Want to know what’s hot (and what’s not) in SaaS sales right now? Well look no further.
I’ve digested 3 days of learnings from sessions and deep conversations with many of the most respected and successful SaaS leaders in Europe (and over from the US) which took place at the CRO Summit & SaaStr Europa.
Here are my 8 hot takes (and what to do with them)…
- AI is eating the world
If you were under any illusions that the future is anything but artificial, then the sentiment coming from SaaStr & the CRO Summit should disabuse you of that notion.
Just about every vendor touted their AI/ML capabilities and most conversations wound up touching on the topic, ranging from tools people were trialling to discussing their strategy for incorporating AI into their GTM motions.
Probably the starkest message came from Jason Lemkim himself (the founder of SaaStr), who noted that the brightest folks were flocking back to San Francisco to ensure they were in the eye of the AI storm, with VCs looking to back any startups that promised to ‘kill hundreds or thousands of jobs’ by making them redundant…whilst racing to $100m ARR in under 3 years.
The choice for business and revenue leaders seems pretty clear to me…figure out how to evolve your approach to leverage the power of AI, or get run over by the train that has already left the station.
Key action: Assemble your leadership team and evaluate the most appropriate ways to test AI in your organisation from a GTM/strategy perspective.
- Performance & Unit Economics
Efficient growth. If I had a £ for every time I heard those two words during the 3 days and 2 events, I’d be on the Forbes rich list! It was second only to AI in its dominance.
VCs in particular just hammered home this point from the stage. And leaders I spoke with shared the added levels of scrutiny and detail being demanded by founders/CEOs/boards in order to release any investment. Often with an expected payback within a quarter. Ouch.
Whilst I think the short-termism will abate as overly myopic leadership sees it damage growth more than it conserves profitability, there is no doubt that a sense of abundance and open chequebooks won’t return soon.
Which means that everyone is going to be keeping a very close eye on performance, right down to the individual attainment rate of reps and other individual contributors. And whereas some underperforming reps were able to continue in role and given some slack in the past, it’s far less likely this will be tolerated going forward. Active performance management and higher standards, more strictly enforced will be the new normal.
And as for leadership’s role in this ‘new normal’ my favourite quote of the 3 days came from Jeremy Donovan, EVP Revenue Operations and Strategy @ Insight Partners, who said.
“It’s not about knowing what to do, it’s doing what you know.”
His point? Don’t forget the basics. Making core habits central to the running of your business is what keeps the ship steering in the right direction. Getting distracted by shiny new objects and relaxing your standards is when things start to stray.
He shared the example of a CRO at a $100m ARR business in their portfolio, where they had started to miss targets as close rates were dropping. Rather than focus on creating more pipeline, which was their gut instinct, he evaluated what has changed and realised the mandatory deal reviews had been dropped over time. So he brought them back. And win rates nudged back up. No additional investment, just a focus on discipline.
Key action: If you’re not already, ensure you have a rep level view of attainment and a clearly defined action plan for those in the bottom 20% of your distribution curve. And be absolutely rigorous in enforcing standards of excellence across the team.
- Outbound SDRs going away?
This was more of a surprise. Before SaaStr & CRO Summit I’d heard a lot of questions over the last several months about the efficacy of outbound SDRs, but not really anything definitive about people moving away from them.
However a good number of execs I spoke to were either no longer operating with SDRs, or they were actively transitioning away from them or seriously considering it.
It feels like a watershed moment, with the ‘Predictable Revenue’ promise of Aaron Ross’s hugely influential book no longer the orthodoxy for SaaS go-to-market teams.
And it was just a few days before these events that another data point was released by Insight Ventures, sharing that SDRs are contributing to just 18% of their portfolio company’s pipeline now, down from 40% previously. This is also referenced in Jacco van der Kooij’s slide from the CRO Summit:
Don’t get me wrong, outbound SDRs are not dead and won’t disappear overnight, but it does feel like a new approach is needed – and happening – where the traditional SDR outbound model will be replaced by a combination of technology, marketing and 360 closing reps.
Key action: If you’re still utilising an outbound model, ask the critical question of what the unit economics are looking like for deals closed from this source versus others; and of all the deals closed in your last x period of time, how many were actually self-sourced by the AE versus an SDR? If the answers are either unsustainable or trending the wrong way, start to consider your options.
- Referrals & leveraging your network
One contender for the crown of most efficient way to build pipeline that came up multiple times last week was referrals, partnerships and leveraging your network.
It was spoken about as play at SaaStr on the topic of efficient growth, with lots of conversations centred around partnerships and how folks could work together, but it was really brought home as an effective lever at the CRO Summit.
An excellent panel featuring Kathleen Booth, Dimitar Stanimiroff and Martin Scholz explored the efficiency and effectiveness of leveraging non-competitive businesses and individuals in your ecosystem to drive growth.
This makes sense, because trust and credibility are often key barriers to getting the face time you need with a prospect, and both are generally solved if you can leverage a warm intro from a mutual connection.
The meaning of partnerships is currently wide ranging, and definitions are yet to be properly nailed down, but in the true spirit of startups that shouldn’t be a blocker to figuring out a motion that works for you, whether its through employees, clients, advisors, community, integration partners or classic channel resellers.
If you’re interested in learning more, a new report is also out on the State of Partner Led Growth 2023.
Key Action: Have you set up or trialled a partnerships programme yet? If not, why not consider a small pilot programme and see if you can tap into the power of your business network to drive more warm referrals into the pipeline.
- Sales tech
Despite the news of contracting budgets and a malaise in the SaaS market, it felt like there was still a dizzying array of RevTech out there with lots of new players, mostly centred around AI.
Their pitch was almost universally focussed on productivity and efficiency versus growth-growth-growth, but the Cambrian explosion of sales & marketing tools appears to be continuing unabated.
The challenge from a revenue leader’s perspective is trying to distinguish between them as they all overlap and try to muscle into one another’s territory.
Data/contact sourcing vendors now also offer outreach & sequence building capabilities; prospecting software offer data insights & recording; conversational intelligence offer insights and reporting; and so on.
Key action: If you’ve not evaluated your tech stack in a while, I’d take a look around. There are many exciting options that could help increase the productivity of your reps…just be sure to know what you’re optimising for and go with the vendors who specialise in this area, because nobody can do everything well.
- Complexity demands clarity & strategic alignment
I’m a big fan of Kyle Poyar, and his talk at the CRO Summit didn’t disappoint as he spoke about the continuing evolution of PLG.
But his talk also highlighted another broader trend, which is the hybrid nature of GTM teams and the potential for significant complexity in those dynamic motions.
Just look at this slide!
The potential for confusion is high as the traditional single-motion SaaS factory starts to break down in a bid to emulate the fluid nature of today’s buyer journey.
Many will fight the shift and insist on trying to push their way of selling onto their market to make it operationally easier, but let’s face it, market forces will prevail and they’ll lose ground to competitors.
How can GTM leaders face this complexity? They will need to continue to invest in strong RevOps, but with more strategic leaders, who are not just focussed on the plumbing, but who can also provide guidance and insights into key friction points and suggestions on improving processes to improve the experience of both buyers and sellers.
Clarity of communication, simple governance rules and consistency of application will also be more important. This will involve strong executive decision making and explicit choices on what you want to optimise for.
And finally so will hiring, training and coaching of reps to embrace constant change with a growth mindset; along with greater flexibility in their approach and ability to adapt rapidly to different market demands.
Key action: Review your GTM motion and evaluate if it is genuinely buyer centric, or built around your own internal constraints and preferred ways of working; don’t skimp on revops talent or budget; and make decisions, then clearly communicate and uphold the operating rules you want your teams to follow.
- Messaging
There were sessions at both SaaStr & CRO Summit (excellent stuff from Munya Hoto, Alex Foulds & Bas Nijjer) + several side conversations at dinners about the increasing importance of messaging.
Given the incredibly competitive nature of almost every market, and the need to deliver more results with the same or less budget and resource, messaging is an incredibly high leverage output.
If you can cut through to your buyers with impactful messaging, suddenly everything else from marketing to selling to renewing becomes materially easier and more performant.
No longer will prospects be confused when they arrive at your site, your team will be less clogged up with poor-fit ICP, and your AMs will have an easier time explaining why you remain uniquely positioned to continue solving clients problems.
I’m not suggesting it’s a magical silver bullet, but the difference between ineffective and confusing messaging and something that resonates is palpable and worth the effort to get right.
Key action: If you’ve not run the exercise for a while, go speak to 20 prospects and 20 clients to understand their Jobs to Be Done, then ensure that you’re speaking their language in the simplest terms possible.
2 good ‘gut check’ exercices for this:
- Are you answering (without jargon) the ‘3 whys’ behind any buying decision…why should they do something different (what pain are you solving)? Why should they change with urgency (what’s the implication of not acting)? Why you (how are you uniquely different & better to your competitors in ways that your market cares about)?
- Start your statements with ‘Now you can’ and complete them to give an action-oriented, JTBD message versus something too generic or technical (h/t to Matt Lerner for this approach)
- Data isn’t enough
Given the rapid nature of market developments, simply having a robust and accurate reporting structure isn’t enough to build a well oiled growth engine (and let’s face it, most orgs still don’t even have that!)
What you need is an organisational wide ASK framework (Attitude, Skills, Knowledge), but working backwards in the acronym.
Firstly, you need the Knowledge of what to do based on the data. This is more than insights. It’s an understanding of what actions can and should be taken to move the needle based on the insights.
For example your reps ACVs trending down is a data point.
That they’re trending down across a particular segment/product line/group of reps who have a distinct motion or a new competitor entered the market is an insight.
Knowing that you need to reposition the product to re-engage a more strategic economic buyer with one of their higher level pains is what you’re really shooting for. This is actionable Knowledge.
Then you need to develop the skills to actually implement that knowledge.
This is where you must be razor sharp on the training and coaching needed to make a difference. A scattergun approach is going to lead to frustration and busy work, but not much in terms of ROI.
Finally you need the right attitude from your teams to put in the leg work to deliver the results that will come from applying the knowledge and skill sets to tackle a particular problem.
If you can build an operating model based on Knowledge (Clarity of what needs to be done) – Skills (Capability to action what’s needed) – Attitude (will to get shit done) then you’re cooking with gas.
That’s a wrap
3 intense and incredibly useful days boiled down into 8 key take-aways and 5 minutes of context!
If you’d like to speak to me about any of the above and dig into more detail or discuss your plans to action these areas, I’d love to chat.