pricing

A letter to event technology companies trying to sell me stuff

Wednesday, July 11th, 2012 by Adrian Segar

sell me stuff: A photograph of an old-fashioned smiling salesman wearing a black hat and sitting on a train. On his lap is a opened brown suitcase that contains a miscellaneous jumble of items, including stockings and a box of KitKats. Photo attribution: Flickr user dswilliams

Here’s a letter to every event technology company trying to sell me stuff.

Dear event technology vendor,

I’m sure I’m not the only event professional who is bombarded with emails from event technology companies. I receive solicitations from multiple companies each week, asking me to check out/review their latest mobile app/conference management software/social networking tool, etc.

Guys, I don’t want to be crass here, but could you give me some idea upfront how much your products/services cost?

If cost was no object I would be a customer for much of the stuff you are pitching.

But the cost is not no object. For me to evaluate the value proposition you’re offering I have to know the value of what you provide and what it costs me. The former is my job. The latter is yours.

I read your patter about your product or service, decide to find out more, and click on your embedded link. So far so good. I jump to your elaborate website where it’s obvious you have spared no expense in creating great material designed to turn me into a customer. Overviews, feature lists, videos—it’s all there.

Except for any kind of price information.

You don’t share your pricing model! Is this a $299-for-unlimited-use, a $5/seat, or a $10,000/event deal? Are there packages of services available at clear price points? If customization is an option, what ballpark costs are we talking about?

About the only thing I’m sure of, once I’ve wasted my time searching for this information on your oh-so-pretty website, is that you don’t use a freemium model. You would have told me about that.

I’m sorry, but I don’t have the time to enter into your next sales step—the “contact us to discuss your requirements” dance—on the off chance that your actual pricing model represents real value for me.

So next time—if there is a next time—please consider giving me all the basic information I need so I’ll be compelled to check out your possibly awesome creation further. I can handle talking about money upfront. And so can you.

Sincerely,

A lost potential customer

Please read this, folks trying to sell me stuff.

Photo attribution: Flickr user dswilliams

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Jerry Weinberg’s Ten Laws of Pricing

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 by Adrian Segar

Ten Laws of Pricing: The cover of Jerry Weinberg's book "The Secrets of Consulting"A while back I posted a summary of Jerry Weinberg’s Ten Laws of Trust, taken from his brilliant book, published in 1985 and still in print: The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving & Getting Advice Successfully. It was clear from the response that many people hadn’t heard about Jerry’s work, including his Ten Laws of Pricing.

Today I was thinking about adjusting my consulting rates, and remembered that Jerry has a lot to say on this subject too. Understanding his Ten Laws of Pricing made it easy for me to set fees for my work, and, more importantly, helped me feel comfortable with the role of money in my professional life. #2 alone gave me the confidence to bill an additional six-digit income during my IT consulting career, and #9 makes setting your rate for billing or being charged anything a snap.

So here are Jerry’s Ten Laws of Pricing. If you like them and want to know more, do yourself a big favor and buy his book!

  1. Pricing has many functions, only one of which is the exchange of money.
  2. The more they pay you, the more they love you. The less they pay you, the less they respect you.
  3. The money is usually the smallest part of the price.
  4. Pricing is not a zero-sum game.
  5. If you need the money, don’t take the job.
  6. If they don’t like your work, don’t take their money.
  7. Money is more than price.
  8. Price is not a thing, it’s a negotiated relationship.
  9. Set the price so you won’t regret it either way. (Also known as the Principle of Least Regret.)
  10. All prices are ultimately based on feelings, both yours and theirs.

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