Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Let's Talk Pricing podcast. In this podcast, we dive into the people, strategies, insights and tactics that are shaping the pricing and revenue management world. Today, I'm your host, Kevin Mitchell from Professional Pricing Society, and today I'm very, very excited because we have a very special guest joining us. I'm very happy to welcome Mr. Andres Gonzalez to our show.
Andres has a lot of experience working in e-commerce and banking as a strategic data and financial manager. For the past few years, he's LED pricing and analytics and pricing intelligence teams where he's guided his very large team of high performing individuals towards both profit and personal growth. Also, if you've been around PPS conferences, he may be a familiar face.
He has presented with us at our conferences recently in Chicago and in Berlin and he was also a speaker at the cross-border conference in Brussels. Today. Andres is here to talk about something that the PPS team is very, very excited about. And for our members, you have a great surprise coming. Andres has a brand new micro course for us. It is called building high performing pricing teams, which is something that we can all get behind and something that we're all interested in.
So Andres, thank you so much. Welcome. And it's great to have you on our podcast today. Yeah, thank you for carrying again to to see you again and to meet again, this time online. But yeah, very excited about this DD course I'm giving. And yeah, also happy to share a bit more of what you can expect about it. OK, terrific. Appreciate that. And Andres, we've known each other for a little while here and thank you very much for your partnership with us, your great
presentations at our events. And those of us around pricing know that you've been leading pricing teams for many years now. So please tell us a little bit about the moment when you realize that it's really important to have a strong, diverse, skilled pricing team and how that may be as important as building your pricing strategy itself. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah. I, I think when, when I started as a head of pricing in, in, in Halo print, what we saw, I started with a very small team and we were getting stuck with a lot of operational work that was going on with having. And we didn't have the time to really think more strategically or more into the future or trying to build that strong foundation to be able to like move forward. And, and in that moment was when, well, we, we kind of saw the the need of expanding a bit more the team.
And it was not just about having smart people in the team. It was just also having to have the right mix and that diversity of, of having thinkers of having doers, storytellers, innovators, that yeah, that dynamic in the end was going to be kind of maybe most probably that's why we thought in that moment, the perfect formula to to, to have that high performing mindset.
So it took a bit, of course, to understand, OK, which are actually the needs and which are exactly those profiles that that's actually we're going to bring that that value to to the team, but also to the company. Yeah.
And that's that, I think that's, that's where we started and and, and, and then basically with in, in the, in the journey, what we saw, we learned a lot is that, yeah, you really needed that, that diversity of of again, I will repeat, not only skills like hard skills, but also soft skills. Definitely. And I know that those of us who listen to our podcasts or who attend our events will hear others and myself will say it all the time.
Pricing people. We have to have an element of both the artist and the scientist within us in order to do great jobs. I love how you break down the profiles from your team members to where some might concentrate on being thinkers, some are doers, some are innovators, and so on and so forth. And I love how you have explain to us where you need that diversity of thought, where you need some people to concentrate more on one versus the other.
Some people it might match up well with their strengths. And that is a great way to build a a great team. And that's going to lead us into really one of the main topics for our discussion today. We're really excited about your micro course for those building high performance pricing teams, which is very, very important of course, and your course really gets into the how and not just the why behind what goes into
building a successful team. Can you walk us through what our members can expect to learn when they go through your course? Yeah, sure. So the course is divided into models. The first model is foundations
of high performing pricing team. Basically here what we're going to see is how to set that clear moon shot for your team, understand your team roles in the company, understand how to structure around the three main pillars that I I always say in, in, yeah, most of my presentations and all about business, about data, about technology. And then the second model is more about leadership, collaboration and continuous improvements.
So it's, it's a bit different course in, in, in, I think in, in price, because we're talking a lot about pricing. But here it's also about leadership. And how can you translate that leadership and and collaboration in pricing? It's about how to give feedback, how to build that momentum, how to retain talent, how to find those rock stars and superstars in your team. And then and then basically, yeah, create that awareness of what is missing now in, in, in, in, in that team that you are
leading at the moment. So yeah, that's what you can expect from the model. Very cool. Yes. So I'm sure we're all looking forward to the course. I like how you break it down into the foundations and then you have your three main
pillars. And you also talk about leadership, collaboration, continuous improvement, and of course, retaining talent, recognizing the talent and making sure that people are in the right types of jobs and have the skills and everything behind them in order to continue to proceed with their careers and to develop as pricing, future pricing leaders, future revenue managers and people who are going to be basically central to a lot of different business
processes. Because as we know or good pricing teams for good revenue management teams, you have to have those connections to a lot of other groups, both within your company, with your customer base, with your marketplace, with your suppliers, and basically a lot of them.
So that that's very powerful. And one of the things that I like most about your approach about your presentations about the courses that you are working on with us is as you mentioned, you really put a lot of emphasis on the people aspect. It's not just algebra, it's not just the numbers, it's not just the frameworks, it's not a black box there, but really is about the individuals on your team in order to become a high
performing pricing team. So why do you think it's especially important right now that we focus more on perhaps the people side of that than the pure numbers side? Yeah. So I think I read the other day and I really liked it. It's like pricing is no longer about setting numbers, it's about navigating complexity. And what you see is that everyone in the company always will have an opinion about pricing. So from finance, from sales, from marketing, from legal, from
product. So in the end, you really need to have the people in, in that pricing team that is able to influence, to communicate, like to, to lead across different departments. And, and that's where what I mentioned before, the importance of our of understanding, which are the soft skills that you need in the team and to find
that kind of a balance. That's yeah, that's it's not only about being very technical in some things, but also like you can trust that people in your team can go to other departments and can really, you know, have that, that impact. And, and, and, and, and that will come with a diversity as, as I will mention in the course, a lot about cultural diversity, emotional intelligence, being able to, to, to be able to
react. How do you react on pressure on how can you react with all the opinions that will come along on, on in this journey? So I think that that's, yeah, super important to to have in, in, in the team. Definitely. And I like in particular, one of the things that you said there when you talked about it really is dependent upon the pricing team in order to go out and to forge these connections. And I know that I hear from our
members all the time. I hear from pricing people no matter where they are in the organization, no matter what their title is, that a big part of their job is centered around the so-called soft skills as you mentioned. And essentially you have to speak different languages to different people. For example, to your senior leadership, you might have a 32nd elevator speech on top line strategies and how it impacts the organization overall.
For a new financial analyst, he or she might actually prefer if you would talk the numbers and the margins and percentages in euros or yen or dollars or whatever you have there. And of course, those conversations would be very different if you're talking with a 25 year sales veteran, someone who's been around and who knows his marketplace extremely well.
So look how when you talk about everyone has an opinion about pricing, the soft skills are so important and really it is dependent on us. It's part of our job in order to be multilingual with other people within our organization depending on on where they are. And of course, I don't mean specifically multilingual, but obviously how we talk to senior management, how we talk to our peers, how we talk to sales, how we talk to finance, those can all be very different
discussion. And the technology as well, the software engineers that most probably will for sure impact your processes. And yeah, so it's, it's it's, it's quite interesting, right way of dealing and the different situations I think. Absolutely, yes. And definitely can't forget about the technological partners that we have as you mentioned. And of course, that's a completely different language when we talk.
Totally. Exactly. Yeah. You cannot talk to A how you would talk to B how you would talk to C and so on and so forth there. Yeah, right. So I know from your course you have a lot of insights for people who are managing teams, but for our members who are joining us and listening today, who are perhaps new pricing team leaders or maybe experienced pricing team leaders. But with everything going on macroeconomically right now, every day is almost like a new day.
So for our members who are joining us and listening and who manage pricing teams or who will be team leaders one day, what is 1 quick insight that they could apply today from your teaching and from your course? Yes, I, I, I think that the, the first homework I, I said in the in the course was to set up your moon shot. So set up that ambitious goal that you have for your team because most proudly in the company that you work, the, the founder already have that
vision, right? That, that mission and they, they, they know exactly what they want to do or where they want to get. And, and for sure it's not going to be an easy path. I do believe that each team should have this as well. Each team has that goal that motivates them to wake up every morning and say, OK, why am I in this pricing team? What am I going to do different
where where I'm aiming to? So I think that that's the first thing that I will recommend everyone to do before also I kind of doing this course and and this I can think that it can help. It will make more sense when you finish it and for sure it will make more clear for you and for your team where you want to head to. Understood. Yeah, that's very interesting.
And that's another thing that we hear from pricing leaders all of the time is if you can have that moon shot, if you can have that first primary important job and if you can secure a good win there, if you can show some results there, then you can expand that of course to priorities, B&C&D and so on, so forth down the line. So that's very important and that's also an interesting point because that's a great way to
get alignment with your team. Our moon shot, our primary job on today in April 2025 is to do AB and C. And once we do those, we will worry about our other strategic initiatives or strategic plans. We'll worry about that later. But right now this is our big job. Want to make sure everyone on the team is aligned.
And of course, as a team leader, you make yourself available in case anyone has questions or concerns or wants to know why or wants to know what they can do today to further that goal. So I love that as the one quick insight, the homework as you said to define that and to move forward in that way.
So I know that sometimes key performance indicators KP is and outcomes can be very, very different for pricing teams depending on their industry, their geography, where they sit in the in the organization chart and so on and so forth. So as a pricing leader for our future pricing leaders, let's
talk about outcomes. What should pricing leaders be looking for as the signs that their team is doing what they're supposed to do and delivering value to the organization, to the marketplace, to their customers. And of course, since we're pricing people being compensated for that value coming in as well.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, in the end, I think the main metrics for for, for what I understand and what I've read and what I've learned that a pricing team can influence our mainly gross profit revenue order. You know, the volume conversion rate in the case of e-commerce companies. I think that's, that's kind of OK that the basic one, but then it's maybe a bit more about that into understanding how much can your team influence others in strategic decisions in the
company. Do do you really have, is it very clear which is the role of your pricing team in your company? So I also go through that in the in the course Is, is, is, is it your the role more operational? Is it more strategic? Is it more a consultant style? Is it another one that I don't know, but maybe you have that, but is it clear, right? Because that can will really be connected to which are those metrics that you can steer or
you can impact. And then, and then the question here is also like, OK, is your pricing team more a reactive team or a proactive pricing team? And it's not, I'm saying that one is good or there is bad. It's also depends of the the face of the company where they are, the face of the team where they are. And that's I think some, well, you will see it also in the course. I give some tips of how can you really kind of make sure that you set the right expectations
in the company and in your team. All right, understood. And of course, before you said that everyone has an opinion about pricing within the organization and different departments may have different opinions of what pricing is, what it should do, if it should be operational, if it should be strategic, if it should be analytical, if it should be more
of a a consultant basis. So it's very interesting that everyone has their opinions of what the pricing team can be, but the pricing teams function within a company can really, really be a changing moving target depending on the organization. And I know that I talked with pricing professionals all the time and people who are really good at their jobs, who have built teams that do a great job of delivering value, delivering the numbers for their team.
And they will say things like, yes, when times are tough. My senior leadership sees me as a bank machine where I go hit a few buttons and I'm expected just to have my team just spit out large numbers of large amounts of cash and a lot of money for the organization there. So it's interesting when you talk about you really, it's kind
of a cultural thing. Again, a soft skill, a human, a personality thing and understanding your organization, if you are operational, if you are strategic, if you are consulting, reactive versus proactive. So there are a lot of different elements there and of course those can all change very quickly as well. Depending if if you are in a publicly traded company, depending on your numbers for the last quarter, your CEO might have completely different goals than he or she had in the
previous quarter. Which means that even though you thought you were operational now, maybe you're strategic now, maybe you are a consulting partner now, maybe you are out there on the street working directly with sales in order to deliver whatever number or whatever goals the organization
is looking for. And that's, I think one of the thing that makes our jobs are part of the business world so interesting is that you've got to have all these connections, all these different languages, everyone has an opinion. And depending on the day, you might have a completely different role than than you had last Friday or something like that. So that's great. 100%, yeah.
We are running up on time here, but Andre is always very good to talk with you and we are really, really excited about the Building High Performance Teams course that you have for us. So everyone makes sure to check that out. And I know you've talked a lot about your course and about some of the learnings here. But for our last question today, could you tell us about one more key take away that you hope PPS members worldwide will leave with after viewing your course?
Yeah. So I think you you mentioned it right now, right. So, so it's about being able to adapt to different situations and how you are able to. React to these changes. Things are changing a lot, especially now with all the technology, you know that that's coming and, and, and, and then how are you able to confront that and, and be able to be prepared to get to confront that? Right. And I will repeat, it's not about are we only smart people?
It's about trying to create the perfect mix of skills. And again, in my course I said you, if you have a football team, you're not going to just hire strikers or goalkeepers. You need that mix that will help you score the goals.
So in the end, I believe that everyone that also see this course, I will give them also tools to have a better pitch to come with a better pitch to their management board and and try to make them understand what is the the importance of investing in the pricing team and investing in those different key players that you're missing to to achieve success. Yes, I like the analogy of the football team there and someone when he was a kid growing up who was a very mediocre goalkeeper.
I do like the idea and the thought 11 goalkeepers on the the pitch at one time. Of course, that would devolve into rugby more than than football, but that would be at least interesting to see for a while. But a great analogy there where, yes, you can't have all strikers, you can't have all people who want to score with every touch of the ball. You've got to have all of the elements in there, as you mentioned before. You've got to have your thinkers, your doers, your
innovators. You've got to have people who can handle the soft skills, who can speak in different languages to different people when needed, and also who are very adaptable to change. And that reminds me that we always misquote Charles Darwin on that, where the strongest survive. But the actual Darwin quote I think is it's the most adaptable and the most welcoming of change that survives, not necessarily the strongest. If it were the strongest, we would still have dinosaurs
everywhere, all over the place. Well, Andres, thank you very much. Unfortunately, we're running out of time, but always good to talk with you. Good to see you. You know, it's only virtually this time. Thank you very much for sharing your knowledge with us today. And for everyone listening, please check out the building High performance pricing teams with Mr. Andres Gonzalez. You can access that through your PPS learning platform. Visit pricingsociety.com to get
started. And also we here at the PPS team are very, very much looking forward to visiting your your current hometown of Barcelona. We will be with you later in the year for our conference where we're going to focus on some EMEA things at the very beginning of December. So I look forward to seeing you and some of your neighbors and people from around the world in the great city of Barcelona in a
few months. Of course, our other events, we will be in Dallas for our spring conference coming up very soon here in May. We'll be in Las Vegas for our fall American Conference in October. And of course, very much looking forward to being in your part of the world in Barcelona after that later in the fall. So, Andres, thank you so much, Sir. Always good to talk with you. We look forward to seeing you
soon. And everyone, please make sure to check out Andres's course on building high performance pricing teams. And we have lots of other training options available for you and your team with leaders such as Andres, people who have built high performance teams themselves. And we thank you for your partnership and I look forward to talking and seeing everyone again soon. Thank you, Kevin.
Thank you again. Also nice to meet you online this time as you said and for sure more, more than welcome here in Barcelona. Hope to see you soon well end of the year and and share more knowledge about what really like this is pricing that is pricing. Definitely, we are looking forward to more knowledge to come and we will see everyone again soon on the Let's Talk Pricing podcast. Thanks so much everyone.