Selling the Price Increase

11The Three Approaches to Price Increase Conversations

Let's take a moment to review what we have learned so far: Nobody likes price increases. You don't want to sell them, and your customer doesn't want to buy them.

Despite this, price increase initiatives are the fastest, easiest means to improve profits – they are crucial to the health of your organization, and it is your job to sell them.

Your company counts on you to sell price increases because you own customer relationships and have the most intimate knowledge of the customer base. Therefore, you must rise above your discomfort and fear of rejection and approach price increase conversations with relaxed, assertive confidence.

Of course, losing your customers or their orders as a result of price increases is bad for your organization and your career. For this reason, price increase initiatives are a dual focus of maximizing the price increase AND retaining your accounts.

This begins with protecting your relationships. You must avoid making big mistakes that cause customers to resent you.

The key to customer retention in the wake of price increases is making breaking up hard to do. This is achieved by actively investing in customer relationships and delivering consistent value.

Consequently, the most effective way to sell price increases without losing your customers is to earn it by just doing your job and managing your accounts.

This brings us to where the rubber meets the road: the price increase conversation. This ...