Impact Pricing

This one is the Queen of Spades from the Impact Pricing card deck. We really should be competing on value, not on price. We often think we're in a price war with our competition. We think our competitors are competing on price because we watch them give deep discounts to customers when we're in negotiations and we're wondering, why are they competing on price? But if you think about it, we responded with deep discounts on our products, and they look at us and they say, why are they competing on price?  What we really need to do is hold our price, try to maintain that price at a nice high level, and instead explain why our product is worth so much more money than our competitors. If our competitors are going to lower their price, it's probably because their product isn't as valuable as our product. We need to learn what does value truly mean to our customers and help them understand how much value they're going to get.  When we learn to create, communicate, value better, we'll be able to capture more of it in the way we price and the deals we close. We hope you enjoyed this example of Pricing Table Topics. What you just heard was done without a script. If you want to get better at speaking about pricing and value, grab a deck of our playing cards, pick a card, read the saying, and talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. You'll become a better speaker and expert. By the way, you can also play card games. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

This one is the King of Clubs from the Impact Pricing card deck.  Sadly, too many companies still use cost-plus pricing. We take the cost of manufacturing or creating something, we add a margin, and there's our price. It's easy. We know we're making margin, but are we maximizing our profit? Maybe we're pricing so high that we miss out on some customers, or maybe we're pricing so low that we're missing out on what some customers would be willing to pay us. Think about it this way. Imagine that it costs you $10 to build something, all in. Whatever costs you want to consider, great. And you have a buyer out there that's willing to pay you $100 for it. What's the profit-maximizing price that you could charge? Well, it's a hundred dollars. If you charge 99, you left a dollar on the table. If you charge a hundred and one, that buyer's not going to buy. And so, a hundred dollars is the best you could possibly do with that buyer.  But what if instead of costing you ten dollars, what if it cost you twenty-five dollars to make it? Same buyer. What price would be the profit maximizing price? Well, obviously it's still a hundred dollars. Mind you, we make less money because our costs are higher. But the best we can do price-wise is the $100 because that's what our customer is willing to pay.  When we think about pricing this way, we're not saying costs don't matter to business. What we are saying is costs don't really matter to us setting our price. Yes, we want to make sure our prices are above our costs. We want to make sure we're making money. So, think of it as a limit. But it isn't the thing that drives our price levels. We hope you enjoyed this example of Pricing Table Topics. What you just heard was done without a script. If you want to get better at speaking about pricing and value, grab a deck of our cards, pick a card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. You'll become a better speaker and expert. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/  

Nikhil Kalla is a Global Pricing Manager at Ingersoll Rand who collaborates closely with regional pricing and global cross functional teams to drive projects that build pricing governance, create value propositions, align pricing with the market by applying segmentation, harmonization, rationalization and market research. In this episode, Nikhil shares the significance of customer segmentation in developing a product that caters to different pricing tiers - top, middle, and low. This approach ensures that the product aligns with customers' willingness to pay based on the value they receive.   "If we had known our customer more or the most, you would have been able to segment your market and gain maximum on your profitability." - Nikhil Kalla    Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Learn how customer segmentation drives different pricing points while still attracting customers from various segments Gain insights into the significance of customer segmentation in shaping product design and establishing pricing strategies that cater to customers' varying levels of willingness to pay Find out how proper communication of your product's value can help you gain the most advantage in pricing   Topics Covered: 01:46 - What's all this obsession of Nikhil over mastering Rubik's cube  02:52 - How he found himself in pricing 04:31 - Defining customer segmentation 07:09 - Customer segmentation by way of price segmentation 08:59 - What goes into approving different price points for different customers and even for the same ones 11:20 - What drives different pricing mix 17:18 - Market segmentation as a way to sell your products more intelligently 19:40 - How this works: Two different products targets two different market segments with two different price points 26:42 - Explaining what real-life scenario versus assumptions when talking about value to price ratio[how packaging works as part of customer segmentation] 30:23 - Nikhil's best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: "Customer segmentation is all about deriving value, the maximum value from your customer base." - Nikhil Kalla  "Other than just being value and pricing, I feel there's more about communication of that value and then convincing part to be able to fetch maximum price so that the ratio of value by price is least as a win for me if I'm the supplier. And it has to be maximum so that the buyer gets to gain the most out of that transaction." - Nikhil Kalla  "When it comes to having the ability to sell to a slightly non elastic market where the demand is going to be expected to stay the same, you would always want to rely on pricing as a lever. Because everything that comes through pricing just goes to your pocket." - Nikhil Kalla    Connect with Nikhil Kalla: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikhil-kalla   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com  

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on September 28, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/why-your-nrr-isnt-better/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/  

This one is the King of Diamonds from the Impact Pricing card deck.  We know that customers trade money for value. They're buying value, but what kind of value? There's lots of ways to break value up, but in this meme we want to talk about the difference between perceived value and real value. Let's imagine there is this true measurable amount of value. For example, maybe I'm selling a gold coin and that gold coin actually has a value that I could look up online and say, what's the value of this coin? Got it.  But when I'm selling a service or I'm selling a product, I can't just go look up online and say, what's the value of this? Especially to me, because I don't know how I'm going to use it. I don't know how it's going to create more profits. And so, what I'm willing to pay is based completely around how much value do I think I might be getting from that product. Now here's a great example. Imagine that you're selling a coffee cup. So what's the value of a coffee cup to somebody, right? Maybe it depends upon what the design is on the front, or who really wants it, or what the lid looks like. I mean, there's lots of different factors that might define what someone's willing to pay. And so, they say, yeah, I'd pay 10$ for that coffee mug.  But what if there was a gold coin at the bottom of the coffee mug when they bought it, and that gold coin is worth 1, 000$. They just bought 1, 000$ gold coin for 10$ because their perception was, hey, it's a coffee mug. They didn't perceive the value of the gold coin at the bottom. They're not buying the true value, they're only buying the value they know about.  How do we use this information? Well, it means to us that we have to be marketing and selling the true value of our product. Because if we're not communicating our value well to our buyers, they're not using it as they make decisions on should they buy our product or not, and how much would they be willing to pay for it. We hope you enjoyed this example of Pricing Table Topics. What you just heard was done without a script. If you want to get better at speaking about pricing and value, grab a deck of our cards, pick a card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. You'll become a better speaker and expert. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

As a consultant, author, advisor, and speaker, Scott K. Edinger creates positive change for clients and is recognized as an expert in the intersection of leadership, strategy, and sales. He is the author of The Growth Leader: Strategies to Drive the Top and Bottom Lines. In this episode, Scott delves into the powerful link between good selling and good leadership. He highlights the significance of persuading others to embrace your vision and strategies as a leader, much like enabling people to invest in the desired outcomes that your product can potentially offer them.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Deep dive into how selling and leadership closely interrelate with each other Find out why sales experience is the underrated differentiator Learn how expanded solutions make way for higher margins   “If you really want to think about pricing, then it's not a spreadsheet exercise. It's an exercise in thinking about how do we create value in the sales process. And that will determine how much you can charge.” - Scott K. Edinger   Topics Covered: 01:24 - How Scott found himself in pricing 02:48 - A backstory of how he started in HR and landed in pricing 03:09 - A deep dive into why selling and leadership are closely related 08:06 - How to sell at a higher margin without too much discounting 10:15 - Questions to ask your team to uncover if they're bringing value to people's sales experience 12:11 - Making customers find aha moments in your offer/service 13:49 - How you make people choose you over competing options 15:16 - Building trust and what it takes to build it at this point in time 17:26 - Discussing about a faulty assumption on the idea of 'land and expand' 19:47 - Sales experience in relation to customer experience in the concept of 'land and expand' 22:08 - What drives expansion 23:51 - The 3 Cs of inspiring and communicating 25:31 - Scott's response to Mark's comment: Here's what I love about those three C's. They ought to be in chapter one 26:04 - Scott giving his best pricing advice   Key Takeaways: "The sales experience is the first mile of the customer experience highway. And if it's not good, people get off at exit one and have a customer experience someplace else." - Scott K. Edinger "If you want to sell at a higher margin, sell at greater margins or sell expanded solutions, then your ability to help customers to think differently, to help them to see problems that they hadn't anticipated or solutions that they hadn't considered, that part of the sales experience has to be a priority. That can become a differentiator." - Scott K. Edinger "One of the things that I think really drives it [expansion] is if you recognize the sales execution in your business; sales becomes the execution of your strategy." - Scott K. Edinger   People/Resources Mentioned: The Growth Leader: Strategies to Drive the Top and Bottom Lines by Scott K. Edinger: https://www.amazon.com/Growth-Leader-Strategies-Drive-Bottom/dp/1799746208 Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others by Daniel H. Pink: https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Human-Surprising-Moving-Others/dp/1594631905 Rethinking the Sales Force: Redefining Selling to Create and Capture Customer Value by Neil Rackham: https://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Sales-Force-Redefining-Customer/dp/0071342532 McKinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com Gartner Research: https://www.gartner.com/en/products   Connect with Scott K. Edinger: Website: https://www.scottedinger.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-edinger/   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com  

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on September 21, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/learning-from-iphone-pricing/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/  

This one is the King of Hearts from the Impact Pricing card deck.  We often think about, what is value? And we think of value-based pricing, it's what's a customer or buyer willing to pay. And so, their willingness to pay has everything to do with how they perceive the value of our product. So, what is that value?  Well, it turns out nobody actually wants to buy your product. What they really want to buy are solutions to their problems. And so, how do we think about that? If we want to think about value, let's start by thinking about what's the problem, or problems, our buyers are really facing.  When we deeply understand that and we can articulate that back to the buyer, oftentimes, they can't articulate it, we build great relationships. We resonate with them. And then we can start talking, hey, if you solve this problem, what kind of results might you expect?  And when they can articulate those results and we put them in numerical format, some kind of quantity, then we can usually use business acumen in a B2B space to say, great, here's how much additional profit that would generate for you. Or even better than that, ask them, how much additional profit do we think that would generate for you? And maybe we hold their hand while they do the math.  But regardless, the point of this whole meme is that value always comes back to, my buyer has a problem, they want to solve the problem, and what's the result they're trying to achieve when they solve this problem. We hope you enjoyed this example of Pricing Table Topics. What you just heard was done without a script. If you want to get better at speaking about pricing and value, grab a deck of our cards, pick a card, read the saying, and then talk for one to two minutes about what that card says. You'll become a better speaker and expert. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/  

Steven Forth is Ibbaka’s Co-Founder, CEO, and Partner. Ibbaka is a strategic pricing advisory firm. He was CEO of LeveragePoint Innovations Inc., a SaaS business designed to help companies create and capture value. In this episode, Steven delves into a report that includes research analysis on the Net Revenue Retention growth of various industries. The report explores the impact of factors such as organizational design, package architecture, pricing metrics, among others. Additionally, it highlights the role of churn, customer success, and a dedicated team in driving this growth.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Gain important insights when it comes to Net Revenue Retention [NRR] performance growth for different industries based from a research report Understand how a company's organizational design contributes to a low or high Net Revenue Retention [NRR] Learn how churn, customer success, and dedicated team greatly affects your Net Revenue Retention   "You need to have two pricing metrics so that you can grow in package. So, some form of usage-based pricing is going to be absolutely critical to a successful NRR growth." - Steven Forth   Topics Covered: 01:55 - What drives Ibbaka and PeakSpan to work together and come out with a report that gives insights to the pricing industry 06:01 - Why not include price increase when considering net revenue retention [NRR] 09:25 - Differentiating upsell from cross-sell 10:58 - Two reasons why NRR by API is high 15:07 - An explanation on what those chart and numbers mean on page 29 of the report  18:10 - Explanation to Mark's observation on the package architecture with one data showing huge NRR 20:48 - The meaning behind having independent modules but low NRR [in reference to the two sections in the report] 23:04 - Steven's response to Mark's suggestion of redoing the chart [good, better, best version] 26:17 - Touching on the different pricing metrics for AI [ what he says about pricing based on input/output tokens] 28:50 - Pricing a solution and a platform [case in point: Zoom] 33:23 - Explanation to Mark's question in reference to page 39 of the report about Pricing Metrics for API Integrators: Are APIs supposed to be a pricing metric? 35:10 - Two important points that these data report generates [also touching on churn, customer success, and dedicated team and how it affects NRR] 40:36 - Steven's best pricing advice    Key Takeaways: "If you've designed your packaging and pricing so that you don't have growth in package, don't have upsell, and don't have cross sell, then you know in advance that the net revenue retention is going to be less than a hundred percent because there is always going to be some churn." - Steven Forth "API as a pricing metric is associated with high NRR performance. Why is that? And I think the answer is because of the verticals where it's used." - Steven Forth "There's lots of companies that are not very good at cross-sell. So the fact that, if you're using independent modules and you have low NRR, that suggests that you're not doing a very good job with cross-sell." - Steven Forth "When you really get into this data, even in the verticals that are generally having low net revenue retention, there are a few companies that have high net revenue retention. So you can't just blame it on your vertical because there are probably some of your competitors in your vertical that do have maybe not 130, but 110 to 120% net revenue retention." - Steven Forth "The companies that have the best NRR performance are the companies that have dedicated NRR teams." - Steven Forth   Resources/People Mentioned: PeakSpan: https://www.peakspancapital.com Webex: https://www.webex.com Zoom: https://zoom.us   Connect with Steven Forth: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/ Email: steven@ibbaka.com   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com  

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on September 14, 2023, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/four-ways-to-grow-a-customer/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/