On Pricing Intangibles

This question gets asked often:

"How do I price intangibles?"

Before providing concrete steps, consider first that the question itself is flawed when taken as, "I am the one who must determine the price of the intangibles. It is solely up to me to determine the price."

Because your buyer is the only one you can know the value of the intangibles to them, it's actually the buyer who helps you price the intangibles.

If you are value-pricing a project, you can inquire to get within range by asking something like, "Let's just say, purely hypothetically speaking, that IF... IF we were able to knock this out of the park for you and get everything dialed in super tight... IF we could do that, ballpark, what might that be worth to you?"

And you anchor it realllly high, and back down:

"Are we talking $10M? $1M? $100K $10K?"

And then Zip It.

They'll give you a number that's in range.

"I dunno, maybe $250K?"

And now you know the value of the intangibles to them.

Once you know the value to them, you can work into the price, remembering of course, that if the price exceeds the value to them, they will not buy.

That's one way to get started pricing intangibles.