I recently enjoyed chatting with the lovely Lindsey Groepper over cocktails on an episode of SaaS Half Full. Props to the team at BLASTmedia for an excellent recap blog!
We delve into the pricing struggles faced by companies, the challenges a company face in defining a clear Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), and the importance of maintaining price integrity and alternative pricing variables beyond discounts.
In this episode, we cover the following:
- Why SaaS companies struggle with pricing
- What revenue level should companies achieve before bringing on a full-time pricing person?
- Negotiation variables available to companies outside of price
- The disutility of the term “product-market fit.”
- How McDonald’s can help make sense of SaaS pricing
Listen to the episode below or keep reading for additional insights:
Timestamped Episode Overview
[02:36] “Dan’s Route to Pricing Aficionado”[05:29] “Pricing: The Powerful Growth Lever Companies Ignore”
[07:21] “Key Insights on SaaS Pricing Strategies”
[09:19] “Executive Table Dilemma: Pricing vs Incentives”
[12:46] “Unlocking Pricing Strategy: Elements and Tactics”
[15:03] “The Illusion of Communication in Product Market Fit”
[19:27] The Importance of Clearly Defined Ideal Customers
[23:38] “Strategic Pricing During Economic Crisis”
[29:53] “Good, Better, Best: LinkedIn’s Counterpoint to Packaging Orthodoxy”
[33:40] “Unlocking the Science of Monetization for Growth”
Notable Quotes
On Pricing Ownership:
“One of the things I try to help founders understand is that they need to give this ownership inside of the company; otherwise, nothing will happen.”
— Dan Balcauski
The Pricing “Tower of Babel”:
“When you add that mix together, it becomes quite a minefield to navigate, and also, people tend to speak very different languages. They don’t have a common set of terms.”
— Dan Balcauski
The Disutility of Product Market Fit:
“It’s effectively useless as an operator. So there’s no clear definition or way for people to measure and look…Why don’t we just refer to those things versus saying Product Market Fit? “
— Dan Balcauski
Lack of a Clearly Defined ICP:
“So ultimately, I think it’s more often the case that I see that companies don’t have a clearly defined ICP and or it’s not widely shared throughout the organization.”
— Dan Balcauski
Pricing Reactions During a Crisis:
“Before you cut price, the CEO should have a meeting and be like, look, what are the five things that we would do to think about how to make our offer more valuable than before we go to just cutting our price all over the place.”
— Dan Balcauski
On Good, Better, Best:
“Fundamentally, the label Good, Better, Best implies a value judgment in and of itself. It’s like best for who, right?”
— Dan Balcauski
Monetization is a Science:
“Monetization is often left on the side as this black box magic voodoo. And people don’t understand. They think it was like, oh, it’s just this art. Any opinion is better than anything else. It is an art and a science. And it’s much more science than people believe.”
— Dan Balcauski
Want more B2B SaaS pricing and packaging insights? Follow Dan on LinkedIn and Twitter.