Our firm has expertise in strategic pricing management which puts us in the middle of working with sales organizations to implement price increases. I can tell you that it is easier to get customers to accept price increases than it is to get sales professionals to get higher prices.
But, it doesn’t have to be that way. We have worked with dozens of companies to implement price hikes. There are several techniques and tools that can make sales professionals become your strongest supporters of pricing initiatives. Here are just a few tools that can make the job a lot easier...
- Most sales professionals are compensated based on revenue achievement. Consider adding a price level component to the incentive plan. Reward the rep when he sells a product or service at a higher price. There are several types of compensation plans that can be adopted here. Some are implemented on a temporary basis to reward the rep during the duration of the price increase period while others are permanent and reward on an on-going basis.
- Set average price levels for products and services. Then, track the pricing of each sales rep against the average and post the results for other reps to review. Most sales professionals are competitive and will respond to these scores. No rep worth his weight will want to be below average.
- Pilot test a price increase with a few of your best sales professionals. Select those reps that you know will embrace the initiative and make it successful. The others will see the success and follow accordingly.
These are just a few of the techniques that we use to implement price increases. There are many more tools that can be effectively executed to improve your return on investment.
Good luck!
