I once joined a company, and their services were underpriced.

Sure, they were profitable. But compared to the value that they brought to the customer, I believed the price needed to be increased.

The problem was that the company viewed this service as an add-on to the main product, not a value driver .

In addition the engineers were doing the sales for the services they provided.

Engineers are great at designing and building things. However in general are terrible at sales because they complicate the sales process. They go into too much detail instead of identifying how they can solve the customers’ problems.

For example a car salesperson does not focus on the technical superiority of the car at the get-go. Unless there are technical questions, they will want to find out what the buyer is needing, what her priorities and motivations are.

Now back to my story. I realised in order to start uplifting the price of the services, I needed to first sell it to myself. If you do not believe your own pitch the customer will not believe it either.

Fortunately the more I understood the situation, the more convinced that a modest increase in price would be accepted by customers.

Selling to yourself is the most important step in being successful.

If you do not believe what you are offering will make a dramatic difference to our customers, then your customers will not buy.

The engineers struggled to sell value because sales felt “dirty” to them. Putting up prices was outside their comfort zone.

A higher price means we can deliver a better experience for the customer. When they are happy they feel they are getting a good deal.

The reverse is also true. When we sell cheap, we are looking for ways to cut corners to retain margins. The more we do this, the value chain gradually erodes. It s a lose-lose deal. They don’t feel they are getting good service, and consider us as expensive. How ironic!

As a result of reviewing prices, I tested the increased prices on new customers. When explaining it to the value they created, it was a no-brained.

After two years, the price leadership that I initiated was adopted globally. The customers were happy with the service and the business unit was happy because of the sustainable revenue. I was happy because value is being created and monetised for my customers.