customer segmentation

Real vs. Perceived Value

If your maximum price is determined by the perceived differential value of your offering, how do you know what value customers perceive.  Many of them won’t tell you, especially if they think you’ll use that information to jack up the … Read More

Price Optimization 101

I get a lot of questions about price optimization, so I just wanted to make it really simple. Write down your costs.  Of course, you won’t know your real costs, so just use estimates, preferably from 2-5 years ago.  These … Read More

10 Maxims for Improving Profit through Better Pricing

Your price ceiling is limited by the Perceived Differential Value of your offering.  Customers determine this, but you can help them along the way. Your price floor is limited by your costs.  If your floor and ceiling are the same … Read More

In Apple Comparison, Dell Leans on Price

Dell has launched a new back-to-school campaign highlighting the lower prices of of Dell laptops compared to Apple.  At a high level, this is a great idea.  Apple has regained a (the?) leadership position in the educational market, which is … Read More

Value is what the customer is buying– not what you’re selling

In a previous post (Be Better, Not Cheaper) I talked about the importance of differentiated value.  I have conversations about value almost as often as I have conversations about pricing, because a lot of pricing confusion is really value confusion.  … Read More

Be Better, Not Cheaper

Who doesn’t love a bargain?  We all do, and we know our customers do, too.  But that doesn’t mean price is the only thing that’s important.  It becomes the only thing that’s important if everything else is the same. Many … Read More

What’s your plan to close out 2009?

What’s your plan to close out 2009? For many companies, 2009 has been a tough year. While many people remember the crash of the dot-com bubble, some people seem to have forgotten, and even that crash didn’t impact the broader … Read More

The exponential benefits of differential value

I wrote a couple weeks ago about Value, Scarcity and Pricing in the Age of Superabundance. Now there’s a timely report about the concentration of profits among cell phone makers from Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi. Sacconaghi estimated that while … Read More

Value, Scarcity, and Pricing in the Age of Superabundance

For most people, throughout most of human existence, scarcity was paramount.** Now we live in an age of not just abundance, but superabundance. The agricultural revolution created abundance– not by today’s standards– in food. The industrial revolution created abundance in … Read More

Webinars Today and Tomorrow

For people interested in the interaction of pricing, sales, and business performance, we have 2 webinars that you won’t want to miss. Today at noon EDT we’ll be hosting a discussion with the Professional Pricing Society called Beyond Sales Prevention: … Read More