Impact Pricing

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:  

• Find out about Model N’s pricing software, how it works and how it differs from other pricing vendors 
• Understanding the different channels High Tech industries go through and how this affects pricing and value setting 
• How does price execution play a big part in the price optimization 

Chanan Greenberg is a seasoned executive with 25 years of experience in front line leadership roles. He helped build companies from pre-revenue to successful IPO, lead acquisitions, held 2 CEO entrepreneur positions in companies selling to Government IT-Outsourcing Contractors, Service Providers, Aerospace & Defense, Telecommunication, High-Tech, and Multimedia Distributors. He led the first evangelical sales into Fortune 500 companies overcoming resistance to change and fear of working with early-stage companies. Nurtured C-level personal relationships with customers, partners, and investors. 

 In this episode, Chanan discusses revenue management and what Model N does that differentiates it from other pricing companies. 

“If you believe in the value of your product and your differentiation and the reason that you exist, don’t be subservient to the rest of the value chain.” 

 – Chanan Greenberg

Get Accelerate Your Subscription Business: Your Blueprint to Packaging & Pricing for Growth Course at https://www.championsofvalue.com  

Topics Covered: 

03:07 – How did he end up in Pricing 

04:27 – What industries does High Tech cover 

05:37 – The many problem scenarios High Tech help solve 

11:49 – How big are the companies that Model N serves 

14:51 – Understanding your end customer and why you need to legitimately ask to determine your pricing 

17:34 – Difference between Model N’s pricing software and other Pricing companies 

23:18 – The importance of having clean data 

24:38 – One important pricing advice he has 

Key Takeaways: 

“Stop thinking about pricing in silos. Pricing has a waterfall that continues well beyond that. It continues into how are you going to do discounting into the channel, whether it’s the ship and debit process or whether you’re paying out a rebate, whether you’re paying out price protection on the inventory that is out there. All these things at the end of the day, bring down that waterfall to its final net results and pricing doesn’t end with optimization. It doesn’t end with analytics and it doesn’t end with the based on the execution of a price and the close of a contract. It continues operating, and unless you can really bring these things into a single continuum, you are invariably going to leave money on the table without any doubt.” – Chanan Greenberg 

“If you’re working through channels and you want to understand who is the end customer, what are they willing to pay to determine how much you’re willing to discount, that’s a legitimate ask.” – Chanan Greenberg 

“Never assume that you can make up on bad business by scaling the volume. Because bad business is bad business, whether it’s big work or small.” – Chanan Greenberg 

“If you have good price execution in place, whether it’s a Model N or a different solution, then bringing in a solution that can help you do the micro-segmentation, try and change the curves of your product lines to adapt to specific market dynamics that you may have in different end markets or different territories, I think definitely has a creative value.” – Chanan Greenberg 

“You really need to stick to good price execution because what I’ve found in many companies is they think it’s like a magic formula. You implement it, you did it, and now it just supposed to continue spewing out great pricing for you when in fact you have to keep on feeding that beast every quarter.” – Chanan Greenberg 

Connect with Chanan Greenberg: 

• https://www.modeln.com/ 
• LinkedIn  
• Twitter 

Connect with Mark Stiving:    

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• https://www.championsofvalue.com

• Learn about Paul’s ‘3 Pillars Of Revenue Generation’ to help you avoid underpricing your service 
• Discover why you should charge clients more than you think you’re worth 
• Learn how to price your service premium without getting objections 

Paul Klein is a Business Scaling + Pricing Strategy Consultant for Existing (and Aspiring!) Business Coaches & Consultants.  

In this episode, Paul shares how he helps clients charge what they truly worth, diving into an in-depth discussion on pricing strategies, how to set up long term pricing and positioning and a discussion on why your willingness to lose a deal is key to get your price. 

“Your client is saying to you that you ‘never’ negotiate. That means two things to me – you positioned yourself to command that greater value, and you’re not wavering on your value.”

– Paul Klein 

Get Accelerate Your Subscription Business: Your Blueprint to Packaging & Pricing for Growth Course at https://www.championsofvalue.com  

Topics Covered: 

01:15 – The government job he had and what it was like

03:14 – How he got started in Pricing 

04:47 – An analogy of Pricing through Sports 

06:04 – Why he named his podcast as Pricing Is Positioning 

08:16 – Why solopreneurs tend to underprice themselves 

11:48 – What does it mean when your client tells you you never negotiate 

13:26 – Why it is hard to do value-based pricing 

16:39 – Why is the willingness to losing a deal a key for a solopreneur to get his price 

20:07 – How not to look desperate to close a deal 

22:01 – How he got his Fortune 500 client 

Key Takeaways: 

“You have to provide the value and there are three parts to every brand, a visual identity, verbal identity, and valued identity. And if all three of those things aren’t in direct correlation with each other, it’s not gonna work.” – Paul Klein 

“Be all in. If you don’t value your services and your products, neither will the market and you’ve got to believe in it first before anybody else will ever pay you for.” – Paul Klein  

“Would you rather have four quarters or a hundred pennies so you could serve a hundred people or you could have four big fish? I’d rather have the four big fish.” – Paul Klein 

“I think you have to be, whenever you make a pivot or whether you’ve already made a pivot, you to have three pillars of revenue for every successful solopreneur consulting business.”- Paul Klein 

People / Resources Mentioned:  

• Ron Baker 
• Blair Enns 
• Alan Weiss 
• Neiman Marcus 
• Walmart 
• Yum! Brands 
• Target 
• KFC 
• Cracker Barrel 
• J.C. Penney 
• Pricing Creativity: A Guide to Profit Beyond the Billable Hour by Blair Enns 

Connect with Paul Klein: 

• Pricing Is Positioning Podcast 
• PaulKlein.net  
• LinkedIn  
• Twitter 
• Instagram  
• YouTube 

Connect with Mark Stiving:    

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• https://www.championsofvalue.com

• Learn about Paul’s ‘3 Pillars Of Revenue Generation’ to help you avoid underpricing your service 
• Discover why you should charge clients more than you think you’re worth 
• Learn how to price your service premium without getting objections 

Paul Klein is a Business Scaling + Pricing Strategy Consultant for Existing (and Aspiring!) Business Coaches & Consultants.  

In this episode, Paul shares how he helps clients charge what they truly worth, diving into an in-depth discussion on pricing strategies, how to set up long term pricing and positioning and a discussion on why your willingness to lose a deal is key to get your price. 

“Your client is saying to you that you ‘never’ negotiate. That means two things to me – you positioned yourself to command that greater value, and you’re not wavering on your value.”

– Paul Klein 

Get Accelerate Your Subscription Business: Your Blueprint to Packaging & Pricing for Growth Course at https://www.championsofvalue.com  

Topics Covered: 

01:15 – The government job he had and what it was like

03:14 – How he got started in Pricing 

04:47 – An analogy of Pricing through Sports 

06:04 – Why he named his podcast as Pricing Is Positioning 

08:16 – Why solopreneurs tend to underprice themselves 

11:48 – What does it mean when your client tells you you never negotiate 

13:26 – Why it is hard to do value-based pricing 

16:39 – Why is the willingness to losing a deal a key for a solopreneur to get his price 

20:07 – How not to look desperate to close a deal 

22:01 – How he got his Fortune 500 client 

Key Takeaways: 

“You have to provide the value and there are three parts to every brand, a visual identity, verbal identity, and valued identity. And if all three of those things aren’t in direct correlation with each other, it’s not gonna work.” – Paul Klein 

“Be all in. If you don’t value your services and your products, neither will the market and you’ve got to believe in it first before anybody else will ever pay you for.” – Paul Klein  

“Would you rather have four quarters or a hundred pennies so you could serve a hundred people or you could have four big fish? I’d rather have the four big fish.” – Paul Klein 

“I think you have to be, whenever you make a pivot or whether you’ve already made a pivot, you to have three pillars of revenue for every successful solopreneur consulting business.”- Paul Klein 

People / Resources Mentioned:  

• Ron Baker 
• Blair Enns 
• Alan Weiss 
• Neiman Marcus 
• Walmart 
• Yum! Brands 
• Target 
• KFC 
• Cracker Barrel 
• J.C. Penney 
• Pricing Creativity: A Guide to Profit Beyond the Billable Hour by Blair Enns 

Connect with Paul Klein: 

• Pricing Is Positioning Podcast 
• PaulKlein.net  
• LinkedIn  
• Twitter 
• Instagram  
• YouTube 

Connect with Mark Stiving:    

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• https://www.championsofvalue.com

• Discover how they do market research in Conjointly 
• How product and market research affect pricing decisions? 
• How is Conjoint also used for claim selection of consumer goods? 

Nik Samoylov is a Russian who moved to Australia and is the founder of Conjoint.ly, an online service for product and pricing research.  He is a former consultant of Bain & Company. Nik was an outstanding student when he received First Class Honours with University Medal in Marketing from the Australian National University.  

Catch Nik and find out more about his love for market research, that paved the way to put up his online service company called Conjoint.ly.  Learn from him as he details how the process of product and pricing research using conjoint analysis. Also, Nik reveals how conjoint can be useful for all kinds of mass-produced goods and the compelling reason why you need to price up. 

“Sometimes, people are really afraid of pricing up, and a lot of the time, pricing up is a very good idea. People question the results of market research when the recommendation is to price up more than when it’s the price down. I think sometimes it’s useful to follow what the numbers say and price up if that’s what the numbers say.”

– Nik Samoylov

Get Accelerate Your Subscription Business: Your Blueprint to Packaging & Pricing for Growth Course at https://www.championsofvalue.com  

Topics Covered: 

00:47 – Three things to know about Nik 

01:47 – How he got the idea of building his company called Conjoint 

02:30 – Narrating how they do market research at Conjoint 

03:51 – Asking 12 questions to several people to identify segments within the market 

04:57 – Number of attributes they recommend in a product 

06:08 – How the market studies made affect pricing decisions in Conjoint 

10:21 – Nik details how Conjoint is also used for claim selection of consumer goods 

11:26 – Using Conjoint in building customized products 

13:42 – Conjoint is valid for B2B products 

15:50 – Automated projects as their primary offering and no consulting work 

15:59 – Price range of Conjoint 

17:45 – Training program to teach people how to do Conjoint 

19:02 – A piece of pricing advice to listeners 

19:46 – Where and how to connect with Nik 

Key Takeaways: 

“Individual-level predictions are not as robust as maybe potentially they used to be, but it’s still pretty good at predicting what the market overall once. And it’s good at identifying segments within the markets by looking at clusters of people who have similar preferences. – Nik Samoylov 

“When you want to make a decision for a price, you typically put in your product, competitive products, and then, you want to understand the elasticity of the month and use that information to make your pricing decision.” – Nik Samoylov 

“Selecting what to say on the product is quite important, especially because it’s not just for marketing, it’s also for building that product, setting up the factory.  Big decisions can be made on the facts about whether people are tuned to one statement or another statement.” – Nik Samoylov 

“Conjoint is not only used for consumer goods, but it’s also used for all sorts of goods basically. As long as you have something mass-produced, something where you need to make an investment before you decide what kind of things you’re putting together, that’s when the Conjoint can be quite useful.” – Nik Samoylov 

Connect with Nik Samoylov: 

• conjoint.online 
• LinkedIn 
• Twitter 
• YouTube 
• Facebook 

Connect with Mark Stiving:    

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• https://www.championsofvalue.com

• Discover how they do market research in Conjointly 
• How product and market research affect pricing decisions? 
• How is Conjoint also used for claim selection of consumer goods? 

Nik Samoylov is a Russian who moved to Australia and is the founder of Conjoint.ly, an online service for product and pricing research.  He is a former consultant of Bain & Company. Nik was an outstanding student when he received First Class Honours with University Medal in Marketing from the Australian National University.  

Catch Nik and find out more about his love for market research, that paved the way to put up his online service company called Conjoint.ly.  Learn from him as he details how the process of product and pricing research using conjoint analysis. Also, Nik reveals how conjoint can be useful for all kinds of mass-produced goods and the compelling reason why you need to price up. 

“Sometimes, people are really afraid of pricing up, and a lot of the time, pricing up is a very good idea. People question the results of market research when the recommendation is to price up more than when it’s the price down. I think sometimes it’s useful to follow what the numbers say and price up if that’s what the numbers say.”

– Nik Samoylov

Get Accelerate Your Subscription Business: Your Blueprint to Packaging & Pricing for Growth Course at https://www.championsofvalue.com  

Topics Covered: 

00:47 – Three things to know about Nik 

01:47 – How he got the idea of building his company called Conjoint 

02:30 – Narrating how they do market research at Conjoint 

03:51 – Asking 12 questions to several people to identify segments within the market 

04:57 – Number of attributes they recommend in a product 

06:08 – How the market studies made affect pricing decisions in Conjoint 

10:21 – Nik details how Conjoint is also used for claim selection of consumer goods 

11:26 – Using Conjoint in building customized products 

13:42 – Conjoint is valid for B2B products 

15:50 – Automated projects as their primary offering and no consulting work 

15:59 – Price range of Conjoint 

17:45 – Training program to teach people how to do Conjoint 

19:02 – A piece of pricing advice to listeners 

19:46 – Where and how to connect with Nik 

Key Takeaways: 

“Individual-level predictions are not as robust as maybe potentially they used to be, but it’s still pretty good at predicting what the market overall once. And it’s good at identifying segments within the markets by looking at clusters of people who have similar preferences. – Nik Samoylov 

“When you want to make a decision for a price, you typically put in your product, competitive products, and then, you want to understand the elasticity of the month and use that information to make your pricing decision.” – Nik Samoylov 

“Selecting what to say on the product is quite important, especially because it’s not just for marketing, it’s also for building that product, setting up the factory.  Big decisions can be made on the facts about whether people are tuned to one statement or another statement.” – Nik Samoylov 

“Conjoint is not only used for consumer goods, but it’s also used for all sorts of goods basically. As long as you have something mass-produced, something where you need to make an investment before you decide what kind of things you’re putting together, that’s when the Conjoint can be quite useful.” – Nik Samoylov 

Connect with Nik Samoylov: 

• conjoint.online 
• LinkedIn 
• Twitter 
• YouTube 
• Facebook 

Connect with Mark Stiving:    

• Email: [email protected]
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• https://www.championsofvalue.com

• Know what is the critical role of pricing people to your company’s bottom line 
• Learn why there is a need to have pricing people in an organization 
• Discover the importance of really knowing your target audiences in relation to price and value setting 

David Mok is a global marketing executive, a pricing champion & thought leader, a change agent, and he helps companies improve bottom-line profit. 

In this episode, David deep dives into the importance of pricing to the company’s bottom line, and why as a product manager you must have a price strategy that gets everybody in the organization aligned to it. 

“Once we ascertain what a product is worth and to whom, which in theory defines the customer's willingness to pay, the next question we ask ourselves is, ‘What do we want to do that is  from a strategy perspective.”

 - David Mok

Get Accelerate Your Subscription Business: Your Blueprint to Packaging & Pricing for Growth Course at https://www.championsofvalue.com  

Topics Covered: 

01:18 - What led him to pricing and his thoughts about it 

03:15 - Talking about  pricing people and the need to have it in the organization 

06:11 - Skillsets required of a great pricing person 

10:52 - Do pricing people not have this leadership influence capability 

13:39 - What makes pricing an interesting field 

16:52 -  Why companies need to be value-based businesses 

18:46 - What is a "Pricing Canvass Framework" 

20:48 - Why it's hard to value a product and determine it's worth to someone 

23:44 - What could be the likely reason for people not to know their target customer so well 

24:58 - His Pricing piece of advice: "A piece of advice is don't boil the ocean, know what you can influence, start small. get some success, and continue to build on success. If you are the product manager, my advice is to have a price strategy and get everybody aligned to it."

Key Takeaways: 

"I would say people generally have an idea who their customers are, but they don't understand what is it that they value ." - David Mok 

"Think about your role and what you can control. There are a number of things we could do in pricing, don't try to boil the ocean." - David Mok 

"If you are a product manager, my advice is to have a price strategy and get everybody aligned to it." - David Mok 

Connect With David Mok:  

• LinkedIn 
• E: [email protected] 

Connect with Mark Stiving:    

• Email: [email protected]    
• LinkedIn    
• Twitter    
• https://www.championsofvalue.com  

• Know what is the critical role of pricing people to your company’s bottom line 
• Learn why there is a need to have pricing people in an organization 
• Discover the importance of really knowing your target audiences in relation to price and value setting 

David Mok is a global marketing executive, a pricing champion & thought leader, a change agent, and he helps companies improve bottom-line profit. 

In this episode, David deep dives into the importance of pricing to the company’s bottom line, and why as a product manager you must have a price strategy that gets everybody in the organization aligned to it. 

“Once we ascertain what a product is worth and to whom, which in theory defines the customer's willingness to pay, the next question we ask ourselves is, ‘What do we want to do that is  from a strategy perspective.”

 - David Mok

Get Accelerate Your Subscription Business: Your Blueprint to Packaging & Pricing for Growth Course at https://www.championsofvalue.com  

Topics Covered: 

01:18 - What led him to pricing and his thoughts about it 

03:15 - Talking about  pricing people and the need to have it in the organization 

06:11 - Skillsets required of a great pricing person 

10:52 - Do pricing people not have this leadership influence capability 

13:39 - What makes pricing an interesting field 

16:52 -  Why companies need to be value-based businesses 

18:46 - What is a "Pricing Canvass Framework" 

20:48 - Why it's hard to value a product and determine it's worth to someone 

23:44 - What could be the likely reason for people not to know their target customer so well 

24:58 - His Pricing piece of advice: "A piece of advice is don't boil the ocean, know what you can influence, start small. get some success, and continue to build on success. If you are the product manager, my advice is to have a price strategy and get everybody aligned to it."

Key Takeaways: 

"I would say people generally have an idea who their customers are, but they don't understand what is it that they value ." - David Mok 

"Think about your role and what you can control. There are a number of things we could do in pricing, don't try to boil the ocean." - David Mok 

"If you are a product manager, my advice is to have a price strategy and get everybody aligned to it." - David Mok 

Connect With David Mok:  

• LinkedIn 
• E: [email protected] 

Connect with Mark Stiving:    

• Email: [email protected]    
• LinkedIn    
• Twitter    
• https://www.championsofvalue.com  

• Difference between talking to customers about the value of the solution versus the price of the solution 
• How do people make purchase decisions 
• How to use choice-based conjoint analysis to determine consumers' perception of value and willingness to pay 

Kevin Christian is a highly accomplished pricing leader with 20+ years of track record overseeing pricing strategy, pricing operations, licensing, and packaging for various technology-focused organizations. Leverages expertise in pricing strategy to maximize profits, as well as pricing operations, quoting, and capturing pricing of products inside third party systems.  

He has experience at technology companies in Silicon Valley and beyond, with strong knowledge of portfolio packaging strategies for hardware, software, cloud, Web 2.0, professional services, SaaS, and IT products and services. 

In this episode, Kevin deep dives into the topic of conjoint analysis, how to use it to help in pricing decisions. Though it has its own limitations, he will also discuss how it can be improved upon. 

“ If you’re only talking about the price of the item without talking about the value, then you’re really in the buyer’s territory.”

– Kevin Christian

Get Accelerate Your Subscription Business: Your Blueprint to Packaging & Pricing for Growth Course at https://www.championsofvalue.com  

Topics Covered: 

04:04 – How do people make purchase decisions 

05:56 – How do businesses decide to raise the prices  without affecting demand 

07:41 – Kevin’s career background and making a headstart at the conjoint model of pricing 

08:27 – Mark’s discussion on the difference of conjoint model between B2B versus B2C 

09:47 – Kevin’s thoughts on where the conjoint model works best or less 

10:51 – The interesting thing as well as the problem with B2B in using conjoint analysis 

11:52 – Behavioral factors and negotiation skills involved in conjoint analysis 

12:50 – Limitations of conjoint model and how it can be improved 

15:28 – How conjoint analysis is done according to Kevin 

19:17 – Difference between talking to customers about the value of the solution versus the price of the solution 

Key Takeaways: 

“Seeing what that means to me in the real world is that a lot of businesses probably have an opportunity to raise prices by a little bit, which could make a huge difference to them at the end of the year in terms of their profitability and probably wouldn’t make much of a difference to their customers if it’s small-dollar item.” – Kevin Christian 

“I guess what I’ve seen a lot in the B2B space is you’re typically dealing with situations where it’s a direct sales force. The deals are highly negotiated and the deal sizes are typically six figures or more and so in the B2B space, in my experience, just conjoint isn’t as obviously the right way to get your optimal price as it is in the B2C space where you’ve got lower selling prices, higher volume of items.” – Kevin Christian 

“One thing that I’ve seen with conjoint is that sometimes there’s a difference between what happens in the study, which is a lab situation or an experiment when you’re doing your market research study. And then what happens in the real world, and sometimes the purchase behavior in the real world is not exactly the same as the purchase behavior inside the conjoint study itself.” – Kevin Christian 

“If the bear gets in a fight with an alligator who wins. think it depends on where they’re fighting and if they’re fighting on land, the bear is more likely to win. And if they’re fighting in water, the alligator is more likely to win. And what I like about this for pricing is when you talk about the difference between talking to your customers about the value of the solution and talking to your customers about the price of the solution.” – Kevin Christian 

“I think when you’re talking about the value of the solution, you’re in the seller’s territory and you’re talking about something where you know the seller is going to benefit from that conversation. If you’re only talking about the price of the item without talking about the value, then you’re really in the buyer’s territory.” – Kevin Christian 

Connect With Kevin Christian:  

• LinkedIn 
• Email:[email protected] 

Connect with Mark Stiving:    

• Email: [email protected]    
• LinkedIn    
• Twitter    
• https://www.championsofvalue.com  

• Difference between talking to customers about the value of the solution versus the price of the solution 
• How do people make purchase decisions 
• How to use choice-based conjoint analysis to determine consumers' perception of value and willingness to pay 

Kevin Christian is a highly accomplished pricing leader with 20+ years of track record overseeing pricing strategy, pricing operations, licensing, and packaging for various technology-focused organizations. Leverages expertise in pricing strategy to maximize profits, as well as pricing operations, quoting, and capturing pricing of products inside third party systems.  

He has experience at technology companies in Silicon Valley and beyond, with strong knowledge of portfolio packaging strategies for hardware, software, cloud, Web 2.0, professional services, SaaS, and IT products and services. 

In this episode, Kevin deep dives into the topic of conjoint analysis, how to use it to help in pricing decisions. Though it has its own limitations, he will also discuss how it can be improved upon. 

“ If you’re only talking about the price of the item without talking about the value, then you’re really in the buyer’s territory.”

– Kevin Christian

Get Accelerate Your Subscription Business: Your Blueprint to Packaging & Pricing for Growth Course at https://www.championsofvalue.com  

Topics Covered: 

04:04 – How do people make purchase decisions 

05:56 – How do businesses decide to raise the prices  without affecting demand 

07:41 – Kevin’s career background and making a headstart at the conjoint model of pricing 

08:27 – Mark’s discussion on the difference of conjoint model between B2B versus B2C 

09:47 – Kevin’s thoughts on where the conjoint model works best or less 

10:51 – The interesting thing as well as the problem with B2B in using conjoint analysis 

11:52 – Behavioral factors and negotiation skills involved in conjoint analysis 

12:50 – Limitations of conjoint model and how it can be improved 

15:28 – How conjoint analysis is done according to Kevin 

19:17 – Difference between talking to customers about the value of the solution versus the price of the solution 

Key Takeaways: 

“Seeing what that means to me in the real world is that a lot of businesses probably have an opportunity to raise prices by a little bit, which could make a huge difference to them at the end of the year in terms of their profitability and probably wouldn’t make much of a difference to their customers if it’s small-dollar item.” – Kevin Christian 

“I guess what I’ve seen a lot in the B2B space is you’re typically dealing with situations where it’s a direct sales force. The deals are highly negotiated and the deal sizes are typically six figures or more and so in the B2B space, in my experience, just conjoint isn’t as obviously the right way to get your optimal price as it is in the B2C space where you’ve got lower selling prices, higher volume of items.” – Kevin Christian 

“One thing that I’ve seen with conjoint is that sometimes there’s a difference between what happens in the study, which is a lab situation or an experiment when you’re doing your market research study. And then what happens in the real world, and sometimes the purchase behavior in the real world is not exactly the same as the purchase behavior inside the conjoint study itself.” – Kevin Christian 

“If the bear gets in a fight with an alligator who wins. think it depends on where they’re fighting and if they’re fighting on land, the bear is more likely to win. And if they’re fighting in water, the alligator is more likely to win. And what I like about this for pricing is when you talk about the difference between talking to your customers about the value of the solution and talking to your customers about the price of the solution.” – Kevin Christian 

“I think when you’re talking about the value of the solution, you’re in the seller’s territory and you’re talking about something where you know the seller is going to benefit from that conversation. If you’re only talking about the price of the item without talking about the value, then you’re really in the buyer’s territory.” – Kevin Christian 

Connect With Kevin Christian:  

• LinkedIn 
• Email:[email protected] 

Connect with Mark Stiving:    

• Email: [email protected]    
• LinkedIn    
• Twitter    
• https://www.championsofvalue.com  

• What is Value Research Discovery 
• Identifying what specific values the customers have and letting go over assumptions around that 
• Why is it not necessary to follow your competitors’ pricing model 

Alan Albert is the President of MarketFit, providing strategic services that drive measurable growth.

He is a co-founder of three software companies, selling one to Apple Computer. He conceived and led the design and development of multiple top-selling and award-winning products, generating over US$1 billion in cumulative revenue.

In this episode, Alan leads us to a discussion about market segment, pricing metrics, and value, how they all relate to value creation and pricing. His vast knowledge about capturing value will give you a clear understanding of what value-based pricing is all about and debunks whys much of what you know now about your customer is wrong.

“Whether your company's biggest challenge is in the area of innovation or in marketing or in product or in pricing, they all tie into customer perception of value. Start by letting go of your own assumptions about what our customers should care about and take the time to truly discover and understand and gain insight into your customer's perception of value.”  

– Alan Albert 

Get Accelerate Your Subscription Business: Your Blueprint to Packaging & Pricing for Growth Course at https://www.championsofvalue.com  

Topics Covered: 

01:24 - What is Value Discovery Research? 

02:30 - What is Value?  

05:58 - Customer Value: What it means and how to create it

07:02 - Walking through the process of Value Discovery Research 

11:35 - Why value-based pricing is a misunderstood model 

13:56 - Values: Why most companies get it wrong

14:52 - What is Market Segment and how does this relate to Value 

16:46 - How does Value Discovery Research drive Pricing Model 

17:53 - What is a Pricing Metric 

21:05 - Why it is not effective to follow your competitor's pricing model 

Key Takeaways: 

“The first step in value discovery research is to acknowledge that we do not know our customer's perception of value. My definite definition of value is what something is worth in exchange as perceived by the recipient.” – Alan Albert 

“There is a difference though than having the same problem and having the same values about how to go about solving it. Some might want to solve it with a do it yourself approach. Some might want to buy the most expensive product on the market. Some may want to just dip their toes in and try something without being too committal. They all still have the same problem, but the values of the people may be different and that will lead them to different solutions.” – Alan Albert 

“Often people think of pricing initially as picking a number, what price should we charge? And by focusing on customer perception of value, I've learned that pricing is actually an area for innovation that by changing the pricing model, companies can do a far better job of generating revenue and distinguishing themselves in the market than just picking a number.” – Alan Albert  

“Following your competitor’s pricing is rarely the most effective strategy. Companies like Netflix with their all-you-can-eat subscription pricing or Amazon with Amazon Prime have seen just enormous gains just by coming up with innovative pricing models, by changing what people are paying for.” - Alan Albert 

“If we know what our customers value and we can measure the delivery of that value, we can increase the price of our product so that those who are getting and receiving the most value and perceiving the most value are paying the most for it.” – Alan Albert  

“One way of distinguishing your product or service in the marketplace is to use a completely different pricing model. This makes it so that your customers cannot directly compare your product to theirs as a commodity.” – Alan Albert 

“Understanding the customer's value is, does not mean you need to have a complicated pricing model. In fact, simplicity as you mentioned, is a virtue and that's the beauty of something like Amazon Prime, like Netflix, all-you-can-eat subscriptions, it's relatively easily understood and the value of it is quite clear.” – Alan Albert 

Resources / People Mentioned 

• Infobip 

• Pragmatic Marketing 

Connect with Alan Albert:  

• MarketFit.com  

• LinkedIn  

• Twitter  

• Email: [email protected] 

Connect with Mark Stiving:    

• Email: [email protected]    

• LinkedIn    

• Twitter    

• https://www.championsofvalue.com