The future of fintech B2B selling includes 15-minute, double opt-in meetings between people with a mutual interest in doing business

Whether you’re a business looking for the right vendor/partner or a vendor seeking the right customer, the path to success lies in finding each other. This is especially true in complex ecosystems like financial services. 

Digital tools for optimizing B2B sales and procurement processes have exploded in recent years. CRMs help us monitor the sales funnel. Demand and lead generation tools help us scour digital sources for prospects. And social media, sales enablement and marketing automation tools help move prospects through the sales funnel.

Yet industry conferences and events remained one of the best ways to get out there and meet and mingle with people in our industry. Until the pandemic.

Of course, the pandemic will pass and we will return to in-person events and conferences, but will the events industry have evolved digitally? I’m not just talking about staging “hybrid” events with virtual and in-person components. Digital transformation in many industries has accelerated years ahead due to the pandemic. Will in-person events and conferences return with a technology-enabled value proposition that dramatically improves the experience?

Tech-driven meetings

In-person industry events and conferences are built on connecting buyers and sellers. Exhibitors are drawn by crowds of qualified buyers and buyers are drawn by keynote speakers and the convenience of shopping among vendors all in one place. But it’s not the speakers or sessions or even the venues that make or break an event – it’s the people you meet and talk with, some planned, others serendipitous. But in the end, the value of those meetings to your business is what drives the event’s value. 

In the years leading up to the shut down of in-person events, digital solutions for connecting and tracking leads had begun to make their way into most events, but these were largely through external apps bolted onto the event that all too often produced dissatisfying results.

Enter Fintech Meetup, Anil Aggarwal’s tech-enabled vision for virtual and in-person events. Using technology and learnings developed over the past four years, participants will be able to schedule 15-minute, double opt-in meetings with people who have a mutual interest in doing business together.

None of this is based on guesswork. Aggarwal, along with his wife and cofounder, Simran Aggarwal, have run multiple events using this model of digitally augmented double opt-in meetings. They’ve conducted a total of over 75,000 such meetings, with more than 50,000 in-person in Las Vegas (pictured above) and more than 25,000 virtually. They’ve found that 15 minutes is the ideal length of time for such meetings and that most participants will schedule 8-12 meetings over a three day period (during which there are a maximum of 24 meeting slots for virtual events). 

Their latest events company is Fintech Meetup, which launches with Fintech Spring Meetup, to be held online on June 15-17, 2021. Participants will complete a comprehensive profile of themselves based on 6 main categories and over 150 data points, then view all other participants’ profiles in search of common interests and overlapping needs. They can request a meeting with anyone, but the recipient of a request must also agree to meet. The software takes care of the scheduling – and if scheduling does not work during the three days, some of the meetings can occur after the event following email introductions by Fintech Spring Meetup. Based on similar online events done by the Aggarwals, they expect to schedule more than 10,000 meetings as part of Fintech Spring Meetup.

B2B sales is due for a disruption

How we sell and buy products and services in a business setting is in need of a transformation and the pandemic has served as the disruption that is catalyzing change in the event space. 

As anyone who’s spent any time on LinkedIn knows, business social media has gotten noisy and spammy and painfully unproductive. More people are posting more often, which has only worsened during the pandemic due to the restriction on in-person meetings and events. And then there’s the InMail spam. As any business leader knows, if you have certain keywords in your profile, your LinkedIn message box is full of marketing and sales people trying to pitch you. And it’s mostly not working.

The future of businesses buying and selling from each other will be augmented by digital tools, but it won’t be cold pitching on social media or machine-harvesting unqualified leads. It will involve people meeting people, but not just randomly at industry conferences or events.

The future of B2B buying and selling in fintech will include technology-enabled, short duration meetings between people who have a mutual interest in doing business.

Fintech Spring Meetup runs Tuesday to Thursday, June 15-17, from 9:30 am-12:15 pm PT (12:30 pm-3:15 pm ET). Get your ticket before May 28.