Out now
The Price of Influence
Why Ideas Get Ignored & How to Win the Yes
Your idea is the product. The person you need a yes from is the buyer. The rest is pricing – and pricing can be learned.
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“Authority no longer builds loyalty. Understanding others does.”
Jean-Claude Le Grand · Chief Human Relations Officer, L’Oréal
Read it first
The book opens at a wine club in London.
When I first moved to London, I joined a wine club. I was hoping to meet new people who shared my love of blind tasting. We would put wine bottles into brown fabric sleeves, so no one could see the label. Then we would smell, taste, and try to use deduction logic to figure out what was in the glass: the grape, the region, the vintage, and if you were very good, the producer. I was addicted.
The club offered almost a thousand bottles by the glass. But, after a few visits, I felt out of place. The room, on any given evening, was full of white men in their 50s and 60s. Most of them worked in finance or law; the rest were in the wine industry. They all had one thing in common: extensive wine knowledge, acquired through money or work. I was in my 30s, a nine-to-fiver, and I was barely keeping up with the tasting.
One evening, Richard, a retired Englishman, picked up a glass I had poured. No one knew what was in it except me. The game began.
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What’s inside
Six chapters. One discipline.
Know your buyer, enter their world, make your move, become the default. Each chapter is a story first and a method second.
- 01 The Authority Trap Forget compliance. Earn commitment.
- 02 Before you pitch Find the problem they already feel.
- 03 You’re not the buyer Don’t imagine. Ask.
- 04 The first 60 seconds Set the lens before they do.
- 05 Speak their language Translate the intent, not the wording.
- 06 Become the default Build trust the hard way.
144 pages. Read in a weekend; used for years.
What others say
"A great idea only succeeds when its value matches what the buyer cares about most. This book shows you how to price, package, and position your vision so it becomes the obvious choice."
"Clear, practical pricing frameworks with candid personal stories - credible and immediately usable. I tested several of her recommendations in real engagements, and they worked."
"Are you rigorous with logic but find the people whose yes you need keep saying no? Then this book gives you stimulating insights on how to move them. No standard case studies, but meaningful anecdotes, personal convictions, and a sense of synthesis."
Listen first
Not sure yet? Hear the ideas first.
Conversations about the book with podcast hosts. Pick the one that sounds most like your problem.
- Thrive LouD with Lou Diamond The Price of Influence
- Impact Pricing with Mark Stiving Why people don't buy your ideas
- Get Superpowered with Veronika Kryuchkova You had the logic. They still said no.
- Inspiring Leadership with Dominic Siow Why brilliant ideas get rejected, and how to get buy-in without authority
- French Kissing Life with Shawnna Stiver The psychology behind getting a yes… for anything
Get a copy now
Paperback
The one you can write in, dog-ear, and lend to someone who won't give it back.
Audiobook
Narrated by me – which is either a feature or a warning. Still in the making.
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About the book
Influence isn't persuasion. It's an economic exchange – and for the first time, this book examines that exchange through the lens of pricing: the discipline that decides what you pay for your phone, your bank and your flights.
Smart people are ignored every day – not because their ideas are bad, but because they never show what those ideas are worth to the person deciding. The Price of Influence puts the pricer's tools to work on the moments that define careers: the proposal that keeps getting shelved, the budget conversation that never goes your way, the meeting where you knew you were right and no one moved.
You'll learn the diagnostic questions to ask, the patterns to recognise, and the frameworks to apply – the same ones used by the people who price the products you buy every day.
It was never your logic. It was always your influence.
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