I’ve always liked the Harry Truman line: “It’s amazing what you can get done when you don’t need to take the credit.”
On the surface, it sounds like one of those quaint leadership platitudes that motivational speakers use to kick off keynote speeches. But once you’ve spent enough time trying to push pricing insights and data-driven recommendations into skeptical and politically-charged commercial environments, the quote tends to resonate a bit differently.
It seems a lot less naïve…and much more practical.
In pricing, being right is not the same thing as being accepted. You can have the data totally nailed. Your segmentation model can be airtight. And your conclusions and recommendations can be completely sound. You can walk into the room with something that is incredibly accurate and objectively better for the business.
And yet, you can still find yourself locked in a circular debate with people who seem to only have problems with the data and recommendations because of where they think it’s all coming from. To now quote from the movie, The Big Lebowski, “Yeah…well…that’s like…ugh…just your opinion, man.”
Which brings me to a concept we discuss in both the Building Pricing’s Credibility with Sales and the Delivering No-Brainer Pricing Guidance To Sales training sessions…namely, the idea of being more thoughtful and strategic about managing the perceived sources of your insights and recommendations.
Of course, you and your team did all the work to get to the point of making recommendations. You formulated the hypotheses. You pulled all the data together. You scrubbed that data, transformed it, segmented it, and analyzed it. You pressure-tested various conclusions, modeled the impacts of various solutions, and translated it all into a prioritized set of actionable recommendations.
And as a result, you and your team absolutely deserve a great deal of credit for all of your effort, diligence, insight, and acumen.
All that being true, however…
If the goal is to get the rest of the organization to embrace these findings and recommendations, presenting yourselves as the author or primary source can create unnecessary friction. Like it or not, the pricing function is often viewed with skepticism, as it’s a step or two removed from the day-to-day realities of the field. And that dynamic alone can trigger a lot of second-guessing before anyone even engages with the substance of your work product.
But as we highlight in the training sessions, you can short-circuit much of this by attributing your findings and recommendations to more unassailable sources…
With sales teams, this means pointing to their peers whenever possible. When salespeople see that their peers…other salespeople…are generating better outcomes by structuring deals in certain ways, prioritizing certain opportunities over others, or leveraging the deal-level pricing guidance, it lands very differently than just some ideas emanating from the pricing team.
Customers and segments are another credible source. After all, it’s really hard to argue with actual in-market buying behaviors. As such, framing recommendations and findings as reflections of customer- and segment-level differences and behavioral patterns removes a lot of the perceived subjectivity.
Even competitors…when used with care and caution…can provide more credible context, as a signal or indicator of how the market is moving or being shaped. Framing findings or recommendations in terms of what competitors are doing or how the competitive landscape is shifting tends to be more compelling and credible than when perceived as merely being the pricing team’s conclusions.
In this way, the pricing team isn’t telling salespeople what they should do. No, other salespeople are telling salespeople what they should do. The pricing team is just bringing these things to the surface.
In this way, the pricing group isn’t just spewing their opinions on marketplace dynamics. No, customers and segments are weighing-in for themselves, through their actions and behaviors. The pricing group is just making these dynamics visible and actionable.
And in this way, the pricing group isn’t pontificating about the future. No, the competitive landscape is shifting and reacting in telling ways. And the pricing team is just extending the trends and projecting the likely outcomes.
Make no mistake; we aren’t playing games with attribution in an attempt to deceive anyone. After all, we’re not pulling this stuff out of thin air and most of our findings, conclusions, and recommendations really are emanating from these types of primary sources.
We’re simply recognizing that reality…and being more deliberate about calling it out…to improve how our messages are being perceived and received by others.
P.S. While it should go without saying, I’ll say it anyway: Appealing to AI as the authority is not a great plan. A skeptical sales manager is not likely to be swayed or impressed with “because the AI says so.” Not yet, anyway.
Author’s Note: It’s taken me nearly 30 years, but I’ve finally been able to quote Harry S. Truman and The Big Lebowski in the same article. I’d like to thank everyone who’s helped make this moment possible.
Delivering No-Brainer Pricing Guidance
While equipping sales reps with accurate pricing guidance is a priority for many, it's hard to get right. In this session, learn seven key ingredients to deliver guidance your salespeople will actually use.
Boosting the Pricing Team's Influence
How can a B2B pricing team improve results when they don't control all the cooks in the kitchen? How can they be heard when others don't have to listen? In this session, learn the science of influence and persuasion.
Building Pricing's Credibility with Sales
Sales often views Pricing with skepticism and doubt. And as a result, they disregard our suggestions and ignore our recommendations. What can we do to get them to see us as a trusted partner?
