About the Client

Boutique Technology Services Pricing Consultancy

Value and Pricing Partners is a boutique consultancy based out of Denver, CO. Its mission is to create "pricing magic" for its customers, leveraging deep expertise in consumer psychology, marketing, and finance to help companies capture the premium price for their innovations. By helping companies rethink their pricing strategy and redesign their product offering, Value and Pricing Partners can protect their clients' profit margins while maintaining high levels of customer-centricity.

The Situation 

Team Capacity Unable to Keep Up with Demand 

Business for Value and Pricing Partners was booming. Companies looking to gain a competitive advantage were flocking to their business to understand how to devise a winning pricing strategy. 

But when demand started to outpace its capacity to serve clients, Value and Pricing Partner knew it had to rethink its talent acquisition strategy to keep up. At the time, only two team members could advise and set the strategy for these projects. So when two additional projects came into the pipeline, it faced three options. 

One option was to turn away the business. The second was to look for a full-time hire. And the third was to explore the independent consultant route. Given the expedited timeline for these projects, the company decided to go with the third option. And here's why. 

Adding these two projects as part of its portfolio would enable it to continue winning similar projects. So turning it away would hurt its marketability down the line. If the company went with option two, it would take too long, and they would miss out on additional revenue. Therefore, option three gave the company the best of both worlds.

Before conducting market research for a viable solution, Value and Pricing Partners first defined the type of independent consultant they were looking for. The ideal candidate had to be a senior consultant who understood price management and strategy in tech companies. This consultant needed to have a deep understanding of pricing, both through direct sales and through channel partners.  

The projects would be part-remote, part in-person. One of the companies – a network hardware provider – needed someone to conduct a deep dive assessment to discover price management and strategy opportunities. The other client, focused on healthcare, had already completed an assessment but needed help improving their price management strategy. 

It was, therefore, also important for the external consultant to be comfortable in a high-tech environment and well-versed in hardware, software, and associated services. Most importantly, they needed to be true experts in tech go-to-market strategy.

The Solution 

Onboarding a Go-to-Market Specialist With Rich Knowledge of the Tech Sector

With the type of candidate identified, Value and Pricing Partners reached out to its network to see if someone knew of a potential solution. After hearing about Graphite, the company decided to reach out and schedule a demo. 

An Account Executive (AE) on Graphite’s team immediately connected with the hiring manager at Value and Pricing Partners. Together they discussed how the platform worked, the rigorous vetting process experts must undergo to be accepted on the platform, and how to communicate and pay experts throughout the engagement. 

Pleased with the level of detail, the white glove service, and the prospect of finding an expert within 24-48 hours, the hiring manager scheduled a follow-up call to discuss the project scope. With the project details on hand, the AE created a detailed job description before posting it on Graphite.

Over 14 experts matched the candidate criteria. The AE narrowed it further and presented a shortlist of five independent experts. The company scheduled interviews with all five using Graphite's in-app messaging and video conferencing features. 

After careful review, Value and Pricing Partners moved forward with a pricing strategy expert with over 15 years of experience. The chosen expert had worked on similar pricing projects at Siebel and Vendavo, analyzed pricing strategies during their time at Oracle, and specialized in pricing and market research while studying at Wharton. 

The Result 

The Start of a Fruitful and Successful Long-Term Relationship

Before the engagement started, Graphite connected with both the hiring manager and the expert to establish expectations, next steps, and cadence of communications. Once completed, the expert initiated the work on the two projects. 

Specifically, the expert provided a SaaS strategy and economic transition model to help these two traditional companies keep up with the times. However, this was just the start of something special. 

The experts had such a profound impact that they quickly proved indispensable to Value and Pricing Partners. Despite working with the company since 2016, the expert is still part of the team today. You can find the expert acting as an Associate Partner of the company with their  role encompassing a little bit of everything.

Currently, the expert advises Value and Pricing Partner’s clients on pricing strategy, digital transformation, customer success, and XaaS. Most notably, they created a global consulting pricing framework for one client — a multinational technology company — which resulted in a $150M+ profit improvement.

Thanks to Graphite’s support, Value and Pricing Partner found a go-to-market pricing expert who has since become a key part of their practice. They were initially just looking for help on two client projects – but now, they can’t imagine what the business would be like without the expert. 

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