Is there a SaaS collapse? What your team needs to do to get through the rocky months ahead, Tim Hughes

This article from Inc.com talks about a downturn in business for SaaS companies and It companies.

From where we sit we are not surprised.

I cover a lot of the detail in this article. Marketing's big short!

Things were already going downhill back in 2019, it's just that Covid-19 accelerated this.

As I point out in the article above, business cannot keep thinking that cold calling, email marketing, and advertising will continue to deliver. It won't.

As the article states

"It's a challenging time in the world--and in the world of SaaS. Right now, 2022, the Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index is down nearly 40 percent from its peak. Since SaaS companies grew a lot during that time frame, this means multiples are down even more."

Well it is, if you are still those medieval methods of selling and marketing.

We all know that the world has moved on, so why hasn't your sales and marketing?

So, what do you need to focus on to survive and thrive?

I'm going to lift the various heading from the Inc article and add my own narrative.

Chief financial officers should consider moving from an annual budget to monthly forecasting

In fact, CFOs should be running a SaaS business on a weekly business.

Chief customer officers should consider ways to efficiently scale

All business have to shake of this notion that the old ways are going to get you through this. Sales and marketing methods that are 30, 40, and 50 years old are just not going to cut it.

Your clients and customers are digital, you need to be digital as well. Simple as.

But do NOT make the mistake that somehow that artificial intelligence is going to help you, all the research shows that the modern buyer is looking for your salesforce to be more human and not a bunch of robots.

Chief revenue officers should consider reinvesting in account management

Regardless of if you are looking at new business or account-based marketing, social selling will give your business the skills they need. Your prospects and customers will see that your salespeople are the people to do business with, they will be the obvious choice as they will see your sales people every day on digital.

Your salespeople need to have digital territories and have the confidence and skill to walk digital corridors and have digital conversations.

Chief marketing officers should consider investing in customer marketing

CMOs have to drop this notion that what they did for the last 20 years still works. Marketing have the opportunity to drive this move to digital and be front and centre.

They are able to report the leading indicators at board level, giving the board measurement and governance and move away from "management by CRM".

Chief product officers should consider leaning into product-led growth

In any downturn the last thing you need is product led growth. What you need is market lead growth.

By empowering your employees on social, the business will be able to crowdsource research and development. Get closer to your clients, hear their feedback and develop what the market wants.

By being on social, you will be connected closer to your clients and as your competition won't do this, you will be able to move faster, giving you significant competitive advantage.

Chief people officers should consider increasing transparency

By empowering your team in human resources and the wider employees to talk authentically on social media, as a business you will keep the talent you want and be able to recruit the talent you need.

Being the employer of choice in your market and at the same time reducing spend on advertising and recruitment consultants is a powerful proposition.

Chief executive officers should consider getting ready to emerge stronger

CEOs have to be ready to ask the questions and make the decisions.

Here at DLA Ignite we provide all the support the C-Suite need in making the business stronger and doubling down on digital to strip out cost and waste and to make the company more efficient and effective.

"One thing is certain: Companies that are resilient in terms of balance sheets, cash flows, customers, and culture are the ones that become unstoppable coming out of downturns."

The big leaps today will come from those companies that realise that using 30 year old processes to run sales and marketing are not fit for purpose.

Also companies will not win by hoping that sales tech will come and save them.

Drive the business to digital and gain the following :-

Visibility – recognition in the marketplace
Trusted advisor status
Recruit and retain the best talent
Employee engagement & shared sense of purpose
Pipeline, growth and new logos

"The next few years will be rough, and the past few years haven't been easy either. But if you look back at past crises, you realize that the companies we all admire today were forged during the downturns of the past. Here's to all of us getting through it!"

Now Imagine .....

How about if I said, I can take you to a place where all your prospects hang out, would you go?

I can pick you up in the car tomorrow and you can hang out there having conversations with them.

When you arrived, what would you do?

Grab a coffee and go up to the first one and start a conversation? Of course you would.

Or would you walk in and say "buy my stuff, because we are great". Of course you wouldn't, as somebody would call security.

That's the difference. Selling on social is ...... social. You have conversations with people.

You don't go up to people and pitch to them as people will call security.

The great thing about social is that there is no "prime selling time (PST)", you can have as many conversations as you want. One of my customers, does his prospecting between putting the kids to bed and when he goes to bed.

It's time to bring your demand generation into the second decade of the 21st century and it's time to "start fishing where the fish are" ...... on social.

What is social selling?

Here at DLA Ignite, we define social selling as

"Using your presence and behavior on Social Media to build influence,
make connections, grow relationships and trust, which leads to
conversation and commercial interaction."

It's not witchcraft, it's enabling your salespeople to work from home, (or the office) and create conversations with prospects and customers. Conversations on social media and conversations that convert.

The problem with the name "social selling" is that people think that this is selling on social. All these pitches that you get on social are not social selling, they are spam.

The other thing you need to know about social selling is that this isn't about "putting out some videos" or "putting flowers on your profile" or "going viral". Here at DLA Ignite, engagement is important but we are about driving revenue, EBITDA, for your business using social media. This is about you winning business from the competition and having a competitive advantage.

Social is about having a strategy and there are two key drivers

With anything you do on social there are two questions you need to ask

1. How many leads / meetings / conversations will I get from this post / blog / activity?

2. How much revenue / EBITDA am I getting as a business?

Posting and hoping or posting random stuff is not a strategy, in fact I doubt it's driving anything for your business.

So who's social selling?

In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.

But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling? Not according to Merrill Lynch.

"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"

The CRO (chief revenue officer), Richard Eltham of Namos Solutions, of one of clients posted a comment on LinkedIn about social selling. See here.

“Social selling is not an option now it is the way of the world and you either learn and execute it or fear getting left behind”

Kevin Murray who is the Head of Sales at MacArtney Underwater Technology recently posted about his success with social selling here and wrote an article about the transformation that has happened in sales here.

Andrew Ferrier who is the CEO of Display Technology Ltd and in this article it talks about why Display Technology have adopted social selling. His team have also created a social media strategy with help from our partner, Crux.

Their social media mission statement is

“We want to position ourselves as a forward-thinking, knowledgeable team of individuals who are all experts in our own right, therefore, collectively awesome!”

Andrew also says in that post

"Adopting this (social selling) strategy has taken all of us well outside of our comfort zones but the rewards we have seen in a short period of time have created an excitement within the business development team (new term for sales team).

Because of the nature of social media, quite often you can get instant results. Even if that is just a comment left on your post, or a like, or someone taking the time to want to connect with you.

The excitement around the sales team is infectious, it’s no longer a chore to reach out to the market place because the results can be instant and are there, right in front of you."

What sort of results can you expect?

If you check out this video of Chris Mason CEO at Oracle reseller Namos, and DLA Ignite customer, fast forward to 19 minutes 55 seconds. Chris talks about a $2.6 million win from being on social, after completing the DLA Ignite social selling and influence course.

What happened? They buyer was on social media looking for a solution to their problem, spotted one of the Namos salespeople, who had a buyer-centric profile and asked if the salesperson could help them. That turned into a $2.6 million deal.

Contact any of the DLA Ignite team, Eric, Adam, Nick, Vanessa, Lorena, Priscilla, Lenwood, Alex and they will be more than happy to help.

Go and look at their LinkedIn profiles .... look how they can have digital conversations, create insightful content. This could be your company!

We are the only social selling and influence company in the world to offer a certificate in social selling sponsored by the Institute of Sales Professionals (ISP).

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It's a challenging time in the world--and in the world of SaaS. Right now, 2022, the Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) Nasdaq Emerging Cloud Index is down nearly 40 percent from its peak. Since SaaS companies grew a lot during that time frame, this means multiples are down even more.

https://www.inc.com/nick-mehta/what-saas-collapse-means-for-every-leader.html