Determining Value: Whose Job Is It?

When it comes to determining the price of a product, even if the product is someone’s knowledge, whose job is it to determine the value?

I own a small B&B (brick & mortar) business down here in the Caribbean.

On a daily basis I get calls from people around the globe looking to come visit our island. Frequently, those calls include a request for a discount in our price.

While I love my guests, am pretty much willing to do anything within my power to ensure that they have an amazing stay, we DON’T do discounts or free night stays.

Why am I discussing this in the first place?

This past Saturday, just before I was getting ready to head out for a bike ride, I happened to notice a fairly spirited discussion taking place on Twitter between Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and Anne McCrossan (@annemcx) regarding the new Third Tribe Marketing paid community.

Anne sent a tweet that linked to her blog post about why she is not joining.

And Chris responded with.

After reading Anne’s post and some of her subsequent tweets, it seems as though she is taking issue with two main items as it pertains to Third Tribe Marketing:

• the sales pitch

• the overall value of paying to join the community

Not putting words into anyone’s mouth, err keyboard, but that is the feeling I got. And as someone who might try to sell an information product at some point in the future, my questions to Anne (and others) would be the following:

1. Would you have felt better if they packaged their third tribe marketing ideas into a ‘tangible’ hard copy book and sold it for $47.00? And from the theoretical book purchase you could join the community for ~ $20.00 per month?

2. Or, how about if they offered a one-on-one 15 minute phone consultation? Would you feel better or think the sales pitch is less spammy?

3. What would you do differently with the sales pitch?

In my mind, not liking a sales pitch and not deeming something of value, are two very different issues.

It goes much deeper than Chris and Ann’s discussion of course. Jonathan Fields recently asked, “Whose Blog Would You Pay to Read?” The comments alone are fascinating.

My Thoughts

I saw the announcements, tweets, and blog posts about Third Tribe Marketing and I did not join. Simple.

However, my own personal feeling, as someone who gets questioned about price and value on a daily basis is this:

Much like Seth Godin, the people involved in the Third Tribe Community – Brian Clark, Darren Rowse, & Chris Brogan have produced volumes worth of valuable free content. On a personal, small business level, they have each taught me a tremendous amount from their respective websites and the content that they provide.

If they choose to do so, I think it is their right to create a community that charges a fee.

What’s your take?

(Disclosure: I hold all of the people involved in Third Tribe Marketing and Anne McCrossan in the highest regard and have tremendous respect for their intellect, generosity, and opinions.)