Understanding Customers' Negotiation Tactics and the 'Can't Hurt to Ask' Club

Pricing on your mind? It sure seems like it's all anyone can talk about, from the local server to the CEO. Everyone is trying to figure out how inflation, supply chain issues, labor increases, and interest rates impact pricing today and where things are going to be in the future so they can plan their next move.

Today I dive deep into the world of pricing strategies, value-based pricing, and price optimization with my guest, Casey Brown. Casey is the founder of Boost Pricing and has been a pricing geek for decades. Her past experience in engineering, Six Sigma, and working on pricing strategy for multiple Fortune 500 companies prior to Boost Pricing has equipped her with unique insights into pricing and its impact on businesses. 

Casey and I covered a ton of ground–we explored the importance of confidence, transparency, and strategic decision-making in pricing, price optimization, and dynamic pricing. This conversation will leave you with some very important concepts that can help you not only navigate the next few years, but allow you to pull ahead of your industry. 

What I love about this interview is that we explore the super interesting intersection of art and science, people and process, and data and psychology in the realm of pricing and price psychology. 

I learned A TON and I am sure you will too. 

// WATCH THE INTERVIEW ON YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5-NSSElJYC8ZSLljxhixU8NFNjFglugR

What You Will Learn

• Avoid underpricing and use promotional pricing cautiously to protect your brand's perceived value.
• Focus on delivering value and transparency to build trust with customers.
• Exercise pricing power before selling a business to maximize its value.
• Utilize data in a strategic and thoughtful way to inform pricing decisions and better understand your market.
• Address the mindset, emotions, and self-limiting beliefs of sellers to directly impact profit margins.
• Recognize the importance of investing in improvements and asking for more to avoid getting trapped in a downward spiral by focusing on the top line.
• Develop a clear understanding of your costs, market trends, and competitors to better position your products or services in the market.
• Overcome fear by using exposure therapy and analyzing specific outcomes and risks associated with raising prices or losing volume.

// USE YOUR FINANCIALS TO CLARIFY A PATH TOWARDS A MORE VALUABLE BUSINESS: Intentional Growth Financial Assessment

Bio:

 Casey is on a mission to help organizations be paid well for their excellence.  She leads a team of experts who help organizations discover their true pricing power—and watch their profits rise as a result.

With degrees in Chemical Engineering, Spanish and Business and career experience in engineering, Six Sigma and pricing strategy for multiple Fortune 500 companies, Casey brings unmatched expertise to help clients.

Casey’s decades-long reputation as a pricing expert arose from pioneering innovative pricing content, formulating and executing pricing strategies, and coaching and training teams to drive culture change and dramatic, sustainable results.  Now she leads the team at Boost to help organizations price from confidence, negotiate with courage, and make better pricing decisions.

Casey is a prominent keynote speaker around the world, and she delivered a TEDx talk in 2015 with over 5 million views to date across multiple platforms.

Interview Quotes:

07:28  - “Anybody in the selling seat, most of those decisions are made from fear, not confidence. So they’re pricing not to lose, rather than pricing to win.” - Casey Brown

08:56 - “Pricing is mysterious. There’s a lot of bluffing, it’s  more like poker. It’s a sexy discipline to make a lot more money.” - Casey Brown

10:39  - “It’s time to close the spreadsheet and belly up to the conversation to ask for your value.” - Casey Brown

14:22  - “I am motivated by the mission to help people who are great at what they do, get paid like they’re great.” - Casey Brown

15:26 - “It’s [pricing] truly about making it worth it for the Entrepreneur who is taking all the risk.” - Ryan Tansom

16:15 - “It is the human condition to try to hold on to our resources.” - Casey Brown

20:58  - “Dogs and prospects can smell fear.” - Casey Brown

29:20 - “Price doesn’t depend on anything else but value. And so if we aren’t clear on the value that we provide, we will always be underpaid.” - Casey Brown

32:50 - “My belief is that pricing is the funding engine for growth .” - Casey Brown

33:59  - “Revenue is for vanity. Profit is for sanity.” - Casey Brown

38:54 - “Customers only care about the value they’re getting.

56:55 - “You can also do promotional pricing which doesn’t cause the same harm as starting out of the gate at too low of a price.” - Casey Brown

58:49 - “I don’t think anybody is fooled by gifts.” - Casey Brown

Links and Resources:

Casey Brown, LinkedIn

Boost Pricing

Intentional Growth™ Vision Board

Intentional Growth™ Online Training

Reach out to me if you have questions about the Intentional Growth™ Training or Fractional CFO services