Why Pricing Professionals Should Stop Working Alone with Diana Coelho

0:00Diana Coelho: Be open and talk to people because they will all bring a different perspective to the table. And the combination of those perspectives for me is where the value sits, is where you can really create value to the company and you can find value capture opportunities.

0:31Every year, the best pricing and commercial strategy minds in the world find each other in one place. This November, that place is Amsterdam. EPP is celebrating 20 years by bringing 1 ,000 pricing and RGM leaders together for its global summit, November 17th and 18th. If pricing is your profession, this is where you belong. Register at pricingplatform.com. Welcome to Impact Pricing, the podcast where we discuss pricing, value, and how buyers decide. I'm Mark Steiving. I help companies turn hidden value into willingness to pay. Our guest today is Deanna Coelho. Here are three things you want to know about Deanna before we start.

1:15She is the chair of EPP, the Global Community for Pricing and Revenue Growth Management Professionals. She brings more than 15 years of experience in pricing, revenue management, and commercial excellence. both inside global companies and as a consultant. And she's helped shaping the next chapter of EPP as it celebrates 20 years and expands its global community. And that's what I want to talk to her about today a lot. Welcome, Deanna.

1:42Diana Coelho: Thanks, Mark. Thanks for having me. It's going to be fun. Hey, how did you get into pricing? So actually, like many, many people in pricing, I didn't actually start my career thinking I would become a pricing professional, right? So I gradually discovered that pricing sits at the intersection between many functions like marketing, sales, IT, data, customer value, execution, commercial execution or sales, and also very important, the human part of how we work as professionals. And after I learned that, I also learned that that's what actually kept me going in pricing is that it's an area that you never stop learning.

2:19Diana Coelho: I saw every industry, every company approaches pricing very differently and every market teaches you something new. So that's what kept me going. How I started this was, especially the EPP journey, which we'll come into in a minute, came from this curiosity, right? So when you have this intersection of professionals, and I'm a very curious person by nature. So I just kept going, learning here and there. In multinational companies that I worked with, there was actually a big commercial transformation happening. And they were looking for people with these type of mindsets, like people who could make bridges, understand different sides, connect dots.

2:59Diana Coelho: That's how I slowly got into pricing. And then I never left. And as you said before, this allowed me to experience and work in pricing both as a practitioner, an industry professional, and then as a consultant as well. Training came on top, training in pricing came on top, and all in all, you know, 15 years of pricing that just flew by. Nice, nice. And I'm just curious, before this new transition with EPP, were you involved with EPP? Did you use them to learn a lot? Yeah, well, I started engaging with EPP when I started pricing, right? So my first pricing roles, I started to attend first events, learning from them, attending the community, meeting people.

3:41Diana Coelho: And then about, this was about, I don't know, 2015 or something that I started attending. And then about five years ago, I became a trainer for them, for EPP, right? And so I started to be a trainer for the certified pricing profession or manager, certified pricing manager. And I never stopped doing that training. And I really like it still today. It's a good moment to keep interacting with new companies, seeing how they perceive pricing and how people that learn on the job at some point really want to professionalize the knowledge. And the discussions in the room are very rich because of that, right?

4:16Diana Coelho: Because we bring frameworks and concepts and how to approach it. But people come with, yeah, we try that, but then this happened or that happened. How would I go about this or that in my industry, my company, my reality, right? Yeah. Yeah, I absolutely agree. I think one of the most fun things about teaching pricing is the fact that every situation is different. So we have a set of base frameworks that we often use. And then it's like, well, it doesn't work perfectly here. So how do you tweak it? Or how do you think about it? And it's just fun. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So what do you see pricing professionals needing today?

4:52I mean, what's changing in the pricing profession? That would be a good way to say it.

4:58Diana Coelho: Well, many things, actually. So the first one is access to knowledge, I would say. So today, we all have an access to knowledge that is unprecedented versus the past, right? And we immediately go into AI topic. Now, can you really rely on that alone? How much of that can you rely versus, you know, reading the books, meeting the people, learning from the experience of others? So that's one big change in the profession is that over time, access to knowledge has increased hugely with AI, with new books being written. But the connection with the community, the connection with your peers, the exchange and the learning for me remain as important, if not even more than in the past.

5:44Diana Coelho: Right. To balance out all this knowledge that is out there. The second thing is technology itself, right? So we have seen in the last 10 years, the number of pricing and RGM solutions, technical solutions that are out there in the market right now, right? So the fact that people have invested in developing technology to support the role is also a big change. It also brings different types of profiles to the profession, right? So the profession itself evolved from a very analytical standpoint to a more strategic standpoint, but also now with this big component of technology innovation and how to do things better.

6:25Diana Coelho: So maybe those two are the ones that kind of top of mind to me that changed a lot in the profession. Yeah, I agree completely. So let's talk about both of those for just a second. And then I want to really get into EPP and what EPP is going to be all about. But first, let's talk about the knowledge piece. So I want to share my thoughts on AI, if I may, right? Because I find this so fascinating. When I talk to AI about pricing, it is wrong a lot. And so I just know that it isn't right. But when I ask AI about anything else that I don't know a lot about, I trust it. And this is so dangerous. So we've got people out there asking pricing questions, and I'm sure they're trusting the answers because they don't know better.

7:09And so I agree completely that we just got to be working as a community and sharing thoughts. And I guess collaborating would be a great way to think about it.

7:19Diana Coelho: Yeah. So for me, this is one of the, I'm all pro AI and using technology, right? So no doubt about that. But I am very conscious and a bit scary of the fact that AI will always have an answer for you, right? So regardless of what you ask, how you ask, how many times you ask, it will always give you an answer. It will never tell you, actually, I don't know that. Let me think about it and I'll get back to you. I just never say that, which is a very common human behavior because sometimes we need time to process our knowledge, our information, our learnings, and then come up with an opinion. AI doesn't do that.

7:56To be fair, most people don't say, I don't know either.

8:02Diana Coelho: well true true but reasonable people sometimes will tell you well that's a good question let me reflect on it and get back right yeah maybe kind of i hope still trust humanity you know so back to the original question right so for me this is the the scary thing that i fully agree with your sentence that when i talk pricing to ai i have a lot of opinions on what ai tells me and sometimes I do take it as a starting point and then I build from it right because I'm able to but if I would do the same about let's say I don't know neurosurgery right I wouldn't be able to challenge AI I know nothing about neurosurgeon right so I don't know what I don't know so I just can't challenge AI on that so for me very important point that you you raise right so AI will give us good starting points for pretty much everything but we shouldn't stop there we shouldn't just take it for granted go one step more and challenge it understand it discuss it and then you will get out of it richer I think it is a great thinking partner I mean it certainly helps me think better than I do without it.

9:17So hugely valuable. So the other one I want to talk about real quickly was your technology, because I thought that was fascinating too. And what I'm going to say I think fits with your vision of EPP, but that is the fact that there's no such thing as a pricing solution or a pricing software. Every time you look at a new industry, the details, the nuances of that industry are different. And so what you find are these software packages or technologies that are specific to semiconductors, specific to, you know, grocery retail, specific to, and so you can pick these different topics and say, look, it's really specific to an industry or an area.

9:58It isn't just, hey, we're going to go use AI or technology for pricing. Okay.

10:04Diana Coelho: Can, so what's the? Oh, so, well, I just wanted to throw that thought out because I love the thought, but Now I'll ask a question because what I've heard about EPP is that you guys spend way more time thinking about specific niches or industries than saying, hey, this is the, let's just talk about pricing in general. Yeah, that's very true. That's very true. So we do work in verticals, right? We call it verticals because of what you said, like how pricing is done and revenue management, revenue growth management is done is very different between industries, between verticals, right? So although there is quite a lot of value in bringing the whole community together from time to time, we see additional value when we bring together manufacturing companies, FMCG companies, retail companies, and so on.

10:53Diana Coelho: Because the challenges, the way that we operate, and the technologies they use are different between themselves. I fully agree that there is no one solution. So if one person comes to me and asks me, what should I implement as a pricing tool? My answer will be, well, it depends. Can we talk? Because without a conversation, there's no answer like that. But I'm happy to have the conversation and see different solutions out there. The solutions are very different between themselves. And I see a lot of companies also going for building their own solutions. And now, since, let's say, two or three years ago, with the ability of building it with AI, it's also a very different market out there.

11:31Diana Coelho: For me, the most important thing is that it's fit for purpose for that industry, that it enables best practices in the companies and not only moving from paper or spreadsheets to a sophisticated tool, right? So the best practice layer for me needs to be included and embedded into the whole transformation of implementing a technology. Yes, I agree completely. And so let's talk about EPP and the future of EPP now that it's changed hands and we're going to change EPP just a little bit. Well, first off, I guess I can't ask this question until we establish you guys are going more global. Is that a true statement?

12:10Diana Coelho: Well, so first of all, so we take EPP with all the amazing legacy that it came to us, right? So the founder era that EPP had really created an awesome community, right? The value in the community that we have is huge. So we're not changing that. We're not changing the foundation of EPP and the ways of operating and the vision, right? So the vision of having a community-driven knowledge platform remains, and we're not touching that at all. About being global or not, so the foundations and the roots of EPP are European, as everybody knows. But we have started already from a few years now to do events in other geographies, like in Asia, like in the U.S.

12:51Diana Coelho: And we see how the market behaves there. It's very different from Europe. And we think there is an opportunity to create community and to leverage the community that exists in those geographies as well. This is not to say that EPP goes widely global, right? There's just areas that we can work on and continue adding value to the community. Having said that, it's a big enough community that there's space for everybody in it. So that's a very clear point of view for us. Yes, absolutely. Okay, so now I get to ask the question that I really wanted to ask. What does the E stand for in EPP? You have to answer by what did it used to stand for?

13:29Diana Coelho: Yeah, so the origin, the grounding, the foundations of EPP is European, right? There's almost everybody who has interacted with the EPP, they know that, right? So it's a Belgium company. It was created in Belgium, Belgium, Netherlands area, right? The community there is quite strong, a lot of companies. So Paul Venarde, the founder, is from that as well. So those are really the roots of EPP from 20 years ago, where a group of friends started to sit down at the table and talk pricing. And we're never going to let go of that because those are the roots of the company in the community. but in the past EPP was spelled out as European pricing platform and as time goes by and as we promote ourselves and position ourselves differently EPP hopefully will become just EPP you know like new words that exist every day with the characters that are put together and become a word on itself so let's think about EPP as a word on its own so it's like IBM just means Exactly, exactly.

14:29We all know what it is. Okay, so I just was thinking about what I would call the E if I were going to name EPP.

14:35Diana Coelho: Okay, I'm curious now. What could we call the E? Because the pricing platform is pretty cool, right? I mean, that's a nice, and in fact, your website is pricingplatform.com. Platform.com, yeah. So that works really well. So what could we put in the E? And so, by the way, I think we should open this up to listeners and see if anybody else can give us really good proposals for what we think the E should be. Yeah, maybe there's some ideas out there. Yeah, I like excellent. I thought that would be a really nice word. Excellent pricing platforms. Excellent. Excellent, you said, yeah? Yes, that's what I said.

15:11Diana Coelho: Yeah, excellent. Yeah, that's a good adjective, right? To characterize the pricing platform. That could be a good idea. Yeah. We'll see. And maybe you'll like one and you'll use it. Maybe not. Maybe we'll just call it EPP forever. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. I think we also need to do some things. I believe in life we have to let time pass, you know, like because those things naturally evolve and new ideas come up. We wouldn't we would never do a change like that without involving the community, you know, because it's such a strong asset in the community that we wouldn't just change for the sake of changing it.

15:45Diana Coelho: So now it's EPP and let's see where EPP takes us. Okay, let's see where it takes us. So because I happen to live in the U.S., I have a special interest in what's going on in the U.S. Can you give any insight as to what you're going to be doing in the U.S. in the near future? Yeah. So we, so actually, so we're recording these on, can I say this, on the 7th of October? Yes. Although it won't be published until November. It's fine. But actually today it was day one of our jam conference in the U.S., like Forum Americas. It's happening now, today and tomorrow. and that's the second year of this forum.

16:23Diana Coelho: It's really focused on FMCG and CPG, so the revenue growth management area. It's very interesting. It's going really well. We have a lot of uptake and a lot of interest from the community there and that's something that we hope to continue. So that's definitely one area of interest. For next year, new things. Yeah, they will come up. I cannot say yet exactly what exactly, but as you know, we work in vertical, So we would never go with a big forum for the U.S. But exploring some of the verticals there, that's something we would like to do. Yeah, I really like the vertical idea, the way that you guys do that, because it just makes so much sense.

16:59And to have an RGM meeting now, right, makes a ton of sense.

17:04Diana Coelho: Yeah. Yeah, you connect peers, right? You connect people that really relate to each other in terms of what they do and the challenges they have. Uh-huh. Nice. And so why do you guys, I mean, did you conscientiously say we're going to focus on verticals? What caused that thought process? No, it was already like that. So it's not a change that me and Pedro are doing to EPP. Paul was already doing that in the past, right? So we always had the global summit at the end of the year. But for many years, we do the vertical focuses. And this is not only at forum levels, right? So also smaller levels, like more executive type of forums with smaller audiences, including trainings, right?

17:45Diana Coelho: So trainings in vertical instead of a general pricing training. That's something that's been in place for many years. And again, it's really driven by scope of work, right? So when you go into the RGM role, you talk about trade promotions and back price architecture and the likes. in the manufacturing context that's not so relevant, even though that's changing these days, right? And things are evolving. Pricing in more traditional industries, we see starting to evolve to a bit more revenue management type of concept. But also the exchange in the room is a lot more rich. People can understand each other better, right?

18:23Diana Coelho: And naturally the networking between people is also more interesting because when you are in this type of forums, you also want to make sure that you connect with peers from similar companies. And that's much easier to do in this type of verticals. Yeah. If this makes sense to you. Yeah, absolutely. And the Q &A that happens in the room as well, right, is more relevant to more of the attendees. So that works really, really well. So we've got, you said we're recording on October 7th. We're actually going to publish this early November, which means about a week from now is when EPP20 happens. So give a quick plug for EPP20.

19:00What is it? Why are we doing it? What's really cool about it?

19:03Diana Coelho: Yes, I think I haven't said that yet. But actually, so this year is a special year for EPP because it's the 20th anniversary, right? So the global forum that we have at the end of the year, which is in November 17, 18 in Amsterdam, is particularly special because we will be celebrating the 20 years of the community. So we will have pricing leaders, RGM leaders, commercial executives, consultants, solution providers, technology, et cetera, all in the same place for experience sharing, for knowledge sharing, for exchanging ideas, and very importantly, to learn from each other. Now, naturally, because it's a summit, an event, you have the stage, you have the talks happening in stage, the panels, the masterclasses, workshops, et cetera.

19:47Diana Coelho: And this is a lot of value. But besides this, the huge, like really the key value point for this event is in the connections that happen because of what's happening on stage, right? Because you see someone talking about this or that, or a company that references a solution or that references another company or a project, etc. This creates so many opportunities for people to interact offstage that the value of a summit like this, of this dimension, is not really only going, sitting down and attending a keynote, but all the connections that you bring from it. You get access to companies and industries that you would never normally would not get.

20:30Diana Coelho: So we will have all the big names there and we're so happy about that. And people attending will have connection points to that and learnings from those companies. So that's something truly unique, I think, in terms of dimension and in terms of energy that we'll have in the room. Yeah, for your listeners, Mark, you know, if it's someone that has never experienced EPP and they have nothing else better to do next week, because this is going to be one year before. So I'll be in Amsterdam because it's an awesome way to actually experience the community, right? And it's a big enough event that we won't have problems with last minute attendees as well.

21:06Diana Coelho: And for people who actually have been with EPP and that will be there, they will experience just a different level of community. Now, again, this is a one-off event. It's not something that we plan to do every year because it's a unique year for us. It's our first year assuming leadership of EPP. And at the same time, it's the 20th anniversary. So we wanted to do something truly special. Absolutely wonderful. And can I just say, I think the best thing about EPP20 is the fact that you're allowing me to launch my book, my next book. I should have said that as well. So I think it was the first 500 people who register are going to get a copy of my book that we're going to launch officially on November 17th, which is the day EPP starts.

21:52So that'll be fun.

21:53Diana Coelho: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for doing that with us. We really appreciate it. It's, again, a unique moment for the community, right? your next book from an extemed pricing fellow, right? With a lot of years of knowledge and experience. People will be very happy to see that, happy to see you and, yeah, having the book firsthand, why not? I'm excited for it as well. Yeah, I'm excited as well. All right, Diana, we're running out of time, but this has been fascinating. Even though we haven't really talked a lot about pricing specifically, I'm going to ask you the question I always end with. Okay. What is one piece of pricing advice you would give our listeners that you think could have a big impact on their business?

22:36Diana Coelho: So I would say that, so my biggest advice to everyone that I know working in pricing is for people not to work in isolation, to work with the people around them, right? So if we go back to the beginning of our conversation, pricing is this multifunctional area, cross-functional area, where you do need the expertise from product managers, category managers, sales, IT in a lot of times, and the C-levels as well, right? Because pricing depends on company strategy and not the other way around. So for all the pricing professionals out there, if there's one advice that I can give and that also helped me in my career and in the work that I do, is to be open and talk to people because they will all bring a different perspective to the table.

23:23Diana Coelho: And the combination of those perspectives for me is where the value sits, is where you can really create value to the company and you can find value capture opportunities. I think there's no better advice that you could have given. I mean, that was truly amazing. And my experience has been, look, when you go talk to all of the different departments and you truly listen to their concerns and needs and issues and start to put pieces together, you build more respect and you have more influence inside your own company. So absolutely, I agree 100%. But I am surprised your answer wasn't a 10 DPP 20.

23:59Diana Coelho: Okay, second one. Second one. Again, if you have nothing else better to do next week, we would be super happy to have you in Amsterdam. And if you do, there's plenty of opportunities next year to join another moment with EPP, right? And it's not only events, but also training, certifications, content, right? The digital community we're creating. There's many ways to get involved with the community. So linking to my advice, don't work in isolation. go out in the company, but also go out to your own pricing community because you're not alone, right? When a lot of pricing professionals feel alone in their jobs in the companies, go out because there's plenty of people like you that you can learn from and relate to.

24:43Yeah. Excellent answer. Diana, thank you so much for your time today. If anybody wants to contact you, how can they do that?

24:49Diana Coelho: I think the easiest way is to use LinkedIn, right? So my LinkedIn is Diana Coelho, my simple name. Hopefully the link will also be on the show notes. People can use that. And I'm confident that if you search EPP Diana, something will come. So LinkedIn is the easiest way. Perfect. Thank you. And to our listeners, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, would you please leave us a rating and a review? And if you have any questions or comments about the podcast, or if you want someone to guide you while you lead your own pricing and packaging transformation, Email me, mark at impactpricing.com.

25:25Now, go make an impact.