An Alternative Selling Methodology for SaaS

There is a trend in the SaaS world that I don’t like, it’s the "sales guru” types with their Wolf of Wall Street persuasion techniques. These techniques, may work in the short term however they lead to a massive lack of trust and also have a detrimental effect on customer lifetime value (CLV). I believe it’s our responsibility to sell SaaS in an appropriate way that benefits our buyers. Our buyers will trust us 100% during the sales cycle if you are completely honest and transparent about the benefits of using your product. Our duty is not to pressure or persuade someone into buying a SaaS product they don’t need but rather to support and assure qualified leads that our product will help them.

• Use reassuring language instead of persuasive language
• We must not sell to unqualified prospects
• Remember that distrustful sales techniques lead to greater churn

Finding qualified prospects is simple when you aim to only serve people who stand to benefit from your product. Narrow your prospects to those who could benefit from your product and have a meeting. Discovering your prospect's problems and genuinely wanting to help is the best way to earn trust. If a prospect isn’t qualified and your product cannot benefit them, then you can go your separate ways, or better yet, you can advise and recommend other SaaS products which could support the problem. So you’ve found a qualified prospect? Time to lay on the sales pitch? Wrong. Maintain the stance of a genuinely caring person trying to solve a problem and share the appropriate features and use cases for your product.

• Discover your prospect's problems and evaluate if you can help
• If you cannot help, point them in the direction of other SaaS products
• Always maintain a caring professional stance

In the sales cycle of a SaaS product, you’re likely to encounter objections, particularly as you get closer to closing. These objections can grow increasingly more intense as you near the end, especially if they feel they have already committed something to the engagement (Cash, contract, verbal promises) this is called buyer's remorse. How you handle this can greatly affect you and your brand’s relationship with your prospect. I would always recommend reassurance first, being supportive and understanding to all of the objections, never being hostile (obviously, but even if the prospect can sense hostility in your tone, this can be enough to lose them.).

For example: Prospect says “I don’t think my team are willing to change to your product, they like the product we already have.”

This is a completely understandable situation, for most buyers there will be many anxieties about buying a new product and how their team will adopt the product is one of them, an adequate response would be to reassure and support, something like:

“I completely understand. This is an issue we have heard before, that’s why we’ve developed some online resources for your team to take a look at before you buy, I can send them to you and I can get in touch in a few weeks to see how they were received.”

There are many good responses and it all boils down to the reassuring and understanding tone, we don’t know every circumstance your buyer is going through, it’s our job to understand and reassure even if that means the prospect needs more time or you don’t get the sale.

• You will encounter objections towards the end of the sale, ramping up before the close
• Be reassuring and supportive to all of the prospects objections
• Avoid any type of hostile or unsupportive language