Episode 55
How do you sell a book for €560?
Pricing expertise is not determined by traditional models. It’s about understanding the value and aligning incentives with the customer. By challenging conventional pricing logic and considering factors like value and skin-in-the-game, you can better convey the true worth of your products or services.
This week's guests are Claus Raasted and Filip Fučić. Claus is an “overpaid rockstar consultant” who specialises in areas like innovation, change management, leadership, public speaking, and marketing. He is also an author of 37 books.
Filip is a pricing mentor who helps people charge more for the value they provide. He has a background in marketing and has made mistakes in pricing his expertise, which led him to write a book on the topic.
Together, they discuss “pricing logics” and the importance of aligning incentives when pricing expert services. They challenge traditional pricing models and advocate for pricing expertise based on value rather than per unit or hour.
Links
Transcript
Welcome to the audition, to the Hunch Bank of Notre Dame.
Carlos:We are taking, uh, online auditions just to see how we can shake things.
Carlos:No, uh, we're not doing a Christmas play.
Carlos:This is a serious inter no, this is a friendly conversation with, uh, someone who I met serendipitously online through LinkedIn, through a, a good friend of ours, Kim Slate, who shared the fact that there's a book out there that costs 560 Euros.
Carlos:I thought, what?
Carlos:And it says, pricing what?
Carlos:And I thought, Ben, we need to talk to this guy.
Filip:I am, uh, Filip Fučić, I am, uh, uh, from Croatia.
Filip:I'm in Croatia right now.
Filip:And what I do generally in the world is I'm, I'm a pricing mentorer.
Filip:I help people charge more for the value that they already provide.
Filip:I've done a lot of things.
Filip:I've been, um, and, uh, a founder and then a ma, a marketing manager.
Filip:And now for five years I've been doing this and I've been saying to so many people, you know, I've, I've done so many mistakes in, in, in pricing my expertise, like I should write a book about it.
Filip:And I send it one time too many to, to a a a a, a certain, uh, uh, Nordic person.
Filip:I'm, I'm not going to mention here.
Filip:And he said, so, so let's do that.
Claus:Hello everyone.
Claus:I'm Claus.
Claus:Uh, when I go to conferences, I usually put as my title on my name tag, it says overpaid rockstar consultant.
Claus:That of course makes people curious, which is part of the idea.
Claus:I do a lot of different stuff generally in the human side of things.
Claus:Innovation, change management, leadership, public speaking, marketing, Waka Waka, and then I have a tendency to write books.
Claus:So Pricing Expertise here with Fil is my book number 37.
Claus:So I'm, I have a, a decent track record of being a guy who gets stuff done and then I'm also, uh, as it says, an overpaid consultant.
Claus:So I'm also expensive, so Filip and I seem to be a good match for this sort of thing.
Claus:And uh, that's where the book started for us, was talking about this and realizing as Filip said, let's do it.
Claus:Let's stop talking.
Claus:Let's do it instead.
Carlos:So we now know some context to the book and where it's, the parents of the book.
Carlos:Um, sounds like a wonderful partnership.
Carlos:Uh, what I, of course I'm gonna start with the, the massive elephant in the room and then I might pass on to Ben to see if he has any questions.
Carlos:It's like 560 euros for a book.
Carlos:Oh my God Well, I think most people generally who have, who, who probably don't think much about pricing would think, oh my God, that's ridiculous.
Carlos:How can you do that?
Carlos:So would maybe share, well share what you like around that, but that's my opening kind of statement is like, wow, that's a lot of money for a book.
Claus:It's true, it's low.
Claus:Right?
Filip:We had a discussion about this, yeah.
Claus:And ironically, I'm, I'm gonna, I'm normally a little bit more of the wacky one of us, but I'm gonna treat this deadly seriously for a moment and say it's really cheap.
Claus:Because if you consider, and, and this is anyone who's checked out my website will know that it says in big, bold letters, and this is something I stand by and actually charge.
Claus:I charge a thousand euros an hour for my time.
Claus:So when somebody wants to hire me for a coaching or that sort of thing, if we don't agree on anything else, then I have that baseline.
Claus:Sometimes it's per project, sometimes there's a revenue share.
Claus:There's all sorts of funky things going around.
Claus:But if nothing else, I charge a thousand euros for an hour.
Claus:Now, picking up this book, will you get more out of it on pricing than talking to me for half an hour?
Claus:I'd say you would, because it's a collection of mine and Filip's thoughts, and it's actually pretty damn good.
Claus:So in that respect, it's super cheap.
Claus:If you look at it from the perspective of what does it cost to buy a traditional business book, which might be $30 or $40 or 50 euros, or if they're really crazy, like 80, 90, then super expensive.
Claus:And that's of course part of our, our whole spiel is when you price expertise, don't use the pricing models that fit pricing tomatoes or pricing toothpaste or pricing being a moving company, because they don't work.
Claus:And that means that 560 Euros.
Claus:It's a very, very cheap price if it's something that's gonna allow you to earn a lot more money, if it's something that you buy, you use it to wedge it in between your, your door to keep it open at night to get the wind in, well then it's very expensive.
Filip:I mean value is subjective..
Filip:And the whole thing of, of.
Filip:Getting around the question of, of value by equating it to overhead is, um, a prime in, in, in many cases.
Filip:And even then there's like an unspoken, uh, agreement that nobody challenges that, oh, this, this is, you know, this, this is hardcover, so it, it has to be like $40 more expensive.
Filip:Look, hardcover is, may be a Euro expensive per book, or two.
Filip:Not $40, right?
Filip:But we all nod and agree and yes, this, this costed more in overhead, so it had.
Filip:Why?
Filip:So this has nothing to do with the overhead.
Filip:And when you go to, to an expensive restaurant, you don't get a, a pill that says, you know, you ate, uh, this, this much flour and a pinch of salt and this, this much rosemary and, no, you got a meal, you got an experience from that, and that's how much it costs.
Filip:So, we, we, we said, let's, let's be as, as you wrote in, in your post, let's be, uh, honest and confident about this.
Filip:And, uh, price it in a way in, in accordance to, to what the book says.
Filip:And it, it turned out to be $560.
Filip:And I've, I've, uh, gotten, uh, plenty of reactions, most of them, uh, uh, good.
Filip:I don't know.
Filip:How about you?
Filip:Uh, uh, Claus, I, I, uh, haven't seen all of them.
Filip:Um, and people said, you know, good for you.
Filip:So some people were concerned where we going to, uh, sell any, and I said, that's not the point.
Filip:It's my first book, so if I don't sell any, I won't be surprised, it's Clauses 37.
Filip:So if he doesn't sell any, he's, he's not, uh, uh, uh, unhappy about it, I think.
Filip:Uh, but we already sold one in like a, a couple of days, uh, uh, before, so that, otherwise that obviously, uh, uh, is not a big concern.
Filip:And we're not, we didn't write this to sell millions, whatever.
Filip:We wrote this because we wanted this book to exist 10 years ago when we really needed it so we don't have to go, you know, through this mistake by mistake.
Filip:Um, Claus, I I really like when we were talking about this, you, you equated this or compare this to, to the classic story of, of the chalk market and could, could you share that?
Claus:Sure.
Claus:I, I can do that.
Claus:And, and just as a follow answer to Frances is that an obvious question is to ask how many have we sold, right?
Claus:And instead of Filip said, we already did the first sale, uh, a couple days ago, and it's not been the only one.
Claus:We hope that it picks up more when we actually have them physically in hardcover, because even though that shouldn't change it, it does for people.
Filip:Yeah.
Claus:I think one thing to be aware of here is that why do we ask that question?
Claus:It's a very classic question.
Claus:If somebody does something that's out of the ordinary, whether it's pricing a book at 560, whether it's doing specialty brewing beer at 10 euros a bottle or whatever it is, our first question is, how many others have accepted this completely crazy idea?
Claus:Because if it's not many, then I'll wait.
Claus:If it's zero, then I won't trust it.
Claus:If it's a lot, then it makes sense to me because then I'm not alone.
Claus:And at the heart of pricing is this feeling of not being alone with a decision, feeling that it makes sense through some logic, whether it's, oh, but this is the tennis shoes that President Obama wears, or this has been trusted by 6 million Chinese entrepreneurs.
Claus:Whatever it is, we are constantly between the struggle of wanting to, to tread new ground and be the first business models, ideas, services, whatever it is.
Claus:And on the other hand, we look for reinforcement because we don't want to be the klutz who paid 560 Euros for a book and everybody else was just laughing at it, as an example.
Claus:So I love that you asked that question, Frances, because it is an obvious one.
Claus:Even if it has nothing to do with the book, it has everything to do with pricing.
Carlos:No, that's great.
Carlos:That's a fantastic answer.
Carlos:And what spring to mind because you used the word logic and we talked earlier about when we were talking before the, um, on Monday you talked about pricing logics.
Carlos:And so there's on one aspect of this around I think people finding, wanting to think logically about the way they make decisions and the, uh, money they spend.
Carlos:And then as there's another thing about internal coherence.
Carlos:Because what makes sense to me and is coherent with my beliefs and my values might not be logical or coherent for someone else.
Carlos:And what I was hearing from your expression there is like, there's an emotional aspect to this that may some people aren't necessarily aware of.
Carlos:And this quite provocative statement surfaces a lot of this stuff that people hide be or, or try to tuck away.
Claus:Couple of years ago, I did a thing for a reasonably sized company, let's just put it that way.
Claus:And they hired me in to do three hours of entertaining, learning workshop, team building for their company.
Claus:There were about a hundred people or so, and they were already pricing the event.
Claus:They were looking at cost of the event on a per person value.
Claus:They were looking at the food is priced per person.
Claus:The, the hotel is priced per person, the transport is priced per person.
Claus:So they asked me, how much would this cost per person?
Claus:I said, well, what are you looking at ballpark figure?
Claus:I said, well, last year we took them to the amusement part, Tiboli.
Claus:That cost us 500, Krenn, about 70 euros per person.
Claus:And if you, if you can keep it, be beneath that, then we're good.
Claus:I said, well, what if I knocked 20% off that price, then you're happy.
Claus:They said, yeah, really happy.
Claus:I said great because to me, doing a thing where it's just Claus in a room, whether it's a hundred people or 120 people or 80 people, doesn't really matter that much as long as I know, so I can design for it.
Claus:But whether I'm paid 80 times 70 euros or 120 times 70 euros, that does matter.
Claus:But to their pricing logic, which it was a per person pricing logic.
Claus:It didn't matter what the total price was, it mattered what the per person price was.
Claus:And I'm pretty sure if I'd gone to the same people and said, you know what, for three hours I'm gonna charge 9,000 euros, then they would've said, isn't that a bit much?
Claus:Like you're not bringing any props, you're not bringing any team, it's just you in a room.
Claus:Like, are you that good?
Claus:I would've said, maybe we'll find out.
Claus:But instead they said, oh, so it's like 60-year-old per person.
Claus:Well, that's way within budget.
Claus:Lovely to work with you.
Claus:You're fantastic.
Claus:We look forward to it.
Filip:Per hour logic is, is so pervasive, right?
Filip:And, you know, experts are paid per hour.
Filip:That's, that's what happens.
Filip:That's, that's how it's always been done, right?
Filip:But, uh, so I was speaking to, to, to a designer client.
Filip:He said, you know, it makes sense for me the longer I work.
Filip:Okay.
Filip:So, um, but technically, what you did there.
Filip:I could do that, right?
Filip:I could go and, and, uh, you know, buy Photoshop and go and look at YouTube and like two to three years I might do the same job that you can do in two hours.
Filip:But it would be, let's say, the same job to be charitable to me, uh, and, and in my learning skills.
Filip:Uh, although the, the result would be the same, it would take you two hours, it, it take me a year.
Filip:So what, what's an hour of design?
Filip:I mean, it's a unit.
Filip:It's a measurable unit, whether it makes sense or not.
Filip:Well, you know, you could technically pay for design per page.
Filip:You could print out whatever you designed in some font size or whatever, uh, picture size, and then simply measure, um, how, how heavy is the paper that we printed and then print you, and then charge by, by kilo or whatever.
Filip:It would make the, the same amount of sense.
Filip:I mean, it's a measurable thing.
Filip:Whether that's worth measuring is, is beside the point.
Filip:And, uh, if somebody pays Claus for a, for, for a keynote speech, is a six hour speech better than a half an hour at one?
Filip:Yeah.
Filip:I would argue it's my work.
Claus:Six times is good.
Claus:No, it's really not.
Carlos:Awesome.
Filip:So, that logic that we apply, uh, and I do say we, right?
Filip:I, I grew out of, of, of those weeds, uh, with, with with my mistakes, as I said.
Filip:Uh, those, that logic applies to commodities.
Filip:And what experts sell, any experts are not commodities and not even commoditized services, because it really, really, really matters who does it.
Filip:So if I find another, a guy named Claus, same length of beard, uh, and, and I simply tried to swap it for this one, I, I won't get the same thing.
Filip:So expert services are not commoditized services, and they shouldn't be priced like potatoes and, and using the same logic.
Filip:So it, it, because it's simply doesn't work.
Filip:And if, if I can, uh, throw in a, a, a children's tale here, I, uh, uh, I like to call it.
Filip:Sworn pricing versus, versus duck pricing because of the, the, the ugly duckling story, right?
Filip:We, we grow out and we try things.
Filip:I know Claus uh, tried many types of, of, of pricing before, and you simply see that this doesn't really work.
Filip:The logic doesn't work.
Filip:It works for many restaurants.
Filip:It works for waiters, it works for car washes, it works for so many things, but for these things, they don't work.
Filip:And then you'd start to think is, is it me?
Filip:No, you're, you were just following duck rules and you were just sw all along.
Ben:So basically what most people are doing, sort of stuck in a paradigm of duck pricing where we think about things as as commodity if we take people listening and so a lot of those people will understand the principle of that or understand the thought that you are, you are pointing to, how do you define better swan pricing?
Ben:Because we understand it's not about the unit, it's not about commodity.
Ben:So what, what is it about?
Filip:so it, it's about the goal.
Filip:It's about what they actually want to achieve.
Filip:So that can be value pricing.
Filip:And value pricing is very modern to, to, to talk about.
Filip:But it doesn't have to be, it can absolutely be, um, it can absolutely be per unit or, uh, per project or even skin and the game pricing.
Filip:But, but it has to be, the incentives have to be aligned.
Filip:You shouldn't price in a way, uh, that either you get the short end of the stick or, or the client.
Filip:And it, it reflects very much on how our work is remembered.
Filip:Now, now, uh, I have fact checked this.
Filip:Uh, so, so everybody who, who, who went to school in Europe, I think had to, uh, read the Russian classics, the Dostoyevsky and things like that.
Filip:And I remember in high school talking with the professor.
Filip:So why did this guy have a need to describe one freaking tree next to the train tracks in St.
Filip:Petersburg for 14 pages, okay?
Filip:And it's, those were fascinating high school discussions.
Filip:But then I found out that Dostoyevsky as, uh, um, everybody else, and that, he was paid by the word Mr.
Filip:Resolve.
Filip:Thank you very much.
Filip:So the, the whole movement that, that we now learn it, it was influenced by how he was paid.
Filip:So, um, it's, it's a fun thing and it's also a fun thing that Dostoyevsky used, used to have such, such bad relationship with his publisher that he said, I'm giving him 10,000 words and not one more, but, um, the, the message of that is pay attention at how your value is measured, because that will affect how people remember your work.?
Carlos:Well, if, if I'm paying by the word then I've defined, I, I've kind of like.
Carlos:Put a limit or a lid on how much I'm gonna get back, start off with, so if I, oh, I'm gonna only pay for 500 words, maybe 501 words is the best thing that's ever gonna happen to me, but I've already just like limited it because of a, an internal budget.
Carlos:Um, I was curious about what you talked about, was it skin in the game pricing for the people who might not understand what that is?
Carlos:It might be interesting just to, uh, to get a feel for, oh yeah, just what that means in terms of, um, uh, that.
Filip:That means we share the risk.
Filip:So when somebody pays you by the hour, uh, then however long this takes, they're going to pay the same by the hour.
Filip:So if this takes three times as long, well bad luck.
Filip:They're taking the risk.
Filip:So skin in the game pricing can, can, uh, take many forms, but let's say that I'm embarking on a project which will take me up about a hundred hours.
Filip:And I will say, so this is, this is normal.
Filip:Although these things can get really messy and complicated if something happens, and sometimes that happens.
Filip:So I'm going to offer two, uh, different choices here.
Filip:The first one is you pay whatever the, the, the, hourly rate is times however long this takes.
Filip:And the second choice is you pay the expected amount plus 85% more.
Filip:It's a 180 5 method.
Filip:It's not mine.
Filip:And you will always pay that even if it takes shorter or much, much longer, you're never going to pay more than that because I'm taking the risk.
Filip:So you're paying for a part of that risk and I'm paying for the rest.
Filip:So this is, this is an, a simple example that anybody could use of skin in the game pricing.
Carlos:Hmm.
Filip:And even if the client says, no, no, no, no, no, I, I'm fine, I, let me just pay per, per hour, and then something, uh, is complicated and they pay 200 percent of, of what they wanted, not what, 180 5 or 300, they're not really in position to, to, to, uh, whine about it, because you told them
Filip:that could happen and next time they're going to choose the 185, and they're going to appreciate you warning them instead of resenting you for offering.
Filip:So if all the risk is on the buyer, that's the standard pricing.
Filip:If you take some of the risk off that, and people usually appreciate that because a lot of business to business stuff is about the risk, then that's skin in the game, the skin in the game pricing.
Carlos:Awesome.
Carlos:That's clear.
Carlos:Thank you.
Carlos:What I was connecting it back to, I think Claus was talking about pricing logics.
Carlos:What I was hearing there as well is like within the customer's head, there is a pricing logic.
Carlos:And sometimes it doesn't matter what the number is, big, small, whatever it is, like, if you can somehow understand what that logic is and fit into that, then you got a better chance of getting paid what you deserve.
Carlos:In the case of like what I heard from Claus is like you could pay me 9,000 euros for an hour, or you could pay six euros per head for 150 people.
Carlos:And that feels a lot more palatable for to someone, 60 euros per person, I should say for 150 people seems a lot more palatable than paying 9,000 euros for an hour's work.
Carlos:So maybe I've got a number in my head.
Carlos:I, you know, I am worth 9,000 euros an hour, but I've gotta somehow work it out.
Carlos:How does that make sense to the other customer, the other person or my customer?
Carlos:Is that the principle?
Carlos:I'm trying to
Claus:so it, it's definitely one of them.
Claus:And, and another thing here is one of, of what Filip said before is the most risky thing is if you come up with a pricing model that encourages one of the parties, either the buyer or the seller to simply, shall we say, maximize.
Claus:Let's say that we were paid to be on this podcast, right?
Claus:That's not unrealistic.
Claus:People are sometimes paid to be on podcast, and you could say, what do you guys want to be on the podcast?
Claus:Well, there's a big difference.
Claus:If we say we want 10,000 needs to be on the podcast, and then we don't care if it's a 30 minute podcast or a 60 minute or a five minute, that doesn't matter.
Claus:If we are paid by the minute, then you can be very sure that my answers will be very slow and thought through.
Claus:And I will say, Ben, can you elaborate on that question?
Claus:Just hear the minutes ticking away and the price going up, which is and Right.
Filip:And let me repeat that.
Claus:Yes, exactly.
Claus:And then Filip the, the same.
Claus:And we're thinking, ah, all the monies because we're incentivized to maximize the system.
Claus:And some of it gets really silly because again, we have this by the hour is so pervasive, so it means that somebody invites you, invites Ben to give a talk somewhere.
Claus:Ben, you're a famous podcast host.
Claus:Come and give a talk on how to be a famous podcast host.
Claus:We're gonna pay you by the hour.
Claus:And Ben says, great.
Claus:I'd like to talk for three hours.
Claus:They're like, yeah, we were thinking more like 30 minutes.
Claus:Like I'm thinking more.
Claus:Why?
Claus:Well, because you're giving me money the more I talk.
Claus:Where if they're saying, Ben, we wanna pay you $5,000, what would be a good length of time to talk?
Claus:Then you can say, well, I think, you know what?
Claus:20 minutes is actually better than 25, because people start losing attention or one hour because then we have time for q and a.
Claus:But then he's focusing on delivering the most value to the client instead of maximizing his own profit.
Claus:And this idea that more time is that imagine you have somebody who spent 14 years perfecting a craft, and they're paid by the hour because they're good.
Claus:Then somebody else walks in and they've spent four years and they're even better.
Claus:Should they be cheaper or should they they be even more expensive because who knows what they could get to in 14 years?
Filip:Absolutely.
Filip:And, I call this, you know, these cases of what is fair, I call it the rabbit hole without, without any good exits.
Filip:Because you can always talk, talk more about that, but yes.
Filip:And how about if talented, and how about if, uh, somebody has a lot of experience, but what if that experience was paid or unpaid or if they got a scholarship or they, or they got money from their dad?
Filip:It doesn't matter.
Filip:So, uh, the, you, you mentioned a couple of times, background logics and I, I would call out three of them, which, which are the most pervasive.
Filip:In, uh, input based, output based and value based.
Filip:So input based is, okay, so how many years have you conned your craft?
Filip:How many cars have you crashed until you learned this?
Filip:How many, you know, it, it some inputs basically.
Filip:Uh, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm an economist by trade.
Filip:Uh, I'm very fun at parties.
Filip:Um, so, so, uh, output based is what do they get out of it?
Filip:So you pay by, by the word or by the, by the word card or something.
Filip:And if it takes somebody 10 minutes or 60 minutes, doesn't really matter, right?
Filip:It's, it's by the output.
Filip:And then you have by value.
Filip:And in being in, in business to business, there's more, much more room for, for value based pricing than people realize.
Filip:And sometimes pe people say, uh, you know, no, no, no.
Filip:I care how much work it, it actually took.
Filip:And then I, I usually say, okay, let's, let's try this out with Habitat.
Filip:Simple scenarios.
Filip:Let's say you want to hire me for a project and um, you install cameras into my home and into my computer, and you can know for sure that I'm hard at work and I work for 60 hours, and you get no results out of that, nothing that you wanted.
Filip:Would you still pay me?
Filip:Probably that was the deal.
Filip:Would you rehire me or, or, or, you know, uh, recommend me?
Filip:No.
Filip:In scenario B, let's say that you can see me not try.
Filip:Let's say that you can see me wave a magic wand, uh, wand and, and get you everything that you ever wanted or everything that, that, that, that, that was the deal in two seconds, without even trying, would you pay me?
Filip:Yes.
Filip:Would you re rehire me?
Filip:Probably or recommend me.
Filip:So you don't really care how much, how hard I worked and how long I, it doesn't matter.
Filip:You want something and you get it and you pay for it and you're happy.
Filip:And, uh, not doing this gets you into some such ridiculous situations.
Filip:I, I, uh, no cases where people are done in like two hours and then wait for two weeks in order for the client not to think that they didn't get their money's worth worked
Claus:I learned to lie about this.
Claus:I have this, I said, this is my 37th book.
Claus:At some point, I learned to lie about how long it took me to write books.
Claus:Because I found out that my, when I'd come up with a new book and somebody said wow, it's a new book.
Claus:It's really good, Claus, if I said, yeah, it took me three weeks to write, they would immediately devalue it because in their mind, that was cheating and then it must be bad and blah, blah, blah, blah.
Claus:What if I said, yeah, I've been working on it for like a year?
Claus:They're like, wow.
Claus:It really shows.
Claus:And now I've passed through on the other side and proudly say, you know what?
Claus:This book took three weeks.
Claus:And people go, whoa.
Claus:But that's only because I have all those books to my name.
Claus:When it was my fifth book, then it was better that people thought it took a year.
Claus:Now at 37, if I pretend it takes a year, then I'm gonna run into some other problems.
Claus:But this, this value perception is just so bizarre.
Ben:And actually it sounds like a lot of what you are sort of talking about is actually reframing that logic.
Ben:Because of course the logic is, you know, maybe channeling people or containing people into a certain way of thinking, which isn't actually serving them well.
Ben:But a lot of what you are pointing to and kind of teaching, I guess is, is helping them reframe that logic.
Ben:Would that be a kind of a, sort of fair little summary of part of what your work is about?
Claus:I think never pay Ben by the project.
Claus:Pay him by the minute.
Claus:Because he's very effective.
Claus:No, I think that's an excellent way of stating, an excellent way of stating.
Filip:Yeah, and I mean, I hope you got the answer of why is the book $560.
Filip:And this, this was, if this is allowed, this, this was my, uh, a question for you guys, uh, have you gotten the answer of, of how do you price the book five $560?
Ben:Yeah, I mean, I think, so for me, uh, when, uh, Carlos first kind of pointed you to, I remember when I was running my last company, I actually was challenging my business partner to write the book, which would be a million dollars, uh, with all all the sort of things that you are sort of talking about.
Ben:You know, let's get out the idea that a book should cost this or should cost that, or everything you were saying, KA at the beginning.
Ben:Like, actually, how much value am I gonna get?
Ben:From spending the time with the ideas of this?
Ben:And if we are really thinking about that, then that kind of points us to a completely different place about what something should cost, what it could cost, and focuses, which is everything you are talking about, all on the outcome.
Ben:You know, if I'm gonna spend half an hour with these ideas, or an hour or morning or whatever it might be, what is the opportunity that can change as a result of it?
Ben:So when I first saw your, the, the kind of the thinking around that, you know, and the whole thing around pricing being a signal, such an important signal as well, that actually, it kind of made total sense to me sort of straight away.
Ben:So, no, I'm, I'm very aligned with what you, uh, what you were trying to do.
Carlos:What it meant for me.
Carlos:at a personal level was quite a provocation.
Carlos:Because what it was saying, what it was, it was laying down a gauntlet in a sense to me is like, if you buy this book, would you be able to make that back from its value?
Carlos:It's like not, it wasn't even like whether the book had all the answers, whether I was able to get the answers from the book that meant that it was worth 560 Euros.
Carlos:So there was something around the price that was challenging my commitment to the outcome that you're promising.
Carlos:And if I'm not committed to that outcome, I'm not gonna pay that price.
Carlos:And so for me it was like can I earn that much in an hour, two hours a day?
Carlos:And if so, am I willing to do the work to make that happen?
Carlos:Which is read the book and put the ideas into place.
Carlos:'Cause if I'm not, then I can't buy it.
Carlos:Or I, you know, I, I won't, uh, physically I'll have a reul, like an emotional repulsion to buy it because I'm gonna judge myself if I don't do the work.
Carlos:And so there's something here, there's, there's a, an emotional provocation, but also I think, well the message for me is like, pricing well is a value or a service to the person you're gonna help.
Carlos:Because if they're not invested in you, they're not invested in themselves.
Filip:There's a reason why, why we put, uh, another unusual thing that we haven't mentioned yet, which is, uh, a full money back guarantee on a book.
Filip:There's a reason, right?
Filip:We wouldn't like to trap somebody that, that's not the point.
Filip:So you can still give it a shot.
Filip:It has a lot of pictures in there, don't worry.
Filip:Uh, I'm kidding.
Filip:But 40 plus illustrations.
Filip:We went, everything important is also conveyed in a diagram or a picture or, uh, a joke of some sort.
Filip:and, uh, we wanted to do this because we wanted people to use this, not simply own it, but use it.
Filip:And the the whole design is thought out in, in a way that if, if you wanna use it, you can use it.
Filip:And if you use it, the chances of you not getting your money back are slim.
Filip:So it, it's a challenge for sure, but I, I think both Claus and I are all about gauntlets and throwing them.
Claus:And it's also hopefully a way of showing that just by existing, if you see the front page and you know the price, you should already be getting something valuable, even if it's packed inside a provocation.
Claus:Because let's imagine we've taken the exact same book, the exact same information, the exact same people, the exact same everything else, and then we priced it at $14.
Claus:Would people want to read it as badly?
Claus:Would they trust that we had something to say?
Claus:Would they be provoked?
Claus:None of those things.
Claus:Filip sometimes calls experts for confidence dispensers.
Claus:Part of what you're selling is confidence.
Claus:If you walk into a room and say, you wanna hire me, I cost $20,000.
Claus:Then some people will say, I don't wanna hire you anymore, and that's fine.
Claus:But some people will say, Ooh, you must be good then.
Carlos:No, I, I, there's lots here around the emotional rollercoaster that we go on, I think when we're making such.
Carlos:Significant, let's say, uh, investments in something.
Carlos:Uh, and I, there there's something here as well around not only the pricing that I'm curious about and maybe another further future C the selling aspect of it, the, the how we get people in the right mind space to say, yep, A, he's confident.
Carlos:B, I'm confident, let's do this.
Carlos:'Cause I think it's like, that's the thing as well that I was experiencing like, am I really confident enough?
Carlos:Am I ready?
Carlos:Am I ready for this?
Carlos:And so how does that work?
Claus:Exactly.
Claus:And there's, and I'll shut up in a moment, but there is a standard running joke in fitness circles, at least some of those I've looked at, not been part of, let's not kid ourselves here.
Claus:But is that the best thing you can do if you want to lose weight, is to find a random person, trustworthy but random and say, I'm gonna pay you $10,000.
Claus:What do I do?
Claus:Well, you just call me every day and ask, have you lost weight yet?
Claus:If you pay somebody $10,000 to help you check if you're losing weight, you're gonna commit to that project.
Claus:Or if you don't, well then why should you care about some random person calling you and asking?
Claus:Very simple, right?
Claus:They don't have to do anything.
Claus:Just the fact that you paid the money means you've shown commitment.
Claus:You have skin in the game, and that means you're committed to doing it, even though it's completely counterintuitive.
Claus:This person does nothing for their $10,000, but the fact that you forked them over means you're ascribing value to that relationship, to that, hey, did you lose weight today?
Filip:And, and to the confidence, point, if you don't mind, Claus.
Filip:People who don't think they have a problem.
Filip:Don't need an expert.
Filip:Don't want an expert, right?
Filip:If my back hurts a little, eh, I'll just, you know, exercise more.
Filip:No, I won't.
Filip:I'll just get a dog and walk more.
Filip:Mm-Hmm.
Filip:But I, I'm definitely not ready to pay anybody anything.
Filip:I know how to walk.
Filip:I know how to sit.
Filip:I've been sitting for a while now on my own, like a big boy.
Filip:So one, uh, morning.
Filip:My back hurts so bad.
Filip:I can't get up from my bed.
Filip:Now my confidence as a client that I can handle this is just shocked, right?
Filip:It's way below the, the, the, the problem that I can see.
Filip:Now.
Filip:I want an expert.
Filip:And no, I don't want a friendly price neighborhood chiropractor that's started, uh, you know, pricing two weeks ago.
Filip:I want the best doctor that my money can buy right now.
Filip:And people shoot themselves in the leg by, basically trying to be friendly priced when nobody needs a, a friendly, priced expert because they obviously don't have the confidence to deal with such a serious problem.
Filip:And if the, the problem is not serious, they don't need an expert at all.
Filip:They might want somebody with, with more, uh, time of their on their hands and they'll go to Fiverr and buy that.
Filip:That's not a problem.
Filip:But that's not an expert and they don't treat the person as an expert, even if they, even, even if they were, which is tragic, but happens every day a million times.
Filip:And this is why, uh, I, I call experts, all experts, medical experts and, and technical experts and, uh, people experts, confidence dispensers, you, you put money at one, one end and, and confidence, additional confidence that you can borrow to tackle this big problem comes out.
Filip:You borrow the confidence, you deal with the problem, and then you're on your own again.
Filip:And this is, this is the, the, the model that if you don't understand, you might try to, you know, uh, uh, compete with lower prices and then when it doesn't work, people are in surprise.
Filip:Because it would work for, for potatoes, it would work for parking services, it would work for, for waitering.
Filip:It doesn't work for experts.
Carlos:On that bombshell, um, and I think also just my noodle is slightly baked now about the whole value thing, paying someone $10,000 to do fuck all other than call me.
Carlos:He's like, I get it, I understand it.
Carlos:Could I do it?
Carlos:Not yet.
Carlos:Uh, I love that.
Carlos:I love that.
Carlos:So I hope anyone listening to this who might even slightly consider themselves an expert, and to be honest, if you've been doing something for a few years repetitively, and you've got some skill, there's some expertise there that you can sell, I hope this has been a useful conversation for you.
Carlos:Uh, I hope we have a get to have a more conversation because I'd love to explore the whole value conversation aspect with you guys.
Carlos:And given Claus's experience, even just the value of amazing experiences.
Carlos:That is something, uh, there's a curious thing.
Carlos:'Cause one of the thing, you know, our audiences, we have audiences here who many are coaches, and so there's something about an emergent outcome, something that isn't clearly well-defined at the beginning that they struggle pricing.
Carlos:And so it'd be interesting maybe at some point to get your thoughts on that given your Yeah, the, the, the work that you have done putting these ideas together in, in your book.
Carlos:Before we end a bit of shameless promotion, just could you repeat the name of the book and also where is if, is there a place that people can go to just at least see it?
Filip:Well, for now until it actually comes out in physical form, the only way to get it is to contact either Claus Raasted or Filip Fučić on LinkedIn.
Filip:But it, it's soon coming to fearlesspricing.com, which is my usual brand that I use is Fearless Pricing.
Filip:So fearless-pricing.com.
Carlos:Or you can find them on LinkedIn, Filip Fučić, and I'm not gonna try and pronounce the letters that you have to type in to make,
Filip:no, you, you, you did it perfectly.
Carlos:Congratulations.
Carlos:Uh, and then Claus Raasted, you can find them on LinkedIn.
Carlos:Check 'em out.
Carlos:Um, and yeah, uh, they've got, well, Claus has got lots of videos.
Carlos:And then I've seen also you too, Filip.
Carlos:You've got some, lots of stuff that you talk about in terms of pricing, so definitely good people to, to check out.
Carlos:Thank you very much.
Carlos:Both of you really enjoyed your company and, and your knowledge and experience and your generosity and, and time.
Carlos:Very appreciated.
Filip:Happy to be here.
Carlos:Thank you, Ben.
Carlos:Take care.
Ben:Thank you.
Carlos:Until next time, bye.
