This might be the difference between our experiences and responses. Most of my work is direct, corp-to-corp, B2B. We're steadily climbing up the value chain each year, and find that we have to directly interact with procurement departments more often.
For me, it is not a matter of what we can negotiate and lock them into terms we can live with; I've done that before, but fortunately now we aren't in the cash position to have to do that. It really comes down to the unavoidable reality that these customers' procurement methods cost us a ton of sales time that we could more profitably spend elsewhere on customers that more appreciate our value props. As for transparency on margins and per hour rates, we avoid that because we price on business value: if your business benefits by $X+N from spending $X with me, we both win. I've concluded from experience that sharing this information simply opens you up for piecemeal negotiation and commoditization in the future, which doesn't currently fit into my company's business model, but certainly YMMV.
This might be the difference between our experiences and responses. Most of my work is direct, corp-to-corp, B2B. We're steadily climbing up the value chain each year, and find that we have to directly interact with procurement departments more often.
For me, it is not a matter of what we can negotiate and lock them into terms we can live with; I've done that before, but fortunately now we aren't in the cash position to have to do that. It really comes down to the unavoidable reality that these customers' procurement methods cost us a ton of sales time that we could more profitably spend elsewhere on customers that more appreciate our value props. As for transparency on margins and per hour rates, we avoid that because we price on business value: if your business benefits by $X+N from spending $X with me, we both win. I've concluded from experience that sharing this information simply opens you up for piecemeal negotiation and commoditization in the future, which doesn't currently fit into my company's business model, but certainly YMMV.