Author: hiredna

6 Red Flags to Look Out for When Screening Sales Reps

Posted on by hiredna

Screening sales reps isn’t easy, and 74% of SaaS companies have said they’ve made a wrong hire at some point. While there’s no magic bullet that ensures you’ll pick the right sales rep every single time, there are some concrete steps you can take to get close. 

One of those is simply knowing which red flags to look out for when screening reps. Here are six of the biggest according to experts. 

1. They Blank When You Ask Company Research-Related Questions

Let’s start from the top. Any candidate worth your attention will take the time to thoroughly research your company. And I’m not talking about the basics on your homepage or LinkedIn profile. A quality salesperson will make the effort to learn about your:

  • Industry
  • Company history
  • Products
  • UVP
  • Mission
  • Philosophy

If they blank when you ask questions relating to company research or can only spout off a few superficial points, it’s a major red flag as this shows that A) they’re just looking for any job they can land, B) they’re lazy, or C) both. 

That’s why I recommend asking a question like, “What can you tell me about my company?,” to gauge their response. 

2. They Have a History of Job Hopping

Job hopping, which is defined as “a pattern of changing companies every year or two on one’s own volition,” is on the rise. While it shouldn’t automatically disqualify a candidate completely, most sales hiring experts suggest avoiding these reps for the simple fact that they pose a turnover risk. 

To quantify what’s considered a normal amount of time to spend at one job, recent data from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics found the average tenure of US employees is 4.3 years as a whole and 2.3 years for younger workers aged 25-34. If a candidate’s resume clearly shows they’re rapidly bouncing from one job to another, they’re probably not someone you want to bring on board.

3. They Don’t Listen

Sales has evolved a lot in recent years, with one of the biggest changes being the way reps go about interacting with leads. In the past, those that were most successful often engaged in aggressive, “salesly” tactics that pushed products on leads. But now, those that thrive tend to assume the role of a trusted advisor. In fact, 88% of leads are only willing to buy when they consider the salesperson to be a trusted advisor — not merely a rep. 

And one of the main ways a salesperson assumes this role is by listening. In fact, there’s a really interesting study by Gong that found the ideal talk-to-listen ratio is 43% to 57%

So, if you’re interviewing a candidate who’s constantly budding in and it physically pains them to listen, it’s probably going to create problems if they’re hired. 

4. They Bash Their Ex-Employers

In my opinion, this is one of the biggest red flags for two main reasons. First, it shows an inherent lack of professionalism and is a poor reflection of character. Even if a candidate suffered some grave injustice at the hands of a previous employer in the past, it’s not something that should be discussed in detail during an interview with another company. 

Second, it can potentially put your brand reputation in peril if you hire a “loose cannon” type of personality. If they’re a person that’s quick to badmouth others, they’re practically guaranteed to create friction at some point down the line. 

So, if you ask something along the lines of “What did you dislike about a previous sales job?,” and a candidate launches into a smear campaign, they’re likely someone to avoid. 

5. They’re Low Energy

Every salesperson has their own style, with some naturally being more outgoing than others. And while being introverted as opposed to extroverted hasn’t been found to lower a rep’s potential (some research actually suggests introverts make better reps), having low energy can definitely be an issue. 

This, after all, can translate into less passion and a general lethargy that can reduce their performance. Just think of a rep who seems perpetually bored trying to convince a lead why they should buy your SaaS product or explain how it will positively impact their business. It’s going to create a roadblock for sure.  

This isn’t to say that a candidate needs to be bouncing off the walls with excitement to succeed. But if they’re obviously low energy, they’re probably not going to be an asset to your sales team. 

6. They Don’t Ask You Any Questions

I recently wrote a blog post that talked about how top performing sales reps ask more questions than their underperforming counterparts. To be exact, top performers ask 11-14 questions per call, while underperformers only ask 1-6. 

Given that asking questions is such an integral part of building rapport with leads and matching them with the right SaaS products, most sales recruiting experts consider a candidate not asking you any questions to be a major red flag. It’s not so much the specific questions they ask. It’s more of simply demonstrating an innate curiosity, which suggests they’ll go further when interacting with leads and close more deals. 

Ensuring You Find the Best of the Best Sales Reps

Sometimes it’s just as important to know what not to look for in a sales candidate as it is to know what to look for. The six points I’ve mentioned here are some of the biggest red flags according to sales recruiting experts and can go a long way in improving the overall quality of your talent pool. 

Find out how HireDNA can help you eliminate 96% of hiring mistakes using the #1 sales candidate assessment.  92% of candidates recommended through HireDNA reach the top of the sales force within one year, and companies that use it lower their turnover by an average of 33%. 

The Science of New SaaS Salesperson Onboarding: Breaking the Process Down Into 4 Key Phases

Posted on by hiredna

Having a streamlined, structured onboarding process for new SaaS salespeople can have a dramatic impact on both productivity and retention. To quantify, businesses with effective sales onboarding see a 6.7% improvement in quota attainment and 50% higher new rep retention. 

Not bad! 

But how exactly do you accomplish this? And what are the exact steps you need to take?

That’s what I’m going to discuss in this post. Here’s the science behind new SaaS salesperson onboarding broken down into four key phases. 

Phase 1 – Introduction and Acclimation

One of the biggest mistakes I see businesses make is overwhelming new reps by bombarding them with information right from the start. You obviously want to get SaaS salespeople up-to-speed quickly, but you don’t want to throw too much at them at once. 

That’s why the first step involves a basic introduction and acclimation phase where you do the following:

  • Make introductions to sales leaders and team members
  • Familiarize them with your company, industry, and mission 
  • Let them know about your philosophy and culture
  • Explain your unique value proposition (UVP)
  • Articulate what differentiates your brand from key competitors
  • Provide reps with training materials like product info, sales scripts, and demo examples

This is also the time to take care of formalities like tax documents, software platform logins, and so on. The main goal here is to reduce the chaos and make it easy for new SaaS salespeople to get their bearings. 

Think of it as letting them dip their toes in the water but not taking a full plunge. Don’t worry about getting into the real nuts and bolts just yet. This will come later. 

Phase 2 – Initial Development

Once a new SaaS salesperson has had some time to digest the materials from phase 1 and get a basic feel for the position, it’s time for phase 2 where you focus on initial development. This largely revolves around providing them with a standardized training program — one that’s uniform among all sales reps. 

“If you expect your team members to meet their goals, you must also give them the knowledge and tools they need to succeed,” explains Michelle Richardson, VP of Sales Performance Research at Brooks Group. “A training program that teaches new sales hires a consistent sales process is a must.”

While the specifics will vary from company to company, some common sales training content objectives include the following:

I personally suggest starting with product knowledge, as this is integral for creating context for new reps and should help them connect the dots as they move into other areas like customer use cases and communication. Teaching them how to give a powerful product demo is especially important because it has such a strong impact on their conversion rate. 

I also recommend reading this previous post I wrote for creating a streamlined checklist for this process. In it, you can get tips for:

  • Creating a single orientation resource
  • Training reps on the software they’ll be selling (and using)
  • Educating them on buyer personas

The goal isn’t for new SaaS salespeople to perfect their skills here. It’s simply to lay down the core foundation so they’ll have the base level of knowledge to sell your products and be in alignment with the rest of your team. Incremental improvements, which I’ll discuss in a minute, will come later on. 

Phase 3 – Ongoing Support

By this point, a SaaS salesperson will have gotten the hang of their initial skills development and have a firm command of the sales process. They should also be adept enough at nurturing leads and delivering demos that they’re comfortably meeting their sales quotas. Once they’ve hit that mark, it’s time for phase 3 of providing ongoing support, which is designed to keep salespeople engaged and refine their skills. 

This graphic from sales enablement platform MindTickle pinpoints some specific strategies that go into providing ongoing support. 

In particular, I suggest:

  • Competency assessments to determine a rep’s overall level of comprehension
  • Remediation to see which areas could use improvement
  • Metrics reporting for analyzing KPIs

Then, as you unearth information, provide new reps with either one-on-one support or relevant training materials to help them get better. This leads me to the final phase of SaaS salesperson onboarding. 

Phase 4 – Continual Improvement

Phase 4 is about one thing — sales mastery, which serves two main purposes. One is to get the absolute most from each rep. By helping them maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses, for example, they should become more productive and consistently reach (if not exceed) quotas. 

The other main purpose is to increase your retention rate. LinkedIn’s 2018 Workplace Learning Report found that 94% of salespeople would remain with a company longer if it invested in their career. 

And it’s easy to see why. After all, who wants to stick around in a dead end job where there’s no opportunity for growth and advancement. Following a continuous improvement cycle, which looks like this, is critical for helping reps reach their full potential and motivating them to stay with your company. 

Perfecting Your SaaS Salesperson Onboarding 

Unfortunately, the onboarding process of many SaaS companies merely involves a cobbled together plan that’s barely fleshed out. “While you want salespeople to be resourceful, it’s a mistake to simply throw them into the pool and expect them to swim,” notes Michelle Richardson. 

By having a clear, repeatable, long-term process in place, you can get new SaaS salespeople up-to-speed quickly without overwhelming them, while ensuring they reach major milestones. The 4 key phases I’ve outlined here should provide you with a tangible game plan so that you get your onboarding down to a science. 

Want to hire better sales talent, faster? Learn how HireDNA can help you recruit elite SaaS salespeople while reducing 96% of hiring mistakes. 

How to Manage a SaaS Sales Team That’s 100% Remote

Posted on by hiredna

Prior to COVID, 17% of US SaaS sales reps worked from home five or more days per week. After COVID that number more than doubled to 44%. 

While a portion of salespeople are transitioning back into the physical workplace, managing reps remotely has become the new norm for many SaaS companies. In fact, many now have teams that are 100% remote. 

If this is the position you’re in, here’s how to manage reps successfully, improve communication, and maximize productivity. 

Start By Choosing the Right Mix of SaaS Sales Software

The number one thing people struggle with when working remotely (along with loneliness) is collaboration/communication at 20%.

And this is understandable. At the end of the day, it’s hard to achieve the same level of collaboration and communication when your team never meets physically. Besides sharing project details and passing along general info, there are a lot of subtleties with tone and body language that you miss out on when managing a remote team. 

But that’s okay. Assembling the right mix of SaaS sales software can cover all aspects of communication and ensure your team stays on the same page. Here are some suggestions:

  • A sales management system – This helps keep teams of all sizes organized and allows you to assign leads, automate workflows, track KPIs, and more. I recommend reading this post from Nutshell for advice on choosing a sales management system. 
  • A video conferencing platform – Products like Zoom and Microsoft Teams offer robust features like one-one-one conversations, group meetings, chat, and webinars and have an incredibly high audio visual quality. 
  • A business communication platform – Slack is the gold standard and lets you interact with your team through both private and public channels.
  • A project management software – Apps like Asana, Trello, and Toggl Plan are perfect for breaking large projects down into manageable chunks and ensuring tasks are consistently completed on time. 

Build a Communication Framework

Another vital aspect of fluid communication is nailing the timing. It’s important to establish some ground rules so there’s a basic schedule and structure in place — one that allows you to stay in close contact with your SaaS sales team but without creating distractions. 

“Remote work becomes more efficient and satisfying when managers set expectations for the frequency, means, and ideal timing of communication for their teams,” explains The Harvard Business Review. If, for instance, it’s a daily check-in where you’re exchanging notes and debriefing a rep, you might communicate through Zoom at the end of the day. But if it’s something urgent, you could ping a salesperson through Slack to get in touch with them right away. 

“Also, if you can, let your employees know the best way and time to reach you during the workday (e.g., ‘I tend to be more available late in the day for ad hoc phone or video conversations, but if there’s an emergency earlier in the day, send me a text.” This should help keep everyone on the same page and minimize distractions so your team can focus more intently on selling. 

Have an Activity Documentation System in Place

Whenever you’re dealing with a team that’s spread out across different states and even different countries, it’s easy to lose track of who’s done what and when they did it. As a result, critical deadlines may be missed, or multiple salespeople may accidentally complete the same task twice. In short, things can get messy in a hurry. 

To prevent miscommunications, you need to have a detailed activity documentation system that automatically logs when:

  • New leads enter your sales funnel
  • Contact is made
  • Tasks are completed
  • There are changes or updates
  • And so on

Sales CRM and pipeline management software, Pipedrive, for example, tracks lead progress from the moment they first enter a sales funnel to when they ultimately make a purchase. 

Not only does an activity documentation system like this provide a single point of reference, it spares everyone from a lot of manual data entry, allowing them to focus on more pressing tasks. 

Create an On-Demand Training Hub

The Harvard Business Review also mentions that “newly remote workers are often surprised by the added time and effort needed to locate information from coworkers (and sales leaders). Even getting answers to what seem like simple questions can feel like a large obstacle to a worker based at home.” 

That’s the last issue to address, and something that can often be remedied by having an on-demand training hub. 

Say you need to get new hires up-to-speed, have them fill out documents, and learn your product. Or, maybe you need a place for existing SaaS salespeople to brush up on their skills. An on-demand training hub creates a single digital resource where you can provide your entire team with 24/7 access to training to position them for success and ongoing development. 

Here are some examples of content you could include on your training hub:

  • Information on your sales process
  • Software tutorials
  • Buyer personas
  • Webinars and videos
  • Helpful blog posts
  • Sales demo examples 
  • Answers to FAQs

You could even create a forum where your SaaS sales team can hold active discussions and veteran reps can share advice with those who are just learning the ropes. 

Thriving in a New Era

Whether it’s due to COVID or simply because you want to take advantage of the benefits a digital sales team provides, many SaaS companies are making the shift to 100% remote. And while there’s certainly a learning curve when it comes to managing this type of team, it’s something that can be done with the right approach. 

Mainly it boils down to leveraging helpful software, establishing clear rules for communication, diligently documenting activities, and providing reps with adequate training resources. 

Want to find elite SaaS sales talent in your industry? See how HireDNA can help you build a stronger sales team, while eliminating 96% of hiring mistakes. 

5 Sales Management Systems to Keep Your SaaS Sales Team on the Same Page

Posted on by hiredna

Successfully coordinating a SaaS sales team is easier said than done. 

Your salespeople may be working on different projects, using different software and apps, or interacting with leads at different stages of the sales funnel. And with a growing number of salespeople working remotely, it’s become more challenging than ever. 

If left unchecked, this can take a serious toll on your productivity and conversions. In fact, “97% of employees and executives believe lack of alignment within a team impacts the outcome of a task or project.”

A surefire way to keep your SaaS team on the same page is by using a sales management system. Here are five of the best. 

1. HubSpot CRM

For years HubSpot has been the gold standard for sales and marketing software. They offer a wide range of solutions, and the HubSpot CRM is the go-to platform for many SaaS sales teams.

It gives sales leaders a bird’s eye view of your team’s pipeline in real-time, including:

  • Overall sales activity
  • Team productivity
  • Individual rep performance

That way they know how close your team is, collectively and individually, to meeting quotas and any areas that need to be addressed.

And it helps salespeople stay organized where they can:

  • Quickly add new contacts to your database
  • Keep track of deadlines
  • Automatically track sales calls, emails, and meetings
  • Share notes 

Every single person on your sales team is in the loop at all times with HubSpot CRM, and you can drastically reduce time wasting activities for maximum productivity. 

2. VanillaSoft

Like HubSpot, VanillaSoft offers a robust suite of products. But the one we’re interested in here is their lead management platform.

“VanillaSoft makes lead management simple with a full complement of solutions to boost productivity, including lead prioritization, email nurturing campaigns, logical branch scripting, call-activity dashboard, and flexible data management.”

One of the most notable features is their real-time inside sales insights, which lets sales leaders monitor team performance, analyze call activity, and track ROI. With it, they can also keep watch of all sales activity in real-time through a call-activity dashboard. 

Besides that, VanillaSoft automatically captures data like call history, emails sent, positive contacts, payment history, and more so you see exactly what’s happened from the moment someone becomes a lead until they make a purchase.

 

3. Pipedrive

Among the numerous features of this sales CRM and pipeline management platform is the ability to track every aspect of communications, including calls, emails, and contact history. This enables your SaaS sales team to stay synced up with another and maintain full visibility of what has transpired in real-time.

Pipedrive also offers a visual history where you can look up a particular contact to see when interactions took place and the last conversations a rep had before following up. That way team members are in a better position to provide timely, relevant offers and have more meaningful interactions with leads. 

There’s a calendar button where you can choose how far back you want to go on the timeline. You can, for example, go back 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, or 12 months.

Screenshot_2020-04-15_at_15.46.13.png

And reps can also add a quick note so other team members will know what’s happened for more engaging future interactions. 

4. Freshworks CRM

This is an incredibly adaptive sales management system that places an emphasis on tracking custom sales activities. As Freshworks CRM puts it, “start tracking sales activities and identify the ones that increase conversions with powerful reports. Get all the insights that you need to streamline your process and start closing deals faster than ever.”

For starters, you can add things like sales events and meetings to identify what’s leading to more quality interactions with leads, which in turn, allows you to steadily improve your team’s performance. 

Next, you can conveniently record and track sales activities, including call logs and notes so team members can see them at a glance. Freshworks CRM allows you to set up notification alerts such as email opens, upcoming tasks, and event reminders so quality leads don’t slip through your fingers. On top of that, you can use it to create silky smooth workflows that automatically creates tasks whenever a new lead enters the sales funnel.

5. Monday.com

Primarily known as a high-level project management tool, Monday.com also has a CRM solution that works perfectly as a sales management system. One of the main reasons users love it is because of how visual it is. Monday.com offers a robust interface featuring powerful charts and graphs where sales leaders can monitor sales team activity, see how deals are coming along, and check the progress of individual reps. 

As for salespeople, they can stay on top of all lead interactions, including emails, phone calls, and meetings. They can share relevant documents with other team members from a single, ultra-organized communication dashboard. 

And they can use their mobile devices to track deals whenever and from wherever they happen to be. Monday.com even offers an offline mode when the internet isn’t available. This gives your SaaS sales team a 360 degree view of your pipeline and should eliminate costly communication gaps. 

Ensuring Seamless Collaboration 

I can’t stress enough how important it is to keep the communication flowing with your SaaS sales team. From the point someone officially becomes a lead and enters your funnel to the moment they pull the trigger and buy, all of your reps need to be on the same page. 

Otherwise, the lead experience and ultimately your conversions will suffer. In fact, 86% of team members say a lack of collaboration and ineffective communication is the main reason for project failures. 

Using one of the five sales management systems listed here should keep everyone in the loop and the conversions coming. 

Looking to build a stronger, more talented sales team? Learn how HireDNA can help you source top talent using intelligent matching and science-based assessments. 

Average SaaS Salespeople Ask Leads 6 or Less Questions. Top Performers Ask 11-14: Why Discovery Call Questions Are Essential

Posted on by hiredna

In a previous post, I mentioned that 88% of today’s leads are only willing to buy when they see the salesperson as a trusted advisor. I also pointed out that hyper-aggressive sales tactics often turn leads off and can be potential deal-breakers. 

One of the best ways to assume the role of trusted advisor is for SaaS salespeople to ask plenty of questions during the discovery call. And this number is higher than you may think. 

Here’s what you need to know to equip your reps for success. 

Top Performers Ask 11-14 Discovery Call Questions

Revenue intelligence software, Gong.io, has built an amazing reputation for their original research. They’ve conducted a ton of in-depth studies to pinpoint the exact reasons why salespeople succeed or fail. 

One particular study I found fascinating was this one on discovery calls. 

“We analyzed 519,000 recorded discovery calls with AI to understand what drives successful outcomes,” explains Chris Orlob, director of sales at Gong.io. “These discovery calls were recorded on web conferencing platforms with Gong.io, transcribed, and analyzed with unsupervised machine learning to identify the discovery call questions and techniques that drive revenue.”

In this study, they examined the number of target questions SaaS salespeople aimed for per discovery call and found:

  • Reps that only asked 1-6 discovery call questions had a 46% success rate (the lowest by far)
  • Reps that asked 7-10 questions had a 66% success rate
  • Reps that asked 15-18 questions had a 67% success rate

But here’s the kicker. Reps that asked 11-14 discovery call questions had a 74% success rate — considerably higher than the other reps that asked fewer or more questions. This graph illustrates this trend perfectly. 

Finding the Sweet Spot

According to this study, the trick is to ask enough questions so SaaS salespeople can figure out a lead’s precise pain points, needs, goals, and so on. This is what allows reps to not only optimize their offerings so they’re perfectly tailored to each lead, but also helps them build trust and rapport along the way. But at the same time, SaaS salespeople don’t want to ask too many questions because that can create friction as well. 

Looking at this data, it’s clear that 11-14 questions is the sweet spot. 

“Less than that and your discovery call may not be robust enough,” writes Orlob. “More than that, and it will likely start to feel like an interrogation, rather than a natural conversation.”

Asking the Right Discovery Call Questions

But there’s something very important I need to point out. Having successful discovery calls isn’t just about asking 11-14 questions. It’s about SaaS salespeople asking the right questions. 

Or as Orlob puts it, “Asking a generic line of questioning is likely to get you kicked in the teeth. Your best bet for discovery call success is asking questions about key business problems or goals the customer is trying to solve.”

Specificity is critical here. And as I mentioned earlier, the questions a rep asks need to focus on a lead’s unique needs, pain points, challenges, and goals. 

Here are some examples of questions one of our reps might ask at HireDNA when attempting to identify the needs of a lead who needs help with their technology sales recruiting:

  • What are some areas you’re currently struggling at with your recruiting?
  • What are some of the core competencies you look at when hiring reps?
  • What percentage of reps currently hit their sales quota? What number would you like to be at?
  • What’s your current salesperson retention rate? How much higher would you like that to be?

Notice how all of these questions are designed to instantly get the ball rolling so we can identify key business problems/goals and gain a solid understanding of the lead. This brings me to my final point. 

Getting Leads Talking

There’s one final piece of the puzzle I need to mention. You want your reps to get leads talking and encourage them to give long responses — not merely yes or no answers. Why?

Getting leads to talk interrupted for a long period correlates to a thorough response. That way SaaS salespeople can really wrap their head around the situation, which ultimately means they can optimize their offerings and increase their chances of closing the deal. 

Orlob mentions some specific ways to phrase questions to encourage a long response:

  • “Can you help me understand…”
  • “Can you walk me through…”
  • “Talk to me about…”

Let’s Recap

These days leads aren’t receptive to pushy, aggressive sales tactics. Rather, they prefer dealing with reps that take the role of a trusted advisor and base their offerings on the lead’s unique needs, pain points, and goals. 

In other words, SaaS salespeople need to be adept at creating meaningful dialogue, which is illustrated by this graph that highlights the question frequency used by top performers versus average ones. 

One of the best ways to do this is by asking the right number of questions during discovery calls — 11-14 to be exact, as this is considered the sweet spot and what yields the highest success rate. 

Besides hitting the right number of questions, reps also need to ask the right questions involving key business problems or goals the lead is trying to solve and using phrases to get leads talking. By following this formula, it helps reps fire on cylinders, allowing them to quickly establish trust, figure out what solutions to offer, and ultimately convert. 

Looking to assemble a team of ultra talented SaaS salespeople? Find out how HireDNA can help you do this by using cutting-edge technology to source top talent using intelligent matching and science-based assessments. HireDNA can cut your hiring time in half and eliminate 96% of hiring mistakes. 

Track the Most Important Aspects of Your SaaS Sales Team’s Performance with These Essential KPIs

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Data is power in the SaaS sales world. It’s really that simple. 

“High performing sales teams (the top 24% of more than 2,900 sales professionals surveyed) are 1.5x more likely to base forecasts on data-driven insights,” explains Tiffani Bova of Salesforce. On the other hand, low performing sales teams are 1.7x more likely to base their decisions on intuition. 

To extract your SaaS sales team’s full potential and truly fire on all cylinders, you’ll want to be meticulous about tracking their performance. Here are the most essential KPIs to pay attention to. 

Average Lead Response Time

I think one of the most overlooked, yet vitally important metrics, is average lead response time. 

Here’s why.

78% of customers buy from the first SaaS company that reaches out to them. 

It’s not rocket science. The first vendor that initiates contact is the first company a lead seriously considers. They learn about the brand’s products, offerings, UVP, and so on, giving the company a chance to create valuable trust and rapport with the lead before anyone else does. 

Look at how lead conversion rates increase with the less amount of time that elapses before the first outreach attempt. 

Calling within an hour improves conversions by 36%, which is okay. 

But look what happens when you call within 30 minutes. It jumps to 62%. Call within 3 minutes, it climbs to 98%. Call within 2 minutes, and it’s 160%. 

And here’s the kicker. Call within 1 minute, and it’s a face melting 391%! 

This straight up shows the importance of A) knowing your sales team’s average lead response time and B) doing everything you can to increase it. For advice on how to do this, check out this previous post I wrote on how you can easily beat 55% of your competitors by improving your lead response time. 

Lead to Customer Conversion Rate

The SaaS customer journey can be broken down into two main phases. There’s the visitor to lead phase, which your marketing team is primarily responsible for. And there’s the lead to customer phase, which falls into the hands of your sales team. 

It’s the latter that we’re interested in here. One of the absolute most important metrics is what percentage of leads your SaaS sales team converts into customers. 

This is a reflection of:

  • How good they are at qualifying leads
  • The quality level of core sales activities like follow-up emails and phone calls
  • How well they give demos
  • Their ability to build trust and rapport
  • How good they are at moving leads efficiently through the sales funnel

To calculate lead to customer conversion rate, divide your number of conversions by your total number of leads and multiply that number by 100. If, for example, you had 100 leads and 5 ended up buying, your lead to customer conversion rate would be 5%. 

By the way, if you’re wondering, the typical SaaS conversion rate for most companies ranges from 3-5%, while top performing teams reach around 8%. 

Average Sales Cycle Length

Next, there’s how long it takes your SaaS sales team to close a deal. Needless to say, the quicker they’re able to move someone from being a lead to a paying customer, the better. Not only does this positively impact overall revenue, it means your reps can move onto other leads, and in turn, make ever more sales. 

So, you’ll want to monitor how long it takes, on average, for someone to go from being a lead to buying your product — a KPI known as average sales cycle length. 

Note that the average sales cycle length gets longer with the pricier a SaaS product is. According to SaaS Metrics, benchmarks break down like this:

  • Deals ~$2,000 typically close within 14 days
  • Deals ~$5,000 close within 30 days
  • Deals ~$25,000 close within 90 days

Monthly Recurring Revenue

At first glance, monthly recurring revenue (MRR) may not seem all that relevant to a SaaS sales team’s performance. After all, MRR doesn’t kick in until after customers hang around a while. 

But it’s an extremely vital metric for the simple fact that it shows what your sales team’s long-term progress looks like. If there’s a noticeable increase in your MRR, for example, it shows your reps are nailing it and reaching or exceeding their quotas. Otherwise, if your MRR flatlines or declines, it’s tangible proof that adjustments need to be made. 

In terms of factors that contribute to MRR, some of the biggest are your number of new customers and how adept your reps are at upselling and cross-selling. Along with that, it can provide insight on how strong their relationship-building skills are because the churn rate and number of referrals contribute to MRR as well. 

And this metric is super easy to calculate. Just multiply your total number of active customers by the average amount billed. 

Note that most experts consider 10% month-over-month MRR to be strong. But if you can hit 15-20% for six months or longer, then you can pretty much bet that you’ve got a winning sales process on your hands. 

Taking Your SaaS Sales Team’s Performance to the Next Level

Like I said earlier, top tier SaaS sales teams rely on data-driven insights to continually improve and refine their strategies. Low performing sales teams rely on a hunch. 

With a wealth of data available, it’s possible to track virtually every aspect of your team’s performance. The specific KPIs I suggest focusing on are:

  • Average lead response time
  • Lead to customer conversion rate
  • Average sales cycle length
  • Monthly recurring revenue

This should give you a bird’s eye view of what their current performance is like and help you identify precise areas for improvement so everyone can collectively level up. 

Looking to recruit the best of the best SaaS salespeople in your industry? Learn how HireDNA can help you build a stronger sales team using a verified network of sales recruitment experts, along with science-based assessments and intelligent matching. 

How to Build a Winning Saas Sales Team Step-By-Step

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Seldom does a winning SaaS sales team come together on its own. A study by the Harvard Business Review found that half of high-performing companies had sales processes that were “closely monitored, strictly enforced, or automated.” On other hand, 48% of underperforming companies had sales structures that were either nonexistent or informal. 

One of, if not the most important aspects of organizing sales processes is having a system in place for building your sales team. Not only does this increase your chances of hiring top tier talent that aligns with your company’s mission, it provides a framework that maximizes their productivity and ultimately boosts profitability. And in many cases, this can also contribute to less turnover so you can keep your true rockstars around for longer. 

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to build a winning SaaS sales team.

Step 1 – Prioritize SaaS Sales Roles

In most cases, SaaS companies gradually scale up over time. If you’re a newer startup, you may not have the resources (or the current demand) for a massive team of inside sales reps, sales development reps, account executives, and so on. Therefore, you need to be selective about the specific positions you hire for initially and focus on only the most essential. 

Say, for example, you’re just getting the ball rolling. You’d probably want to hire a single account executive and a handful of sales development reps and inside sales reps. Then, as you grow, you could expand as needed.

Step 2 – Pinpoint Critical Skills and Characteristics 

It’s vital that you’re hyper-specific with what you’re looking for in your SaaS sales team members. Simply taking the “we’re looking for a great sales rep” approach is only going to lead to ambiguity that marginalizes your impact. That’s why you’ll want to pinpoint a distinct set of hard and soft skills to accurately predict each team member’s aptitude to ensure they’re an ideal fit for your company. 

For instance, Sales Hacker compiled a list of over 30 sales skills that must be mastered to become a top performer, which is a good starting point. Here are the top nine from their list. 

And you can use a technology sales recruiting platform like HireDNA to screen and assess candidates based on core selling skills and capabilities to find the best of the best. 

This is an excellent way to quantify traits like having the will to sell and being coachable that would otherwise be difficult. And 92% of recommended candidates become top performers on their sales team within a year. 

Step 3 – Use Proven Recruiting Strategies

Many SaaS recruiters look in the wrong places to find salespeople. Traditional job boards and staffing agencies, for example, may seem like safe bets.  But they often lead to underwhelming results for the simple reason that top performers aren’t actively looking for jobs. However, many are open to offers as long as they check off the right boxes. 

So, how do you find these heavy hitters? It’s actually quite simple. Use recruiting software. 

A recent study found that more than 98% of Fortune 500 companies currently use it, and 68% of recruiting professionals say it’s the number one way “to improve recruiting performance over the next five years.”

You can get full details on why recruiting software is such a game changer in this post I wrote. 

Step 4 – Onboard with Ruthless Efficiency

The quicker you get new SaaS sales team members acclimated and up-to-speed, the quicker you can extract their full potential. But here’s what’s crazy. 

“88% of organizations don’t onboard well.”

So, if you take measures to onboard efficiently, this essentially puts your company in the top 12%, enabling you to get the absolute most from your SaaS sales team. This is another topic I’ve covered in detail in a recent blog post that you can read about here. 

And here are the key steps involved with great onboarding:

  • Create a single orientation resource to give new hires a bird’s eye view of their position
  • Provide comprehensive training on the software they’ll be selling
  • Offer training on the software they’ll be using (e.g. your CRM and lead scoring platform)
  • Break down buyer personas
  • Pinpoint your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses

When it comes specifically to SaaS sales reps, I also suggest having them run through a mock demo so you can critique it, as this helps work out the kinks in a hurry. 

Step 5 – Develop a Legit Retention Plan

“The average turnover cost per sales rep is $97,690 when you add up recruiting costs, training costs, and lost sales,” according to a DePaul University study. Not to mention, high turnover is incredibly disruptive to everyday operations and diminishes synergy within your sales team. 

So, the final step is to create an actionable game plan to keep your team members around for as long as possible. Here are some ideas:

  • Start by offering a competitive salary (89% of salespeople leave due to insufficient compensation)
  • Help sales leaders be their best (you can find leadership building tips here)
  • Provide your team with modern sales tools like CRM and lead scoring software to make their lives easier
  • Give top performers advancement opportunities 
  • Consider large retention bonuses at strategic inteverals (e.g. after 1, 2, 4, and 5 years)
  • Promote from within whenever possible
  • Be quick to celebrate team wins 

Putting the Pieces Together

At the end of the day, your SaaS company is only as good as your sales team. Without the right combination of professionals that are cohesive, collaborative, and “all in,” it’s hard to make any real progress. And as I pointed out earlier, there’s a clear correlation between organizing and systemizing this process and high performance. 

See how HireDNA can dramatically improve the recruiting aspect of your SaaS sales team building and eliminate 96% of hiring mistakes. Get your demo today. 

How Do Top Performing SaaS Companies Boost Qualified Leads by 451%? Find Out Here.

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Lead generation is hands down the biggest priority for most SaaS sales teams. You need to have an effective means of continually injecting leads into your sales funnel so your salespeople can nurture them and ultimately convince them to buy. 

But what’s equally important to generating leads is generating qualified leads. After all, what’s the point of driving leads into your sales funnel if they’re not qualified?

On that note, here’s a surprisingly simple way top performing SaaS companies boost their qualified leads by as much as 451%.

Drumroll…

Two words — marketing automation. 

Studies have found SaaS companies that use marketing automation with prospects see a 451% increase in their number of qualified leads. That’s major!

If you’re not 100% sure what marketing automation is, it’s the use of technology to automate and streamline several aspects of the marketing process. SaaS companies can use it to:

  • Generate, nurture, and score leads
  • Segment leads and provide them with highly personalized content
  • Minimize onerous manual tasks like sending emails and texts
  • Generally increase marketing and sales efficiency

Within the context of this post, the main way SaaS companies use marketing automation to boost qualified leads is by optimizing lead nurturing and scoring. 

“This drastic increase happens because marketing automation nurtures a prospect through the sales cycle,” explains Kevin Krason, CEO and founder of Biznet Digital, a full-service digital marketing agency. “Instead, leads that have been digitally identified, tracked, and scored on their interest and interaction level based on quantifiable data will proceed to sales.”

At the same time, marketing automation puts your company in a position to expand its reach and provide a highly personalized, targeted lead experience at scale. 

As Salesforce puts it, “Good automation tools help you identify your audience, design the right content, and automatically trigger actions based on schedules and customer behavior. Once your campaign rolls out, you can focus on other tasks, then analyze and tweak your marketing plan as results start coming in.”

Most people agree the more personalized marketing is better, as this boosts lead engagement, addresses their unique pain points, and helps greatly with rapport building. So by the time your marketing team hands a lead off to sales, the lead has been adequately nurtured and are “primed to buy.” And because both your marketing and sales team spend less time on manual tasks, they can cover more ground and interact with a higher volume of leads. 

When it’s all said and done, nurtured leads produce 20% more sales opportunities than those that are non-nurtured. 

An Example

To fully understand the process behind marketing automation and how it helps dramatically crank up the number of qualified leads, let’s look at an example. Here’s what a lead’s info might look like on a marketing automation platform. 

Notice it includes:

  • The lead’s name
  • Title
  • Category
  • Contact info
  • First and last activity
  • Score

Also, notice the engagement history where it mentions the form the lead successfully completed and viewed, along with the whitepaper they downloaded and the corresponding email that was sent. 

At a glance, this gives a SaaS company a bird’s eye view of the lead’s details, including the specific content they initially viewed when entering the sales funnel. By having this level of overview and knowing the engagement history, the company is able to create meaningful interactions, while automating much of the process. After downloading the whitepaper, for example, the company automatically sent out an email to promptly follow up. 

And it by no means stops there. By having a 360-degree view like this, the SaaS company can tap into any other marketing channels they like, including social media, SMS notifications, and targeted digital ads. Or, whenever the lead returns to the company’s website, they can suggest specific products the lead is most interested in. All while automating the process, allowing the marketing team to accomplish a lot more with minimal expenditure. 

In turn, the lead is engaged with on multiple channels, has all of the information they need to make an informed decision, and has interacted through multiple touchpoints. So you can see how marketing automation can help SaaS companies increase their number of qualified leads by 451%. 

And This Gives SaaS Sales Reps a Huge Edge

Then, once it’s time for sales to take over, where a rep speaks with a lead over the phone or gives a product demo, the lead has already been thoroughly warmed up and is likely ready to buy. Rather than dealing with an ice cold lead who may have little familiarity with the product and a ton of skepticism about the brand, the heavy lifting has already been done. 

Now the salesperson basically just needs to address any questions and concerns to officially convert the lead into a paying customer. Not only can this help increase the conversion rate, but research has also found “nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads.”

Send Qualified Leads Soaring with Marketing Automation

Thriving in the SaaS industry requires more than just generating leads. You need to generate qualified leads — preferably at a high volume. 

Hands down, one of the best ways to do this is with marketing automation. It can be a true game changer for effectively nurturing leads from the moment they first learn about your SaaS company to their final interaction with a salesperson before buying. And by eliminating many of the time-consuming, manual tasks, it allows your team to engage with far more leads than they could otherwise. 

For further reading on marketing automation and how to successfully implement it, I suggest checking out this overview from Salesforce and this guide from the Digital Marketing Institute. Both are extremely helpful and will quickly get you up-to-speed. 

And to learn how to streamline your SaaS sales recruiting, check out HireDNA. Use it to attract and retain better caliber candidates to take your sales to the next level. 

HireDNA Named as Washington, DC’s Top SaaS Sales Recruiting Firm

Posted on by hiredna

As easy as it may seem on paper, recruitment isn’t an easy process. Here at HireDNA, we understand the importance of recruiting the right SaaS sales talent for your needs. Our team provides a done-for-you talent sourcing and recruiting that uses science to deliver high-quality, pre-vetted sales candidates.

It is a great honor for us to announce that we are a back-to-back Clutch award recipient. Last year, we were hailed as one of the top-performing recruiters. Now, we have the honor to hold that title once again. This award was based on the client testimonials published on our Clutch profile as well as our market presence.

“We are thrilled to have been chosen as one of the leading sales recruiting and training companies in Washington, DC by Clutch!” 

— Anwar Allen, CEO of HireDNA.com

Clutch is a rapidly growing startup agency also based here in Washington, DC. Their platform publishes verified reviews and in-depth market research relating to B2B companies from the IT, marketing, developer, production, and financial services industries. Every year, Clutch holds a highly-coveted awards cycle to celebrate the top-performing agencies from the aforementioned industries.

This award is dedicated to our clients who have instilled their trust in us. We genuinely appreciate their support and collaboration; we are proud that our engagements are blossoming into such amazing relationships.

Our team is incredibly elated to be a five-star agency on Clutch. We treasure the feedback given by our clients to Clutch.

“The behavioral surveys were unique and demonstrated a strong understanding of our requirements. Their grasp of the technical sales industry was extremely useful. They were great at listening to our needs and setting up strategies that aligned with our goals.” 

— President, Custom Software Development Company

“They ask a tremendous amount of questions about the business, its leadership, and the role so that they have a clear and concise message with which to bring in candidates. The end result of that is that I don’t receive nearly as many candidates who are not a waste of our time and resources.” 

— Director of Sales & Marketing, Environmental Systems Corp.

Interested in working with a world-class recruiting team? Send us a message and we’ll get back to you immediately.

90% of SaaS Companies Look for Salespeople in the Wrong Places: Here’s Where You Should Be Looking

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What are some of the first places that come to mind for SaaS companies when recruiting sales reps?

For most, it’s conventional resources like job boards, LinkedIn, staffing agencies, and so on. That’s where 90% of SaaS companies look, says Steli Efti, CEO of sales CRM, Close.com. 

But, as he points out, these are often the wrong places and tend to yield underwhelming results. 

Here’s why. 

A+ Salespeople Seldom Have to Look for Work

“You know who the only salespeople are who are actively looking for sales jobs?,” asks Efti. “Bad salespeople. The good ones are too good at selling to be out of work.”

I think he summarizes it perfectly with this line and illustrates the inherent problem of using conventional resources for recruiting. Although there can certainly be situations where even the best of the best SaaS salespeople find themselves out of work on occasion (the fallout from COVID is a great example), he makes an excellent point. In most cases, the truly elite reps are already employed. So, if you slap up an ad on a job board, you can’t expect miracles. 

It should also be noted that the reps that are hyper-qualified are often headhunted because of their insane selling abilities. Therefore, you’re probably not going to see them applying for a sales position through a job board. And you’re almost certainly not going to see them going through a staffing agency. They simply don’t need to because SaaS companies come to them. 

Are there ever exceptions? Sure. But generally speaking, high caliber salespeople are in enough demand that they don’t need to spend time job hunting. 

Another Area Where Many SaaS Recruiters Go Wrong

Besides taking traditional recruiting approaches like I just mentioned, another common mistake I see many SaaS sales recruiters make is obsessing over industry/product experience rather than actual selling skills. This is something I talked about in-depth in a previous post, but let me give you the highlights. 

There’s a tendency where many saas sales recruiters fixate on finding sales candidates with several years of experience but aren’t necessarily heavy hitters in terms of their sales talent. According to a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, 64.5% of recruiters prefer to hire sales reps with relevant work experience. 

This is a stat that’s understandable, but having this mindset can sometimes end up sabotaging a SaaS sales recruiter’s efforts if they pass up potential rockstars because they’re concentrating so intensely on industry/product experience rather than core selling skills. 

My point here is that you’re almost always better off looking for top-tier salespeople with transferable skills rather than mediocre salespeople with years of industry/product experience. After all, the former can always learn your industry/product, but the latter will likely plateau because they simply don’t possess the intrinsic sales DNA.

So this is something else to keep in mind when determining your hiring approach and filtering through candidates. 

Where You Should Be Looking

If a conventional approach is likely to only have a marginal impact, what exactly is the approach you should be taking with your SaaS sales recruiting?

“The first place to look for these people is always your own network: friends, acquaintances, fellow founders whose startup just failed or is on a path of failure, family members,” explains Efti. “Always ask if they know somebody who might be a good fit.” 

Rather than turning to the usual suspects like job boards, LinkedIn, and staffing agencies, tapping into your own network can often put you in touch with homerun salespeople that could be massive assets to your team. 

That’s a good starting point. 

The other main, and often best route to take is using a technology sales recruiting platform like HireDNA. Designed specifically for SaaS companies, HireDNA sources top talent from a verified national network to generate next-level candidates. 

It uses intelligent matching that analyzes 21 key data points to help you pinpoint the optimal candidates based on the role criteria you’re looking to fill. It also uses science-based assessments built on 21 core selling competencies like motivation, relationship-building, and the ability to handle rejection in order to predict success. 

That way you not only find active candidates who are looking for sales jobs, but also passive candidates that match your criteria. This in turn, can put top talent on your radar that you wouldn’t otherwise know about if you were using conventional resources. And as we just discussed, this tends to make for the best candidate pool. 

Then, HireDNA delivers the most qualified candidates to your inbox for feedback and approval. From there you can browse through the list and pick the ones that are the best fit and start scheduling interviews. It’s very straightforward. 

Finding SaaS Salespeople in the Right Places

There’s no lack of sales reps out there. In fact, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there are about 14.3 million in the US alone. So, it’s not hard to find them, and putting in a traditional job ad can easily bring in hundreds of applicants. 

Finding high-level performers, however, is another story. As sales expert, Steli Efti, pointed out, your chances of finding these professionals are low if you take a conventional approach. The problem is that this is exactly what 90% of SaaS companies do. 

But that’s good news for you. Switching up your approach and focusing on your network or a technology sales recruiting platform like HireDNA can supply you with all the A+ talent you need to assemble a winning team. This, in turn, can give you a huge advantage over most competitors that are still using stale, outdated SaaS recruiting techniques. 

See firsthand how HireDNA can help you find top sales talent. Request a demo now.