Marketing & SalesObservation 0032 min read
−8.2%
The cheapest acquisition is not automatically the best acquisition.
Optimizing for cost per acquisition finds the customers who are cheapest to reach, not the ones worth reaching.
B2B Customer Businesses
B2B companies whose growth ultimately depends on customer demand.
Market context
Market context
Many B2B businesses sell to companies whose own revenue depends on consumer or customer demand: suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, service providers. Their growth rises and falls with the economics of their customers' customers.
Commercial pressures
- 01Revenue concentrated in a small number of accounts with shifting demand.
- 02Account profitability hidden by blended pricing and cost-to-serve.
- 03Sales incentives rewarding volume over account value.
- 04Limited visibility of the end-customer demand that drives orders.
Customer economics questions
The questions leadership should be able to answer.
Q1
Which accounts are profitable after cost-to-serve?
Q2
How exposed is the pipeline to end-customer demand?
Q3
Which segments deserve more sales capacity, and which less?
Q4
Where is pricing leaving value on the table across the account base?
Relevant capabilities
Where the work usually starts.
- 02Commercial StrategyConnect growth, economics and strategic priorities into one commercial system.Explore capability
The full chain
- 04Marketing & SalesConnect acquisition and selling activity to actual customer economics.Explore capability
Demand · Customer · Transaction
- 03Revenue & PricingImprove revenue quality and capture more of the value being created.Explore capability
Transaction · Contribution
Illustrative commercial problem
Illustrative · Not a client example
The largest account was the least profitable
Illustrative pattern. A B2B supplier's biggest customer drives a fifth of revenue. Once rebates, service levels and payment terms are allocated, the account contributes less than several mid-sized customers the sales team treats as secondary.
Intelligence
Related thinking.
Marketing & SalesObservation 0052 min read
$0.90
A 4.0 ROAS that returns ninety cents.
Attribution asks who touched the sale. Incrementality asks who would not have bought otherwise. The difference can be most of the return.
PricingObservation 0062 min read
+75%
The discount that needs 75% more units.
Break-even volume on a promotion is almost always higher than the discount itself. At 30% off and a 70% margin, it is 75%.
A TCB engagement
10–15
Business days
Customer Economics Sprint
One commercial diagnosis and a clear 90-day path forward: the constraint identified, the economics diagnosed, the opportunity benchmarked and the intervention prioritized.
Bring the constraint.We'll give it direction.
Start with the commercial problem you're trying to solve. We'll identify the constraint, diagnose the economics, and determine whether there is a useful next step.
- 01Identify the constraint
- 02Diagnose the economics
- 03Recommend the right intervention
- 04Define the next move