Speaker: 00:00:00

In this episode of The Pricing Lady

Podcast, I'm bringing back episode

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number two and my interview with Jessica

Lockhart about international pricing.

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Sit back, relax, and enjoy the episode.

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: 00:00:14

Hello and welcome to this episode

of The pricing Lady Podcast, where

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smart business owners price with

purpose and profit with clarity.

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I'm excited to have you

listening to this episode today.

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We are embarking on a new

adventure to revisit some of

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my earlier podcast episodes.

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In August of 2019, when I

started the show, I wanted to

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have a "lazy girl" podcast.

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A live YouTube slash Facebook show only.

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The show was only released on live

streams on those two channels at the time.

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That means that for the first 50

or so episodes, they have not made

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it onto the podcast directories.

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And some of those episodes are really

great and I would like to bring

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them back and share them with you.

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Which is why I am telling you this

today because this is the first episode

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in which we're going to do that.

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I wanted to keep the podcast

light and spontaneous.

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And the post-production

light as well, which is why I

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chose the format that I did.

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But then over the years, I decided to

shift into also releasing the episodes on

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podcast directories that started in 2021.

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Then I went to podcast only

format and stopped doing the

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live streams last year in 2024.

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Now the episode that I'm sharing with

you today came about, because of a

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very lovely lady that I met named

Jessica Lockhart, who's the creator

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of something called Humanology.

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And she came to me, she had a

pricing question and I said, Hey.

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Why don't we have you come on the show

and we'll do a little live coaching

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and we'll talk about your question.

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Now, note that Jessica has since

: 2019

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able to come back and join me to

reflect on the episode as well.

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This was my very first guest interview.

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It was also quite a funny episode because,

we could not get her video to work.

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She was the, the voice in the

sky throughout the episode,

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throughout the live stream.

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But we powered on through anyhow.

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That we could get her some

answers to her question.

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The format was a live coaching

format, which is a format that I did

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in the early stages of the podcast.

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She had a question about how

to do international pricing

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better in her business.

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Now, why am I bringing it back to you?

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First of all the topic is as

relevant now as it has ever been.

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More and more people are dealing

with the challenges of having

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prices in different countries.

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Or dealing with exchange rate

issues, all these things that are

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related to international pricing.

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The episode captures a style and a topic

that's still very much relevant today.

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And even though it's from 2019, the

lessons still hold up to the test of time.

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I've gone back and I listened to the

episode and reflected on, is there

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anything I would do differently

now or emphasize in another way?

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And one of those is something we didn't

really talk about in the episode.

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The complexity when

pricing across countries.

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While ideally you might want different

prices in all different currencies for

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each and every different country, the

complexity of managing that may lead you

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to make a decision to simplify things.

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That complexity, it can grow

quite quickly when we're talking

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about international pricing.

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There are exchange rate and platform

currency risks, which we touch on a

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little bit, but some of those risks

have even amplified over the years,

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and it's something that you are

going to want to consider if you find

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yourself, say, joining a platform

that charges only in a currency that

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you aren't operating in normally.

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That brings additional risks into your

business that you need to consider.

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The third thing I would

talk more about is.

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How important it is to balance fairness,

simplicity, and profitability when

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you're looking at international pricing.

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You want to be fair and you want to make

it too affordable to your target audience.

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That makes sense.

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But you also have to make it

easy enough for you to manage and

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still maintain a certain level of

profitability for your business.

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Balancing those three things

is a big part of the challenge.

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One more thing that I

would like to add here.

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During our conversation, Jessica brought

up something about the difference in

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price between Switzerland and Latin

America, could be five or six times.

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And at the time I didn't address

that statement and I think that was

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a missed opportunity on my part.

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I'd like to talk about that here for a

moment because it can be that prices are

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very different between some countries.

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I found this myself last year

when I had a client in Tanzania.

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I did my research and found out that

it was a a hundred percent different.

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It was a big difference in, in price.

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And one of the ways that you can,

feel more comfortable with having such

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varied prices is to use packaging and

or delivery as a differentiating factor.

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If you can create a slightly different

offer for one market than the other,

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then it doesn't feel so incongruent or

risky for you to have, you know, these

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two different prices because you're

actually selling two different things.

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If we had gone back and done the interview

now, that's something I certainly

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would have suggested to her as well.

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If you're faced with a similar situation,

that's something to look at and see

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how it could fit for your business.

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Now I'd like to invite you to listen

to what Jessica's questions are and how

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she had been dealing with it up until

the point we had the conversation.

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And then the feedback that I give her

to help her navigate the situation.

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Think about your own business and what

risks or what opportunities you have

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when it comes to international Pricing.

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The topic is a timeless one.

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I find it interesting how timeless

it is, and that's why I wanted to

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bring this episode back to you.

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Here's my conversation with Jessica

Lockhart about international Pricing.

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Enjoy.

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Janene: Why don't you tell people a

little bit about how this topic came to

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be a burning pricing question for you.

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Jessica: Yes.

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The answer to the question

I haven't really found yet.

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I've been kind of doing things my own

way, just based on my own intuition,

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but without a real solid basis for it.

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I think it's about time I take it

seriously enough and I ask the expert.

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Well, I've been working internationally

now for quite some time.

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I am a speaker, I travel around

the world and I make presentations.

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I offer workshops and programs online.

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I've been using different sources

and different methods to establish

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my international fees and prices.

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But as I said, not on a very solid basis.

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I've just been improvising.

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I'm currently preparing

a Latin American tour.

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And I'll be charging people

based on my intuition.

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So my question has to do with this:

how do we handle international pricing?

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And it has a double sense.

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Mm-hmm.

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First, how do we establish the

prices in different countries given

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that each country is different?

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Mm-hmm.

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And second, should we use one currency

or should we use the different

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currencies in each of the countries?

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Janene: Yeah.

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Super.

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This is absolutely a

fantastic set of questions.

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Our topic, of course, is

therefore international pricing.

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And this is something most businesses

up to over a certain size are

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actually dealing with this problem.

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You're right, there are really

two separate topics here.

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One is, what prices do I actually use?

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And another is around this whole topic of

currencies, because of course the currency

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can have an impact on your bottom line.

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Let's first take a look

at the prices themselves.

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I'd like to make sure that people are

aware of, just because you're selling in

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different countries doesn't necessarily

mean you need to have different prices.

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It very much depends on who

your target customer is.

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Can you tell us a little bit

about your target customer?

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Jessica: Well, my target customer is

two types, we have general customers

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and we have company customers.

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General customers are the ones who

access our personal programs for personal

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issues like forgiveness or happiness.

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And then we have company customers for

whom we organize workshops in their

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facilities or consulting services.

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Right.

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Janene: Very good.

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The reason I bring this up is

because let's take say luxury goods.

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If you were selling some sort of luxury

good, then the people buying those across

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countries are generally going to be people

who have a lot of disposable income and

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therefore, they're not as price sensitive.

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Or if you're going after a target

group who are more cash, rich

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than time rich, then there's

less of a need, to differentiate

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your prices across countries.

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In your case, we're not

talking about that necessarily.

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That would be something that

you would need to think about

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and consider a little bit more.

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Jessica: Yeah, well, I

would agree with you, yes.

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Janene: Yeah, yeah.

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In your case, we're we, we really

do need to do some differentiation.

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Now, what some companies will do is

they'll differentiate country by country,

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and others will do it region by region.

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Of course if you have two different prices

in countries that neighbor each other,

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and if it's not a big burden to travel

and go get what you're offering in the

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other country, they may just choose to go

to the other location to get the product.

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Which eats away at your profits, right?

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And that's why sometimes

countries do regional pricing.

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Jessica: Uh huh.

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That's a great idea.

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Janene: That may be an option for you.

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And then usually when people do

regional pricing, they do something

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like having, a Euro price list in a

US dollar price list, for example.

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Most countries will accept

one of those two currencies.

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Most people are familiar with dealing

in one of those two currencies.

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It's up to you.

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Now, if you want to do more specific

and more drilled down pricing on a

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country level, there's a couple of

things that you want to look at.

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One is the exchange rate, and I'll

come back that to that in a minute.

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But the other is something

called the Big Mac index.

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Have you ever heard of the Big Mac index?

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Jessica: Nope.

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Janene: So If you go ahead and

Google the Big Mac index, what you'll

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find is there's a report put out.

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I'm not sure if it's

yearly or every few years.

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But basically what it does is it tells

you what the price of a Big Mac is in

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each country that has say, a McDonald's.

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Really?

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And it sounds really funny.

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Okay.

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Actually you can say for consumer

goods it's a good reflection of

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the cost of living differences.

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The Big Mac index is one that you can use.

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There are some other indexes out

there, but that's the most common one.

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You can also look at reports

on cost of living differences.

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Especially for B2B Pro or B2C

products where you're selling

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directly to consumers, the cost

of living difference can also be

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another indicator for how you might

differentiate prices between countries.

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Mm-hmm.

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Jessica: Even if it, even if it were

like that, imagine a session with me

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here in, in Switzerland might cost

five or six times what a similar

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session would cost in Latin America.

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The difference is too big, I guess.

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Janene: Yeah.

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Back to the exchange rate for a moment.

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The exchange rate is something else you

have to consider because if you offer

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in different currencies and something

happens like in Argentina or maybe even

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not something that drastic, but if you

live in Switzerland and you're selling

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in Euros than anytime the Euro and

the Swiss Franc move relative to each

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other, there's a risk that you could

be earning less profit off of that.

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What some companies will do is

they will adjust their prices

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more regularly to compensate.

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They'll do some fancy accounting

stuff, which I couldn't explain,

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but they make what's called a

provision for currency risk.

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That's what bigger companies do.

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It's good for you to know which currencies

you're going to be selling in and

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what risks there are involved for you.

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Jessica: Mm-hmm.

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Yeah.

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And, and then we also have to take

into consideration that all those

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currencies need to be translated into

your local currency once you, are paid.

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Janene: Right.

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Either you have to have a bank

account that accepts payment in

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those currencies, which means you'll

be paying for the currency exchange

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rates fees associated with that.

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Or if people are paying you by

credit card, then you accept euros

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and the, the customer is then

paying for any credit card fees

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based on an international currency

and any exchange rate differences.

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Jessica: Yeah, that's exactly it.

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When you're doing, when you're offering

online services, for example, people

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usually tend to pay using credit cards,

but when you go make presentations

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and people buy the tickets to your

shows, they often want to pay cash.

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So, you know, that's when you get

the trouble of, okay, what do I do

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with all these different currencies?

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Janene: Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Jessica: Mm-hmm.

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Janene: And this is why a lot of

businesses just deal in either credit

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card payments for a small, say,

especially B2C, and when they go B2B,

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then they do wire transfer or credit

card because then there this whole, you

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know, what do I do with all this cash in

different currencies isn't an in issue.

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Mm-hmm.

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I would guess some businesses

probably also have different bank

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accounts in different countries in

order to, to manage that more easily.

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Jessica: Yeah.

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Well that was something I looked into and

it's not that easy because you need to

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be to have a physical location in each

country to open a bank account, so, right.

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It's not such an easy topic as you can

see with this international pricing.

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Janene: This is also why companies

form, partnerships and joint ventures

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with local entities because then,

they can handle that part of it.

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Then you, and they have an agreement

together and that, you know, on how

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that's sorted out between the two of you.

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Of course, you know, an extra partner

in there can be a benefit, but it

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also can be a challenge as well.

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Jessica: Very, very interesting.

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Janene: Good.

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So yeah, I would say check out that

Big Mac index 'cause that'll actually

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give you an idea of what price

differences amongst countries are.

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And then also look at the

cost of living differences.

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These are two things that you can Google

quite quickly and find reports on when

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you do Google it just put 2019 and it, it

should come up with the most recent year.

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Jessica: Great.

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Fantastic ideas.

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Thank you.

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I didn't know about those, so great.

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Janene: That's why there's people like me.

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Jessica: Yes, of

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Janene: course.

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Jessica: Thank you so much, Janene.

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I'll look into those indexes.

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Right away.

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That will for sure help me a

lot when trying to price my

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services around the world.

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The tips you gave me

are really interesting.

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I'm really thankful, grateful, thanks

a lot for having me here and for

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giving me an answer to that question.

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Janene: You're very, very welcome.