Pricing
The CRM says you lost on price. It says that about nine losses in ten.
The single data point most likely to trigger a margin decision is also the least reliable field in your system, and it fails in a predictable direction.
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Operations
The terms say 30 days. The money arrives on day 58.
The 28-day gap between your payment terms and your bank balance isn't one delay. It's four, and only one of…
Market analysis
Recurring revenue is 40% of turnover. A quarter of it is contracted.
Repeat revenue and recurring revenue are treated as the same line in most management accounts. Buyers, lenders and forecasts all…
Pricing
Gross margin says 24%. The supplier rebate is worth another three points nobody prices with.
Retrospective supplier rebates settle months after the pricing decisions they should have informed, and usually land in a part of…
Growth strategy
Revenue is up 11%. Volume is flat.
The same growth figure can describe four completely different businesses, and only one of them is actually growing.
Growth strategy
One customer is 31% of revenue. The concession never shows up in the price.
Concentration rarely arrives as a discount. It arrives as scope, terms and queue position, and as a set of requests…
Pricing
The charge-out rate assumes 1,500 billable hours. Last year delivered 1,280.
Nobody discounted, no job overran, and margin still fell. The leak is often hiding inside the rate every quote is…
Marketing
Blended CAC is £240. The next customer costs £960.
Average acquisition cost describes the customers you already won, but every budget decision is priced at the margin, and the…
Growth strategy
New business has a funnel, a target and an owner. Expansion has none of the three.
Most firms can tell you what it costs to win a customer. Far fewer can say what it costs to…
Pricing
Twelve lines decide your price image. Four hundred decide your margin.
Buyers hold accurate reference prices for a small fraction of what they buy from you, and most pricing decisions ignore…
Take it further
This is the general pattern. Your business is the specific case.
Everything here is free to read with an account, and always will be. What it cannot do is tell you which of these applies to your numbers, your market and your constraints. That is the work we do with clients.