As customers, we look for vendors who provide stable and fair pricing.  As sales reps, we know that pricing products consistently creates better customer retention. Certainly, today’s economic disruptors, like inflation, cause us to struggle to keep costs from rising and prices down. They can create price inconsistency.  Making pricing a core competency of your business, therefore, is critical to success in a challenging business environment.  

Data-driven Pricing

It is important to the effectiveness of your pricing strategy to use digital analysis tools. According to White Cup Solutions, a company that offers a Revenue Intelligence platform designed for the distribution industry, “Distributors who win won’t have one-size-fits-all pricing; they’ll have data-driven intelligent pricing practices to offer the right price to the right customer at the right time. Furthermore, knowledge is pricing power; they’ll put in place the ability to run what-if scenarios to predict market share, revenues, and margins at various price points.”

Be Proactive

Today’s business environment is punctuated by economic disruptors. Luckily, technology enables us to respond to these disruptors quickly and efficiently. Also, make sure your analytic tools are proactive and agile — not reactive and clumsy. Meanwhile, identify your greatest pricing opportunities and set strategic price targets by product and customer type. Then, ensure that your customer’s performance matches your pricing model. Integrate digital data-based pricing metrics to minimize inconsistencies created by the emotional side of your planning process.  Be prepared for economic disruption with a strategic pricing plan that is built with digital tools.

Develop your core

Make pricing a core competency by soliciting cross-functional pricing communication support throughout your organization. Get rid of inefficient customer-specific pricing. Additionally, use digital analysis tools to respond to economic disruptors as they occur.

In conclusion, by making pricing a core competency and by using digital tools, you can build consistency in your business and enjoy higher rates of customer retention.

Get tips and tricks like the above in The Art of Sales books. Or subscribe to the FREE monthly articles here.