Observations from the field — on deal dynamics, buyer behaviour, and the specific challenges of selling technical products in OEM markets.
What actually develops commercial capability in deep-tech sales teams — the four capability gaps, how to diagnose them, and what effective coaching looks like in practice.
Read article →The three GTM decisions that determine startup success in OEM markets — and why most startups get all three wrong in the same way.
Read article →What procurement teams are really evaluating beyond price — and how to engage them proactively before the commercial stage becomes a surprise.
Read article →What the commercial due diligence actually covers — and what it means for how you build and present your sales organisation to investors and acquirers.
Read article →Why the most undervalued function in a photonics company is also its most powerful commercial asset — and three measurable KPIs to manage it without creating reporting burden.
Read article →An OEM proposal is not a product document. It's a commercial instrument that either helps the buyer make a decision or gives them something to file. Here's what an effective proposal addresses.
Read article →In OEM buying committees, there is almost always someone whose opposition can kill a deal but who is never part of the formal evaluation. How to identify them, why your champion might not surface them, and what to do when you find one.
Read article →BANT was designed for deals that close in weeks. An OEM opportunity that will take three years and involve ten decision-makers requires a fundamentally different qualification logic.
Read article →The buying committee in a complex OEM deal is not a group of equals. It's a collection of individuals with different objectives, different risk thresholds, and different definitions of what a good outcome looks like.
Read article →Value selling in OEM contexts is not about ROI calculators. It's about helping a technically sophisticated buyer understand the full cost of the decision — including costs that don't appear in the spec sheet.
Read article →A photonics OEM sales cycle is not slow because of inertia. It's slow because the decision is genuinely difficult. Understanding what drives the length is the first step to managing it.
Read article →In a 2–5 year sales cycle, the cost of pursuing a deal that was never going to close is enormous. The signals that an opportunity is structurally unwinnable — and how to exit cleanly without damaging a relationship you might need in three years.
Read article →AI tools are changing how OEM buyers screen and evaluate suppliers. The sales relationship doesn't become less important — it needs to become more substantive.
Read article →Technical validation is not commercial validation. The two are completely different processes happening inside different parts of the buyer's organisation — and conflating them is the most common reason OEM deals die after a successful evaluation.
Read article →The buyer is making a 7-year component decision. Of course they're careful. What determines cycle length structurally — and where you can actually move the needle.
Read article →Most procurement pushback is not about price. What procurement is actually managing — risk, process, internal accountability — and how to respond to the real objection rather than the stated one.
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