Impact Pricing

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 16, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/perceived-versus-real-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

Using price to solve product-market fit is like changing gravity to lose weight. 

Product Market Fit is one of those things that we hear often, especially as we're going to launch a brand new product. 

We want to make sure that we understand what the market really needs, what problems we plan to solve. 

And have we built a product that truly solves those that resonates with the marketplace.

“Using price to solve product-market fit is like changing gravity to lose weight. “- Mark Stiving

And this is something that we have to try to figure out as a business. And yet, sometimes companies say, ‘Well if I just lower the price, I'll be able to sell more.’ And that's absolutely a true statement. Probably you'll sell more if you lower the price. But that doesn't say that you've achieved product-market fit. I compare this a lot to losing weight.

 I know that I need to eat less, I know that I need to exercise more. But you know, if only I could change how strong gravity was I'd weigh a lot less. And it would take me much less work. 

When we're after the product-market fit. Don't be thinking so hard about the price. Yes, the price is important. Yes, we're going to use the value we're delivering to our buyers in order to set that price. 

But for right now, in the beginning, focus all of your efforts on what are the problems we're solving? What does the market really need? And have we built a product to go solve those. 

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

Robert Ribciuc is a Managing Partner at EBITDA Catalyst and a Pricing expert for Consumer & Software brands, driving 2-5+% profit & valuation gains in less than 12 months.

In this episode, Robert shares how as pricing experts, we need to capture as much of the value and use value-based pricing to its full advantage while understanding a client's business goal regarding social concern in taking care of its vulnerable market segment. 

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Learn how to make your pricing function and capabilities tuned in for price increase even at a time of inflation
• Find out about a white paper on how you can turn inflation into a competitive advantage
• Learn how to make your role as pricing experts be economically and morally satisfying

"Don't accept inaction for too long as your standard course of action."

- Robert Ribciuc

Topics Covered:

02:01 - How Robert's journey began in pricing

05:27 - Talking about what EBITDA Catalyst do: customer insights and designing offers

07:03 - The broader definition of customer insights

08:49 - What he has to say about the price increase and inflation

11:40 - When do cost start to matter when pricing

17:53 - The deal-envy factor that happens

19:02 - What you earn for superior procurement function and competitive advantage

20:33 - A question on when should we start putting a second lens on value-based pricing

23:13 - Showing what mission-driven pricing is about

27:42 - What it means to enlarge the definition of one's role as pricer

29:49 - Robert's best pricing advice that could significantly impact one's business

Key Takeaways:

"Seeing the human impact of doing pricing better, I'm not going to say right, but doing pricing better can impact the teams and the lives of the people who produce the value in the first place." - Robert Ribciuc

"I think when we look at inflation; if you do nothing and you think just the cost impact, of course, bad things are going to happen to your margins when costs are up and everything else stays the same." - Robert Ribciuc

"Being able to articulate, especially in B2B conversations, hey, part of why the price is higher is like, look, it's fair, our costs are higher. That does play a role in the sales interactions that moves the needle towards achieving that price increase a little easier." - Robert Ribciuc

"The conversation we just had reflects this role we have as pricers to help our clients or our employers capture as much of the value as possible. And I think there's also a part of what we should be doing, which is to think about the sort of social role and ultimate role of pricing as a vector in social movements." - Robert Ribciuc

"We should enlarge the definition of our role as pricers because our first role is to understand our client." - Robert Ribciuc

"If the client or the employer, part of their mission is not to capture as much as they could from the value pie that's being created, but to consistently leave more on the table than they could, I think that makes our work both economically satisfying and morally satisfying when we can be part of that." - Robert Ribciuc

Resources Mentioned:

• Inflation & White Paper Increase - EBITDA Catalyst: https://www.ebitdacatalyst.com/inflation-price-increases-whitepaper/
• Chick-fil-A: https://www.chick-fil-a.com/

Connect with Robert Ribciuc:

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

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

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

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 16, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/4-steps-to-being-a-great-director-of-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

Win, keep, and grow are three different revenue buckets that any subscription company has to manage. 

You have to put resources into winning customers, you have to put resources into keeping customers, you have to put resources into growing customers. 

“Win, keep, and grow, each needs its own focus.” - Mark Stiving

What's fascinating is that most of the time when you invest when you do marketing tactics, you're impacting one of those three. And even if it goes across more than one, you're probably doing it for a specific reason. 

My recommendation, go through all of the tasks that you have, and identify which of these three revenue buckets are you focused on, you focused on winning or keeping or growing customers. 

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

Saima Khan has 10+ years of experience creating pricing strategy and portfolios, revenue management, and business planning. She has 7+ years of experience in international markets as a leader and teammate. She is quick to adapt to change and able to work with different teams in difficult environments.

In this episode, Saima shares how you shouldn't price low your products or services at the start as it is hard to increase prices later on, and it might be lower than the market's perception. And she suggests pilot models you can use other than underpricing.

Why you have to check out today's podcast:

• Find out what these two essential factors to pitch when you work for startup companies as a pricing consultant
• Learn about the tools used to test the pricing effectiveness of products in a startup company
• Find out how to do pricing for newly launched products for a startup company

"Always start your business with your customer. Where do they see the value? Focus on that when it comes to products, services, and pricing, and then look internally and see how you can be more relevant to your customers, how you can provide them the best value and be agile about it."

- Saima Khan

Topics Covered:

01:45 - What got Saima into Pricing

02:30 - Why she stayed in Pricing

03:10 - The many skills involved in Pricing

03:52 - What's the difference working for a big company versus consulting

05:16 - What companies in terms of size does she work with

05:52 - Why are there few Pricing consultants focusing on startups, and what is her way of working with startups

06:54 - What it looks like pricing for a startup

09:42 - Pitching both business model and pricing strategy to companies

12:36 - How she helps startup companies with smart pricing decisions based on value

14:08 - The biggest challenge startups face in terms of pricing

16:17 - Why you shouldn't go for a low price when launching new products

19:22 - What creates lack of trust in the market

20:02 - Using tools to help clients understand their product's value

22:49 - Her pricing advice that can significantly impact one's business

Key Takeaways:

"I think the most interesting part of startup pricing for me is, and I say this again, and again, is the link to the business model. Because for a startup, it's very important to see how the startup is going to charge money, for what, and from who. And it applies to mostly all of the startups but a lot more to software products." - Saima Khan

"When I work with startups, I don't start with pricing, I start with the business model, and identifying which customer group is actually deriving the most benefit from your existing product and services, and how you can work or adjust your products and services portfolio to create more value, or that group of customers who you can monetize the most." - Saima Khan

"You cannot monetize a product which has not been tried in the market. But the best way to do it is through a freemium model or a pilot model instead of underpricing. Because taking the price up is very hard because you establish the value of that product already." - Saima Khan

"I guess we need to educate startups a little bit more on the element of pricing the value they bring because it's natural that whenever you bring something very new to the market, you're a little bit under-confident. And it's natural to underprice your products and services." - Saima Khan

People/Resources mentioned:

• Bumble app: https://bumble.com/

Connect with Saima Khan:

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

Connect with Mark Stiving: 

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

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on May 26, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/the-buyers-journey-when-to-reveal-the-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

When you first launch a subscription product, you have to focus on winning customers right away, of course. And you'll really quickly realize that keeping customers becomes just as important as winning customers. All companies, all subscription companies have to focus on winning and keeping customers. 

There's also growing customers, growing customers becomes really important as you mature as a company. In the beginning, it's all about winning customers, keeping customers building up that recurring revenue base.

“When and keep early and often grow only later.” - Mark Stiving

Once you've built a decent installed base, though, now the question becomes, how do we get those customers to pay us more money? 

If you just think about when you're going to spend time and energy focusing on different activities early on, only focus on when and keep completely ignore the grow piece. 

But once you built that installed base, it's time to start shifting to grow the problem most companies have, they never do that. So don't be like most companies. Instead, start thinking about how do you grow the amount of revenue you get from your installed base. 

If you learn to do that, your company will grow much faster. 

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

John Peacock is a Senior Vice President at ASRC Federal.

In this episode, John shares how building up great relationships ultimately paves the way to your success rate in a government setting as in any other. It’s also a matter of triangulating these three essentials of pricing, price to win, and competitive intelligence, and all other data points to reach your pricing point.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn how to do competitive intelligence and price to win  
• Find out how to show value in a government setting and have a good win rate 
• Learn how to shape opportunity so that government RFPs comes out more in your favor 

“You’ve got to have really good relationships across all the different functional and organizational teams within your company. At the end of the day, my ability to get to the right price and help the company get to the right price is all driven off of the teams of people that you work with to get there.” 

 – John Peacock 

Topics Covered:

01:16 – How one thing led to another and finally into pricing 

02:23 – What got him to stick with pricing all these years 

04:06 – Working through the pricing ranks 

04:57 – What is ASRC, what does it do, is it government-focused primarily 

07:09 – Pricing for value in a government setting 

09:01 – A multi-step process in government bidding 

10:38 – Talking about sole source contract award 

12:03 – What’s a good win rate 

16:58 – Taking a look at win rates early and late in the process 

19:06 – Increasing win rate at the time the RFP comes out 

21:46 – Factoring in competitive intelligence in the price to win 

23:56 – The key to do competitive intelligence and price to win 

28:21 – Margin requirements for bidding 

30:31 – John’s best pricing advice to help create a great impact on one’s business 

Key Takeaways: 

“A big piece of government pricing is compliance; it’s responding specifically to what they ask for.” – John Peacock 

“It’s much harder to win something where you’re not ahead of the curve in government pricing. It’s not as if there’s a commercial price list that you just go grab a number off of; we’re not buying a Dell laptop that you can just get anyone can go and get the same price for.  It’s much more specific than that. And so, you’ve got to be ahead of the curve if you want to have a good win rate.” – John Peacock 

“Just like everything in life, everything comes down to relationships, and whether it’s your BD people, your program people, the people that are truly successful are the ones that make good relationships; they bridge that gap. And that allows you to have those conversations, and explain why there’s value add. If you have the greatest product in the world, but no one will talk to you. It’s not going to ever go anywhere.” – John Peacock 

“The level of information and expertise comes into play. Putting the numbers together, honestly, isn’t the hard part. It’s pulling all the pieces together, so you know what the numbers should be?” – John Peacock 

“The key to how we do competitive intelligence and price to win is, I see federal really falls within the expertise of the team that does this, and how they’re able to present the data.” – John Peacock 

“I always tell my team, how you present information, how it looks even, is critically important. You might have the best answer in the world. And if you do it in cram, on a PC, your kids drawing paper, you’re not going to win the award; it’s got to look good, smell good, taste good. It’s got to be 100%.” – John Peacock 

People/Resources Mentioned: 

• Tech Systems: https://www.techsystemsinc.com/
• Dell: http://www1.ap.dell.com

Connect with John Peacock:

• Email: [email protected] 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-d-peacock

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

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

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on May 19, 2021, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go.

Read Full Article Here:  https://impactpricing.com/blog/how-to-become-a-pricing-expert/

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