Impact Pricing

Mark Stiving, Ph.D.
  • 4.8 (50)
  • Marketing
  • Updated Weekly

The Impact Pricing Podcast will help you win more business at higher prices by teaching you about pricing and value. Once you understand how your buyers perceive the value of your product, you can build, market and sell products that win at higher prices. Pricing is really about creating, communicating and capturing value.

  1. 9h ago

    Why Technically Correct Pricing Recommendation Can be Strategically Wrong with Sandeep Mathew

    Sandeep Mathew is a sales and marketing leader with 19 years of global CPG experience, including extensive work at Unilever building and deploying revenue growth management (RGM) capabilities. He eventually managed RGM as a global capability across markets and channels, and now works on customized RGM analytics across different markets, categories, and channels. In this episode, Sandeep explains why even sound RGM data and technically correct pricing recommendations can lead brands in the wrong direction.    Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast: Learn why a technically sound RGM recommendation can still be strategically wrong for a brand's long-term health. Discover how promotions can become a downward spiral that erodes brand equity and profitability. Build a better promotional strategy by connecting source of growth → brand job to be done → promotional objective before analyzing the data.   "Don't take any recommendation at face value. Look at all angles to it. Most importantly, from the long-term health of the brand. Never compromise that for any short-term gains." — Sandeep Mathew    Topics Covered: 01:20 – From Marketing to RGM: Why Sandeep Trusted Purchase Data. Learn why Sandeep became drawn to RGM after seeing how actual purchase data could produce more actionable insights than consumer intention research. 03:30 – One RGM Framework Doesn't Fit Every Channel. Discover why e-commerce, value channels, omnichannel, and quick commerce each require customized RGM approaches rather than one standardized framework. 06:00 – The RGM Paradox: When Good Data Leads to a Bad Decision. Sandeep explains how he went from trusting RGM recommendations almost completely to realizing that short-term data can miss long-term brand consequences. 08:00 – Why Three Months of Data Can't Protect a 100-Year-Old Brand. Understand the mismatch between RGM's typical 3–6 month or 3–5 year view and the 10–15+ year horizon required to manage brand equity. 10:00 – The Brand vs. RGM Tension. Learn why marketing teams understand the brand but may not understand RGM, while RGM teams can produce powerful analytics without seeing the long-term brand picture. 12:00 – The Hardest Question: How Do You Measure Long-Term Brand Impact? Sandeep explains why long-term data is ideal, why 10–15 years of data still creates causality challenges, and how to combine brand-equity measures, consumer surveys, and RGM analytics when perfect data isn't available. 14:00 – The Promotion Spiral That Can Kill a Brand. Discover how brands can respond to an underlying brand-equity problem with promotions, temporarily chasing volume while gradually increasing discounts and eroding profitability. 16:00 – What Does Your Brand Actually Stand For? Learn the three questions Sandeep uses to diagnose brand strength: What do you stand for? What meaningful value do you bring? How differentiated and salient are you? 18:00 – Build the Promotional Strategy Before Running the RGM Analysis. Sandeep shares his framework: identify the brand job to be done, determine the source of growth, translate it into promotional objectives, and then use RGM to evaluate the options. 19:30 – Final Pricing Advice: Never Trade Long-Term Brand Health for Short-Term Gains. Sandeep's closing principle for making better pricing decisions.   Key Takeaways: "When you're making decisions at that level for a certain brand, you don't want to only win over the next three months or six months. You want to win for the next five years, 10 years." — Sandeep Mathew "Don't forget that there are long-term impacts on the brand. That's the most important thing." — Sandeep Mathew "Sampling will only work if you want to do penetration. Don't do sampling if you want to switch from your lead competitor." — Sandeep Mathew   Connect with Sandeep Mathew: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeep-john-mathew/    Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

    Why Technically Correct Pricing Recommendation Can be Strategically Wrong with Sandeep Mathew

  2. 3d ago

    Buyer Insight: The Value Was Always There

    This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 29, 2026, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/the-value-was-always-there/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

  3. Sep 7

    The $80M Dealer Reveals the Pricing Tricks First-Time Car Buyers Miss with Dominic Genova

    Dominic Genova spent 17 years on the factory side at Chrysler and 27 years owning car dealerships. He grew one dealership from a building with no power or water and no sales into a business with 87 employees and $80 million in annual sales of cars, trucks, and service. He rejected the traditional dealership model of commissions, hidden fees, and payment games in favor of transparent, salary-based selling. In this episode, Dominic exposes the pricing tricks hiding behind the "great deal", from payment games to hidden fees, while Mark challenges his sales philosophy from a pricing perspective.  Together, they unpack why the price isn't the price, how a $500 cheaper car can become a $700 worse deal, and why Dominic believes the real product isn't the car. It's taking care of the customer.    Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast: See how a $500 "better deal" can become $700 worse once financing enters the picture. Spot the pricing landmines first-time car buyers rarely see coming. Discover how Dominic built an $80M dealership by replacing sales games with trust, transparency, and repeat business.   "I made the buying process, I made our taking care of you a competitive advantage." — Dominic Genova   Topics Covered: 03:00 – The Price Isn't the Price: What Buyers Actually Need to Calculate 05:00 – From No Sales to an $80M Dealership. Hear how Dominic grew a dealership that started with no power, no water, and no sales into an 87-person, $80M business—and why his pricing philosophy focused on bringing customers back instead of maximizing every transaction. 08:30 – How to Build a Sales Team That Actually Cares. Learn why Dominic rejected traditional commission incentives and instead looked for people who genuinely wanted to treat customers well—and how that became part of the dealership's culture. 10:30 – The Buyer Test: How to Tell If a Salesperson Is Sincere 13:00 – Fit the Customer to the Car, Not the Other Way Around. Discover Dominic's "cars are like shoes" philosophy 18:00 – How Dealers Turn a Great Price Into a Worse Deal. Learn how financing and payment tactics can undermine an attractive vehicle price, including Dominic's example of a $20 monthly payment increase that adds $1,200 over a 60-month loan. 20:30 – The Dealer Tricks Buyers Don't Know to Look For. Get a glimpse into the tactics Dominic saw during his career calling on hundreds of dealers, including misleading advertisements, small-print conditions, and additional charges. 23:00 – Why Trust Became Dominic's Real Product. Discover why Dominic viewed his dealership's product as more than cars: "We take care of you." That philosophy helped create repeat customers, referrals, and a reputation that carried throughout the community. 26:00 – The Counterintuitive Profit Strategy: Maximize Satisfaction, Not Price 28:30 – How First-Time Buyers Can Spot a Bad Deal. Learn how to look beyond the advertised price and evaluate the entire deal, rather than assuming the lowest vehicle price automatically means the lowest total cost. 30:00 – Dominic's Final Pricing Advice   Key Takeaways: "So a lot of people go and shop price and then the unethical dealer sticks it to them on something else." — Dominic Genova  "My philosophy was an agricultural philosophy... to get you to come back again and again rather than draining every dime I could when I saw you." — Dominic Genova    Connect with Dominic Genova: LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/dominic-genova-99a12b66/  Website: http://dontbetaken.com/    Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

    The $80M Dealer Reveals the Pricing Tricks First-Time Car Buyers Miss with Dominic Genova

  4. Sep 4

    Buyer Insight: Hidden Problems, Hidden Value

    This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 22, 2026, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/hidden-problems-hidden-value/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

  5. Aug 31

    AI Pricing Has 4 Possible Futures, Which One Are You Building For with Steven Forth

    Steven Forth is a principal at PatternMind and co-author of Pricing for the Agent Economy, with deep expertise in pricing strategy, scenario planning, and the emerging agent economy.  In this episode, he brings a different way of thinking about AI pricing: instead of trying to predict one future, build strategies that can survive several possible futures. Mark challenges Steven throughout the conversation, particularly around value attribution and credit pricing, creating a fascinating debate about whether outcome-based pricing is truly scalable, whether credits will survive, and what AI buyers may demand next.   Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast: Learn how scenario planning can help you prepare for multiple AI pricing futures instead of betting on one forecast. Discover how value attribution and credit adoption create four possible paths for AI pricing—and what each means for your business. Understand why credits, outcome-based pricing, and fungibility could reshape how buyers and vendors exchange value in the agent economy.   "Rather than thinking about, how are you going to predict what's going to happen? It's, what are the early indicators? What are the early warning system you can put in place?"  — Steven Forth   Topics Covered: 01:15 – Why Forecasting Isn't Enough for AI Pricing. Steven explains why traditional linear forecasts assume one future while scenario planning prepares for multiple possible futures—especially when major uncertainties could fundamentally change the market. 04:00 – The Critical Uncertainties You Need to Track. Learn why identifying uncertainties isn't enough—you need to watch for early evidence and warning signals showing which future is beginning to emerge. 05:30 – What COVID Taught Steven About Agile Scenario Planning. Steven shares how the pandemic exposed the limits of traditional scenario planning and led to a faster approach focused on cycling through critical uncertainties as conditions change. 08:00 – Why AI Makes Agile Scenario Planning More Important. With generative AI moving rapidly and no one knowing exactly how the market will evolve, Steven explains why businesses need to remain open to a wider range of possible futures. 09:30 – Will AI Software Still Be Differentiated? Steven explores whether generative AI will wash out software differentiation and whether large language models themselves will eventually converge. 12:00 – The Credit Fungibility Question. Discover why buyers may want credits that work across ecosystems while platform companies could benefit from making credits transferable—and why smaller vendors may resist. 14:00 – Why Buyers, Platforms, and Niche Vendors Want Different Things. Steven breaks down the competing incentives of buyers, ecosystem platforms, and focused vendors and explains why the future of credits may depend on which group has the most power. 16:00 – The 4 Possible Futures for AI Pricing. Steven introduces the two critical uncertainties—value attribution and credit adoption—and shows how combining them creates four distinct pricing futures. 18:00 – From "Blind Faith Credits" to the Outcome Rush. Explore what happens when buyers resist credits and value attribution remains difficult versus a future where outcome-based pricing becomes easier and more scalable. 20:00 – What Niche Vendors Should Do in Each Scenario. Steven explains how pricing strategy changes depending on which future emerges—and why companies that can move fastest toward outcome-based pricing could dominate their markets. 22:00 – The Three Hurdles to Outcome-Based Pricing. Learn why outcome pricing requires agreement on the outcome, the ability to determine who contributed to the value, and enough predictability to make the economics work. 24:00 – Mark Challenges the Value Attribution Problem. Mark argues that pricing metrics already solve one form of attribution, while Steven clarifies the harder question: who actually contributed to the economic value created for the buyer? 26:00 – Can AI Actually Claim the Economic Outcome? The conversation explores why customer support resolution is a promising niche case for outcome pricing—but why multi-agent value attribution remains an open question. 28:00 – Why Credits Are Really a Pricing Currency. Mark argues that credits function like a company's internal currency, while Steven points out that credits can support multiple pricing metrics and flexible consumption. 30:00 – Will Buyers Eventually Reject Credits? Mark challenges whether buyers actually want credits, while Steven suggests the more important question may be which vendors figure out how to move beyond them first. 32:00 – The Pricing Advice AI Leaders Need in 2026. Steven's final advice: understand how your buyers are using AI to make purchasing decisions—or risk making critical pricing mistakes.   Key Takeaways: "The future is not set. And that there is more than one possible future. And that different futures could emerge in different parts of the market." — Steven Forth "We have to be open to a fairly wide range of different futures and agile scenario planning I think is a better way to do that." — Steven Forth "If your strategy is only viable on one scenario, you're accepting a lot of risk into your organization that you don't need to." — Steven Forth   People / Resources Mentioned: Michael Mansard & Wolfgang Ulaga — Steven's co-authors on Pricing for the Agent Economy. Shell — Mentioned in Steven's discussion of traditional scenario planning. Rotterdam — Steven references the city's scenario-planning approach, where major infrastructure investments were designed to remain viable across multiple scenarios. Lovable & Perplexity — Examples of companies using credit-based pricing and the different ways buyers have responded to those models. Salesforce, SAP, Oracle & Microsoft — Discussed as ecosystem platforms that may have incentives to make credits fungible within their ecosystems. Scenarios for Pricing in the Agent Economy — Steven's Substack article that provides the framework discussed in this episode.   Connect with Steven Forth: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenforth/  Substack: Search for Steven Forth on Substack https://pricinginnovation.substack.com/  for his writing on pricing, scenario planning, and the agent economy. Email: steven@pattermind.studio   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

    AI Pricing Has 4 Possible Futures, Which One Are You Building For with Steven Forth

  6. Aug 28

    Buyer Insight: The Case for Token-Based Pricing

    This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 15, 2026, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/the-case-for-token-based-pricing/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

  7. Aug 24

    What Are You Really Charging For? The Business Problem Behind AI Pricing with Manu Mehra

    Manu Mehra is Head of AMER Industries Strategic Deal Pricing at Databricks, with more than 12 years of experience across pricing, product, cloud, and AI, including Google Cloud and Thermo Fisher Scientific. He brings a practical perspective on how AI is changing the way companies think about outcomes, value, platforms, and pricing models. In this episode, Manu explains why traditional pricing models don't neatly fit AI, why outcome-based pricing is compelling but difficult to standardize, and how companies can turn platforms into solutions around specific business problems.  Mark challenges him throughout the conversation, especially on the attribution problem: if AI creates the value, how do you know AI actually caused it?   Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast: Learn why AI is pushing pricing toward outcomes. Discover how platforms become solutions customers will pay more for. Understand the attribution and standardization challenges behind AI pricing.   "Pricing cannot be an afterthought. It has to be integrated within the product roadmap." — Manu Mehra   Topics Covered: 01:15 – How an accidental pricing analytics role led Manu to a career spanning product, cloud, AI, sales, finance, and strategic deal pricing. 03:30 – Why Pricing Has to Start With the Product. Why integrating pricing into the product roadmap can create value before launch instead of scrambling for cost-plus pricing afterward. 05:30 – Why AI Breaks Traditional Pricing Models. Why subscription, license, and consumption models don't fully fit AI when thousands of customers can pursue completely different outcomes 08:00 – The Hardest Problem With Outcome-Based Pricing. Why AI outcomes are difficult to standardize across billing, finance, legal, and revenue recognition—and why 10,000 customers could mean 10,000 different outcomes 11:00 – What Actually Counts as an AI Outcome? Manu uses a QBR example where AI can automate 95% of the SQL work, turning hours and effort saved into a measurable form of value. 13:30 – The Attribution Problem: Did AI Really Create the Value? Mark and Manu debate how to determine whether AI actually caused increased revenue, lower costs, or other gains—or simply helped the business get there faster. 16:00 – Platform vs. Solution: What Are You Really Selling? Why a broad platform can have wildly different value depending on the customer's use case—and how platforms can become solutions by solving specific business problems. 19:00 – How to Turn Products Into Business Solutions. Manu explains how compute, data, and AI layers can be combined into packaged solutions instead of being sold as isolated products. 21:30 – How Customer Segmentation Makes AI Pricing Scalable. Why identifying recurring customer patterns can help companies map different business problems to repeatable combinations of SKUs instead of creating a custom solution for every customer. 24:00 – Why AI Companies Use Credits. How credits can create cost predictability, manage backend costs, and give customers flexibility across different AI capabilities. 27:00 – When Credits Make Sense—and When They Don't. Why platform customers may value the flexibility of credits while digital-native customers who already know exactly what they want may have less need for them. 30:00 – The Pricing Advice Manu Wants Leaders to Hear. Why pricing should never be an afterthought and why the industry is moving from cost-plus toward value-based and outcome-based pricing.   Key Takeaways: "The reason is, even though you might be a platform organization or you're selling a platform, but end of the day, you're still trying to solve a customer problem." — Manu Mehra "The tricky thing with outcome is it's very hard to standardize it." — Manu Mehra "Pricing needs to be integrated during the product roadmap." — Manu Mehra   Connect with Manu Mehra: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/manumehra1/   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

    What Are You Really Charging For? The Business Problem Behind AI Pricing with Manu Mehra

  8. Aug 21

    Buyer Insight: Stop Measuring WTP. Start Shaping It.

    This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on June 8, 2026, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/stop-measuring-wtp-start-shaping-it/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com.  Now, go make an impact.   Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

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About

The Impact Pricing Podcast will help you win more business at higher prices by teaching you about pricing and value. Once you understand how your buyers perceive the value of your product, you can build, market and sell products that win at higher prices. Pricing is really about creating, communicating and capturing value.

Information

  • Creator
    Mark Stiving, Ph.D.
  • Years Active
    2019 - 2026
  • Episodes
    500
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Impact Pricing 2022
  • Show Website
    Impact Pricing

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