If you’ve been following my rants for any length of time, you’ve probably gathered that I’m a big fan of identifying and addressing the root-causes behind pricing problems, rather than just treating the symptoms.
Now, it could be that I just lack the energy and patience to play whack-a-mole on symptoms these days. That’s entirely possible. But I prefer to chalk it up to the fact that fixing root-causes is a whole lot more efficient and effective than repeatedly applying duct-tape to a bunch of symptoms.
Case in point…
A few weeks ago, I interviewed Chaz Napoli for the PricingBrew Journal. Chaz is the COO of Insight2Profit and we spent nearly an hour discussing various strategies and tactics for helping salespeople price more accurately in the field. In the interview, Chaz shares dozens of great tips and recommendations gleaned from hundreds of customer engagements.
At one point, I asked him about providing salespeople with pricing data and information to support and justify the prices they are being encouraged to extend on any given deal. What kinds of historical data do they need to see to believe the prices are in-line? Do they need to be shown related deals to have confidence they can win at those prices? How should all of this information be displayed? Static scorecards? Interactive reports with slicers and dicers?
Chaz didn’t miss a beat…
80% of the time, you don’t want them to even have to think about looking at the analytics. You want them to be confident that the price range they’ve been given is a good price range.
He goes on to explain that when the sales team has actually helped define the pricing model…when they understand the segmentation and the rationale behind it…when they know how the prices are being determined…their confidence in those prices is significantly increased…and their need and desire to drill into the data is significantly reduced.
So…you could spend a bunch of time trying to figure out what data, reports, and analytics to provide at the point-of-sale to answer any and all of the questions your salespeople may have about the prices they’re seeing. Or…you could take Chaz’s advice to heart and figure out how to build enough credibility and belief in the prices being shown to effectively eliminate the need for salespeople to question the prices in the first place.
Again, maybe I’m just getting old…or lazy…but addressing the root-cause of the questions certainly seems preferable to me!
Fighting Over-Discounting in the Field
Over-discounting in the field is a frustrating reality for most B2B pricing teams. So, how do you prevent it from happening? In this Expert Interview, Chaz Napoli shares the strategies and tactics he's found to be effective through hundreds of customer engagements.
