---
title: Weekly Blog for Holden Advisors | Ellen Quackenbush
description: Pricing strategy, sales negotiation, value consulting, along with sales tips and success stories.
---
[](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/)
- About
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- [Overview](https://go.holdenadvisors.com/solutions/sales/improve-sales-performance)
- [Negotiating With Backbone](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/solutions/sales/negotiating-with-backbone/)
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- [Blog](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/blog/)
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- About
- [Overview](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/about/overview/)
- [Core Values](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/about/core-values/)
- [Leadership](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/about/leadership/)
- [Partners](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/about/partners/)
- [Careers](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/about/careers/)
- [Solutions](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/about/overview/#)
- [Sales](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/about/overview/#)
- [Overview](https://go.holdenadvisors.com/solutions/sales/improve-sales-performance)
- [Negotiating With Backbone](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/solutions/sales/negotiating-with-backbone/)
- [Selling With Backbone](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/solutions/sales/selling-with-backbone/)
- [Coaching](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/solutions/sales/coaching/)
- [Pricing](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/about/overview/#)
- [Overview](https://go.holdenadvisors.com/solutions/improve-pricing-performance)
- [Audit](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/solutions/pricing/audit/)
- [Analytics](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/solutions/pricing/analytics/)
- [Value-Based Pricing](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/solutions/pricing/value-based-pricing/)
- [Insights](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/about/overview/#)
- [Blog](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/blog/)
- [Video Series](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/about/overview/#)
- [Pricing with Confidence](https://go.holdenadvisors.com/pricing-with-confidence)
- [Publications](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/about/overview/#)
- [Books](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/insights/publications/books/)
- [White Papers](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/papers)
- [Newsletter](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/tag/newsletter)
- [Case Studies](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/studies)
- [Events, Webinars & Podcasts](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/insights/events-webinars-podcasts/)
- [Reed’s Bookshelf](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/bookshelf)
- [Contact](https://www.holdenadvisors.com/contact-us/)
# Holden Advisors Blog
## Ellen Quackenbush
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Find me on:
### Recent Posts
## [Understand the Value You Offer to Your Customer](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/understand-the-value-you-offer)
Posted by [Ellen Quackenbush](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/author/ellen-quackenbush) on Oct 7, 2021 9:36:05 AM
- [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share)
[](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/understand-the-value-you-offer)
You can’t have confidence in your price unless you have confidence in the value you deliver to your customer’s business. Your products and services provide financial value to your customers by increasing their revenue, reducing their costs, or helping them to mitigate risks. It’s really that simple. How do you build that value understanding? By going out and talking to your customers.
[Read More](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/understand-the-value-you-offer)
0 Comments [Click here to read/write comments](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/understand-the-value-you-offer#comments-listing)
Topics: [Pricing with Confidence](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/tag/pricing-with-confidence)
## [Defeating the "No-Decision" Trap: The Power of Divergent Thinking](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/defeating-the-no-decision-trap)
Posted by [Ellen Quackenbush](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/author/ellen-quackenbush) on Sep 21, 2021 11:36:35 AM
- [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share)
[](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/defeating-the-no-decision-trap)
Imagine if you could banish “no-decision” from your sales funnel. More deals that travel all the way to the win/loss finish line, less wasted sales time, more essential customer needs resolved, and a higher share of wallet. What’s standing in your way? Is it the wrong solution, an inadequate business case, inability to get budget, or something else? In our experience, the real problem boils down to one thing—the inability to create and build a business vision that propels your customer’s organization to embrace change.
Top-performing strategic account managers get this. They sell *potential*. They build a shared vision around the ability to address a compelling business need or market opportunity and build the scaffolding of commitment to make this vision a reality.
Top performers exhibit three essential characteristics, and they know how to deploy each trait based on the sales situation:
1. Divergent Thinking vs. Convergent Thinking
2. Learning vs. Teaching
3. Curiosity Quotient (CQ) vs. Intelligence Quotient (IQ)
[Read More](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/defeating-the-no-decision-trap)
0 Comments [Click here to read/write comments](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/defeating-the-no-decision-trap#comments-listing)
Topics: [Selling with Confidence](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/tag/selling-with-confidence)
## [Great questions create strong customer connections](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/great-questions-create-strong-customer-connections)
Posted by [Ellen Quackenbush](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/author/ellen-quackenbush) on Jun 17, 2019 10:33:51 AM
- [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share)
[](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/great-questions-create-strong-customer-connections)
One of the top challenges sales leaders share is their Sellers' hesitancy to engage in early, prospecting conversations with customers. It is common for us to hear sales leaders lament that their "Sellers are great once the product discussion starts, but they will not engage in open-ended conversations where they don’t know the answers. They assume they must always play the role of the expert.”
[Read More](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/great-questions-create-strong-customer-connections)
0 Comments [Click here to read/write comments](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/great-questions-create-strong-customer-connections#comments-listing)
## [B2B Negotiation is Much More Than a Sales Strategy](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/b2b-negotiation-is-more-than-a-sales-strategy)
Posted by [Ellen Quackenbush](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/author/ellen-quackenbush) on Jan 22, 2019 12:20:36 PM
- [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share)
[](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/b2b-negotiation-is-more-than-a-sales-strategy)
Management guru Peter Drucker stated that the purpose of business is to create and retain customers. But Drucker omitted an essential component for how companies *stay* in business — namely, that the customers they select and serve must be profitable. Otherwise, hand that customer over to the competition. Not all business is good business; and last time I checked, B2B businesses were not charities.
[Read More](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/b2b-negotiation-is-more-than-a-sales-strategy)
0 Comments [Click here to read/write comments](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/b2b-negotiation-is-more-than-a-sales-strategy#comments-listing)
Topics: [Selling with Backbone](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/tag/selling-with-backbone)
## [5 Essential Selling Skills to Change the Customer Conversation](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/5-selling-skills-to-make-the-customer-journey-soar)
Posted by [Ellen Quackenbush](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/author/ellen-quackenbush) on Nov 1, 2018 10:28:01 AM
- [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share)
[](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/5-selling-skills-to-make-the-customer-journey-soar)
Today’s customers are savvier and more impatient than ever. Being a Challenger and disrupting the customer’s status quo is just not enough anymore.
[Read More](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/5-selling-skills-to-make-the-customer-journey-soar)
0 Comments [Click here to read/write comments](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/5-selling-skills-to-make-the-customer-journey-soar#comments-listing)
Topics: [Negotiating with Backbone](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/tag/negotiating-with-backbone)
## [Beware: You Are Likely Using Personas Incorrectly](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/beware-you-are-likely-using-personas-incorrectly)
Posted by [Ellen Quackenbush](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/author/ellen-quackenbush) on Oct 11, 2018 8:05:00 AM
- [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share)
[](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/beware-you-are-likely-using-personas-incorrectly)
Personas are a great tool for the right situation but are often over-used by marketing to communicate with customers and generate leads. Personas define how a person in a specific role—let’s say the General Manager of a Business or the VP of Sales—thinks about their key challenges, KPIs, or opportunities to drive business improvement.
[Read More](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/beware-you-are-likely-using-personas-incorrectly)
0 Comments [Click here to read/write comments](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/beware-you-are-likely-using-personas-incorrectly#comments-listing)
Topics: [Negotiating with Backbone](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/tag/negotiating-with-backbone)
## [Go Beyond the Spreadsheet to a New Customer Value Conversation](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/go-beyond-the-spreadsheet-to-a-new-customer-value-conversation)
Posted by [Ellen Quackenbush](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/author/ellen-quackenbush) on Sep 13, 2018 9:43:39 AM
- [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share)
[](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/go-beyond-the-spreadsheet-to-a-new-customer-value-conversation)
Recent articles and blog postings are abuzz with the power of price segmentation, driven by the abundance of transaction data and the power of pricing analytics to create highly-tuned segmentations to capture customer willingness-to-pay. Some analytics create hundreds—even thousands—of micro-segments to maximize profitability by exploiting the differences in willingness-to-pay within your installed base. What’s not to like about this? Sounds like easy money to me. However, there are some embedded assumptions about price segmentation that pricing professionals need to consider:
[Read More](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/go-beyond-the-spreadsheet-to-a-new-customer-value-conversation)
0 Comments [Click here to read/write comments](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/go-beyond-the-spreadsheet-to-a-new-customer-value-conversation#comments-listing)
Topics: [Pricing with Confidence](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/tag/pricing-with-confidence)
## [Price Plots Can Hide Big Price Leakages](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/price-plots-can-hide-big-price-leakages)
Posted by [Ellen Quackenbush](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/author/ellen-quackenbush) on Jul 18, 2018 10:32:20 AM
- [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share)
[](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/price-plots-can-hide-big-price-leakages)
You and your pricing team have been diligent in using your pricing software to monitor price realization and eliminate outliers, reduce unwarranted discounting, and tighten up your price band. Beware—you may be victim to the **Price Complacency Trap**—that wonderful space where you are confident that you have instilled price integrity for your core products. In reality, you may be trading single-digit improvements by raising transactions to the regression line for double-digit declines in the entire regression line over time.
[Read More](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/price-plots-can-hide-big-price-leakages)
0 Comments [Click here to read/write comments](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/price-plots-can-hide-big-price-leakages#comments-listing)
Topics: [Newsletter](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/tag/newsletter)
## [Don’t sell your products, sell what your products do](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/dont-sell-your-products-sell-what-your-products-do)
Posted by [Ellen Quackenbush](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/author/ellen-quackenbush) on Jun 13, 2018 6:54:33 PM
- [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share)
[](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/dont-sell-your-products-sell-what-your-products-do)
Customers buy your products for a reason—namely, the impact your products have on their business results. If they could get the same results without buying your solution, believe me, they would. They would gladly refocus their time and money on running their business.
[Read More](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/dont-sell-your-products-sell-what-your-products-do)
0 Comments [Click here to read/write comments](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/dont-sell-your-products-sell-what-your-products-do#comments-listing)
Topics: [Uncovering your Value](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/tag/uncovering-your-value)
## [Understand the Value You Offer to Your Customer ](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/understand-the-value-you-offer-to-your-customer-)
Posted by [Ellen Quackenbush](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/author/ellen-quackenbush) on Apr 18, 2018 5:48:00 AM
- [Tweet](https://twitter.com/share)
[](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/understand-the-value-you-offer-to-your-customer-)
Celebrating 10 Years of Pricing with Confidence (video 3 of 11).
Ellen Quackenbush discusses the second rule in *Pricing with Confidence* - "Understand the Value You Offer to Your Customer."
You can't have confidence in your pricing until you have confidence in the financial value that your offerings have on your customers' bottomline. Even though managers are convinced they can't get this kind of information, the reality is that most of your customers are eager to talk about it. All it takes is asking the right questions and being willing to listen.
\*Download an Improving Practice Plan so you can follow along with all videos and plan how to drive profitable changes in your organization:
[](https://cta-redirect.hubspot.com/cta/redirect/2542915/254b52fd-84e0-445a-993a-6260481824ef)
Order the book: [**Pricing with Confidence: 10 Ways to Stop Leaving Money on the Table**](https://www.amazon.com/Pricing-Confidence-Leaving-Money-Table/dp/1480590223)
[Read More](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/understand-the-value-you-offer-to-your-customer-)
1 Comment [Click here to read/write comments](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/understand-the-value-you-offer-to-your-customer-#comments-listing)
Topics: [Pricing with Confidence](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/tag/pricing-with-confidence), [Celebrating 10 Years of Pricing with Confidence](https://blog.holdenadvisors.com/tag/celebrating-10-years-of-pricing-with-confidence)
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