Impact Pricing

Love Sanoria is the Director of Operations at ChargePoint. He is also a Professionally Qualified Senior Finance business partner adept at increasing profitability, having significant all-round corporate experience of 16+ years in Finance & Accounts domain. He is a subject matter expert in creating processes for driving financial forecast & annual budget for the organization in collaboration with multiple teams.

In this episode, Love talks about what IT pricing is all about, though it may be based on what the costs are but it is never about not putting concern over quality first for as to him quality never comes cheap. He points the fact on how a company’s IT landscape determines its subscription need. He also shares how COVID will increase pricing due to expenses and losses incurred by companies at this time of the pandemic.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn how to charge your product based on the level of differentiation, how better your product is from your competition
• Learn what is COVID pricing and how it affects future pricing
• Understand how IT pricing is arrived at

“If you understand the business, then pricing is a derivative of that. So, if you understand what are the cost elements to it, you will be able to do the pricing.”

- Love Sanoria

Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER!

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:00 - What made Love consider Pricing

01:54 - How does Revenue Assurance differ from Pricing

03:38 - Looking at cash and revenue from the accounting standpoint

04:44 - Does it happen that transaction in million dollars not paid

05:08 - What is IT pricing

08:55 - His thoughts on pricing based on customers’ willingness to pay and not about the cost

11:39 - Quality never come cheap

13:54 - How a company’s IT landscape determines subscription needs of companies

15:30 - How people wouldn’t mind spending something just to keep things as it is

17:00 - How has COVID hurt the IT industry and how it affects future pricing

18:20 - How prices are going higher not because of consumer’s willingness to pay but because companies expenses have gone up 

Key Takeaways:

“I would say pricing comes... might be at a second, third level, but quality comes at first but given the transparency of the process in the big companies, it adds a weightage to your overall budget from the customer perspective.” - Love Sanoria

“Think from a vendor perspective, no one wants to lose a deal from high price perspective, given the very competitive scenario.”  - Love Sanoria

“There are different vendors. And if you talk about vendor, they have different cost strategies as well. They have different quality. But if a customer wants to choose the high quality, they have to pay the high price, quality never comes cheap.”  - Love Sanoria

“COVID has hurt, I would say, the IT industry, generally a lot. Obviously, they have their margin pressure, they have cost pressure, it will bounce back, once it bounced back, they will obviously charge back from their customer.” - Love Sanoria

Connect with Love Sanoria:

• LinkedIn

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Andrew Butt is a Co-founder & CEO of a Silicon Valley venture-backed SaaS platform called Enable, which deals with rebate management. He has been a director of several other companies and not-for-profits. He has started and grown multiple businesses into profit and positive cash flow, including exit to PE.

In this episode, Andrew talks about using rebates to incentivize distributors to meet the goals manufacturers have in mind. He shares how manufacturers create different rebate programs with various supply chains to work closely together to provide consumers better service.

[powerpress] 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Find out how Enable can help manufacturers deal with data flow complexities and execute well the rebate programs for the different supply chains involved
• Understand why you should go for rebates rather than discounts in a B2B setup
• Find out how rebates provide a symbiotic relationship among the supply chain in the B2B sector

“Definitely have some kind of rebate incentives in place because I do genuinely believe that they can drive that behavior in a way that a pure price on its own can't do. That, I think even with rebates, keep it simple, make it clear to customers what they need to do and what benefits they can get.”

- Andrew Butt

Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER!

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:12 - How Andrew found his path to a Pricing career

02:06 - What kind of rebate is Andrew talking about

02:34 - How different is a B2B rebate from a consumer-type rebate

03:32 - Talking about rebate’s bad reputation with B2C

04:46 - Addressing rebates’ bad reputation in the B2B sector

05:40 - Why go for rebates than just discounts

07:15 - The need for data sharing between manufacturers and distributors

09:20 - How rebates work outside of the usual supply chains

10:09 - The disadvantage of manufacturers incentivizing end-customers directly

10:59 - What problem does Enable help to solve

13:31 - Automating transactions, especially where a rebate is concerned

14:22 - How Enable helps companies on what they are already doing in terms of rebate execution

15:47 - Helping companies realize the power of rebates

17:34 - How rebates can be very effective

19:02 - What is ‘ship and debit’

19:41 - Industries where he sees rebates successful aside from warehousing or distribution

21:40 - Why is hardware companies more likely to have rebates than software companies

22:37 - The most creative rebates he has seen

23:49 - Big drivers for creative behavior inside a channel

24:56 - Andrew’s best pricing advice that can greatly impact your business

Key Takeaways:

“I think rebates generally are all about driving behavior. And because they are claimed back retrospectively, you have to do something to collect the rebate. That's how it's designed to drive behavior.” - Andrew Butt

“Rebates are the currency of joint business partners that exist between trading partners. So, it's a lot more kind of ongoing than just a B2C type one-off rebate situation.”  - Andrew Butt

“Rebates are not at all a bad thing like we might think about with some of those consumer nightmares. It really is about a genuine and very effective incentive program similar to what you might have with your own sales team.”  - Andrew Butt

“We had many situations where manufacturers were not paying the rebate that was promised, not because they were trying to be malicious, but they just couldn't calculate it and couldn't work it out. You could have situations where distributors abused manufacturers and claimed too much more than what was due. And the whole idea that we've been talking through here, which is so powerful, was just not being executed well. Enable saw the opportunity to automate that with a SaaS software platform, which is exactly what we've done.” - Andrew Butt

“We really believe that in every trading relationship, any of the buying and selling relationships, there should be these intelligent kinds of deals, these incentive deals in place that can be kind of tracked on both sides using the same language, and then each party can be rewarded when they hit the goals.” - Andrew Butt

Connect with Andrew Butt:

• enable.com
• LinkedIn

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Andrew Butt is a Co-founder & CEO of a Silicon Valley venture-backed SaaS platform called Enable, which deals with rebate management. He has been a director of several other companies and not-for-profits. He has started and grown multiple businesses into profit and positive cash flow, including exit to PE.

In this episode, Andrew talks about using rebates to incentivize distributors to meet the goals manufacturers have in mind. He shares how manufacturers create different rebate programs with various supply chains to work closely together to provide consumers better service.

[powerpress] 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Find out how Enable can help manufacturers deal with data flow complexities and execute well the rebate programs for the different supply chains involved
• Understand why you should go for rebates rather than discounts in a B2B setup
• Find out how rebates provide a symbiotic relationship among the supply chain in the B2B sector

“Definitely have some kind of rebate incentives in place because I do genuinely believe that they can drive that behavior in a way that a pure price on its own can't do. That, I think even with rebates, keep it simple, make it clear to customers what they need to do and what benefits they can get.”

- Andrew Butt

Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER!

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:12 - How Andrew found his path to a Pricing career

02:06 - What kind of rebate is Andrew talking about

02:34 - How different is a B2B rebate from a consumer-type rebate

03:32 - Talking about rebate’s bad reputation with B2C

04:46 - Addressing rebates’ bad reputation in the B2B sector

05:40 - Why go for rebates than just discounts

07:15 - The need for data sharing between manufacturers and distributors

09:20 - How rebates work outside of the usual supply chains

10:09 - The disadvantage of manufacturers incentivizing end-customers directly

10:59 - What problem does Enable help to solve

13:31 - Automating transactions, especially where a rebate is concerned

14:22 - How Enable helps companies on what they are already doing in terms of rebate execution

15:47 - Helping companies realize the power of rebates

17:34 - How rebates can be very effective

19:02 - What is ‘ship and debit’

19:41 - Industries where he sees rebates successful aside from warehousing or distribution

21:40 - Why is hardware companies more likely to have rebates than software companies

22:37 - The most creative rebates he has seen

23:49 - Big drivers for creative behavior inside a channel

24:56 - Andrew’s best pricing advice that can greatly impact your business

Key Takeaways:

“I think rebates generally are all about driving behavior. And because they are claimed back retrospectively, you have to do something to collect the rebate. That's how it's designed to drive behavior.” - Andrew Butt

“Rebates are the currency of joint business partners that exist between trading partners. So, it's a lot more kind of ongoing than just a B2C type one-off rebate situation.”  - Andrew Butt

“Rebates are not at all a bad thing like we might think about with some of those consumer nightmares. It really is about a genuine and very effective incentive program similar to what you might have with your own sales team.”  - Andrew Butt

“We had many situations where manufacturers were not paying the rebate that was promised, not because they were trying to be malicious, but they just couldn't calculate it and couldn't work it out. You could have situations where distributors abused manufacturers and claimed too much more than what was due. And the whole idea that we've been talking through here, which is so powerful, was just not being executed well. Enable saw the opportunity to automate that with a SaaS software platform, which is exactly what we've done.” - Andrew Butt

“We really believe that in every trading relationship, any of the buying and selling relationships, there should be these intelligent kinds of deals, these incentive deals in place that can be kind of tracked on both sides using the same language, and then each party can be rewarded when they hit the goals.” - Andrew Butt

Connect with Andrew Butt:

• enable.com
• LinkedIn

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Florian Bauer is an internationally sought-after expert and speaker on the subject of price psychology and behavioral pricing. He is an honorary professor at the Technical University of Munich and author of several books on price research. He also has a doctorate in Psychology at TU Darmstadt, MIT, and Harvard.

In this episode, Florian talks about how discounts can give you short-term gain but cost you long-term. He underscores that there are other means to incentivize customers without diminishing a products’ value perception. And that, cashback is one thing to consider other than discounts. He also talks about buyers’ irrationalities and how to use Behavioral Economics to influence their decision-making and let it work in your favor.

[powerpress] 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn about the psychology of price structure and how it influences consumers’ buying behavior
• Find out what you can, what you should, and what you should not do when giving a discount
• Learn how Behavioral Economics can help you influence buyers’ decision-making and maximize your company’s profit

“If you want to price or sell something, you have to think in two dimensions. You have to think about what people want. That's the traditional value-based approach. And you have to think in the dimension of how they decide.” 

- Florian Bauer

Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER!

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

00:37 - How Florian got started in Pricing

01:34 - What the psychology of price structure is all about

02:31 - What a price structure looks like

03:22 - What’s the psychology behind using cashback than just lowering the price

05:13 - How do discounts differ from cashback

06:51 - The feeling of disconnect with cashback

07:38 - Cashback being an icing on the cake that can potentially make you feel more decided about your choice

09:29 - What’s the disadvantage of discounting

11:09 - What behavioral economics means for pricing

16:04 - Different people behave differently when it comes to decision irrationalities

20:11 - His thoughts on the ethical issue about Behavioral Economics

23:44 - What is Behavioral Economics showing us and why this works in the B2B world

26:08 - How heuristics simplify complex decisions

30:23 - Florian’s best pricing advice that can significantly impact your business

Key Takeaways:

“Never ever give a discount without anything the customer has to give in return.” - Florian Bauer

“That's the issue with discounting. It really works very well short-term. So, you have to gain short term, but you have to cost long-term.” - Florian Bauer

“If I want to sell somebody something, I need to know what he wants, or she wants, and I need to adapt my sales approach and my pricing model, potentially, to how he decides.”  - Florian Bauer

“For me, the purpose of marketing, pricing, and sales is to influence decisions. So, there is no reason to have a marketing campaign or a marketing team if you would not have the idea that I can influence my customers' decision in my favor.” - Florian Bauer

“I think when we talk about value and price acceptance, it's very much a story. And there is not one story better than another one. People hate to make decisions, they want to be made decided and with some stories, they are quicker in deciding than in others.” - Florian Bauer

“Think about that you're not only selling value; you’re also managing decisions. If you keep that in mind when you design your pricing model, you also avoid the traditional clash between pricing and sales because you're also able to tell your salespeople how they can actually execute your pricing strategy to make the customers actually follow the decision or the directions you want them to.” - Florian Bauer

Resources / People Mentioned:

• Daniel Kahneman

Connect with Florian Bauer:

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Florian Bauer is an internationally sought-after expert and speaker on the subject of price psychology and behavioral pricing. He is an honorary professor at the Technical University of Munich and author of several books on price research. He also has a doctorate in Psychology at TU Darmstadt, MIT, and Harvard.

In this episode, Florian talks about how discounts can give you short-term gain but cost you long-term. He underscores that there are other means to incentivize customers without diminishing a products’ value perception. And that, cashback is one thing to consider other than discounts. He also talks about buyers’ irrationalities and how to use Behavioral Economics to influence their decision-making and let it work in your favor.

[powerpress] 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn about the psychology of price structure and how it influences consumers’ buying behavior
• Find out what you can, what you should, and what you should not do when giving a discount
• Learn how Behavioral Economics can help you influence buyers’ decision-making and maximize your company’s profit

“If you want to price or sell something, you have to think in two dimensions. You have to think about what people want. That's the traditional value-based approach. And you have to think in the dimension of how they decide.” 

- Florian Bauer

Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER!

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

00:37 - How Florian got started in Pricing

01:34 - What the psychology of price structure is all about

02:31 - What a price structure looks like

03:22 - What’s the psychology behind using cashback than just lowering the price

05:13 - How do discounts differ from cashback

06:51 - The feeling of disconnect with cashback

07:38 - Cashback being an icing on the cake that can potentially make you feel more decided about your choice

09:29 - What’s the disadvantage of discounting

11:09 - What behavioral economics means for pricing

16:04 - Different people behave differently when it comes to decision irrationalities

20:11 - His thoughts on the ethical issue about Behavioral Economics

23:44 - What is Behavioral Economics showing us and why this works in the B2B world

26:08 - How heuristics simplify complex decisions

30:23 - Florian’s best pricing advice that can significantly impact your business

Key Takeaways:

“Never ever give a discount without anything the customer has to give in return.” - Florian Bauer

“That's the issue with discounting. It really works very well short-term. So, you have to gain short term, but you have to cost long-term.” - Florian Bauer

“If I want to sell somebody something, I need to know what he wants, or she wants, and I need to adapt my sales approach and my pricing model, potentially, to how he decides.”  - Florian Bauer

“For me, the purpose of marketing, pricing, and sales is to influence decisions. So, there is no reason to have a marketing campaign or a marketing team if you would not have the idea that I can influence my customers' decision in my favor.” - Florian Bauer

“I think when we talk about value and price acceptance, it's very much a story. And there is not one story better than another one. People hate to make decisions, they want to be made decided and with some stories, they are quicker in deciding than in others.” - Florian Bauer

“Think about that you're not only selling value; you’re also managing decisions. If you keep that in mind when you design your pricing model, you also avoid the traditional clash between pricing and sales because you're also able to tell your salespeople how they can actually execute your pricing strategy to make the customers actually follow the decision or the directions you want them to.” - Florian Bauer

Resources / People Mentioned:

• Daniel Kahneman

Connect with Florian Bauer:

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Alessandro Monti is a pricing enthusiast and expert on all topics related to monetization, conversion, upselling, and digital pricing history. He’s an experienced consultant, advisor, mentor, and speaker in all fields related to price management, sales excellence, marketing, and corporate strategies.

He's also a dedicated professor and lecturer for Marketing, Pricing, Sales and Digital Transformation at the CBS International Business School in Cologne.

In this episode, Alessandro talks about the importance of learning the pricing basics, the fundamental pricing relationships that must be considered before pricing a product, and how a customer perceives a price ‘fair’.

[powerpress] 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn why history is important in pricing, and the other fundamental factors to consider in coming up with a price
• Find out what the ‘Blackbox of pricing’ is all about and why not all people know about it
• Learn the importance of why as a pricing professional you need to live, breathe, and ace the basics first before you come up with pricing shortcuts and beta tests

“Learn the fundamentals. Understand the basic mechanisms. In the long run, this will yield you far better results than just the ‘easy and quick’ approach to pricing.”

- Alessandro Monti

Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER!

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:06 - Alessandro’s first touchpoint into pricing, what made him stick to pricing - Price as the central hinges of the economy

03:05 - How did his Ph.D. in Business History help him in working at Simon Kucher & Partners?

05:29 - Alessandro and his coaching and consulting business, the kind of clients and businesses he typically coaches

06:52 - Why pricing is so easy in theory but not in real life? The complexities, the abstract, and the real deal

09:20 - Connecting the dots, the quantum parts of the decision making: future decisions that customers take

12:07 - ‘Unlocking the Blackbox of Pricing’: How to answer the ‘what should be the price’ question

16:17 - What is a fair price? How do you decide what fair means? The Fair Transaction the concept of fairness

20:04 - The Fairness Index - telling a reason for your price increase than telling nothing without spooking your customers

21:08 - The 10x approach of pricing Softwares as explained by Alessandro

23:09 - The hardware pricing /The digital ecosystem of hardware in the subscription businesses

24:09 - Alessandro’s pricing advice: “Try to understand the fundamentals. Don't try to hack yourself somehow through the price or go for some shortcuts. Understand the basic mechanisms and this will yield you far better results.”

25:10 - The fundamentals of pricing and the factors affecting it

Key Takeaways:

“Price is the central hinge of the economy.” - Alessandro Monti

“[on coming up with price] ...the discipline is so complex; it seems to be easy. But the complexity every time I start the lecture on elasticities, in the end, it's difficult because it's so abstract. Then you’ll realize, ‘Hey, this is real life. There is some reaction to price changes and in demand.” - Alessandro Monti

“The concept of fairness is so individual. At the end of the day, I'm a big fan of, ‘Hey, if I'm able to charge at the level of individual’s willingness to pay, and I deliver value, and the customer is willing to pay for that.” - Alessandro Monti

Connect with Alessandro Monti:

• LinkedIn

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Alessandro Monti is a pricing enthusiast and expert on all topics related to monetization, conversion, upselling, and digital pricing history. He’s an experienced consultant, advisor, mentor, and speaker in all fields related to price management, sales excellence, marketing, and corporate strategies.

He's also a dedicated professor and lecturer for Marketing, Pricing, Sales and Digital Transformation at the CBS International Business School in Cologne.

In this episode, Alessandro talks about the importance of learning the pricing basics, the fundamental pricing relationships that must be considered before pricing a product, and how a customer perceives a price ‘fair’.

[powerpress] 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn why history is important in pricing, and the other fundamental factors to consider in coming up with a price
• Find out what the ‘Blackbox of pricing’ is all about and why not all people know about it
• Learn the importance of why as a pricing professional you need to live, breathe, and ace the basics first before you come up with pricing shortcuts and beta tests

“Learn the fundamentals. Understand the basic mechanisms. In the long run, this will yield you far better results than just the ‘easy and quick’ approach to pricing.”

- Alessandro Monti

Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER!

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:06 - Alessandro’s first touchpoint into pricing, what made him stick to pricing - Price as the central hinges of the economy

03:05 - How did his Ph.D. in Business History help him in working at Simon Kucher & Partners?

05:29 - Alessandro and his coaching and consulting business, the kind of clients and businesses he typically coaches

06:52 - Why pricing is so easy in theory but not in real life? The complexities, the abstract, and the real deal

09:20 - Connecting the dots, the quantum parts of the decision making: future decisions that customers take

12:07 - ‘Unlocking the Blackbox of Pricing’: How to answer the ‘what should be the price’ question

16:17 - What is a fair price? How do you decide what fair means? The Fair Transaction the concept of fairness

20:04 - The Fairness Index - telling a reason for your price increase than telling nothing without spooking your customers

21:08 - The 10x approach of pricing Softwares as explained by Alessandro

23:09 - The hardware pricing /The digital ecosystem of hardware in the subscription businesses

24:09 - Alessandro’s pricing advice: “Try to understand the fundamentals. Don't try to hack yourself somehow through the price or go for some shortcuts. Understand the basic mechanisms and this will yield you far better results.”

25:10 - The fundamentals of pricing and the factors affecting it

Key Takeaways:

“Price is the central hinge of the economy.” - Alessandro Monti

“[on coming up with price] ...the discipline is so complex; it seems to be easy. But the complexity every time I start the lecture on elasticities, in the end, it's difficult because it's so abstract. Then you’ll realize, ‘Hey, this is real life. There is some reaction to price changes and in demand.” - Alessandro Monti

“The concept of fairness is so individual. At the end of the day, I'm a big fan of, ‘Hey, if I'm able to charge at the level of individual’s willingness to pay, and I deliver value, and the customer is willing to pay for that.” - Alessandro Monti

Connect with Alessandro Monti:

• LinkedIn

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Ben Blaney has had broad pricing stints with companies like GE, Pros, Colfax, and Updegraff Group Realty. To date, he is with Vendavo taking the role of Vice President for Pre-Sales.

In this episode, Ben talks about how misunderstood, underserved, and undervalued channel selling or channel management is. He shares that unless you have a clear understanding of your value chain, only then you can price your channel partners. As this pandemic shaped how we need to look at the future, so has e-commerce posed an important issue on how we should think about whether it be considered a channel in itself.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn to understand the value a channel brings to you to help you price your channel partners
• Find out the force multiplier effect of your channel partners in your product distribution
• Learn how to make the value chain better for you, your distributor, and ultimately your end-customer

"On a whiteboard, on a piece of paper, draw all of your channels to market. How many steps are there on this value chain? How many possible different ways are there? Because until you know that, you can't possibly say how things should be priced into these different channel partners."

- Ben Blaney

Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER!

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:11 - A funny story on how he started his pricing career

01:42 - Any transaction has already been priced

02:22 - What makes him love pricing

03:22 - Defining price

04:22 - What makes channel selling, channel management, and channel pricing underserved, misunderstood, and kind of undervalued

07:10 - What is a channel, and what are examples of it

09:51 - Seeing the important value distributors provide to manufacturers

11:26 - The force multiplier in the network of distributors

13:52 - Of commodity selling and delivered pricing

15:13 - Sell on Amazon or get distributors

18:42 - What the future of e-commerce would likely be

20:18 - What a distributor provides that an e-commerce platform could not

21:57 - The difference between distributor and brokerage

24:47 - What is going to distinguish the winners in channels from the losers

25:21 - Creating a unified price in the marketplace

27:36 - The essence of shifting from cost-plus pricing to value-based pricing

29:43 - The need for data cleansing

31:19 - Ben's best pricing advice that could impact your business

Key Takeaways:

"I kind of feel like the word price always needs a word before or after it because otherwise you can quickly become confused about what we're talking about." - Ben Blaney

"To understand the value a channel brings to you, say, manufacturer, that's the only thing that tells you how you should price to and through the channel." - Ben Blaney

"In commodity selling, you talk about a delivered price, meaning you are accommodating for the cost of transportation to the customer organization. These are important things; these are valuable to the end customer. And so, they're worth, the manufacturer, taking that margin out of their own pocket and put it in distributor because it's better for the value chain. You express better value for your customer." - Ben Blaney

"The moment that the distributor fails to understand that the distributor has this function to provide over and above what can be provided by the manufacturer, that's the moment of which they are obsoleting themselves as a step in the value chain." - Ben Blaney

"It's the focus, that relentless, obsessive focus on what the end-customer needs and wants, is going to distinguish the winners in channels from the losers." - Ben Blaney

Connect with Ben Blaney:

• LinkedIn

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Ben Blaney has had broad pricing stints with companies like GE, Pros, Colfax, and Updegraff Group Realty. To date, he is with Vendavo taking the role of Vice President for Pre-Sales.

In this episode, Ben talks about how misunderstood, underserved, and undervalued channel selling or channel management is. He shares that unless you have a clear understanding of your value chain, only then you can price your channel partners. As this pandemic shaped how we need to look at the future, so has e-commerce posed an important issue on how we should think about whether it be considered a channel in itself.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn to understand the value a channel brings to you to help you price your channel partners
• Find out the force multiplier effect of your channel partners in your product distribution
• Learn how to make the value chain better for you, your distributor, and ultimately your end-customer

"On a whiteboard, on a piece of paper, draw all of your channels to market. How many steps are there on this value chain? How many possible different ways are there? Because until you know that, you can't possibly say how things should be priced into these different channel partners."

- Ben Blaney

Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER!

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:11 - A funny story on how he started his pricing career

01:42 - Any transaction has already been priced

02:22 - What makes him love pricing

03:22 - Defining price

04:22 - What makes channel selling, channel management, and channel pricing underserved, misunderstood, and kind of undervalued

07:10 - What is a channel, and what are examples of it

09:51 - Seeing the important value distributors provide to manufacturers

11:26 - The force multiplier in the network of distributors

13:52 - Of commodity selling and delivered pricing

15:13 - Sell on Amazon or get distributors

18:42 - What the future of e-commerce would likely be

20:18 - What a distributor provides that an e-commerce platform could not

21:57 - The difference between distributor and brokerage

24:47 - What is going to distinguish the winners in channels from the losers

25:21 - Creating a unified price in the marketplace

27:36 - The essence of shifting from cost-plus pricing to value-based pricing

29:43 - The need for data cleansing

31:19 - Ben's best pricing advice that could impact your business

Key Takeaways:

"I kind of feel like the word price always needs a word before or after it because otherwise you can quickly become confused about what we're talking about." - Ben Blaney

"To understand the value a channel brings to you, say, manufacturer, that's the only thing that tells you how you should price to and through the channel." - Ben Blaney

"In commodity selling, you talk about a delivered price, meaning you are accommodating for the cost of transportation to the customer organization. These are important things; these are valuable to the end customer. And so, they're worth, the manufacturer, taking that margin out of their own pocket and put it in distributor because it's better for the value chain. You express better value for your customer." - Ben Blaney

"The moment that the distributor fails to understand that the distributor has this function to provide over and above what can be provided by the manufacturer, that's the moment of which they are obsoleting themselves as a step in the value chain." - Ben Blaney

"It's the focus, that relentless, obsessive focus on what the end-customer needs and wants, is going to distinguish the winners in channels from the losers." - Ben Blaney

Connect with Ben Blaney:

• LinkedIn

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Rebecca Kalogeris is the Vice President of Marketing & Product Strategy at Pragmatic Institute. She has a contagious passion for telling brand stories and driving revenue. A true sales partner with the ability to quickly and effectively delve into markets and products, develop brand messaging, and build programs and teams that deliver results.  

She has a proven track record of delivering rapid revenue growth - One of Kapost's "Top 50 Product Marketers to Follow" - Passionate builder of teams, processes and infrastructure to meet organizational goals. She is also host of a popular weekly product management and marketing podcast. 

In this episode, Rebecca talks about the new Product Design course Pragmatic offers in partnership with the founding instructors of Cooper Education. She relates the importance of sales teams having the belief in the price so that they can be confident to go out there and win your price. She also highlights on who should own Pricing in the company as it relates to who creates value for people's willingness to buy. 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Find out how and when to decide the price 
• Learn about how deeply tied product management is to Pricing and see the depth of the connection and how powerful it can be 
• Find out what you can do to affect customers' willingness to pay 

"I would invest in more time…in explaining your price to sales." 

- Rebecca Kalogeris 

Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER!

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Topics Covered:

01:28 - How Rebecca got into Pricing accidentally 

02:45 - Why she didn't get things right in the early part of her pricing career 

05:11 - Pragmatic DNA - What's the problem 

06:19 - Who should own Pricing 

06:46 - Which particular department should Pricing reside in the company 

08:03 - Why Product Management and Product Marketing should own Pricing 

09:52 - Is Product Marketing a better place to put Pricing 

10:55 - Her thoughts on product marketers being smarter than product managers 

11:43 - Why does Pragmatic not incorporating good, better, best Pricing 

16:16 - What Pragmatic is spending time on for a wider tool belt of items to create good, better, best Pricing 

17:18 - Founding instructors from Cooper education partnering with Pragmatic for a Product Design Course 

22:42 - Why product designers need to have a good understanding of the business in both the market and financial context 

23:25 - When to decide what the price would be 

24:32 - What to consider before building a solution 

25:21 - What can any member of the company do to affect someone's willingness to pay 

26:41 - Everyone in the company should create value and not destroy it 

Key Takeaways:

"Once you start to talk to the rest of the organization about why that is how you price, it's a big learning curve for all those departments you interact with, but it makes you think about everything differently. At the end of the day, that's where the money comes in. And to be able to tie those things together, I think, excites everybody and also kind of coordinates everybody around the same north star." - Rebecca Kalogeris  

"Product Management, Product Marketing, certainly we've seen Pricing and pricing strategists that come in more and more where it's an in-piece. I would not put that Pricing in Sales. And I would not put that Pricing in Finance. I think Finance is too far removed from the market, that's not their role. And Sales is too tied to individual customers versus the market to see some of those bigger trends." - Rebecca Kalogeris  

"I think designers get a much better understanding of the market. But the other thing that designers need is a really good understanding of the business because sometimes they're isolated from that in a way that product isn't." - Rebecca Kalogeris  

"I would say that you should decide what the price is going to be before you decide if you're actually going to build it." - Rebecca Kalogeris 

"What can you do as any member of that company to affect someone's willingness to pay and I think I was just reading a big study about customer loyalty and satisfaction, and sort of how important that literally, the experience they have in the purchase process to the experience they have what they call customer service, all really affect someone's willingness to pay." - Rebecca Kalogeris 

Resources / People Mentioned: 

• The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High-Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity by Alan Cooper 

Connect with Rebecca Kalogeris:

• LinkedIn 
• pragmaticinstitute.com 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn