Thor Legvold on Nordic Leadership, Purpose, and Pricing (The Price and Value Journey, Episode 141)
In this episode of The Price and Value Journey, Thor Legvold joins host John Ray to talk about how the way we lead ourselves, our clients, and our firms shapes how others understand our value. Drawing from the Nordic leadership model, Thor explains how values like trust, purpose, and shared responsibility are not soft concepts. They’re strategic levers that affect how we build businesses, lead people, and price our services.
The conversation underscores the close connection between pricing and values. When your firm is clear on its purpose and leads with integrity, pricing becomes less about what the market will bear and more about what your work is worth.
Topics covered include:
- The core ideas behind Nordic leadership
- Why purpose and values must inform business decisions
- How solo and small-firm professionals can reset when they’ve burned out or hit a wall
- Why empowerment matters, both internally and in client work
- How to price with purpose, not apology
This episode is particularly aimed at professionals who struggle to balance their values with the need to charge appropriately for their work. It’s not a tradeoff; on the contrary, it’s a path forward.
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 You Can Use from This Episode
- Nordic leadership works. Values like empowerment and purpose drive real business results.
- Purpose guides everything. It shapes decisions, culture, and how others perceive your value.
- Feeling lost? Return to your values. Burnout or transition is a cue to recenter on what truly matters.
- Empowerment means ownership. Don’t just assign tasks; delegate real responsibility.
- Co-create with clients. Better outcomes come from collaboration, not prescriptions.
- Purpose supports premium pricing. Clients pay more when they believe in your “why.”
- Culture is your leadership in action. Your behavior sets the tone more than your policies.
- Your legacy extends beyond visibility. Trust that your impact reaches further than you can see.
Topics Discussed in this Episode
00:00 Introduction and Welcome to The Price and Value Journey
00:09 Exploring Leadership and Value Perception
00:25 Guest Introduction: Tor Legvold
00:32 Understanding Nordic Leadership
03:08 Nordic Leadership Principles
07:33 Applying Nordic Leadership in the US
10:48 Purpose and Values in Professional Services
14:50 Recalculating: Navigating Career Transitions
19:41 Balancing Purpose and Practicality
23:07 Purpose-Driven Organizations and Integrity
29:36 The Power of Integrity in Business
30:29 Empowerment and Delegation in Nordic Leadership
34:53 Collaborative Client Relationships
37:14 Building Strong Company Culture
44:11 Values and Purpose-Driven Business
52:01 Balancing Premium Pricing with Purpose
55:09 Conclusion and Contact Information
Thor Legvold, Legvold Consulting
Thor Legvold empowers organizations to navigate leadership challenges, cross-cultural collaboration, and post-merger integration through proven Nordic leadership principles. With global expertise in organizational psychology, Thor ensures leadership alignment, cultural synergy, and long-term growth. Whether serving as an executive coach or leading full-scale integrations, he helps clients build resilient teams and drive effective outcomes in dynamic environments.
Legvold leads with integrity, collaboration, sustainability, and a global mindset. Thor’s work is grounded in trust, honesty, and respect for human dignity, empowering people and teams to achieve lasting impact. By embracing a systems-oriented approach, he designs solutions that honor interconnected ecosystems and prioritize balance and inclusivity. With a passion for cross-cultural engagement, Thor helps leaders and organizations innovate and thrive in a connected world.
In over twenty years of consulting for businesses and organizations, he’s had the opportunity to work across a wide range of industries, including tech, finance, entertainment, industrial/manufacturing, and retail, as well as the public sector. Thor has extensive experience successfully working with entrepreneurs and startups, family businesses, AI organizations and companies ranging from midsize to Fortune 500. Wherever people are involved, Thor has a proven track record of delivering value.
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.
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