Selling SaaS to the Big End of Town? 9 things your larger customers need from you, because of Covid19.

I am lucky enough to have spent 25 years working on three continents with companies selling overseas. After 1997 and 2008 I learnt that getting some early insights from the big companies on what they are now looking for from vendors is critical. Some 1-1 calls with bigger Enterprise Sales Organisations last week told me that the world has changed already - so will you?

1. Most of the larger companies are trying to continue BAU but with teams based at home or remotely. To that end, sales conversations are continuing but with a different cadence. Focus for them is on deployment time and onboarding of teams using your solution. Show them how great your are at this!
2. Several companies have reported clients looking to mitigate cashflow and switch to shorter deals as they hedge the future. We are seeing a few existing sales switch from 12 to 6 month agreements. The goodwill from cutting them a break is worth it.
3. Ramp up and onboarding is highly critical for the next 6 months – even to the extent that ability to stand up a solution quickly takes precedence over its ultimate technical capabilities. Getting stripped back (or free) products into customers will bode well for the future as solutions that are already in organisations will be in a very strong position to grow as risk appetite is tested.
4. A proportion of ESOs are mothballing parts of the business to constrain spend – typically for 6 months – as they prioritise spend on frontline and customer facing activity. This means some pipelines are dead so move on, and stop bugging them!

There are a few things that seem to be hyper important right now for you as a SaaS business:

1. Connect with your user/customers authentically - you know what that is. 
2. Offer freemium parts of your product in return for longer term subs, its working already for people like Slack.
3. Provide drop in “chew and chat” sessions to build community around your product. Your community will be what gets you through, so invest in it.
4. Get a really good chatbot/chat to improve interactivity 24/7 so people feel you are in the trenches with them.
5. Webinars are king – the traffic to sessions with people who navigated the late 90s or 2008 is high. The Millennial or Gen Z leader wants to hear from the old timers!

Watch out for some webinars that we at NZTE will be promoting exactly on these lines in the coming days and weeks. Stay well!