SaaS sales guide

by Rafał Muszyński

Are you responsible for your SaaS sales success?

No matter if you are just entering the world of SaaS sales or been around for a while, you should be able to analyze your SaaS sales process and work on methods to develop it further.

This guide covers both. Let’s see how to get started and improve your SaaS sales.

What determines your SaaS sales process?

Let’s go through various elements that decide how you sell your SaaS.

Your product

This is the starting point for establishing all the following qualities that influence your SaaS sales process. Think about whether your product is a powerful suite or fits the needs of an exact niche.

Your clients

Let’s now take a look at your customers. When adjusting your selling process, you should find answers for two questions:

  1. What are the problems that your clients cope with?
  2. How much attention do they expect?

When selling SaaS, you have to deal with educating your clients. It is not only about what your product can do – but how it can benefit your clients’ businesses. That is why you should have clear what problems does your product solve for your customers.

And now, how to establish the attention demanded from your clients? A good indicator would be your AVP – average selling price. Think about various SaaS models: some sell their product for a low cost, like Spotify or Netflix, but in huge volume. Other, more enterprise business-oriented, opt for a high price, yet they work with only a few clients. Clearly, their selling process and customer service are organized in a completely different way.

As you can assume, the higher the AVP, the more attention your client expects. It can be reflected both in the selling process, as in customer service.

B2B or B2C?

SaaS sales processes will differ, depending on your target group. When you sell in a B2C model, you will probably opt for a low ASP and self-service selling process.

B2B SaaS sales are a tougher nut to crack, with numerous stakeholders and long decision-making process. There is where your sales team will showcase their skills and expertise.

Your competition

In any SaaS niche, you will have a lot of competitors – and the number will just keep growing. That is why you should be aware of their characteristics, as well as be able to differentiate.

You can learn a lot from observing your competition. How do the competitors help their clients? How do they reach out to the prospects? What seems to be working for them, and why? What are the benchmarks?

Your sales cycle

This characteristic is a result of your niche, the complexity of your software, and the length of your trial. It can take from almost no time (with self-service selling SaaS, like Netflix) to months, as in case of enterprise SaaS solutions.

Challenges in SaaS sales

Because of the specific traits of SaaS sales, you will have to deal with different challenges than in regular sales. You will have to present a deep understanding of the SaaS market, going further than your niche. Also, you will deal mostly remotely, hardly ever meeting your customers in person.

Competitors

You should acknowledge that you will deal with numerous competitors. It influences not only your product team but also the way you make your sales. You should be aware not only of all the new solutions that come to the market but also of the new features and releases.

What’s more, you should be able to compare your products to the competition. We mean a further range than only the essential features. You have to know what issues your product solves better and why, and when the competitors are a more viable option.

Integrations

This is another area where you should demonstrate constant business research. Tools work better when combined, and your prospects may ask whether your product integrates with solutions they already use.

Inside sales

Inside sales mean that your reps reach the customers via phone, email or online. This is the most common sales process in SaaS, as you deal with customers coming from all around the world. The rare moments when you can actually meet your prospects happen at industry fairs or meetings.

Why is it a challenge? When you interact with your prospects through a medium, like a phone, email or the Internet, you receive filtered verbal and non-verbal communicates. For example, you can rely only on the tone of their voices, or the word choice in their emails. It makes spotting some issues or intentions harder, as you need to be even more sensitive.

Tips for boosting your SaaS sales

Do you feel stuck with your SaaS sales process? Take a look at those tips and explore new ways of selling your product.

Focus on benefits

If we were to give you just one tip that will make a change in your SaaS sales process, it would be that one: talk about benefits, not features.

As long as for you all the perks of using your SaaS are clear and go without saying, probably the clients won’t see it that way. That is why you should speak more about the tangible effects of implementing your SaaS, and not so much about the technology used.

A good idea would be to think about each feature with a “so that” clause added. Let’s assume your SaaS has a Zapier integration. You can make a phrase “so that you can connect it with the tools you’ve already been using” – and that’s the benefit.

Streamline the scheduling process

Let your prospects connect with you at the most convenient time for them. You can limit the process to a few clicks from the part of your prospect. When you implement a meeting scheduling tool, like Harmonizely, your leads can choose from the available dates and pick the most suitable time.

What are the benefits of opting for a scheduling tool?

  • less effort from your and your prospects’ part
  • no risk of double-booking
  • all the meeting information kept handy

Try out all the goodness that the Harmonizely Pro has to offer. Go free for 14 days, no credit card required.

Enable one-to-many demos

Do you spend too much time on one-to-one demos that don’t bring expected value? Switch for the one-to-many model instead as an alternative for pre-recorded demos.

One-to-many demos are led in small groups of similar prospects. After the demo, they have time to ask you questions. You save time spent on presenting your product while still keeping the personal touch and connections with your prospects.

When you want to read more about how to make an efficient sales demo, we’ve got you covered.

Make the most of affiliate marketing

If you connect the affiliate marketing programmes only with selling products, it’s high time to change your view. Affiliate marketing can prove to be your game changer in reaching new, highly-targeted customers.

How can your SaaS sales benefit from affiliate marketing?

  • more accurate promotion
    Your affiliates can reach and convince an exact target group that would be hard to influence with regular marketing actions.
  • zero-risk marketing
    You pay your affiliates only after they attract new customers. Comparing to Facebook ads or cooperation with influencers, it has the advantage of paying for effects, not efforts.

This tip works like a charm both in low ASP B2C sales, as in B2B sales. If you want to know more about how to start affiliate marketing for SaaS, this article may help you out.

Don’t be afraid to reject your clients

Your SaaS will not fit the needs of everyone – and that’s fine. That is also the reason why you shouldn’t sell to anyone who is interested in your service. It may sound surprising, but let’s analyze it.

Your aim is to cooperate with clients that profit from your solution. It will bring your business several benefits. First, they will eventually become your ambassadors. They will also give you accurate feedback on what should you improve.

And now, what happens when you’re not the perfect match for your clients, yet you sell anyway? Sooner or later, they will churn, feeling disappointed after not getting the expected results. They can spread the word, claiming that your SaaS failed them.

That is why you should be careful about not only if your clients are ready to buy your service, but also if it will serve them well. When you suspect it will not work out, you will gain more suggesting them another solution and focusing on your target clients than expecting the churn and its consequences.

Let’s recap

Selling SaaS is a different story, and it requires a particular skill set. You have to deal with ever-evolving competition, demanding customers and fast changes on the market.

Work on your techniques, gather appropriate tools and fine-tune your SaaS sales. We hope that with our tips you will be able to master that art.