Hey you, Sales Person. Come here. People want to talk to you.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Hey you, Sales Person. Come here. People want to talk to you.

Shooting Blanks: Jun 6, 2007; Real bullets mess up how cool this thing looks.

-Blade

Maybe a niche question, but software sales. My situation:

I spent a decade selling software and services around a specific IT stack (not worth discussion). The software was primarily on-prem, or on premises - meaning my clients owned a data center and installed it on their own hardware. I took some time away from IT sales and am looking to get back in - while services would be a layup, software is still more prevalent, yet every company specifically requires SaaS sales experience.

My questions:

A - SaaS vs. on-prem should not be that much of a leap. Ultimately, you're talking about a delivery method, a licensing/payment mechanism, and a slightly different way of managing/interacting with it. Unless I'm way off base, the sale still revolves around understanding client requirements and selling to their objective - it will increase revenues, reduce risk, improve efficiency, whatever in some kind of quantifiable way.

B - This is a hurdle that I've run into a few times - unless I'm way off base on this, is it worth just fudging the experience? I'm not talking transitioning from selling home appliances to enterprise software, simply on-prem to SaaS but the same (or similar) underlying product. And if I'm way off base, how do I overcome this hurdle in an honest way?

# ¿ Apr 7, 2022 12:25

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 12:14

Shooting Blanks: Jun 6, 2007; Real bullets mess up how cool this thing looks.

-Blade

It wasn't a question about how to sell SaaS vs. On Prem, or which one is appropriate for a given customer. My question is how do I stop being disqualified from potential jobs because my SaaS experience is limited. I understand the nuances and can speak to the difference between the two - but I've heard multiple times now "Oh, you haven't sold SaaS? Sorry, you aren't qualified." That's a problem I can't figure out.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2022 04:18

Shooting Blanks: Jun 6, 2007; Real bullets mess up how cool this thing looks.

-Blade

.dazedandconfused.. posted:

I am sorry for the misunderstanding of your initial post. I read it a few times and made a judgement call on the topic rather than asking more questions. I should have come back to you and discovered more on what you wanted. Seeing your question laid out in simple terms now makes sense.

One of the reasons I retired was because I could see that I was never going to transition from what I saw as the new format (I was an old on-prem sales guy ) of Virtualised/Hybrid IT platforms to SaaS. I had just spent five years transitioning skills to successfully sell virtualisation and did not want to relearn the required skills of selling SaaS.

This might be hard to understand or accept but the structure of selling SaaS is different. It brings with it a wider range of conditions and results that impact the company differently. I saw a complete change in the IT sector when SaaS came in. If we take email as an example, the differences are massive. On-prem email require management of the hardware, software and associated licenses, patching and updating, security, load balancing, backup along with user control. SaaS is just user control. Understanding this makes the sale totally different as the many touch points needed are greatly reduced. The focus of the sales conversation will be around other factors. Think of it this way, a person use to sell a company its operating cars and now they want to try and sell the same company taxi/driver services instead. They are two completely different things even though both are involving motor vehicles. Are the skills needed to sell either one the same?

My question for you is are you getting past the application stage to present your experience or are you getting rejection from your CV/Resume?

I'm failing to get traction from the resume. And the recruiters I've spoken to have largely shut down when I've tried to tell them that I have plenty of experience selling on prem. I disagree in a sense that selling SaaS is that different from selling on prem - it's still delivering value, a needed function. It's that the delivery mechanism is different, and the required skills to manage it are also necessarily different.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2022 17:10

Shooting Blanks: Jun 6, 2007; Real bullets mess up how cool this thing looks.

-Blade

.dazedandconfused.. posted:

Advise for sales and sales people on the Internet normally has a cost associated with it. It might be clickbate for advertising dollars or to sell a course on being a sales person. I am not aiming to do anything like that so I hope I can give some information and advice that might help anyone that has questions. My aim for this thread is to be as brutally honest and open as possible. This will come off as confrontational at times. In the end, giving anything of value away for free has to be this way.

Why have people told you no? What is their reasoning? Have you asked them for feedback? I understand you disagree. What I want you to understand from me is that I know it is different. If we are looking for a who is right or wrong (as people on the internet are liken to do), do you have a job selling SaaS at the moment?

My recommendation is go back to the people rejecting you and ask why they shut you down. Even if it was not recent they still should be able to tell you what they are looking for. If it is just SaaS sales experience then it is up to you to sell yourself better and remove the objection. It is not our role as sales people to argue that our point is right. It is to find out why we got it wrong and change our approach. Do this and I guarantee that your experience of job hunting for a SaaS sales role will change.

I did not get the sale/job/kiss from a girl

Most sales people I speak to will always try and explain why they did not get the sale. These sales people can always say it was not their fault. Then there is the sales people that will provide answers they received from the customer on why they were not successful. These sales people then work that into their next sale opportunity to improve their success rate. I spend a lot of my time analysing both of these sort of responses to better understand the mentality and maturity of a sales person. As I said in the OP, companies have sales people and seat fillers.

I still have my personal sales data dating back twenty years. Any sales opportunity over $10k has detailed information. It amazes me that any sales person would not do the same as it is an invaluable tool to be able to reflect on all actions and interactions done on each sale. Looking over the data I can correlate the responses from the customer against my data and see where I did not match the expectations. Implementing the same for companies I now work with and the typical result is sales people either leave or improve.

Takeaways

Only the customer can tell you why they did not end up going with what you were providing. They are the most valuable resource a sales person can have. Use them to improve your offering.

"I've been told specifically that candidates need SaaS sales experience."

Editing just to be clear - this has happened 3 times now. It's not a one off.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2022 20:38

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > Hey you, Sales Person. Come here. People want to talk to you.