Building a High-Performing Pricing Team That Drives Growth with Jon Jennings

Jon Jennings is the founder and managing partner of Jennings Executive Search. Established in 2014. His vision was to shape a firm anchored in transparency and value creation. 

In this episode, Jon discusses the strategies for hiring pricing professionals and building a dedicated pricing team that significantly contributes to a company's strategic success.

Why you have to check out today’s podcast:

• Discover how to effectively structure your pricing team and determine the optimal number of pricing professionals to hire based on your company's size
• Explore crucial steps to assess pricing role offers, ensuring a thorough understanding and avoiding impulsive decisions
• Learn important factors to consider when hiring pricing professionals for high, mid, and entry-level pricing positions

"Once you can build those relationships with sales and the customers and understand what really makes them tick, it's a lot easier to price to it, to add value."

- Jon Jennings

Topics Covered:

01:38 - How he paved a path into pricing

04:04 - What great impact a little tweak in pricing can do

05:12 - At what point are they able to start helping clients fix their pricing

06:18 - When do private equity firms decide to hire pricing consultants and pricing professionals

09:21 - Designing a pricing structure for a $50M manufacturing company

12:49 - How many pricing professionals you should hire given the size of your company

15:41 - Opportunities for pricing roles these days

17:39 - The best thing to do when looking for pricing jobs

19:06 - Insights on writing your resume and putting it on LinkedIn

21:23 - Vetting pricing jobs before jumping in

24:22 - A chance to talk and vet for a thousand individuals for pricing roles

25:14 - What does Jon look for when vetting people for pricing roles

27:54 - The need to think outside of the box when you're a pricing professional

28:40 - Jon's best pricing advice

Key Takeaways:

When looking for job opportunities:

"Look through your network. Just like anything, take your time, take a breath, it's going to be alright." - Jon Jennings

“You don't need to jump at the first thing; evaluate it based on the merit of the opportunity." - Jon Jennings

When vetting a job offer or a candidate for a job:

"When it feels like they're covering something up or not, just not telling me the whole truth, that's when I get a little nervous." - Jon Jennings

"They understand things connect, so that skillset tend, if they have some business acumen and a little bit of personality to go with it, they translate well to pricing." - Jon Jennings

"I want to find people that like to break the wheel or build it, that's our approach to the more mid level. And the lower level is people that are just high achievers and with a quantitative math brain." - Jon Jennings

People/Resources Mentioned:

• Portco: https://www.portco.com
• GitHub: https://github.com

Connect with Jon Jennings:

• Website:  https://jenningsexec.com/pricing-strategy/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonjennings/

Connect with Mark Stiving:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/
• Email: [email protected]