Go-To-Market Playbook: Selling B2B FinTech to Enterprise and FIs
As funding from VCs slowed down in the last 18 months, more B2B (Business-to-Business) fintech companies focused on selling into enterprise firms (mass market brands with 1M+ active users) and financial institutions (FIs), instead of startup clients.
For growing fintechs, this as a natural progression — going upstream towards larger, established customers that can deliver substantial revenue activity in one relationship.
These public or private companies (in/out of the financial services sector) and FIs are interested in improving their tech capabilities and overall platform. Regardless of the type of enterprise, B2B fintechs (especially those inexperienced with large firms) need a structured sales approach. This approach needs to navigate through multiple layers of stakeholders, decision makers, and requirements.
Enterprise sales is known for lengthy cycles, rigorous due diligence, and disjointed decision-making processes that can derail small, inexperienced fintechs from winning these larger contracts.
Here’s a quick overview on a Go-To-Market (GTM) sales framework for engaging enterprises and financial institutions (banks & credit unions). We’ll cover:
Challenges with B2B enterprises sales;
Structured approach for qualifying opportunities and running an end-to-end (E2E) enterprise buying process;
Urgency for B2B fintechs to launch an enterprise channel;
enterprise b2b sales: hunting whales instead of fish
It’s easy to see why companies should focus on enterprise deals.
Large revenue opportunity (in the short-term and long-term) from one client.
Less risk of an enterprise customer shutting down their business (in comparison to startup clients) due to funding or lack of traction.
Fulfilling high volume, customized needs also builds ‘social proof’ with enterprise prospects in search of top performing partners.
So, why doesn’t every B2B fintech pursue this channel? Here are key blockers are:
Capacity — not all fintechs can handle the exponential lift in transacting, processing, and operations needed to properly maintain an enterprise relationship; this comes down to staffing, infrastructure, and resources;
Product stability — similarly, a fintech’s product may only be built to perform at a threshold below the needs of enterprise; investment & further testing may be needed before product teams are comfortable with servicing the needs of larger, high volume clients;
Lengthy, unknown sales initiative — fintechs are accustomed to selling to startups, which have fast & clear buying processes; enterprises may need 10+ months to scope, gather due diligence, address compliance requirements, negotiate commercials, gain budget approval, and finalize a contract; even if a fintech checks all these boxes, an enterprise may still choose a competitor OR delay the project altogether — a year’s effort could be lost!
The first two bullets are part of every company’s journey and will improve over time.
If both capacity and product stability are in place for a fintech, then the 3rd bullet deserves major consideration. Let’s jump into a well-established enterprise framework for companies across multiple verticals to win high-profile clients.
a rigorous enterprise approach for b2b fintechs
With so many moving parts and key players in an enterprise/FI sales cycle, how do companies manage the whole process?
Many firms (of all sizes) utilize some form of MEDDICC — an acronym capturing critical components that measure how ready a large prospect is to evaluate a solution, what’s most important, and who are the stakeholders and decisionmakers.
Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion, Competition.
MEDDICC should be deployed after a fintech establishes its Ideal Customer Profile (ICP). This is the specific customer type who stands to benefit the most from a company’s product solution. A few questions to narrow down ICP:
What customer pain points am I trying to solve for?
What use cases (that contain these pain points) can be addressed with my team’s product?
Does our product satisfy these use cases in a unique (differentiated) way?
What key benefits does my product solution deliver (e.g. increased revenue, lower cost basis, improved operational efficiency, faster time to market, best-in-class user experience)?
Having a strong sense of ICP avoids targeting a group of prospects where there’s minimal value-add. The exercise also serves to hone in on top companies & verticals in which your program has a strong, product-market fit (PMF).
As a sales framework, MEDDICC helps Go-To-Market (GTM) teams forecast how likely they are to win new deals from enterprise leads. Based on the how much detail they have for each component and overall alignment, the probability of closing a larger client increases dramatically.
It comes down to consistency, rigor, and building a trusted relationship so that fintechs can gather this quality info and customize their approach accordingly. Sales teams shouldn’t get bogged down in trying to go through each category in order, or completing all fields in one call/meeting — the graphic above shows a sales flow focused on qualification first by evaluating on Identify Pain and Decision Criteria.
When utilized properly, MEDDICC is an investment for both seller AND buyer towards a better, overall process that features clarity and efficiency.
METRICS
It’s critical to get this area right from the start.
Financial institutions and enterprise firms need to clearly understand how your platform benefits them — with numbers.
How much additional revenue will they make? How much time & money will they save (compared to their existing solution)?
These metrics need to be compelling (and real) enough for an enterprise to accept an introductory meeting/call and consider a buying process with your team. For fintechs looking to get in the door with cold emails or LinkedIn invites, these metrics + benefits need to be front & center.
Many FIs are expecting a 5x+ lift in value over cost to implement & maintain a new program. Make sure your team can demonstrate and deliver on this target.
Economic Buyer
Think of this as the individual granted authority to sign off on the buying decision.
Typically, its a C-suite exec but it can also be a designated product owner with full authority from a company’s top execs.
The critical piece is to identify this early and gain multiple contacts within the respective division/team, who can help advocate as a group in lobbying for your product solution. ‘Multi-threading’ is a great communication technique when messaging and engaging enterprise teams — fintechs should ensure multiple contacts are being updated for every milestone within a buying process.
Among this group, there should be one particular individual that can best champion for you — this is one the ‘Cs’ for MEDDICC that we’ll cover later.
Decision Criteria
Each FI & enterprise has a variety of priorities, concerns, and targets throughout the year.
Inexperienced fintechs struggle to reach the nuance of what’s important to each prospective customer. There’s a risk of assuming all enterprises are interested in earning more revenue and/or reducing expenses. While this may be applicable to almost all companies (regardless of size), deeper level criteria exists that fintech sales teams must be able to uncover.
A recommended approach here is to divide this into technical & business decision criteria.
Tech teams at enterprises will have their own unique set of concerns — at the top of the list: what’s involved in implementation (length of process and resources) AND how can this integrate into what they currently have in place. Data privacy, security, and platform stability are critical to understand. Fintechs should be ready to address a laundry list of questions and schedule a few working sessions between tech leaders from the enterprise.
Business concerns include everything that’s non-technical. Risk, compliance, legal, finance, operations, and product teams may participate in a deep evaluation process to make sure their group understands what to expect.
Fintechs can get ahead of these questions when ‘demoing’ their product solution. The best demos simulate what an FI or enterprise is looking for in a new program — in front of all stakeholders and the economic buyer. Being able to show direct value early helps build a solid relationship between buyer & seller teams.
Decision Process
More nuance here based on the prospect.
This is all about how an enterprise decides WHO to go with.
You can compare this to the fintech being a candidate applying for a job at the enterprise. There’s a 4+ step interview process to go through before a company decides who to hire. A candidate is doing what’s needed to get to the final interview.
Not only does the decision criteria need to be checked off, but there’s likely an order that this needs to happen. In most scenarios, tech & product teams need to be able to sign off earlier in the process. Once they do, typically other teams get involved (risk, operations, customer support, finance). The final team is legal, who must do a deep review of the contract to avoid issues down the road.
Timing also plays a factor in the process. Some FIs & enterprises may start a buying process early in the year, then take a pause to work on other initiatives. Execs may also decide to delay work on a new project, therefore postponing final evaluation of vendors until the following year.
Communication is critical for fintechs (especially in this area) — failing to understand the decision process can mean losing a deal (and all the time + effort).
Identify Pain
The biggest learning here to avoid losing a prospect: go beyond the surface to uncover as many pain points as possible.
In doing so, your team will:
Understand just how much your product solution can solve and be able to speak to it clearly to it;
Build a strong relationship from the start as they know you understand ALL critical problem areas;
Not just address corporate concerns, but those of teams + individuals that will carry on the new project;
This takes effective questioning and trust to pull off in an effective, genuine way.
Sellers may fall into the trap of running through a laundry list of questions during a meeting, which turns off enterprises who are looking for a strong partner that takes the time to understand them.
Being able to connect the goals of execs with the needs of specific project teams at the company also increases the chances of winning with FIs and enterprises. If your solution addresses both, then your program starts gathering the momentum needed to make it to a final round.
Champion
Uncovering all of this info, pitching your solution, connecting value to painpoints, etc. — none of this matters, if a B2B fintech fails to establish a strong relationship with a champion (individual at an enterprise/FI) that will advocate for your program.
This individual needs to have a level of authority at his company & influence with decisionmakers & stakeholders. They need to have ‘skin-in-the-game’ in terms of being part of the project team implementing a new solution, or be responsible for key performance indicators (KPIs) — outcomes expected from launching the project.
Finding the best person as a champion AND establishing a trusted relationship early on is everything.
Champions are in the internal meetings that B2B fintech sales people aren’t part of. In these meetings, fintechs must ensure that their champion has all the necessary information to present their solution in a compelling way AND clear responses to objections that may come up.
These individuals must be kept in the loop with all communication (emails, calls, meetings), the outcome from these interactions, and what the next steps are in moving forward. Leverage your champion to confirm decision criteria, decision process, budget, and timing.
The best champions provide fintechs with insights on what’s needed to excel at certain stages of the enterprise sales cycle.
The litmus test for a fintech having success in an enterprise buying process is tied to this champion and the amount of information that they relay back on a weekly basis.
COMPETITION
There will be multiple options for financial institutions and enterprises to pick from when going through a buying process.
When a company runs an exploratory discovery exercise, they’re looking to narrow down these options to less than 5-10. These other vendors (likely fintech startups as well) compete with one another and the current solution in place at an enterprise. Large organizations tend to be averse to changes and ‘rip & replace’ solutions.
Success here goes back to making a quality connection with an executive at the FI, who can then make an introduction internally to a product owner.
Leverage your champion (exec or product owner) to understand who the competitors are and what’s most compelling about them (from the enterprise’s perspective). If there’s someone on their team that is leaning towards a competitor, ask your champion to identify them in order to connect and better understand their WHY (especially if they’re a stakeholder, decision maker).
Lastly, make sure to leverage partners, existing clients, and public reports that cite your company as having an industry-leading platform for enterprises. Credibility from external sources can improve a fintech’s ranking against competitors.
time is now for an enterprise go-to-market strategy
More financial institutions & enterprises are considering new solutions to improve their company’s performance.
The sustained growth of financial software solutions over the last decade AND innovation on the way (through AI advancements) has executives interested in making strategic moves in the next year.
For fintech infrastructure providers, the revenue from fintech startups dropped significantly. Past clients have churned due to lack of funding and not being profitable. Mid-sized firms (the up & coming enterprises of tomorrow) and existing financial institutions are now the sole focus.
Adding an enterprise focus doesn’t have to be as scary as it sounds.
Staffing is typically limited to a small team (of 2-5) that is responsible for dedicated outreach to new prospects (email, LinkedIn, at events/conferences).
The true lift for enterprise is in having a customized approach with messaging, content, and engagement that caters to large companies.
In this economic environment, the time is now for fintechs to step out of their comfort zone and pursue enterprises, especially financial institutions.
Interested in building an strategic enterprise initiative at your company?
At FinTechtris, we’ve advised on new GTM strategies for fintechs & non-fintechs (of all sizes) focused on enterprise prospects and pipeline growth.
If your company is interested in (i) building a new GTM strategy, (ii) evaluating its current initiatives, or (iii) how to improve your enterprise sales framework, click here to connect with us today —>
