Building a SaaS sales team is one of the hardest, and most important, tasks for any sales leader.
You might have the best sales strategy out there, but if you have the wrong team, you’ll struggle to hit your revenue targets.
To help you out, we’ve broken down some of the essential steps and considerations to make when building a SaaS sales team.
Who Should Be in the Best SaaS Sales Team
Building a SaaS sales team needs to be a carefully executed process. You need to gather the right blend of specific skills, qualities, and expertise to make your sales team a success.
Here are some of the key roles you need to include when building a SaaS sales team.
Sales Leadership
First, you need someone to steer the ship.
Your SaaS sales team leader is the person who sets the strategy, motivates the team, and ensures everyone is using the most effective selling techniques to close deals. Having the right team leaders in place is one of the most important parts of building a strong SaaS sales team.
Sales leadership can be broken down into various levels. When building a SaaS sales team, the first person you’ll want to hire is a great sales manager. This is someone who can lead, motivate, and guide the team toward achieving sales targets.
They should possess strong leadership skills, a strategic mindset, and a track record of successful sales management.
As the sales team grows, you could have multiple sales managers representing different segments of the team. If you have a quality person at the top, then the chances of success for the rest of the team are far greater.
Sales Representatives
Your sales representatives form the majority of your team.
These are the people who do most of the actual selling. They deal with prospects and customers, manage sales pipelines, and close deals. When building a SaaS sales team, having the right sales reps in place is essential.
This can be broken down into two main job titles:
- Sales Executives/ Representatives: Individuals who excel in prospecting, qualifying leads, and closing deals. They should have a deep understanding of the product, excellent communication skills, and the ability to build relationships.
- Account Executives: Responsible for managing key client accounts, understanding client needs, and upselling or cross-selling additional services.
The combination of these two sales representatives covers the entire customer lifecycle, from initial purchase through to retention.
Sales Development Representatives (SDRs)
One of the most important parts of any SaaS sales process is generating and qualifying leads.
To get this right, you need to have a solid SDR team in place. These are the people who get the sales process started. Without a great team of SDRs, your sales team won’t have the foundation to build a successful SaaS sales plan.
SDRs focus on generating leads, qualifying prospects, and setting appointments for the sales team. They should have strong prospecting skills and be adept at initiating conversations.
Customer Success Managers (CSMs)
While they’re not technically salespeople, CSMs are an essential piece of the greater sales puzzle.
They ensure customer satisfaction, retention, and ongoing value realization – which is incredibly important for maximizing revenue. CSMs need strong interpersonal skills, product expertise, and the ability to handle customer concerns effectively.
Technical Support
Technical support, or pre-sales engineers, assist in the pre-sales process by offering technical expertise, demonstrating product functionality, and addressing technical queries.
You need to have these people in your sales team to ensure all of your sales tools and processes are working properly.
Marketing Collaboration
Marketing and sales are two separate teams. However, they need to work closely together.
When building a SaaS sales team, you should carefully consider the role of marketing and how it can be connected with the sales team. Sales and marketing alignment ensures that the messaging, content, and strategies are cohesive, aiding the sales team in their efforts.
Characteristics of a Successful SaaS Sales Team
Building a SaaS sales team isn’t only about finding people with the right experience, it’s about finding salespeople who possess the right qualities. After all, qualifications and experience mean nothing in sales if you can’t close deals.
Here are some of the key characteristics of a successful SaaS sales team.
Product and Industry Knowledge
A good salesperson should be able to sell any kind of product. However, SaaS sales cycles are unique, and you’ll want to have people on your sales team who deeply understand this.
The more industry and product-specific knowledge they possess, the better.
Always look for salespeople with a deep understanding of the SaaS product they are selling, including its features, benefits, and how it solves customers’ problems. Any additional knowledge of the industry and its trends also helps in contextualizing the product’s value.
Customer-Centric Approach
A good sales team needs to focus on understanding customers’ needs, pain points, and objectives. Successful teams prioritize building relationships and providing tailored solutions that meet the specific requirements of clients.
Adaptability and Agility
The ability to adapt to changes in the market, technology, or customer demands is crucial for successful SaaS sales teams.
Agile sales teams can quickly adjust their strategies and approaches to stay relevant and effective.
Effective Communication Skills
Sales teams need to have strong communication abilities, both verbal and written. This is required for articulating the value proposition clearly, building rapport, and being able to explain complex ideas simply.
Strategic Prospecting and Lead Qualification
SaaS salespeople need to show skill in identifying and prioritizing leads likely to convert into customers.
Successful teams have refined processes for lead generation and employ strategies to qualify prospects efficiently.
Collaboration and Alignment with Marketing
Seamless collaboration between sales and marketing teams ensures a cohesive approach to messaging, content, and strategies, aligning them with the sales process.
When building a SaaS sales team, ensure people are willing and excited to work closely with marketing.
Data-Driven Decision Making
Modern salespeople need to use data analytics and insights to inform their sales strategies, identify opportunities, and measure performance.
Ensure any new hires have a strong data mindset, and that you train your sales team to use data effectively.
Resilience and Persistence
Sales is a tough role. The right salespeople need to have the ability to handle rejections, setbacks, and challenges inherent in the sales process.
Persistence is key to maintaining motivation and driving towards goals despite obstacles. So, always try to build a sales team of positive people who don’t get set back by rejections.
Customer Success Focus
Beyond just closing deals, a successful SaaS sales team prioritizes customer success and satisfaction. They ensure that customers achieve value from the product, leading to long-term relationships and retention.
Continuous Learning and Improvement
Embrace a culture of ongoing learning and improvement. Successful teams continuously refine their skills, stay updated on industry trends, and adapt to new sales methodologies and tools.
Goal-Oriented Mindset
Clear goals and targets drive the team’s focus and motivation. A successful team is goal-oriented, consistently working towards achieving and exceeding targets.
Efficient Use of Sales Technology
Proficiency in using sales tools and CRM systems to streamline processes, track interactions, and manage leads effectively is key for a strong SaaS sales team.
Try to work with salespeople who have plenty of experience in using the latest tech, and who are comfortable with adopting new tech solutions.
Adaptability and Continuous Learning
Given the ever-evolving nature of SaaS, team members should be adaptable to change and committed to continuous learning. This involves staying updated with industry trends, product updates, and sales techniques.
Teamwork and Communication Skills
Strong teamwork and communication skills are essential for seamless collaboration within the team and across departments.
Effective internal communication enhances productivity and ensures a unified approach toward goals. So, make sure that you focus on team players when building a SaaS sales team.
10 Top Tips | Building a SaaS Sales Team
Now that you know what to look for in a SaaS sales team, you’ll need to take the right approach to find the most suitable people. After all, the success of your sales strategy depends on the people in your sales team.
Here are a few extra tips for building a successful SaaS sales team.
Hire for Cultural Fit
Look for individuals whose values align with the company culture.
You can always train new hires on your sales techniques, tools, and processes. However, you can’t train people to develop the right mindset and attitude towards sales. This is simply about finding the right people who fit into your company’s culture and environment.
A cohesive team with shared values will help with better collaboration. This improves the overall team performance.
Specialization and Role Definition
As we’ve already established, there are a lot of different roles to cover when building a SaaS sales team. You’ll want to make sure that you’re very specific about what roles you’re hiring for when building your team.
Define clear roles and responsibilities within the sales team. Specialization allows team members to focus on their strengths, improving efficiency and expertise in specific areas.
If your sales team’s responsibilities are too broad, they might underperform in each area – instead of mastering one thing.
Provide Structured Onboarding and Training
Building a SaaS sales team is only effective if you provide the right training and onboarding experience.
Implement a robust onboarding process and continuous training programs. Equipping team members with in-depth product knowledge and sales techniques from the start sets them up for success.
Incentivize Performance
Something that makes sales unique is that salespeople tend to work on commissions. This is highly effective, as it helps keep teams motivated to perform their best.
Design a compelling and fair compensation structure that incentivizes sales performance. Offering attractive incentives and bonuses motivates the team to achieve and exceed their targets.
The more attractive your performance compensation offers are, the easier it will be to attract top-performing sales reps.
Encourage Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing
Try to create a collaborative environment where team members share successful strategies, tactics, and best practices. This exchange of knowledge can elevate the entire team’s performance.
Focus on Customer Feedback Loop
Create mechanisms for gathering and implementing customer feedback. This ensures the sales team is attuned to customer needs and can adapt their approach accordingly.
If you don’t listen to your customers, then sales teams will never improve their performance and try different tactics. Creating a culture of listening to customers and adjusting strategies is key to building a successful SaaS sales team.
Promote a Positive Work Environment
If you want people to perform at their best, then you need to have a positive work environment.
Always try to cultivate a positive and supportive workplace culture. A positive environment encourages creativity, enhances morale, and leads to higher productivity. It also improves knowledge sharing and support, which is important for building up a better-performing sales team.
Continuous Evaluation and Adaptation
Building a SaaS sales team should be an ongoing process.
Regularly assess team performance, sales processes, and strategies. Adaptation to changing market conditions and customer preferences is key to staying competitive.
Invest in Sales Enablement Tools:
Provide the team with the necessary tools and resources for effective sales enablement. This includes CRM systems, sales automation tools, live product demo tools, and analytics platforms to optimize workflows.
Emphasize Soft Skills Development
When building a SaaS sales team, you shouldn’t only focus on hard sales skills. Many different skills go into successful sales, so being able to show a range of these different skills is key to high-performance teams.
Develop soft skills such as empathy, active listening, and negotiation. These skills are crucial in building rapport with customers and navigating complex sales scenarios.
Conclusion
Building the right SaaS sales team is never easy, as there are so many different qualities that go into a great salesperson. However, when you structure the team right and focus on the right skills and qualities when hiring, you’ll be able to build up a solid sales team that helps you hit your revenue targets.
As mentioned earlier, setting your sales team up with the right tools is essential. If you’re looking to improve your prospect engagement, book a demo with Saleo to see how the platform can take your demos to the next level.
