August 21, 2025 • 39 mins
Guest: Mark Gilham, Vice President, Global Advisory at Enable
In this episode of Let’s Talk Pricing, Kevin Mitchell sits down with Mark Gilham to unpack how pricing leaders can elevate their role from tactical execution to true profit strategy.
Mark shares why tariff-driven pressures are reshaping pricing conversations, how pricers can build and keep influence in the boardroom, and where Generative AI fits into profit strategy.
You’ll also get a sneak peek into his upcoming workshop at the PPS Fall Conference in Las Vegas, From Tariffs to Transformation: A Hands-On Workshop in Profit Strategy and Executive Influence.
Key Takeaways:
Why tariffs are forcing a transformation in pricing strategy
The leap from tactical analysis to strategic influence
Practical ways to earn credibility with executives and cross-functional partners
Where AI really moves the needle in profit strategy
What to expect (and be surprised by) in Mark’s live boardroom workshop
If you’re ready to sharpen your skills, boost your influence, and move your pricing career to the next level, this conversation is for you.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You're listening to Let's Talk Pricing, your connection to the
voices, stories, and strategies shaping the pricing world.
Each episode, we go beyond theory into the practical,
timely conversations that help you lead with confidence and
drive results. Let's start the show.
(00:21):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Let's Talk Pricing podcast.
I'm your host, Kevin Mitchell from Professional Pricing
Society, and I'm very happy and very excited about today's
edition of the Let's Talk Pricing podcast because my guest
today is Mr. Mark Gilliam. Mark is the Vice President of
Global Advisory at Enable. He is a chartered accountant, a
(00:45):
certified pricing professional, and a former CFO.
And Mark works with companies tonavigate tariffs, to harness AI,
and perhaps most importantly, heworks with companies on
developing the soft skills that they need to lead.
And Mark is a very dear partner with those of us here at
Professional Pricing Society andour members across the globe as
(01:08):
well. We are, of course, getting ready
for the fall profitable conference.
We'll be in Las Vegas from October 21st to 24th.
And there Mark is going to lead a workshop with us entitled from
Tariffs to Transformation, a hands on workshop in profit
strategy and executive influence.
(01:30):
And we're going to dig into a few topics, but mainly we're
going to talk about what we can expect from Mark's workshop, how
you can move from tactical pricing to really shaping your
true profit strategy, and how you can get some insights on
influencing at the highest levels of your organization.
But Mark, Mr. Gillum, Sir, always good to talk with you and
(01:52):
welcome to the Let's Talk Pricing podcast.
How are you today, Mark? Oh, absolutely thrilled to be
here, Kevin. And, you know, I'm always a big
fan of anything we can do to collaborate with the
professional Pricing society. And yeah, it's special when you
read out my title there, there'sthose new bid in the middle,
certified pricing professional. I love what you know, PPS does.
(02:15):
You know, it's all about education and really kind of
enhancing the the offering of what all of these professionals
do in the industries they work in.
So absolutely thrilled to be here.
Oh, well, thank you. So Mark so much, Mark, and
congratulations on your CPP as well.
So we have a couple questions for our conversation with Mr.
(02:37):
Mark Gilliam, who is the Vice President of Global Advisory at
Enable today. But Mark, first of all, I want
to talk about your offering to come with us in a couple months
here. And your workshop title from
tariffs to transformation is really interesting.
So what's behind that? What's behind the title of your
workshop and some of the topics you're going to cover?
(03:00):
And why is this conversation so important and so timely right
now? Yeah, I, I mean, the, the word
tariffs as we know is, is highlytopical.
And I was almost reluctant to, to, to add that no, people
thinking, Oh no, not more tariffconversations.
But the reality is, you know, there's, it's not just tariffs,
(03:22):
the tariffs, what tariffs are doing is creating uncertainty
needs for agility. It's creating extra work for
what, you know, for what people are having to do in the
industry. And, and that leads into things
like transformative requirements.
I think it gone are the days where we turn up and we know how
(03:42):
the week, the day, whatever it is, is going to go it.
There's, there's always something new to challenge us.
And so there are all of the, there's other things like you
mentioned, AI, there's, there's lots of disruptive forces out
there that are forcing us. And I would say forcing is the
right word to reimagine how we conduct ourselves in the
(04:04):
workplace. And the we, we, we can't afford
to sit still, but likewise, we have to be moving in the right
direction as well. And I figured when it came to
this workshop, I wanted to make it relevant.
So let's, let's talk about tariffs.
Let's, let's talk about what we've learned so far about them.
(04:24):
And because this session is all going to be about interactivity
as well, But let's take those learnings so far and start to
use that to apply it to this transformative piece.
So we're not just talking about transform, transformation just
because of tariffs. We're going to talk about how
the, you know, the kind of management and leadership are
(04:46):
expecting more and more from the, you know, the various
functions such as pricing. And what we're really going to
do is look at, well, how do we meet and exceed, you know, those
kind of expectations? And So what I really want to do
is to enhance what we already know by bringing it out with the
soft skills. So this we're really going to be
(05:09):
looking at bringing all of the pieces together.
And so, and you know, hopefully,you know, people will, you know,
have a really good grasp of whatI would class as the core
concepts of pricing. And my, what I see as my role in
this workshop is to take that and turn it into something that
actually can influence boardrooms.
(05:30):
And it's something that a lot ofpeople have talked to me about
and at past PPS conferences. And I've been there.
I've been the person that peopleare trying to influence.
And I've also gone up that ladder.
And it's not easy and there is no perfect or right way, but
there are certainly things that help you tremendously in that
(05:55):
process. And so that's what you know for
a whole day. That's what we're going to be
looking at is how do we take allof that and make it meaningful.
Definitely, Yeah, we're looking for forward to some great
insights there and a few things that you mentioned that you've
heard from previous PPS conferences.
I of course have heard as well from our members across the
(06:15):
globe. And some of the things I think
that are really interesting in that I'm enjoying that you're
going to focus on, I'm enjoying hearing about that is there's so
much volatility and so much uncertainty now.
And with everything being so disruptive, really it is the
soft skills, the ability to manage and influence up, down
(06:36):
and across your organization andwith your marketplace as a whole
that's going to be very, very important.
And of course, we as pricing people, we as revenue managers
know that the ability to influence without authority is
always so critical for us. And in times like these with
perhaps a little bit of extra emphasis placed on our results,
(07:00):
our key performance indicators and basically our jobs, these
are some really, really important topics.
So was that the kind of the origin or the germ of the idea
here as you've heard about all of these challenges and we've
got a lot of things going on macroeconomically that prevent
(07:21):
opportunities for some, challenges for others and the
combination of those two for a lot of us.
But really, was it this idea around the volatility, the
volatility, the uncertainty, thechanging economics that
basically created this idea for you?
It was, it was definitely the feedback.
Whenever I go to the conference,I'm always looking at how can
(07:44):
you know, how can we contribute as a kind of a good citizen to
the pricing community. And you know, for, you know,
from my perspective, you know, we have a service vendor, but we
know that, you know, the, the pricing challenge is a lot more
than a piece of software. And, and so that's what I love
about again the PPS side and there, there is no them and us
(08:08):
in the in the room. You know, the, you have your
pricing practitioners, your professionals, you have your
service vendors, everybody's in the same challenge really.
And, and that's what I really like about it.
And, and what it's actually a bit of a fear for me is a lot of
some of these disruptive forces,if we're not careful, they will
actually push us more into a transactional role again, We'll,
(08:31):
we'll move away from strategy because we're suddenly being
asked model all of this tariff work and suddenly you've been
thrown you, you want to be influencing boardrooms and
you're thrown back into the spreadsheets.
And so there's that side of it as to how do we make sure that
as a profession and you know, a really important one for, for
(08:56):
businesses that we, we always talk about value in pricing, but
we've got to look at the value of ourselves as well.
And how are we articulating thatAnd how are we making sure that
that is recognized, you know, within the organizations we
work. And so, yes, a lot of feedback
and observation of what's going on in the market led me to this.
(09:18):
And, you know, working with yourteam as well, Kevin, you know,
Johnny's been great in terms of,you know, really letting me
know, you know, what are people talking about?
What do people want and where can we add value and so you
know, my view is and I'm sure we'll get there is gone are the
days when being good at your jobor maybe should I say being good
(09:43):
on a spreadsheet will get you tothe boardroom.
That's that skill set will certainly get you a lot of
recognition, but will it get youup the ladder is a completely
different question. And what I want is to take the
people who are, you know, in that position and give them the
(10:04):
skills to, yeah, progress beyondthe world of the, the
spreadsheets and the numbers andinto, you mentioned the word
into the world of influence, which is, yeah, it's all about
soft skills. Definitely.
And that can be a very difficulttask for a lot of the people in
our part of the business world because we have that data
(10:26):
background, that mathematical analytical spreadsheet
background. But that without the ability to
communicate, to influence and tochange behavior behaviors and to
really institute a culture of change management in your
organizations really can be limiting in a lot of ways.
(10:47):
And of course, we will have to be very wary about stepping back
from strategies to tactics with everything that's going on now
with the disruption there. So certainly a reminder to all
of our members and everyone listening today, per Mark
Gilliam himself, you cannot let disruption remove your strategy.
So another question for you, Mark, since we're talking about
(11:11):
making the leap from being more tactical to being strategic, and
I know that a lot of us do have issues with some of the skill
gaps there. Why is it so difficult for some
pricing managers, for revenue managers to kind of make that
leap from going from a tactical,tactical person, kind of like a
(11:37):
cog in the machine to someone who can actually drive the
machine and do strategy? Why is that a difficult quantum
leap to make for a lot of us? I think I mean there's, there's
a couple of reasons and one of the big ones I've seen and, and
just to as well be clear, this is not just always a pricing
problem. I see this in finance and
(11:59):
accounting. I see this in, you know, various
functions as well. One of them is moving away from
inputs and focusing on outputs. The, you know, boardrooms, you
know, they are really focused onresults and so being results
focused is critical. And but unfortunately again,
(12:23):
when you move back to this transactional world, you tend to
be more focused on what are we going to put in the system.
And when I talk about outputs aswell, it is being able to move
away from the spreadsheet and starts to manage and influence
the business through the lens ofcontext, through the lens of
(12:47):
interacting with the stakeholders.
You in, in any business, you areyour own brand, your department
is its own brand. And if you treated it like a
brand, you would probably do a lot more to promote it.
And promoting it doesn't mean look at our amazing spreadsheet,
(13:08):
which is, which is an input, it's look at our amazing results
and but also being able to recognise it's a team sports
because most people will say, well, the sales team delivered
those results. And So what you want is you want
to get to a position where the sales team say we can't deliver
this without the pricing team. They are, you know, so
(13:30):
instrumental to us. And so, and that's one of the,
you know, the next challenges. How do you get over that kind of
them and those culture between pricing and sales?
Because if you don't get beyond that, you're always going to
have a sales leader who is goingto say, actually, maybe you
know, pricing are just transactional.
(13:51):
And so relationship building is probably one of the biggest
areas and being able to articulate the value you
contribute towards your business.
So, so that's one of the things.And then the other is, believe
it or not, getting out of the detail, it's as you move up a
(14:13):
business, the level of detail gets less and less and less.
But we are, it's only it's drilled into us that the detail
matters and it does. But each time you go up a level,
you need to have awareness of the detail, but you stop talking
that level of detail. And so you almost develop your
(14:38):
own kind of, yeah, your own sales technique.
Everybody's selling in business,whether they're selling
themselves, they're selling their departments.
And what I would say is, yeah, alot of prices do great jobs, but
but then don't get recognised for it because unfortunately in
business, generally the only person who's going to sell your
(15:02):
success is yourself. And if you're not doing it,
there's, there's a good chance unless you've got a really good
sponsor, nobody's doing it. So one of the things I would be
saying is go and find that sponsor who's going to, and they
don't even have to be from a pricing department.
But if you can get executive sponsors who who really buy into
(15:23):
what pricing is all about and the value adds, it's always
better to get that somebody promoting you and selling you.
If it's not you, it's somebody else.
It's incredibly powerful. Absolutely.
And if you are, if you are able to develop those types of
partnerships with other departments, then of course that
makes you a lot more effective. And hey, we all know if you can
(15:47):
get sales talking about how the pricing managers, how the
pricing department, how the revenue growth management
function in the business was able to work with them in order
to do great things, then that isa huge feather of your cap.
And that goes a long, long way to achieving some of the things
(16:08):
that we're talking about here today.
So yeah, being able to get that influence, being able to
overcome that volatility. And also when you mentioned one
important thing about moving from inputs to outputs and being
focused on results, that reminded me that as pricing
people, a lot of us sometimes can be very inside out.
(16:30):
You know, with my spreadsheet, here's my spreadsheet, I'm going
to disseminate that out to everyone instead of being more
outside in and saying, OK, what would sales want?
What would senior manager, senior management want, What the
product managers want, What do our customers want and working
on that. So it kind of takes a shift in
thinking there from inputs to outputs to focusing on results
(16:53):
to realizing that we really haveto think more of an outside in
perspective in a lot of ways with a lot of that.
So yeah, very, very interesting.Appreciate that.
And of course, getting the influence and earning a seat at
the table is the first step. But once we have earned our seat
(17:13):
at the table, once we have started on our path of
influencing and being more strategic thinkers, how do we
continue doing those things? How do we continue keeping our
front of mind when the business talks about some of the big
picture issues? And how do we continue building
(17:35):
influence within our organization?
I think first and foremost, you can never take your eye off the
trust you've built because it can be easy to to get up to the
top and forget where you've comefrom.
And when I say that, I don't mean that you, you all of a
(17:55):
sudden say thank you pricing people, but goodbye.
What I'm saying here is I mentioned about as you move up
the detail and matters less, butyou should never forget that the
detail is important and it you, you can, you know, it takes a
long time to build trust. Yeah.
It takes a split second to lose it.
(18:17):
And again, whether it's pricing,finance, you, you, it's a
fright. You've got to be mindful of that
fragile. We're in departments where
unfortunately being right is expected and, and, but being
wrong erodes the trust. So you have to be mindful of
(18:38):
that. But what I would say is that's
kind of table stage, you know, make sure that you know, you the
work that is being done is reliable, it's consistent.
Nobody likes surprises, especially when you get to the
top. But then the other thing that
has always served me really wellis you need to understand
(18:59):
everybody else's objectives and you need to focus on helping
them deliver theirs. And if you do that, you will get
a lot more buy in when you need help to deliver yours.
And but we don't see that when we're in more junior roles
because we're always, you know, here's my personal objectives.
(19:21):
This is what I'm going to work on.
And but yeah, as you move further up, you know, the IT
all, it does become, Yeah, more team orientated.
And if you're in pricing, you should know what are your sales
teams objectives. As an example, you should know
what the finance teams objectives are, your CA OS
objectives. And if you couldn't be
(19:42):
demonstrating this is what I'm doing to help you hit your
objectives, you're they're goingto, you're going to get more
influence. And so I would say that, you
know, is probably one of the biggest things that I, I note
when, you know, people move up. All right.
Very good advice from Mr. Mark Gilliam and I really like your
(20:04):
statements about how you should understand other people's
objectives and help them reach those as well.
And I would say that since a lotof us are in a business to
business environment or an environment where we are part of
a manufacturing chain or supply chain or something like that,
it's also probably necessary to understand your end user, your
(20:26):
customers. Results in their objectives as
well and where you fit into that.
And of course, if you can demonstrate then that with them,
then that kind of goes back to Omnagle's economic value
estimation and a lot of things from pricing from way back in
the Stone Age of decades ago forus that also would apply there
(20:47):
as well. So this happens within your
organization also can happen outside of your organization as
well. And Mark, I know that you have a
lot of great work out there in the ether.
I would encourage everyone to check out enables rebate
universities and some of the information that they have on
(21:09):
that. And of course, part of that is
you've got a lot of information about there on how we're dealing
with tariffs. And I remember one thing where I
saw you in a podcast and one of the comments was historically,
tariffs in the United States have been 2 or 3%.
And now we're looking at they might be on average fifteen,
(21:31):
1718% in the very, very near future.
So with that change, how can pricing leaders adjust their
strategies so that they earn credibility with executives and
with all of these cross functional partners that we're
talking about? Do you have any examples where
people have done this and been able to turn their detractors,
(21:53):
their naysayers, into champions for their cars?
Yeah, absolutely. I was.
I was actually preparing a slightly different presentation
than the other day to talk abouthow, you know, big organizations
are dealing with the tariff landscape.
And I think, you know, it's always good to learn from others
as well. And what I found really
(22:16):
interesting, and I know Stanley Black and Decker as an example,
if you, if you looked at their earnings call, the word tariff
came up quite a bit. And but there was a couple of
other words that kept appearing and one of them was agility,
agility, agility, agility. And I was thinking the actual
pricing department, that's, that's that they implemented a
(22:40):
price increase in April. They taught they, the, the, you
know, the C-Suite and I'm sure Tim Smith will be delighted to
see the C-Suite talking about pricing and they were talking
about their four step action plan for tariffs and things like
that. So I'd encourage people to go
and read the, the earnings call from, from Stanley Black and
Decker, how they're dealing withwhat they estimates to be an 800
(23:03):
million annualized cost to theirbusiness just on tariffs huge
and yet margins are broadly flat.
So tells you, you know, the, youknow, the, these businesses are,
you know, they're dealing with it.
And what I would say is we've been through a lot, you know,
(23:23):
COVID, if I said every business is going to shut down and how
we're going to deal with this now, we'd go, well, we've done
it. And, and I think some of the
uncertainty regarding tariffs is, is easing certainly, but the
complexity is increasing. So if you look at the, the
(23:44):
initial announcements were quitescary for businesses that that I
think some of that has eased. But now we're seeing extra
layers, more exemptions, things like that, just things that just
kind of, yeah, make it trickier to deal with.
But what I would say to pricing people go back to Stanley Black
and Decker agility. The other thing is inspiring
(24:04):
confidence, a business that has confidence in its pricing
function. Hey, don't worry about these
tariffs. We've got all the skills.
We've got the people will help you through this.
And that that comes back to I still remember an early manager
of mine who used to who said to me, because I, I was a bit of a
whinger. And he said, Mark, come to me
(24:27):
with solutions, not problems. And the tariffs are the perfect
time for the pricing team to do that.
There's there's lots of things, you know, a pricing function can
do to be proactive. Every time President Trump
announces a delay, it buys US time to be more prepared, and
(24:50):
anything that the pricing department can do to reduce
uncertainty in these uncertain times is going to be highly
appreciated by their business colleagues.
Absolutely. So I'm sure we all got that
reducing uncertainty and inspiring confidence are part of
(25:10):
your job, even if it's not in your job description.
So very nice and stated from Mr.Mark Gilliam.
And Mark, we're going to take a short break right now, but when
we come back, we're going to talk about generative AI, how
Gen. AI can fit into your profit
strategy and how you can get various departments in the
(25:31):
organization such as sales, suchas finance, such as product
management, marketing, pricing and get getting everyone to move
in the same direction. So we're going to take a short
break right now, but please comeback and join us for more of
let's talk pricing with Mr. MarkGill.
Thanks everyone. We're heading to Las Vegas this
(25:52):
October 21st through 24th for PPS Profitable Pricing's Pre
Eminent conference. Four days of bold strategies,
practical tools and real world solutions to help you boost
margins, lead with confidence and accelerate your career.
Connect with pricing leaders. Sharpen your skills and leave
ready to make an immediate impact.
(26:14):
Early bird pricing ends September 19th, so don't miss
your chance to save. And if you're bringing your
team, be sure to check out our bundled group rates for even
more value. Secure your spot today at
pricingsociety.com/P PS (26:25):
LV25. Welcome back to the Let's Talk
Pricing podcast. Today we are having a wonderful
discussion with Mr. Mark Gilliam.
Mark is Vice President of GlobalAdvisory at Enable and he
reminded us that he is a recent certified pricing professional
as well. And in addition to that, he is a
(26:47):
chartered accountant back in hisold home in the UK and a as a
recent transplant to Western North Carolina.
We welcome Mark to closer to us here in the PPS Global
headquarters in suburban Atlanta.
So Mark, we are glad that you are here with us today.
And we have a couple questions about Gen.
(27:08):
AI, generative AI, because I know you're going to address
that in your session as well. So please tell us, you're going
to be talking a lot about this, but where are the real
opportunities for Gen. AI, for genitive AI, artificial
intelligence? Where can we use AI to influence
(27:28):
our pricing strategy and our profitability?
Strategies, yeah, I mean, for me, AI is, you know, not just
for the wide classes, the core, the number piece of pricing.
We know that there's a lot of service vendors and they've got
some great AI solutions in the room.
But it goes beyond that. You know, as a pricing person,
(27:48):
you're not, you're not, you're not part of your role is
calculating prices. There's a whole other piece of
your role. And as you've mentioned, guiding
strategy, influencing stakeholders, modelling all, all
of these kind of things. And that's where I see huge
opportunities for relatively inexpensive AI as well.
(28:09):
You know, even if it's just Chachi PT or, or an equivalent
for anybody who's been sat therethinking, I'm writing an e-mail
to one of my senior stakeholdersand they keep redrafting it and
redrafting it. And it's like, I just don't
know. It's amazing what Chachi PT can
do in terms of I'm writing this e-mail.
(28:33):
I need it to come across as firmbut at the same time I'm trying
to build a relationship. As an example here's my e-mail
and it writes it back and you and you go.
That's what I wanted to say because it takes the emotion out
that we can get caught upon. Pre this I would have always
said write the e-mail don't sendit till tomorrow.
(28:55):
And it's amazing how many times you hit delete or completely re
scrub it. So what I would say is it can
improve your efficiency around your messaging because it can
prevent you having to do all of this redrafting.
You can throw ideas into it and ask it for inspiration.
It's that's not cheating. It's this, this is a tool and
(29:17):
that's available to us. I would say anybody who isn't
using the best tools available to them, you know, is arguably,
you know, that they're restricting themselves.
So there's a lot of people out there when AI first came out and
were worried about their roles and, and a lot of the experts
were saying, you know, AI isn't going to replace you.
(29:39):
He's the people who are good with AI who are going to replace
you. And so I would just encourage
people, yeah, look at how it cancompliment your soft skills.
I mean, the, the capabilities ofAI are changing all the time and
they're getting better. Anybody who hasn't tried to sit
down and just talk to AII think it's brilliant.
I sometimes have to do some driving, put it on hands free
(30:02):
and just talk to the AI. And then when I get to the
office, all my notes are there ready.
And, and so there's lots of different applications of AI,
not just to help you with the number crunching.
And as a prime example, I was talking to somebody yesterday,
if you're working pricing, if you're a pricing manager, you
might have a team, you might have to do performance reviews
(30:26):
and I'll prepare for one to onesthese kinds of things.
And that can be a really long administrative process.
But with AI, you can speed it upbecause you can have a quick
conversation with the AI. Again, make sure it's secure
though, that you're not putting confidential information out
there, but you could say I'm preparing, you know, so and so's
(30:46):
one to one. They've been great at this.
Can you give me some developmentideas that might, we might want
to put in and that we can focus on for next, you know, the next
half year, things like that. Let it drop it all out.
Read it. If it's good, great.
It's not cheating. It's it's working smarter.
So I would say when it comes to AI, it's not just for the
(31:06):
calculations. There's lots of things you can
use it for, which is probably where you already spend a lot of
your time. Absolutely.
And one thing that you mentioned, I think that's very,
very important. Instead of writing an e-mail and
letting it marinate and frettingourselves over every individual
word and semi colon and phrasingand things like that, we know
(31:29):
that with our shortened attention spans right now that
speed is a big variable. Speed is key and speed should
not take a day off. And if you're able to react
quickly and to get the information out there, often we
see that that is an advantage aswell.
I know that I've talked with people who said when they do win
(31:51):
loss information, win loss analysis, they find that their
speed of getting a quote and getting it out there, part of
which might be your e-mail to a customer or something like that,
that that is a very, very good variable and determine whether
or not they've won or lost a specific deal.
And so really it is a thing where you have to make
(32:11):
everything that you can a competitive advantage and.
What I would say, Kevin, is we're all aware of the Amazon
effect and how that disrupted supply chains and reset consumer
expectations, you know, and all of these kind of things.
Well, that's what we're going through right now.
But from a technology perspective, that's what AI is.
(32:31):
It's redefining how we operate. And it is, it is scary.
But what I would say is you didn't want to fight against the
Amazon effect. You don't want to fight against
the AI effect. Doesn't mean you have to be at
the front of it, but you definitely have to be part of
it. Absolutely agreed.
(32:53):
Yeah. All right.
We are going to take another short break.
But Mark, when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit
about the PPS profitable conference and your workshop and
about what your attendees are going to work on during that.
But everyone, please stay with us.
We'll be right back after a short break with more of the
(33:15):
Let's Talk Pricing podcast with Mark Gillan.
This October 21st through 24th, PPS Profitable in Las Vegas is
all about you, the pricing professional ready to navigate
today's challenges and lead withconfidence.
In just four days, you'll gain the strategies, tools, and
connections to drive margin growth, strengthen your
influence, and future proof yourcareer.
(33:37):
Early bird pricing ends September 19th and our group
rates make it easy to bring yourwhole team so you can cover more
ground and return with a shared plan.
Make the investment in yourself.Visit pricingsociety.com/PS LV25
to register. Hello everyone and welcome back
(33:59):
to Let's Talk Pricing. Today we are talking with Mr.
Mark Gilliam and we here at PPS are thrilled that Mark is gonna
be one of our 10 workshop leaders for certified pricing
professional workshops at PPS profitable in Las Vegas October
21st through 24th. And Mark, we really are looking
forward to your workshop and in your workshop from tariffs to
(34:24):
transformation, a hands on workshop in profit strategy and
executive influence. I know that you are going to
discuss a lot of things that we've also centered on today,
but give us a little bit of a preview about what your
attendees are going to specifically work on, what
they're going to take away from your workshop.
(34:45):
And maybe without giving too much away, give us a little bit
of information about a great surprise that's coming their way
as well. Yeah, sure.
I'm really excited for this because it's a little bit
different to what we've done before.
So in the morning we're going tobe doing a bit of a hybrid of
(35:06):
what I would class as strategic planning.
So understanding how do we bringthe world's, and you mentioned
earlier of pricing, sales, corporate strategy, how do we
bring these pieces together? Because we know in pricing, we
don't work in, in isolation. We're part of a, a bigger
machine. So we're going to work on that.
(35:27):
And we're also then going to develop that into and we'll
again, we'll be looking at things like tariffs as well,
which so all, all of the factorsthat affect us, we'll be
learning all about that. And then what we're going to do
is we're going to learn how do we present, how do we represent
ourselves. So how do we make a boardroom
pitch. So this is going to be helping
(35:50):
people to be the best version ofthemselves for 10 minutes in
front of a, you know, the C-Suite.
How do they make sure they don'tmake the common mistakes?
How do how do they increase their chances of when they walk
out of that room, somebody says,wow, who is that?
(36:11):
How long have they worked with us?
And how do we make sure that that person is one of our future
leaders? The really exciting bit in the
afternoon, they'll be given a case study.
So they'll work in groups and this case study will be be a lot
of fun and it's going to bring together everything we did in
(36:31):
the morning. But it's leading up to the big
moment. The big moment is they're going
to present to a real CEO who I'mflying in, who is going.
So it's going to be a bit like a, you know, in a real
environment also. I'm thrilled to say that.
And Laura Preslunds, she's goingto be there as well.
(36:53):
And and so they're going to present to a couple of
experienced leaders, including an active CEO who will give them
real feedback on their pitch. And they'll be asked, how are we
going to take this product to market?
How are we going to price it? How are we going to enable our
(37:14):
sales team? How are we going to bring all
the pieces together. And they'll have, they'll
deliver a 10 minute pitch to a real CEO for real feedback on
this. And the CEO is a good friend of
mine and Jeff Moyle, he's the CEO of Rexel Canada.
So big business. So, and it sounds scary, he'll
(37:41):
be nice, but you will get that real CEO feedback.
And I can't guarantee Laura willbe as nice.
She's but she's looking forward to this.
But again, I figured, you know, she's been there, she's seen
that she's delighted, she, you know, to, to, to be part of
this. So for me, what this does is it
(38:04):
takes a theory and we're making it real.
And the only way to get better at this is practice.
So this will give people those foundational steps P learnings
so that the next time they do this, and we know the first time
you do something to the second time you do it, the difference
(38:27):
in your capability is huge. I'm excited for this as well.
What a great opportunity for ourfolks to work on basically how
they can do this case study and present to senior leaders and
how they can demonstrate their strategic planning.
They can demonstrate looking at all of the factors presenting
(38:48):
and getting their kitchens readyand getting to that wow factor
we talked about. So this is very, very exciting.
So Mark, a very special thanks for being with us here today.
Lots of great insights. And of course, we're very much
looking forward to your full dayCPP workshop from tariffs to
transformation. And everyone, I would encourage
you to check out pricing society.com For more information
(39:11):
about our offerings, not only only the profitable conferences
to come in Las Vegas in October and in Barcelona in December,
but our other offerings around AI and tariffs and online
training as well. And until next time, we are
going to give a very special thanks to Mark Gillum for his
(39:31):
leadership today and for his insights today would encourage
everyone keep leading with purpose and very happy pricing.
And we will talk again soon.
You're listening to Let's Talk Pricing, your connection to the
voices, stories, and strategies shaping the pricing world.
Each episode, we go beyond theory into the practical,
timely conversations that help you lead with confidence and
drive results. Let's start the show.
(00:21):
Hello everyone, and welcome to the Let's Talk Pricing podcast.
I'm your host, Kevin Mitchell from Professional Pricing
Society, and I'm very happy and very excited about today's
edition of the Let's Talk Pricing podcast because my guest
today is Mr. Mark Gilliam. Mark is the Vice President of
Global Advisory at Enable. He is a chartered accountant, a
(00:45):
certified pricing professional, and a former CFO.
And Mark works with companies tonavigate tariffs, to harness AI,
and perhaps most importantly, heworks with companies on
developing the soft skills that they need to lead.
And Mark is a very dear partner with those of us here at
Professional Pricing Society andour members across the globe as
(01:08):
well. We are, of course, getting ready
for the fall profitable conference.
We'll be in Las Vegas from October 21st to 24th.
And there Mark is going to lead a workshop with us entitled from
Tariffs to Transformation, a hands on workshop in profit
strategy and executive influence.
(01:30):
And we're going to dig into a few topics, but mainly we're
going to talk about what we can expect from Mark's workshop, how
you can move from tactical pricing to really shaping your
true profit strategy, and how you can get some insights on
influencing at the highest levels of your organization.
But Mark, Mr. Gillum, Sir, always good to talk with you and
(01:52):
welcome to the Let's Talk Pricing podcast.
How are you today, Mark? Oh, absolutely thrilled to be
here, Kevin. And, you know, I'm always a big
fan of anything we can do to collaborate with the
professional Pricing society. And yeah, it's special when you
read out my title there, there'sthose new bid in the middle,
certified pricing professional. I love what you know, PPS does.
(02:15):
You know, it's all about education and really kind of
enhancing the the offering of what all of these professionals
do in the industries they work in.
So absolutely thrilled to be here.
Oh, well, thank you. So Mark so much, Mark, and
congratulations on your CPP as well.
So we have a couple questions for our conversation with Mr.
(02:37):
Mark Gilliam, who is the Vice President of Global Advisory at
Enable today. But Mark, first of all, I want
to talk about your offering to come with us in a couple months
here. And your workshop title from
tariffs to transformation is really interesting.
So what's behind that? What's behind the title of your
workshop and some of the topics you're going to cover?
(03:00):
And why is this conversation so important and so timely right
now? Yeah, I, I mean, the, the word
tariffs as we know is, is highlytopical.
And I was almost reluctant to, to, to add that no, people
thinking, Oh no, not more tariffconversations.
But the reality is, you know, there's, it's not just tariffs,
(03:22):
the tariffs, what tariffs are doing is creating uncertainty
needs for agility. It's creating extra work for
what, you know, for what people are having to do in the
industry. And, and that leads into things
like transformative requirements.
I think it gone are the days where we turn up and we know how
(03:42):
the week, the day, whatever it is, is going to go it.
There's, there's always something new to challenge us.
And so there are all of the, there's other things like you
mentioned, AI, there's, there's lots of disruptive forces out
there that are forcing us. And I would say forcing is the
right word to reimagine how we conduct ourselves in the
(04:04):
workplace. And the we, we, we can't afford
to sit still, but likewise, we have to be moving in the right
direction as well. And I figured when it came to
this workshop, I wanted to make it relevant.
So let's, let's talk about tariffs.
Let's, let's talk about what we've learned so far about them.
(04:24):
And because this session is all going to be about interactivity
as well, But let's take those learnings so far and start to
use that to apply it to this transformative piece.
So we're not just talking about transform, transformation just
because of tariffs. We're going to talk about how
the, you know, the kind of management and leadership are
(04:46):
expecting more and more from the, you know, the various
functions such as pricing. And what we're really going to
do is look at, well, how do we meet and exceed, you know, those
kind of expectations? And So what I really want to do
is to enhance what we already know by bringing it out with the
soft skills. So this we're really going to be
(05:09):
looking at bringing all of the pieces together.
And so, and you know, hopefully,you know, people will, you know,
have a really good grasp of whatI would class as the core
concepts of pricing. And my, what I see as my role in
this workshop is to take that and turn it into something that
actually can influence boardrooms.
(05:30):
And it's something that a lot ofpeople have talked to me about
and at past PPS conferences. And I've been there.
I've been the person that peopleare trying to influence.
And I've also gone up that ladder.
And it's not easy and there is no perfect or right way, but
there are certainly things that help you tremendously in that
(05:55):
process. And so that's what you know for
a whole day. That's what we're going to be
looking at is how do we take allof that and make it meaningful.
Definitely, Yeah, we're looking for forward to some great
insights there and a few things that you mentioned that you've
heard from previous PPS conferences.
I of course have heard as well from our members across the
(06:15):
globe. And some of the things I think
that are really interesting in that I'm enjoying that you're
going to focus on, I'm enjoying hearing about that is there's so
much volatility and so much uncertainty now.
And with everything being so disruptive, really it is the
soft skills, the ability to manage and influence up, down
(06:36):
and across your organization andwith your marketplace as a whole
that's going to be very, very important.
And of course, we as pricing people, we as revenue managers
know that the ability to influence without authority is
always so critical for us. And in times like these with
perhaps a little bit of extra emphasis placed on our results,
(07:00):
our key performance indicators and basically our jobs, these
are some really, really important topics.
So was that the kind of the origin or the germ of the idea
here as you've heard about all of these challenges and we've
got a lot of things going on macroeconomically that prevent
(07:21):
opportunities for some, challenges for others and the
combination of those two for a lot of us.
But really, was it this idea around the volatility, the
volatility, the uncertainty, thechanging economics that
basically created this idea for you?
It was, it was definitely the feedback.
Whenever I go to the conference,I'm always looking at how can
(07:44):
you know, how can we contribute as a kind of a good citizen to
the pricing community. And you know, for, you know,
from my perspective, you know, we have a service vendor, but we
know that, you know, the, the pricing challenge is a lot more
than a piece of software. And, and so that's what I love
about again the PPS side and there, there is no them and us
(08:08):
in the in the room. You know, the, you have your
pricing practitioners, your professionals, you have your
service vendors, everybody's in the same challenge really.
And, and that's what I really like about it.
And, and what it's actually a bit of a fear for me is a lot of
some of these disruptive forces,if we're not careful, they will
actually push us more into a transactional role again, We'll,
(08:31):
we'll move away from strategy because we're suddenly being
asked model all of this tariff work and suddenly you've been
thrown you, you want to be influencing boardrooms and
you're thrown back into the spreadsheets.
And so there's that side of it as to how do we make sure that
as a profession and you know, a really important one for, for
(08:56):
businesses that we, we always talk about value in pricing, but
we've got to look at the value of ourselves as well.
And how are we articulating thatAnd how are we making sure that
that is recognized, you know, within the organizations we
work. And so, yes, a lot of feedback
and observation of what's going on in the market led me to this.
(09:18):
And, you know, working with yourteam as well, Kevin, you know,
Johnny's been great in terms of,you know, really letting me
know, you know, what are people talking about?
What do people want and where can we add value and so you
know, my view is and I'm sure we'll get there is gone are the
days when being good at your jobor maybe should I say being good
(09:43):
on a spreadsheet will get you tothe boardroom.
That's that skill set will certainly get you a lot of
recognition, but will it get youup the ladder is a completely
different question. And what I want is to take the
people who are, you know, in that position and give them the
(10:04):
skills to, yeah, progress beyondthe world of the, the
spreadsheets and the numbers andinto, you mentioned the word
into the world of influence, which is, yeah, it's all about
soft skills. Definitely.
And that can be a very difficulttask for a lot of the people in
our part of the business world because we have that data
(10:26):
background, that mathematical analytical spreadsheet
background. But that without the ability to
communicate, to influence and tochange behavior behaviors and to
really institute a culture of change management in your
organizations really can be limiting in a lot of ways.
(10:47):
And of course, we will have to be very wary about stepping back
from strategies to tactics with everything that's going on now
with the disruption there. So certainly a reminder to all
of our members and everyone listening today, per Mark
Gilliam himself, you cannot let disruption remove your strategy.
So another question for you, Mark, since we're talking about
(11:11):
making the leap from being more tactical to being strategic, and
I know that a lot of us do have issues with some of the skill
gaps there. Why is it so difficult for some
pricing managers, for revenue managers to kind of make that
leap from going from a tactical,tactical person, kind of like a
(11:37):
cog in the machine to someone who can actually drive the
machine and do strategy? Why is that a difficult quantum
leap to make for a lot of us? I think I mean there's, there's
a couple of reasons and one of the big ones I've seen and, and
just to as well be clear, this is not just always a pricing
problem. I see this in finance and
(11:59):
accounting. I see this in, you know, various
functions as well. One of them is moving away from
inputs and focusing on outputs. The, you know, boardrooms, you
know, they are really focused onresults and so being results
focused is critical. And but unfortunately again,
(12:23):
when you move back to this transactional world, you tend to
be more focused on what are we going to put in the system.
And when I talk about outputs aswell, it is being able to move
away from the spreadsheet and starts to manage and influence
the business through the lens ofcontext, through the lens of
(12:47):
interacting with the stakeholders.
You in, in any business, you areyour own brand, your department
is its own brand. And if you treated it like a
brand, you would probably do a lot more to promote it.
And promoting it doesn't mean look at our amazing spreadsheet,
(13:08):
which is, which is an input, it's look at our amazing results
and but also being able to recognise it's a team sports
because most people will say, well, the sales team delivered
those results. And So what you want is you want
to get to a position where the sales team say we can't deliver
this without the pricing team. They are, you know, so
(13:30):
instrumental to us. And so, and that's one of the,
you know, the next challenges. How do you get over that kind of
them and those culture between pricing and sales?
Because if you don't get beyond that, you're always going to
have a sales leader who is goingto say, actually, maybe you
know, pricing are just transactional.
(13:51):
And so relationship building is probably one of the biggest
areas and being able to articulate the value you
contribute towards your business.
So, so that's one of the things.And then the other is, believe
it or not, getting out of the detail, it's as you move up a
(14:13):
business, the level of detail gets less and less and less.
But we are, it's only it's drilled into us that the detail
matters and it does. But each time you go up a level,
you need to have awareness of the detail, but you stop talking
that level of detail. And so you almost develop your
(14:38):
own kind of, yeah, your own sales technique.
Everybody's selling in business,whether they're selling
themselves, they're selling their departments.
And what I would say is, yeah, alot of prices do great jobs, but
but then don't get recognised for it because unfortunately in
business, generally the only person who's going to sell your
(15:02):
success is yourself. And if you're not doing it,
there's, there's a good chance unless you've got a really good
sponsor, nobody's doing it. So one of the things I would be
saying is go and find that sponsor who's going to, and they
don't even have to be from a pricing department.
But if you can get executive sponsors who who really buy into
(15:23):
what pricing is all about and the value adds, it's always
better to get that somebody promoting you and selling you.
If it's not you, it's somebody else.
It's incredibly powerful. Absolutely.
And if you are, if you are able to develop those types of
partnerships with other departments, then of course that
makes you a lot more effective. And hey, we all know if you can
(15:47):
get sales talking about how the pricing managers, how the
pricing department, how the revenue growth management
function in the business was able to work with them in order
to do great things, then that isa huge feather of your cap.
And that goes a long, long way to achieving some of the things
(16:08):
that we're talking about here today.
So yeah, being able to get that influence, being able to
overcome that volatility. And also when you mentioned one
important thing about moving from inputs to outputs and being
focused on results, that reminded me that as pricing
people, a lot of us sometimes can be very inside out.
(16:30):
You know, with my spreadsheet, here's my spreadsheet, I'm going
to disseminate that out to everyone instead of being more
outside in and saying, OK, what would sales want?
What would senior manager, senior management want, What the
product managers want, What do our customers want and working
on that. So it kind of takes a shift in
thinking there from inputs to outputs to focusing on results
(16:53):
to realizing that we really haveto think more of an outside in
perspective in a lot of ways with a lot of that.
So yeah, very, very interesting.Appreciate that.
And of course, getting the influence and earning a seat at
the table is the first step. But once we have earned our seat
(17:13):
at the table, once we have started on our path of
influencing and being more strategic thinkers, how do we
continue doing those things? How do we continue keeping our
front of mind when the business talks about some of the big
picture issues? And how do we continue building
(17:35):
influence within our organization?
I think first and foremost, you can never take your eye off the
trust you've built because it can be easy to to get up to the
top and forget where you've comefrom.
And when I say that, I don't mean that you, you all of a
(17:55):
sudden say thank you pricing people, but goodbye.
What I'm saying here is I mentioned about as you move up
the detail and matters less, butyou should never forget that the
detail is important and it you, you can, you know, it takes a
long time to build trust. Yeah.
It takes a split second to lose it.
(18:17):
And again, whether it's pricing,finance, you, you, it's a
fright. You've got to be mindful of that
fragile. We're in departments where
unfortunately being right is expected and, and, but being
wrong erodes the trust. So you have to be mindful of
(18:38):
that. But what I would say is that's
kind of table stage, you know, make sure that you know, you the
work that is being done is reliable, it's consistent.
Nobody likes surprises, especially when you get to the
top. But then the other thing that
has always served me really wellis you need to understand
(18:59):
everybody else's objectives and you need to focus on helping
them deliver theirs. And if you do that, you will get
a lot more buy in when you need help to deliver yours.
And but we don't see that when we're in more junior roles
because we're always, you know, here's my personal objectives.
(19:21):
This is what I'm going to work on.
And but yeah, as you move further up, you know, the IT
all, it does become, Yeah, more team orientated.
And if you're in pricing, you should know what are your sales
teams objectives. As an example, you should know
what the finance teams objectives are, your CA OS
objectives. And if you couldn't be
(19:42):
demonstrating this is what I'm doing to help you hit your
objectives, you're they're goingto, you're going to get more
influence. And so I would say that, you
know, is probably one of the biggest things that I, I note
when, you know, people move up. All right.
Very good advice from Mr. Mark Gilliam and I really like your
(20:04):
statements about how you should understand other people's
objectives and help them reach those as well.
And I would say that since a lotof us are in a business to
business environment or an environment where we are part of
a manufacturing chain or supply chain or something like that,
it's also probably necessary to understand your end user, your
(20:26):
customers. Results in their objectives as
well and where you fit into that.
And of course, if you can demonstrate then that with them,
then that kind of goes back to Omnagle's economic value
estimation and a lot of things from pricing from way back in
the Stone Age of decades ago forus that also would apply there
(20:47):
as well. So this happens within your
organization also can happen outside of your organization as
well. And Mark, I know that you have a
lot of great work out there in the ether.
I would encourage everyone to check out enables rebate
universities and some of the information that they have on
(21:09):
that. And of course, part of that is
you've got a lot of information about there on how we're dealing
with tariffs. And I remember one thing where I
saw you in a podcast and one of the comments was historically,
tariffs in the United States have been 2 or 3%.
And now we're looking at they might be on average fifteen,
(21:31):
1718% in the very, very near future.
So with that change, how can pricing leaders adjust their
strategies so that they earn credibility with executives and
with all of these cross functional partners that we're
talking about? Do you have any examples where
people have done this and been able to turn their detractors,
(21:53):
their naysayers, into champions for their cars?
Yeah, absolutely. I was.
I was actually preparing a slightly different presentation
than the other day to talk abouthow, you know, big organizations
are dealing with the tariff landscape.
And I think, you know, it's always good to learn from others
as well. And what I found really
(22:16):
interesting, and I know Stanley Black and Decker as an example,
if you, if you looked at their earnings call, the word tariff
came up quite a bit. And but there was a couple of
other words that kept appearing and one of them was agility,
agility, agility, agility. And I was thinking the actual
pricing department, that's, that's that they implemented a
(22:40):
price increase in April. They taught they, the, the, you
know, the C-Suite and I'm sure Tim Smith will be delighted to
see the C-Suite talking about pricing and they were talking
about their four step action plan for tariffs and things like
that. So I'd encourage people to go
and read the, the earnings call from, from Stanley Black and
Decker, how they're dealing withwhat they estimates to be an 800
(23:03):
million annualized cost to theirbusiness just on tariffs huge
and yet margins are broadly flat.
So tells you, you know, the, youknow, the, these businesses are,
you know, they're dealing with it.
And what I would say is we've been through a lot, you know,
(23:23):
COVID, if I said every business is going to shut down and how
we're going to deal with this now, we'd go, well, we've done
it. And, and I think some of the
uncertainty regarding tariffs is, is easing certainly, but the
complexity is increasing. So if you look at the, the
(23:44):
initial announcements were quitescary for businesses that that I
think some of that has eased. But now we're seeing extra
layers, more exemptions, things like that, just things that just
kind of, yeah, make it trickier to deal with.
But what I would say to pricing people go back to Stanley Black
and Decker agility. The other thing is inspiring
(24:04):
confidence, a business that has confidence in its pricing
function. Hey, don't worry about these
tariffs. We've got all the skills.
We've got the people will help you through this.
And that that comes back to I still remember an early manager
of mine who used to who said to me, because I, I was a bit of a
whinger. And he said, Mark, come to me
(24:27):
with solutions, not problems. And the tariffs are the perfect
time for the pricing team to do that.
There's there's lots of things, you know, a pricing function can
do to be proactive. Every time President Trump
announces a delay, it buys US time to be more prepared, and
(24:50):
anything that the pricing department can do to reduce
uncertainty in these uncertain times is going to be highly
appreciated by their business colleagues.
Absolutely. So I'm sure we all got that
reducing uncertainty and inspiring confidence are part of
(25:10):
your job, even if it's not in your job description.
So very nice and stated from Mr.Mark Gilliam.
And Mark, we're going to take a short break right now, but when
we come back, we're going to talk about generative AI, how
Gen. AI can fit into your profit
strategy and how you can get various departments in the
(25:31):
organization such as sales, suchas finance, such as product
management, marketing, pricing and get getting everyone to move
in the same direction. So we're going to take a short
break right now, but please comeback and join us for more of
let's talk pricing with Mr. MarkGill.
Thanks everyone. We're heading to Las Vegas this
(25:52):
October 21st through 24th for PPS Profitable Pricing's Pre
Eminent conference. Four days of bold strategies,
practical tools and real world solutions to help you boost
margins, lead with confidence and accelerate your career.
Connect with pricing leaders. Sharpen your skills and leave
ready to make an immediate impact.
(26:14):
Early bird pricing ends September 19th, so don't miss
your chance to save. And if you're bringing your
team, be sure to check out our bundled group rates for even
more value. Secure your spot today at
pricingsociety.com/P PS (26:25):
LV25. Welcome back to the Let's Talk
Pricing podcast. Today we are having a wonderful
discussion with Mr. Mark Gilliam.
Mark is Vice President of GlobalAdvisory at Enable and he
reminded us that he is a recent certified pricing professional
as well. And in addition to that, he is a
(26:47):
chartered accountant back in hisold home in the UK and a as a
recent transplant to Western North Carolina.
We welcome Mark to closer to us here in the PPS Global
headquarters in suburban Atlanta.
So Mark, we are glad that you are here with us today.
And we have a couple questions about Gen.
(27:08):
AI, generative AI, because I know you're going to address
that in your session as well. So please tell us, you're going
to be talking a lot about this, but where are the real
opportunities for Gen. AI, for genitive AI, artificial
intelligence? Where can we use AI to influence
(27:28):
our pricing strategy and our profitability?
Strategies, yeah, I mean, for me, AI is, you know, not just
for the wide classes, the core, the number piece of pricing.
We know that there's a lot of service vendors and they've got
some great AI solutions in the room.
But it goes beyond that. You know, as a pricing person,
(27:48):
you're not, you're not, you're not part of your role is
calculating prices. There's a whole other piece of
your role. And as you've mentioned, guiding
strategy, influencing stakeholders, modelling all, all
of these kind of things. And that's where I see huge
opportunities for relatively inexpensive AI as well.
(28:09):
You know, even if it's just Chachi PT or, or an equivalent
for anybody who's been sat therethinking, I'm writing an e-mail
to one of my senior stakeholdersand they keep redrafting it and
redrafting it. And it's like, I just don't
know. It's amazing what Chachi PT can
do in terms of I'm writing this e-mail.
(28:33):
I need it to come across as firmbut at the same time I'm trying
to build a relationship. As an example here's my e-mail
and it writes it back and you and you go.
That's what I wanted to say because it takes the emotion out
that we can get caught upon. Pre this I would have always
said write the e-mail don't sendit till tomorrow.
(28:55):
And it's amazing how many times you hit delete or completely re
scrub it. So what I would say is it can
improve your efficiency around your messaging because it can
prevent you having to do all of this redrafting.
You can throw ideas into it and ask it for inspiration.
It's that's not cheating. It's this, this is a tool and
(29:17):
that's available to us. I would say anybody who isn't
using the best tools available to them, you know, is arguably,
you know, that they're restricting themselves.
So there's a lot of people out there when AI first came out and
were worried about their roles and, and a lot of the experts
were saying, you know, AI isn't going to replace you.
(29:39):
He's the people who are good with AI who are going to replace
you. And so I would just encourage
people, yeah, look at how it cancompliment your soft skills.
I mean, the, the capabilities ofAI are changing all the time and
they're getting better. Anybody who hasn't tried to sit
down and just talk to AII think it's brilliant.
I sometimes have to do some driving, put it on hands free
(30:02):
and just talk to the AI. And then when I get to the
office, all my notes are there ready.
And, and so there's lots of different applications of AI,
not just to help you with the number crunching.
And as a prime example, I was talking to somebody yesterday,
if you're working pricing, if you're a pricing manager, you
might have a team, you might have to do performance reviews
(30:26):
and I'll prepare for one to onesthese kinds of things.
And that can be a really long administrative process.
But with AI, you can speed it upbecause you can have a quick
conversation with the AI. Again, make sure it's secure
though, that you're not putting confidential information out
there, but you could say I'm preparing, you know, so and so's
(30:46):
one to one. They've been great at this.
Can you give me some developmentideas that might, we might want
to put in and that we can focus on for next, you know, the next
half year, things like that. Let it drop it all out.
Read it. If it's good, great.
It's not cheating. It's it's working smarter.
So I would say when it comes to AI, it's not just for the
(31:06):
calculations. There's lots of things you can
use it for, which is probably where you already spend a lot of
your time. Absolutely.
And one thing that you mentioned, I think that's very,
very important. Instead of writing an e-mail and
letting it marinate and frettingourselves over every individual
word and semi colon and phrasingand things like that, we know
(31:29):
that with our shortened attention spans right now that
speed is a big variable. Speed is key and speed should
not take a day off. And if you're able to react
quickly and to get the information out there, often we
see that that is an advantage aswell.
I know that I've talked with people who said when they do win
(31:51):
loss information, win loss analysis, they find that their
speed of getting a quote and getting it out there, part of
which might be your e-mail to a customer or something like that,
that that is a very, very good variable and determine whether
or not they've won or lost a specific deal.
And so really it is a thing where you have to make
(32:11):
everything that you can a competitive advantage and.
What I would say, Kevin, is we're all aware of the Amazon
effect and how that disrupted supply chains and reset consumer
expectations, you know, and all of these kind of things.
Well, that's what we're going through right now.
But from a technology perspective, that's what AI is.
(32:31):
It's redefining how we operate. And it is, it is scary.
But what I would say is you didn't want to fight against the
Amazon effect. You don't want to fight against
the AI effect. Doesn't mean you have to be at
the front of it, but you definitely have to be part of
it. Absolutely agreed.
(32:53):
Yeah. All right.
We are going to take another short break.
But Mark, when we come back, we're going to talk a little bit
about the PPS profitable conference and your workshop and
about what your attendees are going to work on during that.
But everyone, please stay with us.
We'll be right back after a short break with more of the
(33:15):
Let's Talk Pricing podcast with Mark Gillan.
This October 21st through 24th, PPS Profitable in Las Vegas is
all about you, the pricing professional ready to navigate
today's challenges and lead withconfidence.
In just four days, you'll gain the strategies, tools, and
connections to drive margin growth, strengthen your
influence, and future proof yourcareer.
(33:37):
Early bird pricing ends September 19th and our group
rates make it easy to bring yourwhole team so you can cover more
ground and return with a shared plan.
Make the investment in yourself.Visit pricingsociety.com/PS LV25
to register. Hello everyone and welcome back
(33:59):
to Let's Talk Pricing. Today we are talking with Mr.
Mark Gilliam and we here at PPS are thrilled that Mark is gonna
be one of our 10 workshop leaders for certified pricing
professional workshops at PPS profitable in Las Vegas October
21st through 24th. And Mark, we really are looking
forward to your workshop and in your workshop from tariffs to
(34:24):
transformation, a hands on workshop in profit strategy and
executive influence. I know that you are going to
discuss a lot of things that we've also centered on today,
but give us a little bit of a preview about what your
attendees are going to specifically work on, what
they're going to take away from your workshop.
(34:45):
And maybe without giving too much away, give us a little bit
of information about a great surprise that's coming their way
as well. Yeah, sure.
I'm really excited for this because it's a little bit
different to what we've done before.
So in the morning we're going tobe doing a bit of a hybrid of
(35:06):
what I would class as strategic planning.
So understanding how do we bringthe world's, and you mentioned
earlier of pricing, sales, corporate strategy, how do we
bring these pieces together? Because we know in pricing, we
don't work in, in isolation. We're part of a, a bigger
machine. So we're going to work on that.
(35:27):
And we're also then going to develop that into and we'll
again, we'll be looking at things like tariffs as well,
which so all, all of the factorsthat affect us, we'll be
learning all about that. And then what we're going to do
is we're going to learn how do we present, how do we represent
ourselves. So how do we make a boardroom
pitch. So this is going to be helping
(35:50):
people to be the best version ofthemselves for 10 minutes in
front of a, you know, the C-Suite.
How do they make sure they don'tmake the common mistakes?
How do how do they increase their chances of when they walk
out of that room, somebody says,wow, who is that?
(36:11):
How long have they worked with us?
And how do we make sure that that person is one of our future
leaders? The really exciting bit in the
afternoon, they'll be given a case study.
So they'll work in groups and this case study will be be a lot
of fun and it's going to bring together everything we did in
(36:31):
the morning. But it's leading up to the big
moment. The big moment is they're going
to present to a real CEO who I'mflying in, who is going.
So it's going to be a bit like a, you know, in a real
environment also. I'm thrilled to say that.
And Laura Preslunds, she's goingto be there as well.
(36:53):
And and so they're going to present to a couple of
experienced leaders, including an active CEO who will give them
real feedback on their pitch. And they'll be asked, how are we
going to take this product to market?
How are we going to price it? How are we going to enable our
(37:14):
sales team? How are we going to bring all
the pieces together. And they'll have, they'll
deliver a 10 minute pitch to a real CEO for real feedback on
this. And the CEO is a good friend of
mine and Jeff Moyle, he's the CEO of Rexel Canada.
So big business. So, and it sounds scary, he'll
(37:41):
be nice, but you will get that real CEO feedback.
And I can't guarantee Laura willbe as nice.
She's but she's looking forward to this.
But again, I figured, you know, she's been there, she's seen
that she's delighted, she, you know, to, to, to be part of
this. So for me, what this does is it
(38:04):
takes a theory and we're making it real.
And the only way to get better at this is practice.
So this will give people those foundational steps P learnings
so that the next time they do this, and we know the first time
you do something to the second time you do it, the difference
(38:27):
in your capability is huge. I'm excited for this as well.
What a great opportunity for ourfolks to work on basically how
they can do this case study and present to senior leaders and
how they can demonstrate their strategic planning.
They can demonstrate looking at all of the factors presenting
(38:48):
and getting their kitchens readyand getting to that wow factor
we talked about. So this is very, very exciting.
So Mark, a very special thanks for being with us here today.
Lots of great insights. And of course, we're very much
looking forward to your full dayCPP workshop from tariffs to
transformation. And everyone, I would encourage
you to check out pricing society.com For more information
(39:11):
about our offerings, not only only the profitable conferences
to come in Las Vegas in October and in Barcelona in December,
but our other offerings around AI and tariffs and online
training as well. And until next time, we are
going to give a very special thanks to Mark Gillum for his
(39:31):
leadership today and for his insights today would encourage
everyone keep leading with purpose and very happy pricing.
And we will talk again soon.
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