Chris Cerrone & Laci Urcioli are the hosts of the Chris Cerrone Show, a podcast with 1.8 million downloads across 136 episodes. They are also marketing and business consultants, who hail from Vegas. Chris is a former skateboarder, and Laci a former circus performer.
Podcast: Download
Know Your Value
- What is the most important thing you can share about pricing?
- Know your value.
- Your value has a direct effect on what you can charge.
- Know your customer and audience.
- For whom are you pricing your service?
- What is the value you bring to end game of your customer?
- Pricing appropriately is a key component to launching a business.
- You do not want to underprice your ability.
- Gut instinct is a key component in pricing.
- What have I done in my past that I am really good at, that I am so confident in, that I can take anywhere and get the job done flawlessly?
- If your skill set is hard to replace, it is the key to earning more money.
- What have you learned about pricing since you started the Cerrone Show?
- You have to ask a lot of questions.
- Let your potential customer tell you what they have and need.
- Create dynamic pricing to work within the budget of the customer.
- Price based on value when you are offering a course.
- Understand the price elasticity of the demographic you are targeting.
- When is it “uncomfortable” for your customer to open his wallet?
- Verizon is an example of a company who charges a premium price, while Cricket tailors to a different audience and charges less, despite running on the same equipment.
- If you have to increase your resources to handle a project, you need to take that into consideration when pricing.
- Price a product at a level that will help the most people and bring the most return to the business.
Pricing Challenges for the Cerrone Show
- What is one of the biggest pricing challenges you have overcome?
- There is an assumption that because they are a white-label boutique agency of only two people that customers think they should not be paid as much as a large agency.
- They must overcome self-belief, but more so, the customer's perception.
- Their service is priced based on what they will do for the business, not based on who they have to pay or what their overhead is.
- If they are that efficient on how they operate their own business, imagine what they could do for the customer's business.
- They come up with pricing strategies behind the scenes and have human conversations about it, which can include some self-doubt.
- The choice that you make after having any self-doubting thoughts is what defines you.
- Can you share an example of working through your pricing doubts?
- Laci was underpricing her services because she was passionate about the customer's business and did not feel she was worth more.
- She did not realize her customer would have been willing to pay five times that amount if she had just asked.
- Once Chris got involved on with Laci and the customer for a larger project, they had to have very tough conversations with each other, about how to talk about the higher price with the customer.
- They were able to negotiate a price with which they and the customer both were very happy.
- Do not get discouraged if you do not get what you ask.
- Laci said she did not know if they could get the price. Chris was very straightforward with her about the value of the difference they would be able to make.
- Pricing requires conversation internally before presenting to a customer.
- Get a pricing council – a peer, a spouse, someone who can talk with you about it.
- Why is pricing so hard for the freelancer or solopreneur?
- A lot of pricing has to do with confidence.
- Get inspired to learn and move forward.
- It is a “newbie” mindset, and they do not know what they do not know.
- Stop wondering what everyone else is doing.
- Build your confidence and reputation.
- Take some risks and step out of the “vanilla”.
- What pricing questions are your coaching customers asking you?
- Chris & Laci questions are:
- What do you do?
- How do you do it?
- Look for key indicators that set you apart from everyone else.
- Questions their customers are asking:
- Do you know what others are charging?
- Should I go by hourly or a la carte?
- Step back and look at the value you are bringing.
- What are you the best at; what is your sauce?
- Chris & Laci questions are:
How to Find Your Sauce
- How easy (or hard) is it to discover the secret sauce with a customer?
- Depending on the person, it can take three questions.
- Sometimes what the person believes the “thing” is, is not the thing.
- From an outsider's perspective, they can determine whether it is the sauce or the sausage.
- What is the unique offering?
- How do you position that offering?
- Questions that they suggest you think about:
- Why are you doing this?
- What is the result?
- What is everyone else doing?
- How is your offering going to be different?
- Once you discover the true meaning of why, you can create something amazing.
- It is like The Dating Game – what sets you apart from the other guys vying for the girl?
- What is the future for the Cerrone Show and your business?
- The Cerrone Show has been on hiatus.
- They needed to learn some new lessons to bring back to the audience in a healthy way.
- The Cerrone Show was an interview-based show, and Laci brought a marketing perspective.
- They were not as fulfilled as they initially were with the podcast.
- Season 2 will launch at the end of August.
- They are bringing a product to the market for podcasters.
- There is a major gap in what is currently out there, that they had to figure out on their own: marketing and growing your audience.
- YourFirst10KDownloads.com will be a new product.
- The goal is to help people get to their goal and beyond.
- What is the relevance of 10K downloads for a podcast?
- Surveying the industry, the tipping point is at the 10,000 mark.
- The 10,000 mark is a big perception gap.
- What is one of your best stories about creating value for a customer?
- The best/worst pricing stories from Vegas are the $.99 shrimp cocktail and real estate.
- A woman, who joined their group consulting, was supposed to get the standard package.
- She got so much more – she got a sense of accomplishment.
- Through the discovery questions, they “forced” her to become a writer and validated her dream.
- She got a Kickstarter campaign funded for a book that is geared toward special needs children.
- They believe she will be a best-selling author.
About Chris & Laci
- Websites: CerroneShow.com
- Twitter: @bluegeno and @lacivegas
Leave a Reply