Bearing and power transmission distributors often know their overall margin well and their line-level margin poorly. A bearing price set years ago and never reviewed, a manufacturer's increase on belts or reducers that never reached the sell price, a large plant priced below what the national houses would charge. Each one is small on its own. Across thousands of lines and hundreds of accounts, they decide whether the year is a good one.
Micro price increases
Large price increases bring phone calls and bids. Small ones mostly do not. Micro price increases are small moves of half a point to two points every few months, too small to call about, that add up over two or three years.
PT has plenty of lines suited to this: common bearings, coupling inserts, connecting links, set screws, bushings and lubrication. A small change on those barely registers with a maintenance buyer but adds up over a year of orders.
Priced below market and margin leaks
Priced below market shows accounts priced below the large national distributors, with a suggested increase and a note to the rep. Often the most underpriced accounts are the oldest, set up long ago and never revisited.
Margin leaks shows lines sold below cost or below your floor margin, and vendor cost increases that were not passed on. In bearings and PT, common leaks include:
- Manufacturer price increases on bearings, belts or reducers that never reached the sell price.
- Large one-off orders, like a gearbox, quoted at thin margin and then repeated at the same price.
- Assemblies, such as a drive package, priced once and never reviewed.
- Plant agreements that outlasted the agreement.
- Discounts given for a shutdown order and kept forever.
Competitor pricing intel
Competitor pricing intel shows what large national distributors give off list on public bids, plus photos and PDFs of competitor quotes and bid sheets your reps find. Public utilities, water treatment plants and universities often buy through public bids, so there is pricing out there to learn from. When a rep sees a competitor's quote on a maintenance manager's desk, it goes into the app instead of being forgotten.
Sometimes that intel shows you are too high on a category. Just as often it shows you have been leaving money on the table.
See it on one screen
The exec dashboard shows sales, margin, cash, receivables and pace on one screen, so you can watch these changes take effect. Rep commissions are live from invoices, earned and payable, which helps reps see how margin affects their own pay.
Talk to your reps before prices move. Show them the below-market list and the leaks on their accounts, and agree which ones to fix first. A rep who understands the reason can explain a change in one sentence. A rep who is surprised by it tends to give the margin back.
Be careful with the most visible lines. Common bearing numbers are easy for a buyer to check online. The long tail of mounted units, bushings, couplings and specialty belts usually carries more room for small moves, and it is where old prices hide longest.
Margin in PT is not won with one big move. It comes from steadily finding the lines that slipped and putting them right, while selling uptime and expertise so customers have less reason to shop every bearing. Run margin leaks on your top twenty accounts first. That first list is usually the most valuable.
Want to see it with your own bearings, belts and plant accounts? See how it works.