On Thursday, July 25th from 12-2pm we hosted the next class of the Atlanta Ventures University: SaaS Sales with Tonni Bennett, Tonni's spent the past 5 years scaling high growth companies and will be diving into nitty gritty sales process details to help Atlanta SaaS leaders scale and grow their revenue.

1. SaaS Sales
Atlanta Ventures University
Tonni Bennett

2. The Rise of the Buyer
Buyers are more educated than ever before
Buyers have the power
The role of sales is NOT to tell/show a buyer what a product or offering does
The role of sales is to help a buyer understand how a product or offering can
work in their environment to solve their needs and challenges and how it can do
this better than the other options available to them.

3. Sales
Foundations
Your Value prop/Story
Ideal Customer Profile
Sales Process

4. Value Prop:
A value proposition refers to the value a company promises to
deliver to customers should they choose to buy their product… A
statement that a company uses to summarize why a consumer
should buy a product or use a service.

5. Value Prop
Should include:
● What you do very simply without too many buzzwords
● The outcomes it drives
● Sometimes - how it’s different/unique

6. Exercise: Value Mapping
Whiteboard Session:
1. Features/Services
2. Benefits
3. Business Outcomes
4. Challenges
5. Questions

7. Focus on Outcomes
What business outcome(s) does your product/offering drive?
How does it drive this, specifically?
How do you do it better than every other option?

8. Creating the Value Prop
Example:
Terminus enables B2B marketers to proactively reach the
decision makers at their high-value target accounts with
display ads wherever they go online, in order to improve
conversion rates through the funnel and increase revenue.

9. Tell Your Story = WHY

10. Sell the vision

11. ICP:
A description of the company - not the individual buyer or end
user - that’s a perfect fit for your solution, focused on the
relevant characteristics of your target accounts such as industry

12. ICP, TAM, and Personas
Ideal Customer Profile
Ex: B2B Software Companies with 200-10,000 employees, using Salesforce and MA
Total Addressable Market
Estimate the number of companies in your ICP and what the market size is for your offering
Personas
Ex: CMO/VP Marketing, Demand Gen, Marketing Generalist

13. Segmentation
Overall company value prop is the same, but sales
messaging in the field should vary by segment
Segments will differ based on title/persona, vertical,
product line etc.
Choose the minimum number of segments to get the
maximum results

14. Exercise: Segmentation
1. What is your ICP
2. Who are the key personas
3. What should your segments be?
4. How different should messaging be for each?

15. Sales Process
Key Elements:
1. Sharing your story/value prop
2. Demonstrating the product or offering
3. Setting proper expectations
4. Discovery/qualification
5. Working out the commercial terms

16. Example: Basic Sales Process
CALL 1
Goal: Qualify the prospect and account to
ensure they’re a good fit, and educate the
prospect on your offering to confirm whether
you can help the customer
Actions: Share high level story across 2-5 slides
and basic product details. Ask discovery
questions to understand what they want
to accomplish
CALL 2
Goal: SELL! Confirm business value specific to
this customer and confirm interest in an
evaluation.
Actions: Deep dive into product demo or
solution explanation/walk through. Discussion
around customer’s internal buying process and
timeline.
CALL 3+
May be another demo with larger buying committee or more technical dive
Work through customer’s buying process and commercial terms. Steps vary!

17. Once a prospect agrees your product or
service provides VALUE...
you move from opposite sides of the table
to the same side of the table

18. Managing the Deal to Close
1) Understanding the buyers’ buying process:
● WHO is involved
● HOW do they make the decision/key criteria
● WHEN will they make the decision and WHEN would they want to start
● WHAT are they trying to accomplish and WHAT challenges are they facing
● WHY would they choose you

19. Managing the Deal to Close
2) Remove objections:
● Acknowledge the objection
● Get to the heart of the objection - WHY?
● Confirm the ideal solution
● Commit to solving the objection