Patrick Lefler
Patrick Lefler
Patrick Lefler is the founder of The Spruance Group -- a management consultancy that helps growing companies grow faster by providing unique value at the product level: specifically product marketing, pricing, and innovation. He is a former Marine Corps officer; a graduate of both Annapolis and The Wharton School, and has over twenty years of industry expertise.
Surge pricing: What a difference a year makes
When Uber rolled out surge pricing during the 2012 New Year holiday, the feedback from customers was terrible. A year later, they utilized the...
ChangeThis: One year and 6,700 downloads later
One year and over 6,700 downloads later, "Five Rules for Pricing Excellence: Getting the Most for Your Services" has become one of the most...
If prices were raised today, how would your customers react?
How well do your salespeople know their customers? No, I'm not talking about knowing basic customer information or buying habits. Rather, I'm talking about...
A different look at pay-what-you-want pricing
The concept of pay-what-you-want pricing is quite simple. Rather than setting a fixed price, sellers instead ask each buyer to pay whatever price they...
Google Shopping Express to attack Amazon Prime: Will Jeff Bezos care?
According to a recent TechCrunch story, Google is set to go after Amazon's Prime Service that for $79 annually, gives Amazon customers unlimited movie...
My thoughts on Groupon and the recent firing of CEO Andrew Mason
My thoughts on Groupon and the recent firing of CEO Andrew Mason were published Friday in Jason Hahn's DM Confidential article titled, What Groupon's...
Dodge Dart sales – overpowered by the paradox of choice
After its highly publicized launch a year ago, the Fiat-designed Dodge Dart has been a sales flop. With all the fanfare highlighting of its...
Dynamic pricing and the death of PeopleExpress
Perhaps one of the most annoying aspects of traveling by air. With thousands of different prices for a single flight—most of which don't seem...
Does discounting increase customer loyalty?
In a recent Wall Street Journal article that highlighted the real-time price war being fought between traditional brick-and-mortar stores and their online competitors, an...
Listening to customers is worthless; observing their behavior is priceless
Customers are notoriously bad at communicating. On second thought, I take that back. There're actually quite good at telling us what they think they...
The power of scarcity
In their book Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive, authors Noah J. Goldstein, Steve J. Martin and Robert B. Cialdini tell the...
The innovative genius of Cyrus McCormick
Cyrus McCormick—best known for having invented the first mechanical reaper in 1833—was actually not the first. That honor went to Obed Hussey, who announced...
Wishful thinking is the greatest enemy for startup ventures
It has been said that in warfare the greatest enemy of victory is wishful thinking. The same can be said for today's startup ventures. In...
Strategy lessons from Guadalcanal and the Battle of Savo Island
Seventy years ago this week, U.S. Marines under the command of General Vandergrift landed on Guadalcanal – the first major offensive by allied forces...
The myth of first-mover advantage
First-mover advantage is a myth. The worlds of science and business are filled with the names of people who were the first to discover...
Anchors Aren’t Just for Ships
Rule #1 of our recently published ChangeThis manifesto... A few years ago, Williams-Sonoma, the high-end American retail company, offered a home bread maker priced at...
Choices, more choices and too many choices
This is the week that Chrysler is set to begin an all-out advertising blitz for its newly developed subcompact – the Dodge Dart. Hoping...
The downside of dynamic pricing
We've talked about dynamic pricing before – most recently here when we described this pricing model's recent uptake within Major League Baseball ticket sales....
Most customer surveys are useless; here are five reasons why
Customer surveys tend to be highly touted representations of a company's commitment to improving customer satisfaction; they purportedly do this by extending the creative...
An “all-you-can-eat” pricing model for the airlines.
I missed the initial announcement two months ago, but a new startup airline—Surf Air—claims to be the first airline to exclusively adapt the all-you-can-fly...