- Pricing is an exchange of value. This for that.
But price is also a story.
- When you have competition, your story doesn’t have to justify the absolute price, simply the difference between you and the next-best option.
- Price is based on value, not on the cost of production.
- Thanks to Baumol’s cost disease, productivity doesn’t always correlate with the price of labor.
- Luxury goods are worth more because they cost more. If you sell a luxury item, raise your price and then improve the story to make it a bargain.
- It’s better to explain your fair price once than to apologize for low quality over and over.
- Asking, “what’s your budget?” is lazy and selfish. Your job is to figure out what your client wants, what they’re afraid of, and what sort of story they are eager to buy.
- When everything else is equal, we always want the cheapest option. But everything else is rarely equal.
- When someone says, “that’s too expensive,” what they mean is that the story you’ve told them so far (and the reputation you’ve earned) doesn’t match the price you’re charging. You probably don’t need a lower price, but you might need to earn a better story.
- “It might not be for you,” is almost always part of “we make the best (for someone).”
- Bargains, sales and coupons are a sport and a narrative. They’re not just a discount, they create their own sort of value and expectation.
- Convenience is often underappreciated as a component of value.
- The customers you get because you are the cheapest are the first ones to leave when someone else is even cheaper.
- The problem with racing to the bottom is that you might win.
- The most resilient slogan you can earn is, “you’ll pay a bit more, but you’ll get more than you paid for.”
April 14, 2026
