Personalities in the Pricing Community (and how to interact with them) with Robert Ribciuc

With a decade of experience as an author, speaker, coach, and trainer, Carole Mahoney helps entrepreneurs, founders, and salespeople grow their businesses with a collaborative and science-based sales formula. In this episode, Carole shares how to make an engaging and collaborative sales conversation that makes your potential buyers feel valued and heard. In doing so, you transform your sales conversations into positive and fruitful interactions.   What you will learn from this episode: Learn about this exercise called 'Questions and Periods Game', how to go about it and how it works with your clients Discover the step-by-step process of doing the 'Questions and Periods Game' through a role play demonstration of Carole and Mark Find out the essential principles you need to know about the art of selling   "Selling isn't something we do to other people. It's something we do with them. And I think that's a fundamental shift that we need to start making in sales." - Carole Mahoney   Topics Covered: 01:17 - Synopsis of her book 'Buyer First' 03:34 - The best way to look at sales 06:03 - Carole coaching Mark on sales 11:57 - A sales conversation role play between Mark and Carole 16:05 -What is the 'Question and Periods Game' that she used to throw phenomenal questions at Mark? 20:30 - How to do the sales call without having to 'sell you' but to 'help you' 22:55 - Carole's valuable thoughts on Mark's sales technique 26:18 - How to handle a reply to a client's question at the end of the sales call, 'What do you think the next step should be'? 27:15 - What you should not fail to ask towards the end of the sales conversation   Key Takeaways: "Selling isn't something we do to other people. It's something we do with them. And I think that's a fundamental shift that we need to start making in sales." - Carole Mahoney "The more you drill down into a specific answer, the more you make them think and the more they start to wonder, maybe I don't know the answer to that. And then you find the opportunity to be able to offer an insight to them when you find out what insight matters most to them." - Carole Mahoney "When we talk about what we think, dopamine gets released in our brain. And so dopamine is that pleasure center. Like, we want more of that. That's why so many of us tend to get into talking about what we know instead of asking more questions. If we can get our buyers to talk more than we do, they're getting the dopamine released in their brains and they feel good about the conversation." - Carole Mahoney "Knowing who else can say no or who else can say yes and who else is going to be impacted by this [decision] is a critical question to ask towards the end of a call for your next step." - Carole Mahoney   People/Resources Mentioned: Buyer First: Grow Your Business with Collaborative Selling by Carole Mahoney: https://carolemahoney.com/books/buyerfirstbook/   Connect with Carole Mahoney: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolemahoney/ Website: https://www.unboundgrowth.com/   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

18 Sep 202331min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 10, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/defining-value/ 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/

15 Sep 20232min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 3, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/which-business-do-you-want/ 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 Sep 20231min

David Falzani is a CEO at Polaris Associates and a Professor at Nottingham University. In this episode, David discusses the strategy for driving higher pricing by understanding the value delivered to customers. He also dispels the myths surrounding the notion that high pricing lowers sales, sharing the results of experiments conducted with various companies that prove otherwise.   What you will learn from this episode: Learn how to achieve profitability without constantly chasing pricing Find out the underlying reasons for underpricing and dispel common misconceptions about the negative impact of higher prices on sales Discover experiments where doubling your price yields significantly higher profitability compared to low pricing strategies   "Think dynamically about price and do it often." - David Falzani   Topics Covered: 01:42 - Expounding on 'sustainable wealth creation' 02:54 - What caught his interest in pricing 04:36 - Three reasons why underpricing exist 06:48 - Emotional baggage and fear that comes with underpricing 08:13 - Frequency of price changes and increase 09:37 - 12 exercise the book suggests you can do to revisit your pricing strategies 12:13 - What makes companies lose confidence in pricing higher 14:37 - How to be profitable without chasing price all the time 17:01 - A case of a perfect example of understanding the relationship of pricing and customer value: Apple versus Android 18:21 - Why double your price? [And experiment you can do] 22:59 - Light double your price [an experiment for the more risk -averse] 24:29 - Looking at the numbers in terms of feasibility of price increase 26:57 - Busting myths about pricing higher 29:24 - David's best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: "The frequency of revisiting your pricing decisions. Every time you revisit it, do something different, use a different piece of analysis." - David Falzani "Don't just go and revisit the same comparison to competitors or if you are using cost- plus, which I hope you're not. Think about the frequency at which you are reviewing those pricing decisions." - David Falzani "The more you look at pricing, the more questions that are raised, the more you start to educate yourself about your own customers, your clients, the market, competitors, and all those dynamics." - David Falzani   People/Resources Mentioned: Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman: https://www.amazon/Thinking-Fast-Slow-Daniel-Kahneman/dp/0374533555   Connect with David Falzani: LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/davidfalzani   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

11 Sep 202331min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 27, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-usage-and-value-metrics/ 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/

8 Sep 20233min

This one is the Joker 2 from the Selling Value card deck.  Almost always when we're dealing with B2B customers, B2B business, value can be measured in additional profit. And that's one of the things I love about B2B business and pricing, is because we know our price has to be related to how much additional profit will they make when they use our product, or when they use our product relative to a competitor's product. But it turns out, sometimes, buyers inside our customers don't really care about profit. Imagine that you're selling a piece of medical equipment and you're talking to a doctor in a big hospital. Now the doctor actually doesn't care how much additional profit you're going to make the hospital. There's an administrator someplace who cares a lot about how much additional profit you're going to make the hospital. And so, we still need to understand the profit side of this conversation.  But from that doctor's perspective, they couldn't care less about profit. What do they care about? They care about the quality of the care for the patient. They care about efficacy rates. They care about how long the procedure might take. Things that really affect their world and things that matter to them. What we want to be able to do then, is as we go through our value conversations with a doctor, put value in the perspective of what that doctor cares about.  So, it's not always profit, a lot of times it is, but we need to understand what each buyer truly cares about and talk about value from that perspective. 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, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. You'll 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/

6 Sep 20232min

Sebastian Baier is the founder of Buynomics, an AI for ultimate customer-centric RGM decisions- in one SaaS solution. In this episode, Sebastian discusses how Buynomics' AI utilizes vast amounts of consumer behavior data to generate virtual customers, enabling the implementation of optimal pricing strategies.   What you will learn from this episode: Learn how to create a customer simulation to identify the key factors that drive the value of a product and develop effective pricing strategies for optimal results Discover how to create a customer model for B2B, even when limited data is available Learn how to effectively analyze and interpret customer data in terms of distribution rather than segment    "Collect data however ugly it might look." - Sebastian Baier   Topics Covered: 01:12 - What got him into pricing 02:47 - Buynomics and what it does 04:41 - Understanding customer simulation and segmentation in the way Buynomics work 08:03 - Talking about segments and distribution densities 12:24 - How Buynomics helps provide what-if analyses for pricing strategies 13:29 - Creating customer models for B2B when there are not enough data available 17:28 - Sebastian's thoughts on Mark's suggested solution for B2C clients 19:11 - Salesperson as a value driver for B2B customer simulation 19:48 - Sebastian's best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: "Even if you don't have great data [with B2B], you'll use the data because you have to have a model of the world." - Sebastian Baier “To make statistics work, you have to have a certain number of customers.” - Sebastian Baier "It's really very valuable just to start collecting the data, and look at them as you would as a consultant.” - Sebastian Baier   People/Resources Mentioned: Slack: https://slack.com/ Zoom: https://zoom.us/ Vodafone: https://www.vodafone.com/   Connect with Sebastian Baier: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sebastian-baier Email: sebastianbaier@buynomics.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

4 Sep 202321min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 20, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/why-do-they-buy/ 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/

1 Sep 20232min