Impact Pricing

Craig Zawada is the Co-Author of The Price Advantage, one of the seminal books in pricing, and he is the Chief Visionary Officer at Pros. He was at McKinsey for 13 years, ended up leading their North American pricing practice. 

In this episode, Craig explains volatility and how it is present in businesses. He also shares how having the right or market-relevant price for your business is important and can have a huge impact on your business and in sales.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn how to know if your price is a market-relevant price 
• Know more about how businesses are slowly moving towards digital, self-serving pricing instead of negotiation 
• Find out how customer experience can affect your pricing

“View pricing as less of a management control issue and more of a customer experience issue.” 

- Craig Zawada

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:50 - Craig explains what is volatility and where does it come from 

04:26 - How companies are leaning towards prices being delivered digitally instead of negotiated 

08:01 - Craig shares the challenges of moving towards a no-touch, digital self-serving pricing 

10:44 - Craig defines no-touch and low-touch 

12:01 - When does it make sense to put prices no-touch or low-touch? 

14:22 - Craig explains the history of pricing and the changes in the buyers 

17:30 - As a buyer, when do you negotiate or trust the price on the web? 

20:02 - Your perception as a buyer in the market 

22:06 - The trend across B2B companies moving towards the self-serve model 

23:19 - Craig explains the movement in distribution and negotiation of prices 

25:21 - How to find a market-relevant price? 

28:11 - His pricing advice that would have a big impact on your business 

29:21 - Pros’ Annual Outperform Conference that could help you

Key Takeaways:

“If you put a market-relevant price out there, that's easy to get, immediately available, they'll actually pay a little bit of premium for that, versus going through this long-negotiated process, because that takes time and money.” - Craig Zawada 

“You have to be collecting these signals, and then be able to interpret and build those into your actual prices in a much quicker way than, in this environment in the past that has been more static and you can take time.” - Craig Zawada 

“15 to 20% maximum should be a protracted negotiation process, where these are big deals multi-year, you know, it's meaningful to the supplier and super meaningful to the buyer, on that transaction.” - Craig Zawada 

“You have to have the ability to put that market-based price to make that decision quickly because if someone else is out there, and they can give that and it's, you know fair, seems fair, the evidence shows that they're increasingly going to move towards those channels.” - Craig Zawada 

“The future is moving towards where most businesses for most of their transactions are going to have the ability to go through the self-serve.” - Craig Zawada 

“A lot of companies are going through digital transformations, but they're not focusing on the pricing issue and relying too much on this, you know, "high list" price umbrella that's out there. So, think of your role from a customer experience standpoint, your role of how you deliver price, and that, I think is my one piece of advice going forward.” - Craig Zawada

Connect with Craig Zawada:

• Email: mailto:[email protected] 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Robbie Kellman Baxter is a Strategy consultant helping companies develop and optimize membership models and subscription pricing. Deep expertise in subscription-based and SaaS businesses and the Membership Economy. 

Her specialties include Growth strategy, market assessment, market segmentation, the establishment of metrics, product and business planning, consumer services, premium services strategy, online services, recurring revenue, customer acquisition, customer loyalty, product marketing, social networking for the enterprise.  

In this episode, Robbie talks about the need to focus on the long-term value you are creating to have a bigger share in the pricing pie. With everyone she meets talking about their ‘cancel stories,’ she shares how hiding cancel buttons can negatively impact one's branding in the long run. She highlights how one can use subscriptions strategically to build a deeper relationship with customers.

[powerpress] 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Find out the key factor when considering a subscription pricing model 
• Find out how to optimize tiered pricing options with subscription 
• Learn how to make your subscription model so compelling that customers stay forever 

“Subscription is just a pricing tactic. And it can be used in many ways.” 

- Robbie Kellman Baxter 

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

00:40 - How she got into subscription 

01:39 - Her experience working with Netflix 

02:18 - Why does she love subscription so much 

03:38 - What there has to be trust and relationship in a subscription model 

05:33 - What does she think about ‘Keep it Simple.’ 

08:45 - Tiers come later 

11:06 - What it means to create a lot of value and to get a reasonable share of that value 

13:41 - How do you learn from your customers where to go next and what additional tiers to add? 

16:01 - Thoughts on a minimum viable product 

16:41 - The impact of hiding cancel buttons 

19:28 - Why is it so wrong to be making cancellations difficult 

21:26 - How subscriptions can be used in many ways 

24:54 - Amazon Prime as an example of a subscription pricing tactic 

27:14 - Creating more value 

Key Takeaways:

“Subscriptions really tie into human behavior. One of the things I always advise organizations that come to me saying we want to have subscription pricing, is, take a step back and make sure that you have a relationship with your customer that justifies subscription pricing.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“It's only after establishing that trusted long-term relationship that you can justify the subscription pricing.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“For me, if I'm going to buy a continuous stream of benefits, I need to trust that that stream of benefits is going to continue because I am turning off my consumer brain when I sign up for a subscription.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“What I've noticed is, the more complex the pricing, the more difficult the decision for the buyer. And so, you're always balancing that trade-off. And if you want to go back to that, that concept of turning off your consumer brain and trusting the company, it's really hard to turn off your consumer brain when the consumption is so complex.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“I wish companies would focus more on how to create more value because then it's easier to raise your prices if you're creating more value.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“With subscriptions, and I think with pricing, in general, people often know just enough to be dangerous.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“Hiding the cancel button leaves such a bad taste in someone's mouth that they're never going to come back to you.”  - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“I find that a really tough point of view to hold if you're going to be a trusted source and you're going to take advantage of the trust that you're getting to raise your prices and hope that the customer doesn't notice.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“Every once in a while, take a step back and focus on the long-term value that you're creating them and say, 'How can I layer in more value to justify a bigger share of the pricing pie?'” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

Resources / People Mentioned: 

• The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave by Robbie Kellman Baxter 
• Wall Street Journal 
• Burger King 
• Caterpillar 
• Bain & Company 
• Porsche 
• Amazon Prime 

Connect with Robbie Kellman Baxter:

• RobbieKellmanBaxter.com 
• LinkedIn 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Robbie Kellman Baxter is a Strategy consultant helping companies develop and optimize membership models and subscription pricing. Deep expertise in subscription-based and SaaS businesses and the Membership Economy. 

Her specialties include Growth strategy, market assessment, market segmentation, the establishment of metrics, product and business planning, consumer services, premium services strategy, online services, recurring revenue, customer acquisition, customer loyalty, product marketing, social networking for the enterprise.  

In this episode, Robbie talks about the need to focus on the long-term value you are creating to have a bigger share in the pricing pie. With everyone she meets talking about their ‘cancel stories,’ she shares how hiding cancel buttons can negatively impact one's branding in the long run. She highlights how one can use subscriptions strategically to build a deeper relationship with customers.

[powerpress] 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Find out the key factor when considering a subscription pricing model 
• Find out how to optimize tiered pricing options with subscription 
• Learn how to make your subscription model so compelling that customers stay forever 

“Subscription is just a pricing tactic. And it can be used in many ways.” 

- Robbie Kellman Baxter 

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

00:40 - How she got into subscription 

01:39 - Her experience working with Netflix 

02:18 - Why does she love subscription so much 

03:38 - What there has to be trust and relationship in a subscription model 

05:33 - What does she think about ‘Keep it Simple.’ 

08:45 - Tiers come later 

11:06 - What it means to create a lot of value and to get a reasonable share of that value 

13:41 - How do you learn from your customers where to go next and what additional tiers to add? 

16:01 - Thoughts on a minimum viable product 

16:41 - The impact of hiding cancel buttons 

19:28 - Why is it so wrong to be making cancellations difficult 

21:26 - How subscriptions can be used in many ways 

24:54 - Amazon Prime as an example of a subscription pricing tactic 

27:14 - Creating more value 

Key Takeaways:

“Subscriptions really tie into human behavior. One of the things I always advise organizations that come to me saying we want to have subscription pricing, is, take a step back and make sure that you have a relationship with your customer that justifies subscription pricing.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“It's only after establishing that trusted long-term relationship that you can justify the subscription pricing.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“For me, if I'm going to buy a continuous stream of benefits, I need to trust that that stream of benefits is going to continue because I am turning off my consumer brain when I sign up for a subscription.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“What I've noticed is, the more complex the pricing, the more difficult the decision for the buyer. And so, you're always balancing that trade-off. And if you want to go back to that, that concept of turning off your consumer brain and trusting the company, it's really hard to turn off your consumer brain when the consumption is so complex.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“I wish companies would focus more on how to create more value because then it's easier to raise your prices if you're creating more value.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“With subscriptions, and I think with pricing, in general, people often know just enough to be dangerous.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“Hiding the cancel button leaves such a bad taste in someone's mouth that they're never going to come back to you.”  - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“I find that a really tough point of view to hold if you're going to be a trusted source and you're going to take advantage of the trust that you're getting to raise your prices and hope that the customer doesn't notice.” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

“Every once in a while, take a step back and focus on the long-term value that you're creating them and say, 'How can I layer in more value to justify a bigger share of the pricing pie?'” - Robbie Kellman Baxter 

Resources / People Mentioned: 

• The Forever Transaction: How to Build a Subscription Model So Compelling, Your Customers Will Never Want to Leave by Robbie Kellman Baxter 
• Wall Street Journal 
• Burger King 
• Caterpillar 
• Bain & Company 
• Porsche 
• Amazon Prime 

Connect with Robbie Kellman Baxter:

• RobbieKellmanBaxter.com 
• LinkedIn 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Brian Doyle is the President at Holden Advisors.  In his role, Brian improves his client’s revenue and profitability by building cross-functional, strategic relationships. He then leads his team to deliver results and drive positive change across client organizations. Under Brian’s leadership, his clients and business units have earned $2B, doubled their market share, and reduced commercial expenses by 20%. 

In this episode, Brian shares about understanding and being able to articulate your value.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn how to play out the risk for your clients, letting them discover the losses they would most probably incur and letting them find out their own solutions 
• Find out how to turn a sales pitch into a conversation of value instead 
• Learn how to start the conversation not with a tone of selling but of adding value

“In the vast majority of the time, it's about your value. It's about what you're doing for your customers. And when you get that in your brain, that's when you can price appropriately.”  

- Brian Doyle 

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:18 - How his Pricing career started 

02:45 - Thoughts on him taking the present role with another guy’s name on the door 

03:42 - The important things that come to mind when talking about value in the C-suite 

05:13 - Justifying competing priorities 

06:34 - How to turn the conversation into ‘working together’ rather than ‘selling’ 

07:43 - How to add value the moment you start the conversation 

09:02 - How to turn a sales pitch into a conversation 

11:14 - Why do C-suite often is not immersed in the details of capturing value 

15:04 - How to let customers calculate their value and own their solution 

17:50 - The negative connotation of ROI calculator 

18:49 - The need for a conversation between two sides to figure out the value they give and get from each other 

20:24 - How do conversations go when you are talking to an executive about a product that is along the line of risk 

21:42 - How to plat out risk in the B2B space 

23:19 - How to overcome the ‘procurement buzzsaw’ 

25:45 - How to bring down the scale of keeping pricing and value-aligned 

26:55 - His pricing advice that can have a big impact on one’s business

Key Takeaways:

“When it feels more like a partnership, ’Hey, I can totally help you guys do what you want to do, and help you make more money at it or help you serve your customers better so that they make more money on it or both.’ That's when the pieces come together.” - Brian Doyle 

“When you think of value in C-suite, it's three things - increasing revenue, reducing cost, and, or minimizing risk. And what I found in my experience is that all C-suites care about one or more of those things. And the challenge that we often have is that we sell into middle managers, we sell too low in the organization.” - Brian Doyle 

“The thing that keeps everything aligned and doesn't feel like you have competing priorities is that if you're really trying to do the best thing for the C-suite, which in turn is the best thing to help them serve their customers, then everything aligns.” - Brian Doyle 

“Probably ten years ago, we all learned to ask this wonderful question, 'Hey, what keeps you up at night?'  I would say, in this age of so much more information. It's not really a question. It's more of a statement, which is, ‘This is what should be keeping you up at night.’” - Brian Doyle 

“When we are walking into a customer and doing the homework, we are thinking about the value that they provide, and whether or not they're getting paid for the value that they provide.” - Brian Doyle 

“More times than not, clients of ours are stuck in the feature and benefit side of things. And they don't spend enough time thinking about the impact and the value. When I walk in, I am talking about the impact and the value that they provide to the market, where I see the market going and where I see the opportunity for them to get paid for that value that they provide.”  - Brian Doyle 

“When you're talking about value, it's not necessarily just the product, it might be the service, it might be the support.”  - Brian Doyle 

“When you talk about revenue, that Math and cost is the same sort of way, that Math is sometimes a little bit easier. But when it comes to risk, you have to think through it with the client like, how would this work?” - Brian Doyle 

Resources / People Mentioned: 

• Ed Kless 
• Negotiating with Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies to Defend Your Price and Value by Reed Holden 
• Prospect Theory by Daniel Kahneman 

Connect with Brian Doyle:

• HoldenAdvisors.com 
• LinkedIn 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Brian Doyle is the President at Holden Advisors.  In his role, Brian improves his client’s revenue and profitability by building cross-functional, strategic relationships. He then leads his team to deliver results and drive positive change across client organizations. Under Brian’s leadership, his clients and business units have earned $2B, doubled their market share, and reduced commercial expenses by 20%. 

In this episode, Brian shares about understanding and being able to articulate your value.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn how to play out the risk for your clients, letting them discover the losses they would most probably incur and letting them find out their own solutions 
• Find out how to turn a sales pitch into a conversation of value instead 
• Learn how to start the conversation not with a tone of selling but of adding value

“In the vast majority of the time, it's about your value. It's about what you're doing for your customers. And when you get that in your brain, that's when you can price appropriately.”  

- Brian Doyle 

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:18 - How his Pricing career started 

02:45 - Thoughts on him taking the present role with another guy’s name on the door 

03:42 - The important things that come to mind when talking about value in the C-suite 

05:13 - Justifying competing priorities 

06:34 - How to turn the conversation into ‘working together’ rather than ‘selling’ 

07:43 - How to add value the moment you start the conversation 

09:02 - How to turn a sales pitch into a conversation 

11:14 - Why do C-suite often is not immersed in the details of capturing value 

15:04 - How to let customers calculate their value and own their solution 

17:50 - The negative connotation of ROI calculator 

18:49 - The need for a conversation between two sides to figure out the value they give and get from each other 

20:24 - How do conversations go when you are talking to an executive about a product that is along the line of risk 

21:42 - How to plat out risk in the B2B space 

23:19 - How to overcome the ‘procurement buzzsaw’ 

25:45 - How to bring down the scale of keeping pricing and value-aligned 

26:55 - His pricing advice that can have a big impact on one’s business

Key Takeaways:

“When it feels more like a partnership, ’Hey, I can totally help you guys do what you want to do, and help you make more money at it or help you serve your customers better so that they make more money on it or both.’ That's when the pieces come together.” - Brian Doyle 

“When you think of value in C-suite, it's three things - increasing revenue, reducing cost, and, or minimizing risk. And what I found in my experience is that all C-suites care about one or more of those things. And the challenge that we often have is that we sell into middle managers, we sell too low in the organization.” - Brian Doyle 

“The thing that keeps everything aligned and doesn't feel like you have competing priorities is that if you're really trying to do the best thing for the C-suite, which in turn is the best thing to help them serve their customers, then everything aligns.” - Brian Doyle 

“Probably ten years ago, we all learned to ask this wonderful question, 'Hey, what keeps you up at night?'  I would say, in this age of so much more information. It's not really a question. It's more of a statement, which is, ‘This is what should be keeping you up at night.’” - Brian Doyle 

“When we are walking into a customer and doing the homework, we are thinking about the value that they provide, and whether or not they're getting paid for the value that they provide.” - Brian Doyle 

“More times than not, clients of ours are stuck in the feature and benefit side of things. And they don't spend enough time thinking about the impact and the value. When I walk in, I am talking about the impact and the value that they provide to the market, where I see the market going and where I see the opportunity for them to get paid for that value that they provide.”  - Brian Doyle 

“When you're talking about value, it's not necessarily just the product, it might be the service, it might be the support.”  - Brian Doyle 

“When you talk about revenue, that Math and cost is the same sort of way, that Math is sometimes a little bit easier. But when it comes to risk, you have to think through it with the client like, how would this work?” - Brian Doyle 

Resources / People Mentioned: 

• Ed Kless 
• Negotiating with Backbone: Eight Sales Strategies to Defend Your Price and Value by Reed Holden 
• Prospect Theory by Daniel Kahneman 

Connect with Brian Doyle:

• HoldenAdvisors.com 
• LinkedIn 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Patrick Campbell is the CEO of ProfitWell (formerly Price Intelligently), the software for helping subscription companies with their monetization and retention strategies. ProfitWell also provides free turnkey subscription financial metrics for over eight thousand companies. Prior to ProfitWell, Patrick lead Strategic Initiatives for Boston based Gemvara and was an Economist at Google and the US Intelligence community.  

In this episode, Patrick shares the importance of a pricing person or a pricing department to deal with the complexities of crafting pricing strategies to gain pricing leverage. He also discusses the Freemium model they use at Profit Well and how it is more of acquisition rather than a pricing model.

[powerpress] 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn how the market is slowly going entirely towards subscription as it provides predictable expense to consumers and predictable revenue to companies 
• Find out how to make Pricing and packaging powerfully work to capture value 
• Learn how to gain pricing leverage by understanding the different value drivers necessary in capturing value 

"Make sure you have a process. Make sure you have a pricing committee. Pricing is at the intersection of important and uncomfortable. And whenever you have that happen, those are things that get de-prioritized inside an organization constantly." 

 - Patrick Campbell

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:56 - Patrick's remark to Mark's praise of him being a guru 

02:13 - How he landed in Pricing 

03:55 - What does he think about 'so many companies don't value pricing' 

05:50 - Creating a Pricing department when there is already complexity in a company 

06:58 - Why are companies not so keen on the important decisions around value and Pricing 

09:06 - Explaining his model: acquire, monetize, and retain 

10:51 - The use of pricing metrics and value metrics 

13:08 - Is Uber a subscription company 

17:46 - Talking about the guaranteed price in subscription 

20:04 - Can you separate Pricing and packaging  

21:21 - Understanding value capture in market segmentation 

22:38 - The base free offer they give at Profit Well 

24:38 - Patrick's thoughts on 'freemium is a customer acquisition model, not a pricing model 

27:40 - Discussing about the three types of Freemium model 

30:07 - His pricing advice that can have a big impact in others' business 

31:42 - The need to have a committee to make progress

Key Takeaways:

"I think the evolution is going to go from one-time purchases to subscription purchases to recurring revenue businesses. And there's obviously transitions where everything goes back and forth, and things like that." - Patrick Campbell 

"I would say that there are things you can do independent of Pricing or independent of each other with Pricing and packaging, that leads to essentially different optimizations. So, I think that you can work without each other. But there's a lot that they rely on with one another. So, it gets a little more complicated." - Patrick Campbell 

"I don't think you're going to have pure dynamism anytime soon. But I think you'll start seeing segment-based Pricing sooner than later." - Patrick Campbell 

"We chose the freemium round, for a lot of reasons, basically, it's an acquisition model. It's not a pricing model." - Patrick Campbell 

"I think that the big thing you have to think about with freemium is it's opening the top of the funnel, so if it is up of the funnel, it is something that will influence your Pricing. But it's not part of your Pricing strategies core." - Patrick Campbell 

"It's been successful because we get two effects that come from Freemium. One, there's a network effect because every time we get more data, it goes into our algorithms of our pricing or retention products. And these are just things that makes them better. But the other thing it does is, it lowers our CAC, or customer acquisition cost quite significantly." - Patrick Campbell

Connect with Patrick Campbell:

• LinkedIn 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Patrick Campbell is the CEO of ProfitWell (formerly Price Intelligently), the software for helping subscription companies with their monetization and retention strategies. ProfitWell also provides free turnkey subscription financial metrics for over eight thousand companies. Prior to ProfitWell, Patrick lead Strategic Initiatives for Boston based Gemvara and was an Economist at Google and the US Intelligence community.  

In this episode, Patrick shares the importance of a pricing person or a pricing department to deal with the complexities of crafting pricing strategies to gain pricing leverage. He also discusses the Freemium model they use at Profit Well and how it is more of acquisition rather than a pricing model.

[powerpress] 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn how the market is slowly going entirely towards subscription as it provides predictable expense to consumers and predictable revenue to companies 
• Find out how to make Pricing and packaging powerfully work to capture value 
• Learn how to gain pricing leverage by understanding the different value drivers necessary in capturing value 

"Make sure you have a process. Make sure you have a pricing committee. Pricing is at the intersection of important and uncomfortable. And whenever you have that happen, those are things that get de-prioritized inside an organization constantly." 

 - Patrick Campbell

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:56 - Patrick's remark to Mark's praise of him being a guru 

02:13 - How he landed in Pricing 

03:55 - What does he think about 'so many companies don't value pricing' 

05:50 - Creating a Pricing department when there is already complexity in a company 

06:58 - Why are companies not so keen on the important decisions around value and Pricing 

09:06 - Explaining his model: acquire, monetize, and retain 

10:51 - The use of pricing metrics and value metrics 

13:08 - Is Uber a subscription company 

17:46 - Talking about the guaranteed price in subscription 

20:04 - Can you separate Pricing and packaging  

21:21 - Understanding value capture in market segmentation 

22:38 - The base free offer they give at Profit Well 

24:38 - Patrick's thoughts on 'freemium is a customer acquisition model, not a pricing model 

27:40 - Discussing about the three types of Freemium model 

30:07 - His pricing advice that can have a big impact in others' business 

31:42 - The need to have a committee to make progress

Key Takeaways:

"I think the evolution is going to go from one-time purchases to subscription purchases to recurring revenue businesses. And there's obviously transitions where everything goes back and forth, and things like that." - Patrick Campbell 

"I would say that there are things you can do independent of Pricing or independent of each other with Pricing and packaging, that leads to essentially different optimizations. So, I think that you can work without each other. But there's a lot that they rely on with one another. So, it gets a little more complicated." - Patrick Campbell 

"I don't think you're going to have pure dynamism anytime soon. But I think you'll start seeing segment-based Pricing sooner than later." - Patrick Campbell 

"We chose the freemium round, for a lot of reasons, basically, it's an acquisition model. It's not a pricing model." - Patrick Campbell 

"I think that the big thing you have to think about with freemium is it's opening the top of the funnel, so if it is up of the funnel, it is something that will influence your Pricing. But it's not part of your Pricing strategies core." - Patrick Campbell 

"It's been successful because we get two effects that come from Freemium. One, there's a network effect because every time we get more data, it goes into our algorithms of our pricing or retention products. And these are just things that makes them better. But the other thing it does is, it lowers our CAC, or customer acquisition cost quite significantly." - Patrick Campbell

Connect with Patrick Campbell:

• LinkedIn 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Paul Hunt is chairman at Pricing Solutions. He is considered as one of the luminaries in Pricing. In 2013 he wrote a book entitled: World Class Pricing: The Journey. Of late, he is now teaching mindfulness. 

In this episode, Paul talks about how companies in a fast-paced digital environment fail to recognize what their product’s true value is. With a significant change in the market and with all the competitive disruption, and deregulation taking place they fail to see what their true worth is. He also shares about his mindfulness practice and how it benefits pricing people especially those with cross-functional departments in being present, responding and not reacting, and being creative in finding solutions.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn how to price value and stay relevant amidst the changing times 
• Find out how to price in the digital environment and remain competitive 
• Discover about mindfulness meditation and how it can help be a responsive, open-minded, and effective leader 

“Value is so much of a mystery for every company. Some companies get closer than others in understanding what their value is, but there’s often a gap and sometimes a significant gap.” 

– Paul Hunt 

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:16 – How Paul started a career in Pricing 

02:03 – What made him stay with Pricing 

02:57 – Why only a few understand value yet it’s important in business 

04:44 – The need to be always relevant with the times 

07:08 – Thoughts about procurement blowing up deals 

09:07 – What is a challenger sale 

13:37 – The biggest problem in Pricing today 

15:26 – On talking to five people instead of doing research to figure out where the value is 

17:48 – What makes his company sellable 

19:01 – How long has he been doing meditation mindfulness? How does it help him? 

21:17 – His thoughts of bringing lessons in meditation to business practice, particularly with pricing professionals 

22:14 – How to be in the present moment 

23:33 – Different ways to do mindfulness 

Key Takeaways:

“Pricing is a disguised word for value.” – Paul Hunt 

“I think they live and breathe value, but they’re almost so close to it that they don’t see it all clearly at times. That’s why they need an outside perspective occasionally.” – Paul Hunt 

“They’ve got a company because they’ve built value. They’ve delivered value. They do know value in a sense, but, of course, nobody’s perfect.”  – Paul Hunt 

“You’ve got a challenger sale happening when at the end of the meeting the customer says, “I learned a lot in that meeting. I didn’t know. That’s the challenger sale at its best.” – Paul Hunt 

“It’s kind of scary when you’re launching new technology in today’s fast environment without getting that homework done, but clients, they’re stretched, and they don’t have time. That’s the biggest challenge.” – Paul Hunt 

“And I think everybody can really benefit from mindfulness practice. I think pricers who are dealing with a lot of cross-functional departments, finance, marketing, sales, operations, you’ve got a lot of responsibility, but sometimes not as much control as you’d like. The whole concept of responding rather than reacting is bang on. That’s exactly what a pricer needs to sort out, how do I do that?”  – Paul Hunt 

“I think of it as an open mind that has great value in terms of your ability to respond, be effective, and be creative, and all those kinds of stuff.” – Paul Hunt  

People / Resources Mentioned: 

• Spin Selling by Neil Rackham 
• World Class Pricing: The Journey by Paul Hunt 
• Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) by Jon Kabat-Zinn 

Connect with Paul Hunt:

• E: [email protected] 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Paul Hunt is chairman at Pricing Solutions. He is considered as one of the luminaries in Pricing. In 2013 he wrote a book entitled: World Class Pricing: The Journey. Of late, he is now teaching mindfulness. 

In this episode, Paul talks about how companies in a fast-paced digital environment fail to recognize what their product’s true value is. With a significant change in the market and with all the competitive disruption, and deregulation taking place they fail to see what their true worth is. He also shares about his mindfulness practice and how it benefits pricing people especially those with cross-functional departments in being present, responding and not reacting, and being creative in finding solutions.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn how to price value and stay relevant amidst the changing times 
• Find out how to price in the digital environment and remain competitive 
• Discover about mindfulness meditation and how it can help be a responsive, open-minded, and effective leader 

“Value is so much of a mystery for every company. Some companies get closer than others in understanding what their value is, but there’s often a gap and sometimes a significant gap.” 

– Paul Hunt 

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:16 – How Paul started a career in Pricing 

02:03 – What made him stay with Pricing 

02:57 – Why only a few understand value yet it’s important in business 

04:44 – The need to be always relevant with the times 

07:08 – Thoughts about procurement blowing up deals 

09:07 – What is a challenger sale 

13:37 – The biggest problem in Pricing today 

15:26 – On talking to five people instead of doing research to figure out where the value is 

17:48 – What makes his company sellable 

19:01 – How long has he been doing meditation mindfulness? How does it help him? 

21:17 – His thoughts of bringing lessons in meditation to business practice, particularly with pricing professionals 

22:14 – How to be in the present moment 

23:33 – Different ways to do mindfulness 

Key Takeaways:

“Pricing is a disguised word for value.” – Paul Hunt 

“I think they live and breathe value, but they’re almost so close to it that they don’t see it all clearly at times. That’s why they need an outside perspective occasionally.” – Paul Hunt 

“They’ve got a company because they’ve built value. They’ve delivered value. They do know value in a sense, but, of course, nobody’s perfect.”  – Paul Hunt 

“You’ve got a challenger sale happening when at the end of the meeting the customer says, “I learned a lot in that meeting. I didn’t know. That’s the challenger sale at its best.” – Paul Hunt 

“It’s kind of scary when you’re launching new technology in today’s fast environment without getting that homework done, but clients, they’re stretched, and they don’t have time. That’s the biggest challenge.” – Paul Hunt 

“And I think everybody can really benefit from mindfulness practice. I think pricers who are dealing with a lot of cross-functional departments, finance, marketing, sales, operations, you’ve got a lot of responsibility, but sometimes not as much control as you’d like. The whole concept of responding rather than reacting is bang on. That’s exactly what a pricer needs to sort out, how do I do that?”  – Paul Hunt 

“I think of it as an open mind that has great value in terms of your ability to respond, be effective, and be creative, and all those kinds of stuff.” – Paul Hunt  

People / Resources Mentioned: 

• Spin Selling by Neil Rackham 
• World Class Pricing: The Journey by Paul Hunt 
• Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) by Jon Kabat-Zinn 

Connect with Paul Hunt:

• E: [email protected] 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn

Amy Konary has more than 20 years of experience advising companies on subscription business strategies. She is the founder and chair of Subscribed Institute, a think tank for the subscription economy. Through the Subscribed Institute, Amy brings together a community of business executives, thought leaders, and industry experts at a series of Executive Summits and events. She generates research and industry benchmarks on subscription transformation topics. Amy also advises Zuora customers on subscription business strategy development, execution, and maturity.  

Amy shares about subscription success in this episode, impacting revenue growth by enabling flexible pricing and product packaging.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn about how subscription pricing considers three pricing models to maximize revenue 
• Find out the three pricing elements that impact revenue growth 
• Learn to understand the B2B Subscription Pricing

“Simple core with flexible pricing, that would be my advice.” 

 - Amy Konary

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com

Topics Covered:

01:41 - Amy talks about the report B2B Subscription Pricing: Three Critical Elements That Impact Revenue Growth 

03:07 - What is flexible pricing 

04:44 - Company that uses a flexible pricing 

06:07 - On price tweaking 

08:14 - How is a product defined 

12:04 - Flat fee versus per unit pricing 

13:51 - Getting in-depth into per-unit pricing 

15:25 - The difference between per-unit pricing versus usage-based pricing 

17:59 - Discussing growth rate in terms of using or not using usage-based pricing 

19:18 - How Box uses a usage-based pricing 

22:13 - One important pricing advice that could have an impact on one’s business 

Key Takeaways:

“What we find in the subscription world is the way that you add flexibility is by coupling a simple and flexible approach. And what we mean by that is rather than selling products, you're selling services around specific subscribers.” - Amy Konary  

“The fastest-growing companies are those that introduce new packages or products more frequently.” - Amy Konary  

“Pricing and packaging are really important, your ability to cross-sell, and upsell is really important. Your ability to increase volume is really important because that's really where you're going to get the most of your revenue from that subscriber.” - Amy Konary  

“Keep it simple, just launch something really simple when you get to market. As the company matures, as their revenue grows, that's where you start to see companies do segmentation, really get into the good, better, best models, maybe sell some add-ons.” - Amy Konary 

“In the subscription world, you want to eliminate that kind of friction, you want to make it really obvious to the customer, what they should buy, and what kind of value it's going to offer to them. You’re doing yourself a disservice if you've got too much choice for customers.” - Amy Konary 

“We see usage-based pricing being a really important approach, particularly in situations where it's really important what that usage might be to the value that you're getting out of the service.” - Amy Konary

People / Resources Mentioned: 

• Carl Gold 
• box.com 
• B2B Subscription Pricing: Three Critical Elements That Impact Revenue Growth 

Connect with Amy Konary:

• LinkedIn 

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn