The McKinsey Slide Deck That Changed How I Do Pricing
A lesson from 20 years ago that still shapes how I help businesses today.
Many years ago, I was working as Group Product Manager at DHL’s UK head office.
At the time, we brought McKinsey in to review the pricing for all our international shipping services.
Four consultants (all wearing the same suit) spent two months doing analysis, talking to people, running workshops – and so on.
At the end, they presented a 100-slide deck to the senior leadership team during a half-day workshop.
We were blown away.
It was amazing. Full of insights, detailed analysis, scenarios, business impact. Everything you’d expect (and more) from a big-name consultancy.
So many insights. A huge potential upside if we could implement it all.
A few months later, the senior McKinsey consultant who led the project popped back in and asked how we were getting on with it.
My colleague replied, “We haven’t done anything yet - we’re not sure where to start.”
The theory and analysis were top-notch. But there was so much to take in - so many moving parts - that we didn’t know where to begin.
So, nothing got done.
We challenged him on the lack of practical recommendations. He replied: “We don’t do implementation. We only do strategy.”
We’d spent a ton of time and money on this project, only to find that nothing actually changed.
That was over 20 years ago.
At the time, I never imagined I’d become a pricing consultant helping businesses make more confident pricing decisions.
But I never forgot that lesson from McKinsey.
There’s a quote that sums it up perfectly:
“Strategy without execution is just a hallucination.” (Thomas Edison)
It’s no use having an amazing strategy if there’s no plan to execute it with discipline.
And this is where most pricing plans fall down.
Your new pricing model might look great on paper (or in a spreadsheet), but what really matters is how you communicate it - and how you roll it out.
After working with over 120 client organisations on pricing implementation over the last 7 years, here’s what I think makes the biggest difference:
Sales Enablement – Help your team understand the pricing model. Give them the tools, training, and confidence to sell it.
Price Communication & Collateral – Update your proposals, quotes, pricing pages - anywhere prices show up.
Customer Communication – Plan how you’ll move existing customers to the new model. Use best-practice language and timing.
Pricing Governance & Control – Set up a clear pricing policy with regular reviews and decision-making processes.
I often suspect that potential clients are nervous about engaging a pricing consultant because they think they’ll have to do all the implementation work themselves.
(Much like McKinsey assumed all those years ago.)
As a business leader, you might not feel fully confident standing in front of your sales team and explaining a new pricing model. Or maybe you just don’t have the time or resources to do it properly.
That’s where we come in.
I know from experience - both client side and now in my current role - that success comes from staying close to the implementation from the very start.
Pricing is a specialist skill. Not just in setting prices, but also in making sure organisations get the pricing outcomes they’re aiming for.
We help with all of that. So you don’t have to do it alone.
Strong execution ensures your pricing delivers the value and profitability it was designed to create.
Our goal is to create a practical, pragmatic pricing solution - and help you put it into action.
And yes, we can even throw in a 20-slide deck if you’re into that sort of thing 😉.
Most business leaders have low levels of awareness and understanding when it comes to best practice pricing solutions. So don’t worry if you don’t have all the answers.
If you’d like help implementing your pricing strategy, just give me a shout.
Kind regards
Mark Peacock
