The same product, four prices

In a distribution business, margin never collapses at once. It wears away. A discount granted three years ago that nobody can justify any more. A salesperson protecting their customer. A price typed in a hurry on a Friday evening.

The same product, four prices

On a single product, you find four prices charged in the same week. Nobody cheated: each had their reason at the time. But nobody had the whole picture, because the picture existed nowhere.

And the monthly reporting does not show it. It gives an average margin, and an average is exactly what hides a gap.

What happens at the counter

The salesperson negotiating does not have the real margin on that customer in front of them. They have their selling price, their habit, and the fear of losing the deal. So they give away a point, then two. Multiply by the number of lines, by the number of customers, by twelve months.

This is not a people problem. It is information arriving at the wrong moment: after the quarter, instead of before the meeting.

A floor, and what it takes to hold it

The answer is not one more dashboard. It is a pricing grid by product family with defensible floors, the arguments that let the team hold them in meetings, and the figure in front of the salesperson at the moment they need it.

Then the system learns: the price elasticity of each customer, the discount that still makes sense and the one that no longer does, the quotes that convert. Margin stops wearing away, deal after deal.