Paul BarnhurstFP&A Expert Empowering Finance Professionals to Excel Everday

Low prices silently kill great businesses.

9 Jul 2026 · 1 min

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In this monologue, the speaker warns that underpricing service offerings can silently undermine a business’s long‑term viability. He shares a concrete anecdote about a consulting friend who won a Fortune‑500 training contract by bidding $10,000 lower than competitors, only to be privately warned by the client that such low prices are unsustainable and must not be repeated. The story illustrates that without an external watchdog or vigilant pricing strategy, entrepreneurs may continue to underprice, leading to chronic cash‑flow strain and an inability to build a sustainable, profitable operation.

Chapters

The problem with underpricing is that no one is going to tell you that you're underpriced unless you're really keeping an eye out for you. I had a friend many years ago who started like a consulting firm, and she put in a bid to do training with this big Fortune 500 company. And somebody from the company called her and said, hey, I just want you to know you came in $10,000 under everybody else. So we're going to go with you, but I need you to know for next time you can never submit prices this low ever again. And so unless you've got somebody who's keeping an eye out for you as like, okay, we're both from the same place, whatever caused that person to pick up the phone and have that conversation with them as I shouldn't be doing this, but I need you to know because it's a terrible mistake you're making. Most times people just let you keep underpricing and you find yourself struggling to build a sustainable business.