- Our Next Online Training Seminar
Neutralizing the Sales Team's Excuses
Effectively Addressing the Top "Reasons" Sales Teams Give for Poor Price Execution
Thursday, December 15, 2022
10 AM Pacific / 1 PM Eastern / 7 PM CET
When we sidestep the rules or fail to do what’s expected of us, it’s just human nature to look for explanations beyond what might be perceived as personal shortcomings or self-serving expedience. And when it comes to pricing, a typical sales team can come up with all sorts of rationalizations for ignoring guidance, skirting rules, missing targets, and giving up margin. Sometimes, these reasons are actually legitimate. All too often, however, they’re nothing more than excuses or “bushes” to hide behind. In either case, Pricing needs to be able to address them.
In this subscriber-only webinar, you will learn about:
- The common “explanations” that get thrown around when price execution is sloppy and guidance is ignored.
- How to tell the difference between a legitimate reason, a symptom of a deeper root-cause, and just a CYA excuse.
- The most effective and diplomatic ways to push back should fingers start pointing in your team’s direction.
- Strategies and tactics for anticipating the go-to rationalizations and neutralizing them before they take hold.
- Our Online Training Archive
Developing Pricing Leaders
How do we develop the next generation of pricing leaders? How do we equip our team members to take on more responsibility? And how do we do it all as a matter of course rather than as an afterthought?
Closing Costly Margin Leaks
In this recorded webinar session, we explore common margin leaks that can appear when the economy is roiling, your business is under intense pressure, and everyone has been scrambling to deal with the chaos.
Leveraging Price Testing
What do you need to know about the state of price testing in B2B environments? Which methods are best? And more importantly, how can you leverage these powerful concepts in your situation?
Pricing Configured Products
How do you price configured and customized products effectively? How do you ensure that your costs and margin minimums are covered? And how do you capture more of the value being delivered?
Anticipating Competitors' Pricing Moves
Your competitors' pricing actions (and reactions) add even more complexity to pricing. So what can you do to anticipate competitive moves and prevent them from spoiling your pricing efforts?
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?
How To Deal With Inflation
With all that's been happening over the last few years, inflation was bound to catch up with us. So what should we be doing differently to deal with the rapid inflation we're seeing on so many fronts?
Pricing Through Uncertainty
As pricing pros, we're expected to make weighty decisions with imperfect information. How do we "illuminate" the landscape a bit? What steps can we take to reduce the ambiguity, uncertainty, and risk?
Improving Your Price Lists
For many, price lists are their primary means of delivering prices to the field. But because they are such blunt instruments, price lists are not ideal for price realization. So how do you improve performance using price lists?
Being An Internal Pricing Consultant
For pricing functions in B2B, frustration and conflict seem inevitable. But learn how a "consulting" mindset and approach can make driving improvement in B2B much easier...and far less frustrating.
B2B eCommerce Pricing Practices
The prolonged global pandemic has kicked the B2B ecommerce trends into high gear. In this session, we dispel eight myths of B2B ecommerce and explore ten critical strategic pricing principles you'll want to embrace.
Getting Sales To Sell the Value
Your offerings deliver greater value. But at the slightest pushback from a buyer, your salespeople give in and start discounting that value away. In this webinar, we explore how to change this dynamic for good.
Delivering Data to Decision Makers
Providing data to decision-makers is a core responsibility for most pricing teams. But getting it right is a significant challenge. In this on-demand session, learn how leading teams are making their efforts in this area more effective.
Pricing Pilot Programs
How do you get your company to accept new pricing approaches while maximizing your odd of success? In this session, learn how to leverage pilot programs and in-market trials to accelerate your progress.
Pricing for Customer Lifetime Value
In B2B, retaining good customers over time is essential for survival. That's why Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) has become such an important metric. So what do B2B pricers really need to understand about CLV?
Price Segmentation Attributes
When developing a price segmentation model, it's not always easy to identify the attributes that matter most. In this session, we review core concepts, explore various attributes, and walk thru a basic development process.
Dealing with Price Exceptions
For many teams, their exception-handling processes are a significant and ongoing source of frustration and inefficiency. So how should you go about improving these critical processes?
Pricing Productivity Boosters
B2B pricing functions have never been overflowing with resources, money, or time. Nevertheless, most pricing teams are now being asked to do even more with even less. So how do we make the most of what we've got?
Essential Pricing Functions
While there's only one pricing title on the business card, there are actually many different "jobs within the job." And it isn't easy to do the right jobs, at the right times, and in the right ways.
Why Pricing Initiatives Fail
In B2B, some pricing initiatives just don’t work out as planned—they either struggle to produce worthwhile results or they fail outright. So, how do we avoid making the same mistakes that have derailed other initiatives?
Communicating Pricing Concepts
In this session, we discuss a variety of strategies, tactics, techniques for helping others in your organization understand "enough" about crucial pricing principles and practices so that you can do what needs to be done.
The Fundamentals of Multinational Pricing
Multinational expansion often brings a massive increase in pricing complexity. In this session, we discuss how to cut through the complexities, focus on the fundamentals, and drive big performance improvements.
Pricing Process Improvement
In this session, we discuss the critical differences between process types, how to use end-to-end process mapping for diagnostics and prioritization, pricing technology considerations, and common mistakes to avoid.
How to Price Big Deals
Big deals generate a lot of internal pressure and it's easy to ignore the huge pitfalls of winning "badly." In this session, we explore a triangulated pricing approach to ensure profitability, mitigate risk, and avoid future regret.
Getting Them to Pay More
How you get your customers to pay more without having to handhold every single transaction? In this session, learn how to influence willingness-to-pay consistently, systematically, and at-scale.
More Effective Cross-Functional Pricing
Pricing in a B2B environment is cross-functional by nature. In this on-demand webinar, learn about improving overall pricing performance by working more effectively with other groups and departments.
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.
Closing the Costliest Pricing Capability Gaps
In this session, we explore three pricing capability gaps that are still all-too-common considering their detrimental effects on pricing performance and highlight steps you can take to close the gaps once and for all.
From Tactical to Strategic Pricing
Some teams are so mired in tactical grunt work and daily firefights that they never make progress on strategic pursuits. How have other pricing teams transitioned into more strategic functions? What steps did they take?
Reducing Losses to "No Decision"
Studies have shown that companies can lose up to 40% of their forecasted deals to "no decision". In this on-demand webinar, learn strategic and tactical approaches for dealing with prospect inaction.
Promoting the Power of Pricing
In B2B, there are many other people affecting pricing outcomes, directly or indirectly. So how do you gain and maintain the organizational attention, support, and participation you need to drive improvement over time? It's easier than you may think!
The Fundamentals of Price Structure
In this on-demand webinar, we explore ten different approaches for structuring your prices to align to customer needs and priorities---from bundling, add-ons and multi-part prices to volume schedules, surcharges, and more.
Exposing the Secrets of Price Negotiation
How do you protect your margins when your sellers are so outmatched? How do you keep them from falling for every trick in the book? And what does your pricing team need to know to provide another layer of protection?
Reducing the Friction Between Sales & Pricing
Some amount of "friction" between Sales and Pricing is expected. Too much, however, is counter-productive. In this on-demand session, we discuss dozens of ways to address seven root-causes of friction and conflict between the Sales and Pricing functions.
"Better" Practices for Pricing Improvement
That lofty place of "best practice" can sometimes seem very far away. Fortunately, pricing has so much power that amazing results can be generated by just getting "better." In this webinar, learn how to adapt best practices in less than ideal situations.
The Fundamentals of Pricing Intelligence
In pricing, it's easy to feel like you're making decisions in a vacuum. But there are many powerful sources of pricing intelligence you can leverage. In this on-demand webinar, learn how to design and implement systems for tapping into those sources of intelligence and how best to respond.
Selling Your Pricing Initiative
Want to get your pricing initiative approved? In this on-demand webinar, learn how to structure and deliver your investment "case" in such a way that approval is almost a foregone conclusion.
Making Sense of Pricing Technology
Are pricing technologies all the same? Do the differences actually matter? What do we need? How do we choose? In this webinar, we cut thru the confusion to help you understand your options for technology-enabled pricing.
Tales from the Trenches in B2B Pricing
Pricing improvement in B2B can be a messy affair. In this on-demand webinar, glean insights from ten cautionary case studies so you don't repeat the same mistakes and miscalculations.
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.
The Fundamentals of Value-Based Pricing
Value-based pricing is like any other business practice in that most of the power comes from mastering the fundamentals. In this on-demand webinar, learn the core concepts and essential processes that generate the most bang for the buck.
How to Avoid Pricing Panic
How should you respond when something disruptive happens in your market? How do you avoid overreaction? How do you balance speedy action with smart action? And how do you prepare for the next disruption?
Better Product Management for Better Pricing
In this on-demand webinar, learn how leading pricing teams are influencing the pre-market decisions that can increase pricing pressure and limit the prices you can command in the market.
The Top "Lessons Learned" by Pricing Leaders
How have pricing leaders become leaders? What can their 20/20 hindsight teach us to streamline our own path? In this on-demand webinar, learn the top lessons gleaned through our research.
How to Structure Pricing Functions
The structure of your pricing function can have major ramifications for years to come. In this on-demand webinar, learn effective approaches and considerations for structuring your pricing organization.
The Fundamentals of Effective Subscription Pricing
With subscriptions, the first order is just a fraction of the business you hope to get over time. So how do you do get the pricing right? In this recorded webinar, learn the processes, practices, and measures that can boost subscription pricing effectiveness.
Developing a Winning Roadmap for Pricing
From our research, leading pricing functions go through key evolutionary phases in becoming more effective and strategic. In this 3-part training webinar, learn how to develop a roadmap that streamlines that evolution with a plan to be a more valuable and strategic function.
Avoiding the Top 10 Pricing Mistakes
You're going to make mistakes. But if you can avoid the biggest mistakes, you're definitely rigging the game in your favor. In this on-demand webinar, learn about the top 10 mistakes that other pricing groups have made along the way.
Managing Mix to Improve Pricing
Product and customer mix have an incredible amount of influence over every aspect of your performance. In this on-demand webinar, learn how to get proactive about "rigging" your mix to your advantage.
How to Retain Your Key Customers
When you lose business from existing accounts, the sales team must acquire even more new business to compensate. In this on-demand training session, learn how pricing analysis skills are ideal to identify and minimize revenue attrition and customer defection.
Managing Multichannel Pricing
In this on-demand webinar, you'll learn about market mapping, MAP policies, and other tactics and tips for minimizing the potential for channel conflict, reputational damage, and margin erosion.
How to Fight a Price War
In this on-demand webinar, learn strategies and tactics for preventing a price war, handling "dumb" competitors, de-escalating and avoiding provocative situations, and winning without actually fighting.
Profitable Pricing Enablement
In this on-demand webinar, you'll learn about the new "best practice" of leveraging data and technology to distribute pricing authority and control, without sacrificing improved pricing performance.
How to Hire Great Pricing People
How do you identify pricing candidates with the raw materials to be most successful? In this on-demand webinar, you'll learn the most important attributes you should be looking for when building your team.
Revamping Sales Comp to Improve Pricing
In this on-demand webinar, you'll learn about the pros and cons of various approaches for infusing pricing performance into your sales compensation plan to reduce unnecessary discounting and boost profitability.
Pricing Psychology in B2B
While businesses do indeed have systems and policies to ensure greater rationality and consideration in purchasing, certain psychological factors can still have tremendous influence over price perceptions.
All About Price Optimization
The term "price optimization" is being thrown around with such abandon these days that confusion, rather than clarity, is the more likely result. In this on-demand webinar, you'll learn what price optimization really is and how it works.
Assessing Your Pricing Capabilities
While you might think your pricing capabilities are pretty good, how do you really know? How can you tell? In this on-demand webinar, learn how to leverage "3 P" assessments to figure out where you're at and where you need to improve.
Crucial B2B Pricing Concepts
Pricing in a B2B environment is very different from pricing in consumer or retail settings. In this on-demand webinar, you'll learn about 12 ways B2B pricing is unique and 6 core pricing concepts that every B2B pricing person needs to understand inside and out.
Advancing Your Career in Pricing
There's never been a better time to be a B2B pricing professional. But when it comes to your career, you can’t just hope that good things will happen in the future. In this on-demand webinar, learn how to take charge and make good things happen.
5 Pricing Trends You Can't Afford to Ignore
From our unique vantage point, we've identified a number of larger trends that pricing teams need to be prepared for. In this on-demand webinar, we explore five of these trends and discuss the implications and ramifications.
Using Pricing Analysis to Drive More Growth
Pricing analysis capabilities are usually only focused on pricing. But pricing isn't the only thing the analytical processes and underlying data can be used for. In this on-demand webinar, you will learn how answering other powerful questions can increase your impact and internal profile.
How to Combat Competitive Pricing Pressure
What's the best way to manage competitive pricing pressure? In this 4-part training webinar, we share 20 strategies and tactics leading pricing teams are using to anticipate competitive moves, minimize their impact, and respond more effectively.
Diagnosing Pricing Problems
When companies stop at a default diagnosis of, “Something’s wrong with the pricing,” they never identify and fix the true root-causes of the issues. In this on-demand webinar, learn how to identify the real root-causes behind pricing performance issues.
Building a Better Bid Desk
Large bids and quotes can have huge impacts on everything from revenue and profit to capacity utilization and strategic positioning. In this on-demand training session, learn strategies and tactics for improving the effectiveness of your bid desk.
Building a Pricing Center of Excellence
Experts have long argued that centralized pricing is the ideal model for driving performance improvement. But these days, companies are finding success taking a different approach---the Pricing Center of Excellence.
The Pricing Practitioner's Primer on B2B Sales
To be most effective in B2B environments, pricing professionals need to learn as much as they can about their sales function. In this on-demand webinar, learn more about aspects of sales people and processes that can affect pricing performance.
The Pros & Cons of B2B Pricing Strategies
The conventional wisdom around pricing strategy often fails to make clear that some of the "standard" options are extremely dangerous in B2B environments! In this on-demand webinar, learn which pricing strategies actually work...and which ones will destroy your margins.
Powerhouse Pricing Teams
In B2B, dedicated pricing teams are still a relatively new development. And as such, there are no long-standing rules for how everything should work. In this on-demand webinar, explore the common traits, characteristics, and behaviors of successful pricing teams that have been around longer than most.
Making Change Happen
How do you get executives to recognize a need for change? How do you get an organization to move away from the status quo and actually embrace doing things differently? How do you foster true adoption, as opposed to merely forced compliance?
How to Defend Your Prices
In B2B environments, you're sometimes facing a battle on two fronts: With customers and prospects, and with others inside your own company. In this on-demand webinar, learn about effective strategies and tactics for defending your prices internally and externally.
The Fundamentals of Effective Pricing Analysis
In this on-demand training webinar, we share the fundamental concepts and principles behind effective pricing analysis, expose the critical building blocks that need to be in-place, and walk through a basic pricing analysis example to pull everything together.
Generating More Sales from Existing Customers
Many B2B companies struggle to identify untapped sales opportunities and maximize revenue from the customers they've already acquired. In this four-part recorded training session, learn what leading sales operations are doing differently to grow share-of-wallet with existing customers.
Identifying & Capturing Profitable "Quick Wins"
It’s always good to have a few simple strategies close at hand for boosting margin dollars without having to expend a lot of time, effort, or money. In this three-part recorded training session, we discuss and explain 15 "quick win" strategies and tactics that have proven effective for others.
How to Price New Products
In this on-demand webinar, learn about three common types of new products that pricing teams are likely to encounter, and explore the core strategies and processes for dealing with the realities associated with them. Hint: "Best practice" is not always realistic.
Survival Strategies for Raising Prices
In this on-demand training seminar, learn why some B2B companies struggle with price increases while others are able to do it with far less pain and angst. What are leading companies doing differently to execute price increases with far less risk, conflict, and uncertainty?
The Fundamentals of Price Segmentation
In this recorded training seminar, we explain the concept of price segmentation and why it's such a powerful and important tool. We explore the essential process and even walk through a step-by-step exercise, building an example price segmentation model from scratch.
Effective Pricing Through the Product Lifecycle
This on-demand training seminar explores the conventional wisdom around lifecycle pricing, highlights some major flaws, and reveals what leading pricing groups are doing differently to price effectively throughout the product lifecycle.
Business-to-Business Price Elasticity
In this recorded training session, we explain the fundamentals of price elasticity in straightforward terms, explore the various principles involved, and provides valuable tips and insights to help you get started toward leveraging this most powerful measure in B2B pricing.
Marketing Pricing Initiatives for Success
Pricing initiatives often require buy-in from multiple departments just to get off the ground. In this on-demand training seminar, learn the essential marketing process for securing and maintaining internal buy-in and support for your pricing projects and initiatives.
Pricing Services to Customer Value
When you’re selling services or project work, it can be challenging to get customers to focus on the value being delivered or exchanged. In this recorded training seminar, learn how to improve revenue and margins when your offering is largely intangible.
Getting Your Salespeople to Price Better
Chances are, the behavior of your salespeople will ultimately determine whether your pricing strategies are effective or not. In this on-demand training seminar, learn proven approaches and strategies for getting your sales team to price and discount far more effectively.
Proving the Value of the Pricing Function
Executives understand the value of functions like sales, marketing, and finance---but pricing often has to justify their very existence, over and over again. In this recorded training seminar, learn how to demonstrate the results and metrics that can earn you a seat at the big table.
Getting the Most Out of Price Segmentation
The process of building or improving a price segmentation model can seem like a daunting task. In this on-demand training seminar, we discuss best practices and straightforward techniques for improving the quality and accuracy of your price segmentation model.
Navigating the Pricing Technology Landscape
Given the pace of change, it’s increasingly difficult to keep track of the various pricing technologies and what they’re best used for. In this recorded training seminar, we discuss the latest trends and developments and how different types of solutions compare.
The Essence of Strategic Pricing
It's easy to fill your to-do list with all sorts of tactical pricing tasks. But if you're only focusing on those, it's hard to generate significant results. View this recorded training seminar and learn about tackling the most powerful and effective aspects of real strategic pricing.
There's More to Profit Than Price
For many pricing teams, expanding their perspectives from "pricing" to "profitability" is the key to maximizing effectiveness. In this on-demand training session, we expose and explore five of the other powerful growth levers that really matter in B2B environments.
Breaking Out of Your Pricing "Box"
Effective pricing in B2B often requires coordination between marketing, sales, product management, and even accounting. This on-demand training session exposes how to influence the other departments that can make or break your pricing efforts.
