Impact Pricing

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 15, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/failed-to-keep/ 

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

Pricing really encompasses almost every department inside your company, because when you think about it, pricing is how do we capture that?

And so now it's all about value, what's value to the customer. In fact, what's perceived value to the customer and we can work our way backwards and say salespeople on a one-on-one basis, talking to customers are trying to help each individual customer understand how much value our product might be able to deliver.

“Product teams create value. Marketing communicates value. Sales helps buyers understand their specific value. Pricing captures value. Everyone is coordinated.”- Mark Stiving

Marketing, on the other hand, looks at a whole bunch of people and says, what's the type of value that most people are looking for. How can I communicate that value?

How can I communicate that we're solving problems for those people?

And then we take a step back to the product management or product development piece, and they better be building products that provide value to our customers.

The only way they can do that is if they actually understand what value means.

So in my view, all roads lead back to pricing because pricing understands value, at least the concept of value better than most other departments.

However, every other department probably understands the value of any specific product, better than price.

We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected]. 

Now go make an impact.

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Mike Wilkinson is called 'The Value Selling Expert' and he helps Sales Directors/VPs and sales teams understand customer value and get paid what they're worth.

In this episode, Mike shares how you need to get to the generic issues of the business first, document and understand what the company faces so you know how and where to add value, and ultimately defend your pricing.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Learn how to solve the 'value mystery', so both customer and seller discover how much value there is going to be
• Find out why salespeople should need to have business acumen, so you understand how your customer's business works and know where to look for value
• Discover the right approach to the ROI calculator, so you know where you add value

"Don't apologize for your pricing. Be proud of it and look for the value. Don't discount first. Value first. Then think about if you need to discount."

- Mike Wilkinson

Topics Covered:

01:59 - Sharing his thoughts on an ROI calculator gap being pointed out

03:33 - What for Mike is 'Value Discovery Conversation"

05:01 - Value is a mystery

06:06 - Why salespeople have to understand what business acumen is

07:02 - How to make value conversations better

09:24 - Big gap between expectation and reality

11:12 - Addressing a 'which one' decision scenario

12:27 - What's the biggest differentiator when there are no other differentiators

15:07 - Talking about ROI of the differentiation

16:19 - What truly is differentiation

17:48 - Talking about the concept of 'generic issues'

20:18 - Salespeople operating on a 'rat-up-a-drain-pipe' selling

22:38 - How to let customers perceive something to be a real priority

24:16 - A great way to build up the perception of pain

25:46 - Mike’s pricing advice that can greatly impact one’s business

Key Takeaways:

"I think the value discovery conversation is so much more than just having a chat to establish customer needs. I really think it is about taking the customer on a journey of value discovery, helping them to understand the things that they actually do need, the possibilities, the challenges that they have, what impact those are having on their business." - Mike Wilkinson

"If value is a mystery, we need to understand what customers value. We need to solve the value mystery." - Mike Wilkinson

"I have to have that business acumen of understanding how the hell does the customer's business work? Where does their income come from? Where do their costs come from? Because if I don't understand either of those, I'm just shooting in the wind." - Mike Wilkinson

"What a lot of salespeople forget is that one of the biggest differentiators is themselves. Just the sheer feeling of comfort people get when dealing with somebody that they know, trust, like, respect -- that is still massively valuable. But you have to be able to deliver." - Mike Wilkinson

"The thing about differentiation, as I always say, being different isn't differentiation, differentiation is being different in ways that deliver real value to the customer." - Mike Wilkinson

"I think thinking about value and thinking about the value that you believe that you can deliver to your customers is hugely important. But you need to take a step back from that in the initial stages of the conversation you're having with your client." - Mike Wilkinson

Connect with Mike Wilkinson:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikewilkinson-thevalueexpert/
• Email: [email protected]

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

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

Business in its simplest form is getting paid for providing value to the customer.

It may be true that they're going to get the value. It may not be true that they're going to get the value, but they believe they're going to get the value.

And what we need to do is make sure we understand what our customers or our buyers are looking for. 

What does value mean?

“Business, in its simplest form, is getting paid for providing value to the customer.” - Mark Stiving

Typically, we could think of this as our buyers have a problem they need to solve, they have a result they're trying to achieve and aspiration thereafter.

The only reason that people buy a product from us or from anybody. If they perceive value.

If we can help our customers understand what our value is and the more they understand our value. The more likely they are to buy. And in fact, the more likely they are to pay us a higher price. 

Because when we think about business, business is really about us giving value to our customers, and in exchange, they give us money.

We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected]. 

Now go make an impact.

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on April 18, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-when-costs-go-up/ 

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

Ayon Bhattacharyya is an experienced business leader with significant success in revenue growth through commercial problem-solving. He is implementing innovative pricing solutions, fact-based analysis, and market research, drawing upon his stakeholder management and influencing skills to gain the support of other senior leaders.

In this episode, Ayon shares the need to understand your customers, so you can segment without merging them and you gauge their willingness to pay and set the best pricing.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Learn about customer segmentation and how to go about defining it to arrive at optimal pricing for a particular segment
• Find out how customer segmentation helps articulate your value proposition to solve different problems
• Learn how to categorize your buyers best so you lead with value and not pricing

"Do your research and know your customers. Identify your customer segments and, where feasible, perform price experiments to validate willingness to pay. And don't be afraid to experiment with subsets of your customer base and try to innovate your approach."

- Ayon Bhattacharyya

Topics Covered:

01:37 - What sparked his interest in pricing

03:27 - Price fencing in the airline industry

04:50 - Why do airlines have the best price offering for direct customers

05:56 - Reason why airline fare price increases as the plane nears take-off

06:30 - Differentiating between a business traveler and a leisure traveler

07:02 - How could they possibly created fare rules around business and leisure travelers

08:16 - Ayon sharing his thoughts on customer segmentation

09:09 - What are those customer attributes

11:47 - Defining customer segments

13:49 - How to find out who's going to travel for a particular attribute to be met

14:42 - Would it be better to actually differentiate the proposition by having a premium and a cheaper price

15:53 - All about customers' choice of greater or cheaper value

17:58 - Preventing segments from merging

20:25 - Differentiating pricing in UK, Australia, and New Zealand

22:56 - Categorizing buyers

24:21 - People's surprising attitude on getting rich many years ago

26:20 - Reacting to Mark's funny New Zealand experience

26:56 - Ayon's pricing advice that would greatly impact one's business

27:54 - Why be careful in lifting anchor when experimenting with your market

Key Takeaways:

"It's all about choice at the end of the day. The customer gets to choose a greater value or less value, and they pay the price based on value." - Ayon Bhattacharyya

"The best way to counter this is differentiating your value proposition. If you're solving different problems, then you're able to customize that value proposition to the segment, and that helps to mitigate that risk of segments merging." - Ayon Bhattacharyya

"One of the guests on your podcast has referred to the importance of not leading with price, and I absolutely 100% stand by that. Always lead with value." - Ayon Bhattacharyya

"There is a fear often around raising prices. But if you're able to support that with additional value, then usually your customers are quite receptive to that." - Ayon Bhattacharyya

Resources/People Mentioned:

• Westpac
• Negotiating with Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies to Defend Your Price by Reed Holden

Connect with Ayon Bhattacharyya:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ayon-bhattacharyya-a84ba615/#
• Website: https://bizgrowthspurt.com/

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

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

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on April 11, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/price-moves-during-market-shocks/

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

First, a zero-sum game essentially means the size of the pie is fixed. If we have a pie there and you get to cut it that, and I get to choose which half I'm going to take, then that's a zero-sum game because the more I take, the less you get, or the more you take the less I get.

In price negotiations, assuming we don't change the product or the offer. And it's just a debate on how much is a customer going to pay in order to buy our product. That's a zero-sum game.

The more they pay, the more we get and the less money they get to keep and vice versa. However, that's not the way business works.

“Business is not a zero-sum game. Focus on increasing value to the customer.” – Mark Stiving

We shouldn't be thinking of our business as a zero-sum game. Instead, if we're clearly listening to our customers in our marketplace, we can create features and products and capabilities and nuances of our, of our products so that the buyers get more and more value. And the more value they get, the more they're likely willing to pay.

And their willingness to pay probably exceeds our cost of creating that X additional value. In other words, we're creating value both for the customer and for us, hence the business isn't and shouldn't be thought of as a zero-sum game.

We hope you enjoyed this podcast. If you see have any questions or feedback please email me [email protected]. 

Now go make an impact.

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Monica Sinha is a Price benchmarking Lead and Senior Manager at Capgemini. She has over 15 years of experience in the Finance sector which includes experience with the business finance team of Tech Mahindra, the commercial management office at Accenture, brokerage department at Karvy Computershare Pvt. Ltd., and corporate finance department at Tata Finance Ltd.

In this episode, Monica shares how benchmarking increases your confidence in winning deals. And she also talks about when benchmarking truly becomes helpful -- that's when teams work together to truly connect with the customer to attain the best possible final price for a quote.  

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Find out how benchmarking helps validate the final price
• Learn how benchmarking helps increase your chance of winning the deal
• Find out how you go through benchmarking the competitors' price and the nuances that are involved in it

"When you are in the pricing line, then I think you need to have a very holistic view. We just cannot go with taking the cost and add the margin, and derive the price out of it. You need to have the entire team aligned into one."

- Monica Sinha

Topics Covered:

01:11 - How she landed into pricing

02:32 - Pricing compared to a recipe

03:46 - What benchmarking suggests

05:19 - Benchmarking as a validation check

08:18 - The way benchmarking is done and the nuances involved in it

13:03 - The challenges that come with benchmarking

16:08 - Doing post-mortem analysis to what led to a difference in price after benchmarking

17:21 - How to find out what price the competitor is charging

20:07 - The one thing that helps you win a deal

20:41 - How do we benchmark value-based pricing

23:14 - Monica's pricing advice that can significantly impact one's business

Key Takeaways:

"It is so much of confidence, where benchmarking is there, where benchmarking is built to validate. And in fact, I would say that the chance of winning a deal increases by many notches." - Monica Sinha

"Benchmark gives you a sense that yes, you are close to that price, or you're very far off, then probably there is some mistake that you're doing in estimation or something somewhere. So, let's just recheck how you're doing it. So benchmarking is a very good instrument to validate the final price that you're going to submit." - Monica Sinha

"The one major thing that is very important is that if we have to really give a winnable price if we want to really understand what the value that the customer is looking for, what should be the correct price for it, then all of these team members, they need to align and work together. And they need to understand that they should have some connection along with the customer so that whatever the final price that they are coming up with is the price that should be ultimately quoted." - Monica Sinha

Connect with Monica Sinha:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/monica-sinha-46904041/
• Email: [email protected]

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

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

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 28, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/disney-understands-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