You don’t lose deals because your pricing is “too confusing”
You lose them because the prospect was “too confused” by your pricing.
There’s a big difference.
You can have complex pricing, but still present it in a way that’s easy to understand.
If deals are falling through the cracks because of price confusion and you find your competitors are using that against you — you should look in the mirror.
It’s the job of product marketing to take something complex and help your sales reps explain it clearly.
Of course, it’s not the plan to have complex pricing.
But it’s the case for many B2B SaaS companies with usage and value-based pricing.
Especially those with larger, more nuanced deals.
Here are a few ways product marketing can help:
Create messaging and talk-tracks for your AEs
Work with sales leadership to create prescriptive messaging. This should be an important part of training new reps and certifying them on your pitch.
Retrain every time pricing is impacted
A common mistake is not retraining reps when product changes impact pricing. If you’ve added a new product or features that impacts how you structure pricing, then every rep should be re-certified.
Listen to pricing calls
Gong’s keyword search makes it pretty easy to track down pricing calls. Make it a habit to review a few of these each month, especially on deals that were lost due to “confusing pricing.” Listen for where in the pitch you started losing the prospect.
Always remember pricing in your launch planning process
“Does this impact pricing” should be an important questions you ask at the start of the planning process. It’s going to help you determine your launch tier, but more importantly, will make sure you don’t leave important training out of your enablement work.
Offer a pricing calculator on your website
For companies with fully transparent pricing, consider offering a pricing calculator to make it easy for buyers to play with the variables and build their own custom price estimate. Atlassian is a company that I’ve seen do this pretty well.
A big thanks to Tamara, Brent Beatty, and Natalie Louie for hosting an awesome session around pricing during the last PMM Office Hours call. So many great takeaways, including the one above.
What else can PMMs do to help reduce confusion around pricing?
#productmarketing #pricing #enablement