THE PRICE OVERRIDE PARADOX (2/3): Are You Measuring What Actually Matters?

In my last post https://lnkd.in/gDSTDbKw, I broke down why override control strategies backfire.

In this one, we dig into the flawed metrics that quietly undermine responsiveness, profitability, and trust.

Price attainment is corporate self-sabotage

Price attainment measures how close the final sell price is to the system or target price.

Price Attainment = (Sell Price ÷ System Price) × 100

It's often used as a proxy for pricing discipline.

But here's the problem:

High Price Attainment ≠ Effective Pricing

Low Price Attainment ≠ Broken Pricing

What I've seen, over and over, is that over-focusing on attainment leads to:

• Sellers walking away from winnable deals
• Teams hiding discounts in shadow systems
• Pricing optimized for compliance, not effectiveness

The reality?

High attainment → Low adaptability → Lower margins

If price attainment is your North Star, you're not measuring success.

You're measuring fear.

"Data-driven pricing" often reinforces outdated logic

In theory, data-driven pricing should adapt with the market.

In practice, most systems recycle internal bias with better branding.

Their fatal flaws:

• Analyzing past transactions: codifying prior mistakes
• Crude segmentation: missing deal-level nuance
• Weighted averages: masking key pricing signals
• Linear models: applied to non-linear buying behavior

Not all data-driven pricing is flawed.

But most of what's marketed today isn't learning. It's scaling hindsight.

The real metrics that drive profitable growth

The best pricing organizations aren't chasing price attainment.

They measure whether pricing works in the real world:

• Win rate by price band: How often do we win at different price points? Are we priced to win or lose?
• Deal velocity by price point: How quickly do deals close? Where does price accelerate or stall momentum?
• Price sensitivity triggers: Which customer, product, or deal attributes influence willingness to pay?
• Customer lifetime value correlation: How do pricing decisions impact retention and margin over time?
• Feedback loop quality: How fast does frontline pricing intel make its way back into the model?

These metrics measure pricing effectiveness.

Pricing Effectiveness ≠ Rule Compliance

It comes from Insight × Adaptation

If you're still celebrating price attainment, you're optimizing for spreadsheet performance, not market success.

Let's fix that before your competitors do.