Multiple factors impact the success of your SaaS company. Software quality, pricing, and customer retention are just a few examples. But one of the biggest is the caliber of your sales talent. Without a professional, stable sales team in place, SaaS company struggles are almost guaranteed.
In this post, I’ll examine the most common reasons why brands find difficulty hiring top sales talent and practical strategies for overcoming this problem.
Competition
As of early 2025, there were approximately 30,000 SaaS companies across the globe, with 60% in the US.
This industry is scorching hot right now, with new companies constantly popping up in every niche imaginable. As a result, the sheer volume of SaaS companies is a major reason why so many brands struggle with recruiting.
With talented reps having so many options, you’re likely to face challenges if your brand doesn’t have a strong unique value proposition (UVP) and lacks anything to distinguish you from the rest of the pack.
Inefficient Hiring Process
Slow, meticulous, or chaotic hiring is another common way SaaS recruiting teams shoot themselves in the foot. Top sales reps know their worth, and even if they have a strong interest in your company, many will “get off the line” if your hiring process is inefficient.
Pinpointing the exact problem isn’t always easy, but here’s a list of eight particular issues that harm the candidate experience.
Poor Pay and Benefits
It should come as no surprise that elite sales talent expects competitive pay and benefits — if not above average. If, for whatever reason, you’re unable to offer this, it’s going to be an uphill battle from the start.
For reference of what’s considered competitive, you can check out an article we wrote about SaaS sales salary in 2023. Note that there’s been a slight increase as of the time of this writing in early 2025 because of inflation, but it should still provide a basic reference point.
Lack of Career Development Opportunities
MIT research states that 67% of SaaS sales reps value career development. If the position you’re advertising for has little to no options for career development, it’s understandable that you likely won’t attract a large number of qualified candidates.
And even if you do manage to land some A+ talent, your turnover rate will probably a lot higher than what it should be.
Weak Branding
By “weak branding,” I mean lacking the brand presence and desirability it takes to pique the interest of top SaaS sales reps. With so many SaaS companies going after a finite number of qualified reps, it takes something special to make reps want to choose you.
Some of the best examples of companies with excellent branding include HubSpot, Slack, Zoom, and Canva.
How to Fix SaaS Company Struggles
Now that we have crystallized the most common contributing factors to SaaS company struggles, let’s create a formula for overcoming them to help your brand bring in more elite talent.
As we mentioned in the first point, competition is one of the biggest hindrances to building an A+ sales team. By following the strategies for the subsequent SaaS company struggles, which we’ll discuss below, this should give you an edge over many of your competitors and make your brand a more desirable place to work.
This starts with optimizing your hiring process. One of the best ways to go about this is to use cutting-edge technology to objectively identify the best of the best candidates.
HireDNA, for instance, uses sophisticated assessments to determine how well a person will fit in with your unique sales culture and examines core competencies.
It’s also smart to provide a clear outline of what candidates can expect at each stage in the hiring process and maintain close communication from start to finish.
The next issue, poor pay and benefits, can be fixed by 1) identifying what’s considered competitive pay in the SaaS sales industry (in 2023, it was just under $100k) and 2) adjusting your payment structure to match or exceed it.
Admittedly, this can be easier said than done, especially for newer SaaS companies with limited funds. But if you truly expect to build an elite sales force, you’ll need to at least get within the proximity of what other successful brands are offering.
When it comes to career development opportunities, the simple solution is to build your SaaS company in a way that promotes growth from within. Not only can this make your business feel more desirable to work for, it offers a host of impressive benefits, including the following.
- “Employees stay 41% longer at companies with high rates of internal hiring.”
- “56% of employees believed promoting from within is better for morale.”
- “Managers promoted from within were 10% more likely than external hires to report having a highly productive team.”
And given that “33.63% of the workforce has looked for a new job in the last six months due to lack of career growth,” this can be huge for preventing unnecessary turnover and keeping sales superstars around for the long haul.
Finally, weak branding can be addressed in a few ways.
First, work on developing your UVP so that candidates know exactly what makes you different from other competitors and why they should want to work for you. Strive to create unique brand messaging that incorporates your genuine style, philosophy, and values, while being true to yourself.
Build a strong presence on social media and other online outlets to increase exposure and make your brand more recognizable. Also, incorporate positive testimonials on your website and social media from current or previous salespeople to articulate the benefits of working for you.
Making Your SaaS Company a Premier Destination
Unless you’re a well-known mega SaaS brand like HubSpot or Slack, you’ll likely encounter some challenges when attempting to hire top sales talent. By pinpointing the most common reasons for SaaS company struggles — competition, inefficient hiring, poor pay/benefits, lack of career development, and weak branding — and tackling them head-on, you should be able to solidify your brand as a desirable one to work for.
Hopefully, this will supply you with the momentum you need to take the next step forward and build a team of ultra-talented reps.
If you’re looking for the ultimate hiring readiness assessment, check out this one from HireDNA. Use it to source candidates faster, drastically reduce mistakes, increase retention, and build a better sales culture.