Value-Based Selling: Defend Price With Confidence Now

Pricing pressure is real. Here’s how B2B teams defend price and win.
Dr. Steve Laborda shares the value moves most sellers skip.

On this episode of Burn The Playbook, Marc Crosby (Digital Rebels Consulting) sits down with Dr. Steve Laborda, Founder and CEO of Value Biz Booster and author of Master The Art of Value-Based Selling. Steve breaks down why “value-based selling” fails inside most companies, how to stop marketing-to-sales handoffs that die on impact, and what it takes to defend price without turning your reps into discount machines.

What you’ll learn:

• How to break silos with value mapping that forces real alignment (and healthy friction)
• Why “discipline” beats one-time workshops, and how to set recurring checkpoints
• The simplest way to add price transparency without exposing the whole P&L
• How to sell services and terms without throwing the whole menu at the customer
• How to differentiate in true commodities using service levels (and prove it)
• Where AI helps pricing, where it hurts, and why the black-box effect kills confidence

Chapters:
[00:00] Intro
[00:29] Steve’s background: technical to commercial, translating features to value
[02:18] Stop “throw it over the fence” value props: break the silos
[04:14] Discipline, routines, and why value mapping creates alignment
[06:05] Ownership, sales activation, and keeping momentum after workshops
[09:06] Strategy first: profit vs growth, portfolio choices, no one-size-fits-all
[13:44] Price transparency: guardrails, color coding, and commercial acumen
[17:04] Selling add-ons: curiosity, relevance, and helping customers sell internally
[19:34] Buying centers: why one-thread selling gets played by procurement
[26:30] Global value: perceived value shifts by region and culture
[29:18] Commodity reality: differentiate with services (the 20% premium story)
[34:38] Guardrails for service: segmentation, service catalog, and give-get trades
[39:19] AI in pricing: data limits, correlation vs causality, and the black box risk
[45:08] Burn it or build it: cost-plus, discounts, email-only increases, AI pricing
[52:07] One move to reduce pricing headaches: curiosity
[53:03] Where to find Steve: LinkedIn + Virtual Coffee

Who this helps:

• Sales leaders tired of margin erosion and discount reflexes
• Pricing, marketing, and product teams who want sales to actually use value
• Key account teams selling into procurement-heavy, complex buying centers

Credits:
Guest: Dr. Steve Laborda, Founder/CEO at Value Biz Booster
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevelaborda/
Host: Marc Crosby, Digital Rebels Consulting
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marccrosby/

#BurnThePlaybook #ValueBasedSelling #PricingStrategy #B2BSales

Stop discounting out of fear. Sell value like you mean it. #Pricing
Confidence beats concessions. Here’s how to defend the number. #SalesConfidence
Commodity or not, you can still win on value. #ValueSelling

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Views expressed are our own and do not represent any organizations

© 2025 Digital Rebels Consulting. All rights reserved.

Transcript

Digital Rebels Consulting (00:01.216)
Welcome in, I'm Marc Crosby. This is Burn the Playbook. Today's guest is Dr. Steve Laborda, founder and CEO of Value Biz Booster. He spent nearly two decades in the chemical industry, moving from R &D into sales, marketing, and commercial excellence. And now he helps B2B teams sell on value and defend price with confidence. He's also the author of Master, The Art of Value-Based Selling. Welcome, Steve.

Steve Laborda (00:26.286)
Hi Marc, happy to be here.

Digital Rebels Consulting (00:29.335)
Glad you could join the show. This is going to be a great conversation. We haven't really talked about pricing in detail, but I know that a lot of what we'll unpack is not necessarily related to pricing, but everything else that supports pricing from sales all the way back to a product. And, you know, you have a PhD, you came from the chemistry background, worked for a lot of different chemical companies. So I'm curious at least to kick this off. How do you think that your technical background has helped you on the commercial side of your business?

Steve Laborda (00:59.089)
I think that has kind of gone through all my career kind of avoiding that loss in translation. Because often, I I understand the technical features, but that helped me also to move away from those technical features and helping others to understand. And I think that's why also I have a such strong focus on value selling because it's about it. It's really about translating features that everyone understands what is behind it. And I think that helped me in a sense in many places.

Digital Rebels Consulting (01:28.65)
Yeah, I agree. It certainly helps to have a technical background, at least to know the products, know the features, know the benefits, but at the end of the day, if you're actually going to create value, you have to at least not be anchored to your product portfolio in order to sell. And as far as selling in large complex enterprise organizations, you know, there's a lot of data driven insights from marketing and from product.

where we have pricing dashboards and approval processes and complexity to where sometimes the salespeople just become price messengers. So as far as selling value, how do you at least equip the sales reps, business development reps, sales managers and commercial teams so they're not just replaceable and actually empower them to sell value?

Steve Laborda (02:18.833)
I think the first thing is to break the silos. As you just described it, so often I see organizations who try to do value selling and indeed marketing prepares a value proposition, a leaflet or brochure still in the old days, but still nowadays some of them do that and they put the post-it on it and they write good luck sales and they throw it over the fence. That of course doesn't work because there again is this loss in translation because marketing

has a certain level of conversation to talk about markets and so forth. And on the other side, sales is typically very pragmatic down to earth. so sales trying to transfer what marketing says doesn't typically work. And also they don't recognize it often. I have heard so many times in workshops where I bring marketing and sales and application people together and they say, but my customer doesn't care about that. It's nice that you talk about it and you are proud of it, but my customer doesn't care.

And I think that disconnect of what marketing believes the market needs and what sales know or sometimes also believe. So that's the next part of it. So it's the big assumption part. Yeah. So I think that curiosity and asking question is essential as well from that perspective. And then of course, looping it back to marketing and application so that everybody is on the same page.

Digital Rebels Consulting (03:43.069)
Well, I think that that segues into my next question, which was, how does that look like?

practical practice because we typically always complain about silos and sales is in their lane, marketing's in theirs, products in theirs. We all need to be aligned and that's all fine at a very high level. But where have you seen it in practical application as far as how that looks like on a regular basis to where it's not just happening in the ivory tower at the corporate building. And it actually happens down at the field level as far as just alignment and feedback loops.

Steve Laborda (04:14.256)
I think the key word is discipline. think so you need to have that discipline, conscious decision to have that routine, to have those checkpoints where you can meet together. Of course, mean, since COVID, since the remote part has been becoming much stronger and easier, that ivory tower doesn't exist really honestly anymore, even in that still in the habits it's there, but actually everybody can join.

You can use a whiteboard like Miro or the Microsoft Office whiteboards, and you can brainstorm, share information, discuss value propositions, do your value mapping, and so forth. And actually, the value mapping exercise is actually where you see the biggest alignment happening, because that's where you translate those features into really the value. And that's where you get really those

Digital Rebels Consulting (05:00.135)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (05:06.715)
tensions in conversations where marketing says, yeah, these features bring this value and sales says, no, it's this one that is important and everything. And having that conversation, that's that friction, which some people try to avoid. Actually, that's where the magic happens, actually.

Digital Rebels Consulting (05:25.262)
Yeah, I agree. And, you know, I guess even to take that one step further is that even sometimes when you get those commercial and marketing and maybe product leaders in a room and you're on a Miro board and you're, brainstorming or you're putting post this up in a room. Sometimes that innovation stops right there as everyone exits that room and they say, okay, we're all aligned and that's great. And then we forget about what we all just talked about and we have a list of things in the parking lot.

action items and then that's kind of where it seems to fall apart. And that's just been my experience over, you know, 20 years of some of these environments, but have you seen the same thing? And if so, how do you, how do you fix that?

Steve Laborda (06:05.892)
Yeah, I have seen it as well. Yeah, so definitely you are not alone. Understandable somehow because of course everybody has so many balls in the air, you know, and trying to get everything happening. So it's normal. And that's why you need that discipline and structure around it. Yeah, so you need ownership. So one needs to have that button in the hand and say, I'm taking it. I'm inviting you every third week to do that exercise and to do the...

And also, I mean, one aspect that is important for you as well is that coaching element, or I call it sales activation because many people don't like to be coached. But it's that sales activation. So trying to get them on the daily job supported because that's the other part that is complicated. And of course, I would say, you know, if you're not able to do it internally, they can call us. Yeah. So we are here to help.

We can take that role of PMO or sales activation and I do that for customers where I facilitate that because they don't have simply the resources.

Digital Rebels Consulting (07:11.044)
Yeah, and I think that the resources are typically bogged down with their day to day activities. And so in some cases it makes sense to hire somebody externally in order to support teams in that regard. I like how you have the phrase sales activation instead of sales coaching. Why do you call it activation instead of coaching?

Steve Laborda (07:30.013)
I call it activation because I said people don't like to be coached. Some of them feel like they are going to sit on a couch and they are going to get therapy, which is not the thing, right? It's not about that. It's about taking the things they have already in them and just amplify it in a positive way and help them to structure so as to be to moving more efficiently and faster and more effectively. But that coaching has for many that negative kind of taste. So I don't need to be coached.

I don't have any issues in my marriage, so I don't need to get coached, know, kind of, I don't need therapy. So that's why I moved away from that word and call it activation because it is activation at the end.

Digital Rebels Consulting (07:59.424)
You

Digital Rebels Consulting (08:11.009)
Yeah, it makes sense. It's a good word, though. But I think as you and I have probably seen and even in sports, you see some of the highest level performers have the best coaches behind them. And so that's probably what you don't see, though, in most cases. You see people holding up the trophies and the championships, but they don't see all the hard work that went into that. The coaches and the support teams that they had behind them in order to get there. But.

I'll leave it at that, but there is value at least in sales activation or coaching, depending on I guess, which word you prefer. So as far as pricing specifically, typically there's a difficult balance as far as just margins versus.

volumes, customized products versus scaling, go to market speed versus discipline. Do you discuss this at least in your sales activation workshops and coaching? Sorry to say coaching again, but how do you get a team to develop a balance between all those difficult things within a business?

Steve Laborda (09:01.315)
All good.

Steve Laborda (09:06.481)
Typically, the first question I ask is, what do they want to achieve? What's the strategy? Then, of course, typically I get one answer, very bold, profitable growth. Then I start to explain that you can't get profit and growth at the same time, typically, at least not on the same product. That means we break it down to what's your strategy, what portfolio should be growing, what...

portfolio do you need to defend what portfolio is under profit pressure? So that are the things that

Steve Laborda (09:47.834)
Sorry, I don't know what happened. So, yeah, so I go back to the strategy and really trying to understand what are they aiming for and to focus where they need to do what. Because typically what I see is that many organizations then try to apply a one size fits all and then they realize, but it's not working there, it's not working there. So we really go at the right level of detail so that you can really decide.

Digital Rebels Consulting (10:11.327)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (10:17.327)
what is the right action. Because that's, think that's often the challenge. Because marketing tells sales, yeah, increase the prices. And then sales is already that big mountain of customers, you know, and they remember the negotiation they had, how tough they were and see how they are going to lose that customer in five minutes with a relationship of 20 years. Yeah, so that's the other part.

Digital Rebels Consulting (10:19.199)
Mm-hmm.

Digital Rebels Consulting (10:35.391)
you

Steve Laborda (10:44.142)
And so trying to focus on where it makes sense and where you have the real impact. think that's kind of what I try again. This translation part bring them to, you are actually looking in the same direction. You are just looking at two different levels of it and getting them aligned and focusing on the right thing typically helps. Because I mean, just one example, I had one customer where we did that typical price volume exercise.

and we had a huge corner at the bottom left below the axis. So that means with a negative margin even at the end. the salespeople were not ready to go to those customers because they were worried about the relationship. They were worried about, I'm going to lose all my customers. you know,

But we're focusing on the ones which are anyway, if you lose them, you win money. So it's not a big deal. So understanding that and then also what I see often, which is kind of rooted also in that misunderstanding is that sales doesn't necessarily have an understanding of that profit and loss balance sheet exercises. So understanding that there is certain things that don't work financially and getting that understanding across.

Digital Rebels Consulting (11:47.357)
.

Steve Laborda (12:04.368)
makes them also then realize that they might need to do something. So often it's a misunderstanding and not a non-willingness to do anything.

Digital Rebels Consulting (12:14.311)
think part of that though is a little bit of just transparency as far as just getting the commercial teams to understand how and why decisions are being made from the marketing and the product into the business. So it could just be margin, how that's calculated and having that translated into the salespeople as far as.

why a price is the price, why they should be selling at that price, where it comes from, why we need to defend it, at least having that understanding of when they're out there in the field and directly negotiating with procurement or whoever they might be in front of, kind of, guess, their flexibility around pricing or what they should be defending and maybe what some of the other options B and C and D are in their tool bag before they even into the room. I don't know if most businesses are set up that way where they're equipping each individual salesperson to have those

conversations and more importantly, having those competent conversations, because at least for me and my history of, of, of selling and leading sales, um, I've also tried to at least have contingency plans as to when things might go sideways in a meeting. Maybe someone shows up to the meeting that you didn't expect and you're having conversations maybe outside. Um, I don't know your pay grades, so to speak. So what does that look like as far as just creating a little bit more.

price transparency without, I guess, exposing everything as far as the business and some of the P &L metrics as far as just pricing decisions, margins, and everything else.

Steve Laborda (13:44.4)
I think it helps, but you said it rightly, you need to find a balance, trade-off between being fully transparent because you can't margin to the lowest level for each customer with everyone. Because there is a certain risk obviously associated with it. But having that understanding and at least in the past, what I have tried to do, especially when you implement a pricing tool, this is an essential part because you need to create a certain

guidance and understanding why a number is okay and why another one is not okay. So trying to explain them the logic also linked to, for instance, willingness to pay service levels, so also explaining that. But then also having them some very simple guidance like color coding. That can help a lot already. to show them, you know, that price is red, that one is yellow, that one is green. Yeah.

Digital Rebels Consulting (14:18.5)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (14:39.632)
And then of course, if you can even link it to their incentives, because sales people typically are competitive and interested in their sales bonus, to bring their family on the Hawaii trip then next year, that helps. So there are a few little things you can do without giving them the full transparency, but also having that acumen understanding of P &L is important, because I often heard also

Yeah, but 40 % margin is okay. So they don't, and then you start to show them, but that's here. And then you need to take away your salary and the cost and this and that, and then you end up with a minus. So of course you will hear the answer, yeah, but can we not reduce the cost, manufacturing costs? Can we not have less people in the headquarter and all these conversations? Of course you have those, but then you need to explain, yeah, but that's the current situation. Of course we have other initiatives and everything.

that helped to work on the pressure. But at the end, each of us, in a sense, on that board need to work on sales. Unfortunately, for some of them, they need to work on price levels and negotiate with customers and having that tough discussion. But I understand in many places in the industry, those conversations never happened because it was just luxury situations in many places.

Digital Rebels Consulting (15:59.629)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (16:03.438)
And then of course it's big change for many people to suddenly have to stretch and to deal with those frictions.

Digital Rebels Consulting (16:13.813)
And how would you, guess, arm a Salesforce? what does good look like? You mentioned pricing tools. And so I guess if you, you arm them with a pricing tool with all this, as much transparency as you can with a red, yellow and green, as far as what you can and can't do, how do you, I guess, develop add-ons around that in order to.

going back to selling value because we, you know, at least what we talked about in the last few seconds have been just about price and margins, but let's just assume all things are equal and your competitors have that same pricing tool. Then they're all, you know, I guess, using the same methodology. So how do I, guess, support a sales team to sell services or, know, the contract terms, things around that in order to enhance the deal, to enhance value. how do you do that effectively?

Steve Laborda (17:04.347)
Yeah. I think the first thing not to do is to throw everything at your customer. you know, like, you know, just whatever you have, just throw it. It will pick up something. No, it doesn't happen that way. Sometimes you're lucky. Yeah, then he does it. yeah, that's interesting. Let's work on it. But otherwise, so you need to understand your customer. So it goes back still to curiosity, to ask questions, to understand your customer.

And not to believe you know what your customer needs, because that's a pitfall that I see far too often still in sales organization. Because, you know, I have been visiting him for 20 years. So, and it's not because, you know, his wedding anniversary and the name of the kids and his birthday that you know him or her. So, I think it's still every time being curious, asking questions and also listen to understand, not to answer.

Digital Rebels Consulting (17:48.851)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (17:59.556)
Yeah, so the typical basics are still in many places not done. And of course, on top of if you then increase the pressure on the sales side, manage those things with stress level, which is then, you know, because you fall back into typical old behaviors in worst case. And so you just try to pitch. So I think that's kind of to make the offering relevant. I think that's the most important thing, because more and more, I mean,

Digital Rebels Consulting (18:16.532)
you

Steve Laborda (18:28.763)
Purchasers are more and more still looking for value, even they don't tell it. If you talk to purchasers, of course, they will not tell it to salespeople, but they tell it to me. So I can tell you that purchasers, buy value most of the cases, wherever they can, because they don't want to be called on Friday afternoon by the production head. Nice that you saved us five cents per kilo, but the product is not there or it's not working and I need to shut down production over the weekend.

Digital Rebels Consulting (18:37.748)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (18:58.224)
That's the type of call that the purchaser doesn't want to have. The value is essential. On top, if you can help those customers to sell value internally and become a hero internally, that's the best thing you can do. Also there, as we talked at the beginning with marketing and sales throwing over the fence, it's the same thing here. Help your customers to sell that internally without just throwing maybe

a value quantification over and just let him sell it internally.

Digital Rebels Consulting (19:34.032)
And do you think that, so I hear a lot of people, just over many years in different businesses and even today, they're just typically dealing with one person. It's one procurement person and they assume that that's their champion. The buck stops with them. They're the gatekeeper and they can't talk to anybody else within the organization. I've always seen at least the most effective conversations are ones that expand beyond that one person. extend into.

the other internal aspects of their business, as far as production, supply chain, their R and D, their engineers, having conversations about what's important to everybody. Because I think in a lot of cases, it's, foolish to assume that the person that you're dealing with, your champion knows everything about the entire business, just as you might not know everything about your entire business. So I think the, the multi-threading approach to having a more dynamic, at least approach to your customers and also bringing in.

You know your resources for R and D engineering supply chain so they can at least talk the same language and understand how they might be able to help one another more effectively. And that essence, it kind of just develops a better partnership. So beyond just price, it does add that value. It does kind of build those relationships and a little bit more trust to understand that. Hey, we're here to support you in a lot of different ways. We're going to, you know, open up the doors to our facilities. You can come see what we're doing. Love to see what you're doing.

and look for opportunities for partnership in that sort of way. But is that something that you talk about as far as your consulting services as one of the best practices as far as maybe just pitfalls that people get into as far as just dealing with one person instead of many?

Steve Laborda (21:11.481)
I think that dealing just with one is a very big pitfall. And the worst thing is that they believe everything that that single person tells and forget that this person is also trained and practicing and having negotiation trainings the other way around. And yeah, so I try also to explain that the customer is not just a purchasing person, the customer is a buying unit, right? A buying center. And I mean, I think the last statistics, I Gartner published

years ago was like it's going from six to eight decision makers or influencers in a buying center and so if you think those who stick still to one person they are missing up to seven people and that's kind of a lot of people right it's like 85 percent or something like that so from that perspective it's quite a big gap though i would differentiate still on

Digital Rebels Consulting (21:48.367)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (22:10.276)
how much because how you described it, would definitely do that for a key account. But you can't do that for a basic B customer if we talk about segmentation, right? You wouldn't do that in that level, but you should at least have one or two more around the table. And then the other challenge that I see often is that the salespeople have several hats. I had that in many industries where the sales guy is having his blue overall in the morning.

Digital Rebels Consulting (22:14.671)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (22:38.949)
fixing the pump and going through the process with the technicians or the operators and then in the afternoon taking the overall away, putting the fake tie and going to have a negotiation. I caricature obviously a little bit, but many of those have this dual hat and this I have seen that not too many people are really able to dissociate both roles, especially if you had, for instance, technical challenges in the morning.

Digital Rebels Consulting (22:51.086)
You

Steve Laborda (23:07.556)
because something is not working and then still selling at the higher price is kind of a big confidence leap that you need to have. And confidence is essential in negotiations. And so that is something that I have seen that for the sake of reducing cost and complexity, sales guys are kind of having a dual role. And actually for me, the best practice is having two people.

Digital Rebels Consulting (23:31.181)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (23:34.129)
So when you have typically that sales guy and a technical marketing person where you kind of play, you don't need to really play good cop, bad cop, but good and better cop in a sense, yeah, so that you can play and you have that back and forth. Because with professional purchases, I see this is a big challenge for many salespeople. And on top, knowing that many salespeople are...

most probably the salespeople who are going to listen to that postcard will help me for that analogy. you know how salespeople have been chosen, especially in the chemical industry in many cases, it's an extrovert engineer. So that's the criteria and what happens, they got the booklets, the leaflets, the computer and the phone and good luck and go hunting. And of course they are not prepared enough for that. And then so that means also having

Digital Rebels Consulting (24:20.203)
you

Digital Rebels Consulting (24:23.659)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (24:30.394)
kind of a partner on your side next to also having more people on the other side can be very beneficial and definitely a best practice.

Digital Rebels Consulting (24:41.555)
Agreed. think, and, technical sales, especially in the chemical industry manufacturing, it certainly helps to, have somebody else kind of, on your side as a, as a duo, sales team, if you will, in order to, have that.

I don't know, field perspective, hands-on perspective, along with your perspective. mean, every business is going to be a little bit different, but I've always looked at at least selling just not as a, uh, an individual role. more of a team sport, so to speak, um, to where a marketing person could be beneficial. helps to bring, think, marketing people into the field at times so they can talk to customers. Um, same thing with technical people. Um, I've always believed at least that, uh, you know, if you're a customer facing or if you're in business, we're all in sales at the end of the day, we're trying to support our customers.

But it all can't be done behind a computer or in a corporate building You have to get out there talk to them understand their challenges But it can't just be one person at least kind of managing everything but it helps to have that technical perspective marketing perspective product But yeah, I agree what you're saying But then and again, it depends on the size of the business some people are wearing multiple hats and so that differs from from case to case And I think even as we were talking about buyer

People in the decision-making process you think you said like six to seven and I think I would argue It's probably more than that I've seen that's seeing some statistics that say maybe ten eleven twelve and I think as you get into a lot of these global markets Where you're dealing with different regions that influence could range anywhere from you know Europe to China and places in between as far as where and how decisions are getting made and where things could typically Break down, but I guess from a global perspective. How do you see that and best practice?

I guess as far as selling value as opposed to just in your region and selling it as a company worldwide.

Steve Laborda (26:30.63)
Yeah, that's interesting. value is, I mean, selling value means that you're selling perceived value, right? So I think that's the first thing. You're not selling what the value you see, but the perceived value. And of course, value is seen completely different in the different regions. Yeah. I would say US is kind of passing in that value kind of mindset, right? So that is very clear for most of...

Let's say, of course, I always stereotype here a little bit to keep it simple. you would say, US, they understand quite quickly value. In Europe, it depends a bit. And in Asia, it's still very competitive and price-oriented, even though I would say also there are more and more companies see that just competing on price can't be the future.

Digital Rebels Consulting (27:05.481)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (27:27.919)
The world value chains are also evolving there because of course they are coming to Europe selling and everything for many years now, but they realize also they need to sell value and they are getting asked to provide value and not just to be the cheapest. And so that is changing as well. But of course, if you look at Asia, that culture of bargaining is much stronger or even Middle East also the bargaining kind of. So that again is a bit counterproductive to value, right?

because your bargain is dissociated from value. So that is kind of tricky here and there. So you need always to go back to that discussion. I haven't yet found the best practice there, honestly speaking, because it's very tricky.

Digital Rebels Consulting (28:03.623)
Mm-hmm.

Digital Rebels Consulting (28:13.72)
It is tricky. I think in a prior role that I had as a global key account manager, it's important to understand how if you're selling value, that value as you're, I think you're alluding to, it might be different from region to region and to understand that there's going to be.

cultural nuances and one versus the other as far as how decisions are made and making sure that you're adjusting maybe your messaging your positioning and your value based on the region and understanding how they could be different and even though they that your customer might have the same logo on the buildings and in China versus the US versus Germany for instance doesn't necessarily mean that the the value is going to be the same on in every continent but

Let's assume that, you know, as far as the products you're selling, and we talked a lot about best practices, let's assume that your competitors are doing the same thing. So I guess as far as value-based selling, because it seems like most companies are saying that they're value-based sellers, which is all fine and good, but how do you differentiate yourself in these tough, competitive commodity markets?

Steve Laborda (29:18.738)
And that's always an interesting question because you have the two extremes. So when you say commodities, so you have some companies who are willing commodities and still try to do value-based. And then there are companies that are actually not a commodity, but believe they are in a commodity and don't sell value-based because they have been told they are not differentiating, right?

So let's take one and then I can take the other one because the approaches are different obviously. When you are in a real commodity, it doesn't make sense to differentiate on the product because you are indeed one-to-one replaceable. So on Monday, buy a product from company one. On Tuesday, B has a product that supplier B has a price that the same product is cheaper, they can switch. So that's a real commodity. Now the question is,

Digital Rebels Consulting (29:47.129)
Mm-hmm.

Digital Rebels Consulting (30:00.708)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (30:14.34)
Is there anything else that can be differentiating? Of course, the brand could be differentiating, but it's a bit more intangible, right? So if you know well the brand, you know they have a good reputation for good quality and everything, it might help, but very hard to quantify. Now the question is services. So are there services that can help you to differentiate?

And actually, if you allow, I have a little story. I had one customer who was telling me they were on the market with 20 % plus premium over decades. And they were telling me that they are fully comparable to their competitors. I said, that is not possible. Because who would be ready to pay 20 years of premium without any reasons? There's no explanation they couldn't sell it internally, right? As a purchaser.

So there must be something. And we did really that exercise. So products really one-to-one, except the brand name, everything was the same. said, OK, let's look at the services. The list of the services on both sides, we compared them fully comparable. said, hmm, strange, because that's not possible. There is no difference. And we really went down to the service levels. And what we found out is that actually my customer was visiting their customers like

every four to six weeks or more four weeks than six actually and the competitor was visiting like six to eight weeks. So every and they were doing a kind of quick audit on the process checking that everything was running smooth and what we realized is that the behavior or the service level that my customer was providing was allowing his customer not to have any shutdowns nor maintenance.

Digital Rebels Consulting (32:04.363)
Hmm?

Steve Laborda (32:06.159)
And that being in the electronic materials, you can imagine what the cost of a shutdown is. So with the six to eight weeks, it would have pushed, based on their experience, some maintenance and shutdowns. So that was the value, actually. So and then we realized that the premium that they were actually getting was far too low compared to the value.

Of course, after 20 years, it's hard to come then and say, by the way, we did a retrospective and we identified that actually we need to increase by 100%. That's not going to fly, right? But at least you can use it as argumentations to defend your prices in tough times or to increase a little bit more than usual. Yeah.

Digital Rebels Consulting (32:51.698)
Agreed. And you have to understand what that value is over time. And I think there's probably a lot of businesses and a of contracts that are in place and it's kind of just set it and forget it without continuing to dig into the reasons why we still have the business or the reasons why we might lose the business in the future. And even though the salesperson is negotiating on price throughout these, I don't know, terms of service and things like that, there's probably

aspects of the value that they're missing like like service or e-commerce solutions or Formulation support services or lab and R &D or sampling or speed to service or just there's a lot of things that you can just go through where there might be Value within the customer that they don't even realize why they value it because they haven't never had it You know if there was a lab support that was being provided for instance for specific application on an ongoing basis Everyone just tends to forget about it because they have it

but you don't know what you have until it's gone. And then that's where the value is actually created, which is kind of interesting. But it's kind of the same way, I think, in B2B as it is just to maybe our own personal lives is like once we lose something, we realize, oh, I really actually needed that one thing and I'll pay double to get it back because it meant so much to me because it saved, I don't know, time or hassle or headaches or whatever it might be. But how do you, guess, create guardrails as far as like service? Because there's a lot of...

technical and service based aspects to manufacturing chemical and industrial businesses to where you have to have people on site or you have to have people there very quickly for a plant shutdown or something like that. But how do you not to guess over extend your services to where people are just traveling all over the place just to support downtime and technical issues.

Steve Laborda (34:38.14)
Yeah, mean, value selling is also kind of always linked to return on investment, right? So you need to, because if you do value selling and you don't have, as you mentioned, no control about the services that you are providing, you are losing money at the end. So the first thing, at least what I have seen in the past is at least having clear rules already. Yeah, so because if you have a nitty gritty customer,

Don't try to visit him every week and send a technician and have all what he needs on the warehouse two kilometers away. It's not the right thing to do. So you need always to kind of assess what is the impact on the business. So I would link it to a segmentation, first of all, a customer segmentation really, and define those rules. Yeah. Of course, in a collaborative way. So don't do it completely top down, but with businesses and agree on those.

Yeah. And of course, there are exceptions here and there because there might be reasons. You know, it looks like a small customer, but actually it's the it's the dependence of a key account, but it's not fully named like or whatever. So those things are important, but you need to do it collaboratively because especially when sales need them to go to certain customers and tell them, by the way, we are not going to do that anymore for you. It needs to be properly communicated. But I think that's kind of one way of doing it. The other one is, of course, to have

for those smaller customers to turn it around and not to have it included, but having it as others. So to keep them, or still give them the possibility to provide those services, but then there is a price tag behind it. And of course it means training communication because I think that's also what I often see is you put 10 people in a room and you say, what are the services that your company is offering? And for the same service,

With 10 people, you get 20 answers. But I do that for my customer here that way and for this one. And then you have another one who says, really? We provide that service? I didn't know. Another one says, I thought we stopped it three years ago. And I know we are pushing it. So these services, especially in the chemical, because the focus was so strong on the product itself, that often the services are just like a freedom. It's like.

Digital Rebels Consulting (36:39.246)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (37:04.582)
Like payment terms, right? You see everything where payment terms are just created for a customer because he wants to pay on Tuesday, the third Tuesday in the month, right? And that is kind of things that salespeople need to understand also. And that's why trainings are important. So they understand that this is part of the bargaining that you can have. So that give and take exercise, which often they don't realize.

Digital Rebels Consulting (37:15.337)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (37:34.001)
because they just see quantity and price, that's the only lever that they can use, but they forget the payment terms in many cases, the service levels. As you mentioned earlier, a customer sees only the value often of a service when you take it away. So if you are aware of which one is the most important, a sentence like, of course we can keep the price that level, but I need to take away that service. And then you hear a big no, no, no often.

And that helps kind of to have another conversation. So having that understanding. having a service catalog, clearly stated, clearly defined, linked to a segmentation, clearly communicated, having service levels. And ideally in an easy and manageable way. not kind of in a Bible with 250 pages, but ideally online searchable in an easy way. mean, some companies have even in the CPQ, then some guided.

Digital Rebels Consulting (38:14.01)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (38:33.008)
recommendations for services. You can have those like on Amazon. Similar customers have bought this and that too. You can do that exactly with the services as well. So that's the kind of best practice that I have seen.

Digital Rebels Consulting (38:47.703)
Yeah, I segmentation is important and probably needs to be revisited more than every, I don't know, few years or so or decade, or at least go through that exercise to make sure that there's some sort of standardization and guide rails around what your service offerings are. I don't want to jump off the podcast episode until we talk about AI, because I think that there's probably a lot of opportunity and we probably could probably

put all this into another whole episode. But how are you seeing AI impacting pricing today?

Steve Laborda (39:19.569)
That's a good question because it looks like it's the next silver bullet that everybody sees, but it is not a silver bullet as always. What I see is that everybody hopes that it helps. I think one big struggle is of course in B2B and especially in chemicals where you have limited transactions, the data. I like to say through two points you can always draw a line.

And that's a bit the feeling that I have with AI and pricing if you don't do it properly. So try and just to try to draw a line over everything. So that doesn't work. And when it works, of course, I think you need to understand what you're doing because I mean, before you had already mathematical models, you were using Excel and everything that worked because you understand how you build it. Yeah. Because you had to build the formulas and you knew what you are going to do. Now with AI,

Digital Rebels Consulting (40:13.973)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (40:15.599)
It's a bit kind of a black box feeling for many because you just ask AI to do and they do, but you don't know, is it now correlation or is it really causality that you are seeing? And so all that black box effect can have a kind of negative effect because if things are not working well, it might be that it even makes it worse because you are doing things that you don't kind of understand and you can't rely on it. And on top, it's overwhelming.

Yeah, so you get so many analyses quickly done, so much things that you can't even follow anymore. So that's the other tricky part on the pricing side. Yeah, so it can be powerful. I agree, but it needs to be in a well-sought way, well-structured way. because I have customers, yeah, I just put the Excel file with my transactions in ChatGPT, and I ask him, yeah, what's the right price?

Digital Rebels Consulting (41:12.374)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (41:13.52)
That's not going to fly that easily, I think. So you need to put a bit more thoughts and structure into it to really be able to put that. Because it is complex. you are coming from the chemicals too. You know how the variability and the complexity is there. Even you have 10 customers that buy the same product, it doesn't mean it's the same thing, right? The application might be different. The process might be different. The value behind it.

Digital Rebels Consulting (41:21.332)
Hmm.

Digital Rebels Consulting (41:36.691)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (41:41.199)
because of whatever reason might be even different. So all that is kind of so detailed that I still struggle really to have, let's say, a one size fits all recipe for AI, in a sense, on the pricing side. But it still can help, because it can help you giving you some guidance. It can help you in analytics, but in a very kind of

Digital Rebels Consulting (41:57.107)
Do you think it can help?

Steve Laborda (42:07.397)
well-frailed aspect, think. So don't use it kind of put everything like in a hot pot and just tear everything and then you will get a fantastic dish out of it. It doesn't necessarily work that way.

Digital Rebels Consulting (42:18.205)
Well, along those same lines, as far as putting everything in a hot pot, that's kind of like where my mind goes to, as far as just taking the quantitative data, as far as just historical pricing models and maybe even forecast, and then marrying that up with other elements of the business, as far as just customer sentiment, NPS scores, feedback, how much time are we spending at customers, service time, technical support, lab requests. So if we were to take like all this information around like our customers and segmentation,

and put it into this pot, does that you think help with value-based pricing in order to maybe get a better starting point? Or is that just, I don't know, maybe have a terrible output? I don't know. What do you think?

Steve Laborda (43:00.145)
I think it can help for pricing, will it help for value pricing? I'm not yet sure. So you might be able to identify premium possibilities and things like that, but really full-fledged value where you understand for each customer what is really the value behind it. I honestly doubt at that level because you will still have that interaction needed with customers to really understand because

At the end, even you identify the value, it might be that they don't have the problem that you have identified. Because if you tell one customer, you are able to produce more. And I said, yeah, but that's not the problem at the moment. I just lost a big contract. it's more, how do I get volume? And that is maybe not, I'm not sure that AI is that far that, except it's in the news, of course, then maybe it will capture it. But otherwise,

those information, of course you can say, is it well captured in the CRM by the salesperson? Then maybe, but I suppose you can come on that without AI then as well.

Digital Rebels Consulting (44:07.397)
Yeah, maybe. And I could probably talk to you about use cases for AI around pricing and value probably for another week or so. since we don't have that much.

Steve Laborda (44:16.015)
Yeah. But let me give one nugget about that because there is one use case that works very well is when you are trying to build all that things at the beginning. So trying to understand what are the needs in general? What could be the value proposition to build a model for the quantification? So that you can do with AI. But

then you still need to talk to customer to validate what are really the value drivers, which one are important, what are those numbers for them. So what you get is you don't get full wisdom, but what you get is speed if you do it properly. So instead of taking weeks and months, you can do that in a few days. So that's where I see for at least for value selling and value pricing the big spot.

Digital Rebels Consulting (45:08.847)
Yeah, I think if we were to distill everything that we just talked about at the end of the day It's really just talking to your customers understanding why they buy from you Document it have a feedback loop as far as just all the silos that you have in your business But those are some of these the best practices, but let's pivot over to our burn it or build it a rapid-fire segment I will give you about ten topics mainly around value-based pricing You tell me burn it or build it and a brief reason why so we will get started with number one

Cost Plus pricing.

Steve Laborda (45:41.201)
Build it. I know it's surprising now, right? But I say Cos plus and I talk about value-based. It might be that in some places, know, Cos plus is the best method, but don't just rely only on Cos plus. So build it where it makes sense.

Digital Rebels Consulting (45:56.289)
Okay, I thought you were going to burn it. So you did you did trick me there. Number two discounts as your as your go to move. When should we discount? really didn't talk about that. But discounts, burn it or build it.

Steve Laborda (46:10.705)
Yeah, that's in between. would say based on the typical behavior, would burn it. But I would build it if you do it as a best practice, use it wisely, where it makes sense. Yeah, so don't jump in 10 person steps like I have seen it at some salespeople. But wisely, you know, like a little bargain, a compromise, know, give and take type of thing. It makes a lot of sense so that you don't have a loser on the other side of the table, but a winner.

makes definitely sense. But most cases I would burn it.

Digital Rebels Consulting (46:44.362)
Gotcha. It depends. That's probably a whole nother segment. But number three, we can't raise prices as a typical mindset. So sometimes there's just a mindset that people say, we can't raise the prices. We'll lose the business. Burn it or build it.

Steve Laborda (46:58.319)
Okay, burn it and fire the salespeople.

Digital Rebels Consulting (47:04.844)
Are we finding the salespeople or are we finding the people that said you can't raise prices? It kind of goes back to our maybe salespeople as a price messenger.

Steve Laborda (47:11.407)
I mean, yeah, I was not saying the I was expecting the salesperson was saying that. Yeah. So yeah, if I had a person who says we can't rise price.

Digital Rebels Consulting (47:22.924)
Burn that one. So number four price increases by email only

Steve Laborda (47:29.585)
Oh, a bonnet.

Digital Rebels Consulting (47:33.385)
Yeah, I think the premise behind that is that especially in all the volatility around some of these markets, you know, I was as expected that the salesperson has an individual conversation with every single one of their customers about the price increase in the why and have some feedback and potential arguments. Some people I know that they just send out emails blast and then they kind of see who accepts it and who doesn't. And then they go from there. But you're saying burn it.

Steve Laborda (48:00.518)
Yeah, I burn it. Though I would say price increase messages or statements via email or press release from marketing standpoint, I would be because that is not done enough, I would say, to support sales to be able to increase prices.

Digital Rebels Consulting (48:17.883)
it depends. Number five, talk about value with no numbers. So unquantifiable value.

Steve Laborda (48:26.065)
build it. Sometimes you don't have another choice than that. So yes, you need to work on it.

Digital Rebels Consulting (48:34.642)
Gotcha. Number six, competing on price when you've established differentiation.

Steve Laborda (48:41.083)
No, burn it, please.

Digital Rebels Consulting (48:43.69)
Well, I think that part of that is when you're dealing with procurement and you've differentiated yourself you've added value It's that salesperson, you know directly interfacing with procurement and they're still asking for a discount And so now we're back to the price discussion But then

Steve Laborda (49:02.354)
you should still talk about value. So you should still remember that purchasing person, all the good things you did, you know, when you saved a Friday afternoon by having an express delivery of an IBC of few bags with a taxi, you know. So all these things are super important. So even you are talking about discounts, it's about prices at the end.

Digital Rebels Consulting (49:28.34)
Gotcha. Number seven, free extras that become expected from your customers. Throwing in services, features, and support until the free is just table stakes.

Steve Laborda (49:39.633)
You can give it for free but state it that it is exceptional and then you build it in the rest.

Digital Rebels Consulting (49:48.168)
Gotcha. Number eight, AI sets the price and then sales can't defend it.

Steve Laborda (49:54.405)
Burn it.

Digital Rebels Consulting (49:56.188)
Burn it. Yes, I agree. was an easy one. Number nine, letting your loudest customer set the price.

Steve Laborda (50:06.221)
If it depends on what the loudest customer is, but I would burn it. Because it's not about loud. It depends what you understand on the loudest, but if it's the biggest one, it might be a compromise you need to do, but there is a reason behind it. It's the volume or the potential behind it.

Digital Rebels Consulting (50:27.964)
A lot of times we say the squeaky wheel gets the grease in the States. So I guess it depends on it's a lot of other factors, but we'll burn that one for now. Number 10 and sales sales confidence as as the pricing lever. So teaching your reps how to say the price with confidence kind of goes back to our sales activation.

Steve Laborda (50:50.225)
Build it square too, would say. So build it by build it. I think honestly, even in many trainings, you don't talk about it. And I try to emphasize this a lot because it resonates then with the people as well later on when they realize at the end, only a salesperson with a good level of confidence. I'm not talking about ego. I'm talking about confidence. Yeah.

Digital Rebels Consulting (51:18.546)
Mm-hmm.

Steve Laborda (51:19.075)
about high level confidence that can really sell properly. Because I have seen it, if a salesperson doesn't have confidence, sometimes I have seen even customers just coughing, you know, and the sales guy already throwing discounts. Because he was not confident enough about the price level, about the value provided. And so he was thinking the customer is already making an objection with his cough kind of, yeah. I said, hang on, he was just coughing.

And that's linked to confidence at the end. So if you build confidence in your organization, not only sales, but overall, to demonstrate value, to be able to defend the price level. And they don't need to believe it, right? It's not about belief, it's about confidence. So how to defend it, that works.

Digital Rebels Consulting (52:07.013)
Mm-hmm agree well said it's a big part that I think a lot of organizations can implement You get the final word today So what is one piece of advice that you can give a sales leader that they could implement today to alleviate pricing headaches

Steve Laborda (52:24.059)
my goodness. God. I would say it's still curiosity. Be curious. So ask yourself, why do you get a price objection? Why is your customer buying? It's always the same thing. through that curiosity, you understand, and that gives you the arguments actually to defend or to increase prices.

Digital Rebels Consulting (52:50.678)
Agree. That's a good one to on. Be curious. think that that would probably level up a lot of people if they just started doing that today. I appreciate you joining the podcast. Where can people find more about you and some of your work?

Steve Laborda (53:03.685)
LinkedIn, I think that's the easiest. Just go there. I post almost every day. So there's a lot of insights there. And then as you know, I do the virtual coffee on Friday as you're joining now and then as well. So feel free to register and to meet others, peers from the industry that have the same headaches and challenges as you. And we share thoughts and ideas and challenge each other. And I think it's a great learning curve. So that's the other way. So either LinkedIn or...

the virtual coffee.

Digital Rebels Consulting (53:35.095)
Love the virtual coffee, 9 a.m. on Fridays Eastern. Check it out and appreciate you joining the show today.

Steve Laborda (53:41.948)
Thanks a lot Marc. Bye.

Digital Rebels Consulting (53:43.363)
All right, cheers.