Pricing Table Topics: 7 of Diamonds – Mindset Shift from Expense to Investing

Sarah Williams, founder and CEO of Leading Culture and former director at GAP Consulting for 23 years, brings her accounting background and business growth strategy expertise to a spirited debate about ROI, value-based pricing, and why companies leave money on the table.  From her home in New Zealand (Mark's second favorite country), Sarah challenges conventional pricing wisdom—arguing that ROI applies to both B2B and B2C, that we should ignore competitors when determining value, and that the antidote to the curse of knowledge is thinking with a beginner's mind.  Mark pushes back on opportunity costs, explains why competitor pricing matters, and uses everything from vests to Louis Vuitton handbags to make his points in this engaging conversation about helping customers understand the true value of what they're buying.   Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast: Understand why teaching customers to think in ROI is the fastest way to eliminate buyer's remorse, increase prices, and differentiate from competitors who focus on features. Discover the beginner's mind approach that prevents the #1 mistake pricing experts make—assuming customers know what seems "obvious" to you. Master vulnerability-based trust by inviting customers to ask questions without fear—the counterintuitive sales technique that accelerates deals faster than "looking professional".   "Think in terms of value from the customer's perspective." – Sarah Williams   Topics Covered: 03:01 - Why ROI Should Be Everyone's Decision-Making Framework 06:10 - Helping Customers Think in ROI Terms: Your Job as the Provider 08:12 - Utility in Economics: The B2C Alternative to Monetary ROI 20:00 - The Opportunity Cost Debate: Pricing vs. Budgeting Decisions 25:19 - Differentiation Value: Starting with Competitor's Price, Then Adding 27:57 - Louis Vuitton vs. $40 Handbags: Conspicuous Consumption and What People Really Buy 32:31 - Starting with a Blank Slate: Thinking Myopically About Customer Value 35:32 - Final Advice: Think in Terms of Value from the Customer's Perspective   Key Takeaways: ROI on its own can be a decision-making framework. From the point of view of maybe even making a personal decision, I can think about, well, what's the return on investment? And that might even be an investment of my time." - Sarah Williams "We're doing our customers a disservice if we're not helping them to think in terms of ROI. Like, what really am I getting? Because buyer's remorse is really, really prevalent. People make split-second decisions now and then live to regret it 24 hours later." - Sarah Williams "In economics, there's this concept called utility, right? So, I think in terms of when you're thinking B2C, now you're shifting the conversation a little bit more towards the utility angle in economics." - Sarah Williams   People / Resources Mentioned: Jim Collins: Author of "Good to Great" Chip and Dan Heath: Authors of "Made to Stick" and the concept of the curse of knowledge Patrick Lencioni: Leadership expert who popularized vulnerability-based trust and predictive trust concepts GAP Consulting: Where Sarah served as director for 23 years Complete Learning Solutions: Where Sarah was Chief Inspiration Officer Louis Vuitton: Used as example of luxury pricing vs. commodity pricing iPhone: Example of blue ocean differentiation where customers don't compare competitor prices Huawei: Mentioned as iPhone alternative that iPhone users don't consider when upgrading   Connect with Sarah Williams: Email: sarah@leadingculture.co.nz Website: https://www.leadingculture.co.nz/home  AI Summit Link: https://www.leadingculture.co.nz/ai-summit-registration-page   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

3 Nov 36min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 25, 2025, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-ai-market-segmentation-matters/ 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/

31 Okt 6min

Lindsay Maurer is Pricing Intervention Manager at BP. With 14 years of experience in product management and pricing, she reveals how she achieved a 13% profit gain despite a 16% revenue drop, and why she believes "the dumbest guy in the market sets the price." In this episode, Lindsay and Mark Stiving discuss regional pricing strategies, ethical competitive intelligence, and the power of price signals in the market. They explore what defines a pricing leader versus a follower, why clean data matters more than fancy tools, and why AI can't fix bad pricing fundamentals. Whether you work in pricing, lead a team, or simply want to understand how pricing shapes business strategy, this episode offers practical, real-world insights you can use right away. Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast: Learn how to build regional pricing strategies that adapt to local competition and customer behavior. Discover smart, ethical ways to track competitors using tools like Circana data and web scraping. Understand why clean data and efficient processes matter more than any pricing technology. "It doesn't matter how much technology you throw at bad data — it's not going to fix your pricing strategy." – Lindsay Maurer Topics Covered: 02:50 - Getting into Pricing: How Lindsay's career began and what got her hooked on pricing strategy. 06:10 - Inside the Role: What a Pricing Intervention Manager does - from fixing revenue leaks to supporting teams across the Americas. 12:15 - Market Dynamics: Why "the dumbest guy in the market sets the price" and how smart companies protect their margins. 15:08 - Retail Pricing: How retailers test price floors and ceilings, monitor competitors, and manage customer perceptions. 17:31 - Price Leadership: What makes a company a price leader versus a follower, and how market factors like tariffs shape decisions. 20:17 - Competitor Insights: How often to track prices in different industries and how to ethically gather market data. 25:01 - Strengthening Pricing Teams: Why efficient tools, clean data, and solid processes matter more than fancy systems. 28:25 - AI in Pricing: Where AI fits today, what it can and can't do, and how to use it for smarter market insights. 29:57 - Pricing Community: Lindsay's call for collaboration - connecting with other pricing professionals and sharing tools. Key Takeaways: "The dumbest guy in the market sets the price. If you have someone that has products that they can go and sell for half the price of yours, well, you're also taking out half the price of everyone's margin, but also your own." - Lindsay Maurer "Make sure you've got great information coming in. Make sure that you're doing anything you can do with it as efficiently as possible so that when you do get those quotes and you do get those quick turnaround requests for sales that you can price quickly and you don't lose business due to inefficiency." - Lindsay Maurer People / Resources Mentioned: Al Beck: Al Beck: Pricing Director at Standard Motor Products https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderkbeck/ Circana (formerly NPD): https://www.circana.com Ficstar: https://www.ficstar.com/ Import.io: https://www.import.io/ SVP Recruiting: Organizer of Pricing Week conference https://svpricing.com/pricing-week Connect with Lindsay Maurer: Website: https://www.bp.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindsaymaurer/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

27 Okt 31min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 18, 2025, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-ai-are-you-selling-a-platform-or-a-solution/ 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 Okt 7min

Bill Wilson, CEO and founder of Pace Pricing and official pricing advisor for the government of New Zealand, takes Mark on a deep dive into Jobs to be Done methodology and its connection to value-based pricing. From his origins as a software developer building productized services to coaching hundreds of companies through SaaS Academy, Bill reveals why pricing isn't just about the number—it's about understanding the progress customers are trying to make. In this episode, Mark and Bill dive into why the Jobs to Be Done framework offers a more effective lens than traditional problem-and-results approaches, leading to insights about value realization, emotional jobs, and why the biggest pricing advice might be the simplest: just raise your prices. Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast: Learn the critical role of value realization and how to effectively package products to help customers achieve desired outcomes quickly and sustainably. Understand the Jobs to Be Done framework, how it differs from traditional problem-solving approaches, and why it's vital for grasping true customer motivations. Discover practical pricing strategies, including overcoming fears around raising prices and how thoughtful price increases positively impact a company's bottom line. "Without being too on the nose about it, you probably should raise your prices." – Bill Wilson Topics Covered: 01:32 - Bill's journey from technical founder in 2007 to productizing services, escaping hourly billing, and discovering that pricing is everyone's delicate secret. 06:59 - The Product-Pricing-Positioning Triangle Why these three cannot be separated: value delivery (product), value perception (positioning), and value capture (pricing). 09:33 - What is Jobs to be Done? Bill's definition: statements describing the progress customers are trying to make, with specific ways to measure that value. 14:17 - The Trigger Moment: Status Quo Change Why the sandwich shop example illustrates how triggers create jobs people are willing to pay to solve, unlike generic problems. 20:11 - Context-Driven Pricing Meets Jobs to be Done Mark's framework of foundational problems, problem scope, and situational context—and how it maps to Bill's JTBD structure. 21:56 - System 1 vs. System 2: Emotion vs. Value Separating intuitive, emotional buying (System 1) from deliberative value calculation (System 2)—and why B2B sellers must address both. 26:39 - The Three Phases of Value Value perception (positioning), value realization (first aha moment), and value adoption (features driving continuous use). 30:08 - The Product-Pricing-Positioning Connection in Practice: Why Bill sometimes produces product requirements documents during pricing engagements—because time-to-value affects pricing success. 30:28 - Final Advice: Raise Your Prices The simplest, most powerful advice that everyone fears—and why money from price increases falls directly to the bottom line. Key Takeaways: "A job to be done inherently has monetization built into it because there are a lot of problems that I'm not willing to pay to be solved. But a job in and of itself is something I'm actively trying to achieve." - Bill Wilson "Recurring revenue lives in value adoption, not in value realization. I can get anybody to realize value pretty quickly and they'll never buy my product more than once." - Bill Wilson "Everybody's scared to death to raise their prices. But if you haven't raised your prices in a couple of years, you're probably safe to raise your prices. And all that money that you raise it by, whatever percentage that is, is going to fall directly to the bottom line." - Bill Wilson People / Resources Mentioned: April Dunford: Positioning expert, author of "Obviously Awesome" and "Sales Pitch" Anthony Ulwick: Outcome-Driven Innovation approach to Jobs to be Done Clayton Christensen: Jobs to be Done theory pioneer Danny Kahneman: System 1 and System 2 thinking framework SaaS Academy: Where Bill coaches companies on pricing Volta: Coaching organization Bill works with Connect with Bill Wilson: Pace Pricing: https://www.pacepricing.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wdrwilson/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

20 Okt 31min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 11, 2025, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-ai-do-costs-finally-matter-in-pricing/ 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 Okt 7min

Emanuel Martonca, founder of Soft Fight, reveals how agentic AI is solving one of the biggest challenges in IT services: coordinating pricing decisions across hundreds of people in decentralized organizations. After his career journey from product management to sales management to discovering pricing at a Simon Kucher workshop, Emanuel shares how his bootstrapped company evolved from traditional consulting to building AI-powered pricing agents that act as an ever-present pricing manager- coaching teams, improving proposals, and recommending pricing models without sending a single byte of data outside the client's infrastructure. In this episode, learn why AI should augment rather than replace pricing teams, why deterministic calculations still matter, and how to quantify value in IT services without universal quality standards. Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast: Discover how AI solves coordination problems in large IT services companies where hundreds of people make pricing decisions without pricing expertise. Learn why AI should augment pricing teams, not replace them, and why deterministic calculations still matter more than probabilistic AI outputs. Understand how to quantify value in IT services using measurable quality attributes instead of universally accepted standards. "Pricing is leverage. It allows you to have an impact with very few actions, with little effort." – Emanuel Martonca Topics Covered: 01:32 -Emanuel's transformational discovery of pricing at a Belgian retail bank workshop that revealed a world he didn't know existed—launching 18 years of pricing-focused work. 02:37 - Why pricing is the ultimate leverage tool, especially in B2B tech where "it's just communication"—what you write in Excel, on websites, and in proposals. 03:28 - How the pandemic transformed Emanuel from a globe-trotting sales manager into a pricing consultant, then bootstrapped Soft Fight to solve the value extraction gap in tech companies. 04:41 - How large IT companies lose money when hundreds of non-experts across five functions (finance, marketing, sales, delivery, executives) make pricing decisions on every custom project. 06:59 - The evolution from deterministic SaaS pricing rules to AI-augmented agents installed in client infrastructure—solving pricing problems in hours instead of years without sending data externally. 08:00 - Why new deals lack technical depth and renewals lack value articulation—and how AI coordinates knowledge without restructuring organizations. 11:00 - Eight AI agents (four for understanding, four for justifying) with access to all systems but zero external communication—no security or privacy risks. 13:00 - All pricing calculations remain deterministic because AI makes too many mistakes—it's used only for reading RFPs, emails, and meeting notes to improve value communication. 14:17 - How AI acts as a coach recommending pricing models with ready-made arguments, eliminating months of change management—with email as the main interface. 16:17 - Why determining "how long will this take?" is unpredictable and varies by person and timing—and how AI solves the costliest unknown in custom projects. 18:00 - Mark's perspective on why costs matter less than value, and why companies avoid alternative pricing models despite knowing hourly billing hurts both sides. 21:00 - When AI tools cut development time, hourly pricing becomes self-defeating: "You're cutting your own revenue"—forcing the industry to finally sell value, not time. 21:56 - Starting with measurable quality attributes on invented scales that competitors can't compare—getting 80% of the way just by having the quantification discussion. 23:00 - Mark's framework for B2B value and why results translate to economic impact through customer KPIs like reduced complaints, not abstract "quality" metrics. 25:00 - Unlike automotive suppliers with nanometer specs, IT services vendors can define their own quality metrics—putting them two steps ahead of alternatives. 26:00 - The necessity of industry knowledge for value conversations (increase revenue, reduce costs, mitigate risk) and how AI enables understanding of new sectors that would've taken years. 27:30 - Final Advice: AI as Your Pricing Force Multiplier Using AI for research, analysis, and domain understanding when teams are too small or mandates unclear—plus how to connect with Emanuel on LinkedIn. Key Takeaways: "AI is a huge multiplier for pricing experts—not for calculating prices, I agree with you on that, it's not there yet. But for everything else around pricing, whether we want to call it product management, analysis, or research, it can help us overcome typical challenges." - Emanuel Martonca "Pricing is a change management problem. It can be done, it'll take months, sometimes years, and they have to experiment and they have to make mistakes." - Emanuel Martonca Resources Mentioned: Simon-Kucher: https://www.simon-kucher.com/en Connect with Emanuel Martonca: Website: https://www.softfight.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emartonca/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

13 Okt 30min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 4, 2025, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-ai-buyers-buy-inherent-and-relative-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/

10 Okt 8min