In a PricingBrew webinar, “There’s More to Profit Than Price,” an attendee posed an interesting question about the responsibilities of the Sales group…
The training session was about how and why pricing teams are redefining and broadening their roles to focus on other powerful growth levers—such as LTV modeling, defection detection, portfolio expansion, substitution identification, and so on.
Of course, it’s perfectly natural to assume that these types of things are the Sales group’s responsibility. And, it’s also natural to think that you might be stepping on some toes should you attempt to lend your analytical prowess to these other meaty problems.
But here’s the thing…
Sales isn’t doing it. And frankly, Sales shouldn’t be doing it.
Yes, Sales will likely the drive the tactical execution of the findings—reaching out to customers, having the conversations, closing the business, and so on. But figuring out which specific customers to reach out to in the first place? And figuring out which specific conversations to have? The strategic stuff? Most Sales groups simply aren’t equipped to tackle these sorts of things.
Nor should they be. Their job is to “knock them down” once someone else has “set them up.”
So, the odds are pretty high that it’s just not happening. And as most pricing teams are already very familiar with the fundamental concepts involved—segmentation, modeling, etc.— I would argue that there’s probably no other group who’s better-equipped to tackle these opportunities.
