Transcripts
Welcome to Live With The Pricing Lady.
Speaker:I'm Janene, your hostess.
Speaker:This show is all about helping you build a sustainably profitable
Speaker:business while making an unbelievable impact on your world.
Speaker:Learn from my 20 years of experience and from my guests as we discuss their pricing
Speaker:challenges, failures, and successes.
Speaker:Pricing is a way of being or behaving in your business.
Speaker:My mission is to help you confidently charge for the value you deliver.
Speaker:Pricing is either hurting or helping your business.
Speaker:Let's make sure it's helping you reach your dreams.
Speaker:In this episode of Live with The Pricing Lady, I sit down with Shelley Starks,
Speaker:CEO of inline consulting services, LLC.
Speaker:Shelly's business is all about understanding behavioral styles
Speaker:for better communication.
Speaker:I was curious, not only about her pricing journey, but how understanding our own
Speaker:behaviors or that of our customers can help us with pricing in our businesses.
Speaker:Sit back, relax and enjoy the episode.
Speaker:Today, let's welcome my special guest, Shelly Starks.
Speaker:Hi, Shelly.
Speaker:Hi, Janene.
Speaker:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker:I'm super excited to have you here with me today.
Speaker:Why don't we start by you sharing where you're calling from today?
Speaker:I am calling from Florida.
Speaker:So in the Tampa St. Pete area.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:We had a conversation that I've been in the area once before quite a while.
Speaker:Long ways from you.
Speaker:Yes, it is.
Speaker:Yes, it is.
Speaker:It's bright and early in the morning for you there.
Speaker:Shelley, what would you describe as your superpower?
Speaker:I would say my superpower is that I've learned how to
Speaker:pick up on behavioral styles.
Speaker:And what that means is when someone communicates, how they problem solve,
Speaker:how they make decisions, I've learned to identify what the style is.
Speaker:Well, first I identified what my style was, so I knew how I was
Speaker:communicating, but then I learned how to identify other people's style.
Speaker:And, and then, As I grew that I learned how to adapt a conversation
Speaker:and those people typically feel like they're more connected to me.
Speaker:They're like, wow, I just feel like, you know, it's just so easy talking
Speaker:to you or that I didn't really have any, you know, any concerns or you
Speaker:made me feel really comfortable.
Speaker:And so I always tell my children learning something like that as a superpower,
Speaker:because not everybody's aware of it.
Speaker:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker:Oh, I love that.
Speaker:And I just gave me an idea for a question later.
Speaker:So I just scribble it down while you're talking there.
Speaker:Super.
Speaker:So understanding a behavior style is very important.
Speaker:What's one thing that people don't know about you that you'd
Speaker:like to share with us today?
Speaker:Oh goodness.
Speaker:Well, I have a few, but probably one that is most I guess universal or at
Speaker:least global that people would know is my birth name is Carrie Underwood.
Speaker:Oh, wow.
Speaker:, for those of you who aren't into country western music, she's also a singer,
Speaker:but most people globally kind of know her, you know, so, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, I always use that as an icebreaker at like parties when they are like, go
Speaker:find the person who has, you know, this, you know, no one ever figures it out.
Speaker:I usually win the prize.
Speaker:Probably not after this, but.
Speaker:That's so funny.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:We'll all remember that, but we'll remember to call you Shelly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, my middle name's Michelle.
Speaker:you know, literally I'm, it's, it's not too far away.
Speaker:And then I had gotten married and so that's why the last name changed.
Speaker:But yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Very good.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:So Shelly, why don't you tell us a little bit about your business, how you got
Speaker:started in your business and what you do?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:So inline consulting services, I have several revenue streams within that.
Speaker:At this point, it's eight revenue streams and they're not related, but the
Speaker:one that's my, what I call my passion stream has to do with behavioral styles.
Speaker:And I'm a communications coach.
Speaker:I have been behavioral analysis certified for over 20 years.
Speaker:And so I help businesses and sometimes individuals understand
Speaker:what we talked about a minute ago.
Speaker:Identifying the best ways to communicate so that defensive gates go down and
Speaker:people are open and there's typically a higher, you know, emotional intelligence
Speaker:level that happens, even if it's just within that one conversation.
Speaker:And so I enjoy showing business owners and businesses how to communicate with
Speaker:their people so that they, they get the most effective time when they're with
Speaker:them the employees feel from a cultural perspective that the employer has heard
Speaker:them has understood them and that.
Speaker:They want to go to work every day.
Speaker:We spend a lot of time at work, you know, so you really do want to be there.
Speaker:Yah, Excellent!
Speaker:And how did you get into that?
Speaker:You know, years and years ago, when my oldest daughter was little,
Speaker:she had a lot of medical problems.
Speaker:And so working a regular nine to five job was just really not an option for me.
Speaker:And so I went into a direct marketing sales company, and they actually
Speaker:had this extended disc is what I use as the behavioral analysis tool.
Speaker:And they use that and baked it into all of their sales training.
Speaker:And it really just lit me up.
Speaker:Like I just said, Took to that, I ended up growing that business very large
Speaker:and had a training center with 300 consultants coming through monthly.
Speaker:And as part of that, I started realizing that they were learning in different ways.
Speaker:You know, they were picking up on the information differently.
Speaker:So we would identify those styles and kind of separate them out into
Speaker:the styles and how they communicated and, and problem solved together.
Speaker:And it, it really amplified their learning experience and
Speaker:then grew their own business.
Speaker:And so.
Speaker:Doing that was like impactful to me.
Speaker:I thought Oh my gosh and it happened to be in a a women predominantly
Speaker:women, you know, own group.
Speaker:And from that perspective I thought, Oh, I really feel like, you know, as
Speaker:women sometimes we can be a little bit.
Speaker:Guarded, right?
Speaker:Like we, we, especially in professional settings and this just like broke down
Speaker:some of those walls and it didn't matter.
Speaker:Gender.
Speaker:It didn't matter really.
Speaker:Cause we had men too, but it didn't matter.
Speaker:Gender.
Speaker:It didn't matter.
Speaker:Ethnicity.
Speaker:It didn't matter any of that.
Speaker:And I just, that just really like made me feel like a warm inside, you know,
Speaker:like, okay, we're going to, we're going to have a different kind of conversation.
Speaker:They're going to learn and they're going to go out and grow their business.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:That's a pretty big impact that I can have in the hour or two
Speaker:hours that they sit with me.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Oh, I love it.
Speaker:I have so many questions.
Speaker:What I like to do is start talking about pricing.
Speaker:What was it like the first time when you had to set a price for something
Speaker:you were selling in your own business?
Speaker:I will tell you that it was an uncomfortable situation for me.
Speaker:I thought if I were purchasing.
Speaker:I put the filter of, if I were purchasing this, that seems too expensive.
Speaker:It caused me to create a behavior not charging for what the value was.
Speaker:And really what it comes down to is figuring out where the need is.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So like if you can back this in to your pricing, when you're
Speaker:looking at your price, your prices, one, hard costs are one thing.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Hard costs, there's some soft costs, but there's also opportunity
Speaker:costs that you have to keep an in.
Speaker:and Did I drive there?
Speaker:Did how much time was I away from other things that were growing my business?
Speaker:You have to kind of look at it.
Speaker:And I didn't know how to do any of that.
Speaker:And it was just basically me and a number on a paper.
Speaker:And that was really intimidating because I thought, oh, Gosh, I don't even really
Speaker:know that anybody would really pay that.
Speaker:Well, I had to figure out a way to feel confident in what I was offering because
Speaker:if I can't, if I don't think the value's there, guess what I'm never going to
Speaker:be able to sell the value, you know?
Speaker:And those people that were sitting across that table from me could feel that.
Speaker:they knew that I, and what's interesting is that subconsciously we don't realize
Speaker:what's going on there, but that's where the that, you know, negotiation
Speaker:or that So that's a good one.
Speaker:people asking for a reduced cost comes from, because they're picking
Speaker:up on different things like that, that are subconscious, that you
Speaker:don't even realize is happening.
Speaker:So there's a lot of pre work in my mind that goes into pricing that is not
Speaker:just the number that you put on paper.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:That's what brings, at least in my experience, that's what brings part
Speaker:of that confidence is understanding why that number and not the other.
Speaker:Another number.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:And sometimes we try to do this.
Speaker:Well, my business is like this and this is what they charge.
Speaker:And you can't do that either because this is not about an industry
Speaker:standard, especially if you are in the services industry, right?
Speaker:If you don't have like a widget, Or a hard, like a hard cost product
Speaker:for something, and you, you have to understand that especially depending on
Speaker:how long you've been doing something, or maybe you've had expertise in
Speaker:other things and you're not, you're bringing one, one specific expertise,
Speaker:but you're supporting it by other expertise that you have over the years.
Speaker:You have to factor that stuff in.
Speaker:So when I sit down with the business owner.
Speaker:And we talk about Communication.
Speaker:I don't just talk about communication.
Speaker:I talk about, you know, I don't do recruiting anymore,
Speaker:but I bring to the table.
Speaker:It's possible that when we do a burnout assessment and we look at
Speaker:this behavioral style of someone, we could have somebody in this role that
Speaker:is not matching the behavioral style.
Speaker:The role is one thing.
Speaker:The style of the person is another.
Speaker:And we're putting them in extended states where that makes them feel burned out.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Well, that's, that's a, it.
Speaker:That's going down more of a recruiting conversation as opposed
Speaker:to a communications co conversation.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:. But I'm able to bring something to the table that's of high value to them
Speaker:that they can take and, and make an actionable or do an action, right?
Speaker:That changes that environment for that role or even for that
Speaker:employee so they don't lose them.
Speaker:Mm-Hmm.
Speaker:, you know, that.
Speaker:But if I don't take those kind of considerations into my pricing
Speaker:as a factor, then I'm, I'm really undercutting the value of what I bring.
Speaker:This is the example that I use.
Speaker:And I feel like worldwide people have plumbers, right?
Speaker:Everybody has plumbers.
Speaker:Have you ever had your plumber come to your house and he charges
Speaker:you like 350 and he's there for 10 minutes, but he fixed it.
Speaker:And someone says, well, he was only here for 10 minutes.
Speaker:No, no, no.
Speaker:You paid for the 30 years he's been fixing toilets so that he could come
Speaker:in for 10 minutes and fix yours in 10 minutes instead of it being a
Speaker:disaster and you're not having your toilet for however long, right?
Speaker:Like you, you have to look at it like that.
Speaker:You're paying for the expertise.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think it's also important to, to, I don't want to say remind, but reflect
Speaker:on maybe you're, let's say you're a coach and you're new to coaching.
Speaker:But you have 20 years of corporate experience where you use a lot of
Speaker:coaching skills, even though you didn't have the formal training.
Speaker:So I know like a lot of the coaching institutes, they say that
Speaker:you have to charge a lower price from day one, and they give you
Speaker:some, some guidelines, what to do.
Speaker:And oftentimes I find they're actually misaligned with the value that the
Speaker:coach is actually bringing, but that's what they've been, you know, And so I
Speaker:think it's important for people to also, you know, take a look at the holistic
Speaker:of their experience and how it plays into the value that they're bringing.
Speaker:And that is very much aligned with what you were saying.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And, and, you know, this is the other thing is that you've got to, if you're
Speaker:going to be an entrepreneur and you're going to be a business owner, this
Speaker:took me a long time to figure out.
Speaker:You're being drawn to that for a reason.
Speaker:You're not, it's not, entrepreneurship is not for everyone.
Speaker:It's just not for everybody.
Speaker:And that's okay.
Speaker:But the people who are drawn to it, it's important that you listen to
Speaker:what's going on inside of you for the reason you were being drawn to that.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:Like, why am I being drawn to this?
Speaker:And it's not just because corporate doesn't fit me, because I'm
Speaker:not a good fit for corporate.
Speaker:It's not, it's not that you're being drawn there because you have something
Speaker:you want to do to help people.
Speaker:You have, you have a service or you have something that you believe that you're
Speaker:able to transfer that's going to improve somebody's, you know, professional life,
Speaker:their personal life, whatever it is.
Speaker:So you have to dig a little bit deeper than just the surface of what is that?
Speaker:What is it that I'm doing?
Speaker:What's this line item that I'm doing?
Speaker:You know, and unfortunately when someone is coming through
Speaker:or these training programs or, you know, they're meant to have.
Speaker:They're meant to be cookie cutters so that everybody can join that program.
Speaker:But when you're an entrepreneur, you've got to pull from every possible area
Speaker:of your life to pull this together.
Speaker:You know, why not use the guidance of why you ended up going out on your own
Speaker:to begin with, you know, and, and kind of benchmark it against that instead of.
Speaker:Well, this is what this says on paper.
Speaker:Does that feel right?
Speaker:Or should you, you know, should you try to look at it from a different angle?
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Oh, I love it.
Speaker:One of the things that, that we spoke about, or that you, you mentioned when we
Speaker:talked previously was this whole concept of we're raised not to talk about money.
Speaker:And then you get into life, especially as an entrepreneur and you find
Speaker:yourself in the position where you're forced in a sense to talk about it.
Speaker:Can you talk to us some more about that?
Speaker:And your experience in that area?
Speaker:So I remember as a kid, and I'm sure most people were raised similarly
Speaker:when, you know, when somebody bought something and as a kid, you're like,
Speaker:Oh my gosh, how much does that cost?
Speaker:I remember my mom being like, we don't ask that question, don't ask somebody how
Speaker:much something they paid for something.
Speaker:Or, Wow, he's got like the biggest house.
Speaker:How much money do you make?
Speaker:Shelley, don't ask how much money people make.
Speaker:You just, you weren't allowed to ask these questions as kids.
Speaker:We're curious and we like have the, it's, it's innocent.
Speaker:It's not meant to, we're not going to take that information and tell the whole
Speaker:neighborhood how much money, you know, Mr.
Speaker:Jones makes.
Speaker:It's, it was more like to help us benchmark.
Speaker:How do we, how do we.
Speaker:When, when I get to that level, this is the kind of thing I can have, right?
Speaker:Like that's kind of that, that's that innocence piece of kids.
Speaker:But then as you get older, the very first thing you have to do in a sales
Speaker:environment or as a business owner, because you have to sell yourself
Speaker:is you have to talk about money.
Speaker:And so we have this weird thing that we do in our culture where
Speaker:we're like, until you're, you know, an adult, don't talk about money.
Speaker:And then so psychologically, when you get to the adult phase, when someone,
Speaker:You have to talk to somebody about money.
Speaker:It's an uncomfortable feeling, even if it is psychological, it's uncomfortable
Speaker:because we were told don't do that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so it's, it's about creating new behaviors around money, right.
Speaker:Understanding that money is a tool.
Speaker:That's all it is, right?
Speaker:What you're offering and, and the relation to money is important,
Speaker:but what, what money is in and of itself is not the important part.
Speaker:You're bringing something to the table that is a value.
Speaker:And if you're really good at asking questions around Why they Are
Speaker:Wanting To Buy From You, Or Why They Have a Need for That, And Then
Speaker:Youre Being Realistic Around Your Product Or Service Filling That Need.
Speaker:Then Theres a Value associated With The Money Part.
Speaker:As Opposed to It Just Being a Money Part And Thats Tommy Starts Pricing.
Speaker:Something for the Money, Right?
Speaker:We're putting the value first and then the money follows because it's just a tool.
Speaker:But it's hard for us culturely to be like, Janene just you know,
Speaker:tell me what your budget is?
Speaker:You just want me to tell you what I, what my budget is?
Speaker:Like my whole budget, like everything I have, like it's just
Speaker:the silliest thing that we do.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Instead of, like, Let me ask you some questions.
Speaker:I mean, why did you reach out to me today?
Speaker:You know, was there something specific that sparked this?
Speaker:What are some of the things you've done that have, you know, that
Speaker:you've tried to do to fix it before?
Speaker:How did that work for you?
Speaker:Like go into the questions that are getting them into a situation where
Speaker:they're like, Oh my gosh, this Shelly person has something I really need.
Speaker:And I, and now they're adding value in their own mind to your word.
Speaker:solution, right?
Speaker:As opposed to you trying to sell them something at a price.
Speaker:Right, right, right.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:And so for someone who's, say, struggles with that, with that sort of the way they
Speaker:were raised when it comes to, you know, talking about money, how can they start
Speaker:to Or what worked for you even in terms of making that shift to being able to being
Speaker:more comfortable about talking about it?
Speaker:I think part of it too, there's some, there's some other, you know, nurture
Speaker:relationship things that had happened, like how you were raised around money.
Speaker:So I was raised in a very poor environment.
Speaker:My parents did not have a lot of money and we, you know, we struggled
Speaker:most of, most of my childhood.
Speaker:And I remember that.
Speaker:And so there's some deep seated things that I had to work on that were not
Speaker:even related to pricing and business.
Speaker:I needed to go back and change my relationship to money.
Speaker:Because I always looked at money as something of scarcity
Speaker:when I was younger, right?
Speaker:It just wasn't there.
Speaker:So the relationship, have you ever known somebody where they maybe had, they were
Speaker:very wealthy and then their children just naturally fell into things like, even
Speaker:if you like knew them really well, their children just naturally fell into things
Speaker:and all of a sudden they became wealthy.
Speaker:And it wasn't because their parents actually gave them some kind of
Speaker:runway for I mean, seriously, if you really were to dissect it,
Speaker:it's because they had a different relationship with money growing up.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so, no, these are not like quick fixes for anybody, but
Speaker:you know, you can go online.
Speaker:There's so many things out online about being able to change
Speaker:your relationship with money.
Speaker:I believe that I had to start there because I wanted to make
Speaker:sure that I felt number one worthy.
Speaker:of that money.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And number two, that if I really, really was honest with myself and my service was
Speaker:as good as I thought it was, was right.
Speaker:That I believe that somebody would pay for that.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so it, I think it starts twofold.
Speaker:relationships with money and then making sure that you
Speaker:understand your value personally for what you bring to the table.
Speaker:I think once you marry those two, you know, once you get those together, I
Speaker:think that the pricing conversation with yourself as a business owner is not hard.
Speaker:Like it's, it's really not hard.
Speaker:It turns into, it turns into something even more, like,
Speaker:here's what happened with me.
Speaker:I had a service or I had a program.
Speaker:Once I started changing that relationship with money, I started realizing my value.
Speaker:All of a sudden I started thinking of creative ways to add additional
Speaker:services to my, to my line card.
Speaker:To giving them more value for than what I was just offering initially, it
Speaker:literally started unlocking these doors
Speaker:of things that allowed me to be more in flow with what my business could offer.
Speaker:And the money part just didn't even really seem important after that.
Speaker:It was more like, how can I help these people?
Speaker:And, oh my gosh, the impact that this made on this business, this is where they are
Speaker:now, how much can I put a value on that?
Speaker:I can tell you what the number was from the growth standpoint of what happened.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So let's say it's a half a million dollar growth standpoint, right?
Speaker:You're never going to charge a client a half a million dollars.
Speaker:You got to think about what that, what that impact made to that business.
Speaker:The percentage of what it grew, their, their overall growth for the year was 13%.
Speaker:With this specific client, I'm thinking of 13 percent
Speaker:overall in your business growth.
Speaker:If I were to show you across the board is a really big number, right?
Speaker:And so if I go to the next person, the next client and can say, I've
Speaker:got a honed in process, I feel really confident in the fact that this is
Speaker:going to help you grow your business.
Speaker:And even if I say 5%, guess what they're going to say?
Speaker:That's pretty good.
Speaker:Please.
Speaker:Yeah, no, I love that.
Speaker:And.
Speaker:I think, well, my experience has shown that, that, that alignment between.
Speaker:your relationship with money.
Speaker:And it can also be for some people, it's not even money.
Speaker:It's worthiness.
Speaker:It's success.
Speaker:Those can also very much hamper what you do not only in your business,
Speaker:but especially with your pricing and understanding the value of
Speaker:what your offer really brings.
Speaker:Those two things combined are kind of like the special, the special key that
Speaker:unlocks the treasure chest, if you will.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Super.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I wanted to ask you about, so something you said earlier, actually, I'd
Speaker:like to talk about this more because I think that this communication
Speaker:and pricing is really important.
Speaker:And I'm curious about how People's different communication styles
Speaker:influence their ability to be able to close the deal, have the
Speaker:conversations in the right way.
Speaker:You know, sometimes people are like, it's all about who you're
Speaker:talking to and other people.
Speaker:It's all about you.
Speaker:And so I'm curious about your take on that in relationship to this topic of pricing.
Speaker:Well, I think regardless of what topic you're having, again, if you understand
Speaker:what your behavioral style is, and if you identify the style of the person sitting
Speaker:in front of you, and you realize that the two of you are not the same style
Speaker:and you're able to adapt to their style just for that conversation and and ask
Speaker:some really good open ended questions, you know when you're walking through this
Speaker:instead of yes or no questions because all you're going to get is yes or no
Speaker:when you ask a yes or no question, right?
Speaker:But if you ask an open ended question, Then they're gonna be talking longer.
Speaker:They're going to be talking more.
Speaker:You want them talking more, but also it gives you an opportunity to understand
Speaker:their style a little bit better.
Speaker:The longer they're talking, the more you can pick up on different clues, right?
Speaker:So for instance, you know, in, in extended disk, we, I help, I help people
Speaker:identify behavioral styles very quickly.
Speaker:There's four styles on the top style or the top side of this quadrant.
Speaker:You There's the task oriented people.
Speaker:Those are the D's and the C's oriented people, right?
Speaker:At the bottom, these are people oriented people.
Speaker:So the I's and the S's.
Speaker:So if someone I'm talking to starts going into telling me who they know,
Speaker:and they're like, And who they met.
Speaker:And this person does this.
Speaker:We're talking about they're, they're more people centric.
Speaker:If somebody says to me, well, I read these statistics and we've started going
Speaker:and we've, you know, researched this and then these are the facts, right?
Speaker:We're talking more about a task oriented person.
Speaker:So all of a sudden now you've eliminated, you know, two of the four styles.
Speaker:Now, you know, which side of the quadrant to go to quickly.
Speaker:And then the other way I say, if they're an out in the room processor, somebody
Speaker:who's using their hands, talking out loud, it's like a stream of consciousness, or
Speaker:they're an internal processor, meaning they're processing internally, just
Speaker:because they're processing internally does not mean they don't have enough
Speaker:to say, or a lot to say, just like that out in the room processor.
Speaker:If you can identify that, now we're almost in a quadrant, right?
Speaker:So now you're going, okay, I've got somebody who's people oriented,
Speaker:but they're internal processing.
Speaker:So when I ask a question, I want to not say anything else
Speaker:after I asked that question.
Speaker:It's uncomfortable for us to leave space, but that person who is
Speaker:more people oriented, all boats rise in the harbor person, right?
Speaker:For the whole team, they're thinking team oriented.
Speaker:They're thinking internally, they're going, I need to think of how this
Speaker:is going to affect the entire team.
Speaker:You need to give them a minute.
Speaker:To reply to your actual answer.
Speaker:We try to fill this space as though it were some kind of jar that we have
Speaker:to fill the entire thing while we're sitting there having a conversation.
Speaker:And that's not what this is.
Speaker:This is a conversation, right?
Speaker:And so if the person in front of you needs to process that for a minute, give
Speaker:them an open ended question and then just sit there and let them think about it.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:You know, and sometimes, sometimes what happens is, is that.
Speaker:They might say, you know what?
Speaker:I actually probably need to think about this a little bit more.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:You, I'm going to write that down.
Speaker:Cause this sounds like it's important to you that you want to, you know,
Speaker:cover this the next time we talk and then ask them another question.
Speaker:Because what's happening is that instead of they're used to a salesperson
Speaker:coming in or a business person coming in and then just telling them.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And when you ask them, no matter what style you are, when someone gets asked
Speaker:a question and they feel the runway to be able to share their opinion.
Speaker:Now you get insights into their business that helps you understand
Speaker:if your product or service is a good fit for the need they have.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:As opposed to just.
Speaker:Assuming that everyone can buy from you.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Or is willing and able.
Speaker:Or willing, exactly.
Speaker:I think that's
Speaker:the, when I, so I do a lot of training on, how to do market
Speaker:research to understand your customer.
Speaker:So basically conducting customer insight interviews.
Speaker:And we talk a lot about not asking leading questions and, and, Having
Speaker:those open ended questions so that you can get good, valuable information.
Speaker:And it's a skill that, that people can develop.
Speaker:And I think a lot of people think that you either have it or you don't, but in
Speaker:my experience, what I've noticed is it's really something that you can develop.
Speaker:And the more you use it, the easier it gets with time as well.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And, and I call those behaviors.
Speaker:So when we go to do a new behavior, if you go to start exercising and you haven't
Speaker:been exercising, there's going to be some things that come along with that,
Speaker:depending on your age to the older I get.
Speaker:The harder it is for me to get back into things like that, but there's
Speaker:always something that comes from it.
Speaker:There's soreness, right?
Speaker:You have to push through that morning that you don't want to get out of bed.
Speaker:You know, you've got all these other impeding things coming at you
Speaker:and you have to make it a point.
Speaker:Priority, right?
Speaker:There's things that actually have to happen whenever you change your
Speaker:behavior and it has to be intentional.
Speaker:And so whenever I used to be a sales coach and I would explain to people,
Speaker:you know, this behavior is going to feel weird, but you've just got to commit
Speaker:to yourself that you're going to do it.
Speaker:And if that means you need to write out some open ended questions
Speaker:ahead of time so that you don't have to think of them on the fly.
Speaker:That's a really good way for you to like, look at your list and say, you know what?
Speaker:I need to make sure and just make them succinct with how you would normally
Speaker:ask questions around your product or service, filling a need, right?
Speaker:Just ask those questions and you'll get better at them.
Speaker:But when we get stressed or we get nervous, which most people do when
Speaker:they're having pricing conversations, when you get into that, cause of that
Speaker:psychological childhood thing that we have going on in our culture, then you're
Speaker:going to You know, what happens is, is that you go back to a natural behavior.
Speaker:You go back to the nervous answering the question, like asking a question
Speaker:and then answering it whenever you like ask the question, you know, sometimes
Speaker:I notice that people will do that or they just won't let the space be
Speaker:there for them to answer the question.
Speaker:They'll have to fill it.
Speaker:And so literally the new behavior is not going to be comfortable.
Speaker:You got to work on it a little bit at a time, and then once it starts
Speaker:to become natural, you know, you're going to start seeing a huge difference
Speaker:in the conversations that you have.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:One more thing before I start to wrap this up, because I believe that we
Speaker:spoke about this and I noticed I kept myself doing it like three or four
Speaker:times just in this conversation alone.
Speaker:And that's this phrase, I think.
Speaker:That a lot of women use, especially women use, I think this, or I think
Speaker:that, and these it's, for me, it's a qualifier that we sometimes use.
Speaker:And I'm curious about your thoughts in terms of, you know, the communication and
Speaker:pricing and some of these qualifiers that, that we use quite often that let's say,
Speaker:weaken the impact of, of the conversations that we're having with people.
Speaker:Can you give me an example of one of those sentences?
Speaker:So, for example, saying, you know, I think, instead of just saying.
Speaker:If I were to say, yeah, I think, you know, pricing should be done
Speaker:this way, instead of starting it with I think, just saying, you know,
Speaker:pricing should be done like this.
Speaker:It, these things sort of weaken, or one thing I hear, A lot.
Speaker:Not to pick on coaches, but I'll meet someone new at an event and
Speaker:I'll be like, Hey, what do you do?
Speaker:And they'll be like, Oh, I'm just a coach.
Speaker:And that word just, it kills me when I hear it.
Speaker:And so those kinds of phrases, there's a lot of them we use in our conversations
Speaker:and they have a huge impact on pricing in part because of how it deals with Impacts
Speaker:people's perception of what we're saying.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Using the phrase, I think, obviously does put a little bit of a, it's not
Speaker:a concrete thing in, by the time you show up in a pricing conversation,
Speaker:your pricing should be concrete.
Speaker:If you're walking into a conversation and you are willing to negotiate that
Speaker:pricing before the conversation even starts, you're not going to win that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Like you're not going to win in the conversation.
Speaker:Even if you win the business, that just because you win the business doesn't
Speaker:mean it was a good business deal.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so if you're using terms like, I think that's not really the
Speaker:concrete conversation around pricing that you really want to have.
Speaker:That really does psychologically let the person know in front of you that, that
Speaker:there is, you know, maybe some wavering.
Speaker:That can happen, right?
Speaker:They don't even notice that that's happening.
Speaker:It is psychological.
Speaker:But if somebody, we call that being in the, in the prospect sales cycle,
Speaker:you all of a sudden put yourself in their process, their sales process.
Speaker:Now you're not in your own process.
Speaker:And guess who's in charge of the conversation?
Speaker:They are.
Speaker:Guess who's providing the service and has the pricing?
Speaker:You are.
Speaker:So if you are coming to that, you know, conversation, and that's
Speaker:again going to go back to your confidence around your pricing of
Speaker:what you feel like you are worth.
Speaker:And if you're coming to, you know, unless you're using it in a away to
Speaker:try to soften a conversation because
Speaker:It's different if you're using it for not, you know, you're using it as more
Speaker:of a technique, But if you're coming to their at that conversation and you're
Speaker:saying I, you know, I, in they're saying listen Janine, you know, we can't afford
Speaker:that or our budgets talking allow that.
Speaker:Well I think if you were just here You know, what, what the service offering, the
Speaker:full service offering was, you'd, you'd really kind of put the value on that.
Speaker:You can't do it that way, right?
Speaker:Because if you're not willing to walk away from a bad business
Speaker:deal, you're going to get yourself into a lot of bad business deals.
Speaker:Cause I have a rule.
Speaker:If it's a good business deal for you and it's a good business deal for me, then
Speaker:it's a good business deal deal, right?
Speaker:But if it's just a good business deal for you.
Speaker:This is not how that's supposed to be.
Speaker:I walked away from plenty of business that was not a good fit.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And so using that, you know, that goes back to that value, I think.
Speaker:Mm hmm.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:Your value, how you, yeah, how you value yourself.
Speaker:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker:And what you offer.
Speaker:I think, I think it's great that you are helping people and coaching
Speaker:them in that, because that is a subconscious thing that they're doing.
Speaker:If they'd say no, what was that?
Speaker:I think most of us see, there I go.
Speaker:See, it's just so, but that's what I hear it now.
Speaker:That's the good thing.
Speaker:So funny.
Speaker:It's like I was in Toastmasters for years and getting rid of the M's and R's.
Speaker:We did that.
Speaker:That was changing your behavior.
Speaker:Like you were having to like be present and you were having to be intentional
Speaker:about the behavior and watching the things as opposed to going on an autopilot.
Speaker:When you're speaking to be intentional about what the thoughts are.
Speaker:And when you're intentional about those and you know where they're going, and
Speaker:it's not just a stream of consciousness that's happening, you can typically.
Speaker:You know, change that behavior and remove those ums and ahs out of,
Speaker:because you're not searching for the conversation as you're going.
Speaker:Right, right.
Speaker:It's a, it's a subconscious way to feel the silence and give yourself the pause
Speaker:to think about something where you would be better off just having the silence.
Speaker:Taking that time to, to reflect on what you want to say or ask a question
Speaker:so that they're filling it and you can sit for a minute and figure out
Speaker:your next really great question.
Speaker:Yes, exactly.
Speaker:Super.
Speaker:I love this conversation.
Speaker:I have so many more questions, but unfortunately we need to wrap this up.
Speaker:So I would like to ask you, what is it you'd like people to remember
Speaker:from our conversation today?
Speaker:Well, if you are finding yourself in a situation where you're, you just don't
Speaker:seem to be connecting, you probably notice when you connect with someone and
Speaker:all of a sudden you just clicked and you were like, wow, I just felt like that
Speaker:was just like the best conversation.
Speaker:It was kind of invigorating.
Speaker:It was, you know, it was something that kind of fed you energy.
Speaker:And if you're feeling like you are not feeling that way,
Speaker:You might need to understand a little bit about where your behavioral style
Speaker:is leading you in conversations and the behavioral style of the person that's
Speaker:in front of you, so that you can learn to adapt a little bit better, you know,
Speaker:because if you are just communicating in your style, I always say this, if you're
Speaker:just communicating in your style, you're only wrong about 60 percent of the time.
Speaker:So if that number is good for you, just Then we don't need to talk.
Speaker:There you go.
Speaker:Only 60 percent of the time.
Speaker:Super cool.
Speaker:Are there any books, tools, podcasts, things that you're really
Speaker:enjoying right now, something you'd like to share with us today?
Speaker:Well, I am really working on revamping some phase 2 for my business.
Speaker:So I've kind of been going internally with this and some of it is kind of
Speaker:folding into what you are mentioning here.
Speaker:Hopefully in 2025, we're gonna be launching a video series that is going
Speaker:to be more of a of a tutorial for individuals to be able to come through.
Speaker:So normally I do coaching on, on group coaching and with businesses, but I
Speaker:have a lot of people say this really made an impact to me learning about me.
Speaker:And then now I'm using it with my family.
Speaker:And, you know, is there any way for us to be able to watch something together
Speaker:so we can kind of learn it together?
Speaker:So the goal is for me to actually, you know, work towards this, this,
Speaker:this instruction based platform.
Speaker:So right now I feel like I'm more internally focused as opposed
Speaker:to the things that are really feeding me externally focused.
Speaker:But stay tuned, hopefully that's going to be coming next year.
Speaker:I love the idea of that.
Speaker:I think we assume that everybody communicates well
Speaker:and that in every household.
Speaker:You Know, You're Brought Up With These Sort Of Life Skills.
Speaker:And so we focus our educational systems on, you know, math and science
Speaker:and languages and things like that.
Speaker:But these life, I call them life skills, at least are equally
Speaker:as important at the very least.
Speaker:And so often under.
Speaker:valued, let's say.
Speaker:Our blended family is a true testament to that.
Speaker:Years ago, probably eight years ago, I made my family as a blended family
Speaker:or my client and having two children that were vastly different on the
Speaker:behavioral scale, teaching them and now seeing them as adults using this
Speaker:and them actually thriving because they understand how to communicate
Speaker:really, really made an impact to me.
Speaker:And I feel like at some point I want to.
Speaker:I want to be able to share that with other people.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:So Shelly, if people want to reach out to connect with you, find out more about what
Speaker:you do, where should they reach out to?
Speaker:LinkedIn is a great place to reach out.
Speaker:It's just Shelly Death Starks.
Speaker:And if you Google anything, Shelly Starks, you should find
Speaker:just about all of the other ones.
Speaker:If you're looking, not Carrie Underwood.
Speaker:Not Carrie Underwood.
Speaker:You'll find Carrie Underwood.
Speaker:You could have done, you could have done at not Carrie Underwood.
Speaker:Well, I mean, as, as my family says, I'm the OG because I'm older than her,
Speaker:but I won't take that away from her.
Speaker:Excellent.
Speaker:Thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker:Shelley, everyone, we'll put the, her links in the show notes as
Speaker:well, so you can reach out to her.
Speaker:But thank you.
Speaker:Thank you so much, Shelley, for joining us.
Speaker:Janene, thank you for having me.
Speaker:And I just think this is such a unique podcast.
Speaker:I think it's awesome that you are helping people understand and getting the,
Speaker:you know, culturally getting us back into the conversation around pricing.
Speaker:It's important.
Speaker:It's a part of our business and it's not going away.
Speaker:And so thank you for being the, the beacon of light when it
Speaker:comes to sharing about that.
Speaker:Thank you.
Speaker:All right, everyone.
Speaker:Thank you so much for joining us for this episode of Live with
Speaker:The Pricing Lady, the podcast.
Speaker:I wish you a great day and as always, everyone enjoy pricing.
Speaker:Thank you for listening to this episode of Live with The Pricing Lady, the podcast.
Speaker:If you enjoyed the episode, rate, review, and subscribe to it, then share
Speaker:it with your friends and colleagues.
Speaker:I love hearing back from you listeners.
Speaker:If you've got comments, questions, or topic ideas, go on over to thepricinglady.
Speaker:com and contact me there.
Speaker:Not sure where to start when it comes to improving pricing and profits?
Speaker:At ThePricingLady.
Speaker:com you can download a copy of my Self Assessment Pricing Scorecard.
Speaker:Find out where it's going well and where you can begin improving.
Speaker:Or just simply book a discovery call with me.
Speaker:There we can discuss what's up with pricing in your business and
Speaker:how I might be able to help you.
Speaker:Thanks once again for joining.
Speaker:Remember, pricing can hurt or help your business.
Speaker:Let's make sure it's helping you reach your dreams.
Speaker:See you next time and as always, enjoy pricing.