Shows
Impact PricingStrategic Price Increase: How to Plan, Communicate, and Succeed with Mark PeacockMark Peacock helps B2B Tech & Consulting firms expand margin & revenue growth with tailored pricing solutions & sales enablement. In this episode, Mark shares practical strategies for implementing price increases effectively, including a two-stage communication process to manage customer expectations and reduce resistance. He emphasizes the importance of segmenting clients by price sensitivity and value to tailor pricing strategies and build confidence. Mark also highlighted the need to treat price increases for existing customers with the same care as new business pricing to maximize business impact. Why you have to check out today’s pod...2025-01-2730 min
Impact PricingInstant Profits Unveiled: A CEO's Guide to Fearless Pricing Strategies with Mark Stiving and Rebecca KalogerisEvery decision can make or break profitability, and pricing remains one of the most powerful yet underutilized levers. There is fear that often holds companies back from taking bold steps in pricing. How about getting a proven playbook to guide you? Get to have a peek at Mark Stiving's groundbreaking new book, Instant Profits: How to Raise Prices Without Losing Customers. In this episode, together with Mark and guest-host, Rebecca Kalogeris, we explore how this concise, impactful guide empowers executives and decision-makers to conquer pricing fears, implement value-based strategies, and unlock untapped revenue potential—all in...2024-11-2514 min
Impact PricingPricing Table Topics: 8 of Clubs – Ban the Word 'Markup'This one is the 8 of Clubs from the Impact Pricing card deck. Ban the word markup. First, can we all agree that cost-plus pricing is not optimal? We really want to do value-based pricing, charge what a customer is willing to pay. Got it, so we're all in agreement. Now, let's talk about the word markup. Markup is defined as, tell me what my costs are, how much do I need to mark that up in order to get the margins that I want? So a markup is by definition cost-plus. Well, it's cos...2024-03-2702 min
Impact PricingTop Pricer Tournament: Simulating Winning Pricing Strategies with Mark ChussilMark Chussil is the founder of Advanced Competitive Strategies, Inc. He is an expert in qualitative and quantitative business war games, custom strategy simulators, executive education and management development programs. Highly rated speaker, published books and dozens of articles on business and competitive strategy. In this episode, Mark shares how simulating pricing strategies before actually implementing them can do away with costly outcomes thereby improving one's bottom line. Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Discover the essence of the Top Pricer Tournament Enhance your pricing strategy by utilizing simulation tech...2023-11-2030 min
Impact PricingValue Bread Blues? How to Announce Price Increases with Casey BrownCasey Brown is the President of Boost Pricing, and she has been since 2011. She started her career as a Chemical Engineer at GE, and she's been in pricing for almost 20 years now. Casey loves whitewater kayaking, and she's a big Buckeye fan. In this episode, Casey explains how important it is for sellers to connect with the emotional component of the buyer/s as she shares her knowledge on how to substantially increase your ability to earn higher prices. Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Learn how crucial the sel...2023-03-2731 min
Impact PricingPricing to Scale: 4-Step Strategic Framework for Business Success with Ajit GhumanAjit Ghuman is the Director of Product Management, Pricing, Packaging, and Customer Experience at Twilio. He is the author of the book Price to Scale. He’s had Director of Product Marketing title at several companies, and he added pricing to his title in 2019. Ajit is fascinated by ancient mysteries. In this episode, Ajit educates us on pricing and packaging as he shares why he’s passionate when it comes to changing the monetization stack, especially on companies being able to change pricing strategies a lot quicker than today. Why you have to check...2023-02-2730 min
Impact PricingPersonalities in the Pricing Community (and how to interact with them) with Robert RibciucFor the last ten years, Robert Ribciuc has been working as the Managing Partner of EBITDA Catalyst, helping clients accelerate growth in key valuation metrics. He has a BA in Math and Economics from Harvard and an MBA from Chicago Booth School of Business. In this episode, Robert shares some of his insights on how to deal with different kinds of people in the industry, be it personal or online. Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Get tips on how you could recover and avoid “falls” in your life Learn h...2023-02-0633 min
Impact PricingMemecast #79: King of Diamonds: Salespeople Must Be Confident They Can Win at High PricesThis one is the King of Diamonds from the Selling Value card deck. If a salesperson doesn't believe they're going to win selling your product, they're not going to try to sell your product. They don't want to bang their head against a wall. They're going to go sell whatever happens to be easiest. But the next step is, assuming they can sell our product, how do we get them to sell it and win at the higher prices to stop giving away deep discounts? Well, the question becomes, does a salesperson truly believe your...2022-10-1202 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #75: Why You Should NOT Give Salespeople Discount AuthorityThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 31, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/why-you-should-not-give-salespeople-discount-authority/ 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/ 2022-10-0703 min
Impact PricingMemecast #78: King of Clubs: Executives Show Interest in ValueThis one is the King of Clubs from the Selling Value card deck. What we really want is for our salespeople to be able to communicate the value of our products to our customers. It turns out that's so much easier to do when our marketing department has figured out and created the materials and the support to help salespeople go do that. But then marketing has to understand how is it that our customers value our products. And this is so much easier to do, if our product people create products that truly have...2022-10-0502 min
Impact PricingThe Structure of SaaS Pricing and Designing SaaS Pricing Models with Ulrik Lehrskov-SchmidtUlrik Lehrskov-Schmidt is the partner of willingnesstopay.com where they help companies create pricing models that radically accelerates growth and unlocks the value of their underlying technology. He has founded and sold two different companies, and he has a master's degree from Harvard. He also has an upcoming book called “The Pricing Roadmap” which will be published this December. In this episode, Ulrik enumerates four (4) things that he thinks are the most important in SaaS pricing. He also shares his methods on product segmentation and explains why the traditional “good, better, and best” product tier is lacking some imp...2022-10-0331 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #74: Qdoba Knows their Buyer’s Decision JourneyThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 24, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/qdoba-knows-their-buyers-decision-journey/ 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/ 2022-09-3003 min
Impact PricingMemecast #77: King of Hearts: Value-based Pricing is ImpossibleThis one is the King of Hearts from the Selling Value card deck. It's true, value-based pricing is impossible because value-based pricing simply means charge what your customers are willing to pay. And yet you don't know how much your customers are willing to pay. You can't read their mind. You don't know the answer and you never will know the answer. But instead of assuming we're ever going to get perfect, let's assume we can get better. We can adopt this as a mindset. If we're thinking always about how much is...2022-09-2802 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #73: Training SalespeopleThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 17, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/training-salespeople/ 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/ 2022-09-2304 min
Impact PricingMemecast #76: King of Spades: The Most Profitable Pricing StrategyThis one is the King of Spades from the Selling Value card deck. It's true, value-based pricing is the most profitable pricing strategy you can adopt. If you think about it, the definition of value-based pricing is charge what your customers are willing to pay. Now, that seems pretty simple, but if you knew exactly how much your customers were willing to pay, and you charged that amount, then you can't possibly make more money. If you charge less than that amount, you end up leaving money on the table. If you charge more than...2022-09-2102 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #72: Discovered ValueThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 10, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/discovered-value/ 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/ 2022-09-1603 min
Impact PricingMemecast #75: Ace of Diamonds: Banish the Word 'Commodity'This one is the Ace of Diamonds from the Selling Value card deck. When companies or people inside companies say we sell a commodity, what that says to me is they don't understand the value of what they offer. It may absolutely be true that you sell a commodity-like product where we're selling gold coins and your gold coins are exactly the same as your competitor's gold coins. And we could think of that maybe as a commodity, but then that's really not what we're selling. What we have to sell are all...2022-09-1402 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #71: Perfect PricingThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on August 3, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/perfect-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/ 2022-09-0903 min
Impact PricingMemecast #74: Ace of Clubs: 'Nobody Cares about Your Product'This one is the Ace of Clubs from the Selling Value card deck. One of my favorite sayings when I'm teaching is, nobody cares about your product. What's fascinating is when you look at a company's website or you look at how somebody wants to talk about what it is they're going to offer you, they want to talk about their product. I so much want to tell you, oh, I'm a pricing expert and I train people on pricing. But that's the product. What we really need to be doing is talking about the...2022-09-0702 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #70: Pricing Table TopicsThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 27, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-table-topics/ 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/ 2022-09-0202 min
Impact PricingMemecast #73: Ace of Hearts: Win Rates and Average Selling PriceThis one is the Ace of Hearts from the Selling Value card deck. Selling value really does do a lot of things. But if you imagine for a second that a buyer has some expectation of how much value they're going to get from our product. That is a good indicator of their willingness to pay, it's a good indicator of how urgent it is that they want to solve the problem or buy the product. But what if we had the ability to increase the amount of value that person expects to get from...2022-08-3102 min
Impact PricingSpecial Episode: 2 Pricing Professionals DebateMark Stiving is a widely recognized pricing expert and marketing pro who teaches companies how to boost revenues and realize their true value. He is the host of the Impact Pricing podcast, helping people win more business at higher prices through value, and has authored three books which all revolve around pricing. Ron Baker is the Founder of VeraSage Institute, dedicated to helping professional knowledge firms bury the billable hour and trash timesheets. He has published seven books around the topics of business and pricing, and also is a radio talk-show host for The Soul of Enterprise.2022-08-2937 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #69: Subscribe to Heated Seats in a BMWThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 20, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/subscribe-to-heated-seats-in-a-bmw/ 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/ 2022-08-2603 min
Impact PricingMemecast #72: Ace of Spades: Stacking the Deck in Your Favor by Increasing Customer Perceived ValueThis meme is the Ace of Spades from the Selling Value card deck. Selling value really is the skill of increasing customer perceived value. If you think about it, our customers don't really know how much value they're going to get from our products. And yet we as salespeople, product people, pricing people, we've seen other customers use our products. We've seen all the different places where they get value from our products. And if we've done a really nice job, we've been able to quantify some of that value that some of our previous...2022-08-2402 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #68: Ballet, Football, Pricing and SalesThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 13, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/ballet-football-pricing-and-sales/ 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/ 2022-08-1903 min
Impact PricingMemecast #71: Select KPIsPossibly my single favorite KPI in the world of pricing is average selling price. Are we managing average selling price per product, average selling price overall across the portfolio. If you have a single product that has a price on it and you can monitor that average selling price, that gives you a great indication of what's going on in your marketplace, how well we're selling value. If you can monitor average selling price by salesperson, now we're getting a great indicator of which salespeople do a good job at selling value and which ones...2022-08-1702 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #67: A Good Case for Cost-plus PricingThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on July 6, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/a-good-case-for-cost-plus-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/ 2022-08-1203 min
Impact PricingMemecast #70: Start with Your GoalPricing decisions can always help us achieve our goals. We need to make sure we understand what those goals are. I would start with understanding what the corporate objectives are. Oftentimes those are things like we need to raise our average selling price. We need to gain more market share. We need to have more margin. Typically, these goals, these corporate goals, are established by our CEO and our executive team, and they're there to drive increased market capitalization. However, your product may have a different set of goals than what your corporate...2022-08-1001 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #66: How I Think About PricingThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 29, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/how-i-think-about-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/ 2022-08-0503 min
Impact PricingMemecast #69: Sales ConfidenceThis one's really targeted at marketing people, product management. It turns out that we make fun of salespeople a lot because they offer discounts, they don't know how to sell value. But the question that I would ask is, what have you given them in terms of tools and knowledge and confidence that they can win deals at the prices that we think they should be winning at? We may have gone out and done a ton of analysis in the marketplace, we understand the value of our product, we understand how we compare to...2022-08-0301 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #65: Adopt Price SegmentationThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 22, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/adopt-price-segmentation/ 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/ 2022-07-3002 min
Impact PricingMemecast #68: Perception is RealityI like to run the following thought experiment. Imagine that I'm auctioning off a coffee mug. Auction it off in a classroom, or a keynote room, and maybe I can get people to bid say $15 for my coffee mug. And then when I hand the coffee mug over, I intentionally pull out a $50 bill and show them, hey, this $50 bill was in the coffee mug. Well, why didn't I get paid for that? Because the buyers didn't know that it was there. Their perception was, it was a coffee mug. Now imagine I reach back...2022-07-2702 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #64: Buyer’s Value Journey MapThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 15, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/buyers-value-journey-map/ 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/ 2022-07-2202 min
Impact PricingMemecast #67: Perceived ValueWe all want our salespeople to sell more value. What does that actually mean though? If we think about it, our customers, whether they be consumers or businesses, they buy value. They exchange money for the value they perceive that they're going to get from our product, however they want to measure that value. Our job as a salesperson needs to be to make sure our customers, our buyers, understand how much value our product might be able to give them because the more value they perceive the more we can charge, the more likely...2022-07-2001 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #63: To Fee or Not to Fee?This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 8, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/to-fee-or-not-to-fee/ 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/ 2022-07-1503 min
Impact PricingMemecast #66: Consumer ValueLast week, we talked about economic value and how businesses are able to calculate how much money are they going to make or save based on buying and using your product or solution. Sadly, consumers can't do that in almost all situations. I love this one blue shirt I get from Brooks Brothers but there's no way to calculate how much money that shirt makes me or saves me. Instead, it's a feeling I get. It's the fact that I've gotten compliments when I've worn that shirt. So, I have a willingness to pay for...2022-07-1301 min
Impact PricingCompetitive Pricing Strategy: How to Make Your Products Stand Out from Competitors with Dale HarrisonDale Harrison has been consulting in life sciences for seven years now, but he's been an executive in biotech for 16 years. Dale started his career as a physicist. In this episode, Dale shares how he’s able to not make biotech products a commodity as he tells us the stories on how he gets inside the minds of both their customers and competitors. Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Understand the importance of stepping outside the product and the company when it comes to making a product stand out in th...2022-07-1128 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #62: The Power of Economic ValueThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 1, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/the-power-of-economic-value/ 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/ 2022-07-0802 min
Impact PricingMemecast #65: Economic ValueIt's true, every time we buy something, we buy it because we think we get more value than the price it's going to cost us. It's kind of hard for us as consumers to say how much is that value, and we think of that in terms of dollars. But in a corporate setting, how much they value something can almost always be decided by how much money do they think they're going to make or save because they're buying our product or our solution. That amount of money they're going to make or save is called...2022-07-0601 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #61: Are iPhone Users Not Price Sensitive?This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on May 25, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/are-iphone-users-not-price-sensitive/ 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/ 2022-07-0103 min
Impact PricingMemecast #64: Stop NegotiatingOftentimes, salespeople are selling to a committee of people who have to make a big decision. Once they've made the decision, they typically say, hey, we want to go with this vendor, and then they submit it to purchasing or procurement. At that point in time, procurement pretends to be price sensitive, pretends that there's multiple different competitors involved. But if we can recognize that we've already been chosen, then we don't have to compete hard on price. This happens often, especially if we're going to be selling to a committee who has to make a decision.2022-06-2901 min
Impact PricingPricing Power: Making Pricing Profitable with Ayon BhattacharyyaAyon Bhattacharyya is the Founder of Biz Growth Spurt, a consulting firm based out of New Zealand. He has experienced pricing in half a dozen companies, and he's a passionate animal welfare advocate. In this episode, Ayon discusses pricing power as he enumerates its four different levels while talking about value-based pricing. Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Understand how pricing power relates to price elasticity Find out what Ayon’s four different levels of pricing power are all about Discover how Mark’s will I? which one? concept relates...2022-06-2727 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #60: How Much Does a Buyer Values Your Product?This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on May 18, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/how-much-does-a-buyer-value-your-product/ 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/ 2022-06-2402 min
Impact PricingMemecast #63: Gives and GetsYou probably know that when we're negotiating, we do gifts and gets. We don't give anything unless we get something in return. Purchasing people are always asking us for discounts and sometimes we have to give in. We give a discount to a client or a customer. What should we get in return? Well, we should be thinking first about the things that are hard costs for us to serve our clients. For example, maybe there's a shipping cost. Maybe it's a warranty cost. But there are things that are truly that cost...2022-06-2201 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #59: Data and/or ValueThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on May 11, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/data-and-or-value/ 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/ 2022-06-1703 min
Impact PricingMemecast #62: Business CaseIf buyers are asking us for a business case, or help to write their own business case, what they're trying to do is document economic value. How much money is our product going to make or save their company? Well, this is awesome because what we want to do is help our buyers understand value. This is the exact best situation that we could possibly be in. So, what we as salespeople should be doing is understanding, how is it that our buyers get value from our products? And I can tell you it's not our features.2022-06-1501 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #58: Taking the Ambiguity Out of ValueThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on May 4, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/taking-the-ambiguity-out-of-value/ 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/ 2022-06-1002 min
Impact PricingMemecast #61: Use Behavioral Economics After ValueBehavioral economics are fun. These are those tactics, the things that we see where our buyers are behaving irrationally, and yet we know they're irrational and we can take advantage of it. In fact, my dissertation in my doctoral program was on 99 cents, and why does 99 cents work, and it's because buyers tend to be irrational. We should think of each penny or each dollar is identical, but we don't. The thing is, although these behavioral economics tactics work, and we really should be paying attention to them because we want to present...2022-06-0802 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #57: The Value of Selling ValueThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on April 27, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/the-value-of-selling-value/ 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/ 2022-06-0302 min
Impact PricingMemecast #60: Value Propositions are GeneralYour marketing department, your product managers, somebody in your company has probably created value propositions for your products. And I love these. These are great because hopefully we've taken the time to think about the average customer, the generic customer, what's the real problem they're trying to solve. The key for us though, if we're thinking about selling to individual buyers, is each buyer has a different set of problems. Each buyer is looking for a different set of results. What we want to be able to do is understand those value propositions and then query with...2022-06-0101 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #56: Don’t Forget the CustomerThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on April 13, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/dont-forget-the-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/ 2022-05-2702 min
Impact PricingMemecast #59: Value-based Pricing is ImpossibleValue-based pricing really is impossible to do perfectly. In order to do value-based pricing perfectly, I would have to be able to read every customer's mind. I have to determine how much a customer is willing to pay for our product. And it's impossible to do that. However, there are techniques and tactics that we can constantly use to get better and better. We can use techniques to help buyers understand more of our value, which will increase their willingness to pay. As we start focusing our entire pricing strategy, and then we...2022-05-2501 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #55: Best Example for “Costs Don’t Drive Pricing”This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on April 6, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/best-example-for-costs-dont-drive-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/ 2022-05-2003 min
Impact PricingMemecast #58: Value-based Pricing is the Most Profitable StrategyIt's true, value-based pricing is the optimal pricing strategy. Value-based pricing simply means charge what our customers are willing to pay. If a customer is willing to pay us a hundred dollars, the best we could possibly do as a company is to charge that customer a hundred dollars. If we charge less, we left money on the table. If we charge more, the customer doesn't buy. So, it's impossible to do better than value-based pricing. Now, I'll agree, it's impossible to do value-based pricing perfectly, which we'll talk about next week. But understand, adopt...2022-05-1801 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #54: Shrinkflation, the Hidden Price IncreaseThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on March 30, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/shrinkflation-the-hidden-price-increase/ 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/ 2022-05-1303 min
Impact PricingMemecast #57: Selling Value Helps AlotBoy, there's no way I can completely explain this impactful insight in a brief conversation. But understand, if we can get our salespeople to shift from talking about our features and pushing our products to instead selling the value of our products to our marketplace, our salespeople learn to talk about the problems that we're going to solve, the results that our buyers are going to expect to achieve, this does magic in terms of the sales cycle and the end of the sale. Because when we truly resonate with our buyers and their problems...2022-05-1101 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #53: Selling ValueThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on April 20, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/selling-value/ 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/ 2022-05-0602 min
Impact PricingMemecast #56: Nobody Cares About Your ProductIt's absolutely true, people don't buy products, they buy solutions to problems. When we talk about our products, when we talk about our features, that doesn't truly resonate in the minds of our buyers. Instead, what we need to be doing is talking about the problems that we're going to solve as well as the results a buyer might achieve. When we can capture their attention, recognizing the fact that they have a problem and getting them to agree that they have that problem, and then describing the results they might be able to achieve by solving...2022-05-0401 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #52: Peleton Tests New Pricing ModelThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on March 23, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/peloton-tests-new-pricing-model/ 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/ 2022-04-2903 min
Impact PricingMemecast #55: Experts Buy FeaturesIt really is fascinating that experts can translate our features into our benefits. And oftentimes as salespeople, as pricing people, as product managers or product marketers, we are experts in our own products. We think about a feature and we can automatically understand what those benefits are that our customers are going to achieve. But do our customers understand those benefits? And if they're experts then sure they do, but aren't we all trying to win new business? Aren't we all trying to find customers who are just getting into the product category, who are choosing between...2022-04-2702 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #51: Pricing People Shouldn’t Set PricesThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on March 16, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-people-shouldnt-set-prices/ 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/ 2022-04-2203 min
Impact PricingMemecast #54: New Business ModelsUsually, when we think about creating a new business model, it revolves around pricing. It often revolves around, what are we going to charge for? If you think about what Netflix did when they first launched, you may recall Blockbuster was renting movies by the night, they were charging late fees. Most of their profit came from their late fees. Netflix on the other hand decided to offer a subscription where you could have one, two, or three DVDs at your house at any point in time, and you just paid a flat monthly fee. There were...2022-04-2002 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #50: The Value of Teachers vs. AthletesThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on March 9, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/the-value-of-teachers-vs-athletes/ 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/ 2022-04-1504 min
Impact PricingMemecast #53: Executive Led InitiativesLet's face it, pricing people, we're typically smart. We have to interact and interface with lots and lots of different departments. But we rarely have the authority to make decisions that impact the entire company. These decisions could be changing pricing strategies, changing pricing metrics, focusing on market segments that we're going to go target. It could be getting product people to use value as they make decisions on which products to buy, or marketing people to document what value looks like as they're doing their marketing messages, teaching salespeople how to sell value. All...2022-04-1302 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #49: Indirect Customer ImpactThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on March 2, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/indirect-customer-impact/ 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/ 2022-04-0803 min
Impact PricingMemecast #52: Fixed CostsThis one may be intuitive, may not be intuitive, but it turns out that if your fixed costs change, for whatever reason, if they go up, if they go down, it really should have no impact whatsoever on your pricing. For example, let's say you need to buy a new piece of factory equipment, and it's really expensive, and it makes your fixed cost go way up. Did buying that new piece of factory equipment for you change your customer's willingness to pay? No, it didn't. Customers are still willing to pay the same amount...2022-04-0601 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #48: Direct Customer ImpactThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on February 23, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/direct-customer-impact/ 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/ 2022-04-0103 min
Impact PricingMemecast #51: Price is FastIt's true, pricing can have an instantaneous response. I often think of it as the nuclear bomb of marketing mix variables because you can change it today, impact the market immediately, and it's really hard to take it back. Now, compare that to the other marketing mix variables. If you've taken a marketing class, you know the four P's. You know the other three besides price, or your product, your place, and your promotion. Product is obviously, what are we building? The place is, what's the distribution channel look like? And then the promotion is...2022-03-3002 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #47: Another Netflix IncreaseThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on February 16, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/another-netflix-price-increase/ 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/ 2022-03-2503 min
Impact PricingMemecast #50: Loyal CustomersThe whole point of pricing, value-based pricing, is to charge what customers are willing to pay. And almost by definition, loyal customers like us more, they would be willing to pay us more. This is the big exception to the rule of charge what a customer is willing to pay. My intent when I do price segmentation and charge different customers different prices is I also want to think about the lifetime value of a customer. If you have a customer who loves you, they're very loyal to you, and yet they find out that...2022-03-2301 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #46: You Must Lose on PriceThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on February 9, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/you-must-lose-on-price/ 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/ 2022-03-1802 min
Impact PricingMemecast #49: Sales Should Not Own PricingSalespeople love them to death, however, it's more important to them to close the deal than to close it at the highest possible price. In fact, if they stay and negotiate a little bit harder, they're at risk of losing the deal. And if they lose the deal, they lose their commission. They lose the ability to reach their quotas. So, for them, their incentives are a little bit askew from what our incentives should be. And when I say our, let's say the company, the owners of the company, or us as pricing people, where we...2022-03-1601 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #45: Losing on PriceThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on February 2, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/losing-on-price-2/ 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/ 2022-03-1102 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #44: A Perspective on RFPsThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on January 26, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/a-perspective-on-rfps/ 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/ 2022-03-0903 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #43: Don’t Confuse Your BuyersThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on January 19, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/dont-confuse-your-buyers/ 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/ 2022-03-0403 min
Impact PricingMemecast #48: Small ImprovementI'm going to try to do a little math with you on this podcast, and imagine we have a company that normally makes a hundred million dollars in revenue. They've got costs of $90 million all in. So, they're making $10 million in profit. And that's not unrepresentative, that seems pretty reasonable for a lot of companies. But what happens if we could increase or improve our pricing by 1%? So instead of a hundred million, what if we got 101 million in revenue? Our costs don't really change so instead of 10 million in profit, now we're making 11 million in profit...2022-03-0201 min
Impact PricingBlogcast #42: Willingness to AcceptThis is an Impact Pricing Blog published on January 12, 2022, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/willingness-to-accept/ 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/ 2022-02-2502 min
Impact PricingMemecast #47: Creating ValueWhen we think about pricing, typically we have a product in hand and we say, how much does our customer value this? How much are they willing to pay? Now, we're going to put a price tag on that. And that's really important. We want to be able to do that well. And that's typically what we think of when we think of pricing. But if we take a step or two backwards in the business process, the fact that we as pricing people understand value, we understand how customers perceive value. Imagine if the...2022-02-2301 min
Impact PricingMemecast #46: Signal of QualityWe all know that price is a signal of quality, but what ends up happening is, over time people learn what the true quality is, and they realize if the prices match that true quality or not. If we're able to price relative to our true quality, then all is right with our customers in their minds and they're not going to change their purchase decisions. They're more likely to stick with us. Now, what happens if we deliver a ton of quality and we charge a low price? Well, first off, maybe a lot of people...2022-02-1802 min
Impact PricingMemecast #45: Reference PricesThere's a concept in economics, behavioral economics, called reference prices. And reference prices really say our customers have some expectation about what they think they're going to pay. And if our price is below that expectation, they get a good feeling they're getting a good deal. And the fact that they're getting a good deal provides them an incentive or the good feelings that say I'm actually going to buy. Richard Thaler broke this up into two different types of utility. There's transaction utility and there's functional utility. The functional utility...2022-02-1601 min
Impact PricingMemecast #44: FulcrumAs pricing professionals, we really need to be the logical part of the business. Our product lines, they really want higher prices. Sometimes they become emotionally involved with their products and they think that they're worth a ton - and they probably are. Have we explained the value to the customers? Are we able to capture all those higher prices? "We pricing professionals are the fulcrum of the business. Product lines want higher prices, sales want lower prices. " - Mark Stiving And what we want to do as pricing people is make su...2022-02-0902 min
Impact PricingMemecast #43: Pricing has Emotional PowerAs far as loving you is concerned, obviously, they love low prices; they love discounts. But the real love happens when we can deliver a ton more value than what they expected, what they actually have to pay for. These are the raving fans, the people who really value our products. And yet we couldn't capture all of that value even if we wanted to. “Pricing has the power to make your customers love you, hate you, or anything in between.” - Mark Stiving As to hating you, customers will absolutely hate you when...2022-02-0201 min
Impact PricingMemecast #42: Real Value Comes From Real DifferentiationReal value comes from real differentiation. Real value is turned into perceived value through marketing. When we're up against the competition, which most of the time we all. Our customers are buying perceived differentiation. They look at our product or competitors' products. What's the difference in price and is it worth it? And the, ‘is it worth it’ has everything to do with the difference in capability, the product differentiation, the features that are different. “Build real differentiation, but we have to make sure our customers know it.” - Mark Stiving Now we may...2022-01-2601 min
Impact PricingMemecast #40: Everybody Affect ValueEvery single customer touchpoint customers are evaluating us. They're saying that was a good experience. That was a bad experience. If we mess up an invoice and they have to call to fix it, that's a bad experience. And that destroys. But if our invoices are super easy to understand, and they tie back to all the previous paperwork and they make it easy for our customers to do their job, like, oh, pay the bill, then we're adding value. Even if it isn't our main product. Every customer touchpoint adds or subtracts value. “Everybody in...2022-01-1601 min
Impact PricingMemecast #39: Pricing is HardYes, pricing is really hard. I personally find it frustrating when I look at companies, doesn't matter the size of the company where they're focused a lot on how do we keep costs down? How do we cut costs? We have procurement people. We hire specific procurement people whose job is to get costs down and their job is to learn how to negotiate better so that we can pay lower prices. And I'm not saying those are bad things. But, you know, pricing is so much more powerful. What if we could negotiate better on our...2022-01-0501 min
Impact PricingMemecast #38: Better ProductsI've spoken with lots of CEOs who believe that they should get higher margins and they want higher margins. And, by the way, doesn't everybody want higher margins? But the key is the CEO as well as pretty much everybody else in the company doesn't truly understand what value means to the customer. And what that means is that the products they're building aren't necessarily. That valuable to their marketplace. “Build products that deserve higher margins. “- Mark Stiving If everybody could switch their mindset to believing in value, to understanding what c...2021-12-2901 min
Impact PricingMemecast #37: Gross Margin Never MattersGross margin never matters to pricing. Occasionally, contribution margin does. This might feel like accounting to you. Gross margin, contribution margin…. but you've probably heard me say, 'Fixed costs never matter to pricing. Never, never, never.’ Now, if you believe that here's a really simple accounting concept. “Gross margin includes allocated fixed costs to the cost of a product. Contribution margin does not include allocated fixed costs. “- Mark Stiving So if we simply take the rule that fixed costs never mattered in pricing, then when we're making pricing decisions...2021-12-2201 min
Impact PricingMemecast #36: Pricing is AmazingDo I really have to tell you how pricing is for? I hope not, but let's talk about powerful pricing. It is incredibly powerful. You might've heard that, if you could improve pricing by 1% on average, that has an impact of 10% or 11% profitability on your company. This is huge. “Pricing is such an amazing topic. It's complex, quantitative, and psychological. It's huge, powerful, and emotional. Most of all it's fun.”- Mark Stiving This is powerful, but I have to say what I think I love the most about pricing...2021-12-1501 min
Impact PricingMemecast #35: Nobody Cares about Your FeaturesNobody cares about your features. They only care about what value your features provide them. That happens to be one of my favorite sayings. ‘Nobody cares about your features.’ And what's pretty fascinating is when you look at companies' webpages, what do they talk about? They talk about their products. They talk about their features and it's true. Nobody really cares. “Nobody cares about your features. They only care about what value your features provide them.” - Mark Stiving Actually experts can look at one of your features or...2021-12-0802 min
Impact PricingMemecast #34: There's No Such Thing as a CommodityI hate the word commodity. When I see product managers or marketers or salespeople using it, it makes me think they're lazy. It makes me think they haven't thought through what they're really saying because there really is no such thing as a commodity. Think about the ultimate commodity product for second and that's gold. I could look online and tell you what the spot price is for gold right now. And then I could go to a webpage and I could buy a gold medallion and it turns out if I go to...2021-12-0102 min
Impact PricingMemecast #33: Create Real ValueBuyers by perceived value, but perceived value is easiest to come about. If we build products that are better than our competitors, and then we make sure we communicate that to our customers so they understand our products are better. “You create real value by improving your products and services relative to your competition.”- Mark Stiving So I break this up into real value and perceived value perceived says, yes, we had to have done our marketing, but real value says. Is our product truly better than our competitions? If you want to wi...2021-11-2401 min
Impact PricingMemecast #32: Don't Compete on Price, Compete on ValueSimon Kucher & Partners did a study that found that a huge percentage of people thought that they were in a price war. But when you ask the people who thought they were in a price war, who started it. It was like 80% said the other guy started it. Remember that last deal that came in and the sales person said, ‘Hey, we really have to do a deep discount. Otherwise, we're going to lose this.’ And so we did a deep discount. What is your competitor just seeing? They just saw you competing on price. 2021-11-1701 min
Impact PricingMemecast #31: Think about the Lifetime Value of a CustomerI don't really want you to just sit around and think about lifetime value. What I want you to do is think about lifetime value and how that influences your business, how that influences your pricing and your product development and your. If you're in a subscription-type business, this becomes so obvious. Because we need to win a new customer. We want to keep that customer. "Think about the lifetime value of a customer. Think about it and then do something about it." - Mark Stiving We want to grow that cu...2021-11-1001 min
Impact PricingMemecast #30: Find Buyers that Value Your ProductIt seems obvious to me that we want to find the buyers that value our products the most and then sell to them. But once we really start to understand what value means, when we start to understand that value is really about solving buyers' problems, what problems do they have? What results might they expect and value comes from what's the impact of those results? Once we understand that well, we start looking around and we look at many, many different potential customers or even existing customers. We can start to articulate, which are t...2021-11-0301 min
Impact PricingMemecast #29: Pricing Leaders are Value-basedTo be a pricing leader, you must be a value-based business. Welcome to the Impact Pricing Memecast, where I take one of our daily memes and provide a little bit more insight behind the word. In general, a company is either a pricing leader or a pricing follower. A pricing leader is someone who looks at the steady-state of pricing and says, we're going to change our prices first. “If you want to be a pricing leader, you really need to be focused on value, not on cost plus.” - Mark Stiving And t...2021-10-2002 min
Impact PricingWin Keep Grow: The Surprising Fundamentals Entrepreneurs Need to Build and Grow a Subscription BusinessFor a change, Mark doesn't have a guest for today. Instead, he answers questions he would have liked interviewers to ask him. And part of that is, he highlights some important ideas and insights inside his new book with the title of 'Win Keep Grow: How to Price and Package to Accelerate Your Subscription Business.' Join us in this episode as we get to preview some of the golden nuggets in Mark's newest book. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Find out the important revenue buckets you must manage i...2021-10-1813 min
Impact PricingMemecast #28: Pricing Metrics Are Correlated With Value MetricsThe best pricing metrics are highly correlated with users value metrics. A pricing metric is what do we charge for McDonald's charges for hamburgers? That's a simple pricing metric, PayPal charges a percentage of the revenue that we collect. That's a pricing metric. There are many different types of pricing metrics, especially in the world of SaaS. We have the ability to choose many, many different possible pricing metrics. We could choose the number of clicks we could choose. The number of leads we could choose, the amount of data that somebody downloads or the n...2021-10-1303 min
Impact PricingMemecast #27: Perceived Value is the Only Value that Matters in PriceThere's really only two basic types of value that customers can get. And that's real value and perceived value. Real value is after they've bought the product they're using it. How does it truly impact their life? How does it really make a difference or solve their problems or yield results? That's real value in the world of B2B. We could think of real value as economic value. How much more money does it make or save the customer? That's real value. However, before somebody buys the product, they don't really know the real v...2021-10-0601 min
Impact PricingMemecast #26: Everyone is CoordinatedPricing really encompasses almost every department inside your company, because when you think about it, pricing is how do we capture that? And so now it's all about value, what's value to the customer. In fact, what's perceived value to the customer and we can work our way backwards and say salespeople on a one-on-one basis, talking to customers are trying to help each individual customer understand how much value our product might be able to deliver. “Product teams create value. Marketing communicates value. Sales helps buyers understand their specific value. Pricing captures value. Everyone is...2021-09-2902 min
Impact PricingMemecast #25: Business is Getting Paid for ValueBusiness in its simplest form is getting paid for providing value to the customer. It may be true that they're going to get the value. It may not be true that they're going to get the value, but they believe they're going to get the value. And what we need to do is make sure we understand what our customers or our buyers are looking for. What does value mean? “Business, in its simplest form, is getting paid for providing value to the customer.” - Mark Stiving Typically, we could...2021-09-2401 min