Private Equity 360: Driving Value with Scientific Pricing Strategies

In the latest 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗘𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝟯𝟲𝟬 podcast, our own EVP of Manufacturing & Distribution, Jared Wiesel, joins host BOB WOOSLEY of Frazier & Deeter and Alexis Underwood, Managing Director at Wynnchurch Capital, L.P., to break down how disciplined pricing turns scattered data into real value across portfolio companies.

It starts in diligence. Pull a target’s pricing and the chart is often all over the place. That scatter is 𝘯𝘰𝘵 a red flag. It is underwritten value hiding in plain sight, and it shows you exactly where profit is leaking.

Closing that gap is the real work. The biggest wins come from treating pricing as an ongoing process, not a one-time fix, and that depends as much on change management as on analytics.

Transcript:

0:09
Hello everybody.
0:09
This is Bob Woosley, your host of Private Equity 360.
0:13
And we’ve got a really interesting episode today, something that I think it’s going to be really interesting to anybody who’s looking at working on value creation with their portfolio companies.
0:23
And I’ve got 2 great guests here that are going to go a little bit deeper than we normally do.
0:28
And we’re going to be talking about how pricing strategies can directly impact value.
0:34
Something’s I think it’s been overlooked.
0:37
And so I’m going to bring in a, you know, a great two guest, Alexis Underwood from WynnChurch Capital.
0:44
And she’s a, you know, in charge of portfolio value creation.
0:49
She’s a managing director there.
0:51
And I’m going to also bring in Jared Wiesel, who is with he’s an EVP at Revenue Analytics and they’ve worked together to tackle this issue that I think’s gonna be interesting to everybody.
1:02
So with no further ado, let’s bring them in.
1:06
Hey, Hello, Alexis and Jared, how are you?
1:08
Good.
1:09
How are you?
1:10
Fantastic.
1:11
Thanks, Bob.
1:12
Well, I’ve just been bragging on you guys, but I just want you to, if you don’t mind, introduce yourself and your organization.
1:18
Alexis, let’s just start with you and then we can go into our topic.
1:22
Great.
1:23
I’m Alexis Underwood and I lead commercial and go to market for Wynnchurch Capital.
1:28
What that practically means is that I partner with our portfolio companies and management teams to do a whole lot of sales and pricing initiatives.
1:37
We are doing pricing at almost every one of our portfolio companies now and Windchurch’s portfolio is mostly industrial mid market companies.
1:46
Alexis, I, I know you’re based in Rosemont, Illinois.
1:49
Is that correct?
1:50
That’s correct.
1:51
Just a couple minutes from O’Hare Airport.
1:53
Very convenient.
1:54
Yeah, nice, very excellent.
1:57
Jared, can you introduce yourself?
1:58
Yeah, absolutely.
1:58
Thanks, Bob.
1:59
So I’m Jared.
2:00
I run the industrial practice at Revenue Analytics and we focus exclusively on helping manufacturers and distributors drive better profits through pricing and related commercial decisions.
2:11
So we combine some services, some technology, we’ll get into it.
2:14
I’m sure it’s in process to help continue to drive ongoing EBA.
2:18
Awesome.
2:19
OK, so we on private equity 360, we’ve had several podcasts on value creation and, and you know, ranging from AI to all kinds of different things.
2:30
But you caught my attention on pricing and you gave me some examples of how if you really bore in what it, what it can really mean for moving the needle.
2:41
Alexis, let me start with you.
2:42
I mean, what, what was the problem you guys were trying to attack by focusing this narrowly on pricing?
2:49
So a lot of the companies that that we take on their commercial engine is still pretty early.
2:57
They’re still developing.
2:58
And so pricing isn’t something that they’ve typically focused on as a discrete function.
3:04
It’s maybe buried in a couple of different roles in a couple of different places and there’s tends to be a lot of opportunity.
3:12
So we’ll start during diligence and take a look at kind of scatter plots of the pricing.
3:18
And sometimes I joke it kind of looks like I’ve got a five year old son.
3:21
Sometimes it kind of looks like his finger painting.
3:24
It’s all over the place.
3:26
And for me, when I see that, I actually really like it because that that’s kind of screams opportunity.
3:32
And so we’ll typically look at that and say, OK, this is something that, you know, we, we think through a variety of means, we could kind of push forward and professionalize and, you know, usually move the bottom up and tighten those bands a little bit and get the, the pricing to be a bit more logical and structured.
3:51
So if I could play that back to you, when you’re looking at a target company, your intelligence, your, you’re seeing that they may not completely optimize their pricing strategies, right.
4:02
And your your analytics uncover some hidden gems there.
4:06
Is that am I hearing that correctly?
4:08
Yes, that’s correct.
4:09
So I think during diligence, we largely look at the quantitative side where we have access to data that’s in the data room, often transactional level data and we are we’re looking for that opportunity.
4:20
You know, sometimes you see more value added products that don’t have a higher margin or higher price.
4:25
And so we’re looking for kind of tactical or strategic things.
4:30
And then typically the solve comes after you acquire the company and it may be a combination of, you know, strategy execution process, systems change management, kind of across the board.
4:42
That’s all.
4:42
Yeah, that’s great.
4:43
Well, Jared, I guess your company focuses on this exact problem, so maybe you could give me your perspective.
4:51
Yeah, I think it definitely mirror a lot of what Alexis has to say.
4:54
I think most of these companies, right, they sell great products and services.
4:58
They’re great at customer relationships, They’re pillars of their community and really good on the operation side.
5:03
And they kind of leave the commercial up to the sales rep.
5:05
And it’s not really anybody’s fault, but just inherently or naturally as you go to market, you end up with lots of negotiation, lots of what we kind of call profit leakage, right, as we’re just wheeling and dealing.
5:14
And then that scattershot really just means for any given product, customers we often see can pay 100/200/300% difference in price.
5:22
And so that screams an opportunity not to stop all of that discounting, but be more structured about it, right?
5:27
In a way that’s a win for the company and still for the customer.
5:30
So that’s really where we focused on.
5:32
And as Alexis alluded, there’s a lot of parts to that, right?
5:34
Sounds easy, sounds obvious, it is anything but keeps us, keeps us busy day and night for sure.
5:40
A lot of these, a lot of these companies too, you know, a lot of companies look at the PNL, which is kind of a top down summarized view and to really excel at pricing and something Jared and I have worked together on.
5:52
It’s getting into that, that ultimate detailed level where you’re looking at, you know, individual customer product transaction and saying, how do you maximize that?
6:01
So it’s very much a de-averaged view that you’re so in average, you may say, hey, this product, this customer looks great.
6:09
But then when you look at every combination, you’re like, wow, 20% of this is underwater.
6:14
Is it best in situations where the companies have multiple products going to 1 customer?
6:20
Or can you find out of those hidden gems?
6:23
If if they’re only few products, you know, and you’re looking at the levers that you can, you know, make, make the company better from the revenue standpoint.
6:34
Do you see what I’m saying?
6:35
Yeah, yeah, I, I joke like, I think there aren’t many companies that don’t have a pricing opportunity.
6:41
I, I have some background in large cap companies and you know, those companies will be 15 years into their pricing journey and still have an 80 person pricing team because they’re trying to get every 10th out kind of as the market evolves.
6:54
But when you look at it there, there’s typically opportunity to bring the bottom up or to kind of fine tune a section of your pricing.
7:04
And sometimes that can be like to what Jared said within a product where you’re like, wow, 1 customer’s paying $10 and another customer’s paying $40.
7:12
That feels like a really big range.
7:15
Or sometimes it’s between the relationship between products that just over time with tariffs and other things kind of got out of whack.
7:23
Interesting.
7:24
Jared, do you get involved on the diligence side or when, when do you enter the picture?
7:29
Yeah, so, so we get involved in the diligence side.
7:31
Our business is pretty split between we get involved in the diligence and then help build the capability and muscle throughout the hold.
7:37
Other times we get involved, our first step at getting involved is actually during the hold period, right.
7:41
Somebody might be more kind of reactive, right, Get out of a board meeting.
7:45
We got some margin pressure.
7:47
We need some pricing help.
7:49
So either of those paths are usually our our stepping stone there.
7:52
And I think what we we generally see ,right, is that there’s a huge opportunity, as Alexis said it’s everywhere.
7:57
I think there’s always just that balance of making sure everybody’s bought into it, that we can go action on it, that somebody’s going to own it is really one of the big keys to our success.
8:06
So, OK, so Alexis, getting back to the diligence you do, I mean, so you know, we work for a large CPA firm and there’s a lot of quality of earnings, you know, Q of E engagements that that we support.
8:19
But it sounds like you, you you go an extra mile right when you’re digging in.
8:23
I mean, what type of information you, you alluded to it earlier is, is it, do you append that to the Q of E process or is it a separate, you know, requests that you give to the target?
8:34
Like we need contracts, emails, that type of thing and run it through an AI engine.
8:38
Or maybe you can walk me through that because I’m not used to hearing that kind of detail being requested, you know, during during diligence.
8:45
Yeah.
8:45
So, so my role was new with Wynnchurch when I joined a little over two years ago and they were already doing pretty robust Q of E, quality of earnings diligence.
8:56
And also kind of what I think most people think of your traditional commercial due diligence where you’re saying Tam, Sam, Som, like how is the market growing?
9:05
And where I really saw the opportunity was to layer on like detailed functional diligence.
9:11
And so that usually comes in terms of pricing, our topic here going deep and also sales like, OK, great, you’re in a growing market.
9:18
Does the sales team have capability to capture that growth or be above market rate for that growth?
9:25
But particularly on pricing, we do.
9:27
We request transaction level detail going back a couple of years and then we’re able to, you know, we’ve worked with Jared and Revenue Analytics on a couple of projects where we’re able to take that and do kind of a rudimentary segmentation where you group kind of like customers and products together and you look for that scatter plot to see kind of how much of that opportunity actually exists.
9:50
And so you’re taking a mass amount of transaction level data.
9:53
You know, we’ll sometimes buy distributors that have hundreds of thousands of products.
9:58
So it’s a lot of data.
9:59
But then you’re, you’re going through and you’re saying, OK, well, if we were able to move the bottom 20% of, you know, a fraction of those up 2%, how much would that be worth?
10:10
And then, oh, here’s some other things that are really out of whack if we were able to adjust that a little bit.
10:15
And so we’re we’re able to really build it into our deal model underwrite.
10:20
We tend to be a somewhat conservative, but we’re able to kind of have the data that says we think we could go clean this up and get to this value.
10:29
And that’s often in addition to saying like if it’s just overall market conditions that would let you raise a price, like, you know, we kind of say how would we clean up, clean our house and then what it what could we do to raise the overall water level?
10:41
Yeah, you’re bringing, you know, I’ve looked at your background, Alexis, I know you’re, you’re formerly with the coke industries, right.
10:49
And I said that correctly.
10:50
And I think you did a stint with GP.
10:52
Is that right here, Georgia Pacific here in Atlanta.
10:55
So it sounds like you brought that that big firm like you were saying where you have teams of analysts that are really trying to get that little, you know that extra little bit out of their product lines.
11:04
You brought that methodology down to mid-market.
11:07
It might.
11:08
Is that fair to?
11:09
Yeah, I think that that’s a good classification.
11:13
Yeah.
11:13
I think that, you know, sometimes with these bigger companies on a scale of 1 to 10, you’re trying to push and get to like an 8/9/10.
11:20
You’re really trying to go all the way and you’re doing a lot of it in house really manually and in some cases and then getting the software and just pulling it kind of all in.
11:31
And I think that experience has helped with the discernment of like where the levers and drivers can be in mid market.
11:38
So a lot of the time at a mid-market company, we’re we’re certainly not going to be building like an 80 person pricing team.
11:44
You know, we’re maybe going to have a person or, you know, a senior pricing person and an analyst.
11:49
And, and that’s where making the smart decisions of like where, which levers you can pull and how quickly become important.
11:56
And partnering with folks like Revenue Analytics, who has a great kind of, you know, software enabling package with AI that the, the more lean pricing teams can work with to get, you know, really quality insights.
12:11
And so Jared, you, you tune your software to, to handle this, right?
12:16
I mean, could you speak a little bit about what you did to develop and meet this need that, that Alexis is speaking to?
12:23
Yeah, absolutely.
12:24
And there’s actually parallels even to kind of Alexis’s, you know, enterprise, you know, example as well, right.
12:28
So our company’s DNA, we started enterprise as well.
12:31
We were building custom software kind of pre-cloud, pre-SAAS, right?
12:35
We were going in large organizations partnering to build custom software, right.
12:39
And and that was to eke out that extra 10/20/30 basis points of margin, you know, as computing power came out, you know, became much more addressable as, you know, AI came into the mix.
12:49
We’re able to more package and productize a lot of those analytics, right?
12:53
And bring them down market in a way that’s trying to fit the right balance between, you know, adoption, right?
13:00
Because recognizing where these folks start with the ongoing value.
13:04
And so where we’ve landed is we deliver the segmented price guidance to organizations and partner with them to tune that to their business and then stand up a platform that continually surfaces things like the impact, the ongoing opportunities.
13:19
We’re actually just about to release a new Rev of that that’s going to be we think pretty game changing in terms of continually seeking out leak points.
13:26
But the idea is take all the complex technology and put it behind the scenes, right?
13:30
These organizations don’t want to consume that and then use it to just tarp surface very targeted, very clear, very kind of pragmatic recommendations, right?
13:39
I think it’s really where we focus.
13:42
I think the second piece is we deliver this as an ongoing service, right?
13:45
And so again, not, not so much a picture of my company, but just philosophically, right, having run pricing teams in enterprise, having done consulting and then now being one of the leaders here is pricing needs to be an ongoing muscle, right?
13:56
Pricing is only scary when it’s that episodic one time event.
13:59
And so really where we focus is how do we start, where the customers, how do we bring them on this journey?
14:04
How do we partner just not just tech, but also strategy execution, change management.
14:09
So it sticks, right?
14:10
I mean, at the end of the day, you know, Wynnchurch wants that multiple on exit, right.
14:14
And that’s, that’s dependent on not just, hey, we did a price increase two years ago.
14:17
We got a, you know, a lift and then it drifted.
14:19
But like we’ve continued to demonstrate that we can drive margin.
14:23
Well, you know, go ahead, Alexis, I interrupted you, you keep going.
14:27
Jared raises some really interesting points.
14:29
And I think where it gets really powerful for me with pricing is, you know, I, I’ll sometimes look at something I’m like, OK, there’s data, there’s analysis, there’s insights and there’s so what, now what?
14:40
And I think a lot of the time companies will get stuck in trying to get to the perfect analysis, especially in pricing where there’s so much data. For me, I’ll, I’d much rather have kind of directional analysis that gets to action quickly.
14:53
And so like a lot of the time we’ll be trying to get to OK for a given product customer combination, what is a target, a stretch and a floor price and provide that to the sales team so they can start making better decisions.
15:07
For me, the goal is never perfection.
15:09
It’s like, how do we take that big step forward?
15:13
And I think that, that has led to a lot of value creation.
15:18
And then the second, the second point that I’ll kind of build on is I very much think that pricing needs to be a process.
15:27
Sometimes I equate it to yoga where it’s like nobody ever goes like I won yoga.
15:32
Yes, it’s more about like you’re continually improving and refining.
15:37
And to me that’s, that’s pricing.
15:39
The market continues to change.
15:41
And so you need to continue refining your pricing and you probably won’t ever get that, that high 5 moment where you’re like, yes, I won pricing, but you’re continuing that process to get better and better.
15:54
You know, it’s really interesting to me because you know, with, you know, great private equity firms like you that we know and we work with, it seems like when they’re buying a, you know, when they get it into a platform portfolio company, it’s always to me, I see it organic growth and inorganic growth, right?
16:10
And so inorganic, so obviously acquisitions, but the organic growth, I mean, a lot of private equity firms are focused on that, but I, I just haven’t heard that many that have gone to this level of science behind it.
16:25
I think that’s a real advantage and something our listeners and you know, can learn from for sure.
16:30
And I guess when they’re doing add-ons that that opens up a whole another, you know, opportunity for you to look at that pricing and product mix as well.
16:38
Correct.
16:39
And so it’s interesting the, the other comment of it’s going to make in listening to talk is that a lot of the diligence that we see is more about risk mitigation.
16:49
I mean, you look at the quality of earnings and that’s like, OK, is there, if we captured all the risk here, you, you guys are opportunity jockeys, right?
16:57
Y’all are going after the the unfound opportunity you get that people are not seeing because of of your approach.
17:04
Is that fair?
17:06
Yeah, I think a lot of what we’re trying to work through is providing confidence that the opportunity is there and providing confidence that we can underwrite and lean in in certain areas to get a deal done.
17:20
I mean it’s getting harder and harder to get those deals done.
17:23
And so if you have the confidence and conviction that a pricing opportunity is there, you’ll underwrite it.
17:30
And I think that that’s it gets very powerful when you’re when you’re talking about an opportunity that right from, you know, your earliest deal memo you’re talking about and then it plays all the way through to the value creation plan that you’re driving for, you know, your hold.
17:45
Then that is it’s it’s very powerful and I imagine your interactive up with the VP of Sales and you’re saying, OK, we’ve analyzed this, there’s elasticity here that you’re not seeing and you know there’s probably a lot of involvement in executing what you’ve seen right up with your portfolio companies.
18:03
Can you describe a little bit about that?
18:05
How is that received or do you are sometimes like like I had no idea the customer would, would actually, we can actually push the customer a little bit more on pricing.
18:14
How’s that experience been for you?
18:16
So when I think about pricing, I think about kind of a mixture of strategy execution and change management.
18:23
And for me, it’s usually about 10% strategy, 40% execution, 50% change management.
18:29
A lot of the time I think pricing is kind of, I joke that it’s like backbone insertion for the sales team.
18:37
They really need to have the confidence in what you’re going to, what you’re doing and what you’re recommending.
18:43
And, you know, it’s all about helping them find that lever, that pricing lever and understand the value that they’re delivering and the customer willingness to pay.
18:54
And if they haven’t leaned into pricing in the past, that that can be the hardest part.
19:00
You know, it’s often times it can be like, OK, we’re just going to run a real small experiment and we’re going to try something.
19:06
And so you raise price, you know, a couple points and nothing happens.
19:11
Then you do it someplace else and no volume is lost.
19:14
And all of a sudden people say like, oh, OK, but they start to find that lever and it stops being so big and scary.
19:22
Some of our portfolio companies, I, I laugh like I’ll go in there and one of my peers will be like renegotiating, negotiating a FedEx contract and nobody blinks.
19:31
Everyone’s like, that’s fine.
19:33
And I go in there and like whisper like, let’s do a 1% price increase and everybody freaks out, which totally moves the needle.
19:41
I mean, that 1% on, I’m sure you’re, you’re looking at companies that have, you know, 6 figure, I mean, well, more than that revenue that could really absolutely move it 1% or a couple points.
19:54
That’s huge, right?
19:56
Yeah.
19:57
Jared, what’s your, what’s your take on, I mean, when post-acquisition do do your tools come into play, you know, on an ongoing basis?
20:06
I mean, how’s that work with you?
20:07
Yeah.
20:07
So we really get embedded with the business and to Alexis’ point, the whole idea is how do we help them de-average the pricing?
20:12
How do we create segments?
20:14
Like a lot of times that scattershot, it’s not all bad, right?
20:16
It’s just the market’s seeking different levels because they’re different willingness to pay by geography or customer segment or industry, things like that.
20:24
And so how do we de-average the guidance?
20:26
And then really where we are in our keep is how do we set that guidance in a way that’s going to be believable to the sales team, right?
20:31
Because they have to believe it before they’re even willing to present it to the customer, right.
20:35
And then how do we continually update where the technology comes?
20:38
How do we continually evolve the guidance as these macro, you know, economic shocks continue, never mind just kind of regional differences, buying behaviors, etc, because you know, pricing gets stale pretty quick, right.
20:49
And so how do we continue to work with the business to pull those those levers?
20:52
And I think to Alexis’ point, you got to get over that emotional hump after time and you start to build the confidence, you know, we call it kind of the boiling frog and water approach.
21:00
We’re not going to snap to something right, but just slowly keep turning up the heat is kind of philosophically how we think about it.
21:06
But if you can do that and find some wins early on, I think that’s really the big, the big secret.
21:11
I mean, you mentioned the, the add-on acquisitions, Bob, this is like a side anecdote.
21:15
I mean, we actually find that that’s usually one of the biggest opportunities for a lot of these companies.
21:19
Their pricing, you know, before we start working with them is cost plus, right?
21:23
So we have this building products distributor, right?
21:26
You’re buying these working, you know, workers gloves, right?
21:28
It’s OK, we buy them for 8 bucks.
21:30
We throw our 25% margin on, we sell them for $10, right?
21:34
Well, over time, as they did a whole bunch of bolt on acquisitions, they were now buying those gloves at $5.
21:41
Were they still charging $10 in market?
21:44
Nope.
21:44
They were charging like $6.25 because they were just the system just added that 25% on and was off the races.
21:49
And we said hold on, hold on.
21:50
You know, what would customers no longer be willing to pay?
21:54
And some reps say, well, that’s not fair, right?
21:56
It’s not fair to charge them or margin.
21:58
Others say, yeah, no, why are we doing that?
21:59
Right?
22:00
They didn’t even know that they were kind of handing back all of this synergy and cost savings that, you know, the portfolio company and private equity firm worked really hard to to get.
22:08
And that’s a really common thing we see a lot.
22:10
And often times I share that the example of intro calls and everybody starts nervously looking around like, well, we better go check for that.
22:16
Well, that that really resonates with me as as a professional service firm, I’ve always thought that, you know, charging by the hour, that’s our cost, not necessarily what our service is worth.
22:27
And so it’s exactly what you’re saying, right?
22:30
I mean, it’s what the market will bear and what the value is if you can do it more efficiently.
22:34
And like you’re saying those gloves aren’t worth less just because you’ve come up with different supply chain or that type of thing.
22:41
So that, that really resonates with me.
22:43
And I think another, another thing with the bolt-ons that’s kind of interesting is a lot of the time when you’re, when you’re doing an acquisition to a platform company, one of the things you’re betting on is the, the, the ability to cross sell or upsell.
22:55
But a lot of the time companies don’t have the ability to really track that in a meaningful way and or like track the win rates of some of this.
23:05
And you know, especially sometimes you’re going from a smaller founder-led business that’s then going into the one of these cost plus environments.
23:12
And it’s very easy for the pricing to slide if you’re not monitoring it closely.
23:19
And there’s that balancing act of price versus volume all the time.
23:23
And so being able to to monitor and fine tune it lets you get those bets around cross sell and maximize your volume and profit over time.
23:32
Yeah, that really makes a lot of sense.
23:35
One thing I’m kind of ask one more question.
23:37
We’ll start kind of turning around toward third base and hit start heading to home.
23:41
But but you know, a lot of our clients, you know that when they’re professionalizing their portfolio companies, you know, we see a lot of, you know, executives coming in at the finance level, particularly CFOs and that type of thing.
23:54
And hearing you talk, it seems that that you probably have a certain type of VP of sales, you know, personality, you know, we’ve talked a lot about, you know, hopefully they’re coachable right on the portcos.
24:07
But do you find yourself sometimes bringing in the right kind of VP of sales that can embrace your strategies?
24:14
Has that been your experience or is it more about just enlightening the existing team or it’s probably a combination, But love to hear your thoughts on that.
24:23
So a lot of the time in these like manufacturing industrial type companies, you have a head of sales who really knows the market, really knows the customer and has a great feel for for the willingness to pay of their customers for the value that they’re delivering.
24:41
But maybe they’re not a particularly like data-driven systems, CRM driven type sales leader.
24:49
And what I often look, I try and be pretty pragmatic with this.
24:53
It’s like you never want to give up that real great industry knowledge, but you want them to be able to kind of partner, supplement that and refine it.
25:03
So at a lot of our companies, we’ll put in like a sales OPS, Rev OPS, you know, pricing leader type role that can really bring that like data insights and present you know, potential action plans that then that sales leader can go after.
25:20
So a lot of the time I find that partnership is very powerful and there’s plenty of work in that space.
25:28
I’d say the other direction we sometimes end up going is depending on like the magnitude of change that needs to happen with the kind of commercial engine pricing being part of of it.
25:38
Sometimes you’re keeping that sales leader in place, but you’re bringing in like a Chief commercial officer, I think the next five years, a lot of discussion around that being around growth.
25:51
And so sometimes that just takes a different kind of strategic approach that is more of that kind of that chief commercial officer that’s going to bring all of the revenue functions together to really be like maximizing that engine so that it’s humming.
26:06
That makes a lot of sense to me.
26:08
It, you know, now it makes a lot more sense than just OK, we’re going to put a new VP of sales that’ll actually listen to us and you’re actually are promoting a whole another C level executive.
26:19
That’s more of in a support function, right?
26:22
That’s, that makes a lot, probably a lot less threatening to your portfolio companies.
26:27
Well, this been great.
26:29
I’ve, I’ve learned a lot, a lot more than I thought I would on this call.
26:33
No, I I was expecting to learn a lot, but any, any last thoughts before we kind of close it up?
26:39
Jared, how about you?
26:40
Yeah, no, I definitely, definitely appreciate it.
26:43
I learned, I always learned something too on these Bob. You know, I think just going back to a couple of key things to me, like what does success look like here?
26:49
One part we didn’t touch on is the data, right. To do all of this, making sure we have the data correct is really the lifeblood of the analytics, right?
26:57
And then it’s how do we make it approachable?
26:59
And then how do we make it a continuous effort?
27:01
I think that’s just really what this all comes down to.
27:03
And then and that drives the buy and that gains the organizational confidence to keep keep moving the needle on profit.
27:09
But it can be done right.
27:10
I think a lot of folks think it’s too scary.
27:12
And so I just encourage people to to dip their toe in and, and start right is really the hardest part.
27:17
Well, before we go to your final thoughts, Alexis, I, I do want to comment on what you, you just said, Jared, because we coach our clients that that may or be thinking about a transaction someday is having a complete control of their data and key indicators.
27:32
And that type of thing will help, you know, great.
27:35
You know, private equity firms like Alexis’ firm, they don’t want to go in and the data is just a complete mess, right.
27:42
That probably chills you a little bit. Doesn’t it, Alexis, when you’re thinking about that?
27:45
So we got to fix it.
27:46
Yeah, that like, but if they’ve got it together, right, if they really understand and they they’ve got great control of their data, that that really helps, doesn’t it?
27:55
Even though they may not have analyzed pricing the way you do.
27:58
Yeah, so I think most of the commercial functions and pricing, especially to me, it really is like a mix of art and science, especially when you’re trying to get the results, you know, get your multiple improvement over your hold period.
28:14
And the science part, I think that’s where to me the data comes in and you’re really trying to fine tune that and you’re trying to get as much squeezed out of that as you can.
28:25
But to me, that’s kind of half the battle.
28:27
I think the other side really is that art and that’s that change management, that people side of it.
28:33
And you know, sometimes when you’re working through pricing, you’re trying to figure out like what’s the zone of indifference for a customer?
28:39
Like what where can we push that they’re not going to notice where we’re not going to break this thing.
28:44
And, and other times you’re working internally with, yeah, your head of sales, your management on where can you start to make an impact, find that pricing lever the quickest.
28:53
And a lot of the time that’s my discussion is there’ll be a couple areas that, you know, are the this the “sacred cows” of, of the organization.
29:01
You’re like, OK, well, maybe we’re not not going to start there.
29:04
Maybe that’s something we grow into.
29:07
But I find when, when you’re approaching pricing, if if you’re only looking at the person side, like how do you, how do you browbeat the sales team to get it?
29:16
Or you’re only looking at the data side of how do we analyze and figure out what to do?
29:20
It’s probably not ultimately going to be a successful initiative.
29:24
So I say to take the approach of focusing on both in parallel and, and that’s kind of your, your road to winning in this area, which makes you two executives great collaborators and probably great partners in this initiative.
29:38
So it’s wonderful.
29:39
Well, thank you so much.
29:41
We, you know, again, for our listeners and viewers, you know, we have Alexis Underwood from WynnChurch Capital in Rosemont, Illinois, great private equity firm.
29:52
Alexis is the managing director, operating partner of Portfolio Value Creation, You know, super qualified.
30:00
That was great listening to you.
30:01
And we have Jared Wiesel, who’s a EVP at Revenue Analytics.
30:06
And I think, Jared, you’re based here in Atlanta, GA is that correct?
30:10
Yes, not, not very often.
30:12
I haven’t fellow Atlantan on my podcast.
30:15
Yeah, we’re headquartered in Atlanta.
30:16
I actually candidly now live in the Florida Panhandle.
30:19
So OK, well, there we go.
30:20
The pandemic, but yes, our company’s there.
30:22
Lived there for a long time.
30:23
So it’s a great spot to be located.
30:25
Well, I know that we’ll have your contact information, and I hope a lot of our listeners reach out if they want to learn more.
30:33
But very much appreciate it.
30:35
Thanks everybody for listening to this episode of Private Equity 360.