January 27, 2025 • 28 mins
James D. Wilton, a world-renowned expert in SaaS pricing, is passionate about helping innovative companies unlock their true potential through strategic pricing and monetization.
In this episode...
With over 12 years of experience in pricing strategy, James Wilton offers unparalleled expertise in helping startups and fast-growing companies maximize their value. As the Founder and Managing Partner of Monevate, a premier consulting firm for XaaS and tech companies, James has transformed the way businesses approach pricing.
Drawing on his leadership roles at McKinsey & Company and RELX, James explores the intersection of strategy and innovation, providing actionable insights for SaaS and tech leaders. From demystifying the complexities of pricing to sharing practical strategies for capturing value, James reveals how thoughtful pricing can shape the trajectory of a business.
Whether you're a founder, product leader, or scaling a tech company, this episode is packed with tools and frameworks to master the art and science of SaaS pricing.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Welcome to the Powerof Authority Spotlight.
I'm your host, Michelle Prince, founderand CEO of Performance Publishing Group,
making a difference one story at a time.
We'll be shining the light on successfulfounders, entrepreneurs, business
owners, and leaders that are gettingresults and making a difference.
We'll talk about how they builttheir businesses, are creating
(00:26):
movements, and leveraging the powerof authority in their own right.
Be sure to stick around toand we'll reveal how you
Hey, everybody, and welcome to thePower of Authority Spotlight, where
we shine the light on successfulCEOs, entrepreneurs, leaders and
(00:49):
founders that are doing great things.
They're making a difference in theirin their niche, in their category, and
they're out there sharing their story.
And I'm excited to introduce you.
To my guest today, who is James D.
Wilton, the world renowned expert inSAS pricing with more than 12 years
of experience helping startups andfast growing companies maximize their
value through strategic pricing asthe founder and managing partner
(01:11):
of Monovate, the premier pricingand monetization consulting firm
for SAS and tech companies, Jamescontinues to shape the industry's
approach to pricing, his expertise.
Was honed in leadership roles atMcKinsey Company, where he led the
pricing service line for Fuel, theirstartup and scale up practice, and
as head strategic pricing at Relix.
(01:32):
Driven by a mission to help innovativecompanies capture their true
worth, James regularly shares hisinsights with the startup community.
He's a frequent publisher of Montevideoinsights and the founder of the cube,
the first pricing focus community forSAS and tech leaders with his newest
book, capturing value, James distills,his vast experience of knowledge into
(01:53):
an essential guide for anyone looking tomaster the art and science of SAS pricing.
Welcome to the show, James.
Great to be here, Michelle.
Thanks for having me.
I am so excited to talk to you.
I mean, there's, there's a lot ofthings we're going to unpack today,
but I want to start with your book.
You just published, it's aboutto be launched, your latest and
(02:14):
newest book, Capturing Value,which is an incredible guide.
It's, , to transforming SaaS pricing,unlock and unshackling growth.
So I, I want to start there.
Tell us about the book andhow did the book come to be?
How did it?
Absolutely.
Well, I, I, you know, I'd love tosay it came about really quickly, but
this is something I've been workingon for the last three to four years.
(02:36):
So it's definitely taken, , taken a littlewhile to get it, , get it out there, but.
Really, I mean, this, this just camethrough my observations of working
with a lot of smaller companies who aregrowing and needed to optimize their,
their, their pricing strategies for thework that I did at McKinsey and also
at, at Monovate since, since then, I'vereally found that, , there are many
(02:57):
companies out there who don't know howto build an effective pricing strategy.
Pricing's incredibly niche, right?
It's not very common that people havepricing experts in their staff when
they're really starting off and gettinggoing with their, with their companies.
And there are some of those companieswhen they need to transform their,
their, their, their pricing strategies,they have budgets to be able to come
(03:19):
and spend on, on, on consultants.
And of course my company motivate, SAScompanies there, but I would say for
every, for every company that we endedup working with, there are, I still see
need help with their pricing strategy, butthey don't have budgets for consultants.
They just, you know, and they, and theyneed to do it on their own internally
(03:39):
and they don't have expertise.
And if you go online and youlook for guidance on how to do
price, , do pricing strategy.
Well, there's just a lotof information out there.
That's not particularly trustworthy.
It's probably not very clear.
And even when it's clear, itmay not be telling you to do
the right, the right things.
So really, you know, when we founded,when we founded Monovate all those years
ago, the mission really was to be able tohelp these growing companies make better
(04:04):
decisions around their pricing strategy.
So we just felt there's a lot of peoplewere not able to help here and the
book and a book could help to do that.
So that's really what I started, startedthinking about, like, how can we.
How can we create a guide that will helpsomebody who doesn't have experience
in pricing strategy, but knows SAS?
How can we give them what they need to beable to understand the decisions that they
(04:26):
need to make, the options that they have,and kind of work as a guide to take them
through the entire process and buildinga new pricing strategy that they can
be, , they can feel very confident about.
Absolutely.
And in fact, I mean, and it is a guide.
If there's so much in here andfor somebody, first of all, some
people might not even know theyneed this and it'd be even an issue.
(04:47):
Right?
So even first discovering what thatis and what pricing strategy is.
And and something I learned from youand through the book as well is that
it's pricing isn't just about price.
Is it?
No, no, it's not probably the biggestmisconception around pricing in total.
Michelle is like people tendto think it's all about.
Okay.
What's the price tag, right?
Like, what is this?
What is this worth?
(05:08):
That obviously is a part of it.
That is something thatyou do need to get to.
It is a very critical part, but honestly,pricing starts way earlier than that.
Really, I mean, to be able to builda pricing strategy effectively,
you need to be thinking about,about what your value is, right?
Where does the value of yourproduct Come, come from and
what are your customers need?
What do they want?
(05:29):
What will they react well to?
What are the, you know, whatare the, all the dynamics there?
What are their expectationsbased on what else they have?
They've seen out there.
And for your company, what'sthe objectives that you have?
You know, if you have, , the same company.
Trying to achieve two differentobjectives, the ideal pricing
strategy that's going to helpachieve those two things.
It's going to lookcompletely different, right?
(05:50):
So you need to be thinking aboutall these all these factors.
That's before you've even started to buildout any kind of pricing strategy at all.
Then when you get into thepricing strategy before
you get to the price level.
You have to think aboutthe structural elements.
So, you know, the packaging, you know,what are the different options that
you give your you give your customers?
What are the what'sthe price architecture?
(06:12):
You know, are you going to beable to scale your price to
different customers based ontheir on their willingness to pay?
And how do you do that?
And all of these decisions?
Are really going to impact how muchsomebody is going to pay for your product.
And anyway, those, thosestructural decisions can make
somebody more or less likely to,to pay up, to pay a price point.
So you get that stuff figured out first,and then you think about setting, setting
(06:34):
the price, , on, on, on top of that.
But yeah, I think it's, it's oneof those disciplines that is just
so much broader and multifacetedthan think people think it is.
And I think that's, you know, that'sone of the reasons why this, this
book has to exist to give, givethe guidance on all those different
things you need to think about.
Absolutely.
And why this is important to even havethis conversation, because if they
don't understand what all's involved,some people might think, Oh, I'm fine.
(06:56):
I know my pricing and you know,but there's so much more to it.
Like you already outlined.
I'm curious.
I know your expertise.
I mean, you're, you'rerenowned in this space.
This is definitely very focused on it.
But does this framework, the abilityto really look at all of the different
pieces of pricing strategy, you know,from the offering to the clients,
does that go across all industries?
(07:18):
Or could it?
It does.
It certainly could.
It certainly could.
I mean, I will, I will saythat this, this book has been
written specifically for SaaS.
It's really tailored to, to the SaaS worldand it's, it's written through that lens.
But I know I'm one of severalpricing, , experts out there who
think good pricing is good pricing.
(07:39):
Right.
And like the things that you need tothink about this, the components of it.
I'm going to be the sameacross any industry, right?
It's just that the way that you executeon those different components And
probably the amount of focus that youput in these different areas is going
to be slightly different So I think ifyou are somebody who's in a completely
different industry like retail for exampleThe book is not written explicitly for
(08:01):
you but there's going to be elements inthere that you'll still be able to to
grab onto and help you with your Withyour, with your pricing, maybe the next
box, the next book will be written ona, , a different, , industry segment.
Well, no, and I do believe you stay inthe lane that you're in, and this is where
you truly have so much value to bringand, you know, walk us through what the.
(08:22):
A little bit more of whatthat process looks like.
So as a consulting firm, thisis the type of thing that you're
doing for all over the world.
What?
Where do you start when you'reworking with these companies?
Like, let's say, because I could see thisas somebody who's just getting started.
They need to be implementingthis right away.
But I imagine you're workingwith a lot of companies that.
Aren't just getting started and they'regoing to have to stop and reevaluate
(08:45):
everything or is that an accurate?
Okay, no, it is.
I mean, I'd say like, see the vastmajority of the work that we do at a
motivate is about transforming pricingstrategies, which have already that
are already built and operationaland being being used for businesses.
We actually find a lot of the timeright when when companies get get going.
They tend to not think too deeplyabout their first pricing strategy
(09:08):
for like a number of reasons, right?
Partly that's because as I said,they often don't have people who know
pricing, who are going to guide them onhow to think about that, but also for
anybody who's founded a company, right?
It's a scramble of activity.
You have to do so many things.
, probably thinking about your pricingstrategy is something that happens.
Oh, we're launching next week.
We really need to think abouthow we're going to price this.
So.
(09:29):
It ends up that it's often not thoughtthrough particularly deeply and they'll
just, they'll do what we call founderbased pricing, which is, you know, kind
of think about what it, what it could be.
And they, and they put something downand that's, you know, are there, is
there room for improvement there?
Absolutely.
But, you know, that's, that's the reality.
Oftentimes, if you've got asuccessful business, yeah.
(09:50):
They will start growing and doing wellregardless of whether their initial
pricing strategy is, is perfect or not.
But they'll grow and they'll get to apoint when suddenly the pricing strategy
they have does matter now, right?
Because there'll be decisions thatthey made which are, even if it's
not stopping them from growing,it's probably preventing them from
reaching their full potential, right?
(10:11):
It might be, you know, the simplestone, you called it out earlier,
Michelle, is, you know, just literally,We think our prices are too low.
We are, we feel that we are providingmore value than we are capturing
through our, through our pricing.
And we can, we think we can raisethe price level, but it also
sometimes, , you know, the, the metricthat we're using to price just isn't
resonating with, with, with customers.
(10:31):
I'd say probably the most commonone in today's world is we
set our price based on users.
Because everybody does, right?
But users isn't really aligned to value.
Maybe people aren't buying as many usersas we thought that they, that they would.
They don't need to expandthe number of users.
So it's not giving them any, any growth.
We think there are lots of other thingsthat might be better aligned to value
(10:54):
that if we were pricing based on those,not only would we be able to set better
prices, but we'd also be able to growthose prices over time with customers.
So, you know, how do we think about that?
Sometimes it's that the, thepackaging is wrong, right?
The packaging could be too, too complex.
It could be that we've given them toomany choices and they, and they don't
make sense and it's slowing down our,our sales, or it could be that when
(11:18):
we launched our product, we had reallyjust a very small set of offerings.
So we just said, here's ourproduct, take it or leave it.
And now we have all these different.
Things and we, it doesn't necessarilymake sense to give everything to everyone.
It might be better for us to give somekind of a choice there so that we can
a make sure customers can buy what theywant, but also it's another way for
(11:39):
us to price differentiate across ourcustomers and capture more, more value.
So there's all these things that mightbe, you know, potentially suboptimal.
And there's also the fact thatreally, as I said earlier, your
pricing strategy should be basedaround your objectives, right?
It should be based aroundwhat you're trying to achieve.
Companies objectives change as they,as they grow, so Even if you set your
(12:01):
pricing strategy perfectly from day one,which doesn't happen very often, but
you know, for argument's sake Let's saythat it did, if you're two, three years
later at that point It's probably notthe right, the right pricing strategy
now because your objectives havechanged, your market's changed, your
product's changed, everything's changedand you need a, you need a refresh.
For sure.
Okay.
(12:22):
So I have to ask, cause I'm so curious.
I know you didn't just wake up one dayor as a little boy saying, I want to
be, , in the, the SaaS pricey world.
So how did you get here?
How, what will tell usmore about your background?
It was a long, long and windingroad to get where I am, Michelle.
Did not happen overnight.
, Yeah, I mean, really, it's, , ithas been a bit of a meandering path.
(12:42):
I mean, I guess to sort of takeyou through it all, I'd have to
start off in, in college, right?
I mean, I, I went to college, Iwas in, I was in the UK, where we
have to specialize a lot earlier.
It's not like, you know, you pickyour major, you Apply to university
to do one thing, , and I applied touniversity to do to do natural sciences.
I thought I was going to be a scientist.
That's what I thought in college.
(13:03):
, and it became very clear to me when Igot to my, , to my college that I wasn't
going to be a scientist cause I didn'tactually find it that interesting anymore.
I don't know what it was, but the, Ithink the, the different things I was
getting into around that time justdidn't have the same magic for me
that it did when I was at high school.
So.
I figured that out quickly, , realizedthat wasn't what I wanted to do.
(13:23):
, and I actually spent a lot of mytime at college doing a lot of other
things, but not, you know, reallyfocusing too much on my, on my courses.
I did a ton of, of acting and,and drama and comedy and, you
know, all those kinds of things.
Yeah, it was, , that's really howI spent the majority of my, of
my, my years, which was great.
I had a really good time, but itreally meant that I left, I left,
(13:44):
, university four years later and Ihad no idea what I wanted to do.
, and I mean, to cut a long story short, Itook a, I took a, a sales role initially
for, for a year, just, I was told that,you know, whatever I'd be doing later
on, I'd need some kind of sales skills.
So I did that figured out very quicklythat I'm not a salesperson and I
didn't want to be doing that foreverbecause it really wasn't for me.
And I guess in that time.
(14:05):
I figured out what I, what I did thinkI could be good at and I landed upon
management consulting because it felt likeit was, , it needed a lot of skills that
I, that I felt I was naturally strong inlike, you know, communication, problem
solving, a lot of the data analyticsand so forth that would come in there.
Plus I, you know, I foundthat I kind of get it.
(14:26):
I got distracted.
Easily and I like lots of lots ofvariety and consulting, you'd be
doing lots of different projects.
So I thought I thought thatwas that was a good fit.
, I started applying.
I ended up getting, , , recommendedto a firm through a friend.
I got an all went very, very quickly.
And I got into that firm, whichis, , which is the associates, it's a
(14:47):
sales and marketing consulting firm.
And then I was on that path.
Really.
I did that for the four years, went tobusiness school, flirted with the idea
of moving away from consulting, butultimately decided that I wanted to stay.
And then I went back into consultingafter, after business school at, , at
what was called then 80, 80 Kearney whenI did more general strategy and ops.
(15:09):
Okay.
And, , this is actually where indirectlyI found, I found pricing, right?
Not at 80 Kearney, but when I wasat 80 Kearney, which back at that
time was very much a, , you know,it was kind of a mandatory four day
a week travel model at that time.
At that point, you could getaway from it, but not really.
, and that was fine until, , I had thecomplication that I had my, my first
(15:32):
kid in my, my second year at AT Kearney.
So my, me and my wife, we kind of wentfrom this existence where we both.
Worked really hard in the week andthen hung out at the weekends and that
was fine to a situation where I hada son at home and I didn't see him
except weekends for the first, I think,probably like six months of his life.
That was how it went.
, and that wasn't okay with me.
(15:53):
, I didn't, you know, I was I,I wanted to be with him and my
wife far more than I, than I was.
So I kind of realized I needed todo something different, but I didn't
know what to do because I really feltidentified as a consultant at that point.
And I didn't really fancy the idea ofgetting a, a normal, , nine to five
job or an operational role somewhere,but this is, this is what happened.
(16:15):
I ended up getting headhunted by thisinternal consulting firm for, for
a big company called Rolex group.
, and this consultingfirm focused on pricing.
And the idea was, you know, you'd, these,this team would go in and start working
with all the different businesses andthis, this pretty big, big company, this
whole group of companies as Rolex wasand help them transform their pricing
(16:36):
strategies when they, when they neededto, you know, this was right around 2012.
So there was a lot of movement fromthese kind of old perpetual type models
over to, to subscription and SAS models.
, I hadn't really done any pricingwork within my consulting at this.
At this point, but I decided toroll the dice and give it a go.
I felt like I'd be able to do this.
(16:57):
I'd be able to keep being a consultantand I'd be, I'd be back working in New
York, which was where I lived at the time.
So I'd be home more.
, so I took a, I took a shot on itand as it turned out, I just found
that I, I love the pricing content.
I just, I hadn't really found thatarea in consulting that really,
really resonated with me and got meexcited until that, until that point.
(17:17):
But, . But yeah, pricing turnedout to be way more strategic
than I was expecting it to be.
And there was a lot morescope for creativity than I
thought that there would be.
So I was, I was hooked.
, I stayed with that team for four years,ended up leading that, that team.
And by the end of that, , with theworld slightly different at that
point, I decided then that I wantedto go back into external consulting,
(17:38):
but just focus on, on pricing.
So that's what I did.
You know, I got, , acouple of different roles.
I built a pricing practiceat a small firm called SBI.
And then I went to McKinsey, , whereI was brought in to lead the pricing
practice for fuel, which was, is thepart of McKinsey that was set up to
work with startups and scale ups andother fast growing tech companies.
(18:00):
So it really felt like kind ofcoming home at that point because
I'd starting off in larger consultingfirms and then ended, ended back there.
And also I had the opportunity to go workwith these smaller, smaller companies,
which was the, the favorite part of my, ofmy previous couple of jobs that I found.
But, you know, doing so with all theresources of McKinsey behind you,
it kind of felt like a, a dream fit.
(18:22):
, And it was great.
You know, I, I really found that, . Ireally enjoyed the people I was working
with, and I felt that, , the work wedid when we did it was, we, you know, it
was really, really high, high quality.
It was a very natural fit withthe way that I, I just felt
that things should be done.
So I was pretty happy doing that.
I think the only thingthat, , that kind of made me.
A little less happy over time was,, the fact that it was McKinsey and
(18:45):
the fees that McKinsey carry, right?
I'm actually, I think, you know, abeliever in pricing to value and McKinsey
provides a lot of, a lot of value.
But the reality was, the companies thatwe were trying to work with, For the
fees that McKinsey was charging, justso many companies just was not viable.
Right.
It wasn't even a, itwasn't even a starter.
, so I was kind of, we, we did somegreat work, but for every company
(19:07):
that we were able to work with, therewere probably like two or three that
were, I was really excited aboutworking with, but we just, we just
couldn't make the arrangements work.
So I kind of had this epiphany.
About three years in that, you know,it would be a lot easier for me to
do the kind of work that I wantedto do with the kind of companies I
wanted to do if I was just able totake the McKinsey fees out of it.
And that that's really what led tofounding Monovate back in 2021, where
(19:31):
I said, I'm going to try to keep doingthe work at this at this level, keep
doing the same kind of work, but be moreflexible based on the sizes of companies
that we're working with and hopefullybe able to serve a lot more of these
companies that I that I want to work with.
And yeah, I guess the rest is history.
I mean, we've, we'vegrown relatively quickly.
We are a 12 full time consultants nowand, , hopefully growing up to, we, I
(19:53):
mean, we'd love to be considered kindof end state as being the go to, , for,
you know, for pricing strategy work for,for smaller, , growth stage companies.
I find it so ironic thatyou're at McKinsey doing.
Pricing strategy for clients, andit is exactly that reason that,
you know, some of those clients arenot so going back to the point of
(20:16):
the importance of this right there.
They weren't able to work with those,but it created this opportunity
for you, which is absolutely.
Was awesome.
I just have to say, , on a personallevel, I know that going back to
when you were doing your 4 day aweek travel schedule and all that.
I know that world.
My dad was in consulting, , forvibrant and and many others.
And and so I, I recall growing upsaying goodbye to him on a Sunday
(20:39):
night and hello on a Friday night.
And and so for you to make that decisionearly, we were a little older, but I, I.
I applaud you for that becausethat that's a road warrior.
That's tough.
It's tough on a family.
But for that season, it soundedlike you were able to be put.
You know, stay put where you were, butthen go with Rexel and then eventually
with McKinsey, which is amazing.
(20:59):
I, there's so much I want to talk toyou about and I want to be sensitive
to your time, but I do want to askabout, you know, in working with
you with this book, there's so muchI learned just not only just on the
pricing strategy, but that there are.
There are people out there thatneed this kind of support, right?
Outside of just directly working witha company and you founded something
(21:22):
called the cube, which is unity.
Do you mind talking a little bitabout that and what that's all about
and how people can get involved?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think the cube is, it'skind of born out of the same, kind of
born out of the same place as, , as,as capturing value, the book really,
in the sense that we just, we knowthat there are a lot of companies
out there who need help with pricing.
That our kind of traditionalconsulting model cannot help
(21:45):
just because of just because offees and resources and so forth.
Right.
So the idea was, you know, again, how canwe, how can we help, help those people?
We want to make sure that they getaccess to, to content and guidance,
which is, which is trustworthy and right.
And we'll help them know what they need toknow about, about, about, about pricing.
(22:06):
And it kind of, it came to us acouple of years into, into motivate
that this community offeringcould be a good way to do that.
Right.
Because I think throughdoing that, we can get.
A lot of these SAS leaders who are inthis quite difficult position, right?
Of like, I need to build apricing strategy, but I don't
know how to, how to do it.
You can get them together in this, inthis community so that they can have
(22:27):
almost a support group around that, right?
Speak to other companies whoare trying to do the same thing
and, and, and figure it out.
But also give them access to a lot ofour thinking around pricing strategy.
And we do that through a masterclassesthat we run every, every couple of weeks.
We'll take it.
We'll pick a different pricing topic andgo super deep and give guidance on how
(22:47):
to navigate that, that particular topic.
And we also put within our, within ourportal, we have a lot of tools that.
You know, that we use within our, withinour projects that other people can use,
, as well to help them make decisionsand do analyses and, and, and so forth.
And that's, we're buildingit out now as well.
We're increasingly, we're buildingup our, our benchmarks on a lot
(23:07):
of the metrics that, you know, SASleaders who are thinking about price,
, pricing strategy need, need to know.
So it's, , you know, it's set upto really be a great one stop shop
source of information for anybodywho's, who's in the SAS or any kind
of, , subscription business really,and who needs to know how to either
build or manage a pricing strategy.
(23:28):
Yeah, no, and I love that.
And community is so important to me, havethat support, people coming together.
And, , I, so I, I love the concept of it.
And then that way they canask questions if they have a
particular pricing challenge.
, what are some of the challengesyou hear most, would you say?
Like, what are some of thethings that companies or even
these individuals struggle withor the questions that they ask?
(23:50):
There are so many.
I mean, there's so muchvariety here, right?
Which I think is why it was one of thereasons why I like the area because it's,
, it, you know, you do, you do get differentchallenges the whole, the whole time.
, and some of the things I've,I've mentioned that, right?
Like it's.
You get, you get companiessaying, like, we need to, we
need to change our, our metric.
And sometimes that's the questionof what do we change the metric to?
(24:11):
And if we do change it, thenthat becomes the questions.
Well, how do we do that?
Right?
Like a lot of the time you've probablyseen, , there's a lot of noise.
Right now about people moving from userbased pricing to usage based pricing.
That's really, you know, a lot ofcompanies are going through that
transition now, which is often the rightanswer, not always, but by the way, but
often, often does make theoretical sense,but doing it is very difficult, right?
(24:35):
Because you, you know, youhave to, aside from the.
The new deal piece of it, which is,you know, getting your sales people
up and running to try to sell in thiscompletely different way and all the
telemetry that you need to be ableto build to track if you're going
to move your existing customers overto this new usage based pricing.
I mean, it's completely differentand they're all sort of anchored
and set on what they're kind ofpaying already if you run what
(24:57):
the new prices should be for them.
Some of them might stay roughly the same.
Some of them are probably gonnaget massive price in increases, and
actually some of them may end up withbetter pricing than, than before.
So it conjures up this whole set ofquestions about how do I have those
conversations with my, with my customers?
How do I move them over?
Should I grandfather people overfrom this old, old pricing to, you
(25:19):
know, rather than them, them movethem onto the new, the new pricing.
Especially if we're gonna, they'regonna end up paying, paying less.
There's just a lot of, a lot ofquestions that it gets, that get
thrown up for which it seems likethere's no obvious answer for it.
, and there often isn't, you know, a lot ofthese things, there's no kind of default,
this is always the right thing to do.
It's really, you have to thinkthrough what is the right decision
(25:41):
making framework to let, youknow, to help you decide what you
should do in your particular case.
So it's, you know, helpingthem walk, walk through all.
All of that.
Wow, so much.
But that's, that's the reason for thebook, for the community, for, for what
you do, , as your consulting firm.
If somebody wanted to learn more aboutyou, Monovate, and also the book,
where's the best place for them to go?
(26:02):
So the, , I think probably the bestplace to learn about Monovate would
be our website, which is, , monovate.
com.
, and learning about me, there issome, , there is some content about
me on, on, on our website, butthere's also my My LinkedIn profile,
which is, , LinkedIn slash James D.
Wilton.
Awesome.
Well, the book is awesome.
Definitely for those of you listening,go get the book, Capturing Value, , the
(26:25):
Definitive Guide to TransformingSaaS Pricing and Unshackling
Growth, which who doesn't want that?
So that's amazing.
James, thank you so muchfor being on the show.
I so appreciate it.
I've learned a lot.
I know the listeners haveas well, and I'm excited to.
See what your next bookis going to be, too.
Thank you, Michelle.
Well, great to chat.
Thanks for having me on the show.
(26:46):
Absolutely.
All right, everyone, that's it forthe Power of Authority Spotlight.
Definitely go to Monovate.
com.
Check out what they're doing interms of helping companies, helping
businesses to really get strategic withtheir pricing, which is, as we talked
about, So much more than price andcheck out James on LinkedIn as well.
And thanks again for listening.
We'll see you next time on thepower of authority spotlight.
(27:08):
Thanks
so much for listening to thepower of authority spotlight.
If you are a successful founder,entrepreneur, business owner, or
leader, that's getting resultsand making a difference, and you'd
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(27:31):
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Welcome to the Powerof Authority Spotlight.
I'm your host, Michelle Prince, founderand CEO of Performance Publishing Group,
making a difference one story at a time.
We'll be shining the light on successfulfounders, entrepreneurs, business
owners, and leaders that are gettingresults and making a difference.
We'll talk about how they builttheir businesses, are creating
(00:26):
movements, and leveraging the powerof authority in their own right.
Be sure to stick around toand we'll reveal how you
Hey, everybody, and welcome to thePower of Authority Spotlight, where
we shine the light on successfulCEOs, entrepreneurs, leaders and
(00:49):
founders that are doing great things.
They're making a difference in theirin their niche, in their category, and
they're out there sharing their story.
And I'm excited to introduce you.
To my guest today, who is James D.
Wilton, the world renowned expert inSAS pricing with more than 12 years
of experience helping startups andfast growing companies maximize their
value through strategic pricing asthe founder and managing partner
(01:11):
of Monovate, the premier pricingand monetization consulting firm
for SAS and tech companies, Jamescontinues to shape the industry's
approach to pricing, his expertise.
Was honed in leadership roles atMcKinsey Company, where he led the
pricing service line for Fuel, theirstartup and scale up practice, and
as head strategic pricing at Relix.
(01:32):
Driven by a mission to help innovativecompanies capture their true
worth, James regularly shares hisinsights with the startup community.
He's a frequent publisher of Montevideoinsights and the founder of the cube,
the first pricing focus community forSAS and tech leaders with his newest
book, capturing value, James distills,his vast experience of knowledge into
(01:53):
an essential guide for anyone looking tomaster the art and science of SAS pricing.
Welcome to the show, James.
Great to be here, Michelle.
Thanks for having me.
I am so excited to talk to you.
I mean, there's, there's a lot ofthings we're going to unpack today,
but I want to start with your book.
You just published, it's aboutto be launched, your latest and
(02:14):
newest book, Capturing Value,which is an incredible guide.
It's, , to transforming SaaS pricing,unlock and unshackling growth.
So I, I want to start there.
Tell us about the book andhow did the book come to be?
How did it?
Absolutely.
Well, I, I, you know, I'd love tosay it came about really quickly, but
this is something I've been workingon for the last three to four years.
(02:36):
So it's definitely taken, , taken a littlewhile to get it, , get it out there, but.
Really, I mean, this, this just camethrough my observations of working
with a lot of smaller companies who aregrowing and needed to optimize their,
their, their pricing strategies for thework that I did at McKinsey and also
at, at Monovate since, since then, I'vereally found that, , there are many
(02:57):
companies out there who don't know howto build an effective pricing strategy.
Pricing's incredibly niche, right?
It's not very common that people havepricing experts in their staff when
they're really starting off and gettinggoing with their, with their companies.
And there are some of those companieswhen they need to transform their,
their, their, their pricing strategies,they have budgets to be able to come
(03:19):
and spend on, on, on consultants.
And of course my company motivate, SAScompanies there, but I would say for
every, for every company that we endedup working with, there are, I still see
need help with their pricing strategy, butthey don't have budgets for consultants.
They just, you know, and they, and theyneed to do it on their own internally
(03:39):
and they don't have expertise.
And if you go online and youlook for guidance on how to do
price, , do pricing strategy.
Well, there's just a lotof information out there.
That's not particularly trustworthy.
It's probably not very clear.
And even when it's clear, itmay not be telling you to do
the right, the right things.
So really, you know, when we founded,when we founded Monovate all those years
ago, the mission really was to be able tohelp these growing companies make better
(04:04):
decisions around their pricing strategy.
So we just felt there's a lot of peoplewere not able to help here and the
book and a book could help to do that.
So that's really what I started, startedthinking about, like, how can we.
How can we create a guide that will helpsomebody who doesn't have experience
in pricing strategy, but knows SAS?
How can we give them what they need to beable to understand the decisions that they
(04:26):
need to make, the options that they have,and kind of work as a guide to take them
through the entire process and buildinga new pricing strategy that they can
be, , they can feel very confident about.
Absolutely.
And in fact, I mean, and it is a guide.
If there's so much in here andfor somebody, first of all, some
people might not even know theyneed this and it'd be even an issue.
(04:47):
Right?
So even first discovering what thatis and what pricing strategy is.
And and something I learned from youand through the book as well is that
it's pricing isn't just about price.
Is it?
No, no, it's not probably the biggestmisconception around pricing in total.
Michelle is like people tendto think it's all about.
Okay.
What's the price tag, right?
Like, what is this?
What is this worth?
(05:08):
That obviously is a part of it.
That is something thatyou do need to get to.
It is a very critical part, but honestly,pricing starts way earlier than that.
Really, I mean, to be able to builda pricing strategy effectively,
you need to be thinking about,about what your value is, right?
Where does the value of yourproduct Come, come from and
what are your customers need?
What do they want?
(05:29):
What will they react well to?
What are the, you know, whatare the, all the dynamics there?
What are their expectationsbased on what else they have?
They've seen out there.
And for your company, what'sthe objectives that you have?
You know, if you have, , the same company.
Trying to achieve two differentobjectives, the ideal pricing
strategy that's going to helpachieve those two things.
It's going to lookcompletely different, right?
(05:50):
So you need to be thinking aboutall these all these factors.
That's before you've even started to buildout any kind of pricing strategy at all.
Then when you get into thepricing strategy before
you get to the price level.
You have to think aboutthe structural elements.
So, you know, the packaging, you know,what are the different options that
you give your you give your customers?
What are the what'sthe price architecture?
(06:12):
You know, are you going to beable to scale your price to
different customers based ontheir on their willingness to pay?
And how do you do that?
And all of these decisions?
Are really going to impact how muchsomebody is going to pay for your product.
And anyway, those, thosestructural decisions can make
somebody more or less likely to,to pay up, to pay a price point.
So you get that stuff figured out first,and then you think about setting, setting
(06:34):
the price, , on, on, on top of that.
But yeah, I think it's, it's oneof those disciplines that is just
so much broader and multifacetedthan think people think it is.
And I think that's, you know, that'sone of the reasons why this, this
book has to exist to give, givethe guidance on all those different
things you need to think about.
Absolutely.
And why this is important to even havethis conversation, because if they
don't understand what all's involved,some people might think, Oh, I'm fine.
(06:56):
I know my pricing and you know,but there's so much more to it.
Like you already outlined.
I'm curious.
I know your expertise.
I mean, you're, you'rerenowned in this space.
This is definitely very focused on it.
But does this framework, the abilityto really look at all of the different
pieces of pricing strategy, you know,from the offering to the clients,
does that go across all industries?
(07:18):
Or could it?
It does.
It certainly could.
It certainly could.
I mean, I will, I will saythat this, this book has been
written specifically for SaaS.
It's really tailored to, to the SaaS worldand it's, it's written through that lens.
But I know I'm one of severalpricing, , experts out there who
think good pricing is good pricing.
(07:39):
Right.
And like the things that you need tothink about this, the components of it.
I'm going to be the sameacross any industry, right?
It's just that the way that you executeon those different components And
probably the amount of focus that youput in these different areas is going
to be slightly different So I think ifyou are somebody who's in a completely
different industry like retail for exampleThe book is not written explicitly for
(08:01):
you but there's going to be elements inthere that you'll still be able to to
grab onto and help you with your Withyour, with your pricing, maybe the next
box, the next book will be written ona, , a different, , industry segment.
Well, no, and I do believe you stay inthe lane that you're in, and this is where
you truly have so much value to bringand, you know, walk us through what the.
(08:22):
A little bit more of whatthat process looks like.
So as a consulting firm, thisis the type of thing that you're
doing for all over the world.
What?
Where do you start when you'reworking with these companies?
Like, let's say, because I could see thisas somebody who's just getting started.
They need to be implementingthis right away.
But I imagine you're workingwith a lot of companies that.
Aren't just getting started and they'regoing to have to stop and reevaluate
(08:45):
everything or is that an accurate?
Okay, no, it is.
I mean, I'd say like, see the vastmajority of the work that we do at a
motivate is about transforming pricingstrategies, which have already that
are already built and operationaland being being used for businesses.
We actually find a lot of the timeright when when companies get get going.
They tend to not think too deeplyabout their first pricing strategy
(09:08):
for like a number of reasons, right?
Partly that's because as I said,they often don't have people who know
pricing, who are going to guide them onhow to think about that, but also for
anybody who's founded a company, right?
It's a scramble of activity.
You have to do so many things.
, probably thinking about your pricingstrategy is something that happens.
Oh, we're launching next week.
We really need to think abouthow we're going to price this.
So.
(09:29):
It ends up that it's often not thoughtthrough particularly deeply and they'll
just, they'll do what we call founderbased pricing, which is, you know, kind
of think about what it, what it could be.
And they, and they put something downand that's, you know, are there, is
there room for improvement there?
Absolutely.
But, you know, that's, that's the reality.
Oftentimes, if you've got asuccessful business, yeah.
(09:50):
They will start growing and doing wellregardless of whether their initial
pricing strategy is, is perfect or not.
But they'll grow and they'll get to apoint when suddenly the pricing strategy
they have does matter now, right?
Because there'll be decisions thatthey made which are, even if it's
not stopping them from growing,it's probably preventing them from
reaching their full potential, right?
(10:11):
It might be, you know, the simplestone, you called it out earlier,
Michelle, is, you know, just literally,We think our prices are too low.
We are, we feel that we are providingmore value than we are capturing
through our, through our pricing.
And we can, we think we can raisethe price level, but it also
sometimes, , you know, the, the metricthat we're using to price just isn't
resonating with, with, with customers.
(10:31):
I'd say probably the most commonone in today's world is we
set our price based on users.
Because everybody does, right?
But users isn't really aligned to value.
Maybe people aren't buying as many usersas we thought that they, that they would.
They don't need to expandthe number of users.
So it's not giving them any, any growth.
We think there are lots of other thingsthat might be better aligned to value
(10:54):
that if we were pricing based on those,not only would we be able to set better
prices, but we'd also be able to growthose prices over time with customers.
So, you know, how do we think about that?
Sometimes it's that the, thepackaging is wrong, right?
The packaging could be too, too complex.
It could be that we've given them toomany choices and they, and they don't
make sense and it's slowing down our,our sales, or it could be that when
(11:18):
we launched our product, we had reallyjust a very small set of offerings.
So we just said, here's ourproduct, take it or leave it.
And now we have all these different.
Things and we, it doesn't necessarilymake sense to give everything to everyone.
It might be better for us to give somekind of a choice there so that we can
a make sure customers can buy what theywant, but also it's another way for
(11:39):
us to price differentiate across ourcustomers and capture more, more value.
So there's all these things that mightbe, you know, potentially suboptimal.
And there's also the fact thatreally, as I said earlier, your
pricing strategy should be basedaround your objectives, right?
It should be based aroundwhat you're trying to achieve.
Companies objectives change as they,as they grow, so Even if you set your
(12:01):
pricing strategy perfectly from day one,which doesn't happen very often, but
you know, for argument's sake Let's saythat it did, if you're two, three years
later at that point It's probably notthe right, the right pricing strategy
now because your objectives havechanged, your market's changed, your
product's changed, everything's changedand you need a, you need a refresh.
For sure.
Okay.
(12:22):
So I have to ask, cause I'm so curious.
I know you didn't just wake up one dayor as a little boy saying, I want to
be, , in the, the SaaS pricey world.
So how did you get here?
How, what will tell usmore about your background?
It was a long, long and windingroad to get where I am, Michelle.
Did not happen overnight.
, Yeah, I mean, really, it's, , ithas been a bit of a meandering path.
(12:42):
I mean, I guess to sort of takeyou through it all, I'd have to
start off in, in college, right?
I mean, I, I went to college, Iwas in, I was in the UK, where we
have to specialize a lot earlier.
It's not like, you know, you pickyour major, you Apply to university
to do one thing, , and I applied touniversity to do to do natural sciences.
I thought I was going to be a scientist.
That's what I thought in college.
(13:03):
, and it became very clear to me when Igot to my, , to my college that I wasn't
going to be a scientist cause I didn'tactually find it that interesting anymore.
I don't know what it was, but the, Ithink the, the different things I was
getting into around that time justdidn't have the same magic for me
that it did when I was at high school.
So.
I figured that out quickly, , realizedthat wasn't what I wanted to do.
(13:23):
, and I actually spent a lot of mytime at college doing a lot of other
things, but not, you know, reallyfocusing too much on my, on my courses.
I did a ton of, of acting and,and drama and comedy and, you
know, all those kinds of things.
Yeah, it was, , that's really howI spent the majority of my, of
my, my years, which was great.
I had a really good time, but itreally meant that I left, I left,
(13:44):
, university four years later and Ihad no idea what I wanted to do.
, and I mean, to cut a long story short, Itook a, I took a, a sales role initially
for, for a year, just, I was told that,you know, whatever I'd be doing later
on, I'd need some kind of sales skills.
So I did that figured out very quicklythat I'm not a salesperson and I
didn't want to be doing that foreverbecause it really wasn't for me.
And I guess in that time.
(14:05):
I figured out what I, what I did thinkI could be good at and I landed upon
management consulting because it felt likeit was, , it needed a lot of skills that
I, that I felt I was naturally strong inlike, you know, communication, problem
solving, a lot of the data analyticsand so forth that would come in there.
Plus I, you know, I foundthat I kind of get it.
(14:26):
I got distracted.
Easily and I like lots of lots ofvariety and consulting, you'd be
doing lots of different projects.
So I thought I thought thatwas that was a good fit.
, I started applying.
I ended up getting, , , recommendedto a firm through a friend.
I got an all went very, very quickly.
And I got into that firm, whichis, , which is the associates, it's a
(14:47):
sales and marketing consulting firm.
And then I was on that path.
Really.
I did that for the four years, went tobusiness school, flirted with the idea
of moving away from consulting, butultimately decided that I wanted to stay.
And then I went back into consultingafter, after business school at, , at
what was called then 80, 80 Kearney whenI did more general strategy and ops.
(15:09):
Okay.
And, , this is actually where indirectlyI found, I found pricing, right?
Not at 80 Kearney, but when I wasat 80 Kearney, which back at that
time was very much a, , you know,it was kind of a mandatory four day
a week travel model at that time.
At that point, you could getaway from it, but not really.
, and that was fine until, , I had thecomplication that I had my, my first
(15:32):
kid in my, my second year at AT Kearney.
So my, me and my wife, we kind of wentfrom this existence where we both.
Worked really hard in the week andthen hung out at the weekends and that
was fine to a situation where I hada son at home and I didn't see him
except weekends for the first, I think,probably like six months of his life.
That was how it went.
, and that wasn't okay with me.
(15:53):
, I didn't, you know, I was I,I wanted to be with him and my
wife far more than I, than I was.
So I kind of realized I needed todo something different, but I didn't
know what to do because I really feltidentified as a consultant at that point.
And I didn't really fancy the idea ofgetting a, a normal, , nine to five
job or an operational role somewhere,but this is, this is what happened.
(16:15):
I ended up getting headhunted by thisinternal consulting firm for, for
a big company called Rolex group.
, and this consultingfirm focused on pricing.
And the idea was, you know, you'd, these,this team would go in and start working
with all the different businesses andthis, this pretty big, big company, this
whole group of companies as Rolex wasand help them transform their pricing
(16:36):
strategies when they, when they neededto, you know, this was right around 2012.
So there was a lot of movement fromthese kind of old perpetual type models
over to, to subscription and SAS models.
, I hadn't really done any pricingwork within my consulting at this.
At this point, but I decided toroll the dice and give it a go.
I felt like I'd be able to do this.
(16:57):
I'd be able to keep being a consultantand I'd be, I'd be back working in New
York, which was where I lived at the time.
So I'd be home more.
, so I took a, I took a shot on itand as it turned out, I just found
that I, I love the pricing content.
I just, I hadn't really found thatarea in consulting that really,
really resonated with me and got meexcited until that, until that point.
(17:17):
But, . But yeah, pricing turnedout to be way more strategic
than I was expecting it to be.
And there was a lot morescope for creativity than I
thought that there would be.
So I was, I was hooked.
, I stayed with that team for four years,ended up leading that, that team.
And by the end of that, , with theworld slightly different at that
point, I decided then that I wantedto go back into external consulting,
(17:38):
but just focus on, on pricing.
So that's what I did.
You know, I got, , acouple of different roles.
I built a pricing practiceat a small firm called SBI.
And then I went to McKinsey, , whereI was brought in to lead the pricing
practice for fuel, which was, is thepart of McKinsey that was set up to
work with startups and scale ups andother fast growing tech companies.
(18:00):
So it really felt like kind ofcoming home at that point because
I'd starting off in larger consultingfirms and then ended, ended back there.
And also I had the opportunity to go workwith these smaller, smaller companies,
which was the, the favorite part of my, ofmy previous couple of jobs that I found.
But, you know, doing so with all theresources of McKinsey behind you,
it kind of felt like a, a dream fit.
(18:22):
, And it was great.
You know, I, I really found that, . Ireally enjoyed the people I was working
with, and I felt that, , the work wedid when we did it was, we, you know, it
was really, really high, high quality.
It was a very natural fit withthe way that I, I just felt
that things should be done.
So I was pretty happy doing that.
I think the only thingthat, , that kind of made me.
A little less happy over time was,, the fact that it was McKinsey and
(18:45):
the fees that McKinsey carry, right?
I'm actually, I think, you know, abeliever in pricing to value and McKinsey
provides a lot of, a lot of value.
But the reality was, the companies thatwe were trying to work with, For the
fees that McKinsey was charging, justso many companies just was not viable.
Right.
It wasn't even a, itwasn't even a starter.
, so I was kind of, we, we did somegreat work, but for every company
(19:07):
that we were able to work with, therewere probably like two or three that
were, I was really excited aboutworking with, but we just, we just
couldn't make the arrangements work.
So I kind of had this epiphany.
About three years in that, you know,it would be a lot easier for me to
do the kind of work that I wantedto do with the kind of companies I
wanted to do if I was just able totake the McKinsey fees out of it.
And that that's really what led tofounding Monovate back in 2021, where
(19:31):
I said, I'm going to try to keep doingthe work at this at this level, keep
doing the same kind of work, but be moreflexible based on the sizes of companies
that we're working with and hopefullybe able to serve a lot more of these
companies that I that I want to work with.
And yeah, I guess the rest is history.
I mean, we've, we'vegrown relatively quickly.
We are a 12 full time consultants nowand, , hopefully growing up to, we, I
(19:53):
mean, we'd love to be considered kindof end state as being the go to, , for,
you know, for pricing strategy work for,for smaller, , growth stage companies.
I find it so ironic thatyou're at McKinsey doing.
Pricing strategy for clients, andit is exactly that reason that,
you know, some of those clients arenot so going back to the point of
(20:16):
the importance of this right there.
They weren't able to work with those,but it created this opportunity
for you, which is absolutely.
Was awesome.
I just have to say, , on a personallevel, I know that going back to
when you were doing your 4 day aweek travel schedule and all that.
I know that world.
My dad was in consulting, , forvibrant and and many others.
And and so I, I recall growing upsaying goodbye to him on a Sunday
(20:39):
night and hello on a Friday night.
And and so for you to make that decisionearly, we were a little older, but I, I.
I applaud you for that becausethat that's a road warrior.
That's tough.
It's tough on a family.
But for that season, it soundedlike you were able to be put.
You know, stay put where you were, butthen go with Rexel and then eventually
with McKinsey, which is amazing.
(20:59):
I, there's so much I want to talk toyou about and I want to be sensitive
to your time, but I do want to askabout, you know, in working with
you with this book, there's so muchI learned just not only just on the
pricing strategy, but that there are.
There are people out there thatneed this kind of support, right?
Outside of just directly working witha company and you founded something
(21:22):
called the cube, which is unity.
Do you mind talking a little bitabout that and what that's all about
and how people can get involved?
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I think the cube is, it'skind of born out of the same, kind of
born out of the same place as, , as,as capturing value, the book really,
in the sense that we just, we knowthat there are a lot of companies
out there who need help with pricing.
That our kind of traditionalconsulting model cannot help
(21:45):
just because of just because offees and resources and so forth.
Right.
So the idea was, you know, again, how canwe, how can we help, help those people?
We want to make sure that they getaccess to, to content and guidance,
which is, which is trustworthy and right.
And we'll help them know what they need toknow about, about, about, about pricing.
(22:06):
And it kind of, it came to us acouple of years into, into motivate
that this community offeringcould be a good way to do that.
Right.
Because I think throughdoing that, we can get.
A lot of these SAS leaders who are inthis quite difficult position, right?
Of like, I need to build apricing strategy, but I don't
know how to, how to do it.
You can get them together in this, inthis community so that they can have
(22:27):
almost a support group around that, right?
Speak to other companies whoare trying to do the same thing
and, and, and figure it out.
But also give them access to a lot ofour thinking around pricing strategy.
And we do that through a masterclassesthat we run every, every couple of weeks.
We'll take it.
We'll pick a different pricing topic andgo super deep and give guidance on how
(22:47):
to navigate that, that particular topic.
And we also put within our, within ourportal, we have a lot of tools that.
You know, that we use within our, withinour projects that other people can use,
, as well to help them make decisionsand do analyses and, and, and so forth.
And that's, we're buildingit out now as well.
We're increasingly, we're buildingup our, our benchmarks on a lot
(23:07):
of the metrics that, you know, SASleaders who are thinking about price,
, pricing strategy need, need to know.
So it's, , you know, it's set upto really be a great one stop shop
source of information for anybodywho's, who's in the SAS or any kind
of, , subscription business really,and who needs to know how to either
build or manage a pricing strategy.
(23:28):
Yeah, no, and I love that.
And community is so important to me, havethat support, people coming together.
And, , I, so I, I love the concept of it.
And then that way they canask questions if they have a
particular pricing challenge.
, what are some of the challengesyou hear most, would you say?
Like, what are some of thethings that companies or even
these individuals struggle withor the questions that they ask?
(23:50):
There are so many.
I mean, there's so muchvariety here, right?
Which I think is why it was one of thereasons why I like the area because it's,
, it, you know, you do, you do get differentchallenges the whole, the whole time.
, and some of the things I've,I've mentioned that, right?
Like it's.
You get, you get companiessaying, like, we need to, we
need to change our, our metric.
And sometimes that's the questionof what do we change the metric to?
(24:11):
And if we do change it, thenthat becomes the questions.
Well, how do we do that?
Right?
Like a lot of the time you've probablyseen, , there's a lot of noise.
Right now about people moving from userbased pricing to usage based pricing.
That's really, you know, a lot ofcompanies are going through that
transition now, which is often the rightanswer, not always, but by the way, but
often, often does make theoretical sense,but doing it is very difficult, right?
(24:35):
Because you, you know, youhave to, aside from the.
The new deal piece of it, which is,you know, getting your sales people
up and running to try to sell in thiscompletely different way and all the
telemetry that you need to be ableto build to track if you're going
to move your existing customers overto this new usage based pricing.
I mean, it's completely differentand they're all sort of anchored
and set on what they're kind ofpaying already if you run what
(24:57):
the new prices should be for them.
Some of them might stay roughly the same.
Some of them are probably gonnaget massive price in increases, and
actually some of them may end up withbetter pricing than, than before.
So it conjures up this whole set ofquestions about how do I have those
conversations with my, with my customers?
How do I move them over?
Should I grandfather people overfrom this old, old pricing to, you
(25:19):
know, rather than them, them movethem onto the new, the new pricing.
Especially if we're gonna, they'regonna end up paying, paying less.
There's just a lot of, a lot ofquestions that it gets, that get
thrown up for which it seems likethere's no obvious answer for it.
, and there often isn't, you know, a lot ofthese things, there's no kind of default,
this is always the right thing to do.
It's really, you have to thinkthrough what is the right decision
(25:41):
making framework to let, youknow, to help you decide what you
should do in your particular case.
So it's, you know, helpingthem walk, walk through all.
All of that.
Wow, so much.
But that's, that's the reason for thebook, for the community, for, for what
you do, , as your consulting firm.
If somebody wanted to learn more aboutyou, Monovate, and also the book,
where's the best place for them to go?
(26:02):
So the, , I think probably the bestplace to learn about Monovate would
be our website, which is, , monovate.
com.
, and learning about me, there issome, , there is some content about
me on, on, on our website, butthere's also my My LinkedIn profile,
which is, , LinkedIn slash James D.
Wilton.
Awesome.
Well, the book is awesome.
Definitely for those of you listening,go get the book, Capturing Value, , the
(26:25):
Definitive Guide to TransformingSaaS Pricing and Unshackling
Growth, which who doesn't want that?
So that's amazing.
James, thank you so muchfor being on the show.
I so appreciate it.
I've learned a lot.
I know the listeners haveas well, and I'm excited to.
See what your next bookis going to be, too.
Thank you, Michelle.
Well, great to chat.
Thanks for having me on the show.
(26:46):
Absolutely.
All right, everyone, that's it forthe Power of Authority Spotlight.
Definitely go to Monovate.
com.
Check out what they're doing interms of helping companies, helping
businesses to really get strategic withtheir pricing, which is, as we talked
about, So much more than price andcheck out James on LinkedIn as well.
And thanks again for listening.
We'll see you next time on thepower of authority spotlight.
(27:08):
Thanks
so much for listening to thepower of authority spotlight.
If you are a successful founder,entrepreneur, business owner, or
leader, that's getting resultsand making a difference, and you'd
like to be on this program, pleasevisit performancepublishinggroup.
(27:31):
com forward slash podcast to applythat's performancepublishinggroup.
com forward slash.
podcast.
Also, if you got something out of thisinterview, please share this episode.
Just do a quick screenshot withyour phone and text it to a
friend or post it on the socials.
If you know someone that would be a greatguest, tag them on social media to let
(27:52):
them know about the show and include thehashtag the power of authority spotlight.
I love seeing your postsand guest suggestions.
We are regularly putting outnew episodes and content.
So make sure you don't miss anyepisodes by subscribing your thumbs up.
Ratings and reviews go a longway to help promote the show and
mean a lot to me and my team.
(28:14):
Want to know more?
Go to our websites,performancepublishinggroup.
com or michelleprince.
com and follow me on LinkedIn,Facebook, and Instagram.
Thanks so much for listeningand we'll see you next time.
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