Need some B2B sales advice for the tech recruiting industry

Definitely going to need more info on your product but I am intrigued. I've been in the tech recruiting industry as well as have many years (10+) in b2b sales. Would love to chat with you once I can clearly see what value your software or service brings to the industry. I still have many colleagues in the tech recruiting industry and they're struggling due to apps such as Zip Recruiter, Indeed and Dice (dedicated to tech talent). If you can carve out a niche, maybe I can help put together a biz dev or go-to-market strategy.

...and reaching out to them. I haven't thought of a good and systematic way to figure that out

Have you simply tried sending an email as a conversation starter to all of these companies?

Hi there,

Congrats on the decision to work on this problem - it's definitely a toughie.

A few indie hackers are working in the same space. For example the excellent @lynnetye with [keyvalues.com] (https://www.keyvalues.com).

Here are some thoughts based on your post:

Being an engineer myself, I've experienced first hand how bad this industry can suck (the spam, the cheesy emails, the sycophancy, the same old tired solicitation techniques, etc.).

Ok, so you have a good idea of the difficulties/problems for your side of the market. How about the side that pays?

I've had recruiters introduce me to companies that were an extremely bad fit and gone on to do interviews that were just a waste of everyone's time.

Why?

(really understanding that will be key to creating value IMO)

I'm experimenting with a process that hopefully will yield much better results - ensuring better soft skills / tech skills / values matches for candidates and companies.

Sounds great - but way too vague. Better results for whom? Candidates? Employers? Recruiters?

If employers, all employers? Or specific niches of employers like startups?

And what does better results mean? Faster? Cheaper? Longer retention?

IMO you'd do well to focus down to solving one of those problems really well for one customer niche. Sales will be hard otherwise.

My biggest challenge and thing I personally have the least experience with is selling B2B services, specifically recruiting services.

Then maybe don't sell in the traditional sense of selling (prescriptively). Have a conversation. Position yourself as someone who has a shared interest with the employer and wants to learn from their experience. Most people like to be listened to, especially when you call them an expert.

I'm thinking that my next step is figuring out what companies are currently using existing recruiting agencies, and reaching out to them. I haven't thought of a good and systematic way to figure that out (short of bribing employees to reveal confidential information - which I'm not ok with).

Well I don't think you really need to worry about this step yet as you haven't found a tangible problem to solve yet. But one way to go about it would be to advertise several (fake) positions and, when recruiting agencies reach out to you to fill the role, just ask for a few references from each agency (ie companies they work with).

I'm also potentially interested in partnering up somehow with someone who's well connected with growing tech companies or has experience selling similar kinds of B2B services. PM me if curious :)

If I were you I wouldn't do this just yet. To build a useful product you need to spend a lot of time with your ideal customers. Skipping that step is like hiring someone to carry you around instead of learning to walk. At some point, you'll be too heavy to carry around and you still won't have learnt to walk, so you'll be back to square one.

Good luck!