Currency n. 1) The first refuge of the scoundrel when there is the slightest adverse movement in exchange rates to excuse crap business performance. This is a phenomenon which miraculously disappears just as soon as there is a beneficial shift in exchange rates. 2) The perfect excuse for a list price increase and just one of the many reasons why list prices matter.
And, by the way, if you can’t implement an effective price increase when you have the prevailing wind of currency behind you – or for that matter, highly publicized, industry-wide cost increases – you never will. A good clue that you have this problem is when your primary competitor starts complaining that they can’t raise prices because you can’t, so the whole industry loses money because of your ineptness.
Previously from Paul’s Pricing Dictionary:
Bad Selling, adj.+gen. Bad Selling is somehow always absent as an option in Bid-Loss analysis. But if there ever was a Bid-Win analysis, I’m sure that Good Selling would somehow get 100% of the credit. Of this I feel absolutely sure.
Happiness, n. A feeling of well-being which is directly proportional to your gross margin %.
Insight, n. What your Pricing Team should be providing you with. Insight from your Pricing Team should come in two distinct flavors:
Competitive Insight, n – into your competitors’ performance
Margin Recovery Plan, n. A work of complete fiction written by Sales in the hope that no-one else will read it and, most of all, the author will not be held to account for its contents. Ever.
Organizational Memory, n. The Pricing Team. The Pricing Team remembers what worked and what didn’t work. It has a longer data retention period than anyone other than Tax. And unlike Finance, well, let’s just say, they are unlike Finance. The Pricing Team just knows where the data (coll. n. s.) is and lots, lots more. I thought I would list how much more but it started getting creepy so I stopped. You’re welcome.
Price, n. Value, plus a reasonable sum for wear and tear of conscience in demanding it. (qv, Ambrose Bierce, The Enlarged Devil’s Dictionary)
Strategic Deal, n. deal struck at a massively negative gross margin by CxO or Executive Sponsor, usually without any hope of margin recovery. See Margin Recovery Plan.
