Pricing as a Profession: Setting your Pricing Career with Kevin Mitchell

  Kevin Mitchell is the President of The Professional Pricing Society (PPS), the worldwide professional organization dedicated to pricing training, education, and networking.  In this episode, Kevin shares what a pricing professional should be -- one that is not only adept at pricing strategies but can articulate, communicate, and negotiate in and outside the organization.   He also talks about the pricing career path that the Professional Pricing Society provides in its pricing education. He doubles down on saying that every money that goes into what the company spends on and the revenue generated ties back to a pricing decision at one point in time.   That’s why it is best to learn and understand pricing so we can make the best decisions. Because this would impact the organization and the people who work hard to create value in the products and services available to the consumers.    Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Find out how to be a great pricing professional with pricing leadership Learn about the pricing education Professional Pricing Society provides for someone in terms of forging a pricing career path Hear about the future of pricing considering the uncertainty that concerns us at this time   “Everything in your company, all the profitability, all of your salaries, all of your bosses' salaries, every Dollar, Yen, Euro, Won that comes into your organization has a pricing decision attached to it.” - Kevin Mitchell   Topics Covered: 01:49 - What made Kevin start a Pricing career 04:54 - Professional Pricing Society being a subscription company 06:19 - Who joins the Professional Pricing Society 08:09 - What is a pricing professional 11:22 - Two things that a company does in terms of R&D, product development, marketing 15:56 - How does PPS does education on pricing leadership 18:06 - Thoughts on the pricing landscape COVID and post COVID 25:19 - Changing names but keeping the value 26:43 - Best pricing advice that could impact your business   Key Takeaways: “For a lot of individuals, pricing people, it's our job to make sure that we keep the lights on and keep everything running. And we do that because a lot of people invest a lot of resources in creating whatever it is that our company does, it's our job to make sure that we are adequately compensated for that.” - Kevin Mitchell “The price is often the first impactful thing about a product or service. And it is our job to manage that.” - Kevin Mitchell “To be a great pricing professional, you have to be an artist and also a scientist at certain levels. Certainly, you do need the mathematical, data, analysis background. But I think sometimes we can be lacking in communication, on the negotiation with others inside and outside of our company. I think both are very, very important about what we're trying to get across.” - Kevin Mitchell “All of the money that comes into any organization, and therefore all of our salaries, all of the benefits that we get, that's all tied to a pricing decision at one point, and it's just a matter of, are we going to have our influence in it or are we going to let the marketplace decide?” - Kevin Mitchell “It's so important that we should all be in the mind-frame that we're going to learn as much about it as we can to make the best decisions for ourselves, for our companies, and for all of the people in our organizations who work so hard to create the value in the products and services that we deliver to the marketplace.” - Kevin Mitchell   People/ Resources mentioned: Ford Xerox IBM Tom Nagel Reed Holden Eric Mitchell   Connect with Kevin Mitchell: LinkedIn pricingsociety.com   Connect with Mark Stiving:  Email: [email protected] LinkedIn