Price and Value Journey Archives - Page 8 of 12

We Can Learn from Poor Fit Clients

May 3, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

We Can Learn from Poor Fit Clients

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We Can Learn from Poor Fit Clients

As professional services providers, how should we engage with poor fit clients before we refer them on to someone else? Before we let them go, we can learn from them.

The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:04] Do you want to be a commodity or a problem solver? If you want to work with clients who are a better fit for you and earn higher prices for your engagements, then the answer is clear, right? If, however, when someone asks the “what are your rates” question, and you respond by quoting figures and sending out a price list, then you’re in the red zone of positioning yourself as a commodity.

John Ray: [00:00:34] Now, when I’m asked the “what are your rates question” as kind of the opening question in a conversation with a client, I typically go straight to the “I don’t think we’re a good fit if that’s your primary focus”. Now, my answer to the “what are your rates” question that comes really early in a conversation is to go, typically, I go straight to the “we’re not a good fit” answer.

John Ray: [00:01:03] Now, some push back on me and say it’s better to offer a quote, because if the client passes out on whatever range of quotes that you offer, then no amount of value exploration will bridge the gap, and I get that point, but here’s where my approach to this situation could potentially shortchange me in another, more subtle way. When I respond to the “what are your rates” question with the “we’re not a good fit” answer and refer them on to someone else, I could be passing on an opportunity to learn.

John Ray: [00:01:41] You see, there’s something to be learned in any conversation with a client, which focuses on the needs, the hopes, the problems, and the values of that prospect. If you’re asking the right questions, you’re getting more data points that can be applied to other clients and other situations that you encounter. You’re learning and you’re becoming that much better at whatever professional services discipline you practice.

John Ray: [00:02:08] I read a blog post not long ago by a gentleman named Pye Jirsa. He’s the founding partner of Lin & Jirsa Photography. And here’s what he said, “It’s your responsibility to dive into the client’s psychology, to figure out what they want and what they value, and help them find a product that is going to suit their needs. In doing so, this process will make you a better photographer.”

John Ray: [00:02:37] Take that quote and fill in the blank of whatever you are. The point of it is we’re here to help and we’re here to serve. And even those clients that we perceive to be thrifty, we’ll call them, and not a good fit for you, they need help finding the place that they can get help. That may be your book. It may be a course. It may be some other way for them to get information that helps them along the way, that fits the budget that they have to solve the problem that they have.

John Ray: [00:03:09] Even if you find out that the person is sitting in front of you is a miser who will not pay based on the value you deliver, you’ve learned something about their problems, which can be applied to all clients, and particularly, of course, clients who are a better fit, and you’ll do a better job for those future clients. There are some clients, of course, who are so price-sensitive that they’ll refuse even the most basic conversation over their needs and problems.

John Ray: [00:03:39] They’ll refuse to sit with you and share anything until they know what you’ll charge. So, for me, at that point, there’s no real point in engaging with someone that’s so focused only on price. Whatever your approach on the “what are your rights” question, do every interaction with a client as an opportunity for professional development. You’ll be a better problem solver and you’ll earn higher fees for your services as a result.

John Ray: [00:04:11] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of this series can be found on your favorite podcast app or at pricevaluejourney.com. And if you’d like to connect with me directly, you can do so by sending a note, john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The title of this show describes the journey all professional services providers are on: building a services practice by seeking to convince the world of the value we offer, helping clients achieve the outcomes they desire and trying to do all that at pricing which reflects the value we deliver.

If you feel like you’re working too hard for too little money in your solo or small firm practice, this show is for you. Even if you’re reasonably happy with your practice, you’ll hear ways to improve both your bottom line as well as the mindset you bring to your business.

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.

John Ray, Host of The Price and Value Journey

John Ray The Price and Value Journey — **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 advising solopreneur 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 “grey matter,” such as attorneys, CPAs, accountants and bookkeepers, consultants, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.

In his other business, John is a Studio Owner, Producer, and Show Host with Business RadioX®, and works with business owners who want to do their own podcast. As a veteran B2B services provider, John’s special sauce is coaching B2B professionals to use a podcast to build relationships in a non-salesy way which translate into revenue.

John is the host of North Fulton Business Radio, Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Radio, Nashville Business Radio, Alpharetta Tech Talk, and Business Leaders Radio. house shows which feature a wide range of business leaders and companies. John has hosted and/or produced over 1,300 podcast episodes.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

The Elephant in the Room

April 27, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

The Elephant in the Room

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The Elephant in the Room

The elephant in the room is the preconception, often negative, a prospective client brings to the table when they think about your profession. In a lot of cases, the elephant offers an opportunity to build trust, depending on how you handle it.

The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:03] Years ago, I had coffee with a financial advisor, and during that meeting, he told me that one of the attributes of his firm that he was most proud of was the average length of tenure for financial advisors at the firm. He said, “I think it was about nine years, if I recall correctly, while the average length of firm tenure for the average financial adviser in the industry was nine months.”

John Ray: [00:00:30] Now, I was in a chamber group with this professional and I asked him why he had never mentioned this in our meetings, as I thought it was an important differentiator. I don’t remember his answer and not much else, frankly, about what we talked about in that meeting, but I remember this particular fact. I haven’t seen him in a long time, but I looked him up recently and he’s still with that firm here years later, so he and his colleagues must be doing something right.

John Ray: [00:01:03] For this financial adviser, this length of tenure issue was his elephant in the room. You see, the elephant in the room is the preconception a prospective client brings to the table when they think about your profession. For financial advisors, clients wonder whether they’re going to change firms because financial advisors jump around. If you’re an attorney, the elephant is most likely charging by the hour. Everyone remembers the bill they got for that six-minute phone call. If you’re a CPA, it might be not returning calls or answering emails during tax season.

John Ray: [00:01:46] It could be something which isn’t profession-specific. Age is one example. I was running an investment management firm at age 29 and that was a big elephant I had to deal with at that time. It could be that you’re a solopreneur and the client is wondering what happens to their work if they hire you, and then you get hit by the proverbial beer truck. Now, I know it’s not intuitive, and sometimes, it might be uncomfortable, but I’ve come to believe that it’s always helpful to call out the elephant in the room.

John Ray: [00:02:22] If you don’t bring it up, the prospect often will, and you might as well deal with that elephant in your own way. Now, if the prospect doesn’t ask about it, that doesn’t mean they’re not thinking about it, they might just be letting that question fester, and out of courtesy or some other reason, they’re not asking the question. They may be hoping you bring it up yourself. In any case, that question sticking in their crawl won’t get resolved and it will work against you if it doesn’t.

John Ray: [00:02:58] Further, if the prospect has a problem with your elephant even after you’ve addressed it, then you’ve done both you and the client of favor, you’ve quickly figured out that the two of you aren’t a fit, and you’ve granted yourself the freedom to move on. The most important reason to pet the elephant and talk about it is that doing so builds trust with clients, and all of us, as professional services providers, are in the trust business.

John Ray: [00:03:28] If you’re willing to initiate and calmly engage in a particularly thorny discussion about this elephant or anything else for that matter, your trustworthiness in the mind of the client goes way up. And that’s even true for the clients who don’t select you, by the way. Your willingness to talk about the elephant is a sign you’ll be straight with them during the engagement when problems arise, and that’s what clients are looking for. So, what’s your elephant? And how do you address it?

John Ray: [00:04:05] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of this series can be found on your favorite podcast app\ or you can go to pricevaluejourney.com. And you can also send me an email, john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. 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.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Why Clients Value Us: A Live Example

April 25, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Why Clients Value Us: A Live Example

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Why Clients Value Us: A Live Example

An answer to a question I asked a podcast guest is an example of why clients value us as professional services providers. The answers they give to that question might surprise us. (The complete podcast episode from which the audio clip we used is taken can be found here.)

The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello again. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:05] One of the podcasts that I produce is Business Beat. It’s sponsored by top 50 CPA firm, Frazier & Deeter. Roger Lusby, who’s the partner in charge of the Alpharetta office of Frazier & Deeter hosts the show and I sit alongside him. Now, a few years ago, we had a show in which Roger invited a long-term client of the firm, Chuck Walker, to talk about the growth and success of his company, Chemlink Laboratories. Near the end of the interview, I asked Chuck about his relationship with Frazier & Deeter and how that relationship had contributed to his firm’s success. Listen in.

John Ray: [00:00:47] During this time, you’ve had this long-term relationship with Roger and Matt, other folks at Frazier and Deeter, so you talked about the value of having great outside counselors and advisors like Frazier & Deeter, talk a little more specifically about how they’ve been helpful to you.

Chuck Walker: [00:01:06] Well, I’ve been with Roger since well before 1984.

Roger Lusby: [00:01:12] A long time.

Chuck Walker: [00:01:12] Long time before that, ’81, ’82. And what I found in dealing with Roger, we’re both like younger then, number 1, but we had a lot of things in common. We both love baseball. We both like to talk sports. But then, as you could tell by hearing Roger on the phone, very calming effect. So, you would call Roger, “My gosh, we’re here”. “Okay, Chuck. Okay, Chuck, let’s walk through this step by step, by step.” And of course, he knew a lot more than I did about what the problems would be and how we would handle them, and that’s how it grew over the years. And then, in fact, Roger took me to the sixth game of the 1995 World Series, and we sat there, we had dinner, we watched the Braves win, they were only-

Roger Lusby: [00:01:59] Tom Glavine, one hitter.

Chuck Walker: [00:01:59] Tom Glavine and just as he hit the homerun. But sometimes, you talk to Roger, if you don’t even come away with anything, when you get off the phone, you’ve calmed down, but in most instances, you come away with things, you come away with solutions, or “Here’s what I suggest”, and that’s been a huge, huge help asset.

Roger Lusby: [00:02:19] Well, thank you, Chuck.

John Ray: [00:02:22] Okay. So, what were the first couple of things that came to mind for Chuck as he thought about his relationship with Roger and Frazier & Deeter? What were the first couple of things that came up in the heat of the moment? Well, Chuck could have mentioned Roger’s degrees or his many years of experience. He could have mentioned the firm’s many areas of expertise which he can draw on. He could have mentioned the fact that Frazier & Deeter is a Top 50 accounting firm. But none of those attributes got mentioned. He did get around to mentioning the solutions and the outcomes that Roger and his firm helped deliver for him, but that’s not how he led off the answer to my question. What was the first answer? It was baseball.

John Ray: [00:03:12] Well, with that answer, I think what Chuck was addressing was the relationship he enjoyed with Roger. Now, I suspect that for Chuck, the mutual love of baseball that he referenced was a symbol of a personal bond, which the two of them had developed. It was more than just going to the World Series together. It was that their conversations and times that they had shared at baseball games, and maybe on the phone talking about baseball, and how the Braves were doing, they were just a reminder for Chuck of the human traits that Roger has, which appealed to Chuck and attracted Chuck to Roger in the first place.

John Ray: [00:03:56] The second thing that Chuck mentioned was Roger’s calming effect, as he called it, when Chuck would call Roger about a business problem. As Chuck clearly indicated, sure, he valued Roger’s advice and counsel over the years, but there was something more. He started by talking about how Roger delivered that advice, and how that delivery, the calming effect of it, was important to him.

John Ray: [00:04:27] This conversation is an illustration of how our clients and prospects have intangible reasons for selecting us initially and for continuing to do business with us. Those intangibles have nothing to do with our degree, certifications, experience, all the things we might default to when we think about why our clients not only buy from us, but continue to do so over the years.

John Ray: [00:04:53] Here’s another thing to remember. Just as every client is unique, client intangibles are unique. To use this example, the intangibles which Chuck mentions for working with Roger, baseball or calming effect, might be totally different than what other clients of Roger’s might mention. So, understanding why a particular client might be interested in doing business with us, might hire us, or might continue the professional relationship, and in turn, justifies the price that they’re willing to pay for our services, all of that requires more than just judging their demographic, or psychographic, or what avatar they are, or some other commoditizing feature that marketers come up with.

John Ray: [00:05:43] That’s where the value conversation comes in, digging into in the initial buying conversation, and then over the years, as the relationship grows and develops, why our clients not only start doing business with us, pay the price they pay, but continue to do so. Digging into those hopes, fears, dreams, those intangibles that drive why the relationship begins and why it continues.

John Ray: [00:06:15] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of this series can be found on your favorite podcast app or at pricevaluejourney.com. If you’d like to connect with me directly, you can send me a note, john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. 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.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Pricing For a Professional Speaker

April 22, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Pricing For a Professional Speaker

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Pricing for a Professional Speaker

A story on value pricing for a professional speaker: once he ignored the advice he received about “pricing himself out of the market” and priced relative to the value he offered, it completely changed the trajectory of his business.

The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:03] Kyle Maynard was born with a rare condition called congenital amputation, which left him with arms that end at his elbows and legs that end near his knees. While those circumstances might seem debilitating, Kyle has lived an extraordinarily full life as an entrepreneur, bestselling author, and award-winning extreme athlete. He was the first man to bear-crawl to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro that’s 19,340 feet, the highest mountain in Africa, and to the summit of Argentina’s Mt. Aconcagua, 22,838 feet, the highest peak in both the western and southern hemispheres. Now, I barely made it to the summit of Mount Rainier that’s 14,400 feet on two legs and two feet, and this man bear-crawled to the summits of the highest peaks on two different continents, extraordinary isn’t even an adequate word.

John Ray: [00:01:07] So, Kyle is also a keynote speaker. So, let’s imagine for a moment that I’m booking him for a conference I’m running. After reading Kyle’s story, my thought is most likely to be something along the lines of, wow, this man will light up our group big time. I can hear the robust applause after Kyle’s speech in my head. I can imagine the enthusiastic reactions I’ll read through both comments and after conference surveys that I’ll get for this speaker that I booked.

John Ray: [00:01:39] Now, all those thoughts represent perceived value, and that perceived value is quite high, wouldn’t you agree? As a professional services provider like Kyle, when you price your services, you basically have two choices. One option involves listening to the voices in your head, or those of maybe well-meaning friends or colleagues on how you need to keep your fees low, because “others don’t charge as much”, or you don’t want to price yourself out of range, whatever that means, or you can ignore those voices as Kyle has, and price relative to the value, both perceived and tangible value now that you deliver.

John Ray: [00:02:26] Kyle was profiled in the book Tribe of Mentors by Tim Ferriss, and here’s what Kyle had to say about the worst advice he’d ever received. He says, “The worst advice I’ve ever been given was to not increase the fee I charge to give a keynote speech. I was told I would price myself out of the market. I didn’t have enough recent media coverage to compete against well-known speakers, blah, blah, blah. I decided to raise my price anyway, incrementally at first, and then I doubled it. Now, I have twice as many inquiries and people even negotiate with me less. I wish I had done it earlier. It’s given me much more freedom. As I write this, I’m spending a week on a yacht in Croatia and the rest of the summer traveling through Europe. Time is the only thing we can’t get back. Hopefully, by the time you read this, I’ll be on my way to doubling it again.”

John Ray: [00:03:28] Now, you don’t have to have crawled up Mount Kilimanjaro to price adequately. Whatever your superpower, have a value conversation, determine the tangible and perceived value that you’re offering to that client sitting in front of you, and then price to receive a slice of the value that you deliver.

John Ray: [00:03:49] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. You can find past episodes of this series at pricevaluejourney.com. If you’d like to send a note directly, you can send one to john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. 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.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Referrals and Pricing

April 20, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Referrals and Pricing

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Referrals and Pricing

A story on referrals and pricing, and how best to refer your fellow professional services providers.

The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello again. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:04] Referrals and pricing. Recently, a friend, I’ll call her Elizabeth, she asked me to recommend two or three professionals in a particular services segment. I gave her three names of individuals who I know do outstanding work. One of them was a professional I’ve known for a long time. I’ll call him William. I’ve worked with William on his pricing, and I disclosed that fact to Elizabeth when I included him on the list of names that I gave her.

John Ray: [00:00:36] Elizabeth also asked someone else, and I’ll call him Bob, the same question, and I found this out because Elizabeth forwarded me what Bob had written about his recommendations. She was confused because Bob had commented that William was probably “less expensive” than the other professionals Bob had recommended. What Elizabeth naturally wanted to know was how William was less expensive if I’d been working with him.

John Ray: [00:01:09] Now, I had to smile at that comment. I told her that Bob, frankly, had no idea what he was talking about, and I wouldn’t have either, for that matter, I told her, if I’d made any comments about William, or anyone else on my list, or Bob’s list, for that matter. Because he recommended him, I assume Bob was trying to help William, but that help came at a cost that Bob didn’t grasp, however. Bob could have hampered William’s ability to land the business because he placed a potentially unfair preconception in the mind of the prospect.

John Ray: [00:01:50] Now, here’s the point. When you refer someone, assuming you really care about them and want to see them succeed, never reference the level of their pricing. Unless you’re sending out their invoices for them, you have no idea where they are on their pricing journey, and it’s unfair to prejudice the mind of the potential client with any of your value judgments about their pricing.

John Ray: [00:02:17] Further, it’s highly unlikely you know the scope of the project the person asking for the referral has in mind. In this case, I had little information on the specifics of what Elizabeth wanted. Finally, I had no sense of how Elizabeth might value the outcomes that William or the others I’d recommended could deliver. I’m 99.9% certain that if I didn’t, Bob didn’t either, yet Bob was providing editorial comment on William’s pricing. If you make any sort of comment on someone you recommend, couch that recommendation solely in the value they provide, reference their quality, their timeliness, their insightly advice, whatever, but just don’t get into their pricing. If you’re really trying to help, don’t be Bob.

John Ray: [00:03:12] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. If you’d like to connect with me directly, you can send me a note, john@johnray.co. And past episodes of this series can be found at pricevaluejourney.com. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. 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.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Waffles, Pricing, and Client Context

April 18, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Waffles, Pricing, and Client Context

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Waffles, Pricing, and Client Context

A story about kids’ waffles, and how professional services providers miss the opportunity to price based on client context, while in doing so treat their best clients unfairly. The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello again. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:04] My son is a Waffle House fan and he has been since he was old enough to know what was going on. Waffle House is a 24/7, mostly breakfast, quick-serve restaurant based in Atlanta and covers a lot of the Southeast. In fact, there are some exits in the Atlanta and Georgia area where there’s a Waffle House on both sides of a freeway exit.

John Ray: [00:00:30] When my son was in preschool, his standard order at Waffle House for a long time involved a waffle. Kids’ waffles at Waffle House when he was that age were a dollar. Today, kids’ waffles with bacon are now $4.25. So this long ago gone value was indeed quite a deal. Now, if you’ve been to Waffle House, you know that all the waffles come out of the same-sized griddle, which you can see. So, it’s no big secret. A kid’s waffle, therefore, was priced significantly below an adult waffle even though the product was the same. Same waffle mix, same size, same plate, $1. This was a great deal for that age and stage when as much of the waffle ended up on the table and floor is in your kid’s mouth.

John Ray: [00:01:25] At a certain point, though, things changed on our Waffle House trips. One day my son, who was about five or six years old, changed his order. On this trip, I ask him, “Do you want your waffle?” He said yes. So to the server, I said, “A kids’ waffle for him.” He said, “Dad, I want an adult waffle.” The server stood there, her pen poised over her order pad, wondering what Dad’s next move was going to be. “The kids’ waffle and the adult waffle are the same size,” I said. “But, Dad, I want the adult waffle.” “It’s the same waffle, John. It comes out of the same griddle my waffle does you see over there.” And I pointed to the waffle griddle, but he was having none of it. “Dad, I want an adult waffle.”

John Ray: [00:02:21] Our server stood there looking at me with this expression on her face, something like, “Okay, Dad, what now? Now that you’re reasoning with a five-year-old is a complete flop.” At this point in that uncomfortable moment, when my kid is about ready to cry and the server is waiting, my willingness to pay shifted dramatically. “Okay. Get him an adult waffle.” I was suddenly willing to pay an adult price for that same exact waffle. If my server had told me that adult waffle prices had suddenly doubled for cheapskate dads with crying kids, I would probably have been willing to pay that amount.

John Ray: [00:03:07] A client’s willingness to pay is subject to context as well as the geography they find themselves in. Customers expect to pay more for a soda at the ballpark, for example, or the movie theater, even though it’s the same exact cola they enjoy for a lot less at home. Now, it should work the same way in services too. But sometimes professional services providers missed the mark on this.

John Ray: [00:03:39] Here’s a great example, and I’ve seen this repeatedly for bookkeepers who might have a client that walks in the door with the proverbial box full of receipts and they need to get their books in order by a certain time. And that certain time, of course, is going to require heaven and earth to be moved to get that done. Yet what does that bookkeeper sometimes do? Charge them the same amount and it’s often an hourly rate. That’s a whole nother subject. The same amount that they would a regular client always on time getting that bookkeeper everything that they need to keep the books in order on a regular basis.

John Ray: [00:04:28] A rush to completion time for the same work should command a premium price for the added benefit of speed. But sometimes service providers, like bookkeepers, for example, often miss this opportunity to differentiate. And it’s really not fair, frankly, even if those clients don’t know that your regular clients are paying the same price as the clients who are a mess and want something done at the last minute. It’s just not fair.

John Ray: [00:05:01] So, how does context work for the clients in your business? If you’re not factoring in context for your customers, your price is undoubtedly wrong.

John Ray: [00:05:15] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of this series can be found at pricevaluejourney.com. Or if you’d like to connect with me directly, you can do so by sending me a note, john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. 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.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Value in a Worthless Lottery Ticket

April 11, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Value in a Worthless Lottery Ticket

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Value in a Worthless Lottery Ticket

Is there value in a worthless lottery ticket? Yes, and it’s a perfect illustration of how our prospective clients (and all of us, actually) make buying decisions based on intangibles which have nothing to do with our services, experience, or credentials. The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello again. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey.

John Ray: [00:00:03] The largest single lottery pool in United States history was a Powerball jackpot of 1.6 billion in January 2016. Three winners in California, Tennessee, and Florida each had the option of receiving a $533 million pre-tax annuity or a lump sum payment of 327.8 million. Now, the odds of picking the correct six numbers in such a lottery are one in 300 million. Now, expressed another way, the chances of success in this game are essentially 0.00000033. Yes, essentially zero.

John Ray: [00:00:54] Now, any logical analysis of this purchase would deem these lottery tickets to be essentially worthless. So why would anyone spend $2 to buy what is basically a worthless piece of paper? Moreover, why would they stand in long lines like thousands did in the days that led up to that drawing to buy a ticket, which essentially has no monetary value? What drives the purchases of these tickets? Well, hopes and dreams, for one. The dream might be to pay off the mortgage or student loans or both. Maybe they want to buy a house for mom or something more extravagant, like a vacation home in Spain or Costa Rica. Maybe it’s an around-the-world cruise.

John Ray: [00:01:44] Whatever the motivation, visualizing the realization of that dream is something lottery ticket buyers receive. It’s intangible. Buyers are also motivated by identification. Everyone else is buying, so maybe you ought to give it a shot. Another motivation is the fear of missing out. It’s the I can’t win if I don’t play thinking.

John Ray: [00:02:09] Now, where I live here in the state of Georgia, lottery proceeds fund scholarships to in-state colleges. Some buyers, while accepting the extremely long odds, justify their purchase as a contribution to education. What’s the common thread in all these motivations? They are all intangible. Clients buy for intangible reasons which have nothing to do with the features and benefits of the product or service or what you might think might be logical about those products or services. This is true for all customers and everything they buy. This is true for you. This is true for me. Everything. Everyone.

John Ray: [00:02:58] And if you’re a professional services provider, you might think it’s different for you and you’d be wrong. Your clients aren’t any different. They’re motivated by their own mix of intangibles, many of which have nothing to do with your features and benefits. They will buy from you based on reasons you might think are crazy, meaningless, silly, or irrational. They will also turn down your pitch or even fire you based on reasoning you think is illogical. They will buy worthless pieces of paper for two bucks and find value there when they do. The extent to which you understand and internalize and act upon this fundamental aspect of human behavior will drive your ability to effectively market your services, price your services, and serve your clients.

John Ray: [00:03:51] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of this series can be found at pricevaluejourney.com. Or you can email me directly, john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. 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.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Finding the Ain’t

April 8, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Finding the Ain't

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Finding the Ain’t

A visit with one of my clients and a CPA we were interviewing led to “finding the ain’t.” The “ain’t” in this meeting was the intangible my client identified which attracted him to this CPA. A real-life lesson in how intangibles are what makes prospective clients lean in, not our certifications or experience. The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello. I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. In the work I do as an outside CFO for a few clients and as a business advisor, I rely on CPAs to handle the tax work for my clients because compliance work, like taxation, for example, is not my expertise.

John Ray: [00:00:21] Not long ago, I had a series of different meetings with a client and a few prospective CPAs. After we’d completed our interviews, I asked my client which one he preferred. And he told me his favorite. “Why did you like him?” I asked. He answered, “Because any man who says ain’t is a man I know I can talk to,” he said. That’s not exactly the answer I was expecting, but I wasn’t surprised either. I was expecting to hear an intangible, and the only question was which one or two of those intangibles might stand out for my client?

John Ray: [00:01:03] I expected to hear an intangible rationale for my clients’ selection because clients do not select professional services providers like CPAs, attorneys, bookkeepers, or coaches based on qualifications and expertise. No, they don’t really care what school you went to, unless, of course, you just happen to go to the same school they did and then they might care. But they don’t care that you’ve got a great website. They don’t really care about your certifications and in a lot of cases, they don’t even know what all those letters mean. Your certifications and mine are worthless.

John Ray: [00:01:45] Okay. Now, that’s a deliberate overstatement. Certifications and all of the education and work that we’ve put into becoming subject matter experts in our given field are vital but only to a point. They are just the tickets to get into the show. They don’t get you backstage in that client’s mind. What gets you backstage is to have a value conversation. And that’s what this particular CPA who got chosen did. He didn’t spend any valuable time covering all the things we already knew and had moved past. He didn’t talk about his qualifications or his certifications or whatnot. He asked a lot of why questions and then he shut up and listened. His use of the word ain’t wasn’t really the ultimate determinant for my client, of course. It was just a symbol that he could point to, which indicated for him that this professional understood his problems, hopes, fears, and dreams.

John Ray: [00:02:48] As professional services providers, our job is to be known as someone who understands and holds solutions to problems. But you already know that. What can be hard for us to internalize, though, is that clients come to believe that we have solutions because of intangibles, which often have nothing to do with how you and I end up solving their problems. There’s an ain’t with every client. Spend your time trying to find it.

John Ray: [00:03:22] I’m John Ray on the Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of this podcast can be found at pricevaluejourney.com. Or, you can email me if you’d like to connect directly, john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. 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.

Connect with John Ray:

Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Business RadioX®: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram

Our Intelligence is a Vulnerability

April 4, 2022 by John Ray

North Fulton Studio

Our Intelligence is a Vulnerability

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Our Intelligence is a Vulnerability

In our professional services practices, our intelligence is a vulnerability, but not because we don’t know what we’re doing. On the contrary, the sharper our intelligence, the more captive we can be to our biases. Further, and contrary to what we might like to think, our intelligence is not the primary reason we usually win business. The Price and Value Journey is presented by John Ray and produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX®.

TRANSCRIPT

John Ray: [00:00:00] Hello again. I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. I recently finished a book called We Need to Talk: How to Have Conversations That Matter by Celeste Headlee. It’s a book I highly recommend, by the way, for a number of reasons, a couple of which I’ll talk about here.

John Ray: [00:00:19] There’s some obvious human reasons why we all need to improve our ability to communicate with each other. But there are some business reasons as well, Headlee notes. And she references research by Nobel Prize winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman, and he’s the author of Thinking, Fast and Slow, another book I highly, highly recommend, by the way. She points out that in Kahneman’s research, he finds that most people would rather do business with someone that they like and trust than someone they dislike.

John Ray: [00:00:51] I realized that may seem like a no-brainer to you and to all of us, but get this, customers will choose a likeable person over a less likable person, even if the likable person’s product is lower quality and higher priced. Professional services providers, what this means is that our degrees and certifications don’t mean as much as we’d like to think. It’s not that they’re not important, it’s just that our expertise at a certain point is assumed. Further, our ability to price our services effectively is more closely tied to our likability than our expertise.

John Ray: [00:01:32] Let me say that again, our ability to price our services effectively is more closely tied to our likeability than our expertise. We’re given a lot of latitude and dollars by our prospects and clients if we are likable. A major piece of likability, too, is tied up, not in how well we express ourselves, but how well we listen.

John Ray: [00:01:59] Headlee goes on to point out a red light warning in all of this. The smarter you are, the more you’ll assume that you know your biases, and therefore are effective at self-assessment. In fact, Headlee observes the exact opposite is true. Research indicates that the belief that your intelligence protects you from erroneous assumptions may actually make you more vulnerable to them. Our intelligence actually works against us as we evaluate our likeability, objectivity, or our ability to listen.

John Ray: [00:02:40] So, here’s the question then, what do we do to put a check on our erroneous biases and assumptions about ourselves? Now, for me, it’s having a few individuals who I can trust to tell me not what I want to hear, but what I need to hear.

John Ray: [00:02:59] So, what works effectively for you or what do you need to introduce in your practice? It could be hiring a coach. It could be engaging a mentor. It could be having an unofficial board of directors. Whatever it is, though, you need to have some friendly yet frank objectivity coming from a trusted third party that will help you overcome the limits and the biases that are inherent in your intelligence.

John Ray: [00:03:29] I’m John Ray on The Price and Value Journey. Past episodes of this series can be found at pricevaluejourney.com. And if you’d like to connect with me, you can send me a note, john@johnray.co. Thank you for joining me.

About The Price and Value Journey

The show is produced by the North Fulton studio of Business RadioX® and can be found on all the major podcast apps. The complete show archive is here.