My favorite pricing kickoff question

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I found a useful multiple-choice question to kick off my pricing audits.

(But it could work for any strategy or advisory work.)

What do you feel is the purpose of our work?

• To validate something (i.e., confirm you’re pricing isn’t crazy)?

• To uncover something (i.e., find the pricing gaps you can’t see)?

• To transform something (i.e., raise rates with absolute confidence)?

It shows up in meeting #1 (after all the sales calls).

It’s more than a pricing question.

It’s a you-tell-me-where-to-start question.

This matters, because I have to tell people they’ve been doing it wrong.

And nobody likes hearing (or feeling) they’re wrong, even when they’ve paid for it.

And even still, agreeing to work with me doesn’t mean their brain has agreed to listen either.

It sounds obvious, but I didn’t realize it.

So before I can ask them to listen, I must listen first.

It’s a sequence.

And that question tells me where to start.

If it’s validate, we start there. If uncover, there. If transform, there.

Pricing work is paradoxical. I can’t transform someone who came for validation. But if I only validate, they leave feeling something’s missing. So I have to do the right things in the right order (so we can talk about the right things).

That’s why, in the first conversation (before a spreadsheet opens) I ask a question that isn’t really about price at all.

Can’t expect someone to listen your perspective, if you can’t first listen to theirs.

Sequence is important.

Use that in your own work.

Be well. Talk soon.

— Peter

P.S. I really think you should sign up for a pricing audit, particularly if you want to start your 2026 knowing exactly what to charge, how to frame, and when to reveal your price (so it lands).

I’m booking for December.

Oh…and it makes for a great, tax-reducing, business expense.

Learn more here. Or just book a call and we’ll talk it through.