During your pricing exercise how did you identify the value you delivered for that product or service? Many companies maintain a sort of flexible price list based on the competition for a sale and the market/pricing knowledge of the customer. This is an easy approach and follows on the famous guote from PT Barnum about "a sucker being born every minute". This is obviously not the way to establish long term customer relationships. We hear constantly in our consulting work, "our business is cuthroat or our industry is price driven". In some cases this is true, but in many others price is a function of the perceived value. A really simple illustration of this point. For you meat eaters out there think of the most delicious steak dinner in the most wonderful setting. Now imagine taking that same steak, cooling it to below room temperature and eating it on a TV tray next to the dumpsters and grease traps in the alley. Would you pay the same price for your food? Of course not. No matter what your product is you can create that wonderful experience around it and charge that higher price, if you can truly appreciate the value your customer receives in buying your product from your company.

Some helpful tips:

Meet with customers not to sell but to understand their pain points involving the purchase of your product or your competitors.

Understand their business and the relative importance of your service or product. Develop a calculation that shows the impact of your offering on your customer's business.

Find out what informational resources you can provide to your customer at relatively low costs that reduces their pain but increases your price. Example provide a weekly delivery schedule for their transactions and an alert service for a small premium. This information is critical where your customers work must be scheduled and resources committed. By offering this as an optional service your customer doesn't have to eat a big price increase unilaterally. Always breakout the service on the invoice so that you still show price competitiveness on your product and service.

Add other qualitative features to surround your product just like the high end restraurant surrounds the steak dinner to turn a commodity price into a premium.