So when I talk with CEOs quietly, their biggest #1 issue is often that folks just … aren’t working as hard as they used to. 

Same with the top CROs and CMOs.

But whatever the reality is, folks clealy think they are working harder than ever before. Our recent SaaS mini-survey confirms this.

67% said their teams are working harder than ever.  And only 11% said they were working less hard.

Folks see this all very differently depending on where they sit, etc.  All I can tell you as leaders and founders is your teams think they are working harder than ever.

Maybe it’s all a post-2021 hangover.

2024 SaaStrEuropa.com is June 4-5 in London!

Join us for 2+ fun-filled days, great parties, 100s of braindates and workshops, 1000s of connections, and so much more!  And meet everyone from Harry Stebbings to the CEO of Gong!

Last chance to save $100 on the final tickets. 

Some of the ideas in this post are … basic.  At least to some. So forgive me.  But I’m going to include some of them as I’ve noticed that as SaaS explodes, more and more SaaS companies do better and better in more and more interesting spaces. But they also just miss some of the very basics sometimes.

So let’s talk about lead allocation 101. 

Really, 100. 01. The very basics.

When you have 1 rep, it’s pretty easy to know where to send the leads.  You either keep a few for yourself as CEO — or you send them all to her. But what do you do with reps 2-10?

A few fundamental thoughts on lead routing.

OK Gartner is NOT a SaaS or Cloud company.  But — it’s one that is very important to many of us that sell into the enterprise.  Its research and reports in enterprise software are critical.  And … 92% of its revenue is from subscriptions.  So while not SaaS, it is “Research as a Service”.  Or something like that.

Given how critical its research is in selling to the enterprise, I wanted to take a look at its business.  It’s a lot bigger than I’d realized today.

Today, Gartner has now crossed $6 Billion in revenue, with a stunning $35 Billion market cap. And its very profitable. Not too shabby!

And its stock price is up +35% the last year, and +192% the past 5 years.

So G2 put out a survey and report on customer success recently that was an eye-opener:

• 67% of CS execs report having a sales quota
• 53% of CS execs now view their job as primarily a sales role

Now some of this may be semantics.  Business software companies have had “account managers” responsible for upsell since the earliest days.

As customer success came into its own, it was often seen as distinct from account management, focused on customer retention and happiness and NPS and CSAT.   Account management was often a “different department” if it existed at all, and often reported to sales.

The pressures of the last 18+ months to monetize the base in the face of slowing net new customer growth has led to a rebooting of the function and role.

CS now is primarily an upsell and sales function in many cases.

But who is left to truly help the customer?  To solve onboarding issues?  To get that integration working?  To make sure … they don’t leave and go to a competitor?

A little ways back I put together a list of things sales reps recently said to me as a buyer of SaaS products … that killed the deal:

• “You are wasting my time”. I don’t think many folks say this aloud to prospects, but many B-tier reps say it internally — and think this all the time. No.   A prospect’s time is always valuable. Sales is there to serve, and help a prospect find the best solution to their problem. If sales was routed the wrong lead, that’s the company’s fault, not the prospect’s.
• “Our product does [key feature]” — when it doesn’t. If I’m buying a product I haven’t used before, the AE is my guide. If he/she tells me things that aren’t true to close the deal, I’m out. I’m buying a solution. I need to know for real if it solves my problem — or not.
• Constant bashing of competitors. Not only does that make the company look insecure — it makes me want to go test the competitor instead. Even worse (see prior point) is when they say something about a competitor that isn’t true.
• Forcing me to talk to an SDR first. SDRs are great, but oftentimes SMBs don’t want to be qualified.  Personally, I want to try, use, and buy. I lose patience here and move to a vendor I can just deploy without being forced to talk to an SDR that just wants to force me to get on the phone and screen me but doesn’t get me going now.
• Wrong / painful economic terms, even if price itself is OK. I’m basically an SMB these days. I don’t like annual contracts, and I especially don’t like being railroaded into enterprise-type contracts — multi-year with no outs. I don’t have patience for any contract that is so long it requires legal review. Let the buyer buy the way they want. And let especially SMBs out if you don’t deliver for them.
• “I’m turning off your trial” — and other threats. Yes, you have to do that. But a sales rep needs to do it the right way. Threats don’t work. How about “Your trial is about to end — I can extend it a week if that helps? Let me know what I can do to help you get going with us!” Then — I’m in.

Dave Gerhardt was VP Marketing at Drift, acquired for $1B, and then Privy, acquired for $100m, and now runs a great CMO/VPM community called Exit Five.

Dave is OG SaaStr from the beginning, so we were able to have a pretty epic deep dive on marketing today, both at a senior level and a deep dive on content marketing as well:

• Why marketing should almost never report to sales
• The critical size of marketing teams today
• How to do content marketing well, and see real ROI from it
• How to make sure you are hiring the right VP of Marketing

• SaaStr 739: The Three SaaS Metrics That Matter in 2024 and Will IPOs Be Back? with SaaStr Founder and CEO Jason Lemkin

• SaaStr 738: How Shopify Implements AI Across Sales and Product with Mike Tamir, Head of AI at Shopify

• SaaStr 737: How to Build Go-to-Market Efficiency in SMB Sales with Owner.com CRO Kyle Norton

Listen on Apple Podcast, Spotify or Google Podcasts

Founders: when the round closes, send everyone that bet on you a personal Thank You email 

Yes, maybe they were lucky to get an allocation

But … they bet on you for a decade

That quick email goes so far.

And is so … rare.

A $100m seed fund buys 10% in a seed round for $1.5m

7 years later, the startup incredibly has a $1B exit!

So how much do the partners at the fund make?

Probably $0 for now if they don’t have other big exits

Why?

First, assume that 10% was diluted to 5% over 3-4 rounds

Second, 5% of $1B = $50m

Third, $50m only returns 50% of a $100m fund

The seed fund is only halfway to profitable — even after leading a seed round in a $1,000,000,000 exit

One of the quietly most successful VCs I know:

- never attended a board meeting

- never responds to email chain

- not sure does anything at all after invests, near as I can tell

just a really good hunter

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