Happy New Year to all.

I trust everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable holiday period. I certainly did, and took the opportunity to catch-up on some podcasts I had missed towards to the end of 2019. One of those was Episode 47 of Mark Stiving’s weekly Impact Pricing.

In this episode Mark has a free-ranging talk with Kevin Christian on all things pricing related under the appropriately named ‘Two Pricing Experts Talk Pricing‘ (published 9 December 2019) and, while the whole podcast is great, things get particularly interesting  around the 19 minute mark when Kevin asks Mark:

“If a bear gets in a fight with an alligator, who wins?”

Now I can hear you saying: “What has this got to do with law firm business development and pricing issues?”, but – pun intended – ‘bear’ with me.

Because, as is music to the ears of every lawyer, Kevin explains,

‘it depends’ –

on where the fight is taking place.

If the fight is taking place on land then the bear is more likely to win; but if the fight is taking place in water then the alligator is more likely to win.

Que?

Here goes – bears and alligators are analogies to the ‘value’ discussion such that, as Kevin states, if you are:

• Talking about the ‘Value of your Solution’: then you are in the seller/vendor territory and the seller/vendor is going to be leading and benefiting from the conversation;

whereas:

• If you are only talking about the ‘Price of your Solution‘, without talking about the value, then you are in the buyer’s territory.

Takeout – what does this mean?

In a world when we deal with procurement and other agents who are not looking at the value of the service we provide, but are constantly looking at the cost of that service; then, as law firms, it becomes imperative that we explain the value being provided and have ourselves a land battle with the alligators.

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