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Episode Summary
Most owners price like their toes are on a cliff. One inch forward and the whole business falls off. Casey Brown has spent 25 years showing them the cliff is actually across the room, and they’ve been leaving money on the floor the whole time. I had Casey back on because the same questions keep coming up from my clients and friends, and she’s the sharpest pricing mind I know. I texted a bunch of owners that morning to source the real questions, and we got into all of it: why 75% of pricing success is mindset and 25% is the spreadsheet, why discounting from fear is the default move and how to break it, the difference between your floor (what you’ll walk away at) and your ceiling (what the market will actually pay), why Professional Services firms are swimming in a sea of unverified promises and how to stop competing on price you don’t actually have a price problem on, and how to test the ceiling without driving your business off the cliff. Real example: my buddy Jimmy saw Casey speak at Allied, added shipping, dropped $500K to the bottom line. He’s not even a client.
Top 10 Takeaways
- 75% of pricing success is mindset and confidence. Only 25% is the number in the spreadsheet.
- Most pricing decisions are made from fear: pricing not to lose, instead of pricing to win.
- Your floor (your walkaway) is not your target. Your target is the ceiling, and you don’t know where it is until you test it.
- If you never lose deals on price, you have no idea what the market will actually pay you.
- Customers will never pay you what you’re worth. They’ll only pay you what they think you’re worth.
- When a customer pushes back on price, they’re telling you they want to buy. Use that signal, don’t discount into it.
- Price pressure is rarely a price problem. It’s a trust problem dressed up as a price problem.
- Predefined packages beat custom bespoke proposals. Speed kills more deals than price does.
- Discounts done quickly, deeply, broadly, and from fear erode trust. Never change the price without changing the deal.
- Going up is hard. Coming down is easy. When in doubt, papa-bear the price and dip down selectively.
Sound Bites
“100% of the companies on the planet that I’ve ever met are underpriced. Meaning in some corner of the business, there’s something you could charge more for.” (@TBD) — Casey Brown
“Fear is the dominant emotion present for pricing decisions and negotiations. Not anything else. Fear.” (@TBD) — Casey Brown
“Customers will never pay you what you’re worth. They’ll only ever pay you what they think you’re worth.” (@TBD) — Casey Brown
“People think their toes are on the cliff and one step forward they fall off. My experience over 25 years is that cliff is across the room. You’re inching one step at a time out of fear and you’re not anywhere near it.” (@TBD) — Casey Brown
“It is a function of Justice to be paid for the value you create and deliver. Don’t accept mediocre pay for excellent work. Demand the prices you deserve.” (@TBD) — Casey Brown
About This Episode
Casey Brown is the founder of Boost Pricing and a 25-year veteran of pricing strategy and execution. She has helped thousands of companies stop leaving money on the table through her pricing power training programs, half-day workshops, keynote talks, and self-paced online courses. Her TEDx talk on pricing has been viewed millions of times. This is Casey’s second appearance on the show (Ep. 346 was her first), and she’s become a friend through our shared speakers group. She’s a peer-to-peer pricing geek who delivers it in plain English, which is why owners keep getting payback.
Resources Mentioned
- Boost Pricing — Casey’s training company. — boostpricing.com
- Casey Brown speaker site — caseybrown.com
- Casey Brown LinkedIn — linkedin.com/in/caseybrownboost
- Price Pressure is a Buying Signal — YouTube
- A Dozen Reasons Not to Bill Time & Materials — boostpricing.com
- Accountants, Attorneys, and Engineers Who Sell: Oh My! — boostpricing.com
- Do You Propose Like a Partner or a Vendor? — boostpricing.com
- Goldilocks and the Three Prices — boostpricing.com
- Ep. 346 — The Power of Pricing with Casey Brown — Casey’s first appearance. — YouTube
- Million Dollar Coach by Taki Moore — Referenced for the predefined package model in services
- Alex Hormozi — Referenced for “wake up, do shit, then talk about the shit you did”
- Chris Voss — Referenced for negotiation framing
Connections
Phase + Module:
- Module 5 — Predictable Revenue — Pricing as a system, not a sales-rep judgment call
- Module 6 — Transferable Margins — Where pricing execution shows up on the income statement
Milestones:
- Milestone 16 — Target Gross Margins — Floor plus target per product line, and the floor that triggers the walkaway
- Milestone 15 — Revenue Systems & Forecasting — Predefined packages and quoting cadence as revenue infrastructure
- Milestone 14 — Customer Journey & CAC — Education and trust-building before the price ever shows up
Concepts referenced:
- Value Gap — The space between your floor (walkaway) and your ceiling (market value)
- The Four Value Levers — Pricing as one of the four
- Normalized EBITDA — Where pricing decisions land at the bottom of the cascade
- The Owner-Operator Trap™ — Why pricing gets made in the sales seat instead of the owner seat
Related episodes:
- Ep. 346 — The Power of Pricing with Casey Brown — Casey’s first appearance on the show, foundational pricing conversation