This is the third in a five part series where we will share the Key Takeaways from the webinar: Building SaaS that Scale: Accelerating Sales, Hosted by Modern Logic and Lighter Capital on August 18th.
In the first of the series, the first key takeaway is to really know your customer. The second is to have deliberate market focus that evolves as you learn through your sales process. Key points and questions to ask include:
- How fast can you get to market?
- How long is the sales cycle?
- How long will it take to see ROI from this segment?
Laying The Foundation:
Test your hypothesis: Start by researching and understanding your customers. Test your understanding to validate your assumptions. You should consider tapping your Product Advisory Council for input and advice. Test your hypothesis by using design interviews.
Seek out conversations with future customers: Talk about how you are currently addressing or would like to solve an existing problem. Before you begin to sell, first seek an understanding of how you can fully serve the need.
As you expand into new territory, it is important to focus on what really drives the businesses you are serving. Get to know the business drivers and understand the tough questions they are battling with.
Study and understand the current customers you’re working with. Know why your customers chose your company. Know how you’re meeting their needs and how you can meet future needs.
Know what the competition is doing: Ask questions such as: How are they approaching the market? How are they setting themselves up for success? How would you classify their customer targets?
Communicationg Value:
Speak the language of your customer. Articulate and understand their problems from their point of view.
Focus on the value you are providing: The focus needs to be on the value as it is perceived by the customer and should not be
based on your product features. Marketing materials should have a problem/value orientation.
Your goal should be authenticity: Be disciplined in providing real value to your customer before you begin to sell them something.
Key Takeaway:
By building a community of influencers you will not only have an opportunity to create a forum of learning you will invariably build a committed network of people that are now aligned around your product. As a result, you are equipped to go-to-market informed and to speak from the value point of view. This is a critical first step in the process of building a strategy to accelerate sales. – More to come with the second key-takeaway in the series.