Salespeople with technical backgrounds often only engage with their direct counterparts. To justify price increases and avoid commoditization, they must proactively build relationships with higher-level decision-makers who appreciate broader business value, bypassing the purchasing department's focus on cost.
Treat price increase conversations as a diagnostic tool. A client's reaction—whether they accept it easily, push back hard, or threaten to leave—is the clearest signal of how much they value your partnership. It reveals the effectiveness of your value communication efforts up to that point.
Salespeople fear losing clients over price increases, but the financial reality is that this fear is often misplaced. The profit margin gained from a price hike on remaining customers almost always outweighs the financial loss from the clients who churn. It's a direct contribution to net profit.
If a client accepts a price increase but threatens to leave in several months, it signals they currently need you. Respond with confident abundance by offering to make their future transition to a new vendor smooth. This counterintuitive posture shifts the dynamic and gives you time to re-prove your value.
Do not assume your primary contact is communicating your successes to their management. It's your responsibility to create and distribute recaps of your work and its business impact to higher-level stakeholders. This builds your reputation and justifies your value, especially when it's time to raise prices.