1 Value Pricing & Business Models FOR CREATIVE ENTREPRENEURS Tara Gentile founder of KickStartLabs
Feb 08, 2016
What’s Your Living Wage?
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What does it take to reach your revenue goal?
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To price with confidence, you need to know:
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What’s your currently hourly wage? How much do you pay yourself per hour?
How many hours of unpaid work does it take to earn 1 hour’s paid work?
How many hours can you work per week?
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The Entrepreneurial Money Mindset is...
How do you want to live?
How much do you need to earn to get there?
How does that break down into an hourly wage?
When time is money, you won’t find time for building bigger things.
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BREAK IT DOWN
How many hours will you be able to bill for?
How “leveraged” is your work?
What growth activities do you need to make room in your schedule for?
What business expenses do you want to make?
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LShare: Tell us one thing you want to invest in for your business.@taragentile | @creativeLIVE
What is Your Customer Willing to Pay?
List the things you’ve purchased in the last week that you could have paid less for.
Why were those things more attractive to you than their less expensive counterparts?
What personal values do these purchases reflect?
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Price tells a story.What do your customers value?
Why would they be willing to spend more on what you have to offer?
Do some research on the full range of your market. What is the extreme low-end of your market? What is the extreme high-end of your market? Record your findings below.
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LShare: When do you happily pay more for what you buy?@taragentile | @creativeLIVE
When is the Right Time to Raise or Lower Prices?
When do you need to change your prices?
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Is the same productworth more for a price
than for free?How does a customer’s perception of a product change as the price changes?
What influences what people are willing to spend for a product?
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So it’s time to raise your prices...
Step 1)
Step 2)
Step 3)
Other things to consider:
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How do you know if you’re using discounts as a crutch for your business?
What is an appropriate reason to discount?
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The Market is Bigger Than You Think
“Markets are _______________________________.”-- The Cluetrain Manifestor
How are the decisions you’ve made for your business affecting what you can charge?
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Activity: Low-end to High-endName a business on the low-end of your market.
What decisions have they made that make sense with the price they’re charging?
What values do those decisions represent?
Name a business on the high-end of your market.
What decisions have they made that make sense with the price they’re charging?
What values do those decisions represent?
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Consider your own business.
What decisions have you made that make sense with the price you’re charging?
What values do those decisions represent?
What decisions have you made that do not make sense with the price you’re charging?
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Create a Business That BreathesWhat is a business model?
What are the 6 key questions of your business model?
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For each of your products/services, answer the following questions:
Product What does this help my customer accomplish?
Who is it designed for?
What kind of relationship am I nurturing with them?
How much will it cost? To us? To them?
How will we let them know about it?
What does the solution look like?
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Product What does this help my customer accomplish?
Who is it designed for?
What kind of relationship am I nurturing with them?
How much will it cost? To us? To them?
How will we let them know about it?
What does the solution look like?
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Where is your business model getting blocked?
Are your customers regularly asking a question that you don’t have an answer (product/service) for?
Are you missing a necessary sales or marketing channel?
Have you incorrectly positioned an offer than really should be selling?
Are customers dropping off a#er making a purchase?
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What opportunities are in front of you?
What other needs have you identified for your existing customers?
What are your existing customers already asking for?
What holes have you identified in the market?
How does your unique approach set your business apart?
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What about marketing & sales?
Where are you expending a lot of energy for very few results?
Is there an offer you haven’t properly promoted yet?
Is there a clear sales process for each of your offers?
How do people find out about each of your offers?
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LShare: What opportunity is standing out to your right now?@taragentile | @creativeLIVE
Do Less. Impact More.
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The goal of a solid business model is to leverage:
• • • •
to create offers that impact your customers more deeply and increase your revenue.Value Pricing & Business Models for Creative Entrepreneurs | Tara Gentile 23
What is Impact-to-Effort Ratio?
What is Onlyness?
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LShare: What impact do you want your business to have?@taragentile | @creativeLIVE
What is unique about you that you really value?
What is unique about you that others really value?
What is unique about your business that others really value?
How can you leverage that in your business model?
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LShare: What is the special something that others really value about you?@taragentile | @creativeLIVE
Hands-On Business Modeling: Part 1Focusing on function means you’re focused on:
The Ultimate Value Question:
What questions should you consider when developing a new value proposition?
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The Ultimate Customer Question:
What should you consider when you’re trying to better understand who you’re designing for?
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Want AdDescribe your customer:
What is it that she wants?
What values or unique benefits are important to her?
___________________________ seeks ______________________________.
Important:**
**
**
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LShare: Who is looking for what you have to offer right here, right now?@taragentile | @creativeLIVE
Hands-On Business Modeling: Part 2What happens when you treat all your customer relationships the same way?
The Ultimate Relationship Question:
What questions should you consider when making decisions about how customers will relate to a product or service?
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Before & After
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BEFORE
How do they feel?
What have they already accomplished?
Why now?
AFTER
How do they feel now?
What results did they achieve?
What’s next?
What’s the best way to design a product?
The Ultimate Format Question:
What should you consider when you’re trying to determine the format for your product or service?
Revisit the “Want Ad” from page 29. List 3 ways this solution could be designed.
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LShare: What new product/service idea did you come up with today?@taragentile | @creativeLIVE
Hands-On Business Modeling: Part 3How does marketing relate to promotion?
How does marketing relate to sales?
The Ultimate Sales & Marketing Question:
What questions should you consider when choosing the way you will market and then sell your product/service?
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The Ultimate Cost Question:
What questions should you consider when determining the costs of your creating & delivering your product/service?
Revisit your current business model. Rank the products/services that you currently offer in order of their cost (both hard & so#) to you.
Is there a product or service that costs more to you than it should relative to what you can charge for it?
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LShare: What kind of cost is most costly to you?@taragentile | @creativeLIVE
How to Set Pricing & Sales Goals for Your Business Model
Begin by revisiting your business model as you’ve outlined it and setting a preliminary price for each offer.
Then consider:
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LShare: What is your revenue goal?@taragentile | @creativeLIVE
Is this price reflective of my cost? Financially, energetically, relationally, etc...Is this price reflective of the value to my customer?What would value comparable to this cost?Does this price make sense with my other products?Where do I want this product to fall in the spread of the market?
Product Price Sales Goal # Sales Goal $ Costs Net Revenue
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LShare: What will you experiment with next in your business model?@taragentile | @creativeLIVE
If you need to adjust to meet your goals, consider these business model tweaks:
How you could “bump” your sales & marketing channels to produce better results.Ideas:
If you could position a product differently to raise the price.Ideas:
If you could format a product differently to raise the price.Ideas:
If a different customer segment would be willing to pay more.Ideas:
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Cycles Not FunnelsTraditional sales & marketing strategy:
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In the #socialera, we have the opportunity to do things differently:
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Sales Cycle
Construct a sales cycle for your favorite product/service.
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Setting Your Plan in MotionWhere do you want to be a year from now?
What parts so your business model do you need to execute or refine to get you there? Make a list here.
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Which of those tasks could you execute in the next month?Assign due dates to each of these tasks.
Which of the larger tasks is a good 6-month goal?
Work backwards. What else do you need to accomplish to make that 6-month goal a reality?Assign due dates to each of these tasks over the next 6 months.
What could go wrong and how could you put systems in place to prevent that?
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Which of the larger tasks is a good 9-month goal?
Work backwards. What else do you need to accomplish to make that 6-month goal a reality?Assign due dates to each of these tasks over the next 9 months.
What could go wrong and how could you put systems in place to prevent that?
For additional training on Revenue Planning, go to taragentile.com/plan.
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Tara Gentile
Tara Gentile helps small business owners capitalize on big ideas. She's the founder of Kick Start Labs, a New Economy entrepreneurial community & resource library, as well as CoCommercial in Astoria, OR, a coworking & workshop space. Her work has been featured in Forbes, US News & World Report, DailyWorth, Design*Sponge, and the NY Times bestselling book, The $100 Startup.
Website: taragentile.comTwitter: @taragentile
WORK WITH TARA
10ThousandFeetTwice a year, Tara works with 15 entrepreneurs to help them cra# business models, customer development plans, growth initiatives, and PR strategies that allow them to finally be the CEO of their ideas. Are you ready to pilot your business to the highest level? Visit taragentile.com/10thousandfeet
Kick Start LabsKick Start Labs is your one-stop shop for accelerating your microbusiness at an incredible value. In the lab, you’ll experiment with new techniques and strategies with access to all of Tara’s training resources plus twice-monthly Q&A calls with Tara. At Kick Start Labs, we believe being independent shouldn’t mean being alone. Learn more at: kickstartlabs.biz/not-alone
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