Holden Advisors Blog

If you made it past the headline, you are likely not an importer of knock-off goods or the Walmart-wannabe of your industry. You hopefully compete on something other than price, which means you have superior products, services, quality, coverage or something else unique. Simply said, you offer something of business value to your target customers.

Building off our recent video blog on the difference between use cases and personas, watch below as Tim Mullane explains how to go deeper to find actionable use cases within the same industry sector. The obvious use cases exist between application and industry. The trick is to look beyond the apparent applications to the use cases that support them. 

It's not just about knowing your customer, but also about really knowing your customer's product and how they plan to use it. In this video, Tim expands on Ellen Quackenbush's recent blog to illustrate how you should be thinking about and approaching personas vs. use cases. 

I was speaking with the VP of Pricing Transformation for a Fortune 500 company recently and, as disciples of value-based pricing, we debated the subtleties of modern-day pricing theory. We agreed that a shift to value-based pricing within an organization should achieve the following:

Watch as Tim Mullane explains the key to escaping the ever-dangerous discounting cycle. Give-Gets℠ – a valuable tool for any value-centric commercial strategy – follow a simple principle: If I give you something, I get something in return.  What Give-Gets℠ do you have for your team?

Recently, I had an interesting conversation with the VP of Pricing for a $15B manufacturing company. The primary topic of our discussion was the implementation of a pricing technology system that would suggest target prices based on benchmark deals within comparable customer segments. A few interesting trends quickly materialized in the dataset:

I recently spoke with a major supplier to semiconductor manufacturers. The semiconductor industry has a handful of global players owning 80% of the market. Predictably, the supplier’s business model is heavily reliant on a few large customers. Because of this reliance, the supplier’s marketing team is well-schooled in measuring value delivered to customers. They knew critical semiconductor KPIs like cost of ownership, yield, performance, and risk. Their value analyses align with improving performance in these key areas. The value toolset is impressive – I had never seen such models and spreadsheets that calculated value so completely.

Mergers can be a terrific way to grow your business, customer base, and product offerings. Given the changes in the regulatory environment, access to capital, and overall market appreciation, we see many companies choose a merger as a growth strategy now. The message to shareholders promises 1+1=3. In other words, the new whole will be greater than the sum of its parts. A single transaction promises that a stronger market position will lead to a significant increase in sales—while reducing costs.

However, the promise of the merger can often fall short of the reality.

In our book Negotiating with Backbone, Reed Holden describes strategies and tactics designed to combat the Procurement Pricing Buzz Saw. The situation was described well in a white paper by Reed Holden Selling to Procurement: The New Normal.  I strongly urge you to request it and read it. 

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