Captain’s log, stardate 20180927

Scream-O-Meter

Sent by Jonathan Stark on September 28th, 2018

If you can detect a thing, you can measure it.

Here are some things that you can detect:

Pain
Pleasure
Stress
Anger
Happiness
Love
Dissatisfaction
Satisfaction
Temperament
Trust
Credibility
Risk
Certainty

All of these things can be measured. The measurement might not be exact. The measurement might not be scientific. But the measurement will be useful if it matters to your client.

Let’s take pain, for example...

Even though it is a mysterious and intangible thing, it wouldn’t take a genius to devise a test to measure an increase or decrease of physical pain.

But what does this have to do with pricing, you ask?

To set a value price, you need to know what needle the client is paying you to move. Sometimes it’s something obvious like top-line revenue, but usually it’s something much less tangible. If you don’t find out what the needle is, you have no basis for a value price.

The Why Conversation is intended to uncover the client’s underlying motivation for the project. To determine what needle the client wants to move for their business. If you’re not talking to a gatekeeper, it is possible to drill down to a desired outcome which is measurable even if it is completely intangible!

So...

If you discover that what your client really wants is an increase in customer satisfaction, or to improve their credibility, or to decrease the risk of their planned expansion into China, there your next steps are:

Come to an agreement with the client about an acceptable way to measure the thing
Present the client with three prices based on the magnitude of (and likelihood of reaching) the desired outcome
If they accept one of your prices, get to work influencing a change in the desired direction

Yours,

—J