If you are an executive responsible for the growth of an early-stage SaaS business, you are acutely aware of the fact that sales growth is the leading indicator of future performance and value accretion. Today, with SaaS success measured in weeks and months, not years, flawless execution is needed by all parts of the organization to achieve profitability and … to win!
Sales and marketing are two sides of the same coin
Research published in 2023 from LinkedIn states that 90 percent of SaaS startups will fail to achieve the desired level of success and fail to generate adequate revenue. One of the primary reasons is inadequate marketing and sales efforts. When it comes to sales and marketing, I’ve seen far too many SaaS companies with great innovative solutions fail, not based on their products, but because of weak marketing and ill-equipped and trained sales, and service teams.
Sales and marketing are two sides of the same coin and must be viewed as a unified process in which strategy and tactics are aligned within the company. This results in a full organizational commitment to winning new business, maintaining the highest degree of customer satisfaction, and continuously adding value.
The importance of organizational alignment in SaaS growth
Organizational alignment becomes the game changer. As an executive in an early-stage SaaS company, it is critical that you have tight alignment with your management team around a shared vision as you plan and roll out your go-to-market approach.
Alignment is about culture, leadership, and execution. Ultimately, success is about culture, execution, and the ability to sell value. Everyone in your company must view the relationship with your customers as a perpetual one. Continue to add value and you should have a customer for life.
In coaching early-stage SaaS companies, I recommend the following go-to-market imperatives to accelerate growth and build long-term shareholders:
- Build a high-powered new accounts sales team. Although sales professionals and account managers are both required to be proficient in selling, their overall skill set is different. New account salespeople should be confident, goal oriented, resilient, and have the tenacity to make calls and follow-up.
- Develop an account management team to service and be viewed as an asset to your client base. Account managers need to consider the entire account landscape, understand the various stakeholders, have domain knowledge, identify potential areas where additional services could provide added value and facilitate the resolution of technical issues.
- Invest in your digital and content marketing capabilities to establish yourself as the market leader. SaaS marketing is multi-faceted. Its messaging must be compelling to attract potential users, generate leads, and nurture prospective buyers – all while producing content that is relevant to the prolonged needs of your clients and increasing the lifetime value of a customer.
As you develop your operational and go-to-market plan, it is important that your management team have full participation. Your goal here is to begin to instill a culture of performance by giving them equity in the process and the ability to share in the results.
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