Cyber Monday Isn’t Your Sale—It’s Your Signal

By the time the fourth “Final Hours!” email hit my inbox this morning, my hot chocolate was still hot and my patience for 10% off anything was already cold. Cyber Monday turns good brands into carnival barkers for a day, and the rush is contagious. It makes even smart operators ask a dangerous question: “Should we throw a discount out there to make the phones ring?” The short answer—especially in motorcoach—is no. The longer answer is where things get interesting.

We’ve spent years battling a race-to-the-bottom mindset, chasing quotes and “matching prices” like that was the game we signed up to play. It left margins thin, left too many of us underpaid for the complexity and risk we shoulder, and it conditioned buyers to think a big white bus is a big white bus. Same paint, same price—right? Wrong, but this is the illusion the market projects when we let price do all the talking.

Let me tell you about a call I took on a Thanksgiving weekend years ago. A youth group leader—sweet, exhausted, juggling a dozen details—asked if we could “just help a little” on the rate. It was a simple, two-day move. Our price was fair. My team had worked hard to build a clear, professional quote with firm timelines and expectations. Still, the gravity of “holiday discounts” pulled on us both. I caved and knocked ten percent off to “win goodwill.” She was thrilled. I tried to be. Then I did the math.

In this business, a 10% discount is almost never 10% off your profits—it can be 50%, 60%, even 75% gone, because your costs don’t follow that markdown down the ladder. The bus still rolls. The driver still earns. Insurance, maintenance, compliance—none of that takes Cyber Monday off. In one real-world example I use with teams: quote two days at $1,100 per day, then “match” a $950 per day competitor. On a 20% margin, the ten percent price cut torches roughly seventy-five percent of the trip’s profit. Seventy-five. Percent. That’s not a promotion; that’s self-harm disguised as generosity.

We tell ourselves discounts are “just part of the business.” And sure, the requests show up like clockwork—“sharpen your pencil,” “match this,” “it’s for the kids.” But here’s what’s unique about our world: unlike a retailer marking up to mark down, or a factory getting scale efficiencies, our cost curve doesn’t reward price cuts. Most of that discount comes straight out of the only place it can—your margin. That’s why what seems small on the front end becomes devastating on the back end.

So, if Cyber Monday isn’t your sale, what is it? It’s your signal. Demand is loud right now, supply is tighter than it was in the old playbook, and the operators who treat pricing as a living reflection of reality—not a static number plus a holiday coupon—are the ones getting healthier. Dynamic, demand-based pricing is not a buzzword; it’s common sense dressed in data. When equipment is scarce, when drivers are scarce, when the calendar is crowded, price should move. That’s normal in every category people buy from daily—airlines, fuel, rental cars, even the ground beef aisle. We’re not the exception; we’ve just been slow to act like the rule.

Of course, “be dynamic” is easy to say and hard to run. Legacy tools were too hard to manage real-world, demand-based pricing. But this is exactly where modern platforms are headed—point-and-click, drag-and-drop simple—fast, easy, and instantly effective. That shift is how operators stop apologizing for fair prices and start getting paid for real scarcity and real expertise.

If you still feel the itch to “offer a deal,” point that instinct in a better direction. Don’t discount the core; design choices around it. Airlines didn’t get cheaper; they got clearer about what’s included and what’s optional, and buyers leaned in. In our world, that can look like trip insurance that relaxes cancellation pain, early staging, bottled water, Wi-Fi, newer equipment, “red carpet” service, luggage premiums—value people can see and choose. Customers are already conditioned to add what matters to them, and they don’t resent paying for it when the value is obvious. That path raises revenue without training buyers to wait for your next markdown.

And here’s the human side that never goes out of style: buyers pay more for companies that are easy to work with. When we replace friction with common sense, when we act like partners instead of policy enforcers, we create loyalty—and loyal buyers don’t shop you on pennies. They remember how you made the process feel. They come back. They tell their friends. That emotional residue is a pricing engine all its own.

So no, I’m not anti-promotion. I’m pro-profit and pro-clarity. Today is a great day to send a message that sounds different in a sea of “10% OFF.” Tell your market you’ve invested in instant, accurate pricing that reflects real availability. Tell them you’ll help them tailor the trip to what matters—and that you’ll do it with the kind of service that makes the next booking automatic. That’s how you turn Cyber Monday noise into long-term signal.

If you feel pressure to “play the game” this week, pause and run the math. Ten percent feels small. Seventy-five percent doesn’t. When we price like adults, educate like partners, and invite buyers to add value instead of begging us to subtract it, we build the kind of companies that outlast calendar gimmicks and come out of Q4 stronger than we went in.

#TBNDrives #TheFutureIsHere