With SaaS being one of the fastest-growing tech industry sectors, your startup business will likely want to jump into it. But once you get started, you will realize that it’s by no means easy. One of the biggest challenges you will face here is selling your service.
For that, you might need to look into your current sales process. Here, you might find it not being as efficient as it should be. Let’s dive in and discover how you improve it and deliver better results.
The Importance Of Optimizing The SaaS Sales Process
Before we get into the nitty gritty of SaaS sales optimization, let’s see why it matters. The reasons might already be obvious, but you will surely get a better appreciation for the effort once you look into it deeper.
Better Transition From Initial User To Actual Customer
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Depending on your SaaS startup company business model, you might start with free users. The challenge lies in transitioning these free users into actual paying customers. A well-developed sales process doesn’t just make that easier. It also makes it a more encouraging process, which helps free users take that step.
It Boosts Retention
Unlike other business models, a SaaS startup business’s revenues come from long-time customers. You might think the retention effort only starts after the initial sale. However, it goes well back from that. An optimized sales process helps you lay the groundwork for retaining future users.
It Helps Your Sales Team
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As you already know, your sales team is crucial in attracting customers. Thus, you want to arm them with the right tools. An optimized sales process lets them do their work with less effort and focus on achieving other crucial wins for you. But it also helps other departments, like customer service, who depend on your sales team. The optimized sales process ensures customers can also get to these departments faster.
The Signs Of An Unoptimized SaaS Sales Process
Now that you know why SaaS sales optimization matters. It’s time to get into the actual work. The first step here is understanding its current situation. Here, you need to look for signs indicating that your sales process might not be delivered as intended.
Too Many Unqualified Leads
Getting as many leads as possible is often the first vital step for any SaaS sales process. However, this is also where your problems might start. Once you begin qualifying the leads you have gathered, you might find that many of these are unqualified.
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That means your team’s initial efforts return only a small gain. The problem here can be due to several reasons. First off, your lead criteria might be too broad. This results in your lead generation process letting in too many leads. On the other hand, your agents might also be chasing too many leads to reach quotas.
Too Few Conversions For Your Startup Business
Another issue with an unoptimized sales SaaS sales process is that it produces too few conversions. Here, it is worth noting that the actual number of conversions you make to be considered “good” can vary. However, by tracking these over time, you can see if this is the case.
Misaligned Sales And Marketing
Image from Resourceful Selling.
More so thahttps://www.resourcefulselling.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/speakmarketingcartoon.pngn other fields, sales and marketing are two crucial components of SaaS. As such, them not being in tune can create many issues. The marketing might not be able to present the brand correctly to the audiences that sales want to engage.
How Your Startup Business Can Optimize Its SaaS Sales Process
Now that you have seen how an unoptimized sales process can affect your SaaS startup business, it is time to do the actual work. There are several steps that you should go through here.
Redefining Your Startup Business Sales Process
The first step here is redefining your sales process. Your current one might not be suitable to get the type of customers you are trying to reach. Start looking into each step of the process and identify the points where you struggle to move these leads forward.
Image from SaaS Club.
One way that you can rebuild your sales process is by simplifying it. Determine whether you can remove some steps to make it easier for customers to go through the process. You can also look into restructuring the steps to suit customer types better.
Optimizing Lead Generation
Another area that you would want to work on is lead generation. Review your lead profiles and see how well they match with the customers you want to attract. If there are deviations, determine how to reorient your lead strategy to better account for this.
image from Marketing Experiments.
Also look into how well you present your brand message to leads. In particular, you want to make this clear even during the initial discovery calls. Structure your lead questions to better direct prospects to your product.
Optimizing Your Product Demo
One of the best ways to draw the attention of leads and convince them to jump is when they see your product in action. That is where optimizing your product demo becomes crucial. Consider how your customers want to learn about your products and build the demo around that idea.
For instance, video demos are a great initial introduction to your product. However, some leads will not decide until they have a face-to-face interaction with you. Thus, you want to create your demos in stages. Customize these stages to match lead preferences.
Virtua Is Here To Help Your Startup Business
With all that work, you need to have the right partner. Virtua Solutions is ready to provide all you need to ensure proper SaaS sales optimization. We cover every stage of the process and arm you with high-caliber marketing support.
Providing The Expertise Your Startup Business Needs
Our team has worked with many SaaS startups. During these projects, we have keenly observed their strategies for developing and optimizing their sales process. We will apply these strategies to your business and create a unique take.
We will also work with you for the long-term development of this process. As part of our commitment, we will conduct continuous research within your market. From there, we work with your team to make the changes.
Improving your SaaS sales process is a continuous effort. And we are ready to work with your startup business to evolve that process. Contact us today and let‘s get started in boosting your sales success.