Insights From the History of Pricing and Mindfulness with Paul Hunt

Paul Hunt is chairman at Pricing Solutions. He is considered as one of the luminaries in Pricing. In 2013 he wrote a book entitled: World Class Pricing: The Journey. Of late, he is now teaching mindfulness.  In this episode, Paul talks about how companies in a fast-paced digital environment fail to recognize what their product’s true value is. With a significant change in the market and with all the competitive disruption, and deregulation taking place they fail to see what their true worth is. He also shares about his mindfulness practice and how it benefits pricing people especially those with cross-functional departments in being present, responding and not reacting, and being creative in finding solutions.   Why you have to check out today’s podcast: Learn how to price value and stay relevant amidst the changing times  Find out how to price in the digital environment and remain competitive  Discover about mindfulness meditation and how it can help be a responsive, open-minded, and effective leader    “Value is so much of a mystery for every company. Some companies get closer than others in understanding what their value is, but there’s often a gap and sometimes a significant gap.”  – Paul Hunt    Increase Your Pricing Knowledge: Become a Champions of Value INSIDER! To sign up go to insider.championsofvalue.com   Topics Covered: 01:16 – How Paul started a career in Pricing  02:03 – What made him stay with Pricing  02:57 – Why only a few understand value yet it’s important in business  04:44 – The need to be always relevant with the times  07:08 – Thoughts about procurement blowing up deals  09:07 – What is a challenger sale  13:37 – The biggest problem in Pricing today  15:26 – On talking to five people instead of doing research to figure out where the value is  17:48 – What makes his company sellable  19:01 – How long has he been doing meditation mindfulness? How does it help him?  21:17 – His thoughts of bringing lessons in meditation to business practice, particularly with pricing professionals  22:14 – How to be in the present moment  23:33 – Different ways to do mindfulness    Key Takeaways: “Pricing is a disguised word for value.” – Paul Hunt  “I think they live and breathe value, but they’re almost so close to it that they don’t see it all clearly at times. That’s why they need an outside perspective occasionally.” – Paul Hunt  “They’ve got a company because they’ve built value. They’ve delivered value. They do know value in a sense, but, of course, nobody’s perfect.”  – Paul Hunt  “You’ve got a challenger sale happening when at the end of the meeting the customer says, “I learned a lot in that meeting. I didn’t know. That’s the challenger sale at its best.” – Paul Hunt  “It’s kind of scary when you’re launching new technology in today’s fast environment without getting that homework done, but clients, they’re stretched, and they don’t have time. That’s the biggest challenge.” – Paul Hunt  “And I think everybody can really benefit from mindfulness practice. I think pricers who are dealing with a lot of cross-functional departments, finance, marketing, sales, operations, you’ve got a lot of responsibility, but sometimes not as much control as you’d like. The whole concept of responding rather than reacting is bang on. That’s exactly what a pricer needs to sort out, how do I do that?”  – Paul Hunt  “I think of it as an open mind that has great value in terms of your ability to respond, be effective, and be creative, and all those kinds of stuff.” – Paul Hunt     People / Resources Mentioned:  Spin Selling by Neil Rackham  World Class Pricing: The Journey by Paul Hunt  Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) by Jon Kabat-Zinn    Connect with Paul Hunt: E: [email protected]    Connect with Mark Stiving:    Email: [email protected] LinkedIn