No, we aren’t wondering about your monitor, keyboard, or chair position when we ask this question. We are wondering more about the position of your heart and mind.
You see, one of the definitions Oxford languages provides for posture is this: “a particular way of dealing with or considering something; an approach or attitude.” Now certainly having the right approach or attitude can be a critical element in sales success in any field. But the right posture is even more significant if you want to excel selling a SaaS solution.
The Big Challenge with SaaS
SaaS companies face a unique challenge in that many ONLY make money when customers renew their initial services. The customer acquisition costs (CAC), including sales compensation, are often high relative to the up-front revenue associated with a new customer. Meanwhile customer and revenue churn reduce the overall lifetime value of the customer and can, if not properly managed, cause SaaS companies to experience enormous financial problems, despite closing tons of new business (more on key SaaS metrics can be found here). As a result, SaaS businesses, perhaps more than any other, require customer satisfaction as much, if not more, than customer acquisition.
In fact, for most SaaS solutions, activating a customer who doesn’t renew, or worse, cancels service shortly after activation, will cost the company far more than it will earn in revenue.
The implication for SaaS sellers is clear – selling a solution that isn’t right for the customer is actually WORSE for the company financially than not making a sale at all.
A Servant’s Heart
By now it’s almost certain you are familiar with the term servant-leader – the approach to leading others whereby serving them, helping them achieve their potential is the attitude or posture the leader takes. In this environment, the leader views themselves as responsible for serving their staff, and not the other way around. Genuine servant-leaders must therefore be mindful of the needs and objectives of people on their team. They must be careful to put people in positions where they can do their best work and be fulfilled. And they must look for opportunities to help them achieve their personal and professional objectives while delivering value to the business. But why is servant-leadership so popular and effective? After all, it isn’t always an easy approach to take. However, the result is generally worth the extra effort as effective servant-leaders typically develop tremendous respect and achieve personal fulfillment as they deliver results for their people and their company.
And this same approach, one we refer to as mindful selling, will deliver equally compelling results in sales – especially in SaaS businesses. By adopting a posture of serving prospects, even before they become customers, salespeople will develop productive relationships with nearly every contact they meet. This mindful approach will focus the seller’s attention on helping the buyer figure out what is best for their business, instead of trying to pitch the seller’s SaaS solution to everyone they meet. In fact, mindful sellers periodically find they shouldn’t propose a solution to a given contact at all. However, those contacts often become great sources of referrals and even customers at a later date because the mindful seller chose to serve the buyer rather than pitch them, developing a level of trust that transcends any transaction.
Why, What, and Now How
We’ve highlighted WHY selling SaaS demands we take a different approach from pitching solutions to everyone we can. The economics simply require that we go beyond closing transactions to building profitable relationships or SaaS companies may actually lose financially because they are winning business that doesn’t stick.
We’ve also talked about WHAT this different approach should look like. If we are going to win the right business, we need to focus on helping buyers determine what’s best for them and sell our solution where it really is a good fit. As importantly, we need to avoid pitching to customers who won’t be well-served by our solution. Not only will this mindful approach result in better sales, but it will also result in stronger relationships and less time wasted.
Now let’s talk about HOW we do it – and this is perhaps the most challenging part of becoming a SaaS super-seller. Becoming an expert mindful seller requires mastery of the five key conversations we outlined in this blog a few months back so we won’t rehash that here. However, the key point to stress here is that mastering these five conversations isn’t something that can be achieved by completing a sales training class. It won’t happen in a few days, or probably even a few weeks. Mastery is an ongoing pursuit and SaaS super-sellers have the same posture or attitude toward their profession as great athletes, in that they are continually striving to improve even while they excel in their field. Amateur athletes often like to imagine that exceptional professionals have learned some advanced technique and that’s what makes them great. However, that is very rarely true. In nearly all cases, the great athlete has simply achieved a higher level of mastery over the exact same skills and techniques amateurs are taught, but the professional has been practicing for many years. Become an exceptional SaaS sales professional is no different.
So, let’s revisit the question posed in the title of this blog. Do you have the right posture to become a SaaS super-seller? More specifically, are you prepared to:
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Mindfully focus on helping everyone you meet, even if that means not selling a solution that isn’t right for a particular contact?
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Commit to mastering the skills needed to execute your profession at the highest possible level through continuous, incremental improvement?
If you answered yes to both of these questions, we want to help with your journey. At Axiom we’ve developed a comprehensive methodology for mindful selling that has helped thousands of salespeople experience better results and more fulfillment than they ever thought possible. We want to give you FREE access to several key modules in our online learning library. Simply click here to register and you’ll receive access to:
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How Business Make Decisions – an overview of the key motives behind all business decisions to help you better speak the language of your buyers.
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The DIG Questioning Model – a unique approach to engage buyers in a discussion about their business that can transform your interactions and reveal tremendous opportunities to impact their success.
Want to talk about how to scale a mindful selling approach in your SaaS business? Click here to schedule a call with one of our consultants and you’ll receive helpful insights without a sales pitch.
At Axiom Sales Kinetics we offer a unique, mindful alternative to traditional sales training. Unlike traditional sales training events, we embed our methodology into your sales cadence, delivering dramatically better sales results. To learn more about Selling the Axiom Way, our Kinetics Sales Effectiveness Platform, or our unique, guaranteed approach, please visit us at www.axiomsaleskinetics.com.
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