5 Stop Worrying, Start Preparing Mark Twain once said, “I've experienced many terrible things in my life, a few of which actually happened.” From a purely evolutionary point of view, worry can be a good thing, because people who avoided danger in the first place were more likely to perpetuate their genes. But there is a big difference between avoiding something that might kill you and allowing worry about approaching customers for price increases to derail you. Worrying about customer responses to price increases that have not yet happened is the genesis of unnecessary anxiety. When, in your mind, you see your customer yelling at you, canceling their orders and contracts, and rejecting you, it creates insecurity where it didn't previously exist, causing you to overthink, procrastinate, become paralyzed, or avoid approaching your customer with the price increase altogether. Preparation and Practice Preparing in advance of price increase conversations is a key to easing worry and maintaining emotional discipline. When it comes to these crucial conversations, winging it and leaving outcomes to chance is exceedingly stupid. Savvy sales professionals build their plan and practice price increase conversations in advance. Planning allows you to: Develop and practice messaging. Build a business case. Determine best- and worst-case outcomes. Plan for questions or objections that may surface. Consider fallback positions. Set targets and limits when negotiating. Review the list of stakeholders, step into their shoes, and consider their viewpoints. Prepare to flex to stakeholder communication styles. Anticipate and practice multiple scenarios. Practicing and running through different scenarios is one of the keys to keeping your emotions in check and developing obstacle immunity for a specific price increase situation. Role-play scenarios with your manager or team members. Play out all the worst-case scenarios so you are prepared for any eventuality.
Leadership and Coaching Pro Tip
Leverage Murder Boarding Sessions for Large Account Price Increases
There is much at stake when you engage your largest and most important accounts in price increase conversations. Price increases on these accounts can have a massive and lasting impact on your organization, bonuses, and commissions. Since these accounts are large, and usually know it, they have more leverage at the negotiation table than the average account. These customers also employ professional buyers whose core job is to block or reduce your price increase. There is also the risk of losing the account or future orders to a competitor if you make the wrong move. In The Lord of the Rings, Gollum is famous for muttering “my precious” as he clings desperately to the ring he holds so dear. His emotional attachment to the ring is so strong that he follows it to his death. Many account managers have a similar emotional attachment to their largest accounts. This attachment feeds their fears about all the bad things that could go wrong if they approach these customers with price increases. Objectivity is a big problem when sales professionals are consumed by fear. A powerful coaching tool to help them rise above these disruptive emotions and make objective decisions about how to approach strategic accounts for price increases is the murder boarding exercise. Murder boarding helps reduce fear, increase awareness, and develop emotional control by poking holes in those fears, objectively assessing risk, exposing blind spots, bringing delusion to the surface, and playing out worse-case scenarios. Murder boarding sessions should be facilitated by you and conducted as a team. During the exercise, you will lead a discussion in which the team explores and strategizes each potential price increase scenario and outcome – including losing the account to a competitor. This should not be a broad 30,000-foot conversation. Instead, it is a deep dive into the minutia that could potentially kill the price increase. Nothing is sacred. Every relationship gap, potential unknown, competitor, quality issue, product weakness, and service deficiency should be treated as a villain. By leveraging the perspectives and opinions of other team members, you help your seller get real about the price increase opportunity and develop a stronger, more strategic plan. Along the way, the team gets stronger and more aware because they learn from each other. Most importantly, it gives your account managers confidence as they meet with their largest accounts, which ultimately results in better price increase outcomes.
Know Your Emotional Triggers Some emotional triggers, like getting cut off in traffic or being confronted by a rude person, occur without your consent. Others, like allowing yourself to walk into a price increase conversation when you are tired, hungry, or unprepared and feeling insecure, are self-inflicted. In some situations, disruptive emotions are triggered by the way certain people communicate, specific words, or the particular circumstance. Professional buyers, for example, usually know how to push your buttons and create frustration, anger, fear, attachment, and insecurity. They know how to make you feel guilty about the price increase, pull your worst fears to the surface, and thwart your price increase efforts. Practice dealing with these emotional triggers. Become aware of both your physiological and emotional responses before and at the point of the trigger – especially how the fight-or-flight response impacts your ability to think on your feet. When you are aware of the specific emotional triggers that derail you and how and where they happen, it becomes much easier to avoid, plan for, anticipate, or respond to them appropriately, making you stronger and more resilient. With this awareness, you will master the ability to consciously rise above the emotion, maintain relaxed, assertive confidence, choose your response, and accomplish your objective. Leverage Positive Visualization and Self-Talk You've learned that your brain is hardwired to anticipate and dwell on worst-case scenarios. When you face an emotionally unpleasant task, it is human nature to begin fabricating negative outcomes. This is why the greatest failures in price increase conversations are most often self-inflicted. There is an endless and ongoing stream of chatter inside your head, shaping your emotions and outward actions. The conversation you are having with yourself will either lead to a confident mindset or lead to self-doubt and insecurity. For instance, Abby expects to encounter resistance when she presents her customer with a price increase. This negative visualization causes her to worry, and brings her worst fears to the surface. As she approaches the conversation, worried that her customer will quit and go to a competitor, fight or flight begins to kick in. In this state she stumbles over her words and comes off sounding insecure. The customer pushes back hard bringing up several old service issues that happened over a year ago. Abby is shaken, embarrassed, and unable to counter her customer's argument and defend the price increase. Had Abby approached the conversation with confidence, her demeanor alone would have reduced resistance and generated a more positive
