Edition 36: How to Sell to Enterprises When You Have No Logos;
Pretiosum Ventures is a seed fund investing in the Future of Business — backing the next generation of Enterprise SaaS and Fintech Infrastructure startups in the UK and US.
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📍 Recorded on a rainy Thursday afternoon over Zoom—Anna dialing in between back-to-back calls, and our sales leader joining from London.
Today’s insights come from a seasoned Enterprise Sales leader (formerly at a PE-backed startup doing $100M ARR) who has helped scale SaaS businesses from Seed to Series D. We covered everything from creating urgency in a slow enterprise sales cycle to filtering real opportunities from time-wasters.
🧠 Top Takeaways
1. Stop Selling the Product. Start Quantifying the Pain.
Early-stage founders often lead with product features. Big mistake.
Instead:
✔️ Discover the customer’s biggest pain
✔️ Assign a dollar value to the cost of not solving it
✔️ Frame every delay as lost ROI
📈 “Every month you delay solving this costs you $100K.”
That’s urgency—without desperation.
2. How to Know if an Enterprise Lead is Worth Chasing
It’s not about how much they smile on Zoom. It's about qualification.
✅ Do they have the pain your product solves?
✅ Can they buy something now (budget, urgency, internal buy-in)?
✅ Do you have a champion inside who will sell for you when you’re not in the room?
🚩 Red flags: Pushed meetings, vague answers, or a "we're just exploring" vibe.
3. What to Do When a Deal Stalls
Deals stall. It’s not just you. Here’s what works:
Revisit the pain and cost. “It’s been 3 weeks. That delay has cost your org ~$75K based on our ROI model.”
Ask directly: “Has this lost priority?”
Redirect focus if there's no traction: time is your most valuable currency.
A simple messaging framework for sales calls or follow-ups:
No urgency: “Every month you delay, it’s costing ~$X based on your data.”
No timeline: “Are we solving this in Q2 or is this something you’re shelving for later?”
Deal stalls: “Has this lost priority or is there a blocker we can remove together?”
Ghosting: “Should we pause for now or pick this up when timing is better?”
Tip: Always tie back to the business case, not the feature list.
👀 Final Words from Our Guest
By supporting and empowering the right influencer within an organisation to succeed as a result of your solution, you turn them into a champion, and they’ll sell for you when you’re not in the room.
Please note that any charts, data, or projections discussed are subject to change without notice, may differ from opinions expressed by others, and are for informational purposes only. They should not be relied upon when making any investment decision. The content speaks only as of the date indicated; Pretiosum Ventures has not independently verified third-party links or sources, nor makes representations about the enduring accuracy of such information.