Impact Pricing

When we think about how our buyers decide. Oftentimes they're deciding, am I going to buy your product? Or am I going to buy a competitor's product? What they do is they look at the price of your product, the price of your competitor's product.

And for a moment, let's assume the price of your product is higher. So they ask themselves, is it worth it? Should I pay more for your product? Well, that depends on what they're going to get when they buy your product instead of the competitor's product. Now we're talking about differentiation. What's different about your product versus your competitors product.

"Real value comes from building products that are really better than our competitors." - Mark Stiving

It turns out when buyers are making this decision, they're using their perception of the differences. So it's really about perceived differentiation, but if you want to truly get. Good differentiation. My advice is always build real differentiation build products that are better than your competitors, and then make sure our customers and our buyers know that our products are better than our competitors so that they're willing to pay a higher price.

Real value comes from building products that are really better than our competitors.

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

Stormie Andrews is the president of Yokel Local. He is a licensed practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), an award-winning author, Forbes contributor, HubSpot contributor, recognized buyer persona expert, and HubSpot Certified Trainer. He has also been recognized as a Member of the Year from the American Marketing Association, named as a Top 50 Tech Visionary, and his book, "The World’s Best Buyer Persona® System," became an Amazon Hot New Releases Best Seller.

In this episode, Stormie talks about how the World’s Best Buyer Persona System helps users set them apart from competitors in terms of market positioning where pricing doesn’t have to be one driver.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Find out how to create the next best thing in creating your best buyer persona in the absence of the gold standard
• Learn how to create a value proposition where pricing isn’t the number one driver
• Find out the concept of TINB (There Is No B) in the World’s Best Buyer Persona System

“It's not about you. It's not about your goods and services. It's about your prospects, your ideal customers, their pain points, their issues. The more time, energy, and effort you put into that, the more in alignment you're going to be as it pertains to your pricing.”

- Stormie Andrews

Topics Covered:

01:53 - How he started getting into personas

03:20 - Differentiating sales and marketing

07:02 - Creating multiple personas for each buyer type and making recommendations

07:52 - The next best thing to do when you don’t meet the gold standard to help you create the best buyer persona

09:55 - Using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs as a basis for creating personas

14:01 - How does a buyer persona influences pricing

17:34 - Building personas for different decision makers

21:28 - What could be the CFO’s TINB for a certain product

22:23 - Putting a TINB for a buyer persona

25:50 - The belief systems that are addressed in the World's Best Buyer Persona

27:15 - Stormie’s pricing advice that can have a great impact on one’s business

Key Takeaways:

“As we go through that exercise, we can spend an entire day just on positioning factors, because we have to have unique positioning factors that are designed to resonate with someone, not everyone. And if we can align those positioning factors, put them in alignment with the belief systems, the motivations of their ideal prospects, they're going to be in better shape.” - Stormie Andrews

“When we get into that positioning in the marketplace, we can find that market gap that sets the users of the ‘world's best buyer persona’ that sets them apart from their competitors, they market on that unique positioning that they have within the market. And that becomes their value proposition that can become their TINB (There Is No B), where pricing isn't the number one driver.” - Stormie Andrews

“What if we build a persona where we build resources for the initial influencer, and then we create and build a packet that they can download and give to the CFO that addresses their problems, their issues, their concerns, their motivations. That makes the world or at least that it's designed to speed up the sales process and make for a much smoother sales process.” - Stormie Andrews

Connect with Stormie Andrews:

• Website: https://www.flowcode.com/page/stormieandrews
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stormieandrews/
• 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/i-hate-loss-aversion/

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

It's true, we expect we need to know how it is that our buyers are making decisions. In particular, how is it that they use price in that decision process? 

Certainly, there are irrational behavioral economics-type issues, and we want to understand those. But what we truly need to understand as a company, the thing we don't understand is value. What are the decisions our buyers are making? 

"Understanding your customers decisions is fundamental to value based pricing." - Mark Stiving

In terms of is it worth it? Am I getting enough value for the money that I'm paying? And in particular, the two decisions that seem to drive this the most? First decision is “Will I will I buy something in the product category?” And there we're asking ourselves, “Is the price low enough that when the customer solves the problem, they're happy paying that price to solve the overall problem?”

The second decision they make is which one, which product will I buy? Which competitive alternative will I buy? In this case, we need to make sure that our price relative to the quality and capabilities of our products is attractive to our buyers, relative to our competitors, quality capabilities and price. 

We need to understand what are those decisions our buyers are making? How do they use price and making those decisions so that we can do a much better job at pricing our product and by the week creating and communicating about our product as well.

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

Liz Wainger is a communications strategist, author, serial connector - I help businesses and nonprofits clarify their messaging and purpose.

In this episode, Liz shares one tool she uses that helps her create a message that cuts through the noise, solely focused on your target audience and what truly resonates with them.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Learn how to create a messaging architecture that is customized but has an overarching message across all audiences
• Find out a process of figuring out customer value statement
• Discover what the most smart marketers mistakes are and learn how to create something that truly resonates with your audience

“Understand the emotional driver of the purchase, what they really want in the end, it's like Ted Levitt, who was a professor of marketing, says, "When people buy a drill, they don't want the drill. They want the hole."

- Liz Wainger

Topics Covered:

01:54 - Relating a story about his brother's death and the importance of the concept of value

04:48 - People pays for whatever they value

05:28 - What value does she offer

08:21 - What you need to look into for people to buy your product

10:30 - Figuring out customer value

14:14 - Using a triangle to create your positioning platform

17:34 - What is so special about creating 'three' pillar messages

20:17 - Leading the discussion with what is truly valuable to the customer

21:49 - Focusing on what you are targeting and leaving something out

22:18 - How to communicate something that genuinely resonate with your audience

24:25 - Turning your presentation into a sales pitch

26:11 - Asking probing and not threatening questions

27:24 - Liz's pricing advice that greatly impacts one's business

Key Takeaways:

"The way I do messaging is we use a triangle. Depending on where you customize and what is most interesting to your audience, you lead with different triangle points. But the underlying message about what makes this product tick, or why you want to use this should be true, according to all your audiences." - Liz Wainger

"We live in a world where we're over-communicating, we are getting so much information. So, the ability to cut through and really get to the core and simplify is so important. Because people have very short attention spans." - Liz Wainger

"At some point, there's what I call the porosity of information. So, you want to be consistent because it's the consistency that builds equity -- attention equity, brand equity, value equity over time." - Liz Wainger

"A big part of, and I think everybody should think about this, that no matter what your product is, or services, that you should be coming at it from the perspective of I want to help these people get better at whatever it is that they want to do. Not that I want to get the work." - Liz Wainger

Resource:

• Prism of Value by Liz Wainger: https://waingergroup.com/in-the-news/book/

Connect with Liz Wainger:

• Website: https://waingergroup.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizwainger
• 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 9, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/when-should-you-lower-your-price/ 

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

We know that we have to subscription companies have to win customers, keep customers, grow customers.

This is really about keeping customers and we should have a customer success department that is watching usage. Watching are people really getting value from our product.

Those who are using our product a lot are getting a lot of value and hence are very unlikely to churn.

"Subscription businesses need you to use and like their product to keep you buying it. Customer success creates value." - Mark Stiving

Those that stop using decrease using aren't using the right features, the people who aren't getting as much value from our product, they're much more likely to churn.

Our customer success departments should be watching who's using what and how much, and then helping those who aren't using the product enough to see the value.

To be able to use the product more because the more they use it, the more value they get, the less likely they are to get.

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

Jared Smith is a Business Consultant at Vendavo, a world-class commercial excellence software firm that enjoys seeing clients evolve into leaders in their industry. ​He is a Ph.D. candidate at Oklahoma State University researching how companies execute strategies, pricing, and sales dynamics.

In this episode, Jared talks about salespeople's insufficiency where business acumen is concerned. He is encouraging companies to put some training where salespeople can do value statements, challenger selling, and using whatever pricing methodologies they can have.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Find out how to motivate salespeople to understand the target price and capture a product's value
• Learn how salespeople can deviate from the target price and still earn from it
• Find out how salespeople can defend pricing from a product's economic value and not just on discounting

"Have the courage to experiment, have the courage to look at different things and approach pricing in a different way. The statement that we're going to raise prices and our customers are going to leave us, and we live in that fear all the time, that's not a really rational way of looking at things."

- Jared Smith

Topics Covered:

01:18 - Relating his first exposure to pricing

02:55 - Pricing for B2C versus B2B

04:43 - Taking a look at the whole value statements between B2C and B2B

06:45 - The disconnect between sales and pricing

08:26 - Shortfall in business acumen of most salespeople

10:06 - How to make value conversation happen

12:56 - Talking about sales discount and escalation processes

15:03 - He believes giving salespeople autonomy

16:50 - Setting compensation structures in a way that motivates salespeople not to discount but sell on value

18:24 - The compensation style that motivates most salespeople

20:35 - The challenge of getting salespeople sell above the target price

21:34 - Higher commission rate when hitting the price ceiling

22:20 - Understanding the value that customers get from the product

23:17 - Jared’s best pricing advice that greatly impacts a business

Key Takeaways:

"The key thing that I see is, when you start to talk about price, it gets into that whole thing of the sales operations, ‘Do I go there and do I lead with that ceiling price and discount down to the target?’" - Jared Smith

“What about if we set our compensation structures in such a way that motivates them not to discount, to always sell that value, but also maybe even motivates them to go higher than that as well?” - Jared Smith

“In the psychology of salespeople, that's what really drives a lot of the behavior and how you put your compensation system to move with those three numbers right there - the list price, ceiling, and target price.” - Jared Smith

"Have the courage to develop the capability of pricing in your company. Invest in good people, invest in good technologies, things that can support this as a discipline, much like you've been doing in the supply chain and all these other ones for years. So have the courage to change, have the courage to have the critical conversations." - Jared Smith

Resources/People Mentioned:

• Prime Source Building Products: https://www.primesourcebp.com/
• Frito Lay: https://www.fritolay.com/

Connect with Jared Smith:

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

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

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

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 2, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/can-your-pricing-be-your-advantage/ 

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

When we asked salespeople why we lost the deal, almost always, we got the answer, it was the price.

Maybe they tell us it was a feature that we didn't have, but the price was a big deal.

And the price is always a big deal. It turns out that yes, you can probably lower your price low enough that you could convince any buyer to buy your product. 

But that's really not the point of sales. What we want to be able to do is make sure that.

Our buyers understand the value of our product, what it is that we're offering. And if our buyers understand that we offer so much more value than the price we're asking for, they're willing to buy. 

So the problem may be that we're not doing a good enough job at communicating value. Or the problem could be the product just doesn't have enough value.

Have we built products that people really value? And can we communicate that to individual buyers? 

So they're willing to part with their hard-earned money in order to gain those benefits.

"There are two reasons for every loss sale. One, price was too high to the buyer. Two didn't expect to get enough benefit. Don't just blame price." - Mark Stiving

So the problem may be that we're not doing a good enough job at communicating value. Or the problem could be the product just doesn't have enough value.

Have we built products that people really value? And can we communicate that to individual buyers? 

So they're willing to part with their hard-earned money in order to gain those benefits.

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