We all know that navigating enterprise sales isn’t easy. SaaStr Annual 2016 presented its “Whale Hunting: Negotiating, Handling and Closing” session to help. These three top experts offered enterprise selling advice to a theater full of SaaS founders and execs:
- Shep Maher, SVP Sales, Guidespark (@shepmaher)
- Andrea Austin, VP of Enterprise Sales, InsideView (@aaustin94965)
- Marc Jacobs, VP of Sales, Greenhouse (@marcjacobs1)
In case you missed it, we gathered some of the highlights.
Enterprise Selling Lessons from SaaStr Annual:
1. Make sure you really understand the buyer’s process (and map out the stakeholders as part of that).
“You have to really dig deeper.” – Marc Jacobs, VP of Sales, Greenhouse (@marcjacobs1)
“Frequently, the business buyer doesn’t even know what their own buying process is.” – Andrea Austin, VP of Enterprise Sales, InsideView (@aaustin94965)
2. Understand how to create urgency in the buying process.
“The most important things are, first of all, understand the timeline from the beginning so that you can be continuously going through that timeline with the customer. The second thing is figuring out what business impact that’s going to have if the buyer moves forward in time, and what negative impact that’s going to have if they don’t move forward in time.” – Marc Jacobs, VP of Sales, Greenhouse (@marcjacobs1)
“It’s the proverbial ‘how do you become the painkiller and not the vitamin?’ You have to get that buyer to understand what the storyline is…and how did they become the hero. Business as usual has to be the villain.” – Andrea Austin, VP of Enterprise Sales, InsideView (@aaustin94965)
3. Find enterprise reps that know how to build relationships.
“When it comes to closing large enterprise deals, if they haven’t done a good job of building internal relationships…they’re not going to be able to win a lot of fans and win a lot of business.” – Marc Jacobs, VP of Sales, Greenhouse (@marcjacobs1)
“You can lose a deal alone in enterprise sales, but you sure cannot win a deal alone.” – Andrea Austin, VP of Enterprise Sales, InsideView (@aaustin94965)
4. Embrace the profile of your enterprise reps.
“Enterprise sales reps are control freaks. And you want them to be. And they’re impatient, and you want them to be.” – Andrea Austin, VP of Enterprise Sales, InsideView (@aaustin94965)
5. Teach your reps to ask the hard questions.
“Get your enterprise reps used to asking [buyers] what the other priorities are that could derail your project.” – Shep Maher, SVP Sales, Guidespark (@shepmaher)
6. Onboard enterprise reps comprehensively.
“I would encourage you to think about onboarding, especially with an enterprise rep, as a whole company thing.” – Shep Maher, SVP Sales, Guidespark (@shepmaher)
7. Don’t wait until end-of-quarter to get engaged with prospects and help close deals.
“It won’t look as desperate.” – Andrea Austin, VP of Enterprise Sales, InsideView (@aaustin94965)
8. When it comes to your main contact at an account, make sure you’re talking to a champion – and know the difference between a champion and a coach.
“The big difference is whether they have authority.” – Marc Jacobs, VP of Sales, Greenhouse (@marcjacobs1)
What do you think? Does this advice align with what you’ve found works best for enterprise selling? We’d love to see your comments.
Also, be sure to check out more live blogs from SaaStr Annual 2016 here.
