James Kennedy sits down with Mark Gilham, Head of Enable Advisory at Enable.com, to unpack when B2B rebates create real growth—and when they quietly destroy margin. Drawing on Mark’s unusual career arc (private trust funds in Jersey, group finance at Grafton Group, and now rebate strategy), they dig into cost-plus traps, rebate vs. discount decisions, and the contract/ops misalignments that trigger disputes and missed cash. !!! Podcast Show Notes_ Template
About Mark Gilham
Mark leads Enable Advisory at Enable.com, helping manufacturers, distributors, and buying groups design and run rebate programs that actually pay—and don’t blow up relationships. Before Enable, he managed trust structures for high-net-worth families in Jersey and served in commercial finance roles at Grafton Group PLC (Selco, Chadwicks, Woodie’s), where he learned—sometimes the hard way—how spreadsheet logic can clash with on-the-ground reality.
What You’ll Learn
- Rebates vs. Discounts (and when to use each): Discounts manage a single order; rebates manage a relationship. How to deploy both without cannibalizing margin.
- Designing “win-win” rebate structures: Guardrails to ensure growth comes from net new volume—not from shifting share across your own customers.
- Avoiding the cost-plus black hole: Why dropping invoice cost often just passes savings to the end customer (and lowers your absolute gross profit).
- Make it specific, not complex: The simplest contract you can administer beats the clever one no one can track.
- Dispute-proofing payouts: Use shared data/contract versions so both sides see the same earned amount, in-period.
- Operational reality check: How a “free” delivery slot on paper can delay next-day runs and anger customers—and what finance should ask field teams before changing processes.
Episode Highlights
- “Discounts manage orders. Rebates manage relationships. Use the right tool for the job.”
- “If you inflate rebates and starve list price, your sales team stops trusting cost—and starts guessing.”
- “Never negotiate something more complicated than you can actually manage.”
- “Great contracts can still cannibalize if you don’t specify where growth must come from.”
- “On cost-plus, pushing savings into invoice cost often means you earn the same margin % but less money.”
- “If a rebate check arrives and no one was expecting it, ask how many checks didn’t arrive.”
More About Mark’s Work
At Enable Advisory, Mark helps revenue and procurement leaders:
- Stand up contracted rebates with clear eligibility, caps, and measurement windows.
- Align finance, sales, and ops so the commercial intent survives order entry and fulfillment.
- Replace spreadsheets with shared, auditable contract + earnings views (and reduce quarter-end disputes).
- Pressure-test program design against pricing models (esp. cost-plus) and cash-flow realities (credit notes vs. checks vs. claim-as-you-pay).
