Pricing Table Topics: 10 of Clubs – What Value Conversation Demonstrates

Neil Fitzgerald is an experienced, driven, and accomplished pricing and revenue professional, with a wealth of experience while working for leading, high-profile companies. Proven in exceeding all bottom-line expectations. Experienced in cruise, hotel and vacation rental industries.  In this episode, Neil shares the crucial role of pricing in the travel industry and its impact on the bottom line success. He emphasizes that achieving pricing goals is not solely reliant on AI, highlighting the importance of collaboration and building relationships with other stakeholders in the company.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Explore effective pricing strategies for one-time opportunities in the travel industry to optimize revenue Learn to strike a balance between short-term gains and long-term profitability, ensuring your pricing decisions don't compromise future success Discover the importance of guiding customers on a journey, expediting their consideration of revenue and pricing management   "Don't assume that everyone else in your business understands what you're doing. So, take the time to listen to other people, and take the time to communicate and collaborate with the other people in your teams and the other stakeholders in your business, and take them on the journey." - Neil Fitzgerald   Topics Covered: 01:20 - How Neil get into pricing 03:02 - How does pricing for travel differ from any other pricing? 04:51 - The challenge that comes with pricing the travel industry 07:37 - Pricing strategies in other industries that can work best in the travel industry 09:53 - Neil's thoughts on Mark's suggested limited time pricing offer for a cruise ship basing it from Chipotle's food pricing 11:59 - Discussion about one pricing strategy that Disney implemented and had to be discontinued 13:42 - Pricing insights from crowded airport lounges nowadays gleaned from Mark's experience 16:11 - How does he get people sold to the idea of revenue management 18:35 - Talking about AI and pricing algorithms 20:50 - Neil's best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: "It is interesting in travel, when you do try and do those one-off opportunities to get a higher price point, you've got to be careful that it really, really is exclusive and it isn't so broad because then you can create too much demand." - Neil Fitzgerald "It's an interesting business case for pricing managers about how Disney built out this fantastic product for the Star Wars hotel, charged thousands of dollars a night, and then has had to close it in a very short time period because they couldn't get the revenues that they were expecting." - Neil Fitzgerald "I always think when it comes to pricing, even when you're more on the revenue management side and you are looking at your supply and demand patterns, you do have to have an awareness of the overall cost basis as well, because it can be quite easy if you're not careful to overprice." - Neil Fitzgerald "It's going to be an interesting case about how airlines effectively raise, find ways of charging guests more so that they're reducing the demand without upsetting the most low guests." - Neil Fitzgerald "We can't produce demand out of thin air and we can't produce higher margins out of thin air. We have to take people on the journey." - Neil Fitzgerald   People/Resources Mentioned: Chipotle: https://www.chipotle.com/home Virgin Voyages: https://www.virginvoyages.com Green Bay Packers: https://www.packers.com   Connect with Neil Fitzgerald: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-fitzgerald-55122591/ Email: neilf@expeditions.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

27 Marras 202322min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on October 12, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/lessons-from-amazons-nessie/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

24 Marras 20233min

This one is the Queen of Diamonds from the Impact Pricing card deck.  We often talk about how we want products that are different from our competitors. And if we think about what we want to build, we want to build products that are better, that are somehow differentiated. And when we do that, we've truly built value for our customers because our products are better than our competitor's products. However, sometimes our customers don't know that our products are better. And if they don't know our products are better and they've never used our product before, then we're not going to get paid more because our products are better. And so, that's a customer's perception. We need to make sure that our customers perceive our products to be better. In the ideal world, we build products that are better. We communicate that ideal differentiation to our customers. And our customers then choose to buy our product because they've perceived that value.   Now, it's possible that we can communicate value that may not be true, or we could communicate value that may not be differentiated.  One of my favorite papers I read when I was a doctoral student was titled something like, Meaningful Differentiation from Irrelevant Attributes.   The example they like to use was Folgers Mountain Grown Coffee. I mean, it turns out all coffee is grown in mountains, so Folgers isn't differentiated with that. But the fact that they tout it, the fact that they talk about it and communicate it, almost makes it feel like they're differentiated. So, you could think of that as perceived value, even if it isn't real value.   So, our job really should be, let's create products that are better than our competitors and let's communicate that to our customers. We hope you enjoyed 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 playing cards, pick a card, read the saying, then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. You'll become a better speaker and expert. And, you can play card games. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

22 Marras 20232min

Mark Chussil is the founder of Advanced Competitive Strategies, Inc. He is an expert in qualitative and quantitative business war games, custom strategy simulators, executive education and management development programs. Highly rated speaker, published books and dozens of articles on business and competitive strategy. In this episode, Mark shares how simulating pricing strategies before actually implementing them can do away with costly outcomes thereby improving one's bottom line.    Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Discover the essence of the Top Pricer Tournament Enhance your pricing strategy by utilizing simulation techniques to mitigate potential risks and minimize losses Find out fascinating insights and findings from the 'Top Pricer Tournament' and learn what to expect when participating in this exciting event   "If we choose a good strategy that turns out to be bad, what we have actually encountered is a false positive. And what we need to do a whole lot better in business is to be able to distinguish the false positives from the true positives. And that's what these simulations are about." - Mark Chussil   Topics Covered: 02:59 - Differentiating decision rules versus decisions 05:31 - Mark Chussil agreeing to what Mark Stiving says in reference to Axelrod's 'tit for tat' and 'tit for tat with forgiveness' 07:16 - Drawing inspiration from Axelrod's work, Mark describes his own contribution 09:51 - Mark Chussil's perspective on Mark Stiving's assertion that companies prioritizing profit outperform those aiming for market share 11:15 - Findings about 'tit for tat' on why it doesn't work 12:17 - What is 'Top Pricer Tournament' and how it relates to or differ from 'Prisoner's Dilemma' 16:07 - Surprising findings from his own 'Top Pricer Tournament' 21:37 - Things to expect when you join Top Pricer Tournament 24:58 - Mark's best pricing advice 27:12 - Relating strategy to a decision   Key Takeaways: "Strategy is a bet." - Mark Chussil "In the Top Pricer Tournaments, and in life in general, we have situations where we can make great decisions, but somebody else has made a better decision or somebody else has come up with something that we didn't think about." - Mark Chussil "I have seen people come up with strategies that I know I never would have thought of. And there's also a few that are in the Top Pricer Tournament that no human has selected yet, and that would outperform any of the ones that humans have selected so far." - Mark Chussil   People /Resources Mentioned: The Evolution of Cooperation by Robert Axelrod: https://www.amazon.com/Evolution-Cooperation-Revised-Robert-Axelrod/dp/0465005640   Connect with Mark Chussil: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markchussil/ Email: mchussil@competing.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

20 Marras 202330min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on October 5, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/rules-of-thumb-for-price-increases/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

17 Marras 20233min

This one is the Queen of Hearts from the Impact Pricing card deck.  Value-based pricing has many different meanings. Different people use it differently. Oftentimes, it's used to say, what's the value of each individual feature that's different between your product and your competitors, and add that to your competitors price. And by the way, that's a great way to think about value and value-based pricing.  But the easiest definition I've heard of for value-based pricing is, charge what your customers are willing to pay.  And I love this definition because sure, it takes into account the fact that we sometimes have competitors. And we want to know what's the value of our differentiation relative to our competitors' products. Absolutely, these are crucial things for us to know. But we also get to discover, what happens if they're not considering competition at the time?  Or, what happens if it's raining and we want to sell an umbrella? So, these differences in time, differences in use cases, these things all have impact in how our customers value our products.  And likewise, how much they would be willing to pay for our solutions to their problems.  So, I love this concept or this idea that says, look, we all want to charge based on how much value our customers are getting. That would be value-based pricing.  But the way to think about it is, how much is a customer willing to pay because that's how much they value your product. We hope you enjoyed 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 playing cards, pick a card, read the saying, then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. You'll become a better speaker and expert. By the way, you can also play card games. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

15 Marras 20232min

John Mansour founded Product Management University to unlock one’s full growth potential by making quantifiable customer outcomes the starting point for everything. In this episode, John explains the concept of buyers trading money for value. Therefore, it is crucial to consider the quantifiable value aspect, as it forms the basis for developing effective pricing strategies.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Understand why it is crucial to prioritize providing value to customers when a company's sustainability is on the line Learn the difference in measuring quantitative value in B2C and B2B contexts in order to effectively deliver the value and achieve the desired outcomes for your customers, and price your offer accordingly Discover how to identify the most straightforward quantifiable value component and use it as a foundation to develop the optimal pricing strategy   "The quantifiable value piece is so important in what we do, which is, if you can quantify a unit of value to the customer for what your products are doing, that is a good starting point to figure out your pricing." - John Mansour   Topics Covered: 01:31 - Reading a snippet from John's LinkedIn About Section 02:04 - What prompted him to conceive that idea in his LinkedIn About section? 04:56 - Why often customer value comes only secondary to most companies 06:49 - A matter of a discovery journey and digging down the customer's why 09:28 - One key thing to understand when dealing with your customers' key decision makers for your questions to be relevant to them 11:17 - Quantifying value in B2C versus B2B 12:52 - Ways to measure quantitative value 15:03 - Measuring quantitative value other than in dollars 19:26 - A process for identifying quantifiable value [case studies illustrating this] 22:43 - John's best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: "If you deliver quantifiable value to the customer, it's going to come back to you in spades to your own organization and support whatever your strategic goals are." - John Mansour "It's a matter of just understanding what their priorities and their agenda is. Because if they're going to trade value for money, we have to understand what's valuable to them and how it can be quantified." - John Mansour "The dollars aren't always at the forefront. It's the impact that you have on things that are important." - John Mansour "The more you can quantify those units of value, the easier it is to come up with a price that you can sell because you're selling the value." - John Mansour   Connect with John Mansour: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnmansourproductmanagementuniversity/   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

13 Marras 202325min

This one is the Queen of Spades from the Impact Pricing card deck. We really should be competing on value, not on price. We often think we're in a price war with our competition. We think our competitors are competing on price because we watch them give deep discounts to customers when we're in negotiations and we're wondering, why are they competing on price? But if you think about it, we responded with deep discounts on our products, and they look at us and they say, why are they competing on price?  What we really need to do is hold our price, try to maintain that price at a nice high level, and instead explain why our product is worth so much more money than our competitors. If our competitors are going to lower their price, it's probably because their product isn't as valuable as our product. We need to learn what does value truly mean to our customers and help them understand how much value they're going to get.  When we learn to create, communicate, value better, we'll be able to capture more of it in the way we price and the deals we close. We hope you enjoyed 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 playing cards, pick a card, read the saying, and talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. You'll become a better speaker and expert. By the way, you can also play card games. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

10 Marras 20232min