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Finding Your Sauce (and Value) with Chris Cerrone & Laci Urcioli

Finding Your Sauce (and Value) with Cerrone & Urcioli – 055

July 28, 2015 by Kirk Bowman Leave a Comment

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.

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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?

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

Filed Under: Creative, Episodes Tagged With: Branding, Creative agency, Internet marketing, Self-confidence

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