Rafi Mohammed, founder of the consulting firm Culture of Profit, says a crisis or recession is not the time to panic and slash prices. He says leaders should instead reevaluate their pricing strategy—or develop one for the first time—to better respond to customers during the slump and keep them when the economy recovers.

Since this conversation took place in 2020, the crisis you’ll hear them referring to is—obviously—the Covid-19 pandemic. But these lessons apply well beyond that moment—to any period of economic instability. Mohammed shares examples of companies across a variety of industries that created effective price strategies in response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mohammed is the author of The 1% Windfall: How Successful Companies Use Price to Profit and Grow and the recent HBR article, “Setting a Pricing Strategy Amid Ever-Changing Tariffs.”

Key episode topics include: pricing strategy, competitive strategy, crisis management, customer strategy, economic downturns, economics, inflation, recessions, risk management, strategy 

HBR On Strategy curates the best conversations and case studies with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock new ways of doing business. New episodes every week.