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ScotchNonsense

Director of Partnerships

Contributor
Fire Starter

What's the best way to sell software to salespeople?

We're a tech start-up that has just launched an internal tool to the public.


Essentially, it measures proposal performance, and predicts win-rate.


We were used to selling our marketplace to advertising people. Now, with the new product, we're selling B2B SaaS to salespeople.


Everything is new - how do you sell to salespeople? We think sales managers and sales directors are our decision makers, and AE's are our end-users, but we still need to learn how to sell to them.


Where should we start? What should we consider? What is blatantly obvious that we're missing?

👑 Sales Strategy
☁️ Software Tech
🤓 Sales Tech
13

29 comments

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poweredbycaffeine
WR Lieutenant
13
☕️
Don't sell to salespeople, sell to Revenue Operations, Sales Operations, or Enablement teams. They are the ones that implement these tools, so going directly to salespeople, or even sales leaders is a misstep.


ScotchNonsense
Contributor
4
Director of Partnerships
Hot damn. Did not even consider this. Thank you. 

Officially added to our lead research immediately. 
poweredbycaffeine
WR Lieutenant
4
☕️
I am a former sales person who now leads ops teams that hates being sold to...so feel free to pick my brain.
braintank
Politicker
5
Enterprise Account Executive
💯 agree with this take. Enablement and RevOps will be the ones who can actually get shit done.
ScotchNonsense
Contributor
1
Director of Partnerships
Do you know who / which company is writing the playbook for the RevOps space? Or the thought leaders in RevOps? 

I want to do some research so I can start approaching these people. 
youngsmoky
Celebrated Contributor
2
Senior Account Executive
Do you use LinkedIn Sales Navigator? I would say all the sales people I know (and their managers recruiting) are active on LI. They usually show the department hierarchy and it's often accurate.
ScotchNonsense
Contributor
1
Director of Partnerships
Throwing it in queue for lead research this week. Paid for it, now doing the deep dive. Thank you for validating that hypothesis
youngsmoky
Celebrated Contributor
1
Senior Account Executive
Agreed 100%. I'm running through hundreds of emails and calls a day. I want to be nice to sales people, but I don't make a damn decision about the department. Talk to my boss. He loves being pitched so he can learn about others' approach.
CRAG112
Valued Contributor
0
Account Executive
Truth bomb with reality added in. ^^^
Rallier
Politicker
5
SDR Manager and Consultant
What's different about your product than what's already out there? Answering this question is going to determine how you should approach the market
ScotchNonsense
Contributor
1
Director of Partnerships
We focus on the prospect experience and the salesperson's toolset. We saw a lot of media-centric proposals in our marketplace, and we learned that it's not always cost or diversity of offering that wins business, it's the personalization of the proposal to the receiver. 

We saw personalized sales experiences win out over the strongest strategy, best price, or breadth of offering. 

Do you think we're honing in far enough? Does "sales experience" sound two-sided to you? 
CRAG112
Valued Contributor
1
Account Executive
So why not personalize the experience towards a VP of Sales? That's who is going to be making decisions with software that sales people use. The personalization for sales people is never a main focus. It's always the personalization of the people making decisions that gets prioritized. 

Use personalization with sales people through case studies. Use that to emphasize to decision makers how it will aid the organization and effectiveness of the team. Or you can always do it in a demo as well. But why not have both?
FormerStartupJobHopper
Tycoon
5
AE
I sell to sales teams and honestly I don't demo AE's/reps. It's almost always a waste of time. The only time I do is when they have been directed to look at demos by their leadership. Even then I don't have a lot of success there.

If it's just a rep reaching out to us I almost always immediately DQ them. "Happy to send you some basic info and if this becomes a priority don't hesitate to reach back out to me directly". OR, a lot of them are thinking they will spend their own money on us not knowing how expensive we are. "While I know we could help you, and our pricing is competitive, my average deal is about $10,000. I have to imagine that that'e leaps and bounds above what you'd spend of your own money on this". And it's literally always yes.

Point being, be careful not to waste too much time on end users. However, this could be different if you're selling to enterprise or are largely going cold outbound
ScotchNonsense
Contributor
1
Director of Partnerships
This resonates.

We're in a testing phase to see if a bottom up approach is better than an enterprise approach, since we have a free basic-version (freemium) of our software that could be our internal champion sales-play, but we just launched, so I don't have enough data to support one way or the other. 

We closed an enterprise deal for an entire department at a Series C startup, but we also have users in the start-up space using our free version and standard paid versions. 

My efforts are split until we see which is working better, but I appreciate your insight - this super helpful
braintank
Politicker
4
Enterprise Account Executive
How are you different from the dozens of other tools that do this already?
braintank
Politicker
5
Enterprise Account Executive
Once you've got differentiation down, you can start building ICP.
Sunbunny31
Politicker
2
Sr Sales Executive 🐰
Agree!  If you can show us how it will be a better tool than what's out there, and will help us make more $$ (and for management, help them manage and report on pipeline), that will get you off to a good start.
ScotchNonsense
Contributor
0
Director of Partnerships
Thank you
ScotchNonsense
Contributor
0
Director of Partnerships
Thank you!
ScotchNonsense
Contributor
2
Director of Partnerships
- We combine the hallmarks of sales engagement tech for the sender and add a sales experience for the receiver with interactive components in the sales deck link that is sent (like a micro-site for the receiver)
- Our analytics tracking is not cookie or email-open dependant - all metrics are tracked on interaction with sales material
- the receiver gets a personalized portal, branded, industry-tailored to them, and the sender can continue to update it
poweredbycaffeine
WR Lieutenant
3
☕️
Research Seismic...and tighten up the "how". That was a confusing first bullet.
ScotchNonsense
Contributor
0
Director of Partnerships
Got it. On it. 
JohnnyDamone
Opinionated
1
AE Inside Sales
How does the software help the salespeople sell more and make more money? Once you narrow that down, you got it
ScotchNonsense
Contributor
0
Director of Partnerships
That's what we're working on now. Completely revamping our buyer messaging and end-user messaging. 

Current WIP is that for the end-user (salespeople), they can sell more by focusing on which sales decks have actual activity on them from prospects, and make more money by using only the highest performing sales content in their arsenal. Still too generic, need to distill it further. 
MonthEndSpecial
Valued Contributor
1
Enterprise Account Executive
Hey me too! Thanks for posting this. I just started my own SaaS company with a tool for Sales Reps. Not a competitor to what you are describing. 

We have a tool like how Pipedrive started (not at all like Pipedrive), and are really targeting SFDC shops to embed.

I am reading through the comments and the feedback is great.
ScotchNonsense
Contributor
1
Director of Partnerships
That's great to hear! This thread has been so helpful for us. 
CRAG112
Valued Contributor
1
Account Executive
Salespeople won't fall in to the below the line or above the line buyer. 

Call me. I am a salesperson. I will probably love it. That's as far as the conversation will go. My authority does not reach up, or around, or down, or anywhere.
ScotchNonsense
Contributor
0
Director of Partnerships
Good insight. We've revamped a lot of our end-user messaging vs. our budget holder messaging. 

I'll definitely call you if you want to use our free version. How do I DM?
Upper_Class_SaaS
Politicker
0
Account Executive
Actual sales ppl DO NOT BUY STUFF lol we have no power. Need to seel up to CROs or VP of Marketing who are the gatekeepers of the budget 

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