Pricing People: The Connector Between Finance, Marketing, and Sales with Anne Warren

Anne Warren is the Senior Director of Global Pricing at Shure – an appliances, electrical, and electronics manufacturing company that produces best-in-class audio products with high-quality performance, reliability, and value. Anne started out as an accountant and an auditor. She's been leading pricing teams for about 20 years now. In this episode, Anne shares the power behind pricing people working with sales, finance, and marketing departments in order to better market a product in a competitive market.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Discover why pricing people serve as the connector between the finance, marketing, and sales departments of a company; Understand why rapport with those internally involved in the business is essential in marketing a product; and Know how you can establish an effective rapport with other teams aside from yours through tips from an expert   “Establishing the rapport, especially with the sales and leadership team, treating your sales leaders as business partners, and make sure they know – not that you're going to necessarily agree all the time – but that they have a voice and you are going to be collaborative with them.” – Anne Warren   Topics Covered: 01:40 – From being an auditor to becoming a pricing person 03:20 – Pricing people being that connector between finance, marketing, and sales 05:41 – Learning about the need to be collaborative across these departments 06:38 – How Anne works with salespeople 08:42 – The context of Anne’s script when talking to customers 10:24 – Mark’s four points with regards to writing a price increase letter 11:09 – Why raising prices shouldn’t be an intimidating initiative 13:33 – How Anna does what needs to be done while working with finance and salespersons 14:59 – Marketing people know the value of their products better than pricing people 16:23 – Seeing the collaboration in different perspectives 18:08 – Having a value statement and being able to share it 19:35 – Product managers being too far removed from value 22:18 – Anne’s piece of pricing advice for today’s listeners   Key Takeaways: “It’s important to take yourself outside of your role as a pricing person or as a finance person, and really think and learn, most importantly, about the other person's goals.” – Anne Warren “It's the pricing person's role to be that connector between finance, marketing, and sales.” – Anne Warren “Being transparent. Don't try to hide. Don't try to be mysterious. Be honest with your customers. I think that will definitely go a long way. And the letters that go out are fine, but I think a live discussion between a salesperson and their customer works wonders as well.” – Anne Warren “You want them to feel good about their product. You want to help call out that value proposition maybe in more less technical terms, if it's a technical product, and more about the value prop to the end user customer or B2B customer. What's in it for them and how can we monetize that? Help bridge the gap to get the salespeople confident.” – Anne Warren “Never underestimate the power of a confident salesperson.” – Anne Warren “If you're starting a new job as a pricing professional, I feel strongly you also need a good relationship with finance, but the sales teams in particular, if you have good rapport with them, you're going to make huge inroads and be very successful as a pricing professional.” – Anne Warren “Try to be as natural as you can be, as open and transparent. What is your role? Your role is to be a partner. That is the first message you should deliver to establish that rapport and mean it. Be that partner and establish that early on in the relationship. That's the best thing you can do that will give you firepower for initiatives that you want to perform later on.” – Anne Warren   People / Resources Mentioned: Shure Incorporated: http://www.shure.com Ameritech / AT&T: https://www.att.com/   Connect with Anne Warren: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anne-warren-214ab745/ Email:[email protected]   Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: [email protected]