Industry / Software
Software is a broader category than SaaS — and most GTM advice conflates them. We build outbound, SEO, and demand generation systems for enterprise software, vertical SaaS, dev tools, and on-prem vendors, tuned to functional-leader buyers, longer evaluation cycles, and the committee dynamics that SaaS playbooks miss.
Software is a much broader B2B category than SaaS. It includes enterprise software sold on multi-year licences with heavy procurement, vertical software built for specific industries like legal or healthcare or manufacturing, dev tools that blend product-led growth with enterprise expansion, and the still-substantial universe of on-prem and hybrid deployments in regulated industries. Each of these sub-categories has its own buyer, its own unit economics, and its own sales motion. The tendency to treat them all as "SaaS" is the single biggest GTM mistake we see software companies make.
Pricing and licensing models vary more than most GTM playbooks acknowledge. Enterprise software still sells on perpetual licences with annual maintenance contracts in meaningful volumes — particularly in finance, healthcare, and government. Consumption pricing has become dominant in dev tools and infrastructure. Subscription remains the default for horizontal SaaS. These models require different revenue reporting, different forecasting, different comp plans, and different sales motions. A SaaS playbook applied to a perpetual-licence enterprise product produces wildly wrong forecasts and commission structures.
Buyers are functional leaders more often than product users. In SaaS, the product champion inside the buying team is often the same person who will use the product every day. In enterprise software, the budget holder is usually a CFO, COO, CRO, or functional VP, and the evaluation is led by a project team that bridges IT, operations, and the business unit. GTM messaging has to speak to outcome and strategic value, not feature depth, and multi-threading into both functional leader and IT decision-maker is required from day one.
Sales cycles are longer. Enterprise software deals routinely take 6 to 12 months from first conversation to close. On-prem deployments can stretch to 18 months when internal infrastructure preparation is required. Dev tools can close in days through PLG motion but then take 6 to 12 months to convert to enterprise contracts. The GTM rhythm is quarterly and annual, not weekly, and pipeline health has to be measured in forward-looking stages rather than closed-won velocity alone.
Applying SaaS velocity motion to enterprise software. The most common failure. Teams hire SaaS SDR playbooks into an enterprise software business, run high-volume outbound into functional leaders, and wonder why reply rates are near zero and meetings are low quality. Enterprise software buyers expect research-led, named-account outreach. Volume outbound signals that the vendor does not understand the buyer — which is often the case.
Dev tools without a developer motion. Some dev tools companies try to sell top-down into engineering leaders without building genuine developer adoption. It rarely works. Engineering leaders who have not used the product, or whose team has not used the product, will not approve budget on a sales demo alone. Dev tools GTM has to start with bottom-up adoption and engineer-facing content, with outbound playing a supporting role.
Vertical SaaS sold like horizontal SaaS. Vertical software companies sometimes adopt horizontal SaaS playbooks — generic content, broad targeting, velocity outbound — and lose to industry-native competitors who invest in domain content, industry events, and vocabulary-specific messaging. Vertical SaaS has to look and sound like it belongs in the industry it serves.
Under-investing in the IT stakeholder. Enterprise software deals almost always include an IT gate — security review, integration assessment, operational impact. Companies that build messaging and content only for the functional leader find their deals stalling in month three when IT enters the process and has no vendor-provided information to work with. GTM has to equip both sides of the committee.
Pipeline optimism driven by stage, not probability. Long cycles tempt teams to report pipeline based on stage movement rather than real probability. The result is forecast miss cycles repeating quarter after quarter. Good software GTM systems measure probability-weighted pipeline, track stage-to-stage conversion, and flag accounts that have stalled rather than advancing.
Software buying committees vary by sub-category, but they almost always include a functional leader, an IT stakeholder, and a working-level champion. We multi-thread all three.
Every software engagement starts with a sub-category and motion audit. We decide up front whether the right playbook is enterprise software, vertical SaaS, dev tools, or a hybrid — and we build the downstream systems around that, not against a generic B2B template.
Named-account outbound via SDR agency and outsourced SDR. For enterprise software and vertical SaaS, we run SDRs on tight named-account lists — usually under 200 per rep — with research-led, multi-threaded outreach into functional leader, IT, and working-level champion in parallel. Sequences reference account-specific context: public priorities, recent hires, regulatory pressure, competitor moves. Volume is intentionally low; quality per touch is high.
Outbound infrastructure via our cold email agency and outbound sales agency. Rotating sending domains, careful warming, deliverability monitoring, and trigger-based sequencing tuned to enterprise software buying signals — executive hires, funding events, M&A, major earnings call commentary, public strategic initiatives, job posting surges in relevant functions. For dev tools, outbound is usage-triggered instead: PQL signals from product analytics drive outreach into engineering leadership.
Technical and vertical content via our SaaS SEO agency service. For dev tools, deep technical content and framework comparisons. For enterprise software, problem-aware and vendor-comparison content targeted at functional leaders and their teams. For vertical SaaS, industry-specific compliance guides, regulatory briefings, and peer benchmark reports. All content is written to be quoted and cited — by humans and by LLMs — rather than to rank on thin pages.
Demand generation via our demand generation agency service. Executive roundtables, webinars with peer buyers, analyst co-marketing, industry conference activation, and account-based retargeting into named lists. Long sales cycles require sustained marketing air cover — a single campaign wave in Q1 will not carry a deal that closes in Q4. The demand gen motion runs continuously.
GEO and LLM visibility via our GEO agency service. Enterprise software buyers and engineering leaders increasingly use ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews as research tools. Being cited in those answers for category-defining queries is a newer but fast-growing channel. For dev tools in particular, AI-native search is already material to discovery.
Fractional sales leadership via fractional VP of Sales. For earlier-stage software companies, we provide senior operators who have scaled comparable businesses, built enterprise sales motions from zero, structured comp plans for long-cycle deals, and handled the transition from founder-led sales to a professional sales organisation.
See how we worked with TotalMobile to expand enterprise pipeline, 4C Strategies to break into new geographic markets, and Comtrac to build a repeatable outbound engine for a specialised software product.
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30-minute working session with Jamie. We'll pressure-test your sub-category fit, motion selection, and pipeline mix, and leave you with a plan — whether or not we work together.