Why positive comments about your B2B SaaS product often mean nothing at all
Positive comments you’ll hear
There’s a spectrum with loads of positive things on that you’ll often hear from sales leads and customers:
“We should do lunch”
Image credit Flickr: David
“We are really pleased with the trial so far”
“We see a long term relationship for our businesses” “
“I’m going to expand my business and I’ll be buying a six-fold increase in seats, please come to visit me and I’ll tell you all about it”
“I’m going to take this to the partners, please prepare a business plan with pages in this order and cash forecasts out to 36 months ASAP”
“This is starting to get really interesting, why don’t you add this feature?”
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with saying these things. However, when you have your “sales head” on 90% of the Yes/No Spectrum resolve to NO. The only “yes” is cash in your bank so you have to get really efficient at deflecting compliments and ensuring you’re solving a real pain point for your users.
What you should do
Always, always, always be methodical with how you handle compliments, ensure you have a purpose for meetings and a next step for trial users (more on that later in the week). Here’s some tips on how to handle those frequently heard requests…
We should do lunch
OK. Great. Everyone likes food but you need to know the context. Who is asking you? Why do they want lunch? You can’t be out taking meetings like this everyday but lots of fantastic, informal conversation over food can really help create a good relationship.
If you have to travel to a meeting like this, pack other meetings in around it to make the most of your day. Take a look at the location and see if you can spot any potential leads you could call in on.
This isn’t scalable but when you’re onboarding those all important first users of your B2B SaaS product, it can be a great sales tool. Just take care; particularly if you have a low price product.
We are really pleased with the trial so far
Classic compliment and always nice to hear but what does this actually mean? You need to give careful thought into what a successful trial looks like and help your triallers achieve that; your opinion and theirs can often be very different. Look out for an in-depth article on this topic later in the week.
We see a long term relationship for our businesses
This type of customer or lead can be hugely valuable but they have to be handled in a way that works for you both. It’s fantastic having a committed customer that you can work with to develop your product but make sure it’s a deal that works for you both.
More often than not “we see a long term relationship for our businesses” actually means “please can we have a ton of stuff for free” or “build us a stack of new features before we buy”.
It’s at this point that you should be looking for more commitment, not giving up additional time and resources in the hope of a bigger sale down the line.
If they are serious about a long term relationship, get them signed up to an annual contract (if they aren’t on one already) and talk about what they actually means. Be careful to ensure that they don’t start treating you as their own software resource; you need to be building features that are aligned with with the objectives of the business, not running around after one potentially large customer.
I’m going to expand my business and I’ll be buying a six-fold increase in seats, please come to visit me and I’ll tell you all about it
No. Just no. First off, you need to make sure that the person making this comment is the decision-maker. Loads of folk using your product won’t have the power to make this decision. Identify who that person is early on, get to know them and what they expect from you and your product.
There’s no reason this conversation can’t happen over the phone either; unless there is a specific scaling issue (which hopefully there won’t be!) then this is simply an account adding more seats.
I’m going to take this to the partners, please prepare a business plan with pages in this order and cash forecasts out to 36 months ASAP
Questions like this usually come from people inexperienced at buying SaaS products.
More often than not, you can handle this lead or customer in the same way as everyone else. In our case, we ship our Product Deck and pick up the phone. Even the largest leads will fit into the same process; it just takes time and experience to work this out. Understand their problem, figure out how you can help and go from there.
A note on financials…you shouldn’t be sending your cashflow forecasts out to anyone other than your investors and management team. You can usually get away with pretending it was never asked ;)
This is starting to get really interesting, why don’t you add this feature?
These type of requests frequently come from leads and free triallers. Check out our post on The Free Trial False Summit to find out what we’ve learned.
Top tip round up
Spot patterns and build process
As you get more experienced in dealing with these types of requests from leads and customers, you’ll recognise patterns which will inform your sales and customer service processes. Process = confidence.
Pick up the phone
When we receive a request like those in this article, picking up the phone is without a doubt, the best tool you have. Everyone is a keyboard warrior and you lose so much context over email. A request can often be a result of something else…dig deeper, get to the root of the problem and simply tal
Remember the Yes/No Spectrum
Every compliment or positive request you receive needs to be put into context. Remember that more often than not, a positive response isn’t a “Yes”…it’s just another step in the process. After all, B2B sales are a marathon and not a sprint.
What requests do you hear regularly and what do you do about them? Let me know!
Other useful stuff courtesy of the tinterwebs
Is B2B SaaS sales really a marathon and not a sprint? Perhaps it’s both: http://spirohq.com/is-working-in-sales-a-sprint-or-a-marathon/
How to increase the chance of closing that Enterprise deal:
