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Well, all right, hello and thank
you all again for tuning into 

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yet another episode of the 
Professional Pricing Society 

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podcast. 
My name is Terrence and in 

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today's podcast we have a very 
special guest with us by the 

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name of Frank Luby. 
Frank has over 25 years of 

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experience in pricing in over 40
years as a writer and Akron 

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eight-year run as partner at 
Simon Kutcher and partners. 

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He Co founded Present Tense LLC 
in 2014 to help business 

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professionals improve their 
communication. 

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Frank also will be at our fall 
conference in Las Vegas this 

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upcoming October to conduct his 
highly rated writing workshop. 

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Frank, how are we doing today? 
We're doing great, Terrance. 

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Thank you. 
Thank you for having me. 

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How are you? 
Doing well, doing well. 

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Thank you so much for being on 
this episode with us to talk 

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about the importance of writing 
for for pricing. 

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Let's just go ahead and dive 
into this conversation because 

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it's, it's one of these topics 
that I feel like a lot of people

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could always sharpen their skill
set. 

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And when it just comes to 
writing and it just comes to, 

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you know, when you're a pricing 
practitioner, this is a strength

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that you really do want to have 
kind of in your back pocket. 

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And let me ask you this why? 
Why is writing so important 

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specifically for pricing 
practitioners? 

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Yeah, I think pricing 
practitioners, we often don't 

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realize how often we write or 
need to write. 

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We sometimes take it for 
granted. 

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It's something that we do all 
the time, but we, we kind of 

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forget that most decisions that 
that executives will make, that 

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people will make are based on 
some form of written 

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communication that might have 
been delivered in person, in a 

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presentation, might be on a Zoom
call, might be in a written 

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document. 
But at, at, at the end of the 

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day, you know, it starts with 
something that's written down, 

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that's organized, that's 
structured. 

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And I think especially someone 
who's really into pricing might 

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forget that, you know, you might
have the most robust analysis. 

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You know, you've done a great 
job analyzing all your data, but

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you're not gonna get anyone to 
believe in it. 

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And you're not gonna get anyone 
to act on it unless you you know

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you know what you've written or 
what you've prepared. 

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Sets the right priorities, 
structured the right way, and 

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especially uses the right words.
Good, good. 

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Now you know focusing on just 
specifically executives, what is

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in your opinion with your 
expertise and your insight? 

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What is different when you 
prepare a story for them to to 

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hear or to read? 
Yeah. 

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I think the the first thing is 
the, the stakes are higher. 

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You know, these are, these are 
big decisions, these are company

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moving decisions. 
These are sometimes market 

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moving decisions that they're 
going to make. 

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So your margin for error in what
you've prepared and what you 

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write is, is often a lot smaller
when you're dealing with 

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executives and executives as an 
audience. 

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They have less time, you need 
fewer words, and they also have 

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stronger biases that you need to
be aware of and that you got you

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have to overcome. 
The process is the same, but I 

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think you just need to invest 
that much more when the 

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executive is the one that's the 
audience for what you're 

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writing. 
OK, that's good. 

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That's really good to know and 
you make a great point because 

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you know, executives tend to 
have and your your opinion, you 

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know, less time to the point a 
little bit quicker. 

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You know when you say know your 
audience. 

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Let's dive a a bit deeper into 
that. 

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Elaborate on when you what you 
mean when you say know your 

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audience as it pertains to 
writing. 

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Well, I think the, you know, if 
you talk to anyone that that 

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works in writing or helps people
learn how to write, they're 

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gonna at some point that it 
starts with the audience. 

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And in a lot of cases that you 
have to think of what you write 

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as an individual communication. 
So you might see some statistics

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out there that say 60% of CEOs 
think this way or you know, 70% 

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want this and their 
presentations. 

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That means 30%, don't you know? 
So you need to know who that is 

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on the other end of the call, on
the other end of your document 

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and who's reading it. 
And you need to know them 

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individually. 
So that means going beyond the 

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job title and looking at that 
person as an individual and not 

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their, you know, the Facebook 
things, you know, it doesn't 

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matter whether they like sports 
or they have a cat or a dog or 

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anything like that. 
It's about how much do they know

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about pricing? 
You know, are they quantitative 

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or are they qualitative? 
What are they are expecting from

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what you write and, and what are
their motivations? 

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So really at a business level, 
what, what makes them tick? 

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What's and what what? 
How can you prepare something 

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that really matches who that 
person is? 

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Yeah, that's really good. 
You know, understanding what it 

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is that moves the needle for 
that individual is it's what 

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what it sounds like you're 
saying that it's going to really

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make the biggest impact in in 
regards to writing for 

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executives. 
Now, understanding the audience 

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aspect, let's move forward to if
you have any type of examples of

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what's worked when writing for 
executives and what hasn't 

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worked in your in your 
experience. 

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Sure, the, you know, some of the
things I'm I'm talking about 

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are, are, are hard won battle 
scars, so to speak from, from 

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really not having put in the 
homework to understand an 

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audience. 
So you know, there's ACEO that 

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I've worked with who wants 2 
page summaries and does not want

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a deck or a document that has 
more than 10 pages. 

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So if you go beyond that, even 
in a slide presentation, you've,

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you, you've lost him. 
He will literally leave the 

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room. 
There's CE OS that'll ask you, 

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would you bet the company on 
this? 

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And I think that's a, a standard
that, you know, when we write 

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things, sometimes we, we kind of
forget is that you really have 

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to think, would you make that 
same decision if you were in the

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CEO shoes? 
Would you bet the company would 

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you make that investment had CE 
OS say your, your work on 

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profits? 
Excellent. 

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It's superb. 
We think in terms of market 

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share, that's what we tell 
investors, that's what we tell 

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our employees. 
So unless you can reframe what 

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you did in terms of market share
for us, we we can't use this and

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you'll run into executives, 
whether senior or or junior 

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executives that have a mistrust 
for things they don't like 

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market research. 
So we had one executive that was

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very attentive during our 
presentation and said, well, I 

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need case examples. 
This is great. 

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But for me, it's all theory, 
market research, the findings, 

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it's all speculative. 
You need to give me examples of 

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how someone else has done 
something like this. 

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And then you have my ear. 
So these are all things that you

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can learn in advance if you do 
your homework, whether you infer

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it from things they've said, 
things they've written, others 

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that can help you get up to 
speed on this. 

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It's just you need to to know 
what that expectation is. 

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Yeah, yeah, for sure. 
And you listen to these 

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different examples, just kind of
makes it even clearer that you 

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can write something very 
profound and very strong for an 

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executive. 
But if it's that, if that is not

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what moves their needle, if 
that's not what, what pushes, 

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you know, the, the pushes it 
forward, if you will for the 

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executive, you can still kind of
miss the mark. 

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And so, you know, when when 
considering writing as a pricing

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practitioner for the executive 
audience, I think it's really 

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important to kind of compile 
this into steps. 

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Do you, what steps would you say
are the steps that need to that 

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need to be taken for a pricing 
practitioner to have success in 

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writing for an executive 
audience? 

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Sure. 
I think that's a a great 

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question and it's especially 
important because you'll see a 

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lot of advice out there on what 
to do. 

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And I think the most common 
example of advice is, is be 

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clear and be concise. 
And that's, that's a very 

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intuitive and it seems to make a
lot of sense, but no one ever 

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tells you how to do that. 
You know, no one ever really 

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walks you through what process 
will get you to something that's

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clear, that's concise, and also 
resonates, as you said, or moves

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the needle with your audience. 
So I think what I like to do, 

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and this is something that will 
be elaborated on in a lot more 

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detail in the workshop, is I 
break it down into five areas, 

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starts with audience like we 
discussed. 

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The next part is meta level and 
I'll explain a little bit about 

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that in a moment. 
Purpose, structure and word 

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choice. 
That for me is the is the 

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progression. 
So audience, you know, besides 

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knowing them, you need to bring 
a healthy respect for their 

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time. 
And you know, pricing may only 

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be a small part of what they 
care about, even if it's 100% of

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what you usually care about. 
So there's there's those 

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asymmetries or disconnects. 
Sometimes the meta level is 

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something that I think a lot of 
people neglect, even some 

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writers themselves. 
And it's what reaction do you 

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want them to have? 
You know, how how do you want 

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them to? 
What mood do you want them to 

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leave the room in? 
Do they want, do you want them 

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to come up and say, that was a 
good use of my time? 

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Do you want to thank you? 
You know, you, you're not 

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necessarily going to see them, 
you know, run out and sign some 

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papers to, you know, enact your 
pricing strategy at the end of 

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the meeting. 
But you, you know, you want to 

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draw out certain indications 
from them and the words you use 

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and the structure is going to 
help help do that. 

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Purpose is not grand or purpose 
or vision or anything like that.

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It's, is, is what you're writing
about to inform somebody or 

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persuade somebody. 
And that will guide how 

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intensively you, you need to 
make your arguments. 

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If it's just providing 
information, you may need to 

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give a little more context, but 
not much. 

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But if you're persuading, and 
that's a whole different ball 

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game. 
And that's when we get into 

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structure. 
And it's, it's interesting that,

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you know, what works in business
is often exactly the opposite of

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what your English teacher taught
you in 11th grade. 

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We're, we're, we're taught to 
vary our words, we're learning 

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vocabulary to take the SATS or 
the ACT, we vary our sentence 

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structure and do all those 
wonderful things. 

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And in, in business, I don't 
want to say it's more staccato, 

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but you, we work in simple 
declarative sentences. 

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We work with the right grade 
level for our audience. 

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And that could be very short and
simple words. 

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I think it was great. 
I think someone said that Jerry 

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Seinfeld just gave a 
commencement address at Duke 

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University that had only a 
couple words that had three 

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syllables or more in them. 
So you can say a lot of things 

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in, in a, in a really compact 
way. 

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And you know, you, you want to 
figure out, build simple 

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constructions, you know, before 
and after. 

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You know, it's not this, it's 
this, we've been doing it this 

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way, we need to look at it this 
way. 

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And those, the, those sort of 
sudden or jarring contrasts help

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it lock people in, change their 
perspective. 

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And these are things you 
wouldn't do in an English paper.

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There are techniques that you 
know, you really need to, to 

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focus on in, in business 
writing. 

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There's a couple additional 
rules I can get to if we have 

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some time on how to structure 
these things. 

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But the final one's word choice.
And I like to use the analogy 

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that words are like Legos. 
And you know, if you, you got to

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go to the box and pick out the 
ones that are going to make 

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your, your structure work or 
your machine work. 

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And, and sometimes it's, you 
have to pick the right word. 

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I, I, I suggest people make a 
list of keywords that they need 

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to build into the document. 
And those words will convey 

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tone. 
Do I want to use the word 

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success? 
Do I want to frame choices 

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positively or negatively? 
All of these are things that 

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words will help you do. 
So those are, you know, the the 

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five steps and A and kind of a 
quick overview. 

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Frank, I'm not going to lie, I'm
going to be honest with you. 

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I've, I've been, I've never 
thought of writing it in this 

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fashion. 
As far as you know, you can go 

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pretty deep regarding them. 
This is just five steps. 

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And I'm sure there's there, 
there's more to this, but these 

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five steps make you think a lot,
make you think a little bit more

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in depth as it relates to, you 
know, how you want to speak to 

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somebody in order to get them on
board to wherever it is you are 

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trying to take them. 
And so it is super interesting. 

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Now, I will say this, I've, I've
written articles before. 

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I've written essays in school, 
you know, and I've written 

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different pieces of writing over
the years. 

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One of the things that's fairly 
common, not just with me and my 

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experience in writing, but also 
just with others, other people 

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that I'm familiar with that love
to write is a term what's known 

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as writer's block. 
Now, Now, what does someone do 

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if they find themselves stuck in
this? 

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Like a season, if you will, 
sometimes of writer's block. 

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Yeah, I think there's. 
I think we we look at it in a 

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couple ways. 
One is to to think about why 

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you're stuck, and that might 
help figure out which of the 

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ideas I'm going to suggest might
be the most helpful. 

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But you know, sometimes you're 
sitting there in front of that 

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blank sheet of paper and you 
think you got too little to say.

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You know, you just, you look at 
your research, there's not 

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enough popping out. 
You need to make more out of it.

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Sometimes you have too much to 
say and, and you don't know how 

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to take all of you could put a 
300 page deck together for 

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someone. 
How are you going to boil that 

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down to 10 for that other CEO, 
you know, And the, the third 

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part is you're, you're not 
seeing the interconnections 

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between things, you're not 
finding patterns and all of 

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that. 
So it, it's usually one of those

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three things. 
So you know what I suggest to 

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do? 
There's a, there's a couple 

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things to get started. 
One is just to start talking out

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loud. 
You know, I, one of my most 

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helpful things to have on my 
desk is a little pocket 

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recorder. 
And I'll just speak into that 

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and say, you know, if, if and, 
and, and in different 

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situations, you know, I meet 
the, the, my audience on the 

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airplane and they say, what are 
you working on? 

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How would I answer that 
question? 

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I see someone in an airport 
lounge. 

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I meet someone, you know, one of
my colleagues late at night and 

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they're saying, you know, you've
been sweating on this. 

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What's, what's, what's the deal?
What are you trying to do? 

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And sometimes in your answer to 
that, as incoherent as it might 

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seem at first, there's little 
Nuggets that you can pick up on 

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or inspiration you can pick on 
to get started. 

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The other thing I like to do is,
is it's related to the keywords.

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Is there's something that I call
1010 and that's 10 keywords and 

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10 sentences. 
Just, you know, skip the fancy 

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talk. 
Just try to write out, I've been

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assigned this problem. 
Here's what the, the, the CEO or

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the senior vice president is 
expecting. 

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They're working on this, they're
working on that. 

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Here's three things that I found
in my research. 

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And just sort of step back from 
that for a moment and see if any

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patterns start to emerge from 
that very simple storytelling. 

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And that gives you a foundation 
to start dressing up. 

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It's kind of like building a 
house, you know, you need a 

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little bit of a blueprint, you 
know, you put the the sides up 

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the floor in. 
And then all of the stuff about 

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grammar, you know, making it 
fancy, making it look good. 

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That all comes last. 
You know, it's it's really 

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important to just start those 
ideas flowing. 

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You know, the one final thing if
if you're into that, I think the

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Michael Lewis, the famous author
of many best selling books, 

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likes to say write on caffeine, 
edit online. 

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So meaning you need to, you need
to get some ideas out quickly, 

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you know, force them out, get 
them on paper, but then step 

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back, you know, go for a walk, 
take a break, come back to it 

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and see if you can stand it 
down, grind it down into 

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something that's going to work 
for your audience. 

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Wow. 
OK, that's good. 

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OK, so we've covered your 
obviously your expertise and 

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your experience over the years. 
We've covered general steps to 

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take as it pertains to pricing 
practitioners writing for 

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00:16:14,960 --> 00:16:18,240
executives, and we've also even 
covered we know some some 

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00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:22,480
helpful tips that you can that 
you can exercise if you find 

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yourself in the season of 
writer's block. 

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00:16:24,800 --> 00:16:29,040
Now, is there anything else a 
pricing practitioner should do 

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when they consider the totality 
of their writing? 

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Yeah, I think there's, I can 
think of a, a couple things. 

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00:16:38,200 --> 00:16:42,960
One, building on what I just 
said with the editing is edit 

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what you write aggressively, you
know, and, and that means, you 

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00:16:47,360 --> 00:16:50,000
know, don't play the devil's 
advocate, play the devil, you 

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00:16:50,000 --> 00:16:53,720
know, really try to, to pick 
apart your arguments and that 

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00:16:53,720 --> 00:16:55,720
helps you shore them up. 
You know, you're not trying to, 

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to depress yourself or, you 
know, get yourself in a, in a 

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00:16:59,920 --> 00:17:02,160
bad state of mind. 
You're really trying to see does

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00:17:02,160 --> 00:17:05,640
this work? 
And one way to do that is to, to

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00:17:05,640 --> 00:17:10,160
swap roles. 
You know, I, I, I'll go so far 

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00:17:10,160 --> 00:17:12,440
sometimes is to send myself 
something I've written by 

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00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:16,040
e-mail. 
So I'm the recipient now and I 

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00:17:16,040 --> 00:17:20,520
open it up and I look at it and 
immediately just that physical 

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00:17:20,520 --> 00:17:22,560
act of, of looking at the 
document. 

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00:17:23,359 --> 00:17:27,160
Am I getting invited in? 
Does this look useful to me 

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00:17:27,160 --> 00:17:30,640
right off the bat? 
Am I, you know, in the first or 

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00:17:30,800 --> 00:17:33,160
second paragraph, am I getting 
my attention? 

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00:17:33,520 --> 00:17:36,080
And in a lot of cases you'll be 
like, Oh my goodness, I'm glad I

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00:17:36,080 --> 00:17:38,760
didn't send this to anybody. 
I've got to move some stuff 

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00:17:38,760 --> 00:17:40,480
around. 
I got to pull some stuff up to 

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00:17:40,480 --> 00:17:44,400
the front to, to get people's 
attention a little earlier. 

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And the final thing is, 
especially for executives, you 

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got to rehearse, you know, 
that's, you got to practice 

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00:17:51,840 --> 00:17:54,120
reading. 
If it's a presentation or a 

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00:17:54,120 --> 00:17:57,120
call, read it. 
If it's a written document, read

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00:17:57,120 --> 00:18:01,280
it aloud and see if it flows 
because the, you know, the, 

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00:18:01,440 --> 00:18:04,880
that's an, I guess an advantage 
in some ways with executives is 

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00:18:05,200 --> 00:18:09,000
the more the writing is 
conversational, engaging, the 

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00:18:09,000 --> 00:18:10,520
more likely they are to respond 
to it. 

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00:18:10,520 --> 00:18:13,960
I know we, I said earlier we 
shouldn't generalize about CEOs,

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00:18:13,960 --> 00:18:17,040
but that's more or less a 
universal experience. 

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00:18:17,040 --> 00:18:20,760
So if it's tough to read what 
you wrote, there's a good chance

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00:18:20,760 --> 00:18:23,440
you need to go back and and work
on it a bit. 

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00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:28,480
Make it sound a little more 
natural and you know at their at

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00:18:28,480 --> 00:18:32,800
their eye level. 
OK, wow, this is this was good. 

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00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:35,680
This was really good. 
Now I want to ask one more final

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00:18:35,680 --> 00:18:37,800
question, then I'll I'll let you
go. 

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But you know, we are expecting 
you to be at our fall conference

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00:18:41,040 --> 00:18:44,720
taking place in Las Vegas in 
this upcoming October. 

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00:18:45,680 --> 00:18:50,680
And this podcast is serving as a
teaser to your writing workshop,

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00:18:50,720 --> 00:18:53,520
which I know is going to be 
very, very insightful because 

348
00:18:53,520 --> 00:18:54,800
this podcast was very 
insightful. 

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00:18:55,760 --> 00:18:59,000
What can our community expect 
from your upcoming workshop 

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00:18:59,440 --> 00:19:03,040
taking place this fall? 
I'll, I'll go back to that 

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00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:05,680
concept of meta level that I 
mentioned to answer that. 

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00:19:06,120 --> 00:19:11,000
I think it's, it's about gaining
more confidence in your writing.

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I think that's really the 
biggest thing. 

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00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:15,760
You know, you'll, you'll leave 
the workshop with some practical

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00:19:15,760 --> 00:19:18,840
tools, techniques that can help 
you make your writing better 

356
00:19:18,840 --> 00:19:23,400
day-to-day and, and make 
persuasive writing more of a 

357
00:19:23,400 --> 00:19:26,120
habit that you know, eventually 
this will become more of a 

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00:19:26,120 --> 00:19:29,400
natural way of doing things. 
So you know, it won't become a 

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00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:33,240
burden. 
It'll become an asset for, for 

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you. 
And you know, in the workshop 

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00:19:35,480 --> 00:19:38,280
itself, we'll go deeper into all
the steps I talked about today, 

362
00:19:38,280 --> 00:19:41,360
but it won't just be me up front
talking and talking and talking 

363
00:19:41,360 --> 00:19:45,440
till the coffee break comes. 
We'll have little breakouts 

364
00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:48,040
where you're applying what we 
talked about. 

365
00:19:48,040 --> 00:19:50,640
I, I encourage people to bring, 
you know, something they're 

366
00:19:50,640 --> 00:19:55,400
working on that they're stuck on
or that's upcoming in their own 

367
00:19:55,400 --> 00:19:59,480
work and try to apply some of 
the things that we're working on

368
00:19:59,480 --> 00:20:01,720
in the workshop to that piece of
work. 

369
00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:06,800
And I think that really helps 
people see that, you know, this 

370
00:20:06,800 --> 00:20:09,640
isn't, this isn't a, a side 
topic. 

371
00:20:09,640 --> 00:20:13,000
This is something that can 
really get a lot of mileage out 

372
00:20:13,000 --> 00:20:14,720
of. 
Sure, absolutely. 

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00:20:14,760 --> 00:20:17,160
OK, awesome. 
Well, thank you so much for your

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00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:21,040
time, Mr. Frank Luby. 
And one more question for you 

375
00:20:21,040 --> 00:20:24,000
where, for those who are 
interested, can they go to learn

376
00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:26,920
more about you, your company and
what you stand for? 

377
00:20:28,120 --> 00:20:30,680
Sure, I got a a couple places 
they can go. 

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00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:36,600
One is the my corporate website,
whichispresenttensellc.com, 

379
00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:39,200
present tense, like in English 
class present tense. 

380
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:43,120
And that gives an overview of 
the kind of work that I do. 

381
00:20:43,120 --> 00:20:45,840
And we have a blog hasn't been 
updated in a little while, but 

382
00:20:45,840 --> 00:20:49,320
has a lot of really specific 
advice and a lot of issues. 

383
00:20:49,920 --> 00:20:53,120
And then more broadly, you know,
I do a lot of ghost writing and 

384
00:20:53,120 --> 00:20:55,640
I work as a writing partner, but
I also write for myself. 

385
00:20:56,240 --> 00:21:00,160
And I have a site called 
bluesandmore.net. 

386
00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:05,000
And if you go to the blog there,
there's some some essays that 

387
00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:08,800
that I write from time to time. 
And that's a bit away from 

388
00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:12,240
pricing and business. 
But I'm hoping you'll still see 

389
00:21:12,240 --> 00:21:15,400
some of the things that that I 
talked about today come through 

390
00:21:15,400 --> 00:21:19,440
and how those are put together 
and, and trying to, you know, 

391
00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:22,200
just have some fun. 
And then that sense, not that 

392
00:21:22,200 --> 00:21:24,720
business writing isn't fun, but 
you know, sometimes you gotta 

393
00:21:25,720 --> 00:21:27,040
gotta do some personal things as
well. 

394
00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:28,880
So those would be the two places
to catch up. 

395
00:21:29,360 --> 00:21:33,200
Terms of general, there's two 
books I'd recommend, Elements of

396
00:21:33,200 --> 00:21:37,520
Style, DB White, and a book 
called Writing That Works. 

397
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:41,240
It's an older book by a 
gentleman named Gentleman named 

398
00:21:41,240 --> 00:21:44,200
Ken Roman, and his partner is 
Joel Raffelson. 

399
00:21:44,800 --> 00:21:47,240
And those books should be really
inexpensive. 

400
00:21:47,240 --> 00:21:50,440
I think you can pick them up 
anywhere and they're quick to 

401
00:21:50,440 --> 00:21:51,840
skim. 
They're great to have on your 

402
00:21:51,840 --> 00:21:54,000
desktop, and they're extremely 
helpful. 

403
00:21:55,440 --> 00:21:58,680
Awesome. 
OK, A man of resources as well, 

404
00:21:58,680 --> 00:22:00,560
Mr. Frank. 
Well, I thank you again for your

405
00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:04,320
time today telling persuasive 
pricing stories to executives. 

406
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:06,760
Until next time, we'll see you 
all later. 

407
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:07,680
Have a good one. 
Bye bye.