Pricing with Confidence, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 11Conclusion

Price with Confidence: The Journey

Customers buy results, not rhetoric. Moving beyond the rhetoric of value will enable you to demonstrate measurable results to customers. By applying 10 actionable rules, you can have confidence in your pricing decisions. In short, you will have cultivated Backbone. Now you can work with the salesforce to move the negotiation to a conversation of how you provide measurable results for customers. With confidence, your company will earn more profits and revenue by capturing the money currently being left on the table. All this won't happen overnight, but if you diligently apply the lessons of this book, these benefits will become real.

Who owns value? The ultimate answer, of course, is “everyone.” The paradox, of course, is that when “everyone” is responsible for a resource, the practical effect is that no one is responsible. Most of the firms that engage our price strategy services have succumbed to some level of loss of profit accountability. Whatever the reason the firm surmises to be a core business issue, it's this loss of focus on value and accountability at the most senior levels that is at the heart of the problem.

When it comes to the central question of who owns value, the goal is for everyone in the organization to respond, emphatically, “I do!” Everyone in the value chain—everyone who designs, produces, or consumes the product or services—must own a piece of the resulting value. But individual action is not ...