Jobs to Be Done: The Pricing Strategy That Pays Off Big with Bill Wilson

Bill Wilson, CEO and founder of Pace Pricing and official pricing advisor for the government of New Zealand, takes Mark on a deep dive into Jobs to be Done methodology and its connection to value-based pricing. From his origins as a software developer building productized services to coaching hundreds of companies through SaaS Academy, Bill reveals why pricing isn't just about the number—it's about understanding the progress customers are trying to make. 

In this episode, Mark and Bill dive into why the Jobs to Be Done framework offers a more effective lens than traditional problem-and-results approaches, leading to insights about value realization, emotional jobs, and why the biggest pricing advice might be the simplest: just raise your prices.

 

Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast:

• Learn the critical role of value realization and how to effectively package products to help customers achieve desired outcomes quickly and sustainably.
• Understand the Jobs to Be Done framework, how it differs from traditional problem-solving approaches, and why it's vital for grasping true customer motivations.
• Discover practical pricing strategies, including overcoming fears around raising prices and how thoughtful price increases positively impact a company's bottom line.

 

"Without being too on the nose about it, you probably should raise your prices."

– Bill Wilson

 

Topics Covered:

01:32 - Bill's journey from technical founder in 2007 to productizing services, escaping hourly billing, and discovering that pricing is everyone's delicate secret.

06:59 - The Product-Pricing-Positioning Triangle Why these three cannot be separated: value delivery (product), value perception (positioning), and value capture (pricing).

09:33 - What is Jobs to be Done? Bill's definition: statements describing the progress customers are trying to make, with specific ways to measure that value.

14:17 - The Trigger Moment: Status Quo Change Why the sandwich shop example illustrates how triggers create jobs people are willing to pay to solve, unlike generic problems.

20:11 - Context-Driven Pricing Meets Jobs to be Done Mark's framework of foundational problems, problem scope, and situational context—and how it maps to Bill's JTBD structure.

21:56 - System 1 vs. System 2: Emotion vs. Value Separating intuitive, emotional buying (System 1) from deliberative value calculation (System 2)—and why B2B sellers must address both.

26:39 - The Three Phases of Value Value perception (positioning), value realization (first aha moment), and value adoption (features driving continuous use).

30:08 - The Product-Pricing-Positioning Connection in Practice: Why Bill sometimes produces product requirements documents during pricing engagements—because time-to-value affects pricing success.

30:28 - Final Advice: Raise Your Prices The simplest, most powerful advice that everyone fears—and why money from price increases falls directly to the bottom line.

 

Key Takeaways:

"A job to be done inherently has monetization built into it because there are a lot of problems that I'm not willing to pay to be solved. But a job in and of itself is something I'm actively trying to achieve." - Bill Wilson

"Recurring revenue lives in value adoption, not in value realization. I can get anybody to realize value pretty quickly and they'll never buy my product more than once." - Bill Wilson

"Everybody's scared to death to raise their prices. But if you haven't raised your prices in a couple of years, you're probably safe to raise your prices. And all that money that you raise it by, whatever percentage that is, is going to fall directly to the bottom line." - Bill Wilson

 

People / Resources Mentioned:

• April Dunford: Positioning expert, author of "Obviously Awesome" and "Sales Pitch"
• Anthony Ulwick: Outcome-Driven Innovation approach to Jobs to be Done
• Clayton Christensen: Jobs to be Done theory pioneer
• Danny Kahneman: System 1 and System 2 thinking framework
• SaaS Academy: Where Bill coaches companies on pricing