Strategy & numbers

The floor price you will not go below

A margin floor that bends under pressure is not a floor. It is a preference, and the client can hear the difference.

Most firms have a number in mind below which a job is not worth doing. Very few can say what it is out loud, and fewer still hold it when a real order is on the table and the month has been quiet.

Why the floor collapses

It collapses because it was never calculated, only felt. A floor that came from instinct cannot be defended under pressure, because instinct is exactly what pressure distorts. The moment the client pushes, the number becomes negotiable — not through weakness, but because there was nothing underneath it.

A calculated floor is different. It includes the costs that arrive late: delivery, handling, the rework that certain job types reliably produce, the hours of senior attention nobody bills. Once those are in, the floor stops being a target and starts being arithmetic.

Say it before it is tested

Decide the discount you are willing to give and what you require in exchange — volume, a longer commitment, payment up front, flexibility on the deadline. A discount given for nothing teaches the client that your first price was not serious, and that lesson applies to every quote after.

The job you should lose

There is a category of work that is worth turning down: the one that clears your floor only if nothing goes wrong. Something usually goes wrong, and the version of that job you actually deliver is below the floor. Losing it on price is the good outcome.

Firms that hold a floor are not more stubborn. They just did the arithmetic in advance, when nobody was pushing.