Selling To Owners Is Harder - Why Construction Tech Companies Should Target Developers Over Contractors To Make Money

Bricks And Bytes

"If you're a VP of Sales and things go wrong, you either failed or got a bad plan. But if you're a CRO and things go wrong, you probably shouldn't have taken the job."

In today's episode of Bricks & Bytes, we had Mike Pettinella and we got to learn about scaling construction tech from zero to a $275M exit, the brutal realities of international expansion, and why targeting owners instead of contractors is the harder but smarter play... and many more!

Tune in to find out about:

✅ Why sales is only two things: volume and efficiency (and you can't train volume)

✅ The real difference between selling to American vs British buyers

✅ How Building Connected went from zero revenue to Autodesk acquisition

✅ Why dedicated reality capture beats DIY solutions every time

Mike's journey from forensic construction consulting to leading sales at unicorn startups reveals hard-won insights about building in the most relationship-driven industry on earth.

Listen on Spotify now to hear the full conversation.

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Our Sponsor:

Archdesk - “The #1 Construction Management Software for Growing Companies - Manage your projects from Tender to Handover” check archdesk.com

BuildVision - streamlining the construction supply chain with a unified platform - www.buildvision.io

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Chapters

00:00 Intro

02:49 Understanding Roles: CRO vs. VP of Sales

03:58 Building Connected: The Journey to Acquisition

06:05 Transitioning to Monetization: Challenges and Strategies

07:55 Sales Strategies: From Inside Sales to Enterprise Deals

11:49 Geographic Sales Dynamics: Where's the Business?

14:03 Consulting to Sales: Skills and Strategies Transferred

16:22 Managing Sales Volume: Efficiency and Technology

19:14 Cultural Shift: Selling in EMEA vs. North America

24:59 Expanding Markets: Product Adaptation is Key

28:58 OnSight IQ: The Journey and Vision of a Startup

33:34 Characteristics of Great Founders: Relentlessness and Empathy

37:25 Cooking and Morning Routines

38:38 Targeting Owners in Construction

42:54 The Importance of Construction Data Ownership

46:12 Strategies for Targeting Developers

49:14 Reality Capture in Construction

53:04 Best Practices for Reality Capture

56:08 Future of Data Utilization in Construction

58:45 Speeding Up Sales Cycles

1:00:35 Managing Multiple Stakeholders

1:02:09 Closing Big Deals

1:04:04 Pricing Strategies in Construction Tech

1:05:48 Mentoring in Sales

1:09:02 The Story Behind the Art

1:11:29 Exciting Product Developments