I responded all wrong.
‘How would you expect our pricing to look like?’ she asked.
I launched into some ramble about different usage fees, hardware costs, and support costs. Plus a bit about lifetime value of a customer, project cost versus programme versus global agreements, and even how to filter out customers that you’re not a right fit for.
However, I completely broke my own rule. I spoke technical and user manual-ish, not stories, emotions, and value.
Pricing is a story we tell ourselves and others. Part of pricing is telling a story that fits into the story of your potential customer/client. But underlying this is value. What value are you bringing to your client? How do you talk about it?
And when selling B2B, the story of value is even more important because the person you are talking to needs to retell the story to their manager.
Everyone likes to feel like they are getting a bonus, something for free. Therefore, part of the pricing model needs to include that. Needs to talk about it. This can be as simple as ‘for this usage fee, we’ll add in the ‘extra’ of this support package valued at X price for free. Because we want to set you up to succeed.’ Call them bonuses, extras, add-ons or whatever you want, but tell them the financial value of them so they can tell the story of ‘getting a good deal.’
Pricing is about trading something for the value received. Often customers are focused on the cost, we need to help them to think about value.
@Christie, perhaps we need to have another conversation about value…
Talking about pricing is similar to talking about change. I often make the mistake of talking logic when people are looking for value, emotion, and stories.
What happens when we think about change through the lens of value? Does it change how we talk about it?
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