Impact Pricing

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Discover how to develop a pricing strategy that leverage the value your organization creates
• Learn how to execute pricing actions to drive commercial outcomes and growth
• Discover how to use pricing tools to create and transform pricing that supports your business model 

Pricing is where it all comes together, says Steven Forth - co-founder of Ibbaka the leading platform to price and differentiate for the client’s market.

In this episode. Steven shares how he helps companies redefine their value, as well as how they price offerings in the marketplace through a combined deep understanding of pricing design with market segmentation and value creation. 

“Segment your customers based on value. You need to understand what your value drivers are.” 

- Steven Forth

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com.  

Topics Covered:

01:24 - Backstory of how Steven started his pricing career: How sitting down with Tom Nagle and reading his book was a turning point in Steven’s career

03:56 - Pricing being an indicator and diagnostic tool in business

05:00 - With new trends coming up in the market, Steven shares what he is seeing as happening in Pricing these days and his insights about it

06:32 - Pricing and one's willingness to pay

08:05 - As there are different views about value-based pricing, Steven shares what value-based pricing means to him

11:42 - Some companies say they have a problem with pricing, but after digging deeper they actually have a value problem. Steven expounds on this

16:02 - Pricing optimization is based on available data around. How do B2B and B2C differ when it comes to available data to utilize

16:02 - As B2C obtains more data than B2B, how do these two differ in terms of value-based pricing and dynamic pricing 

19:31 - Steven expounds on conventional economic theory and how it relates to price elasticity of the demand curve

22:28 - Where does value-based pricing tie into outcomes-based pricing

26:21 - Talking about pricing power. Who has the most pricing power?

28:21 - Why do you need to have a deep understanding of value when it comes to executing outcomes-based pricing

30:35 - Steven discusses the importance of different economic value drivers and emotional value drivers especially where medical companies are concerned

Key Takeaways:

“Pricing is a great indicator and diagnostic tool. It lets you explore so many different parts of the business.”- Steven Forth

“Dynamic pricing has always been how commodities are priced. Markets are dynamic pricing. That's what they are. And we've learned how to make the algorithmic and apply artificial intelligence and machine learning to it.” - Steven Forth

“Willingness to pay is an outcome. It's what you're trying to shape. Framing pricing around willingness to pay, and doing analytics to estimate willingness to pay, I think is actually a way to sub-optimize your pricing outcomes.” - Steven Forth

“Value-based pricing for me is an understanding of the economic, emotional, and community value that your offer creates compared to the alternatives.” - Steven Forth

“Whoever takes on the most risk has the most pricing power. The seller’s ability to predict value outcomes should be more powerful than the buyers. Therefore the seller should be willing to take on more risk.”  - Steven Forth 

People and Resources Mentioned:

• The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing by Thomas Nagle
• William Gibson

Connect With Steven Forth:

• LinkedIn
• Ibbaka.com

Connect with Mark Stiving:   

• Email: [email protected]    
• LinkedIn    
• Twitter 

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn about the dynamic pricing engine and its impact in making data-driven pricing decisions 
• Learn about the pricing elements that are crucial in making an informed pricing decision
• Understand why in as much as data-driven decision-making helps companies, a product’s value must also be considered in pricing

Price monitoring software is becoming more and more accessible to all levels of markets such as SMEs and startups. Burch says it's not an excuse to invest in such technologies since they are no longer expensive for enterprise players. 

Burc Tanir is the CEO of Prisync - a company that helps e-commerce companies automatically track their competitor prices and dynamically price their products deliberately.

In this episode, Burc shares his insights on why pricing is critical to e-commerce success, and why analyzing your competitors’ prices manually is laborious. He gives emphasis that focusing on adding value to your product and working on your market positioning is more important to any e-commerce business.

“Every market and every player in the market has its competition to a varying degree. I will always encourage those people to find automated and dynamic ways to monitor competition, regardless of scale, at least incorporate some degree of data-driven decision making.”

- Burc Tanir

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com.  

Topics Covered:

01:36 - E-commerce companies doing manual work of benchmarking their product prices. It occurred to Burc the need to automate so that paved Burc Tanir’s way into pricing

03:25 - Web scraping of pricing data used to be hard. What made it possible for Burc to have a wide database of online retail stores

05:22 - Manufacturers face the challenge of putting their prices on webpages as they operate through distribution channels and retailers. The technology that Burc developed helps benchmark what manufacturing businesses sell

06:53 - Three elements of  pricing puzzle: product matching, price scraping, and product optimization. Key points for decision making.

09:17 - What  dynamic pricing engine is all about. How this rule-based pricing for small and medium-sized companies helps them reach their pricing goal

11:42 - How to avoid ratcheting up prices and ridiculous price points?

14:29 - Basically, Burc built his company by looking at what problem needs to be solved in the e-commerce industry. Why did he focus on e-commerce and what does he see changing in it these days?

17:33 - While data-driven decisions are helping companies, non-data driven decisions like understanding a product's value should also be a major consideration in pricing. Burc expounds on this.

19:17 - Using data-driven software does not always mean pricing low, it means raising prices the smart way to maximize profitability.

20:05 - Burc sharing his valuable pricing advice that could impact your business.

Key Takeaways:

“Our dynamic pricing engine was primarily designed for most small and medium-sized businesses. We went after a strategy which includes giving our clients the flexibility of setting price rules.” - Burc Tanir

“E-commerce will exist so it's the right market to stick with. I always wanted to find something sustainable. There will always be a price point for a product, pricing will never disappear.” - Burc Tanir

“We don't claim to follow the pricing puzzle end to end, we tell companies to not waste their time analyzing prices because that's a robotic thing. Just focus on your value, your market positioning.” - Burc Tanir

“Most think that we would always bring their prices down. But in the most profitable cases, we commend clients to increase their prices smartly.” - Burc Tanir

Connect With Burc Tanir:

• LinkedIn
• Prisync.com
• E:[email protected]

Connect with Mark Stiving:  

• Email: [email protected]    
• LinkedIn    
• Twitter

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Learn about the dynamic pricing engine and its impact in making data-driven pricing decisions 
• Learn about the pricing elements that are crucial in making an informed pricing decision
• Understand why in as much as data-driven decision-making helps companies, a product’s value must also be considered in pricing

Price monitoring software is becoming more and more accessible to all levels of markets such as SMEs and startups. Burch says it's not an excuse to invest in such technologies since they are no longer expensive for enterprise players. 

Burc Tanir is the CEO of Prisync - a company that helps e-commerce companies automatically track their competitor prices and dynamically price their products deliberately.

In this episode, Burc shares his insights on why pricing is critical to e-commerce success, and why analyzing your competitors’ prices manually is laborious. He gives emphasis that focusing on adding value to your product and working on your market positioning is more important to any e-commerce business.

“Every market and every player in the market has its competition to a varying degree. I will always encourage those people to find automated and dynamic ways to monitor competition, regardless of scale, at least incorporate some degree of data-driven decision making.”

- Burc Tanir

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com.  

Topics Covered:

01:36 - E-commerce companies doing manual work of benchmarking their product prices. It occurred to Burc the need to automate so that paved Burc Tanir’s way into pricing

03:25 - Web scraping of pricing data used to be hard. What made it possible for Burc to have a wide database of online retail stores

05:22 - Manufacturers face the challenge of putting their prices on webpages as they operate through distribution channels and retailers. The technology that Burc developed helps benchmark what manufacturing businesses sell

06:53 - Three elements of  pricing puzzle: product matching, price scraping, and product optimization. Key points for decision making.

09:17 - What  dynamic pricing engine is all about. How this rule-based pricing for small and medium-sized companies helps them reach their pricing goal

11:42 - How to avoid ratcheting up prices and ridiculous price points?

14:29 - Basically, Burc built his company by looking at what problem needs to be solved in the e-commerce industry. Why did he focus on e-commerce and what does he see changing in it these days?

17:33 - While data-driven decisions are helping companies, non-data driven decisions like understanding a product's value should also be a major consideration in pricing. Burc expounds on this.

19:17 - Using data-driven software does not always mean pricing low, it means raising prices the smart way to maximize profitability.

20:05 - Burc sharing his valuable pricing advice that could impact your business.

Key Takeaways:

“Our dynamic pricing engine was primarily designed for most small and medium-sized businesses. We went after a strategy which includes giving our clients the flexibility of setting price rules.” - Burc Tanir

“E-commerce will exist so it's the right market to stick with. I always wanted to find something sustainable. There will always be a price point for a product, pricing will never disappear.” - Burc Tanir

“We don't claim to follow the pricing puzzle end to end, we tell companies to not waste their time analyzing prices because that's a robotic thing. Just focus on your value, your market positioning.” - Burc Tanir

“Most think that we would always bring their prices down. But in the most profitable cases, we commend clients to increase their prices smartly.” - Burc Tanir

Connect With Burc Tanir:

• LinkedIn
• Prisync.com
• E:[email protected]

Connect with Mark Stiving:  

• Email: [email protected]    
• LinkedIn    
• Twitter

Why you have to check out today’s podcast: 

• Discover why should a law firm hire a pricing person, the impact that pricing had on a firm’s  bottom line, the benefits of having those types of roles in place 
• How to go beyond the hourly rate fees for service professional 
• Learn the array of ‘in the trenches’ perspective on how service professional firms can price smarter 

Stuart Dodds is a sought after speaker, pricing and project management expert, and author of Smarter Pricing, Smarter Profit, and Pricing On the Front Line, both published by the American Bar Association. 

Stuart was one of the first and longest-serving pricing and legal project management directors in the legal industry, first with Linklaters and most recently with Baker McKenzie. 

In this episode, Stuart addresses the key pricing challenges encountered by services whether within a law firm or a law department. He also shares he helps professional firms in having targeted pricing, negotiation, and project management support resulting in its increase in the bottom line.  

“[In terms of giving discount] Don’t negotiate at five and zero. ”  

— Stuart Dodds 

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com. 

Use the promo code ‘INSIDERNOW’  to take advantage of our special $5 offer for the first month. 

Topics Covered:  

01:34 — Flipping skills: starting in procurement then shifting to pricing: a backstory of how Stuart Dodds started in pricing. 

03:00 — Why would a law firm hire a pricing person, the impact pricing has on a firm’s  bottom line; “organizations were seeing a benefit from having those types of roles in place”.

04:24 — How to price professional services.

07:46 — The concept of ‘Will I, Which One’: the distinction between ‘is it competitive on price, or is there a competitor for something else?’

09:33 —  Identifying “Why is it them [the law firm]? What's their differentiator? What's our value add?” And incorporating the fee they charge.

11:37  — Digging deep into hourly billing versus project pricing or solution pricing.

12:24  — Big question as a professional: ‘How certain am I that I know the solution to the problem?’ 

15:15  —  Value-based messaging and the personal relationship with clients: Why changing the nature of the conversation is important.

19:59  —  Procurement as a challenge to a customer-provider relationship, types of procurement.

24:55  —  Stuart’s pricing advice: “‘[In terms of giving discount] Don't negotiate at five and zero.”

Key Takeaways:  

“There's a tendency to still go back to the hourly rate, and not explore different ways of delivering better value to clients, and not actually getting better pricing and better profitability.” — Stuart Dodds

“The challenge is that ultimately they’re typically not listening to the (client’s) answers, or they're not asking the right questions.” — Stuart Dodds

“I think one of the challenges law firms are having at the moment is identifying, ’Why is it them? What's their differentiator? What's their value add? Why can’t they be charging more for certain services? And how should they best support delivery of the other, less differentiated services to their client base?’” — Stuart Dodds

People and Resources Mentioned:  

• Ron Baker
• Baker McKenzie

Connect with Stuart Dodds:  

• http://positivepricing.com   
• Linkedin  

Connect with Mark Stiving:       

• Email: [email protected]        
• LinkedIn        
• Twitter   

Why you have to check out today’s podcast: 

• Discover why should a law firm hire a pricing person, the impact that pricing had on a firm’s  bottom line, the benefits of having those types of roles in place 
• How to go beyond the hourly rate fees for service professional 
• Learn the array of ‘in the trenches’ perspective on how service professional firms can price smarter 

Stuart Dodds is a sought after speaker, pricing and project management expert, and author of Smarter Pricing, Smarter Profit, and Pricing On the Front Line, both published by the American Bar Association. 

Stuart was one of the first and longest-serving pricing and legal project management directors in the legal industry, first with Linklaters and most recently with Baker McKenzie. 

In this episode, Stuart addresses the key pricing challenges encountered by services whether within a law firm or a law department. He also shares he helps professional firms in having targeted pricing, negotiation, and project management support resulting in its increase in the bottom line.  

“[In terms of giving discount] Don’t negotiate at five and zero. ”  

— Stuart Dodds 

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com. 

Use the promo code ‘INSIDERNOW’  to take advantage of our special $5 offer for the first month. 

Topics Covered:  

01:34 — Flipping skills: starting in procurement then shifting to pricing: a backstory of how Stuart Dodds started in pricing. 

03:00 — Why would a law firm hire a pricing person, the impact pricing has on a firm’s  bottom line; “organizations were seeing a benefit from having those types of roles in place”.

04:24 — How to price professional services.

07:46 — The concept of ‘Will I, Which One’: the distinction between ‘is it competitive on price, or is there a competitor for something else?’

09:33 —  Identifying “Why is it them [the law firm]? What's their differentiator? What's our value add?” And incorporating the fee they charge.

11:37  — Digging deep into hourly billing versus project pricing or solution pricing.

12:24  — Big question as a professional: ‘How certain am I that I know the solution to the problem?’ 

15:15  —  Value-based messaging and the personal relationship with clients: Why changing the nature of the conversation is important.

19:59  —  Procurement as a challenge to a customer-provider relationship, types of procurement.

24:55  —  Stuart’s pricing advice: “‘[In terms of giving discount] Don't negotiate at five and zero.”

Key Takeaways:  

“There's a tendency to still go back to the hourly rate, and not explore different ways of delivering better value to clients, and not actually getting better pricing and better profitability.” — Stuart Dodds

“The challenge is that ultimately they’re typically not listening to the (client’s) answers, or they're not asking the right questions.” — Stuart Dodds

“I think one of the challenges law firms are having at the moment is identifying, ’Why is it them? What's their differentiator? What's their value add? Why can’t they be charging more for certain services? And how should they best support delivery of the other, less differentiated services to their client base?’” — Stuart Dodds

People and Resources Mentioned:  

• Ron Baker
• Baker McKenzie

Connect with Stuart Dodds:  

• http://positivepricing.com   
• Linkedin  

Connect with Mark Stiving:       

• Email: [email protected]        
• LinkedIn        
• Twitter   

Why you have to check out today’s podcast: 

• Learn the step-by-step framework that helps product managers define, communicate, and drive their IoT product vision forward 
• Identify costly blind spots in your IoT product pricing strategy 
• Learn how to provide enough value that makes sense for the customer to adapt your IoT solution  

Daniel Elizalde is an expert on all things IoT. He works as VP-Head of IoT at Ericsson. He’s helped train over a thousand product professionals at Stanford’s Continuing Studies program.   

 In this episode, Daniel shares how he helps product leaders create winning products and gain the skills they need to confidently and efficiently manage any IoT product. 

“One of the challenges when defining value for IoT (Internet of Things) is having a clear understanding of who your customer is.”   

– Daniel Elizalde  

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com.

Use the promo code 'INSIDERNOW'  to take advantage of our special $5 offer for the first month.

Topics Covered: 

02:38 — Backstory of Daniel’s IoT career, starting from the era of telemetry to M2M to IoT  and now becoming the most visible expert when it comes to IoT 

04:07 —  Daniel leading the area of thought leadership for Ericsson in IoT 

05:23 — Daniel’s checklist: 12 Steps Every Product Leader Should Know to Create Profitable and Scalable IoT Products 

07:05 —  Complexities in developing IoT products 

08:39 —  Business model defined -  a way of collect, deliver and collect value from your customers 

09:13 — How IoT opens the door for new business models and innovation for companies 

09:50 —  If you're able to monitor your product, 24/7 in the field, how can you actually leverage that to provide new and innovative ways of monetizing and adding value? 

11:44 — If it is a subscription per se, how can you make sure that you continue to add value to your customer 

12:28 — Understanding the true Capex of IoT  

14:09 — How Daniel coach companies to think about how to charge for hardware upfront 

14:34 —  What is going to reduce the friction on your customer site through business model experimentation 

19:25 — Software companies struggle to figure out how to build-partner purchase, deliver-sell hardware being in a completely different ballgame 

24:29 —  Pricing challenges: how do you provide enough value that makes sense for the customer to adopt your IoT solution 

Key Takeaways: 

“The challenge with IoT is that to provide an end to end IoT solution, you have to put all those things together with the technical complexity that entails. But of course, with the pricing complexity, and the business model complexity, and they go-to-market complexity” — Daniel Elizalde  

“Companies are starting to figure out that this is so complex that you can't just put something together and launch it to market and hope it sticks. You have to do your homework from a product management perspective.” — Daniel Elizalde  

“That's the value of product management and IoT strategy is, hopefully, you can be two, three steps ahead and have some inkling that it will be worth it before you commit to building something like this.”— Daniel Elizalde  

“IoT opens the door for new business models and innovation for companies.” — Daniel Elizalde  

“The role of a product management team here is to figure out understanding the complexities of IoT and then being able to model different approaches and test them with the customers. There's no one size fits all.” — Daniel Elizalde  

“Sometimes figuring out that your competition IP, not all other types of similar solutions, but just what are the other alternatives that the customer can realistically do for less money.“ — Daniel Elizalde 

Resources:  

• Ericcson 

Connect with Daniel Elizalde:  

• https://danielelizalde.com/  
• Linkedin 

Connect with Mark Stiving:      

• Email: [email protected]       
• LinkedIn       
• Twitter     

Why you have to check out today’s podcast: 

• Learn the step-by-step framework that helps product managers define, communicate, and drive their IoT product vision forward 
• Identify costly blind spots in your IoT product pricing strategy 
• Learn how to provide enough value that makes sense for the customer to adapt your IoT solution  

Daniel Elizalde is an expert on all things IoT. He works as VP-Head of IoT at Ericsson. He’s helped train over a thousand product professionals at Stanford’s Continuing Studies program.   

 In this episode, Daniel shares how he helps product leaders create winning products and gain the skills they need to confidently and efficiently manage any IoT product. 

“One of the challenges when defining value for IoT (Internet of Things) is having a clear understanding of who your customer is.”   

– Daniel Elizalde  

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com.

Use the promo code 'INSIDERNOW'  to take advantage of our special $5 offer for the first month.

Topics Covered: 

02:38 — Backstory of Daniel’s IoT career, starting from the era of telemetry to M2M to IoT  and now becoming the most visible expert when it comes to IoT 

04:07 —  Daniel leading the area of thought leadership for Ericsson in IoT 

05:23 — Daniel’s checklist: 12 Steps Every Product Leader Should Know to Create Profitable and Scalable IoT Products 

07:05 —  Complexities in developing IoT products 

08:39 —  Business model defined -  a way of collect, deliver and collect value from your customers 

09:13 — How IoT opens the door for new business models and innovation for companies 

09:50 —  If you're able to monitor your product, 24/7 in the field, how can you actually leverage that to provide new and innovative ways of monetizing and adding value? 

11:44 — If it is a subscription per se, how can you make sure that you continue to add value to your customer 

12:28 — Understanding the true Capex of IoT  

14:09 — How Daniel coach companies to think about how to charge for hardware upfront 

14:34 —  What is going to reduce the friction on your customer site through business model experimentation 

19:25 — Software companies struggle to figure out how to build-partner purchase, deliver-sell hardware being in a completely different ballgame 

24:29 —  Pricing challenges: how do you provide enough value that makes sense for the customer to adopt your IoT solution 

Key Takeaways: 

“The challenge with IoT is that to provide an end to end IoT solution, you have to put all those things together with the technical complexity that entails. But of course, with the pricing complexity, and the business model complexity, and they go-to-market complexity” — Daniel Elizalde  

“Companies are starting to figure out that this is so complex that you can't just put something together and launch it to market and hope it sticks. You have to do your homework from a product management perspective.” — Daniel Elizalde  

“That's the value of product management and IoT strategy is, hopefully, you can be two, three steps ahead and have some inkling that it will be worth it before you commit to building something like this.”— Daniel Elizalde  

“IoT opens the door for new business models and innovation for companies.” — Daniel Elizalde  

“The role of a product management team here is to figure out understanding the complexities of IoT and then being able to model different approaches and test them with the customers. There's no one size fits all.” — Daniel Elizalde  

“Sometimes figuring out that your competition IP, not all other types of similar solutions, but just what are the other alternatives that the customer can realistically do for less money.“ — Daniel Elizalde 

Resources:  

• Ericcson 

Connect with Daniel Elizalde:  

• https://danielelizalde.com/  
• Linkedin 

Connect with Mark Stiving:      

• Email: [email protected]       
• LinkedIn       
• Twitter     

Why you have to check out today’s podcast: 

• Discover how to use data science techniques to reduce churn in subscription services 
• Learn how to create a churn dataset as benchmark metrics for subscription economy decisions 
• Learn what is predictive of churn, and what can be done to reduce it

Carl Gold is the Chief Data Scientist at Zuora where he created the Subscription Economy Index™ and the data science behind Zuora's Subscriber Insights. He has a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and has authored publications on Machine Learning and Neuroscience. Before coming to Zuora, he spent most of his post-academic career as a quantitative analyst on Wall Street.  

In this episode, Carl shares his insights about using data to increase subscriber engagement and reduce customer churn. He provides a clear overview of churn concepts, along with hands-on tricks and tips he has developed through years of experience analyzing subscriber behavior.  

“The thing about churn is there is no one solution. If you think a customer is going to leave, the next question is ‘why’.”

- Carl Gold

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com.

Use the promo code 'INSIDERNOW'  to take advantage of our special $5 offer for the first month.

Topics Covered: 

02:18 — Backstory of Carl’s career, the stint he had at Wall Street finance industry being a quant and eventually becoming  a data scientist  

04:40 — The similarities of a quant and a data scientist, what they do. And the similarities of machine learning to data science  

06:04 — All about  subscription economy index and how companies use it   

07:22 — The biggest challenge a subscription company faces when it comes to billing and where does Zuora come in to help  

10:03 — Carl addressing the bias dealing with index and metrics   

11:23 — Carl's thoughts on subscription companies being recession-proof than traditional companies  

15:50 — Book alert: "Fighting Churn with Data" by Carl Gold - what is it all about  

23:19 — How to convert leads to customers by looking at a buyers' journey and sequences of action leading to conversion or churn  

29:20 — Carl's best pricing advice to listeners that could have a big impact on their business 

Key Takeaways: 

“If you can't bill people correctly then you know, what's your pricing plan good for?” - Carl Gold 

“Some subscription companies are probably seeing boom times because if it's a product that people can enjoy and consume more of when they're confined to their home. Demand is supposed to be through the roof right now and they're struggling to keep up.” - Carl Gold 

“If you want to reduce churn in a meaningful way, you have to give people more value.” - Carl Gold 

“One of the most valuable metrics that you can ever make for a subscription business is the recurring unit cost that the customer pays. That is one of the most important churns and retention indicators that will give you your amazing insight into the value that customers are getting.” -  Carl Gold   

Resources: 

• Fighting Churn With Data by Carl Gold 
• Zuora 
• Facebook 
• Zoom 

Connect with Carl Gold: 

• fightchurnwithdata.com 
• LinkedIn 
• Twitter 

Connect with Mark Stiving:     

• Email: [email protected]      
• LinkedIn      
• Twitter    

Why you have to check out today’s podcast: 

• Discover how to use data science techniques to reduce churn in subscription services 
• Learn how to create a churn dataset as benchmark metrics for subscription economy decisions 
• Learn what is predictive of churn, and what can be done to reduce it

Carl Gold is the Chief Data Scientist at Zuora where he created the Subscription Economy Index™ and the data science behind Zuora's Subscriber Insights. He has a Ph.D. from the California Institute of Technology and has authored publications on Machine Learning and Neuroscience. Before coming to Zuora, he spent most of his post-academic career as a quantitative analyst on Wall Street.  

In this episode, Carl shares his insights about using data to increase subscriber engagement and reduce customer churn. He provides a clear overview of churn concepts, along with hands-on tricks and tips he has developed through years of experience analyzing subscriber behavior.  

“The thing about churn is there is no one solution. If you think a customer is going to leave, the next question is ‘why’.”

- Carl Gold

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

To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com.

Use the promo code 'INSIDERNOW'  to take advantage of our special $5 offer for the first month.

Topics Covered: 

02:18 — Backstory of Carl’s career, the stint he had at Wall Street finance industry being a quant and eventually becoming  a data scientist  

04:40 — The similarities of a quant and a data scientist, what they do. And the similarities of machine learning to data science  

06:04 — All about  subscription economy index and how companies use it   

07:22 — The biggest challenge a subscription company faces when it comes to billing and where does Zuora come in to help  

10:03 — Carl addressing the bias dealing with index and metrics   

11:23 — Carl's thoughts on subscription companies being recession-proof than traditional companies  

15:50 — Book alert: "Fighting Churn with Data" by Carl Gold - what is it all about  

23:19 — How to convert leads to customers by looking at a buyers' journey and sequences of action leading to conversion or churn  

29:20 — Carl's best pricing advice to listeners that could have a big impact on their business 

Key Takeaways: 

“If you can't bill people correctly then you know, what's your pricing plan good for?” - Carl Gold 

“Some subscription companies are probably seeing boom times because if it's a product that people can enjoy and consume more of when they're confined to their home. Demand is supposed to be through the roof right now and they're struggling to keep up.” - Carl Gold 

“If you want to reduce churn in a meaningful way, you have to give people more value.” - Carl Gold 

“One of the most valuable metrics that you can ever make for a subscription business is the recurring unit cost that the customer pays. That is one of the most important churns and retention indicators that will give you your amazing insight into the value that customers are getting.” -  Carl Gold   

Resources: 

• Fighting Churn With Data by Carl Gold 
• Zuora 
• Facebook 
• Zoom 

Connect with Carl Gold: 

• fightchurnwithdata.com 
• LinkedIn 
• Twitter 

Connect with Mark Stiving:     

• Email: [email protected]      
• LinkedIn      
• Twitter    

Why you have to check out today’s podcast: 

• Understanding why continually aligning your pricing to what customers’ value is a never-ending journey 
•  Discover the importance of knowing what appeals to the customer and how they perceive your price when optimizing your price and value offer 
• Learn how to leverage AI-powered pricing strategies to take your customer engagement to the next level 

Valerie Howard is the Solution Strategy Director at PROS. She manages the go-to-market strategy for the PROS pricing solution portfolio. 

 In this episode, Valerie shares her insights on how to use data science to optimize price in today’s world of personalization and digital selling, how to leverage the benefits of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and why knowing what appeals to the customer and how they perceive a price is as important as the price itself.  

“When it comes to pricing, we've got to constantly invest in that. There's no end goal there, it's a constant journey of evolution to continually aligning your pricing to what customers’ value and a better understanding of what they value.” 

- Valerie Howard

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Topics Covered: 

02:36 — Backstory of how Valerie got into pricing and the socio-economic behavior lessons related to pricing she learned while working with Continental Airlines 

04:35 — What she does at PROS, how she manages the pricing solution portfolio of their airline clients 

08:00 —  How does cross-selling work with the solution that PROS offers 

08:47 —  All about price optimization and price governance: How this helps in the price execution across all channels and regions for PROS airline clients 

09:56  — Personalization and Digital Selling defined: how they differ from each other 

15:11  — The infrastructures of digital selling  

18:59  — All about dynamic pricing and how it works  

20:46 —  Valerie on the  importance of knowing what appeals to the customer and how they perceive your price when optimizing your price and value offer 

22:35 —  Where do price segmentation and  dynamic pricing come into play with regards to a speaker's of ‘fee integrity’ 

23:26 —  Discussion around price variation and price segmentation techniques in the medical service industry 

Key Takeaways: 

“When it comes to personalization, I think what we always hear is that customers really want their buyers to understand them, really want to understand their needs at a personalized level. I think pricing gives us a unique way to better understand, ‘Do they really value this?’  Because if they’re not willing to pay for it, then maybe, it is not something they are valuing so much.” - Valerie Howard 

“When it comes to digital selling, there is a relationship to personalization there, too. It's easier for us to purchase in a self-served way. What are the different ways businesses are tuning in to their customers and making it easier for them to purchase? -- It’s  by understanding them so well that they don’t even have to be present and don’t have a sales rep holding their hand through the whole purchase process.” - Valerie Howard 

Resources: 

• PROS 
• Continental Airlines 
• Hanover Research 

Connect with Valerie Howard: 

• LinkedIn 
• E: [email protected] 

Connect with Mark Stiving:     

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn
• Twitter