Taking a peek behind the curtain of outsourced procurement with Matt Hicks, VP Global Sales at Vertice

Outsourced procurement is one of the biggest trends sweeping SaaS right now as companies switch from a growth at all costs mindset to one of finding greater efficiency.

Companies like Vertice, Vendr, Tropic and others are capitalizing on this trend by helping companies optimize their SaaS and cloud spend, through a combination of price transparency, usage tracking and competitive bidding.

This is disrupting the status quo for software sales teams, especially the 55% that have historically not published their pricing and instead leaned on techniques like value-based selling to maximize order sizes.

Matt Hicks is at the forefront of this trend in his role leading the global sales team at Vertice and gives us a peek behind the curtain of this burgeoning category. From how Vertice works with its clients, to what salespeople should do when they run into an outsourced procurement team during a sales process, to where this trend is taking us in the next year, there’s a ton of valuable advice in here. It’s a must listen for anyone in a software sales role.

Give it a listen here or on Apple Podcasts and let me know what you think! And if you haven’t done so already, please consider subscribing.

Podcast contents

0:40: Can you tell us about Vertice and your role there?

4:50: Discussing the lack of price transparency in SaaS compared to other industries.

5:45: What advice would you give a salesperson when an outsourced procurement provider shows up in the buying process?

9:25: Does an outsourced procurement provider have to secure additional discount from a salesperson to justify their value to their client?

12:20: When a client is interested in buying a piece of software, does Vertice go out and find competitive bids for similar solutions from other vendors?

16:00: The lack of standardized terms in SaaS causes a lot of friction in the buying process, especially when compared to industries where all parties . How do you see this playing out in the long term?

21:00: Outsourced procurement tends to show up late in the sales process, which frustrates salespeople. How do you educate your clients on when to bring you in?

25:00: Sounds like you are getting into the Contract Lifecycle Management space?

28:00: Discussing the chronic under-utilization of SaaS tools, especially in salestech and martech.

31:00: How did you get into selling financial services?

34:30: You describe yourself as a servant leader. How does servant leadership influence how you lead a sales team?

40:00: What lead generation strategies have worked best you over the years?

Resources

The Ultimate Guide to Purchasing Sales Software (Vertice)

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