Pricing Starts With What’s In It For Them

Joe Rockey returns to Leaders and Their Stories with Richard Lowe (The Writing King) for a sharp conversation about pricing, positioning, and why most businesses get both wrong.

Author of Casino Sales Master, Joe explains why positioning fails before pricing ever enters the picture, why people care only about the problem you solve, and why vulnerability is what actually moves a sale.

Joe Rockey Jr. is a sales and human-behavior expert, author of Casino Sales Master, and owner of Elite Business Cruises. A recurring guest on the show, he teaches the psychology behind positioning, pricing, and trust.

This is one of several conversations with Joe; see also how to make people want to be honest and the cause of the next recession.

DISCUSS YOUR BOOK

Full transcript of the interview follows.

A Repeat Guest on Pricing

Richard: Hello and welcome to the Leaders End Their Stories podcast. I’m here with Joe Rocky Jr. He is a fantastic person who’s written the Casino Sales Master. We’ve gone way back supporting each other and helping each other. He’s very good salesperson and he knows some things about pricing that I wanna talk to him about and I think you’ll find very interesting.

Joe, why don’t you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, well first off, thank you for having me for what, the third or fourth time now on the show. I love being here with you. Welcome.

Where Most Businesses Fail

Joe Rockey: Yeah. Yeah. Well, first off, thank you for having me for what the third or fourth time now on the show. love being in here with you. Yeah. You know, I, before I even dive into like pricing per se, I want to dive into a broader problem that most people fail at before, and at least touch on it to set the stage.

Right. So we’re not just zoomed in on a problem and figure out why we missed it. Where most businesses fail with product position or pricing, certainly part of this or how to display my content is they fail to recognize. Why does someone even care about them in the first place?

Why should I want to reach out to you, be a part of your company, be a part of your world, et cetera. And this is where so many people fail when they’re looking at their prospect, their ideal prospect, and they go once with demographic data. You how tall are they?

How much money did they make? What gender are they? Ethnicity, blah, blah, blah. All this stuff is really easy to steal off the internet, which is why it’s sold so frequently, but really has nothing to do about why someone would care about you. People care about you about what is the problem that you were solving.

Period. I mean, that’s the end of the day. You know, do you ever care about McDonald’s when you’re not hungry? No. Do you ever care about buying a truck when you don’t need one? No. That’s exactly what it is. And there’s this whole thing like, that’s selfish or evil or whatever.

No, that’s reality. People are built that way. Every human being, including our new Pope from Chicago is what’s in it for me. It’s a human innate thing within all of us. That doesn’t make it bad. It’s just the way it is, accept it, and don’t try to build a utopian mindset that’s never coming to pass.

by the way, you’re a writer of those books. How often do those end up happy? so with That being said, it backs up to what’s the real problem I solve. What are people getting out of this? Because If you don’t have a real answer to that, you can charge nothing and no one’s showing up.

And that gets us to the starting point of pricing is. The Joker literally said it best, Heath Ledger in his movie. If you’re good at something, never do it for free. And then it just comes down to how valuable is it? How important is it? What you’re doing?

Obviously in the case of the dark night, he was getting hired to take Batman out. That was his entire job, right? And he, they gave half of their empire to him in which they paid him, but he never did it. Side story about that movie. But the thing is still true with any transaction is what do they believe?

that they are going to get from you. And a part of that is the pricing because the other saying that’s out there, it’s a hundred percent true is you get what you pay for. And that’s true. If you’re trying to go out and eat healthy, you normally don’t start at the dollar menu at Taco Bell.

It’s not going to work out. If you’re trying to eat healthy, what do you do? You subscribe to someone’s food club or whatever. end up spending $78 for a piece of lettuce. But you think it’s going to make you have six packs and pick up that chick. And that’s why you do it.

So it comes down to what is the problem you’re solving. And I use that example, not to be sexist or anything, but to show a greater point. The problem you actually solve is probably not the problem in your prospect’s head that you solve. And now we’re getting a derivative away, but this is where the true decision is making.

I’m not buying this truck because of four wheels and an engine. I’m buying this truck because I know I’ll be able to take all my kids around golfing and they actually will show up. or I’ll be able to be connected in their lives or I’ll be safe and I won’t hurt my knees or whatever.

Those are the real reasons you bought it. It has nothing to do with tow capacity or lifting or anything like that. It’s what is their actual problem you solve, which isn’t exactly always what you think the problem they solve is. And the closer you can get to consistently figuring out what is my client’s problem I’m solving, not the fact that.

I do taxes, well, that’s great. You’re a tax attorney. Everyone needs to get it done by the 15th. But what are you actually solving for them? Well, now they’re not all upset and going on a murderous rampage and hating everything. Or now they’re not living in fear that they did something wrong and the evil IRS is gonna hunt them down with an audit.

These are all different examples and every business has at least six of these. I can go on all days with these for my various clients. The point being is that you need to know A, what you actually solve, starting point. But what they believe and what they are also getting out of it, that is the additional benefits that probably are more important to them anyway. And that’s what they’re paying for.

Richard: finding out beyond the platitudes, what do they want? And if you don’t hit that, they’re not going to buy from you most likely, unless they, unless they kind of drill through it. But if you hit that, then you’ve, you’ve got it. Unless there’s just, unless you’re talking to the wrong audience.

mean, you obviously should have pre-qualified them. they have the money? Are they likely to have the money? Are they likely to be in the position to do this? Are they likely to, to proceed with the book? So your prospecting has to be on the nose too. Otherwise you’re wasting your time with people who really want it, but can’t do it.

People Care About the Problem You Solve

Joe: Yes and no on that part. so to dive into that in the way that you carry yourself, there is an exudence of quality and internally there is an assumption based upon the quality. It’s the, get what I’m paying for math done in reverse. So based upon, can tell this guy just made three Grammy guys known again, and they actually want to like be seen and they’re resurrected their careers.

I’m like a mid manager. I’m not, I’m not in this guy’s league. they’ll be able to tell that without you ever having to do it from your qualifying. And I, I don’t encourage people to discourage being direct and upfront and happy with your accomplishments. as you were outlining there before about having your clients tell you what’s the actually meaningful part to them without diving through platitude world. That’s what I describe in my book as swimming in their ocean of emotions, you know,

Richard: That’s what I describe in my book as swimming in their ocean. Yep. That’s surface levels where we’re gonna have platitudes. That’s where we’re features and benefits and all right, how many actual words am I gonna get out of your book? How long is it gonna It’s blah, blah, blah, blah.

Yes, they’ve heard it before because everybody’s getting hit by ghostwriters now or in your case, whatever. What I care about is…

What’s In It For Them

Joe: That surface level is where we’re have platitudes. That’s where we’re features and benefits and all right, how many actual words am I gonna get out of your book? How long is it gonna be? Blah, blah. And no one cares about that. What I care about is, and then you have to let them answer that question.

And the way that you do that, and this is true for all sales. This doesn’t matter whether it’s about getting a date or getting the next great client. It’s relating to them and opening yourself up, especially in the way in which they are going to have to open up to you. So for so many people, you specifically talking about your

Richard: So for so many people, you specifically talking about your career here are selling something that is raw to them. know, a story than the actual what happened that got the first time it was told so erroneously, God living in Twitter and seeing how that works. I don’t get how that’s my everyday for people, but they got ripped out, they got stapled on and they didn’t like the outcome of what their persona was.

Joe: career here are selling something that is raw to them. You know, a story than the actual what happened that got the first time it was told so erroneously and God living in Twitter and seeing how that works. I don’t get how that’s on every day for people, but they got ripped out.

They got stamped on and they didn’t like the outcome of what their persona was out there. So they were given two choices. I can either run away and hide, don’t run out of money and just live on a beach somewhere and no one will know who I am anymore.

I’m a colleague, Culkin, and no one knows what’s going on with me, but I’m out. That’s an option. Option two is I can actually try to go through all that pain, drudging, remember all the fights we had, everyone hating on me. My even mom said it, but she won’t talk to me anymore because that one interview I did with Vanity Fair and then they come out and they’re like, I have to relive all of that.

That is raw. That is uncut. That is painful emotions that they are going to have to go through if they become a client with you or anyone. So what you have to do as the salesperson is show that you a have been there before. And you show that by you’re willing to be open and vulnerable with where they’re at, which shows beyond just, understand where you’re at.

And it goes from the logical sense to the emotional sense. And make no doubt every sale is based upon the emotional sense. And then, by the way, you don’t even need a bring up price per se, because at that point they’ve already connected with you there on the bus.

And I’ve even done the question to people. So all this conversation we said, how much do you think this costs? And then, you know, if they’re close, like, Oh yeah, you’re pretty much close to the ballpark. This is the actual range of their way off. Like, well, the reality is, is that I, I, I don’t think we’re perfectly aligned here.

My price tier is this and you’re looking for that literally had a conversation with someone the other week who for base upon what they were asking for me to do. My price was 80%. They wanted to pay 18 pretty much, you know, it was a nice hour conversation.

know exactly what they’re wanting. I know what they should do and they aren’t doing it. Long story short, but there’s just some people you’re not going to be able to help. And that’s another reality of life you have to accept too. So What I recommend is when you connect to people, be open to that, be truly open and vulnerable with yourself.

Cause that’s what moves the needle. Whether it be a B2C or a B2B sale, that’s the reality. An actual human connection to another. Because even though it’s a corporation, it’s still a collection of individuals that are running.

Richard: be open to that, be truly open and vulnerable with yourself, because that’s what moves the needle. Whether it be a B2C or a B2B sale, that’s the reality, an actual human connection to another. Because even though it’s corporation, it’s still a collection of individuals that are running it.

Yep. And that’s why when I’m doing a lot of podcasting as a guest, I always bring up some of the hardships in the past and that I overcome them and how. It’s listening to that podcast, whoever’s listening to it, hopefully. potential customers also I’m being vulnerable and I’m telling the truth.

And it’s not, it’s not actually an intentional thing that I’m doing. It’s just part of me. got a story and here’s what, here’s my story and listen to, I was in a fire. Parents were bad, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, bad, all kinds of bad things. And then yet here I am, you know, high, high level ghostwriter and doing well.

And here I was, you know, consulting and working for Trader Joe’s and all these other things. So even though life was tough, I persevered and that’s the kind of story that I love to write for other people. And I do that in a lot of podcasts just to show them, partially to show them my story and partially to show them I can be vulnerable too.

And unconsciously, hopefully they get the idea. They’re allowed to be, in fact, they’re supposed to be vulnerable for the book. Not all of that will go in the book. Sometimes the book will not have, usually the book won’t have all of that vulnerability, but we’ll be able to choose the stories that make sense.

So I know there’s some people out there listening to go, what the hell does vulnerability have to do with pricing? And this is the straight line cut through for you. The more vulnerability that you’re able to expose and require, the more expensive you are. Up to a point.

No vulnerability to buy a big match. Up to a point. No vulnerability to slaughter a cow. Up to a point. There’s a point at which you’re just becoming a weepy.

Swimming in Their Ocean

Joe: So I know there’s some people out there listening to go, what the hell does vulnerability have to do with pricing? And this is the straight line cut through for you. The more vulnerability that you’re able to expose and require, the more expensive you are. You’d need no vulnerability to buy a, buy a Big Mac.

You do need vulnerability to slaughter a cow. It has to be on topic. part is, and more importantly, and this is part of the line that even you crossed over in your example there is it has to be theirs. No one cares about you. All the, all the point of the vulnerability is that it shows the other person.

can be safe with you when I’m being vulnerable. It’s not you opening up frivolously so you can be like, well, that guy over shared or whatever. mean, you see this a lot. you’re ever looking at young people dating, when one person opens up way too much and the other person just ain’t ready for that.

And guess what happens? The relationship is over in that second in time. It’s true for all people. Yeah. All stages of life it happens. It’s the way in which it is. So you have to be able to mirror people appropriately and know what the right step of vulnerability is.

But again, having them feel safe along the way. And an example I used in my book was if you were going to go do skydiving the first time you have someone attached to you. If that person is all nervous and looking all over and like, where’s my checkpoint and stuff.

You’re not going to be comfortable. You’re not going to want to get on the plane with them. Where. And the other person’s just like a relaxed dude, completely cool and mellow. You have no idea how many times either one of these guys have done it. The first guy might’ve done this 500 times and he’s just OCD about everything.

And the second guy might be his third ever jump, but you’re going to naturally be more comfortable with the second person, which gets into. not exactly the point of this episode, but a great myth that’s out there, which is you need to have experiences, degrees on the walls, know, peltz on your belt or whatever that saying is.

You don’t, you need to be able to connect with someone that they trust you and being able to deliver upon it. Now you still have to deliver upon it, but there’s no, there’s no saying that just because the Ford I bought in 2020 is going to be as good as the one I buy in 2025.

You learned that through experience of working together. Now granted the fact that you had one for 2020 is nice, but why I’m buying you is because of this.

Richard: not afraid to joke, who’s not going, my God, there’s a rope here. We have to climb down. I’ve never done this before. We’re swinging wide. Watch out. I remember the one, she was just like, yeah, it’s no big deal. We’ll get down. I’ll be right there with you.

Don’t worry about it. And don’t worry about the creepy crawlies crawling on you. They’re just curious insects. No big deal. They’re not ghosts. And she was very confident and crawled around in that cave until I was done. By the time I was done, I was done. And it was, it was good.

And I confronted my fear, but she was vulnerable in that she told me also about some experiences she had with clientele who were, had problems much more severe than me and who she helped through it through guidance and things like that. And then she joked and she says, don’t worry. I’ve only lost one or two, you know, they’re probably still down there.

Joe: Yeah. mean, I mean, there’s something to that is like your logical sector of your brain doesn’t engage over a strong emotion like fear. and, and vulnerability is a source of fear for most people. Vulnerability of a trauma is the biggest one. Your particular world, you’re selling that. like I do something similar and people are gonna think that this is stupid, but at many amusement parks, there’s these rides that literally are just.

seats attached to a tower and they shoot you up or they shoot you down as hard as they can. And you’re sitting on a square inch of steel. That’s it. That’s the only thing keeping you from a 400 foot drop, a square foot of steel by all accounts.

That is stupid. Um, and I personally know I have done it hundreds of times. Every single time I sit on it. I still have this paranoia that I’m about to die because completely illogical done it many times. I saw the hundred people in line in front of me do this and be fine. I still have that every single time because it’s human nature.

Selling Something Raw

Richard: That’s one reason why I go up in high-dier building. It’s a piece of plywood that thick between me and a 3000 foot drop every time. And every time I’m nervous as hell, but I just, these guys have done it before. They were very reassuring that people don’t die.

Haven’t heard anything in the news. And, and, they got no lie. You know, it went very well. but I think the key is, is cut that confidence in my opinion. When you say you’re walking in and you’re buying a professional services, if that person is charging a high rate, but not an exorbitant rate, you know, a high rate versus a person who’s charging a low rate, that is a difference in confidence.

They obviously the, the lower rate may be also a difference in skill level and things like that, but we’re looking just at confidence. So if you walk into somebody and they’re charging, let’s say $25 an hour and. They’re based in this country where it’s a comparable salary. mean, obviously if you’re going out of country, they’re going to have different, different rates.

Um, and then you find another one who’s charging $300 an hour. Well, my first question would be, why are you $300 an hour? Because that person’s confident. He’s done it before. He understands it. He blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that’s who are you going to have build a dream house?

You’re going to have the person who’s charging $25 an hour. We’re going to have the one who’s charging $300 an hour, maybe somebody in the middle. You’re going to find the one who’s confident, who’s done this before, who just says, yeah, no, no big deal. We’ll get it done.

But keep in mind, you’re probably talking to the salesperson, not the people who getting it done in that case. yeah. I’ve learned that the hard way. The salesperson is blah, blah, blah, happy, blah, blah, blah. You got to talk to the people who are doing it.

Joe: There’s a big part of that, that part is true. That is also true. One of the other things to point out is that this fear circle goes to the salespeople as well. You know, it’s comfortable to keep charging the same $25. I always did. Even though I told my coach, I’m definitely going to raise my prices today.

I’m going to charge them 35. I’m see what happens. But most people are happy in their comfort zone. They’re afraid. So they just want to go back to the default setting. Well, the simple reality could be that guy who does a three, you know, 300 hours, first guy is doing 25 is Yeah, dude, I’m eight times faster and I give better results.

So at the end of the day, you’re pretty much paying me the same amount. Sure. A little bit more, but basically the same amount because that guy’s going to take longer and probably mess up. So do you want to play the surcharge and have it done faster and better?

I mean, that’s that’s the house I want. mean, I was never flipping a house where I was like, please take another three months so I can pay crazy interest on this hard money loan I have. Like, yeah, let’s do that. And then have you not do it the way the clients want it.

So again, there’s A reason all of these sayings are baked into our souls and they get passed down from generation to generation. It’s because it’s true. I mean, if you don’t believe this, you can go back to the Bible and there’s 28 different examples just in the New Testament of people hating on salesmen because salespeople were doing it wrong.

And if you look at it like that, this is that old 2000 years old. I’m sure that it’s in the Koran and everything else. But the point being is that this is part of human nature. There’s so many ways you can do sales wrong. And there’s so few ways to actually build a meaningful relationship, be vulnerable with someone and understand what they truly want and be honest about whether you can deliver upon it.

You do all that. People will pay whatever for, for what you’re going to pay for and whatever in the greatest sense of that word can mean.

Richard: Yeah. I’m going to finish up with an example from retail. Trader Joe’s when you walk into Trader Joe’s, you’re buying a product obviously. But what do you get? Well, Trader Joe’s is probably As expensive or more expensive than other stores that some of it’s a little less expensive.

So it’s really not a price thing. The parking sucks. Parking at Trader Joe’s is always horrendous, but people still go. mean, they wouldn’t put up with that from their local, you know, store normally. Why do they go to Trader Joe’s? Some people go hundreds of miles, even thousands of miles to get to a Trader Joe’s.

Why do they do that? It’s because they present an environment where people are comfortable there. They have clean stores. have people who are trained to talk to customers and customer speak. And I worked for Trader Joe’s for 20 years. So I know this. have, they have actually a person on staff all the time who’s always there who wanders around and finds people who need help.

I know how many times I’ve been in like say Home Depot and I’m need something and I’m there looking at stuff and nobody helps me. It’s like, Obviously I need help. Come on somebody, you know, you got people working here and they’re all do do do do do do do.

It’s like, yeah, I don’t know what size screw I need. just know I need one. But Trader Joe’s, somebody will come up to you and help you. Now, if you take that mindset of all of the stuff related to Trader Joe’s, the cleanness, the theme, the brand, everything related to it, and you put it into whatever you’re doing, got a consistent brand, you got a good presence, you aren’t.

Joe: No, for real, you’re 100 % right.

Richard: shy about speaking, you, your benefits are well known. don’t worry about the parking problem. and you put all these together and just study trader Joe’s and they don’t negotiate prices. they, maybe, no, they don’t actually. then, then you have a model and you can even look at Walmart.

mean, you go into Walmart, they’re huge stores and you go to Walmart and what are you getting? You’re getting. whatever you want, they have it all. Very rare exceptions. I’ve been finding exceptions lately. And now they have this delivery service that is just wonderful. I don’t even have to go into Walmart.

And it’s great. So one of the things I want to say there is the backdrop, the water in which you’re taking for granted. Everything you said about the theme, communicating with the clients and all that, it’s not.

Joe: So one of the things I want to say there is the backdrop, the water in which you’re, you’re, taking for granted. Is that everything you said about the theme, the communicating with the clients and all that. It’s not from your point of view as the business owner. It’s from the client’s point of view.

Exactly. And that is that that problem right there is why you can go on LinkedIn right now and find 40,000 coaches because most people are not able to get out of their business mindset head. and get into their clients’ perspective. I mean, at the end of the day, that’s the big ticket thing that if you can learn how to overcome, you can succeed.

It’s how you can get people in casinos to want to pay you, even though they’re designed to take your money. There you go. Well, I love to have that. We wrote chapters about that. If you guys want a shortcut on that, you’ll get it. It’s Casino Salesmaster Proven system to beat the odds in sales and life.

Obviously it’s on Amazon and all the other fun places you can get it. You get it on the website, casinosalesmaster.win. You get some bonus perks. Mine’s not there. is much, much, mine is intentionally higher than every other paper back around it.

Why Vulnerability Moves the Needle

Richard: Mine will be there right now. It’s on sale for 99 cents because it’s just starting. It just published it. And I want to get those reviews in. so. Be sad. You missed it. You missed the wave. All right. Anyway, thank you for coming to the show. How do people get hold of you? WYN.

Joe: By the time people are listening to this, it won’t be the case, and they’re gonna feel sad. Hahaha! Again, you can connect with me through casinosalesmaster.win. It’s probably the easiest way to do it. So casinosalesmaster.win.

Richard: W-I-N, it’s Casino, you gotta win baby. Awesome. Well, thank you very much. This has been the Leaders In Their Stories podcast. I’m Richard Lowe, the writing king and ghost writing guru. Appreciate y’all taking the time to visit Joe and I and we’ll be coming back roughly next month and we’ll have a similar conversation. So thank you for coming. Bye bye.

Joe: W-I-N, it’s a casino, you gotta win, baby!

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