Impact Pricing

Dan Foster is a Chief Operating/Revenue Officer, who built and transformed profitable businesses across technology and telecom start-ups as well as industry powerhouses. Companies turn to him to revive struggling businesses by redefining sales, marketing and customer service strategy, scaling infrastructure, and promoting product innovation.

In this episode, Dan shares how bundled solutions increase value and close rates. He discusses AI's growing role in B2B sales and procurement. And stresses using data to understand customer needs and justify pricing.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Learn how bundling products and services can enhance perceived value, increase close rates, and prevent price-sensitive buyers from deconstructing your offerings.
• Gain insights into how AI is transforming the sales landscape, from optimizing product recommendations to procurement teams using AI to negotiate better prices.
• Understand why pricing should be tied to the customer's business outcomes and how to communicate the true value of your solutions effectively.

"You take the data around a pricing example and you really understand the value from the end user's perspective, so you got to have that empathy back in to say what moves their business. And when we understand what moves their business with a few numbers, then you start to give the underpinning for why value pricing matters."

- Dan Foster

Topics Covered:

02:01 - How his early consulting work made him think about value and led him to pricing

03:23 - Asking about typical reactions to pricing presentations

04:24 - Explaining that selling value starts with understanding product-market fit

07:03 - Highlighting the importance of teaching distribution partners how to sell value, using the Home Depot-SolarCity partnership as an example

10:43 - How can ROI calculators be convincing

14:07 - Explaining that while they don't track proven value directly due to lack of data, anecdotal feedback and supplier insights indicate improved close rates for partners

15:09 - How AI is reshaping product offerings, expanding technology advisors' roles, and influencing cost-cutting for innovation

19:10 - Highlighting that while AI may drive procurement efficiencies complex digital transformation solutions still rely on expertise

20:27 - How bundling simplifies purchasing and reinforce the value of an all-in-one solution

24:27 - Dan's best pricing advice

Key Takeaways:

"If you want to buy a ton of storage and it's a commodity, we get that. That could go through the marketplace earlier than not. If you want a digital transformation, if you want to change your customer experience, if you want to make your business run faster, if you want business process automation and robotic process automation, that's not going through a dynamic pricing model on a marketplace near-term. Now, can I go out and look at, like, UiPath Licensing versus Automation Anywhere versus whoever Microsoft scooped up next and look at pricing models? The procurement folks are probably smart to do that." - Dan Foster

"But the bundled solution specifically is, I think, fundamental because otherwise, when you offer them the menu-based pricing, oftentimes they don't see the full value." - Dan Foster

"It [selling value] starts with that product-market fit. We do a lot of enablement of our partners or downstream almost like a two-tier distributor. And in doing that we provide the ability for them to see a higher close rate when they use tools and resources. It alleviates that conversation and it's inherent that there's value pricing there." - Dan Foster

"It's critical to think through in a subscription-based model what that value is, because that customer acquisition cost versus the long-term value of a customer, it's a critical ratio to understand when you're thinking through pricing." - Dan Foster

People/Resources Mentioned:

• Cummins Engine Company: https://www.cumminsenginepart.com/
• Unilever: https://www.unilever.com
• Alcoa: https://www.alcoa.com/global/en/home/
• Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Selling-Value-Deals-Higher-Prices/product-reviews/1737655217/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&
• SolarCity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolarCity
• Home Depot: https://www.homedepot.com
• Azure: https://azure.microsoft.com/
• Google: https://www.google.com/?client=safari
• Lowe's: https://www.lowes.com
• Sun Power: https://us.sunpower.com
• Sunrun: https://www.sunrun.com
• TD Synnex: https://www.tdsynnex.com/na/us/
• Ingram Micro: https://www.ingrammicro.com
• Five9: https://www.five9.com
• Genesys: https://www.genesys.com/en-sg/
• NICE inContact: https://www.nice.com/
• Zoom: https://zoom.us
• Dialpad: incontact.com/content/home.htm
• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com
• Wall Street Journal: https://www.wsj.com/
• Automation Anywhere: https://www.automationanywhere.com
• Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/en-ph/
• UiPath Licensing: https://licensing.uipath.com/
• Hulu: https://www.hulu.com/welcome?orig_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
• Roku TV: https://www.roku.com/products/roku-tv?srsltid=AfmBOoomwWI9G8ZABYW7gSPFzBHc87xVmartPBXAWzj7GfPfAJQYjTtO
• Super Bowl: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl
• Xfinity: https://www.xfinity.com/

Connect with Dan Foster:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jdanfoster/
• Email: [email protected]

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/
• Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on January 6, 2025, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/understanding-context-4-key-factors-that-influence-customer-willingness-to-pay/

If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected].

Now, go make an impact.

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Rich Mironov provides product management leadership and coaching to large and small tech companies, with more than 150 clients since 2001. His focus includes: Coaching VPs of Product and CPOs, Organizing the product organization, and Stepping in (occasionally) as a 'smokejumper' VP of Product Management.

In this episode, Rich shares that product managers must define economic value before development. He believes sales teams should communicate, not calculate, value using simple tools. And he advises focusing on broad market data instead of over-relying on top accounts.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Learn how to define and communicate economic value effectively.
• Understand how sales teams and product managers can align for better pricing decisions.
• Gain actionable tips on framing value in sales conversations without overwhelming buyers.

"You want to look for an aggregate set of data about what's happening in your marketplace as opposed to attaching a lot of overweight to your two largest accounts."

- Rich Mironov

Topics Covered:

01:22 - Describing his journey into product management and an overview of his role here

03:40 - Differentiating B2C pricing versus B2B pricing as it relates to product management

09:33 - Discussing the balance between standardized pricing for most customers and the reality of frequent one-off deals in B2B

11:28 - How to systematize B2B pricing to reduce one-off deals and encourage standardization

16:59 - Aligning sales compensation with margin to protect long-term profitability

18:39 - Highlighting how enterprise sales teams generalize individual client demands as market-wide needs

20:26 - Why product teams must define economic value before development

25:00 - Agreeing that product teams must define value early but debates how to present it, with Mark favoring customer-driven insights and Rich emphasizing the need for quantifiable justification to close deals

26:25 - Acknowledging that while ROI calculators aren't inherently trusted, they're valuable as a conversational tool

28:37 - Rich's best pricing advice

Key Takeaways:

"I believe a fundamental obligation of product management if we're building something that needs this kind of discussion [communicate economic value], is to do the economic math before we start the development. Not after." - Rich Mironov

"Expecting my sales team to be economists is unrealistic. And so, on the product side, I feel like I owe my sales team some narrative that they can read off the page, yes, fill in the numbers, fill in the values, or fill in the quantities. But the value story has to be baked into the product." - Rich Mironov

"We lead with benefits, we lead with stories, we lead with vignettes, we lead with problems. But the last two paragraphs of that have to justify somebody actually signing a contract." - Rich Mironov

People/Resources Mentioned:

• JPMorganChase: https://www.jpmorganchase.com
• New York Stock Exchange: https://www.nyse.com/index

Connect with Rich Mironov:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richmironov/
• Website: mironov.com
• Email: [email protected]

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/
• Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on December 23, 2024, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/dynamic-vs-stable-context-a-framework-for-smarter-pricing/

If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected].

Now, go make an impact.

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Ed Arnold works with B2B companies to develop their value-based pricing strategies. His specialty is translating a company's competitive advantage into a viable customer value pricing strategy, as well as advising on commercial execution.

In this episode, Ed shares when value conversations are most effective. He highlights the need to tailor value models to each prospect through open-ended questions that uncover key business drivers. Because when value is clearly demonstrated, price becomes a secondary concern, resulting in smoother sales and fewer pricing objections.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Learn why guiding customers to do their own value math is more persuasive than presenting a pre-made ROI model.
• Discover how value conversations shift the focus from cost to impact, making price negotiations smoother.
• Understand why dumping numbers on customers backfires and how to engage them in a way that builds trust and buy-in.

"As customers, we have a good sense of what a great deal is. But as sellers, we're much less certain about what that value is. You need to have value conversations to get at that."

- Ed Arnold

Topics Covered:

00:57 - How he accidentally got into, left, and keeps returning to pricing

03:25 - Explaining how pricing challenges often signal deeper business issues

08:46 - Why customers distrust ROI calculators

11:05 - What value conversation is all about and how to effectively go through it

14:00 - Emphasizing that trust is built through reliability and honest engagement

16:57 - How many good salespeople are there and what make good salespeople

19:17 - The importance of market focus and playbooks in sales

20:49 - Showing the most effective value conversation to have

25:03 - How he trains salespeople on value conversations

29:53 - Noting that while he focuses on larger customers, the same value-based principles apply to marketing lower-ACV products

30:24 - Ed's best pricing advice

Key Takeaways:

"You cannot solve any pricing issue without tackling the strategy. And if the strategy is flawed, then the pricing isn't going to help you." - Ed Arnold

"...and this is the thing that I think about value stories. It's not about the product. It's about the customer. The customer is the star of the story." - Ed Arnold

People/Resources Mentioned:

• Steven Forth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/
• Forrester: https://www.forrester.com/bold/
• Monitor Deloitte: https://www.deloitte.com/global/en/services/consulting/services/monitor-deloitte.html
• Leverage Point: https://www.leveragepoint.com/

Connect with Ed Arnold:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edarnold1/

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/
• Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on December 16, 2024, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/value-drivers-vs-value-tables-when-to-go-broad-and-when-to-be-specific/

If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected].

Now, go make an impact.

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Steven Forth is Ibbaka's Co-Founder, CEO, and Partner. Ibbaka is a strategic pricing advisory firm.

In this episode, Steven shares the potential commoditization of AI pricing agents, explaining how their replication and standardization could drive down differentiation and value. He explores the interplay between AI-driven sales and buying processes, emphasizing that businesses must consider how AI will influence purchasing decisions. He also touches on the potential of AI to simplify legal tasks.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Learn how AI-powered pricing agents compare to SaaS models and why they might face rapid commoditization in the evolving AI landscape.
• Discover why AI-driven buying decisions are just as important as AI-powered selling strategies—and what that means for the future of pricing.
• Find out how DeepSeek's approach to AI training and pricing could shake up the industry, with potential implications for OpenAI and other major players.

"I think that they need to put themselves in the buyer's shoes and ask themselves, how would I be using AI to make a buying decision?"

- Steven Forth

Topics Covered:

01:23 - Explaining the four types of AI products and how they impact pricing, automation, and value creation

09:51 - Exploring whether AI agents will become commoditized

12:46 - How complex pricing workflows require multiple AI agents working together as a service, rather than a single standalone pricing agent

14:17 - Explaining that differentiated AI agents with better performance will still command higher prices

19:20 - Highlighting how DeepSeek's advancements in post-training optimization and lower pricing could drive broader AI adoption

21:20 - What makes AI agents more prone to commoditization

23:22 - How SaaS solutions are less prone to commoditization than AI agents

26:32 - Suggesting that tasks like real estate conveyance could be automated by AI agents

29:02 - Steven's best pricing advice

Key Takeaways:

"A lot of the use cases for outcome-based pricing or results-based pricing really only become relevant when an action is taken on your behalf. And you can evaluate the value of that action and the success of that action." - Steven Forth

"Are all agents by nature more subject to commoditization than other parts of the ecology, like copilots or service as software or generators? My gut feeling is that there are going to be agents that are highly differentiated because they rely on highly customized underlying language models and highly tuned prompt sequences that would not be easy for someone else to recreate. And that they'll be able to make better decisions." - Steven Forth

"Apart from very specific and narrow cases, I don't think pricing is going to be done by agents. Pricing will be service as software." - Steven Forth

People/Resources Mentioned:

• Grammarly: https://www.grammarly.com
• Copilot: https://copilot.microsoft.com/onboarding
• ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/
• Hugging Face: https://huggingface.co
• Hubspot: https://www.hubspot.com
• FinnAI: https://www.finnai.io/en
• LegalZoom: https://www.legalzoom.com
• Zendesk: https://www.zendesk.com
• Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/
• Pros: https://pros.com
• Vendavo: https://www.vendavo.com
• Zilliant: https://zilliant.com
• Pricefx: https://www.pricefx.com
• Maxio: https://www.maxio.com
• DeepSeek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepSeek

Connect with Steven Forth:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/
• Email: [email protected]

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/
• Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on December 9, 2024, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/unlocking-portfolio-value-through-strategic-price-increases/

If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected].

Now, go make an impact.

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

Joshua Lowe is a solution-focused pricing professional with a proven track record in pricing (10 years) and pricing transformation (3+ years). He also has an expertise in implementing and utilizing PriceFX, a cloud-native pricing management software.

In this episode, Joshua discusses the evolution of pricing in the auto parts industry, explaining how his company is transitioning from traditional cost-plus pricing to more market-based and value-driven strategies. He highlights the role of data analytics and predictive modeling in optimizing pricing decisions while maintaining fairness and customer retention.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Learn how a major industry player is shifting from cost-plus pricing to market-based and value-based approaches.
• Discover how analytics and data science shape pricing strategies, ensuring competitiveness and profitability.
• Understand why leaving some value on the table fosters long-term customer relationships and repeat business.

"You've got more pricing power than you might realize."

- Joshua Lowe

Topics Covered:

01:31 - Joshua describing his journey into pricing

02:55 - Clarifying that Napa Auto Parts is a wholly owned subsidiary of Genuine Parts Company and sharing why he has stayed with Napa Auto Parts

04:27 - How his pricing strategies not only capture value but also reinvest in growth and detailing his role in setting nationwide retail, wholesale, and resale pricing frameworks

06:37 - The evolution of market segmentation in pricing, highlighting shifts between regional and nationwide pricing models and the factors influencing those changes

08:53 - Explaining customer segmentation in pricing, emphasizing the importance of transaction data, value drivers, and willingness to pay

11:27 - Pricing strategies based on delivery distance, emphasizing relationship-based pricing over cost-to-serve

13:09 - Explaining product segmentation and how Napa Auto parts sources products

15:56 - How cost increases from suppliers generally flow through their own pricing

17:03 - The role of cost-plus pricing in the industry and its gradual shift toward market-based and value-based pricing

21:31 - How Napa Auto Parts structures pricing

24:59 - Joshua's best pricing advice

Key Takeaways:

"There's a lot of price moves that you use in pricing to extract value, but a lot of times too, you're trying to figure out ways to reinvest those wins back into sales so that you can grow." - Joshua Lowe

"You never try to extract a hundred percent of the value of any single transaction because you might actually start losing customer retention over time. You want to leave 10, 20% on the table. I've always kind of kept that in the back of my mind as we do certain activities of how we keep the fairness in play as we make pricing actions." - Joshua Lowe

People/Resources Mentioned:

• Gates Corporation: https://www.gates.com/us/en.html
• Genuine Parts Company: https://www.genpt.com/
• Napa Auto Parts: https://www.napaonline.com/

Connect with Joshua Lowe:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-lowe-42034746/

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/
• Email: [email protected]

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on December 2, 2024, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/what-is-value/

If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at [email protected].

Now, go make an impact.

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/