Product-led SaaS
You sell a subscription, not services. Signals, pricing and playbooks are different; use Clay, Apollo or a PLM stack.
How it works · the machine behind the thirteen agents
Know which accounts have credible evidence that they could buy your services now.
Sales Brain monitors 170+ buying signals daily, keeps only accounts with a confirmed outsourcing precedent, cross-checks them against your CRM, and hands your sellers a reviewed decision with the buyer, the proof and the message attached. This page is the detail behind that sentence.
Outsourcing-first filtering
Not every company with hiring signals and budget actually buys external services. Before any account reaches your team, Sales Brain confirms that the company has either an existing outsourcing relationship, a procurement route for external vendors, or a documented history of working with third-party integrators, agencies and consultancies.
Signals in · decisions out
LiveNew Head of Digital hired
Tender published
Core system deprecated
Compliance deadline Q3
3 integration roles posted
Champion moved company
Board approves transformation budget
Vendor contract expiring
Two ERP systems after merger
CTO speaks about legacy stack
Regional integrator named
Proposal postponed last year
Gate · confirmed outsourcing precedent
Most signals stop here
Riverbend Credit UnionPursue
Nordic logistics operatorWatch
Mid-market insurerPass
Outsourcing gate · at least one proof required
Proof 1
Existing outsourcing relationship
A named integrator, agency or consultancy already delivers work
Proof 2
Procurement route for external vendors
Frameworks, tenders or a documented purchasing path
Proof 3
History of third-party delivery
Previous projects visibly delivered from outside the building
No proof · account never reaches your team
Proof confirmed · account enters review
The arithmetic
Compared with the setup you already pay for
This is a cost comparison, not a promise. Judge it against your own numbers.
What the current setup costs
- One SDR, fully loaded (salary + tools + overhead)
- $60K–$90K / year
- ZoomInfo / Apollo data seats
- $12K–$20K / year
- Clay / Apollo enrichment + workflow automation
- $3K–$8K / year
- Bombora / G2 / 6sense intent feeds
- $4K–$9K / year
- Research time lost to list-building and verification
- 8–12 hours per rep, every week
What the engine replaces
- Data, enrichment and intent tooling you licence yourself
- None
- Software seats to buy and operate
- None
- Research time moved off your reps
- Most of it
- Commercial terms
- Agreed with Ivan
Figures above are illustrative market ranges for a consultancy sales setup. Sales Brain runs the data, research and verification work inside Ivan's managed service, so those licences and that research time do not sit with your team.
Fit
Who the engine is built for
Built for consultancies selling expertise and complex delivery — not SaaS companies or product startups. Deal cycles run weeks to months, context gets lost between reps, and research time is the biggest bottleneck.
Firm types
- Software-development consultancies
- Custom engineering consultancies
- AI, ML and data consultancies
- Software modernisation and integration consultancies
- Dedicated software-engineering team providers
You are a fit if
A team of 2+ people doing outbound or account-based sales. A CRM with at least 6 months of history. Engagements sold as projects, dedicated teams or ongoing delivery. A willingness to let an engine make Pursue, Watch and Pass decisions instead of the team guessing.
Fit filter
Software development firmFit
Performance marketing agencyFit
Product-led SaaSNot a fit
Data & AI consultancyFit
E-commerce brandNot a fit
RPO / staffing firmFit
Solo freelancerNot a fit
Cybersecurity servicesFit
Marketplace commodity workNot a fit
Fit
Who Sales Brain is not for
B2C and e-commerce
No long buying cycles, no named buyers, no procurement.
Transactional or low-ACV sales
Research time exceeds the deal value and volume is the only lever.
Solo freelancers and very small firms
Not enough delivery capacity or sales volume to justify a managed research engine.
Firms with no CRM or no sales process
We need a history to reactivate and a workflow to plug into.
Companies selling commodity work through marketplaces
Upwork, Fiverr and Toptal-style platforms already provide the matching layer.
Teams wanting volume outreach
The engine improves the decision before contact, not the send volume.
Fit map · where Sales Brain works
Dev / IT outsourcing
Marketing agency
Consultancy
Cyber & compliance
RPO / staffing
Product-led SaaS
E-commerce
Marketplace work
Solo freelancer
B2C / commodity
B2B, named buyers
TransactionalConsidered purchase
Shaded quadrant · long cycles, named buyers, services sold to companies
Sales Brain is built for software-development and AI consultancies selling complex delivery to named buyers. If that is not your model, no amount of data will help.
Coverage
170+ signals monitored daily
We track buying intent across 6 signal families and dozens of data sources, from regulatory deadlines and leadership moves to tender registries, tech-stack shifts, competitor deprecations and procurement precedents. Not all signals matter for every consultancy; we filter to the ones that create externally deliverable software-development or AI work for your specific offer.
0+signals monitored daily across 6 families
Regulatory and compliance
Deadlines, audits, reporting regimes and licence conditions that force a project with a date.
Leadership and people moves
New owners of a mandate, former champions arriving at a new company, teams being built or frozen.
Procurement and tenders
Tender registries, framework agreements, expiring contracts and named vendors on previous awards.
Technology shifts
Stack changes, end-of-life notices, competitor deprecations and migration announcements.
Delivery and capacity
Hiring that cannot close in time, parallel systems after a merger, roadmaps already committed.
Outsourcing precedent
Existing integrator relationships, third-party case studies and a documented route for external vendors.
The problem
The problem is not a lack of data
The right context is usually missing when someone decides what to do next.
What happens
What gets lost
A prospect says, "Come back after budget approval"
The date passes without a follow-up using the original context
A client postpones a product phase, retainer or team extension
The opportunity stays marked as lost after the situation changes
A former buyer or CTO joins another company
The relationship remains attached to the old CRM record
A proposal is rejected because of timing or priorities
The reason is buried in notes and is not used again
A salesperson leaves or changes territory
Their knowledge of buyers, objections and commitments leaves too
A company has strong hiring signals but never used an external partner
Sales chases an internal-only shop for months before discovering it
A prospect asks for an estimate
Delivery spends time before sales confirms a real project and buying path
Prospecting tools add more records, but the team still has to decide whether an account is worth the effort. Good accounts are forgotten, weak accounts consume senior sales time and each campaign starts too close to zero.
Output
What your salesperson receives
Not a list of names. A reviewed commercial situation that is ready for a decision.
Illustrative opportunity produced for a software-development consultancy
Riverbend Community Credit Union
$480M assets · 6 branches · Ohio
- What changed Confirmed
- First-ever Head of Digital Banking hired; board approved 2026 digital-transformation budget; instant-payments compliance deadline forces core modernization by Q3.
- Why this may create external work Inferred
- Internal IT is 4 people keeping the core running. The deadline is fixed; hiring will not cover it in time. A bounded digital-channel and integration workstream must go outside.
- Does the company outsource software work? Confirmed
- Yes. The integration layer on the previous digital-channel project was delivered by Great Lakes Digital Partners (regional integrator), and the 2022 mobile-banking refresh was outsourced to Finastra Consulting. A procurement route and vendor precedent already exist. Internal IT is not set up to lead a modernization workstream.
- What your agency already knows Confirmed
- SDR touched them in 2024 with no response. Reason now visible: no digital owner existed then.
- Who owns the problem Confirmed
- M. Gonzalez · Head of Digital Banking. Verified current role, work email, LinkedIn profile.
- Relevant proof Confirmed
- Your community-bank core-integration case is the closest approved match.
- What remains unknown Unknown
- Budget size; RFP or direct negotiation.
Next action · dual-track approach
Track A — direct to owner
Message M. Gonzalez with a short note connecting her mandate, the instant-payments deadline and your community-bank core-integration case. Offer a 20-minute scoping call before any RFP is drafted.
Track B — through the integrator
Contact the engagement lead at Great Lakes Digital Partners. They know the environment, likely have the buyer relationship and may subcontract the integration work rather than compete. Position your bench as a plug-in team they can white-label.
Both tracks run in parallel over 5 business days.
Every reviewed account ends in one state:
Enough evidence exists to justify action now.
Act after a defined event or date.
There is no supported reason to spend sales time.
There is no unexplained lead score. The evidence, inference, unknowns and reason for the decision remain visible.
Sales Brain maps both the buying center and the vendor ecosystem around it. A competitor on the last project is often a partner on the next.
Objections
The questions sales leaders ask first
Short answers, in the order they usually come up.
We already pay for ZoomInfo and Apollo.
Those return records. Sales Brain returns decisions. You can drop the seats your team only opens to do research, and keep your CRM as the system of record.
We already have an SDR team.
They keep the outreach. We remove the research and the wrong accounts, so the same team works a shorter, better list with the buyer, proof and angle already attached.
Our CRM is a mess.
The CRM Archaeologist agent shows what is recoverable and what cannot be trusted, and we do not fill the gaps with assumptions.
We are in the EU — what about GDPR?
Public and licensed sources only, processed in the EU, NDA before any review, deletion on request, and your sales history is never used to train a shared client model.
How fast do we see something?
The diagnostic on this site returns its read immediately. The first reviewed accounts come from the first agreed batch of research, and scope and timing are agreed with Ivan.
What if the output is weak?
Then the honest output is Watch or Pass with a stated reason. You judge the decisions on accounts you already know, and every claim carries its source.
Compare
One system instead of a prospecting stack your team has to operate
Clay, Apollo and ZoomInfo can return records, enrich fields and automate steps. They do not decide whether an account can realistically buy your services, whether the work matches your delivery model or whether contacting it is a good use of sales time.
Clay
Apollo / ZoomInfo
Intent feeds
AI writers and sequencers
Analysts and spreadsheets
One research and qualification engine
Sales Brain prepares data, research, verification and decisions for Ivan's managed service
Current layer
What it provides
What remains unresolved
Clay
Enrichment and workflows
What to research and which evidence matters
Apollo / ZoomInfo
Company and contact data
Whether to pursue the account and who owns the problem
Intent feeds
Signals and activity
Whether the change creates externally deliverable work
AI writers and sequencers
Messages and sends
The hypothesis, buying route, proof and safe claim
Analysts and spreadsheets
Manual research
The decision, next action and reusable memory
Sales Brain is the research and qualification engine behind Ivan Lapsha's managed sales service. It runs the data, research, verification and decision process that supports the service.
Your team does not need separate Clay, Apollo or ZoomInfo seats. Sales Brain may use public sources, licensed data and specialist services behind the scenes, but selecting and operating them is our responsibility.
Your CRM remains the system of record. The reviewed queue can be delivered into your CRM, Slack or the seller's inbox. Approved outreach runs through Ivan's managed sales service after the commercial approach is agreed.
Installation
What gets installed
Sales Brain is configured around what your company can sell, how your buyers purchase and what your team has already learned.
01
Offer model
Services, target problems, delivery models, market boundaries, buying routes and reasons not to pursue.
02
Commercial memory
Accounts, buyers, champions, proposals, objections, commitments, campaigns and approved cases.
03
Market monitoring
Company changes, buyer moves, projects, procurement, outsourcing precedent, external supplier history and events that reopen a conversation.
04
Decision system
Evidence rules, explicit unknowns, Pursue/Watch/Pass thresholds, buyer selection, proof matching and next actions.
05
Delivery and learning
Account cards, CRM fields, seller notifications and regular recalibration from what progressed, stalled or proved irrelevant.
The same system can support new logos, expansion, reactivation, partners and retention.
Operation
What arrives every day
For each account that survives review, the team receives:
- What changed and why it may create external work
- Evidence that the company can buy from an outside partner and has a history of outsourcing
- Relevant CRM history and existing relationships
- The verified problem owner and other decision participants
- The closest approved case or proof
- A suggested angle, message and next action
- Known gaps, risks and reasons to stop
Today's reviewed queue
Delivered 07:00- Pursue
Riverbend Community Credit Union
New Head of Digital Banking
- Pursue
Halden Logistics Group
Two ERP systems after merger
- Watch
Arden Mutual Insurance
Tender expected in Q4
- Pass
Kestrel Manufacturing
Internal-only IT, no vendor history
What we measure · illustrative
Seller acceptance of reviewed accounts
Time from change to decision
Reopened conversations
False-positive signals removed
Not the number of records produced.
Sales Brain also records why other accounts were placed in Watch or Pass, so another salesperson does not research the same weak hypothesis next month.
We measure decision quality and commercial use, not the number of records produced. Relevant measures include seller acceptance, time from change to decision, activated or reopened conversations, opportunities created or advanced and false-positive signals removed from future research.
Where it starts
Evidence already inside the consultancy
A CRM usually already contains prospects worth reopening: old proposals, postponed projects, former champions and buyers who asked to be contacted later. That history is the first place the engine looks.
What the engine reads from history
- Named accounts drawn from your own history
- One agreed CRM export; no live integration and no writes back
- Review of available history against current external changes
- A Pursue, Watch or Pass decision for every account, with its evidence
- Verified contacts, proof and a prepared approach for accounts that clear the threshold
- Accounts whose history is too thin are reported as such instead of being padded
Gaps are made visible rather than filled with assumptions. Scope and sequencing are agreed with Ivan Lapsha as part of his managed service.
15 CRM accounts reviewed
Five business days
Pursue · 3
Account 01
Account 02
Account 03
Watch · 5
Account 01
Account 02
Account 03
Account 04
Account 05
Pass · 7
Account 01
Account 02
Account 03
Account 04
Account 05
Account 06
Account 07
Illustrative distribution. If the evidence does not support activation, the correct output is Watch or Pass with a reason.
Path
Research, review, then approved outreach
Opportunity Diagnostic
Interactive demonstration · about six minutes
Confirm one offer profile, define a market boundary and see the type of Pursue, Watch and Pass decisions the engine produces.
Offer and evidence model
Research first
The engine models what the consultancy can credibly sell, its case library, exclusions and evidence rules, then sets the Pursue, Watch and Pass thresholds.
Human review
Before anything is activated
Ivan reviews each account, its evidence, the buyer map and the proposed approach. Weak evidence becomes Watch or Pass with a stated reason.
Approved outreach
Through the managed service
Once the commercial approach is agreed, outreach runs through Ivan's managed sales service, and outcomes recalibrate the engine's thresholds and proof library.
Sales Brain is not software access. It is the research, qualification and preparation capability inside Ivan Lapsha's managed sales service, and it improves with every reviewed decision.
How Sales Brain is delivered
Sales Brain is not sold as standalone software. It is the engine behind Ivan Lapsha's managed service.
This page exists to show how the engine reads a market, filters it and prepares an account. Scope, terms and commercial details live on Ivan's managed-service page.
Data
Your data remains yours
We can start with a controlled CRM export or agreed read-only access.
Data boundary · NDA can be signed before review
Your systems
- CRM export or read-only access
- Proposal and objection history
- Approved case library
Your Sales Brain only
- Used for your account decisions
- No writes back to your systems
- Deletable on request
Never leaves the boundary
- No shared client model training
- No resale or pooling of history
- No undisclosed data sources
- An NDA can be signed before data review
- The engine does not write back to your systems
- Access and information sources are agreed in advance
- Processing and storage inside the EU
- Public and licensed sources only — no scraped personal data resale
- Your data is used only for your Sales Brain
- Your sales history is not used to train a shared client model
- Provided data can be deleted on request
An incomplete CRM limits what can be recovered from history; it does not prevent the wider system from monitoring new logos and market changes. We make gaps visible rather than filling them with assumptions.
FAQ
Straight answers
Is this another lead database?
No. A database tells you who matches filters. Sales Brain investigates what is happening, whether it creates work an external supplier can deliver, whether the company has a history of outsourcing, whether your company has a credible right to win and what should happen next.
Do we still need Clay, Apollo or ZoomInfo?
Not as tools your sales team has to buy, configure and operate. Sales Brain handles the required data, workflows and verification as the research and qualification engine behind Ivan Lapsha's managed sales service. Your CRM can remain the system of record.
Can I buy Sales Brain as software?
No. Sales Brain is not sold or licensed on its own. It is the engine behind Ivan Lapsha's managed sales service, and access to it comes with that service.
Does it send outreach?
Research first, human review before activation, then approved outreach. The engine prepares the account, evidence, buyer, proof and message; outreach runs through Ivan's managed service once the commercial approach is agreed.
What if our CRM is incomplete?
The engine shows what can be recovered and what cannot be trusted. It can still investigate new accounts and market changes without a rich history.
We are an AI or data consultancy rather than classic software development. Is this for us?
Yes. The engine is built for consultancies selling expertise and complex delivery: software development, custom engineering, and AI, ML and data work. The offer model, proof library and signal set are configured around your specific practice.
Who actually does the work?
Ivan Lapsha and a small research team at Humatech Labs, with automation behind the scenes. Every account that reaches a seller has been checked by a person, and one named operator stays accountable for decision quality.
Can you sign our DPA?
Yes. An NDA and a data processing agreement can both be signed before any CRM export is reviewed. Sources and access scope are agreed in writing in advance.
What happens to the work already delivered if we stop?
Everything already delivered — decisions, evidence, contacts, messages — stays with you, there are no platform seats to unwind, and provided data is deleted on request.
This is the engine. Ivan Lapsha runs the service around it.
You can see how the engine reads an offer in the free diagnostic on this site. Scope, approach and commercial terms live with Ivan Lapsha's managed sales service.
Built for consultancies selling expertise and complex delivery—not SaaS companies or product startups.