Research increasingly shows that price is rarely the deciding factor in B2B buying decisions. Across manufacturing, software, services, and recurring commercial relationships, what drives selection and renewal is not price—but confidence, credibility, and perceived value. What if everything you believe about pricing is wrong? How Are We Telling Our Stories? “This is such a competitive market, we need to price to win.” It hurts my ears every time I hear it. Imagine hearing tha

Article written by Ryan Walter of Jennings Executive Search https://www.jenningsexec.com/   Misconceptions that lead to underinvestment or misalignment We’ve worked with companies where pricing was buried under sales ops. Others where it sat in finance, but had no access to customers. And still others where pricing was a strategic function— on paper — but never staffed, supported, or taken seriously. In nearly every case, the issue wasn’t bad intent. It was a fundamental misu

Article written by Ryan Walter of Jennings Executive Search https://www.jenningsexec.com/ How pricing teams can evolve into broader value-creation engines Some of the most capable analytics talent in a company sits inside the pricing function. They’re already working across sales, finance, and product. They’re already fluent in margin, mix, volume, and customer behavior. They’re used to ambiguity, and they’re trained to tie data to commercial outcomes. But in many companie

When the annual plan sets the board — and pricing reveals how the game is played

When a CEO Asks, “What Can We Do With Pricing This Year?” The real question is: Are we prepared for what 2026 is about to demand?

Article written by Ryan Walter of Jennings Executive Search https://www.jenningsexec.com/   What to pay, how to title, and how to structure incentive comp Most companies don’t feel confident when they’re hiring for pricing. The scope is fuzzy. The titles are inconsistent. The comp data doesn’t reflect reality. And somewhere along the way, someone asks: “Are we about to overpay for someone who’s just been doing quotes in Excel?” We’ve been in that conversation with clients mor

Written by Brendan Hodge — professional pricer, founder of PricingEvolution, contributing editor at The Pillar, novelist, and blogger. Read more of his work on Pricing Evolution: https://www.pricing-evolution.com/ My daughter sat down at the dining room table where I was working and announced, “I can’t decide whether I should buy the AirPods at $89 or wait for them to drop lower.” With a house full of teenagers and young adults, I’m used to having to dole out advice on “adult

Article written by Ryan Walter of Jennings Executive Search https://www.jenningsexec.com/ What years in orchestras taught me about the leadership qualities strong pricing teams rely on Pricing leaders are often handed a strange assignment. You are accountable for outcomes without owning most of the inputs. You are expected to bring clarity to functions that all hear different versions of the same market. And on top of that, you are told to lead people who do not report to yo

Article written by Ryan Walter of Jennings Executive Search https://www.jenningsexec.com/ And how to spot when it already is Most pricing teams don’t fail because of bad intent or lack of effort. They fail because they’re lopsided. Either they overthink and never ship, or they ship nonstop without ever improving. Leaders feel it before they can explain it — the sense that everything is reactive, or that nothing ever quite sticks. We’ve seen teams caught in both traps. And we’

Article written by Ryan Walter of Jennings Executive Search https://www.jenningsexec.com/ The Pricing Career Ladder — From Analyst to VP and Beyond Common career trajectories, how responsibilities evolve, and where pricing leaders go next Most pricing professionals didn’t grow up dreaming of pricing. They started in finance, ops, sales, product — or, in some cases, outside the business world entirely. I came from a classical music background. While playing in the Dallas Opera

Article written by Ryan Walter of Jennings Executive Search https://www.jenningsexec.com/ Traits , skills, and behaviors that set top performers apart Pricing is one of the most misunderstood leadership roles in a business. It touches every function — but rarely owns any of them. It’s technical, but not purely analytical. Strategic, but operationally messy. High-stakes, but often under-resourced. And that makes it hard to hire for. We’ve placed hundreds of pricing leaders. Th

Article written by Ryan Walter of Jennings Executive Search https://www.jenningsexec.com/ The growing demand for pricing talent in PE-backed companies Private equity hasn’t ignored pricing — but for a long time, it was treated as a lever, not a function. Pressure-test the model. Tighten discounting. Run a quick SKU rationalization. Then move on to sourcing or SG&A. But that’s shifting. More funds are investing in pricing as a capability — not just a one-time initiative.

This isn’t for the executives still debating whether pricing is “strategic.”This is for those who already know they need to do something about it—and the people ready to hand their CEO a plan and say, “This. Do this.”

Michael Hammer used to tell a story about an engineer walking across the quad who finds a talking frog. The frog says, “If you kiss me, I’ll turn into a fairy princess and be your girlfriend for life.” The engineer picks up the frog, puts it in his pocket, and keeps walking. The frog wriggles and insists, “Hey, kiss me! I’ll be your girlfriend for life.” The engineer pulls it out, looks at it, and says, “I don’t think you understand. I’m an engineer. What would I do with a gi

Article written by Ryan Walter of Jennings Executive Search https://www.jenningsexec.com/ Motivators beyond compensation — impact, visibility, and tooling It’s easy to assume that pricing professionals want the same things as anyone else: fair pay, a solid team, and a path to grow. And they do. But if that’s all you offer, you’ll still lose good people. In the conversations we have daily — across roles, industries, and career stages — the same themes come up again and again.

Eyes on the Stars, Feet on the Ground. Artificial intelligence is the latest cure for the common price—promises of margin uplift at the...