If you are like most executives, you are trying to create the proverbial better mouse trap. A lot of companies succeed in designing the mousetrap, but don't catch too many mice. Somebody else usually moves the mice first. How can pricing be used to contr...

In many industries, having a somewhat higher price is part of establishing a quality image in the minds of those who buy and use the product. Companies which price their products based on costs will often miss this point, and hurt sales volume by having ...

With increased global competition, the customer is more in charge than ever. That doesn't mean that you need to offer services that cost you a fortune: Better designed pricing can be a great help. Let's consider an industrial example. A commodity manuf...

Mention imaginative pricing to gain more profit, and most people think of charging more for "extras." I got a new set of glasses this week. The lenses only cost $59, but they tried hard to sell me an "anti-glare" coating for another $50. Based on what I k...

Anytime you break even on an offering, you can't afford to charge less. But where you do make a profit, reducing your profit per unit may be useful to increasing your overall profits. What are the situations you should look at for? First, you need to t...

When I turned 60, an unexpected event occurred that inspired me to write this article. Since the age of 10, I had worn contact lenses to correct for my extreme nearsightedness. But in the last few years, that solution had begun to work less well. After...

I began a project to telescope 400 years of normal progress into 20 years. Through the project, you can learn to make breakthroughs. What are the potential benefits for you? If the modest trend in increased life-span for 60 year-olds were to continue f...

I was born optimistic. But it wasn't unfounded optimism: Rather it was optimism based on seeing better ways to proceed. From the earliest age, I could see easy ways to improve on what the adults around me were ignoring. Take choosing a driving route, f...

You cannot change your business model to better use pricing until you find a concept that expands your competitive advantage, regardless of what competitors do. Let's look for that important breakthrough concept. Although we have been focusing on the p...

Most companies set prices to optimize profits believing that selling volumes will change little. In either price-elastic markets or where marginal costs are low, that is a mistake. Further, many companies look only at their own prices rather than what ...

How can you get profitable innovation into the market faster? It's difficult to innovate until you have a successful test. How many tests will succeed? As few as none, and probably no more than ten percent. So, unless you are testing at least ten...

Why stay with an old business model, when you could have a better one? This takes identifying an idea you want to try. Next, you need to validate that idea. You are now ready to test your best ideas. By running more than one test at a time, you speed the ...

Starting with tests of business model innovation is always a better idea than simply implementing a new idea. Specify that each test must reasonably provide reliable information about: (1) how much ultimate consumption and intermediate demand changed ...

Consider something you buy frequently. Imagine how you would change that offering if you had complete control over what was delivered. The result would look a lot different, wouldn't it? Your customers feel the same way, as do their customers, and their c...

As you consider what type of value you want to add to your business model, you should also think in terms of what the longer-term consequences are. Otherwise, you may create short-term solutions that offer limited benefits. For example, adding new vari...