The Challenge: When Price Stands Alone, It Gets Picked Apart
In B2B sales, pricing is often the moment of truth—but all too often, it’s delivered without a story.
A proposal lands in the buyer’s inbox with a number and a logo. No context. No business case. No quantified value. Just… the price.
When this happens, the pricing is what we call naked—exposed, vulnerable, and instantly reduced to a line-item commodity. The buyer is left to do all the work of rationalizing the investment. And they usually don’t.
They compare your price to:
- Other vendors
- Internal projects
- Budget constraints
- Past deals
…with no way to understand what your solution is actually worth.
According to Gartner, 20% discounts are now the norm in enterprise B2B deals—and in some sectors, it’s much higher. Without a value anchor, price becomes a moving target. The default buyer move when presented with naked pricing? Ask for less.
The Impact: Discounting, Delays, and Doubt
When pricing is naked, and lacks a value story, it doesn’t just weaken your negotiation stance – it ripples through the entire deal cycle.
Let’s look at the real consequences of naked pricing:
Pressure Point | Consequence |
Margin Loss | A 5% discount on a 15% margin deal cuts profit by one-third. |
Longer Sales Cycles | Finance and procurement demand extra justification. |
Lower Win Rates | You’re now in a price bake-off instead of a value conversation. |
Post-Sale Regret | If buyers never saw quantified value, they’re more likely to question the investment later—hurting renewals and expansions. |
McKinsey research reminds us: just a 1% improvement in price increases operating profit by 8–11%. Yet sales teams often give that away to close the deal—because the price was left to stand alone.
The Vision: Price Anchored in Value, Not Discounting
Now imagine a different approach.
Instead of just sending over a naked pricing proposal with a dollar amount, you include a Value Hypothesis – a one-page summary of the business impact your solution will deliver.
Suddenly, the buyer isn’t asking, “Is this more expensive than Vendor B?”
They’re asking, “Can this unlock $2 million in value for a $300K investment?”
The proposal is no longer naked – it’s wrapped in relevance. It shifts the conversation from cost to return. From budget pressure to strategic investment. And that’s a conversation executives are far more eager to have.
How to Fix It: Build a Quick Value Hypothesis
You don’t need a 40-slide ROI deck. You need a concise, credible value story that speaks directly to the buyer’s role, objectives, and current pain.
Here’s a simple way to build that, using the PiVOT storytelling framework:
P – Pain
Name the friction. What’s blocking the buyer from hitting their goal? Be specific and role-relevant.
Example: “FP&A teams spend 80+ hours each month consolidating data manually.”
I – Impact
Quantify the cost. Show how that pain translates into lost time, inefficiency, or risk.
Example: “At a $75/hour fully loaded rate, that’s nearly $6,000/month in wasted time—not counting strategic delays.”
V – Vision
Paint the better future. What does life look like with this solved?
Example: “Rolling forecasts are automated and updated in real time. Decisions get made days faster.”
O – Outcome
Frame the business result. Time saved, money earned, risk avoided—attach numbers where possible and scale them to the prospect’s business, challenges and industry.
Example: “CompanyCam can expect to cut data consolidation time by 50%, saving hundreds of analyst hours per quarter (a $20k to $35k productivity value per analyst annually).”
T – Trust
Offer proof. Name a peer, customer story, or benchmark that shows it’s possible.
Example: “Teams like Carta have similarly reduced planning cycles and gained deeper visibility into key metrics.”
Even if you can’t yet prove ROI with customer-specific data, a well-crafted value hypothesis creates confidence—and changes the frame from “how much?” to “what’s the upside?”. It also sets the stage for a collaborative value co-creation with the customer – to develop a shared value plan for success.
The Bottom-Line: Margin Protection, Faster Closes, and Greater Confidence
Is it worth the extra effort to avoid naked pricing, and build a value hypothesis before sharing price?
The numbers say yes:
- 30–40% fewer discount requests when sellers lead with a value-based proposal (source: Cacheflow).
- Shorter approval cycles due to clearer financial justification.
- Less price-driven churn, because buyers understand—and believe in—the value delivered.
- Stronger internal champions, armed with a business case they can walk into finance or the C-suite with.
And most importantly: preserved margin. A small investment in value messaging can protect 3–5% of deal value—which, as any CFO will tell you, drops straight to the bottom line.
Are you presenting pricing without value?
Schedule with us here to discuss how easy it is to create and deliver a personalized, credible value hypothesis for each pricing proposal.