How to prepare for a first call with a regulated buyer
A first call with a bank, an insurer or a hospital group goes differently from a first call with a software company. The people on the line are careful, and the first thing they want to know is not what your product does. It is whether the company is allowed to use it.
This article shows how to prepare for that call: what a regulated buyer cares about, what to research beforehand, what to ask, and what to leave unsaid. It is a method for sellers of technical products, not legal advice. Where a rule matters, ask the buyer which one applies to them.
What is different about a regulated buyer
Three things change the shape of the deal:
- More people can say no. Security, risk, legal and procurement often review a vendor before the team that wants the tool can start a trial. Any of them can stop the deal.
- The timeline is longer and less visible. A review that takes a month at a software company can take a quarter here. Ask early what the steps are.
- The rules come from outside. The company answers to regulators and auditors, and those rules shape what they can buy. You don't need to be an expert, but you need to know which questions to ask.
None of this means the buyer is hostile. The engineer who asked for a meeting wants the tool. They also know that their own company will question it, and they will trust you more if you are ready for that.
Research to do before the call
Where the problem sits
Regulated companies still have normal engineering teams with normal problems. Find the team: a job post for the platform or reliability group, a talk by an engineer, a public repository. The account research method works here the same way. Write down the one fact that explains why you are calling.
How they buy from vendors
Many regulated companies publish how a supplier should approach them: a supplier page, a procurement page, a security questionnaire process, a policy on outsourcing. Read what is public. Note any requirement named there, such as a data location, a type of review or a needed certification. If you hold the certification, say so on the call. If you don't, don't pretend; find out how much it matters.
What the company has said in public
Annual reports and regulatory filings often describe the company's technology risks and its plans in plain language. You are looking for two things: a stated priority your product touches (for example, moving a system to the cloud, or reducing outages), and a stated constraint (for example, limits on where data is stored). Quote the filing and its date in your notes. Don't present a filing as a signal about a specific team unless it names one.
The tools they already run
A regulated buyer is slow to add tools and slow to remove them. Knowing what they run today tells you what you replace or sit beside. The article on finding out what tools a company runs shows where to look.
Who will be on the call
Expect at least two kinds of people: the engineer or team lead who wants to solve the problem, and often someone from risk or security who joins to hear what you are asking them to approve. Prepare for both:
| Person | Their question | What to have ready |
|---|---|---|
| Engineer or team lead | Will this fix our problem without a long project? | One sourced fact about their situation, and a plain description of how a trial would start. |
| Security or risk reviewer | What data leaves our systems, and where does it go? | A short, accurate description of what you collect, who sees it and how long you keep it. Say what you have not been audited for. |
| Procurement | Is this a supplier we can approve? | Company details, contract basics, and a contact who can answer forms. |
What to ask on the first call
Ask fewer questions about the product and more about the path. Good ones:
- "What does a new vendor have to pass before a team can try something?"
- "Who runs that review, and how long does it usually take?"
- "Can a team try a tool with non-sensitive data before the full review?"
- "Is there a rule about where data can be stored or processed that I should know about?"
- "Who else should be part of this conversation?"
Write down the answers with names and dates. This is the map of your deal. It matters more than any feature you could demo.
What not to say
- Don't claim a certification, audit or compliance you can't document. A false claim ends the deal and can end the relationship. Say what is in place and what isn't.
- Don't promise that the review will be quick. You don't control it.
- Don't skip the reviewer. Trying to get a team to adopt a tool in secret creates a problem for them. Offer to help them go through the proper path.
- Don't use words you can't define. If you say a term from a regulation, expect to be asked what you mean by it.
A one-page plan for the call
Example: an invented company, Northgate Bank
- Why now
- Two reliability roles posted October 6 for the payments platform team, both naming on-call design.
- Who
- Director of platform engineering (checked October 24). A risk reviewer may join; name unknown.
- Public constraint
- The bank's supplier page asks vendors to describe where data is stored (read October 24).
- Ask
- What a vendor has to pass before a trial. Who reviews. How long it takes. Whether a pilot can use test data.
- Bring
- A plain data-handling description. A statement of what you have not been audited for. A goal: agree who joins the next call.
The meeting brief article shows how to turn research into a page like this.
Where Repclose fits
Repclose gathers the public part of this research. You upload your accounts and a sales profile, and it ranks the accounts. For the top-ranked accounts only (the top 10 by default) it lists about 10 people, gives the top 5 a profile check, and writes a short card on why they might care. Each point links to its source, with the publication date where one is available, and a point that is a guess is marked as one. It can't tell you how a particular bank reviews vendors; you learn that on the call.
See what a finished plan looks like in the sample brief, or start with your first 5 plans free.