# Tim J Smith

Tim J Smith is a pricing consultant, economist, and pricing professor who advises organizations on pricing decisions and teaches pricing. Through Wiglaf, Smith writes and speaks about pricing strategy and helps companies improve profits through pricing and commercial decisions.

- Profile: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/creators/tim-j-smith/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drwiglaf
- LinkedIn followers: 412,521
- Topics: pricing-strategy
- Based on 14 dated posts, latest 2026-10-08

## Summary

Tim J Smith is a pricing consultant and professor useful for improving pricing decisions at mid-market companies.

- Best for: A B2B pricing consultancy hiring a fractional pricing advisor for mid-market companies.
- Not for: A consumer brand or software-as-a-service company seeking a creator-led sponsored campaign with rate card and younger buyers.
- Check first: Ask for third-party confirmation of client results and audience demographics before contacting them.

### Takeaways

- Margin goals are an outcome of pricing decisions, not the right input for setting prices.
- Pricing discipline depends on coordinating decisions across functions, as a Nike example shows.
- Pricing leaders should model supply shocks before they arrive, using stated assumptions.

## Main ideas

- **Margins result from pricing decisions, not the starting target**: Writing to CEOs, CFOs, and CMOs, Tim J Smith argues that margin goals do not set prices. Margins result from pricing decisions, so the key question is whether a company has a sound pricing process and understands its flaws and value. They exclude companies whose offerings are priced by financial markets or set by government fiat, and say the point applies to most companies in monopolistically competitive markets.
- **Pricing discipline depends on coordinating decisions across functions**: Using Nike as an example, Tim J Smith argues that pricing decisions are scattered across merchandising, product development, branding, selling, finance, supply chain, operations, and legal. Pricing, they say, holds promotions, brand management, and sales negotiations together so they do not distort the outcome. Their critique is not that Nike's managers make bad decisions, but that the company would benefit from investing more in pricing capability.
- **Price management becomes a board-level issue under revenue and margin pressure**: Tim J Smith argues that when revenue is down, margins are under pressure, and AI is reshaping professional services, price management becomes a board-level issue. The post points to a Pricing Spineometer review of Robert Half and offers a four-day Price Management Maturity and Gap Analysis to identify pricing capability gaps. Ask to see the review to assess its findings.
- **Pricing leaders should model supply shocks before they arrive**: Tim J Smith tells CFOs, FP&A teams, and VP Pricing to prepare for price increases while hoping they can be avoided. A supply disruption can push prices up through input costs, they argue, and elasticity offers a way to size the move. They apply short-run oil demand elasticity of about -0.05 and long-run elasticity of about -0.3 to a Strait of Hormuz closure scenario.
- **Service firms need to rethink billable hours**: Tim J Smith treats service pricing as a live question, asking what the alternative to billable hours is and speaking at the Fractional Executive Conference on how to structure the pricing of services. Ask what alternative they propose; the post names the topic and venue but does not explain it.
- **Keep building an independent pricing practice focused on mid-market companies**: In a career post, Tim J Smith says they ran a pricing consulting company for more than 20 years and briefly considered a corporate job search before deciding to keep building Wiglaf. They describe themself as a forced entrepreneur who searched for a job for 12 months after graduating from Booth Chicago and got no traction. They prefer to make Wiglaf a success while researching, writing a Pricing Spineometer series, writing another book, teaching part-time at DePaul, and speaking at conferences. The post names the clients they want: companies with roughly $50 million to $500 million in revenue, their CFOs, or smaller pricing projects.
- **Teach pricing in public and convene peers around market conditions**: Across the posts, Tim J Smith's recurring priorities include public analysis, teaching, and peer discussion. The Pricing Spineometer series appears in the career post and the Robert Half announcement; they also teach part-time at DePaul and speak at conferences. Wiglaf Pricing Third Thursdays is presented as an event where CFOs listen, ask questions, and discuss current market conditions with an economist and pricing professor.

## Work to read

- [Why Smith stayed with Wiglaf, and the results they cite](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drwiglaf_we-have-choices-after-running-a-pricing-activity-7428856328858546177-S5R1)
- [A worked supply-shock forecast for CFOs and pricing leaders](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drwiglaf_cfo-fpa-vp-pricing-prepare-for-price-activity-7441525490743599104-ycex)
- [Reading pricing capability inside a large company](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drwiglaf_pricing-discipline-organization-activity-7386355604812046336-Dl1z)
- [Margins are an outcome of pricing, not an input to it](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drwiglaf_dear-ceo-cfo-cmo-margins-goals-do-not-activity-7436459300539113472-ZKDO)
- [A recurring public review series applied to a named company](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/drwiglaf_when-revenue-is-down-margins-are-pressured-activity-7485302606882418688-eCQI)

## Brand relationships

- **Wiglaf** (disclosed_partnership)
- **Nike** (mention)
- **Robert Half** (mention)

## Partnerships

The posts contain no sponsorship, affiliate or brand-partnership offer for Tim J Smith. Across seven LinkedIn posts, the commercial messaging is direct consulting outreach rather than a published partnership programme. One post invites readers to message them about a four-day Price Management Maturity and Gap Analysis; another says Wiglaf remains ready to serve companies with $50–$500 million in revenue and cites past work that added $60 million of profit to a $75 million product line and $1.8 million to a $30 million distributor. A March 2026 post promotes Wiglaf Pricing Third Thursdays, a recurring event where they discuss pricing with an economist and pricing professor. A February 2026 post points to the Fractional Executive Conference as a place to hear their views on pricing services. The posts state no fees, booking terms, availability or partnership contact page, and specify no deliverables beyond the four-day diagnostic. Brands and consultancies considering paid work should ask about those details through direct outreach.

## Alternatives

- Steve Holm: Steve Holm would be a better choice if the fractional engagement focuses on CRM adoption and sales workflow rather than pricing. The posts describe CRM design choices that reduce friction: Gmail-native design, fewer clicks, automations tied to pipeline stages, and integrations that match sales-to-production handoffs. The Bonfire Labs example shows how to requalify a 6,000-plus contact network without slowing the creative team. For a client whose sales team does not use its CRM, this is more directly relevant than pricing content.
- Andrew Lolk: Andrew Lolk would be a better choice if the engagement focuses on ecommerce feed optimization and paid search efficiency rather than pricing. The posts show detailed work on product feed titles, brand placement, and tROAS targets. The dog food and accessories example shows how splitting a portfolio by category can stop one category from losing spend, with Denmark spend up about 88% and Sweden weekly net profit moving from -4,574 kr to +28,243 kr. If the client needs to fix feed structure or paid search budget allocation, this is more directly applicable.
- Dr. Rakesh Sinha: Dr. Rakesh Sinha would be a better choice if the engagement focuses on supply chain agility and demand sensing rather than pricing. The posts describe a method for reducing demand latency: sensing actual consumer demand at a granular level, synchronizing supply actions, and using that insight to capture short windows of opportunity. The example of company A versus company B shows how faster detection and flexible operations can accelerate revenue. If the client's problem is stockouts, surplus inventory, or a slow response to demand shifts, this is more directly relevant.

---
AI-assisted summary of public posts. Audience demographics are not available. Engagement appears only where we checked recent posts. Method: https://b2binfluencer.marketing/methodology/