Nine Tips for

SaaS Sales Success

Keep your trials short

Here’s why:• Most people don’t use the full trial, and those who do would have ended up buying anyway.

• Users take short-term trials more seriously and are more likely to use your product.

• You lower customer acquisition costs by shortening your trial and, subsequently, your sales

cycle.

Long trials hurt conversions. For 99% of startups, trials shouldn’t be any longer than 14 days.

Need more proof? Here’s why

your free trials are too long.

Send a ton of emails

Here’s how to get the most out of your emails:• Use real email addresses. Instead of “Sales@YourBusiness.com”, use

“YourName@YourBusiness.com”.

• Write compelling subject lines. Your subject line is more important than your content.

Make it awesome.

• Send activity-based emails. Create a drip email campaign that responds to user activity.

Unless you have a killer email campaign, your signups are going to forget you exist within hours

Not sure how to start? Check out

these two campaign templates

.

Call your trial signups

An early phone call will:• Drastically improve your reach rate. You’ll still be fresh in your prospect’s mind.

• Provide quick qualification. A phone call quickly determines if your product is a good fit.

• Help you handle objections. A phone call is the best environment to

successfully manage objections.

In the early stages of your SaaS startup, call every trial user within five minutes of signup.

Learn more about how an early phone call can give you a

66% increase in sales.

Improve your demos

Here’s three keys to a successful demo:• Qualify first. Demos are not qualification tools. Always qualify your leads before you give a demo.

• Keep it short. 30-60 minutes is way too long. Limit your demos to 15 minutes, max.

• Benefits, not features. Don’t tell your prospect what your product does, tell them what it does

for them.

Don’t make the mistake of treating your product demo like a training session.

Learn more about giving

product demos that sell

.

Follow up relentlessly

If the lead is cold, follow up three times after initial contact:• Day three: First follow-up. Send a condensed version of your initial pitch at a different time

of day.

• Day seven: Second follow-up. Reach out at a different time of day and restate your call to

action.

• Day fourteen: Third follow-up. Send the breakup email. This is where response rates

skyrocket.

If your lead ever expressed interest in your product, follow up until you get a “yes” or “no”.

Learn more about the Close.io follow-up philosophy

Set your prices (really) high

You’ll know you find the right price when:• 30% of your prospects say, “You’re crazy, I’d never pay that.”

• 30% of your prospects say, “That’s really cheap.”

• 40% of your prospects say, “Your product is expensive, but worth the price.”

What makes you competitive shouldn’t be your pricing, it should be the value you provide.

Start experimenting with pricing. If you don’t lose customers over price, your

product is too cheap.

Sell prepaid annual plans

Annual plans allow you to:• Offer reasonable and justifiable discounts

• Increase upfront cash flow

• Hire a full-time sales team with the increased cash flow

Prepaid annual plans are one of the most powerful growth hacks for SaaS startups

Learn how to sell your customers on prepaid annual plans

.

Be really light on discounts

Discounts hurt your SaaS startup by:• Making salespeople lazy. It’s hard to sell prospects on value, but it’s easy to lower the price.

• Making predictable revenue impossible. You can’t predict your revenue if everyone pays a

different price.

• Damaging your brand. Customers won’t be happy to learn their competition gets your product

cheaper.

Discounts do more harm than good to your company. Other than in annual plans, avoid them.

Here’s how to respond when a prospect asks for a discount

.

Never close a bad deal

Here are three steps to help you properly qualify every lead:• Create an ideal customer profile.

• Identify your prospect’s needs.

• Map out your prospect’s decision-making process

Easy sales may be tempting, but the cost of churn will always outweigh potential revenue.

Check out our full guide to qualification

.

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