The 164th Floor is a commercial advisory run by a sitting CRO. Every engagement starts inside your deals. We tear down the pipeline, the last twenty negotiations, and how fast the book turns. We come back with where the margin leaks and what it's worth.
Paid. Two to three weeks. The findings decide the build, for both sides.
Somebody in your market gets paid a premium. Same product, same buyers. The difference is the conversation. Commoditization is a decision, and in most companies it was made years ago, by nobody. We unmake it.
The Walls
Three walls, standing in nearly every company that competes on price.
New business arrives through RFQs, referrals, and a few old relationships. Last year decides this one.
Somewhere on the shared drive sits a file named quote_v3_final. The market calls the product interchangeable, so every negotiation starts from below.
The team processes deals it didn't create. Creating more is nobody's job.
Who this is for, and who it isn't
Companies whose product is real and whose customers shop it on price. Packaging, components, materials, contract manufacturing, expert firms selling judgment. If two of the three walls are standing, we should talk. It's owner's work; it touches pricing, people, and where next year comes from. If the owner isn't in the room, we're the wrong firm. Same if what you want is a training day.
The Work
Every engagement starts here. Two to three weeks inside the deals, finding where the margin leaks and what it's worth. The findings decide the build, for both sides. When the finding is don't build, that's the report.
The build. Six to twelve months embedded: coaching the sellers, building the demand engine, or carrying the selling ourselves. Your team runs it after we leave.
Some years come down to one negotiation. The renewal, the national account, the price increase that has to stick. We prepare the file, set the number, and stay in it until it's signed.
For a few companies where the enterprise-value case is large. We agree the plan and the baseline up front, part of the fee rides on the outcome, and we only propose it when the math is obvious.
How the firm runs
The Diagnostic is paid, runs two to three weeks, and ends in a written finding. The floor holds two or three clients. When it's full, it's full.
The Letter
The thinking the Diagnostic runs on, written down.
Buyers compare vendors and consult experts. The behaviors that file a seller into the first list, and what the calendar already knows.
Revenue that arrives on its own is an annuity, and annuities reprice like bonds. What a buyer reads in the origination mix, and the test to run on next year's forecast.
Somewhere on your shared drive sits quote_v3_final. What a defended price teaches the buyer, and the posture that makes a number hold.
Nothing in the book was started; every deal arrived. What a pipeline's source column decides about margin, and the hour-long count that shows you.
You can see the repricing first in the quote inbox. The decision behind it, and the arithmetic that reverses it.
Contact
The work starts with the Diagnostic. The Diagnostic starts with a conversation.
Client work is confidential.