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Hi everyone and welcome to 
another pricing podcast episode.

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My name is Megan Ford with the 
Professional Pricing Society and

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this is a Pricing podcast 
episode with a thought leader 

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from Revenue Management Labs. 
We are excited to interview Mr. 

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Avi Punwathi and the Pricing 
Society is also excited to bring

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you this content in addition to 
more and an attempt to connect 

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our pricing community around the
globe. 

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So check us out at 
pricingsociety.com and you can 

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get more of our resources that 
are readily available to 

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everyone around the globe to 
help your career further connect

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everyone as well as receive 
online pricing training and 

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credits towards your Certified 
Pricing Professional 

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designation. 
One more announcement before we 

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jump into this great interview 
with Mr. Kunwassi. 

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We have a fall pricing 
conference coming up. 

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We are excited to welcome 
everyone this fall. 

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Virtually 2021 has been quite 
the year, but the Professional 

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Pricing Society maintains a 
connection with our community 

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and welcome the opportunity once
again to connect thought leaders

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around exciting topics around 
four days. 

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It's an event you do not want to
miss. 

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For the full details and lineup 
and get your registration on as 

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well With your pricing teams and
taking advantage of the early 

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bird discount, you can visit 
pricingsociety.com back slash 

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Fall Conference. 
You will not want to miss out on

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this event. 
You can also follow the hashtag 

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on social media which is PPSF 
VC21 and learn more information 

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about our lineup, networking 
announcements as well as ways to

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download our mobile app which 
also keeps you up to date on all

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of this pricing news. 
So Speaking of that pricing 

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conference, one of our fabulous 
speakers is the Thought Leader, 

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a great friend of the Pricing 
society, Mr. Avi Kunwasi, and we

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have him here today. 
Want to tell you a little bit 

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about Avi? 
He is the founder and power and 

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partner at Revenue Management 
Labs, specializing in strategic 

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pricing implementation, and he 
is adept at enabling companies 

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to make sense of their complex 
and diverse environments. 

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With over 15 years of senior 
revenue management experience 

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that spanned from pricing 
strategy to analytics, Avi has 

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helped clients understand how to
capitalize opportunities through

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pricing. 
He holds a BBA and MB A from the

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Shulick School of Business at 
New York University and is a 

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certified pricing professional 
and member of the Professional 

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Pricing Society. 
Again, he is a warm friend and 

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featured speaker. 
We are excited to welcome him 

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back in this platform. 
Avi will be speaking this fall 

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around B to B pricing and 
inflame infla, excuse me, B to B

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pricing and inflationary periods
and we're excited to welcome him

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today to this podcast episode. 
Hi Avi, how are you? 

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Hey, not too bad. 
Thanks for having me here. 

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Really excited to do this. 
Thank you so much for joining 

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us. 
So tell us a little bit more 

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about yourself. 
I gave that great bio to our 

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audience and those listening 
that may be unfamiliar with your

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thought leadership in this 
industry. 

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Yeah, definitely. 
So thank you for that quick bio.

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I think the only thing I'd add 
is. 

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Throughout my career, I've been 
on both sides. 

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I've I've stepped in on 
consulting and have been on the 

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other side. 
I've been pricing manager at 

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Ford, I've been Director of 
Revenue Management at a BM Bev. 

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So I'd like to feel that I'm 
very familiar with the 

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challenges that I know everyone 
who's on listening to this is 

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encountering and the people 
issues that you're getting into,

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the cultural issues that you're 
getting into, the data issues 

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and challenges. 
So have been on both sides very 

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much and that's what revenue 
management labs is kind of all 

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about, not only because the 
insights is one thing, but how 

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do you take that through to 
execution. 

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I know that's where 80% of the 
pain and the real value is 

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created. 
That's wonderful. 

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And I know that our 
practitioners can absolutely 

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relate to someone who has been 
on both sides. 

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So thank you for adding that. 
So I've mentioned a few times 

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that you're a friend of the 
Pricing Society and you've 

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spoken at our conferences 
before. 

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Tell us a little bit about your 
upcoming presentation this fall.

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And but definitely so we know 
that inflation has been kind of 

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running rampant. 
We're getting noise on labor 

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going crazy and I'm sure you 
guys have been seeing all those 

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posts out there that companies 
are looking for people and we 

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see the cost going up incredibly
supply, a lot of companies can't

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even get enough supply out there
and store shelves are empty. 

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Freight costs are going up and 
we've also got material costs 

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that are going up, so. 
At the same time, there's been 

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inflation in the industry. 
Everyone's seeing their costs 

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move up and the discussion has 
been around, OK, how are we 

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going to react? 
How are we going to react? 

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I'm getting calls from my 
customers that they need cost 

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concessions, that their costs 
are going up, their margins are 

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being squeezed, we need to 
price, price, price. 

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So things are moving incredibly 
quickly and what this session is

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designed around really to give 
some B to B firms, some 

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strategies. 
On how to handle that and set 

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prices intelligently with so 
many things moving at the same 

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time. 
So we're really going to focus 

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on four things. 
The first thing is refining your

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value quantification in the 
market. 

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So this is all around making 
sure that you're looking at your

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offers through your customers 
eyes and capitalizing on all the

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value that's on the table And of
course that value is going to 

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differ based on the customer 
that you're looking at. 

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Next will be need you to do this
or that, making sure that if you

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are giving those sessions that 
they're only temporary and also 

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that there's counterparts 
associated to that, so you're 

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getting customer concessions in 
exchange for that as well to 

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make sure it's a bit of tit for 
tap. 

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The third item is on addressing 
price leakages. 

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So make sure we're optimizing 
our investments in the customers

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and we're doubling down on 
things that work and we're like 

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rationalizing things that is 
really unproductive to us. 

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And then the last element, which
is often the most important, is 

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enabling that frontline sales 
execution. 

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So giving them the tools or the 
guidance necessary to make the 

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right decisions and hold the 
team accountable, that sales 

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team accountable to actually 
execute that strategy in the 

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market. 
So what we're hoping is as 

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participants block out is that 
they're going to have a high 

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level blueprint on how they can 
start to take some immediate 

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pricing actions within their 
organization. 

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Thank you, Avi. 
Those are really clear takeaways

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and I know that our 
practitioners are going to 

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benefit from that knowledge. 
They can put that practice to 

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where you know and hit the 
ground running. 

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So as a both a practitioner and 
a thought leader, what 

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challenges would you say people 
are facing or you can share your

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personal challenges when pricing
amongst B to B and versus B to 

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C? 
Yeah, it's it's funny because 

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often in B to C it's A. 
It's a little bit easier because

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you have a ton of data. 
Available and this is the number

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one issue that we run into when 
we're dealing with B to B's that

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we hear. 
The problem is I don't have the 

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data, I don't have the 
syndicated data like I RI or 

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Nielsen. 
I don't know what my market 

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share is. 
I don't have good competitive 

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data. 
Sometimes I don't even have an 

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idea on where my prices position
versus where the competitions 

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prices position or I don't know 
if I'm selling it to someone, 

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they're reselling it, what 
they're reselling it at. 

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Or we don't have good win loss 
data from bids. 

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The list goes on and on and on. 
And it it's a challenge within B

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to B's on how with with 
operating in the state of 

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acting, how do you go ahead and 
get good pricing insights on 

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where we should need to, where 
we need to move there, There's 

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tools around it. 
It's not a good enough excuse to

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say you don't have the data. 
So I I can't do very much. 

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I think that's one of the main 
challenges is around the data. 

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And we've seen the opposite end 
of it. 

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We've come into B to B's that 
have more data than they know 

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what to do with and they're kind
of in the analysis paralysis 

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space. 
They're building a bunch of 

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dashboards and reports, but not 
taking a bunch of actions out 

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there, right? 
Not making any real traction. 

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Exactly. 
The second item is that we find 

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a unique challenge is B to B's. 
Sometimes it's tough to get 

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close to the customer depending 
on what type of offer they're 

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selling, how niche it is, how 
specialized it is. 

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So getting close to the buyer, 
understanding what they truly 

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value, what they see as a 
relevant competition within your

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portfolio, within competitors 
within them doing it themselves.

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So thinking about how you get 
close to that customer in a 

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meaningful way and not only 
making it a one shot. 

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Experience, but that you have 
that ongoing relationship with 

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that customer that you're 
pulling in that information. 

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But it's critical to overcome 
and there's lots of ways to do 

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it. 
The other thing that we we 

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challenge companies with is if 
you can't get close to your 

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customer, it really calls into 
question the offers. 

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That you're putting out into the
market. 

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How do you know that your offers
isn't even fit what they need? 

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And then I think the last 
challenge that makes B to BA 

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little bit more or one of the 
complexities that we here with B

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to B is that B to B often has 
lots of offers. 

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We're talking 10s of thousands 
of different products or 

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services that they're pricing 
out and it's neat. 

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One customer's buying this and 
this other customer's buying 

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this and this product hasn't 
been sold for five years, but 

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we've got an offer for it right 
now. 

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So there's a lot of complexity 
that comes along with that and 

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how you manage that complexity 
in a structured manner. 

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So you're not kind of doing that
one off 1 by 1. 

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So there's there's a lot of 
challenges in B to B, but I 

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think the key thing is whenever 
there's challenges, there's a 

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tons of upward opportunity 
around it as well. 

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And that's a great point. 
And Speaking of we've heard a 

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lot about the popularity of cost
based pricing and B to B. 

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So why do you think people are 
gravitating more towards that? 

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I think there's a couple things.
One, we we know that 60% of 

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organizations that try to 
implement a revenue management 

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function with within the first 
two years, they actually don't 

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hit the growth targets that they
have. 

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They have this aspiration 
around. 

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And why do companies gravitate 
towards cost based pricing? 

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You've got a ton of offers, 
there's a ton of complexity. 

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I don't have data. 
I'm not close to my customer. 

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So it's easy, right? 
It's easy if if we've got a good

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finance team that's doing 
activity based costing and we 

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can kind of cost out what goes 
to each product or to each 

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service, I can take a price. 
I can put a margin on it and we 

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can run that math really 
quickly. 

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It's quick and it's easy. 
That's why companies gravitate 

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towards it. 
The only problem and you're 

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always well hopefully, you're 
always sure kind of knock on 

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wind that you're covering your 
cost with it as well. 

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So you've got that, you're 
locking in your profit. 

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It's funny because we run into a
lot of companies that have cost 

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based pricing in place, but 
somehow they're still managing 

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to lose money on it. 
But the problem is, is that with

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this cost based pricing kind of 
needle gazing, right, it does up

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in terms of how you're receiving
a truck in the back end of your 

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dock and how many people it 
takes for the value you're 

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creating for your customer at 
the at the end of the day has 

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nothing to do with your value in
the market. 

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What the cost of copper's doing 
has nothing to do with what kind

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of bearing you're putting out 
there and the machine it's kind 

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of going into. 
So you're always going to be 

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overpriced or underpriced within
the market because you're not 

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focused on the customer. 
Also it's starts to focus the 

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organization on how do I get 
better. 

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That predicting costs, how do we
get better at attributing costs?

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So how much time does someone 
spend on this customer versus 

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that customer or how much time? 
How much resources did we 

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actually consume for this 
customer? 

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When? 
It should really be the opposite

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way around and going external 
and then moving internal. 

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How do they see us? 
Where do we create value for 

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them, which is really the 
critical aspect and it gets you 

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away from how do we get smarter 
at predicting all these 

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commodities or labor or freight 
that we're always going to be 

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playing catch up on great 
points. 

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Well, knowing the gaps within 
cost based pricing, how would 

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you advise B to B businesses 
transition to value pricing or 

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what are your best thoughts 
there? 

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That's a really big question and
I think there's some 

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preconditions. 
Firstly, the organizational has,

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you have to have some cross 
functional alignment in that. 

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This is going to be a team sport
if we're going to value based 

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pricing. 
Sales team, your marketing team,

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your finance team, your OPS 
team, they have to be working 

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together because you're going to
start to move towards more of an

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insight based organization. 
And how do we take these 

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consumer insights that we're 
getting from all elements from 

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our customer service team, from 
our warranty team and bring that

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to leverage on how we're 
creating value. 

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Secondly, you need to have 
executive buy in. 

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If the executives aren't behind 
you on this and the C-Suite and 

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aren't going to reinforce the 
messaging, it's going to be a 

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real tough battle on when you 
when you get to execution with 

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that executive buy in, it's 
translating into that customer 

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first mentality and data-driven 
decision making. 

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Every decision you're going to 
make is always going to have 

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three Proms. 
One you're going to be looking 

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at. 
What does this mean for my 

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customer or how is my customer 
see this? 

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Number two, how would I see this
from a competitive standpoint? 

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And #3 from a financial 
standpoint? 

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Does this make sense for us? 
So you're always going to have 

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these three elements that you're
looking at. 

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Some of the other preconditions,
just you know you're going to 

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have to have people that have 
the proper skills to do this 

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work. 
You're going to have to have 

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clear processes in place. 
And along with that clear 

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process, you're going to have 
accountability around this whole

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thing. 
So what's going on with our 

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budgeting, our planning, our 
targets, our compensation. 

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So it's really heavy, but a lot 
of it is the people and the 

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culture and getting getting that
up and running in the buy in. 

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So that that's kind of critical 
to getting this started. 

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Excellent points of you, that's 
X, those are excellent points. 

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And then it's the great teaser 
for people to learn more when 

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they come to our fall conference
and to follow you on LinkedIn 

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too. 
I'm sure you share your more of 

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your thought leadership there, 
your thoughts there. 

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One of my final questions for 
you. 

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Thank you for your time today. 
Are there standard tools or 

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methods to help your sales force
focus on value selling and not 

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price negotiation? 
Very specific. 

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Yeah, fair. 
You know what? 

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It's funny when we talk about 
things that people are 

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uncomfortable to talk about. 
People would rather talk about 

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sex than their salary, right? 
Cuz it's more comfortable. 

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And sales people are the exact 
same way more. 

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It was around 70% of sales 
people when they were tested. 

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They're uncomfortable when they 
talk. 

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When the discussion goes to 
money or pricing, they get very 

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uncomfortable. 
And it's even natural In our own

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personal lives, we try to avoid 
those discussions around money. 

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So it's. 
It's natural for them when those

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discussions come up, I mean, 
even you know in your 

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relationship when you're talking
about who's going to pay for 

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what, you don't want to have 
that discussion. 

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So you make it go away as 
quickly as possible. 

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And what that ends up with is 
price concessions or commitments

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because the customer is going to
ask for what they want. 

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You want to maintain your 
relationship and you're going to

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00:17:21,410 --> 00:17:25,130
give in. 
So where you need to go towards 

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is you not need to start 
thinking about making sure. 

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As a pricing team or revenue 
management team, make sure you 

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know what value you have, how 
that, what value you're creating

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for the customer #2. 
You need to have a templated way

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that the sales team can deliver 
that and it has to be a 

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00:17:44,240 --> 00:17:47,560
consistent message, because if 
you don't have a consistent 

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00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:50,560
message for your large sales 
team, they're going to find 

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00:17:50,560 --> 00:17:52,800
their own things that they want 
to deliver. 

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00:17:52,800 --> 00:17:55,680
I kind of assess you say, these 
three points. 

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But you honestly need to give 
them a script and almost needs 

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00:18:01,130 --> 00:18:04,330
to be templated into joint 
business plans for customers 

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00:18:04,730 --> 00:18:08,090
that's, you know, you have them 
going in there on 1/4 on a 

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00:18:08,090 --> 00:18:10,690
quarterly basis. 
And that they're presenting the 

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00:18:10,690 --> 00:18:16,210
360 of the offer, not just, hey,
I'm here to show you what your 

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00:18:16,210 --> 00:18:19,050
pricing is. 
Here's your one pager and then 

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00:18:19,090 --> 00:18:21,850
it goes straight back to price, 
and they're kind of back on 

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their heels and they're not in a
good space to negotiate. 

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00:18:26,150 --> 00:18:30,430
The other thing is, which is 
really underserved or 

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00:18:30,430 --> 00:18:33,870
underutilized is often we go in 
and we say, hey, this is the 

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00:18:33,870 --> 00:18:35,630
price. 
You can't give anything back. 

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But we know there's going to be 
discussion. 

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00:18:38,510 --> 00:18:41,870
You need to develop playbooks on
what, hey, you're going to get 

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00:18:41,870 --> 00:18:44,190
this, this is allowed. 
This is not allowed. 

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00:18:44,350 --> 00:18:47,630
If they ask for this, this is 
what you need to ask for and 

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00:18:47,630 --> 00:18:49,190
this will be allowed, not 
allowed. 

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00:18:49,470 --> 00:18:52,350
So that is so templated out 
there. 

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00:18:52,890 --> 00:18:56,330
That you're not getting 
surprised and you're never gonna

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00:18:56,330 --> 00:18:59,130
get any of these commitments 
that are made to customers. 

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00:18:59,130 --> 00:19:03,410
Because it's funny, I've been in
so many discussions where sales 

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00:19:03,410 --> 00:19:05,970
people have come back and said, 
sorry, we're locked. 

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00:19:05,970 --> 00:19:10,450
Now I made that, I made that 
concession or I had to make a 

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00:19:10,450 --> 00:19:12,890
decision on the spot cuz they 
were offering me this. 

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00:19:13,890 --> 00:19:16,930
But if you have that all 
templated out, it's a much 

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00:19:16,930 --> 00:19:19,210
different discussion. 
That you're having with the 

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00:19:19,210 --> 00:19:22,450
sales team, you're walking them 
through that, you're helping 

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00:19:22,450 --> 00:19:25,170
them think of objections. 
You're training them on it. 

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00:19:25,370 --> 00:19:28,730
And if they have issues on how 
that decision tree works, you're

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00:19:28,730 --> 00:19:30,610
having that discussion in 
advance. 

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00:19:30,610 --> 00:19:34,490
It's not happening on the tail 
end and you're really arming 

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00:19:34,490 --> 00:19:38,170
them. 
I think the key is, is that your

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00:19:38,170 --> 00:19:41,730
sales team, they're busy and 
they're focused on selling more.

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00:19:42,290 --> 00:19:46,490
You're trying to get your tons 
of pricing initiatives executed?

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00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:50,160
You need to make sure that 
you've got the proper game plan 

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00:19:50,160 --> 00:19:52,600
in the proper place so you can 
get it executed. 

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00:19:52,600 --> 00:19:55,800
Because if you leave it in their
hands, they have the best 

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00:19:55,800 --> 00:19:57,400
interests of the company at 
heart. 

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00:19:57,400 --> 00:19:59,880
They also have their best 
interests at heart too. 

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00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:03,280
But it's not necessarily going 
to go the way that you want it 

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00:20:03,280 --> 00:20:06,440
to go. 
So it's critical that you focus 

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00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:09,760
and you really have that 
implementation plan because that

347
00:20:09,760 --> 00:20:13,600
really is 80% of where the 
rubber is going to hit the road 

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00:20:13,840 --> 00:20:17,620
at the end of the day. 
Now that it was such a gem for 

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00:20:17,620 --> 00:20:20,540
all business, businesses and 
industries, I really, I even 

350
00:20:20,540 --> 00:20:23,540
wrote a note about that one. 
You got to prepare to avoid and 

351
00:20:23,540 --> 00:20:27,060
limit those surprises. 
That's key, Avi. 

352
00:20:27,100 --> 00:20:28,860
That's excellent work that you 
shared. 

353
00:20:29,260 --> 00:20:30,980
We want to thank you for your 
time today. 

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00:20:31,100 --> 00:20:34,980
Any final thoughts before we 
share with our listeners how we 

355
00:20:34,980 --> 00:20:39,100
can better connect with you 
after this episode airs? 

356
00:20:39,960 --> 00:20:43,200
I want to thank you guys for 
being here and listening. 

357
00:20:43,480 --> 00:20:51,280
Please feel free connect with me
on link Revenue Management Labs 

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00:20:51,280 --> 00:20:55,280
website at revenueml.com. 
We've got a ton of content there

359
00:20:55,280 --> 00:20:58,000
and a lot of it's on the PPS 
website too. 

360
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:00,160
We're really excited to be 
participating. 

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00:21:06,530 --> 00:21:10,570
Thank you so much, Avi. 
We want to thank you for your 

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00:21:10,570 --> 00:21:13,330
continued partnership and we're 
going to leave all of that 

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00:21:13,330 --> 00:21:17,530
contact information in the 
description bar as well as we'll

364
00:21:17,530 --> 00:21:21,650
have access for that for 
contacting you on our social 

365
00:21:21,650 --> 00:21:23,810
media pages as well. 
We can't wait to feature you 

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00:21:23,810 --> 00:21:25,530
this fall. 
Thank you again. 

367
00:21:25,530 --> 00:21:26,970
It's going to be an exciting 
time. 

368
00:21:26,970 --> 00:21:29,690
In October, all of our listeners
again, you can visit 

369
00:21:29,690 --> 00:21:33,130
pricingsociety.com to register 
for our fall pricing conference.

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00:21:33,170 --> 00:21:36,130
It is a virtual event open to 
everyone around the world. 

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00:21:36,530 --> 00:21:40,530
And of course, Mr. Avi Pumwassi 
will have a featured workshop. 

372
00:21:40,530 --> 00:21:44,090
So we're excited. 
Thank you so very much, Avi. 

373
00:21:44,170 --> 00:21:46,410
Thank you. 
We'll see you in October. 

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00:21:47,210 --> 00:21:48,690
Take care. 
See you in October.