not understand how much I put into this?"
Jacquette Timmons: Yep.
Paula Edgar: But oftentimes people are referring, seeing, and thinking about your content, even if they're not doing the engagement, which is an important piece to think about. Something that we didn't prep in terms of talking about, but I want to ask you about is what do you wish that you had done differently? I mean that with a blanket. Or whatever that comes to mind, what is something that you wish you had done differently, if any?
Jacquette Timmons: Oh, my God. I think a lot of the mistakes that I made were mistakes that I needed to make because otherwise I wouldn't have learned what it was that I learned. But if I were to do it all over again, starting from scratch, I would have put a cap on how much of my own savings I would have dipped into, how much of my investment portfolio I would have sold, or how much more debt that I would have accrued. So I would have protected.
That's one of the reasons why I am so adamant when I am working with entrepreneurs and business owners. I really want to disrupt this myth that says you give your business everything, including your financial future. So that comes from almost having done that. So that would be a big thing that I would do differently or change.
I think the other would be probably just going for it a little bit more and going for it a little bit more in terms of just asking.
Paula Edgar: Girl, same. Same, same, same.
Jacquette Timmons: Like, what's the worst they can say, no? But if you don't ask, it is a no. Like, by default, it's a no. So I think I would have gone into more spaces that maybe I talked myself out of.
Paula Edgar: Oftentimes I get these things that come down. Something told me that I should be asking you something else. I'm glad I just asked you that because brand-wise, I think I want to pull out this for everybody. I like to have experts on my podcast. When you have experts on there, oftentimes it seems like they've always had it together. I love that the conversation showed that you have not always had it together and it's not been linear.
But that even as you are flourishing, the brand is great, you're still always iterating, right? It's never static. Your brand should never be static. You should always be thinking about what's happening in the environment, what is happening in your own life, and what your goals are.
So, Jacquette, I like a vacation. We know we love the beach. Jacquette's always like, "Okay, what's your saving for that?" I'm like, "What do you mean? I'm just going to put it on Amazon." But having thought about money in such a different way that here's what's coming in, here's what I have, not being afraid of debt, but understanding what debt is and how it works—understanding it has just been such a game changer.
For those of you who are listening, I just want to elevate for you that if you don't know, the key thing for your brand is to learn and then outsource to people who know better than you. But with oversight. It's never outsourced forever. It's always understood.
Jacquette Timmons: I always say don't outsource, but don't abdicate.
Paula Edgar: That's a clip right there. But it can be helpful because I know when we started working together, I was in that space of I have to do everything as an entrepreneur. I'm not good at everything. It's so much lighter now because of that. So you spend money to make money.
There's also something else I want to tell you that Jacquette does with me because y'all should be doing this too. Every single vendor, every single expense has to earn its way.
Jacquette Timmons: Yes. It has to earn its right to be on your income statement, is how I told her.
Paula Edgar: I'm like, "What do you mean? I just want to have that." She's like, "What does it do for you?" Like, literally, and it's a powerful experience to say, is that still working the way you want it to? Is the investment that you're making into that—as an entrepreneur, sometimes you just do things because of the safety of just having it. But it's not helping you in your bottom line because you're just doing it.
Jacquette Timmons: Exactly.
Paula Edgar: I have been like, "Sorry. You have got to go, unfortunately. You didn't meet the Jacquette gauntlet."
Jacquette Timmons: Exactly. Exactly. The litmus test.
Paula Edgar: That piece. So tell me—I know a lot about you, but the folks don't—tell me what you do for fun.
Jacquette Timmons: Oh, my goodness. Especially this year, where I am trying not to let the world steal my joy. I love—as you know—I love food and I love a good meal. So I try to have a really lovely meal. Like I went to Theodora's last week, and that was really lovely. So I try to have a lovely meal at least once a month.
I love art. I love music. So I try to do something in that vein. I just try to see the people that I care for.
Paula Edgar: Jacquette be outside.
Jacquette Timmons: Yeah, I do.
Paula Edgar: Jacquette likes the outdoors. She'll send a message. She'll be like, "I'm outside on my walk," and I'm like, "You're outside? Gosh, people are out there."
Jacquette Timmons: Yes, I do like to be outside.
Paula Edgar: Right. You also bake.
Jacquette Timmons: Oh, my God. Yes. It's that time.
Paula Edgar: I know. I'm like, "My father would not be okay with me doing this podcast and not being like, 'And also she made.'"
Jacquette Timmons: Yes. People love my sweet potato pies. So during the holiday season, I will just call up people and say, like, "Paula, you want a pie? I made two pies. I made four pies. You want one?"
Paula Edgar: The answer is always yes. I'm not even a pie person—I'm like, but I love, it's good. So again, I'm married to a baker. So standard is always high for me.
Jacquette Timmons: Right.
Paula Edgar: But I'm not a pie person, but I love those pies, which is a—
Jacquette Timmons: Oh, I'm so glad to hear that.
Paula Edgar: Yes, so that part.
Jacquette Timmons: I'm so glad to hear that.
Paula Edgar: Okay, so I ask everybody the same two questions. One is this. It's called the Stand By Your Brand. What is the aspect of your personal brand that you will never, never compromise?
Jacquette Timmons: The idea of focusing on the human side of money. You know, in 2025, you even have financial institutions now doing whole ad campaigns around your relationship with money. That was not the case when I was talking about it in the late 90s, early 20s. So I'm just glad to see that there's a shift. But yeah, no matter what, I will always be getting people to focus on the emotional and the psychological aspects of money.
Just as much as, because we do need to respect the numbers, but just as much as we do that, give some weight to the psychology and the emotions of it. I just wrap that all up into having money be human-centered.
Paula Edgar: It makes it different because so many of us were scared of, there was so much that goes on to it. So when I thought and think about this, it's like, yeah, it's not extricated from anything. It's really a part of all of the things.
I know that I feel better about the money piece because of your insistence on making sure that it's not a blame game. It's an understanding.
Jacquette Timmons: Exactly.
Paula Edgar: All right. So the podcast is called Branding Room Only, which is a play on standing room only.
Jacquette Timmons: Yes.
Paula Edgar: Because I'm clever, as we all know. What is the unique aspect about Jacquette that's going to have people in a room, standing room only, to experience about you? What's the magic?
Jacquette Timmons: I'm going to say the word warmth. One of the reasons I'm going to say that is because this is going back to my private banking days. As you can imagine, very stuffy, very traditional banking environment. We were at a client dinner and someone was like, "You laugh too loud." That had a huge impact on me. I think I shrunk as a result of that.
Fast forward another event, and it was an older white man who said this to me. He was like, "Your warmth is your asset, especially because you work with money. Lean into that." I cannot tell you that man's name. I can see his face, but I cannot tell you that man's name. But that was such a blessing for him to say that. So I hope that even on my most challenging days, that people will feel warmth and they will feel safe. And, yeah.
Paula Edgar: Well, I feel warm and I feel safe. Thank you very much. I want to just pull something out of that last piece that you said. That is that brand-wise, all feedback is not good feedback. That sometimes people will give you feedback based on their own fears and their own hang-ups, and not anything having to do with you.
Because I had something similar where somebody told me I was too familiar. If both of us would have listened to that, we wouldn't be where we are today. Also, I know who you are.
Jacquette, tell everybody how they can find out more about you and your work.
Jacquette Timmons: Oh, my goodness. My website is jacquettetimmons.com. You can find me on Instagram or LinkedIn. I'm active on all of that. I, too, have a podcast, which Paula has been on, called More Than Money.
Paula Edgar: Wonderful. Well, this time has been wonderfully spent.
Jacquette Timmons: Yes.
Paula Edgar: I want all of you to go tell that person—you know, the one who needs to do better when it comes to money, or that entrepreneur who is not yet launching because they are doing more than they should. Or just anybody, because they can just hear us Kiki about this podcast. Share the love. Share the things. Stand by your brand. See y’all soon. Bye.
That's it for this episode. I appreciate you hanging out with me on Branding Room Only. Now, please do me a quick favor: head over to ratethispodcast.com/branding so more people can join this conversation. And make sure to stop by at paulaedgar.com/events to see what's next. Whether I'm live, online, or in person, I'd love to see you there. See you next time in the Branding Room. And until then, stand tall, shine bright, and always stand by your brand.
