REVENUE STRATEGY & LEADERSHIP

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A new report on B2B buying behavior found that if vendors aren’t first on buyers’ lists, they’re effectively last.

That’s because the report, from ABM (account-based marketing) platform 6Sense, found that buyers are more often than not choosing the vendor they plan to buy from before even engaging with vendor sales teams—meaning sales communication is now actually one of the final steps in the buying cycle. And vendors want to be in the top spot for buyers, as “making second place or below at the time of the first meeting a steep uphill climb.”

That said, a vendor being on the shortlist, even when they aren’t chosen for a particular deal, bodes well for them in the future: Because buyers are tending to go with vendors they already know, “a seller’s role transcends current sales cycles” and “performance in current sales cycles may have a greater impact down the line than in the present.”

“Even if you are the last vendor to make the list and have little chance of winning the current deal,” the report states, “getting on the list and making a good impression is vital for future success.”

6Sense’s report is based on survey responses from over 4,000 buyers, a whopping 94% of which said they compile that shortlist before talking with vendor sales teams. Most (70%) of the buyers surveyed also said that “concerns about economic conditions” influenced their decision to go with vendors they already know.

“Earlier engagement alone will not win deals if the buying group’s ranking is already set,” the report says. “The competitive advantage lies in becoming the preferred choice before the [point of first contact]—through brand presence, reputation, and influence earlier in the buying journey—so that when uncertainty does drive buyers to engage, they are engaging with you first and from the top position.”

So then what is the role of sellers if buyers aren’t consulting them when their decisions are most permeable? First, as mentioned, is for vendors to make sure they’re already on a buyers’ radar. Second is to offer a good deal to nab the narrow margin—20%—of buyers who said they would change their minds from their top vendor based on pricing.

“The fact that most buyers choose a winner before first contact with sellers doesn’t diminish the seller’s role,” the report says. “Sellers are critical brand assets—even in lost deals—which exert a strong influence on future buying journeys.”—TC

      

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SALES TECH

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As SaaS and AI companies race to be crowned the one app that can do everything, Salesforce teamed up with Anthropic to create Claudeforce, a collaboration that allows users to access Salesforce data through Claude.

The partnership gives CROs and sales reps one less app to check in the morning, and seems to show that Salesforce is following the old adage of “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.”

“In the early days of AI excitement, everybody was trying to roll out their own AI. But now you’re seeing that—certainly in the enterprise market—Anthropic and OpenAI are the two dominant providers,” Chris Selland, CEO and founder of market research and strategic consulting firm Differential Factor, told RevenueBrew. “For application companies like Salesforce, should [they] really keep trying to build our own, or should [they] partner with the leaders?”

Plus, in partnering with Anthropic, Selland said, Salesforce is “getting ahead” of the SaaS-pocalypse: As SaaS customers are increasingly less interested in buying seats, Salesforce is now selling something else.

“The market’s moving away from [the SaaS model of selling by] seats anyway,” Selland told Revenue Brew. “Salesforce is smart enough to recognize that.”

And though Salesforce is certainly making a savvy decision, Selland said, the real winner is Anthropic: With default access to Salesforce data, Claude is closer to providing users with complete organizational intelligence.

“[Organizational intelligence is] no longer an app by app thing,” Selland told Morning Brew. “That’s really what AI is bringing to the table, I think, and that’s why it’s powerful.”

Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s CEO and co-founder, also noted that Salesforce is beefing up Claude (and not the other way around) in a statement from the Claudeforce announcement.

“Through this partnership, companies can point Claude at the customer information and business context that they’ve been building in Salesforce for decades, and use it to actually run and grow their businesses,” he said.—TC

      

GROWING YOUR BUSINESS

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Getty Images

For founders of small businesses or startups, decisions about which AI models to tap or how to best use them can be daunting. It’s a fast-changing and competitive new technology in which token prices and model leaderboard rankings change almost by the week.

Most small businesses now use AI in some way, according to various recent surveys, but whether or not they are getting the most out of the technology seems harder to pin down. Many small businesses have yet to embed AI into core operations or realize the ROI they’re aiming for, according to two recent polls.

Frontier labs and tech giants know this, and they’ve been increasingly rolling out more AI tools, incentives, and programs catered specifically to budding entrepreneurs. We break down the basics of what major AI providers offer.

OpenAI

OpenAI has both a startups team, made up mostly of former tech founders, and offerings catered to small and medium-size businesses.

For tech startups, it provides code repositories, technical guides, and a monthly newsletter called Startup Drop. The company also hosts webinars and IRL instructional sessions across various international cities. In terms of free usage credits, OpenAI partners with various VCs and accelerators to distribute them to their portfolio startups. It’s also currently investing its own funds in a second batch of early-stage startups.

Read about Anthropic’s workflow product for small businesses.—PK

      

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