4 Biggest Mistakes That B2B SaaS Startups Make in Sales

B2B SaaS sales can be challenging in today’s competitive environment. Obviously, there is no perfect sales strategy that fits all, but some mistakes should always be avoided. In today’s article, we discuss the 4 biggest mistakes a B2B SaaS company can make in sales and how to avoid them 😎.

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1. Establishing Unrealistic Sales Quota 👻

A sales quota is a sales goal or minimum sales level teams or representatives are expected to achieve in a given period of time.

In the matter of setting sales quotas, there is a hard decision to make. You have to choose between overestimating your sales team or setting the aim too low. Have you either set unrealistic goals or demoralized your representatives when they cannot achieve sales goals? Or will you risk having your team members do minimum sales level and stop doing their best once they have met their quotas?

Keeping morale and sales achievement rates high often go side by side. Be realistic about what is an attainable sales level at your current SaaS startup stage. Your sales team should not necessarily be able to reach their quota every month, but the sales goal shouldn’t feel totally out of reach for the sales reps.

The solution is to do your best to research the market and set realistic sales levels that you know at least 60–70% of your sales team can achieve. Put a lot of analysis and planning into your sales quota.

2. No Attention to KPI 🙈 🙉 🙊

If you want to succeed in SaaS sales, you need to find a way to measure your success. It’s hard to know whether you’re truly growing without any metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs).

If you don’t track any KPIs, it is impossible for you to see if you are on track with sales and what you need to focus on and optimize in your business.

However, tracking too many KPIs makes you lose focus on what really matters. We know it can be appealing to collect as much data as possible, but most of the time it results in more data noise and distraction.

You should figure out which KPIs will provide the most actionable insights, choose which metrics to pay attention to, and which are the most vital for your startup right now. There are no hard and fast rules about how many KPIs to use, but common advice is to choose no more than three KPIs per objective.

Some KPIs that businesses usually track to monitor their success are revenue growth, conversion rate, customer lifetime value, monthly/annual recurring revenue, and average contract value.

3. Wrong or Unidentified Market 🔚🔜

Many founders start developing their products to be useful for different use cases. And they start sales with this vision. Obviously, at some point, many B2B startups do indeed work in totally different industries. But if you target too many customer segments from the very beginning, it will be difficult for you to find a good product/market fit.

For B2B SaaS startups, especially ones in the early stages, it’s easy to get caught up in trying to be everything at once. It can be really hard for a startup founder or sales team to exclude customer groups from the target market. There is a fear of missing a good opportunity by leaving out prospects. But the reality is, if you try to be everything to everyone, you will end up being nothing to no one.

We strongly recommend you focus on a single target market to begin with because you have limited resources and time. Then, scale and expand with time. Position your business in the market right, with the right target audience, at the right time.

4. Focus on Acquisition Only, Neglecting Retention 👀

Many SaaS businesses pay too much attention to new customer acquisition, neglecting customer retention, and it is one of the biggest mistakes a business can make.

Business growth includes two parts: getting new customers and keeping them. And in SaaS, the importance of customer retention cannot be overlooked, as a company’s revenue is based on monthly subscriptions. Your whole business depends on retention. Without that, you can’t collect enough subscription fees to maintain your recurring revenue for sustainable growth.

One fast and effective way to increase retention is to offer discounted annual plans. Comfi helps SaaS startups acquire new customers and boost customer retention by providing your clients with a Buy Now Pay Later payment method.

With Comfi, your customers can divide annual plan payments into 12 interest-free tranches over 12 months, while Comfi pays you the whole sum upfront within 7 days. Comfi upsells your existing customers by offering them annual subscriptions with discounts and benefits, and the convenience of paying monthly. Thus, MRR will effortlessly turn into ARR, and your retention will boost, as users will stay with you for longer periods of time, raising your customer LTV.

In Conclusion

We hope our article will help B2B SaaS startups avoid the biggest mistakes in sales. Remember to set realistic quotas for your sales team, focus on one specific target audience at first, make the most of the KPIs you are using, and, as much as you want to focus on attracting new customers, do not forget your existing users. Implement Comfi to boost customer retention and seamlessly upsell your users.

Increase retention with Comfi today!

Let’s talk your revenue together

Amal Abdullaev

Co-founder at Comfi

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