Video Transcript: "Pricing"

In this unit, we're going to dive into biblical standards for pricing. So why do we  start out this unit on marketing and sales with the issue of pricing? Well, first of  all, I think that probably most of you who are going through this course, you  probably already have some idea of what products or services you're offering or  wanting to offer. So maybe you're involved in a startup and you're bringing  something to market. Maybe you're a salesperson and you've been selling the  same type of product for decades. In any event, I think you're going to benefit  from what the Bible has to say and some lessons that we can learn from the  Bible about the issue of pricing. The first thing I would encourage you with is to  price the outcome. Don't just price what it costs you to make something or what  it costs you to produce it. Price the outcome. And from your customers  standpoint, they don't necessarily want to know about all of the features of  everything that you're marketing, but they can just sort of get bored and just kind of lose interest that way, because what they're buying, if they're buying from you, they're buying a certain outcome that they have in mind. And so it's your job as a marketer to present that outcome to them in the clearest way possible that they  can understand it. Did Jesus do this absolutely and we're going to learn more  lessons from Jesus about marketing as we go through this but one particular  area that we can learn from Jesus is in this area of pricing, the outcome, not just what it cost us to make it he said to the rich young ruler who came to him and  said, What must I do to be your disciple? What does it take to be your follower?  What does it take to be a follower of Jesus? And Jesus looked at him with  compassion, and he said, one thing you lack, go and sell all you possess and  give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me. And  this was the the same thing that he basically told to everyone who wanted to be  his follower. I mean, there were, there were people who said, you know, let me  first. Let me go bury my father. Let the dead. Bury the dead. Jesus was very  clear about the cost of discipleship, that you have to lose your life in order to  gain it. And and so Jesus was demanding a very high cost for what it was that  he was offering, and certainly what he was offering was worth far more than  $9.99, or whatever it is that you're struggling asking people, you know, I work  with authors, and sometimes they have a hard time just asking people to pay,  you know, $12.99, or $14.99 for their book that could have this life changing  impact on them. And they're thinking about, well, you know, it only cost me a  couple dollars to print it, but then how much is the mess the message, forget the paper it's printed on. I hope it's worth more than the paper it's printed on. I hope  what you're selling is worth far more. Whatever it is that your marketing is worth  far more than what it costs you to produce it, because if your outcome is  valuable in the minds of your customers, then that's the direction that you need  to be aiming your pricing and your sales and your marketing to help them to  Always stay focused on what that outcome is. So what was the outcome? Jesus was selling, not only making high demands, but he made it very clear, right up 

front in his ministry, what his mission was. He said, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he appointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me  to proclaim release to the captives. So there's he is prophesying. He is pricing  the outcome of what he's demanding of humanity, release to the captives of sin,  of all but everything that binds us, everything that separates us from eternal  relationship with God and recovery of sight to the blind, you know, to open  spiritual eyes, to open natural eyes. I mean, people are getting healed by the  power of Jesus to this day, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the  favorable year of the Lord. So you know, you like me, we have had things that  we have struggled with. I hope you have experienced the liberating power of  Jesus, Christ in various areas of your life. I mean, I know that at one time, my  life was an absolute wreck, and God rescued me in that pit that I was in, that pit  of depression, and so he prophesied right up front and. In his ministry that, look,  this is what's going to happen. So if you want to be my disciple and just get free  of the things that are keeping you in bondage, then trust me, I'm going to deliver  and when I demand that high price of your life, it's going to be totally worth it,  and that's what we need to be doing. And yeah, I mean, maybe you're one of the sayings that we have in marketing is to price the hole, not just the nail. So how  much is a nail worth? You know, a few cents, but how much is knowing exactly  where to put that nail that's far more valuable? So price the hole, not the nail  price, the outcome not just what it cost you to make it. And you're going to find  that your confidence and what you're selling, what you're marketing, is going to  increase. The next point here is to offer results for every claim. So it's not  enough to just have a high price and to say that, yeah, this is what, because  there's a lot of people making claims out there that they just can't deliver on. And really, that's dishonesty, that's manipulation, that that is basically theft. When  you're telling people that you're going to be able to deliver on this promise, and  you're actually not. And so I love this passage here, and in a lot of ways it It  mirrors, and I'll go back here, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me. Why he has sent  Me to proclaim release of the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, set free  those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. So when  John the Baptist is in prison, and he is so discouraged, you know, this is Jesus's  chief promoter, and he is just languishing there in prison, just so depressed and  wondering if it was all just a hoax, if it was all just for nothing, if his cousin Jesus  was really just kind of a charlatan, all sorts of ideas going through his mind. And  this was what the message that Jesus sent to John while he was in prison, go  and report to John what you hear and see. The blind receive sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised, and  the poor have the gospel preached to them. So Jesus is delivering on the results for his claims, and that that is a huge lesson for us, as marketers, as  salespeople, as whatever facet of marketing you're most directly involved in,  ultimately, we must deliver on the promises that we make. The next point here is

to be confident in your offering and and so I'm going to go back here to Jesus.  What was Jesus selling? Jesus was selling a transformed life. And when I say  selling, you might kind of bristle. You might say, well, you know, gee, everything  Jesus offered was free. If you look at Mon, you know, money, and say, Well,  Jesus didn't have a price tag of, you know, $1.99, or whatever it was on there.  Well, Jesus was demanding everything. Jesus was demanding far more than  you or I will ever ask of somebody as it relates to buying my product. And Jesus  was actually asking people to lay their lives down. For him and Romans clarifies  for us. This is not always just talking about, yes. I mean, if God calls us to make  the ultimate sacrifice of laying down our physical lives and being martyred for  our faith, but for most of us, it's going to be more in a Romans 12:1-2 sense,  where we are called to offer our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to  God. I mean, I don't think we're necessarily going to our customers and saying,  Okay, here's what I have to offer now. Offer your body as a living sacrifice. What  Jesus was selling was worth far more than $9.99, or or, you know, $1,000 or  whatever it is that you're selling your product or your service for, and you're just  struggling to really sense that what you're offering is of any value. The point here is that price reflects your confidence in your service or product price should also  match the value of whatever it is that you're selling. And so whereas you're not  demanding somebody lay down their life for your product, you're asking quite a  bit less. You're probably asking, you know, within the range of a couple 100. A  couple $1,000 whatever it might be, maybe far, maybe far less, for whatever it is that you're selling, but the price reflects your confidence in your service or  product. And so I'm I'm off. I often get this question from people, from Christians  in particular, who are struggling with, how do I sell without selling my soul?  Because they just feel so dirty. And particular, industries are more notorious for  some very deceitful sales tactics, a lot of hidden costs, than others. In fact, I just  dealt with one on the phone earlier today, and I won't mention that industry or  that company by name, but you, you have experienced this where you have felt  manipulated. You haven't felt like the company was marketing toward to you. But then again, you may feel that marketing is manipulation, and given that Jesus is  the greatest marketer in all the history, it all depends on how you define what  marketing is, because marketing really is just strategic influence. Now, whether  you're a righteous marketer or a wicked marketer, that's where the biblical  standards for marketing come into play. So marketing is not the problem.  Manipulation is the problem, and not doing things God's way is the problem. But  mark, if you're not confident, regardless of whether you're actually manipulating  people like your company is doing things that are just just deceitful and just so  clearly not of God, then you're certainly manipulating. But I think the  manipulation can come through even in a more subtle way to where you are in  you're in a sales position, and you're selling something just to make money, just  because that's your job. And the problem with sales, unlike some other 

professions, is that if you are not truly confident in what you're selling, you're not going to be a good steward of your work as a salesperson, and we are called as Christians, to do all things with excellence, working for the Lord, not for men, not working for a paycheck, working for the Lord. Certainly we want a paycheck. We want to do a great job in our professions, but you have to be confident in what  

you're selling to be a good steward of your work as a salesperson. So when  somebody comes to me and says, you know, what am I supposed to do in this  situation, I would just say, work on your confidence. Because if you're not  confident, you're not going to be a good steward. And whether you're the head  of the company, or middle manager or your entry level, we are all managing  going back to a previous unit on management. We are all managing resources  and tasks and responsibilities that as we're working for the Lord. Those those  stewardships have come from the Lord, not from man, if we understand  Colossians 3:23 so you have to be confident in what you're selling in order to be  a good salesperson, to good steward of your work as a salesperson. So what if  I'm not confident? Well, one place you can start is to grow your confidence by  learning more about what you're marketing I mean, becoming that expert about  the products and services that you you're you're selling, you're expected to sell,  and and so that you can understand more of the outcome of what your customer or your prospect can expect to get on the other end of purchasing and buying  into your product or service. So be confident and what you're offering. And the  last here on pricing, that I would say is to price fairly. Proverbs 11:1, says, a  false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. So  there was a time when the pricing of things was a little it was just a little less  clear to the consumer. On the other end. There was not there was when you talk about information asymmetry, where the salesperson knows a lot more than the  customer does. This was like on steroids back in the times when this past this  verse was written, because when something was to be. Weighed out for sale.  You know, you would, the person that is the salesperson would have a weight,  and they would, they would kind of manipulate the weight to their advantage.  And oftentimes it was the poor people who didn't have their own scale that they  could validate to make sure that they're getting a just weight for the price that  they're paying for the product. And so in that context, the Bible says a false  balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight. So  information asymmetry. What are we talking about? We're talking about again  when you know more than your prospect knows. So as a salesperson, as a  marketer, we are called to educate our prospect, our customers, maybe our  current customers, about what it is that they're buying what it is that they have  bought, certainly to deliver on those promises, as we're going to get into and  more detail later, but to make sure that they, that they understand what that  outcome is, and so not to, not to manipulate the situation for our advantage.  John Wanamaker's, invention of the price tag comes to mind. Talked about him 

a few few videos ago where there was this at this time when he invented the  price tag. Again, John Wanamaker, mighty man of God that invented is known  as the father of modern advertising. Invented the department store, first to take  out a full page ad in a newspaper. Did a lot of remarkable things, but he  invented the price tag because he didn't want people to worry and wonder if  they're getting a fair price when they walked into his store, because he wanted  them to be able to relax, and no doubt, he understood this verse from the Bible  that a false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his  delight. So let's just put the price right on the product, and that way we're not  pricing the person where I'm not pricing them based on, oh, they don't know as  much as this other customer. Let me just try to take advantage of that person.  Or, hey, this person looks like they have a lot of money. They can probably  afford to give up more. No, I think that's that's also an abomination to the Lord.  And also, I would say, don't lie or exaggerate limited time offers you know, like if, if somebody you know, maybe you've seen it where somebody says, you know,  I've only got just, you know, 20 ebooks left. Well, ebooks are a digital product, so they are, by nature, infinite. So certainly there is not a limit of 20. That's just a  lie. It's just an exaggerated offer. You know, there's a, there's a kind of a sticky  situation when it comes to the need to create a sense of urgency on the part of  your customer, to help them to make that decision that you know is going to be  good for them, that you know you know you're not taking advantage of then you  know you don't have any conviction about that. But sometimes it does help to  give people a window of time in which they can make that decision, and then at  the end of that time, the deal is off, and that's where the integrity comes into  play, and that's where the fair pricing comes into play, being fair to the people  that did opt in, that did purchase during that limited time. And that, I think, is an  application there of Proverbs 11:1 as well. And then the last point here is to price fairly to yourself and to your company. And so just because you want to have a  lower price, you have to understand the trickle down effect to your workers and  how that can just put more stress, lower pay, more rushed deadlines on your  people, on your on your company and and so we'll get in to that later, but tiered  pricing is one way that you can go About about dealing with that situation, but  you have to know your economic your unit economics. Know exactly how, first of all, how much does it cost you to produce this? That's really kind of a starting  point. But then you also have to consider the outcome that people are going to  get as. Results of purchasing that product or that service and then pricing  accordingly. See in the next video