Impact Pricing

This one is the 9 of Spades from the Selling Value card deck. Buyers need different information depending on where they are in their own buying process. There's a map in the Selling Value book that talks about these different waypoints, but let's simplify it for the sake of this table topics and say, look, there's really two key phases in a buyer's decision process. First, they make a 'will I' decision. Then they make a 'which one' decision. When they're making a 'will I' decision, they're trying to ask, am I going to buy something in this product category or not? What they're really saying is, is the value of solving the problem worth the resources it's going to cost me to go solve that problem? What we want to give them at this point in time is information that says, here's the value of solving the problem. Here's the inherent value of our solution. Once they go on to make a 'which one' decision, they're now asking, is your product the right decision relative to your competitive alternatives? And now what they're looking for is relative value information. What's the value of your product relative to your competitor's product? We need to recognize where our buyers are in their buying process, and then make sure that we're giving them the information that they need to get through that stage. 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 cards, pick a card, read the saying, then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. You will become a better speaker and expert. 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/

25 Tammi 20232min

Ayon Bhattacharyya is the Founder of Biz Growth Spurt, a consulting firm based out of New Zealand. He has experienced pricing in half a dozen companies, and he's a passionate animal welfare advocate. In this episode, Ayon talks about the ins and outs of monetization. He also tells us a bit about his company, Biz Growth Spurt, and why you might be in need of their services.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Learn about the three pillars of monetization and why you can’t only focus on one of them Know the difference between price metric and value metric and why it matters in getting more sales Understand why articulating value is essential in keeping and growing your customers   “Understand your customers intimately and take the time to quantify your buyer personas so that you understand the use case of the value proposition, the willingness to pay the lifetime value, and the customer acquisition costs; so that you can better position and package to them and ultimately capture a fair portion of the value delivered to them.” – Ayon Bhattacharyya   Topics Covered: 01:33 – How Ayon got into pricing 03:15 – How Ayon defines “monetization” 04:24 – What packaging means to Ayon, in relation to monetization 05:26 – What Ayon means by “feature differentiation” 06:30 – Why Ayon hates freemium 08:04 – Free trials vs. Freemium: why it is important which of the two fits your business more 11:07 – How to decide which features go to which packages 14:02 – Price metric vs Value metric 19:59 – Why positioning is an essential part of monetization 23:22 – Ayon’s key to monetization: the combination of packaging, pricing, and positioning 25:25 – Biz Growth Spurt: What they do and who their ideal customers are 28:50 – The meaning of “monetization” according to Ayon vs the meaning of “monetization” according to ProfitWell 31:54 – Ayon’s pricing advice 32:49 – Connect with Ayon Bhattacharyya   Key Takeaways: “Once you have a deep understanding of your buyer personas, how they value your product, how they use your product, how your proposition aligns with their growth journey, then you can actually start putting your features into bundles. But you want to do that based on the level of importance of those features.” – Ayon Bhattacharyya “How you present the packages and the value messaging that you put on your website is so important. If they [the customers] understand that they're getting five times more value from the gold versus the silver, in their mind, it helps them to quantify that relative benefit of the upgrade and the potential ROI of an upgrade.” – Ayon Bhattacharyya “If the perceived value isn't there, if you aren't communicating it, if you don't have a strong brand presence, if your solution is so complex that customers don't understand the value that they get from it, then you know, you've just wasted all of this money on product development and marketing. – Ayon Bhattacharyya “Ideally, you want the messaging that you have on your packages is around the problem that you're solving for the customer. That's the key. It's not about the features. Those are just more internal to you. And often the customers don't get them.” – Ayon Bhattacharyya   People / Resources Mentioned: Biz Growth Spurt: https://bizgrowthspurt.com/ Selling Value: How to Win More Deals at Higher Prices: https://www.amazon.com/Selling-Value-Deals-Higher-Prices/dp/1737655217   Connect with Ayon Bhattacharyya: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/valueconquer/ Email: ayon.b@bizgrowthspurt.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:mark@impactpricing.com

23 Tammi 202333min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on December 14, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/a-price-negotiation-example/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

20 Tammi 20232min

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

18 Tammi 20232min

Steven Forth is a Partner in Ibbaka, a strategic pricing advisory firm. He was CEO of LeveragePoint Innovations Inc., a SaaS business designed to help companies create and capture value. Steven is what I consider one of the great pricing thinkers in our industry. In this episode, Steven talks about AI and how it is impacting the world of pricing. He also shares some of the improvements we could expect from AI infrastructures in the near future.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Find out how the emergence of AI improves and disrupts the pricing profession and the trade as a whole Learn how to extract the best and most comprehensive solutions from AI tools Get an idea on how the “big 3” of cloud services might price for their AI services in considering their current pricing models   “Many billions of dollars being invested in AI last year, next year, this year. The overall investment is going to be probably in the neighborhood of $300 billion in 2023. So, if we were investing that much money, we better get some value back. And the companies investing that money need to be able to price that value they're creating.” – Steven Forth   Topics Covered: 02:10 – The questions that need to be answered about the impacts of AI in pricing 04:06 – Examples of existing value proposition that AI is improving 07:10 – Examples of existing value proposition that AI is disrupting 10:44 – Is the emergence of AI a challenge to the pricing profession? 12:08 – Can open AI soon generate value models that are better than experts create? 15:58 – Why and how large language models such as Chat GPT are taking over 18:06 – How to guide an AI in giving you comprehensive answers 19:34 – What the pricing of major AI infrastructures looks like 21:02 – How Amazon, Google and Microsoft would possibly price for AI considering their present pricing models 23:28 – Will there be different strengths in the AI of infrastructures Amazon, Google and Microsoft? 24:55 – Differences in AIs: Would different Ais give out different answers to the same questions? 26:19 – Could AI effectively learn pricing from human pricing experts? 28:02 – How Ais could start making outcome-based pricing more practical 32:03 – Connect with Steven Forth   Key Takeaways: “People who are skilled in the art [of trade] understand how to come up with pricing for disruptive innovation.” – Steven Forth “Understanding the limitations of these large language models, which GPT is an example of, is also important. And we can come to that. But let's not forget that the limitations today are not the limitations in six months.” – Steven Forth “That, I think, is actually one of the emerging skills: To be able to structure a sequence of questions that will guide an AI in giving you meaningful answers.” – Steven Forth   People / Resources Mentioned: Ibbaka – https://www.ibbaka.com/ DALL·E 2 – https://openai.com/dall-e-2/ Chat GPT – https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/ Amazon Web Services – https://aws.amazon.com/ Google Cloud Services – https://cloud.google.com/ Microsoft Azure – https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us NVIDIA – https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/deep-learning-ai/products/solutions/   Connect with Steven Forth: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/ Email: steven@ibbaka.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:mark@impactpricing.com

16 Tammi 202333min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on December 7, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/black-friday-and-price-elasticity/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

13 Tammi 20232min

This one is the 10 of Clubs from the Selling Value card deck. Yes, a value conversation is a great way to build a relationship with your customers, with your buyers. Face it, your buyer probably hasn't put together a business case for what it is they're trying to buy. And yet, it makes a lot of sense for them to have one. It gives them more confidence, they're making the right decision. It gives them the ability to sell up in the organization in case they have to convince someone else to give them the resources. It provides the justification inside the company that they're doing a good thing for the company. And so, they really want to create a business case. But they probably haven't done it because they didn't think about it. They don't really know how. If you can help your buyer write that business case, and that's exactly what selling value means, then you are truly helping the buyer. You're adding a lot of value to that buyer's decision process, to their career, to their prestige inside the organization. Having a value conversation not only helps you understand how much value there is in that situation, but it helps you build the stronger relationship with your buyers. So, have value conversations. They truly demonstrate that you care about your buyer. We hope you enjoy this example of Pricing Table Topics. If you want to get better at speaking, especially about pricing and value, grab a deck of our cards. Pull a random card and read the saying. Then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

11 Tammi 20232min

Mark Peacock has been a pricing consultant since 2017. Currently, he is the managing director of Price Maker, a company that helps their businesses differentiate themselves from the competition by means of having a smarter pricing. He is also about to release his new book titled “Pricing for Success: The Seven-Step Plan for Winning More Customers at Better Prices” In this episode, Mark talks about what’s written in his newest book, “Pricing for Success: The Seven-Step Plan for Winning More Customers at Better Prices”. He shares the fundamental ideas behind the seven steps and gives insightful sample situations in which the seven steps can be applied.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Get a general idea of what’s in Mark’s new book, Pricing for Success: The Seven-Step Plan for Winning More Customers at Better Prices Learn why it’s okay to have multiple pricing models on a single product Find out why it is the best time for you to raise your prices   “Take the time to do your pricing strategy properly, and put your prices up because it is the most powerful lever you can use to increase profitable growth.” – Mark Peacock   Topics Covered: 01:27 – How Mark got into pricing 02:35 – The reason why Mark wrote his book, “Pricing for Success: The Seven-Step Plan for Winning More Customers at Better Prices” 03:42 – Step 1: Where do you want to go? 06:43 – Step 2: Know what your customers think about you 08:02 – Step 3: Being aware of your competition 11:02 – Step 4: Product 13:13 – Step 5: Pricing 15:45 – Mark Peacock’s thoughts on having more than one pricing model for a product 17:17 – Step 6: Proposition 19:21 – Mark Peacock’s favorite behavioral economics example 22:47 – Step 7: Profit 24:53 – How Mark would address the issue of credit grabbing among departments in cases of sales improvement 28:59 – Mark’s pricing advice 30:09 – Connect with Mark Peacock   Key Takeaways: “Pricing, ultimately, is always a subset of business strategy, of your company goals. So, you've got to be clear. You got to know where you want to get to. Otherwise, you'll end up floundering with your pricing.” – Mark Peacock “Product and price are two sides of the same coin. When I buy products for a price, I want to know what I get as a customer and equally as a seller, you need to know everything that's included in your product offering.” – Mark Peacock “Without changing the pricing, you can achieve an effective increase in prices of 4% by changing how you present the prices. And I think this whole question of how we present pricing is just as important as ‘What's the number? What's the strategy?’ Because it makes such a difference.” – Mark Peacock “Having a clearly written pricing policy is such an important thing. And I literally say in my book, ‘Write it down’. And it doesn't have to be long, it doesn't have to be complicated.” – Mark Peacock   People / Resources Mentioned: Pricing for Success: The Seven-Step Plan for Winning More Customers at Better Prices – https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/pricing-for-success-mark-peacock/1142840523 Selling Value: How to Win More Deals at Higher Prices – https://www.amazon.com/Selling-Value-Deals-Higher-Prices/dp/1737655217   Connect with Mark Peacock: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-peacock-the-pricing-coach/ Email: mark@pricemaker.co.uk   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:mark@impactpricing.com

9 Tammi 202332min