In pricing, we tend to spend our time trying to figure out one very important number:
The exact price that a customer is willing to pay.
In figuring out that number, some of us use spreadsheets. Some of us use analytics tools. Some use Big Data and price optimization to come up with a scientific answer. And sometimes we end up just relying on a salesperson’s gut feel…for whatever good that does.
But there’s another number that also remains well-disguised at the negotiation table:
The price that your competitor is willing to offer.
That number almost certainly factors into the customer’s buying decision. But short of being told what that number is, we rarely turn to some kind of tool to figure it out.
But what if there was a way to get into your competitors’ heads and figure out how they price and the motivations that drive them. That would be a good place to start, right?
Well, one of PricingBrew’s tools highlights that it’s as simple as looking at your competitors from 3 different angles:
- Their Priorities—A competitor’s priorities speak directly to their willingness to fight the fight.
- Their Resources—The resources at the competitor’s disposal speak directly to their ability to fight if they have to.
- Their Performance—A competitor’s performance against the needs of the segment in question tells us how they are doing in the current fight for this segment.
The Triangulated Competitive Audit Guide
You need to examine each of those angles carefully–and well thought-out questions around each of those angles can expose valuable insights. The downloadable triangulated competitive audit guide and companion tutorial, “Step-by-Step Competitive Analysis for Strategic Pricing,” walks you through the process and provides a comprehensive list of strategic questions you can ask to get a better handle of how your competitors approach the market.
Not only is this a good place to start in figuring out how your competitors price—it also exposes the weaknesses that your competitors have as well as the value opportunities that exist. And those are certainly good insights to have in the quest to capturing more revenue and margin…