Selling Tech Solutions to Vertical markets

As a cofounder of B2Brain ?? , I play over the story that contains possible answers to the following questions, possibly a few different times each day, every day:

• Why do we exist?
• Who do we serve (or wish to serve)?
• Why should they use us over others?
• What is our right to win?
• How can we generate enough revenue that we thrive to serve another day?

Over the weekend, I had an intense and reflective experience hanging out with 100+ other founders building for the new world powered by AI, at the SaaSBoomi AI Bootcamp.

There were engrossing and provocative sessions* about segmentation, positioning, GTM strategies, technology innovation and the meaning of AI in our own respective worlds. It was a time to take a step back, reflect, see where the world is heading, form a POV of how we pave our own path**, and prepare for the days to come.

Art + Constraint => Design

Thought + Framework => Point of View

Listening to the various sessions, drawing parallels to our business and constructing our point of view, I was jotting down the notes, and felt it's helpful to start writing them down and sharing it here. Hence this article, and possibly more subsequently.

The most fascinating part about any story is that it can begin from literally any starting point, so long as it builds anticipation for the next point in the mind of the listener. And so, we begin ...

What is B2Brain and who does it help?

B2Brain provides account intelligence for B2B sales teams that sell tech solutions (Software/Hardware+Software) to Enterprises in Vertical Markets like Manufacturing, Oil & Gas, Pharma, Healthcare, Logistics, Supply Chain & Construction.

Now that we've stated the boiler plate, let's get into the specifics, shall we?

Why do we exist?

We believe you need to:

1. Drastically reduce Rep inefficiency due to manual account research, in order to increase their effectiveness. If you didn't change anything to your research process today and were happy with rep effectiveness, your COI/Cost of Inaction = $14,000 per rep per year. I've given a framework to measure your COI below.
2. Enable your reps with unique Account Intent Signals and contextual Talking Points that move the needle for your pipeline. The harsh reality is that looking for intent in Vertical Markets from your current intent data tools feels much like searching for Vegetarian options from your local Chili's or driving your Tesla to the local 76 station and expecting a supercharger. (note: feel free to think of another metaphor that resonates with you).
3. Save on your sales tech stack - especially data tools. Vertical markets are very specific. The majority of money spent on mass market data tools is likely underutilised by your sales reps. Do you remember the days when we used MS Word (30% of features), Excel (25% features) and Powerpoint (20% features) while you paid for MS Office license? By being very targeted with the data that you require, you can ensure you only pay for what your reps use, and vice versa. In other words, why pay for MS Office when you can pay for 30% Word + 25% Excel + 20% Powerpoint?

Who do we serve?

We serve B2B sales teams that sell Tech solutions to Vertical Markets

Sales people selling tech solutions to Vertical Markets need to demonstrate knowledge and become trusted advisor to their buyers, in order to win business. To accomplish this, they tend to do research or need insights about target accounts, spread across fragmented information in 10K/10Q, Financial Reports, Job Listings, Industry News, PR around Deals & Partnerships, M&A activity, Industry Events, Podcast and Conference appearances and Company Updates.

This sounds very detailed - is this really necessary?

Speaking with hundreds of users, and customers, here are 5 things we have learnt, so far.

1. Sales people that sell technology solutions to enterprises in Vertical Markets are engaging with business executives and operations leaders.
2. Almost all these sales tend to be Strategic (just visualise tech that improves factory productivity, or warehouse safety and operations, or manufacturing process efficiency), High Value (enterprises, what else do you expect) and with Long Sales Cycles (6 months - 18 months is normal, 3-5 year contracts is also normal)
3. Given the nature of such sales, and their importance to the business, the Buyers need to consider the sales person "trustable", "knowledgeable" and "well informed". And so the onus on the sales person to continuously demonstrate to the buyer that they are worthy of these adjectives.
4. To live up to these adjectives, sales people selling to these industries are often tenured professionals from these industries or are experienced sales people that have learnt about the industry.
5. They also tend to work with a definite book of accounts to build pipeline and revenue, and have an ongoing need to keep themselves updated of the goings on in each target account.

No wonder that the need for insights and intel on target accounts figures high on the list of priority for all these sales reps.

Speed up the horse, until you get the car

Since most of the focus in the past few years in sales tech has been to load up more software, or more volume of data - number of accounts / number of prospects / more attributes of either, research has consistently been a step child of the day to day. The resulting situation is that people have often resorted to a combination of google search + linkedin + reading up various documents + ChatGPT/Claude/others.

It is perfectly ok to desire for a faster horse for mainstream transport - feed it better food, take it for exercise, establish a routine. Until the automobile ...

Describe the manual account research routine

Here is what an account research routine looks like for a sales rep:

• Use different combinations of google search - type a bunch of keywords and search terms for a target account, and comb through results, go to a relevant document, read it up, jot down notes in a notepad, switch to their favorite SEP/Email tool, write up some emails, send it. Go to the next account, repeat the steps above.
• Go to ChatGPT (or Claude or some other), type out a bunch of questions that resemble "What are the key supply chain problems faced by Kroger in the past 3 months that a supply chain visibility solution like [insert company name] can solve for well?" Then with the response, try your hand at prompt engineering. Once the answer seems interesting, switch to "use this information to create an email for [persona] that also is easily readable on the mobile". Take that email, go to the favorite SEP/Email tool, write up the email, send it. Go to the next account, or bring in variety by going to Google search above.
• Do similar looking things with linkedin sales navigator / zoominfo / any other tools.

This is a very commendable practice that has its own benefits - like you get really good at doing google searches or chatgpt prompts. If you make it a habit, it gets even better - you can manage your time well.

Until the ground shifts - more pipeline required, need to scale up top-middle funnel, need to ramp up from 100 accounts/quarter to 150 accounts/quarter.

COI Calculator

"Sales pipeline is like a competitive exam - you get 4 marks for correct answer, and -1 for wrong answer" - an experienced sales rep once told me

The brutal truth is that time = money for sales reps. If you feel comfortable with status quo and are happy about it, it is useful to be aware of what it costs you.

Manual account research by a sales rep takes between 20-60 minutes per account, on a pleasant and sunny day. Now consider each rep has between 100-250 accounts to work on every quarter, and do some math to compute time spent on research. As a next step, calculate the cost of a rep's time spent on research (I'm deliberately using conservative numbers, reality is often more grim)

Typical Rep Salary = $150K pa = $12,500 / month ~ $70 / hour

Time spent on research = Avg 30 min per account * 100 accounts per quarter

= 3000 minutes = 50 hours

Cost of a rep's time spent in research = 50 x $70 = $3,500 per quarter

Over a year, this becomes $14,000 per rep

$14,000 per rep per year!! But we already have invested in many tools

96.5% of the companies we speak to at B2Brain ?? have a tech stack that resembles the following:

CRM - Salesforce / HubSpot (for storing account, contact information)

SEP - Salesloft / Outreach (for executing emails, phone calls)

Data - ZoomInfo / Linkedin Sales Navigator Premium (for identifying account and contact information)

Collaboration - Slack / MS Teams (for exchanging notes/discussions/communications internally)

This is probably close to $9,000 per rep per year on tech stack spend

If you add the spends on an intent data tool, this number will likely go up.

It is natural to wonder how your reps continue to remain inefficient even after so much spend.

Sometimes it is the things that you didn't do that cost you more than the things that you did (a variant of the "regret theory").

At B2Brain, we obsess over how we can help you avoid such regrets towards EOQ or EOY.

I'll be the first one to say this is a long road and we're probably the most intensely focused team working on this problem. If these scenarios resonate with you or you want to change it or you want to counter it, please ping me - I'm keen to learn from your views.

In the next article, I'll share our approach to solving for this silent killer and how our customers are collaborating with us to solve it faster. If you're curious to engage, feel free to try B2Brain or chat with us.

* Thanks to Sanket Shah , Anshul Khandelwal , Shankar Maruwada , Ashwin Ramasamy , Shruti Kapoor , Vengat Krishnaraj , Thiyagarajan Maruthavanan (Rajan) for the wonderful sessions that triggered the perspective-broadening thoughts and for providing frameworks to help converge these.

** Thanks to Prasanna Krishnamoorthy and Vengat Krishnaraj for the very insightful views on "AI is a great leveller across the ecosystem" and "all of us are standing on the same edge and starting on the new journey" points.