In 2014 I wrote a book:
“Making Price Irrelevant. Becoming ultra successful by being extra valuable.”

It was not one of those ‘thump-value’ books.
It was not 60,000 words or more. It was not 150+ pages. It was not sold on Amazon. It was not available for kindle or as an audio book. It was not a big seller.
In fact, it was 5312 words and 60 pages, cover to cover. 500 copies were printed.
It was available to purchase ($29.95), and I sold 307 copies. My retirement was postponed!
The rest were provided as a complimentary gift to clients and prospects. There are only three printed copies left on my shelf (personal collectibles).
(If you want a pdf copy of the book, please email me (adam@thepointofloyalty.com.au) and I’ll send it to you. The purchase price is irrelevant, it’s $0.)
Interestingly, while the book sales covered printing and design costs (and a little time) the book became a successful business card.
Numerous consulting and speaking clients came forth. I’d like to think this was my example of Making Price Irrelevant.
(This is not a new strategy although I thought it was back then).
Sorry for the long-hand background, just doing some public reflection.
Let’s get to the point!
What is Making Price Irrelevant? What’s the connection to loyalty programs?
There are three contexts to answer these questions:
- The overall pricing strategy of a brand/business ie the ‘price’ offered to their customers in exchange for promised products and/or services.
- The positioning of the financial benefits (aka price benefits) within a loyalty program proposition.
- Where a loyalty program as a TOTAL proposition (including financial benefits) augments the brand’s overall pricing strategy.
This article will focus on point 2. above as both 1. and 3. have deeper and wider implications and strategies.
(Point 3. above is an area I have been working on with some clients however an article will not do it justice, although I do give it a little airtime below).
While the book is not about loyalty programs, this article is staking its claim on point 2. above focusing on the loyalty program proposition and using the book as stimulus to answer the questions as posed in the headline:
- What is Making Price Irrelevant?
- What’s the connection to loyalty programs?
What is Making Price Irrelevant?
NOTE: The framing and content of the book had a B2B market focus although on reflection there are many crossovers and relevance to a B2C market.
The book provides the definition…
“Making Price Irrelevant is about moving from a product sell to service utility. By moving from product sell to service utility you are a no longer selling product for price and no longer focusing on features and benefits – they are business as usual”.

Yes, there is still the Business As Usual of ‘product for price’
However, the point here is to change the perspective to augmenting the BAU.
To focus on more than what the product does, looking for other attributes that your customers care about.
To do this, I took the lead from a Seth Godin quote:
“Perhaps the reason price is all your customer’s care about is because you haven’t given them anything else to care about”.
What’s the connection to loyalty programs?
Connecting the content from the book to loyalty programs is adapting the question – ‘How can your loyalty program be more valuable to your customers… so that price is irrelevant?’
The answer stimulated by the Seth Godin question is to …’Give your customers something to care about!
And that’s where a loyalty program plays its part.
Every loyalty program has in some way shape or form any or all of the Collection of Six Currencies© loyalty program members care about, all wrapped up and enabled in a seamless experience (oh if only it would be that easy).

Copyright The Point of Loyalty 2022
How do you reveal the care-factors and then use the Six Currencies to resolve those care-factors?
This is what Chapter 4 - Finding your Customer Care-Factors helps to identify.

The questions to ask and answer are:
Q1: What is the one reason why your customers should care about your (loyalty program)?
Q2: Why should your customers give you (your program) their Attention, Time & Emotion (A.T.E.) - things that are so scarce these days?
Q3: What difference do you (your program) make in their lives?
Q4: Why is this difference so important to them?
Exploring the answers to each question can then be sorted into the Collection of Six Currencies© loyalty program members care about, which form the program proposition.
NOTE: When you answer the questions, you might find the answers identify ‘service utility’ benefits above and beyond a loyalty program.
However, as we are exploring the connection of the content from the book with loyalty programs, let’s stay on course.
It’s easy to go straight to the Money: Financial = ‘Show me the money’.
Yes, that’s what customers want overtly… to save money.
However, this is the easy route and IMO another price play.
When designing a loyalty program proposition, evolve from a ‘program for price proposition’ (‘show me the money’ ), up the hierarchy:
- Memory: Experiential = ‘Add Moments of Magic to my life’
- Time: Functional = ‘Save me time. Make life easy for me’
- Me: Personal (E2:Ego and Exclusivity) = ‘Show me you know me. Make me feel special’
- My: Choice = ‘Let me choose my rewards’
- Us: Social = ‘Connect me with community and causes’
Bringing the Collection of Six Currencies© to life is the program interaction experience. Around the program is the brand promise and experience.
Summary
While the intention of the 'Making Price Irrelevant' book is to stimualte thinking to achieve greater success for business, adding the layer of loyalty programs within the MPI frame creates the stimulus for defining and designing a compelling proposition for your members to engage with your program and your brand, beyond price.