The Upside of Irrationality. The unexpected benefits of defying logic at work and at home. Dan Ariely.
The Upside of Irrationality. The unexpected benefits of defying logic at work and at home. Dan Ariely. 2010. ISBN 9780061995033. The sequel to Predictably Irrational by one of my favorite economists. His stuff is just so “useful”. You will learn about many interesting things like:
- The disincentive value of very high cash bonuses
- How creators place a very high value on their work
- Not invented here is a very basic flaw in our makeup
- the “identifiable victim” impact on fundraising
- the failure of online dating to solve the singles problem
- how emotional cascades impact on decisions
- the danger of theorizing without the data (trusting your gut)
Very readable, so human, the writer spins a compelling book that I could not put down.
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Category: Leadership, Lifeskills, Marketing
The Art of Pricing: How to find the hidden profits in your business. Rafi Mohammed.
The Art of Pricing: How to find the hidden profits in your business. Rafi Mohammed. 2005. ISBN 1400080932. Out of print but still available on a Kindle this is a book by the author of the 1% Solution. It has a slight B2C slant but the basics of effective pricing are there. I especially appreciated the description of the ground breaking work done at Ford on pricing. The idea of setting margin as the sales goal versus volume has been set out before, but Ford exposed the profit margins on all products to the sales team with very profitable results. Mohammed asks the practitioner to determine the naked net price of an item. He is a fan of differential pricing – are the right customers paying the right prices? He spends a good amount of ink on what is the value and stresses that you can not assume that all players have the same definition of value. In setting pricing he says you must temper your pricing objectives with a sense of fair pricing, company strategy, and the competition. He has a useful template that asks you a lot of questions about pricing, which help lead you to better decision making. This is a foundational book, which focuses on setting prices.
Related articles
- How to Play Marco Polo When Setting Prices (blogs.hbr.org)
- No B.S. Price Strategy. The ultimate no holds barred kick butt take no prisoners guide to profits, power and prosperity. Dan S. Kennedy & Jason Marrs. (regnordman.com)
- Smart Pricing. How Google, Priceline, and leading businesses use pricing. Kagmohan Raju & Z. John Zhang. (regnordman.com)
Category: Pricing