A few years back, Dos Equis beer ran an ad campaign that featured “the most interesting man in the world.” The commercials showed a distinguished gentleman doing a wide variety of things from surfing to releasing bears from traps to climbing out of an Apollo capsule to arm wrestling Fidel Castro.
Strangely enough, never once in the 12-year campaign did they ever suggest that the most interesting man in the world spent his career in pricing.
While we think this was an obvious oversight, it’s possible that the general public doesn’t find pricing to be as fascinating as we do.
Sadly, telling someone you work in pricing may never elicit exclamations of “Oh, wow!” But that doesn’t mean you have an excuse to be boring.
Just the opposite, in fact. As pricing practitioners, it’s incumbent on us to help our colleagues in other departments understand how important and strategic pricing is — even if they have never considered it particularly enthralling in the past. Here are seven ways to make yourself — and by association, your profession — a little more interesting:
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- Take on a broader mindset. Don’t fall into the trap of looking at things only from pricing’s perspective. Cultivate a consultant mentality and consider the other levers that the business can pull to improve the bottom line. To learn a little more about what those other levers might be, check out Being An Internal Pricing Consultant and There’s More to Profit Than Price.
- Make pricing concepts relatable to others. When you work in pricing, you regularly discuss concepts like segmentation, elasticity, and differential value that other people in the organization might never have heard of. Making those concepts understood outside of pricing can go a long way in gaining additional understanding and support. For advice on how to do that, watch, Communicating Pricing Concepts.
- Be curious about others and their roles. Spend time getting to know the folks in the other departments that you interact with regularly, like sales, finance, and marketing. Knowing how they think will help you understand and anticipate their perspective and positions, helping everyone work together more effectively. To get started, see The Pricing Practitioner’s Primer on B2B Sales and Breaking Out of the Pricing Box.
- Be inquisitive about what’s really going on. Becoming a good diagnostician requires asking the right questions. Delving deep to find the real root cause behind problems and performance is a far better (and more interesting) approach than simply accepting a simple fix. For a fresh perspective on why root-cause analysis is so important, see Diagnosing Pricing Problems.
- Have some good stories in your back pocket. We’re pretty sure the guy from the Dos Equis commercials knew how to spin a good yarn. Stories are a great way to help make your point when you’re trying to get others to understand something. And some of the most compelling stories are cautionary tales derived from less-than-optimal experiences. If you don’t have any great stories of your own, steal some from The Top “Lessons Learned” by Pricing Leaders or Tales from the Trenches in B2B Pricing.
- Be prepared to defend your positions. When it comes to setting prices, everyone thinks they’re an expert. Be ready and able to defend your decisions and positions. That level of understanding and preparation is a great way to gain the respect of your peers and colleagues. How to Defend Your Prices offers some pointers to get you started.
- Be an evangelist. Pricing has an amazing amount of influence over the company’s bottom line. Help others in the company understand the power of pricing and what it can deliver. Promoting the Power of Pricing shows you how.
Unlike the guy from the Dos Equis commercials, you may not “cure narcolepsy by walking into a room” after following these tips. But you will be well on your way to becoming the more interesting pricing person in the room.
Being An Internal Pricing Consultant
For pricing functions in B2B, frustration and conflict seem inevitable. But learn how a "consulting" mindset and approach can make driving improvement in B2B much easier...and far less frustrating.
There's More to Profit Than Price
For many pricing teams, expanding their perspectives from "pricing" to "profitability" is the key to maximizing effectiveness. In this on-demand training session, we expose and explore five of the other powerful growth levers that really matter in B2B environments.
Communicating Pricing Concepts
In this session, we discuss a variety of strategies, tactics, techniques for helping others in your organization understand "enough" about crucial pricing principles and practices so that you can do what needs to be done.
The Pricing Practitioner's Primer on B2B Sales
To be most effective in B2B environments, pricing professionals need to learn as much as they can about their sales function. In this on-demand webinar, learn more about aspects of sales people and processes that can affect pricing performance.
Breaking Out of Your Pricing "Box"
Effective pricing in B2B often requires coordination between marketing, sales, product management, and even accounting. This on-demand training session exposes how to influence the other departments that can make or break your pricing efforts.
Diagnosing Pricing Problems
When companies stop at a default diagnosis of, “Something’s wrong with the pricing,” they never identify and fix the true root-causes of the issues. In this on-demand webinar, learn how to identify the real root-causes behind pricing performance issues.
The Top "Lessons Learned" by Pricing Leaders
How have pricing leaders become leaders? What can their 20/20 hindsight teach us to streamline our own path? In this on-demand webinar, learn the top lessons gleaned through our research.
Tales from the Trenches in B2B Pricing
Pricing improvement in B2B can be a messy affair. In this on-demand webinar, glean insights from ten cautionary case studies so you don't repeat the same mistakes and miscalculations.
How to Defend Your Prices
In B2B environments, you're sometimes facing a battle on two fronts: With customers and prospects, and with others inside your own company. In this on-demand webinar, learn about effective strategies and tactics for defending your prices internally and externally.
Promoting the Power of Pricing
In B2B, there are many other people affecting pricing outcomes, directly or indirectly. So how do you gain and maintain the organizational attention, support, and participation you need to drive improvement over time? It's easier than you may think!
