War-game a pricing floor before discounts become the product

War-game a pricing floor before open exceptions, sales heroics, and partner deals quietly erase the number you promised finance.

Pricing floors fail when the floor is a slide and the CRM still allows soft approvals, when sales can invent "strategic" discounts without a kill date, when partners inherit better terms than direct buyers, and when finance counts revenue that still depends on deals below the floor. A clean pricing memo is not evidence that the company can hold the line under quota pressure.

Freeze one floor

Write the floor by segment, the approval ladder for exceptions, the kill criteria if margin or win-rate breaks, and the first quarter outcomes that still must hold if discount volume rises. Then write the owner for each exception path and the public language you will use when a deal is declined. If you cannot name the owner or the kill criteria, the floor is decoration.

Freeze list prices, discount bands, partner terms, and the finance bridge from last plan to this one. Attach win-loss notes, margin history, and residual risk you will accept. Split any secondary goal (new packaging, new ICP) into a separate decision. One floor under fire at a time.

Hostile seats

Sales seat: exception theater, quota math, and deals already verbally promised below the floor.
Finance seat: dual-counted margin, soft ASP assumptions, and variance with no owner.
Customer or buyer seat: fairness claims, competitor quotes, and renewal pressure.
Partner seat: channel terms that undercut the direct floor.
Skeptic seat: the claim that looks cleanest and has the least evidence.

Ask each seat for material objections, missing exhibits, and the smallest change that keeps the intent without the theater. Optional legal seat if most-favored or price-protection clauses sit in the contracts.

Private pass

Run that package in Pingpong. Sequential review helps because an early pass can defend the margin upside while later passes try to kill soft approvals and dual-counted ASP. Keep a change log of exceptions cut, sequenced, or clarified. If survival requires silence about a single whale deal or a heroic close rate, stop. Rewrite the floor or delay the "ready" label.

Publish the activation calendar inside the package: when CRM rules lock, when managers are briefed, and when finance starts measuring floor breaches. A pricing floor without dated owners is a rumor with a spreadsheet. Ask sales and finance seats to break that calendar before anyone posts the new number.