Impact Pricing

This is the Jack of Hearts from the Selling Value card deck. It's true, buyers making the 'will I' decision do need different information than those making the 'which one' decision. In the 'will I' decision, they're trying to decide, should I buy something in this product category or not? What they're really saying is, is this a place I should spend my budget? Or you could think of this as, how big is the problem I'm going to solve, should I spend these resources to go solve this problem? And that's the information they want to know is, what's the value of solving this problem? Once they've said, yes, that seems like a good place to spend my money. Then they move on to making a 'which one' decision. Should I buy your product or should I buy a competitor's product? When they're making this 'which one' decision, they're now looking at the differences of the products, the features, and in fact, they're trying to estimate how much value is that feature for that one more expensive product. I often like to think what they're really asking is, is the more expensive product worth it? So, when buyers are making the 'which one' decision, they're actually looking at the differentiation of our products. So, it's true, buyers making the 'will I' decision do need different information than buyers making the 'which one' decision. We hope you enjoyed this example of Pricing Table Topics. If you want to get better at speaking, specifically about pricing and value, grab a deck of our cards, pull a random card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Stephan Liozu is the Founder of Value Innoruption Advisors, a boutique consulting firm specializing in disruptive approaches in value, pricing, and strategic management. He helps leaders in organizations that want to get started in pricing by conducting assessments and building road maps. In this episode, learn all about value pricing and how to use the right pricing toolbox to come up with a price based on how much a customer believes a product is worth. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Discover why value-based pricing is the most neglected step in understanding price Learn how to communicate product value in value conversations with customers before products are made for better pricing Find out the importance of having a pricing strategy to determine a product's value "Critical problems are around value. Pricing comes later." – Stephan Liozu Topics Covered: 01:01 - How Stephan got into Pricing: having been named ACP deployment officer for Owens Corning Europe taking care of the pricing module in SAP 02:37 - The role of a chief value officer: Being the chief conductor of all the value and pricing activity in an organization. 05:50 - The whole process of measuring value, creating, and capturing it using the dollarization methodology 07:39 - Going through value creation: looking at the customer problem, do a better job of understanding the customer problem, uncovering it through market research, insights, and ethnographic research 09:14 - '99% of businesses are there to create value, oftentimes they don't know what value really means.' Stephan's thoughts on it. 13:40 - Conversations put your customers at ease. Stephan's perspective about value conversation and the challenge that goes with it. 16:30 - Why do companies don't understand what product value is? Stephan states the three reasons why. 17:58 - Why is it important to ask the right questions? 19:18 - Customer segmentation is an often-neglected part of a value conversation. Another reason why companies don't think about value. 19:54 - What Stephan is up to these days: leveraging technology to a lot of his work focusing on monetization of software and data. 21:03 - Hardware product companies are giving away the software as a way to sell their hardware. We hear Stephan's idea about it. 22:32 - Talking about cost and value in SaaS companies. The challenge of communicating the value of its product. 24:49 - He couldn't care less about focusing more on the value of a product. His one pricing advice that could impact your business. Key Takeaways: "Our competitors are also looking at the customer problem. So, we got to do a better job at understanding the customer problem, uncovering it through market research, insights, ethnographic research." - Stephan Liozu "I wanted not to be a CPO chief pricing officer, I wanted to be a CVO chief value officer, because our critical problems are around value, you know, pricing comes later." - Stephan Liozu "Psychologically it puts your customers at ease when you have a conversation, whether it's in creation mode, in quantification, validation, and communication." - Stephan Liozu "To be doing the work in value, you have to have value conversations." - Stephan Liozu "If we have to continue doing everything in finance around the product, then we're not going to achieve our goal to show the value of everything else we do in the bundle." - Stephan Liozu People / Resources Mentioned: Ron Baker: https://impactpricing.com/podcast/ep44-ronald-j-baker-trash-the-timesheet-exploring-opportunities-in-subscription-businesses/ Connect with Stephan Liozu: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephanliozu/ Website: http://stephanliozu.com/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on October 19, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/value-and-price-for-a-few-customers/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Andy Paul is the author of Sell Without Selling Out. He's the host of the Sales Enablement Podcast, and has experience on being VP of Business Development and VP of Sales. In this episode, Andy talks about the importance of the "human element" and why we should utilize it more when it comes to business negotiations Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn how automated business sequences negatively affects your business Understand the importance of having the "human element" in business negotiations Find out why you should hire actual negotiation experts and not salespeople when it comes to price negotiations "Managers, take responsibility. Don't put the discounting in the hands of the sellers. And if managers show a little more discipline, then they can preserve the margins better." – Andy Paul Topics Covered: 02:35 – The time Andy learned that pricing is important in the world of sales 06:02 – Selling is about listening to your customers and finding ways to help them 08:37 – How you should communicate value to a customer to make a successful sales meeting 13:28 – Making your customers feel understood is one step in winning sales 17:07 – Why salespeople are unable to utilize the human element 19:20 – Automated selling sequences is mostly persuasive, which is not the best way to go in sales 20:50 – Salespeople's job is to build one on one relationships with customers, as all customers are not the same 22:30 – How salespeople should handle price segmentations or price negotiations 25:25 – Have professional contract negotiators handle negotiations, and you'll end up getting better deals 29:11 – Andy's pricing advice Key Takeaways: "I say sales, what you have to think about is your job as a salesperson is really nothing more than listening to your buyer, understanding the things that are most important to them in terms of the challenges they face and the outcomes they want to achieve by addressing those challenges and then helping them get that. That's your job. Listen and help." – Andy Paul "If you can be the first to make the buyer feel understood, there are serious milestones happening that you can actually put yourself in the pole position, and win the deal at a higher frequency than your competitors." – Andy Paul "When humanity becomes the differentiator and all the automated buying experiences start to become more similar, how do you stand apart? Being human." – Andy Paul "Everyone wants to point the finger at salespeople as to be the blame for discounting. And the fault is really managers. It's not salespeople." – Andy Paul People / Resources Mentioned: How to Sell Without Selling out: https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Without-Selling-Out-Success/dp/1989603572 Humans are Underrated: https://www.amazon.com/Humans-Are-Underrated-Achievers-Brilliant/dp/0143108379 Talent is Overrated: https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class-Performers/dp/1591842948 Geoffrey Colvin: https://geoffcolvin.com/ Toastmasters: https://www.toastmasters.org/ Connect with Andy Paul: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/realandypaul/ Website: https://www.andypaul.com/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on October 12, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/the-strategic-hot-dog/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the Jack of Spades from the Selling Value card deck. Buyers usually make a 'will I' decision, then decide 'which one'. They make the 'will I' decision, meaning, am I going to buy something in the product category? Am I going to buy a new car? Am I going to buy a new guitar? Am I going to buy a new refrigerator? Am I going to go out to dinner tonight? Am I going to hire a consultant? We make this 'will I' decision, and then after we've said, yes, I need a - you pick it - I need to hire a consultant, then we decide 'which one'. We interview several different consultants. We get bids from them. We see which ones we get along with. But then we're making that 'which one' decision. And it's very important for our sales people, our marketing people, even our product people, to understand the difference between these two questions because when buyers are making these two decisions, they're using different information and they care about different things. Oh, and from my perspective, the price sensitivity changes dramatically and they become much more price sensitive when they move to the 'which one' decision. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull a random card, read the saying, then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate important concepts about value. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Marina Dias has been in the pricing industry for almost ten years. Currently, she is the senior pricing expert and consultant at Competera, a company that helps retailers and brands to increase customer trust by setting and maintaining optimal prices in real-time. In this episode, Marina explains why constant communication with clients is essential in creating pricing strategies. She also enlightens us on the concept of price elasticity, and why understanding it is especially important in this time of inflation. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn the importance of having constant communication with your client about pricing strategies despite the widespread of AI and pricing software Understand the concept of price elasticity Find out how you could adjust your prices in this age of inflation "Think about governance; and don't forget that pricing, at the end of the day, is about people – our customers, our colleagues, and our internal resources of an organization." – Marina Dias Topics Covered: 01:01 – How Marina got into pricing 02:58 – Why more than just dealing with numbers, pricing is an art 07:12 – Why talking to clients about pricing strategies is still important despite the widespread of AI and "black box" pricing software 10:35 – Competera's advice to their clients with regards to dealing with inflation 14:06 – Pricing shall be focused on experience at all times, but pricing strategy and processes are critical in this time of inflation 16:15 – Defining price elasticity and the different factors that affect it 19:37 – Understanding elasticity, and how it plays a vital role in a company's decision making 23:21 – Pricing table topics: "Don't raise prices on subscribers who aren't using the product." 27:09 – Marina's pricing advice Key Takeaways: "I would say that we cannot apply stoicism when we are working at our daily business, because it's something that if we forget about the things that we cannot control, they will control us." – Marina Dias "People migrate between brands. People migrate between competitors. People have the decision at the end of the day, but we have the power to influence. It's one of the variables that we cannot control, of course. It's our costumers' behavior, but we have the power to influence this through pricing." – Marina Dias "At the end of the day, elasticity… it's only a number. But it can help us to drive to have scenarios in our hands and to be able to support our decision making." – Marina Dias People / Resources Mentioned: Competera: https://competera.net/ Connect with Marina Dias: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marinandias/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on October 5, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/raise-prices-now/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the Queen of Diamonds from the Selling Value card deck. It's true, buyers are using inherent value or relative value. This is how they think about the decision that they're making. And salespeople's job should be to help buyers make that decision so we should understand what's the decision a buyer is making. What's the information they need at any given point in time? Well, inherent value is the value of solving a problem. Do I need to buy a new car? Do I need to buy a guitar? Do I need to buy a new dishwasher, a new refrigerator? Do I need to buy a pencil, a new software application? This is the inherent value, what's the value of solving the problem? So why might I need a new car? Because I just crashed mine. Or it just broke down. Or it's getting old. Or I just got a job where my image is really important. These are all great reasons why I might need to buy a new car. And these are inherent value. Are we thinking about the way our buyers are thinking through do I need to buy one of these or not? Oftentimes after they said yes, then they go into relative value. And relative value is, how is your product better than a competitor's product, or different than a competitor's product? What does it do? How does it behave? So, we start thinking of relative value as comparing different alternatives. Our buyers are truly thinking in those two different ways even if they can't articulate it. As salespeople, we should make sure we understand that so we can help buyers make the best decision for them and for us. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull a random card, read the saying, then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate important concepts around value. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Annie Sarnblad has a Masters in Cultural Anthropology. She is certified in Facial Action Coding and can numerically code the 10,000 muscle combinations in human expression. With this skill, Annie has been helping companies to make informed decisions. Besides her corporate clients, Annie also helps high-profile families with heightened security needs, individuals navigating charged political situations, educators, peace mediators, medical professionals, and others. In this episode, Annie talks about the importance of understanding microexpressions in business. She also discusses some of the most observable expressions that would enable business people to assess the situation properly and make necessary adjustments when needed. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn about the science behind facial microexpressions Discover how understanding facial microexpressions could help you in your business Acquire knowledge about the most common microexpressions and how to capitalize on them when you are in a business meeting "My piece of advice is for any business to recognize the importance that pricing can play in reaching their growth targets and objectives and making sure that they recognize that pricing has to be rooted in value." – Annie Sarnblad Topics Covered: 01:42 – Annie explains her skill of being a "human lie detector" 04:11 – The science behind reading facial microexpressions 08:32 – You have no control over facial microexpressions; it just shows 12:19 – No one can really just "smile" for the camera, except when they are actually happy 14:04 – Annie doesn't remember static faces, only the muscle movements 18:43 – Observing the pupil is the easiest to learn because we are already looking at the eyes 22:02 – Why Annie wanted to learn how to read microexpressions 24:30 – Always look out for "disgust" or the "no" face when you are in a meeting 26:16 – Seeing the "no" face means that you have a choice to make 28:57 – How simply looking for pupil dilation could help you pivot from one topic to another and increase your price 31:05 – Annie's pricing advice Key Takeaways: "Muscle movement precedes the thought process. Even somebody like me that's hyper-trained and thinks about this 24/7, I can't stop myself from making the micro expressions unless I change my thought patterns and think about something else." – Annie Sarnblad "Nobody's ever felt cheerful when they get an order to smile." – Annie Sarnblad "If we're building strategy, we can have incredibly intelligent, high-level strategic brains and know the business, know the industry, know the players. But if we're not understanding how the players are interacting with each other, what their primary motivations are, what's in it for them, if we don't understand what's under the surface, we're basing our strategy on the wrong things." – Annie Sarnblad "Once people have a vocabulary for the stuff that they see all the time, they then can have a much higher-level conversation." – Annie Sarnblad "I think people just are so rushed to get everything closed immediately that they sometimes don't use all the information that's available to them to make good choices." – Annie Sarnblad Connect with Annie Sarnblad: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annie-sarnblad/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on September 28, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/reading-buyers-minds/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the Queen of Clubs from the Selling Value card deck. Customers' perception of value is their reality. This is absolutely true. Think about when you purchase something. You don't have the time or the energy to go out and learn everything there is to possibly know about everything. In fact, if you're like me, you've probably purchased things, and made a mistake, "Oh, this really didn't solve the problem I thought it was going to solve. It really didn't look the way I thought it was going to look or act the way I thought it was going to act." And what that really meant was that before we bought the product, we had this perception of what we thought the product would do, and it didn't live up to that. The 'didn't live up to that' is true reality. This is what it really does. But prior to the purchase, the only thing that mattered was what we believe. And this is true of our customers as well. Prior to them making a purchase decision, all they can do is use what they believe to be true as information to make the decision. We need to understand that because our job, if we're selling value, is to make sure their perception of our value is really high. Ideally, we make sure it's accurate, but we want to make sure it's high. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull a random card, read the saying, then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate important concepts about value. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Kiran Gange is the CEO and Founder of RapidPricer, a company that helps automate pricing and promotions for retailers. He helps companies grow internationally, especially into India. And he was a Senior Strategy Analyst at Fry's Electronics. In this episode, Kiran educates us on retail and analytics-based pricing as he shares hypotheses and strategies you can practice in pricing your own products. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn how to price retail products both in B2B and B2C setting Understand why you should increase your price in phases and not shock your customer at once Find out how important analytics-based pricing in, and discover strategies on how you can actually do it in your business "Look at your past data. Use your intuition to guide the data analysis, but don't only base your decision on intuition." – Kiran Gange Topics Covered: 01:31 – How Kiran got into pricing 02:36 – Pricing in both the environments of B2B and B2C in retail 05:07 – A hypothesis to test for foot traffic and cameras 07:13 – Talking about the work that RapidPricer does 11:15 – The strategy on how to rapidly change prices, and the difference between base price and promoted price 14:00 – The difference between AI and a strategically thought-out programming 17:06 – Discussion around analytics-based pricing frameworks, and Mark's 'which one' and 'will I' concept 21:01 – Using AI to know which products people are price sensitive on 22:09 – Pricing table topics: "Execute price increases in phases; test the outcomes." 24:08 – Kiran's pricing advice Key Takeaways: "There's a difference between a base price and a promoted price. The base price is when you decide what is the right price to keep inside your store for a longer time. A promotion is an instant decision, typically to correct something which is a negative factor." – Kiran Gange "Customers don't like prices changing up on them instantly." – Kiran Gange "Strategy is always the foundation behind how the prices should be done. It shouldn't be an entirely "I have no clue what's happening. Here's the price. Here you go. Cancel the black box." Ever. I believe, at least retailers are so traditional; they won't accept a solution like that." – Kiran Gange "You need to know which products are people sensitive about and make sure they get the best value on those products to compete on those products. And the others can be your profit drivers." – Kiran Gange "Whenever you have this cost increases, have like a strategy to understand which products are going to absorb the cost over time and which products can take it immediately. That will help you both stay up to date with your latest cost and not upset your customers too much." – Kiran Gange People / Resources Mentioned: RapidPricer: https://www.rapidpricer.com/ Fry's Electronics: https://www.youtube.com/fryselectronics DemandTec: https://www.demandtec.com/ Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/ Connect with Kiran Gange: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirangange/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on September 21, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/value-based-prospecting/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the Queen of Hearts from the Selling Value card deck. Buyers who don't believe you understand their problems, won't listen to your solution. Buyers want to trust you as a salesperson, as a company. Buyers want to trust that you understand them because if you don't understand their problems, how is it that you could possibly solve their problems? People are buying products; they're buying solutions to problems. Our best bet is to make sure our buyers, our customers, understand that we know what their problems are. We've seen them before. We've solved them before. This makes buyers comfortable. Well, how can we do that if all we do is show up and pitch our product? How can we do that if all we do is talk about our product? If instead, we spend time listening, learning about what their problems really are, talking about their problems and how we've seen these problems in the past. Then they know that we know their problems, and then they're much more open to hearing our solutions to their problems. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull a random card, read the saying, then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate important concepts around value. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Karen Chiang is a co-founder and managing partner of Ibbaka, a company that provides software and expertise to enable business growth by optimizing revenue performance through customer value management and talent optimization. In this episode, Karen talks about service-led growth and its advantages over product-led growth in certain situations. She also tells us when and how to utilize it, along with the concept of collaborating with the customer throughout the journey in order to maintain and maximize the value of your product or services. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn the fundamentals of service-led growth Discover why service-led growth might be more useful to your business than product-led growth Find out how to maintain and maximize value by keeping in touch with your clients "My piece of advice is for any business to recognize the importance that pricing can play in reaching their growth targets and objectives and making sure that they recognize that pricing has to be rooted in value" – Karen Chiang Topics Covered: 01:12 – How Karen got into pricing 01:53 – What is service-led growth? 04:09 – Product-led growth vs. service-led growth: Which one to use, and when 14:47 – Is service-led growth functional in industries other than consulting? 18:26 – How knowing the insights of your customers helps in increasing the value for your product 21:02 – The concept of customer journey in service-led growth 23:52 – The difference between product-led growth and service-led growth 26:54 – Karen's pricing advice 28:24 – Connect with Karen Chiang Key Takeaways: "The reality is that not all customers are looking for product-led solutions." – Karen Chiang "If you are working with customers which are trying to solve complex problems, which require a more collaborative approach, then you are not in the business of product-led growth or you shouldn't choose product-led growth as your strategy. In fact, you should be looking at service-led growth." – Karen Chiang "Pricing is very linked, very much linked to the value that your customer cares about." – Karen Chiang "With service-led growth, you are not just thinking about the term of the platform once a year. You are, by nature, collaborating with your customer throughout the journey." – Karen Chiang People / Resources Mentioned: Ibbaka: https://www.ibbaka.com/ Steven Forth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth Connect with Karen Chiang: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karen-chiang-2623241/ Email: [email protected] Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on September 14, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/how-to-give-salespeople-discount-authority/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the Queen of Spades from the Selling Value card deck. It turns out that when we shop for something, especially if it's something that we've never owned before, we've never purchased before, we are not experts in the product. We're trying to learn as much as we can about what makes sense. What's going to be good for us. Where's the best bang for our buck. We are not experts in the product category. And yet, if it's something that we've bought many, many times, as we become expert, then we stop thinking about what are the benefits I need to achieve and we start thinking about what are the features. Possibly my favorite example of this is imagine buying a computer. I'm guessing you've bought many computers in your life and you understand what many of the features do for you. For example, the size of the hard disc or the size of the RAM. And when you walk into a Best Buy store and you're going to buy a new computer, when the geek says to you, "Yeah, this one does emails and photos really well." You're thinking, "Go away, I don't want to know the benefits. Tell me what's the size of the hard disc, how much RAM, where's the processor speed." On the other hand, imagine it was your first computer. And someone walks in and says, "This is a two-gigabit processor with quad processors and two terabytes of hard disc and 256 gigabytes of memory." And you're thinking, "Is that good or not?" Because then you need the benefits. Most of the time, if we've got a direct salesperson selling a product, we're selling to somebody who hasn't bought the product before. We're selling to somebody who isn't an expert. And what that means is we should stop talking about our features, we really need to talk about our benefits. Features are simply proof points that we can achieve the benefits. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull out a random card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate important concepts about value. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Geraldine Carter runs She Thinks Big Coaching where she helps CPAs do less without sacrificing revenue. Although her target market are CPAs, she actually has a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Cornell University. She was also a cycling guide for Backroads and now hosts her own podcast called The Business Strategy for CPAs. In this episode, she talks about the structure of pricing in the accounting industry and the reason why most CPAs are underpriced. She then discusses her so-called "effortless value" where accountants could earn more without having to do extra work. Finally, she shares her tips on how accountants could earn more by having expertise and charging their clients more. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn why you should have a deep expertise instead of being a generalist Acquire techniques on how to increase your value without doing more Discover the reason why charging more is better for you and your clients "It's good for your clients to charge them more" – Geraldine Carter Topics Covered: 01:33 – How Geraldine got into pricing 03:10 – The problem of pricing in the accounting industry 05:24 – What is Menu Pricing and its difference from Subscription Pricing 09:16 – CPAs are not a subscription 10:11 – How "billing" works in CPAs 11:56 – The prevailing mindset among CPAs 13:11 – Why having a deep expertise is essential in getting better prices 17:04 – The mindset that needs to be changed in the accounting industry 17:54 – What is "Effortless Value" 20:49 – Geraldine's bicycling pricing story 24:06 – Pricing table topics: Subscriptions have three revenue buckets: win, keep, and grow. Manage all three. 27:51: Geraldine's pricing advice Key Takeaways: "You can legitimately be given the marketplace and the absence of segmentation, become an expert and have expertise that the client cannot find anywhere else, either in their zip code or on the Internet. It just doesn't exist. There's so little competition that if you in fact do have deep expertise." – Geraldine Carter "Effortless value is this idea of going through your business and looking at all the ways you could improve. You could add value to your clients experience without it being more work." – Geraldine Carter "Your buyers take your price as a signal of quality. And if it is not high enough for what they are expecting to pay, they will keep on walking." – Geraldine Carter "If your delivery is dialed in and your clients are delighted and you make good on your promise, they will continue to stay." – Geraldine Carter People / Resources Mentioned: She Thinks Big Coaching: https://geraldinecarter.com/ Smart Strategy for CPAs: https://www.businessstrategyforcpas.com/ Jonathan Stark: https://jonathanstark.com/ Ron Baker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronbaker1/ Selling Value: How to Win More Deals in Higher Prices: https://www.amazon.com/Selling-Value-Deals-Higher-Prices/dp/1737655217 Connect with Geraldine Carter: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geraldine-carter/ Email: [email protected] Website: https://geraldinecarter.com/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on September 7, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/why-you-should-give-salespeople-discount-authority/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the King of Diamonds from the Selling Value card deck. If a salesperson doesn't believe they're going to win selling your product, they're not going to try to sell your product. They don't want to bang their head against a wall. They're going to go sell whatever happens to be easiest. But the next step is, assuming they can sell our product, how do we get them to sell it and win at the higher prices to stop giving away deep discounts? Well, the question becomes, does a salesperson truly believe your product is worth the price? If a salesperson has confidence that their customer is going to get so much more value than whatever the price is that we're going to charge, then they're much more likely to win at higher prices. If a salesperson questions the amount of value customers might get, if a salesperson doesn't believe deep down in their soul that this product is a great product for their customer, then they're going to tend to discount. They're going to offer discounts and hope that the buyer says, "Yes, finally, the value that I receive is worth the price that you're asking." What we want is for our salespeople to go in confidently. What we really want is for our salespeople to understand the value that we deliver, truly believe the value we deliver, and be able to communicate that value to the buyer. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull a random card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate important concepts about value. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Dor Sasson is the co-founder and CEO of Stigg, a company that helps clients grow with pricing through a software that enables them to control what can be priced and packaged separately, and make adjustments without having to do coding. He has also been a Senior Product Manager at New Relic, a technology company which develops cloud-based software to help website and application owners track the performance of their services. In this episode, Dor shares how his experience in New Relic led him to explore the field of SaaS packaging and how his company, Stigg, aims to provide solutions to packaging problems from the developers' end. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Pickup ideas about the adjustments to be done when switching to usage-based pricing Discover how Stigg could help you on your packaging and pricing problems Learn the importance of asking the right questions in the success of businesses "Talk to your customers, ask them about their willingness to pay. There are amazing frameworks out there for how to ask the right questions. It will unlock immense, deep understanding of how your customers think about your pricing and will really help you to nail down your own pricing strategy. – Dor Sasson Topics Covered: 01:11 – How Dor got into pricing 03:59 – What is "entitlements"? 04:52 – Adjustments made by New Relic upon switching to usage-based pricing 08:09 – The work that Stigg actually does 15:48 – The difference between buyers and users 16:35 – Situations in the past where Stigg would've been a big help 20:51 – Dor's vision and mission for his company, Stigg 23:49 – Pricing table topics: "Good, better, best" pricing is significantly more effective within a market segment 26:38 – Dor's pricing advice Key Takeaways: "The way we like to think about Stigg is, we want to build out an infrastructure that is so easy to implement and so easy to adopt from the application side that it makes it really fast and easy for product and growth teams to introduce new pricing plans, changes in existing pricing plans." – Dor Sasson "The value that we unlock is for builders and growth leaders out there that are looking to use pricing as a vehicle for growth and help their companies continue to adapt to changing markets, continue to adapt to how they scale into new customer segments, and basically make sure that they give their buyers more options to use their software." – Dor Sasson "Our North star by the end of the day is not only helping our customers be faster in the way they introduce changes and launch new pricing but also ultimately unlock growth by allowing more flexibility for their buyers to use and consume their products." – Dor Sasson "There is no "one size fits all" in pricing. The first thing you got to do is understand in a very deep and thoughtful way, who are your customer segments, and good, better, best is actually a really good strategy to approach different customer segments and make sure that you build your pricing in a way that fits or is more aligned to the way each segment perceive value." – Dor Sasson People / Resources Mentioned: Stigg: https://www.stigg.io/ New Relic: https://newrelic.com/ Connect with Dor Sasson: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/datapm/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/DorSasson Website: https://www.stigg.io/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 31, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/why-you-should-not-give-salespeople-discount-authority/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the King of Clubs from the Selling Value card deck. What we really want is for our salespeople to be able to communicate the value of our products to our customers. It turns out that's so much easier to do when our marketing department has figured out and created the materials and the support to help salespeople go do that. But then marketing has to understand how is it that our customers value our products. And this is so much easier to do, if our product people create products that truly have value to our customers so they understand the value that our customers get from our products. It turns out very few people truly understand how much value we get, and if we want our entire company to truly think about value, to be able to communicate value, create value, capture value, the best and easiest way to do that is for the executive team to show interest about value. And what that truly means is that executives should be asking questions, how is it that customers are going to value this new feature, this new product? How much will they value it? How is it different from our competitors and how much do they value that differentiation? What problems are we solving? What problems are we solving our competitors aren't solving? Executives showing interest in value can help drive value to be a mindset inside the entire company. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull out a random card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate important concepts about value. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Ulrik Lehrskov-Schmidt is the partner of willingnesstopay.com where they help companies create pricing models that radically accelerates growth and unlocks the value of their underlying technology. He has founded and sold two different companies, and he has a master's degree from Harvard. He also has an upcoming book called "The Pricing Roadmap" which will be published this December. In this episode, Ulrik enumerates four (4) things that he thinks are the most important in SaaS pricing. He also shares his methods on product segmentation and explains why the traditional "good, better, and best" product tier is lacking some important details. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn about designing your models as well as the structure of SaaS pricing Find out how different 'tiered packaging' is to Mark's idea of good, better, best Understand what prescriptive solution is and why you should not do it "Usually, people underestimate the pricing power they have in the market. So, I see, even if you had to do it blind, the chances that you could make more money by raising prices, even poorly, is better than what you're doing." – Ulrik Lehrskov-Schmidt Topics Covered: 01:47 – How Ulrik got into pricing 05:43 – The top four things that really matter in SaaS pricing 08:22 – There are no perfect outcomes; only workable and functional outcomes 09:27 – How Ulrik does product segmentation 12:09 – What is prescriptive solution and why you should avoid it 15:19 – Ulrik's attempt on product packaging with conjoint analysis 18:04 – What Ulrik likes about being a pricing consultant 19:45 – Ulrik's thoughts on the three tiers of products (Good, Better, Best) 21:24 – How Ulrik actually defines the tiered packaging model 22:08 – The specifics of "Tiered Packaging"; how it's different from good, better, best 28:30 – Ulrik's pricing advice 29:59 – Connect with Ulrik Key Takeaways: "If you have segments that are so different that they need different pricing models and product models, that's the first thing you need to figure out." – Ulrik Lehrskov-Schmidt "There are two different high level tool boxes to do price discrimination; pricing matrix and packaging. Packaging runs on functionality, and pricing metrics on some volume or usage." – Ulrik Lehrskov-Schmidt "There's not a perfect outcome. There is a workable outcome, functional outcome to run through. And then you might want to go back and change something if there is a better outcome to be had." – Ulrik Lehrskov-Schmidt People / Resources Mentioned: The Pricing Roadmap: https://www.willingnesstopay.com/saas-pricing-book Connect with Ulrik Lehrskov-Schmidt: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ulriklehrskovschmidt/ Website: https://www.willingnesstopay.com/ Email: [email protected] Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 24, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/qdoba-knows-their-buyers-decision-journey/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the King of Hearts from the Selling Value card deck. It's true, value-based pricing is impossible because value-based pricing simply means charge what your customers are willing to pay. And yet you don't know how much your customers are willing to pay. You can't read their mind. You don't know the answer and you never will know the answer. But instead of assuming we're ever going to get perfect, let's assume we can get better. We can adopt this as a mindset. If we're thinking always about how much is our market, our customer, willing to pay. All of a sudden, we change our thinking from cost-plus, we have to cover our cost type thinking, to, could I get more from this customer? Could I get more from this marketplace? And as we start thinking that way, we also start thinking, can I create products that deliver a little bit more value? Can I communicate my value better to my customers? Can I help my customers, or my buyers, understand that there's way more value there than they originally thought, and therefore they would be willing to pay us more money? Once we start to understand and think about how is it that our customers value our products, then we have the ability to price and capture more of that value, meaning more profit to us. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull out a random card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate important concepts about value. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Bryan Whittington is the founder of ebs/growth, a firm that helps companies create a more effective sales team. Also, he is the host of the Talent Sales & Scale podcast, and was a sales trainer for over ten years. In this episode, Bryan discusses how he handles exploratory or discovery calls. He explains how he talks with his clients and potential clients in order to find the root cause of their problems, and shares some of his techniques to get these clients to propose the possible solutions to their problems themselves. Why you have to checkout today's podcast: Learn how an expert like Bryan Whittington handles discovery calls Acquire new techniques in scrutinizing your clients' problems Discover smart ways to find a solution to your clients' problems "Pricing is a belief. You either believe that your price is not worth what you're asking, or you're able to convey that your price is worth it to your prospect, your buyer. But price is absolutely a belief. You choose which belief you want." – Bryan Whittington Topics Covered: 01:15 – How Bryan got into pricing 02:08 – Selling value vs. selling a commodity 05:08 – What to avoid when having a discovery call 07:02 – How to handle a discovery call, step 1 09:23 – Why it is better to setup that next meeting 13:30 – How to handle a discovery call, step 2 14:19 – Why you shouldn't allow your clients to rate their problem a 7/10 15:01 – How to handle a discovery call, step 3 17:59 – Finding out the root cause of the clients' problems 22:54 – When and how to name the price of your solution based on the magnitude of the problem 24:46 – Pricing table topics: "Salespeople use every tool available to close a deal. When given authority to discount, they will use it more often than necessary" 28:20 – Bryan's pricing advice Key Takeaways: "Sales is how you identify what their challenges are, whether or not you can solve the problem of those challenges, and then understand the value of you fixing those problems for that organization will be, and you can charge an appropriate value for it." – Bryan Whittington "That conversation should take anywhere between 5 to 8 minutes. And if it's longer than that, you've already started your initial first sales call, and I wouldn't suggest you do that." – Bryan Whittington "Often, the problem that the person brings you is never really the problem. We have to identify the real root cause to know whether or not your solution will work. If your solution won't work for that root cause, then make an introduction to somebody where it will." – Bryan Whittington People / Resources Mentioned: ebs/growth: https://ebsgrowth.com/ Talent, Sales & Scale Podcast: https://ebsgrowth.com/podcast/ Connect with Bryan Whittington: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brywhittington/ Email: [email protected] Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 17, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/training-salespeople/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the King of Spades from the Selling Value card deck. It's true, value-based pricing is the most profitable pricing strategy you can adopt. If you think about it, the definition of value-based pricing is charge what your customers are willing to pay. Now, that seems pretty simple, but if you knew exactly how much your customers were willing to pay, and you charged that amount, then you can't possibly make more money. If you charge less than that amount, you end up leaving money on the table. If you charge more than that amount, your buyer doesn't buy. So, by definition, value-based pricing is the most profitable pricing strategy you can adopt. However, it's impossible to do perfectly because there's no way that you know how much somebody is willing to pay for your product. We can't read our customer's minds. What we can do though, is adopt this as a strategy, an attitude, a goal, and continue to do things so that we can learn more and more about our markets and our customer's willingness to pay and get to the point where we're capturing more of it each time. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull a random card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate important concepts about value. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Dinaz Zaq is the Director at Revenue Pricing Consultants in London, the "home of revenue management and pricing expertise" that focuses on increasing profitability through diagnostic review. Dinaz spent 20 years in Revenue Management at British Airways, and also worked for resorts, hotels, and cruise lines. In this episode, Dinaz explains how airlines, hotels, and cruises do pricing as she shares some of the strategies they use in line with the factors that affect their pricing decisions. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Understand how most airlines, hotels, and cruises do pricing; Discover the strategies they use and the factors that affect their pricing decisions; and Find out why each employee – even the cabin crews – are important on getting customers and providing great service "The biggest thing that you need to get right is your demand before you make any pricing decision at all." – Dinaz Zaq Topics Covered: 01:32 – How Dinaz got into pricing 03:02 – How do airlines do pricing? What factors affect their pricing decisions? 10:03 – The strategy behind "I will get the best price on a domestic flight if I book it six weeks before my flight" 11:47 – The difference between pricing hotels and pricing airplane seats 14:06 – Why hotels don't hold their prices really high for last-minute travelers 15:53 – Hotels and discounts on their rates 16:40 – What is the strategy of cruises when it comes to pricing? 20:35 – Pricing table topics: "Every employee creates or destroys value" 22:35 – Dinaz's pricing advice Key Takeaways: "Things depend, really, on the strategy that the airline follows and what's the flavor of the day as far as their management is concerned." – Dinaz Zaq "You might get some hotels that won't drop their price. Some might even take walk ins at the door for a cheaper price. They don't want to publish it on the internet. Airlines might. It's about, you know, when we talk strategy, when you try to hold the price then drop it later, you can sell it through a different distribution channel so that it doesn't hit the public and therefore not destroy your pricing strategy." – Dinaz Zaq "Their strategy is to fill it to 100%, and that's why you might find cruise prices dropping near at the time quite a bit. But what the customer misses out on is you may not get your best cabin if you wait too long, because the people that are regular cruisers, they have got all the balconies and then you'd be stuck somewhere on top of the discotheque or in a noisy area or whatever." – Dinaz Zaq People / Resources Mentioned: British Airways: https://www.britishairways.com/ STR: https://str.com/ Marriott: https://www.marriott.com/ Hotwire: https://www.hotwire.com/ Priceline: https://www.priceline.com/ Booking.com: https://www.booking.com/ Hotels.com: https://www.hotels.com/ Connect with Dinaz Zaq: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rpcltd/ Email: [email protected] Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 10, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/discovered-value/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the Ace of Diamonds from the Selling Value card deck. When companies or people inside companies say we sell a commodity, what that says to me is they don't understand the value of what they offer. It may absolutely be true that you sell a commodity-like product where we're selling gold coins and your gold coins are exactly the same as your competitor's gold coins. And we could think of that maybe as a commodity, but then that's really not what we're selling. What we have to sell are all the things that go around the gold coins or go around our commodity-like product. We should be thinking about what are the services? Can we do better delivery? Can we do better payment terms? Can we make our customers trust us more? Can we give them better advice? There are many, many different ways that we might be able to add value to our buyers above and beyond the individual product that we're selling. I often think that when people are saying the words, we sell a commodity or our product is a commodity, they've actually stopped thinking about how they're better than their competition. They've stopped thinking about what their buyers really care about. So, in my mind, there really is no such thing as a commodity and all companies should banish the word. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull out a random card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate these important concepts. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Dominick Latorre is the Senior Director of Yield and Inventory Management at Sinclair Broadcast Group. He used to be the Manager of Pricing and Planning at Spectrum Reach, and he's the Assistant General Manager of the Men's National Team in USA Ball Hockey. In this episode, Dominick explains how they price slots for broadcast advertisements as he relates it to how airlines do pricing for their seats. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn how Sinclair does pricing for perishable inventory like ads Understand how it's related to how airlines price their seats Find out why it's important that your sales people know how to make sure that your service is priced effectively "It's educating yourself on different industries outside of yours and how you can take those concepts and those ideas and apply them to your business. – Dominick Latorre Topics Covered: 02:01 – How Dominick got into pricing 04:12 – Sinclair's goal to improve efficiencies with the local pricing experts and revenue with pricing 06:41 – "It is not what I wanted. It's not what I wanted to buy." 09:25 – Relating and comparing how Sinclair does pricing to how airlines price their seats 14:46 – The factors that affect how Sinclair price the programs 18:38 – Pricing for political campaigns 23:01 – Pricing table topics: "Create real value with differentiation. Create perceived value with marketing." 25:36 – Dominick's pricing advice Key Takeaways: "I'm very happy with the choice I made back in 2007-ish to get into pricing, because as obviously as you know, it's the biggest driver of profit if you're priced correctly, so much more than sales volume or anything else." – Dominick Latorre "With the various choices for marketing dollars these days, you can't be upsetting clients and pulling multi-million-dollar deals because we weren't priced effectively and given them a rate that from day one it should have been a premium program; obviously, the demand is there. We should be charging it based upon that." – Dominick Latorre "You can drive more revenue by lowering your rates, and we've seen that in some cases." – Dominick Latorre "We talk to our sellers all the time. Sell the value of the program. Don't combine it with other solutions. Don't sell a customer what we call a 9A4P rotator, where basically that customer spot could fall anywhere between that time period. That's not selling value. Look at the value of our solutions and price accordingly to them." – Dominick Latorre "With so many marketing solutions out there and dollars to be spent, you have to make sure that you're priced effectively. And again, talking about value, making sure that the buyers see the value in your solution." – Dominick Latorre People / Resources Mentioned: Sinclair Broadcast Group: https://sbgi.net/ Professional Pricing Society: https://www.pricingsociety.com/ Connect with Dominick Latorre: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicklatorre/ Email: [email protected] Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 3, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/perfect-pricing/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the Ace of Clubs from the Selling Value card deck. One of my favorite sayings when I'm teaching is, nobody cares about your product. What's fascinating is when you look at a company's website or you look at how somebody wants to talk about what it is they're going to offer you, they want to talk about their product. I so much want to tell you, oh, I'm a pricing expert and I train people on pricing. But that's the product. What we really need to be doing is talking about the problems that our buyers have and the outcomes or the results they might be able to achieve. Experts are able to take our features and say, oh yeah, I get what that means to me. But most of our buyers aren't experts. What we need to be able to do is instead of talking about our product, talk about the problems that our buyers might have. I might go to a VP of sales and say, do your salespeople tend to discount too much too often? Now that's a problem. And if that resonates with this VP of sales, now we have something to talk about. But for me to walk in and say, I'm a pricing expert, and I teach salespeople how to sell value. That's all about me. And it only resonates if that person truly is an expert, and they have the problem. So, I love to say nobody cares about your product. What we have to be doing always is thinking about our buyers' problems and the results they might achieve. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull out a random card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate these important concepts. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Marcos Rivera is the Founder and CEO of Pricing I/O, a training and coaching boutique helping high-growth B2B SaaS companies accelerate ARR growth and market share. Marcos was the Operating Executive for Product Management and Pricing of Vista Consulting Group, and is the author of the book "Street Pricing: A Pricing Playlist for Hip Leaders in SaaS". In this episode, Marcos shares his insights on some the common problems in the subscription industry. He also talks about the different ways to approach pricing adjustments in relation to software innovations, and discusses the hot topic of usage-based pricing. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out what the three biggest pricing problems are when it comes to subscription and know why you shouldn't do those Discover why people don't pay much attention on the expansion part of land and expand, and learn how to go for it if you want to Understand why it's a good step to raise prices on the subscribers with highest usage first "Go out there, get data, experiment and raise your confidence, and the pricing problem gets so much easier." – Marcos Rivera Topics Covered: 01:32 – How Marcos got into pricing 02:33 – Biggest pricing problems in subscriptions: (1) Pricing without aligning their package of value to their clients 04:00 – Why decoupling pricing and packaging is difficult 04:47 – Enhancing your pricing when introducing software innovations 06:31 – Biggest pricing problems in subscriptions: (2) Underpricing 09:08 – Biggest pricing problems in subscriptions: (3) Overcomplexity in the model 10:55 – People not focusing on the expansion part of the commonly used phrase in SaaS, "land and expand" 14:02 – Understanding usage data in providing better value to your product 16:17 – Getting things to levels of sophistication and sophistication at scale 18:29 – Where, when, and how to utilize usage-based pricing 24:38 – Pricing table topics: "Raise prices on the subscribers with highest usage first." 26:12 – Marcos' pricing advice Key Takeaways: "The way to start with pricing, especially if you already have an existing model and you're looking to enhance it, believe it or not, is not where most companies start, which is "how much should I charge with this new thing?" It's the first thing on their mind, the first question on their mind, but that question doesn't get answered until you understand how your value is being changed..." – Marcos Rivera "There's nothing wrong with land and expand, but what often happens is that it's mostly land and very little expand…. When you place so many of your chips on the land part of it, you start being overly generous with your limits or overly generous of what you're including. What ends up happening is you put so much of your expansion opportunity into the land that your expand opportunities are limited. Overly heavy on the land makes it tougher to expand." – Marcos Rivera "Be a little bit careful about over indexing on what they're doing in the system because you don't want to inadvertently discourage them from using the product." – Marcos Rivera "Value is not in the people using it. The value is in the machines doing, and the volume and frequency with which it's doing it." – Marcos Rivera "Remember, perceived value gets stronger and better with more usage. That correlation works out really well." – Marcos Rivera People / Resources Mentioned: Pricing I/O: https://www.pricingio.com/ Vista Consulting Group: https://vistacg.com/ Vista Equity Partners: https://www.vistaequitypartners.com/ Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/ Slack: https://slack.com/ Connect with Marcos Rivera: LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcoslrivera/ Website:https://www.pricingio.com/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 27, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-table-topics/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the Ace of Hearts from the Selling Value card deck. Selling value really does do a lot of things. But if you imagine for a second that a buyer has some expectation of how much value they're going to get from our product. That is a good indicator of their willingness to pay, it's a good indicator of how urgent it is that they want to solve the problem or buy the product. But what if we had the ability to increase the amount of value that person expects to get from our product? For the sake of argument, let's say we 10x it. We make our product really valuable to them. All of a sudden, they're willing to pay more. They want it. They want it now. They want it faster. And so, we're going to increase our average selling price, we're going to shorten the sales cycles. And of course, if they believe we're going to deliver a 10x, they're going to buy from us instead of from our competition. And once we can recognize those buyers who really are going to get a lot of value from our product, then we get better prospects as well. So, it turns out when we can sell value, we really do increase win rates and average selling prices. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull a random card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what the card says. This will improve your understanding and more importantly, your ability to communicate important concepts. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Mark Stiving is a widely recognized pricing expert and marketing pro who teaches companies how to boost revenues and realize their true value. He is the host of the Impact Pricing podcast, helping people win more business at higher prices through value, and has authored three books which all revolve around pricing. Ron Baker is the Founder of VeraSage Institute, dedicated to helping professional knowledge firms bury the billable hour and trash timesheets. He has published seven books around the topics of business and pricing, and also is a radio talk-show host for The Soul of Enterprise. In this episode, Ron engages in a pricing metric discussion with Mark as they share their insights on cost-plus, hourly pricing, and subscriptions. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Deep dive into discussions about different pricing metrics, focusing on cost-plus, hourly, and subscriptions Find out why putting time in your service and charging by the hour isn't an ideal way to charge clients Understand why providing value is better than charging hourly or using cost-plus pricing "There's always going to be people and businesses that use cost-plus and other inferior methods like hourly. They're going to be out there, but they're just not where my focus is. My focus is on the other end, trying to help people price and create more value so they can capture more value. I'm not interested in working for people that want to price in an inferior manner, because I think that means they're not providing enough value to you." – Ron Baker Topics Covered: 01:17 – Mark's five top reasons/times when cost-plus pricing makes sense 04:36 – Reacting to Mark's five reasons / doing value-based pricing along with cost-plus pricing 08:13 – Pricing in micro and macro level businesses: cost-plus vs value-based 11:37 – Why Ron refuses to pay by hourly billing + how auto mechanics price their work 16:24 – Talking about Ron and Colin's difference in perspectives 18:04 – How Mark charges clients 'hourly' and what Ron has to say about it 23:04 – Discussion around subscription + today's topic in general: pricing metric 27:25 – Mark's tax guy + why hourly billing isn't ideal for Ron 31:17 – On announcing a price increase: Do something nice for your customers Key Takeaways: "If I could categorize everything I just said, I'd categorize it in two categories. One is sometimes, customers demand it – so that would be Apple and government, and sometimes, it's just more efficient as a business to do cost plus than it is to do value-based pricing." – Mark Stiving "In the world of cost plus and efficiencies, one could make the argument. I'm not saying this is true by any means, but one could make the argument. If I was in a very low margin, highly competitive business, it might be less expensive and more efficient to just do cost plus than to spend time trying to figure out what each customer's willing to pay me." – Mark Stiving "One of my favorite sayings is customers hate price increases, but they'll hate it a little bit less if you blame increasing costs." – Mark Stiving "The billable hour is what I'm crusading against, but on a larger perspective, the billable hour is cost-plus pricing." – Ron Baker "At a macro level, there's no way that costs justify price or determine price. Can't be. Otherwise, no business would ever go bankrupt." – Ron Baker "If somebody really did abuse you, then why would you ever work with that person?" – Ron Baker People / Resources Mentioned: The Soul of Enterprise:https://www.thesoulofenterprise.com/ Colin Jasper:https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-jasper-7a401213/ Win Keep Grow:https://www.amazon.com/Win-Keep-Grow-Accelerate-Subscription/dp/1631954784 Time's Up:https://www.amazon.com/Times-Up-Subscription-Business-Professional/dp/1119893526 Marco Bertini:https://marcobertini.com/ The Ends Game:https://marcobertini.com/book/ Connect with Ron Baker: LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronbaker1/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 20, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/subscribe-to-heated-seats-in-a-bmw/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This meme is the Ace of Spades from the Selling Value card deck. Selling value really is the skill of increasing customer perceived value. If you think about it, our customers don't really know how much value they're going to get from our products. And yet we as salespeople, product people, pricing people, we've seen other customers use our products. We've seen all the different places where they get value from our products. And if we've done a really nice job, we've been able to quantify some of that value that some of our previous clients have gotten. Doesn't it make sense then that in a sales situation we find a way to help this buyer, someone who's evaluating our current product, to learn about and understand all the different ways our product might be able to add value to them. And once we can do that were increasing the amount of value that customer perceives for our product. This is how we win more deals at higher prices. So, selling value really is the skill of increasing customer perceived value. We hope you enjoy this memecast. This is also an example of how Pricing Table Topics works. Grab a deck of our cards, pull out a random card and read the saying. Then talk for one to two minutes about what the card says. This will improve your understanding, and more importantly, your ability to communicate important concepts. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

John Moss is the CEO of Flintfox International, a pricing software company with world class IP in the areas of pricing and revenue management. He's previously worked as the Chief Strategy Officer and also General Manager of MYOB. John is also trained to use explosive and radioactive devices. In this episode, John talks about the work they do at Flintfox. He explains why pricing models should change in line with the updates constantly happening at present on software. Additionally, Mark and he discuss the complexity of pricing, especially in these days of high inflation. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Discover why pricing models in software businesses should change from time to time Understand the current situation and complexities in pricing, especially in this time of high inflation Find out how much of a game-changer it will be to have organizations focus more on pricing and not just in cost reduction "For many organizations, pricing has been off to the side and somebody who's got a quantitative bent will do that and look into it. I think there's an increasing need to employ experts in the organization that understand pricing, that understand pricing models, how you create value, and can help you manage through the current period of uncertainty." – John Moss Topics Covered: 01:18 – How John got into pricing 02:37 – Lessons learned as they transitioned from transactional to subscription pricing 04:14 – Talking about the work Flintfox does 06:51 – What makes Flintfox different from other pricing software companies? 09:40 – Discussion about the complexity of pricing nowadays 11:20 – Avoiding channel conflict and posting things for the public to see 13:25 – The challenge of increasing prices during this period of inflation 18:02 – John, business software, and value-based pricing 22:36 – Pricing table topics: "Fixed costs never matter to pricing. Never, never, never." 25:04 – John's pricing advice Key Takeaways: "Software is no longer build something, release it, and it stays stable and constant forever. Software nowadays is constantly evolving and changing, and so the pricing model for that product had to change as well." – John Moss "It's increasingly important, I think, to have a good data set and an integrated data set to be able to understand exactly how your product portfolio is performing and what margins you're making." – John Moss "We're seeing more people have the confidence to put through a higher increase in the expectation that they do it once and maybe it lasts for 9-12 months, as opposed to putting through 3% now and then come back in two or three months' time for another 3%, which that sort of attritional increase is probably less well received by customers than a big bang." – John Moss "It's a consequence of software. What young people and you and I now expect is that software gets better all the time. I mean, we all see it every day. Every app we have on our phone gets updated all the time incrementally. But some of these applications do improve functionality quite significantly over a number of years. And so that's what you're paying for, effectively – the fact that the developers are still working on this product." – John Moss People / Resources Mentioned: Flintfox International: https://www.flintfox.com/ MYOB: https://www.myob.com/ Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/ Connect with John Moss: LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnrmoss/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 13, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/ballet-football-pricing-and-sales/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Possibly my single favorite KPI in the world of pricing is average selling price. Are we managing average selling price per product, average selling price overall across the portfolio. If you have a single product that has a price on it and you can monitor that average selling price, that gives you a great indication of what's going on in your marketplace, how well we're selling value. If you can monitor average selling price by salesperson, now we're getting a great indicator of which salespeople do a good job at selling value and which ones don't. If you can't manage average selling price, maybe you're going to have an average deal size. How big are the opportunities that we're facing, that we're being able to bid on? And which ones of those are we winning or not? But my recommendation, find some KPI, maybe two or three, that are a great indicator of how well our customers are perceiving our value, which means their willingness to pay and how well our salespeople are selling value. Track them over time. Watch for the anomalies. Watch for the changes. And use those as indicators to see if you can figure out what's going on in your marketplace. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This impactful insight came from the book, Selling Value, which I wrote to help salespeople win more deals at higher prices. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Gabriel Dabi-Schwebel is the Founder and CEO of SalesDeck, an online sales communication tool. He is also the Founder and CEO of 1min30, a French inbound marketing agency. He is an entrepreneur, speaker, and author of eight marketing and sales methodologies books. Gab hosts the Virtual Selling podcast. In this episode, Gabriel talks about service packaging as he shares how they do it in his marketing company, 1min30. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out how to get your product packaging and pricing right Learn good, better, best service packaging through the way a marketing company does it Understand why pricing is at the heart of entrepreneurship "If you are in service, the idea of packaging what you sell is very important." – Gabriel Dabi-Schwebel Topics Covered: 01:29 – Growing up with French fonctionnaire parents while wanting to become an entrepreneur 02:19 – How Gabriel got into pricing; Gabriel realizes how important pricing is 04:36 – Talking about service packaging in line with his marketing company, 1min30 08:34 – The difference between the three price points 09:54 – Where he got the idea of his good, better, best strategy 10:36 – Did Gab learn how to have value conversations with clients? 12:06 – Gabriel's pricing advice 14:51 – Pricing table topics: "Be strategic. Focus on lifetime value." Key Takeaways: "I think pricing is really at the heart of entrepreneurship, because at one time, you need to price what you do, what you sell, what you create, and it's really a marketing aspect that is very interesting, because with pricing, you can make your revenue even bigger without working too much." – Gabriel Dabi-Schwebel "It's really important to find the right price and to be sure that the price you choose is really the closest to what a customer is ready to pay and the ones that make you the more value and the more money in your pocket." – Gabriel Dabi-Schwebel "Really thinking about lifetime value is really thinking about what is the price being acceptable by your customer and the value you bring him, and also the fact that you keep bringing value and keep in loyal to your product." – Gabriel Dabi-Schwebel People / Resources Mentioned: SalesDeck: https://salesdeck.io/ 1min30: https://www.1min30.com/ Acquisition Strategy Design: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/2377740324/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i2 Blair Enns' The Win Without Pitching Manifesto: https://www.winwithoutpitching.com/the-manifesto/ Connect with Gabriel Dabi-Schwebel: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrields/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabriel-dabi-schwebel/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 6, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/a-good-case-for-cost-plus-pricing/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Pricing decisions can always help us achieve our goals. We need to make sure we understand what those goals are. I would start with understanding what the corporate objectives are. Oftentimes those are things like we need to raise our average selling price. We need to gain more market share. We need to have more margin. Typically, these goals, these corporate goals, are established by our CEO and our executive team, and they're there to drive increased market capitalization. However, your product may have a different set of goals than what your corporate goal is. So, what is the goal of your product? The goal of your product may be to bring more people into the platform so that we then have more people we can sell upgrades to. That's a great goal. We need to understand that as we're setting our pricing. Your goal may be we need to generate more revenue, more profit, so that we can fund other projects. That's a great goal. We just need to know what our goals are. As we're making these pricing decisions. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. This impactful insight came from the book, Selling Value, which I wrote to help salespeople win more deals at higher prices. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me [email protected]. Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

John Chisholm was a US lawyer. For 15 years, he's been in law firms, using value-based pricing, and now subscription pricing. John swims in the ocean every morning with his Speedo around his neck. Pricing for law firms or even major consultancy firms is not easy. Price your final client contracts too high, and you'll lose some of your most high-value clients. Price them too low, and you'll be forced to work too few staff to the bone to cut costs. In this episode, John shares how law firm should approach their pricing strategy. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Discover how to create a pricing revenue model that funds a thriving firm while generating real value for clients Learn how to make your law firm and consultancy clients understand the value of your service and the risks they are avoiding by hiring you compared to your competitors by communicating the value you provide Discover why a pricing expert is essential to the profitability of any law firm "Just don't price your own work." – John Chisholm Topics Covered: 01:06 – How John got into pricing: His late father's story in relation to legal service fees 03:06 – Doing timesheet free billing as a law firm in the 1970s to '80s 05:25 – The old law business model of billing by the hour 06:38 – How things led him to his aha moment in relation to the practice of pricing 10:37 – Changing the mindset around pricing: Possible or not? 15:48 – "The true indication of a really good professional is not so much the answers they give; it's the questions they ask" 19:24 – Having a value conversation around $500 vs. $270's worth 22:15 – John's pricing advice 23:31 – Pricing table topics: "Sunk costs don't matter to pricing or any business decision" Key Takeaways: "Now it's very, very ingrained – the whole profession, I'm afraid. There has been a lot of movement, but they've been mainly in smaller, innovative firms. But the large firms, despite what they say, when you peel back the onion, the measurements, their rewards, their whole internal systems still work around time, and it's hard to change, and they're very successful." – John Chisholm "I know I'll get into trouble for saying this, but lawyers buying and selling to each other is not a great recipe for innovation or change or taking risk." – John Chisholm "Those that perceive they have the most to lose will be the last to change, and that will be the big end of town worldwide." – John Chisholm "I try and get the lawyers that I work with my clients to stop thinking like lawyers, because often, the solution is not a legal solution; it really isn't, or the objectives are not a legal solution. It may be that what we're going to do has legal input, and that's the skills that the lawyers have that someone else doesn't have. But it's turning the conversation on its head. It's asking the right questions. And I think the true indication of a really good professional is not so much the answers they give; it's the questions they ask." – John Chisholm "I work more with my client lawyers focusing on what additional benefits can you give to clients, many of which don't cost anything to the law firm but add value to the client; the price just follows. I think also, if you can focus on increasing the client's profit, our profit will follow as a profession." – John Chisholm "I think even though it might be for short term profitability, there's just so many good lawyers that just do underestimate the value that they're providing to their clients, and that's their fault, not their client's fault." – John Chisholm People / Resources Mentioned: Ron Baker: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronbaker1/ VeraSage Institute: https://www.verasage.com/ John Chisholm Consulting: https://www.chisconsult.com/ Connect with John Chisholm: Email: [email protected] Website: https://www.chisconsult.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chisholmjohn/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 29, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/how-i-think-about-pricing/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/