Why Value Pricing Still Feels Hard with Alastair Dryburgh (The Price and Value Journey, Episode 140)
Value pricing sounds great in theory. So why does it often fall flat in practice?
In this episode of The Price and Value Journey, pricing strategist and author Alastair Dryburgh joins host John Ray to explore the gap between creating value and getting paid for it. Many professionals know they should price based on results, not time. But when it comes to presenting the proposal, the conversation often unravels.
Alastair shares what’s missing from traditional value pricing advice. He explains how to help clients recognize your impact, why your most valuable work often feels deceptively simple to you (and why that’s the “paradox of genius”), and how to position yourself so competitors fade into the background. He also offers a clear perspective on how AI is reshaping pricing strategy and why clinging to hourly billing can put your business at risk.
This is a practical and honest conversation for professionals who want to price with more confidence and conviction.
The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by North Fulton Business Radio, LLC, an affiliate of the Business RadioX® podcast network.
Key Takeaways from this Episode
- Why value pricing often breaks down in the sales process
- How to help clients see and believe in your value
- The paradox of genius and the implications of why your best work feels like “nothing”
- Why your pricing should reflect outcomes, not effort
- How naming your process helps you stand apart from competitors
- Why AI makes time-based billing a risky long-term strategy
Topics Discussed in this Episode
Alastair Dryburgh
Alastair Dryburgh is a pricing consultant and author known for helping creative agencies, consultants, and professional service firms adopt value-based pricing strategies. With a background as a finance and commercial director, he brings deep expertise in aligning pricing with the actual value delivered rather than relying on traditional time-based billing. He has written extensively on the subject, including his recent book, Pricing Genius: Getting Paid Properly for Ideas and Advice in the Era of AI, offering practical insights into how professionals can better position and price their expertise in a rapidly evolving landscape.
Beyond consulting, Dryburgh is a regular contributor to publications like Forbes and Management Today, and is often featured as a speaker at international conferences. His work emphasizes differentiation, pricing psychology, and the impact of AI on the knowledge economy. He is also known for mentoring through organizations like the Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Institute of Directors, helping leaders unlock growth by reframing how they think about pricing and value creation.
About The Price and Value Journey Podcast
The Price and Value Journey is a show for expert-service professionals who want more than formulas and quick fixes. If you’re a solo or small-firm provider—consultant, coach, attorney, CPA, or fractional executive—you know the real work of building a practice goes far beyond pricing. It’s about finding clarity, showing up with confidence, and learning how to express the full value of what you do in ways that clients understand and appreciate.
Hosted by John Ray, business advisor and author of The Generosity Mindset, this podcast explores the deeper journey behind running a services business: how you think about your work, how you relate to clients, and how you sustain a business that’s not only profitable but deeply fulfilling. Yes, we talk pricing, but we also talk mindset, business development, trust, empathy, positioning, and all the intangible ingredients that make a practice thrive.
With solo episodes and conversations featuring thoughtful guests, The Price and Value Journey is a companion for professionals who are building something meaningful. Produced in partnership with North Fulton Business Radio, LLC, an affiliate of Business RadioX®, the podcast is accessible on all major podcast platforms. The complete show archive is here.
John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey
John Ray is the host of The Price and Value Journey.
John owns Ray Business Advisors, a business advisory practice. John’s services include business coaching and advisory work, as well as advising solopreneurs and small professional services firms on their pricing. John is passionate about the power of pricing for business owners, as changing pricing is the fastest way to change the profitability of a business. His clients are professionals who are selling their expertise, such as attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, consultants, coaches, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.
In his other business, John is a podcast show host, strategist, and the owner of North Fulton Business Radio, LLC, an affiliate of Business RadioX®. John and his team work with B2B professionals to create and conduct their podcast using The Generosity Mindset® Method: building and deepening relationships in a non-salesy way that translates into revenue for their business.
John is also the host of North Fulton Business Radio. With over 880 shows and having featured over 1,300 guests, North Fulton Business Radio is the longest-running podcast in the North Fulton area, covering business in its region like no one else.
John’s book, The Generosity Mindset: A Journey to Business Success by Raising Your Confidence, Value, and Prices
John is the #1 national best-selling author of The Generosity Mindset: A Journey to Business Success by Raising Your Confidence, Value, and Prices.
If you are a professional services provider, your goal is to do transformative work for clients you love working with and get paid commensurate with the value you deliver to them. While negative mindsets can inhibit your growth, adopting a different mindset, The Generosity Mindset®, can replace those self-limiting beliefs. The Generosity Mindset enables you to diagnose and communicate the value you deliver to clients and, in turn, more effectively price to receive a portion of that value.
Whether you’re a consultant, coach, marketing or branding professional, business advisor, attorney, CPA, or work in virtually any other professional services discipline, your content and technical expertise are not proprietary. What’s unique, though, is your experience and how you synthesize and deliver your knowledge. What’s special is your demeanor or the way you deal with your best-fit clients. What’s invaluable is how you deliver outstanding value by guiding people through massive changes in their personal lives and in their businesses that bring them to a place they never thought possible.
Your combination of these elements is unique in your industry. There lies your value, but it’s not the value you see. It’s the value your best-fit customers see in you.
If pricing your value feels uncomfortable or unfamiliar to you, this book will teach you why putting a price on the value your clients perceive and identify serves both them and you, and you’ll learn the factors involved in getting your price right.
The book is available at all major physical and online book retailers worldwide. Follow this link for further details.
