Archivo de la etiqueta: sales

Qualification methods in B2B SaaS: the classic, the better and The Best.

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One the breakthrough ideas of the mythical «Predictable Revenue» book (2011) was that organizations needed to specialize and to have dedicated prospectors (SDRs) to qualify leads and feed closers (AEs).

However, the book did not go into much detail about how to qualify those leads. In its «Cold Calling 2.0 example», Hyperquality’s qualification criteria was BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing)+ Fit with the product provided by Hyperquality.

Being BANT a method developed by IBM in the 1950s, I would say that is fair to baptize it as ‘the classic’.

Moving forward to a more recent B2B SaaS best seller book, in «The Sales Development Playbook» (2016) the author Trish Bertuzzi says that «Qualifying for BANT is like going on a first date and asking to see a credit report», and recommends a qualification methodology called PACT: Pain, Authority, Consequence, and Target Profile.

Just because of talking about the Pain to solve instead of Need, and trying to create FOMO in the prospect by asking for the Consequence (of the implications of not acting), I will qualify PACT as ‘the better’.

However, based on my reads of the last few paternity-leave nights, I would rather prefer a revamped BANT, as explained by Jacco Van der Kooij:

  • Need -> Impact. How the customer’s business compares before and after us.
  • Timing -> Critical event. Are we able to identify the consequence of missing a given date for going live?
  • Budget -> Priority. Having in mind the reduced cost of SaaS, it is more about scaling to the top of the ToDo list and less about getting eventual budget availability.
  • Authority -> Decision Process. From authoritative to committee, or who (group of people) and how (process) the customer decides about our value proposition.

It does not have a catchy acronym and it is not even perfect. However, just the explanation of Impact, Priority and Decision Process make it «The Best», IMHO.

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Fundamentals of sales in B2B SaaS: Notes about a Kfund podcast with Luigi Mallardo.

Marco Verch (trendingtopics). Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

I have been listening to many podcast in the last few months. Jotting down some notes to be able to come back and review them is just a logical step.

From the podcast of Kfund with Luigi Mallardo, a seasoned VP of Sales in the B2B SaaS arena, I would highlight:

  1. What to look at when hiring AEs.
    The priority is (1) ticket size, (2) experience selling SaaS, (3) vertical. The first one is a must have, it has to be aligned with the ACV or ticket size of the company.
  2. Quotas and commissions for SDR and AEs.
    While the company is still building pipeline, the variable of the SDRs could be based on number of meetings hold (show) or qualified leads. Once the machine starts to sell, 80-90% of the commission for AEs and 10-20% for the SDRs.
    Additional note: Having in mind a several months sales cycle, the latter is quite different to the approach in some literacy, such as «The Sales Development Playbook» by Trish Bertuzzi, which affirms that the compensation of the SDRs has to be linked to the task itself, short term, to keep energy high.
  3. Channels sales is usually not a relevant source of revenue for a startup.
    According to industry benchmarks, the impact of channel sales for startups growing beyond 10M-20M€ does not reach a 5%. Therefore, the go to market has be to develop with inside/field sales depending on ACV. On the other hand, when reaching a given maturity state, it could contribute some nice additional revenue.

In (one line) short:

  • «Ticket size» track record as a must have when hiring AEs.
  • SDRs variable based on qualified leads or won deals depending on sales maturity.
  • Channel sales, not a first option for sales development.

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Pricing, ACV and sales quotas

There is a trend in the SaaS B2B industry to hide the pricing of products and solutions, specially when targeting mid-market and Enterprise.

On the one hand, a web without public prices implies receiving a bunch of leads which will not qualify, say, lost time dealing with wrong expectations. On the other hand, showing a price to a prospect which has not invested the time to identify the value could block a potential nurturing and conversion of a right lead.

If the target customer is mid-market or Enterprise, and the value associated to the product is different depending on the use case, I would support not public prices and a call to action for scheduling a demo -ideally, after an automatic qualification process-.

Whether the pricing of our SaaS B2B to be hide or public, when the customer acquisition channels include an inside sales team (that is, pretty much always), the relevant metric is going to be more related with the Annual Contract Value or ACV.

According to a post by Tomas Tunguz from Redpoint, the smallest ACV to justify an inside sales team at a SaaS startup would be never below 3k€, for a feasible annual quota of at least 300k€.

Combine that number with another piece of savvy advice by Jason Lemkin, who claims that a quota of 5x the OTE (on target earnings, i.e. base + bonus) is a great target to achieve in SaaS, and 60k€ would the minimum compensation for a sales rep who reaches that bottom line quota.

Therefore, the right order when setting a salary and quota for an inside sales team starts with the target market, pricing and ACV.

Bonus track: And the role to work it out if necessary is product marketing.

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