A Practitioner's Guide · 2026
Selling
the Abstract
Understanding the nuances of IT Services & SaaS Marketing — a first-principles guide grounded in 20 years of practitioner experience.
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Understanding the nuances of IT Services & SaaS Marketing — a first-principles guide grounded in 20 years of practitioner experience.
They told you to keep your head down. Deliver excellence. The results will talk. Word will spread. LinkedIn posts are for people who aren't actually busy building things.
The buyer has already made up their mind before your sales team gets the meeting. The firm that wins shaped how the buying committee thinks — before the formal evaluation even started.
Open the websites of ten IT services companies in your space. Count how many use the phrase "trusted partner." Count how many promise "business outcomes" through "deep expertise." Spoiler: it's ten.
When everyone claims the same things, differentiation disappears. When differentiation disappears, decisions default to price, relationships, or risk avoidance — none of which favor the firm with genuinely superior capabilities.
"The language of services marketing has become so generic that it communicates almost nothing."
— SELLING THE ABSTRACT, CH.1
Selling the Abstract gives you the frameworks to build a brand that's specific enough to be believed, credible enough to be trusted, and different enough to be chosen — without the generic noise.
When you communicate what only you can say — in a language your buyers actually recognize — generic competitors fade into the background. Premium pricing becomes defensible. Sales cycles compress. The same deals that used to slip away start closing.
"Specificity is the antidote to generic positioning. Name the problem. Name the stakes. Name the proof."
— SELLING THE ABSTRACT, CH.2
Publish more. Automate everything. Let the algorithm decide. Generate 40 LinkedIn posts in 3 minutes. Your competitors are doing it. You should too. Right?
AI can produce infinite content in seconds. That's the problem. In an AI-flooded market, the competitive advantage belongs to those who know when to slow down.
"Tools without strategy produce noise, not insights. AI without judgment produces volume, not value."
— SELLING THE ABSTRACT, FOREWORD
The future of marketing belongs to those who combine the speed and scale of AI with the depth and nuance that only human experience can provide. This book gives you the latter — so the former actually works.
The winning marketers use AI for leverage — not for voice. They bring the strategy, the taste, the point of view. AI brings the speed. That is how depth and scale coexist in the same playbook.
"Judgment is the non-automatable asset. Invest in it relentlessly, and your AI stack will pay dividends."
— SELLING THE ABSTRACT, CH.12
Selling the Abstract is a comprehensive, first-principles guide to marketing in IT services and SaaS — grounded in 20 years of practitioner experience and the latest B2B research. Not theory. Not tactics for their own sake. A complete framework for building marketing that actually earns trust, creates pipeline, and compounds over time.
Written for marketing professionals, aspiring CMOs, founders, and business leaders who need to understand not just what to do — but why it works.
Amit spent over two decades inside the marketing engines of some of the world's most demanding technology firms, from HCL Technologies to Genpact, Innodata to EXL. Those years gave him two things: understanding the nuances of marketing at the highest levels, and an uncomfortable front-row seat to why exceptional companies stay invisible and what it costs them.
Stepping away from corporate comfort at 38 to found Markivis, a B2B marketing consultancy built exclusively for IT services and SaaS organizations competing in a world where being excellent is no longer enough. He didn't write this book from a podium. He wrote it from the wreckage of pitches that didn’t land, campaigns that didn’t convert, and the slow, hard-won understanding of what moves buyers.
Selling the Abstract is the book he needed twenty years ago and couldn’t find. He’s based in New Delhi, India and still answers his own emails.
Writing a book, running Markivis, and advising clients doesn't leave a lot of free time — but the right conversation always does. If you have a question, an idea, or just want to say hello, the door is open.
The book that teaches IT services and SaaS leaders how to be seen, understood, and trusted — long before the meeting.
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