The Pricing Psychology for Leaders to Stop Underpricing and Understand Value with Etinosa
In this episode of FP&A Unlocked, Paul Barnhurst sits down with Etinosa Agbonlahor, behavioral economist and Founder & CEO of Decision Alpha, to discuss why pricing is one of the biggest drivers of business success. They explore how customer psychology influences pricing, why many companies underprice their products, and how FP&A can play a more strategic role in pricing decisions.
Etinosa Agbonlahor is a behavioral economist and pricing strategist who helps businesses improve pricing through behavioral science and customer insights. As Founder & CEO of Decision Alpha, she has advised organizations across the US, Australia, Africa, and the UK on pricing, customer behavior, and growth. She is also the author of How to Talk to Your Parents About Money.
Expect to Learn:
Why most businesses underprice their products
How customer psychology influences pricing
The role of FP&A in pricing strategy
When outcome-based pricing works best
Why storytelling makes data more impactful
Here are a few relevant quotes from the episode:
"The problem with underpricing is that no one is going to tell you you're underpriced." – Etinosa Agbonlahor
"People don't walk around knowing what your product should cost, they infer your value from your price." – Etinosa Agbonlahor
Etinosa shares practical strategies for improving pricing through customer research, behavioral economics, and data-driven decision-making. This episode is ideal for FP&A professionals, finance leaders, and business owners looking to build stronger pricing strategies.
Follow Etinosa:
Website - https://playbook.decisionalpha.co/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/etinosasere/
Earn Your CPE Credit For CPE credit, please go to earmarkcpe.com, listen to the episode, download the app, answer a few questions, and earn your CPE certification. To earn education credits for the FPAC Certificate, take the quiz on earmark and contact Paul Barnhurst for further details.
In Today’s Episode
[00:00] – Trailer
[05:18] – What Great FP&A Looks Like
[06:12] – Why Pricing Drives Business Success
[10:03] – Why Businesses Underprice
[17:23] – Customer Segmentation
[24:02] – FP&A and Pricing
[29:28] – Behavioral Pricing Framework
[34:12] – AI & Outcome-Based Pricing
[46:05] – Data Storytelling
[57:02] – Final Advice
Full Show Transcript:
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (00:00):
The problem with underpricing is that no one is going to tell you that you're underpriced unless they're really keeping an eye out for you. I had a friend many years ago who started out a consulting firm and she put in a bid to do training with this big Fortune 500 company, put in a bid to do training with them, and somebody from the company called her and said, Hey, I just want you to know you came in $10,000 under everybody else. So we are going to go with you, but I need you to know for next time you can never submit prices this go ever again. And so unless you've got somebody who's keeping an eye out for you as like, okay, we're both from the same place, or we'll, both, whatever, cause that person to pick up the phone and have a conversation with them as a, I shouldn't be doing this, but I need you to know because it's a terrible mistake you're making. Most times people just let you keep under pricing and you find yourself struggling to build a sustainable business.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (00:46):
Welcome to another episode of FP&A Unlocked. Are you tired of being seen as just a spreadsheet person while others get a seat at the table? Well then FP&A unlocked is where finance meets strategy. I'm your host, Paul Barnhurst, AKA, the FP&A guy, and each week we bring you conversations and practical advice from thought leaders, industry experts and practitioners. Together we're going to uncover the strategies and experience that separate good FP&A professionals from great ones helping you elevate your career and drive strategic impact. I'm thrilled this week to welcome to the show, Etinosa Osa, welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (01:25):
Thank you for having me, Paul. I'm excited for the conversation.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (01:28):
Yeah, really excited to have you here and dive into things. I've someone, as we were talking, we were chatting. I've had a behavioural economist on before and it was one of my favourite conversations. We had a lot of fun, so I'm really excited you were willing to join and excited to jump into this. So a little bit of Etinosa's background. She's a behavioural economist and the CEO of Decision Alpha, a behavioural pricing firm that helps businesses improve pricing for growth, traction and stronger perceived value. With over a decade of global experience across the US, Australia, Africa, the UK, she has shaped pricing engagement and customer behaviour strategy for major financial institutions and venture startups. Her work has been featured in MarketWatch, Morningstar, and other leading platforms for her insights on how behaviour drives financial outcomes. She is also the author of How to Talk to Your Parents About Money, A Guide to Navigating Complex Financial Conversations. Love the background and welcome again.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (02:32):
Thank you.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (02:33):
So what made you decide to be a behaviour economist? I'm curious, how'd you get into that path?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (02:38):
Yeah, I've always been interested in finance. So I'm the kid who would count out all the money in the piggy bank. I knew down to the dollars and the cents what was going on in my actual piggy bank. And I graduated from college with a degree in psychology and I was working at the time in the publishing industry and I remember having a conversation with my mentor around and thinking about going to grad school. I really like economics, I love finance. I don't have a background in either, but I kind of want to lean into that direction and I have the psychology background, what can I do with it? And he gave me this book called Predictably Irrational by Diana Real, and it was all about how people don't make rational decisions when it comes to money. It's all around the psychology, around financial decision making.
(03:23):
And it just blew my mind. I was like, oh my God, this is amazing. So I read the book and then started to talk to every behavioural economist I could find. This was more than 10 years ago, so there weren't really a lot of behavioural economists in industry. It wasn't really as big of a thing as it is now. So I went on LinkedIn, everyone I could find in the uk, the US and China, wherever anyone had to be a very economist in their LinkedIn bio, I reached out to them, I talked to more than 20 people and decided this is it. This is the thing I want to do because at the time I was working, so there was an opportunity cost to I'm going to put down this publishing thing I'm doing and I'm going to go study this thing. So I wanted to make sure it was a sensible thing to do.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (04:02):
A true behavioural economist, you were
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (04:04):
As a researcher would analysing
Host: Paul Barnhurst (04:05):
It all and trying to figure out the pros and cons and way the time value of money all those days ago.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (04:12):
And they ended up being the right thing to do. I went to grad school for it, ended up working with a bank, then a bank in Australia, came back to the US to work in an investment bank here and then ended up starting up Decision alpha. So it's been a journey. It's been a global international journey. I did not predict. Yeah,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (04:30):
No, it sounds like it. You mentioned Australia in there, I think you said Africa, uk, you had experience all over the globe, which I would imagine when you started, that's not what you expected.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (04:40):
No, it was not. I was like, I'm going to do this course and fingers crossed it works out and we'll see what happens and somehow it all fell into place. Well
Host: Paul Barnhurst (04:47):
That's awesome. I mean it's definitely a field that's grown a lot and I know pricing is an area that a lot of people need help with. So it sounds like things are going well there. Before I jump into pricing, behavioural economics, we like to start every interview with this question and I'm curious to get your background. I know you don't work with FPA full-time, but you work with them sometimes in finance. From your perspectives, what does great FP&A look like when you think of great fp and a? What comes to mind for you?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (05:18):
I think that great FP&A looks like moving beyond, to your point earlier about moving beyond the spreadsheet, moving beyond just capturing and speaking to historical data and moving towards insights, anticipating the future pointing to here is something that the data tells us that we didn't know before and this is what we can do about it. That actionability perspective, I think it's what really separates good from great. It's not just here what the data says, it's what does this mean for the organisation, what should you be thinking about doing with it, right? So I think actionable insights and that forward looking perspective is probably that differentiator.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (05:51):
I appreciate that. The forward looking insights and actionable insights, being able to help the business make better decisions. It makes a lot of sense to me. So you spent several years as a behavioural economist working banking and financial services. Would love to hear a little bit about that experience and how it prepared you to start Decision Alpha, kind of how that decision came about.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (06:12):
So I think a lot of the work that I did in the finance spaces has all been centred on financial wellbeing. So financial wellbeing is as a person, how financially comfortable do you feel right now? How financially comfortable do you feel to absorb any income structures that might come up in the future? And how prepared do you feel in general for the future you want to live, right? That is the entirety of financial wellbeing. So a lot of my career as a behavioural economist has looked at financial wellbeing for individuals. How do you help them save more, spend better, feel better about their money and what the institutions do to help build better products, better processes, better tools that help you as a person, a customer of theirs get to better place financially. The notion is healthy financial customers where a bank makes the banks overall healthier.
(06:59):
And so when I thought through well thinking about building this company, this firm, what does financial wellbeing look like when it's not being applied to an individual? What does financial wellbeing look like for a company or for a business? The gateway is pricing, right? If you're a small business owner, your pricing almost has a one-to-one relationship, a linear relationship with your financial wellbeing. If you're a larger company, it has an oversized upsize impact. And when I was doing the research, of course before doing building decision offers, I was talking to lots of companies and small businesses to understand, well how did you set your prices? And I would get answers, we guessed, we copied competitors, we kind of saw what the market was doing. It was this black hole and nobody was thinking through systematically we spoke to customers, we took in customer psychology into consideration.
(07:46):
We understood if we positioned it this way, get this kind of customers, we positioned it the other way would get those other kinds of customers. So it felt like there was a real gap between this is the opportunity that getting pricing can bring to you not just in terms of profit but in terms of financial wellbeing overall. And there's so much opportunity cost in terms of nobody's actually using behavioural economics properly in this space. And so it just felt like this is the right space to step into that married all of our interests and expertise are together.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (08:14):
Makes a lot of sense. And when you said a lot of people I would copy to competitors, we guessed. So two stories and I think they both really hit home the way you're staying first is when I started, remember somebody reaching out to me and go, how are you pricing your training? I was like, I have no idea. And I asked someone who've been doing it for a while and their response was Just make up a number, it's all bs. I'm like, you guys are really helpful. So I didn't feel too bad when I started the solo Purdue or what. They're all like, we don't know. We're trying to figure it out as well. So it speaks to your point of not really doing the homework. A lot of guessing takes place. There was a study a few years ago, it was the SaaS industry that said the average SaaS company spends more time a year on its janitorial services for its facility than it does on its pricing strategy.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (08:58):
It's incredible. It's incredible. And when you think about it, it's like building a business is growing a farm, right? You've done all the harvesting and all the tilling and all the planting when it comes to harvest, which is your pricing, you kind of go, eh, say we'll see what happens. Let's just see what happens. And it's like this is the most important part, this is the keystone. This is the thing that matters the most that will help you recoup all the effort that you've put into it. We have to get to direct
Host: Paul Barnhurst (09:25):
And that part about have to get it right. It's amazing how often we forget that I can relate to that in my own business. I've definitely had a lot of lessons learned on pricing and so now when I worked for somebody, I was always bringing up pricing. We were having those discussions and trying to be thoughtful about it. It's been eyeopening kind of being on the other side to be in charge of all of it.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (09:47):
Do you find that when you think about at end there it is days when you're thinking about your own price and you found a lot of your maybe beliefs about your worth, your biases, whatever came into the pricing too. It wasn't just what is the price? It was what is my price
Host: Paul Barnhurst (10:03):
A hundred percent. My biases impacted my pricing and I would say in most cases it led to me underpricing, not overpricing. I've had to learn that painful lesson over time in a number of different ways.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (10:16):
We've seen that a lot. Statistically speaking, I think it's like eight out of 10 businesses under price. And the problem with underpricing is that no one is going to tell you that you're underpriced unless you're really keeping an eye out for you. I had a friend many years ago who started out a consulting firm and she put in a bid to do training with this big Fortune 500 company, put in a bid to do training with them and somebody from the company called her and said, Hey, I just want you to know you came in $10,000 under everybody else, so we are going to go with you, but I need you to know for next time you can never submit prices this store ever again. And so unless you've got somebody who's keeping an eye out for you as like, okay, we're both from the same place or we'll, both whatever caused that person to pick up the phone and have a conversation with them as a, I shouldn't be doing this, but I need you to know because it's a terrible mistake you're making. Most times people just let you keep under pricing and you find yourself struggling to build a sustainable business.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (11:11):
Agree. And for me, it's been in certain areas and I've been able to make it a sustainable business, but what I've realised is if you're perceived as value in the market and you go low pricing, it really hurts you. It doesn't help you even if you're trying to do a volume. It's been interesting to learn. That's probably one of the biggest lessons I've learned is people don't see it as volume because they see you as a premium and they think something's wrong with it. If it's that price, the price is that low. Even if you think you're providing a tonne of value, it's really interesting to start to recognise that behaviour.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (11:43):
And the research backs this out. There was a famous study that was done a couple of years ago where they had folks, it was with Inea, which is the business school out in France. They had folks hooked up to FMRI machines and they had them taste these different bottles of wine and the only markers that were on the boxes were just the prices that were on the bottles. Otherwise there was nothing else identifying is it a sub? What is it? And they found that the centres of the brain associated with value valuation had more activity when folks were tasting the higher priced wine versus when we're tasting the cheaper one. Literally on a visceral level, the brain was processing it completely different. Of course, they were all drinking the same wine.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (12:22):
Yeah, I was going to say it was the exact same wine in every mall,
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (12:25):
Exact same wine. The only difference was the pricing. So to that point, I tell people this, that when you're pricing low is I call it the tyranny of low prices. You're pricing too low. You are signalling an effect in how people are going to look at you and value you relative to being priced either not necessarily higher by the more premium our position.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (12:44):
And I'm not surprised to hear you say that. I've lived that and I do remember that one example of time. I remember hearing about that at school. I'd forgot that, but it's a great example of
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (12:57):
Perception on a visceral level, literally in the brain, people could feel and react to the difference in price in the brain. So a lot of times as business owners, we think people are walking around with a sense of what products and services should cost, right? This is what consultants should cost when no people are going to look at your prices and infer your value from the price. This is why all of this stuff really matters.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (13:21):
And you mentioned eight of 10 companies tend to underprice. Why do you think that is? Is it that we, all of us feel like everything's overpriced in general? If I go to the store and I look at stuff, especially with inflation, I feel like almost everything's overpriced. Do we carry that bias into our business or what in your opinion, are those kind of key things that cause us to be underpriced on the whole, even though if you ask anyone on average, everything's overpriced
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (13:49):
Or it's expensive, if not overpriced, it feels expensive, right?
Host: Paul Barnhurst (13:53):
Yeah, it feels expensive. There's a difference. It's a good
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (13:56):
Call out, but
Host: Paul Barnhurst (13:56):
You know
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (13:56):
What I mean.
(13:57):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that there's a couple of things going on with people underpricing. I think that the first one is that there's this kind of bias towards internal cost structures. This is what it costs. And so it's cost plus pricing. And I just did a presentation to the Tampa Bay Chamber and I gave them this story of I was in Kenya a couple of years ago and there was a warthog where in on Safari maari Ma with wood hug running across the plane with a lioness chasing it. And this poor wood Hugg runs from one distance where we can think of how far horizon is. They run from one distance all the way, keeps running, keeps running all the way past our eyesight, cannot stop running. Lion eventually gives up and goes back to gown. But I was saying to them, when you choose to anchor your pricing only on the cost, you are that warthog.
(14:46):
You're constantly looking behind you to make sure that factors beyond your influence do not creep up over your shoulder. Last year we saw inflation, we saw tariffs, we saw things, black swan events, things that we could not have predicted in a million years happening back to back to back to back. So when you're doing cost plus pricing, you're basically setting yourself up for constantly looking over your shoulder. So I think that's the first one is that people do that cost plus thing. I just think it's standard. It's normal. It's what you're meant to do. The other thing is couping competitors looking at mystery shopping and everyone see with so much pride. I did some mystery shopping. I caught up my competitors, I saw what they were charging, but you dunno that A, they're not making the same mistakes you are making. They're not also underpricing and you don't know that you don't offer more than they do, but you call your service the same thing that they call theirs.
(15:39):
So all of these things starts to factor into why people are underpricing. And the biggest one is nobody really sits in and talks to customers. Nobody sits down and talks to prospects to understand what is your willingness to pay? What is this ceiling? What's too high, what's too low? What would you use if you're interested in my product, how does this help you and how do you value that help? So all of these things come back together to create this system where even when we feel like we're doing it the right way by doing the competitor shopping or the mystery shopping, we're actually leading a lot of value on the table. We haven't spoken to customers yet.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (16:10):
Good point. Funny enough, I actually poll people about my pricing one time on LinkedIn and asked 'em if I was over or underpriced because basically when I asked flaw, it's like, yeah, you have a pricing problem. So I was like, what do people think of that? It was interesting to see the answers from, yeah, you should charge more to, Hey, wait a second. And I more was just curious to see what people would say, but there wasn't an overwhelming of Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, your pricing is right or don't, because just talking about raising pricing, especially the customers you value, we'll tell you where they think you are, what your value is. At least that's what I've found. So why not ask?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (16:47):
Exactly. And I think it also allows you to get better with your segmentation to understand who is the customised serve, right? Because when you do any, we've done price and studies, there's naturally tier and segments start to emerge, right? There's the folks who for years you've been stretching yourself to try and accommodate and you realise, oh, they're just never going to reach the place that I'm trying to get to in the business. We need to discuss, is there a different package or something we offer them or maybe they're just not the right customer. They're not ICP, right? So I think along with the conversations of pricing and value is who is the right customer? Who are we targeting and what do they expect from us?
Host: Paul Barnhurst (17:23):
Yeah, so talk a little bit about that. How do you as a business determine you have the right customer? Because that's a big part of pricing. We see that so many studies of say, what 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers or your profit? It's usually a small group, but we're servicing a big group, and so how do we know if we're servicing the right customers? I know it goes a little on pricing, but I'd love some of your thoughts there in that segmentation, right?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (17:52):
So separate to the pricing workers, two ways to look at it. So when we work with SaaS companies, we're working with some folks right now where we started by understanding who is using a product and how are they're using it, right? You've got the bigger enterprise style clients who need you on call 24 7. They're using up more of their storage and more AWS costs, et cetera. You've got the smaller folks who every now and then they're in your platform, they're touching things, but they don't need as much of your attention. We're able to segment by use case. You also have a different way of, for example, a different way of segmenting by actually understanding and looking at the data and spend so far, who is the right type of customer? Well, who stayed with you the longest? How much has everyone spent on average who renews quickly?
(18:35):
What do your salespeople say about the different kinds of customers they sit with, right? There's the qualitative and the quantitative elements to this. So when you think about who is my right customer, it's both historical in terms of what spend, retention, et cetera, but then it's also forward looking as we think through the kind of business we want to build, who do we want to continue to service? Who do we like working with? It's not a bad thing to look at your customer base and go, who do I actually enjoy working with? Who do my sales teams hanging out with that also, all of those factor into who is my right customer? There's a quantum call element to it.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (19:10):
I love how you said that. I still remember valuable lesson I learned. We had this customer that wanted to do this collaboration with us and it would involve someone I had partnered with and he joined the first call and he messaged me. He goes, just don't do it. Say no to the deal. You got too much work going on. This customer will nickel and dine you to death. They don't really know what they want. It's their first time. You're going to spend twice as much work for the money. Just say no. And I ended up ultimately saying no, and I was really glad in the end they were disappointed, but it was one of the better decisions I made. I'm like, just not work the money. So it was that good reminder of, Hey, yeah, we need money, but we also want to focus on what we enjoy and the right type of customer.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (19:50):
I had something like that recently in December where I had to turn somebody down and buying You was still building this business. So turning people down to something I think about very carefully before I do, but they were trying to build three different things at the same time, and they had every member on their team on the two calls that I had with them, and I said, this isn't going to work. There's no way you can build anything. Financial wellbeing is already going to be inherently difficult. Anything pricing requires you to really set up dedicated time to think through it, trying to build three big things at the same time, and the amount of resources I see being wasted by having every single member of your team on two calls to talk to one person from my team. No, I don't. No, no, no, no, this isn't going to work. But it was a difficult decision to make
Host: Paul Barnhurst (20:30):
Sure, because it's revenue and especially when you're early in a business, the lifeblood is getting that cash in the door and it's like, okay, can I replace it with something? Yeah, I think every business has gone through that. I mean, the advice I've heard again and again for people and I give now is one, learn to say no. Learn to say it often and early, be really focused and understand that it's okay to turn out customers that you'll figure it out, but when you first start, there's the psychological side of that and I can't, how will it work out? It's this much revenue, all that goes with that. So definitely, I'm sure there's a whole study that's been done on that side of behaviour economics as far as that propensity to not want to say no and accepting deals even when we know we should.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (21:21):
There's two things, right? One is regretted version. Graham Loomis, great professor studies extensively. He was one of my professors at Warwick. But basically we would rather not change anything or just go the default and say yes than say no and experience the regret of having rejected or made a different decision. So we tend to be regret adverse. We talk about lots of version a lot. We'd rather not lose, but regret operation is also a very real concept. And so sometimes when you see markets change, there's volatility in the markets and people are not making any moves. It's sometimes not necessarily because they think, oh, I'm just going to write out the market. Sometimes if I change anything and it ends up badly, I don't want to experience that regret and we all have this to some degree.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (22:05):
Yeah. I mean the number one I think of regretted version is everybody I wish I would've invested in Apple 20 years ago, or Microsoft or whatever. Tesla. The long list. Bitcoin. Yeah, Bitcoin. We could spend the rest of the episode just listening. All those we wish we had invested, but the reverse is true. What about all those that we didn't invest in that we would've lost all our money? That list is absolutely longer. We just don't think about it.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (22:31):
Yep. Yeah. I had a SVP many years ago tell me that somebody had come into the company a long time ago and talked to them about Bitcoin. I said, if you could do anything right now, take $500, just pop it into Bitcoin, I can show you how to do it. And the whole leadership team was like, ah, sure, Bitcoin, whatever. And then she was telling me this during 24, so at the time Bitcoin was almost touching a hundred thousand and she was like, if I had done that, I'd be on an island right now. I wouldn't be talking to you, but it's see a point. Yeah,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (23:00):
Yeah. I know a guy that worked for the company was called Overstock, and at the time their CEO was a huge Bitcoin person and he offered everybody, he goes, I will turn your entire check right now into Bitcoin, but you have to do the full check. You can't do part of it. And he was young, he just couldn't afford that at the time. So he turned it down and he's like, I think it would've been worth five or 10 million now or some crazy number. He is. Had I known, I just would put it on the credit card. Found a way to swing it, but yeah, right decision from the standpoint, okay, young married couple, I think I had a kid or something with no money. It's like, that's a bad decision. I can't take a risk on a paycheck, right? That's like going and gambling had a similar idea, but in hindsight you looked at it and go,
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (23:45):
I wish I had. Yeah.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (23:47):
So human behaviour. Very interesting. Well, so I want to ask a question from your perspective, what role should finance and particularly FP&A play in pricing, I can speak today?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (24:02):
I think that what I've seen with bigger companies is pricing ends up being this kind of, I want to say bastard, but it's like no, it doesn't really have a parent, right? Yes. It doesn't really have a parent. It's owned by, I've looked that
(24:14):
It's owned, the revenue team has a hand in it product for some reason has a hand in pricing marketing. Everyone kind of owns a little bit of pricing, and so when you come together to build the price, you end up with what is it? A came is a horse that's designed by committee. A lot of prices like Frankenstein prices because everyone kind of owns a little bit of it, but I think that FB N's role in pricing is bringing that data and bringing those insights. It's being able to say, here are the patterns of behaviour We see here.
(24:44):
When the price ended in 99, we drove more volume, but we may not have sold as much as when it was a flat round price. Hey, did you know that more people are coming in on Wednesdays and buying at this level? It's bringing those insights that marketing and sales and research can then take and marry with the research, the talking to customers to understand, okay, we know historically we understand from a historical perspective what to expect. Let's go talk to customers. Let's mirror that with some colour and then be able to frame that in a way that's going to be appealing to the customer. So I think there's a collaboration that's often needed between the analytics, the FP&A side in addition to the folks who actually are talking to the customers like your researchers, your product people, and so on.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (25:26):
So what should FP&A be bringing beyond just I think sometimes you're guilty of, okay, here's the cost and we don't bring any other information. What are other things you think kind of best FP&A teams you're bringing to that pricing discussion
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (25:38):
Patterns, right? So yes, this is the cost, but if we have any historical pricing patterns from similar products that we've launched, love to see patterns right at the different levels. What was those demand elasticity? Who took it, who did not take it? Can we marry those with customer segments that marketing might have? Which customer segments we more likely to buy at what price, right? There's a cross collaboration, cross functional conversation that's having, but at a very high level, we'd love to see patterns coming from FP&A that we can then use to feed into the new research we do around what this new price should be.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (26:12):
Obviously the cost data and then the patterns, which makes a lot of sense. Who do you think should own pricing? How have you seen it best work? I know there's a lot of different ways you mentioned collaboration, which I fully agree with, but I'd love to get your thoughts of, because you mentioned how it's kind of a bastard, I think was the word you used a lot of times.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (26:32):
Yes, it works best when there's actually a pricing team that's accountable for it, but then also we have marketing product, the customer research responsible for elements of it, so they all feed in, but there is one accountability with an actual pricing team. Now the pricing team can sit in the revenue team, and so they're sitting very closely to the sales standard. They can sit more closely with the analytics or with marketing. The company kind of has to decide based on what is priorities are where that pricing team needs to sit. But always best if you have a clear function that is labelled pricing and is accountable for it and owns the buck,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (27:10):
Makes a lot of sense. I had a company where a lot of it fell back to finance, and I still remember when I first was made a director, stuff would come across my desk and I started rejecting it. Nobody was, they were letting product, price, whatever, and I'm like, you haven't included any of the fixed costs. You have nothing but the variable costs here. You base the price completely on that. I can't approve a lot of discussions like that. It got to the point they got so used to me on it, I'm on what call They're like, it turned to me and said, well, what should the price be? That's not really my job. I need to make sure it's a certain margin so we don't lose money, but you guys understand the customers. What's your thought in accounting and product of what this pricing should be? I kind of turned it back to them. What do you think is appropriate? I'll give you my thoughts, happy to do that, but it's not my decision. I just need to protect us from a finance perspective to make sure we're not losing our shirt of pricing. And that was kind of how I tried to do it, but have that real conversation because nobody owned it and it was like, we can't, and we had a lot of bad pricing at the time, is what I came to learn, which
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (28:12):
Is incredible when you think about the fact that this is the lifeblood of the company and yet nobody really truly owns it. But what we try to do now is we have a package where we'll come into a company and just help everyone level set on this is how pricing works, this is what behavioural pricing looks like. Let's get everyone who is involved in pricing or another singing from the same hyn book because we understand that your job is to protect margins. Markin's job is to make it look more attractive and attract the right segments. Sales just wants to close the deal and commission, we won't everything. We want the commission, I would discount everything. Let's go right. When we get everyone single from the same hymn book, we all have this same foundational knowledge. It helps then when you have to have these conversations around, let's pour in all of our different insights and align on what is the right pricing model and what should that price look like.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (29:01):
I'm thinking of all kinds of examples where I've seen so many different things, as you mentioned that, of trying to get everybody on the same page from the sales commissions. So a lot of different things have to be aligned if you really want it, get it all working. But I'm curious, you mentioned about getting everybody on the same page. Is there a framework you like to use when you come in to analyse pricing or frameworks? What do you typically do? Because I'm sure you come into all kinds of companies and you have a pattern you use to analyse things.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (29:28):
Yes. So we have a decision off a pricing framework very originally named, but it has four elements to it. The first one is kind of what we call mapping monetization zones, which is what we spoke about to earlier around how do you decide who your right customers are? So in that instance we're understanding what are use cases, what are the different patterns of use? What are the different kind of tiers you might need to have to take into this pricing research with you? Are there enterprise customers, solo entrepreneurs, whatever that looks like, right? Your bagel shop, do you have your nine to fivers and then the offices who you cater to separating out what are the different use cases we have? Then we move that into the actual pricing research and we call that step the willingness to pay work, and that's where we are building out the cost flow.
(30:13):
What do you need to keep the likes on? That's where we're talking to customers to understand what is the price ceiling, what is the maximum any customer across Sears are going to be willing to pay for this service? In that we're also doing research around what are the competitors doing and also what are alternates? Because a lot of times people think about what competitors are doing, but they don't think about the fact that instead of using this SaaS, I can just hire an intern and pay him for, pay her eight hours on a Friday to just pound it out through Excel and charge GPC, right? That's an alternate to me buying into a SaaS product. So taking into consideration what is the world of value? How do we understand all these different models? That helps us then spit out a range for the pricing. Then we take that into the third step, which is how we start to frame the conversation.
(30:57):
That's where a lot of the behavioural economics framing also comes into place thinking through what are this company's goals long-term With a SaaS company we've worked with, part of what they wanted to do was go back and go get another round of funding in a year or two. And so we said, okay, let's see how we can get more people to aim for one year and two year contracts instead of the monthly subscription. Then how do we get people locked into one or two year contracts because aligned with the goals of the business. So in the third step is where we're thinking about how do we frame the price? How do we make it appealing to customers in a way that's going to resonate with them and also with the business's goals, final step, we call it the test and scaling. We always say that price needs to be a feature, not a reaction.
(31:37):
So rather than being the warthog of looking my shoulder every five seconds and waiting for something to change the rent change, inflation change, tariffs change, and so now I'm going to go fix my price, and there's intentionality there. Every six months you sit down with the team and you look at what new features have we shipped? What new value have we delivered is our price? And commensurate to that doesn't mean that you change your pricing every six months, but it does mean that you're up to date on, you're understanding the value that you're delivering and you're also constantly testing it. New customers, maybe you put a new price in front of them, see how they react to it, but you're keeping your finger on the pulse of what you would be charging for this. So there's four elements from the mapping monetization zones, doing the will necessary research, the framing, and then the testing and refining all come together to make up the decision of a pricing framework.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (32:20):
Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it. So within that framework, when you go into companies, do you see many companies? Where do you see the breakdown in those areas as you go into companies? Is there one area that you most commonly see or is it a little bit of everything?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (32:38):
It's usually in step two. A lot of people don't talk to customers before. Those don't mind, but a lot of companies don't necessarily talk to customers about pricing and value. They'll substitute. Instead, the competitor research, they'll substitute instead, the mystery shopping, they'll substitute instead that we want 80% margins and we know it costs this much, and so therefore the price needs to live at this range, which is totally fine, but you have this much of a world that you could price and you're only optimising for this much. So a lot of times it really breaks down what people don't do and going to talk to customers of prospects and start to understand how do they conceptualise the value of the product? What numbers do they put around it? Well, that's where I see a lot of times things kind of break down.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (33:23):
That makes a lot of sense is you mentioned talking to the customers. I can think of some times when I've done a bad job with that. So as you're sharing all this, I'm thinking about my own business and my own experiences and I'm like, I can relate to that. I can relate to this. So it is kind of funny. I usually don't do that as much during an episode, but definitely it's causing me to think a lot. So that's a good thing. One area I want to talk a little bit about is we've heard a lot since AI has come into the picture in the way it has, we've had AI for years, let's talk generative AI all. Also, we have these tokens and usage and we have value-based pricing and all kinds of things that come with ai, especially if you do a lot of SaaS companies, so many of 'em have an AI component. So how have you seen that change things? What are you seeing in the way of price? Just first, just get your thoughts on what you're seeing.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (34:12):
Yeah, I think that we're seen it affects a couple of different dimensions. So in professional services that typically have had hourly billing, we're seeing AI side to create a bit of a burning platform. If you used AI to save on 30% of the time, you would have dedicated to research. What do you bill for now? So a lot of lawyers, a lot of accountants are starting to, little bookkeepers are starting to think through, we need new ways to price. It cannot just be hourly anymore because AI is coming and just ripping a hole through that. And also customers know you're using ai, so therefore there's some more challenge that can be expected along those lines. On the flip side, we also see that AI companies themselves are figuring out and trying to understand what pricing should look like. So I dunno if you saw this headline a few weeks ago, somebody was running the $200 version of Claude and burned through $6,000 worth of usage, and so philanthropic very quickly had to go right? Moving forward, it is, if you're going to be running AI agents, it's going to be PC, right? This much.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (35:16):
Yes, I saw that. I went to play with the agents. I remember hearing about all that where they're like, we can't just let you. They run around unlimited elsewhere here. We can't do it. Exactly.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (35:26):
So it's changing both pricing for regular businesses who are having to think about, we can't do this hourly thing anymore, but it's also changing for the companies themselves. So they're trying to figure it out. There's a lot of reactivity going on right now, which is very brand new world. We're trying to figure it out together, but that's where things are changing.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (35:45):
It feels like it's impacting almost everything, whether it's professional services, whether it's SaaS businesses, whether it's the AI themselves, everybody's trying to figure it out, and like you said, every time you make changes, if there's a way to exploit it, somebody will figure it out.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (36:00):
And I read it into that story. I was so fascinated by it. It wasn't even intentional. They just went to bed. They just went to sleep and left the AI agent running on a loop, and they just run through all those credits. So we're all figuring it out together.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (36:17):
I bet they were really glad they didn't have to pay based on usage.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (36:20):
Yeah, I'm sure philanthropic was not happy at all. You're
Host: Paul Barnhurst (36:23):
Expecting 200, you get 6,000. It's like, oh, man.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (36:25):
There
Host: Paul Barnhurst (36:26):
Goes the savings.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (36:27):
Yep. Yeah,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (36:28):
If you have it. Yeah, yeah, totally. So another thing we're hearing a lot about would let me get some of your thoughts on it. Maybe walk through what it is, why people are using it so much, but we hear this term outcome-based pricing. You talk a little bit about that, what it is, why we're hearing so much about it now.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (36:45):
So at its heart, outcome-based pricing is essentially something like a collections company can come and say, Hey, instead of you using a lawyer who's going to bill per hour and so therefore is incentivized to bill as many hours as possible, we will only collect a percentage of whatever amount we're able to recover of this debt for you. So now our incentives are alike. So outcome-based pricing is basically, I'm going to charge you based off of the outcome that I get for you, whether that's money, I saved you, money I recovered for you, whether that's time I saved you, I'm going to collect a portion of that rather than you paying me per hour, paying me some other kind of metric.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (37:20):
Is that kind of similar to value-based pricing or how would you differentiate those two?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (37:25):
I think that value-based pricing is a bit more amorphous, so to speak, right? If I could say value-based pricing is based off the fact that part of the value I deliver to my customers is that they're confident in their pricing, and so I can do the research to try and understand how to put a number around confidence, whereas outcome-based pricing is, I say to them, if with this new price you generate a hundred thousand dollars over the next three months, I would like 3% of that. So one is more concrete and one is more and more for us, so to speak.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (37:55):
And that makes sense because historically up here, the holy grails, you want value-based pricing. A lot of times I've heard that term, and it feels like in many ways, if you believe in your product and transparency, outcome-based pricing can be, I mean obviously it varies a lot, but it feels like it can be a real win for everybody
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (38:14):
If you're able to. It define where the outcomes are. Clean and clear cut, right? There's
(38:21):
An AI company called Finn, and they were the first ones I've seen who have really done this outcome-based pricing phenomenally. And Finn helps folks resolve inquiries. So if you go into Gap and you ask to resolve a customer query, they might be running fade on the backend. I don't think they are. That's just an example. But what fin charges on is the AI asks, did I resolve your query? And the customer says yes or no, and the customer says yes. Then fin builds a few cents to the company. So in that instance, our company-based pricing is pretty clear cut. It's based on the customer say, yes, you resolved it, or no, you didn't resolve it. So it's pretty clear cut, and you can tie that back to, right, how many FT have I saved to you based off of using the ai? There's a lot more you can tie to that, but because the outcome is so clear and so tangible, it's easy for them to say, we are outcome-based pricing.
(39:10):
I've seen McKinsey has been talking a lot about wanting to do outcome-based pricing as well, and I think it requires a lot more trust, a lot more conversation because if McKinsey comes in to do, let's say they're coming to do an optimization exercise and they determine if we can save you a million dollars in FT over the next week or two, we want to take 3% of that. Well, who decides a million dollars? Who decides what it was that McKinsey did that affected the million dollars? What if we're already doing things before McKinsey came in? Do we do it before and after? There's a lot more clarity that needs to be determined, but a lot more, you just need to be very clear cut if you're starting to walk down this line. Yeah,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (39:47):
I could see easily, there could be a lot of subjectivity. So you got to have really clear guidelines ahead of time, and I would imagine that's one of the biggest pitfalls or challenges with outcome-based pricing is being able to try to make it clear from the beginning and also how do you clearly calculate it and determine it. Actually not even speaking about outcome price pricing, but I've seen situations where the data is completely dependent on the other party. That requires a very high degree of trust to even validate the pricing's right now based it on outcome where they have an incentive to make it lower. Not saying you're going to behave unethically or not, but I mean that's a risk when you've incentivized them to easily not be transparent, at least from a price standpoint.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (40:36):
So I think there's a couple of places where outcome-based pricing works really well. It is where there's a clear outcome, it's mutually agreed to. It's fairly objective, right? Did I resolve the query? Yes or no, right? Did you get my money back as a collections company? Yes or no? It's fairly objective for us to determine what the outcome was and if success was met or not. In those areas where there's just the clarity is there, the objectivity is there and there's clear standards for what an outcome is. I go for it. In instances where there's more trust, more transparency, more subjectivity involved, probably needs, want to do a few conversations before you start leaning towards outcome-based pricing.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (41:12):
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So what I'm hearing is the more clear you can establish everything where it's clear upfront, Hey, it's a yes no, or for every dollar we recover, we get a percentage. It can easily be tracked, measured as kind, transparent, relatively straightforward. Those are good cases for outcome-based pricing.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (41:33):
Absolutely. Exactly.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (41:34):
As soon as you start to lose those, make sure you're having enough conversations to clarify all the grey areas they're going to be.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (41:41):
Yes. And also there's nothing wrong with having hybrid models. You might have pricing that is the bulk of the pricing is how you would usually charge, and you have your margins picked in, you have your research baked in, you have your customer's willingness to pay, baked in, and then you have a little bit of a bonus that's tied to whatever outcome you get. So that might be a way of dipping your toe into the outcome-based pricing waters first, and then as you get more comfortable with it, as you and the customer who you're testing this with, become more comfortable and familiar with each other, maybe then it becomes more of the price and it's taken up by the bonus or by the outcome metrics.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (42:17):
What that remind me of, so I started my career in procurement. I worked for the government and one of the big contracts we use all our service contracts is what they call cost plus performance. So you got reimbursed for all your costs, and then the rest was based on performance metrics and you could earn a certain amount, so how much did you deliver? And they were all clearly defined in the contract ahead of time, very detailed, okay, the max you could earn is this amount. Here's kind of the minimum. Here's how it's all calculated. Here's how much is dependent on this and that all in the statement of work. And so it reminded me there's a portion, obviously they got reimbursed for all their costs. They didn't have risk in the sense of I recovered out my cost. It was just everything beyond that. All the profit
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (42:59):
Was dependent on performance that contingent. Exactly, yes.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (43:02):
And that's what the hybrid model, you speak up different ways of doing that, but that's what
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (43:07):
It
Host: Paul Barnhurst (43:07):
Reminded me of.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (43:08):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (43:10):
So if someone's thinking about implementing outcome-based pricing, what process should they walk through? I mean, how would you encourage them to get started or how to think about it?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (43:20):
Yeah. I think first of all, you want to clearly define the outcomes, and you want to define the outcomes in conversation with your customers or your clients to both need to be on the same page as to what are the outcomes and how do we measure them. You want to make sure that they're quantifiable. It's not if we increase trust in the organisation, we get a portion of, we get X percentage bonus. How do you measure trust? Who's going to be taking the measurements and the readings get clear around the outcome and how you measure those. I think that there's also a range. There's something around the data infrastructure. So who is tracking the outcomes? Who owns the data with something like the example I gave where the chatbot fin, I imagine that they're able to track it through their own metrics. They own the chat bot, but the customer also has access to that data on their servers.
(44:09):
So there's mutual transparency as to what's going on. So just understanding who's actually going to track the data. If you're reliant on your customer to give you data to evidence so that that's going to affect what you charge them, probably not the right way to go. So figuring out who's going to own the data going to be a big part of this as well. I also think just in general, from an ethical perspective, making sure you can actually affect and influence those outcomes because when you get to the outcome side of the table, it's easy to just chuck everything, right? We're going to increase this and that and the other thing, and the third thing, just make sure you're talking to outcomes that are one-to-one with what you can actually affect and influence, and that will no longer come back. The customer can't come back later and litigate that and say, well, actually, we did the work and our team did this, so therefore you want to avoid that. Finally get it into the contract and the fine of the first kind of draught of a contract, you write it out in plain English, and then you take it to the lawyer so they can do it properly for you, but make sure you and your customer are aligned in very plain English what you're talking about, and you both have a clear understanding of it. Then the lawyers can go expand it and make it all more codified.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (45:18):
I like how you said that, make sure you've aligned in plain, which then let the lawyers through.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (45:22):
Exactly. Yes. Yeah,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (45:24):
I agree. If you let them in at first, by the time you're done reading, what does it even mean?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (45:29):
You're not going to understand anything.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (45:31):
So true. We talked a little bit earlier about data, but a lot of times people have this, we think this feels right as an approach to pricing. So especially I think as finance professionals, how will we help the business focus on a data-driven approach to pricing? If we go in and you see you're in a company, you're like, all right, I can tell they're just, oh, this feels good, or I saw this competitor doing that. The typical thing we often see, how do we, is kind of FP&A approach that to help them have a more data-driven approach.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (46:05):
Yeah. I think that the thing with data is that it's being able to get good at storytelling, actually, because it's never about the data. It's never about having the access to the data. It's always about, well, how do you make sure and how do you help them? How do you tell the story in a way that allows them to see the insights that the data is bringing that would it otherwise have? Right? This is where you have your behavioural economy saying, oh, if your pricing ends in 97, it means something different from if it ends in a round number. Hey, if you use partitions, people are only going to anchor on the base price. They won't think about all of the other surcharges and transitions you have in your pricing. So we have more leeway here. Hey, if you segment it this way that with the different conversations that you can have, but it all kind of rests on, are you able to tell that story very well and point to the different examples of, with this one change this come us to get a 27% increase.
(46:53):
If we could do that in our pricing, what could that mean for us? So it really just rests less on the role that data should be played. I think we're all aligned in you really do need to look at the data and understand both from the historical data you have and then talking to customers, but it really is how do you marry that data with the insights and the understanding of customer psychology to tell a compelling story that allows the organisations to go, okay, I see what you're saying. Let's go test it. Let's go talk to some customers.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (47:19):
It makes a lot of sense. One part that really resonate with me is you talk about how the storytelling, right? You got to be able to tell the story with data. One of my favourite books is Data Storytelling by Brett Dykes
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (47:30):
Is
Host: Paul Barnhurst (47:31):
A really
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (47:31):
Good
Host: Paul Barnhurst (47:31):
Job of,
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (47:32):
Is it an orange book? I think I read that. It
Host: Paul Barnhurst (47:34):
Is Yes. Orange
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (47:35):
Covered. Yeah. Yeah, I've read that. Yeah.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (47:37):
Yeah, I interviewed him. He actually lives locally, so we've got the lunch
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (47:42):
Together a
Host: Paul Barnhurst (47:42):
Few times and I've got to know him and yeah, he does a really good job on the importance of data and storytelling. Just interviewed someone else on that and I think it's an area that FP&A often struggles with. I think a lot of people do you have this idea? Well, you just got to bring data. Data needs a story behind it, a framework, and you have to tell people what it means. It's not enough to just be like, well here's the data, isn't it obvious? Exactly. Even if it is, people use the emotion to make decisions. I'm sure you know that as the behaviour.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (48:15):
Yeah. This is a lesson I learned a long time ago when I was working at a bank where my instinct, we ran an experimental instinct was to just put this all the numbers, this is the graphs and the charts. And my boss at the time was like, oh, you need to, what do people say? What do the customers say? Put the voice of the customer on the page. If you want leadership to care about this, put the voice of the customer, get them, let them hear what's actually going on and we could bring that emotional element onto the page, change the conversation entirely. So it's critical. It's a critical scale.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (48:48):
Alright, so I want to move on. I know we've covered a lot on pricing. They have a little bit of an FP&A section. Going to ask a couple questions here and then just a few get to know you questions. So we have a few, we ask every guest, and I would love to get your perspective being somebody that's not in finance or fp a, but work with people. What do you think the number one technical skill that FP&A professionals should have or that they should master?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (49:12):
I still think it's data storytelling. I really do. I think it's too often everyone comes in with the data you need to, so what? What now? What is it? What does that mean? What are the implications of it now? What should we do? What are the actions we should take? Even the season, A framework as simple as that, will exponentiate the impact you can have in your organisation. So data, storytelling and critical skill, and I love
Host: Paul Barnhurst (49:34):
The framework you shared there. It's when we do in my training quite a bit. So now what if you just need something simple to start with, it could be as simple as that is a place to start. What about softer human skill? What's that top skill?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (49:47):
I think that there's something around influence and persuasion that as any kind of professional, it's useful for you to have in your career. And the trick about that is that you have to actually be able to listen well and ask good questions. So if you want to influence people, you want to persuade them to do stuff, you need to hear what they're saying. You need to make sure they think that you're on the same page with them and who was fighting from the same team or they understand your position and you understand theirs. There's a really good book, I think it's the Trusted advisor, David Meister, trusted advisor. I haven't heard that one. I think it's the trusted advisor and he speak to this, how you can become a trusted, professional, trusted advisor in your profession. They're speaking mostly to financial advisors, but it's useful for all professionals, right? Understanding that soft skill of influence and persuasion, but at the root of that is how to hear better, how to understand better and get and elicit better information from the people around you.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (50:44):
Podcasting is definitely something where I've had to learn to be a better listener and I can see it helping me in other areas of the business and it's something that takes a lot of practise. So I think it is great. I love that he shared the book. Another one I really like, if you ever read a little different approach, but never split the difference. Christopher Vos more negotiation, but he shares a lot of great things on the importance of active listening, empathising, hearing their position, not just responding.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (51:10):
And I think this matters too from an FP&A perspective. If you go back to what always hint about just surfacing data and think that people are going to use the data and you think the extent to which your involvement in the conversation is, but sometimes when you ask the right questions you realise, yes, we're so glad you have that model, but the president of the company absolutely wants us to use this other strategy, so therefore how do we differentiate? How do we kind of come together and create something that's going to work for everybody? You hear the tensions, you hear the subtleties that people aren't going to see out loud when you practise being a better listener and join up better questions from people.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (51:43):
And one of the things I love now, even if you don't have someone you can practise with, run through the conversation. Even it's written with ai, at least give you some good ideas. I've done that. Give it a persona and have it try to play the role of the other person and it will make you think of questions and be better prepared. May not be perfect, but it's better than nothing.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (52:03):
Yeah. Stress test is for me. What obvious questions arise from this, what am I missing? Right? Spot on.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (52:10):
Yeah. All right, so now I want to move on to the get to know You section. Just kind of ask a few personal questions here to get to know you a little bit better. What do you like to do in your spare time or do you have any with a fairly new startup?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (52:23):
I like to go hiking or I live in Florida so I don't get a lot of, I have to make a concert effort to go hiking when I'm here, but trying to do all of the US national parks. But I've gone hiking in Spain and Fiji. I did Brazil last year, but hiking is one of the things I like to do and I'm a massive reader. I have apparently read 156 books in the five months of this year alone. So I dunno how I've done that, but that's what the Kindle says, but
Host: Paul Barnhurst (52:53):
Or Kindle reader. So on favourite hike. Do you have a favourite hike you've done? Either location or just because of the experience?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (53:00):
Yeah, I did the Sierra de Guama outside of Madrid two years ago and it's basically just like all rocks and hills going all the way up. But it is gorgeous. It's like this stunning quiet that takes about the entire kind of region. It's beautiful. So there's not really a view. It's like the hike itself is enjoyable in terms of these stairs. The Smokies, of course the Grand Canyon and I did that a few years ago. Can't tub. Yeah,
Host: Paul Barnhurst (53:27):
Grand Canyon is amazing. I used to live in Arizona,
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (53:30):
You can't tuck that in the fall with all the leaves changing and stuff.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (53:33):
Yeah, yeah, I know I am a big hiker as well. So I imagine we could do a whole episode on hikes, but everybody else would be like, what are they talking about? So
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (53:42):
Well before, what is your favourite hike before we move on?
Host: Paul Barnhurst (53:46):
That is a good question. One of my favorites. I really enjoyed hiking. That was a fun hike and I think part of it's because it's the highest peak in the continental us, but also I used to live outside there
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (54:01):
And just the
Host: Paul Barnhurst (54:03):
Gorgeous up from the top really kind of fun. All the switchbacks, we did it as a one day hike. So I think it was the fact that I could say I went up over 6,000 feet and came back
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (54:12):
22
Host: Paul Barnhurst (54:13):
Miles in one day.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (54:14):
Oh wow. There
Host: Paul Barnhurst (54:15):
Was just something to be said for kind of accomplishing all that. So that was probably my favourite. Plus I was in really good health able because I was trading for a marathon at the time and everybody else with me wasn't a good health. So that made me feel better as I'm up at the top saying, oh, I'm fine. And they're all like, thank you. I was young and a punk at the time I was under back then. This was 20 plus years ago. All right. You mentioned you've read 156 books. Do you have a favourite book or one you'd recommend to our audience? You obviously love to read.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (54:45):
Yes. So favourite book is hard, but I will say I like Go for no, so I dunno if you've read it, I can't remember the author, it's two authors, but go for, no, is this cute? But just a reverse small book basically it's about how a lot of times we think about success as you're going after the big yeses, when actually as you get to the yes, you have to go through a lot of nos. So if you just aim your target at going for the nos, you're more likely to encounter more yeses and be more successful to written in a really cute boat. It keeps story, really enjoy it. I give it to a lot of people. Go Giver is kind of the love that book.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (55:20):
Bob Berg, I interviewed him a lot ago. Did you? Great guy. Yeah, him and have you ever read the Fred Factor?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (55:26):
No.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (55:26):
If You Get Chance we that one really easy, great book. I can't remember the author's name, but we interviewed both of 'em together, the Go Giver and the guy who wrote the Fred Factor for a few years back. It's on YouTube still. It was a really funny interview.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (55:39):
Yeah, I look it up, but great book. Highly recommend both.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (55:43):
Yeah, so I'll have to check out the other one. I haven't read the other one, but yeah, A big Go-Giver fan. I really like that book. Alright, here's kind of a fun one. If you could add any superpower in the world, what would you have and why?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (55:54):
Yeah, it's like I don't think I have a useful superpower. This is not going to be useful for the rest of the world, but I personally would like to be one of those people who can just sleep when they want to sleep. There's people who just can sleep standing up or can lying to bed and just like, I cannot do it. I cannot do it. I can't sleep without waking up seven times and walking around and doing 17 different things. I would like to be one of those people who just like you press a button and you turn the power off and they're out.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (56:21):
I'm the kind that if you've put the lights down and even if I'm in class or a meeting, I'm going to fall asleep unless I stand up,
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (56:27):
Walk around. Oh God, I'm so jealous. Almost
Host: Paul Barnhurst (56:30):
Too easy. So sometimes I'd almost, we could maybe swap a little bit here.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (56:36):
I'm very jealous. That would be a superpower. Yeah, my wife
Host: Paul Barnhurst (56:38):
Hates it too. She has a hard time sleeping and she'll be talk to me next and she's like, you're asleep, this isn't fair.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (56:44):
It's like you're out. Yeah, my sister can do that too. She just knocks off like that. How is it possible? Yeah.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (56:50):
Yeah. It's amazing how it can be so different for people in the same family. Alright, so any last advice before we wrap up here around pricing that you give our audience? Any final advice?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (57:02):
Yeah, I think that at the end of the day, it comes down to understanding the human behind the transaction, right? So if your pricing hasn't really considered customer input, customer psychology, how are they going to think about these numbers? What are they willing to pay? How do they value our different services? It's very important that you start to have those conversations and it doesn't have to be big or complex, just sit through customers through the prospect, ask them some questions around this and you can start to gather those insights. But I think that is one area that a lot of people overlook. We have a pricing playbook where folks, if you're interested in understanding around the behavioural science behind pricing, how do I structure my prices in a way that's going to resonate with people, it's playbook, the decision Alpha co. I'm sure people will get that link to you. Well, it's free and it's a good way to just get started in thinking through what is the methodology behind this and how do I do this in a way that I'm not leaving a bunch of money on the table
Host: Paul Barnhurst (57:55):
Also. So we'll put that in the show notes and that'd be great to have that link. Appreciate that. And then if someone wants to get in touch with you, learn more about your business or reach out to you, what's the best way for them to do that?
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (58:07):
They can go through our website, it's decision alpha.co, so decision alpha.co and we have pricing and audits every Monday. If they're interested in that, just reach out for the website and we can coordinate something.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (58:19):
Alright, perfect. Well thank you so much for your time, Etinosa. I really appreciate it. It was a pleasure chatting with you. Enjoyed the conversation and we'll have to do it again sometime.
Guest: Etinosa Agbonlahor (58:28):
Likewise. Thank you for having me, Paul.
Host: Paul Barnhurst (58:30):
That's it for today's episode of FP&A Unlocked. If you enjoy FP&A unlocked, please take a moment to leave a five-star rating and review. It's the best way to support the FP&A guy and help more FP&A professionals discover the show. Remember, you can earn CPE credit for this episode by visiting earmarkcpe.com. Downloading the app and completing the quiz. If you need continuing education credits for the FPAC certification, complete the quiz and reach out to me directly. Thanks for listening. I'm Paul Barnhurst, the FP&A guy, and I'll see you next tim
