AKA: Turning silent supplier behavior into a conversation about growth.
At Apex Analytix, we worked with clients like JetBlue, Southwest, and JPMC to help them manage supplier payments through our portal. One key feature? The ability for suppliers to get paid early — at a discount — rather than waiting the usual 30–45 days.
For clients, that meant cost savings. For Apex, it meant revenue, thanks to a profit-sharing model. But most of that value hinged on a simple thing: suppliers actually logging in and opting in.
There were marketing campaigns, sure — but results were sporadic. I turned to ELK dashboards and noticed a sharp falloff: suppliers onboarded… and then disappeared. No logins, no activity, no awareness of early payment options.
“They weren’t rejecting the offer. They just didn’t know it existed.”
I compiled the data, visualized the drop-off, and started sharing it internally. It sparked new conversations. Eventually, I brought it to QBRs with clients — along with proposals for segmented outreach, alert triggers, and dashboard reporting that showed real supplier behavior.
This wasn’t a traditional sales cycle. No RFPs. No complex approval chains. Just insight, storytelling, and timing. While I didn’t use a pure sales framework, I leaned on a mix of Challenger thinking and value-based framing to guide the conversation: Teach something new → Tie it to their outcomes → Take the next step.
Sometimes you don’t need to build something new — just show what’s already happening, clearly enough to matter.