The new rules of
pricing power

Closing the gap between price
price setting and price getting.

Commercial teams are underperforming in their ability to realize new prices set during the pandemic.

Geopolitics will continue to impact how we price products and services, and those that use it as an excuse to raise prices across the board without properly strategizing pass-through costs may experience significant pushback from customers. List prices are under intense scrutiny, and sellers are stuck holding the bag while trying to defend value in tough negotiations. There is a massive disconnect between price setting and price getting.

This is the fundamental issue with pricing power today.

Building and defending pricing power is not just about pricing a product. Teams need strategies and tactics that arm sellers with flexibility, processes to prevent unnecessary discounting, and ways to position value over time as new competitors disrupt markets and customer needs change.

Without strong execution from commercial teams, even the best price model in the world will underperform.

Sample focus areas to build pricing power

With proven methods and candid discussions, we help everyone understand value, how to price for it, and how to defend it.
Improve negotiation capabilities

Align price to
value

Grow win

rates
Stop irrational discounting

Increase perception
of value

Align around value and the results will follow

An aligned commercial organization delivers more

Increasing profits without increasing price

Business type: Professional services
... Read More

Driving revenue for a high-growth startup

Business type: SaaS startup
... Read More

Aligning Price to Value on an Overpriced Product

Business type: Established institution
... Read More

Helped sales defend value…

A large supplier of car and truck rental services was facing increasing involvement of procurement and competitive price pressures who were willing to win business at lower prices and use signing bonuses to buy market share. These challenges created an environment in which Sales fell... Read More

Premium-priced strategy…

A leading international company was poised to launch a new product into a multi-billion dollar – but rapidly declining – medical device market. Despite having strong entrenched competitors, senior managers had committed to a large share of the market with the investment community. We advised... Read More

Income grew over $450M…

A client was locked in a fierce battle with a single industry rival, causing it to miss revenue goals and resort to price discounts to close major deals. We provided the rules and methods for adjusting prices deal-by-deal, and suggested special pricing for high-value products. Within 12 months,... Read More

Self-sufficiency to create price offerings…

A hardware/software integrator needed a product offering and pricing strategy for its innovative new software system. We led a series of analytical workshops to design offering packages, pricing strategy, and value messaging that enabled them to become self-sufficient in structuring and pricing... Read More

Quarterly revenues rose 17%…

A high-tech manufacturer, unable to precisely track deal results or competitor behavior, responded to market pressures with quarterly discounts. Our analysis helped the client launch a simpler pricing system, new incentives, and other strategies that ended quarterly discounting. In the 12 months... Read More

$8M in profits…

In the same global translation services company as above, the value of increasing time to market was calculated with publicly available data for a client issuing an RFP. Thru innovation and process improvement, sellers figured they could cut product documentation by more than 50%, speeding up... Read More

Creating alternatives to discounting…

A premium brand data company has been suffering from common issues: shrinking margins, lack of protocols to determine which deals are worthy of pursuit, widespread discounting with few alternatives, underleveraged yet differentiated products. With overwhelming agreement to proceed, Holden... Read More

Margins tripled…

The software division of a large financial services company had developed exceptionally high value products and services, but was suppressing prices in order to sell against much lower-value competitors. We quantified the offering’s value to its customers, structured offerings to protect the... Read More

Procurement backed off…

A premium global translation services company had been battling extreme market commoditization by competitors offering much lower quality services. Holden Advisors conducted a Negotiating with Backbone training with sales executives to gain alignment and begin to build a new sales process.... Read More

120% increase in profits…

An industry-leading online elder care referral service wanted to implement a price increase, but was still dealing with the repercussions of a badly executed price increase two years prior. Holden Advisors was asked to create a comprehensive price increase plan that would create confidence in... Read More

$65m revenue improvement from one customer negotiation…

As part of our advisory work with a Financial Services client, a Sales team was having issues building the confidence of the sales director to hold on price in a negotiation with a large and important customer.  During a... Read More