AI as a Multiplier for Pricing with Emanuel Martonca

AI as a Multiplier for Pricing with Emanuel Martonca

Emanuel Martonca, founder of Soft Fight, reveals how agentic AI is solving one of the biggest challenges in IT services: coordinating pricing decisions across hundreds of people in decentralized organizations.

After his career journey from product management to sales management to discovering pricing at a Simon Kucher workshop, Emanuel shares how his bootstrapped company evolved from traditional consulting to building AI-powered pricing agents that act as an ever-present pricing manager- coaching teams, improving proposals, and recommending pricing models without sending a single byte of data outside the client's infrastructure.

In this episode, learn why AI should augment rather than replace pricing teams, why deterministic calculations still matter, and how to quantify value in IT services without universal quality standards.

Why You Have to Check Out Today's Podcast:

  • Discover how AI solves coordination problems in large IT services companies where hundreds of people make pricing decisions without pricing expertise.
  • Learn why AI should augment pricing teams, not replace them, and why deterministic calculations still matter more than probabilistic AI outputs.
  • Understand how to quantify value in IT services using measurable quality attributes instead of universally accepted standards.

"Pricing is leverage. It allows you to have an impact with very few actions, with little effort."

– Emanuel Martonca

Topics Covered:

01:32 -Emanuel's transformational discovery of pricing at a Belgian retail bank workshop that revealed a world he didn't know existed—launching 18 years of pricing-focused work.

02:37 - Why pricing is the ultimate leverage tool, especially in B2B tech where "it's just communication"—what you write in Excel, on websites, and in proposals.

03:28 - How the pandemic transformed Emanuel from a globe-trotting sales manager into a pricing consultant, then bootstrapped Soft Fight to solve the value extraction gap in tech companies.

04:41 - How large IT companies lose money when hundreds of non-experts across five functions (finance, marketing, sales, delivery, executives) make pricing decisions on every custom project.

06:59 - The evolution from deterministic SaaS pricing rules to AI-augmented agents installed in client infrastructure—solving pricing problems in hours instead of years without sending data externally.

08:00 - Why new deals lack technical depth and renewals lack value articulation—and how AI coordinates knowledge without restructuring organizations.

11:00 - Eight AI agents (four for understanding, four for justifying) with access to all systems but zero external communication—no security or privacy risks.

13:00 - All pricing calculations remain deterministic because AI makes too many mistakes—it's used only for reading RFPs, emails, and meeting notes to improve value communication.

14:17 - How AI acts as a coach recommending pricing models with ready-made arguments, eliminating months of change management—with email as the main interface.

16:17 - Why determining "how long will this take?" is unpredictable and varies by person and timing—and how AI solves the costliest unknown in custom projects.

18:00 - Mark's perspective on why costs matter less than value, and why companies avoid alternative pricing models despite knowing hourly billing hurts both sides.

21:00 - When AI tools cut development time, hourly pricing becomes self-defeating: "You're cutting your own revenue"—forcing the industry to finally sell value, not time.

21:56 - Starting with measurable quality attributes on invented scales that competitors can't compare—getting 80% of the way just by having the quantification discussion.

23:00 - Mark's framework for B2B value and why results translate to economic impact through customer KPIs like reduced complaints, not abstract "quality" metrics.

25:00 - Unlike automotive suppliers with nanometer specs, IT services vendors can define their own quality metrics—putting them two steps ahead of alternatives.

26:00 - The necessity of industry knowledge for value conversations (increase revenue, reduce costs, mitigate risk) and how AI enables understanding of new sectors that would've taken years.

27:30 - Final Advice: AI as Your Pricing Force Multiplier Using AI for research, analysis, and domain understanding when teams are too small or mandates unclear—plus how to connect with Emanuel on LinkedIn.

Key Takeaways:

"AI is a huge multiplier for pricing experts—not for calculating prices, I agree with you on that, it's not there yet. But for everything else around pricing, whether we want to call it product management, analysis, or research, it can help us overcome typical challenges." - Emanuel Martonca

"Pricing is a change management problem. It can be done, it'll take months, sometimes years, and they have to experiment and they have to make mistakes." - Emanuel Martonca

Resources Mentioned:

Connect with Emanuel Martonca:

Connect with Mark Stiving:

Avsnitt(500)

Pricing Table Topics: 9 of Clubs – Focus on Lifetime Value

Pricing Table Topics: 9 of Clubs – Focus on Lifetime Value

This one is the 9 of Clubs from the Impact Pricing card deck.  We often hear the word 'strategic' as in, "Hey, I'm making a decision today so that it grows my business someday in the future." Well, that's exactly what we want to do when we think about the lifetime value of a customer. I'm not so worried about, "Can I get the three year contract signed today?" Many companies do. But when you try to get the three year contract signed right away, you make it harder to win the customer. But what if you took a one year contract? Or what if you took a one month contract? Or even had a free trial period. And you let people get into your product, and you deliver so much value that they never leave. What we just did was get them into our ecosystem. And then over time we can get them to buy more from us, to stay with us. And that's because we know we're delivering a ton of value. This is what it means to focus on lifetime value. I'm okay taking a smaller number today because I know that over time this customer is going to grow with me and give me a whole lot more money that I'm trying to capture today. Whereas if we focus on the value of the three year contract, it's oftentimes hard to win that customer today. We hope you enjoyed this example of Pricing Table Topics. What you just heard was done without a script. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

23 Feb 20242min

Pricing Table Topics: 9 of Diamonds – Subscription Is a Business Model

Pricing Table Topics: 9 of Diamonds – Subscription Is a Business Model

This one is the 9 of Diamonds from the Impact Pricing card deck.  When we think about subscriptions, and I've talked to several companies who are trying to move from more of a transactional business to a subscription business, they think it's 'just pricing'. "Oh, we want to set our price this way." But it turns out it changes so much in your business, not just the way you set pricing. One of my favorite things about the subscription business model is that buyers pay us for a continuous stream of benefits, meaning we're delivering benefits month after month after month. The question in your business is, are you truly delivering benefits month after month after month? In which case, maybe you have a good business for starting a subscription business model. Then we want to think about, not only how are we delivering it, but then, how much value do they get each month? How do we start to capture that? And so, we can certainly price it, but we really need to structure our company around winning these customers. And then we have to figure out, how do we keep them? How do we minimize churn? And over time, we figure out how to grow these customers. How to get them to upgrade or buy more from us? So, subscription isn't as simple as, 'let's change the way we do pricing'. It really is an entire business model. We hope you enjoyed this example of Pricing Table Topics. What you just heard was done without a script. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

21 Feb 20242min

Maximize Profitability and Value with these Revolutionary Pricing Models with Dan Zatta

Maximize Profitability and Value with these Revolutionary Pricing Models with Dan Zatta

Dan Zatta is a leading management advisor in topline growth. He specialized in profit improvement on the revenue side, with extensive experience in pricing. He is the author of the books 'The 10 Rules of Highly Effective Pricing' and 'The Pricing Model Revolution', translated into 10+ languages. In this episode, Dan shares how these pricing models he mentions in his book can greatly impact a company's growth and profitability when used in a comprehensive approach. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Explore the various pricing models that can significantly influence your bottom line Discover a pricing model that helps you identify an additional unique selling point, ultimately boosting profitability Learn why it's crucial to have a holistic perspective of the company's overall impact before embracing innovative revenue models "Make sure to be quick in increasing prices, ideally combine this with additional value to meet your profitability targets." - Dan Zatta Topics Covered: 01:13 - What finally got him into pricing after being a generalist 02:05 - A trick he does to gain sales peoples' support when increasing prices 02:32 - What inspired him to write his book 'The Pricing Model Revolution' 04:16 - Pricing as not an exact science 05:29 - An interesting fact about another reason for writing his book 'Revenue Management in Manufacturing' 07:34 - From an academic writing style to using language understood by non-pricing experts in writing his books 08:48 - What AI-based Pricing can do for your bottom line even when you are already an advanced organization 11:19 - Many more AI-based pricing opportunities available even with companies already using AI 12:34 - Explaining what Neuro Pricing is and the tool used for this 14:34 - Creating another source of competitive advantage in pricing with outcome-based pricing 17:18 - The need for comprehensive view into the company before adopting pricing models 19:31 - Defining Sympathetic Pricing 21:52 - Important thoughts on the idea of price fairness 25:21 - What is Psychological Pricing 27:28 - Dan's best pricing advice Key Takeaways: "Let's think about value also when we price and looking into outcomes could be one of those." - Dan Zatta "If you are not changing your processes the way you're approaching how salespeople are compensated, then you risk having an issue with the model that maybe is great, but it's not pushed internally. And the same can be the case with incentives for clients." - Dan Zatta "The impact of volatility of raw materials, there is still inflation in a number of countries. So rather than waiting, make sure that you're not losing time because the more time passes when costs are increasing, the more time you will need to recover profitability." - Dan Zatta People/Resources Mentioned: The Pricing Model Revolution by Danilo Zatta: https://www.amazon.de/dp/1119900573/ref=tsm_1_fb_lk Revenue Management in Manufacturing: State of the Art, Application and Profit Impact in the Process Industry by Danilo Zatta: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Management-Manufacturing-Application-Industry/dp/3319302396 Uber: https://www.uber.com Lyft: https://www.lyft.com Peter Drucker: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker Connect with Dan Zatta: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danilo-zatta/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

19 Feb 202428min

Blogcast: Brilliant Price Move by Amazon Prime

Blogcast: Brilliant Price Move by Amazon Prime

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on January 11, 2024, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/brilliant-price-move-by-amazon-prime/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

16 Feb 20243min

Pricing Table Topics: 9 of Hearts – Win, Keep, and Grow: Manage All Three

Pricing Table Topics: 9 of Hearts – Win, Keep, and Grow: Manage All Three

This one is the 9 of Hearts from the Impact Pricing card deck. I found it fascinating when I studied subscriptions coming from a more traditional or transactional type of business where people would buy something from you, and then you have to get them to buy again. In a subscription, people buy something from you and then they pay you month after month, or year after year. And in that business model, there are several things that are unique. But one of them is that you suddenly have to focus on how do we keep a customer? We always have to win customers, but how do we keep that customer? And we've heard the word churn, and we know the churn is bad, and companies focus on how do I minimize churn. And there's also a third revenue bucket and that's called grow. Once I have a customer who's paying me and getting value for my product, how do I get them to pay me more money next year than they paid me this year? And we can typically do that with things like raising prices, or getting them to upgrade, or using more of our product. There are several of these techniques. What's interesting though is that the tactics that we use inside our company to win customers is different than what we need to keep customers. And different again than what we need to grow customers. We suddenly have complicated our business model because we really and truly do need to manage all three of those revenue buckets separately. We hope you enjoyed this example of Pricing Table Topics. What you just heard was done without a script. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

14 Feb 20242min

Building a High-Performing Pricing Team That Drives Growth with Jon Jennings

Building a High-Performing Pricing Team That Drives Growth with Jon Jennings

Jon Jennings is the founder and managing partner of Jennings Executive Search. Established in 2014. His vision was to shape a firm anchored in transparency and value creation. In this episode, Jon discusses the strategies for hiring pricing professionals and building a dedicated pricing team that significantly contributes to a company's strategic success. Why you have to check out today's podcast: Discover how to effectively structure your pricing team and determine the optimal number of pricing professionals to hire based on your company's size Explore crucial steps to assess pricing role offers, ensuring a thorough understanding and avoiding impulsive decisions Learn important factors to consider when hiring pricing professionals for high, mid, and entry-level pricing positions "Once you can build those relationships with sales and the customers and understand what really makes them tick, it's a lot easier to price to it, to add value." - Jon Jennings Topics Covered: 01:38 - How he paved a path into pricing 04:04 - What great impact a little tweak in pricing can do 05:12 - At what point are they able to start helping clients fix their pricing 06:18 - When do private equity firms decide to hire pricing consultants and pricing professionals 09:21 - Designing a pricing structure for a $50M manufacturing company 12:49 - How many pricing professionals you should hire given the size of your company 15:41 - Opportunities for pricing roles these days 17:39 - The best thing to do when looking for pricing jobs 19:06 - Insights on writing your resume and putting it on LinkedIn 21:23 - Vetting pricing jobs before jumping in 24:22 - A chance to talk and vet for a thousand individuals for pricing roles 25:14 - What does Jon look for when vetting people for pricing roles 27:54 - The need to think outside of the box when you're a pricing professional 28:40 - Jon's best pricing advice Key Takeaways: When looking for job opportunities: "Look through your network. Just like anything, take your time, take a breath, it's going to be alright." - Jon Jennings "You don't need to jump at the first thing; evaluate it based on the merit of the opportunity." - Jon Jennings When vetting a job offer or a candidate for a job: "When it feels like they're covering something up or not, just not telling me the whole truth, that's when I get a little nervous." - Jon Jennings "They understand things connect, so that skillset tend, if they have some business acumen and a little bit of personality to go with it, they translate well to pricing." - Jon Jennings "I want to find people that like to break the wheel or build it, that's our approach to the more mid level. And the lower level is people that are just high achievers and with a quantitative math brain." - Jon Jennings People/Resources Mentioned: Portco: https://www.portco.com GitHub: https://github.com Connect with Jon Jennings: Website: https://jenningsexec.com/pricing-strategy/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonjennings/ Connect with Mark Stiving: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/ Email: mark@impactpricing.com

12 Feb 202430min

Blogcast: Pricing Platforms and Solutions

Blogcast: Pricing Platforms and Solutions

This is an Impact Pricing Blog published on January 4, 2024, turned into an audio podcast so you can listen on the go. Read Full Article Here: https://impactpricing.com/blog/pricing-platforms-and-solutions/ If you have any feedback, definitely send it. You can reach us at mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

9 Feb 20244min

Pricing Table Topics: 9 of Spades – There Is More Profit in Price Segmentation

Pricing Table Topics: 9 of Spades – There Is More Profit in Price Segmentation

This one is the 9 of Spades from the Impact Pricing card deck.  There are two major rules in pricing that are hugely valuable to your organization. The first one is value-based pricing, which simply means charge what your customers are willing to pay. The second one is to adopt price segmentation. Think about this for just a second. No two buyers actually are willing to pay the same price. Which means every buyer has a different willingness to pay. If we really want to adopt value-based pricing, at its best, then what we're doing is trying to figure out, how do we get individual people to pay us what they're willing to pay? Of course, this is impossible to do perfectly, but it's not impossible to say, hey, this type of person, this type of customer, gets more value from our product. They're willing to pay more because they get more value. We see this all the time. For example, it could be that when we sell to Asia, they're more price sensitive so they end up with a better price. And when we sell in the US or Europe, we end up charging higher prices. This is price segmentation and that's where the value is. There are several ways to do price segmentation. Those include understanding the characteristics of your customer. What information can you collect at the time of the transaction? And then, are there behaviors or hurdles you could put in their way so that those who are price sensitive are willing to jump that hurdle in order to get a better price? So, my advice, think very hard about, how do you do price segmentation? How can you charge different customers different amounts based on their willingness to pay? We hope you enjoyed this example of Pricing Table Topics. What you just heard was done without a script. If you have any questions or feedback, please email me, mark@impactpricing.com. Now, go make an impact. Connect with Mark Stiving: Email: mark@impactpricing.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stiving/

7 Feb 20242min

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