Selling the Price Increase. Jeb Blount

Preface: A Tactical Field Guide and System for Selling Price Increases

      B2B organizations have counted on their sales teams to sell price increases to customers since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution more than 125 years ago. However, in the twenty-first century, as disruptive economic cycles have become more frequent and shareholder pressure for growth and profitability has become more acute, executives are exerting greater pressure than ever on their sales organizations to extract price increases from customers.

      Inflation, demand surges, supply shortages, increased costs, shareholder demands, growth initiatives, mergers, and capital-intensive investments can all lead to the need to approach customers with price increases – as can the regular costs of doing business. Likewise, in our hyper-competitive marketplace it is common to acquire new customers at low (sometimes unprofitable) price points with the intent to raise those prices down the road once the relationship, trust, and value exchange are anchored.

In all cases, it is critical to the financial health of B2B organizations that sales professionals hone the skills to successfully approach price increase conversations with customers.

      Over the past 10 years, my team at Sales Gravy has helped hundreds of organizations teach their sales professionals how to successfully sell price increases without losing customers. We've developed a repeatable system that reduces anxiety, builds confidence, and is easy to learn, coach, and deploy in the field.

      Still, since more than 80 percent of training dollars are invested in developing sales skills for the purpose of acquiring new customers, I recognize that most sellers and leaders are not going to receive professional training for selling price increases. For this reason, I wrote Selling the Price Increase as a tactical field guide for frontline sales professionals, account managers, and sales leaders who wish to improve their price increase sales skills and acumen.

      In these pages, I give you a complete system for selling price increases. You'll learn strategies, tactics, and techniques for approaching customers confidently and gaining price increase acceptance without damaging long-term relationships.

Along the way, I've included exercises designed to help you master the Selling the Price Increase system. Parts One through Five are for front-line sales professionals, account managers, and customer service professionals. In Part Six, the focus shifts to managers, who need additional skills to lead their teams through price increases.

Foreword

      For legions of sales professionals and account managers, the conversation that follows is an all too familiar and maddening reality:

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MANAGER:		Before I close out this morning's meeting, I need you to inform our clients that we're going to be increasing prices by 10 percent.
SALESPERSON:		Okay, but what should we tell them?
MANAGER:		I'll leave that up to you.
SALESPERSON:		Yes, but what reason do we give them for raising our prices?
MANAGER:		Well, there's a lot of reasons! Cost of material is up. Labor cost is up. Cost of doing business in general is up. Pick one!
SALESPERSON:		How do you suggest we deliver this news?
MANAGER:		I'm sure you'll figure it out. That's why we pay you the big bucks.
SALESPERSON:		Will these increases be effective immediately, or will there be a grace period before they actually kick in?
MANAGER:		It's immediate.