Heather Bell’s Post

Reading through Vendr's SaaS Trends Report for Q1 2024 and it's a fascinating finger on the pulse of SaaS buyer behaviours 👀 💡 My key highlights: 💡 🆕 #SalesEnablement is a new category in the report for this quarter (worth noting this category seems to include both sales & buyer enablement tools) Vendr suggests that Sales Enablement climbing the ranks points to businesses ramping sales forces 👉 I'd suggest the opposite: 🚀 Following layoffs and an increased focus on efficient, profitable growth, could it be that businesses are doubling down on tech that enhances the productivity & effectiveness of their streamlined sales forces? 🤖 An increase in AI-based features has helped categories like Content Management & Sales Acceleration jump 10+ spots this quarter 💎 Sales Analytics, Sales Engagement, Content Management and Sales Engagement all feature as categories that buyers renew the most, pointing to the value these platforms provide to GTM teams 🐢 Unsurprisingly, renewal buying cycles are getting longer --> 30% longer in Q1 compared with 2023 (69 days on average). Supplier price uplifts and customer budget constraints represent a financial tug-of-war 💡 Post-sales teams should consider this when starting renewal conversations and double down on showcasing value through regular business reviews to senior customer stakeholders 📈 Sales Enablement comes in at number 4 in top "net-new" categories purchased, signalling a growing interest in these technologies and possibly sparked by the renewed uptick in sales enablement job postings we're seeing in the industry Link to the report in the comments - p.s. super-refreshing to see a report like this with no content-gating or download required!

How to go from $100k SaaS deals to $1M deals Sell capabilities, not products. Smart buyers have this internal conversation in every sales scenario: 1. The thing to buy is presented 2. The buyer thinks “for what it is, how much is it worth to me?” 3. They make an instant, back-of-the-envelope judgement of the monetary value of the thing. Once formed, that judgment is hard to break. If you present a product, the customer will see a tool: - A hammer - A shovel - A dumbbell If you present a capability, the customer will see: - a skill - a power - a repeatable achievement What is more valuable to you - a dumbbell or the ability to bench 200 pounds? Sell capabilities, not products. #sales #enterprisesales

Next time you are stressed about quota I want you to remember the SaaS sellers of 1582. Many countries decided to adopt the Gregorian calendar, which required removing 10 days in October. October 4th, 1582 was followed by October 15th. Imagine facing exile if you missed your annual target, already stressed about losing time in Q4 because of Thanksgiving and Christmas, and your Sales Knight tells you “we just lost 10 days cause the King forgot to account for leap years and caught us up all at once.” Especially disastrous when you realize that the fastest contracting company, PigeonSignAI, took 10 days to turn around counter-signatures on deals. So yeah, it’s hard selling SaaS in 2025. But nothing compared to losing 10 days of prime Q4 selling days in the original AI hype cycle of 1582. Todd Caponi - how am I doing with my first foray into sales history?

Forecasting future revenue growth 📈 Sales celebrating a new signed customer, now what? How do you make sure to have future forecast predictability? Looking at the gap between CMRR and MRR is the answer. Customers are different, special deals, discounts, and free months. Under certain periods this can impact your revenue. This is why CMRR (Contracted Monthly Recurring Revenue) or CARR (Contracted Annual Recurring Revenue) is important. You'll get a clearer overview on the future value of your current revenue streams. Example - customer signs a contract on April 9, starting on May 5, with two free months. While MRR reflects revenue beginning in July, CMRR considers committed revenue from the agreement, visible from April 9. Measuring CMRR is a game-changer, especially when you have different contract dynamics. It contains the total contracted value, excluding the temporary factors, like initial discounts. If you analyse multiyear CMRR values with factors like churn, contractions, and upsell potential, this will give you a more precise outlook on future growth, compared if you only look at the MRR. SaaS businesses I meet focus on CMRR when seeking funding or during sales transactions, given the impact this has on the valuation. Having full control of discrepancies between ARR, CARR, and CMRR is crucial as temporary discounts can be underlying cause to operational challenges when looking at revenue streams. How do you forecast future revenue growth? #KPIs #BusinessInsights #SubscriptionManagement #SaaS #Strategy #RevenueGrowth

“This quarter, we’re renewing 20M ARR, spread across 300 customer accounts (of which 15 are Strategic) and they represent 25% of our customer base”. A fictional statement, but a powerful one wouldn’t you agree? I haven’t posted about CS in a while to avoid the circular arguments, but talking to a fellow techie on a campsite annoyed me. We’re making it too hard! In our quest to ‘get CS closer to revenue’, we sometimes forget that its pretty close already. Imagine a joint revenue target made up out of renewals, new ARR, upsell/cross sell. Communicated as just one number. You need all teams to hit. Same with pipeline. One number, new pipe, cross/upsell and eg price increases. Putting it all in one bucket for the organization decreases the emphasis on ownership, and increases the willingness to work together to get there. We dont need massive change sometimes, just a reframe. #customersuccess #csm #saas #b2b

Why are there so few quick & transactional deals in SaaS? Here are my assumptions: 1. Sellers are making it harder than ever for buyers to buy 2. Follow-up meetings are prolonged to “next week” at the earliest 3. Sellers hold on to pricing until THEY feel return on investment is warranted in the minds of their buyers / stakeholders 🤦🏻♂️ 4. Sellers are slow to follow up with valuable & actionable insights 5. Sellers leave their meetings without establishing next steps or booking their next call (BAMFAM- Book A Meeting From A Meeting) 📅 6. Sellers are too rigid in their process—if you are speaking to a qualified buyer who wants to buy, let them buy 😉 7. Sellers talk too much. Oftentimes, sellers bring roadblocks into the conversation your buyer hasn’t even thought about 🤯 8. Buyers can be flaky and non-commital 9. Procurement processes, particularly in the enterprise, can be lengthy and tedious 10. Software marketplaces are inundated with choices, in turn giving buyers analysis paralysis 11. Prospects want trials and more trials 12. Sellers spend the first half of their initial discovery calls talking about the weather 🙅🏻♂️ What would you add or take away from this list? How are you expediting your sales cycles and pushing against the grain that deals need to move slowly?

A great read on enterprise SaaS sales from John McAuliffe. A point that John mentions that really resonates 👉👉 customers have a process for "high consideration purchases". Many early stage or product-led-growth SaaS companies lack a sales process that mirrors how customers make these decisions and therefore create "bloat" in their sales pipeline. #themoreyouknow

Just had a first today: A SaaS sales rep opened our renewal meeting with, "Your account has been flagged as being in the lower 25% of all customers, so we're raising your price by 59%!" No conversation about how we could be getting more value, optimizing our usage, or anything. This isn't how you sell value or keep a loyal customer of 5 years...it just kicks off our process of finding a different tool or way of doing what you do. Anyone else seeing this with their renewals?

Sales teams in SaaS companies often need to handle objections related to competitor comparisons. Competitive intelligence provides the foundation for building effective sales battlecards, which offer quick, concise answers to common questions like “How does your product compare to X?” or “What makes your solution better than Y?”. By equipping sales teams with these insights, CI empowers them to focus on value and differentiation, rather than getting bogged down in feature-to-feature comparisons. Out-of-date google docs with random pieces of information about your competitors aren’t cutting it…Time to move on - Rivalyze