Episode 70
Why pricing matters
Carlos was watching a webinar from the "6 figure side hustle" people when he heard them talk about some really interesting pricing principles.
"People aren't logical. They're psychological."
And so there are simple things you can do that can help you increase your prices.
Whilst it may seem like manipulation, it's also about believing in the value you create – and making sure your customers believe in it too.
On this episode, Ben and Carlos discuss options and ordering, framing, and 10xing your price.
Links
Transcript
Isn't a cadence just a regular pulse?
Carlos:Just a rhythm?
Carlos:It's a rhythm,
Ben:yeah.
Ben:No, we're like a, we're like a sort of lolloping crocodile,
Carlos:Alright, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to sit with that one Is there a song, very
Ben:low resting heart rate?
Carlos:Okay.
Carlos:It's
Ben:move very slowly, very slowly, but at any moment we could leap into action and kill.
Carlos:Okay.
Carlos:Well I was thinking more Gloria Estefan and the Rhythm is gonna get you.
Carlos:today we're gonna talk about why pricing matters because we sell a pricing course, so pricing doesn't matter, so do it.
Carlos:and it was inspired by.
Carlos:Video that I was watching that uh, I think Kevin is watching us live, uh, shared with me from the six Figure Side Hustle people.
Carlos:I was listening to a bit that Kevin had pointed me to, which was really talking about, essentially entrepreneurs who are scaling businesses Well, the first message, which was, and this, this guy, he was saying something around, price is one of, is the most important thing in this, in business is like to really to learn about pricing.
Carlos:And most of us, and I know myself and Lawrence did this, accidental entrepreneurs, we never learn about pricing.
Carlos:We never actually.
Carlos:Consciously study what pricing is about.
Carlos:And the other thing I got from this thing was like he said, people are not logical, they are psychological.
Carlos:And so this, this whole idea of right intentionally learning about pricing and it's a psychological thing, not just a nuts and bolts cost based thing.
Carlos:So that was like.
Carlos:Kind of the framing for this and then the details.
Carlos:They were talking about various ways, just simple approaches to pricing that can make big differences.
Carlos:Because of the psychology, they were talking very much to businesses that are scaling.
Carlos:I thought we could try, try and reinterpret this to.
Carlos:The kind of audiences that we have, the kind of people in our audience, I should say, who are not necessarily trying to build unicorn startups, but they're trying to build purposeful businesses and create some positive impact and not feel like a dick when it comes to money and pricing.
Carlos:So the re resistance that I'm gonna assume people may have around this is, it's manipulative, it's underhand, it's um, slimy, um, lacks integrity.
Carlos:And what I would like to offer, hopefully through our conversation pen, is actually, if you are in business, this is important stuff to know and you can do it with integrity.
Carlos:I'll, I'll just run through, uh, a summary of what.
Carlos:I thought we could talk about and then we'll see where it takes us.
Carlos:The three things was this, either I idea around options and ordering in pricing.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:Um, the idea of framing or anchoring and then 10 xing and what that can do to how you sell and also what we can do for the business.
Carlos:So let's start off with options and ordering.
Carlos:The story that was told was about wine.
Carlos:I think this is a classic one, and what they were, what this person was saying is rather than going from low to high, when you do your price list, flip it, and just that process of flipping it will increase how much you can share or how much you earn by 26%.
Carlos:I have no idea where these statistics come from.
Ben:Yeah.
Carlos:But I would be, I was thinking we talk to that principle, what is it about that, that we believe works or could work?
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:How, where is that coming from?
Carlos:Yeah,
Ben:yeah.
Ben:Or what's happening there?
Ben:What's happening?
Ben:Yeah.
Ben:What's happening then?
Ben:Uh, so yeah, so I think the, I guess the thing that's happening there, and I've seen that reference, the menu reference lots of, lots of times.
Ben:Uh, and I think it is just because.
Ben:well actually have two things in my mind.
Ben:One you were saying at the beginning about, uh, I don't know whether you, how you framed it, but as Francis.
Ben:Framed it said it in her comment earlier on that she was triggered already.
Ben:Uh, and so whether some of these sort of topics are sort of triggering.
Ben:Oh, that's right.
Ben:When you were asking me whether we could sort of talk about this in a, uh, in a kind of, uh, via the lens of somebody who might be being more intentional around it, and I, that their, their goal is not just to sort of slime people into paying more.
Ben:Uh, and I guess it's kind of tricky then when you see sort of people saying, oh no, you just flip it around.
Ben:And then there's.
Ben:You could increase what you are earning by 26%, whatever that percentage, wherever that kind came from.
Ben:I think, you know, so clearly the thing which they say is happening in that moment is, you know, the brain is always looking for comparisons or always, that's how we know if something is good value or not, and.
Ben:The sort of story in the menu thing goes, people are sort of scanning down it and because the brain is always looking for comparisons to know if something is worth it or not.
Ben:The thing that happens with wine, because really, you know, very few of us really know about the wines.
Ben:If we can't look at the label, which we can't in a restaurant, we are looking for some other.
Ben:Kind of mode of comparison to now if something is worth it.
Ben:Uh, that's the kind of question, the judgment that we're always looking at our mind.
Ben:You know, we sort of talk about this on the course.
Ben:Is this going to do the thing that I want it to do?
Ben:And the same is kind of true for life.
Ben:Is it worth it?
Ben:And given that when we're just looking at a series of names.
Ben:On a page, um, sort of short of having some detailed knowledge about different grapes, uh, we are looking for some clue, a signal that says it's worth it, and all the brain is left with, in that situation is a comparison of the number at the end.
Ben:And so I think the theory with the flipping the menu is if it sees the bigger number first, everything compared to it is less.
Ben:Therefore, for our kind of sort of simple grape starve brain.
Ben:It's kind of, you know, it's a, it's a reassuring story.
Ben:This is less, it's okay.
Ben:That's very, that's much higher.
Ben:So it, it's basically, it's kind of, it's, it's sort of engaging the part of our brain, which is needs to, needs to, needs a comparison to know if, to know what the value of something is.
Carlos:Uh, I, I like that.
Carlos:I think the other aspect, my hypothesis around this, just building on that, is engaging the part of the, our brain that looks for safety.
Carlos:And so if, and then this is a presumption.
Carlos:If you are some, if you, you have this story that spending more money is more unsafe.
Carlos:If you go from low to high, you're going from safe to more unsafe as opposed to going from unsafe to more safe.
Carlos:Mm.
Carlos:If I was gonna be an amateur psychologist, once I get to the bottom, this is the safest price, I'll pay for that.
Carlos:So nothing about, oh, I'll pay for the middles.
Carlos:And you're like, wow, okay.
Carlos:That's safe.
Carlos:As opposed to, oh my God, I've gone to the bottom of the page.
Carlos:It's really expensive.
Carlos:I'm just not gonna make a decision.
Carlos:It's too scary.
Carlos:I'll stop.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:Because you're lazy, you know, we're not gonna go then back to the top and then do com, you know, unless you really wanna work with these people and if you really wanna work with these people.
Carlos:It doesn't matter what order you put it in, they just wanna find the right value for them.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:But there's something around here, so speaking to the manipulative part, the very base level, you gotta believe you're delivering value.
Carlos:If you're just selling little crap widgets, you're not here.
Carlos:You know, don't go away.
Carlos:We're talking about people who really believe in their work and they believe it's something that people need to do.
Carlos:And what you're trying to do is help them make a decision to work with you rather than not do anything, which is, I think, yeah.
Carlos:Part of our, our, our hope for people who do this is like, you have gifts that people need rather than them being stuck because of the way you present your prices.
Carlos:How do you do it in a way that makes it easier for them to work with you?
Carlos:Like you say, how do you make yourself easier to buy?
Carlos:So we want people to work with you.
Carlos:We don't want you just to make more money.
Ben:cause this is about making it easier for people to choose you.
Ben:Because if there are you, if there are any sort of decision making spanners thrown in, thrown into the kind of art or mind of your prospect, they will just choose not to act.
Ben:Uh, if you have not made it easy for them.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:And this is for me, part of the sales sort of ballpark field because.
Carlos:Um, people feel uncomfortable selling, but if you knew, I dunno where this example came from.
Carlos:If someone in front of you had a broken leg and you were someone who could fix it, and they said, oh, I dunno.
Carlos:I dunno if I want to get it fixed, you would convince them to get it fucking fixed.
Carlos:'cause you knew it would be good for them.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:You wouldn't just say, ah, do you want it?
Carlos:No.
Carlos:Okay, I'll go away.
Carlos:Why would you do that?
Carlos:That for me is how do we allow, how do we help you convince someone to fix something that, you know that needs fixing?
Carlos:The other second bit that they, they were talking about with this, is that adding the a 250 quid a really expensive wine at the top price then increases, uh, how much people will pay by 250%.
Carlos:Again.
Carlos:Where do these figures come from?
Carlos:I have no idea.
Carlos:But that's, that was a thing to do with anchoring,
Ben:I think it's, it's a continuation just of the, of the same, the same thing.
Ben:The, the number which, you know, the reason they put in the expensive one at the top is that.
Ben:Yes, we are talking to the part of our brain, which does need to make comparisons in order to be able to make a decision.
Ben:But that's kind of happening with all people all the time.
Ben:Whatever your intent is, whether your intent is to help the person who has a broken leg, or whether your intent is to fleece people in your restaurant, uh, it doesn't kind of, in a sense, it doesn't matter From that sense, we need a comparison to make a decision.
Ben:So, um, that we're starting with, the higher one helps that, you know, is, is the point, the reference that we step off from.
Ben:And then the thing that is also then true is the amount that is put on there becomes our benchmark.
Ben:So not only is it the stepping off point for the purposes of comparison, but the amount also becomes the benchmark.
Ben:So if 250 is the amount at that sort of stepping off point, every value judgment the brain is going to make is compared to 250.
Ben:Um, so in the same way that if you put the, the, the kind of, sort of the top one at a hundred, the comparison is against that as the sort of, that's the number that we compare from.
Ben:So the theory goes actually, the higher the anchor in that sense, you will create a space, a decision making space essentially, which, um, the kind of customer will step into, which starts at that figure.
Ben:Hmm.
Carlos:we've got a comment here, Francis, saying people aren't idiots.
Carlos:and also, and so they, just tell them, tell, tell them the plan in the compassionate language and, um, something about selling in terms of, uh, be, defend the hero and guide idea of selling based on what people actually need and meeting them where they're at.
Carlos:So, you know.
Carlos:Talking very clearly about their challenges, their problems, and then through that they will convince themselves that they need to work with you.
Carlos:All of that makes sense.
Carlos:All of that makes sense, I think.
Carlos:But when it comes to money, people can be idiots.
Carlos:I'm an idiot when it comes to money and when I see an idiot in terms of like, I'm not conscious of the things that make me make a decision around money.
Carlos:Sometimes I get caught up in the emotion of it.
Carlos:And so having an awareness of that for me is, is important.
Carlos:Has been important because what my money ceiling is is not someone else's money ceiling.
Carlos:And all of this isn't in terms of for me, increasing the amount of money everyone spends with you.
Carlos:It's about knowing the people you wanna work with spend a certain amount of money or that's they're able to spend that money, they see value in spending that money.
Carlos:Then designing your prices in order for them to then work out which is the best way to spend it with you.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:We're not asking people who have only a hundred pounds to spend a thousand pounds with us unless they're able to spend a thousand pounds.
Carlos:We're asking people who have 5,000 pounds.
Carlos:You can spend 5,000 pounds, you can pass 3000 pounds and you can spell 500 pounds.
Carlos:And each of those things has a different set of things that will provide you.
Ben:Yeah, I mean, I don't think any of this is a silver bullet, and I think to the point around whether kind of people are idiots or not, clearly we don't, as the assumption is not that people are idiots, but equally most decision making happens on an emotional level.
Ben:It doesn't happen at the rational need level.
Ben:We choose to do things.
Ben:We make that decision emotionally, then we justify it rationally, and that is what's happening with every decision that we make.
Ben:Buying things or selling things or whatever.
Ben:That's happened everywhere.
Ben:And money is also one of the most emotionally charged sort of objects of our lives.
Ben:Uh, and so when you kind of throw that also into the mix.
Ben:we can't ignore the fact that this becomes hugely emotive, making decisions is emotive, whether it's, you know, clearly on a sort of scale, depending on what it is that we might be buying.
Ben:But making a decision is already emotive, throwing money in.
Ben:It becomes triply, emotive, and these are all.
Ben:Um, these all create resistance to action.
Ben:They create resistance to decision, and I think all we're talking about is the journey that one might go on to make it easier for somebody to buy.
Ben:No, they're not idiots, but clearly choosing things is emotive and complicated.
Carlos:Yeah.
Carlos:And maybe using the word, uh, idiot was, is a bit extreme, but there's, we want to help.
Carlos:I think this is, and we, we, we wanna do this in an ethical way, of course, but with acknowledging the limitations that we all have maybe around making purchases and what that, how that Connects to money and money stories, which is, uh, of course we know, and we talked about this many times, our whole massive topic in itself, and you could spend loads of time doing that.
Carlos:so the other.
Carlos:Bit of this conversation that I was listening to was to do with, a company that was selling software to corporates.
Carlos:And what they were doing is they were selling the software at about 30 pounds, 30,000 pounds a year, and no one was buying.
Carlos:And so, This consultant was talking to this company and said, all right, I'll go and talk to your clients and just ask them questions.
Carlos:And basically the company was saying, you know, this will take millions of pounds to implement and we are not actually confident that you'll stick around at that price because this is important, fundamental stuff to our business.
Carlos:And while this company knew they could solve the problem easily, and it was something they could do.
Carlos:The thing that was going in the way was they would look too cheap and that the cheapness of them, uh, when in the eyes of the corporate made basically lost, lost confidence in them.
Carlos:And all they needed to do, according to the story was 10 x their price.
Carlos:And now they essentially can't put, um, they're inundated with customers, is the story.
Carlos:How true that is?
Carlos:I'm not sure, but there's a message there around for me, was it price, the client not the job?
Ben:Yeah, but it goes back to what you're talking about.
Ben:It's about safety.
Ben:'cause actually I, whether the extent to which that story is true or not, nobody knows.
Ben:But I had experienced that personally in running my own business.
Ben:In fact, the whole reason I became curious about what was happening around.
Ben:The decisions we make around this was because of that exact situation happening with me.
Ben:When I was running, uh, my last company, we kind of early on were in exactly that position.
Ben:We would go around, we sort of, meet lots of people, have lots of good conversations, conversations seemingly lots of good connections.
Ben:Seem to be a kind of good sort of relationship there, kind of seemingly full of good opportunity.
Ben:The conversation would wind its way around to money.
Ben:The how much do you charge, what does it cost?
Ben:And we, we were selling a version of a design concept essentially, uh, for the purpose of this conversation.
Ben:And, you know, we took the view, it was better to not charge very much bear in mind we were, these were big companies that we were talking to.
Ben:This is not individuals.
Ben:but you know, we took the view it was better to not charge very much in order to get a sort of relationship going, which lots of people take that view when they're selling particularly to organizations.
Ben:And, uh, so we sort of took, which is, you know, give us a few thousand and we'll show you what we can do essentially.
Ben:uh, and time and time again, these conversations would just sort of wither away.
Ben:It would sort of disappear.
Ben:All of that opportunity, potential seeming opportunity and potential and connection just gone.
Ben:And so the kind of feeling of that is really a feeling of pushing water uphill.
Ben:You know, you are trying and trying and trying and trying and, but then just things not happening.
Ben:And I was in another one of these conversations and.
Ben:There was no sort of plan or intent behind any of this same sort of thing.
Ben:Conversation goes really well, seemingly, lots of connection, you know, good sort of personal connection.
Ben:And we were really clear, you know, we were really sort of confident that we could do something useful and, but it all seemed to be kind of good conversation.
Ben:Wind, its way around to money.
Ben:Uh, and, um, kind of rather than saying, give us a few grand and we'll show you what we can do.
Ben:Uh, I kind of accidentally said it costs 45,000.
Ben:And, uh, like I said, there was no sort of plan to this.
Ben:Just one, one little caveat, the amounts of money here is not the point.
Ben:Like the amount of whether it's 30,000 in the software example or 45,000 in this example isn't the point.
Ben:It's just part of the, what the experience was.
Ben:But anyway, so in saying that, which is essentially, I accidentally put my prices up by about 20 times.
Ben:And the client basically said, great, let's do it.
Ben:And they kind of bought, and we did it.
Ben:They, we went essentially went straight into, uh, into an engagement with them.
Ben:Now, a lot sort of changed for us in that moment.
Ben:One, we'd won a really big client, which actually changed a lot about how we felt about running our business.
Ben:But the other thing that kind of really changed was, um, it kind of really just made me curious what happens here.
Ben:Why is it that in this situation, in this instance, a client, a prospect to customer is, feels so much safer to buy or it's so much easier for them to act.
Ben:And I think, you know, this does go all the way back to the kind of feeling of safety and what is, what feels safe for them.
Ben:So like the example that you were giving before of that other organization, I can well imagine that happened because that happened to us.
Ben:We were taking a view, which was, it was better just to charge less to, to get in.
Ben:But actually what we were inadvertently doing there was begging for work essentially, because in a way we weren't, we weren't reassuring them.
Ben:Because you've gotta remember when somebody buys something, buying anything is fraught with risk, and people are looking for reassurance.
Ben:They're looking for signals that buying your thing.
Ben:Is going to do what they want it to do.
Ben:And bearing in mind the what they want it to do is never what it says on the tin of what you do.
Ben:It's they, they're using it in service or something else.
Ben:They want it, they need it in service of something else.
Ben:And knowing what that is, is really, really important.
Ben:But then the onus is on us to reassure the people who we are offering our things to, that it is safe, that it is okay, and whether we like it or not.
Ben:The culture that we live in, price is a hugely important signal to those people, and people will be making a judgment on the safety, the security, the appropriateness, the reliability of what you do.
Ben:In a considerable part, not only, but in a considerable part, they will draw those inferences from the number that goes with it.
Ben:Uh, and there's nothing that we can do about that, that is a kind of a, kind of factor of the culture that we live in.
Ben:So it's hugely, it is hugely important.
Ben:But like I said, the, the amount is not the relevant thing here because.
Ben:You know, like many, many people who are listening to this, who are not selling things to people that have 45,000, I get that.
Ben:So it's not about the amount, it's about the fact that price is a signal.
Ben:And so we should remember that.
Ben:And you know, like anything, there's the, you know, the, the coaching book reboot by that guy Jerry Kno, you come across him.
Ben:Mm-Hmm.
Ben:I know he sort of talks in there obviously about the fact that essentially everything, whether we are kind of founders or whatever, is really what we're looking for is safety and belonging.
Ben:Things which feel like a risk to that, things that feel that they might, um, kind of threaten that clearly we are going to move away from.
Ben:And so, you prices are part of this kind of, it's a price of this, you know, part of this, kind of landscape.
Carlos:I like the way you brought it around to these kind of more core human needs.
Carlos:Need for safety, the need for belonging.
Carlos:The way I'd like to summarize that, to interpret.
Carlos:I talk very clearly about the need for safety, to know that I've made the right choice that this job will get done because this signal tells me there is quality and there is, the result I need that will come from this.
Carlos:And somehow that number is communicating that.
Carlos:And then the other thing for me, part
Ben:of the communication of that,
Carlos:part of the communication for that, and the other aspect around belonging for me is around what does this.
Carlos:Paying this amount of money, say about me and the kind of organization I am, the kind of person I am, and I think of like people who buy expensive brand.
Carlos:Not this is expensive brand, but branded clothing.
Carlos:You know, I want to spend more money because it says something about how I am connected to you as a brand, us who wear these kinds of clothes.
Carlos:And that, that's what came to me.
Carlos:When you're talking about safety and belonging, like how we sell.
Carlos:And ultimately who we sell to is gonna dictate what numbers we should be putting on these prices.
Carlos:Because like you said, if you, went to that same client, well that same client, if you not done 20 times, then there's a good chance they would've not paid, bought you.
Carlos:' cause in their head that number is not right.
Carlos:But then that was about, you know, there, you talked about an accident.
Carlos:We would love for people to be much more intentional with this, given what you've experienced.
Carlos:Mm-Hmm.
Carlos:And what that then means for you, not only as a business in terms of profitability, but as an organization in terms of, like you said, confidence and ability to do other things, ability to invest in yourself and in your business.
Carlos:So, I hope those, listening to this.
Carlos:Might, even if you might struggle with the numbers.
Carlos:What for me this is about is even though you know the value of what you do, you know, really know the value of what you do and experience it.
Carlos:From my experience of talking to people, the step of then communicating that to others and asking for money, that seems to be very separate.
Carlos:it isn't just like, because it's a valuable work that people will just buy it.
Carlos:There's another piece here, another bit of work.
Ben:yeah.
Ben:There is, because I think, you know, we're agree.
Ben:Everybody who listens to this, um, they are, you know, super well intentioned and their work is from a, is from, you know, that place, which is, you know, it's imp it's important work.
Ben:You know, there is still a need to kind of help people step into the buying of that.
Ben:There is still a need to kind of recognize people are making decisions from the kind of questions of safety questions of belonging, et cetera.
Ben:And so actually the kinda where we cross the threshold to money, given that the money is a hugely emotionally charged part of all decision making, um, you know, we need to, we need to kind of come at that intentionally.
Ben:'cause if we don't, it can just become a sort of a, kind of a noisy obstacle.
Carlos:And, and all of these, these, for me, these reg, these regular used to be regular calls was about trying to connect those two parts of this, There's the tactics and the strategy, and there's what really what it really takes our personal level to put these things in place.
Carlos:I've got a question here from Francis about, what might I change up in the selling tactics for Happy, Startup, School, and this menu of products.
Carlos:it has helped me really, really think of that and the way I talk about our work because at a very basic level, what we're trying to do is help people make a transition from being, feeling that they're not creative.
Carlos:Feeling like business is a certain way to being much more creative in business and feeling like business isn't just about making money, it's about doing good and being happy.
Carlos:And being happy being the important thing.
Carlos:How do you wanna do that?
Carlos:You can do that one to one.
Carlos:That's gonna be expensive.
Carlos:You could do that as a group quite structured, which is Vision 2020.
Carlos:You could do that.
Carlos:And of course, again, structured, but self-paced.
Carlos:Or you can do that as part of the community, which is totally choose your own adventure.
Carlos:And I can lay that out in different levels of price, all trying to achieve the same level, same goals.
Carlos:But it's the choice you have to make is cost and flexibility and personalization.
Carlos:You know, the higher you put, the more personalized you want it, the higher you have to pay because that's gonna be more valuable to you.
Carlos:The more you're happy to do it yourself, then you, you create your own value.
Carlos:You just need the materials.
Carlos:Just join the community and choose your own adventure.
Carlos:And that's how I would order things if you know, well, that's why I try and order things these days when I talk to people.
Carlos:The added complication is we have altitude and we have summer camp.
Carlos:I would then insert those in a way of like these, they are experiences also in service of the same goal.
Carlos:You just have to choose whether you wanna do it as a structured learning journey, uh, or whether you want to do it as an experiential approach.
Carlos:Where you get input from lots of different people and from being in a place, whether that's in the Alps or in a field in Sussex.
Carlos:And so for me, talking about, you know, doing this work for the past two years has really helped me just start to tell the story of what was already there, but just in a way that makes more sense.
Ben:Yeah, it does make, it does make sense to me because I think some of the stuff you're talking to there is.
Ben:Just is, is kind of, is recognizing what it is that people are actually buying.
Ben:And, uh, so yes, there is a kind of outcome about, you know, sort of living being your more, most kind of creative self or kind of, you know, as part of what you were talking about there, but kind of recognizing some people prefer to explore that on their own.
Ben:Some people feel safer exploring that with others.
Ben:And, you know, this is all the, the kind of, the stuff of what people are buying.
Ben:but I think there's another thing, and I know this is kind of venturing then into the sales thing, but it's something which is coming up for in lots of my things at the moment.
Ben:Um, or, or kind of resurfacing in a lot of my things at the moment.
Ben:It is just, it is just remembering what it is that people are actually buying.
Ben:When they're buying something and you know, really they're buying the idea behind it.
Ben:So people are buying the various things of that Happy, Startup, School, because they're buying the idea of the Happy, Startup School.
Ben:There's, there's a thing around, you know, consuming.
Ben:Like when we consume, we make it part of us.
Ben:And actually all transactions in our way are kind of about making that thing part of us.
Ben:So whether it's a coaching thing, and this came up again on.
Ben:Um, with my sort of, uh, colleagues on the, the meditation platform, you know, we have, one of my partners there is the sort of found, one of the, the founding teacher essentially, and he was having a a sort of dispute with the person who sort of looks after our marketing, who was basically, it is, you know, it's a real complication there because the teachers.
Ben:Feel like they are.
Ben:This is in a kind of Buddhist lineage.
Ben:These teachers feel that they are the a voice in a line of teaching, which obviously goes back two and a half thousand years.
Ben:So the idea that it is then sold that those teachings are then sold, of course, is anathema to their intent, but also deeply problematic from the spirit of the tradition.
Ben:The tradition where the teachings are offered freely in exchange for a donation.
Ben:And so there was this kind of, sort of conflict bubbling up between what the teacher was wanting and saying and what the person who's responsible for the communicating of that was saying about it.
Ben:Uh, and that, that in itself was relatively easily resolved.
Ben:But I was saying to the person who's writing the kind of email stuff, look, the thing we've gotta remember is actually in a way.
Ben:The words on this are actually not really important.
Ben:What people are buying is they're buying Martin, the teacher, because lots of the people who are buying, they're buying because they know him, they have relationship to him, and in a way he kind of represents and embodies something that they want for themselves.
Ben:So the act of buying his course, the act of buying his teaching, which is paid for by donation, but whatever the, the principle of the kind of transaction is because people are buying the idea of the thing.
Ben:And I think that that is, you know, really, really true for a lot of the happy Startup.
Ben:I think it's actually true for everything kind of moral or less essentially, whether I'm a coach selling something, whether it's a school selling something, whether it's an experiential thing.
Ben:We're doing is we're buying the idea of something because we want some of that for ourselves.
Ben:We want to embody part of that.
Ben:Uh, and I think that that is a really, really important part of sort of selling in, in remembering what it is actually that people are buying.
Ben:But I appreciate that.
Ben:Is not, uh, we we're off pricing.
Carlos:I'm glad you took, brought it up.
Carlos:'cause it, it made me think maybe the next episode we do for me is what is value, There is this question of am I delivering value?
Carlos:Am I valuable?
Carlos:What is the valuable thing here, which then Connects to price.
Carlos:so I, maybe we do that next time and you can expand a bit more on that and we can try and give some examples.
Carlos:And also what I'd like to talk to you more about, what gets in people's way when it comes to talking about value and then getting paid.
Carlos:' cause I sometimes feel that.
Carlos:There's a gap, there's a chasm between those two things that people just can't cross for whatever reason.
Carlos:Mm-hmm.
Carlos:I'd be curious to hear, hopefully from people to join us live, to share what they think is, is the chasm for themselves so that we can fix it or we can build a bridge.
Carlos:Anyway, call.
Carlos:Thank you everyone for joining us live and for your input and um, thoughts.
Carlos:Always very, very helpful to have that, um, to be challenged as we, as we chat.
Carlos:Mm.
Carlos:juicy, juicy, crunchy topic.
Carlos:So, looking forward to exploring that on June, the, on June 28th
Carlos:am available.
Carlos:See you all then.
Carlos:Alright, thank you.
Carlos:Bye Bye.
