Execute Your Plans with Courage, Not Hubris | Strategic Pricing Solutions

If the team has identified certain products as being superior to competing alternatives, and has quantified how that superiority creates value for customers versus the alternatives, those products should have higher prices than the competitors’. If that means raising some prices more than expected, so be it. If the team is afraid to execute the plan and raise prices accordingly, it either means they did not do a good job of identifying the value differences and price sensitivity of the products, or perhaps they just lack courage. When it is the latter, the team needs to be like the football teams. It inevitably means taking some chances, like throwing deep. If they have planned properly, it will work.

One last point – hubris is dangerous. It is not uncommon for someone who developed a pricing strategy to be so confident in it, they ignore evidence it is not working. Vietnam War is a series by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick running on PBS right now. I have only seen four episodes, but one thing is clear. Too many generals, the Secretary of Defense, and the Presidents all ignored evidence that the war was not winnable and their strategies were certainly not winning. Their pride and certainty that they would win dragged the war on for far too long. Just like the war, if the evidence demonstrates that your pricing strategies are ineffective, don’t carry them into next year.

When your team has done the work to evaluate your current strategies, identified the situations and circumstances with the highest probability of success on a larger than average price increase, and they know how to execute, they should have confidence. Have faith in the work that created the plan, recognize it will not be perfect, trust in your competitive advantages, and focus on executing to the best of your abilities.

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Execute Your Plans with Courage, Not Hubris.