- Hi, I'm Dan Martell, serial entrepreneur,
investor and creator of SaaS Academy and in this video I'm
gonna teach you how to evaluate a great enterprise SaaS sales
person so you don't end up paying somebody a huge base
salary just so that they can drag their feet and
not get you new customers.
And be sure to stay to the end where I share with you an
exclusive download called the Revenue Maximizer worksheet.
Where I'm gonna walk you through
the four pillars of adding specific
features to your product to increase your lifetime value.
(upbeat music)
So hiring your first enterprise sales person,
especially if you have a background in more marketing or
technology, is a scary endeavor.
They usually want some level of high base salary.
They tell you they've got all these connections and
knowledge and industry experience and
there's this big feeling of hope.
When I was building my company Spheric Technologies we sold to
the Fortune 500 companies out there.
I was 24 when I started the company and
I had to figure things out quick.
And through that process I've realized there's six specific
areas that you need to evaluate that I had to get really good at
even though I was not a natural sales person.
I didn't understand the concept of objections
any aspects whatsoever.
And I know this to be true because one of my clients,
Reg at Stormborn, even though they have a freemium product
where they have hundreds of people sign up every day,
within their customer base they get these big Fortune 2000
companies that want to deploy it to all their staff.
So that sales process is totally different than obviously
an SMB sales process.
It requires understanding who the buyer is.
It understands how to sell a POC,
a proof of concept, how to get early commitment and
how to negotiate pricing at an enterprise level.
So I want to walk you through the six steps or criterias to
hire an incredible sales person.
Step number one, navigating decision hierarchies
in large organizations.
Probably the most interesting thing that you will discover if
you've ever tried to sell to an enterprise company is the fact
that the person you're talking to that wants your product is
not necessarily the person who's gonna write the check and is not
necessarily the person that's gonna approve the purchase in
the long term and there's probably several other people
along that line that need to sign off at certain degree.
It could be compliance, it could be security but the best
enterprise SaaS sales people understand how to uncover all
the different buyers and the decisions that need to be made
for your purchase or your product be adopted
by that company.
Step number two, find the buyer ASAP.
Now if you've ever had a customer on a call or doing a
demo and they're all hot and bothered.
They're excited, they want the solution and then you quickly
find out they A, don't have a budget or
B, don't have authority to purchase your product it is the
most frustrating thing you can uncover.
So what you want is to find somebody that knows how to ask
the questions to find the buyer ASAP.
It is not always the first person you have contact
within that company.
Step number three, articulate your value prop.
Now I don't care what kind of product you're selling.
Is it workflow software, notification software,
ERP software, at the end of the day that great sales person
needs to be able to articulate your value proposition.
And I'm not talking about selling in regards to
hey, here are the benefits and features.
But really understanding what the customer's needs are,
what their pain points are.
Talking about their potential vision and then in the center of
those two areas, the problem and the promise of your solution
discussing the value of your product in regards to solving
and delivering on that promise.
That needs to be evaluated, needs to be understood so when
you find that incredible enterprise sales person,
test them on that fact.
Step number four, handling objections.
Now if you've ever done sales you know that the number one
thing you need to get good at is taking rejection.
Now, what usually comes up it's not like
"No, I don't want this." Or, "This will never work."
It's never as to the point as that.
What typically comes up from a sales process is objections
like, "Maybe this isn't the right time for us."
Or, "I'm not sure this is gonna solve our problem."
Or, "Maybe the way that you guys are building the product or the
"way it would work wouldn't work for our kind of company."
There could be a list of 50 different types of objections
and what you want to find an incredible sales person is
somebody that knows how to systematically unpack the
underlying objection because you might have somebody say,
"Well, we don't really have a budget," so that you think it's
a financial objection but it's not.
Great enterprise sales people know how to unpack,
target, get confirmation,
answer in a non-argumentative way and
then get buy-in from the customer that that would
actually solve their problem
and then move on to the next objection.
I actually have a whole training called The Objection Overrider
that I teach my SaaS Academy clients but that whole cycle
needs to be present in a sales person.
If they don't know how to do that and one of my favorite
things I remember in a book called The Ultimate Sales
Machine by Chet Holmes he talks about when you hire A player
sales people is to actually say to them if they're great say,
"Hey, I'm not hearing superstar or rock star.
"I'm just not feeling like you've got what I'm looking for
"to hire world class sales person."
And if they aren't able to come back to you and systematically
deal with that objection, then they're not in the right mindset
to come and sell your product.
So push them back in hiring process to see how they come
back and deal with that.
If they crumble and fall to the ground,
then move on.
Step number five, can they position you 'cause when it
comes to sales it's not about talking crap about other
products in the market.
It's about saying, "Hey, here's what I heard you say,
"here's what result you want to achieve and I believe our
"product can solve those problems with this feature,
"this feature, this feature."
And if a competitor comes up in the conversation,
"We're talking to this company and we think they have a better
"solution around that," your sales person needs to be able to
kind of handle that but also
de-position where they're weak at.
So understanding all the competitors in the market.
Not pretend, "There's nobody that competes against us.
"We're the only ones that deliver this kind of solution."
That's just crazy talk.
Know where they're weak and be able to de-position your
competing solutions that are out there in the market and position
you as the only option for your competitor.
That characteristic needs to be present in
a high performing sales person.
Step number six, know how to deal with IT.
Yes, the company's buying your solution 'cause they want an
outcome but at the end of the day it's software,
especially at an enterprise level,
there's gonna be some integration.
Maybe it's single sign on, maybe it's security,
maybe it's the infrastructure that's gonna be
installed or hosted on.
Maybe they want a single edition of your product.
Regardless what it is, if you're hiring an enterprise sales
person they need to know how to talk the language,
how to move that decision process forward and how to deal
with IT so that they are on board,
they're a champion of yours and not being a road block for that
sale to go through.
Quick recap.
Number one, you need to find somebody that knows how to
navigate decision making hierarchies
and large organizations.
Two, find the buyer ASAP.
Number three, articulate your value prop.
Number four, handle objections.
Number five, position you versus de-position the competitors and
number six, know how to deal with IT.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this video,
I want to share with you the Revenue Expansion Maximizer so
you have other product lines, modules,
add-ons to be able to sell to your existing customer to
increase your expansion revenue.
Essentially you need stuff for your sales people to sell.
Especially if you only have one product.
So below in the description there's a link for you to
download that worksheet.
It's gonna walk you through the four key areas that you need to
consider about adding on some expansion revenue opportunities.
That's super powerful and I know it'll really serve you.
If you liked this video, be sure to click the like button.
Subscribe to my channel and if you know somebody that can
benefit, please share this with them.
Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week.
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