Unlocking the Black Box of Pricing: Why Pricing is So Easy in Theory but Not in Real Life with Alessandro Monti

Alessandro Monti is a pricing enthusiast and expert on all topics related to monetization, conversion, upselling, and digital pricing history. He’s an experienced consultant, advisor, mentor, and speaker in all fields related to price management, sales excellence, marketing, and corporate strategies. He's also a dedicated professor and lecturer for Marketing, Pricing, Sales and Digital Transformation at the CBS International Business School in Cologne. In this episode, Alessandro talks about the importance of learning the pricing basics, the fundamental pricing relationships that must be considered before pricing a product, and how a customer perceives a price ‘fair’. [powerpress]  Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Learn why history is important in pricing, and the other fundamental factors to consider in coming up with a price Find out what the ‘Blackbox of pricing’ is all about and why not all people know about it Learn the importance of why as a pricing professional you need to live, breathe, and ace the basics first before you come up with pricing shortcuts and beta tests   “Learn the fundamentals. Understand the basic mechanisms. In the long run, this will yield you far better results than just the ‘easy and quick’ approach to pricing.” - Alessandro Monti   Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER! To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com   Topics Covered: 01:06 - Alessandro’s first touchpoint into pricing, what made him stick to pricing - Price as the central hinges of the economy 03:05 - How did his Ph.D. in Business History help him in working at Simon Kucher & Partners? 05:29 - Alessandro and his coaching and consulting business, the kind of clients and businesses he typically coaches 06:52 - Why pricing is so easy in theory but not in real life? The complexities, the abstract, and the real deal 09:20 - Connecting the dots, the quantum parts of the decision making: future decisions that customers take 12:07 - ‘Unlocking the Blackbox of Pricing’: How to answer the ‘what should be the price’ question 16:17 - What is a fair price? How do you decide what fair means? The Fair Transaction the concept of fairness 20:04 - The Fairness Index - telling a reason for your price increase than telling nothing without spooking your customers 21:08 - The 10x approach of pricing Softwares as explained by Alessandro 23:09 - The hardware pricing /The digital ecosystem of hardware in the subscription businesses 24:09 - Alessandro’s pricing advice: “Try to understand the fundamentals. Don't try to hack yourself somehow through the price or go for some shortcuts. Understand the basic mechanisms and this will yield you far better results.” 25:10 - The fundamentals of pricing and the factors affecting it   Key Takeaways: “Price is the central hinge of the economy.” - Alessandro Monti “[on coming up with price] ...the discipline is so complex; it seems to be easy. But the complexity every time I start the lecture on elasticities, in the end, it's difficult because it's so abstract. Then you’ll realize, ‘Hey, this is real life. There is some reaction to price changes and in demand.” - Alessandro Monti “The concept of fairness is so individual. At the end of the day, I'm a big fan of, ‘Hey, if I'm able to charge at the level of individual’s willingness to pay, and I deliver value, and the customer is willing to pay for that.” - Alessandro Monti   Connect with Alessandro Monti: LinkedIn   Connect with Mark Stiving:    Email: [email protected] LinkedIn