6 Tips To Become Exceptional In SaaS Sales | Salesken

Software-as-a-service or SaaS companies host their cloud-based applications over the internet and allow their customers to use them. The global SaaS sector is growing fast and is expected to reach $400 billion by 2025. So it’s time for the SaaS salespeople to sharpen up their SaaS sales skills as they try to acquire new customers and up sell or cross sell to their existing customers and improve their organisations’ business.

In this blog, we have put together everything related to SaaS sales in one place. Whether you’re a sales rep, manager, or SaaS entrepreneur, this guide can help you master the art of SaaS selling in a few steps. 

What is SaaS sales? 

SaaS sales is all about selling cloud-based software applications to clients. Sales reps in the SaaS industry focus on applying unique B2B SaaS sales strategies to convert new customers and nurture existing customers. The key factors related to SaaS sales are customer service and personalization. The right combination of these two factors can help you boost your SaaS sales activities. 

What is the SaaS sales cycle and how long does it last? 

A SaaS sales cycle depends on various factors like customer segment, price of products, and product complexity. Complex SaaS products typically have longer sales cycles as more stakeholders get involved in the sales process
Here are some factors that typically control your SaaS sales cycle: 

• Changing market trends 

• Software complexity

Is your SaaS product a complex one? That can also be the reason behind a long SaaS sales cycle. For complex SaaS products, reps need a significant amount of time to execute product demos and explain the prospects features of the product which can take up a lot of time. 

• Target customers 

Before building a B2B SaaS sales strategy, you must figure out who your target customers are. For example, if your target customers are large enterprises, your SaaS sales cycle is likely to get longer. That’s because the SaaS sales process, in that case, includes several steps which would involve multiple stakeholders from the buying organization.

• Free trials 

Many SaaS businesses offer free trials to their prospects. While this is a good strategy, it has its own challenges. For instance, if you’re offering a 30-day free trial, you’re simply increasing the length of your SaaS sales cycle by 30 days.

Typically, the average length of a SaaS sales cycle is 84 days. However, it can vary depending on the Annual Contract Value (ACV). If your ACV is less than $5K, the SaaS sales cycle may be as long as 40 days. On the contrary, for ACVs over $100K, the SaaS sales cycle can be around 170 days. 

6 Exceptional Tips to Expedite your SaaS Sales Process 

Here are a few tips to win SaaS deals like a pro: 
1. Be wise with your free trial strategy 
2. Master the art of delivering a SaaS product demo 
3. Use a sales enablement tool 
4. Never stop up-selling/cross-selling 
5. Focus on customers’ feedback 
6. Communicate with the prospects during the free trial period 

1. Be wise with your free trial strategy 

Offering free trials is pretty common in any SaaS sales process. However, you need to understand if you are being strategic in providing a free trial policy? The whole purpose of offering a free trial is to let your customers understand the essence of your software and its benefits. 

Here are some ways to provide free trials for an effectively sell SaaS products: 

• 7-day trial - is your product simple and easy to understand? Then go for a quick 7-day trial policy. That way the prospects can learn about your product pretty quickly and you can have a shorter SaaS sales cycle. 
• 14-day trial - 14-day trial policy is a common one for B2B SaaS businesses. Suppose you have a multi-tier SaaS product that is slightly on the complex side. In that case, this trial policy is a perfect choice. 2 weeks are enough for users to explore a product, understand its benefits and make an informed decision. 
• 30-day trial - is your SaaS product a very complex one? In that case, going for a month-long trial policy is probably the correct choice. Since your product is complex, you can’t rush the customers to make a decision within 7 days or 14 days. Give them some time so that they understand your SaaS product to the core and make their purchase decision wisely. 
  

2. Master the art of delivering a SaaS product demo 

Want to master your SaaS sales skills? Start with delivering an outstanding SaaS product demo. An efficiently executed SaaS product demo can make your Sales process while a poorly planned demo can break it. 

Here are some quick tips to deliver an effective SaaS product demo: 

• Communicate as much information as the prospects can consume. Don’t overwhelm them with a lot of information. 
• Research about the prospects’ pain points to find out what they’re looking for and highlight how your product can solve their problems. 
• Walk your prospects through the different features of your SaaS product and create hypothetical situations relevant to their pain points. 
• For every product demo, keep a section dedicated to questions and answers. Make sure that you address each query coming from your prospects during the demo. 
  

3. Use a sales enablement tool 

You can use a sales enablement tool to grow your SaaS sales process. A sales enablement tool like Salesken can leverage AI and conversational analytics to speed up your SaaS sales process. Here’s what it can do for you:

• Performing conversation analysis to identify the level of intent for your SaaS leads and score them accordingly. 
• It can perform real-time sales coaching for your reps to help them understand their improvement areas. 
• Automate sales evaluation process to ensure that sales managers can gain actionable insights into the sales performances of the reps and build strategies accordingly. 
  

4. Never stop up-selling/cross-selling 

A great SaaS sales tactic is to persuade the existing customers with up-sell/cross-sell suggestions. Upselling is a great way to increase recurring revenue for your SaaS business. Your clients’ requirements keep changing and it is a wise decision to pitch new products to the existing clients to address their additional requirements. 

This B2B SaaS sales strategy is apt for businesses offering multi-tier subscription plans. Each of these plans comes with separate pricing and more additional features. You can use this strategy to create a profitable SaaS sales process. 

5. Focus on customers’ feedback 

A crucial part of increasing your SaaS sales is to take customers’ feedback seriously. SaaS brands can leverage customers’ feedback to understand how efficiently they can improve their products and services. A quick feedback collection email is all it takes to ask customers about their opinion. Once you find out the results from the feedback, you can easily implement those in practice and improve your SaaS sales journey. 

6. Communicate with the prospects during the free trial period 

Don’t leave your prospects on their own during the free trial period. While you don’t want to annoy them, staying in touch with them is alright during the trial period. It is the ideal time to know customers’ feedback and incorporate them into practice for an effective SaaS sales process. 

3 SaaS Sales Metrics to Track the Growth of your SaaS Sales Process 

Want to track the growth of your SaaS sales process? Don’t forget to monitor the following KPIs:

1. Churn rate
2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
3. Win Rate 
   

1. Churn rate 

Churn rate is the percentage at which your SaaS brand loses customers on a yearly basis. Here’s how you can estimate churn rate: 

Churn rate = [ The total numbers of customers you have lost / The initial numbers of customers] 

Ideally, the lower the value of your churn rate, the better. If you can opt for a negative churn rate, there’s nothing like it. It simply means that you have gained more customers than you have lost in a year. 

2. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) 

The purpose of estimating CAC is to understand how much you need to spend to acquire a new customer. You can estimate CAC with the following formula: 

CAC = [ Cost of sales and marketing / Total no. of new customers]

Ideally, the lower the value of CAC, the better. CAC explains the scalability potential of your business. This metric can also help you gain proper insights into the performance of your sales and marketing team. 

3. Win Rate 

This KPI measures how fast your sales team is converting leads and closing contracts. Here’s how you can estimate this particular KPI: 

Win Rate = [ Closed sales opportunities / (Total opportunities + Closed deals) ] 

Final Words 

You now have a clear idea of the SaaS sales process and strategies that can improve your game. 

Technology in Sales especially in SaaS sales has been playing a key role and will continue to do so in the near future. Salesken is one platform which is disrupting this space with its offerings like In call Sales intelligence and Post call analytics. It also works seamlessly with existing tools like dialers and CRMs to make sure that the performances of your Sales reps improve constantly and with that, your organization’s topline as well. Book a demo today and understand how you can give wings to your SaaS sales teams to implement these tips which we have discussed effectively.