In the mid-1800s, Niagara Falls had become something of a tourist attraction. Inns and shops lined both the US and the Canadian sides of the river, and boat captains took paying passengers on tours of the river. The townspeople had also built waterwheels that provided power for mills and factories.
But on March 30, 1848, the townspeople and visitors woke up to something completely unexpected:
Silence.
An overnight storm had blown ice into piles right where Lake Erie empties into the Niagara River. The temporary dam blocked the flow of water, meaning that people could walk right out where a current had raged just hours before. Fish flopped around in the mud. And treasure hunters scavenged for guns and tomahawks that had previously been lost.
While most people spent the time gawking at the spectacle or speculating on whether it was a harbinger of the apocalypse, the owners of the Maid of the Mist sightseeing boat saw an opportunity. They sent crews out with dynamite to blast away rocks at the base of the falls that had previously endangered their vessel.
It was a risky move—no one knew when the ice dam would break and send a torrent of water over the falls. But they decided the potential gains were worth the risk.
Windows of opportunity
In B2B pricing, we also encounter unexpected opportunities like this. Most of the time, the flow of the business environment is fast-moving, and pricing teams are caught up in the day-to-day work of responding to market conditions, optimizing prices, and managing relationships with other departments. There’s little time to step back and make the pricing function stronger.
But sometimes, the market slows down. Maybe there’s a lull in demand. Maybe an economic downturn is causing customers to pause purchases. Maybe a key competitor has temporarily pulled back.
When this happens, it’s easy to panic—or to think you should simply hold steady and wait for things to get back to normal. But these slowdowns are actually the moments you’ve been waiting for. We often hear from pricing teams that say they struggle to find time for strategic work. They feel stuck in a reactive cycle, always putting out fires.
A slowdown—even one that seems daunting—can be your best chance to make critical improvements. It’s time to take some dynamite to the pricing obstacles that have been hindering your business.
Not sure what kinds of strategic work you should be doing: Here are some resources that can help:
- The B2B Pricing Blueprint lays out best practices for B2B pricing operations. It explores strategic insights and lessons learned from experienced professionals to build…or rebuild…highly effective pricing functions based on today’s best practices.
- From Tactical to Strategic Pricing explains how to escape the deluge of day-to-day operations and deal with the bigger picture. It includes advice for choosing the right priorities and driving meaning results.
- Powerhouse Pricing Teams highlights the things the world’s best pricing teams do that make them stand out from everyone else. It examines the common traits, characteristics, and behaviors of successful pricing teams and offers some simple steps your team can take today.
Since that unexpected ice dam in 1848, millions of people have visited Niagara Falls. In fact, in a typical year, about 14 million people travel to the area.
And none of them have to worry about those rocks that the Maid of the Mist crew eliminated so many decades ago.
In the same way, a business slowdown doesn’t have to be a bad thing for your pricing team. If you use the time wisely, your team can emerge stronger, more efficient, and better equipped for success when demand returns.
The B2B Pricing Blueprint
In this webinar, we'll explore strategic insights and lessons learned from experienced professionals to build...or rebuild...highly effective B2B pricing functions based on today's best practices.
From Tactical to Strategic Pricing
Some teams are so mired in tactical grunt work and daily firefights that they never make progress on strategic pursuits. How have other pricing teams transitioned into more strategic functions? What steps did they take?
Powerhouse Pricing Teams
In B2B, dedicated pricing teams are still a relatively new development. And as such, there are no long-standing rules for how everything should work. In this on-demand webinar, explore the common traits, characteristics, and behaviors of successful pricing teams that have been around longer than most.
