letsclose

AE (Account Executive)

Personal Narrative

When is it best to discuss budget? And how do you qualify ENT vs Self-Serve? Share your best practices

I'm selling a technical SaaS product and generally get on a discovery call with a software engineer/product manager or some one from engineering. These folks are responsible for implementing the solution on their end and then pass along the quote internally for approval.

Some large companies would involve multiple decision makers e.g. finance, procurement, legal & compliance, etc but not all of them do. We've been able to close high tickets where the process involves agreements, assessments, and multiple teams like stated above. Relaying price too early got us no results.

The expectation on the company level is if an abc company has over $20M in rev they need to be sold high ticket regardless.

We have two offerings self-serve and enterprise. Many a times, we get inbound from large players with a self-serve demand - pushing them to ENT results in being ghosted on.

👑 Sales Strategy

🙅‍♀️ Objections

5

21 comment

Sort by:

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

4

Sales Rep

Whenever I get a RFP or Inbound, I usually talk about budget in the first meeting. Since they clearly have talked about buying a solution and should have some idea of an amount they would want to spend.

When its a meeting with cold outreach, I discuss budget before we do an in-depth demo after they know the value it can bring

DungeonsNDemos

Big Shot

4

Rolling 20's all day

This is how my team handles it too. For RFP and inbound you want to disqualify quickly while understanding if there is real pain.

TennisandSales

Politicker

2

Head Of Sales

what are your results responding to a blind RFP like that?

I almost always get told to respond that we will NOT bid on RFPs that we did not help create, or were aware of before they were released.

if it wasnt written FOR you then its written BY another company.

Kosta_Konfucius

Politicker

3

Sales Rep

Usually we set multiple discovery meetings, where we learn if we have a chance or not.

We are around 15% on RFPs we dont help create, so its big for us to qualify/disqualify it during this disco time

TennisandSales

Politicker

4

Head Of Sales

nice thats huge you can do that. i HATE RFPs because everyone is always like super secretive about what is going on and you have to deal with some bullshit project manager.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Or procurement.

Some RFPs are definitely run better than others.

letsclose

Personal Narrative

2

AE (Account Executive)

If we discuss early on the issues are:

Usually the decision maker is not in the early meetings as they're only qualifying fit or no fit. These are not guys who'd approve pricing since they are developers, PMs and apparently they seem to have their own kind of budget in mind.

If we disclose it later:

Then again the push back is on the pricing but by that time we are exhausted.

I'm trying to figure out how to sell high ticket to companies with $20M or above in rev.

Just a thought: Is the solution priced too high? or what else can be looked at to find the issue.

Sunbunny31

Politicker

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Early on is "is this a budgeted initiative?" rather than price.

Can they see your self serve price on the web site? Because any time you disclose that, it's the number, and you're facing an uphill battle if you're trying to get more than the exposed price. For example, the online pricing I've seen for self serve has the cost per seat in tiers until a certain threshold is reached, then it's "need to get quote". However, often, the expectation is that the higher the number of seats, the lower the cost per seat, because of a volume discount. Example: Per seat: $85/seat; 10+ $75/seat; 100 + $50/seat; over 500 - speak to rep. The customer is going to expect favorable seat pricing, not to pay more.

In your example, you are charging more. What is the enterprise customer getting in addition that provides more value to an enterprise customer?

Sunbunny31

Politicker

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Of course a company will come in expecting the lowest possible cost, and if they're IT, they're going to expect self-serve will be just fine.

Your website most likely is leading these big companies to believe that self service is ok for them and are most likely very put off by an enterprise offer when they see that their requirements match self service. Being told their price is higher just because they are over a specific revenue band is never going to go over well.

What % of your enterprise companies really fit that self service model? And what's the $$ difference in cost (approximately)?

letsclose

Personal Narrative

1

AE (Account Executive)

I'd say 70:30 for now. The only ones that fit the enterprise price bracket are the ones that bring in agreements, security/risk assessment, legal etc.

Enterprise range is 6-10 times more than the top self-serve tier

Sunbunny31

Politicker

1

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

It sounds like your company is currently ok with walking away from business.

Those enterprise companies who want to do self serve aren't concerned about security/risk assessment? Just want to sign up and go?

letsclose

Personal Narrative

1

AE (Account Executive)

There is a possibility, they have done assessments already at their end before reaching out. Again, I'm just thinking? Not sure or have sold to ENT before

BTW these are not essentially the ENTERPRISES but anything above $20M in revenue. We're probably not labellingcorrectly?

Sunbunny31

Politicker

1

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I understand - and it's funny, at my company, enterprise is $1B and above. Anything below is midmarket.

That said, they no doubt think they're MM and may be taken aback by the process and absolutely by the higher price. Does the higher price come with added benefits, like enhanced support? More features?

CuriousFox

WR Officer

2

🦊

Also are you positive you're talking to the correct people/decision makers?

letsclose

Personal Narrative

1

AE (Account Executive)

Yes, it comes with priority support, 1:1's with eng team, msa, sla and more features.

But when a large sized company doesn't care about the above and is happy with self-serve there is no way you can close high ticket. That's where we at and on top pressured that we're not able to close

Sunbunny31

Politicker

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

They're not seeing the value in the enhancements. So if your company is not going to budge on this, you're going to have to find ways to pitch the value, and make it so the customer not only wants those things, but recognizes that they need them. If you have customer case studies or examples about an enterprise customer who derived value (best if it's tangible ROI) out of their 1:1 and were able to exceed targets, you then have something to pitch. MSA isn't compelling to engineers - they're not going to see the value even if it makes their legal happy. Nobody wants to spend $$ for paperwork, even if it's an SLA. The benefit for an SLA? "If we fail, you have a remedy" is not a great message for sales.

If I was your company, I'd say: "fine, here's the bare bones pricing (self serve) and when you find you need those other things or want to grow into them, we can add them for $x later" (will be more than buying up front with the initial sale). Either that or they're going to continue to lose these deals because the Enterprise packaging isn't matching up to the price.

antiASKHOLE

Tycoon

2

Bravado's Resident Asshole

Depends on the audience.

Arzola

Valued Contributor

-1

Business administration

think the same way

letsclose

Personal Narrative

1

AE (Account Executive)

Thanks @Sunbunny31 you shared some great insights and resonated quite well with the situation.

I might bug you again!

Sunbunny31

Politicker

2

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Of course, and there may be others who come in here during the day and add valuable insight.
Honestly, I've learned a lot from others here. There are some very seasoned reps who have different POVs, which makes these forums a great resource.

letsclose

Personal Narrative

1

AE (Account Executive)

I totally agree. This is my first time using any forum at all - the info available is invaluable!

Bravado is a community of trusted sales professionals endorsed by their customers.

Products

The War Room Jobs Salary Guide Tech Sales U

Company

About Us How It Works Blog Bug Bounty

Contact

© 2024 Bravado Inc. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy Legal and Privacy Center Sales Jobs

If you are hired as a contract sales rep by a Bravado customer, we may ask you to prove access to the employee email account provided to you by that customer. This data will be shared with customers to track your sales productivity; customers can use this data to confirm you meet the minimum activity requirements to pay out your ramp stipend and commission.