Breakfast on Gran Vía #2: In B2B, does your brand sell or just decorate?

The B2B ecosystem often carries a stigma: the false belief that branding is a purely aesthetic exercise. That in a complex sales environment, only the product and the price matter. However, today's reality proves exactly the opposite.

For the second edition of our Gran Vía Breakfasts at Soluble, we met with growth leaders from benchmark companies (TaxDown, Omnia, DRIZA, Extandard, Reveni, GMS, and Civitatis) to address an unavoidable paradigm shift: brand is a key tool in the sales process.

Here, we share the main takeaways from a morning spent discussing algorithms, message compression, and the increasingly subtle boundary between B2B and B2C.

The invisible boundary: from selling to companies to connecting with humans

For a long time, B2B was treated like "the back of the fridge." However, the consensus at the breakfast table was unanimous: buying dynamics have changed. B2B users research, compare, and buy with the same expectations they have as B2C consumers.

"I’ve brought the creative side of B2C into B2B, and that’s what makes you stand out in a sea of SaaS. At the end of the day, in B2B, we are also talking to people." — Alejandra Lorente, Extandard

Although metrics and sales cycles differ, the need to create an emotional connection is identical. Isabel Cabrero (Civitatis) highlights how their company's B2B division began to grow organically precisely because travel agents consume the brand with that same human logic.

It’s not about shouting louder across every channel, but about choosing your battles. As Ricardo de Tomás (DRIZA) aptly pointed out, "positioning depends on your stage, and if you try to be on every channel for every audience, you’re playing with fire."

Lossless compression: translating technology

One of the biggest hurdles in B2B tech is message complexity. Those leading these companies often have deeply technical backgrounds, which frequently results in dense narratives that are difficult for the end customer to digest.

"We need to translate that technical discourse into something understandable. At Soluble, we focus on developing that technological narrative without losing rigor, applying a kind of 'lossless compression'." — Marta Factor, General Manager at Soluble

This narrative clarity is vital in the self-serve era. Today, B2B customers want to research autonomously on your website before speaking to a salesperson. Your brand must be able to explain why you are the best option within the first few seconds of interaction, preparing the ground for your sales team to close the deal.

Your new audience is also an algorithm

We talk a lot about humanizing, but there is a technical reality we cannot ignore: your website isn't just read by humans; it is also scanned by algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Daniel Espejo (Omnia) focused on how AI perceives us. If a brand has contradictory messages or drastically separates its B2B and B2C communication, the AI gets confused. Brand consensus is vital for new search tools to recommend you. Furthermore, saturation is real. Dani (TaxDown) and María Crespo (GMS) agree on the need to find new ways to stand out in an environment where formats are quickly exhausted (as is currently happening with AI-generated videos). In this context, aspects that once seemed exclusive to B2C, such as impeccable review management, have become a fundamental pillar of B2B reputation, directly affecting how search engines and AI index your authority.

Brand as business, not as a whim

In the tech sector, it’s common for design to be "the last person hired." And that is a costly mistake. A brand isn't just a logo: it’s planting seeds.

"A brand isn't a whim; it’s a business. There is no longer a set order in the funnel. That’s why you must make the mental image of what you want to project very clear." — Ismael Barros, CEO of Soluble

Building a brand requires losing the fear and radically committing to a position. When your brand is born from who you are and what you stand for, you create a natural filter: some people won't be a fit, but those who stay will trust you completely.

It is the only asset that the competition cannot copy. They can replicate your software, match your prices, or imitate your acquisition model, but the perception you have created in people's minds belongs exclusively to you.

Conclusion: the value of being readable

Having a well-built identity accelerates the sales cycle, grants you authority in an ocean of competitors, and speaks your customers' language without diluting your essence. At Soluble, this meeting reaffirms our conviction: in the B2B environment, if your brand doesn't emit clear, solid, and verifiable signals, you are invisible.

Thank you to all the attendees for daring to open this can of worms with us and for sharing your hands-on experience.