Inc - 2 Simple Edges Anyone Can Get in Sales

Want to know how to be better than 95% of the world in SaaS sales?  Honestly it’s easy.  Or at least, it’s plain and simple.  If you’re truly willing to put in the work.

The 2 simple edges in sales: #1. Be a True Product Expert

95% of the sales reps I talk to don’t even really understand the products they are selling. How can I integrate it into my stack? What’s the best way to use it at my company? How is it >really< better than the competition?

One SaaStr Fund portfolio company recently closed their first $500k+ deal!!  The founders though left the sales rep in the lobby at the customer. Why?  They couldn’t have this enterprise rep embarass them with dumb answers in the final pitch meeting.

#2. Actually Write Great Outbound Email

99% of outbound emails are terrible. Make it truly great. Make the email solve my problem. Make the outbound email so great, I’d potentially buy the product just from that email. 99% of outbound emails fail this test. Maybe 99.5%.

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So we’ve talked a lot on SaaStr about how Customer Success has changed over the past 24 months. In many cases, it’s now part of the revenue team, and bringing in more revenue is Goal #1. So be it.

But as part of that, I haven’t seen any point in showing up to QBRs (Quarterly Business Reviews) anymore. They are simply upsell exercises, which would be fine if at least an incredible subject matter that could also help us with our issues show up.

But if it’s just a junior sales exec doing the “QBR” — you’re just wasting everyone’s time.

The QBR was always, at best, a forcing function to make sure customers were at least heard and checked in with formally every quarter.  If you don’t do something here, accounts may never be followed up with.  So you do have to enforce some sort of check-in process, at least with mid-sized and larger accounts.

But if it’s all just an upsell opportunity, you are missing a huge opportunity.  To add value.

The goal of the QBR should be to add value. Do that every quarter, for a year, or two, or three. And then … the upsell do get a lot easier.  And they just come, naturally.

The team.

This is what really matters. It’s been 18 (!) years since I joined my first-startup. I still have many strong bonds to that team. One of my bosses is my subtenant, both are great mentors to this day.

It’s been 14 (!) years since I co-founded my first startup. My co-founder and I didn’t really know each other before then, but we are close to this day. The memories, the failures, the crazy times, the struggles.

No one can take that from us.

We can still finish each other’s sentences. She runs her own start-up now, I just wish we had more time to catch up.

It’s been 12 (!) years since I co-founded EchoSign. While Adobe acquired the company 6+ (!) years ago, many of us still work together to this day, in various capacities. My ex-VP of Sales is probably my favorite person in the world to talk to business and startup stuff about. When I see him in the office every week, he’s always one of the first I want to catch up with.

It’s been 5 years since we started SaaStr, at first just a blog, and 2 years or so as an actual company. We have a terrific team in place now. I hope to have and cherish these relationships for another several decades. At least.

The products themselves — very cool, and significant. But … in the long run … less important.

You don’t have to be BFFs. But if you can build an amazing team that you also enjoy coming to work with every day, tackling the same challenges together … then you do amazing things. And build memories and relationships that endure forever.

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My top list:

• Interview at least 30 candidates for every VP and other key position. Otherwise you will end up settling.
• Go visit all your largest customers at least twice a year. You can just do a product roadmap review. That always works. The ones you visit … rarely churn.
• Take 1 VC meeting a week, even when you have no need to fundraise. It will make fundraising so much earlier later when 20–50 VCs already have gotten to know you a bit.
• Don’t quit once you have something. Even a $1m ARR business growing 30%, you can find a way to grow a bit faster, and get to $10m ARR. And so on.
• Listen to your sales reps calls and Zooms. And read their emails. Every week. You will learn they say so many wrong things. Even dumb things. You can help if you listen. You can’t if you don’t.

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