Business in its simplest form is getting paid for providing value to the customer. It may be true that they're going to get the value. It may not be true that they're going to get the value, but they believe they're going to get the value. And what we need to do is make sure we understand what our customers or our buyers are looking for.  What does value mean? “Business, in its simplest form, is getting paid for providing value to the customer.” - Mark Stiving Typically, we could think of this as our buyers have a problem they need to solve, they have a result they're trying to achieve and aspiration thereafter. The only reason that people buy a product from us or from anybody. If they perceive value. If we can help our customers understand what our value is and the more they understand our value. The more likely they are to buy. And in fact, the more likely they are to pay us a higher price.  Because when we think about business, business is really about us giving value to our customers, and in exchange, they give us money. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn  

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on April 18, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-when-costs-go-up/  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

Ayon Bhattacharyya is an experienced business leader with significant success in revenue growth through commercial problem-solving. He is implementing innovative pricing solutions, fact-based analysis, and market research, drawing upon his stakeholder management and influencing skills to gain the support of other senior leaders. In this episode, Ayon shares the need to understand your customers, so you can segment without merging them and you gauge their willingness to pay and set the best pricing.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn about customer segmentation and how to go about defining it to arrive at optimal pricing for a particular segment Find out how customer segmentation helps articulate your value proposition to solve different problems Learn how to categorize your buyers best so you lead with value and not pricing   "Do your research and know your customers. Identify your customer segments and, where feasible, perform price experiments to validate willingness to pay. And don't be afraid to experiment with subsets of your customer base and try to innovate your approach." - Ayon Bhattacharyya   Topics Covered: 01:37 - What sparked his interest in pricing 03:27 - Price fencing in the airline industry 04:50 - Why do airlines have the best price offering for direct customers 05:56 - Reason why airline fare price increases as the plane nears take-off 06:30 - Differentiating between a business traveler and a leisure traveler 07:02 - How could they possibly created fare rules around business and leisure travelers 08:16 - Ayon sharing his thoughts on customer segmentation 09:09 - What are those customer attributes 11:47 - Defining customer segments 13:49 - How to find out who's going to travel for a particular attribute to be met 14:42 - Would it be better to actually differentiate the proposition by having a premium and a cheaper price 15:53 - All about customers' choice of greater or cheaper value 17:58 - Preventing segments from merging 20:25 - Differentiating pricing in UK, Australia, and New Zealand 22:56 - Categorizing buyers 24:21 - People's surprising attitude on getting rich many years ago 26:20 - Reacting to Mark's funny New Zealand experience 26:56 - Ayon's pricing advice that would greatly impact one's business 27:54 - Why be careful in lifting anchor when experimenting with your market   Key Takeaways: "It's all about choice at the end of the day. The customer gets to choose a greater value or less value, and they pay the price based on value." - Ayon Bhattacharyya "The best way to counter this is differentiating your value proposition. If you're solving different problems, then you're able to customize that value proposition to the segment, and that helps to mitigate that risk of segments merging." - Ayon Bhattacharyya "One of the guests on your podcast has referred to the importance of not leading with price, and I absolutely 100% stand by that. Always lead with value." - Ayon Bhattacharyya "There is a fear often around raising prices. But if you're able to support that with additional value, then usually your customers are quite receptive to that." - Ayon Bhattacharyya   Resources/People Mentioned: Westpac Negotiating with Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies to Defend Your Price by Reed Holden   Connect with Ayon Bhattacharyya: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayon-bhattacharyya-a84ba615/# Website: https://bizgrowthspurt.com/   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/  

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on April 11, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/price-moves-during-market-shocks/ 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

First, a zero-sum game essentially means the size of the pie is fixed. If we have a pie there and you get to cut it that, and I get to choose which half I'm going to take, then that's a zero-sum game because the more I take, the less you get, or the more you take the less I get. In price negotiations, assuming we don't change the product or the offer. And it's just a debate on how much is a customer going to pay in order to buy our product. That's a zero-sum game. The more they pay, the more we get and the less money they get to keep and vice versa. However, that's not the way business works. “Business is not a zero-sum game. Focus on increasing value to the customer.” – Mark Stiving We shouldn't be thinking of our business as a zero-sum game. Instead, if we're clearly listening to our customers in our marketplace, we can create features and products and capabilities and nuances of our, of our products so that the buyers get more and more value. And the more value they get, the more they're likely willing to pay. And their willingness to pay probably exceeds our cost of creating that X additional value. In other words, we're creating value both for the customer and for us, hence the business isn't and shouldn't be thought of as a zero-sum game. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn

Monica Sinha is a Price benchmarking Lead and Senior Manager at Capgemini. She has over 15 years of experience in the Finance sector which includes experience with the business finance team of Tech Mahindra, the commercial management office at Accenture, brokerage department at Karvy Computershare Pvt. Ltd., and corporate finance department at Tata Finance Ltd. In this episode, Monica shares how benchmarking increases your confidence in winning deals. And she also talks about when benchmarking truly becomes helpful -- that's when teams work together to truly connect with the customer to attain the best possible final price for a quote.     Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out how benchmarking helps validate the final price Learn how benchmarking helps increase your chance of winning the deal Find out how you go through benchmarking the competitors' price and the nuances that are involved in it   "When you are in the pricing line, then I think you need to have a very holistic view. We just cannot go with taking the cost and add the margin, and derive the price out of it. You need to have the entire team aligned into one." - Monica Sinha   Topics Covered: 01:11 - How she landed into pricing 02:32 - Pricing compared to a recipe 03:46 - What benchmarking suggests 05:19 - Benchmarking as a validation check 08:18 - The way benchmarking is done and the nuances involved in it 13:03 - The challenges that come with benchmarking 16:08 - Doing post-mortem analysis to what led to a difference in price after benchmarking 17:21 - How to find out what price the competitor is charging 20:07 - The one thing that helps you win a deal 20:41 - How do we benchmark value-based pricing 23:14 - Monica's pricing advice that can significantly impact one's business   Key Takeaways: "It is so much of confidence, where benchmarking is there, where benchmarking is built to validate. And in fact, I would say that the chance of winning a deal increases by many notches." - Monica Sinha "Benchmark gives you a sense that yes, you are close to that price, or you're very far off, then probably there is some mistake that you're doing in estimation or something somewhere. So, let's just recheck how you're doing it. So benchmarking is a very good instrument to validate the final price that you're going to submit." - Monica Sinha "The one major thing that is very important is that if we have to really give a winnable price if we want to really understand what the value that the customer is looking for, what should be the correct price for it, then all of these team members, they need to align and work together. And they need to understand that they should have some connection along with the customer so that whatever the final price that they are coming up with is the price that should be ultimately quoted." - Monica Sinha   Connect with Monica Sinha: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monica-sinha-46904041/ Email: [email protected]   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/  

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 28, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/disney-understands-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

When we think about how our buyers decide. Oftentimes they're deciding, am I going to buy your product? Or am I going to buy a competitor's product? What they do is they look at the price of your product, the price of your competitor's product. And for a moment, let's assume the price of your product is higher. So they ask themselves, is it worth it? Should I pay more for your product? Well, that depends on what they're going to get when they buy your product instead of the competitor's product. Now we're talking about differentiation. What's different about your product versus your competitors product. "Real value comes from building products that are really better than our competitors." - Mark Stiving It turns out when buyers are making this decision, they're using their perception of the differences. So it's really about perceived differentiation, but if you want to truly get. Good differentiation. My advice is always build real differentiation build products that are better than your competitors, and then make sure our customers and our buyers know that our products are better than our competitors so that they're willing to pay a higher price. Real value comes from building products that are really better than our competitors. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn

Stormie Andrews is the president of Yokel Local. He is a licensed practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), an award-winning author, Forbes contributor, HubSpot contributor, recognized buyer persona expert, and HubSpot Certified Trainer. He has also been recognized as a Member of the Year from the American Marketing Association, named as a Top 50 Tech Visionary, and his book, "The World’s Best Buyer Persona® System," became an Amazon Hot New Releases Best Seller. In this episode, Stormie talks about how the World’s Best Buyer Persona System helps users set them apart from competitors in terms of market positioning where pricing doesn’t have to be one driver.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out how to create the next best thing in creating your best buyer persona in the absence of the gold standard Learn how to create a value proposition where pricing isn’t the number one driver Find out the concept of TINB (There Is No B) in the World’s Best Buyer Persona System   “It's not about you. It's not about your goods and services. It's about your prospects, your ideal customers, their pain points, their issues. The more time, energy, and effort you put into that, the more in alignment you're going to be as it pertains to your pricing.” - Stormie Andrews   Topics Covered: 01:53 - How he started getting into personas 03:20 - Differentiating sales and marketing 07:02 - Creating multiple personas for each buyer type and making recommendations 07:52 - The next best thing to do when you don’t meet the gold standard to help you create the best buyer persona 09:55 - Using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a basis for creating personas 14:01 - How does a buyer persona influences pricing 17:34 - Building personas for different decision makers 21:28 - What could be the CFO’s TINB for a certain product 22:23 - Putting a TINB for a buyer persona 25:50 - The belief systems that are addressed in the World's Best Buyer Persona 27:15 - Stormie’s pricing advice that can have a great impact on one’s business   Key Takeaways: “As we go through that exercise, we can spend an entire day just on positioning factors, because we have to have unique positioning factors that are designed to resonate with someone, not everyone. And if we can align those positioning factors, put them in alignment with the belief systems, the motivations of their ideal prospects, they're going to be in better shape.” - Stormie Andrews “When we get into that positioning in the marketplace, we can find that market gap that sets the users of the ‘world's best buyer persona’ that sets them apart from their competitors, they market on that unique positioning that they have within the market. And that becomes their value proposition that can become their TINB (There Is No B), where pricing isn't the number one driver.” - Stormie Andrews “What if we build a persona where we build resources for the initial influencer, and then we create and build a packet that they can download and give to the CFO that addresses their problems, their issues, their concerns, their motivations. That makes the world or at least that it's designed to speed up the sales process and make for a much smoother sales process.” - Stormie Andrews   Connect with Stormie Andrews: Website: https://www.flowcode.com/page/stormieandrews LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stormieandrews/ Email: [email protected]   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/  

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 28, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/i-hate-loss-aversion/ 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

It's true, we expect we need to know how it is that our buyers are making decisions. In particular, how is it that they use price in that decision process?  Certainly, there are irrational behavioral economics-type issues, and we want to understand those. But what we truly need to understand as a company, the thing we don't understand is value. What are the decisions our buyers are making?  "Understanding your customers decisions is fundamental to value based pricing." - Mark Stiving In terms of is it worth it? Am I getting enough value for the money that I'm paying? And in particular, the two decisions that seem to drive this the most? First decision is “Will I will I buy something in the product category?” And there we're asking ourselves, “Is the price low enough that when the customer solves the problem, they're happy paying that price to solve the overall problem?” The second decision they make is which one, which product will I buy? Which competitive alternative will I buy? In this case, we need to make sure that our price relative to the quality and capabilities of our products is attractive to our buyers, relative to our competitors, quality capabilities and price.    We need to understand what are those decisions our buyers are making? How do they use price and making those decisions so that we can do a much better job at pricing our product and by the week creating and communicating about our product as well. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn  

Liz Wainger is a communications strategist, author, serial connector - I help businesses and nonprofits clarify their messaging and purpose. In this episode, Liz shares one tool she uses that helps her create a message that cuts through the noise, solely focused on your target audience and what truly resonates with them.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn how to create a messaging architecture that is customized but has an overarching message across all audiences Find out a process of figuring out customer value statement Discover what the most smart marketers mistakes are and learn how to create something that truly resonates with your audience   “Understand the emotional driver of the purchase, what they really want in the end, it's like Ted Levitt, who was a professor of marketing, says, "When people buy a drill, they don't want the drill. They want the hole." - Liz Wainger   Topics Covered: 01:54 - Relating a story about his brother's death and the importance of the concept of value 04:48 - People pays for whatever they value 05:28 - What value does she offer 08:21 - What you need to look into for people to buy your product 10:30 - Figuring out customer value 14:14 - Using a triangle to create your positioning platform 17:34 - What is so special about creating 'three' pillar messages 20:17 - Leading the discussion with what is truly valuable to the customer 21:49 - Focusing on what you are targeting and leaving something out 22:18 - How to communicate something that genuinely resonate with your audience 24:25 - Turning your presentation into a sales pitch 26:11 - Asking probing and not threatening questions 27:24 - Liz's pricing advice that greatly impacts one's business   Key Takeaways: "The way I do messaging is we use a triangle. Depending on where you customize and what is most interesting to your audience, you lead with different triangle points. But the underlying message about what makes this product tick, or why you want to use this should be true, according to all your audiences." - Liz Wainger "We live in a world where we're over-communicating, we are getting so much information. So, the ability to cut through and really get to the core and simplify is so important. Because people have very short attention spans." - Liz Wainger "At some point, there's what I call the porosity of information. So, you want to be consistent because it's the consistency that builds equity -- attention equity, brand equity, value equity over time." - Liz Wainger "A big part of, and I think everybody should think about this, that no matter what your product is, or services, that you should be coming at it from the perspective of I want to help these people get better at whatever it is that they want to do. Not that I want to get the work." - Liz Wainger   Resource: Prism of Value by Liz Wainger: https://waingergroup.com/in-the-news/book/   Connect with Liz Wainger: Website: https://waingergroup.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizwainger Email: [email protected]   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/  

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 9, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/when-should-you-lower-your-price/  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

We know that we have to subscription companies have to win customers, keep customers, grow customers. This is really about keeping customers and we should have a customer success department that is watching usage. Watching are people really getting value from our product. Those who are using our product a lot are getting a lot of value and hence are very unlikely to churn. "Subscription businesses need you to use and like their product to keep you buying it. Customer success creates value." - Mark Stiving Those that stop using decrease using aren't using the right features, the people who aren't getting as much value from our product, they're much more likely to churn. Our customer success departments should be watching who's using what and how much, and then helping those who aren't using the product enough to see the value. To be able to use the product more because the more they use it, the more value they get, the less likely they are to get. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn  

Jared Smith is a Business Consultant at Vendavo, a world-class commercial excellence software firm that enjoys seeing clients evolve into leaders in their industry. ​He is a Ph.D. candidate at Oklahoma State University researching how companies execute strategies, pricing, and sales dynamics. In this episode, Jared talks about salespeople's insufficiency where business acumen is concerned. He is encouraging companies to put some training where salespeople can do value statements, challenger selling, and using whatever pricing methodologies they can have.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out how to motivate salespeople to understand the target price and capture a product's value Learn how salespeople can deviate from the target price and still earn from it Find out how salespeople can defend pricing from a product's economic value and not just on discounting   "Have the courage to experiment, have the courage to look at different things and approach pricing in a different way. The statement that we're going to raise prices and our customers are going to leave us, and we live in that fear all the time, that's not a really rational way of looking at things." - Jared Smith   Topics Covered: 01:18 - Relating his first exposure to pricing 02:55 - Pricing for B2C versus B2B 04:43 - Taking a look at the whole value statements between B2C and B2B 06:45 - The disconnect between sales and pricing 08:26 - Shortfall in business acumen of most salespeople 10:06 - How to make value conversation happen 12:56 - Talking about sales discount and escalation processes 15:03 - He believes giving salespeople autonomy 16:50 - Setting compensation structures in a way that motivates salespeople not to discount but sell on value 18:24 - The compensation style that motivates most salespeople 20:35 - The challenge of getting salespeople sell above the target price 21:34 - Higher commission rate when hitting the price ceiling 22:20 - Understanding the value that customers get from the product 23:17 - Jared’s best pricing advice that greatly impacts a business   Key Takeaways: "The key thing that I see is, when you start to talk about price, it gets into that whole thing of the sales operations, ‘Do I go there and do I lead with that ceiling price and discount down to the target?’" - Jared Smith “What about if we set our compensation structures in such a way that motivates them not to discount, to always sell that value, but also maybe even motivates them to go higher than that as well?” - Jared Smith “In the psychology of salespeople, that's what really drives a lot of the behavior and how you put your compensation system to move with those three numbers right there - the list price, ceiling, and target price.” - Jared Smith "Have the courage to develop the capability of pricing in your company. Invest in good people, invest in good technologies, things that can support this as a discipline, much like you've been doing in the supply chain and all these other ones for years. So have the courage to change, have the courage to have the critical conversations." - Jared Smith   Resources/People Mentioned: Prime Source Building Products: https://www.primesourcebp.com/ Frito Lay: https://www.fritolay.com/   Connect with Jared Smith: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredpaulsmith/   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/  

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 2, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/can-your-pricing-be-your-advantage/  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

When we asked salespeople why we lost the deal, almost always, we got the answer, it was the price. Maybe they tell us it was a feature that we didn't have, but the price was a big deal. And the price is always a big deal. It turns out that yes, you can probably lower your price low enough that you could convince any buyer to buy your product.  But that's really not the point of sales. What we want to be able to do is make sure that. Our buyers understand the value of our product, what it is that we're offering. And if our buyers understand that we offer so much more value than the price we're asking for, they're willing to buy.  So the problem may be that we're not doing a good enough job at communicating value. Or the problem could be the product just doesn't have enough value. Have we built products that people really value? And can we communicate that to individual buyers?  So they're willing to part with their hard-earned money in order to gain those benefits. "There are two reasons for every loss sale. One, price was too high to the buyer. Two didn't expect to get enough benefit. Don't just blame price." - Mark Stiving So the problem may be that we're not doing a good enough job at communicating value. Or the problem could be the product just doesn't have enough value. Have we built products that people really value? And can we communicate that to individual buyers?  So they're willing to part with their hard-earned money in order to gain those benefits. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn  

Michael Farber has 16+ Years in Enterprise Software and Technology Sales with Xactly Corporation, Concur Technologies, ERP solutions such as Baan, Deltek, ABAS-USA. He has expertise in solution selling and delivering exceptional revenue results and customer satisfaction. He has an excellent ability to qualify, professionally present, differentiate, negotiate, close, and connect the dots at the "C" level within organizations. He is the founder of The ROI Shop. In this episode, Michael shares how the ROI calculator provides value conversation letting the buyer think of a financial number rather than just an admin tool.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out how ROI calculators provide value conversation between the buyer and seller Learn how ROI calculators allow a step-by-step process of building credibility and confidence to you, thereby holding firm on your pricing Discover how you can provide a collaborative approach between buyer and seller so they find, understand, and see the value and not ask for a discount   "Quantifying that value upfront. I mean, if you go in and they agree to the value you can bring them in the main areas where they're looking, it is going to be impossible for them to come back and say, ‘Oh, yeah, we need a 40% reduction,’ especially if the return is ten times the investment." - Michael Farber   Topics Covered: 01:41 - How the ROI calculator changed the way he sold 04:20 - His thoughts on replacing the word ROI calculator with the word business case 05:51 - What's the use of the ROI calculator? 07:15 - Using an ROI calculator template based on the vertical you're working with 07:51 - What the process looks like for a salesperson letting the buyer fill out the ROI calculator 10:55 - A collaborative approach to using ROI calculator 12:30 - What it means to have the step-by-step process of using ROI calculator 17:16 - 'Will I' type questions can be built inside ROI calculator 18:17 - Building a security value calculator 20:05 - Michael's best pricing advice that greatly impacts a business   Key Takeaways: "Rationally, companies buy for two reasons: you're going to make some money, you're saving money, that's really it at the end of the day. So, it's even more important to do it. When a company sits down, or the rep sits down and does a good job of walking their prospect through it, it separates them from the other sellers, the other sellers aren't doing it." - Michael Farber "You think about our interactive value calculator. It's like its own website portal. So, we stir emotion with visuals, and videos and stories." - Michael Farber "Understanding the 'Will I' type questions, we could build those into the calculator. As I said, what we build is more than just how many employees do you have? What is their average salary? How many hours does it take, type thing? We build interactive discovery questions in it. So based on a certain answer or a drop-down, we can drive another discovery question. And then based on that discovery question, we can start to quantify a different area." - Michael Farber "I will tell you; I have not discounted our price in our last seven deals, not one penny, and we more than doubled our price since a year ago. So, it really does; they got to see the value. And then it's hard for them to ask for a discount." - Michael Farber   Resources/People Mentioned: Concur Technologies: https://www.concur.com/ Bacardi: https://www.bacardi.com/   Connect with Michael Farber: Website: https://www.theroishop.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-farber-9946281/   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/  

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 21, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/acquisition-pricing-for-retention/  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

Yes, we might have a really complicated pricing scheme pricing process that we have internal, although there are lots of reasons why we may not want that because it's complex for us to manage.  But that's better than making a complex for our buyers. In the world of what we are showing to our buyers, we need pricing to look simple, we need it easy for buyers to make decisions, because confused buyers don't buy.  And if we can't simplify the way we present pricing to our buyers, we're hurting our marketplace. My favorite company for how they do this is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is defined in four different market segments.  Those are recruiters, jobseeker sales people and professionals, which means everybody else. Inside each one of those four segments, they have good, better, best offerings.  "Pricing can be complex internally, but must look simple to the buyer. " - Mark Stiving What we want to be able to do is emulate this because if you think about being a buyer  from LinkedIn, or you want to buy one of Linkedin's products, you say, ‘Hey, I'm a salesperson.’  And now you can see the choices of what it is that you might want. And they make it simple for us to see, understand and choose.  Even though behind the scenes, they've got at least 12 different packages plus a whole bunch of different options and they're managing a lot of different things.  Their buyers see very little of that, and the choices the buyers make are much much simpler. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn  

Mark Boundy is an expert in value building, selling, and marketing. In this episode, Mark explains how to present value to your customers in a measurable, concrete, and real way where value is quantified resulting in more profitable deals and paying customers.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn how to translate your customers' feature-and-benefit differentiation into a customer-differentiated customer outcome. Understand the buyer's purchasing journey so they know the value they are getting, and you become their only choice Discover the 13 things you need to know about your customer, so you win every time   "Right now, customers are really struggling with some different issues. And slowing down and understanding your customers' business and how their business is changing gives you an opportunity to really set yourself apart as that trusted advisor, that trusted partner who can help them co-create a solution that maybe your competitors could, but your crappy competitor salespeople don't."  - Mark Boundy   Topics Covered: 02:47 - What is a sales funnel and the misconceptions about it 03:57 - The most shortsighted thinking when it comes to sales funnels 07:03 - Thoughts on some terms used that are seller-centric 08:46 - What the process looks like when humans decide at something 10:18 - What happens when customers are only self-informed 12:53 - The likelihood when there is no differentiating factor among sellers other than the price 14:11 - How to make customers ‘will I’ compelling that you are the only choice for the ‘which one’ decision 15:23 - Creating demand for the outcomes that come from the differentiating feature 17:10 - Importance of dollarizing outcomes 18:01 - What’s with personal outcomes 19:39 - Value versus price 26:43 - Thirteen things you need to know about your customers   Key Takeaways: “If we tell salespeople just to find out what the customers have self-informed and what their envision is, what usually happens is the result of that self-informing is under informing and misinforming and some combination. And their vision for the future is probably pretty underwhelming. And if you actually build exactly what they envisioned, it would never have ROI in the first place.” - Mark Boundy “We train people using methodologies and great questions and understand and uncover the pain. To uncover, get a perfect vision of the customer's imperfect vision. When we ask them to uncover the pain, the customer can only answer the pain that is the result of their self-informed vision, they can only give you what they know. They need an expert to say have you ever thought about this or other customers like you have actually found this, too.” - Mark Boundy “You have to bring them [customers] from a 'will I' to a 'what will I'. As soon as that 'what will I' becomes compelling, then they're back to a 'will I' and it happens to be a 'will I' that you're the only available 'which one'?” - Mark Boundy “I work with my clients to understand their differentiation. And I work with them really hard to translate their feature-and-benefit differentiation into a customer differentiated customer outcomes.” - Mark Boundy “Value only exists in your customers’ mind, that scale, that counterbalance only exists in your customers’ mind. Your value that you articulate, it's a value proposition, you're proposing something that you hope comes into existence between your customers and yours. So, credibility is what opens their ear.” - Mark Boundy “Value has to outweigh the price. Your differentiated value has to outweigh the price premium over the next best choice.” - Mark Boundy   Resource/People Mentioned: Radical Value: How to Take Your Company to the Next Level Through Radical Customer Centricity by Mark Boundy: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Value-Company-Customer-Centricity-ebook/dp/B08527K4ZG The Nature of Human Intelligence by Robert J. Sternberg: https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Human-Intelligence-Robert-Sternberg/dp/1316629643 Miller Heiman Group website: https://www.millerheimangroup.com/   Connect with Mark Boundy: Website: https://boundyconsulting.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markboundy/ Email: [email protected]   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 14, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here:  https://impactpricing.com/blog/stop-sales-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

Tech support is reactive and prevents unhappy customers. Customer success is proactive and generates customer delight. Customer success creates additional value. These are solving problems that our current customers have and typically customers are going to call us. They say, ‘Hey, I'm not getting delivery or, Hey, I don't know how to use this. We're being reactive and supporting our customers. And yet in this recurring revenue world, we really need to be proactive.  We need to make sure our buyers are using our product. They're getting value from our product, because if we want them to pay us month after month after month, they'd better be receiving value. That's where the customer success department comes in.  "Subscription businesses need you to use and like their product for you to keep buying it. " - Mark Stiving Customer success needs to be watching. Who's using the product. How are they using the product? How much are they using the product? Are they truly getting value? The way we would expect them to? And as customer success helps our individual customers get more and more value from our product.  It makes it less likely that our customers are going to churn out. And B makes it more likely that our customers will end up buying more from us in the future, either through usage or upgrades or, or even cross selling or buying something different from us in the end customer success, that proactive activity is creating value to our marketplace. And it's something that we'll end up capturing in higher  prices or more sales.  We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn  

Sebastian Wrobel is an energetic and passionate professional leader, helping companies to achieve value and pricing excellence. In order to achieve lasting integration, he is pushing digital transformation. In addition, he has extensive experience working closely with the C-suite and senior stakeholders to formulate and implement major profit and growth optimization plans. In addition, he leverages a collaborative and data-driven leadership approach to build high performing teams.   In this episode, Sebastian highlights pricing’s role in sales negotiations.     Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn why Pricing people are expert negotiators, a good business partner and advisor to sales in negotiations   Find out how to negotiate sales more effectively with value levers   Understanding procurement's role in negotiating the best deal    “Pricing people can do, they can deliver regularly on trainings, at least to create awareness and ability to understand the commercial levers that salespeople could leverage.”   - Sebastian Wrobel   Topics Covered: 01:13 - Relating an incident that got him started in Pricing 01:55 - Getting addicted to Pricing 03:10 - The extent to which Pricing people should be involved in sales negotiations 04:30 - What is in Pricing people that makes them a good part in the negotiation 07:27 - The point you need a professional negotiator to help sales in the negotiation 08:43 - How from the nature of their roles pricing people are professional negotiators 11:22 - Misconceptions about negotiations and the importance of preparing for it beforehand 15:51 - What do pricing people need to have to be effective in negotiation 18:09 - Value drivers that have commercial impact you can use to negotiate with big customers 21:33 - The ‘negotiation jacket’ and the role play involved in negotiation by procurement people 24:55 - Using all levers in negotiation to get the best outcome 27:00 - Sebastian’s best pricing advice that could greatly impact one’s business   Key Takeaways: “The underlying assumption is that in the negotiation, you discuss value. And in fact, you need to know the value for the client much earlier before you go into a negotiation. So, this is the first maybe misconception about negotiation that you negotiate the value at the event of the negotiation. That happens much earlier.” - Sebastian Wrobel “To be effective in pricing, you need to have empathy with sales, with your sales team.” - Sebastian Wrobel “And I think pricing can help both in the preparation in delivering the data and developing the commercial strategies negotiation, but also being a neutral negotiation partner that is less emotional, and can help on the commercial and objective parts in the negotiation.” - Sebastian Wrobel “There are many kinds of tools in negotiations. Once you learn them, it's by far not as complicated as sometimes perceived. But you need to understand the toolbox, and you need to be able to use it. I'm personally convinced that pricing people has the skill. And once they get comfortable with the toolbox, they can be really good business partners and advisors to sales in negotiation.” - Sebastian Wrobel   Connect with Sebastian Wrobel: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-w/   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 30, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/willingness-to-pay-vs-price-sensitivity/ 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

Values should drive most business decisions Yes, it's true. Value should be. Almost everything that goes on inside your business. I learned this because I'm a pricing guy as a pricing guy. What we think about is, “Hey, I've got this product. What's the value of that to my buyer? To my customer? How much would they be willing to pay me?”  But once you start thinking that way you realize, “Well, did we actually create a product that had value to our customers? Could we change the product? Could we create products that have even more value?” And then we start thinking. Well, how well does marketing do at communicating the value? "Value is that thing that really should be driving everything in our business. " - Mark Stiving Once I understand what buyers are truly valuing and how much they're willing to pay, do we put those things in our marketing messages? Are we finding the right types of buyers? And then you start thinking, will the salespeople truly understand the way buyers value the product, and can they help individual customers understand that value even better? In the end, value is that thing that really should be driving everything in our business.  I like to think of it as we need to create, communicate and capture more value. And that's really what makes a business successful. We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn  

Alex Hoffman is an articulate commercial leader with extensive experience in addressing profitability challenges through Commercial Analysis, Pricing / Business Strategy, and Portfolio Management. In this episode, Alex Hoffman underscores how pricing tools, insights that pricing experts develop, and the key decision-makers play a crucial role in value-based pricing. And most importantly, effectiveness in communicating those important insights has to be taken into consideration.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out the six features that are critical to setting pricing that could maximize the capture of value from customers Learn how to capture the value that's created through product innovation and understand the critical nature of the message Understand the crucial role of marketing in pricing   "Using market research, using your past campaign performance, figure out the economic value you bring to the customer. The first thing you need to do is figure out the value, and more importantly, does the customer perceive that value?"  - Alex Hoffman   Topics Covered: 01:45 - Alex's weird and circuitous way of getting into pricing 03:05 - What got him interested in pricing that he stayed with it 04:24 - Sharing successes at implementing value-based pricing in Telstra 07:34 - How Telstra uses conjoint in pricing 09:18 - Using conjoint for churn 10:48 - Honing your marketing message for a specific segment 12:56 - Marketing as a critical role in pricing 14:32 - The hard part of focusing on both cost and value when pricing 16:06 - Looking at the subscription model from the ground up 18:02 - The idea of cross-subsidization 19:37 - Interesting concepts around cloud-based gaming that could help boost the margin 20:20 - Talking about the disparity between the sophistication of the pricing tools, pricing teams' insights, and those who make the critical decision 23:00 - The law of agency kicking in 23:39 - The hard part of having the 'burden of proof' displaced 25:21 - How things can work if you have a support network 26:12 - What destroys margin across the entire Telco industry 28:20 - Alex's best pricing advice that can greatly impact one's business   Key Takeaways: "And as you get involved in pricing, you really understand the critical nature of the message. So, we're about capturing the value that's created through product innovation and the like. But if the messaging and the marketing doesn't adhere to that, you get nowhere." - Alex Hoffman "You need to ensure that you've got strong input and buy-in into the marketing, as well as the pricing, the pricing strategy, the financial analysis. Marketing is a critical part of the role." - Alex Hoffman "With 5G coming on board now, cloud-based gaming is dynamically growing, and customers who are game addicts, by the very definition do not necessarily behave in a rational way, at particular points in time when they need their surging speed; they are prepared to pay what I would call almost surge-like pricing. And so, you can develop all sorts of interesting concepts there that could help boost the margin." - Alex Hoffman   Resources mentioned: Telstra: https://www.telstra.com.au/    Connect with Alex Hoffman: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-hoffman   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 16, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/perceived-versus-real-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

Using price to solve product-market fit is like changing gravity to lose weight.  Product Market Fit is one of those things that we hear often, especially as we're going to launch a brand new product.  We want to make sure that we understand what the market really needs, what problems we plan to solve.  And have we built a product that truly solves those that resonates with the marketplace. “Using price to solve product-market fit is like changing gravity to lose weight. “- Mark Stiving And this is something that we have to try to figure out as a business. And yet, sometimes companies say, ‘Well if I just lower the price, I'll be able to sell more.’ And that's absolutely a true statement. Probably you'll sell more if you lower the price. But that doesn't say that you've achieved product-market fit. I compare this a lot to losing weight.  I know that I need to eat less, I know that I need to exercise more. But you know, if only I could change how strong gravity was I'd weigh a lot less. And it would take me much less work.  When we're after the product-market fit. Don't be thinking so hard about the price. Yes, the price is important. Yes, we're going to use the value we're delivering to our buyers in order to set that price.  But for right now, in the beginning, focus all of your efforts on what are the problems we're solving? What does the market really need? And have we built a product to go solve those.  We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn

Robert Ribciuc is a Managing Partner at EBITDA Catalyst and a Pricing expert for Consumer & Software brands, driving 2-5+% profit & valuation gains in less than 12 months. In this episode, Robert shares how as pricing experts, we need to capture as much of the value and use value-based pricing to its full advantage while understanding a client's business goal regarding social concern in taking care of its vulnerable market segment.    Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn how to make your pricing function and capabilities tuned in for price increase even at a time of inflation Find out about a white paper on how you can turn inflation into a competitive advantage Learn how to make your role as pricing experts be economically and morally satisfying   "Don't accept inaction for too long as your standard course of action." - Robert Ribciuc   Topics Covered: 02:01 - How Robert's journey began in pricing 05:27 - Talking about what EBITDA Catalyst do: customer insights and designing offers 07:03 - The broader definition of customer insights 08:49 - What he has to say about the price increase and inflation 11:40 - When do cost start to matter when pricing 17:53 - The deal-envy factor that happens 19:02 - What you earn for superior procurement function and competitive advantage 20:33 - A question on when should we start putting a second lens on value-based pricing 23:13 - Showing what mission-driven pricing is about 27:42 - What it means to enlarge the definition of one's role as pricer 29:49 - Robert's best pricing advice that could significantly impact one's business   Key Takeaways: "Seeing the human impact of doing pricing better, I'm not going to say right, but doing pricing better can impact the teams and the lives of the people who produce the value in the first place." - Robert Ribciuc "I think when we look at inflation; if you do nothing and you think just the cost impact, of course, bad things are going to happen to your margins when costs are up and everything else stays the same." - Robert Ribciuc "Being able to articulate, especially in B2B conversations, hey, part of why the price is higher is like, look, it's fair, our costs are higher. That does play a role in the sales interactions that moves the needle towards achieving that price increase a little easier." - Robert Ribciuc "The conversation we just had reflects this role we have as pricers to help our clients or our employers capture as much of the value as possible. And I think there's also a part of what we should be doing, which is to think about the sort of social role and ultimate role of pricing as a vector in social movements." - Robert Ribciuc "We should enlarge the definition of our role as pricers because our first role is to understand our client." - Robert Ribciuc "If the client or the employer, part of their mission is not to capture as much as they could from the value pie that's being created, but to consistently leave more on the table than they could, I think that makes our work both economically satisfying and morally satisfying when we can be part of that." - Robert Ribciuc   Resources Mentioned: Inflation & White Paper Increase - EBITDA Catalyst: https://www.ebitdacatalyst.com/inflation-price-increases-whitepaper/ Chick-fil-A: https://www.chick-fil-a.com/   Connect with Robert Ribciuc: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ribciuc/   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 16, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/4-steps-to-being-a-great-director-of-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

Win, keep, and grow are three different revenue buckets that any subscription company has to manage.  You have to put resources into winning customers, you have to put resources into keeping customers, you have to put resources into growing customers.  “Win, keep, and grow, each needs its own focus.” - Mark Stiving What's fascinating is that most of the time when you invest when you do marketing tactics, you're impacting one of those three. And even if it goes across more than one, you're probably doing it for a specific reason.  My recommendation, go through all of the tasks that you have, and identify which of these three revenue buckets are you focused on, you focused on winning or keeping or growing customers.  We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn

Saima Khan has 10+ years of experience creating pricing strategy and portfolios, revenue management, and business planning. She has 7+ years of experience in international markets as a leader and teammate. She is quick to adapt to change and able to work with different teams in difficult environments. In this episode, Saima shares how you shouldn't price low your products or services at the start as it is hard to increase prices later on, and it might be lower than the market's perception. And she suggests pilot models you can use other than underpricing.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out what these two essential factors to pitch when you work for startup companies as a pricing consultant Learn about the tools used to test the pricing effectiveness of products in a startup company Find out how to do pricing for newly launched products for a startup company   "Always start your business with your customer. Where do they see the value? Focus on that when it comes to products, services, and pricing, and then look internally and see how you can be more relevant to your customers, how you can provide them the best value and be agile about it." - Saima Khan   Topics Covered: 01:45 - What got Saima into Pricing 02:30 - Why she stayed in Pricing 03:10 - The many skills involved in Pricing 03:52 - What's the difference working for a big company versus consulting 05:16 - What companies in terms of size does she work with 05:52 - Why are there few Pricing consultants focusing on startups, and what is her way of working with startups 06:54 - What it looks like pricing for a startup 09:42 - Pitching both business model and pricing strategy to companies 12:36 - How she helps startup companies with smart pricing decisions based on value 14:08 - The biggest challenge startups face in terms of pricing 16:17 - Why you shouldn't go for a low price when launching new products 19:22 - What creates lack of trust in the market 20:02 - Using tools to help clients understand their product's value 22:49 - Her pricing advice that can significantly impact one's business   Key Takeaways: "I think the most interesting part of startup pricing for me is, and I say this again, and again, is the link to the business model. Because for a startup, it's very important to see how the startup is going to charge money, for what, and from who. And it applies to mostly all of the startups but a lot more to software products." - Saima Khan "When I work with startups, I don't start with pricing, I start with the business model, and identifying which customer group is actually deriving the most benefit from your existing product and services, and how you can work or adjust your products and services portfolio to create more value, or that group of customers who you can monetize the most." - Saima Khan "You cannot monetize a product which has not been tried in the market. But the best way to do it is through a freemium model or a pilot model instead of underpricing. Because taking the price up is very hard because you establish the value of that product already." - Saima Khan "I guess we need to educate startups a little bit more on the element of pricing the value they bring because it's natural that whenever you bring something very new to the market, you're a little bit under-confident. And it's natural to underprice your products and services." - Saima Khan   People/Resources mentioned: Bumble app: https://bumble.com/   Connect with Saima Khan: Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saima-khan   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on May 26, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/the-buyers-journey-when-to-reveal-the-price/ 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

When you first launch a subscription product, you have to focus on winning customers right away, of course. And you'll really quickly realize that keeping customers becomes just as important as winning customers. All companies, all subscription companies have to focus on winning and keeping customers.  There's also growing customers, growing customers becomes really important as you mature as a company. In the beginning, it's all about winning customers, keeping customers building up that recurring revenue base. “When and keep early and often grow only later.” - Mark Stiving Once you've built a decent installed base, though, now the question becomes, how do we get those customers to pay us more money?  If you just think about when you're going to spend time and energy focusing on different activities early on, only focus on when and keep completely ignore the grow piece.  But once you built that installed base, it's time to start shifting to grow the problem most companies have, they never do that. So don't be like most companies. Instead, start thinking about how do you grow the amount of revenue you get from your installed base.  If you learn to do that, your company will grow much faster.  We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected].  Now go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn

John Peacock is a Senior Vice President at ASRC Federal. In this episode, John shares how building up great relationships ultimately paves the way to your success rate in a government setting as in any other. It’s also a matter of triangulating these three essentials of pricing, price to win, and competitive intelligence, and all other data points to reach your pricing point.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Learn how to do competitive intelligence and price to win   Find out how to show value in a government setting and have a good win rate  Learn how to shape opportunity so that government RFPs comes out more in your favor            “You’ve got to have really good relationships across all the different functional and organizational teams within your company. At the end of the day, my ability to get to the right price and help the company get to the right price is all driven off of the teams of people that you work with to get there.”   – John Peacock         Topics Covered: 01:16 – How one thing led to another and finally into pricing  02:23 – What got him to stick with pricing all these years  04:06 – Working through the pricing ranks  04:57 – What is ASRC, what does it do, is it government-focused primarily  07:09 – Pricing for value in a government setting  09:01 – A multi-step process in government bidding  10:38 – Talking about sole source contract award  12:03 – What’s a good win rate  16:58 – Taking a look at win rates early and late in the process  19:06 – Increasing win rate at the time the RFP comes out  21:46 – Factoring in competitive intelligence in the price to win  23:56 – The key to do competitive intelligence and price to win  28:21 – Margin requirements for bidding  30:31 – John’s best pricing advice to help create a great impact on one’s business        Key Takeaways:  “A big piece of government pricing is compliance; it’s responding specifically to what they ask for.” – John Peacock  “It’s much harder to win something where you’re not ahead of the curve in government pricing. It’s not as if there’s a commercial price list that you just go grab a number off of; we’re not buying a Dell laptop that you can just get anyone can go and get the same price for.  It’s much more specific than that. And so, you’ve got to be ahead of the curve if you want to have a good win rate.” – John Peacock  “Just like everything in life, everything comes down to relationships, and whether it’s your BD people, your program people, the people that are truly successful are the ones that make good relationships; they bridge that gap. And that allows you to have those conversations, and explain why there’s value add. If you have the greatest product in the world, but no one will talk to you. It’s not going to ever go anywhere.” – John Peacock  “The level of information and expertise comes into play. Putting the numbers together, honestly, isn’t the hard part. It’s pulling all the pieces together, so you know what the numbers should be?” – John Peacock  “The key to how we do competitive intelligence and price to win is, I see federal really falls within the expertise of the team that does this, and how they’re able to present the data.” – John Peacock  “I always tell my team, how you present information, how it looks even, is critically important. You might have the best answer in the world. And if you do it in cram, on a PC, your kids drawing paper, you’re not going to win the award; it’s got to look good, smell good, taste good. It’s got to be 100%.” – John Peacock         People/Resources Mentioned:  Tech Systems: https://www.techsystemsinc.com/ Dell: http://www1.ap.dell.com          Connect with John Peacock: Email: [email protected]  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-d-peacock          Connect with Mark Stiving:    Email: [email protected]  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/  

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on May 19, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here:  https://impactpricing.com/blog/how-to-become-a-pricing-expert/ 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

The reason we even have this meme is because too often, companies think, ‘Oh, I need to go subscription.’  They want to transition from a traditional business model to a subscription business model. And they often think of it as a payment plan. ‘Oh, I used to charge this. Now I'm going to charge this divided by 36 each month. And that gives me a three year payback.’ And even if the math works out, it's not the right way to think about it.  “Subscribers buy benefits, not products, they don't take ownership.” - Mark Stiving What you want to think about is, what's the stream of benefits my customer gets when they buy my product, because what you really want is for them to get that stream of benefits month after month after month.  They're happy paying you month after month after month, because they're getting those benefits. If you can think through clearly what are the benefits that you deliver, then you might be able to restructure your product so that you can deliver those benefits more visibly more easily more readily.  And then you can think through what are the detriments of the way you sell your product today? And is there a way we could overcome some of those because we go for a subscription. We want easy detriment is instead of giving you all that money upfront, I get to pay you a month at a time.    And by the way, if I don't like your product, if you're not delivering value to me, I get to churn out and I get to unsubscribe, so it gives buyers or customers the ability to try our products without committing huge amounts of money.    So in the end, think about the benefits your buyers are getting. It isn't about selling our product because buyers are buying our benefits.  We hope you enjoyed this memecast. If you see any of our memes that you'd like to move to the top of our memecast list, please let me know. If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach me at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn

Arjun Patnaik is Head of Pricing & Commercial Finance at Pine Labs. He used to work at GE as an Audit Manager.  In this episode, Arjun talks about how the role of pricing is richer in subscription businesses than any traditional business as it allows you to pull many pricing levers. He shares how triangulating the three important factors of knowing your value, communicating it, and figuring out people's willingness to pay drives the whole point of pricing.    Why you have to check out today's podcast:  Learn to differentiate and understand how pricing works in a traditional versus subscription business Learn about the whole customer lifecycle and lifetime value in pricing subscription Find out the three pillars of subscription pricing where everything flows from there   “Don't undervalue yourself. Don't leave money on the table. Do the hard work. Don't just go for a cost-plus or competition-based pricing. Spend the time, talk to your customers, understand their value equation and willingness to pay. It's going to pay off. So, spend time, money, and effort on pricing, and it will pay you back.”   - Arjun Patnaik    Topics Covered:  01:46 - Arjun's accidental entry into the world of pricing  02:46 - What pricing for him is  03:56 - What was GE's pricing approach, as he used to work there  06:13 - How was it like for him moving from cost-plus pricing to value-based pricing  08:51 - Why is the role of pricing much richer in subscription business than any regular sales business  10:18 - What he thinks of subscription pricing  14:11 - The business he was involved in at GE  14:56 - Talking about businesses transitioning from traditional ones to subscription  15:58 - His thoughts over Finance people being the wrong people to run pricing  17:59 - The need to marry data and solid customer research    Key Takeaways:  "When I think about pricing, I need to think about the whole customer lifecycle, especially in my business, right? So, I need to think about, at what price is my sales team acquiring customers efficiently? So, at what price can I maximize productivity and lower the cost of acquisition? - Arjun Patnaik  "Beyond just the core product that I'm selling, which I'm getting the recurring revenue for, how do I sell more services to this customer because it's much easier, you get a much larger bang for the buck, monetizing compared to acquiring." - Arjun Patnaik  "I think that's why we need to marry data, which we have an abundance of, with solid customer research. Because if someone says the customer wants this versus that and they're not able to prove that, it just comes down to, like, a bit of faith, experience, and gut feel. But then I just believe in customer research, and there are so many tools in pricing to figure out what the price range is." - Arjun Patnaik    Resource Mentioned:  GE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric   Connect with Arjun Patnaik:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjun-patnaik-63abb56/   Connect with Mark Stiving:    Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on May 12, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here:  https://impactpricing.com/blog/a-question-about-pricing-models/ 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

Customer Success is that department where we want to onboard We want to make sure they're using their product, getting as much value out of our product as possible. Because companies that use our product a lot are much less likely to churn out. We think of customer success as reducing churn as a way to keep our customers then absolutely it is and it absolutely should be.  “Customer Success creates real value that we can capture now in retention revenue, and someday in expansion revenue.”- Mark Stiving But what really happens that's super valuable is the more we can teach our customers to use our product, the more value they get out of our product, the more likely they are to upgrade. The more likely they are to stay if we raise their prices, the more they love us and we consider other products or the more they use our product, and they end up paying us more because of our pricing metric.  Customer Success then not only helps us with retention, but it's probably even more value in expansion.  We hope you enjoyed this memecast. If you see any of our memes that you'd like to move to the top of our memecast list, please let me know. If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach me at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn

Michael Hurwich is one of the foremost and sought after Pricing, Revenue & Strategy Management Consultants known around the world. Michael is a highly effective and energetic business leader with over 20 years of experience in Strategy, Revenue Optimization, Mergers & Acquisitions, New Product Development and reengineering business processes. Michael works closely with leadership from the C-Level to line management to develop and execute clearly defined pricing strategies.  In this episode, Michael takes pizza as an example to explain pricing as there are commonalities shared by businesses when it comes to pricing strategies and tactics that resonate with the whole concept of pricing pizza.    Why you have to check out today's podcast:  Learn how value and demand factors, not cost, help you increase price  Find out how you win customers and gain their loyalty Learn how to harmonize your pricing and the value that you deliver   “Definitely focus on demand, supply and demand issues. When something seems very busy, there's a tremendous opportunity to elevate your price, so long as you're delivering value in the marketplace.”   - Michael Hurwich    Topics Covered:  02:03 - Why talk about pizza  03:29 - A variety of pizza suiting everyone’s preference on every location  04:44 - Why are organizations leaving money on the table when pricing pizza  08:07 - Pricing being all about value, the supply and demand  11:36 - How do we avoid price transparency  15:20 - What is price transparency and the goal of moving consumers to purchase more than they otherwise would have  19:17 - Pricing and elasticity of demand  22:03 - Talking about loss leader products  24:03 - How to earn your customer’s loyalty  26:56 - His best pricing that can greatly impact one’s business    Key Takeaways:  “The key is to really figure out how to move away and make the price a little less transparent and focus on the value and the demand of those products. It's all about supply and demand. And the stock market reflects that very well, as does Bitcoin.” - Michael Hurwich  “It's really about moving customers to where you want them to end up at the end of the day. And it's incumbent upon vendors to drive purchasing behavior, not the other way around.” - Michael Hurwich  “The goal is really to focus less on price and price points, focus more on value and increasing that value perception and differentiation.” - Michael Hurwich  “In the pricing world, the important component of understanding price is also to evaluate and determine the elasticity of demand.” - Michael Hurwich  “And one of the things that people, most consumers actually don't know, they typically don't know the individual price of a product. What they do know is how much they're willing to spend when they go out.” - Michael Hurwich  “Better to sell the first slice at full ticket price, the second slice at half price, you're more than covering your costs, and also covering some incremental fixed overhead, at the same time, an extra sale. - Michael Hurwich    Resources Mentioned:  McDonalds: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald%27s Burger King: https://www.bk.com/ Wendy’s: https://www.wendys.com/ Schneider: https://www.se.com/us/en/ Pepsi: https://www.pepsi.com/en-us/ Coca Cola: https://www.coca-colacompany.com/ Win Keep Grow: How to Price and Package to Accelerate Your Subscription Business by Mark Stiving: https://www.amazon.com/Win-Keep-Grow-Accelerate-Subscription/dp/1631954784   Connect with Michael Hurwich:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-n-hurwich-6292109/   Connect with Mark Stiving:    Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This is an article published on April 21, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here:  https://impactpricing.com/blog/a-question-about-pricing-models/ 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

If we can continue to win customers, we're growing a business a lot, like a traditional business would where they constantly have to win customers. And the good news is, if we keep them, then we start the beginning of each year out with a whole bunch of customers we already have.  “How to grow a subscription business? Step one, win another customer. Step two, keep that customer. Step three, grow that customer. Step three is crucial but often ignored.”- Mark Stiving But the best companies figure out ways to grow individual customers. What this means is, can we find ways data customers who paid us $1 last year to pay us more than $1 this year. And there are several techniques that you can use, you can certainly raise their prices, if you have a subscription-type business, you can upsell them into another package, you can cross-sell them into something that's similar.    Or if we've chosen a good pricing metric, we can help them use more of our product, which means they're good at getting more value, and they're paying us more money. There are lots of different ways that we can grow a customer. The key is way too many companies completely ignore this.    And we ignore this because we don't really have to deal with it. If you're not winning new customers, you can tell that's a problem. And if you're turning customers out, you can tell that's a problem. But there's nobody watching, are you growing your customers and claiming it's a problem?    If you're not? Well, I'll claim it's a problem. If you do not figure out how to do it, you'll grow much much faster.  We hope you enjoyed this memecast. If you see any of our memes that you'd like to move to the top of our memecast list, please let me know. If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach me at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn

Jose Mirabal is an advisor and expert in negotiation and pricing strategies. He has more than 350 projects carried out in 27 industries. His clients include multinational companies, governments, regional organizations, foundations, and non-profit companies. He is also the CEO of MIRABAL Pricing Services, a consulting firm specializing in price strategies and negotiation. He is the author of the Value-Based Pricing Framework ©. He has given more than 160 talks, workshops, and seminars in 13 countries. He graduated from Cornell University with postgraduate studies in California Coast, Stanford, and Adolfo Ibañez. In this episode, Jose underscores the common thing all CEOs share -- being pricing leaders. To him, an even greater need to have a strong grasp of pricing and knowing and recognizing value. That's why he also shares the reason why he started Pricing Institute and what it does.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out a pricing standpoint on value-based pricing as opposed to cost-plus pricing, so you find solutions to business problems from a pricing perspective founded on value Discover what value configuration is, so you focus on what the client gets and provide options for them, so you get the right pricing for everyone Find out the different dimensions you need to work around to make up value, so you back it up with the right pricing strategy   "Read about need-based segmentation. Just read it. How could you do need-based segmentation in your business? That's number one. The second thing, if you're going to do competitive analysis, do competitive analysis from a value standpoint." - Jose Mirabal   Topics Covered: 01:43 - How a talk with some CEOs started his Pricing career 04:09 - What he has found out about pricing through the years of his consulting career 05:37 - Everybody's focusing on the costs but forgetting the value part 07:48 - Why did he create Pricing Institute 11:17 - Tactics he is teaching 14:48 - Why to him the whole concept of value is sort of missing everywhere 16:38 - What he thinks on why most companies don't know how to identify value 22:49 - Not only do they not know value, they also don't recognize it 26:41 - How to do competitive analysis from a value standpoint 25:53 - Jose's piece of pricing advice that can significantly impact your business   Key Takeaways: "If I want to improve the pricing of one of my customers, the first thing I need to do is that relationship of value between my customers' products, and the clients' needs in the market and how those two things talk when I contextualize them and put them against other competitors." - Jose Mirabal "When I think of pricing, I look at first value configuration because Warren Buffett said, price is what you pay, but value is what you get. So, let's focus first on what the client is getting, or how we can improve the number of options and expand the width and the range of options that we can offer clients, just like a restaurant." - Jose Mirabal "I want my clients to come in. And regardless of what they want, always have the right option for them. And I think when you have that, that's the same thing as having the right price for everybody." - Jose Mirabal "Most companies, most professionals, specifically, most investors, if not all of them, most CEOs do not challenge their pricing. What happens is that they end up perpetuating all bad pricing habits." - Jose Mirabal "Nobody really realizes that the only way your value or the value you offer will actually work is by how well you capture that value backed by your pricing strategy." - Jose Mirabal   Resources/People Mentioned: The 1% Windfall: How Successful Companies Use Price to Profit and Grow by Rafi Mohammed: https://www.amazon.com/1-Windfall-Successful-Companies-Profit/dp/0061684325 Rafi Mohammed: https://www.pricingforprofit.com/rafi-mohammed/ Vistage: https://www.vistage.com/ Amazon: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_(company) Uber: https://www.uber.com/tw/en/ Netflix: https://www.netflix.com Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com/   Connect with Jose Mirabal: Website: https://pricing.institute/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrmirabal/   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This is an article published on March 31, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here:  https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-is-not-driven-by-supply-and-demand/  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

Everybody has a pricing metric. But so few companies actually think about it. Think about when we bought cars, we would buy a car. And that's a pricing metric. The pricing metric is what is it that you charge for as a company.  So McDonald's charges for hamburgers, so a hamburger is a pricing metric. In the old days of software, I remember going to Fry's Electronics and pulling a shrink-wrapped box off the shelf with Microsoft Office in it.  “All companies use pricing metrics. Some companies consciously make the decision.” - Mark Stiving And so the pricing metric was that box, they were selling me the box and the contents inside it. Nowadays, though, especially in the world of SaaS, and cloud-based SaaS, we have tons and tons of different things that we could possibly choose for, choose to charge for, for example, maybe we charged by the user, which is what Salesforce certainly popularized in the subscription business. We could sell by the gigabyte of storage, we could sell by the number of clicks, we could sell by the number of downloads, we could sell by the number of emails, there are so many different things that we could sell our products based on.  And what I find fascinating is when we moved to cloud-based SaaS, many of these companies had to think through this, they had to say, Okay, what makes sense for us, although way too many of them still just default to users when it's probably not the best choice.  But now, go back to a traditional company. Now that we understand that we get to choose what we want to charge for, is there a way that we could choose something that more closely ties to the value our customers receive? And one of my favorite examples of that was a comedy theater in Spain, where they had video cameras on the seat in front of you, and they charged based on the number of laughs.  That's pretty awesome.  The real point is, spend a few minutes, think about your pricing metric back maybe spend a few hours, but your pricing metric in a traditional business, you have the ability, the potential to change industries.  Just look at what Netflix did to Blockbuster.  We hope you enjoyed this memecast. If you see any of our memes that you'd like to move to the top of our memecast list, please let me know. If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach me at [email protected]. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn  

Larry Walsh is the leading go-to-market advisor to technology executives, channel leaders, and solution providers around the world. Widely known for his ability to cut through problems and challenges facing vendors, distributors, and solution providers, Walsh is sought for his advice, counsel, insights, and consultation on channel strategies and technology market trends. In this episode, Larry shares how to determine channel profitability and the economic equation that goes with it. He talks about how brand presence is one of the determining factors to persuade channels to take the risk of selling your product. He also differentiates how you can make money or compensate channel partners for selling a product directly versus selling a subscription for a product. He also shares what his company, Channelnomics, does.   Why you have to check out today's podcast: Learn how to structure your process in terms of relationships you want to create with your channel partners in order to meet the types of need you have Understand the pricing strategy that goes with having channel partners, so you get them to convince to sell your product instead of the competitors' Find out the sales motion [sales model] you want to operate on so you determine how to set the compensation and who sets the price   "Once you fall out of that zone where there's none of the endemic margin in your pricing to support yourself plus your partners, then stop selling to your partners." - Larry Walsh   Topics Covered: 01:38 - How he transitioned from being the newspaper editor to a channel guy 03:22 - What he thinks of channels 05:17 - A channel being a sales motion 06:08 - Talking about parallel channels and channel strategy 07:20 - Pricing strategy for channel partners 11:15 - What he thinks as a mistake when dealing with channel partners 11:57 - Determining channel profitability and the economic equation associated with it 14:57 - How brand presence affects channel partners' decision to sell a product 15:57 - When can you go shallower on the margin 16:30 - First mover advantage in terms of consideration 17:30 - Selling a SaaS through a channel versus selling a physical product through a channel 21:53 - How to compensate a channel partner for a subscription type of sales 22:56 - How do you make money on a sell-through-sell on a more consumption-based model 24:19 - Differentiating the subscription and consumption-based models 25:03 - Talking about lock-in terms and renewal rates 25:44 - Larry's pricing advice that has a great impact on your business 26:57 - What is Channelnomics and what does it do   Key Takeaways: "What we look at when somebody comes to us looking for a channel strategy, the first thing we want to know is, who's the customer? What does the customer need from you, or what does the customer need to be successful with your product? And that will then define the chain or the channel that it goes through." - Larry Walsh "To me, a channel is a sales motion. And that can include direct relationships; it can include automated relationships. So, it's not the ‘what’ that's doing, it's the ‘how’ it's being done." - Larry Walsh "Often, a mistake that's made when dealing with channel strategies is thinking about this as what do I have to pay versus what do I have to do to enable? Or what do I have to do to engage with a partner to be a good go-to-market, have a good go-to-market relationship?" - Larry Walsh "When I think about channels, what I'm thinking about is selling relationships." - Larry Walsh   Resources Mentioned: HP: https://www8.hp.com Cisco: https://www.cisco.com Microsoft: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft IBM: https://www.ibm.com   Connect with Larry Walsh: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lmwalsh2112/ Email: [email protected]   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/