Ep. 50: Fearless Pricing: How to Get Paid What You’re Worth with Casey Brown

Summary

Episode 50: Fearless Pricing: How to Get Paid What You’re Worth with Casey Brown

Release Date: December 4, 2024

Host: Cary Weston
Guest: Casey Brown, Pricing Expert
Podcast: The ChatGPT Experiment - Simplifying Chat GPT For Curious Beginners

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In Episode 50 of The ChatGPT Experiment, host Cary Weston delves into the intricate world of pricing with renowned pricing expert Casey Brown. Titled "Fearless Pricing: How to Get Paid What You’re Worth," this episode unpacks the common frustrations businesses face regarding pricing strategies and offers actionable insights to overcome them. Below is a detailed summary capturing the essential discussions, key points, and valuable takeaways from their conversation.

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1. The Central Problem: Pricing-Induced Frustration

[01:15] Kerry Weston:
Cary Weston opens the discussion by highlighting a pervasive issue in businesses across all industries: frustration stemming from pricing strategies. He states:

"Frustration. I've never seen it in a marketing document or a strategic plan, but holy smokes are businesses creating a ton of it. [...] And that frustration is caused by one word and that is pricing."

Casey Brown echoes this sentiment, emphasizing that pricing is often the most misunderstood component in business operations, leading to dissatisfaction both internally among teams and externally with customers.

2. Understanding the Customer: The Empathetic Advisor Approach

[12:19] Casey Brown:
One of the primary themes Casey introduces is the necessity of deeply understanding the customer. She elaborates:

"You need to understand what they care about, what's important to them, what their problems are, what their goals are, what, you know, what keeps them up at night."

This customer-centric approach shifts the focus from merely selling features to addressing real pain points, fostering a connection that justifies premium pricing.

3. Emotional Drivers in Purchasing Decisions

[14:42] Casey Brown:
Casey underscores the emotional aspects influencing buying decisions, referencing neurological research that supports the idea that emotions drive purchases, with facts serving as post-purchase justifications.

"People buy on emotion and then justify on facts."

This insight challenges the traditional B2B sales mindset that relies heavily on logic and data, advocating instead for an emotionally resonant sales approach.

4. The Power of Role Playing in Sales Training

[20:43] Kerry Weston:
Addressing sales team dynamics, Cary introduces the concept of role-playing as a crucial practice for honing sales techniques. He describes his own experience:

"I had a tough conversation to have with a client [...] I practiced and practiced and practiced. I went into that actual conversation, and lo and behold, 95% of the stuff that I practice came up."

Casey reinforces this by highlighting how role-playing builds "muscle memory," enabling salespeople to remain calm and effective during high-stakes negotiations.

5. Leveraging Technology for Effective Practice

[24:51] Casey Brown:
Casey discusses the advantages of using technology in sales training, particularly AI tools like ChatGPT, which allow for anonymous and pressure-free practice environments.

"Now you don't have to [...] I can go ahead and pause the recording. I just want to role play something with you."

This technological integration lowers the intimidation barrier, making role-playing more accessible and less daunting for sales professionals.

6. Active Listening: The Ultimate Sales Skill

[26:55] Casey Brown:
Emphasizing the importance of listening, Casey explains how active listening can transform sales interactions:

"The most successful selling conversations are where I do the least talking. I'm asking really thoughtful and important questions."

By focusing on listening rather than speaking, salespeople can better understand client needs and tailor their pitches accordingly, building trust and increasing the likelihood of closing deals.

7. Defining Competition: Beyond Direct Rivals

[16:25] Casey Brown:
The conversation shifts to understanding competition. Casey notes that competition isn't always direct and can include broader market alternatives:

"In a services business, there’s always an alternative of doing nothing. Like that is. [...] 50% of competition is do nothing."

This broader perspective helps businesses position themselves more effectively by addressing not just direct competitors but also the inertia that prevents customers from making a purchase.

8. Messaging and Content Marketing: Shaping Perceptions

[31:07] Casey Brown:
Casey highlights the critical role of messaging in today's buyer's journey, where a significant portion of purchasing decisions occur before direct interaction with a business.

"If you’re giving valuable information to your market about your product or service, I.e., give first authentically [...] if you're giving value, that is one of the really helpful ways."

Content marketing becomes a pivotal tool in establishing trust and authority, ensuring that potential customers are well-informed and more inclined to choose your offerings.

9. Price Segmentation: Avoiding the One-Size-Fits-All Trap

[37:55] Casey Brown:
Addressing the challenge of setting uniform prices, Casey advocates for price segmentation to cater to different customer segments without compromising overall profitability.

"If we have a one size fits all price strategy, it will almost always center around the most price-sensitive customers we have. [...] we are going to underprice to everyone else."

By segmenting prices based on customer profiles and value perception, businesses can optimize their pricing structures to maximize revenue without alienating less price-sensitive customers.

10. Practical Application: Resources and Continued Learning

[40:30] Casey Brown:
Concluding the episode, Casey shares resources for listeners eager to implement fearless pricing strategies:

• Websites: kaseybrown.com, boostpricing.com
• LinkedIn: Casey Brown Boost
• Book: Fearless Pricing (available as of recording)

She emphasizes the importance of accessible information, offering free resources to empower businesses of all sizes to command the prices they deserve.

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Key Takeaways:

• Customer-Centric Pricing: Understand and align pricing strategies with customer needs and emotional drivers.
• Role-Playing for Success: Regular practice through role-playing can enhance sales effectiveness and confidence.
• Active Listening: Prioritize listening over speaking to build trust and uncover client needs.
• Broadened Competition View: Recognize that competition includes alternatives to purchasing, such as inaction.
• Strategic Messaging: Utilize content marketing to shape customer perceptions and inform decision-making.
• Price Segmentation: Implement differentiated pricing to cater to various customer segments without underpricing.

Notable Quotes:

• Kerry Weston [01:15]:
  "And that frustration is caused by one word and that is pricing."

• Casey Brown [12:19]:
  "You need to understand what they care about, what's important to them, what their problems are, what their goals are, what keeps them up at night."

• Casey Brown [14:42]:
  "People buy on emotion and then justify on facts."

• Kerry Weston [20:43]:
  "Role playing [...] it's really, really, really good for you."

• Casey Brown [24:51]:
  "I don't have to [...] I can role play with ChatGPT and not feel foolish."

• Casey Brown [26:55]:
  "The most successful selling conversations are where I do the least talking."

• Casey Brown [31:07]:
  "Messaging is hugely important."

• Casey Brown [37:55]:
  "If we have a one size fits all price strategy, it will almost always center around the most price-sensitive customers we have."

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Conclusion

Episode 50 of The ChatGPT Experiment serves as a comprehensive guide for businesses grappling with pricing challenges. Through Casey Brown's expert insights, listeners gain a deeper understanding of the multifaceted nature of pricing, the importance of empathy in sales, and practical strategies to ensure they receive fair compensation for their value. By integrating these principles, businesses can transform frustration into profitability, fostering sustainable growth and enhanced customer relationships.

Transcript

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[Podcast Host]

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[Kerry Weston]

Frustration. I've never seen it in a marketing document or a strategic plan, but holy smokes are businesses creating a ton of it. And they're doing it every day. Businesses of all sizes across all industries creating frustration on a regular basis. Frustration for inside the organization as well as the customers and prospects outside the organization. And that frustration is caused by one word and that is pricing. It is the most misunderstood component of most businesses from a sales point of view. And survey after survey, it's the number one frustration by customers looking at companies for products and services. The lack of it, the lack of information, the lack of understanding, the lack of guidance. So I am absolutely thrilled today for episode 50 to be talking to Casey Brown, pricing expert. That's going to bring a ton of knowledge and a ton of things to think about. And I'm going to weave in previous episodes of the ChatGPT experiment as we're talking about principles and topics so you can use ChatGPT to address, fix and build plans around the things that we're talking about so that you can stop creating frustration for your own team and for your prospects and customers alike. And we're going to do it right now.

[Casey Brown]

Hey there.

[Podcast Outro Host]

Welcome to the ChatGPT experiment, a podcast where we take all that confusing ChatGPT stuff and break it down so even Grandma can understand. If you're a curious beginner, you're in the right place as we help you understand what ChatGPT is, how others are using it, and what are practical takeaways that you can use right away. It's going to be fun, informative, and maybe surprising when you find how helpful ChatGPT can be. Alright, let's get this thing started. Here's your host, Kerry Weston.

[Kerry Weston]

Helpful indeed. And yes, pricing. That's what we're talking about today. Welcome to the show. As I told you in the intro, absolutely thrilled to be joined by Casey Brown. Let me tell you a little bit about Casey right now. Kasey is a 25 year self described pricing geek with a passion to help leaders, entrepreneurs and sellers command the prices they deserve. Her decades long reputation as a pricing expert arose from pioneering innovative pricing content, formulating and executing pricing strategies and driving dramatic sustainable results. Her TED Talk has been viewed nearly 4 million times. Casey is fluent in Spanish, she's certified Six Sigma Black Belt and holds degrees in both chemical engineering, Spanish and business. Okay, so she's joined me to talk about the topic that I see in the clients that I work with. You see it in the businesses you try to do business with. And as I mentioned in the intro, it's the number one frustration in study after study on what more buyers want and less companies want to give.

Yeah.

So this is going to be helpful. And as I mentioned, we're going to have episodes in the middle or episode references in the middle of the conversation so you can look back, get some help and make some meaningful progress towards these issues if any of this resonates with you.

Yeah.

The website of the podcast is chatgptexperiment.com if you've got anything going on that you want to share and have others learn from, reach out. You can find some. Find a spot on the website to reach out to me. Tell me about it. Just like we did with Steven a couple episodes ago. Reach out, let me know. Let's get you on the show moving forward. Have you checked out the workshops yet? Got the workshops, the one on one personalized workshops. There's on the website you can see a little bit of details about it. Sign up. I've got a few folks that I'm starting with soon. Appreciate you signing up and doing that. Happy to answer any questions that you have. My Goal is to make sure that you are empowered to use this thing to be more productive and profitable and efficient at work. Okay, so let's get to it. Let's talk about pricing. Here's my conversation with Casey Brown. And listen until we talk again. As always, stay curious. Okay, talk soon.

Well, hey, Casey. Hey. Thanks for joining me on the show. I'm super psyched you're here.

[Casey Brown]

Thanks. I'm delighted to be here as well. Thanks for the invitation.

[Kerry Weston]

And you were sharing before you. You headed for the mountains. You actually get to do this from the mountains?

[Casey Brown]

Yeah. I'm really grateful for the modern technology that allows me to be speaking to you from the mountains of western Maryland, which is my happy place.

[Kerry Weston]

Nice. Nice. So just a quick intro before we get going because I really want to geek out on this with you. Let's just do a quick intro in your own words. Who are you, what are you doing? And who are you doing it for these days?

[Casey Brown]

Sure. So, Kasey Brown, I'm the founder of a company called Boost Pricing. And whether it's from the keynote stage or through our training programs at Boost, we really have one goal, which is to help companies and individuals that provide excellence to their customers be paid like they're excellent, not like they're good, not like they're mediocre. And too many companies are accepting mediocre pay for excellent work. And there's a whole bunch of reasons for that. We're going to get into that in the show. But for me, my, you know, this pricing is really mission driven work because I believe if you've, if you've poured your heart into excellence, letting some of your money sit in your customer's bank account through inattention or fear or any of the other causes for this, it's robbing the companies that are listening to this podcast of resources that are rightfully there so they could use to grow, innovate, add new lines of business, hire more people, pay themselves and their people better. Now you're talking about paychecks impacted, so you're talking about families and communities. There's a huge ripple effect of being paid well and there's a huge ripple effect of accepting underpricing. And so I just want to help individuals and organizations command the prices they deserve for the value that they create. And it's our mission, whether we're doing a 10 week training program or I'm standing on a keynote stage for 45 minutes.

[Kerry Weston]

And you've used the word mission a few times here and other times that.

I've seen You, you truly believe like.

This is, this is a mission for sure.

[Casey Brown]

And if you look at the number of, of people in this country that are obviously having this conversation, United States, although I think this is very true around the world as well, the number of people in this country that are employed by small and medium sized businesses is, and I mean it's tens of millions of people. And so the, the lifeblood of our economy is rooted in this. And, and I don't say that just for a dollars and cents thing, but what's impacted by dollars and cents when somebody's, you know, when a company is able to pay out, you know, a profit sharing plan because they were able to hit their profit targets. Now somebody's, you know, able to put an extra house payment on there, you know, pay an extra house payment on a mortgage or, you know, pay the daughter's college tuition or buy hockey skates for their kid. I mean, there's really tangible human impact from this and that moves me greatly. You know, if I got to get up at 4 o'clock in the morning to go get on a flight and I don't feel like it, I think about that human impact and yeah, it's absolutely a mission for me. It's really, really important.

[Kerry Weston]

And I'm facing conversations with many business owners these days that feel like their work is to pay for existing expenses. Right. So you used mission early like you believe in what you're doing, you believe in the impact, the value and the outcome of what you're doing. But so many businesses are struggling with, I have to get money to pay for the expenses that I have. Right. Rather than I'm selling for value, I'm building a legacy, I am supporting livelihoods, I am growing profits so I can reinvest. Right. They really do see trapped and I need to get money to pay for my expenses. Are you seeing the same?

[Casey Brown]

I am. And I would say that's not necessarily new. I just think it's heightened. It's a, maybe a louder chorus of, of complaints slash, you know, justifications there. And I think, you know, it's understandable that it's louder now because if you look at the inflation over the past several years, the cost of business is much more front and center than it had been before. Not that you, you know, business owners weren't always looking at managing, you know, the expense line, but I think it's become the line of the P and L that's gotten the most attention and focus in the last few years. And that means that, you know, if you're lagging in your ability to command the prices you deserve. The cost of that is much more apparent to you now because you're struggling to, to, you know, to have anything left in the bank after all these costs of doing business have gone up. And I think particularly in businesses where the labor expense is a big line item, if you've got a professional services firm or you have thought leaders on your team, the cost to recruit and retain those folks is very high. And so there's just a ton of focus on the cost side. What I think about this, and I think this, you would probably echo this, given our chat before we hit record, is that if you are focused on pricing to cover cost, you're almost certainly underpricing. If your focus is I've got to make sure I hit this margin target of X percent, I don't think that's a bad thing to think about and have as a sanity check for your pricing strategy. But I don't think that should be plan A. I think it's sort of plan B or C or D to make sure, well, at least we got to make sure we're covering costs almost always. Especially if you're a best in class or better in class provider, this sort of cost plus approach is leaving money on the table instead of a value based approach which is truly rooted in the value your customer derives from buying your products and services.

[Kerry Weston]

All right, let's dig in. So in the intro I mentioned that this is a ChatGPT podcast and so we're going to have a real world conversation here and then apply some of the things we do in chat to it. So number one, first and foremost, I think which miss is missing in a lot of businesses and sales, is the empathetic advisor, the ability of understanding who the audience is, what they care about, what they're looking for, and how to connect what you do with something that really matters to them. So for our listening audience right now in the prequel, I told you episode 44 was all about defining your audience and using ChatGPT to do that. So, Casey, let's dig in there. When I say that understanding the audience is a key gap and that selling anxiety where we just default to price and discount to get it done, let's take what are you seeing, what are you talking about and how do you address that?

[Casey Brown]

Oh, that's so much. That's such a rich question that we could spend a couple more hours on that one alone. But let me take a run at a couple of high level things that occur to Me as you ask that question. The first is the need to understand your customer and what they care about. I think that is, it cannot be overstated how important that is to commanding the price you deserve. You can have the best products and services in the world, but if the customer doesn't understand and connect with that, then you will struggle to be paying what you're really worth. And so, so step one is you need to understand what they care about, what's important to them, what their problems are, what their goals are, what, you know, what keeps them up at night. And then step two, that is, you know, both, both of these steps get, get too little attention in many businesses. First is understanding it. Second is figuring out how to communicate what you do relative to those needs, those problems, those challenges, those things that are keeping business owners up at night. Too many sales organizations are doing too much of like, sort of feature selling. Like, oh, we got this great stuff. It does this great thing. It solves this problem. We're, you know, and it's very sort of me, me, me, us, us, us, and, and in ever in history, I think this is true, but ever more now with shorter and shorter and shorter intention spans, if we aren't hitting the what's in it for me in a very direct way very quickly. And this is important in a way that actually evokes some emotion. We're going to struggle to close deals. We're going to struggle to close them at higher prices. And so getting away from just this sort of feature selling and getting much more personal to the pain points of the customer in a way that allows you to really not just position yourself kind of formulaically as a trusted advisor, but to authentically be a real advisor to helping them understand a path that solves their problem. There's just, there's no other way to command a price premium than that.

[Kerry Weston]

And so. Yeah, and so awesome. And what we fail to understand is we are buyers too. So in our world, we buy all the time. And there are things that we do in business practice when we're selling that we would never put up with as a buyer. We just totally forget that, right. That we're talking to humans that feel, look, and want things that we want. Right. Do you see that as well?

[Casey Brown]

So all the time. All the time. That is one of the, one of the key things that we teach in our training programs. Because it is so. It's funny because if I ask, you know, have you ever been in the buying seat and done this, done this and this, and it could be as simple as walking down the street and seeing a garage sale and seeing a, you know, a rocking chair that would look good in your living room. And it's marked at 25. But you ask them if they'll take 15 hands go. Everybody's done some of these things as buyers. And then we say, well, why do you think your customers aren't doing this to you? They're ready to pay 25 for that rocking chair, but they're gonna ask because it's in condition to try to say so. Flipping the script and reminding ourselves of what it's like to be a buyer when we sell, what kind of things we are willing to engage in, what kind of things we are willing to ask, what kind of things we're willing to push, expecting that those are going to come our way when we're in the seller seat. And to distinguish them like tactics from market intel. Like a tactic is, will you take 15? You know, market intel is, if I say no, then you walk away. That's a, you know, buying and not buying. That's a market signal. But like the negotiating tactics, don't confuse those things with each other. And that's a really common thing we see from, from buyers or, sorry, from sellers when they're dealing with a buying practice that they forget about.

[Kerry Weston]

And so you, you opened up another path here. Competition. Selling folks, sales folks, business owners, they always view competition differently than I think the customers do, because I think the customers have more options in their mind as to what a competitor is versus the business owner or the salesperson. Sure, you're nodding. So what do you hear when I say that?

[Casey Brown]

I agree. I think, you know, it. It depends on what you sell new you sell to. Right. So if you sell, you know, maybe like an industrial lubricant that's required for manufacturing process. Competition is another industrial lubricant manufacturer. Right. Like there, There are certain types of businesses where that's less true because they need this widget.

[Kerry Weston]

Very specifically, they need the XC17.

[Casey Brown]

Exactly. It fits into this thermocouple, goes into this machine. So. So I think in a, in a product space and depending on not all products, by the way, some products still have alternatives that are pretty. Might surprise the manufacturer, distributor that someone thinks of this as a competitor for that. But. But very much. I mean, almost like, yes, 100% in the services businesses, because almost always there's an alternative of do nothing. Like that is. That is the inertia is the enemy of. I'm making up a number here, but I'm A I'm a consultant so I'm allowed to do that. 50% of competition is do nothing. Right. And so like it doesn't mean we shouldn't be thoughtful about our com. Our direct and indirect competition when we're figuring out how to communicate with our customers. But just overcoming inertia and the sort of decision paralysis is a huge problem in professional services and other services businesses.

[Kerry Weston]

Yeah. So as we dig in again Back to episode 44, as you look to define your audience, we're not only looking at features and benefits and characteristic traits of your audience, but we're looking at for the emotional position which is what are they looking for? What concerns and what questions do they have and what options do they have? Right. Because the options are greater than most of the time we give credit for. So very, very cool. Let's.

[Casey Brown]

Well may I just add one, one thing there and I, I'm a, I'm a novice in the, in the space of, of AI and ChatGPT but I use it a lot and one question I love relative to this, this thing you were just saying is like what are the compelling reasons to buy. Like, you know, I think I will say I, I am guilty sometimes of using these tools to help me figure out what I want to. What I want to say and what I want to do from the lens of of course they're going to want to but I think like it's sort of a, you know, maybe a defensive strategy is preparing for what. What are all the objections I'm going to hear? What are all the reasons they shouldn't buy. What are the, what are the great reasons they should say no to me and preparing for those not just how do I make sure I connect with the problems. And then the other thing is the emotional piece, this is so, so important. I just read about a study and I cannot remember the name of it but I'll send it to you for show notes about a neuroscience a neurological research around people whose the part of their brain where emotions are felt and processed was damaged and people were, they were. They did not feel emotions. Their decision making ability was paralyzed. They could not decide they could explain the reasons, the pros and cons for each but when it came to actually making a decision they were incredibly, incredibly challenged which I think is so fascinating. This is neurological research that supports my empirical experience which is people buy on emotion and then justify on facts. There's tons of research about that actually and so I think that like this cannot be ignored especially in a B2B negotiating environment. Where we tend to think logic and data and facts and cost and numbers drive the buy, it almost never does. And so if we are ignoring the emotional tenor of the decision process, we do so at our peril. And it will cost us dollars and it will cost us sales, right?

[Kerry Weston]

So you teed us up perfectly as if we planned this. Because the other side of this is practice, right? So from the sales team side, the practice we've talked about understanding, the empathetic, the emotions, the decision making tree, however, that's all well and good until we don't practice, right? So I'm going to put two words out there that honestly scares the bejesus out of everybody that I bring it up to, but it's probably one of the most valuable, valuable things that they could possibly do. We cover it in episode seven for those keeping score at home. And that's role playing.

[Casey Brown]

Oh, I love it.

[Kerry Weston]

So, yeah, so you see the same thing. It scares the heck out of everybody.

[Casey Brown]

I mean, we're allergic to it. If I said, hey, Carrie, go ahead and pause the recording. I just want to role play something with you. You're not like, hey, that sounds so fun. Like, nobody loves it. Most people hate it and they're. It's awkward, it's cheesy, it's weird. I get it. I think I just wrote a role, a blog post about this. Not that long ago, I was like, eat your lima beans and role play. It's like, that's the one veggie I hated as a kid is lima beans. I love vegetables. I hate lima beans. But I had to eat them. They're good for me and my mom made me eat them. But I think of this role plays the same. You gotta just eat your veggies. It may not be that comfortable, it may not be that pleasant, but it's really, really, really good for you. I think I like analogies a lot when I communicate concepts because I think it makes it real for people. And so one of the analogies I like is if you sit and listen to someone, and for that matter, it could be ChatGPT, it could be a live human in front of the room, it doesn't matter. Give you advice about something like, here's how you should handle something. Here's what will be helpful here. The truth of that information could be unquestionable. It could be the best advice in the world. But sitting and listening to something is sort of like being a passenger in a car when it, when you're driving to a new place, you're navigating to a new city. Somebody else is in charge of navigation. Somebody else is driving. You're sitting there listening. You're passively watching the scenery go by. If you had to make the drive to the. To that new, unknown place the next day, it would be much more challenging than if you had actually driven that route yourself. And so to me, the value of role play is like, get in the driver's seat. Even if it's unfamiliar, even if you might miss a turn, even if you're nervous, you don't know how to get there, Your chance of being able to reproduce that skill at any other point in the future is dramatically increased by the amount of practice we get. Now imagine if you drove that route 10 times or 20 times or 30 times. It becomes more automatic. It gets in our procedural memory, which is like the idea of muscle memory, but for our brains. It gets in our procedural memory. And now if all of a sudden, I don't know, a car pulls out in front, like, unknown, unexpected things happen that derail us. But the more practiced we are, the less likely we are to get derailed. And so if we bring that the example to the sales conversation, if you've practiced, practice, practice, practice a certain kind of objection handling, for example, and then a customer actually says it to you live, and the stakes are high and you don't want to lose the sale and you're worried about the commission and all the emotional stuff that goes along with a real sales conversation, you can stay much more present and be much more effective if you have driven that route 30 times.

[Kerry Weston]

Yeah. In case in point, I've eaten my own dog food. So the advice that I give, I try to practice on my own self. And I had a conversation that I think I laid this out in the episode seven, which is role playing. I had a tough conversation to have with a client, and I fed the background Persona. This is who this person is. This is their beliefs, this is their attitude. This is their approach. This, you know, they're grumpy. And I just said, you be that person. And I went through the questions, what are you going to ask me? What are you going to say? And I practiced and practiced and practiced. I went into that actual conversation, and lo and behold, 95% of the stuff that I practice came up. And I didn't panic. I wasn't like, oh, my goodness, what am I going to say? I actually chuckled inside. Hopefully I didn't chuckle externally, but inside I'm chuckling. I'm like, I've already done this. I've already been here. This is deja vu. And then I hit on it. And then I also practiced what's the next thing, Right. And so role playing for me it's highly uncomfortable. We hate to look at ourselves in a photo, we hate to watch ourselves on video. But recording our sales calls, doing role playing exposes that little bit of insecurity inside of us that if we can just get through it for a second, we're going to be so well armed for the next time that comes up that it's an unbelievable, it's almost an advantage because you feel like you've been.

[Casey Brown]

There, you know, I think, I mean, and this is why it's so cool that how the technology has evolved because you used to have to role play with a human, now you don't have to. So like I, for me, that takes out some of the intimidation of looking and sounding foolish because I'm looking and sounding foolish to a large language model who cares versus, you know, I've got to grab my peer, my boss, my friend, my, you know, so I think that's a real advantage. But I, I think I want to just keep back to something you said from your example. One of the especially. And this goes back to something else you said about the idea of being a trusted advisor. Authentic human relationship, whether we're talking about customers, employees, friends, family, whatever, relies on active listening and being able to really hear where that other person's coming from, even if you don't agree with it. Listening is very, very difficult. When our amygdala has hijacked our brain, you know, when we are operating from a fear state, you know, the amygdala is in charge, our limbic system does something like it's really good at fight, flee and freeze, right? And so when we're afraid, and a lot of times in difficult conversations with a customer or a high stake sales negotiation, fear is present because there's a lot on the line. And when we're afraid, our amygdala takes over and we're very bad at listening. And when we miss some of the cues in the conversation that we could key in on, we could pull a thread and that all of a sudden opens a new door or gives us an advantage in the negotiating at the negotiating table, we've missed it because we can't listen fully because our neurochemistry is not, we're not in charge. And so one of the huge advantages of roleplay is it just gives that sort of muscle memory. It gives us that much more of an advantage that Much more of a chance to actually listen versus panicking about what we just said, worrying what they're going to say next, worrying what I'm going to say next, hoping they don't ask me that hard question because I've done all that. So I'm able to be a lot more present, which makes me a better listener, which makes me much more advantaged in a negotiation or any difficult conversation.

[Kerry Weston]

And with so many calls happening now virtually versus in person, it's just becoming more of the norm. Yeah. One of the practices that I've put in place for me personally is I stopped taking notes. So the writing of trying to capture everything goes away from the attention of making eye contact, which is just as important on video as is in person body language. So I use a Fireflies tool, I use an online recording tool. And what I find is I'm more present to your point. I listen with more intensity and I ask better questions because I'm trying to get that into the transcript so I can fully utilize the information next. Yeah. And so the ability of waiting to talk versus listening, I think gets in the way of a lot of salespeople because they just want to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. But there are tools, there are practices, there are ways to alleviate that, to get to the point where you can be in the trenches listening intently because there' whether it's physical language or whether it's questions, there's always opportunities to be that trusted advisor if you're paying attention.

[Casey Brown]

Yeah, for sure. And I, so I use otter same thing, same idea. And what I like is I can look back and see what percentage of the call I did the talking, what percentage all the other people did. And I think that it is seasoned and experienced and successful sellers know this. The less you talk, the more you sell. I see a lot of times newer, um, maybe less confident salespeople do too much of the talking because they want to sort of illustrate their knowledge and talk about the product or talk about the service. But, but the most, the, the, the, the salesperson super power, the most underutilized and best tool in the toolkit is a question. And so do you know? My most successful selling conversations are where I do the least talking? I'm asking really thoughtful and important questions that are getting. In my case, I'm usually selling to a business owner, CEO and they're sharing their frustrations, their pain points and it. And they, they hear them say, saying some themselves saying things out loud that they haven't said before. And that is a huge success in my book. I am also prone occasionally to over talking because I'm not. I eat my own dog food too. But I find this to be a lifelong journey and I'm always trying to get better at it. And so I have a post it note and this is an advantage of the fact that we do a lot of selling virtually these days. I posted it on the corner of my, of my monitor at home. Obviously we said we're having this conversation with from the cabin, so I don't have one here, but I need one. And it says the word wait W A I T and it stands for why am I talking? And I've written about this and I've spoken about this from the stage. I think it is so important to check ourselves. And there are times when, especially early in my career when I would be so nervous in a professional setting, I would realize I was talking and I didn't even actually know what I was saying. I just had gotten lost in a narrative and I've gotten a lot better at this. But I think anyone who wants to sell more thoughtfully, more successfully and more profitably, you will generate more value with your customers. They will trust you more, ask more questions, be. Be a very interested and curious listener. Unbelievable stuff happens.

[Kerry Weston]

So that's awesome. We have gone through the customer's mentality of understanding the audience, understanding their position. We've gone through role playing in the salesperson's mentality. And when I found your blog and going through some of the articles, what I want to transition now to is that's all well and good if we're actually talking to the customer. But a lot of activity, a lot of research, a lot of decision making, whether or not we're either allowed to talk to them happens when we are not in the room. And so your definition of sales, as I found in one of your blogs, making the right information available to people so they can make a prudent decision for themselves and their business. And oftentimes that happens when we are not even in the room. We don't even know they exist. Yeah. So what advice are you giving folks these days? To take advantage of that customer that wants to be more empowered, that is doing more research, that wants more information, more transparency so they can get the opportunity of actually talking to them.

[Casey Brown]

Well, I think it's really being thoughtful about messaging and where and how you do that. I think, you know, there's, I don't know the stats off the top of my head and I won't invent this one, but you know that x percent of the buyer's journey is, is completed before they ever even reach out to you. Right. And that X is way bigger than it was five or 10 years ago. There's a lot more known about you and about your product and service before you ever have a sales conversation than used to be true. And this makes it really important that you're very thoughtful about what messaging you're putting into the world and, and, and don't abdicate that. And I think that's one of the reasons there's so much content marketing happening these days, is to be able to position yourself. And that's one of the reasons I do a lot of blogging and videos and podcasts and put stuff on our website. Because if you're giving valuable information to your market about your product or service, I.e. give first authentically can't be a gimmick. You've got to really give value. But if you're giving value, that is one of the really helpful ways. And I'm not a marketing expert, and so, you know, I don't want to step too far outside my lane here, but I think messaging is underappreciated as a, as a tool in getting paid for the value you create. Yeah, I think that getting pricing right is, you know, get another made up statistic here. Only 50% getting the number right and 50% how you make people feel about it. In other words, it's very context specific. If I said, hey, is $5,000 a lot of money? No, it's a lot of money for a pack of gum. It's a, it's a, it's a fraction of, of, you know, it's nothing when you're considering buying a house. So I think in absence of context, numbers are pretty meaningless. And, and so as it pertains to my lens for the world, which is always pricing and commuting the prices you deserve, messaging is hugely important.

[Kerry Weston]

So what you just said is actually getting into my wheelhouse. So I'm not sure if you're aware, but I'm a certified coach in a program called they Ask youk Answer, which was developed by a friend of mine, Marcus Sheridan, which is all about thinking on behalf of the customer. So being obsessed about the questions, the concerns, the anxieties, the position, the empathetic position of the customer so that you can build trust and confidence. Right. To bring them in. So it's interesting that you talk about the amount of buying decisions that's being made before they reach out, because it's somewhere in the 75 to 80% range at the moment, and that comes from Forrester, that comes from Google. These are numbers that are being tracked on a regular basis. It absolutely is growing. It's not decreasing. It's certainly going to get greater. And so the number one concern I have here is what is it that we can think about, we know to be true? And I would say that 85% of the sales call is going to be primarily the same. You already know the questions, the things that you need to share. Right. You just need to cater it and tailor it to the person that's asking, as you said before. So the thing I saw you saying on stage, which made me reach out and say I need to talk to Kasey in the particular podcast, was the hot sauce story, the price of hot sauce, you know, and so could you just share with that quickly what you meant when you say what's the price of hot sauce? And I think you can put it in context here in terms of the, the customer's position.

[Casey Brown]

Sure. So, you know, and when I do a keynote or we do training programs, we play this, you know, kind of price is right game where people are guessing at the price of various items. And one of those items is a, is a bottle of hot sauce and one of those bite items is a gallon of gasoline. And unsurprisingly, the whole room knows the price of gasoline within a nickel, let's say a price of 1 gallon of regular unleaded gas. Everybody knows that the price of the hot sauce, people are way willing to overpay, like not 20 or 50%, we're talking 5 or 6 or 700% more. And people don't know or care. And why it is, is they don't buy it a lot. It doesn't register on their financial, you know, it doesn't. It's not a line item on their budget. The same way gasoline might be if, if hot sauce costs a dollar or $5, you put it in the cart and you push it to the front of the store and check out and never think about it again. And why that's so important, you know, relative to a pricing conversation for a business owner, is most businesses have hot sauce and gasoline in a portfolio of products and services. But we tend to think of everything like gasoline. If we raise the prices, our customers will leave us. If we hold the line at discounts, our customers will leave us. But that's really true on the gas and not so on the hot sauce. Many of the products and services we sell are the hot sauce, the sort of throw it in the cart and move on. The issue from the seller side is that we're very close to our own business. We're a millimeter away from everything that we were looking at it all the time. Everything is huge in our world. But for our customers that may buy this thing, never once, once a year, it's, it's a, it's a tiny fraction of the overall spend. It is virtually immaterial what we charge for. It doesn't mean literally you can charge anything. But we are almost always oversensitive internally on behalf of our customers around the pricing of these kind of products and services than our customers are. And it's important because we are probably getting beat up on the gasoline. There probably is a lot of competitive and commercial pressure on the price of the gasoline. So that isn't generally where we have tons of pricing opportunity. It generally is around the fringes of our business, those products and services where we don't get as much scrutiny and attention. But we're underpricing by 10, 1500%.

[Kerry Weston]

Yeah, and I wish we had another hour on this one because what I see in a lot of clients is they tend to, and you, you hinted at it here, they tend to consider their hot sauce gasoline because they do it every day. They figure everybody else does. They're not special indifferent. They lose the objectivity and value of what they provide. Which gets you into that insecurity in the sales process.

[Casey Brown]

Yeah, 100%. And they extrapolate the price sensitivity of the gasoline to the hot sauce even if there is a price premium. This is another pitfall I see is they, let's say our gasoline is, you know, these, these certain services that we provide, these training services and. But we also have these, these educational materials. And that's the hot sauce. Right. And we might charge 15 points higher margin on the hot sauce than the gasoline. And we feel pretty good about that. But 15 is only good if it couldn't be 25 or 35 or 45. In other words, we are often the ones creating this self imposed ceiling on how much we charge. This is true on the gasoline too, but it's very, very true on the hot sauce. We create the ceiling because we're extrapolating the price sensitivity of those most price sensitive products and services to those that are less. The other thread I'll pull answering a question you didn't ask. We do the same thing on the customer side. We have these super price sensitive customers, very aggressive price bullies, big squeaky wheels, vocal minority. And we tend to let that cause Us to underprice to the customers that are far less sensitive.

[Kerry Weston]

So my, my wife, I'm so happy you said that. My wife is a house called veterinarian. And over the years we have to adjust for prices to get to value versus more than cost. And that's the number one factor I see in small business is I can't charge that much because it only costs me X, Y, Z to do. And I'm like, that doesn't matter. Right. And so when we have prices increasing conversations with my wife, what she thinks about is the 80 year old, right, that can't afford her services versus the 98% of the people that can. And so what I tell to her is make the ones, make the, make the adjustment. Right. Raise your prices and do somebody a favor rather than losing money for everybody because you're thinking of that one person. Yeah.

[Casey Brown]

And that, that, that could be a whole hour itself. But we're really getting at, there is idea of segmentation, right. And not treating everyone the same. If we have a one size fits all price strategy, it will almost always center around the most price sensitive customers we have. For your wife, that's the 80 year old on a fixed income. Right. And so if everything is driven by that, that strata of our customer base, we are going to underprice to everyone else. So then the question becomes how can you, in a way that feels systematic and fair and not arbitrary, create a mechanism to hold the whole baseline higher, move everybody's prices up, but selectively and, and diplomatically and appropriately dip down when, when you can, when you must. And I think, you know, as an example for my own business is I have a, you know, a set number of scholarships essentially I give for people that I coach every year that can't otherwise afford our services. And the, the folks that can afford it are the ones that essentially subsidize my ability to pursue my mission. And your wife is obviously mission driven in the sense that she doesn't want to leave the 80 year olds without, you know, vet care, you know, because, because of means. And so I think that there is an appropriate pricing strategy that is that can hide, that can live behind the, that can align with the values of the business owner and still be reasonable, appropriate, fair, legally and morally and commercially defensible. But allows you not to charge the same price to everyone because if you do, you're underpricing to a lot of your customers.

[Kerry Weston]

Okay, so reference to episodes here. Go check out episode 19 and 25. That's my they Ask youk Answer Episode and my interview with Marcus Sheridan. That's all relative to what we just talked about. You need to come back. We need to do a part two of this one because we've opened so many doors. I haven't touched upon it. So I definitely have to have you back. And by the way, if people want to learn more about you, engage more with you, what resources do you have? Where are you going to send them?

[Casey Brown]

Great. So I have two websites I would send folks to. One is kaseybrown.com, one is boostpricing.com put out a lot of free resources, a lot of blogs and videos. Also I'm very, very active on LinkedIn as you can find me at Casey Brown Boost on LinkedIn for lots of free resources. Also, as of the date we're recording this tomorrow, my book Fearless Pricing comes out as you you know, hold on that thread at the beginning of the episode. For me this is mission during work and I of course we have a business and we make money selling services that teach people to do this. But I want this information to be available to everyone. So we have free resources, we have a $15 book, we have sub $1,000 offerings and on up from there depending on the size of the team and how much help people need. But I want everyone out there to be able to command the prices they deserve, which is why we make so much information available for free.

[Kerry Weston]

That's so cool. And having gone through it, it's incredibly valuable, it's incredibly practical, it's selfless. Much of the extent is just giving. And I appreciate your approach there because the ability of people to understand not just the what but the why is really a trust building exercise for you, I would imagine, right?

[Casey Brown]

A hundred percent. And I think, I mean again, in the most transactional product based businesses in the world, this is less so. But trust is, trust is everything in sales. Trust is everything in sales. And I think if you, if you are too focused and this is me sort of repeating myself, but don't focus so much on what you sell. I it's important. But why they should buy from you is everything to do with your understanding of their needs and your ability to make the right information available to them so they can make a prudent choice for themselves and their business. Far less so about like some dog and pony show on your value.

[Kerry Weston]

Love it. And I hope that the listeners understand the connection between their business and what you're saying because there's experience that you can grab from what you just said that applies to every business manufacturing services, even nonprofit, the ability for you to extrapolate some of these things and make it relevant to you. And of course, this is a ChatGPT podcast, so there's a ton of exercises, there's a ton of ways in which that problem solving partner can help you go through some of the topics that we're talking about today with Kasey to understand the audience, to role play, really get into how to write resources and, you know, scale your trust, scale your experience so that zero moment of truth, the person, the time where someone decides that this is the person we want to talk to can be more real for your business. So, Kasey, thrill having you. I'm really excited to join me again.

I do want to have you back.

But thanks for making some time with us today.

[Casey Brown]

It was a lot of fun. I really appreciated the conversation.

[Kerry Weston]

Thank you and congratulations on the book. I'm looking forward to grabbing it. Okay, we'll talk soon. Thanks again.

[Podcast Outro Host]

All right, folks, that's a wrap for this episode of the ChatGPT experiment. Thanks for hanging with us and diving into the world of ChatGPT. We hope you found it helpful and fun and informative. And oh, speaking of helpful, we'd sure appreciate you taking a moment to rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Five star ratings are our favorite. Okay, until next time. Keep experimenting, keep learning. And remember, ChatGPT may be smart, but it can't make a decent cup of coffee yet. See you soon.

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