Mastering Financial Services Sales Engagement | Roshan Cariappa from Vymo

Ernesto Quezada: Pathmonk is the intelligent tool for website lead generation. With increasing online competition, over 98% of website visitors don’t convert. The ability to successfully show your value proposition and support visitors in their buying journey separates you from the competition. Online Pathmonk qualifies and converts leads on your website by figuring out where they are in the buying journey and influencing them in key decision moments. With relevant micro experiences like case studies, intro videos, and much more, stay relevant to your visitors and increase conversions by 50%. Add Pathmonk to your website in seconds. Let the AI do all the work and get access to 50% more qualified leads while you keep doing marketing and sales as usual. Check us out on pathmonk.com. Welcome to today’s episode. Let’s talk about today’s guest. We have Roshan Cariappa from Vymo, VP of Marketing with them. How are you doing today, Roshan?

Roshan Cariappa: Doing very well. Thanks so much for hosting me, Ernesto.

Ernesto: It’s great to have you on. I’m sure our listeners are tuning in wondering what Vymo is all about, so let’s kick it off with that. Roshan, in your own words, can you tell us a little bit more?

Roshan: Sure. So, Vymo is what we call a sales engagement platform. We’re verticalized to serve financial institutions, that is primarily banks and insurance companies. Think of us as a single pane of glass for your agents, relationship managers, wholesalers, and what have you. Vymo acts as a personal assistant. It can help these agents and relationship managers plan, schedule, be more productive in their day, and also act as a personal coach, so it can do nudges, interventions, and so on to improve their outcomes. We are deployed for about 60 plus large enterprises, like AIA, Berkshire Hathaway, HDFC, and so on. We have about 400,000 users. We’ve been operational for about ten years now. We’ve raised about $45 million from Sequoia, Emergence Capital, and Bertelsmann, and are fairly recognized for what we do. We operate in the broad realm of CRM, Salesforce automation, and sales engagement platforms. So that’s that.

Ernesto: Okay, great to hear that. And so you were mentioning a couple of the industries here. I mean, you guys worked with Sun Life, AIA, HDFC Bank, all over. Right. So is there a specific vertical segment? Is there an ideal ICP for you guys?

Roshan: Yeah, so we primarily work with banks and insurance companies, some financial services firms, and fintechs as well. All of these folks have large distributed sales teams or deskless workforces, as we’d like to call them. Typically, there isn’t much visibility in terms of sales activities or customer interactions. There is no meaningful way to influence outcomes in real-time. Also, there isn’t much predictability in terms of what they can do outcome-wise. So that is the problem that we solve for these folks. Vymo is able to capture all of these activities pretty much automatically, giving them visibility. Then, Vymo can nudge and intervene to influence outcomes in real-time. And of course, Vymo can build playbooks as well. Simple things like how do you solve for renewals or how do you onboard people and get them more productive, and so on. We can build playbooks for these that you can deploy for large teams. As an insurance agent or a relationship manager, you don’t have to shuffle through multiple systems. We’re able to be the single pane of glass for them, generate meaningful insights, and turn them into interventions that can improve their outcomes.

Ernesto: Definitely important. All right, great to hear that. And so then how could they usually find out about Vymo? Is there a top client acquisition channel for you guys?

Roshan: So it really depends on what geography. We’re present across Asia, the US, and Japan. We started out in Asia and we expanded to the US and Japan afterwards. In Asia, we’ve been selling in these geographies for the last five to seven years. So we do get a lot of inbound. We’re like a premium brand in these geographies. People know about us, they’ve interacted with us, and so on. But in the newer geographies like the US and Japan, there is a lot of outbound and a lot of demand-focused campaigns that we have to do. We are pretty channel-agnostic in terms of acquisition. So everything works reasonably well for us. We do a fair number of events, like trade shows, some self-owned roundtables, customer conferences, and so on. We also do paid campaigns via LinkedIn and affiliate channels. So, yeah, it’s a fair mix of these channels, and depending on the geography, the time of the year, and so on, we use one or more of these.

Ernesto: Okay. All right. And so, so that way our listeners tuned in could go ahead and visit you guys. You could always check them out at vymo.com. What role does a website then play for client acquisition, Roshan?

Roshan: So Vymo is an enterprise product, which means that it is not a see, click, and buy kind of a sale. It’s a lot more consultative, a long, complex sales cycle. There are a lot of touchpoints, perhaps tens or even hundreds of touchpoints in any typical deal. So the website isn’t the tip of the spear for us. It’s not key to discovery, although I would say about 15-20% of the time that is the case, but not majority-wise. We’re not obsessed with tweaking messaging frequently. Rather, the website reinforces value that is communicated via other channels for us. We tend to use a lot of these landing pages that are very specific to the solution that we’re pitching. So that’s really how I look at the website for us.

Ernesto: Okay, perfect. Great to see that. And on that note then, I mean, it’s a little bit different. But, if there are any tools or tips or methods that you would recommend to our listeners as far as some website lead generation, then sure.

Roshan: I have tips on copy, which is, I think, essential. I have a lot of thoughts on this. Primarily, I think you should write for human beings. It should be simple and compelling. Brevity is good, but what is better is explaining things to a person. I would say break away from the cheaper, faster, better sort of cluttered messaging. Use idioms, be out of the box. Use some of these other instruments of storytelling. That’s really helpful. It’s just so much more effective. People don’t tune out when you do that. And yeah, personalize your landing pages to whatever solution you’re offering.

Ernesto: Right.

Roshan: I think these should perhaps be about 90-95% of the things that you should do with respect to conversions on the website.

Ernesto: Definitely. Great to hear that. Thanks for those tips and methods, Roshan. And well, let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about you as a leader there at Vymo, being the VP of Marketing. What are some key tasks you like to focus on in your day-to-day, Roshan?

Roshan: My day-to-day involves three things. Primarily, the first is to translate the company’s objectives. These could be things like revenue goals into team OKRs. We have about 21 people on the team, and these are spread across India, Southeast Asia, and the US. The second would be to align the team with respect to cadences and interventions, be able to coach the team, coach individuals, and make these interventions on a project basis as well. And then the third would be to lead some of these high-impact campaigns, which is outside of the business-as-usual kind of thing that we do. These would be most of what I do. But of course, being in leadership, there are some cross-functional things that come on your plate that you never quite are able to estimate.

Ernesto: Definitely. Very great. And so throughout the day or throughout the week, how do you stay up to date with all the marketing strategies and trends? Is there a specific channel that you like to keep up to date with all this information?

Roshan: I love podcasts. I mean, podcasts are a great source of information, and there are plenty out there, including yours, which are very valuable, very focused content. But I do love to learn from other marketers and operators. So I do connect with a bunch of folks who I think are doing great work. I try to indulge in other domains as well because I kind of believe in the Musashi quote: “If you know the way broadly you see it in everything.” I think you need to have a well-rounded perspective. Quite often when I meet marketers, they can’t talk beyond marketing. And that is a little tragic if you ask me. Marketing, at its core, is consumer psychology. Understanding people is very important. If you don’t understand all of these multiple endeavors that people engage in, then you’re not going to have a feel for what will really move the needle. Also, I think some awareness of the macro picture is really essential. Understanding the economy just beyond the business itself will help you understand what things influence businesses. This is especially important in B2B SaaS, I would say.

Ernesto: Great, great, great. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. And, well, let’s jump into our next section here, Roshan, which is our rapid-fire question round. Are you ready for them?

Roshan: I’ll try to be as rapid as possible.

Ernesto: All right, perfect. First question then, Roshan, what is the last book that you read?

Roshan: The last book that I read is a book called “Half Lion.” It is a biography of an Indian prime minister who championed liberalization here and reformed the economy. Not connected with marketing or startups but very inspiring how he was able to do some of those things. Otherwise, I just happen to reread a lot of Nassim Taleb, you know, “Fooled by Randomness,” “Skin in the Game,” and so on. So yeah, I do a lot of rereading of Nassim Taleb and some of Paul Graham’s essays.

Ernesto: Okay, great, great, great. What is one single thing that Vymo is focused on at the moment the most?

Roshan: We’re in the middle of a change in our positioning at this point. We’ve tried to be a sales engagement platform in the world of CRMs and Salesforce automation and we’ve pioneered the need for such a platform, which is focused on sales engagement specific to financial enterprises. But as we’ve built along that axis, we’ve realized that we’re more of a banking distribution platform or an insurance distribution platform. We’re going to go to the extreme of that verticalization and perhaps revisit our positioning on those lines, which will reflect our product better and also our aspirations better. I feel like that repositioning is one major thing. The second is obviously we’re expanding into the US and that is a key market for us. We’re very excited for the new team that we have on board and all of the great things that they will do. How can I miss our customer conference that is coming up in June, which is going to have some of the best leaders from banks and insurance companies across Asia? So yeah, those are three things that I’m really excited about.

Ernesto: Great, awesome. Next up, if there would be no boundaries in technology, what would be that one thing that you want to have fixed for your role as a marketer today?

Roshan: I’d actually be building that solution if I knew the answer to that. So I’m not quite sure because I think most things aren’t really a technology problem, but I am exploring how AI can solve for some things. We have used ChatGPT and Jasper and a bunch of these other tools to augment and make our work much better. But really, I’m on the lookout for that one use case that could completely transform my work. I might listen to a bunch of guests on your podcast to figure out what they have said so that could orient me into thinking about this question a little more.

Ernesto: Okay, perfect. And if there’s one repetitive task that you could automate, then what would that be?

Roshan: I think reports would be that one thing. Because every time I invest in making a report, I feel like it’s time wasted. I feel like it’s time that should have been ideally spent running campaigns, talking to customers, and whatnot. But it’s also very important to align ourselves with our goals and communicate to the rest of the team and company. If there’s one thing that could perhaps consolidate all of my CRM and marketing data onto one neat platform and also help me slice and dice this data in real-time and report on that, that would be amazing. If I don’t have to spend as much time—perhaps even 50% of the time that I’m spending at this point—I would be really happy with that.

Ernesto: All right, great. And lastly, Roshan, you have a lot of experience already in the marketing world, but is there one piece of advice that you would give yourself if you were to restart your journey as a marketer today?

Roshan: I would say talk to more prospects and customers. It is something that’s always relevant. I feel like a lot of marketers, myself included, don’t do nearly as much of that. It’s really a transformative experience because even if you are in the B2B space, you’re actually selling to people. Having an understanding of their day, their life, what their priorities are, some of the challenges that they’re dealing with, what they’re optimistic about, and so on—just way beyond work itself—will help you paint a better picture of your prospects for yourself. You can never really talk to enough of these prospects and customers. It’s the single biggest lever to up-level your game, I feel.

Ernesto: Okay, great to hear that. Well, Roshan, we are coming to the end of the show today. But before we do, I want to give you the last word. If someone forgets everything about the interview today, what is that one thing they should remember about Vymo?

Roshan: Well, I mean I did speak a lot about Vymo but yeah, I think the one thing is that we’re really transforming distribution in financial services. We’re helping banks and insurance companies reach their customers and engage them more meaningfully. So perhaps the next time you get a call from your insurance agent or relationship manager at a bank, you might want to ask if they’re using Vymo.

Ernesto: Perfect there. Whether you guys heard it from Roshan, you could always visit them at vymo.com, the sales engagement platform of choice for financial institutions. Roshan, thank you so much for being on with us today. To our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in, and I’m looking forward to our next episode at Pathmonk Presents. Thanks a lot, Roshan.

Roshan: Thanks so much for hosting me, Ernesto. A great set of questions, and I look forward to listening to this.