357. Quality vs Value: Creating a Clear and Impactful Brand Identity

Welcome to episode 357 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. Today's episode is about one of the most critical decisions every business needs to make. What type of company you are. Ready? Let's get started.

You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer hello Hello everyone.

My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Happy Book launch week. My third book, the Truth About Pricing how to Apply Behavioral Economics so Customers Buy just launched this Tuesday, January 9th and I'm so excited to have it in the world. Thank you to everyone who has been supporting that book launch with pre orders and early reviews and those amazing five star ratings on Amazon and Goodreads and for sharing on social media. It all means so much to me and is incredibly helpful. So thank you. Whenever you're listening to this, whether it's right when it comes out or even years later, those things are still appreciated. And if you know of somewhere where I should do an interview or present to a group, or if you want to share about the book on social media or want to leave a rating or review, it's also valuable. Always and much appreciated by me. Feel free to send me an email if you wanted to talk to me about being able to speak somewhere or do an interview or something. Melinathebrainybusiness.com There are links to get your copy of the Truth About Pricing in the show notes for the episode and you'll also find the hashtags we're using for the book. The first is Truth About Pricing, which you can use for insights and success stories. You you can also tag me, I'm hebrainy biz pretty much everywhere and Melina Palmer on LinkedIn. You can also use the hashtag Pricing questions for exactly that. Any questions you have about pricing and to see the questions others are asking and my answers to them to follow and learn along with readers around the world. Just use that hashtag Pricing questions. Those show notes are found within the app you're listening to and@the brainybusiness.com 357 now let's talk a little about the focus for today's episode, which is one of the most important decisions your business needs to make. Just in general, but especially especially especially when it comes to pricing. And because this is something I introduced formally in the Truth About Pricing for the first time. It felt like the perfect time to do an episode. It because it has become so foundational to the pricing work I do with clients when they are working on their pricing strategy. Whether you're selling grilled cheese sandwiches or consulting packages, the first and most important decision any company needs to make is what type of business they are. Grilled cheese sandwiches isn't a totally random example, by the way. I have a whole section in the book on grilled cheese sandwiches to make the point that you can sell anything for any price you you want. It's honestly one of my favorite sections and most important points in the whole book, and one that has been a common area of interest while I've been doing pre launch interviews. It's been a lot of fun to talk about it, so you'll want to keep an eye out for that Now. When I say you need to decide what type of business you are, I don't mean virtual or in person, product or service or anything like that. In this case, I'm talking about deciding the essence of what your brand stands for. And while there are many, many terms and models which could work and be used here, I found that in general this can be boiled down to two main paths, Quality or value. There can be all sorts of business strategies, price points and areas of focus within each of these two categories, and the way you execute each is vastly different when we get into the process of applying behavioral economics to your pricing and brand strategy, which is why I chose these two options. Both quality and value are positive terms as they both represent viable strategies. However, attempting to combine these two can lead to complications. So even if it is tempting to try and use both, I know it will be. It's important. It's imperative that you pick one. This is where most businesses go wrong and what causes their pricing strategy to fail. I will give you an example of one of my clients who faced this head on before we close out the episode to help show you just how much this can show up and cause problems in a business. To help you choose which approach is right for you, let's define what makes each business type quality. Businesses often set higher prices than their competition, which can be due to a variety of factors. If you sell products, they may be made with higher quality materials or be sustainably sourced. If you're selling services, your team may have expertise or special certifications that others don't, making you worth the additional investment. You might invest in innovative methods or extensive research and development that helps you and your customers to stand out. Luxury brands also fall into this category. So if you want to cater to celebrities or have an air of sophistication, you're a quality business as well. While the quantity you sell isn't limited per se, quality brands typically focus on making a higher margin on fewer sales. Quality brands still can talk about how they're valuable as well as how they can add value to their clients and customers. So don't be swayed by the title of value in the other path or feel like that's off limits to you and the reverse is also true. But I'll talk about that when I get to the value section in a bit. While quality companies might have a sale or put things on discount, it's not part of their overall strategy and should be used sparingly with a lot of thoughtfulness. It's like Louis Vuitton, which will never go on sale and for good reason. They're protecting their brand's quality and that entire vibe which has to come first. It's central to everything. When choosing a number for your pricing, click Quality businesses should typically use whole numbers and not round down, e.g. 599 or 497. Those rounded down prices are about a deal, a bargain, and are more for the value brands. They can be confusing when associated with a brand that says it's about quality and create unnecessary cognitive load for the consumer, making it harder for them to buy from you. There are many examples of quality brands out there. Some of those include Maserati, Chanel, Hermes, Starbucks, Apple, Patagonia, Ritz, Carlton, McKinsey Company, Deloitte, Ruth's, Chris Steakhouse, Supreme, Five Guys, Nordstrom, Verizon and Whole Foods. Now you may be thinking five guys. They're a fast food restaurant. And yes, while they're not as expensive or glitzy as Ruth's Chris or Gordon Ramsay's Burger restaurant, they're still much more expensive and with higher quality ingredients than a lot of fast food options. They are quality for their category and their space and the market. They're focusing on fast casual eating and not necessarily a luxury brand or something that's only the most expensive once a year anniversary type dinner or anything like that. Keep that in mind as you consider your brand and what you strive to be. The context of who you're speaking to, their mindset and your competitors in the space you're looking at all matter here. Now before you decide that quality is for you or not, let's talk about the other side, A Value Business. Value businesses are typically less expensive than their competition. They're a bargain, a deal, a great value for the money they invest in efficiencies that can be passed along to their customers, members and clients. While they don't have to sell only on quantity, they're more likely to have smaller margins and sell by volume. Value brands can still sell quality items, so they don't have to be cheap or low quality, but it isn't only about that. Their quality items may be surprisingly affordable, and the decisions the brand makes behind the scenes are about getting better deals for the customer. Value brands run a lot of sales discounts and promotions, and these are a big part of their strategy. They reflect bargain pricing with numbers that are rounded down like 499 or 497 instead of 500. Some value brand examples include Walmart, Costco, Dollar Shave Club, 7 11AMPM, Redfin, Best Buy, Samsung, Mint Mobile, Spirit Airlines, Ryanair, Southwest, old Navy, Macy's, McDonald's, LegalShield, and Home Depot. Both models have merit. Both types of companies are seen across the Fortune 500 and the only way to be successful in either is is to pick your path. Where companies go wrong is when they want to be high quality and also run tons of sales and discount promotions, or if they say they're all about value but are consistently more expensive than their competition. This type of mixed messaging is confusing for your buyer, which increases their cognitive load and makes it more difficult for them to purchase from you. When the experience is cohesive and lines up from your first impression onward, everything becomes easier. For this reason, you have to choose a path and hold true to it throughout the entire organization. In Part two of the Truth About Pricing, there's a chapter on the customer and asking questions to determine what they value and where you align. We also dig in on this for your company in a separate chapter. Throughout that process, I recommend some seemingly strange questions that may make you say what? That's weird. I don't want to say that. These are questions like if the company were a Starbucks drink, what would they be and why? It may seem like this question doesn't matter and is just fluff, but it can be so, so critical when diagnosing if there's a misalignment with your quality and value perception in the mind of your customer. Let me show you what I mean. Once, while doing this type of research for a client, one of the questions we asked staff and their customers was if the company was a car, what type of car would they be and why? One of the company's owners said a Porsche Cayenne because we're high end and built for performance. Yet customers time and again consistently describe the company as a beat up old truck that because you can depend on them Traditional questions like are you satisfied with our services? And do you enjoy working with us? Might not have gotten to this more profound insight, but such a disconnect is significant when positioning your brand, products, services and price. My client's task was to decide if they wanted to reframe their opinions about who they were to match how their customers saw them, or if they needed to reposition their messaging and pricing so customers saw them how they wanted to be seen. In other words, making their company type super clear so it aligned with the ideal customer. The situation they found themselves in was an issue of saying and believing they were quality while putting out lots of conflicting value vibes. Relating to something that seems random like the make and model of a car can unlock the brain in a way more obvious and direct questions don't like would you recommend us to a friend? It just doesn't get to the same point. That is really important to understand here. And this may seem small, but it's so critical in making it easy for people to buy from you, or making everything feel a little off and confusing in a way that they likely can't articulate to you. When things are aligned, everything just clicks. The price almost becomes a non issue at that point. When it's not, things are just off. The customer can't necessarily, like I said, tell you what's wrong. They won't say I found a misalignment with your messaging feeling more like a quality brand and your actions being more reflective of a value brand. And I'm trying to decide how that aligns with my intentions. Of course not. They might just say let me think about it or I'll get back to you in a few weeks when I have some more time to get into the details. Or can you send me some more information on the process? Yes, some sales cycles require thoughts and conversations. That's totally fine, but there's a point where it's too much over analysis ending up with a competitor when you were clearly the better fit for them as far as you believe anyway, or people asking for deep discounts. Choosing your business type is fundamental to all subsequent decisions and strategies and this is why I wanted to dedicate a full episode to it and why, as you'll see, it comes up really early and often in the truth about pricing. This is a keystone decision, something so important and that can impact everything else you want to be able to come back and say is this what a quality business would do? Or does this investment align with our choice to be a value business? Put it up on the wall if you need to be sure that everyone knows and can consistently constantly revisit what type of business you are and like it or not, believe it or not, it's going to be hard to stick to this along the way. As with so many aspects of your business and pricing strategy, the business biggest hurdle to holding the line on your business type and making decisions that are consistent with your chosen direction is the people in the organization. We are a herding species and FOMO is real. As you look around and see other companies running sales or big discounts, you may feel pressure to do the same. If you're a quality brand, constantly running sales and discount promotions can be a damaging strategy. It can dilute your brand's perceived value and create an expectation of regular discounts which might harm your profit margins in the long run. If you are a value brand with some money to invest back in the organization and decide to make a flashy new logo or website with unnecessary bells and whistles because the brand you're competing with has one that could come back to bite you. Getting everyone on board with the business type while you're in a cold state and agreeing to hold each other accountable when the allure of another strategy looms large and you're in a hot state, it will happen, trust me. And this is critical to your overall success. So thinking about it now in the cold state, having a plan so you know what to do when that hot state moment comes and I have an episode on that, I'll link for it in the show. Notes As I said earlier, both strategies are great. Both can be amazing and make lots of money for companies and give them raving fans and customers. As long as you pick one and stick with it. It also applies to all types, whether you're in person or virtual. Whether you're sell selling products or services, you have great examples of both quality and value on each of those sides and dynamics there. So take some time now to consider and choose which approach is right for your brand, quality or value. Now if you are really stuck here and feel like you can't decide, perhaps your brain is saying things like well, I get why that makes sense for other companies, but we're different because or what about the existing customers who've gotten accustomed to deals? We can't lose them by switching to value, so we can try a bit of both. Surely more potential customers can't be worse, right? No, it can hurt, it can be worse, and you need to pick a path to be as successful as possible. That being said, I know you might not be ready to commit right now, and that's okay. In that case, I suggest you try one on for size for a while, as if you were going to pick it to see how it feels over time. Take some time to imagine your business five or ten years from now. What does it look like? How much does everyone work? How do people buy from you? Do you have millions of customers or a few really invested ones? Based on your answers, choose the business type, value or quality that's better, best aligned with that vision of where you want to go. As you continue on your strategy work and evaluating your overall business, including as you read through your copy of the Truth About Pricing and complete the tasks and prompts throughout its pages, start with whatever this is as your default approach and also take a few extra moments on each task to consider what it might look like if you were the other type of business so you can see how each resonates. Sure, it may take a little longer up front, but it's so important and worth investing in making this decision correctly. Pick a reasonable time frame in which you'll make enough decisions to have done your due diligence and then know that after that time, maybe it's 30 days of trying it on that you're going to finalize your path. Commit to a time now up front so you don't just live in this limbo land forever. That is what your brain wants and it will keep you stuck in a less favorable state. So pick a date. Put that line in the sand. Know when you're going to make your choice. Before we close out the episode, I want to share two quick case studies, one Quality brand and one Value brand, to help you solidify your choice and see how each approach can be incredibly successful. First, let's talk quality with Supreme. If you've never heard of the streetwear brand supreme, get ready to question everything you thought you knew about about business pricing and brand strategy. They have a fascinating model which revolves around extreme scarcity most weeks, typically on Monday, they announce what is being dropped that week. At 11 o' clock New York time on Thursday, the drop happens and once everything sells out a few minutes later, you'll never see them again. Well, you'll never see them at retail again, which already has a huge markup on what the same or very similar items would go for without the supreme logo. One of the countless examples is the Pyrex 2 cup measuring cup. A regular one of these can be purchased for less than $5. Those with a Supreme logo retailed for $24 when they dropped in 2019. That in itself is amazing when you think about it. The logo is the same red as the print on the cup, so it's pretty hard to see. If you weren't looking for it, you might miss it. Yet people happily paid five times as much for the same readily available measuring cups with no functional difference. Supreme has partnered with all sorts of brands over the years, including Louis Vuitton, the North Face, Fender, Nike, Doc Martin, Everlast, Hanes, Lacoste, Burberry, Levi's, the New York Metro, Spalding, Timberland vans, Honda, even Oreo, nearly anything you can think of. And many things you never would like. Crowbars, toothpicks, fire extinguishers, dominoes, dog bowls, and even a brick with the supreme logo on it that retailed for $30. All sold out. Extreme scarcity and high demand mean a massive resale market for anything with the supreme logo. Those Pyrex measuring cups at the time I wrote this into the book in 2023, one was listed online for $137 and another for 250. The clay bricks. Those sold for as much as $1,000 on the open market. Yes, for a clay brick, Supreme's most expensive resold item so far was a Louis Vuitton trunk, which went for $125,000 at a Christie's auction. Your lesson? You don't have to follow the herd and do what everyone else is doing. What? Or follow the standard industry advice for anything in the Truth about pricing, I have sections on what model your company is as well. Whether you sell at the time someone needs an item, or go with a membership or subscription model, or anything else, you'll likely feel like you have to do all sorts of things in business, but don't let that hinder you or hold you back. Whether it's because everyone else does it that way, or you've always done it that way, or people are telling you they wouldn't do it this way, or whatever else. I'm not saying that the standard is always wrong and that you should always do something different. Definitely not. However, you shouldn't only do something because it feels like you have to question, consider, reflect, ask what if? And really walk through how it could be if things were different. If everyone in your industry does more standard selling, a subscription model could be just what a particular group of customers has been dreaming of. Just look at Netflix if you want inspiration on that, someone has to be the first one to be different and it could be you. Remember, just because everyone does it one way doesn't mean it's the best way, the right way, or the only way. This goes for your model and which type of business you are. If everyone in your industry is a value type, what would a quality type look like and how could it be amazing? The Truth About Pricing has many tasks, prompts and questions for you to complete as you go through its pages. One of them is about reframing your limiting beliefs in this area, which digs in on this further as you consider this now, think about what your limiting beliefs might be around pricing and what you have to charge, or the way people in your industry must sell things, or how people want to buy in those moments. Remember Supreme. They are unapologetically expensive and they don't chase after their customers and they play hard to get and people pay to be part of the in crowd. It's a really cool and inspiring model. All right, now that we've dug in a bit on quality, let's talk value with Costco. While it's common for companies to look for ways to charge more to increase profits, that isn't the only helpful strategy. If you're a member of Costco, you know and trust that they have invested in finding high quality items which they provide at the best possible price. This trust makes it so many shoppers don't even take the time to compare against other retailers. If you see it at Costco, it's best to buy it because whatever it is, it probably won't be there later. This is thanks to their own fantastic scarcity model, which is different than supreme and still incredibly effective. Scarcity, like so many aspects you'll hear about in these case studies, is one of the six categories in the it's not about the Cookie framework, which is featured in the Truth About Pricing. As you can see, for many of them, understanding what type of business you are impacts how you apply it. Costco and supreme both use scarcity and reciprocity and priming and social proof. All parts of the it's not about the cookie framework, which I dug in on on the last episode of the podcast. It's linked for you in the show Notes. Even though they all apply, they aren't applied in the same way and this business type is a big point of differentiation to determine which way you should go and how to use it. In the book, I call out many times where a quality business should do one thing and value another along these same principles. It's why this is so important. So one specific way Costco proves their dedication to saving members money is their hot and ready food reciprocity. Another piece of that cookie framework. Whether it's the $50 hot dog and soda combo, which has been the same price since 1985, or the $4.99 rotisserie chicken, for which are the same price as they were when they launched over 20 years ago, you know that Costco cares about their members, their wallets and their full stomachs. How popular are these meal deals? Well, Costco reportedly sold 151 million hot dog combos in 2019 and 117 million rotisserie chickens in 2022. Now you may be wondering, how much do they make off of them when you look at them in a silo? Costco loses massive amounts of money by keeping those prices fixed even as their expenses go up. On chickens alone, Costco said they lose 30 to $40 million a year in gross margin by keeping them at 4.99. So why in the world do they sell them so cheap? Lots of reasons. For one, they encourage people to shop more often, and most people don't just grab a chicken and leave. Since they're located at the back of most stores, you have to walk past all the other good deals and free samples. More reciprocity on your way in and out. Another reason is because of the positive press they generate. People post and rave about the brand and its dedication to keeping prices low, which leverages social proof in a way that's so much more effective than if the brand tried to shout about itself. While I was working on the episode of the Brainy Business podcast on the behavioral economics of Costco, a friend told me, all I know is it only takes five pies to justify your membership. Whether you calculate the value in rotisserie chickens, hot dog deals or pies, Costco is full of great deals for fans to make TikTok and YouTube videos about. Your lesson here is this Whether you think about it in advance or not, the prices you charge say something about your business and what it stands for. Costco's commitment to great values on some key items echoes across the entire brand. Clearly, not all of the 4,000 SKUs at Costco are losing them money, as they had a net income of 5.8 billion last year. They've strategically chosen some items that keep people coming back in a way that helps increase profits across the company. That being said, having a loss leader just because it has worked for other companies, but without understanding what it's going to do for your business is a bad strategy. Likewise, looking at each product or service in a silo and ensuring it's profitable on its own without consideration for the overall brand and portfolio is also a bad strategy. Taking the time up front to be thoughtful about what your brand stands for, its goals, and how that aligns with what your customers value is critical for your pricing strategy and is what we'll work on together in the Truth About Pricing. I'm going to stop with those two case studies for now, but of course there are many others in the book, including an examples chapter at the end which includes four case studies. Two of them are quality brands and two are value brands. One is product based and the other service based. In each category. Those go into great depth and detail about all the nuanced choices when applying the it's not about the cookie framework in an attempt to help you see how this can all come together and give you a really solid example for your company. The quality service based brand is Serendipity 3 the restaurant with 214 grilled cheese sandwiches that I've talked about on the podcast before and alluded to a little bit at the beginning of this episode. The quality product based brand is the Birkin bag from Hermes, the value services brand is Ryanair, and the value product based brand is Old Navy. I expect that I might do a behavioral economics analysis episode on one or more of those in the future. If you'd like to hear one in particular, or any other brand for that matter, come find me on social media. I'm the brainy biz pretty much Everywhere and Melina Palmer on LinkedIn and remember to use the hashtags truthaboutpricing and or hashtag pricing question to ensure we find it. While I could go on and on about all this, that is what the book is for. So I'm going to give one more helpful example which comes from the company chapter in Part two of the Truth About Pricing. In that chapter we delve into the essence of your company, your mission, values, brand and pricing strategy. We discuss the power of brand consistency that aligns with your company type of quality or value and the impact it has on your customer's decision making process and how your pricing strategy ties into it. This chapter guides you through the process of defining your brand and why this is crucial for your pricing strategy. One of the many things we do in that chapter is to talk about the importance of a great brand, unlike a mere business which primarily focuses on selling products or services. A brand transcends that to establish a deeper, more emotional connection with consumers. Our favorite brands become part of our identities. Consider this for yourself. What are some of your favorite brands? Whatever came to mind for you? I'm guessing you didn't see numbers on a spreadsheet or a cost benefit analysis. Of course not. Maybe you saw the Apple logo, could almost taste and instantly crave your favorite Starbucks Frappuccino, felt the thrill of your first family trip to Disneyland, or could smell the leather seeds in your Volvo. Whether we're building relationships with brands or with people or developing our own identities, we often base our actions and decisions on past experiences. According to Psychology Today, like a character made of Legos, we're built of blocks of memory that all fit together to form our consciousness. And so, not surprisingly, as Peter Steidl says in his book Neurobranding, brands are memories too. Now let's talk about a vital aspect of your brand identity, your value statement. This statement, which encapsulates your core beliefs and what you aim to project when customers see your logo or hear your name, matters because it establishes consistency in your brand. If you don't have a consistent brand message and promise, your vibes will be jumbled. Just like my client I talked to you about a little bit earlier in the episode. This is why you must choose the path of value or quality and stick with it. If you don't, your potential customer is left with that extra cognitive pressure as they process the conflicting information. When there isn't a precise alignment, it's harder for them to make the buying decision because there aren't enough reinforced messages to form that clear memory. It's like your Lego bricks are in a big jumble on the floor and you're asking them to imagine it as something really cool, I promise. Instead of being built into something awe inspiring that sticks in their mind. Great brands stick with us and form new associations in the brain. In one study, students primed with a flash of a logo during a video only 30 milliseconds, so the conscious brain couldn't realize it even happened, were more creative in their tasks when shown the Apple logo than the IBM logo. Similarly, those who saw a Disney logo were much more honest in the subsequent tests than those who saw the logo for E. Is that amazing or what? The first thing I want you to realize is how dedicated those brands have had to be to have that kind of impact after 30 milliseconds of exposure to their logo. That's some powerful stuff. If your customer Got a flash of your logo and it could only mean one thing to them. What would you want it to be? Whatever that one thing is, everything needs to be working to help build that memory. And that naturally includes your prices. Here, the brand logo is what we refer to as a prime in behavioral economics, and priming is another of the concepts in the it's not about the cookie framework for now. The simplest definition is to know that what happens just before a decision, word choice, images, etc. Has a big impact on the choice someone makes. When someone was primed with the Apple logo, their behavior changed to emulate what that brand image meant to them. Creativity and innovation. The prime of the IBM logo did not have the same impact. Let's take a moment and revisit Costco to make this point. Costco's mission is to continually provide our members with quality goods and services at the lowest possible prices. While not every mission will include the word price is in it, we know from the hot dog combos and rotisserie chickens that Costco's prices are important in their brand story. And also, even though it uses the word quality in it, you can see how this mission aligns with what I define as a value business. The focus is on the lowest possible prices, not on the highest quality stuff, regardless of the price. When you're pricing brand values and everything else you've been working on in the book align, it creates this beautiful virtuous cycle that continually reinforces forces itself over and over, making buying from you that much easier. On the other end of the spectrum from Costco, Louis Vuitton's mission states, our products are designed to last from generation to generation, aligned with our vision of a truly timeless art de vivre. Talk about carefully chosen words. That prime for luxury and investment. Clearly a quality brand. You know it will be expensive today, but if it's meant to last for generations, it's worth it. Again, this shows there's great value when you invest in one of their pieces, but it's clearly a quality brand and not a value brand. Take a minute now, look at your own mission, vision, values and other things that you have and see how it aligns with the type of business you've said that you are or want to be, and how you want to be seen by your customers, members, clients, what have you. Does it line up? Or is there something that needs a little bit of tweaking? Now, before we close out the show, let's play a fun little game, shall we? This exercise is designed to help you think about the impact of brand identity on perceived value and differentiation as you go through the exercise, consider how your expectations of the product and its price are influenced by the brand's reputation and image. There's a chart in the Truth About Pricing that has a list of these. If you wanted to create this yourself, you could do this. So across the top would be the brand name. Then the first word that comes to mind, a column for the price of their item and what makes theirs unique. And I'll give you a list of brands to think about. And as I said, it's in the book. And also there is a great freebie pricing mastery checklist and stuff that goes along with the book. So you'll want to check that out. Links for you in the show Notes so here's the game. I'm going to give you a list of brands and I want you to imagine that each is coming out with their own branded coffee mug. When you hear their name, I want you to write the first word that comes to mind. Then you're going to list how much you think their coffee mug will cost and then what will make it different Again, you can put these in columns or however makes sense to you, or it's just a thought exercise and that's fine. So the brand name. You're going to write the first word that comes to mind, what you think the price of their mug would be and what makes their mug unique. Our first is Costco. Now Disney, Louis Vuitton, Walmart, Apple, Netflix, Tesla. Even if you've never purchased from a particular of these listed brands before, you still have a memory of layered associations that would help you come up with something. And I'm guessing your prices for each mug aren't the same, right? And that doesn't mean people won't buy them. What does this teach you about your company, your offers, your pricing? All that in part three of the book. When you're introduced to the it's not about the cookie framework. And like I said in this last Tuesday's episode, I went all through that with you here on the podcast. The priming exercise you're given in the book includes choosing your own priming words and images and of course, making sure they align with the type of brand you are. There are some long lists of words to kick it off, some of which are neutral. They can generally work with both quality or value brands, and I also separate out some words that really fit into one of those two categories and to help you find what aligns for you and your business. As an example, a quality brand could resonate with a priming word like couture, exclusive, innovative, rare, upscale, or sophisticated. A value brand could pick words like accessible, quick, reliable, efficient, familiar, or scalable. Hopefully, even if none of those words are your perfect priming words, you can feel a bit of the difference in how they feel like quality or value. To showcase what this feels like and the importance of word choice, the priming words are another way to help reinforce and reconfirm your brand type. If you said you wanted to be a value brand, but you loved the words like exclusive, upscale, and couture, there's likely some work to do. As I share in the book, it's perfectly okay to change course. Give yourself that permission to ask does this still fit? Did we pick the right path and if not to make a change at this point, whether you're listening to this along with the book or just from the episode and the work you're going to do after all you've done to this point is to plan and think and take notes. I know it feels like you've invested a lot, and while you have, in many ways the stakes for switching now are much lower than if you ignored that feeling and pushed forward with a disjointed strategy. In software, they often say that in these early stages, while you're just talking things out, it's a $10 problem. It doesn't take too much to fix and realign. Once you've gotten further down the path, started building and implementing that could quickly become a 10 or $100,000 problem. And once it's live and has been out in the world for a while, it could easily be a 10 million dollar problem. It's the same problem in all cases, but identifying it early on and trusting that early investment and thoughtfulness is almost always cheaper in the long run helps you to take the time to invest in this thoughtfulness before you launch. So you make sure that you have a useful smart implementation before you launch is so useful and smart, especially when it comes to the alignment that will make it so people feel good about buying from you. When you know what type of brand you are and have answered these questions up front in a way that you can be confident. So when those hot states inevitably come up and someone says but everyone else is doing sales right now, we have to do something, you can say no, we don't do sales. Remember? What might another quality brand do right now to showcase and boost revenue at the holidays? What examples can we find that can help move the conversation forward and come up with really cool ideas that will help your brand stand out in a way that that aligns with your ideal buyers in a way that makes it easy for them to do business with you. And remember that both strategies work. Neither is wrong as long as you commit to your choice. The most important thing is that you and the rest of the organization really believe in whatever model you choose, be it quality or value. Remember the beat up old pickup truck problem my client had? Committing in all aspects is important and makes all the difference. When you find yourself struggling to buy from a company, look to see if they're misaligned on the quality versus Value approach. If you love and always buy from another, are they streamlining that by really knowing who they are and what they're about? Identifying and thinking through this while looking at other businesses can help you and others on the team to feel comfortable committing and give inspiration for what can happen when you really do this right. And if you're having a hard time choosing, remember to try to step away from what you think you should do and what others are telling you is best, or what everyone else in your industry is doing. When you stop and think about the options, what do you constantly gravitate toward? Which one gets you and the team energized? Which one makes you stressed out and leaves you feeling like you'd hate it? Trust your instincts. Try it on for a while using the tips I gave earlier in this episode and keep keep moving forward with a timeline for when you will commit and make that final decision. I look forward to hearing all about whichever one you choose. Please do come share it with me on social media. I'm the brainy biz pretty much everywhere. Love to hear what you think about it. And thank you again for everyone who has ordered and pre ordered copies of the Truth About Pricing. It's so exciting that they have started hitting mailboxes and e readers this week. I can't wait to hear how it's helping you and your business and the success you're seeing in your pricing and your bottom line. I hope the information in this episode got you excited to order your copy of the Truth About Pricing today. When you do get yours and start experiencing the magic from the book, including choosing your brand type and seeing how the alignment massively increases your sales, will you do me a favor? Will you share about it on social media? As I said, you can find and take me everywhere as the brainy Biz. And please do use the hashtag Truth about Pricing when you share to help spread the word and excitement about the book. You can also use that hashtag pricing questions when you have a question about pricing and I can't wait to answer and respond to those and see what everybody has to say. Details are of course in the show notes and in the book as well. Thank you so much to everyone who's already pre ordered. It's been awesome to see traction. Already the Truth About Pricing has hit number one new release status in multiple categories categories on Amazon including business purchasing and buying many weeks before it was even available out in the world. Which is super cool. Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your support over the years. This book wouldn't be here without all of you. Again, get the freebies and links to the book and hashtags in the show notes for the episode which are found within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 357 and just like that episode 357 all about the difference between a quality and value business as showcased in my book, the Truth About Pricing is done. Join me Tuesday for another Brainy episode of the Brainy Business Podcast. It's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.