marketing and sales of custom software Development services of past two decades.

Feb 12
2 min read

Marketing ans sales of custom software development services on past two decades taught me this:

B2B marketing is not about visibility. It is about being remembered at the moment of decision.
Custom software buyers don't want certainity. They want controlled risk. Your messaging should show how you reduce unknowns.
The buying committee is not aligned by default. Your job is to create alignment through education before sales enters.
"Technical excellence is table stakes" Commercial clarity is differentiator.
Sales conversations improve when buyers come pre-educated. That is the real ROI of content.
If your pipeline relies on referrals only, your growth is capped by your past network.
Your content should help prospects explain why they chose you. To their boss, board, procurement.
CTOs respect vendors who say "no" more than those who say "yes". Disqualification is a sales skill.
Buyers don't want innovation. They want predictable delivery in uncertain environments.
If your CEO is invisible online, you're focusing sales to build trust from zero every time.
Marketing for software services is not storytelling. It's sense-making in complex decisions.
Your Ideal Customer Profile is not "company with budget". It's companies with a specifica problem they already tried to solve.
A strong brand shortens sales cycles. Not by being louder - by being clearer.
The most effective B2B content answers questions sales hears after the first call. Not before.
CTOs don't want to be sold to. They want to sanity-check decisions. Your content should support that process.
If prospects ask only about price, you entered the conversation too late or too generically.
High-ticket services require authority, not urgency. Stop pushing deadlines. Start building confidence.
Hey CTOs - prospects don't doubt your tech skills. They doubt whether you understand thei business constraints. Speak less about stacks. More about tradeoffs.
If your case studies only describe "what you built" they are sales collateral, not marketing assets. Buyers care about decisions, risks and outcomes.
In complex B2B sales, clarity beats creativity. The fastes way to lose a deal is to sound impressive but vague.
Account Based marketing isn't a toolset. It's discipline of choosing who you will not chase.
Some software companies over-optimize for leads. The real bottleneck is sales-qualified conversations with the right accounts.
Claim on your website says "We build scalable solutions" you sound pretty like everyone else. Specifity is your differentiation.
When sales says "marketing leads are weak" and marketing says "sales doesn't follow up" you don't have a lead problem. You have a positioning problem.
CTOs influence deal even when they are not on the call. Your content should help technical leaders justify decisions internally.
Custom software buyers don't want certainity. They want controlled risk. Your messaging should show how you reduce unknowns.
Most software buyers start with AI model prompts (eg. ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini etc.), Google Search, not your sales representative. Your content should answer questions before they ask.
CEOs: if your sales team chases every inbound lead, you are training them to focus and work on the wrong deals too.