How a Large Electrical Distributor Balanced Margin Gains with Sales Team Confidence in Pricing Initiative

In Brief

• The Challenge: A leading electrical distributor needed to raise prices to protect margins but faced hesitation from sales teams and the risk of damaging customer trust.
• The Solution: ProfitOptics simplified pricing, identified opportunities, sheltered sensitive accounts, and gave sales reps clear, data-backed guidance.
• The Results: Incremental price increases held, margins improved, and both customers and sales teams gained confidence in the new approach.

Rising costs. Tightening margins. Sales teams caught in the middle. That was the daily reality for one of the country’s largest electrical distributors. Leaders knew prices had to increase to protect profits, but they faced a dilemma: how to do it without losing the trust of loyal customers or undermining the confidence of their own sales teams.

Sales teams were already hesitant, fearing pushback in competitive markets. On top of that, their ERP system’s complex pricing matrices left sales teams overwhelmed by too many decisions and too much data.

The distributor needed a solution that was both smarter and simpler.

ProfitOptics stepped in with a data-driven approach that helped the distributor balance two competing goals: protect customer relationships while confidently capturing margin where they could.

At the heart of this strategy was the Matrix Miner solution, which:

• Surfaces clear, targeted opportunities to safely raise prices.
• Enables “sheltering” of sensitive accounts, products, or segments, ensuring that loyal customers or highly competitive items are shielded from increases.
• Equips sales teams with visualizations and clear segmentation to help them see where the gold is, turning overwhelming spreadsheets and anecdotal hunches into actionable guidance they can trust.

The Matrix Miner solution gave leadership confidence to act and reassured sales teams that they weren’t risking key accounts just to chase margin.

ProfitOptics worked at the distributor’s pace with a phased rollout. In the first five months with a focus on select transactions, the distributor saw a 1.7% improvement in Gross Profit Percentage (GP%) from price changes, or nearly $270K in GP. They expect a $737K benefit over the first 12 months in the initial phase.

Incremental increases stuck, customer trust remained intact, and sales reps began to embrace the new system.

Lessons Learned

It’s easy to fall into stagnation driven by a fear of rocking the boat. But that timidity on the pricing front is likely to backfire and leave millions of dollars on the table. The reality is that perceived short-term stability can mean sacrificing long-term growth.

Here are five lessons learned from the case study above:

1. Balance is possible. The right approach lets you raise prices while still protecting the relationships that matter most.
2. Challenge the trade-off. Many believe margin growth comes at the expense of customer relationships, but smart pricing strategies prove otherwise.
3. Trust data, not gut feel. Anecdotes and instincts can mislead. Solid, structured data leads the way forward.
4. Build momentum with small wins. Incremental, targeted changes not only deliver early results but also help teams build trust in a larger pricing transformation.
5. Real margin growth often comes from better serving the customers you already have. By segmenting accounts and using tools like the matrix miner, this distributor found opportunities in plain sight that wouldn’t erode trust but did boost their bottom line.

The Bottom Line for Distributors

Pricing is never a one-time project. It’s a balancing act between protecting margins, building sales team confidence, and preserving customer trust. With ProfitOptics’ support, this distributor showed it’s possible to achieve all three with the right tools and strategy.

But you can’t let complexity or fear of change stall progress. Start small, build wins, and give your teams the data they need to act with confidence. Incremental improvements can compound into lasting margin gains.