Sales, SaaS & Startup resilience ??

TL;DR

• ?? Sense of urgency in sales
• ?? Jason Lemkin - demystifying SaaS
• ?? Startups and antifragility.

BUSINESS

??Buy NOW, not later.?

We’re all familiar with procrastination, we do it out of fear, lack of motivation, or just poor time management. It’s the same with companies. ?

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Lack of urgency in B2B sales means a prospect has a (valid) reason not to buy now. It’s “just” an objection you didn’t catch on time or address appropriately.?

What not to do if you want to increase the sense of urgency:??

• Stupid Discounts. Price is always a factor, but rarely the deciding factor. You need to get to the real reason why they haven’t replied to 5 of your emails.
• “Just checking in…” emails Every follow-up has to be useful. Send an interesting article, a case study, or a problem we solved for a client in their industry.
• End of the quarter - Yes, you can use this argument, but only when you have a good relationship and/or you already provided value. ?

What can you do?

• Focus on the pain. You need to be able to drill down into an inefficiency or vague problem, discover its impact on the business and the prospect personally, quantify it, and conclude if the problem is worth solving with your solution.
• Numbers. The most important part of pain questions is understanding its financial impact. You are wasting 72k EUR every year on inefficient planning. So….
• Next steps. Every meeting or interaction has to have a next step. You’re pushing a ball down a huge football field one little kick at a time.?

A salesperson’s job boils down to asking smart questions and listening carefully to the answers.

Solve a problem for ONE person in the company first. Most importantly, just be a human, not a salesbot.?

Katarina

HERO OF THE DAY

??Jason Lemkin - SaaS straight talker

There is a ton of startup-related content on the internet, but much of it is rather useless. I need practical advice, but what I get tends to be vague or overly cautious. It's all "it depends," never a clear "do this."

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I get it, nuances exist. But frankly, those don't help me build my business. I need actionable, direct guidance. Tell it to me straight, no sugarcoating required. We’re all adults here, it is up to me to decide whether to listen to your advice or not.

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That's why I love SaaStr, the world’s largest community of SaaS executives, founders, and entrepreneurs. Its founder, Jason M. Lemkin, is a prolific writer, entrepreneur, and investor. He founded EchoSign which was later acquired by Adobe.

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Lemkin's writing style is clear, concise, and action-oriented. His posts are packed with practical tips that you can easily implement.

Need an example? Look at his interview questions for a VP of Marketing. This list helped me a lot in framing my thinking for a VP marketing interview. SaaStr is packed with content like this!

Ready to dive in? Head over to SaaStr's "Best of SaaStr" page and read it all now. It’s the best business education you’ll ever get and it's free.

Better than any MBA.

Luka

BOOK OF THE DAY

?? Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

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On the first page of his book, Taleb says: Wind extinguishes a candle and energizes fire. Likewise with randomness, uncertainty, chaos: you want to use them, not hide from them. You want to be the fire and wish for the wind.

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The poetic start got me hooked, and soon, I realized that the book is Taleb’s theory of everything - business, politics, nations, medicine, law…

He covers it all, through the prism of antifragility, a term he invented.

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He says that systems are either fragile, robust, or antifragile. Fragile systems falter under chaos, robust ones endure, but antifragile ones? They grow stronger, like muscles after exercise.

Working in a startup, what resonated with me the most is Taleb’s claim that startups embody antifragility:

• Startups thrive on chaos and volatility, turning uncertainty into opportunity. They don't just survive disorder; they need it to grow stronger.
• They use failure as a tool: Every setback is a lesson, making them more adaptable and tough.
• They are flexible. Unlike rigid enterprises, startups excel by keeping their options open and staying flexible.
• They mitigate risk by using the barbell strategy: Startups combine safe bets with high-risk ventures, balancing security and opportunity.
• They have skin in the game: Everyone's invested, ensuring they're all in on making it work despite enormous risks.

The startup bit made me fall in love with the book, because, in a way, it gave more meaning to what I do.

Taleb's blunt: we're over-coddling everything, and it's making us weak.

His antidote?

A startup mentality. Thriving on chaos. Making bets. Taking hits.? And always, always learning.

Vjeko

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