# Value interviews: past spending, not promises > Before asking what buyers would pay, find out what they already did and spent: alternatives, money, time and the cost of the problem. Dana interviews her own learners. - Course: [Pricing: Set, Package and Raise Your Prices](https://productovi.com/courses/pricing.md) - Module: What will buyers actually pay? - Lesson 9/32, ~22 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/pricing/value-interviews ## A poll Dana almost posted **Alex Tutor:** You've built a price corridor and seen what buyers compare us with. This module asks the harder question: what will people actually pay, measured rather than guessed. **Alex Tutor:** Today a different business: Dana's own practice. She teaches adults in the evenings, outside Klasna, and since September her price has been 600 per lesson. **Dana:** I was about to post a poll in my messenger channel: «Would you pay 800 for a lesson?» Five people, five answers by tonight. Quick and free. **Alex Tutor:** Quick, free, and almost useless. You'd be asking people you know to predict their own future behaviour, in public, about a price you'd be setting for them. Most will be polite. **Sofia:** So the answer to «would you pay» isn't a fact about them at all? **Alex Tutor:** It's a guess, and a kind one. What they already did is a fact: what they tried, what they paid, what it cost them when the problem wasn't solved. That's a **value interview**. > **Exercise:** Which question belongs in a value interview? ## Three things to ask about **Alex Tutor:** Ask about three things. First, alternatives: what else did they use, and what would they do if you stopped teaching tomorrow? That names the next-best alternative, the ceiling's starting point. **Alex Tutor:** Second, money and time already spent: courses, apps, other tutors, hours. Third, the cost of the problem: what happened when their English let them down, at work or elsewhere. **Dana:** I tried it with Marko on Tuesday. He's a sales manager with weekly calls to partners abroad; he wrote to me in September and started in October. I didn't mention prices at all, just asked what he'd done in the past year. > **From Dana's notes: Marko, 12 November 2026** > > - **Before:** a group course for 4 months at 2,000 a month, dropped it: «too slow, nobody spoke». Five lessons with another tutor at 500: «grammar drills». A language app for a year, 1,500. > - **What went wrong:** in August he stayed silent on a call with a foreign client; his lead took over. «I knew the answer, I just couldn't say it.» > - **Why Dana:** role plays built from his real calls. > - **If she stopped:** «I'd look for someone who does the same, not another course.» **Sofia:** He never said a number about your price, and yet there's a lot of money in there. > **Exercise:** How much did Marko spend on English in the 12 months before he came to Dana? In UAH. ## Reading the answers **Alex Tutor:** Now read it like a pricer. His next-best alternative isn't the app or a course; he said so himself. It's another tutor doing role plays from real calls, so the market price of that is your reference. **Alex Tutor:** The silent client call is the cost of the problem. Don't turn it into a hryvnia figure he never gave you. Note it as a strong reason, and count how many learners tell a story like it. > **Exercise:** From Marko's interview, what is his next-best alternative, the reference for Dana's price? **Dana:** And compliments? He said my lessons are «the best thing I've tried». **Alex Tutor:** Pleasant, and not evidence. Write down what people did, not what they felt about you. One more rule for your practice: interview only your own learners and people who came to you, never Klasna's. **Dana:** Of course. Klasna's families stay Klasna's. I also talked to Olena, who asked about lessons in September and didn't start. > **Exercise:** Which notes from Dana's interviews are evidence about value and willingness to pay? Select all that apply. ## From notes to a pattern **Sofia:** Olena didn't book. Does that mean 600 is too high? **Dana:** She said the group course had a fixed Tuesday slot, and my free evenings didn't match hers. Price came up only at the end, and she didn't push back on it. **Alex Tutor:** Then her reason was the schedule, not the price. One interview is a story; five or six that agree are a pattern. Write each one up the same way: alternatives, money, the cost of the problem. > **Exercise:** Olena asked about lessons in September and chose a group course at 1,600 a month because its fixed slot matched her evenings. What does this tell Dana about her 600 price? **Alex Tutor:** An AI tool can turn your notes into a tidy summary. Check every line against what was actually said, and never ask it to play «a typical learner» instead of talking to real ones. That's fiction, not evidence. > **Exercise:** When real learners are busy, asking an AI tool to answer as «a typical adult learner» is a quick way to add interviews. > **Exercise:** Match each interview question to what it tells Dana. ## What Dana takes away **Dana:** So no poll. I'll interview all five of my learners and the three people who didn't start, then look at 600 again in December. **Alex Tutor:** Good. The interviews won't give you a price. They tell you what you're competing with and what the result is worth, so the price conversation starts from facts. **Sofia:** And if most of them say they came from 500-a-lesson tutors who only drilled grammar? **Alex Tutor:** Then the reference is 500, and your difference is the call practice. The course on talking to customers covers interviews in depth; here we only need the money questions. > **Exercise:** **True or false:** if four of Dana's five learners answer «yes» to «Would you pay 800 for a lesson?», she has good evidence that 800 will work. **Dana:** Help me rewrite the poll question for the next interview. I keep slipping back into «would you». **Alex Tutor:** Replace the future with the past and the hypothetical with the specific. Two or three questions are enough. **Sofia:** Past, specific, and no price of hers in the question. Got it. > **Exercise:** Rewrite Dana's question «Would you pay 800 for a lesson?» as 2–3 value-interview questions. Say in one sentence what each one should reveal. > **Key ideas** > > - «Would you pay X?» gets a polite prediction. A **value interview** asks what the buyer already did: alternatives, money and time spent, the cost of the problem. > - Past spending is evidence: Marko spent 12,000 in a year on options that didn't work. > - The answer to «what would you do if I stopped?» names the next-best alternative, the starting point of the price ceiling. > - Record what people did, not compliments. Look for a pattern across several interviews. > - AI can summarise notes, checked by a person; invented «AI respondents» are never evidence. > - Dana interviews only her own learners, never Klasna's. **Alex Tutor:** Next time, back at Klasna: Nazar has run a price survey with four questions, and he's thrilled with the result. - Previous lesson: [Case: Klasna's euro prices for diaspora families](https://productovi.com/courses/pricing/euro-prices-case.md) - Next lesson: [The four-question price survey and its limits](https://productovi.com/courses/pricing/the-four-question-survey.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.