Blogcast: AMC Changes Pricing, FINALLY

Duane Dufault is currently a Fractional CRO at Forward and is a Strategic Advisor at Abaqus Inc. Before this, he was Fractional VP of Sales at The RockED Company Inc. Duane is a dad of four lovely daughters. In this episode, Duane shares the power behind having all departments in a company understand value in order to help the customer see and understand value as well in accordance with their reasons for buying a product.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Discover why it’s important for you to teach your sales reps to unpack value and not create it Find out why it’s a must for you to help people understand what it is that they’re actually paying for upon purchasing your product Understand the reason behind having clients voice out their problem and a salesperson being able to connect the product as a solution to what a client needs to be solved   “Just make it easy, seriously. The easier you can make it for people to figure out the pricing on your product, the easier it is for them to buy. Simple.”  – Duane Dufault   Topics Covered: 01:15 – The connection between Duane’s role and pricing 02:14 – That time when Duane realized the immense need for product management to focus on pricing 05:26 – Talking about the similarities and differences of product marketing and sales roles 09:50 – Should salespeople have the authority when it comes to pricing? 14:36 – Why salespeople need to unpack value, not create it 17:12 – Reminiscing Mark’s first few years as a salesperson 18:42 – Making a difference in the market in relation to value and what the customer’s needs are 23:08 – The difference between a CRO and a VP of Sales in Duane’s perspective 25:27 – Duane’s piece of pricing advice for today’s listeners   Key Takeaways: “One of the growth levers that I was looking at is like how was pricing structured for whatever product it is because that's a really big indicator on how people are going to buy from your company. If you've got hard to understand pricing, that's a problem. And that's friction in the buying process that you need to remove.” – Duane Dufault “Product marketing and a good sales process are like two sides of the same point. It's like sales and marketing, but like, a good sales process and product marketing is so closely tied, because the questions that a good product marketer asks are a lot of the same ones you get from a sales conversation, a discovery process, and they take them down the same path. “Product marketing is fascinating from my perspective because you need to have a certain perspective on customer engagement and usage to understand how to shape and evolve both the product, the customer journey, and what they pay for the product.” – Duane Dufault “If you've got a sales rep that's very, very focused and narrow-minded on one specific area, they can't pull from other experiences.” – Duane Dufault “Teach your reps how to unpack value, not add value.” – Duane Dufault “If you come into your discovery process with a deck that just has a whole bunch of bullets of stuff that came from the marketing page, that's not a value to them. They only find it valuable when they find it valuable, and it's only valuable when it solves a problem. And you can't solve a problem until you ask him what those problems are.” – Duane Dufault “If you have a good discovery process that's focused on the needs of the buyer, you're going to help them figure out what those differences are, because people buy on an emotional trigger, and then cancellation happens when they find those little things that don't meet up with what they really want to do. In the sales process and marketing, marketing is there to take feedback from products, to then communicate what everyone gets from it, so that way, when the prospect gets the salesperson, it's the salespersons job to unpack those little things, because those little things are going to be the reason why they don't cancel in a year.” – Duane Dufault   People / Resources Mentioned: Metric Manager Playbook:https://themetricmanager.com   Connect with Duane Dufault: LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/duanedufault/ Email: duane@sellingsaas.io   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com Website:https://www.duanedufault.com/

21 Mar 202227min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on February 9, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/you-must-lose-on-price/ 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/

18 Mar 20222min

Salespeople love them to death, however, it's more important to them to close the deal than to close it at the highest possible price. In fact, if they stay and negotiate a little bit harder, they're at risk of losing the deal. And if they lose the deal, they lose their commission. They lose the ability to reach their quotas. So, for them, their incentives are a little bit askew from what our incentives should be. And when I say our, let's say the company, the owners of the company, or us as pricing people, where we want to try to win deals at the highest possible price. So, although salespeople are really selling value and they're doing their best, in the end, price is just one of the many tools they have to try to close a deal and they're going to use every tool they have. So, I don't think salespeople should own pricing. Sure, we should give them a little bit of flexibility, a little bit of price authority to help them move deals along quicker, but to give them complete authority, probably a big mistake. We hope you enjoyed this memecast. 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/

16 Mar 20221min

Ray Ranga is currently the VP of Product Management at Momentive AI. Before working in Momentive, Ray was the Senior Director of Product Management at Splunk. Ray is an instructor at UC Berkeley and he also conducts a pricing class at Stanford. In this episode, Ray discusses the power behind involving the people who know the product’s value when making pricing decisions as he specifically points out the benefits of having pricing teams connect with people from the product management department.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Discover which team should own pricing in a company in relation to the value the product has; Find out how to effectively package products in a way that resonates best with what your customers want; and Understand why pricing and product management people should be one when making pricing decisions towards their product   “Understand your customers to a deep, deep level. See what gets your customer ticking, and then I'm sure everything else follows.” – Ray Ranga   Topics Covered: 01:31 – How Ray got into pricing: From being an engineer then shifting to product management 02:31 – Answering the question “who should own pricing?” 04:50 – The role of product management 05:37 – What Ray teaches in his pricing and product management/marketing class 07:43 – The difference between behavioral economics and pricing for value 10:17 – How to package products, explained in the simplest possible manner 15:44 – Why you should go for market segments first, not across market segments 18:13 – The similarities of Mark and Ray’s practices when figuring out market segments 21:42 – Talking about the presence of confidence problem with regards to charging a high price 25:01 – Ray’s piece of pricing advice for today’s listeners   Key Takeaways: “Pricing and product management need to go hand in hand.” – Ray Ranga “Product marketing is good on pricing. They understand our customers well. They understand the persona and the segment we sell into typically. I do have a bias towards who should not own pricing. I feel like finance or sales should not own pricing, for some obvious reasons. But other than that, I think product management and product marketing are fine owning pricing.” – Ray Ranga “Pricing is a number at the end of it, but it's so much more. It's so much more about operationalizing pricing, and that's where customer experience comes into play. You need the right ways to consume the price of the product that you just priced.” – Ray Ranga “Analysis and research and competitive positioning is very useful. And I think, sometimes, you should take that seriously when you have the data points in front of you.” – Ray Ranga “Enablement is very key to pricing, especially in zero to one products. You want to be with the sales team in those initial calls until they feel comfortable that they can tackle these questions about pricing in the early days.” – Ray Ranga   People / Resources Mentioned: Momentive AI:https://www.momentive.ai Splunk:https://www.splunk.com/ SurveyMonkey:https://www.surveymonkey.com/mp/enterprise/?ut_source2=en Predictably Irrational:https://danariely.com/books/predictably-irrational/ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/   Connect with Ray Ranga: LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/rayranga/ Email: emailranga@gmail.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

14 Mar 202228min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on February 2, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/losing-on-price-2/ 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/

11 Mar 20222min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on January 26, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/a-perspective-on-rfps/ 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/

9 Mar 20223min

Jon Lucas started as an Accounting Manager before working as the Strategic Pricing & Business Development Manager of Cornerstone Building Brands Inc. Jon loves hiking, and he is loving it even better since he moved out of Ohio. In this episode, Jon engages in a discussion with Mark Stiving about making price changes in relation to the importance of value and volatility of costs in the market nowadays.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Discover the importance of differentiating your business with the general market when thinking about value and making price changes; Learn how you can manage cost volatility and even add value when deciding on your products’ prices; and Find out why a safe and sound relationship with the sales team is a must when you’re doing pricing   “To experienced pricing managers, structure your department, borrow what everybody else in the organization is doing and have an org chart. Put some procedures around it. It kind of sounds like common sense, but I honestly don't see that happening in pricing in a lot of organizations.” – Jon Lucas   Topics Covered: 01:21 – How Jon got into pricing; Was it about value or cost plus at first? 03:00 – Jon discusses what Cornerstone does; Thinking about value and differentiating oneself in the market 07:19 – How Jon adds value as he manages cost volatility when making prices 11:29 – Rapid cost fluctuations in the industry as an excuse to change prices frequently 12:35 – Jon talks about Cornerstone’s sales cycle 15:35 – How SAS-based programs help Jon and the company in terms of pricing 16:43 – Does Cornerstone change prices weekly? 19:04 – Jon shares what it’s like working with salespeople 21:03 – Jon’s piece of pricing advice for today’s listeners 22:38 – Having more things to do beyond the role in pricing; the resistance to take on pricing projects   Key Takeaways: “When costs move, we know we need to make some kind of pricing move, and it doesn't have to be the same as the cost index. Costs could go up 5%. That doesn't mean we're necessarily going to go up by 5%, because that's where we get the value.” – Jon Lucas “You can kind of use the cost fluctuation as the starting point, then we look at where the value is, and that's where we set our prices.” – Jon Lucas “If you think your competitors are only getting up: if we're making a price decisions every week and they're making price decisions once every six weeks, we've got a much better chance of capturing more margin.” – Jon Lucas “You can put some safeguards around your cost volatility to some degree with the way that you write your contracts. You can kind of do some hedging there. But you're predicting things out in the future, and it's not always going to be perfect. You just got to do the best you can.” – Jon Lucas “You could have the best pricing in the world that you want to charge, but if you can't get it to your customers in a way that works for them, then you're nowhere.” – Jon Lucas   People / Resources Mentioned: Cornerstone Building Brands Inc.: https://www.cornerstonebuildingbrands.com/ Zilliant: https://www.zilliant.com/   Connect with Jon Lucas: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-lucas-84557840/ Email: jonwilliamlucas@gmail.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

7 Mar 202225min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on January 19, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/dont-confuse-your-buyers/ 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/

4 Mar 20223min