One thing I've learned is that the sales process is a continuum. Things that work well in multi-million dollar deals are totally inappropriate in sub 5k deals. The trick is getting the right amount of "touch" for the right types of deals. One way to do this is to segment the salesforce. From there, you can attack different sized opportunities with different levels of engagement and investigation.<p>Freemium represents this process taken to one logical extreme where you have zero-touch and rely on marketing from the web site and pure virality. Next up might be limited email marketing/sales. Then phone, then phone and outside sales.<p>At the very high end, you are talking about regional field sales as well as face-to-face visits with your companies leadership up to an including the CEO.
There are billions of individuals and millions of small businesses that can be reached without a sales team. If you don't want to do sales, then don't target enterprise customers. I make my living with SaaS products, and have never made a cold call or sent an unsolicited mail about it.
This cannot be over emphasized:<p>>Your biggest competition isn’t just other startups, perpetually licensed on-premise packages, homegrown solutions, or incumbent vendors. It’s inertia...the target company’s urge to do nothing.<p>So how do you make enterprises care enough to act?<p>I've found that as "obvious" as saving money should be as a change agent, in many organizations that doesn't move the needle.<p>Products that increase revenue usually gets far more attention than money saving products. Competitive leapfrogging / strategic value even more, but that goes to Mark's about understanding and identifying their initiatives.<p>Would also add: identify their incentives. Make heroes the organization rewards.
This is a decent article on enterprise/SaaS sales, but no knowledgeable person has ever claimed that a SaaS product can reach its customers without sales.
"The true purpose of sales is to create new value for customers."<p>Yes. If you're just parroting talking points, you can be replaced by a website. Plus, it's more fun to really help people.<p>"your biggest competition isn’t just other startups, perpetually licensed on-premise packages, homegrown solutions, or incumbent vendors. It’s inertia. Enterprise/SaaS salespeople find themselves in a constant battle against the target company’s urge to do nothing."<p>Yes, again. This isn't just a sales problem-- this is a human nature problem. It's just that selling to big companies involves lots of humans, almost all of whom are deeply resistant to change.
This reads really interestingly to me. Things like:<p><i>Then I’d show the sales reps a long list of initiatives they needed to look for in companies</i><p><i>Once the sales and marketing teams have uncovered these initiatives (as well as the critical capabilities that need to be in place for the initiative to be successful), they can begin to define the unique value proposition.</i><p>This data is almost never public, so it couldn't be found by just doing your standard research on a company from the outside. The only way you get this kind of stuff is with an access agent.<p>What this article basically says, without saying it, is that your sales team needs to be Human Intelligence officers out there recruiting individuals from large organizations to be champions for your product.<p>Nothing new here[1][2]certainly as this is a fantastically useful way to do business, but you had better know how to do it right or you look like an idiot. It also means you really need to hire top notch sales people.<p>[1]<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Work-Like-Spy-Business-Officer/dp/1591843537" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Work-Like-Spy-Business-Officer/dp/1591...</a>
[2}<a href="http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:W6r6dsvp8TQJ:https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140626110221-20747703-sell-like-a-spy-using-an-access-agent+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a" rel="nofollow">http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:W6r6dsv...</a>
In my experience the reality of enterprise purchasing is far more depressing.<p>If you are a new company with a new product, hoping to sell into the large enterprise market, you're competing with large, well-funded sales teams who's most compelling pitch is that "we're the safe choice." It may not be (and usually isn't) the best or most cost-effective choice. Yet at the end of the day, divisions or agencies making 7+ figure purchases want to feel confident in their purchase. "SAP is a good purchase because Ford/AT&T/Apple (I'm making these up) purchased them and they must know what they're doing."<p>Enterprise sales is a very tough business. If I were launching a product, I'd probably target small teams first with a lower price-point to bypass the politics and get almost instant purchase approval. There the stakes are lower. Sure, you won't close a $500,000 sale in one fell swoop, but once you establish yourself across a number of teams, you can always change your product lineup and create an enterprise package that has a much higher cost. Obviously a large number of SaaS companies already do this and I have to believe it's the most effective route.
Because the products only sell themselves once they are in front of the right decision makers at the right time. Sometimes arranging that takes much foresight, skill & determination (and not a small measure of bull too, if I may be more cynical for a moment!).<p>Also, SaaS offerings are not new and therefore rare & exciting any more so you are unlikely to be alone in the market - you need your sales+marketing people to compete with everyone else's.
"...Because selling an enterprise-wide deal is a lot like getting a bill passed in Congress."<p>On how the above is done see Netflix original:
<a href="http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70178217" rel="nofollow">http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/70178217</a>
man I just read the article...I'm perplexed as to how I can take this to sell my SaaS product to enterprise customers. It looks very complex and intimidating. Even landing an enterprise customer alone is tough enough.
When you wear your sales hat, you almost don't care if what you are selling is useful so long as the prospect satisfies your single condition: 1) has enough money.<p>Sometimes I wished we eliminated salespeople entirely. I would prefer to have "honest" marketing, and strong customer service.<p>What I mean by honest marketing is to continually share content with the prospective client, and try to win them over without playing gimmicky mind games and tricks. To do this, you must understand that your client may need to time to understand your product, move away from current solution, etc..<p>A strong customer service agent would help answer all of customers' concerns once the marketing has gotten them interested.