Pay what you think it is worth model

I just received an email from respected Social Media and 'all things new' guru, Chris Brogan promoting a conference where you pay what you think the conference is worth.

This idea is one I have played with mentally, stumbling over the incongruency of a Price Coach not being definite about her own charges!

From my reading and research I understand that this form of pricing can return over the odds but it is dependent on the demographic and psychographics of the customer base. Make this offer to an uneducated, homeless crowd who don't value the knowledge they will gain and you will be out of pocket. Make this offer to people who value knowledge and networking (and anchor the price in the copy with the suggestion that people will pay as much as $1,200, and not less than $99) and you will probably be happy with the outcome.

Perhaps attendance will be higher than expected as they have removed the price obstacle, and longterm that is worth more to the organisers than the takings at the door? However it pans out, and whatever you pay if you do decide to go, I am sure it will be excellent value as Chris Brogan is well worth listening to.

My only other suggestion is perhaps don't try this technique if you run a petrol station, supermarket, or confectionary stall in the school holidays!!!


For more information about the Conference I copied this from their web page:

The Inbound Marketing Summit


Pay now, Pay later, Pay what you think it's worth!

What do the Panera Bread Company, Radiohead, Boston Pedicabs, Reddit and now the Inbound Marketing Summit San Francisco have in common? They all have tried a Customer Perceived Value Pricing pricing model.

We are excited (okay, and maybe a little nervous) to announce our new experiment for Inbound Marketing Summit San Francisco – Pay now, Pay later, Pay what you think it is worth!

Register Here

How this ties into the concepts behind our conference:
We are going to provide you with 2-days of engaging content, we are going to introduce you to industry gurus and expert practitioners, and we want you tell us what you think that is worth to you. Conferences seem to be charging between $1,200 - $99 for similar two to three day programs… we have decided to take the old, traditional, pricing model, and throw it out the window. We’d like you to take the opportunity to tell us what you think the value of our program is.

The experiment:
We would like to experiment with how you pay for the program. We want to give you the opportunity to evaluate the program, think about the value of what we are providing and then pay what you think the two-day program is/was worth to you. You can pay the moment that you register to guarantee your spot or if you want to pay after the program is complete, you are more than welcome to do that.

©2011 Jane Francis is the author of Price Yourself Right: A guide to charging what you are worth (ISBN: 0-595-38601-6) available at Barnes and Noble (USA), WH Smith (UK) or online at amazon.com or amazon.co.uk

Jane Francis is available as a Professional Speaker, Coach and Seminar Leader to help sales teams and companies pitch and present their price with creativity and confidence. Email