Work-from-home land
For more news in WFH-land, Facebook is shifting to remote in a huge way.
As I mentioned a few weeks back, the “forever WFH” movement is growing (think Twitter, Shopify, and Square) and it looks like Facebook is closely following suit. The company is already letting people work from home through the end of the year. But CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last week that in five to ten years, ~50% of its employee base could be completely remote.
But there are implications.
People who move out of Silicon Valley could take a pay cut to account for a lower cost of living. Which leaves some serious questions. One of which the Hustle newsletter posed is:
Will the move democratize economic prosperity, or deepen the divide between those who can work from home and those who can’t?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this one. I’m always available to discuss at abby@profitwell.com.
Regardless of the answer, the New York Times has a piece for you to consider in this realm: on finding your best look for video calls. Because working remotely may be here to stay, but unflattering chin shots preferably are not. (Just another issue we didn’t expect we’d ever be facing, but alas, 2020 has come with all the surprises.)
A different world means different (pricing) rules
Some of our ProfitWell crew tuned into a webinar last week, courtesy of sales savant Jeff Hoffman, on what it means to be a negotiator amid a pandemic. And the team said they received strong, widely applicable takeaways from it—of which we want to share with you, in a sort of “notebook” style session.
Negotiation is not an event.
It’s an ongoing process.
But first… why should we listen to Jeff?
If you’re not familiar with his work, Mr. Hoffman has an extensive resume in the sales, management, and advisory realms. He’s the creator of the award-winning program, YourSalesMBA™, and author of several industry titles. He works with big-name clients like Akamai and Atlassian, PwC and Microsoft, VMWare and OpenView Ventures.
So, what did we learn from tuning in to “Pricing & Discounts in a Pandemic”?
Jeff starts with three core principles:
- Leverage
Or, the ability for a small object to move a large object. - Commitment
The more someone is engaged in something, the more they want to see that engagement come to completion. - Reciprocity
When someone receives something of value, they feel compelled to return the favor.
He has some hard and fast rules of negotiation:
- You can’t negotiate unless you have a common goal.
Never negotiate or discount to incite interest, only to win the deal. - You can’t negotiate with someone without power.
If they can’t buy, they cannot negotiate. - There’s no such thing as a win-win. (But that’s OK.)
- You can’t cheat experience.
Final, noteworthy pieces we extracted:
- Negotiation is not an event.
It’s an ongoing process. - If someone doesn’t balk at the price, they’re not buying.
Consider car sales, for example. An $80k car price tag is only going spook folks that are keen on buying, not the window shoppers. - There are questions to heed to prepare champions to go to bat internally.
Have you ever gone to finance for budget approval?
Have you ever disagreed with your boss on vendor selection? - You should have four levels of pricing.
Level 1: Rate card/what’s on the website
Level 2: The numbers you can do for a verbal quote
Level 3: A formal quote in writing
Level 4: Your final price is the proposal
The need for speed
And now… a quick reminder to keep moving.
In the 60th edition of his newsletter The One Thing, Drift’s David Cancel, admirably known as DC, says “speed is your #1 advantage.”
“I’ve said it a lot lately: your destiny is in your hands,” he writes. “And that means you need to show your value to your customers and prospects. It also means you need to move fast. You have to ride the trends.”
DC says, “A hunger for results and an ability to move faster than other people is what will set you apart and set you up for success. Look at the strengths of your competitors and turn them into weaknesses.”
If you’re interested in signing up to receive DC’s weekly newsletter (it includes actual intel that he shares with his internal team) you can head here to get on the list.
Today’s featured user is SuccessHACKER—customer success training, consulting, and coaching.
We know the customer relationship is at the core of every SaaS and subscription company. When revenue is tied directly to recurring monthly payments, any negative experiences that lead to churn have a direct impact on your bottom line. And the crew at SuccessHACKER is dedicated to the absolute best in customer success to get you there.
Leading teams, like those at Akamai, Atlassian, Autodesk, and Verizon, have trusted SuccessHACKER to amp up their CS—by advising, coaching, and educating their teams when they need to reduce churn, increase adoption, and drive more renewals.
Here’s a link to more.
And that is a wrap on your Tuesday news. I will catch you right back here tomorrow with more data & discussion points.
As a reminder: We launched a weekly version of Recur Now, an abbreviated newsletter with the best in each week’s news. If you want in on that instead of your daily version, reply to me at abby@profitwell.com and I’ll get you on that list.
If you have news to spread or resources to share with our audience, you can always connect with me at abby@profitwell.com to get the good word out there.
Source: https://www.profitwell.com/blog/jeff-hoffman-pricing-pandemic-recurnow
