The TL;DR, Inviting You To Join A Cult


A bi-weekly roundup of functional, emotional, life changing, and social impact flavored value
February 19 - March 4

What Pricing Cult are you a part of?

When an entrepreneur goes through the process to figure out how to price their product, there's a lot of advice:

Research the competition and be competitive against the market.
Figure out your desired earnings and price accordingly.
Calculate a fair hourly rate, estimate the hours it costs you, then add 30%.

After hearing so many compelling pieces of advice from people with lots of credibility, I realized that there wasn't a universal best practice to pricing.

Pricing is a philosophy you get to choose. And any philosophy that you get to choose is basically a religion.

You have to choose your Pricing Cult.

The initiation ritual to my pricing cult was when I was shown the Value Pyramid. It's part of a longer article about the Elements of Value which essentially says to first figure out what value you bring to a customer.

Value to a customer is more than money! Value can look like:

  • More leisure time with family
  • A higher status among peers/competitors
  • Better alignment to a particular value or ideal
  • Internal confidence in decision making
  • Trust from employees
  • Building a stronger legacy

If you can really understand what value looks like through the eyes of your customer, then you not only can fearlessly price, but also close more sales, generate more meaningful marketing, and build a transcendent brand.

There's a nifty interactive that explains this concept in detail, but fair warning: you might consider joining the Value Pricing Cult.


A TL;DR from the CRO

I'd pay anything for a good brushing- looking good is priceless.

-Roman Noodles, Chief Ruff Officer

PS. I'm teaching Outbound Sales over email- wanna sign up?


New Podcast Episode

I sat down with Aimee Montgomery from Thrive Radio to talk about outbound lead generation, how I was scared of sales, and developing your target persona through lots of non-scary conversations.


I broke my Fitbit while skiing.

On my last run of the day I took a tumble, a full-on yard sale. I walked away fine, but my Fitbit...not so much.

I first thought something was off when it vibrated occasionally with no warning. Then the battery died in hours. Then I saw the puddle of water INSIDE the screen of the device.

Fortunately (unfortunately?!), I've seen this before. If I was going to stay on track to hit my 1M steps in 90 Days Goal, I would need a new device. Also fortunately/unfortunately, Past Me expected Future Me to break my Fitbit and wisely purchased an extended warranty.

The new Fitbit came on Thursday. Instead of trying to make up the steps this weekend, I'll give myself five more days to hit my original goal.

That's the magic of a well-designed goal: mishaps and roadblocks happen, but I can get back on track.

If you want to join me on my 1M Steps in 95 Days Goal, follow me on Fitbit. Just don't follow me on the slopes.

The second to last run should be your last run,

Dan from Learn to Scale


Opt-out from the newsletter | Unsubscribe from all emails | Update your profile | www.learntoscale.us, Boston, MA 02119

PS. It was so much simpler when all you had to do was hide yo kids and hide yo wife.

Dan Newman

Entrepreneur, Professional Learner, & Proud Failure. Writes about sales, marketing, and entrepreneurship from the eyes of a learning and development nerd. Lead teams, manage people, scale a business, and learn better through the biweekly irreverent newsletter, the TL;DR.

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