5 ways to grow your profits in the second half of 2025

The second half of the year is where discipline matters most. You’ve already launched your 2025 plan, and undoubtedly, conditions have changed. Some of your original assumptions are holding, others are not. The target remains the same: profitable growth. But how you get there will depend on how quickly and decisively you adjust.

If your revenue plan is still too reliant on hope, now is the time to shift gears. Here are five ways strong leadership teams are growing quality revenue between now and December:

1. Quantify your value, especially when you’re afraid to lose business

When pressure is on, fear often drives behavior. Sales teams discount to avoid losing an opportunity, and while leaders may be more effective at holding price, they quietly worry about volume. It’s a tug of war between margin and growth, and both lose if the value isn’t clear.

Make sure you’re equipping your teams with the tools to quantify value, not just pitch product or service features. Whether its ROI, risk mitigation, or the right levers for tradeoffs, the math must join the emotion. When customers can see real outcomes for their business, price becomes more of a discussion than a battleground.

2. Reassess your value differentiation

Cost-plus and market-based pricing (vs. value-based) are still dominant in a lot of B2B companies. The problem is, it’s hard to break away from competition when you’re anchored on what everyone else is doing. A lot of companies are seeing their differentiation shift as new products enter their markets, and without a reassessment, your pricing may be stale and pricing power dwindling.

Don’t just look at your core product/service. Re-evaluate the other services you provide, including expertise, support, implementation model, and reliability. These can be hidden differentiators that create margin, but only if your team is trained to communicate their value.

3. Learn the most common buying tactics and teach your team to call the bluff

Poor negotiation outcomes are one of the greatest sources of enterprise profit loss. Fortunately, Procurement poker-playing tactics have been around for a long time and most of their playbooks come down to these ten moves. Tactics like:

• Deception. Beware of bluffing when they start talking about who else is in the mix – they may tell you there are 3 other bidders who all are offering more for less, but you can’t take those claims at face value.
• “I’m disappointed.” Ah, emotional manipulation! Procurement will pull every lever to make you feel bad and put themselves in the power seat – watch out for how they try to use feelings to turn things around and make you dance.
• Unbundle & cherry pick. This usually leads to more “should cost” modeling, where procurement will pull specific features or benefits from your offering and tell you to use the discounted bundle price for single items.

Buyers use these tactics because they work. Sellers often fold early, leaders approve discounts without tradeoffs, and teams acquiesce because they fear they’ll lose the deal to a competitor. If your team can’t recognize these tactics for what they are, you’re leaving profit on the table.

Train your teams to spot these, learn to call the bluff, and level the playing field with things like Give-Gets and low-value offerings. Give your sellers permission to push back as respectful peers, so the deal is fair for all parties.

4. Focus your team on what they can control, and measure it

When I served in the Air Force, one of the best lessons I learned was: when everything feels chaotic, focus on what you can control. Compartmentalize as best you can, and understand it’s not an emergency unless lives are at stake.

If your teams are chasing RFPs that aren’t viable, or fixated on macro headwinds, they’re reacting – not leading. Get focused on account-level execution. Set clear goals, and measure outcomes. Consistency helps to drive the right conversations and activity when you need to be disciplined on execution.

5. Use Give-Gets to stop giving value away for free

When the customer says, “I can’t pay that,” too many teams flinch and concede. But giving a discount without getting anything in return is not a negotiation.

Create a culture of value-based tradeoffs. If a buyer needs a lower price, make sure you’re removing something of value. When you start removing features or services, you’ll get a better sense of what they really care about (and often, they’ll keep the original scope because they don’t really want to lose that value). If there’s no trade, there’s no deal – and that mindset can help sellers build backbone while turning customers into true partners who cocreate value together.

The second half of the year isn’t about silver bullets, it’s about discipline. Hold price where you can. Trade when you must. And make sure your teams are selling value, not just reacting to pressure. Pricing power is earned, and you earn it by understanding, growing, and communicating your unique value to customers.