What are the most common SaaS sales challenges, and how can you overcome them?

One of the quintessential challenges in SaaS sales is the 'knowledge gap' that often exists between the solution offered and the prospect's understanding of it. My approach to bridging this gap has been rooted in a deep dive into the prospect's world. By aligning our SaaS solutions with their current systems and processes, I focus on elucidating how our product not only fits within their ecosystem but propels their business forward. Overcoming this obstacle requires a blend of technical know-how and strategic foresight—qualities that I have honed over years of developing and pitching business solutions. It's about crafting a narrative that is as compelling in its storytelling as it is convincing with its data.

In my experience selling SaaS is still selling. As a seller you have to understand what productivity or challenges organizations could derive from your solution or best said, what client pain points you can resolve. Understand who you compete with and how they position themselves vs your product. What has this to do specifically with SaaS? Great Question and the answer is - Selling SaaS is still selling so what are the challenges? The same ones you have selling any product the only difference is YOU as the seller need to understand the technology and believe in your product, thats it! If you don't understand the value it provides I doubt you will have as much success as you would a product you have passion for.

There are two audiences and hence two “camps” where it concerns selling SaaS apps to a large company. There’s the business and IT folks. Business loves the look and feel, usability and “solid state” of modern SaaS apps. They typically work like an eBay or Facebook - multi -tenant, always available, easy to use, limited training required - usually all online and self taught, a community of support and nothing but success. The IT side is usually all about job preservation. IT folks with web services skills and modern development expertise can easily be as valuable as before. The infrastructure side needs to look for a service provider to work for or re-skill.

Client discovery is critical as different client stakeholders often have conflicting needs, so you need to be clear on why your product offers differentiated value based on their unique requirements now and how it lays the foundations for the future.

In my opinion the most common misstakes Saas business repeat, is to have an Inside out perspective. Often times companies are in love with their own features. This leads companies to "educate" their potential buyers of these very features. By doing so they forget to address the pain-points their clients have in their work - and miss to highlight what real value their amazing features could generate. This is especially true if you are trying to sell to someone that is not necessarily "in-market" right now. Btw - that is typically about 95% of the market.

Be clear on what is possible today, in the near term and vocalise 'no timings' for future road map initiatives that demonstrate the direction, but don't overpromise if not committed to Product plans. Agility is paramount, articulate strategic direction if roadmap is in progress.

An Objection library is always a good place to start. Clients/prospects raise objections, for some you have a response, for others you don't. Build a library of 'objection handling' and keep adding/improving the positioning. This will allow the whole organization to have a similar kind of response to the objections coming in, and that's a great way to build trust.

Se debe generar credibilidad en la implementación y en el éxito del proyecto. Ya que cuando se cambia de un sistema onpremise a uno de nube el costo de implementar es más alto y más tortuoso, las organizaciones no quieren vivir ese proceso.

Building trust and credibility is paramount, and it's a process I approach with a blend of transparency and expertise. From my experience, providing a clear and detailed explanation of security protocols, privacy measures, and performance metrics is crucial. It's about offering more than assurances; it's about presenting evidence. Utilizing case studies and client testimonials that echo the prospect's concerns can significantly bolster credibility. Additionally, offering free trials or demos allows prospects to witness firsthand the reliability and cost-effectiveness of our solution, thereby reducing their skepticism and building a foundation of trust that is essential for any long-term relationship.

Building Trust and Credibility is a requirement of any selling job, NOT unique to SaaS. I find the whole premise of SaaS being different than selling very amusing. Then I read that the article was created by AI. I'm not familiar with any AI salespeople YET. It will happen when AI understands selling is selling and SaaS is no different than selling any technology or product. If you have great sales Acumen you can outsell those that don't, even if you are not as familiar with the product as them. If you can get your prospects to tell you their Pain Points, decision making process ad develop champions, you can easily bring in a tech to answer what you can't. That said the more you understand product and competition the better.

Most likely, when asked, one won't get a clear straight answer to what's the 'buying process'. It is a good idea, to get an overall sense of it, and then continue chipping at it, during every milestone and check what the next (and rest of the next) steps look like. Ask for any additional stakeholder that needs to be looped in.

Navigating the labyrinth of SaaS sales requires finesse in understanding the intricate web of decision-making. This is a challenge I am intimately familiar with, having spearheaded initiatives that demand collaboration across various organizational levels. The strategy lies in meticulously mapping the decision-making hierarchy and tailoring communications to resonate with each stakeholder. It's about balancing technical veracity with strategic influence, ensuring that each decision-maker perceives the SaaS solution as a lever for their specific priorities. By nurturing these relationships and aligning our offering with their vision, we pave a smoother path to consensus and deal closure.

Again nothing SaaS specific in understanding roles within the client contacts. Influencers, decision makers and those that are neither but a good coach/champion who benefits most from the product.

It's a long game but you build advocacy at every touch point so treat every meeting like the first client pitch. Ask for feedback, it's a blessing and you can leverage it when blockers present.

There is no short cut. The most straightforward way to find the right decision makers is to build trust over time. Maybe you get lucky and start having a relationship with a decision maker from the get go. However, if you don't you, a good bet is to build trust with whomever you are dealing with. By doing so "all the ways leads to Rome". Eventually you will have gained enough trust to get introduced to the right stakeholders.

Working in SaaS for digital transformation and RPA, the biggest challenge is time, many of my clients are too busy doing manual, repetitive, rules based tasks, to spend the time looking at automating manual, repetitive, rules based tasks, ironic! Education is key for my clients and understanding the value prop or removing the chaff and concentrating on the reward.

if you know what the client's current spend is, without your solution and what they are burning, because of the lack of it, you have one good data point. if you also can figure out, what a solution like this, is expected to save, % man hours, $ value off bottom line/top line, then that's the opportunity cost for the client. Clients want to save money, not pay money, even when they are buying something new. Lay out in detail, how they will 'save $', when they buy your solution.

It is key to be solutions oriented. There is always a challenge and a problem you can solve for. Discovery is never ending and once you find the right challenge to solve - pricing will be less relevant. Actually - solving challenges is priceless. ;)

Absolutely NOTHING unique here to SaaS. Selling 101. Do you know if your solution regardless of price is what the client wants/needs and why they feel that way? Do you understand the cost of the client doing nothing? If you do not understand these things you can't negotiate price.

It's essential to stay solutions focused. There's always a challenge or problem waiting to be solved. Discovery is ongoing, and once you identify the right challenge to address, pricing becomes less of a concern. After all, solving the right problems is truly invaluable.

Most Salespeople call this POST SALES FOLLOW UP. This is VIP to a company but not a salesman. WHY? Are you compensated on renewals or not? If not, your role in Post Sales is limited to making sure product is deployed and client is happy to pay the invoice. Too many companies refuse to pay sellers on client retention and then wonder why they keep losing clients. Sales Acumen is required to retain customers.

depending on the size of the client/deal, you may want to have a solid Governance plan (according to deal size), that has regular touch points and a Customer Success Manager aligned. The client may buy something, but if they can't get their employees/teams to use it, it will be a negative impact for them. Increasing adoption, making it easy and understanding the challenge in adopting, is a role of Customer Success.

If you have paid attention and truly understood the challenge you are solving for - provided you have solution for it - adoption will be high. It comes back to the trust you have build up with the client. If there is a high level of trust you will also have your "own skin" invested in the deal. This is a good foundation to prevent churn and increase adoption.

I've found that clients appreciate the value based pricing approach - they always seem to want to know an "hourly rate" for your services so I guess the most "difficult part" is to explain in a way that makes sense to them that an hourly rate shouldn't be the focus. I provide one in advance in case there are changes after the project and delivery date has been agreed to in order to set expectations. I haven't had a value based price SOW be turned down yet but always ensure that there's plenty of meat left on the table for the client. When they understand that you have "skin in the game" and are assuming part of the project risk but have the confidence to deliver on-time and to spec it seems to make the next proposal even easier.

SaaS non SaaS what is the difference? This is best practice for AEs and SEs sales processes in my view. Main key points I follow 1. Be prepared and know your industry and customer 2. Manage expectations whether it is roadmap, meetings, next steps 3. Follow through on your agreed actions 4. Inform your customers of "what to expect, trends if relevant, and internal expectations based on experience" so the selling and buying process From an SE perspective outside of general product USPs understand security in both data management and infrastructure redundancies, joiners/leavers within the platform, and best practices to fast ROI. SE collateral: what are trends from meetings and customers to make the technical decision easier and low touch?

The Most important aspect is 'understand the client requirements' and see if the SaaS solution actually fits. Clients/evaluators go through so many solutions that they just assume one does/doesn't fit. Its the first task to 'Understand' the requirements, which will also provide you in-depth challenges from the client. Then comes the part of how the solution aligns with the challenges the client outlined.

It seems to me that to be successful in SaaS sales; It is important to be customer focused, understand the competitive environment and adapt to the rapidly changing market. It is necessary to address these challenges with a strategic approach; prioritizing customer needs and constantly improving the product is the key to success.

There’s so extremely many SaaS tools out there nowadays and it makes it really hard for companies to know and understand the market, consequently making it difficult when needing to access and compare. Being super crystal clear about what you’re solving and very specific about what type of Company you’re solving this issue for, Can greatly help potential customers in understanding why your tool is worth considering and also guide Them when accessing why your tool is better than others.

To succeed in SaaS sales, it's crucial to be customer focused, understand the competitive landscape, and adapt to the fast changing market. Tackling these challenges requires a strategic approach, with a focus on meeting customer needs and continuously enhancing the product. This is the key to achieving success.