Cambridge Business Association
Selling the Price Increase
Book

Selling the Price Increase

The Ultimate B2B Field Guide for Raising Prices Without Losing Customers

Jeb Blount
Wiley, 2022
Buy book or audiobook

Read or listen offline

Amazon Kindle
  • 0.5×
  • 0.75×
  • 1×
  • 1.25×
  • 1.5×
  • 1.75×
1×

Editorial Rating

9

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Well Structured
  • Concrete Examples

Recommendation

In the B2B realm, customers and salespeople both hate one thing: price increases. Customers hate them because it means paying more for products and services; salespeople hate them because rising costs make their job tougher. Veteran sales author Jeb Blount explains strategies salespeople can use to minimize their customers’ pain. Salespeople can justify increases with superior account management, wise psychological approaches, proactive conversations or targeted business case presentations – all designed to prevent customers from changing vendors. Blount details these stratagems and more for salespeople who must exercise finesse to persuade clients to accept price increases.

Summary

Price increases are customary, but clients seldom are prepared to accept them.

If you believe nothing is certain except death and taxes, you can add one more item to your list: price increases. Everything will cost more in the future than it does now. People resent this fact. Your B2B clients will do anything to avoid paying more. 

You know that shareholder complaints about financial returns, senior executives’ profitability concerns, and normal pricing pressures –  including inflation, consumer demand fluctuations, supply line issues, rising expenses and expensive investments – mean one thing: Price increases for your customers. Price increases fall into six categories.

  1. “Broad-based price increase campaigns” – Prices go up for all or most customers. 
  2. “Targeted, account based price increases” – Prices go up for certain accounts, often with contract renewal or reorders.

  3. Nonnegotiable price increases – Unhappy customers can pay more or change vendors.

  4. Nonnegotiable price increases “with exceptions...

About the Author

Jeb Blount, founder and CEO of Sales Gravy and SalesGravy.com, has written seven books including Fanatical Prospecting: The Ultimate Guide to Opening Sales Conversations and Filling the Pipeline by Leveraging Social Selling, Telephone, Email, Text, and Cold Calling; Virtual Selling: A Quick-Start Guide to Leveraging Video, Technology, and Virtual Communication Channels to Engage Remote Buyers and Close Deals Fast; and Selling in a Crisis: 55 Ways to Stay Motivated and Increase Sales in Volatile Times.

Comment on this summary