How to Build an All-Star Pricing Team

By Jordan Assaf, Senior Director of Full Service Pricing

Is it time to scale your one man shop or small business? 

Building a pricing team takes time to perfect. We launched Full Service Pricing 5 years ago and learned a lot along the way. Here are some of our biggest takeaways.

The Interview Process

Just like a GM needs strong players to build a winning franchise, the best pricing team starts by hiring top talent.

You need resumes that fit your ideal candidate so make sure your job post matches exactly what you are looking for. We found that many of our applicants don’t have pricing or ticket industry experience so we look for candidates with an analytics or finance background. 

During the first interview, set realistic expectations for your applicants. For example, the markets move 24/7 so we make sure our candidates are willing to work different shifts outside 9 AM – 6 PM, like on the weekend or at night.

If we feel like the candidate might be a good fit for us, they take an in-person test. The goal of this test is to analyze the candidates’ logic when making pricing decisions for different events. For example, do they understand the impact on prices when a team goes on a winning streak? 

Interested in Full Service Pricing? Schedule a demo!

Training

New team members aren’t starters right away. Our rookies go through a two-month training program to learn how to use UpTick, Atlas, our inventory management system, and other internal data tools.

Employees must also get to know your business’ inventory and unique strategy. At Broker Genius, our full service clients have a clear strategy. They may want their near term or far out events priced a specific way so we invest a lot of time into learning about our clients’ preferences. 

All of this knowledge is acquired through one-on-one trainings and shadowing with our managers and team members. Rookies are constantly getting feedback during training to become an expert pricer. 

The Pricing Exam

The objective of the training program is to prepare the new employees for our pricing exam. It has questions with difficult pricing scenarios that require in depth market analysis. We found success with and suggest a test to evaluate your employees’ new skills. 

After our new employees pass the exam, we ease them into pricing real inventory. We monitor them while pricing simple inventory and then give them progressively difficult work over time. 

Day to Day Pricing

Whether you are a rookie or a seasoned vet, all of our team members attend weekly meetings and one-on-ones with their managers. 

All businesses should also foster an open and positive culture. We want everyone to feel comfortable asking questions and getting feedback because there is always room for new skills and improvement. On a business-level, you want your team to enjoy working to reduce turnover.

You should create the right physical environment for the work. Each Broker Genius pricer gets a desk with four screens so they can use UpTick and all of our internal tools.

Interested in Full Service Pricing? Schedule a demo!