Impact Pricing

Casey Brown is the President of Boost Pricing, and she has been since 2011. She started her career as a Chemical Engineer at GE, and she's been in pricing for almost 20 years now. Casey loves whitewater kayaking, and she's a big Buckeye fan. In this episode, Casey explains how important it is for sellers to connect with the emotional component of the buyer/s as she shares her knowledge on how to substantially increase your ability to earn higher prices.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Learn how crucial the seller’s mindset and beliefs are to the business’ profitability, especially as to whether they’re operating from a place of confidence or fear Find out why you should not put the blame on cost increases when doing a price increase Understand the power of taking into consideration the emotional component, like selling value through the language, mind, and heart of your customer   “I have yet to find, even in this current economic climate, a company that doesn't have some pricing opportunity, and I would just ask everyone to keep looking for it. It's there.”  – Casey Brown   Topics Covered: 01:33 – How Casey got into pricing 04:54 – Mark to Casey: Why don’t I know you? Why have I never seen you before? 07:00 – The biggest problem in sales being the lack of recognition that there’s a problem 09:33 – Is Casey trying to compete with people who are doing sales training and education? Both yes and no 11:33 – An exchange of Mark’s and Casey’s magic formulas in communicating price increases 15:05 – More about blaming costs and cost-plus pricing 18:02 – Teaching salespeople how to properly sell value 20:40 – Convincing Mark that the emotional component is as important in B2B as it is in B2C 29:17 – Casey’s pricing advice 30:08 – Connect with Casey Brown   Key Takeaways: “Our entire profession – we are the best kept secret in business. And frankly, if more people understood how impactful pricing is to the profitability and how easy it is to pull that lever, there'd be a lot more of us.” – Casey Brown “It does not occur to most people that the biggest opportunity to make a huge improvement in your pricing performance very quickly is not necessarily to fix your strategy, but instead to help the team understand the skill set and mindset gaps that your team has.” – Casey Brown “Connecting with the emotional component of the buyer is not just a consumer phenomenon.” – Casey Brown   People / Resources Mentioned: Pricing with Confidence (Reed Holden’s book): https://www.amazon.com/Pricing-Confidence-Leaving-Money-Table/dp/0470197579   Connect with Casey Brown: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseybrownboost/ Email: casey@boostpricing.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:mark@impactpricing.com

27 Mars 202331min

This one is the 7 of Spades from the Selling Value card deck. It is true that when a buyer's asking for help justifying a purchase, this is the ultimate opportunity to influence that sale. Let's take a step back for just a minute and think about what a customer is going through. And if you ever have the opportunity to help a buyer understand their underlying problems, what's the value of solving those problems, you've become a trusted advisor. You've become someone that this company, this person, looks to for real information so they can make smart decisions. Now, this is a very different decision process than, how is your product better than somebody else's product? Instead, they've brought you in to help create the business case. What a great position. And if we go to the table that I have in the Selling Value book, you'll find that this is the beginning of the trust or the relationship journey. Where they say to you, would you please help me answer, is this a good place for me to spend my money? Is this a good place for my budget? And if we can help them with that, not only have we helped them solve a problem they're trying to solve, but we've built that trust and credibility in their eyes that no competitor could ever catch up to. So absolutely, this is the biggest opportunity you have to influence that sale. 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/

24 Mars 20232min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on February 15, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/amc-changes-pricing-finally/ 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/

22 Mars 20233min

Griff Parry is the Founder and CEO of m3ter where he helps make it easy for SaaS companies to intelligently deploy and manage usage-based pricing. He's led AWS’ go-to market strategy for games and gambling in EMEA, and his background includes entertainment at Sky TV and accounting at Ernst & Young. Griff was an extra in the movie “First Night” around 1993. In this episode, Griff shares the work that they do at m3ter in helping customers deploy and manage usage-based pricing. He also discusses common pricing challenges, especially on doing a price change, emphasizing the importance of agility and transformation.   Why you have to checkout today’s podcast: Understand the importance of having the agility to change pricing models quickly and in different situations, especially as to why pricing is not a one-and-done thing Discover how m3ter helps SaaS companies make it easy to deploy and manage usage-based pricing Find out in which circumstance usage-based pricing works best as you learn about different pricing philosophies   “Particularly in these market conditions, I would suggest that you set yourself up so that you can customize pricing by customer, or do more of that. There is a lot of money you'll be leaving on the table if you have a one-size-fits-all pricing strategy.”  – Griff Parry   Topics Covered: 01:49 – How Griff got into pricing 03:05 – What m3ter aims to solve in relation to usage-based pricing 05:06 – Delivering agility to the customers (why pricing is not a one-and-done thing) 08:57 – How m3ter helps customers find the right pricing model for the right situation 11:30 – Circumstances wherein you’d want to use usage-based pricing 14:45 – Pricing is an exchange of value between you and your customers 16:09 – Bill for overage over cap vs. renegotiate next year (tips on do’s and don’ts) 20:02 – Platform versus solution pricing (pricing philosophy of AWS and m3ter) 30:59 – Griff’s pricing advice 33:05 – Connect with Griff   Key Takeaways: “Pricing is complicated; it involves lots of people. You need to bring them together so that they can plan and deploy those changes.” – Griff Parry “Pricing is very definitely not one-and-done.” – Griff Parry “To work out what you want to price, you have to look at what's going on at the moment. You have to have ready access to data about what people are consuming and how they respond to pricing changes.” – Griff Parry “Pricing is an exchange of value between you and your customers. If they understand that they should pay more because they're using more or getting more value, that's fantastic; that's great for both parties.” – Griff Parry   People / Resources Mentioned: m3ter: https://www.m3ter.com   Connect with Griff Parry: Email: griff@m3ter.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/griffinparry/   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:mark@impactpricing.com

20 Mars 202334min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on February 8, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/a-price-signaling-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/

17 Mars 20233min

This one is the 8 of Diamonds from the Selling Value card deck. Let's say that you are in a marketplace where people almost always decide between your product and competitor's products. Gee, could I think of some? How about an automobile, right? You happen to be the Audi dealer and somebody is, somebody just crashed their car and we think they're going to walk into our Audi dealership. In our mind we're thinking, Hey, they're not only looking at us, but they're also looking at BMW or Mercedes or Lexus or Porsche, right? There's lots of different places where they might be go looking at my competitive alternatives. And so as a salesperson, I might be thinking, Ohh, I've got to sell against all of these other problems, or all of these other competitive alternatives. On the other hand, it is very possible that somebody walks into our showroom and isn't going to consider a competitive alternative. They walk into our showroom because somebody told them that we are the best product, we're the best dealership, and they should go buy a product from us. And they're not even going to go look at somebody else. Or maybe they walked into our showroom because they've owned three Audis in the past. They're an Audi loyalist. And they're going to come in and buy another Audi from us because that's what they drive. That's who they identify as.  There are lots of reasons why people might choose to just buy your product. What we want to do is think about, what are those different situations? What are those different mindsets where people might just be looking at our product and not a competitive alternative? And the reason this is so important is because when we can recognize those reasons, we don't have to give big discounts. People are going to buy from us because we solve their problem, not because we're cheaper than a competitor.  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'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/

15 Mars 20233min

Satish Dharmarajan is the Director of Pricing and Business Intelligence at Orkin, He is an Advisory Board Member at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and has held analytics roles at Home Depot, Walgreens, and Whirlpool. Satish also acts in short films. In this episode, Satish educates us on differentiating products/services from competitors of similar offerings as he stresses the importance of understanding the buyer’s journey along with the core problem that they want to solve.   Why you have to checkout today’s podcast: Learn the importance of knowing what the buyer's journey is and what state they are in as they come in to buy a product Find out how brands differentiate themselves from competitors when they all offer the same products/services Understand how customer-perceived value helps brands sell well even with competitors   “If you know your customer, you can price it right. If you know what they're looking for, you can have them pay what you want them to pay for your product or service.”  – Satish Dharmarajan   Topics Covered: 01:50 – How Satish got into pricing 04:29 – Talking about getting to that ‘big place’ and the process that it involves in order to reach that 07:08 – The importance of knowing what the customer is specifically looking to solve 11:39 – Mark’s pigeon problem 12:40 – How brands differentiate themselves from competitors when they all offer the same products/services 17:54 – How customers choose where to buy between brands, and how pricing and packaging people should respond 20:59 – Appliance pricing at Home Depot; how customers care about price changes 23:34 – Looking at and analyzing competition; the importance of customer-perceived value 26:26 – Satish’s pricing advice 26:59 – Connect with Satish   Key Takeaways: “That's basics of customer service, which is not too different if you were in the cellphone business, if you were in the internet business, or if you are doing anything else, selling anything else online. You would want to know what specifically that customer is looking to solve for.” – Satish Dharmarajan “The way your products are arranged next to each other, could be used as a leverage for selling the same products at a different price point.” – Satish Dharmarajan “As pricing professionals, you need to figure out what's the bare minimum, such that you can make sure that even the person who is coming in to replace a refrigerator is going to be willing to pay. But at the same time, it's not at a giveaway price where you're not making enough margins from the other consumers.” – Satish Dharmarajan   People / Resources Mentioned: Orkin: https://www.orkin.com/   Connect with Satish Dharmarajan: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/satishdrajan/ Email: sdharmar@orkin.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mailto:mark@impactpricing.com

13 Mars 202328min

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on February 1, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/evaluating-a-pricing-strategy/ [powerpress] 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 Mars 20233min