Start Getting Your Pricing Playbooks Ready!
Posted by Tapan Bhatt on Mon, Sep 14, 2009 @ 04:37 PM
The start of NFL and college football seasons got me thinking about playbooks. Yes, I am referring to those detailed offensive and defensive playbooks that NFL coaches rely on during every day of the season to outwit, outthink and ultimately beat the competition.
Now, that 2010 is only a few months away, it is a good time for you to think about your pricing playbooks. Some of you may be wondering....what is a "Pricing Playbook"? To some extent, a pricing playbook is no different from a NFL coaches' playbook in the sense that it lists out specific steps along with who executes those steps to address a pricing challenge or an opportunity.
For example, one of the key challenges in your business may relate to freight recovery. Most of your sales people never account for freight recovery in their negotiations and as a result, freight is often "given away" - a margin leakage problem that likely results in your business losing millions of dollars in PROFIT every year! A freight recovery playbook provides a step by step process that an organization can execute to address this problem. These steps could include:
- Defining key freight recovery metrics
- Identifying outlier based on metrics
- Understanding root cause for freight leakage
- Developing optimal pricing guidelines to address root cause
- Implementing guidelines in the solution
- Training sales teams and ensuring compliance
My colleague, Michael Lucaccioni, recently did a webinar that provides more information on how B2B companies can leverage pricing playbooks for their price optimization and management needs.
As you eagerly look forward to putting 2009 behind you, this is a perfect time for you to develop your pricing playbooks for the next year. If you happen to be some of the lucky few who actually have pricing playbooks, it would be as good time as any to refine them in anticipation of better times ahead.
And...good luck with your football team!