Impact Pricing

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on December 14, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/a-price-negotiation-example/ 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 is the 10 of Diamonds from the Selling Value card deck. You should reveal the price only after the value is communicated. What happens is, when our buyers hear the price, at that moment, they're making a decision. Is the price too high or too low? Is it worth it? What decision am I going to make? Am I going to spend more time with this? Now, what typically happens is, imagine you're going to buy a pair of Levi's at the retail store, and you walk into the store and you see the price is $60. Well, no one communicated the value to you, but you probably already had a pretty good feeling for what the value of Levi's really is to you. And so, you know if that price is high or low, and if it's worth it to you. But now, imagine you're a B2B salesperson and you walk in the door and you say, 'Our product is a hundred thousand dollars.' And the buyer instantly says, 'Don't have the budget. That's too expensive. Not going to buy it.' And they don't pay attention anymore. You are done working with that buyer. But if instead, we spent the time to say, 'What problems are you truly trying to solve? What's the value to the company if we can solve those problems?' And you find out that the value to the company is truly a million or 10 million dollars. Then when you say the number a hundred thousand, they say, 'Oh, that's probably worth it. Let's see if we can figure out how to do that.' It completely changes the perception in the buyer's mind. So, what we have to do is make sure our buyers have a good understanding of what the value of our solution truly is before we tell them the price. We hope you enjoy this example of Pricing Table Topics. What you just heard was done without a script. If you want to get better at speaking about pricing and value, grab a deck of our cards, pick a card, read the saying, then talk for one to two minutes about what the card says. You will become a better speaker and expert. 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/

Steven Forth is a Partner in Ibbaka, a strategic pricing advisory firm. He was CEO of LeveragePoint Innovations Inc., a SaaS business designed to help companies create and capture value. Steven is what I consider one of the great pricing thinkers in our industry. In this episode, Steven talks about AI and how it is impacting the world of pricing. He also shares some of the improvements we could expect from AI infrastructures in the near future. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out how the emergence of AI improves and disrupts the pricing profession and the trade as a whole Learn how to extract the best and most comprehensive solutions from AI tools Get an idea on how the "big 3" of cloud services might price for their AI services in considering their current pricing models "Many billions of dollars being invested in AI last year, next year, this year. The overall investment is going to be probably in the neighborhood of $300 billion in 2023. So, if we were investing that much money, we better get some value back. And the companies investing that money need to be able to price that value they're creating." – Steven Forth Topics Covered: 02:10 – The questions that need to be answered about the impacts of AI in pricing 04:06 – Examples of existing value proposition that AI is improving 07:10 – Examples of existing value proposition that AI is disrupting 10:44 – Is the emergence of AI a challenge to the pricing profession? 12:08 – Can open AI soon generate value models that are better than experts create? 15:58 – Why and how large language models such as Chat GPT are taking over 18:06 – How to guide an AI in giving you comprehensive answers 19:34 – What the pricing of major AI infrastructures looks like 21:02 – How Amazon, Google and Microsoft would possibly price for AI considering their present pricing models 23:28 – Will there be different strengths in the AI of infrastructures Amazon, Google and Microsoft? 24:55 – Differences in AIs: Would different Ais give out different answers to the same questions? 26:19 – Could AI effectively learn pricing from human pricing experts? 28:02 – How Ais could start making outcome-based pricing more practical 32:03 – Connect with Steven Forth Key Takeaways: "People who are skilled in the art [of trade] understand how to come up with pricing for disruptive innovation." – Steven Forth "Understanding the limitations of these large language models, which GPT is an example of, is also important. And we can come to that. But let's not forget that the limitations today are not the limitations in six months." – Steven Forth "That, I think, is actually one of the emerging skills: To be able to structure a sequence of questions that will guide an AI in giving you meaningful answers." – Steven Forth People / Resources Mentioned: Ibbaka – https://www.ibbaka.com/ DALL·E 2 – https://openai.com/dall-e-2/ Chat GPT – https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/ Amazon Web Services – https://aws.amazon.com/ Google Cloud Services – https://cloud.google.com/ Microsoft Azure – https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us NVIDIA – https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/deep-learning-ai/products/solutions/ Connect with Steven Forth: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/ 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 December 7, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/black-friday-and-price-elasticity/ 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 10 of Clubs from the Selling Value card deck. Yes, a value conversation is a great way to build a relationship with your customers, with your buyers. Face it, your buyer probably hasn't put together a business case for what it is they're trying to buy. And yet, it makes a lot of sense for them to have one. It gives them more confidence, they're making the right decision. It gives them the ability to sell up in the organization in case they have to convince someone else to give them the resources. It provides the justification inside the company that they're doing a good thing for the company. And so, they really want to create a business case. But they probably haven't done it because they didn't think about it. They don't really know how. If you can help your buyer write that business case, and that's exactly what selling value means, then you are truly helping the buyer. You're adding a lot of value to that buyer's decision process, to their career, to their prestige inside the organization. Having a value conversation not only helps you understand how much value there is in that situation, but it helps you build the stronger relationship with your buyers. So, have value conversations. They truly demonstrate that you care about your buyer. We hope you enjoy this example of Pricing Table Topics. If you want to get better at speaking, especially about pricing and value, grab a deck of our cards. Pull a random card and read the saying. 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/

Mark Peacock has been a pricing consultant since 2017. Currently, he is the managing director of Price Maker, a company that helps their businesses differentiate themselves from the competition by means of having a smarter pricing. He is also about to release his new book titled "Pricing for Success: The Seven-Step Plan for Winning More Customers at Better Prices" In this episode, Mark talks about what's written in his newest book, "Pricing for Success: The Seven-Step Plan for Winning More Customers at Better Prices". He shares the fundamental ideas behind the seven steps and gives insightful sample situations in which the seven steps can be applied. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Get a general idea of what's in Mark's new book, Pricing for Success: The Seven-Step Plan for Winning More Customers at Better Prices Learn why it's okay to have multiple pricing models on a single product Find out why it is the best time for you to raise your prices "Take the time to do your pricing strategy properly, and put your prices up because it is the most powerful lever you can use to increase profitable growth." – Mark Peacock Topics Covered: 01:27 – How Mark got into pricing 02:35 – The reason why Mark wrote his book, "Pricing for Success: The Seven-Step Plan for Winning More Customers at Better Prices" 03:42 – Step 1: Where do you want to go? 06:43 – Step 2: Know what your customers think about you 08:02 – Step 3: Being aware of your competition 11:02 – Step 4: Product 13:13 – Step 5: Pricing 15:45 – Mark Peacock's thoughts on having more than one pricing model for a product 17:17 – Step 6: Proposition 19:21 – Mark Peacock's favorite behavioral economics example 22:47 – Step 7: Profit 24:53 – How Mark would address the issue of credit grabbing among departments in cases of sales improvement 28:59 – Mark's pricing advice 30:09 – Connect with Mark Peacock Key Takeaways: "Pricing, ultimately, is always a subset of business strategy, of your company goals. So, you've got to be clear. You got to know where you want to get to. Otherwise, you'll end up floundering with your pricing." – Mark Peacock "Product and price are two sides of the same coin. When I buy products for a price, I want to know what I get as a customer and equally as a seller, you need to know everything that's included in your product offering." – Mark Peacock "Without changing the pricing, you can achieve an effective increase in prices of 4% by changing how you present the prices. And I think this whole question of how we present pricing is just as important as 'What's the number? What's the strategy?' Because it makes such a difference." – Mark Peacock "Having a clearly written pricing policy is such an important thing. And I literally say in my book, 'Write it down'. And it doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be complicated." – Mark Peacock People / Resources Mentioned: Pricing for Success: The Seven-Step Plan for Winning More Customers at Better Prices – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pricing-for-success-mark-peacock/1142840523 Selling Value: How to Win More Deals at Higher Prices – https://www.amazon.com/Selling-Value-Deals-Higher-Prices/dp/1737655217 Connect with Mark Peacock: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-peacock-the-pricing-coach/ 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 November 30, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/thoughts-on-black-friday-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 is the 10 of Hearts from the Selling Value card deck. You and your buyer have to work together if you truly want to know how much value is there. Face it, you know a lot about your product, but you don't really know the buyer's situation. You don't know how much revenue they make. You don't know how much money they're losing because they're solving, or haven't solved a specific problem. You don't know how bad that problem is. In order for you to figure out how much value they're going to get, you need a lot of information from that buyer. On the other hand, the buyer has no idea how much value they're going to get either because they've probably never bought something like your product before. They've not worked with many different customers and seen the different applications and the different problems, and they probably haven't thought through all of the sub-problems that you can solve. And so, if together we work trying to figure out what is the true value of our product, then we feel better because we now understand we're helping them make a really good decision. They feel better because they're trying to decide, is this a place where I want to spend my resources or should I spend them someplace else? Or maybe the person you're talking to has to create a business case to be able to sell it higher in the organization. In all of these cases, it makes so much sense for both of us to understand the value of solving their problems, and that only happens when we work together. We hope you enjoyed this example of pricing table topics. If you want to get better at speaking, especially 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/

Nikhil Kotcharlakota is a civil engineer by profession. He worked for Electrolux for eight years where he was head of pricing for almost two years. Currently, he is a co-founder of PriceOps, a company that aims to provide an all-in-one pricing solution for SaaS companies. In this episode, Nikhil talks about how his experience at Electrolux changed the way he looked at pricing. He also discusses about his company, PriceOps, and how they aim to provide a complete, optimized pricing solution to SaaS companies using different pricing models. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn how usage data can be utilized to optimize billing and pricing Discover the possibility of SaaS companies effectively using outcome-based pricing models Learn the difference between per-user model and per active user model and when to use them "Having the focus on price and getting value out of what you're offering is a very important thing." – Nikhil Kotcharlakota Topics Covered: 01:30 – How Nikhil got into pricing 03:01 – The work that Nikhil's company, PriceOps does 05:59 – How PriceOps plans to utilize usage data for billing and pricing 07:05 – PriceOps' biggest challenge: using outcome-based pricing model for SaaS companies 11:19 – The other pricing models that PriceOps is eyeing besides usage-based and outcome-based 12:24 – How PriceOps aims to recommend whether to use per-user model or per active user model 15:12 – What Nikhil learned as he shifted from traditional pricing to subscription-based pricing 18:38 – Why Nikhil loves pricing operations 20:17 – Without execution, pricing strategy does not matter 20:50 – Nikhil's pricing advice 22:02 – The revenue point at which businesses should hire a pricing person 23:54 – Connect with Nikhil Kotcharlakota Key Takeaways: "The best part about pricing is it's always at the center of the strategy or you'll get to work with a lot of teams; product management, sales, accounting, finance, I mean, literally every team in the company." – Nikhil Kotcharlakota "Companies have realized the consumer is king. So, they're trying to build an experience for the consumer so they continue to buy the same product over and over again." – Nikhil Kotcharlakota "If the operations are not set up properly or if there are no processes for the pricing team, a strategy might be there, but they may not be able to execute on the strategy, which will then result in loss in price or price leakage." – Nikhil Kotcharlakota People / Resources Mentioned: PriceOps: https://www.linkedin.com/company/priceops/ Win, Keep, Grow: How to Price and Package to Accelerate Your Subscription Business: https://www.amazon.com/Win-Keep-Grow-Accelerate-Subscription/dp/1631954784 Connect with Nikhil Kotcharlakota: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkotcharlakota/ 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 November 23, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-skills-for-subscriptions/ 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 is the 10 of Spades from the Selling Value card deck. Yes, we never want to mention competitors until our buyers bring them up because our buyers are on a trust journey, or at least we want to assume that they are. A trust journey is where they've come to you to ask you for help figuring out, is this really a place I should be spending my resource? Is this worth the inherent value that I'm going to get when I solve the problems that I have? And what's really important when our buyers are on this trust journey is they're not saying, how are you different from your competition? They're saying, how is it that you helped solve my problem? What we want to talk to them about during this trust journey phase is, hey, what problem are you trying to solve? What's the value of solving that problem? In essence, we're helping them build a business case for why they want to make a decision like this. And we never mention competition because it's possible they don't know that our competitors exist. It's possible that in the act of helping them build that business case, they learn to trust us so much they just want to buy from us. They're not price-sensitive at that point in time. So, the rule really needs to be, we only talk about inherent value or the value of solving the problem until a buyer tells us they're looking at competitive alternatives. We hope you enjoyed this example of Pricing Table Topics. If you want to get better at speaking, especially about pricing and value, 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. 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/

Steven Forth is a Partner in Ibbaka, a strategic pricing advisory firm. He was CEO of LeveragePoint Innovations Inc., a SaaS business designed to help companies create and capture value. Steven is what I consider one of the great pricing thinkers in our industry. In this episode, Steven shares Ibbaka's approach on raising prices, especially during inflation, as he discusses what's expected to happen in the pricing world next year, given all the events that's been around this 2022. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out why you should first segment your customers and treat them differently before you raise your prices; Learn how to approach a price increase, especially during inflation; and Discover what's possible to happen in the pricing world in 2023, especially with concerns of inflation and recession around "Learn how to build value models, and connect them to prices." – Steven Forth Topics Covered: 01:18 – Steven's perspective on whether people should be thinking about raising prices now, along with questions to ask before you do so 04:59 – What Mark teaches his clients vs. Ibbaka's approach in raising prices 09:31 – Discussion around an inaccurate representation of inflation, especially in SaaS 12:40 – "Pricing is a game that plays out over time, and you always want to make sure you're thinking three to five moves ahead. If you don't, you're going to hurt yourself." 16:16 – Taking a look at (1) the people you sell to, (2) how recession affects prices, and (3) the finance industry 20:53 – What's happening right now? What is going to be different in 2023? 26:43 – Steven's pricing advice Key Takeaways: "There may be opportunities to raise prices, but it needs to be surgical, not broad brush. And before one raises prices, one has to ask a series of questions, beginning with what is inflation doing to my customers? And is inflation making my offer more valuable to my customers? Because if it is, then you have a great reason to raise prices. But if my customers are getting in trouble and are becoming more cost conscious because of inflation, then broad brush price increases can backfire." – Steven Forth "I think the first thing you do before you raise prices is segment your customers and treat them differently." – Steven Forth "Pricing is a game that plays out over time, and you always want to make sure you're thinking three to five moves ahead. And if you don't, you're going to hurt yourself." – Steven Forth "When we hear the word inflation, we're thinking mostly about the CPI. The CPI is not what is most relevant to business. And you have to look at how inflation is impacting your customers and even your customers' customers in order to make the right pricing." – Steven Forth "If you don't have a data model that you can apply A.I. to, you are going to lose." – Steven Forth People / Resources Mentioned: Ibbaka: https://www.ibbaka.com/ Connect with Steven Forth: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/ 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 November 16, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/an-e-commerce-price-segmentation/ 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 Diamonds from the Selling Value card deck. It's true, you need to sell like you don't have competitors. Every once in a while, you find yourself in a situation where people aren't looking at your competitive alternative, and you don't want to bring it up to them. You may recall at this point in time that they're making a 'will I' decision, remember the 'will I' versus 'which one', and when people are making the 'will I' decision, 'Am I going to buy something in this product category?', they're not price sensitive. And so, it just makes sense for us to not talk about our competition because if they say yes to us and never consider a competitive alternative, they're not going to negotiate as hard on price. They're simply looking at what's the inherent value of solving the problem, not what's the value of your product relative to a competitor's product. So, it just makes all the sense in the world to not even mention a competitor until the buyer has already brought them up. We hope you enjoy this example of Pricing Table Topics. If you want to get better at speaking, especially about pricing and value, grab a deck of our cards, pull a random card and read the saying, talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. And 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/

Kirk Bowman is the founder and Visionary of Value and the Art of Value, a pricing consultancy in Dallas, TX. His podcast, the Art of Value Show, is one of the most shows for knowledge professionals. He has spoken at numeration conferences on pricing including QuickBooks Connect and Scaling New Heights. In 2011, he was appointed a Practicing Fellow at the VeraSage Institute, the think tank founded by Ron Baker. His software company, MightyData, was featured in the book Implementing Value Pricing. In this episode, Kirk talks about value pricing, how he was introduced to it and later switched to this method in estimating and billing customers. Be inspired as he shares how this decision increased his revenue by over 50% in the first year and 70% in the second. Learn this and more in his journey on value pricing. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out how Kirk learned about the concept of value pricing Identify the two categories in measuring results Find out details about Kirk's pricing consultancy company and his podcast "The next time the customer asks for a lower price, turn around and ask them what value they are willing to do without in order to get that price."– Kirk Bowman Topics Covered: 01:36 – How Kirk discovered value pricing 03:40 – The concept of value pricing and how it aligns the interests of the professional with his customer 07:13 – Two categories in measuring value: results or outcomes, and how the two differ 12:11 – Sharing the profile of his pricing consultancy company – Art of Value and how it is helping professionals with their business models 14:32 – His podcast – Art of Value and the reason he loves doing it 19:37 – His pricing advice that has a significant impact Key Takeaways: "The customer's interests are the most important thing. When you align with that, you're lining things up for success." – Kirk Bowman "It's so important to put alignment upfront as one of the things that you're striving for and keep your eye on at all times because it is in our human nature to focus on our own self-interest and so the focus on theirs, it requires intentionality. It requires strong character." – Kirk Bowman "Value and pricing are subjective, and by the way, that's okay." – Kirk Bowman Connect with Kirk Bowman: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirkbowman/ Website: https://artofvalue.com/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on November 9, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/what-selling-value-means/ 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/

Kyle Poyar is a product-led growth expert who worked for Simon-Kucher & Partners for six years where he was a consultant, senior consultant and manager, and director. Currently, he is the operating partner of OpenView, a firm that helps build software companies into market leaders by helping them hire the best talents, acquire and retrain the right customers, and partner with industry leaders so that they can dominate their markets. In this episode, Kyle talks us through the details of product-led growth and how it became popular in the recent years. He also shares some tips on how to make it work on businesses in certain industries. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn the definition of Product-Led Growth Find out if Product-Led Growth model is suitable for your business Learn how to shift from Sales-led model to Product-led model "With the reverse trial, your customers land in a premium version of your product, have a time-limited period that they can access it, and then they can either convert and essentially purchase, or they can keep using a free version of the product. What ends up happening is you get the best of both worlds between freemium and free trial, and so you don't actually have to choose between the two" – Kyle Poyar Topics Covered: 01:17 – How Kyle got into pricing 03:04 – More than just about numbers pricing has qualitative aspects as well 04:12 – What is product-led growth? 06:50 – Product-led growth is more than just prioritizing product over sales and marketing people 08:17 – Most companies strategized product-led growth from scratch until it was standardized 10:04 – Can companies do freemium that is not product-led growth? 11:47 – When product-led companies bring salespeople into the process 14:49 – Salespeople in product-led companies are not prospecting 15:28 – Self-serve sales work most of the time, but some transactions require salespeople 18:40 – The types of companies that does and doesn't work for product-led growth 22:26 – How Kyle would coach a sales-led company who wants to shift to product-led growth model 25:50 – Does it make sense for PLG companies to spend more on the expand side of "land and expand"? 27:07 – Kyle' pricing advice 28:33 – Connect with Kyle Key Takeaways: "In my mind, why product-led growth has taken off is because end users, as opposed to just executive buyers, have more and more power in bringing software into work. And so, you can actually make your product discovered by those users, show value to those folks and enable them to become champions in your buying process" – Kyle Poyar "Freemium is a subset of PLG. If you're doing freemium by default, you're taking steps into product led growth. But freemium isn't required to be a product-led company by any means." – Kyle Poyar "I advise companies to think in terms of where there's the most friction in their current motion and what are product-led solutions that can help solve that friction and improve upon a KPI that we want to improve on right now, and that takes us on this path to doing more PLG in the future." – Kyle Poyar Connect with Kyle Poyar: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyle-poyar/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:[email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on November 2, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/a-fabulous-new-behavioral-economics-trick/ 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 Clubs from the Selling Value card deck. It's true, price doesn't drive the 'will I' decision. When people are making a 'will I' decision they're trying to decide, is this a place where I should spend my resources? And although you can imagine if I make a huge change in price, I could get somebody to change their mind in terms of, will they buy in this product category or not. But most of the time that's not what's driving the decision. For example, are you in the market to buy a new car today? I'm guessing the answer is no. But what if you have an accident and your car is totaled? Well, all of a sudden, you're in the market for a new car. And it isn't the price. If we lowered the price, we raised the price, that wasn't driving your decision. It was the fact that the need came up. You realized the need, and it was a really important problem. Are you in the market to buy a new refrigerator? Probably not. What if your refrigerator breaks down? Almost everything we can go through this same example where you're not in the market to go buy something, until of course something happens to prompt you to say, hey, I'd really like one of those, and then you can go shopping for which one you want to go buy. But in the beginning, it's not the price. And so small changes in price really don't change anybody's mind in terms of, am I going to go buy something in this product category? We hope you enjoyed this example of Pricing Table Topics. If you want to get better at speaking, especially about pricing and value, grab a deck of our cards, pull a random card and read the saying, then talk for one to two minutes about what the 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/

Ankur Barot started his career in engineering and soon transitioned to business. Currently, he is an e-commerce expert and is working as the manager of strategic initiatives at BigBasket, one of the biggest online grocery platforms in India. In this episode, Ankur talks to us about the important strategies when it comes to pricing in the world of e-commerce. He shares valuable tips on how to make customers choose your platform over your competitors', and how to charge different prices on different customers depending on their buying behavior and your competitors' prices. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out the factors to consider in pricing your products in the online market Learn how to make customers choose your platform over your competitors' platforms Discover how to charge different prices on different customers by monitoring their buying behavior and your competitors' prices "In pricing, it is definitely very important considering how your costs are aligned and how the competitive prices align. A large part is also on how you are communicating the price to customers." – Ankur Barot Topics Covered: 01:32 – How Ankur got into pricing 02:17 – The work that BigBasket does, and what makes it unique 04:29 – COVID gave the companies that did delivery a chance to explode in growth 05:54 – Ability to shop in stores again did not stop customers from ordering online 06:39 – COVID was almost like a forced trial where people had to order online; and they found it to be easier and more convenient 08:11 – Promotions and other factors that determine whether customers will place an order on your platform or not 11:21 – How to get customers to order on your platform instead of your competitor's platform 16:12 – Analyze how much your customers are willing to pay for a product; Make sure the customers would get what they want even right before the billing process 20:05 – How to charge different prices to different customers by monitoring their buying behavior as well as the competitors' prices 23:29 – How companies in India find the prices of their competitors' products 27:02 – Ankur's pricing advice 29:36 – Connect with Ankur Key Takeaways: "We learned that pricing plus the stock availability as well as assortment, as well as how you are charging the convenience fee – all these aspects will decide whether the customer is placing an order on your platform or not." – Ankur Barot "It is not about only the product pricing that the e-commerce portal has, it is what other parts of the chain that will bring in a customer and place an order on your platform." – Ankur Barot "At the back end, what the company or what we are trying to do is select our key value items that the customer will remember the prices for, and we'll definitely build a long-term perspective that they are the cheapest among all the competitors." – Ankur Barot People / Resources Mentioned: BigBasket: https://www.bigbasket.com/ Connect with Ankur Barot: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankurbarot/ 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 October 26, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/more-lessons-from-netflix/ 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 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/