I had an interview recently for a commercial account executive role. It was a good conversation, but one question kept coming up in different forms. How do you price compared to other providers? Where do you sit relative to the market?
It’s a reasonable question. It’s also the wrong place to start.
I don’t spend much time thinking about competitors when I present. Not because they don’t matter, but because they are rarely the deciding factor. Pricing only becomes central when everything else is unclear. When the value isn’t defined, when the risk isn’t understood, and when the outcome hasn’t been made concrete, the only thing left to compare is the number.
That’s when price starts doing too much work.
In most real decisions, especially in commercial contexts, people are not simply buying a product or a policy. They are making a judgment about risk, reliability, and whether the person in front of them understands what is actually at stake. That judgment is formed long before the final number is discussed. By the time pricing comes up, the decision is already moving in a direction.
This is where many people misread the situation. They assume resistance is about cost, when it is often about clarity. If the difference between options is not well defined, then price becomes the easiest proxy. It feels objective. It feels measurable. But it is usually standing in for something else that was never fully addressed.
Lowering the price in that moment does not solve the problem. It confirms it.
Because now the conversation is anchored in comparison rather than understanding. And once you enter that frame, it is difficult to get out of it. You are no longer being evaluated on what you bring, but on how you stack up against alternatives that may not even be equivalent.
That is not a strong position to operate from.
The more effective approach is to change the frame before price becomes the focal point. That means being precise about what matters, what the real exposure is, and what the cost of getting it wrong looks like. It means helping the other side see the decision in context, not as a line item but as part of a larger set of consequences.
When that is done well, pricing still matters, but it is no longer the only thing that matters. It becomes one factor among several, not the deciding one by default.
This is not about avoiding the question. It is about answering a better one first.
Because the issue is rarely where you sit relative to everyone else. The issue is whether what you are offering is understood well enough that the comparison even makes sense.
In most cases, it doesn’t.
And when it doesn’t, focusing on price is not just incomplete. It’s a signal that the conversation has been framed incorrectly from the start.
I am a Canadian insurance and investment professional and the President and Chief Executive Officer of Chazz Financial Inc. and Chazz Capital Assets. I write about leadership, markets, insurance, investing, and decision making, with a focus on how structure and incentives shape outcomes.
I hold a business degree and I am a Fellow of the Canadian Securities Institute (FCSI®), a Chartered Life Underwriter (CLU®), a Chartered Financial Planner®, a Certified Health Specialist and a Mutual Fund Investment Representative.
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