Author: hiredna

Everything You Need to Know About the Sales Candidate Experience

Posted on by hiredna

You hear a lot about customer experience in the sales world. Mountains of data and heaps of money are constantly being thrown at improving the customer experience. And rightfully so. It’s incredibly important. 

But another important experience that doesn’t receive anywhere near the same amount of attention is the sales candidate experience. It definitely should, however. 

In this post, I’ll explain what the sales candidate experience is, why it’s vital, the consequences of having a sub-par sales candidate experience, and how to improve your company’s approach in this area. Let’s jump right in. 

What Exactly is a Sales Candidate Experience?

It’s “the series of interactions that a job seeker has with your company throughout the recruiting process,” writes Toolbox. “These interactions include any communication that a candidate receives from your brand messaging, software systems, and/or employees.”

This can include everything from visiting your company website and filling out the job application to communication with HR team members and the actual interview. The sales candidate experience is what gives prospective salespeople their first impression of your company, heavily impacts how they perceive you, and factors into whether or not top candidates ultimately accept the offer. 

As a result, I can’t stress enough how important this aspect of sales recruiting is. 

Why You Need a Positive Sales Candidate Experience

Here are a few key stats that put things into perspective. 

  • “59% of candidates abandon a job application due to bugs, issues, or complexity of process.”
  • “42% of candidates with a negative experience won’t reapply to your company.”
  • “65% of candidates with a negative experience share them with their inner circles and publicly online.”
  • “38% of candidates who are satisfied with their candidate experience are more likely to accept a job offer.”

This data tells us that nearly 6 out of 10 sales candidates will ditch a job application if they encounter glitches or it’s too complicated. And that’s alarming given that 56% of sales candidates have encountered technical issues when applying for a job. 

That means you could potentially lose out on A+ salespeople because of issues with the job application process. 

It also shows that a negative experience will prevent more than 4 out of 10 candidates from ever reapplying and that 65% of people will share their poor experience with others. With the rapid rate at which negative publicity can spread on social media and other digital outlets, this can be a major blow to your brand equity. 

And if enough of it is spread around, it can erode the very foundation of your company where hardly anyone wants to work for you. 

On the other end of the spectrum, nearly 4 out of 10 sales candidates who have a positive experience will likely accept a job offer. So, if you have a smooth, streamlined job application, maintain good communication, respect the time of sales candidates, and so on, you’re far more likely to land the rockstars you really want. 

Besides that, 82.4% of those candidates are likely or very likely to share their positive experience with others. 

This is tangible proof of how critically important having a positive sales candidate experience is. Not only does it affect immediate hiring, it can directly impact the longevity of your business. 

For more details, I suggest reading this whitepaper by talent analytics platform, Talentgy. It features the data I’ve included, plus much more to really give you a sense of how crucial the sales candidate experience truly is. 

How to Improve in This Area

Here are some practical tips to start transforming your sales recruiting process today:

  • Optimize your website – This is often the first place sales candidates get a feel for your company and what you’re all about. So you want to ensure it looks great and they can easily find relevant information to assist them during the job application process. “Make it easy, and make it enticing! Ask yourself, ‘Is this something I’d want to take action on or find intriguing,” writes startup consultant Amy Volas.
  • Narrow down your list of candidates to the best of the best as soon as you can – This should ensure your HR team can devote more time to each candidate, not waste the time of those who don’t make the cut, and improve overall communication. A sales recruiting platform like HireDNA can help dramatically with this. 
  • Make your interview as simple and streamlined as possible – One of the most common points of friction is the interview. For example, asking extraneous questions, making it too long, or having multiple rounds of interviews when only one is necessary can be problematic. Make it a point to reduce complexities, and always look for ways to refine interviewing as you gain more insights. 
  • Be transparent throughout the entire process – Give sales candidates a timeline so they know what to expect when first reaching out to them, provide them with ongoing feedback (e.g. “You’ve been shortlisted to our list of top candidates”), and let them know upfront if you’ve chosen to move on with someone else. 
  • Equip new hires with the tools for success – Make onboarding simple and intuitive so new sales reps can get up-to-speed quickly without unnecessary headaches. This other post I wrote about new salesperson onboarding should be helpful here. 

Getting Your Sales Candidate Experience Where it Needs to Be

I see a lot of brands treating the sales candidate experience as an afterthought. But that’s a grave mistake. As we’ve just learned, it factors heavily into whether or not candidates complete the job application, the perception they have of your company, how likely qualified candidates are to accept a job offer, and your overall brand equity. 

So, the sales candidate experience is something you’ll want to be diligent about continually improving. 

Want to hire better sales talent, faster? See how HireDNA can help. 92% of recommended candidates are top achievers within their first year. 

See Why 98% of SaaS Businesses See Positive Results with Dynamic Pricing

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Businesses across all industries have evolved significantly over the course of the 21st century. But the evolution of SaaS has moved at an even greater speed.

Case in point — SaaS pricing. In recent years, there’s been a growing trend where more and more companies are using dynamic pricing, which, simply put “means that your customers see prices that are relevant to market and channel conditions at any given point in time.”

Rather than offering fixed pricing that never changes, dynamic pricing fluctuates and is tailored to each unique situation, allowing you to maximize revenue, while at the same time delivering value to your customers. 

For this post, I’m going to explain why this SaaS pricing strategy can be so effective and unpack the full logic behind it. I’ll also point you to helpful resources so you can make it work for your company.

What the Research Says

As always, one of the best ways to gain perspective is to look at concrete data. At the end of the day, what’s the true impact of using dynamic pricing?

A recent piece of research made some very promising findings. 

“Studies have shown that 98% of SaaS businesses earned positive results from making core changes to their pricing policy,” explains Phil Alves, CEO of DevSquad. “With tough competition, industry saturation, and the rapid evolution of SaaS platforms, many are starting to reinvent their pricing models according to the needs of their clients or customers.”

It’s hard to argue with 98%, and this stat clearly proves that, when done correctly, implementing a flexible SaaS pricing model like this helps the vast majority of brands capitalize on leads and land more deals. 

Alves also notes that an integral part of making effective pricing changes is basing decisions on business intelligence and analytics. “Responsive pricing methods based on analytical reports are the most successful models in SaaS companies,” he adds. 

In other words, this isn’t something that should be done on a hunch. Rather, you should continuously be capturing robust data to see:

  • What’s happening in the competitive landscape
  • How things are unfolding
  • What your customers are most responsive to
  • What works and what doesn’t

In turn, you can make smarter decisions that allow you to choose the optimal price point for each customer, helping maximize your revenue, while at the same time providing a positive customer experience. 

Dynamic Pricing is Already Used By Many Top SaaS Brands 

At first glance, it may seem like this pricing strategy is only used by a handful of uber innovative, adventurous SaaS companies. But it’s more common than you may think. 

Subscription management expert Anne Egdal makes a great point in this quote.  

“Think about it. How often do you look for a SaaS program, and when you reach the ‘Enterprise’ or ‘Corporate’ tier, you see a “Contact Us’ call to action rather than price? These businesses are likely to be using dynamic pricing, tailoring what they charge depending on the size of the client and the services they need.”

HubSpot is a great example. If you browse through the pricing page for their sales software, you’ll see their Enterprise plan “starts at” $1,200 per month, and their CTA says “Talk to Sales.”

And it’s the same story with marketing automation software Marketo. In fact, the first three options on their pricing page prompt leads to contact sales, and the “Enterprise” plan prompts them to “Request Information.”

So, they’re not featuring any static pricing, and instead funnel leads to a sales rep that can discuss pricing on an individual level. And if big name, ultra successful SaaS companies like these are using this type of pricing strategy, there’s probably something to it. 

This Model Also Helps Account for SaaS Price Increases

There’s one other massively important benefit of dynamic pricing to mention. By design, it provides a seamless framework for raising your SaaS prices without creating a lot of unnecessary friction. 

According to financing lender Lighter Capital, most large-scale SaaS companies increase their prices 5-7% each year. And if you’re not increasing your prices somewhere in this ballpark, you’re essentially leaving money on the table. 

While you obviously don’t want to use deceptive techniques to deliberately shroud how much your products cost, using dynamic pricing in a similar way as HubSpot and Marketo, where you direct leads to a sales rep to discuss deals, is a highly effective way to continually bump up costs up without rubbing leads the wrong way. 

On top of that, you don’t run the risk of alienating your existing customer base. 

Further Reading

Earlier I mentioned a quote from subscription management expert Anne Egdal. If you’re interested in learning more about the nuts and bolts of dynamic pricing, I highly recommend reading this post by her. 

In it, she discusses:

  • Different dynamic pricing models
  • How to implement dynamic pricing into your SaaS business
  • How to increase sales with it
  • How to avoid any complications when making the transition

Final Thoughts

Dynamic pricing is an emerging trend in the SaaS world that a growing number of brands have chosen to adopt. Although it won’t necessarily make sense 100% of the time, it’s definitely a pricing strategy to consider, especially if you’re selling to enterprise level customers. 

Doing so allows you to routinely make pricing changes based on market conditions, competition, trends, and general inflation. And with a staggering 98% of SaaS brands seeing positive results from dynamic pricing, there’s a good chance it can have an impact on your company as well. 

Looking to assemble an amazing team of rockstar salespeople using data and science? Learn how HireDNA can help by using elite talent sourcing, intelligent matching, and science-based assessments. 92% of candidates recommended through HireDNA are top-sellers within a year. 

Churn Rate and Contract Length: Finding the Sweet Spot for Your SaaS Product

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Churn. It’s a word that keeps many SaaS business owners up at night. 

Although inevitable and unavoidable, churn is something you want to constantly monitor and keep in check. Otherwise, things can get out of control in a hurry, and before you know it you’ve got a full-blown mass exodus on your hands. 

There are countless factors that impact churn rate, including SaaS product quality, features, UX, pricing, and the competitive landscape. But hands down, one of the biggest is contract length. 

In this post, I’ll share with you some compelling data I’ve found that shows the correlation between contract length and churn rate. Then, I’ll offer some practical advice on how to find the sweet spot for your product’s contract length so you can retain more customers and improve their overall experience. 

Average Churn Rate

Let’s start from the top. What exactly is the average churn rate for today’s SaaS companies?

According to 2019 research from ProfitWell, it’s 13.2%. There’s a ton of other data out there, with some stats finding the average churn rate to be much higher and others pinpointing it as being much lower. But 13% is about the average. 

Considering, however, that most experts say a “good” or “acceptable” churn rate is significantly lower than that at 7% or less, it shows that many SaaS companies could use some improvement in this area.

And a good place to start is with contract length. 

The Correlation Between Contract Length and Churn

One of the best studies I’ve found about how contract length impacts churn rate is this one from Finances Online. 

According to their findings, longer SaaS contracts equal lower churn, while shorter SaaS contracts equal higher churn. 

Those, for example, that are less than a year have an average churn rate of 16.7%.

Those that are between 1 year to 1.5 years have an average churn rate of 15%.

And those that are at 2.5 to 3 years have an average churn rate of only 8.5%. 

So, a quick look at this data and it’s easy to see that extending SaaS contract length helps reduce churn. The only caveat from this study is that month-to-month contracts actually have a slightly lower churn rate of 14% than 1 to 1.5 year contracts of 15%. 

But the difference is only marginal, and we can safely surmise that customers will hang around longer when they have longer contracts. After all, they can’t help but do so.

So, Should You Make Customer Contracts Super Long?

After absorbing this data, the logical conclusion would be to increase the lengths of customer contracts. But is that always the best approach?

Not always.

SaaS strategist Natalie Roy makes a great point about the potential pitfalls of doing so. 

“Let’s say you’ve locked a customer into a three-year contract. This is great, right? The likelihood of churn is statistically low, and you have ample time to recuperate customer acquisition costs and turn a healthy profit.

There’s a downside though. If you’re using a traditional pricing structure it means you won’t be able to increase the price of your product for three years.”

Considering that SaaS prices increase 5-7% annually, this can take a toll on your profitability in the long run. 

Besides that, you may lose out to competitors. If, for example, a customer doesn’t want to be tethered to a long-term contract and instead only wants a year max, they may go elsewhere if you only have a 3 year option. 

This is extremely important to keep in mind. While having a contract length of 2.5 years or longer has nearly half the churn rate of one that’s less than a year, there are some inherent drawbacks that could potentially hurt your overall revenue. 

Finding the Sweet Spot

Like many areas of business (and life in general), the optimal path is often in the middle of two extremes. When it comes to determining the ideal contract length, I suggest looking for the sweet spot — one that allows you to get your churn to the absolute minimum, but without diminishing your revenue or compromising the customer experience. 

But where exactly is the sweet spot?

That’ll vary from company to company, and there is no one-size-fits-all game plan. Usually finding it requires some trial and error where you experiment with different contract lengths to see what works best. 

Many SaaS brands start at year simply because that’s what a lot of other brands do. If this is where you’re currently at but you’re unhappy with your churn rate, I suggest lengthening it to see if it has any noticeable impact. 

Because the average churn rate for contract lengths of 1 year and 1.5 years are exactly the same at 15%, you’ll probably want to go ahead and make the shift to 2 years. If you’re happy with the results, you can just stick with that. 

Otherwise, if you think you could do better, you could extend the contract length further to 2.5 years or even 3. As you gather more data, you’ll be able to figure out what’s best for your brand. 

Keeping Your Churn Rate in Check

The churn rate for most SaaS companies is somewhere around 13%. 7%, however, is a more acceptable number, and the lower the better. 

There are numerous factors that contribute to churn, but contract length is one of the most obvious. Research indicates that extending a SaaS contract length from less than a year to 2.5 years or more can nearly slash your churn rate in half. 

Doing so, however, requires a careful, calculated approach where you test the waters rather than jumping in head first. But with the right experimentation, you can find your contract length sweet spot for minimal churn and maximum revenue. 

Want to land your dream salesperson? See how HireDNA can help by sourcing top talent and using intelligent matching along with science-based assessments. 

Should You Require Free SaaS Users to Provide Their Credit Card Info? Here’s What the Data Says.

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Offering a free trial has basically become the norm for SaaS companies these days. In fact, roughly three-quarters use this tactic to generate leads, with the hopes of ultimately turning many into paying customers. 

And for the most part, it’s really effective. More than 50% of new business comes from free trials for 16% of SaaS companies. But there’s one key question you have to ask yourself when using this strategy. 

Should you require free SaaS users to provide their credit card info?

Let’s Look at the Data

As you probably know by now, I don’t like speculating on whether something works or not, or simply going on a hunch. I prefer to crunch the numbers and analyze cold, hard, objective data.

According to one of the top studies conducted on this topic from Invesp, it’s pretty clear. You’re way better off not requiring credit card info from free SaaS users.

More specifically, they found, “SaaS companies that allow sign-ups without a credit card generate twice as many paying customers from their free trial.”

This stat shows us point blank that not asking for credit card info is the best choice and results in double the paying customers long-term. For the rest of this post, I’m going to fully unpack this data and figure out the precise logic behind it. 

Why Eliminating the Card Info Barrier is the Best Choice

It’s pretty simple. Having this barrier creates friction during the free trial sign up process. 

Put yourself in the shoes of your average lead for a second. 

They’ve found your SaaS product, have gone over the features and benefits, and think it may be the perfect fit for their business. They then see that you offer a free trial and are excited to test it out. 

They fill out their contact info and are chomping at the bit to take your product out for a spin. But then…wham…they’re hit with the dreaded credit card barrier. 

Just like that, their enthusiasm takes a nosedive, and their day just had an injection of friction added to it.

Some leads will still go through with it, begrudgingly pulling out their credit card. Many others, however, will simply back out and look to other competitors. While it’s by no means a dealbreaker for everyone, you can’t deny that requiring credit card info for a free trial is disruptive. 

I know I personally get turned off when I have to fork over my info. When given the choice between a no strings attached sign up and one requiring a credit card, I always prefer the former. And that seems to be the sentiment across the board with nearly all SaaS customers. 

At the end of the day, it’s just another hassle that adds an unnecessary complication to their day. 

The Trust Issue

There’s one other vital detail to point out, which involves trust (or the lack thereof). We’re living in an age where cyber crime has reached epic proportions. Just look at this graph of the monetary damage caused by cyber crime during the 21st century. 

It’s off the charts. 

Understandably, many people aren’t super comfortable with the idea of whipping out their credit card and forking over sensitive payment information. Even big name, well known SaaS companies like HubSpot and Salesforce run into issues stemming from trust.

So just imagine how problematic it can be for smaller SaaS businesses that don’t have a ton of brand equity. And remember, at this stage of the buying journey, your brand is still unproven in the eyes of many leads.

Once they actually use your product for a while and you have a chance to build rapport, they’ll warm up to you. But when they’re signing up for a free trial, you just don’t have that level of trust, which is another huge reason why credit card barriers are so problematic. 

What an Expert Has to Say About It

To wrap up, I’d like to share with you the opinion of one of the top voices on this subject matter. 

Lincoln Murphy is a customer-centric growth expert and founder of SaaS consulting firm Sixteen Ventures. He wrote a fascinating article about the great credit card info debate, and I think this quote summarizes everything perfectly. 

“Asking for a credit card up front (an “opt-out SaaS free trial”) does little to help conversions and this is backed up by the fact that I routinely see SaaS vendors with < 20% conversion rates that ask for a credit card up front,” explains Murphy. “The only thing I can guarantee with an opt-out SaaS free trial is that you’ll get less prospective customers into your free trial than if you didn’t require a credit card to start. 

Murphy admits that requiring credit card info might increase your overall conversion rate in the sense that a higher percentage of leads who provide it may eventually become customers. But you’ll get far less actual customers from the traffic you generate. 

The Bottom Line

To say that no SaaS companies should ever require credit card info from free users would be a misstatement. There are some cases when this is the better option — mainly for well established businesses with huge brand equity that are looking to increase their lead quality. 

But generally speaking, the data clearly shows that this is ill-advised for most SaaS companies. Not asking for credit card info helps you capitalize on a larger percentage of your traffic and generate twice as many paying customers. 

So it’s a no-brainer. 

Need to find high level salespeople to convert more of your SaaS leads? Check out HireDNA. 92% of reps suggested through it reach the top of their sales force within a year, and brands that use it see 33% less turnover. 

Sales Salary Transparency: Why Listing How Much Salespeople Earn Can Generate 75% More Clicks for Your Job Posts

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There are several factors that impact how many candidates apply to your job posting for a salesperson. Your industry, scheduling, benefits, advancement opportunities, and company culture are a few prime examples. But hands down, sales salary is one of the biggest factors across the board. 

At the end of the day, top sales recruits want to know they’ll receive competitive pay, and they don’t want to jump through a bunch of hoops to figure out exactly how much they’ll earn if hired. Being upfront about this is a surefire way to generate more clicks for your job posts and send a steady stream of qualified candidates your way. 

With that in mind, let’s take an in-depth look at exactly how big an impact sales salary transparency can have on your recruiting. 

What the Data Says

Business software and services review company, G2, compiled an exhaustive list of recruiting statistics that are very insightful. In terms of sales salary transparency, they found “67% of job seekers try to find information about salaries when researching a company or looking at job ads.” 

This shows firsthand how important salary info is for job seekers. With over two-thirds specifically looking for it, it stands to reason that sales recruiters that offer this info and place it in a conspicuous place would have an edge over competitors who make no mention of it. And that is in fact the case. “Job listings which include a salary range got 75% more clicks than job listings that don’t,” writes G2.

Take this job posting by LingoAce, an online Chinese learning platform for kids, for example. They place sales salary information front and center of this job ad for an inside sales rep to easily see. Here it is at the top, giving job seekers a clear salary range they can expect. 

LingoAce then places more details a bit further down here, discussing base salary, as well as on-target earnings. 

And toward the bottom, they restate the salary information sales candidates saw at the top, leaving no room for guesswork. This makes it dead easy for job seekers to find the information they’re looking for at just a glance. 

So, if you’re looking for a basic template to follow, this is a great one to borrow from. Ideally, you’ll put salary info at the very top of a job ad and restate it somewhere further down the page. That way sales candidates don’t have to scroll back up, creating a deeper level of convenience.  

Not Including Salary Info Creates Stress for Candidates

Another interesting stat I found was that a lack of information about pay is a main reason why 50% of sales candidates consider their job search to be stressful. Just put yourself in an average candidate’s shoes for a second. They’re looking for employment and may be under a significant amount of pressure to find a job quickly. 

They see multiple job postings they’re interested in, but can’t figure out exactly what the pay is. So, they have to sift through long winded job descriptions, check company websites, and do Google searches just to get a ballpark idea of how much these jobs pay. 

This can be incredibly tedious and frustrating, where many will simply give up and opt for applying with a different company that’s more transparent about their salary information. So you can see the negative impact that not providing salary info can have, and you can bet that failing to do so will result in many high-quality, top tier candidates slipping through your fingers. 

Outshining the Competition

There’s one last stat I’d like to share with you that’s really interesting. “Only 27% of businesses share salary ranges publicly,” G2 adds. While I’ve definitely noticed an increase in the number of companies providing salary information in job ads recently, it’s only slightly over a quarter that are currently doing so. And I don’t foresee a massive surge in this anytime soon. 

This is something you can use to your advantage, because being one of the few brands to offer sales salary transparency naturally brings more eyeballs to your job postings. More qualified candidates will see you when they’re browsing through ads and check out the positions that are available. If it comes down to a sales candidate considering your company or one of your key competitors without salary information, they’re far more likely to apply with you. 

I personally predict that as more and more businesses catch wind of this trend that providing sales salary transparency will gradually become commonplace. But we’re definitely not at that point yet. So, this is a sales recruitment strategy that’s ripe for the picking in 2021. 

Winning the Sales Recruiting War

We’re living in an era which many experts have called a “sales talent crisis.” Although there are plenty of sales candidates out there, the true A+ talent is hard to come by. And a tangible trend we see among the elite is wanting sales salary transparency when looking for jobs. 

In other words, they don’t want to jump through a bunch of hoops to see how much a company pays. By being upfront about it and placing salary information directly in your job posting, you can generate 75% more clicks and connect with top tier talent. 

See how HireDNA uses cutting-edge techniques like top talent sourcing, intelligent matching, and science-based assessments to find the best of the best salespeople. Brands that use HireDNA cut their hiring time in half, and 92% of suggested reps reach the top of their sales team within their first year.

How to Launch an Employee Referral Program Step-By-Step

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There’s a ton of data out there that shows, when implemented correctly, employee referral programs can have a massive impact. 

45% of salespeople that are referred from internal employees, for example, stay for over four years. By comparison, only 25% sourced from job boards hang around for 2+ years. Employee referrals also save companies over $7,500 per hire. And a whopping 82% of employers rate “employee referrals above all other sources for generating the best ROI.”

The numbers speak for themselves. 

If you’re wondering how exactly you go about launching an employee referral program, I’m going to break it down step-by-step in this post. Here’s a full overview of the nuts and bolts of the process. 

Step 1: Identify Which Positions You Want to Hire For

First, determine which specific positions you want to accept referrals for. You may, for example, strictly be looking to bring on sales reps but aren’t interested in sales managers because you need someone with a highly specific skill set for the latter and want to handle the recruiting yourself.

I suggest going through every single one of your company’s positions and making note of the ones you’re open to filling through an employee referral program. 

Step 2: Pinpoint the Types of Candidates You’re Looking For

Just like with any other method of hiring, it’s essential to know precisely what makes for a great candidate. After all, it doesn’t do you any good if your existing employees are leveraging their networks only to bring in ill-suited candidates. 

Here’s what I suggest doing to ensure employees send rockstar talent your way:

  • Create candidate personas, including hard skills, soft skills, experience, education, and so on
  • Identify what you’re looking for in terms of a cultural fit
  • Determine what core values a candidate should possess

Once you have that fleshed out, create a resource to serve as a point of reference when internal employees are considering who to reach out to. 

Step 3: Decide if You Want to Offer Rewards for Referrals

A study by LinkedIn found that most employees don’t have monetary gain in mind when providing referrals. 

Only a tiny 6% do it for money. That said, having some type of reward or perk in place is definitely something to consider, as it can give your employees further incentive to find the right candidates. 

Research from TalentLyft found the vast majority of companies offer cash incentives, typically between $1,000 – $5,000, and 15% offer days off or vacation days. 

A few other ideas they suggest include:

  • Tickets for local events
  • Tickets for a trip
  • Food and drink

Step 4: Choose an Employee Referral Software

You certainly don’t need a lot of bells and whistles to launch a successful employee referral program. In fact, I suggest keeping it as simple as possible. 

But there are some amazing software platforms available that can streamline the process dramatically, while simplifying things for HR, your employees that provide referrals, and for the referrals themselves. 

Here are some specific features that can be a huge help:

  • Automatic job alerts
  • Links employees can conveniently share with potential candidates through email, text, and social media with information on the sales position
  • Fully customized applications for candidates to fill out, complete with unique branding elements
  • Built-in referral tracking to ensure the right employee gets credit

In terms of specific platforms, Workable is easy to use and one I personally recommend. 

Or, if you want an exhaustive list of the top employee referral software, this guide from G2 is super helpful. 

Step 5: Create an Employee Referral Policy

Once you’ve figured out what positions you’re willing to accept referrals for, what you’re looking for in candidates, determined whether or not you want to offer rewards, and chosen a software platform, it’s time to create a formal employee referral policy. 

The purpose of this is to let your employees know the following:

  • Which positions are available
  • What skills, traits, etc., you’re looking for in an ideal candidate
  • What the incentives are
  • How to submit referrals
  • Specific instructions to follow 

Here’s a sample template from Fit Small Business to point you in the right direction. 

Step 6: Write Job Descriptions

It’s also important that you have job descriptions ready to roll whenever candidates are generated through referrals. This should be approached just as it would with any other form of recruiting. The purpose here is to concisely articulate:

  • The core tasks an employee will be responsible for
  • Necessary skills and experience
  • Expectations

I suggest reading this guide from Zendesk for detailed instructions on how to write A+ job descriptions. 

Step 7: Get the Word Out

Finally, you need to promote your employee referral program and get everyone up to speed. I find the best way to go about this involves a two-step approach:

  1. Formally announce the launch during a meeting
  2. Send out a company-wide email that includes key information, such as program outlines and the employee referral policy

It’s also smart to provide your employees with quick links that enable them to share through email, social media, and text like I mentioned earlier. That way they can conveniently network and generate a steady stream of referrals without having to do any heavy lifting. 

Making Referrals an Integral Part of Your Recruiting

If you’re looking to save money on recruiting, increase your retention rate, and create a tighter, more connected sales team, launching an employee referral program is definitely something to consider. The vast majority of companies that implement one see a fantastic ROI, and it can really help you strengthen your culture over time. 

Following the seven steps outlined here should provide you with the basic framework for turning an employee referral program from an idea in your head into a reality.

Tired of hiring the wrong sales reps? See how HireDNA can help you eliminate 96% of hiring mistakes using industry-leading assessment science. 

High-Performing SaaS Sales Teams Are 2.3x More Likely to Use This Technique

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A term you’ll hear me use a lot on this blog is trusted advisor. In our modern era, leads no longer respond to high-pressure sales tactics where reps aggressively push products on them. 

It’s just not something most people will put up with. Rather, they respond positively when a rep assumes the role of trusted advisor, with 88% of leads saying they’re “only willing to buy” under this condition. 

And this brings me to the focus of this post. High-performing SaaS sales teams use one particular technique above all others to be seen as a trust advisor — guided selling.

Two Eye-Popping Stats

In her post 26 Sales Statistics That Prove Selling is Changing, Tiffany Bova of Salesforce drops two stats that I found incredibly interesting. 

First, “high-performing sales teams are 2.3x more likely than underperforming teams to use guided selling.” And second, “over the next three years, sales teams at all performance levels anticipate that guided selling and coaching capabilities will grow by 98%.”

Mic drop. 

The numbers speak for themselves here, and this data clearly shows the correlation between guided selling and sales teams performing at an elite level. Those that use this potent strategy outperform their non-guided selling counterparts by a wide margin. And all sales teams, regardless of performance level, expect guided selling to grow by a staggering 98% over the next three years. 

Keep in mind Bova wrote this post in January 2019, so the end of the three year span she mentioned will be in early 2022.

The bottom line is:

  • Using guide selling has been proven to get massive results
  • Most top sales teams currently use it, while most under-performers do not
  • The implementation of guided selling is growing like crazy

What Exactly is Guided Selling?

While you probably have a general idea of what guided selling is, it’s a technique that can be a little murky to some. Just so we’re totally clear, allow me to explain exactly what it is within a SaaS context.  

Simply put, guided selling is a process that helps SaaS leads find the optimal software product based on their specific needs. 

“In today’s completely saturated markets full of similar and competing products, combined with the mass amount of information freely available, buyers are easily and quickly overwhelmed with data,” explains revenue acceleration platform ringDNA. “This huge amount of information, which can be both honest and dishonest, may lead a buyer down a path towards a product that is not the best for them.”

And that’s where guided selling comes in. 

It “connects the buyer with a genuine consultant that delivers to them the products and services that are the best possible fit for their needs.”

Rather than sales reps offering SaaS products based on what they merely speculate the lead needs and using obnoxiously aggressive tactics, they take a consultative approach and work alongside the buyer to guide them to the right product that’s the best fit for their company. In other words, it’s about closely examining the buyer’s situation to help match them with the right SaaS product instead of just going for the “fast sale.”

The Essentials of Guided Selling

The practice of guided selling has evolved a lot over the years. This graphic from digital transformation brand Brillio provides a brief overview of how it’s gone from the pre-sales tool era where reps based their selling on the personal understanding of customers, to using basic sales tools, to using sales intelligence, to where it is today in the age of customer experience. 

Now there are incredibly sophisticated AI and ML-based tools that allow SaaS sales reps to provide a next-level personalized experience and match leads with the absolute best products for their business. 

But here’s the thing. Tools like these are nice and can have a big impact on your sales team’s performance, but I don’t personally believe they’re necessary for guided selling.

At the end of the day, being successful largely boils down to following three key tactics. 

  1.  Ensure Your Reps Know Their Stuff

Perhaps the most important part of guided selling is making sure your salespeople know your products inside and out. If there’s any confusion as to which SaaS product is best for which demographic in which circumstance, your reps are going to struggle. 

That’s why they need to be subject matter experts and understand how everything comes together in your sales ecosystem. Nailing that is half the battle.  

  1. Be Radically Transparent with Leads

As I said earlier, the whole purpose of guided selling is to create a process that enables a buyer to find the product that best suits their needs. And a big part of that is being transparent. 

Sales meeting scheduling app Chili Piper, for example, gives their leads a side-by-side comparison of their different products, along with specific features and integrations. 

That way leads can see firsthand if a lower priced product will be sufficient for their needs. Other brands even go so far as to offer a competitor’s product to provide a more thorough understanding — something that when executed correctly can be a major trust builder. 

  1. Give Leads What They Truly Need, Not What Necessarily Generates the Most Revenue

This may go against the fundamentals of best business practices, but hear me out. Guided selling is all about the long game where you build trust, which not only increases the odds of making an initial sale, but often leads to repeat sales, less churn, and deeper loyalty. 

So when you think of it like this, you see the value of pointing leads to the best product for them rather than what’s going to lead to the largest immediate sale. 

Aligning Your Sales Strategy With What Top Performing Teams Are Doing

Sales has evolved dramatically in the 21st century, with guided selling being one of the most undeniable trends. With high-performing SaaS sales teams being 2.3x more likely to use it than underperformers, it’s obviously worth your attention. Understanding the essentials of guided selling and adhering to a few core concepts should help you make the transition to this model more easily and position your sales team for success. 

Looking to build a stronger sales team from the ground up? See how HireDNA can help you attract and recruit A+ candidates and eliminate 96% of hiring mistakes. 

Top Skills Sales Managers Assess Based on In-Depth Data

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In my last post, I discussed that having the ability to close was the number one skill top sales managers assessed in salespeople. This was the most important metric for 70% of sales managers. And it’s easy to see why given how critical closing deals is to profitability and the overall success of a company. 

I got my data from a survey conducted by digital learning and enablement platform Allego. Their data is incredibly robust, and while the ability to close was one of their main points of emphasis, there’s still a lot left to unpack. 

So for this post, I’d like to dive even deeper and go over all of the top skills sales managers assess, which is eight in total. Let’s jump right in. 

The 8 Top Sales Skills

In Allego’s survey, they determined which specific sales skills were most essential to sales managers, both when considering potential candidates for new hires, as well as assessing current team members. “We looked at the eight key aspects of sales competency including sales planning, prospecting, qualifying pipeline, pitching to prospects, negotiating contracts, closing deals, managing customers, and retaining customers,” they explain. 

As I mentioned in the intro, having the ability to close was the number one skill assessed by 70% of respondents. 

But just after that was the ability to prospect new opportunities at 69%. 

This indicates that the beginning and end of the sales process are the most critical areas of sales competency to measure. The best salespeople are able to effectively prospect new leads, move them efficiently through the sales cycle, and ultimately close. 

After that is the ability to retain existing clients at 59%. 

Churn is an inevitable part of running any type of business, especially a SaaS company. But it’s obviously something that needs to be kept in check, and sales managers will invariably want to seek out salespeople that help them retain the maximum number of customers. 

If you’re wondering, a retention rate of 35% over an eight-week period is considered elite for SaaS and e-commerce companies, so that’s a good number to shoot for. Here’s a graph that perfectly illustrates minimal churn (SaaS is the blue line and e-commerce is the orange line). 

Next is the ability to pitch a solution at 53%.  

Let’s be honest. Pitching isn’t easy, and there’s a serious art to it. Although having detailed product knowledge and providing salespeople with a formula and script to go off is a huge help and something I personally recommend, some reps are naturally better at it than others. 

When it comes to cold, hard selling, I honestly believe there’s only so much you can teach a rep. That’s why I consider having innate selling skills to be more important than extensive industry/product experience. Anyone can learn a product, but few people are A+ rockstars. So, it’s not surprising that having the ability to pitch is such a coveted sales skill. 

After that is the ability to qualify new deals at 52%. 

A qualified prospect is someone “who has a high probability of becoming a customer,” Zorian Rotenberg of HubSpot writes. “An opportunity should have a pain point your product or service can solve and an interest in the offering. Salespeople should ensure the opportunity is a good-fit for what they’re selling.”

Otherwise, your rep is basically wasting their time, which is why this is another key skill sales managers assess. 

This is followed by the ability to negotiate and the ability to plan strategically, which are both at 50%. 

When it comes to negotiation, reps will often be placed in tricky situations where they may need to adjust pricing, features, etc., on the fly to successfully close deals while at the same time remaining within the accepted parameters of your company. Because this has such a strong impact on closing deals, it’s easy to see why it’s such a major metric for sales managers. 

As for the ability to plan strategically, it’s a competency that affects virtually every aspect of a rep’s sales approach. From determining how to effectively qualify leads to building a script for pitching products to communicating with customers post-sale, reps need to have a clear strategy in place at all times. 

Finally, there’s effective time management at 46%. 

You may have heard the stat that nearly 65% of an average rep’s time is spent on non-revenue generating activities, such as administrative tasks and downtime activities like checking social media. While I personally think that number may be a little inflated, it definitely illustrates the importance of effective time management, which is why this skill made the list. 

Let’s Recap

The top eight skills sales managers assess in reps breaks down like this:

  1. Ability to close – 70%
  2. Ability to prospect new opportunities – 69%
  3. Ability to retain existing clients – 59%
  4. Ability to pitch a solution – 53%
  5. Ability to qualify new deals – 52%
  6. Ability to negotiate – 50%
  7. Ability to plan strategically – 50%
  8. Effective time management – 46%

While there are a ton of factors that determine how likely a salesperson is to succeed, these eight skills are the ones top sales managers focus on the most. So, if you’re looking to identify the best of the best metrics for gauging candidates during the hiring process, or if you’re assessing the performance of current team members, these are excellent metrics to examine.

Looking for a surefire way to find elite level sales talent to close more deals and take your business to the next level? Check out HireDNA today. Brands that use HireDNA are able to eliminate 96% of hiring mistakes, and 92% of candidates recommended through it are top performers within their first year. 

70% of Top Sales Managers Assess This Skill in Sales Candidates

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Effectively gauging the skill set of salespeople is an absolute must when recruiting, as well as when analyzing the performance of existing reps. This is what allows you to assemble an A+ team, get the most from your leads, and inevitably maximize revenue. 

But with so many different factors, what exactly do you focus on?

While there are several skills recruiters analyze, there’s one that outshines all others at the top of the list.

The Ability to Close

Allego, a digital learning and enablement platform that focuses largely on sales training, performed in-depth research in a resource called The Ultimate Guide to Assessing Sales Rep Competency. In it, they examined the current state, as well as the future of sales competency. 

This resource contains a ton of great information, including ramp times by industry, sales training approaches commonly used, and which specific skills determine sales competency. But one piece of data I found particularly interesting was where Allego identified the top eight sales skills managers assess in their reps. 

“We looked at the eight key aspects of sales competency, including sales planning, prospecting, qualifying pipeline, pitching to prospects, negotiating contracts, closing deals, managing customers, and retaining customers,” they write. Of those eight skills, the number one that sales managers assess the most across the board is the ability to close at 70%.

And that’s not surprising. While other sales skills like prospecting new opportunities, making pitches, and negotiating are tremendously important, they pale in comparison to actually closing deals. In fact, you could ask, “What good does it do if a salesperson crushes every other aspect of the sales process but can’t seal the deal?”

The fact that 7 out of 10 managers assess the ability to close makes it the ultimate “bottom line metric” and the primary factor to consider when recruiting new reps, as well as analyzing the performance of current team members. 

This begs the question. 

How Should You Handle Underperforming Reps?

We now know that the ability to close is what you should look at most closely when recruiting new reps. Therefore, you’ll want to ask relevant questions during the interview stage, such as, “What was your close rate at your previous company?”

But what should you do with current reps that struggle closing deals and fail to hit their quota?

That’s another topic Allego examined in their research. According to their findings, the top three actions sales managers take to handle competency gaps are:

  • Implementing performance improvements plans – 50%
  • Increasing focus from management – 31%
  • Increasing training – 15%

Allego summarizes it perfectly with this quote. 

By these numbers, it’s clear that top sales managers take initiatives to put concrete performance improvement plans in place, have leaders place a bigger focus on helping reps improve, and generally offer a higher level of training. 

Note that a very small percentage of sales managers fire reps at just 3%. Therefore, we can surmise that simply letting underperforming reps go isn’t usually the best solution, and successful companies opt for investing in their people. 

Practical Tips to Help Reps Close More Deals

For the final part of this post, I’d like to share with you a few key strategies that are highly effective for helping salespeople increase their close rate. 

One is to create a resource that’s designed specifically for overcoming sales objections. The purpose is to 1) identify common sales objections and 2) show reps how to respond in each situation. That way they can react instantly and efficiently disarm the situation using “muscle memory.”

HubSpot wrote an amazing post about the 40 top sales objections, with the top five being:

  1. It’s too expensive.
  2. There’s no money.
  3. We don’t have any budget left.
  4. I need to use this budget somewhere else.
  5. I don’t want to get stuck in a contract.

They also include rebuttals for each. I suggest reading over that post and using it to create a customized resource for your team members. That alone can be a huge help. 

Next, work on ironing out any kinks in the lead handoff process from marketing to sales. As Allego pointed out earlier, 31% of sales managers increase their focus from management when reps aren’t closing as much as they should. It’s all hands on deck, and your whole team should work on moving marketing qualified leads (MQLs) to sales qualified leads (SQLs) with the least friction possible. 

This may include:

  • Using lead scoring to quantitatively rank leads so marketing knows the perfect time to hand them off
  • Ensure marketing passes along notes to sales mentioning key information (e.g. a lead’s pain points or current software)
  • Using meeting scheduling platform to strike while the iron is hot

For more on improving the MQL to SQL handoff, check out this article from Chili Piper. 

Finally, provide ongoing support for your salespeople. I recently wrote a post that talked about looking past a rep’s initial development and equipping them with the tools to continually improve and stay engaged. And I can’t stress enough how important this is, especially when your reps are in a slump. 

Not only can continual training help underperforming reps get back on track, it creates a framework for perpetual refinement that helps them operate at their absolute best. 

Here are some ideas:

Assessing Reps on the Most Important Skill

A big part of successfully recruiting potential new salespeople and analyzing the performance of your current ones is knowing what specific skills to assess. While there are several that are important, the ability to close is the most important of all based on data. So, keep this in mind moving forward and use this as your bottom line metric. 

Looking for a surefire way to recruit top tier reps? Learn how HireDNA can help you find the best of the best in your industry and eliminate 96% of hiring mistakes. 

Use This Tool to Accelerate New SaaS Salesperson Ramp Time By 20-50%

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I talk about SaaS sales rep onboarding a lot for one simple reason. It’s insanely important. 

Research has found that effective onboarding can increase your win rate by 15% and quota achievement by 14%. Further, leading SaaS companies with A+ onboarding practices experience 39% higher employee engagement, which not only translates into much better performance but a dramatically lower turnover rate. 

But there’s a problem.

Most SaaS Companies Have a Sluggish Ramp Time

One aspect of SaaS onboarding where many companies struggle is with speed. According to data involving 384 SaaS companies, ramp time takes an average of 4.5 months. However, that time is even longer for nearly 20% of companies, where it takes longer than seven months to get their salespeople completely dialed in. 

So, while reps are still learning the ropes, they’re not hitting their full potential, and deals are likely being lost. Fortunately, there’s a tool that can help you accelerate new SaaS salesperson ramp time by 20-50%. Here it is. 

Use Cutting-Edge Sales Onboarding Software

Like nearly every aspect of sales, there’s software available that’s specifically geared toward SaaS salesperson onboarding. Simply put, “sales onboarding software is a tool that helps sales managers onboard team members smoothly, develop courses and programs to train sales reps, and build their product knowledge.” 

By adding it to the mix, you can establish an extremely efficient process and structure that turns even the greenest salesperson into one that knows the ins and outs of your products and can confidently close deals. 

Common Features You’ll Find in Sales Onboarding Software

For starters, these platforms offer real-time access to interactive, personalized learning content. You can, for example, create learning videos, product demo examples, and quizzes that new hires can access 24/7 from anywhere in the world.

Whether they’re working in-house from your office or remotely on the other side of the planet, salespeople can get up-to-speed quickly, soaking up information in a structured, uniform way. 

Most platforms also offer guided selling systems that teach new salespeople how to close more deals faster, along with tips and tricks to maximize their potential. Saleshood is a sales onboarding software that includes sales playbooks, presentations, knowledge sharing, and win stories that show new reps firsthand how to thrive within your company and rapidly evolve their skills. 

And just like learning hubs, guided selling systems can be fully customized and modified over time to evolve along with your salesforce. 

Role-playing practices are another critical part of sales onboarding software and give new reps a framework for practicing their skills for calls, demos, and negotiations. This is huge for helping salespeople feel more comfortable and confident once they’re actually in the thick of things, and they should be ready for whatever is thrown at them. To quantify, reps that properly practice these skills increase their sales by more than 75%, says sales onboarding platform, Lessonly. 

Finally, you’ll usually find some type of analytics built into this type of software. Sales enablement and readiness platform, Brainshark, for instance, allows you to gauge the effectiveness of your training program as reps enter the field. With their software, you can “visualize the impact of training programs by tracking course data alongside sales KPIs.”

This is super helpful because it offers objective insights on which specific elements of your onboarding program are working well and which need to be tweaked. So, over time, you can get it down to a science.

Offer Ongoing Reinforcement

In an ideal world, you would give new SaaS reps initial training, and they’d be off to the races never needing a second of further instruction. But it just doesn’t work that way. 

“Research shows that most new reps get overwhelmed with information in the first 30 days, and they can forget as much as 80% of sales boot camp training if they do not receive ongoing reinforcement.” That’s why it’s critical to provide ongoing reinforcement until a new salesperson is firmly rooted and firing on all cylinders. 

Fortunately, most sales onboarding software offers continuous learning where salespeople receive consistent updates and assessments to ensure they retain the information and keep evolving. MindTickle is a good example and places a heavy emphasis on reinforced sales skills so the knowledge reps gain sticks. 

Also, note that some platforms feature additional learning, such as micro courses and certifications that are designed to take salespeople from being good to great. So, when you have a new rep that quickly works their way up the ranks and shows a lot of promise, you can help them elevate their skill set even more through this type of training. 

I’ve featured a handful of different sales onboarding software in this post, but for a full rundown, comparison, and information on pricing, I suggest reading this resource from G2. 

Reducing Your Ramp Time By as Much as Half

There’s no denying how vital proper onboarding is to the success of new SaaS sales reps. Research has found that it significantly increases win rate, boosts quota achievement, creates higher employee engagement, and lowers turnover. The problem, however, is that many SaaS companies are inefficient at the process.

But this is something that can easily be remedied through sales onboarding software. In fact, brands that use it are able to accelerate new SaaS salesperson ramp time by 20-50% on average. That combined with ongoing reinforcement is incredibly potent and can help you get the absolute most from your sales team. 

Speaking of sales teams, are you looking to hire top-tier sales talent, faster? See how HireDNA can help you find the best of the best in your industry using intelligent matching and science-based assessments.