May 21, 2021
Reader question from Bobby Jones re value pricing educational programs
Fellow list member Bobby Jones wrote in with a question about value pricing educational programs (shared with permission):
Jonathan,
Came across you recently! Great resources! I was wondering I am a speaker that works with schools. Recently I have created a Mentorship program I ran in 5 schools. It went awesome! How can I value base when they don’t see a monetary ROI?
Bobby Jones
Great question!
My first thought would be:
Unless you enjoy doing sales, I wouldn’t bother value pricing educational programs.
Things like workshops, training, courses, mentorship, coaching, etc can all be packaged, priced, sold, and delivered quite nicely as productized services (or even as products).
Okay, but what if you DO enjoy the sales process and you want to value price something that doesn’t have a clear monetary ROI?
Here’s what to do:
- Meet with the prospect to have a sales interview
- Use The Why Conversation to uncover the buyer’s underlying motivation
- Get them to define a success metric for their desired outcome (i.e., “What would a home run look like?”)
- Look for cues that would indicate a ballpark range for what the desired outcome might be worth to them (TIP: Capture any numerical references, even if they are relative or non-monetary)
Once you have the business numbers, the success metric, and the buyer’s underlying motivation, you should be able to do a back-of-the-napkin calculation to estimate the value (i.e., what the engagement might be worth to the buyer).
Then set three prices based on the value and define a scope that you’d be happy to deliver for each option based on the price. (NOTE: See below for a link to my value pricing calculator)
Questions? Just ask!
I always love to hear from you, so if you have a question about this or any other message please hit reply and ask :-)
Yours,
—J