How Pricing Hurts Your Business And Its Hidden Costs! with Janene Liston

Episode Summary

Janene Liston is the pricing lady. Janene opens our eyes to things we’ve never even considered before today. It’s a conversation that dives deep in the biggest pricing faux pas in the world of business. Lots of takeaways with very little math LOL!

Learn
-the most common mistakes entrepreneurs make when it comes to pricing
-how 1% improvement can lead to 8% profit
-why eroding prices are often overlooked and dangerous

Join The Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/WinTheHourWinTheDay/
Win The Hour, Win The Day! www.winthehourwintheday.com
Podcast: Win The Hour, Win The Day Podcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/winthehourwintheday/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/win-the-hour-win-the-day-podcast

You can find Janene Liston at:
Website: https://thepricinglady.com/
Facebook: https://web.facebook.com/janene.liston.1
Email: janene@thepricinglady.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/thepricinglady

Masterclass:  Working Hard Sucks And It’s Costing You Money!
https://winthehourwintheday.com/working-hard-sucks-and-its-costing-you-money-masterclass

Win The Hour Win The Day 
https://winthehourwintheday.com

Check out the Outsourcing Playbook For Busy Entrepreneurs here: https://winthehourwintheday.com/outsourcing-playbook

Janene Liston Podcast

[00:00:03]Kris Ward: I almost don’t check that. Cause it just records. Like I was having a chat with somebody the other day. It was totally casual. And she goes, why were you recording this? I say it does it automatically, but I still have my list and I check it

[00:00:14]Janene Liston: No, but it’s good because then you don’t forget. 

[00:00:17]Kris Ward: No. Okay. That was just, I was too close to like, it’s always recording.

[00:00:24] Oh, my God. Nevermind you. And I have to call you back. Like I got nothing else to do, but do all this stuff twice, right? Okay. Oh my Lord have mercy. That was. Timer,  gallery view. It was too close. Like, you know, whatever religion. Thank you. Okay, perfect. Good to go. I’m super excited.

[00:00:47] Fun, fun, fun, fun. Janene Liston. Okay. Having a bad hair day, but it’s not about me. 

[00:00:53]Janene Liston: I keep going like this. 

[00:00:54]Kris Ward: I know. I know. How can I keep it up? 

[00:00:58]Janene Liston: And today the part is like right when the gray hair came in. So, so now then..

[00:01:05]Kris Ward:  You can get me started. Okay. All right. Let’s see what we have here. Okay.

[00:01:12] We’re starting. Okay. We’re going to start here. I didn’t shut that off. Yeah, we never stopped. We were good to me today

[00:01:25] and triple check my mic. Okay, perfect. No, wait for my heater. Stop. One second.

[00:01:40]Janene Liston:  Cold in there. 

[00:01:43]Kris Ward: Because I’m not on my bike. I was just like, I’m like a child. I keep pressing my face against the window. Cause I love my bike. I bought this house because it was on the trail and now I’m like, okay. And maybe I’d be accepted if except that it looked like, you know, when you’re like, I’m such a believer when there’s that one day of spring, I’m like, I don’t even look at the weather after that.

[00:02:02] I’m like, okay, we’re in, like, I think it’s a door we’ve walked through. We’re not going back. That’s my problem. I’m so naive. Okay.

[00:02:19]Kris Ward:  Hey, everyone! Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour, Win The Day. I am your host, Kris ward, and I am really eager to dive into this conversation with Janene Liston, known more as the “Pricing Lady”. Hold on. Friggin, did I say that right? Cause I wrote two notes here. Hold on. Pricing Lady. Right? Okay.

[00:02:38] Let’s start over. Sorry, because you have one over there. Let’s start over.

START…

[00:02:46]Kris Ward:  Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Win The Hour, Win The Day. I am your lucky host, Kris Ward. Why am I lucky? Janene Liston is in the house, better known as The Pricing Lady. So this is something we have not attacked so far, but I am really eager to dive into this conversation. There’s so much that we could talk about.  Janene, let’s just hop right to it. Welcome to the show. 

[00:03:09]Janene Liston: Hi, Kris. Thanks for having me here. Hi everyone. 

[00:03:12]Kris Ward: So Janene, you got all these credentials. I could list them and they know they mean a whole bunch of stuff in your industry, but let’s just dive into it. Let’s just talk about what is it that you think are the biggest mistakes we all make when it comes to pricing?

[00:03:28]Janene Liston: Okay. First mistake I think the people really make is that they don’t actually believe in the prices they’re charging. It’s probably the thing that holds them back the most, because if you don’t believe that you’re charging the right price, how can your customer believe it?

[00:03:46]Kris Ward: Okay. So you think they’re undervaluing themselves?

[00:03:50]Janene Liston: And sometimes it’s undervaluing themselves and sometimes it’s just that, you know, pricing is that something anybody ever pulls you aside and teaches you how to do. Like riding a bike, you know, dad or mom taught you how to do that with a kid? Well, nobody does that with pricing. So you’re doing something that you have no information on how to do it. And of course, then it feels really uncomfortable. Right?

[00:04:15]Kris Ward:  Right. So where does one start? Because you can often say whether you’re new in your business or let’s say, you know, we’re always evolving. Right? My whole thing with Win The Hour, Win The Day it’s, you know, getting to your what is next? What is next? What is next?

[00:04:27] Moving there really effectively and efficiently. So there’s always a “what is next?” You’re always going to be, oh, I’ve never done this before. And how much do I price? There’s always expansion. So when you’re doing that, what are the variables we put in play? Okay. Am I looking at the marketplace and comparing myself to others, but you know, I’m doing this differently.

[00:04:45] Am I new at it? Where do we even begin? Other than looking at the ceiling and saying, okay, what can I stomach?”

[00:04:52]Janene Liston: Great question. So I always say pricing is rooted in a deep understanding of the customer, because this is where pricing starts. Your pricing should be related to the value people get from it. And the only person who determines what the value is, is the customer in the end.

[00:05:07] So they’re the ultimate judge and jury of the value that you deliver. So if you’re not clear about who you’re really targeting, then it’s hard to set a price because you can’t really understand the value from their perspective. So it has to start with understanding them and the mistakes people make, service businesses tend to go to the competition.

[00:05:30] What they’re doing and then say, oh, I’ll price a little bit lower than that. But they don’t know if that business is successful or not. They don’t know if they’re targeting the same group. You actually don’t know anything about that. And so it’s part of the equation. It’s just not where the equation starts.

[00:05:49]Kris Ward:  Okay. That’s a really good point. And that could umbrella every discussion because so many of us have said, well, they’re doing this, they’re doing that. And you’re right. We don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know where they are in their journey, how much experience they have, or that they’ll be out of business in six months.

[00:06:03] We don’t know that. When you’re looking then at pricing saying now I have no problem experimenting with pricing. I’ve done that where, you know, I’m like, okay, they were so closed, but they thought it was two or three people that have told me that’s a bit steep or that’s this or whatever. And so then let’s play with the pricing and adjust it and stuff.

[00:06:22] So I see it as a breathing thing that we’re always fine finessing and playing with. What are some of your, you know, what do you recommend as far as starting point or how to adjust?

[00:06:35]Janene Liston: Right. So, one of the myths that people have around pricing is that they just set a price and then they’re done.

[00:06:48] Right. But pricing is actually a way of being in your business. It’s about making good business decisions. And I had this conversation with a client today where she’s like, should I offer this early bird discount? And I ran her through the logic for that. Well, is it a good business decision? Why are you doing it?

[00:07:08] Are you doing it to be nice? Then it’s probably not such a great business decision. Are you doing it because you want to know in advance, if enough people will book so that you can cancel before the event, before you have to pay money for the location, then it’s a better business decision. So it’s about being able to make better decisions in your business.

[00:07:30] And you’re absolutely right. Sometimes you have to throw it out there, test it, see what happens and be in a position to adjust. But again. Go ahead.

[00:07:40]Kris Ward: Sorry, go ahead. It sounds like there’s this bridge between pricing and sales. Like I guess I would think, well, how do I know you have to be, I guess, confident in one or the other to know.

[00:07:50] Okay. So I’ve tried this a couple times. It’s not my sales. I mean, we can all improve on sales. We could talk about that all day long, but how do we know when we go? All right. I dropped the ball on the sales capacity or I think it’s a pricing issue. I guess we’re all here about I’m always big on that when people listen to the show and one of the biggest compliments I get from a lot of our reviews and thank you everyone for the reviews.

[00:08:13] I read every single one of them. Thank you so much. And what they like is, you know, solid takeaways. And this is such an important conversation. And yet, how do we talk to people about pricing when they’re all, when you guys are out there and you’ve got different products with different pricing in different experiences, like how do we, how do we really do something that we can sink our teeth into with that?

[00:08:38]Janene Liston: Okay. So trying to understand what it is you really want here, I think. Okay. So the first part of that question was how do we know if it’s a problem with my selling skills or my marketing skills or my pricing skills? And part of the challenge is that they’re all. You know, they’re all connected, right?

[00:08:56] So it’s, you can’t necessarily always isolate one from the other. It’s kind of like the knee bone is connected to the thigh bone, but your pricing is when it’s

[00:09:11] one way that you can identify that it’s not going right is you’re working too hard and you’re simply not making enough money. That’s one, one aspect. So there’s lots of different signs that it can be related to pricing. Now, if you’re positioned, if we do something called a value map, this is a more concrete tool.

[00:09:32] Let’s say there’s a value and it’s a plot of, this is the price. This is the value from the customer Perspective and I’m here and my competition is here. So where are you on that map? And if you see you’re delivering great value at a low price compared to everyone else, then you’re probably under priced.

[00:09:55]Kris Ward:  Okay. All right. So let’s unpack that a little bit. Okay. So what you’re saying is this. Cause it is hard for me to wrap my brain around where price and sales separate. So what you’re saying is, okay, you’re achieving your goals. That’s fine. And you’ve got business coming in and you’re happy with that.

[00:10:13] But what you’re saying is you’re still having to work too hard for you, you know, dreams are being fulfilled. X amount of clients or customers are coming in, but you’re still hustling. And I was in that situation when I realized, oh my heaven. It’s much work to do as product A is product B and product B you know, is far more lucrative.

[00:10:29] Like it’s a bigger ticket item. So why am I over here with product A, because it’s the same amount of onboarding and all this other stuff. So what you’re saying is the pricing is you can know it’s an issue when you look and say, I’m still really working hard, jumping through hoops, but I’m getting the business I need.

[00:10:45] And yet the profits and everything aren’t there. So for the amount of work and value I’m providing, I’m undercutting myself.

[00:10:53]Janene Liston: Yes, that’s one sign. Another example well, what goes hand in hand with that often is resentment. If you’re starting to resent your customers. You feel like you’re working too hard and not earning them off. That’s another sign. Definitely. That you’re not charging enough. 

[00:11:13Kris Ward: ] Right? Okay. So they’re starting to cause now in the little voice, that’s less kind in the back of your head. They’re asking for something. You’re thinking I’m doing all this stuff for you. Right. Okay. So there we go. Internal dialogue, check.

[00:11:26] Okay. We’ve all been there. And then understanding, I know one of the things you talk about is understanding profits, equal growth, not greed. And I think what happens, you know, depending on where you are in your journey, whether, you know, even if you’re just trying a new product, do you get, sometimes you get so grateful, like, ah, I really wanted to help more people in this area. And so then you’re underpricing yourself again, right? Okay.

[00:11:49]Janene Liston: This is something I see all the time and it comes in many forms. I hear it as “I want to be fair”. I hear this all the time, especially from women, I want to be fair. Or your social entrepreneurs who are doing social enterprises. I want to be fair. I want to do the right thing and that’s noble.

[00:12:08] And I’m not saying you shouldn’t, however, especially when you’re starting a business, it’s hard to sustain a business if you can’t be profitable from the start, right? You have to almost take care of yourself first in some ways before you can be there for other people, it also means you may need different revenue streams.

[00:12:29] Know that one revenue stream may support your business financially. And another one may give you the love that you, you know, give you the thing that you love to do. And so pricing is very much related to those revenue streams, because revenue is the price times the volume, right? So you have to understand that in order to understand that business model.

[00:12:50]Kris Ward:  So I think, you know, that’s one of my, not pet peeves, but I’ll hear that from somebody that does what they deem to be. I don’t know, noble work, like maybe they’re in the health industry or acupuncture, or even a massage server somebody and they’d be like, oh yeah, well, you know, I really just want to help people.

[00:13:06] I’m not worried about the money. Well, you know, you can help way less people when you’re broke. Right. And if you really want to help people. Here’s how you could help people, the people that are making the biggest impact in helping others are usually pretty fat wallets, right? They’re like, oh, let me give to here and give there.

[00:13:23] So that’s not an excuse. I really think that’s just, you know, compromising for something you’re insecure about. So I think what you’re saying here, and this is a really important point. The pricing is the oxygen to the business. Like it’s the money. And we all talk about sales whenever we can. And sometimes we don’t. Sometimes they’re like, oh, I’ll just go out and talk as fast as I can and try to convince them.

[00:13:48] I mean, actual sales strategy is a whole nother discussion where I think we often neglect that, but you’re right. I’ve been doing this for quite some time and no one really addresses pricing when to adjust, when to, you know, bulk up what to do, so, okay. So if…

[00:14:08]Janene Liston: I had always likened ‘pricing is to profit’ like ‘iron is to blood’. So, have you ever, I know a lot of you out there have had low iron. And how does it make you feel? You’re struggling for everything and you can’t, you’re dizzy, you do know you just kind of disoriented and you’re not yourself. And it’s the same way when your price isn’t positioned correctly, you have a profit deficiency in your business because you can’t ever get enough energy behind the profits to be able to reinvest in that business, to be able to serve your customers better. And certainly it will be harder for you to be there in the long term without an infusion. If you will.

[00:14:48]Kris Ward:  That was.. everybody dropped the mic. Okay. This is really powerful stuff. So I think what’s happening is in my obsession I always want everyone when you guys are out there, when you listen to the show, stop what you’re doing, and then really if something you can implement and I’m always a little nervous.

[00:15:11] And I said that to Janene when she we were talking, I’m like, Hmm, what can you give them solid takeaways? Cause I never want things to be in theory, but I think the message here, I think the spotlight that we’re putting on pricing is the takeaway because we just don’t talk about it. We skim over it.

[00:15:30] So you guys, if you learned nothing today, you just understand that. Oh, we’re it’s I don’t even, you know, like Janene’s example, you know, you’re not feeling well, you’ve got low energy, you’re a little dizzy, then don’t look at I don’t know how tight your shoes are or what your sweater is. You know what I mean?

[00:15:46] You have to look at the iron in the blood. So I think we could run around. My other obsession in life is why I feel so bad when people are chasing the wrong thing. You know, I always say it, look how much work I put into doing the wrong thing. So we’re running around chasing all these things. What am I doing wrong?

[00:16:02] But it could be pricing and it’s just not a conversation that’s commonplace. It’s not something out there every day you see or hear about. Right. 

[00:16:10]Janene Liston: And what’s interesting is it is the biggest profit lever, a business has. So there are only four things that affect profitability in a business: price, volume,

[00:16:21] fixed costs and variable costs. That’s it. That’s the only math that there is, are those four things and price has a bigger impact because if you get 10 more, let’s say you charge $10 more for what you’re offering that $10 is profit. Pure profit goes direct in your pocket if you want it to. Right.

[00:16:43] But if you reduce your cost by $10, it doesn’t all go in your pocket in the same way. Right. So price has a bigger impact, which means two things that if you are slowly eroding your prices, let’s say, okay, there’s a study done by McKenzie years ago about this. And they determined that for this group of companies, they analyze a 1% improvement in price was an 8% improvement in profits on average.

[00:17:12] Wow, let me restate that. Cause it takes a moment to sink in. But for these companies, a 1% improvement in price was an 8% improvement in profit. So it’s not 1% in price and 1% in profit, it actually has a bigger impact than that. 

[00:17:30]Kris Ward: Okay. So let me understand. Now I do know when you start cutting your prices, it’s a race to the bottom, because what you’re now doing is you’re competing about price.

[00:17:38] You know, you do the whole Walmart thing. We’re not seeing the values there, we’re seeing we’re cheaper. So do you want to be competing that you’re cheaper or that you’re, you know, a valuable service? Is there a way that if you are talking to somebody. Like, let’s say you pictured my brain and where they have the math side of my brain was an open window and things fly in and out from there, like the leaves off the street.

[00:17:58] Okay. So how do we go from the 1% increase in price, to 8%? Like I know, obviously it’s solid math. Can you explain it to a simpleton like me? 

[00:18:12]Janene Liston: I have a tool actually which is the best, because it depends on the financials of the business, whether it’s 6% or 12%.

[00:18:23] Right. So this was, they took the S and P, 1500 for service-based businesses. The numbers. Generally, it will be a little bit lower than 8% and volume starts to have a similar impact, but there’s a catch with volume that there’s a limited number of hours a day for a service business or a number of hours per day, month, whatever. Right. So there’s a limit to how much volume you can increase. So price is still the most significant. 

[00:18:51]Kris Ward: Okay. So the lesson here is, first of all, I wasn’t supposed to get the math. Okay, so that’s awesome. I appreciate that. So it’s like when they give you a mortgage calculator, oh, I’m not supposed to understand that.

[00:19:01] Thank you very much. I can move on. So we’re not supposed to understand the math. And the whole thing is I think what you’re saying is I think the lesson there is, it’s not direct Math. So that idea of, oh, well, if I only increase it 10 bucks, it’s only 10 bucks. Or if I just decrease it by 10 bucks, it’s just 10 bucks, less than my pocket. It’s not that kind of lateral math, it’s far more significant than that.

[00:19:24]Janene Liston:  It is more significant than that. So my, the 10 bucks was my way to make it simple because if I charge $90 or a hundred dollars, that is $10. And that $10 does go directly to the profit line. But if it’s a cost, it doesn’t go directly to profit because of the math.

[00:19:42] It works out differently. It is straight up math. It’s not financial voodoo. Okay. But it’s not. It is straight up Math, is just too complicated to explain in words you would have to see, you would have to say.

[00:19:55]Kris Ward: That’s fine. 

[00:19:57]Janene Liston: Before we move on. Let me just say another thing. And that’s that pricing cuts both ways.

[00:20:04] Okay. Yeah. So if you’re able to increase your price by 1%, we said it’s 8% profit. If your prices fall by 1%. Your profit falls by 8%? So sometimes it’s not about pushing your prices up sometimes for a lot of companies, it’s about not letting them erode over time. 

[00:20:28]Kris Ward: Okay. All right. That was all hot moment. Funny again. I don’t know if that shows my confidence in how bad my math is, but I don’t know why we just thought what went up it went one way and what went down did not go all the way. Yeah, no worries. 

[00:20:28]Janene Liston: So this is also all things the same. So we’re assuming the volume doesn’t fall up and your prices aren’t super elastic, right? You’re not assuming big volume and cost changes. 

[00:20:53]Kris Ward: No, I know these are valid. Very, yeah. Huge points. Okay. So let’s talk, you also talk a little bit about the psychology of pricing. Now, does that tie into the whole, you know, 97 is better than a hundred dollars. Where are we going with ‘the psychology’? 

[00:21:08]Janene Liston: So that’s one aspect of it. So there, your prices are constantly communicating both internally and externally. Right. So there’s the way you think about pricing internal to your company that has an influence on what’s going on externally. And I can give a great example. I was way ahead of many years ago. And the guys in Poland are like, we went there for pricing projects and they’re like, well, there’s a price war.

[00:21:36] It’s not our fault. And we can’t do anything about it. And so for years and years, that was their attitude. I would regularly go say hi, how’s it going? Are you ready for the project? Nope. There’s a price war, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, where we can’t do anything about it. And they just sat there for two or three years spinning in this

[00:21:56] part of whatever you want to call it, right? You’re not actually doing anything different than they’d ever done before. And then one day I found a friend of mine who had started his own price and consultancy that speaks Polish. I said, why don’t you talk to them in their language? Maybe they can understand.

[00:22:11] And a few weeks later I got a call from them and they’re like, Hey. We’ve seen it. It’s not you, we are contributing to this. Right. So in that context that we’re actually able to move forward. And make some changes. They understood that their attitude internally was actually influencing the situation externally.

[00:22:34] So that’s one aspect of it. Then the aspect that probably people are more familiar with is, you know, the number, how we enter the numbers, but also every action you take with your pricing is speaking to your customers. And we are the best trainers for our customers and we can either train them for good business behavior or for bad business behavior.

[00:22:56]Kris Ward:  Right. Okay. And give me an example of that. 

[00:23:00]Janene Liston: An example of that is, okay. Traditionally in say the automobile industry, each of the sales guys has a quota they have to fill each month, how many cars they have to sell and what happens when you see you’re not making the quota at the end of the month. You make discounts, but then the next month, when somebody thinks, oh, you know, maybe I’ll wait until the end of the month to see if they offer a discount. And then it goes on and on and on, you know, people from black Friday

[00:23:28]Kris Ward: Or the stores that I go to, like a clothing store that I know they wait till the end of the season. And they, like, I go visit my outfit full time because they give such crazy discounts, like 56. And they’re known for that.

[00:23:42] But so like, I’ll come back and visit you and we’ll see where you are and I’ll come back. So you’re right. They’re training me to do that, right. 

[00:23:50]Janene Liston: In a sense. I mean the retail industry there, the retail industry is very specific in terms of inventory. And they’re trying to turn over inventory in a very specific way.

[00:24:01] So something like sales like that makes sense in that industry, one of the mistakes people make is they actually try to apply those tactics. To an industry that isn’t turning over inventory like black Friday sales and service based businesses. To me, that, you know, it’s logically it’s not necessarily the right thing.

[00:24:23]Kris Ward:  You’re right. You’re right. Okay. I’m not even, people I should be paid. I’m now over here visualizing different time drifting. No longer interviewing, I’m thinking, because I was thinking, well, I’m starting to have arguments in my head. I was thinking, all right. First of all, the clothing store is notorious.

[00:24:38] It’s in Canada, Mark’s work wearhouse. So it’s like, you know, everyone, he gives you yes. If you’re prepared to say, Hmm, will that blouse be there? Come the end of summer, you take, you know, you take your hit and your misses your losses, but this store is notorious and they also have this big thing in November.

[00:24:53] Like every, all the times you go, oh, they’re going to this big thing in November. I’ll wait. Right. I can be patient, I’ll wait. So, but then when everybody else is doing a black Friday sale again, hello, always sound like we’re in high school. Following the crowd, mom, everybody else was doing it. Which by the way, did not fly with her at all. Podcast on its own. So if everybody else is doing the black Friday, what do you recommend? 

[00:25:20]Janene Liston: Well, depends. Maybe black Friday is right for your business. That’s where I go back to it. It’s about making better business decisions and you have to ask yourself, what is the business reason for doing it, if the business reason for doing it is just because everybody else is.

[00:25:35] It’s maybe this reason, but if you’re in an industry where a lot of times people do it, just because everybody else is, but the reality is in your service-based business, you might not actually pull in extra customers by offering that discount. 

[00:25:55]Kris Ward: Right. And right. You know, I’m thinking black. 

[00:25:57] Janene Liston: And then, you’re just wasting money.

[00:25:58]Kris Ward: Right. For me, I would think black Friday, like if you’ve got an info product, so I wouldn’t put my services out on black Friday, but it’s okay to put my info product, the outsourcing playbook for busy entrepreneurs, because I might have less sales, but the output it’s created, the videos are made.

[00:26:15] So it’s not costing me time three months from now or anything like that. Like a coupon, it’s not costing me there. Okay. Perfect. 

[00:26:21]Janene Liston: And it leads into something else. You know, each product has a different intention. So if I just take a pen, for example, if I’m the producer of pens, if I’m using that pen as the gateway to sell notebooks, I’m going to position and treat that pen differently when it comes to pricing actions.

[00:26:41] But if the pen is the main thing I’m selling, then I might have a different strategy behind the positioning and the pricing actions I take their offer with it. 

[00:26:52]Kris Ward: Good example, boys and girls. Can we all give her a round of applause? Okay. All right, Janene, we just have a couple minutes left and you’re, man, maybe we’ll have a part two here.

[00:27:07] Just give us.. since we don’t know what we don’t know. And you’ve enlightened me a lot. You’ve put a spotlight on something that really, I think we all just skipped over and took for granted. So give us one last little Pearl Wisdom that you’d like us to leave us with. 

[00:27:21]Janene Liston: Okay. So I think one of the most important things is to understand the value that your products and services brings.

[00:27:27] And one of the most important questions you can ask is “How Do I”, how do I help my customers reduce risk? How do I help my customers create a competitive advantage? How do I help them improve the quality of their life or what they’re offering? And how do I help them create economic efficiency, which is time and money?

[00:27:49] And with those four quadrants, if you can quantify that, then you have a number to compare to the price that you’re offering to see if the business case makes sense for your customer. 

[00:28:01]Kris Ward: Okay, so numbers, are you saying like, if you can numbers go well with numbers? So when people were working with us, with our private coaching, Win the Hour, Win the Day, you know, we help entrepreneurs stop working so hard.

[00:28:15] We’re also now about to do this group coaching thing called the Winners Circle. You guys want to get in the group, for our masterclass. I’m not kidding you. It’s awesome. And one of the things my existing clients tell me all the time is they get 25 hours back a week within the first month of working with us.

[00:28:31] And they conservatively save 50,000 a year because you know, they’re getting, they’re not paying for vendors and they’re not, you know, whatever money, whatever projects you’re doing, 10, 11 o’clock at night. Also you’re charging your company way too much money. Cause you should be bringing in money. So, if you could bring in a hundred bucks, you’re now charging yourself a hundred bucks, but often what happens is they’re overpaying for stuff that they need quick and fast at the last minute.

So over and over again, they all say it’s around $50,000. So these would obviously be really good tools to be tied to my pricing. 

[00:29:04]Janene Liston: Absolutely because it puts your price into context. So if your price tag is 10,000 and they can get 50,000 just in the first year,  then the business case is really strong.

[00:29:16] Now, if they can, if they’re paying 10,000, and you know, the business case is 10,000 in the first year. It’s still not a bad business case because as long as it’s repeatable, over 10 years, they’re investing 10,000 and getting a hundred thousand.

[00:29:33]Kris Ward:  So when you can, you want to be able to tie it in? Like, if you were something that, you know, it always sounds easy when someone gives an example.

[00:29:40] Cause you think, oh, I don’t have that, but let’s say you were in the health arena and you can say, look, you know, we want you to you’re purchasing these services for optimum health. Let’s take a look at an average prescription. Or if you have to go to get a massage at the last minute and pay extra, so tying your pricing into costs, you know, really.. It is into the value. Okay. Right. The value I’m thinking of the cost of not doing it is the value…

[00:30:05]Janene Liston: …Is also a value. Absolutely. The cost of doing nothing at all is, and can often be more significant than the rewards that we reap when we try to avoid pain as opposed to seeking pleasure.  

[00:30:22]Kris Ward: Yes. Yes. We’re still, we’re so focused on the pain we’re stuck there.

[00:30:28]Janene Liston: And what’s important to understand is you may choose to never share that math with a customer, or you might. Some people feel uncomfortable with that, but if you know, in the back of your head that they get 50,000 out of this on average, then you feel more confident telling them that the price is 10,000.

[00:30:49]Kris Ward:  And you know, confidence is everything. Cause I do remember like many years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth and I started my business because now you even say five years ago, it sounds like the olden days. Cause there’s apps and things we didn’t have before, but like 12 plus years ago, you know, in the beginning I might give a price and then it was like, blah, blah, blah.

[00:31:07] Right. Because I’m like, oh, let’s see. I mumble the price to make eye contact, to see if they went, oh, you’re crazy. Right. So yeah, that’s not a technique. People just spit it out quickly and then look humbled. Not a strategy.

[00:31:21]Janene Liston:Or they go it’s 20,000, right. I know I’ll ask you the question. You say your price is 20,000 with the little intonation at the end.

[00:31:31]Kris Ward:  Yeah. Hoping you pay it. I think the biggest thing I learned is when I give the price and then for me, and there’s all, we’ve had conversations, other sales strategists, but whatever your closing statement is, I often would say, does that seem a value to you? Because then they can give you something back and say, well, it does, but I can’t afford it or whatever, but the secret to me, if you learn nothing else in sales, it’s about give it

[00:31:58] And shut up, do not talk past the sale, do not keep talking and convincing and all this other stuff. And I even explain that to my team. Like, they’ll ask, you know, Evan will ask for something like he wants Friday off for reason and he’s halfway through it. And I say, yeah, no problem. Not a problem. And then he goes on to keep explaining why he wants it off. And I’d say, don’t talk past the sale, Evan. You got it. What more, right? 

[00:32:20]Janene Liston: I mean, I think there’s a human need to justify a lot of times. And that’s something, especially in a sales discussion you want to learn to manage. I always tell people that in a sales discussion, it’s more about listening and then delivering key questions or messages at the opportune time, but you’re right. You deliver it and then sit back and see what the reaction is.

[00:32:44]Kris Ward:  Janene, thank you so much. This has been an absolute treat and you really navigate us through some muddy and murky waters. Where should people reach out when they want to hear more of your brilliance? 

[00:32:54]Janene Liston: Yeah, they can head on over to ‘thepricinglady.com’ and they’ll find all kinds of goodies there, including that tool set that I taught earlier.

[00:33:02]Kris Ward:  Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. And you guys we’ll see you in the next episode of Win The Hour, Win The Day. [00:33:09]END…

[00:33:12] That was awesome. Janine, I think I stressed you a little bit in the beginning trying to navigate you, but you really held your own and you turned it around beautifully. It was fantastic. I really enjoyed it. Um, and it wasn’t a criticism. I was just trying to like, yeah, no, I know that. And sometimes it’s, there are aspects of it.

[00:33:29] Like I’d love to give people a mathematical equation to set their prices, but they’re just. They’re just the one that’s fit for most things. Yeah. No. And so there’s some aspects of it that are, you know, a little less, I actually call, I was talking to a client about this morning. I was like, it’s pricing, intuition.

[00:33:48] You develop an intuition for what to do, because you understand the numbers in your business and you understand your customer and you understand your value. You understand your position in the marketplace. You know, it it’s that whole. Yeah, no, I think you did fantastic. I am explaining, right? No, you did.

[00:34:05] Fantastic. And I was reading your stuff too. Um, so how long, sorry, how long have you been in business? About three years. Oh, you’re doing fantastic. And what were you doing before that? I was working in the corporate. Oh, okay. Cause I know you said here, like everybody else, social media, it’s never ending. I feel like I don’t get on top of it.

[00:34:27] Um, if you, cause yeah, it’s a beast. Um, cause I had so much fun today. If you were interested, what I would do is gift you what I would call our strategy call. Um, and cause what I can do is give you some, give you some ideas about how to set up your team and how to really. That social media take it totally off your plate.

[00:34:47] So if that’s something you want, it’s totally free. And it would just be me giving you some tips because we had fun today and we can walk you through what some are like if you want it there’s options, but you really could master that. It’s so much, anyhow, it’s I keep biting my tongue because I want to start telling you about it right now.

[00:35:03] Like there’s the strategies in play that you could put in place for your social media that would be unbelievably easy and effective and not cost you really a drop in the bucket as far as time and money goes. So if that’s something interests you I’ll give to you. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Um, did you want to do that or did you want to have, why not?

[00:35:24] I’m sure thing to, to lose there, right? No, you’re free is free, you know, about pricing, right. Okay. And if anything. I really am trying to create a movement where your business supports your life and self consume it. And you think you have something special because we’re just, there is no spotlight on this and it’s overlooked all the time.

[00:35:44] So you should be out there getting that message out more and more. Right. Okay. And what time, where at what time is it where you are? It is, we started at five, so it’s about half past five, uh, five 30, so 12 30, 1 30, 2 33, 30, 4 30. I’m on the east. Well, I’m, uh, I’m an hour past east coast. Eastern standard time.

[00:36:05] So. Oh, it’s 1230 here. Okay. Yeah. Okay. So five and a half hours. Okay. Yeah. This is really east coast of Canada. Yes. Yes. Let me just see, hold on one sec. Now I just have to be a little creative. Oh. I sent me that moved on Friday. Um, let’s move that. Let’s see. Hold on one second. This is people think, oh, it’s very, uh, exotic dealing with people around the world.

[00:36:32] And I said, yes, this is what I do all day. So it’s not exotic. So yeah. It’s like, great. Two. Okay. 2 0 7. How late do you work? Uh, I usually work until about seven. Oh, okay. Um, so could you do what you do. One,

[00:36:58] uh, could you, do

[00:37:02] I keep forgetting every time I look up, could you do 6:00 PM on Thursday this week? And, uh, Thursdays, our evenings are already, I mean, no problems all afternoon until seven 30. Gotcha. All right. Falled on. Um, let me be creative here. Uh, um, I’m ahead of you one sec.

[00:37:34] Okay. Next Wednesday, Wednesday. So the 28th, can you do 6:00 PM on the 28th? Yeah. Sure. Okay. You’ll send me an invite. Yes, I will. Okay, cool. Yes, Jenny. Um, strategy call do this.

[00:38:01] You did awesome. I’ll send you the link to that tool so you can test it out yourself. No, no, no. I don’t need to test it. That was a great answer. You gave what? Because I just, here’s the thing. I always default to the fact that like, I’m so bad at math, so then I think, oh, I’m bad. And then somebody says, no, you’re not supposed to be able to figure out your own words.

[00:38:18] Oh, okay, good. Thank you. Right? So that’s all you need to know, like, oh, am I sitting here stupid because I am automatically shut down when it comes to math and think, okay, well I’m out when you say no, here there’s a formula, but you just need to understand the concept. You’re not expected to know the formula.

[00:38:32] Right? Right. It’s kinda like driving the car. You, you need to know how to drive the car and not run the engine. I can tell you most see CFOs. I don’t know the impact of a 1% price change on their business. Every time I go talk to CFOs, I know there’s two things I can stump them with that. And most of them go back to the office and figure it out.

[00:38:51] Yeah. And um, if you drop the price by 10%, so if you have a product that is 40% gross profit, you drop the price by 10%, you need 33% more volume just to break. Yeah. Don’t tell me all this smart stuff that should have been in the show, but that there’s three tools in there. They’re both. Yeah. So that’s the point.

[00:39:16] Like that’s exactly it. And you know, what, if I can give you some feedback, cause I’m a marketing strategist by trade. So honestly, and remind me of some of this stuff too, when we meet, because there’s some marketing things that I would give you how to tighten up your messaging in the podcast, because I think what you do is I think it’s almost like.

[00:39:34] Maybe do you have kids? Okay. And a nanny for, okay. So it’s kind of like picking up a toy and you look at this and you go, oh, all I have to do is Polish this toy off. And it’s a shiny new bike for Sarah’s birthday. Right. So what I’m thinking is you’ve got the toy, you’ve got the goods and you’re doing something that’s different, but I think very much needed.

[00:39:55] And I think you’ve got all the answers. So I would just repackage it a little bit because why? Because once you got warmed up, But when I shot some questions at you, I think for a second, the person in the back of your head is going to listen, bitch. I’m like, no, cause I was thinking steam, but I think, I think you’ve got way there’s much more substance.

[00:40:18] This is not a theory discussion. You. I would go a little stronger. The substance up the facts up front and then go to the theory. Right? Because then people aren’t waiting for the cliffhanger. It’s like, oh, you, you start off with something like a hook like here. Look, I didn’t tell you what most CFOs don’t even understand you filled those numbers at us.

[00:40:36] They’re really impressive numbers. Okay. Let me tell you what that means in your business. Because most people just think, oh, well, I’m not a big company. $10 doesn’t matter. So I would have done that the opposite because otherwise. What happens on podcasts and it takes a little bit sometimes to either pull it out of the guest or it’s a guest that’s like, I’ve done interviews where at the end of it.

[00:40:57] And I sh I’m usually pretty good at pre-qualifying, but at the end of those interviews, like this is, was a discussion in theory, and they don’t have enough concrete there’s. So then we’re just talking about, you should know, going to close the sale, close the sale, and people should know like, and trust.

[00:41:14] That, you know what I mean? That’s just a general conversation. The point is it’s about getting to the point quicker and then coming back to give the details behind it, if needed. Right? Well, because it’s not about getting to the point quicker. It’s about you’re using your hook. It should be a hook, not a finale because you have to let them stay with you to get to the finale.

[00:41:37] But if you keep the hook. You can go, oh, hold on. That’s important information. I don’t even understand what that would impact on my business. And also because it shows, you know, your stuff and the problem is until you get to that point, you could just be like somebody else out there saying kind of like, okay, let’s compare it this way.

[00:41:54] Have, and forgive me if I’m really on here, but it’s almost like. A nutritionist who talks to you about the science of weight loss and your body or somebody who’s lost a bunch of weight and now is going to go out and help women who don’t feel confidence in their body like their body. Cause I lost a hundred pounds, so maybe they did lose a hundred pounds and maybe they have some.

[00:42:16] But they’re not going to have the science and the backing and the Hawks did, you know, boom, boom, boom, boom. And in physics. Oh, okay. All right. Even if I don’t understand what you’re saying, I now get the impact of what you’re saying. So I have to listen here. We’re over here, we’re just on a journey, a nice conversation, right?

[00:42:34] So what I’m telling you is you have. More tools. You you’ve got a mechanic, you’re a mechanic with a shop in drawers, full of tools instead of being in somebody’s driveway saying, looking under the hood saying, yeah, I know a little bit about cars. That’s the point? I would say. Yeah, you got good stuff going on.

[00:42:53] All right. So I will send you a calendar invite with the zoom for next Wednesday, six o’clock your time. And what time is your time? Like? What’s it. Central European time, actually right now it might be central European standard time. See, you know what, to this day, I don’t know if I’m in standing. I don’t know.

[00:43:11] It’s like Paris. Okay. People will say, are you in say standard time or daylight savings time? I’m like, I don’t know. I know what time it is. I still don’t know which one that goes. All right. You did fabulous. I will see you next Wednesday. Um, when this goes live, then you send me some info for sure. Yeah, you get, we are not one of those people.

[00:43:30] You will get a thing. Thank you so much. You’ll get a graphic. You get links. You probably get more than you get from anyone. Okay. Yeah. Just making sure. Yeah. Not your podcast is live. Thanks. Where do I find it right? No, no, no. We want to make you look good. We want you to make us look good, which also, oh, that reminds me, make sure I didn’t see you on the list because we did this switching of the guard, uh, as far as our process goes.

[00:43:55] So I believe the new process is you need to give us a referral to somebody else that you think would be a good fit for this. I did already. You would. So did you email? Oh, perfect. Okay. My apologies. I think I recommended Michelle masters and then also, um, Malita but you are already in contact with her. So I felt kind of bad about throwing that one in there.

[00:44:16] Th the problem is we’ve got a new spreadsheet and you weren’t on the spreadsheet, but I think you came right in where we were doing all that. And the other thing was the testimonial. Did you get that done on, on the podcast? Yeah. Yeah, I did that before we connected. Perfect. I suspected you did. I just have to check because like I said, this spreadsheet was new and you weren’t on it, but.

[00:44:37] No, no. I’m sure you say you did. You did. There was a changing of the guard. There was a changing of our format and you were right in the middle spot, so you didn’t make the spreadsheet, but that’s on us, not on you. Okay. So I was just double checking. Okay. Perfect. Cause every once in awhile, I think I do things that I haven’t.

[00:44:53] No, you did awesome. I will see you next week. Janine last, thank you so much. Have a great week. Thanks. Bye. .