Impact Pricing

Michael Farber has 16+ Years in Enterprise Software and Technology Sales with Xactly Corporation, Concur Technologies, ERP solutions such as Baan, Deltek, ABAS-USA. He has expertise in solution selling and delivering exceptional revenue results and customer satisfaction. He has an excellent ability to qualify, professionally present, differentiate, negotiate, close, and connect the dots at the "C" level within organizations. He is the founder of The ROI Shop.

In this episode, Michael shares how the ROI calculator provides value conversation letting the buyer think of a financial number rather than just an admin tool.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Find out how ROI calculators provide value conversation between the buyer and seller
• Learn how ROI calculators allow a step-by-step process of building credibility and confidence to you, thereby holding firm on your pricing
• Discover how you can provide a collaborative approach between buyer and seller so they find, understand, and see the value and not ask for a discount

"Quantifying that value upfront. I mean, if you go in and they agree to the value you can bring them in the main areas where they're looking, it is going to be impossible for them to come back and say, ‘Oh, yeah, we need a 40% reduction,’ especially if the return is ten times the investment."

- Michael Farber

Topics Covered:

01:41 - How the ROI calculator changed the way he sold

04:20 - His thoughts on replacing the word ROI calculator with the word business case

05:51 - What's the use of the ROI calculator?

07:15 - Using an ROI calculator template based on the vertical you're working with

07:51 - What the process looks like for a salesperson letting the buyer fill out the ROI calculator

10:55 - A collaborative approach to using ROI calculator

12:30 - What it means to have the step-by-step process of using ROI calculator

17:16 - 'Will I' type questions can be built inside ROI calculator

18:17 - Building a security value calculator

20:05 - Michael's best pricing advice that greatly impacts a business

Key Takeaways:

"Rationally, companies buy for two reasons: you're going to make some money, you're saving money, that's really it at the end of the day. So, it's even more important to do it. When a company sits down, or the rep sits down and does a good job of walking their prospect through it, it separates them from the other sellers, the other sellers aren't doing it." - Michael Farber

"You think about our interactive value calculator. It's like its own website portal. So, we stir emotion with visuals, and videos and stories." - Michael Farber

"Understanding the 'Will I' type questions, we could build those into the calculator. As I said, what we build is more than just how many employees do you have? What is their average salary? How many hours does it take, type thing? We build interactive discovery questions in it. So based on a certain answer or a drop-down, we can drive another discovery question. And then based on that discovery question, we can start to quantify a different area." - Michael Farber

"I will tell you; I have not discounted our price in our last seven deals, not one penny, and we more than doubled our price since a year ago. So, it really does; they got to see the value. And then it's hard for them to ask for a discount." - Michael Farber

Resources/People Mentioned:

• Concur Technologies: https://www.concur.com/
• Bacardi: https://www.bacardi.com/

Connect with Michael Farber:

• Website: https://www.theroishop.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-farber-9946281/

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

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

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 21, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/acquisition-pricing-for-retention/ 

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

Yes, we might have a really complicated pricing scheme pricing process that we have internal, although there are lots of reasons why we may not want that because it's complex for us to manage. 

But that's better than making a complex for our buyers. In the world of what we are showing to our buyers, we need pricing to look simple, we need it easy for buyers to make decisions, because confused buyers don't buy. 

And if we can't simplify the way we present pricing to our buyers, we're hurting our marketplace. My favorite company for how they do this is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is defined in four different market segments. 

Those are recruiters, jobseeker sales people and professionals, which means everybody else. Inside each one of those four segments, they have good, better, best offerings. 

"Pricing can be complex internally, but must look simple to the buyer. " - Mark Stiving

What we want to be able to do is emulate this because if you think about being a buyer  from LinkedIn, or you want to buy one of Linkedin's products, you say, ‘Hey, I'm a salesperson.’

 And now you can see the choices of what it is that you might want. And they make it simple for us to see, understand and choose. 

Even though behind the scenes, they've got at least 12 different packages plus a whole bunch of different options and they're managing a lot of different things. 

Their buyers see very little of that, and the choices the buyers make are much much simpler.

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

Mark Boundy is an expert in value building, selling, and marketing.

In this episode, Mark explains how to present value to your customers in a measurable, concrete, and real way where value is quantified resulting in more profitable deals and paying customers.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Learn how to translate your customers' feature-and-benefit differentiation into a customer-differentiated customer outcome.
• Understand the buyer's purchasing journey so they know the value they are getting, and you become their only choice
• Discover the 13 things you need to know about your customer, so you win every time

"Right now, customers are really struggling with some different issues. And slowing down and understanding your customers' business and how their business is changing gives you an opportunity to really set yourself apart as that trusted advisor, that trusted partner who can help them co-create a solution that maybe your competitors could, but your crappy competitor salespeople don't."

 - Mark Boundy

Topics Covered:

02:47 - What is a sales funnel and the misconceptions about it

03:57 - The most shortsighted thinking when it comes to sales funnels

07:03 - Thoughts on some terms used that are seller-centric

08:46 - What the process looks like when humans decide at something

10:18 - What happens when customers are only self-informed

12:53 - The likelihood when there is no differentiating factor among sellers other than the price

14:11 - How to make customers ‘will I’ compelling that you are the only choice for the ‘which one’ decision

15:23 - Creating demand for the outcomes that come from the differentiating feature

17:10 - Importance of dollarizing outcomes

18:01 - What’s with personal outcomes

19:39 - Value versus price

26:43 - Thirteen things you need to know about your customers

Key Takeaways:

“If we tell salespeople just to find out what the customers have self-informed and what their envision is, what usually happens is the result of that self-informing is under informing and misinforming and some combination. And their vision for the future is probably pretty underwhelming. And if you actually build exactly what they envisioned, it would never have ROI in the first place.” - Mark Boundy

“We train people using methodologies and great questions and understand and uncover the pain. To uncover, get a perfect vision of the customer's imperfect vision. When we ask them to uncover the pain, the customer can only answer the pain that is the result of their self-informed vision, they can only give you what they know. They need an expert to say have you ever thought about this or other customers like you have actually found this, too.” - Mark Boundy

“You have to bring them [customers] from a 'will I' to a 'what will I'. As soon as that 'what will I' becomes compelling, then they're back to a 'will I' and it happens to be a 'will I' that you're the only available 'which one'?” - Mark Boundy

“I work with my clients to understand their differentiation. And I work with them really hard to translate their feature-and-benefit differentiation into a customer differentiated customer outcomes.” - Mark Boundy

“Value only exists in your customers’ mind, that scale, that counterbalance only exists in your customers’ mind. Your value that you articulate, it's a value proposition, you're proposing something that you hope comes into existence between your customers and yours. So, credibility is what opens their ear.” - Mark Boundy

“Value has to outweigh the price. Your differentiated value has to outweigh the price premium over the next best choice.” - Mark Boundy

Resource/People Mentioned:

• Radical Value: How to Take Your Company to the Next Level Through Radical Customer Centricity by Mark Boundy: https://www.amazon.com/Radical-Value-Company-Customer-Centricity-ebook/dp/B08527K4ZG
• The Nature of Human Intelligence by Robert J. Sternberg: https://www.amazon.com/Nature-Human-Intelligence-Robert-Sternberg/dp/1316629643
• Miller Heiman Group website: https://www.millerheimangroup.com/

Connect with Mark Boundy:

• Website: https://boundyconsulting.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markboundy/
• 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 July 14, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: 

https://impactpricing.com/blog/stop-sales-discount-authority/ 

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

Tech support is reactive and prevents unhappy customers. Customer success is proactive and generates customer delight. Customer success creates additional value.

These are solving problems that our current customers have and typically customers are going to call us. They say, ‘Hey, I'm not getting delivery or, Hey, I don't know how to use this. We're being reactive and supporting our customers. And yet in this recurring revenue world, we really need to be proactive. 

We need to make sure our buyers are using our product.

They're getting value from our product, because if we want them to pay us month after month after month, they'd better be receiving value. That's where the customer success department comes in. 

"Subscription businesses need you to use and like their product for you to keep buying it. " - Mark Stiving

Customer success needs to be watching. Who's using the product. How are they using the product? How much are they using the product?

Are they truly getting value? The way we would expect them to? And as customer success helps our individual customers get more and more value from our product. 

It makes it less likely that our customers are going to churn out. And B makes it more likely that our customers will end up buying more from us in the future, either through usage or upgrades or, or even cross selling or buying something different from us in the end customer success, that proactive activity is creating value to our marketplace.

And it's something that we'll end up capturing in higher  prices or more sales. 

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

Sebastian Wrobel is an energetic and passionate professional leader, helping companies to achieve value and pricing excellence. In order to achieve lasting integration, he is pushing digital transformation. In addition, he has extensive experience working closely with the C-suite and senior stakeholders to formulate and implement major profit and growth optimization plans. In addition, he leverages a collaborative and data-driven leadership approach to build high performing teams.  

In this episode, Sebastian highlights pricing’s role in sales negotiations.  

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Learn why Pricing people are expert negotiators, a good business partner and advisor to sales in negotiations  
• Find out how to negotiate sales more effectively with value levers  
• Understanding procurement's role in negotiating the best deal 

“Pricing people can do, they can deliver regularly on trainings, at least to create awareness and ability to understand the commercial levers that salespeople could leverage.”  

- Sebastian Wrobel

Topics Covered:

01:13 - Relating an incident that got him started in Pricing

01:55 - Getting addicted to Pricing

03:10 - The extent to which Pricing people should be involved in sales negotiations

04:30 - What is in Pricing people that makes them a good part in the negotiation

07:27 - The point you need a professional negotiator to help sales in the negotiation

08:43 - How from the nature of their roles pricing people are professional negotiators

11:22 - Misconceptions about negotiations and the importance of preparing for it beforehand

15:51 - What do pricing people need to have to be effective in negotiation

18:09 - Value drivers that have commercial impact you can use to negotiate with big customers

21:33 - The ‘negotiation jacket’ and the role play involved in negotiation by procurement people

24:55 - Using all levers in negotiation to get the best outcome

27:00 - Sebastian’s best pricing advice that could greatly impact one’s business

Key Takeaways:

“The underlying assumption is that in the negotiation, you discuss value. And in fact, you need to know the value for the client much earlier before you go into a negotiation. So, this is the first maybe misconception about negotiation that you negotiate the value at the event of the negotiation. That happens much earlier.” - Sebastian Wrobel

“To be effective in pricing, you need to have empathy with sales, with your sales team.” - Sebastian Wrobel

“And I think pricing can help both in the preparation in delivering the data and developing the commercial strategies negotiation, but also being a neutral negotiation partner that is less emotional, and can help on the commercial and objective parts in the negotiation.” - Sebastian Wrobel

“There are many kinds of tools in negotiations. Once you learn them, it's by far not as complicated as sometimes perceived. But you need to understand the toolbox, and you need to be able to use it. I'm personally convinced that pricing people has the skill. And once they get comfortable with the toolbox, they can be really good business partners and advisors to sales in negotiation.” - Sebastian Wrobel

Connect with Sebastian Wrobel:

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

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

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

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 30, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/willingness-to-pay-vs-price-sensitivity/

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

Values should drive most business decisions

Yes, it's true. Value should be.

Almost everything that goes on inside your business. I learned this because I'm a pricing guy as a pricing guy. What we think about is, “Hey, I've got this product. What's the value of that to my buyer? To my customer? How much would they be willing to pay me?” 

But once you start thinking that way you realize, “Well, did we actually create a product that had value to our customers? Could we change the product? Could we create products that have even more value?” And then we start thinking.

Well, how well does marketing do at communicating the value?

"Value is that thing that really should be driving everything in our business. " - Mark Stiving

Once I understand what buyers are truly valuing and how much they're willing to pay, do we put those things in our marketing messages? Are we finding the right types of buyers?

And then you start thinking, will the salespeople truly understand the way buyers value the product, and can they help individual customers understand that value even better?

In the end, value is that thing that really should be driving everything in our business. 

I like to think of it as we need to create, communicate and capture more value. And that's really what makes a business successful.

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

Alex Hoffman is an articulate commercial leader with extensive experience in addressing profitability challenges through Commercial Analysis, Pricing / Business Strategy, and Portfolio Management.

In this episode, Alex Hoffman underscores how pricing tools, insights that pricing experts develop, and the key decision-makers play a crucial role in value-based pricing. And most importantly, effectiveness in communicating those important insights has to be taken into consideration.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Find out the six features that are critical to setting pricing that could maximize the capture of value from customers
• Learn how to capture the value that's created through product innovation and understand the critical nature of the message
• Understand the crucial role of marketing in pricing

"Using market research, using your past campaign performance, figure out the economic value you bring to the customer. The first thing you need to do is figure out the value, and more importantly, does the customer perceive that value?" 

- Alex Hoffman

Topics Covered:

01:45 - Alex's weird and circuitous way of getting into pricing

03:05 - What got him interested in pricing that he stayed with it

04:24 - Sharing successes at implementing value-based pricing in Telstra

07:34 - How Telstra uses conjoint in pricing

09:18 - Using conjoint for churn

10:48 - Honing your marketing message for a specific segment

12:56 - Marketing as a critical role in pricing

14:32 - The hard part of focusing on both cost and value when pricing

16:06 - Looking at the subscription model from the ground up

18:02 - The idea of cross-subsidization

19:37 - Interesting concepts around cloud-based gaming that could help boost the margin

20:20 - Talking about the disparity between the sophistication of the pricing tools, pricing teams' insights, and those who make the critical decision

23:00 - The law of agency kicking in

23:39 - The hard part of having the 'burden of proof' displaced

25:21 - How things can work if you have a support network

26:12 - What destroys margin across the entire Telco industry

28:20 - Alex's best pricing advice that can greatly impact one's business

Key Takeaways:

"And as you get involved in pricing, you really understand the critical nature of the message. So, we're about capturing the value that's created through product innovation and the like. But if the messaging and the marketing doesn't adhere to that, you get nowhere." - Alex Hoffman

"You need to ensure that you've got strong input and buy-in into the marketing, as well as the pricing, the pricing strategy, the financial analysis. Marketing is a critical part of the role." - Alex Hoffman

"With 5G coming on board now, cloud-based gaming is dynamically growing, and customers who are game addicts, by the very definition do not necessarily behave in a rational way, at particular points in time when they need their surging speed; they are prepared to pay what I would call almost surge-like pricing. And so, you can develop all sorts of interesting concepts there that could help boost the margin." - Alex Hoffman

Resources mentioned:

• Telstra: https://www.telstra.com.au/

 Connect with Alex Hoffman:

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

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

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