Stop Selling Harder. Start Leading Smarter: Coaching for Margin Enhancement

Price > Volume. Coaching for margin enhancement is about leading with questions, not pressure.

We’ve written before about how to coach sales teams with practical, strategic questions (read here). Not as micromanagers, but as leaders who know how to guide commercial teams toward sustained performance.

This time, we’re going one level deeper—into margin. Because while top-line revenue gets the attention, margin is where real business health lives.

Helping your team pivot from chasing volume to elevating value is a hallmark of a sophisticated leader. Margin enhancement isn’t just a pricing tactic—it’s a mindset. A discipline. A culture that needs to be developed, indoctrinated, and continuously trained.

That’s where coaching for margin enhancement comes in. Not as a rigid playbook, but as a way to embed commercial thinking into daily decisions across the team.

And here’s the good news: you don’t need to be a sales guru to coach your team on margin. You just need to understand the concept, the levers, and how to translate them into decisions your team can act on.

The Math is Simple. The Discipline is Hard.

Let’s ground this in a simple example:

Imagine your product costs $80 to make. You sell it for $100. That’s a $20 gross margin. Sell 10 more units? You’ve earned $200 more in gross margin. Now, increase your price by just 5%—from $100 to $105—and you make $25 per unit. That same 10 units now delivers $250 in gross margin. Same volume. More profit.

The math is simple, but the behavior change is not. Teams often fall into the trap of “moving product” just to stay busy or keep the line full.

That’s where strong leadership makes a difference.

Coaching for Margin Starts with the Right Questions

Just like in sales coaching, the goal isn’t to command; it’s to ask, listen, and guide. Most teams don’t wake up thinking about margin. But they can and should. It starts with coaching.

At Catalyst Point, we recommend using commercial diagnostics—simple tools that help your team identify where margin is created, and where it’s quietly slipping away.

Then we teach leaders to ask questions like:

• “Where are we discounting. Why?”

• “Which customers or segments deliver the healthiest margins? And how do we capture more of them?”

• “How well do we understand our value relative to competitors?”

• “What services or support are we giving away for free?”

• “Which products are growing revenue but shrinking margin?”

• “How are we segmenting our customer base and is it driving better decisions?”

These questions don’t just surface insights, they reshape culture. They move your team from “just closing deals” to designing profitable, sustainable growth.

And remember: your job isn’t to have all the answers. It’s to ask the kinds of questions that spark reflection, accountability, and higher standards. If you’ve built the right commercial team, trust them to rise to the challenge, with a little timely coaching along the way.

Align Goals to Margin Levers

Just as top leaders connect mission, vision, and values to individual roles, they also connect business goals to value creation levers.

• Want a customer service rep to care about margin? Show them how fast, accurate support reduces rework or credit notes.

  
  

• Want your product team to step up? Tie incentives to premium mix targets or SKU rationalization.

  
  

• Want your sellers to stop leading with price? Compensate for margin dollars, not just top-line revenue.

When your team understands the levers they control, their goals get sharper and their decisions get better.

7 Practical Ways to Enhance Margin—In Any Business

1. Lead With Your Premium Offer. Train your team to position high-margin products or services first. This builds deal size and avoids unnecessary discounting just to hit volume targets.

2. Sharpen Segmentation. Not all customers deserve the same pricing. Segment by margin potential—not just revenue—and build tiered offers and service levels accordingly.

3. Charge for Value-Added Services. Customization, faster delivery, R&D support, innovation co-design—these aren’t freebies. Even modest service fees reinforce value and protect margin.

4. Audit Discounts and Exceptions. Require approval or at least a conversation before discounting. This isn’t red tape—it’s a margin-saver that forces strategic pricing conversations.

5. Kill or Reposition Low-Margin SKUs. Too many businesses carry margin-killing products out of habit. Improve them, reposition them, or retire them. Build this review into regular ops cadence.

6. Incentivize Margin Wins. Tie your incentive structure to gross profit. This subtle shift transforms pipeline conversations and nudges behavior in the right direction.

7. Track Margin by Customer or Channel. Most businesses track margin by product. Fewer track it by customer or channel. Start doing it and act on what you find.

Bottom Line:

In uncertain times, coaching your team to prioritize value over volume isn’t just helpful—it’s essential.

The best leaders don’t just set financial targets. They build cultures that know how to hit those targets profitably.

Ask sharper questions. Use diagnostics. Connect daily work to value levers. Build commercial fluency across your organization. And most of all, coach your team to think like owners, not just operators.

Want a partner in building this kind of culture?

We’re not sales trainers or HR generalists. We’re former P&L leaders who understand the power of coaching in a business context. We work with executive teams and frontline managers alike to build practical, high-performance leadership habits that show up in your numbers.

Let’s talk. Reach out to Catalyst Point.

👉 And if you missed it: Stop Guessing. Start Leading: 10 Questions to Revive Sales Performance Now — your guide to asking smarter questions and supporting your sales team without micromanaging.