OC TALK RADIO

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Meet this week’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC) consultant Lisa Napolitano. And hear her amazing story of being hired as the only employee of a failing trade association at 23. How 15 years later, she turned it around and grew it into a global organization with lots of other employees. Leaving to start her own high powered, sales strategy firm working with big companies she’d met from her years with this sales association like UPS and Pfizer And how she now spends part of her time mentoring and guiding small startups and SMBs (ie-small-to-midsize businesses) thru her work with the SBDC. As she continues to grow her own “small business”.

You’ll particularly enjoy how she answer some age old sales questions we put to her like “is raising sales the only goal that matters for most sales organization?” And “when might it actually do more harm than good?” As we continue to highlight the many skills and backgrounds of our extensive network of SBDC consultants. Here on The Profit Talks Podcast. Brought to you by your Orange County/Inland Empire Small Business Development Center (OCIE SBDC). Funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration and the California Office of the Small Business Advocate.

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Join SBDC Leasing Consultant Karie Armstrong as she looks back at her 25 year career in major mall management (including her last stint overseeing the huge Brea Mall). And her recent 13 year career as a Small Business Development Center consultant (working out of their Cal State Fullerton center). Helping small businesses and retail startups from restaurants to stores navigate the difficult world of commercial leasing. From finding the right location to negotiating the best lease and all that follows from securing financing to securing all the needed permits and licenses needed to open your business (and everything in between). Taking you through the countless obstacles and hurdles to opening a “brick and mortar” business on THE PROFIT TALKS today.

Brought to you by your Orange County/Inland Empire Small Business Development Center (OCIE SBDC). Funded in part by the U.S. Small Business Administration and the California Office of the Small Business Advocate.

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Meet the amazing Rima Nashashibi and learn about the organization she founded GLOBALHOPE 365 to end child marriage, human trafficking and other forms of gender based violence.

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Meet Cyndee Albertson, Director of Development SoCal and Mario Gonzalez, Dept Manager for Academic Services for FOSTER LOVE and all they do for foster kids nationwide.

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Meet Dr. George Ujkic, a Chiropractor in Orange, CA and hear the amazing story of what led him into this field.  Thru the healing it brought him. And how he’s shared that gift with so many others thru the years thru his work at the Chiropractic Center of Orange.  On OUR COMMUNITY podcast. Powered by the Orange County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and Orange County’s only community radio station, OC TALK RADIO.

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Welcome to Street Pricing, the only show where proven SaaS (Software as a Service) leaders share their mindset and mistakes in pricing so we can all stop guessing and start growing. Street Pricing is hosted by Pricing I/O CEO and Pricing Coach, Marcos Rivera, sought after slayer of bad pricing. With 20 years of pricing expertise, he has helped price over 200 SaaS products and coached over 100 SaaS CEOs and counting. From the streets of the Bronx to CEO, Marcos wants to take the guessing out of pricing.  

Today’s guest is Srinivas Somayajula, GM of Data at Tropic. Srinivas overseas all the data solutions and wants to bring transparency to SaaS pricing.

Srinivas talks about his time with Calendly, he suggested they look at the pricing around March 2020, and that maybe they were giving away too much value for their current pricing. (2:40) He looked into the data and spoke with customers and decided on two principles that would work for the company; everything has to be as frictionless as possible, and they had to do no harm to the customers. Existing customers needed a packaging and pricing model to migrate to and new customers were coming to Calendly with the pandemic happening. (7:40)

Marcos and Srinivas emphasize how the actual execution of price changes can be a big problem for companies, and how thoughtful planning and tests are key. (8:52) Srinivas wanted to make the product easy to sell, using the website, marketing, and building sales teams to communicate the value to the customers. (10:00) The important questions that companies need to answer are Who are we? What do we stand for? What do we want for the company? Who do we serve? (11:00)

Srinivas listened to the customers by doing multiple rounds of interviews and surveys and also did internal voting with the sales team. (16:15) He thought the internal viewpoint would give signals to understanding but could also give biased opinions as well. Both things partnered together can give a balanced perspective. Srinivas also suggested looking into support requests and using AI to analyze the billing data.

They discuss what Srinivas is hoping for in the future of pricing, hiring a senior pricing manager, and his current position at Tropic. (24:04)

Marcos and Srinivas close out the show by discussing Srinivas’ favorite song growing up was “Momma Said Knock You Out” By LL Cool J and “Money Ain’t a Thing” By Jermaine Dupri and Jay Z.

Street Pricing streams live on OC TALK RADIO, Orange County’s only online business channel, every Friday at 9:00 AM PT and is available for download on all major podcast platforms.

Follow Marcos on LinkedIn

Get your copy Street Pricing: A Pricing Playlist for Hip Leaders in B2B SaaS here

Want a consultation? Email Pricing I/O at info@pricingio.com