Benevolent Buying Project Trust Index About Steve

Before buying software your team won't use...

If you’re like most business owners, you’re probably frustrated with the ROI of the software you've purchased because you paid a lot of money for a system that your staff are only using 20-30% of and you aren’t seeing the ROI you expected.

As someone who spent 20 years trying to get you to buy software, I'm here to tell you that how you buy matters more than what you buy.That's why I've launched the Benevolent Buying Project. A place dedicated to helping owners and managers of SMBs get more from their tech, starting the moment we decide we need to buy.Content. Courses. Workshops. Community.Vendors continually train their sales execs how to sell. And yet we rarely think about HOW we buy. We need a new approach, a new buying methodology. Because what we've been doing hasn't given us the ROI we've expected.If you want to get more from the tech you buy, sign-up.
When the community launches, you'll be the first to know.

Here's a bit more to chew on.Your tech frustrations are rooted in "The Lie".

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The Lie

We’ve all been conditioned to think that it’s the features & functionality of a system that will deliver results. They don’t. And yet look at any SaaS website or demo and where is the focus? Features & functionality.This is the lie told to us by vendors and one we tell ourselves. It's how vendors differentiate products. And it's how we feel in control deciding what we buy. The traditional buying process is designed to exploit this.Here’s the thing: in over 40 years of enterprise software we haven’t changed how we buy. The sequential steps we take. The focus on features & functionality.

Our obsession with features & functionality drives the trust gap we all experience with vendors. Take this finding from the 2026 Benevolent Insurtech Trust Index:

"67% of broker respondents believe vendor promises of ROI are overstated."

What's your process?

When was the last time you thought about how you buy technology? Really questioned the steps you take and connected this to the results you see?Over the last 30 years research has repeatedly shown that we do not get the ROI we expect from the tech we buy. In fact, it’s woefully low. And we’re all frustrated by it.We can't change how vendors market or sell. We can't change the software they build. What we can change is how we approach buying. And clearly, we need a different approach.

Flip the Buying Script

The Benevolent Buying Project breaks from the feature-first approach we've used, for decades, to purchase tech and focuses on what really matters: workflows, processes, jobs to be done, and our personal approach to tech.

Here’s how we do that:1. Uncover Your Buying Persona: we run a proprietary Buying Persona survey to develop insights into your leadership style and culture around buying and implementing technology.2. Map the Operational Territory: painstakingly document the people, processes and tools supporting your Most Important Jobs To Be Done.3. Develop an Onboarding Plan: relying on vendors to lead implementation is a failure point and one we mitigate by detailing the 3 R’s of Onboarding: Rules of Engagement, Responsibilities, Reporting.4. Double the Demo: One demo is not enough. Two demos, done right, show what the system can really, or really not, do.5. Negotiate for Adoption: Use money as a lever to get commitments on user adoption. Adoption drives long term value, not a 10% price break.

If getting more from the software you buy, if feeling more confident in the buying decision you make is important to you, drop your email in the form below and I'll let you be the first to know know when the Benevolent Buying Project launches.

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The Benevolent Buying Project is an initiative of Benevolent Marketing. It came about after Steve and Benevolent published the 2026 Insurtech Trust Index. In this report, 67% of respondents said that vendor promises of ROI are overstated.Having worked at a technology company for almost 20 years, Steve understood the process of how business owners buy. And it is always top-down. This realization lead to the mission to help owners buy better. He's convinced, more than ever, that buyers need to be more pro-active in determining how to help their staff use tech and less concerned about which tech they buy.

Trust Index

Ask almost any tech vendor if trust is important to them, and you'll get a hard yes.And yet, when insurance brokers were asked if they trust their insurtech vendors, the results were less than stellar.Click on the image to download the full report.